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 Ifrael hath difpoffeffed the Amorites from before bis People Ifrael; and souldest thou poffefs it? WILT NOT THOU POSSESS THAT WHICH CHEMOSH, THY GOD, GIVETH THEE TO POSSESS? So whomfoever the LORD, OUR GOD, fball drive out from before us, them will we poffefs. This was faid, on the Gentile principle of local tutelary Deities, in all the groffness of that notion; not yet refined and rationalized by our Adventurer, on the ideas of the Law. But when he refumes the civil argument, he again reafons better and very folidly pleads the general law of PRESCRIPTION, in defence of his People.-While Ifrael (fays he) dwelt in Hefbbon and ber 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 no impreffion, the negotiation ended in an appeal to arms. Jephthah leads out his Troops against Ammon. And, in the Forefront, without doubt, were thofe faithful Bands, which he had collected and difciplined in the Land of Tob.

*Judges xi. 23, 24.

+ Judges v. 26. Y 3

The

The first step he takes to invite Success, was the making an abfurd Pagan Vow, that, if he returned with Victory, he would facrifice, for a burnt-offering to God, whatfoever came first out of the doors of his houfe * 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 Oath's fake, (though with extreme regret, because, befides her, he had neither fon nor daughter †,) facrificed for her pains, according to the then established cuftom of Idolatry; which, on fuch occafions, required a Sacrifice of what was most dear or precious to the offerer. For, I hardly believe that Jephthah was, at this time, fo learned in the LAW, as even the Poet Voltaire ; or that he had proceeded, like him, so far in the facred text, as to misunderstand or mifinterpret this famous twenty-feventh Chapter of Leviticus, in fupport of fo impious an action. The unhappy father appears, at this time, to understand fo little of the LAW, as not to be able to distinguish what it had in common with Paganifm, (namely the cuftom of offering euchariftical Sacrifices, on every great and fortunate event) from what it had in direct oppofition to it (viz. that dire impiety of human Sacrifice).

* Judges v. 31,

+ Ver. 34.

The

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 Mofaic times; and paying a ⚫ blind reverence to the character of a Judge of Ifrael, make the Daughter, to fave her father's honour, return vow for vow; and so confecrate herself to a Virgin State. Solutions like these expofe Sacred Scripture to the scorn and derifion 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 adverfaries,

1. Bid us obferve, that the action is not condemned. A cenfure, they think, it could not have escaped, had the Sacred Hiftorian deemed it an impiety.

2. That the text tells us further, that Jephthab went out in the Spirit of the Lord; and therefore they conclude, that he returned in the fame Spirit.

3. Laftly, that Jephthah is extolled by the Author of the Epifle to the Hebrews †, and numbered in the clafs of facred Heroes.

To these objections, in their order. First, They who lay fo much ftrefs on the Action's having paffed uncenfured, confider

+ xi. 32.

* Judges v. 29.

neither

Y 4

neither the nature of the Compofition, nor the genius of the Hiftorian. The narrative itself is a brief Compendium, or rather extract from the Records of State, entered as things paffed, and then laid up in the Archives of their Scribes. In this fpecies of Compofition it is not the wont to dwell either on the caufes, the qualities, or the confequences of Actions, but fimply to tell the naked Facts.

Nor had the Writers of those times improved History into an art. They tranfcribed or abridg, ed, merely for the fake of the people's information in facts, of what they found recorded in their venerable Archives. This was the cafe in the Story of the lying Prophet, in the affair of the Altar of Bethel *. His crime is neither condemned, nor is his punishment recorded. Had the Hiftory been a Romance, forged at pleafure, both thefe particulars had affuredly been dwelt upon at large.

Befides, as the nature and quality of actions. are beft feen 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 Mofaic Ritual, it lefs needed a Cenfure. The faithful Followers of the Law, for whose service this

1 Kings xii,

adventure

adventure was recorded, wanted no hiftorian of prophetic Authority to tell them, (after they had feen human facrifices execrated in almost every page of their Hiftory) that Jephthah's facrifice of bis Daughter was either an impious imitation of Pagan practices, or an ignorant prefumption in the half-paganized Votary, that he was here complying with the famous precept of the Law in Leviticus*, when indeed (as we have fhewn at large) it related to quite another thing.

But further, it is not peculiar to this ftory, to furnish an objection (such as it is) from the facred Writer's not interpofing with his own. judgment, concerning the moral quality of the action related. Scripture abounds with inftances of this fort; a filence occafioned by one or other of the caufes here explained.

2. But Jephthah (which is the fecond objection) went out in the spirit of the Lord, and therefore (they conclude) he must needs return in the fame Spirit.

Now though, on a lefs important occafion, I fhould be tempted to acquiefce in the Criticifm, though not in the Spirit, of Spinofa, that this expreffion was to be put to the account of the facred phrafeology of the Jews; and to mean no more than the ftrength, the courage, and

* xxvii. 29.

the