nagements peculiar, in a manger, to the Egyptians.

Bifhop Patrick, in his commentary on this paffage, takes notice of thefe Egyptian coffins of fycamore-zucod and of pafteboard; but he doth not mention the contrary ufage in the neighbouring countries, which was requifite, one might fuppofe, in order fully to illuftrate the place: but even this, perhaps, would not have conveyed the whole idea of the facred author. Maillet apprehends, that all were not inclosed in coffins, who were Jaid in the Egyptian repofitories of the dead, but that it was an honour appropriated to perfons of figure; for, after having given an account of feveral niches found in thofe chambers of death, he adds, (Let. vii. p. 281.) "But it must not be imagined that the bodies depofited in thefe gloomy apartments were all inclofed in chefts, and placed in niches. The greatest part were fimply embalmed and fwathed, after that manner which every one hath fome notion of; after which they laid them one by the fide of another without any ceremony. Some were even put into these tombs without any embalming at all; or fuch a flight one, that there remains nothing of them in the linen in which they were wrapped, but the bones, and those half rotten. It is probable, that each confiderable family had one of these burial places to themafelves; that the niches were defigned for the bodies of the heads of the family, and that thofe of their domeftics and flaves, had no other care taken of them, than the laying them on the ground, after having been embalmed, or even

That coffins then were not univerfally used in Egypt, is undoubted from these accounts, and, probably, they were only perfons of diftinction who were buried in them. It is alfo reafonable to believe, that in times fo remote as thofe of Jofeph, they might be much less common than afterwards, and, confequently, that Jofeph's being put into a coffin in Egypt might be mentioned with a defign to express the great honours which the Egyptians did him in death, as well as in life, being interred after the moft fumptuous manner of the Egyptians, embalmed, and put in a coffin. Agreeably to this, the Septuagint verfion, which was made for Egyptians, feems to reprefent coffins as a mark of grandeur, Job xxi. 32.

It is no objection to this account, that the widow of Nain's fon is reprefented as carried forth to be buried in a Eopos, [foros], or on a bier ; for the present inhabitants of the Levant, who are well known to lay their dead bodies in the earth uninclosed, carry them frequently out to burial in a kind of coffin. So Dr. Ruffel in particu lar defcribes the bier used for the Turks at Aleppo, as a kind of cof

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боля

fin, much in the form of ours, only that the lid rifes with a ledge in the middle. Chriftians, indeed, as he tells us, are carried to the grave on an open bier*; but as the most common kind of bier there very much resembles our coffins, that used by the people of Nain might very poffibly be of the fame kind; in which cafe the word Σορος was very proper.

If the ufe of a cofin in burial was doing a particular honour to the dead, the embalming their bodies certainly was. The late Dr. Ward, in the differtations published foon after his death, fuppofes the Jewil method of embalming to have been very different from the Egyptian, and that this is evident from feveral paffages of the New Teftament; but instead of the Egyptian embowelling, he prefumes, that the Jews contented themfelves with an external unction; and that, inftead of myrrh and caffia, they made use of myrrh and aloes; to which he adds a conjecture, that St. John might mention the circumftance of our Lord's embalming, the better to obviate the false report which then prevailed among the Jews, that the body of our Lord had been ftolen away in the night by his difciples; for the linen, he fuppofes, could not have been taken from the body and head, in the manner in which it was found in the fepulchre, on account of its clinging fo faft, from the viscous nature of thefe drugs, had they been fo foolish as to attempt it.

The modern eastern method of

applying odours to the dead, cet tainly differs from that which was anciently made ufe of in that country. The prefent way in Egypt, according to Maillet +, is to wash the body divers times with rofewater, which, he elsewhere obferves, is there much more fragrant than with us; they afterwards perfume it with incenfe, aloes, and a quantity of other odours, of which they are by no means fparing; and then they bury the body in a winding-fheet, made partly of filk, and partly of cotton, and moiftened, as is fuppofed, with fome fweet-fcented water, or liquid perfume, though Maillet only uses the fimple term moistened; this they cover with another cloth of unmixed cotton, to which they add one of the richest fuits of cloaths of the deceafed. The expence, he says, on these occasions, is very great, though nothing like what the genuine embalming coft in former times.

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The modern Egyptian way of embalming them, if it may be called by that name, differs very much from the ancient. Whether the Jewish method in the time of our Lord, differed as much, or how far, is not fo well known. pafs by the difference which Dr. Ward has remarked betwixt the drugs, (the Egyptians ufing myrrh and caffia, and the Jews myrrh and aloes), which might be only in appearance, fince more than two forts might be used by both nations, though thefe only happened to be diftinctly mentioned, it doth not appear fo plain to

me as to the Doctor, that the Jews were not wont to embowel their dead in embalming. Their hope of a refurrection did not necessarily prevent this; and as all other nations feem to have embalmed exactly according to the Egyptian manner, the fame caufes, which induced them to do fo, probably occafioned the Jews not to vary from them in this refpect. Thus, the accurate editor of the ruins of Palmyra, (p. 22.) tells us, they difcovered that the inhabitants of that city used to embalm their dead, and that upon comparing the linen, the manner of fwathing, the balfam, and other parts of the mummies of Egypt, (in which country they had been a few months be fore), with thofe of Palmyra, they found their method of embalming exactly the fame. Zenobia, who had her feat of government in Palmyra, was, as this writer obferves, a native of Egypt, but then he originally remarks that these bodies were embalmed before her time. Thus that paffage which the Doctor cites from Tacitus, concerning Poppaa, the wife of Nero, fuppofes, that it was the common ancient custom to fill the body with drugs, and not merely apply them externally: Corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos; fed regum exterorum confuetudine differtum odoribus conditur; that is," Her body was not confumed by fire, according to the Roman manner, but was buried, after having been stuffed with odours after the manner of foreign princes;" not, it feems, merely of the Egyptians, but of those who practifed burying in general.

It doth not however follow from hence that our Lord was embowel

led; though St. John fays he was buried with spices, as the manner of the Jews was to bury; for these words do not neceffarily fignify, that all was done that was wont to be done in thofe cafes among the Jews. The contrary appears to be fact, from the farther preparations made by the women, who, it is to be fuppofed, were not unacquainted with what had been done, though Dr. Ward prefumes the contrary, fince St. Luke exprefsly tells us that the women who came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the fepulchre, and how the body was laid.

If this indeed be admitted, the Doctor's thought concerning the difficulty of taking off the bandages, befmeared with very glutinous drugs, will appear to be ill founded; for in that cafe the women could have done nothing more as to the embalming him. That conjecture indeed feems to have made all the impreffion upon Doctor's mind, which it might be expected the force of novelty would give it; but as aloes and myrrh do not appear to have that glutinous quality which the Doctor fuppofes; fo a much more obvious account may be given of St. John's making mention of a circumstance, about which the other evangelifts are filent. He appears to have published his hiftory for the ufe of perfons lefs acquainted with the cuftoms of the Eaft, than those for whofe information the others more immediately wrote. The Doctor himself has remarked, in his thirty-fecond differtation, that, in giving an account of the death of our Lord, St. John has reckoned the hours after the manner of the Romans; whereas the other

evange

evangelifts speak according to the Jewish method of computation: the fame reason that induced him to do that, naturally led him to fay to those who were wont to burn their dead, that our Lord was buried with spices, which was, in general, the Jewish method of difpofing of their dead; which he might very well do, though the ftraitnefs of the time did occafion fome deviation from what they commonly practised.

This thortnefs of the time, we may believe, prevented them alfo from fwathing him with that accuracy and length of bandage which they would otherwife have ufed. The Egyptians, we are told, have ufed above a thousand ells of filleting about a body, befides what was wrapped about the head. Thevenot informs us, that he found it the cafe with the mummy which he examined. See his travels, part I. p. 137. The Jews, it is reafonable to believe, fwathed them in fomething of the fame manner, which could not have been nicely performed in fuch a hurry as the disciples were then in.

half a pound of thefe drugs is fuffi cient to embalm a fingle body. Refpecting this, I would obferve, that our English furgeons require a much larger quantity of drugs for embalming; and, in a receipt which the writer of these remarks hath feen of a very eminent one, the weight of the drugs employed, is above one-third of the weight of thofe which Nicodemus brought. Much lefs indeed would be wanted where the body is not embowelled; but even the cerate, or drugs ufed externally in our embalming, is found to be one-third of the weight of the myrrh and aloes brought for embalming our Lord. However, be this as it may, fince, from what Jofephus obferves of the funeral of Ariftobulus, the laft of the high priefts of the Maccabees, it appears, that "the larger the quantity of the fpices ufed in their inter ments, tthe greater honour was thought o be done to the dead + :” we may hence eafily account for the quantity which Nicodemus. brought in general, though we may not be able to tell, with the precision that could be wifhed, how it was difpofed of. Dr. Lardner does not appear to have mentioned this paffage ; but it entirely anfwers the objection of this modern Jew.

* Pook 1. chap. viii. fect. 17.

VOL. IX.

The antiquity and duty of faying grace before and after meat, confidered.

Ε

WE find in various parts of fa

cred

and pofitive precept, which, it is

+ See his Antiquities, 1. 15.

to be feared, is not fo much, or fo univerfally understood, or so feriously and devoutly practised, as it ought. This is, "the imploring from God a bleffing upon the good creatures which he fends us to our tables, and returning him our folemn thanks after our repaft; commonly called, Jaying grace." God be bleffed, we know the world abounds with fober and pious examples of the conftant obfervation of this reasonable duty. Indeed the moral reason of it is very plain and obvious to any one who believes a providence. But the abfolute and pofitive nature of the commands refpecting it, is ftill more coercive, fo as to imply a very heinous fin of omiffion, if it be neglected; this we apprehend will evidently appear from a few confiderations; and therefore it fhall be our endeavour to fhew, that the act of faying grace, both before and after meat, is a special duty, which not only the Chriftian, but the Heathen world alfo, fuppofed incumbent on them, partly by the light of nature, but more expressly, and in a fronger manner, by the feveral injunctions fcattered up and down in the facred code.We will firft speak of the Heathens.

I. Athenæus tells us, in his Deipnofoph. lib. ii. that in the famous regulation made by Amphictvon, king of Athens, with refpect to the use of wine, both in facrifices, and at home, he required that the name of JUPITER THE SUSTAINER fhould be decently and reverently pronounced. The fame writer, in lib. iv. p. 149. quotes Hermeias, an author extant in his time, who informs us of a people in Egypt, inhabitants

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of the city of Naucratis, whofe cuftom it was, on certain occafions, after they had placed themfelves in the usual posture of eating at the table, to rise again, and kneel; when the priest, or precentor of the folemnity, began to chaunt a grace, according to a stated form amongst them; and when that was over, they joined in the meal, in a folemn facrificial manner. Heliodorus, if we mistake not, has a paffage in his Ethiopics, to the fame purpose, that it was the custom of the Egyptian philofophers to pour out libations and put up ejaculations before they fat down to meals. Porphyry, in his treatise De abftin. lib. iv. P. 408, gives a great character of the Samnean gymnofophifts in Egypt, for the ftrictness of their life: as one article in their favour, he obferves, that at the founding of a bell before their meals, which confifted only of rice, bread, fruits, and herbs, they went to prayers; which ended, and not before, the bell founded again, and they fat down to eating. In general, doubtless, this was a religious ufage or rite amongst the ancient Greeks, and derived from yet older ages, if a perfon of fuch eminence in learning and integrity as Clement of Alexandria, rightly informs us; who mentions, that thofe people, when they met together to refresh themselves with the juice of the grape, fung a piece of mufic, in imitation of the He brew pfalms, which they called a fcholion. Livy, lib. xxxix. speaks of it as a fettled cuftom amongft the old Romans, that they offered facrifice and prayer to the gods, at their meals and compotations. But one of the fulleft teftimonies