ages of barbarous manners. Amongst these men, he soon got to be the leader, and a distinguished Chief in all their lawless expeditions. So that his fame for military atchievements filled all the Regions round about.

At this time, the Israelites in punishment for one of their defections from their God and King, were labouring under the oppression of the idolatrous Borderers. And the Amorites making an excursion into Gilead; the Israelites of this place, as most immediately concerned, sought to provide for themselves, as well as for their brethren (now become repentant), some Leader of superior power and distinguished capacity. And the Reputation of their Kinsman, Jephthah, made them first apply to him.

But Jephthah, with the frank roughness of a soldier of fortune, naturally upbraided them, on this occasion, with their former neglect and injustice, in permitting his father's house so cruelly to cast him out, to want and misery; and now, as meanly, without redressing his injuries, to fly to him in their distress.

They reply, they were now come to make him that amends, by their choice of him for Head over all the In habitants of Gilead.

Jephthah accepts this satisfaction: and an Act is made of their proceedings according to the religious customs of those times.

All this while, the Republic, the THEOCRACY itself, seems to have been little thought of, by this future Judge of Israel. Indeed the honour of so sacred a station had small charms for our licentious Outlaw.

However, in consequence of the reconciliation, and in pursuance of the Choice which the Gileadites had inade of him, for their Head and Leader, he enters on his office. And now, perhaps, for the first time, he observed, towards his enemies, all the punctilios of the Law of Arins.

He sent to know of the Children of Ammon, why they committed hostilities against his countrymen. They answered, that the Israelites had unjustly dispossessed them of their Lands; and that they were now assembled in arms to recover the inheritance of their Fathers. To this, the Bastard of Gilead, like an able Advocate, as well as a determined Chieftain, replied, That when Israel, under

the

the conduct of Moses, had left Egypt, to take possession of the Land, promised to their Forefathers, and now given to them by their GoD, they had craved leave of the intermediate People, and particularly of the Children of Ammon, for a free passage through their Country, according to the Law of Nations, which being denied unto them, they forced their way; and when hostilely opposed, and their enemies overcome in battle, they took possession, as, by the Laws of War, they might do, of the Lands of the Conquered. So far was well; and suitable to the dignity of a Judge of Israel.

This

But, by what follows, it appears that our famous Adventurer was, as yet, more than half a Pagan; for thus he proceeds-So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his People Israel; and shouldest thou possess it? WILT NOT THOU POSSESS THAT WHICH CHEMOSH, THY GOD, GIVETH THEE TO POSSESS? So whomsoever the LORD, OUR GOD, shall drive out from before us, them will we possess*. was said, on the Gentile principle of local tutelary Deities, in all the grossness of that notion; not yet refined and rationalized by our Adventurer, on the ideas of the Law. But when he resumes the civil argument, he again reasons better and very solidly pleads the general law of PRESCRIPTION, in defence of his People--While Israel (says he) dwelt in Heshbon and her Towns, and in Aroer and her Towns, and in all the Cities that be along, by the Coasts of Arnon, THREE HUNDRED YEARS; Why therefore did ye not recover them WITHIN THAT TIME? But the force of this Argument making.

pression, the negotiation ended in an appeal to arins. Jephthah leads out his Troops against Aminon. And, in the Forefront, without doubt, were those faithful Bands, which he had collected and disciplined in the Land of Teb.

The first step he takes to invite Success, was the making an absurd Pagan Vow, that, if he returned with Victory, he would sacrifice, for a burnt-offering to God, whatsoever came first out of the doors of his house to welcome his return. He came back a Conqueror; and his Daughter, impatient to celebrate his Triumph, being the first who met him, was, for his Qath's sake, (though Judges xi. 23, 24. † Ver. 26. Ver. 31.

with extreme regret, because, besides her, he had neither son nor daughter*,) sacrificed for her pains, according to the then established custom of Idolatry; which, on such occasions, required a Sacrifice of what was most dear or precious to the offerer. For, I hardly believe that Jephthah was, at this time, so learned in the Law, as even the Poet Voltaire; or that he had proceeded, like him, so far in the sacred text, as to misunderstand or misinterpret this famous twenty-seventh Chapter of Leviticus, in support of so impious an action. The unhappy father appears, at this time, to understand so little of the LAW, as not to be able to distinguish what it had in common with Paganism, (namely, the custom of offering eucharistical Sacrifices on every great and fortunate event) from what it had in direct opposition to it (viz. that dire impiety of human Sacrifice).

The account here given appears to be the natural explanation of a plain Story. But Commentators, full of the ideas of Papal, rather than of the Mosaic times; and paying a blind reverence to the character of a Judge of Israel, make the Daughter, to save her father's honour, return vow for vow; and so consecrate herself to a Virgin State. Solutions like these expose Sacred Scripture to the scorn and derision of unbelievers.

But against our account of JEPHTHAH'S Vow, which makes the whole to be conceived and perpetrated on Pagan principles and practices, our adversaries,

1. Bid us observe, that the action is not condemned. A censure, they think, it could not have escaped, had the Sacred Historian deemed it an impiety.

2. That the text tells us further, that Jephthah went out in the Spirit of the Lordt, and therefore they conclude, that he returned in the same Spirit.

3. Lastly, that Jephthah is extolled by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and numbered in the class of sacred Heroes.

To these objections, in their order.

First, They who lay so much stress on the Action's having passed uncensured, consider neither the nature of the Composition, nor the genius of the Historian. The narrative itself is a brief Compendium, or rather extract from the Records of State, entered as things passed, and ↑ Ver. 29. Ch. xi. ver, 32.

* Ver. 34.

then

then laid up in the Archives of their Scribes. In this species of Composition it is not the wont to dwell either on the causes, the qualities, or the consequences of Actions, but simply to tell the naked Facts.

Nor had the Writers of those times improved History into an art. They transcribed or abridged, merely for the sake of the people's information in facts, of what they found recorded in their venerable Archives. This was the case in the Story of the lying Prophet, in the affair of the Altar of Bethel. His crine is neither condemned, nor is his punishment recorded. Had the History been a Romance, forged at pleasure, both these particulars had assuredly been dwelt upon at large.

Besides, as the nature and quality of actions are best seen by the Laws and Customs of the people concerned; and the action in question was well understood, both by the Writer, and his Readers, to be condemned by the Mosaic Ritual, it less needed a Censure. The faithful Followers of the Law, for whose service this adventure was recorded, wanted no historian of prophetic Authority. to tell them, (after they had seen human sacrifices execrated in almost every page of their History) that Jephthah's sacrifice of his Daughter was either an impious imitation of Pagan practices, or an ignorant presumption in the half-paganized Votary, that he was here complying with the famous precept of the Law in Leviticus†, when indeed (as we have shewn at large) it related to quite another thing.

But further, it is not peculiar to this story, to furnish an objection (such as it is) from the sacred Writer's not interposing with his own judgment, concerning the moral quality of the action related. Scripture abounds with instances of this sort; a silence occasioned by one or other of the causes here explained.

2. But Jephthah (which is the second objection) went out in the spirit of the Lord, and therefore (they con*clude) he must needs return in the same spirit.

Now though, on a less important occasion, I should be tempted to acquiesce in the Criticism, though not in the spirit, of Spinosa, that this expression was to be put to the account of the sacred phraseology of the Jews; * 1 Kings xiii. † Ch. xxvii. ver. 29. '

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and

and to mean no more than the strength, the courage, and the address of a consummate leader; yet the language: being here applied to a Judge of Israel, and in the actualexercise of his office, I can readily allow that it signifies some supernatural assistance.

But what then? when the work committed to him, and for which he was thus qualified, was well over, we have no reason to suppose that the same spirit constantly rested on him, but very much to conclude the contrary. One of his most illustrious successors, SAMSON, had still a larger share of this divine Spirit imparted to him; yet nobody imagines that it rested with him; when, contrary to the LAW, he chose a wife from among the Philistines, or revealed the secret intrusted with him to Delilah; dekinquencies much less criminal than the Sacrifice of a Daughter.

3.-But then, the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews extols him; and lifts him into the number of the most distinguished of the Jewish Heroes."-But for what is he thus extolled?For his rash vow? No surely.. David is extolled in the same place, and in the same manner. Is it for the murder of Uriah, and adultery with his Wife? Surely neither of the Heroes are extolled for these exploits; but for their FAITH in God, and their zeal for the advancement of the THEOCRACY. So says the Writer himself; where, recapitulating the works and achievements of FAITH, he goes on, in these words— And what shall I more say, For the time would fail me to tell Gideon and Barak, and of Samson and of JEPHTHAH, of David also and Samuel, &c.*--This FAITH was so active and eminent in DAVID, that, notwithstanding his two gross immoralities, he is called by God himself, a MAN AFTER HIS OWN HEART. For, as this illustrious Title neither covered, nor atoned, for his crimes, so neither did his crimes hinder its being bestowed upon him, when the question only concerned his zeal for the LAW and the THEOCRACY; as I have shewn to these Philosophers, on another occasion.

To conclude with JEPHTHAH.-We know, though only in general, that he lived long enough in the exercise of his Ministry, and, consequently, under the occasional guid

* lleb. xi. 32,

ance