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When Alexander and his victorious army overran a great part of the east, the Arabians, (as we are told by Arrian and Strabo,) of all the Asiatics, were the only people who sent him no ambassador, nor made any submission to him; which indignity he intended to have revenged in a particular expedition against them, but was prevented by death.

notice of them,) we shall find, in several instances, a full | Hagarenes should stand out still against the Romans, accomplishment of it. when all the rest about them had yielded, besieged their city, though it was but a small one, twice, and was twice repulsed with shame and great slaughter of his men. In the second assault, indeed, he beat down some of their city wall, and thereupon sounded a retreat, in hopes that they would have capitulated, and surrendered up the hidden treasure, supposed to be consecrated to the sun. But when they continued resolute a whole day, without giving any intimations of a treaty for a peace, on the morning following the Roman army was quite intimidated. The Europeans, who were gallant men before, refused to enter the breach; and the Syrians, who were forced to undertake that service, had a grievous repulse. Whereupon the emperor, without making any fresh attack, decamped from before the city, and departed to Palestine. Thus God delivered the city, says Dio, recalling the soldiers by Severus, when they might have entered, and restraining Severus the second day by the soldiers' backwardness.

1 What Alexander intended, Antigonus, the greatest of his successors, attempted; but he was repulsed with disgrace, and the loss of above 8000 men; and when enraged at this repulse, he made a second attempt upon them with a number of select men, under the command | of his valiant son Demetrius, the resistance he met with was so obstinate, that he was forced to compound the matter, and leave them in the quiet possession of their liberty and peace.

When the Romans and Parthians were rivals for the empire of the east, the Arabians joined, and opposed each nation as they thought fit, but were never entirely devoted to either; for their character always was, that they were fickle, if not faithless friends, and fierce enemies, who might be repulsed, and repressed for a season, but could never be totally vanquished or subdued. Men of this character soon became the objects of the Roman enmity and ambition, which could endure nothing that was free and independent; and accordingly several attempts were set on foot by Pompey, Crassus, and other great generals, in order to enslave them; but all proved successless: and though they are sometimes said to have been defeated, yet is there no account that we can properly depend on, until we come to the expedition which Trajan is known to have made against them.

2

3

Trajan was certainly a long experienced and successful warrior. He had subdued the German, humbled the Parthian, and reduced already one part of Arabia into a province; and yet, when he came to besiege the city of the Hagarenes, upon every assault a his soldiers were so annoyed with whirlwinds and hail, and so frightened with thunder and lightning, and other apparitions in the air, (whilst their meat was spoiled and corrupted with flies, even as they were eating it,) that he was forced to give over the siege, and was not long after seized with a disease, whereof he died.

About eight years after this, the emperor Severus, a very valiant and prosperous warrior, whom Herodian makes no scruple to prefer even before Cæsar, Marius, and Sylla, disdaining, as Trajan had done, that the

Revelation Examined, vol. 2. Dissertation 4.

a The above recited author, from whom I have compiled this account, assures his reader, that he had, with all the care he could, examined all the accounts of Arabia that came in his way, to see whether the phenomena and calamities here mentioned by Dio to have distressed the Roman army were frequent in that region, and that he had never been able to meet with any instance of one of them, except sometimes storms of wind. If hail, frightful appearances in the air, and food infested with flies, were ordinary calamities in this region, all the accounts of the caravans that travel through the deserts would necessarily be full of them; whereas it is notorious, that the best writers who have left us faithful diaries of these affairs, do not so much as mention any of them; and therefore they must certainly have proceeded from a divine interposition in favour of the Hagarenes, in accomplishment of the prediction concerning Ishmael and his posterity.

There are only these two things more, which we may observe from our historian, worthy our notice upon this occasion. The first is, that the Arabians stood single, in this their extremity, against the whole Roman power; for none of their neighbours would assist them. The other thing is, that the emperor had soldiers of all nations in his army; for "whereas other emperors," says our author, " were contented with guards of four different European countries, Severus filled the city with a mixed multitude of soldiers of all kinds, savage to look on, frightful to hear, and rude and wild to converse with." So that, considering all things, I think we may fairly conclude, that every man's hand was at this time against Ishmael, and his hand, his only hand, against every man ; and yet he dwelt, and still dwelleth, in the presence of all his brethren: for, not long after this, it is very well known that the Ishmaelites joined the Goths against the Romans, and having afterwards overcome both, under the name of Saracens, they erected a vast empire upon their ruins; and thus Ishmael, in the full extent of the prophecy, became a great nation.'

Ammianus Marcellinus.

b The historian tells us farther, that after the breach was made, the conquest of the city was deemed so easy, that a certain captain of the army undertook to do it himself, if he might have but 550 European soldiers assigned him. But where shall we find so many soldiers? says the emperor, meaning it of the disobedience of the army, to which he imputed his not carrying that place. But now, how a commander, who was at once beloved and revered, almost to adoration, by his soldiers, could not, with all his authority, influence them to assault, when they were in a manner at his mercy, this can be nowise reconciled, without the supposition of that mighty Being occasioning it, who poureth,' when he pleases, contempt upon princes, and bringeth their counsels to nought.'

e The Ishmaelites, as some imagine, upon the reproaches of the Jews, who upbraided them with bastardy, became ashamed of their old names, derived from Hagar and Ishmael, which of carried an odium in the sound, and took upon them the name Saracens, desiring to be accounted as the descendants of Abraham by his wife Sarah; but what destroys this etymology is this, that the ancients called them Sara kenoi, and not Sare noi, as they must have been called, if their name had been derived from Sarah; and therefore the learned Scaliger supposes the word to come from the Arabic word sarack, which signifies to steal or plunder.-Calmet's Dictionary.

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Circumcision is the cutting off the foreskin of the member which in every male is the instrument of generation; and whoever considers the nature of this operation, painful if not indecent in those of maturity, and to such as live in hot countries highly inconvenient, if not dangerous; an operation wherein we can perceive no footsteps of human invention, as having no foundation either in reason, or nature, or necessity, or the interest of any particular set of men, we must needs conclude, that mankind could never have put such a severity upon themselves, unless they had been enjoined and directed to it by a divine command. Nay, this single instance of Abraham, who, at the advanced age of ninety-nine, underwent this hazardous operation, and the very indecency of it in a man of his years and dignity; these two considerations are in the place of ten thousand proofs, that it was forced upon him; but nothing but the irresistible authority of God could be a force sufficient, in those circumstances. So that the strangeness and singularity of this ordinance is so far from being an argument against it, that it is an evident proof of its divine institution; and what was originally instituted by God cannot, in strictness, be accounted immodest, though we perhaps may have some such conception of it, since "unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.'

The Egyptians indeed, as 2 Herodotus informs us, pretended to practise this rite, from no other principle but that of cleanliness; and possibly, at that time, they might so far have lost the memorial of its true origin as not to retain any other reason for their observation of it. But since it is evident, to a demonstration, that they might, to all intents and purposes, be as clean without this rite as with it, it is absurd to suppose that any man of common sense should undergo pain, and hazard himself, and force the same inconveniences upon his posterity,

merely for the attainment of an end which could as fully and perfectly have been accomplished without it.

There is a passage, indeed, in the same Herodotus, wherein he tells us, "That the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, were the only nations that circumcised from the beginning, and that the Syrians and Phoenicians, who lived in Palestine, acknowledged they borrowed that rite from them." But here the historian is less to be blamed for having run into this error, since the Egyptians were a people naturally so vain and conceited of their antiquity, that they chose rather to impose upon him by a false information (for all this account he had but from information) than confess that they received circumcision from any other people. In the other part of the story, it is manifest that they did impose upon him, when they told him that the inhabitants of Palestine, whom he calls Syrians and Phoenicians, confessed that they received circumcision from them; whereas there were no inhabitants in Palestine circumcised but the Jews, and these always professed to have received it directly from Abraham.

Herodotus, indeed, in all his writings, has shown that he was a great stranger to the affairs of the Jews, and much more to the history of the patriarchs, who so long preceded the institution of their republic. What he tells us of the origin of circumcision, namely, that it was among the Egyptians from the beginning, is in a loose and vagrant expression accidently dropt from him, or rather contrived on purpose to conceal his ignorance of the matter: whereas Moses, who was long before him, knew the history of the patriarchs, and particularly that of Abraham; and therefore he does not content himself with popular or fabulous reports, or endeavour to conceal his meaning under indefinite and general expressions, but marks out the particular period, and gives us a plain and full account both of the causes and circumstances of the whole institution. The truth is, there is no comparison between the two historians in this particular; and therefore, if we will credit the sacred penman, in a point wherein his knowledge could hardly be defective, so far were the Egyptians from prescribing to the Hebrews, in the rite of circumcision, that when Abraham was in Egypt, there was no such custom then in use.

a The manner of this ceremony's being performed, whether in the public synagogue or in private houses, is this:-The person who is appointed to be the godfather sits down upon a seat, with a silk cushion provided for that purpose, and settles the child in a proper posture on his knees, when he who is to circumcise him (which, by the bye, is accounted a great honour among the Jews) opens the blankets. Some make use of silver It was twenty years after his return from that country tweezers, to take up so much of the prepuce as they design to that God enjoined him the rite of circumcision; and cut off, but others take it up with their fingers. Then he who then it is said, that Abraham took Ishmael his son, circumcises the child, holding the razor in his hand, says, "Blessed be thou, O Lord, who hast commanded us to be cir- and all that were born in his house, and all that were cumcised;" and while he is saying this, cuts off the thick skin bought with his money, and circumcised the flesh of of the prepuce, and then, with his thumb nails, tears off a finer their foreskin.' Now it is evident, that when he came skin still remaining. After this he sucks the blood, which out of Egypt he brought men-servants and maid-servants flows plentifully upon this occasion, and spits it out into a cup full of wine; then he puts some dragon's blood upon the wound, with him in abundance; and therefore, unless we can some coral powder, and other things to stop the bleeding, and so suppose that all these Egyptian men-servants died covers up the part affected. When this is done, he takes up the within twenty years, when the ordinary period of life cup wherein he had spit the blood, moistens his lips therewith, was at least an hundred; or that, when they died, none and then blessing both that and the child, gives him the name which his father had appointed, and at the same time pronounces of them left any male issue behind them; we cannot but these words of Ezekiel, I said unto thee, when thou wast in conclude, that circumcision was not known in Egypt in thy blood, live,' Ezek. xvi. 6.; after which the whole congrega- Abraham's time, because it is expressly said, that tion repeats the 128th Psalm, Blessed is every man that fearethevery male among the men of Abraham's house was the Lord,' &c.; and so the ceremony concludes. Only we must observe, that besides the seat appointed for the godfather, there is always another left empty, and is designed, some say, for the prophet Elias, who, as they imagine, is invisibly present at all circumcisions.-Calmet's Dictionary, under the word Circumcision.

circumcised' at the same time that he was, which could never have been, had they undergone that operation before.

"Basuage's History of the Jews.

Gen. xvii. 11, 25, 27,

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At what time the rite of circumcision obtained in delays, God would certainly, by one means or other, Egypt, is not so easy a matter to determine: there is a effectually make good his promises. The like may be passage, however, in the prophet Jeremiah, which, if said of the command of circumcision. God did not only taken in a literal sense, is far from encouraging any defer, for the space of twenty whole years, the birth of high pretensions to antiquity : 1 ، Behold the days. come, that son, who was so solemnly promised, and so impasaith the Lord, that I will punish all them that are cir- tiently desired, but even when that time was expired, cumcised with the uncircumcised; Egypt, and Judah, and Abraham might now justly hope to see the promise and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, &c., | accomplished, and his faith crowned, God was pleased for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house to cross it again, by requiring of him the performance of Israel are uncircumcised in their heart'-the plain of an act, which, in all appearance, would be a total sense of which word is this, that God would visit the house | defeat to all his hopes. For this injunction, My coveof Israel like strange nations; because, as the latter were nant shall be in your flesh,' to a man of advanced age, uncircumcised in the flesh, so the former were in the seems as opposite to the promise of having a son, as that heart. Not but that, in the days of Jeremiah, the rite of other of ، taking his son, his only son Isaac, and offering circumcision was known and practised among the Egyp-him up for a burnt-sacrifice,' was to the promise of his tians, as well as among other nations; but then it was not so common and general, nor was it at all used any where till long after Abraham's days.

One probable opinion therefore is, that the Arabians received it from the Ishmaelites; that the Egyptians received it from the Arabians, or perhaps from Abraham's children by Keturah; and that from the Egyptians the people of Colchis, knowing themselves to be of Egyptian extract, embraced it, in imitation of their illustrious ancestors. But even suppose that this custom was not established in Egypt by the posterity either of Hagar or Keturah; yet why might not Joseph, in the course of a most absolute ministry for fourscore years together, be able to introduce it ? 2 It is the practice, we know, nay, it is the pride of slaves, to imitate their master's manners, especially if he seems solicitous to have them do so; and therefore we need not doubt, but that, upon the least intimation of his pleasure, the Egyptians would readily embrace the religious rites of so great, so wise, so powerful a minister, who had preserved every one of their lives, who had saved the whole kingdom from ruin, and was himself so visibly and so remarkably guided by the Spirit of God. But whensoever, or from whomsoever it was, that the Egyptians learned this rite, it is certain, that the reason of its institution was not with them the same that it was among the Jews; and therefore the circumcision itself must not be accounted the same.

Whoever looks into the life of Abraham, will soon perceive, that God did all along design him for a pattern of faith and perfect obedience to all succeeding generations. 3 The more his faith was tried, the more illustrious | it became, and the more obstacles there were raised in the accomplishment of the divine promises, the more the good patriarch showed (in surmounting these obstacles) the high conception he had entertained of him from whom these promises came. For after a promise of a numerous posterity, why was it so long before he gave him any son at all? After the birth of Ishmael, why so long before the promise of an heir by his wife Sarah? And after that promise was given, who so long, even till the thing was impossible, in the ordinary course of nature, before the promise was accomplished, and the child sent? All this was to exercise his faith, and to give him an opportunity of showing to the world, how fully he was convinced, that, notwithstanding all these impediments and

Jer. ix. 25, 26.

Revelation Examined, vol. 2. Dissertation 4. 3 Saurin's Dissertation 15.

being the father of a numerous posterity.

But Abraham's faith triumphed over this, as well as all other obstacles. He immediately performed the operation, notwithstanding its oddness, its danger, its seeming indecency, and the apparent opposition it had to the divine promises; and it is to preserve the remembrance of the faith of their great ancestor, who, in so many discouraging circumstances, waited patiently on God, and against hope believed in hope,' (as the apostle expresses it,) that God prescribed to the Jewish nation the sacrament of circumcision. For this was a farther end of its institution, not only to be a mark of distinction between the posterity of Abraham and all other nations, but a token likewise of God's covenant made with him, and his posterity, and a note of commemoration to put those who bore it continually in mind whose offspring they were, and what advantages entitled to upon that account, provided they took care not to degenerate from the glories of that stock from whence they sprang.

And indeed, considering that Abraham was the first we read of whom God rescued from the general corruption of faith and manners, which the world had now a second time relapsed into; and considering, withal, that this person and his posterity were singled out for a chosen generation, the repository of truth, and the receptacle of God incarnate; there was reason in abundance, why this remembrance should be very grateful to them; and apt enough, it is plain, upon all occasions, they were to value themselves, and despise others, upon the account of so particular an honour. But the misfortune was, the most useful part of the reflection, namely, the eminent faith and ready obedience of so renowned an ancestor, and the noble emulation of his virtues, which such a pattern ought to have inspired; this they were too apt to overlook, though any considering man (as the apostle' excellently argues) could not but perceive that the only valuable relation to Abraham is not that of consanguinity and natural descent, but the resemblance of his virtues, and claiming under him as the father of the faithful.'

And this suggests another, and indeed none of the least considerable ends for which circumcision was instituted, namely, to be a sign of inward virtue, and to figure out to us some particular dispositions of mind which bore resemblance to the outward ceremony, and were required to render it effectual; for which reason it

Stanhope on the Epistles and Gospels. 5 Rom. iv. il.

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is that we read so much in the old law of circumcis- | slaughter in their camp; I cannot see, why a person of ing the foreskin of the heart,' and hear the apostle so frequently telling us in the new, 2 of putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;' *for he is not a Jew, who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew who is one inwardly: and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.'

that consummate wisdom, and so highly favoured by God with extraordinary monitions upon all remarkable emergencies, as Abraham was, might not, by God's advice, make use of some such stratagem as Gideon did, though the Scripture is herein silent, that the success might be imputed to the operation of faith in him, and not to the agency of second causes, or what some call the chance of war.

Of what age Isaac was, when Abraham was ordered to offer him up, is nowhere declared in Scripture. The opinion of some learned Jews, that he was but twelve years old, is ridiculous; since at that age, it would have been impossible for him to have carried such a load of wood, as was requisite upon that occasion; and others run into a contrary extreme, by supposing that he was then seven and thirty years of age, which must have been the year wherein his mother died; and yet she is said to have been alive when this transaction happened. Josephus indeed makes him five and twenty, and some Christian (both ancient and modern) commentators suppose that he was past thirty; but whatever his age might be, it is acknowledged, that he was capable of making resistance, and would certainly have done it, had he not been very well satisfied that the command came from God. To this purpose the a Jewish historian introduces Abraham as making a very tender and pathetic speech to his son; inspiring him with a just contempt of life; and exhorting him to a due submission to the divine order and decree; to all which Isaac attended, says our author, with a constancy and resignation becoming the son of such a father and upon this their mutual behaviour, a very elegant father of the Greek church has made this beautiful reflection :- "All the strength of reluctant love could not withhold the father's hands; and all the

It may seem a little strange at first, perhaps, that Abraham, whose course of life was retired and philosophical, should all on a sudden commence so great a warrior, as to be able to defeat four kings at once, and their victorious armies, with a small number of his domestics, and some assistance that was given him by his neighbours. His own men were 318; and what force his confederates, the three Phœnician princes, brought to his assistance, we do not find mentioned. We may probably enough suppose, that they did not exceed his own domestics; but then we are not obliged to affirm, that he fell upon the whole body of the Assyrian army with this small retinue. This certainly would have been too bold an attempt for the little company which he commanded; and therefore the more likely supposition is, that coming up with them by night, he divided his men into two or three parties, the better to make a diversion, and conceal his strength; that with one party himself might attack the headquarters of king Chedorlaomer, where the chief feasting and revelling was kept for joy of their late victories; that with another he might fall upon those who were appointed to guard the captives and the spoil; and with a third might be beating up other quarters; so that the Assyrians, being fatigued in their late battle, surprised at finding a new enemy, and not knowing what their number or strength might be, or where their principal attack was to begin, might endeavour to save them-horror of a dissolution could not tempt the son to move selves by flight; which Abraham perceiving, might take the advantage of their fright, and pursue them, until he had made himself master of the prisoners and the spoil, and then retire himself, as not thinking it advisable to follow them until the daylight might discover the weakness of his forces.

4

All this might well enough be done by a common stratagem in war, without any miraculous interposition of providence: but it is much more likely, that the same God, who in after ages instructed one of his posterity, even with such another little handful of men, not only to break an army of about 200,000 or 300,000, but to kill of them upon the spot, no fewer than 120,000; to disperse at least as many more; to vanquish after this a party of 15,000 that had retired in a body; and at last to take all the four kings, who were the leaders of this numerous, or rather numberless army; it is much more likely, I say, that the God of Abraham would not be wanting to his servant in his counsels and suggestions upon this important occasion; and if a party of 300 men, under the conduct of a person every way inferior to Abraham, was by a stratagem in the night, and by the help of a sudden panic which God injected, enabled to defeat four mighty princes, and to make such a prodigious

5

1 Deut. x. 16. * Col. ii. 11. Rom. ii. 28, 29. Judges, at the 7th and 8th chapters. Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1. Occasional Annotations, 19.

6

for his own preservation. Which of the two, shall we say, deserves the precedence in our wonder and veneration? For there seems to be a religious emulation or contest between them, which should most remarkably signalize himself; the father, in loving God more than

Gregor. Nyss. De Deitate Fil. et Spirit. Sanct. p. 908.

a The words wherein Josephus makes Abraham address his son upon this occasion are these:-"My dear son, thou hast the world, I have spared for nothing in thy nurture and educabeen the child of my prayers to me, and since thy coming into tion. There is not any happiness I have more wished for, than to see thee settled in a consummated state of age and reason; and whenever God shall take me to himself, to leave thee in possession of my authority and dominions. But since it has been the will of God, first to bestow thee upon me, and now to call thee back again, my dear son, acquit thyself generously under so pious a necessity. It is to God that thou art dedicated and delivered up on this occasion, and it is the same God that now requires thee of me, in return for all the blessings and favours he hath It is agreeable showered down upon us, both in war and peace. to the law of nature, for every one that is born, to die; and a more glorious end thou canst never have, than to fall by the hand of thy own father, a sacrifice to the God and Father of the universe, who hath rather chosen to receive thy soul into a blessed than to suffer thee to be taken away in sickness, war, passion, or eternity, upon the wings of prayer and ardent ejaculations, any other of the common chances of mankind. Consider it well, and thou wilt find, that in that heavenly station, to which thou art now called, thou mayest make thyself the support of thy aged father, and that instead of my son Isaac, I shall have God himself for my guardian.”—Antiquities, b. 1. c. 14.

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his own child, and the son, in the love of duty above his | which is found in this tract of ground now, was the own life."

This is a gallant instance of a profound submission to the divine will; and yet (not to detract from the merit of it) if we consider the matter coolly, it was no more than what many martyrs, even under the Jewish economy, equally have performed. They have given themselves up, in testimony of their love to God, to deaths as cruel as terrible, as this which Isaac was to suffer: They were stoned, were sawed asunder, were tortured; and yet they accepted not deliverance, that they might inherit a joyful resurrection.'