ed by the public scribe or notary, one of which was sealed and the other open. And as that was the case in common purchases, so am I led to con jecture that it was the case in testamentary be quests; for Lucian, in his Dialogues of the Dead, makes Cnemon say, that " he had shown the tes taments publicly θεσθαι διαθηκας εις το φανερον, which he had made in favour of Hermolaus ; and to express his ignorance "whether Hermolaus, in return, had written his testaments in his favour τας ἑαυτου διαθήκας.” There is at least a considerable similarity, between the expressions of Jeremiah, and those of Cnemon.

7. The Jewish idea of a future state seems to have been as follows. 1st, They believed in the existence of heaven (➡D Shemim, ovgavos), or the heaven of heavens ( Shemi shemim), the place of God's peculiar residence, the dwelling of good angels, and the everlasting abode of the blessed, after the resurrection. 2d, They believed in the existence of hell, which they metaphorically styled "gehenna" (yavvα), from the fires which were kept constantly burning in Gia-he nem, the valley of Hinnom; and Tophet, (N) Tephet) from the tephs or drums, which were there employed, to drown the cries of the children who were sacrificed to Moloch." This they considered the residence of the devil and his angels, and the destined abode of the wicked, after the general

a It is first mentioned in Josh, xv. 8; and in ch. xviii. 16, it is rendered ra Evvo by the LXX; and in some editious Fava; from whence the word yea, which is used twelve times in the New Testament, seems to have come.

b Tophet is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, viz. 2 Kings xxiii. 10; Is. xxx. 33; Jer. vii. 31, 32; xix. 6, 11, 12, 13, 14,

judgment. 3d, They believed in an intermediate state, where the souls of all who died, had their residence till the resurrection, in a state of comparative happiness, or misery, according to their previous characters." This was named Shaul

in the Old Testament, and aòng Hades in the New Testament, in the Septuagint, and in Josephus. Accordingly, whilst the body was committed to the grave, (p Keber, rapos, umpa,) the soul went to Shaul, to be rewarded or punished, in an inferior degree, between death and the resurrection. But in what particular place that state was, has been differently explained: some making it an immense cavern in the centre of the earth; some the state of the dead in general; and some an intermediate state, rather than an intermediate place, where the saints, although in heaven, are less happy; and the wicked, although in hell, are less wretched than they will be after the resurrection. This last seems to have been the belief of the best informed among the Jews. Accordingly, it was a saying of theirs, that " Abraham and Moses, and all the righteous, when they die, are laid up under the very throne of God;" implying, that those who are lying under the throne, between death and the resurrection, will, after that, stand before the throne, more exalted and more happy.

Towards the end of the Mosaic economy, when

a Is. xiv. 8—20. Ezek. xxxii. 23-30. Bishop Lowth's Notes on Is. xiii. xiv. His Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Sect. 7. Dr. Campbell on the Gospels, Dissert. vi. part 2.

b In the common English version of the Scriptures, the words are translated hell, the pit, and the grave, but the Jews, and many of the Christian commentators, explain them uniformly of the intermediate e Lightfoot, vol. ii. Sermon on Luke xxiii. 42, 43.

state.

the Jews became acquainted with the philosophical opinions of the Greeks and Romans, they began to describe the intermediate state, by expressions somewhat corresponding to the infernus of their heathen neighbours, with its elysium, tartarus, and intersecting rivers. For they supposed it to have had a place which contained the good, called paradise and Abraham's bosom;" a place which contained the wicked called tartarus; and a great gulf which divided between them."

From the representation of Josephus, Dr. Campbell, in his New Translation of the Gospels, is inclined to conclude, that in the time of that writer, a resurrection and future judgment (in the sense in which they were understood by the primitive Christians) were not, universally, the doctrine even of the pharisees but that the prevalent and distinguishing opinion was, that the soul survived the body; that vicious souls would suffer an everlasting imprisonment in hades, and that the souls of the virtuous would not only be happy there, but in process of time, would obtain the privilege of transmigrating into other bodies. In other words, that the immortality of human souls, and the transmigration of the good, were all that they comprehended in the resurrection of the dead (avaotaois Twv vexgav).-Several allusions to this doctrine of transmigration, however ridiculous it may appear to us, seem to be made in the New Testament: for

a See particularly an extract from Josephus's Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades, in Whiston's translation of that author: Glasgow edition, 1820, vol. iv.

b Luke xxiii. 43. Rev. ii. 7. Luke xvi. 23.

σειραις ζόφου ταρταρωτας.

c 2 Peter ii. 4.

d Luke xvi. 26, xaopa psya.

e War, ii. 12.

the question which was put by the disciples to our Lord, "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind ?" and some popular notions concerning Jesus, whom they knew to have been born and brought up among themselves, that he was Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, evi-. dently presuppose it. There is reason to believe, however, that this strange tenet was not universal; and that afterwards, when the doctrines of the gospel concerning a future state became better known, the opinions of the Talmudists had a much greater conformity to them, than the opinions of some of their predecessors in, and before the days of our Saviour. Thus were life and immortality more clearly, and more generally brought to light by the gospel."

* John ix. 2. Matth. xxvi. 14.

b On the much agitated controversy of the intermediate state by Christian writers, see among others Dr. Campbell on the Gospels, Dissert. vi. part 2: Magee on the Atonement, vol, i. illust. 41: the authors quoted in Dr. Kippis's edition of Doddridge's Lectures, prop. clxii. schol. 9 and Sermons by the Rev. Sir H. Moncreiff Wellwood, vol. ii. serm. 16, 17. The following is the opinion of this last men, tioned writer. "The spirits of just men made perfect are clearly the spirits who have escaped from the body by death; and who are now existing in a separate state of intelligence and activity; conscious of their relation to those who are in the body still, and who are joint partakers with them of the glory hereafter to be revealed. They are spirits who were once united to organized bodies, as our spirits are at present, which they have left to rest in their graves till the resurrec tion-spirits who are now with Christ in heaven, associated in his presence with the blessed angels who have kept their first estate; and looking forward to the resurrection of the dead, as to the glorious manifestation of the sons of God." (Sermon 16.)

PART XII.

JUDEA, ITS LIMITS, CAPITAL, CLIMATE, AND AGRICULTURE.

SECT. I.

Limits of Judea,

Ás mentioned in Gen. x. 19; as promised to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18-21; as described to Moses in Deut. xxxiv. 1-3; as existing in the days of our Saviour. Josephus's description of Judea; Sa maria; Galilee; wherein the speech of the Galileans differed from that of the other Jews: the country beyond Jordan; the present state of the country, by Dr. Clarke-and a particular account of the river Jordan.

THE first notice which we have of the land of Canaan, afterwards known by the general name of Judea, is in Gen. x. 19, where the borders of Canaan are said to have been from Sidon as thou goest to Gerar unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lasha." Here the western extremity extended along the shore of the Mediterranean, from Sidon to Gaza, or about 140 miles. southern boundary was from Gaza to the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, once stood, a space of about 80 miles. Its eastern boundary was from the foot of the Dead Sea to Lasha or Dan, at the head of the river Jordan, about 200 miles; and its northern boun

Its

This is more than is usually marked in the maps, but we shall see it to be the case when we describe the length of Jordan and the Dead Sea.