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amongst his People (t), that they might think a divine Sentence to be in the Lips of their (u) King, and that his Mouth tranfgreffed not in the Judgments which he delivered to them.

There are fome Particulars commanded in the Law of Mofes, which it is evident that Mofes, at the time when he enjoined them, knew might be fatal to the Welfare of his People; if God did not interpofe, and by an efpecial Providence preferve them from what the Obeying fuch Commands tended evidently to bring upon them: Of this fort is the Law he gave them, for all their Males to appear three times in a Year before the Lord (w); and the Command not to fow or till any of their Lands, or dress their Vineyards, or gather any Fruit of them every seventh Year (x); And if, as fome of the Learned calculate, the Year of Jubilee was a different Year from the seventh Sabbatical Year (y), then after feven times feven Years,

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(ε) Πρὸς τὶ ὑπροχω κὶ διώαμιν 7 ώρῶν λεγομένων τις νόμες ἀποβλέψαντα τὸν ὄχλον μᾶλλον ὑπακέσας διαλαβόντας Diodor. ubi fup. (u) Prov. xvi. 10. (w) Exod. xxiii. 17. xxxiv. 23. (x) Ibid. xxiii. 10, 11. Levit. xxv. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. (y) The Learned have been much divided about the Year of Jubilee, whether it was to be kept in the forty ninth Year, which taken inclufively may be called the fiftieth, or whether forty nine Years were to run out, and then the next or fiftieth Year was to be the Year of Jubilee. Vid. Cleric. Comment. in Levit. xxv. Pe tav. Rationar. Tempor. Part. 2. c. 7. and we have fo few, and fuch imperfect Accounts of the Practice of the Jews, in their Obfervance of this or their Sabbatical Years, that it may be difficult to offer any thing certain upon this Subject. The most learned Dean Prideaux thought the Text Levit. xxv. 8- 12. to be in favour of the Jubilee Year's being the next to the forty ninth or Seventh Sabbatical Year: [Preface to Vol. I. of his Connect.] The Words of VOL. III.

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on every fiftieth Year, they were to have their Lands and Vineyards lie undreffed and uncultivated

the Text are, Thou shalt number feven Sabbaths of Years unto thee, seven times seven Years; and the Space of the seven Sabbaths of Years fhall be unto thee forty and nine Years. Then fhalt thou cause the Trumpet of the Jubilee to found on the tenth Day of the feventh Month in the Day of Atonement- -And ye fhall hallow the fiftieth Year-A Jubilee fhall that fiftieth Year be unto you, ye fhall not fow, neither reap that which groweth of it felf in it Levit. xxv. 8-11. We may perhaps come at the true Meaning of this Text, if we take it, 1. to direct the Ifraelites to obferve at their due Intervals feven Sabbatical Years. 2. To remark that a Course of ferven fuch Years, with the fix Years of Tillage belonging to each of them duly obferved, were to make up the full amount of forty nine Years, the Space of the seven Sabbaths of Years fhall be unto thee forty and nine Years, or, to render the Hebrew Text verbatim, the Days of the feven Sabbaths of Years fhall be unto thee forty and nine Years: The Meaning of which Remark will appear, if we allow the Text, 3. to fuggeft to them, that they were to begin the Jubilee Year on the tenth Day of the feventh Month of the forty ninth, or Seventh Sabbatical Year, Thou fhalt cause the Trumpet of the Jubilee to found on the tenth Day of the feventh Month. The Obfervance of each Sabbatical Year was, I imagine, to begin as foon as the fixth Year's Crop could be got off the Ground in the Beginning of the feventh Year; for the Harveft in Canaan fell in the firft Month [See and compare Josh. iii. 15. with 1 Chron. xii. 15.]: And when the Ifraelites had counted the feven times feven Years,, fo as to be in Obfervance of their feventh Sabbath Year, then on the tenth Day of the feventh Month, they were to begin a Year of Jubilee, only remembring, that thy were not to reckon the Sabbath Year they were then keeping, to end upon commencing the Jubilee; for the feven Sabbaths of Years were to contain the Days of forty-nine Years, which they would not have amounted to, if the feventh Sabbath Year was to have been thought finished, on the tenth Day of the feventh Month, upon beginning the Jubilee. 4. As, according to this Account, the Year of Jubilee, did not begin and end with the Sabbatical Year; but commenced fome Months later, and extended a like Space of Time longer; fo it was evidently not any one of the Years contained in the feven Sabbaths of Years, tho' it was in Part concurrent with the last of them and accordingly it is properly filed in the Text a_fiftieth Year, as not being any one of the forty nine before-mentioned. If what has been offered may be admitted, then, 5. Tho' the Jubilee-Year began and ended fome Months later than a Sabbatical Year ; Yet,

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vated two Years together (z): The first of thefe Laws obliged them to leave their Cities and Habitations expofed and without Defence to any Invaders, who might at fuch times make Incurfions upon them; for at these three Times in every Year, all their Males were to come up from all Parts of the Country into the Place where the Tabernacle was fixed before the Temple was built (a), and afterwards to the Temple at Jerufalem: The fecond must ordinarily speaking have brought upon them many Inconveniencies, as it required them to lose at once a whole Year's Produce of all their Country: And if the Jubilee Year was to be kept, as is above hinted, and they were not to fow nor reap in the fiftieth Year, when the Year immediately foregoing had been a Sabbath Year, this, one would think, muft have diftreffed them with the Extremities of a Famine (b): Mofes had a full sense, that all these Evils might attend the Obfervance of these Laws: He was well apprized that, as Canaan was an inland Country, and his Ifraelites were to be

as the Seafon for Seed-time did not come on in Canaan before the fifteenth Day of the feventh Month was over [See Levit. xxiii. 39.J the Jubilee Year ending as it began, on the tenth Day of this feventh Month, did not command a Year's Neglect of harvest and Tillage, other than what the Sabbath-Year in part concurrent with it enjoined: Only perhaps the Year of Jubilee obliged them to defer preparing their Lands fome Months longer than a Sabbatical Year, not attended with a Jubilee, required; caufing them hereby to end every forty ninth or Jeventh Sabbatical Year, with, as I might say, a greater Solemnity. (z) Levit. xxv. 8—12. (a) Deut.. xvi. 1 Sam. i. 3. (b) We find a fore Famine in Samaria in Elijah's Time from unfeafonable Weather for three Years together, A Kings xvii. xviii.

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furrounded with, and open to many foreign Nations, it could never be thought agreeable to good Policy, three times a Year to draw all the Males from the Frontiers of the Land; for what would this be lefs, than to give every Enemy they had, fo many remarkable and wellknown Opportunities to enter their Coafts without Fear of Refiftance, and to plunder or take poffeffion of them, as they pleased? And can it be conceived, that any State or Kingdom could be long flourishing, that should be bound by Law to expose itself in this manner? But against these Fears Mofes affured his People, that God would protect them: He fets before them God's Promife: I will caft out the Nations before thee, and enlarge thy Borders, neither shall any Man defire thy Land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the Year (c); So that in obeying this Command, the Ifraelites were three times a Year to expose themselves contrary to all Rules of good Policy, in Confidence of a marvellous Protection of God, who had promised to prevent any Enemies taking Advantage of their fo doing. In like manner, Mofes anfwers the Objection to be made to the observing the Law for the seventh or Sabbatical Year: If ye shall fay [fays he to them in the Name and Words of God] What Shall we eat the feventh Year? Behold, we shall not fow nor gather in our Increase: Then I will command my Bleffing upon you in the fixth Year, and

(c) Exod. xxxiv. 24.

it fhallbring forth Fruit for three Years (d); a moft extraordinary Produce was promised all over the Land, at all times the Year before they were to begin their Neglect of Harveft and Tillage. And now can any one imagine, that Mofes could ever have thought of obliging the Ifraelites to fuch Laws as thefe, if God had not really given a particular Command about them? Or would the Ifraelites have been fo weak, as to obey fuch pernicious Injunctions, if they had not had a fufficient Evidence, that the Commands were of God, and that he would indeed protect them in their Observance of them? Or had they been fo romantic, as to have gone into an Obedience to keep fuch Inftitutions as thefe, if they had not been of God, and without an especial Providence to protect and preserve them from the Confequences that would naturally arise from them; would not a few Years Trial have brought home to them a dear bought Experience of fo great a Folly? Their Enemies would unquestionably have many times made Advantage of the Opportunities they gave them, to enter their Country: And a fixth Year's Crop no better than ordinary, must have perpetually convinced them that the

(d) The Meaning of the Expreffion for three Years is explained by what follows, Levit. xxv. 22. And ye shall fow the eighth Year, and eat yet of old Fruit until the ninth Year; until the Fruits come in, ye fhall eat of the old Store: The Promife meant not that the fixth Year's Produce fhould laft the Term of three complete Years; but that it should fuffice for the feventh Year, for the eighth Year, and for a Part of the Ninth Year, namely, until the Harveft, in the Beginning of the ninth Year, should bring in the Fruits of the eighth Year's Tillage,

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