weight of his tyranny more severely than his own unhappy family, so that it was said of him by Augustus, "It "were better to be Herod's hog than his son." Of his children, he caused all the most promising to die by the hands of the executioner, and his most faithful friends ex pired in torments. By his nine wives he had many chil dren, several of whom succeeded him in the throne, though none of them equalled him in power and magni. ficence. The most beloved of all his wives was Mariamne, daughter of Simon the High-priest, son of John Hircanus and last of all the Maccabees, many of whom he had basely murdered; and at length his wife herself in a fit of jealousy; and one of the last acts of his illspent life was causing the destruction of the infants in Bethlehem,

Of his family recorded in scripture, we notice the fol lowing persons who were his sons.

Archelaus, who succeeded him, and reigned ten years in Judea, Matthew, ch. ii. ver. 22.

Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, Luke,

iii. v. 1.

Philip, Tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis. He married Salome, daughter of Herodias, who with her daughter, caused John the Baptist to be beheaded.

Herod Philip, youngest and only surviving son of Mariamne; the first husband of Herodias and father of her daughter Salome.

Besides these sons, Herod had two grandchildren, whose father was Aristobulus, the eldest son of Mariamne, who was put to death with his brother Alexander, some time after the death of their mother. These were,

1. Agrippa, or Herod Agrippa, made by Caligula king of Judea. He slew St. James, first bishop of the church of Jerusalem, and endeavoured to destroy Peter. He afterwards died miserably, Acts, ch. xxi, ver. 22, 23.

II. Herodias, wife of Herod Philip, and mother of

Salome.

Of these the only descendants were,

I. Agrippa, the Second, and younger, king of some country near Judea, before whom St. Paul answered the

accusations of the Jews, and who acknowledged himself to be, almost a Christian, Acts, ch. xxvi. ver. 28.

IL. Berenice, his sister, wife of Herod, king of Chalcis. She is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.

III. Drusilla, sister of Agrippa, the younger, and wife to Felix the Roman procurator of Judea; Acts, ch. xxiv. ver. 24.

Of a family once so numerous, the fruit of so many marriages, not one of Herod's posterity lived to fill the throne beyond the third generation!* This circumstance when contrasted with what happened to the family of David, which reigned in an unbroken line almost five hundred years, and even after the Babylonish captivity held the supreme power in Judea for several generations, must naturally arrest the attention of the most superficial observer. The Almighty disposer of all events, at whose nod empires rise and fall, and nations flourish or decay, marks with undeviating attention, and a retributive hand, not only the sins of a people, but the turpitude of sovereigns.

After the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity into their own country, their affairs continued to be administered by a succession of governors, most of whom were of the house and lineage of David, till the rise of the Asmonean family, whose zeal and courage certainly deserved the gratitude and attachment of their country. Though not of the family of Aaron, in which, by God's special appointment, the High priesthood was to remain, this dignity was vested in them as we have already seen, and some time after they took the title of king, which they retained till the defeat and death of Antigonus made way for Herod, and the elevation of his family to the Jewish throne. No event contributed more to the downfal of the Maccabees than the ill advised par

Generation. Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Exodus, ch. xx. v. 5.

tiality shewn by them alternately to the two great sects so often mentioned, and so frequently and justly condemned by the Saviour of the world, the Pharisees and Sadducees. Herod profited by the weakness of the Asmonean family, no less than by the confusion that these sectaries occasioned; but after he had put almost the whole Sanhedrim, or great council of the Jews to death, in the early part of his reign, we hear but little more of these two irreconcilable factions. It is highly probable, that the severity of his temper and great military character kept them in awe, for the Jews were never completely reconciled either to him or any one of his family. The frequent mention made in the gospels as well as in various parts of the history of the Maccabees of the leading sects, may render some account of them acceptable as well as useful for the better understanding what is said of them in the preceding history, as well as in the historical parts of the New Tes

tament.

After the return of the Jews from Babylon, and the full settling of the Jewish church again in Judea by Ezra and Nehemiah, there arose two parties of men among them; the one, who adhering to the written word held, that in the observance of that alone they fulfilled all righteousness and therefore thought this alone sufficient to entitle them to the name of Zadikim, i. e. The righteous; the other, who over and above the written law superadded the tradi tional constitutions of the Elders, and other rigorous ob servances, which by way of supererogation they voluntarily devoted themselves to; and therefore from hence be ing reckoned of a superior degree of holiness above the others they were called Ceasidim, that is, the pious, who are the same that are mentioned in the Maccabees by the name of Assideans. From the former of these proceeded the Samaritans, the Sadducees, and the Karraites; and from the latter the Pharisees, and the Essenes; of all which we shall make some mention.

I. The Samaritans were no more at first, than a sort of heathens, who worshipped the God of Israel but in an idolatrous manner, and in conjunction with their other Deities, and so continued till Manasseh with other fugi

tive Jews coming to them from Jerusalem brought with them the book of the law, and out of it taught them to reject all idolatry, and to worship the true God only according to the Mosaic institution; and from the time that they became thus reformed, they may truly be reckoned a sect of the Jewish religion.

II. The Sadducees were at first no more than what the Karraites are now, that is, they would not receive the traditions of the elders, but stuck to the written word only. And as long as the Sadducees opposed them no further than in this matter only, they were in the right; but afterward they imbibed other doctrines, which rendered them a sect thoroughly impious. For

1st. They denied the resurrection of the dead, the being of angels, and all existences of the spirits or souls of men departed. For their notion was, that there is no spiritual being but God only; that as to man this world is his all; that at his death, body and soul die together never to live more, and that therefore there is no future reward or punishment. They acknowledged that God made this world by his power, and governs it by his providence, and for the carrying on of this government hath ordained rewards and punishments, but that they are in this world only; and for this reason alone it was, that they worshipped him and paid obedience to his laws. In short, they were Epicurean Deists in all other respects, excepting only that they allowed, that God made the world by his power, and governs it by his provi

dence.

When men live such lives, that they cannot give God an account of them, they greedily lay hold of any scheme how false and foolish soever, that shall exempt them from it. Epicurus's boast was, that he had delivvered the world from the fear of the gods. And to lay asleep the conscience, and deliver men's minds from the fear of God, and his judgments, so as to be at liberty to sin on without reluctance or regret, is the only reason that makes any to be Epicurus's disciples. And it is most likely that this impiety among the Jews had the same origin, Under the Asmonean princes the Jews grew pros

perous, powerful, and rich, and their riches produced great luxury and vice. To free their consciences from the fear of a future accounting for the enormities, which grew up from this root, was the true cause, that introduced this doctrine against a future state among them. This is confirmed by what Josephus writes of this sect; he tells us, that they were men of quality and riches only that were of it.

2nd. The second point of the Sudducees' heresy was about freewill and predestination. For whereas the Essenes held all things to be predetermined and fixed in an unalterable concatenation of causes never to be varied from, and the Pharisees allowed a freewill in conjunction with predestination; the Sadducees differing from both, denied all manner of predestination whatever, their doc trine being, that God had made man absolute master of all his actions with a full freedom to do either good or evil as he shall think fit to chuse, without any resistance to him for the one, or any restraint upon him as to the other. So that whether a man doeth good or evil, it is wholly from himself, because he hath it absolutely in his own power both to do the one and avoid the other. In sum they held the same doctrine among the Jews, that Pelagius did afterwards among the christians, that is, that there is no help from God either of his preventing grace or his assisting grace, but that without any such help every man hath in himself full power to avoid all the evil, which the law of God forbids, and to do all the good which it commands. And therefore looking on all men to have this power in themselves, it is remarked of them, that whenever they sat in judgment upon crimi nals, they always were for the severest sentence against them. And indeed their general character was, that they were very ill-natured, churlish, and morose in their be haviour to each other, but cruel and savage to all besides. Their number was the smallest of all the sects of the Jews, but they were men of the best quality, and the greatest riches among them. And it is too often found, that those who abound most in the things of this world are the forwardest to neglect and disbelieve the promises of a