go into the judgment hall. They intended our Saviour's accusation should be capital; the law had appointed, that persons defiled with the dead body of a man should be kept back and not eat the Passover until the fourteenth day of the second month*; they judged the persons, who were to accuse our Saviour, so as to bring him unto death, would be under the restriction of this law; and therefore they left off their prosecution until they should go home and eat the Passover. On the next morning, on the day after the Passover, they assembled, and carried him again to Pilate, and took counsel against him to put him to death', and in this morning passed the several matters that are related to have preceded our Saviour's crucifixion; namely, Pilate's sending him to Herod', Pilate's wife's message to Pilate upon account of her dreams, Herod's remanding JESUS back again to Pilate', Pilate's then delivering him to the Jews to be crucified, upon which they immediately led him

y Matt. xxvii, 1; Mark xv, 1; Luke xxii, 66.

2 Luke xxiii, 7.

Luke xxiii, 11.

a Matt. xxvii, 19.

C Ver. 21-24.

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away and crucified him, and the next day was the sabbathe; so that in this year, the Jews had at least a day between the evening of eating the Passover and the sabbath; but had they at this time proceeded according to Moses's institutions, I think the first day of unleavened bread, the day immediately following the evening of the Passover, would have been the sabbath'.

I have now offered the reader what I have for some time apprehended, that the institutions of Moses's law hint to have been the first and most ancient method used by the Israelites for computing and regulating their I have much wished to find some one

year.

d Matt. xxvii, 27-35; Mark xv, 16–24; Luke xxiii, 26-33; John xix, 16-18.

e Mark xv, 42; Luke xxiii, 54; John xix, 31.

f According to the Jewish calculation of the year, after they used lunar years, the interval between the Passover and the sabbath following it, was different in different years. For instance, there was a day between in the year of our Saviour's crucifixion, the day of the Passover falling that year as on our Thursday: but it is evident, a Jewish lunar year ordinarily containing but three hundred and fifty-four days, that the Passover in the next year would fall as on a Tuesday, and consequently there would be three days between the Passover and the sabbath, &c.

learned writer directing me in this matter; but as I cannot say I do, I hope I have expressed myself with a proper diffidence. If the reader shall think what I have offered may be admitted, a small correction must be made in what I have suggested concerning the ancient Jewish year, in my preface to my first volume. And if I shall find myself herein mistaken, I shall be hereafter better able to retract what I have thus attempted in a preface only, than if I had given it a place in the following books among the observations upon the law of Moses. I have taken no notice of a sentiment of Scaliger, which seems to be admitted by Archbishop Usher, that the ancient Israelites computed their year in twelve months of thirty days each, adding five days at the end of the twelfth month yearly, and a sixth every fourth years, because it is a thought for which I find no shadow of proof from any hint in Scripture, or remains of antiquity. Scaliger indeed attempts to compute the year of the Flood to have been reckoned up by Moses to contain three hundred and sixty

* Scaliger lib. de Emendat. Temp. p. 151; Usher's Chronol. Epistle to the Reader.

five days; but in order to give colour to his supposition, he represents that the raven and the dove, sent by Noah out of the ark, to see if the waters were abated, had been sent out at forty days' interval the one from the other, but Moses's narration intimates nothing like it, nor will any reader allow it to be probable, that collects and duly compares the particulars related by Moses of the rise and fall of the waters, and of Noah's conduct and observations. The raven and the dove here spoken of, were undoubtedly sent out, both upon one and the same day. As to Archbishop Usher's seeming to be of opinion that the ancient Jewish year was in this manner made up of three hundred and sixty-five days, with an allowance for about a quarter of a day in every year, he had computed, and found that a number of years of the Israelites were capable of being made to answer to a like number of Julian years, and this led him to think they were, as to length, of much the same nature. I need only observe that, if the Israelites computed their years in the manner above-mentioned by me, a number of such years will not

Scaliger, p. 152, &c.

* Gen. viii, 7, 8.

much vary in the sum of them, from the sum of a like number of Julian.

I intended an attempt in this place to answer the objections of some writers, who would argue that Moses had not composed the books we ascribe to him, but having in many parts both of this and the former volumes obviated the difficulties, which seem to arise from some short hints and observations now interspersed in the sacred pagés, which the learned are apprized had not been inserted by the authors of the books, they are now found ink, I should in a great measure only repeat what I have already remarked, were I to refute at large what is offered upon this topic. If the reader has a mind to examine it, he may find the whole of what can be pretended on the one side in Spinoza', and Le Clerc's third dissertation prefixed to his comment on the Pentateuch may furnish matter for a clear and distinct answer on the other. We have indeed a hint or two upon this argument in some remains of a very great writer: "The race of the kings of Edom, it is observed, before there reigned any king in Israel, is set down

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* See book xii, p. 441, et in al. loc.

Tract. Theologico-polit, in part. alter. c. viii.