it, to dispatch a heathen or a publican? which, it feems, is the manner of the fmugglers dealing with the officers of the customs in Mr. Voltaire's country.

What then is the rational and likely meaning of the words of our Saviour, 'Let a brother who is deaf to ' rebuke in all these methods, be to thee as a heathen man, or a publican?' It appears to be this; that he whom he had injured, should confider him as unworthy of all tenderer affection, and more intimate fociety, and carry at a greater distance from him, as the Jews did to heathens or publicans. We are fure the Jews despised the heathens, giving them at the fame time names expreffive of this contempt, and declined familiarity with them, Ye know,' fays Peter to Cornelius and his friends, Acts, x. 28. 'how ⚫ that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew, 'to keep company, or come unto one of another 'nation;' an evidence it was criminal, according to their established maxims and ufage in that period, for Jews to converse with Gentiles in near and clofe fociety by eating with them, entring into their houses, and the like, as the word properly fignifies. For, indeed, the obfervation is not to be extended to all dealing and intercourse with them. This, as many of them refided in, or travelled through heathen cities, was in fome degree unavoidable. The fame way they seem to have been affected toward the Samaritans; though they fcrupled not to buy provisions from them, more than their fathers did from the Tyrians in Nehemiah's time, Nehem, xiii. 16. yet they had no dealings with them as friends, infomuch that they would not afk or receive the small courtesy of a draught of water, John, iv. 9. We are likewise cer

tain, that the Jews had a great averfion to the publicans, i. e. those that were employed to collect taxes and duties among them for the Romans, who were now their masters; There had been a great rebellion raised among them by Judas the Gaulonite, on occafion of the reduction of Judea into the ftate of a Roman province, and the enrolment of their eftates by Cyrenius, after Archelaus was depofed by Auguftus, and banished into Gaul, upon pretence they had no fovereign or king but God, and were not bound to pay tribute to any ftranger, because it was faid, ' One 'from among thy brethren fhalt thou fet king over 'thee: thou mayst not set a stranger over thee, who is

not thy brother,' Deut. xvii. 1 5. And there was undeniably still too much of this leaven or evil principle among them. Hence it is natural to conclude, the payment of taxes to the Romans would be to them a heavy grievance, and the collectors of them would be to them very difagreeable, as the tools and instruments of illegal and iniquitous oppreffion. Moreover, it appears to have been very common with men who poffeffed the office of tax-gatherers, to be guilty of rapine and undue exactions, that they might make it more lucrative and profitable to themfelves; on which account, when fome persons, who followed this employment, came to be baptized by John, and asked what they fhould do to be faved, he cautioned them particularly against the vice of extortion, Exact no more than that which is appointed you,' Luke, iii. 12. And this must have increased the abhorrence of them by the Jewish people, as indeed their too frequent * custom of oppreffion,

* That publicans were in antient times very much addicted to op

in levying the revenue, raised hatred at them through other provinces. Further, they may be thought, at leaft among the Jews, to have been generally per-. fons of a loose character, and irregular conduct, who indulged their appetites beyond all bounds of order and decency, fince we find them ufually reckoned with harlots and finners, i. e. enormous offenders, in the New Teftament, which must have alienated the hearts of all the strict and religious part of the nation from them ftill more, and have raised their diflike of them to a yet higher pitch. Accordingly, we find the Jews took exception at Jefus's eating with them, as all their country-men who made a more religious profeffion, difdained and scorned fuch free and friendly intercourse with them, Mat.ix. 1 1. Luke xv. 2. xix. 7. &c. and Dr. Lightfoot † hath quoted this as a maxim among their Rabbis, That a religi

preffion, in the exercife of their office, cannot be denied. Theocritus, according to Hammond on Matt. ix. 10. fays, that among the beasts of the wilderness, bears and lions are the most cruel, and among 'the beasts of the city, the publican and parasite.' Other testimonies of the fame thing may be seen in Grotius on Luke, iii. 10. I speak not, however, of the head-farmers, or those who rented the levying of the taxes through a large district; for if we believe Cicero, they were men of good morals, as well as of equeftrian rank, that is, of the order of knighthood, Orat. pro Plancio, fect. 9. and Epift. Famil, lib 13. fect 10; but of the common receivers and gatherers of the taxes. That they were also generally odious and unpopular, is evident from Cicero againft Verres, lib. 2. cap. 3. n. 7. where speaking of the inhabitants of Sicily, he says, 'Sic porro homines noftros diligunt, ut ⚫ his folis neque publicanus, neque negotiator, odio fit. They are fo ' attached to us, that to them alone, neither a publican nor a factor ⚫ is odious.'

+ Hor. Hebr. on Matt. xviii. 17. Works, vol. 2. p. 215.

< ous man who becomes a publican, is to be driven ' out of the fociety of religion.'

On these accounts, an advice, (or permiffion, as fome reckon it,) to treat an offender, who would not be perfuaded by all gentle methods, to acknowledge his injury, and make reasonable satisfaction for it, as an heathen man or a publican, was very proper, to fignify, that fuch a perfon fhould be difapproved and avoided, instead of being admitted to friendship and intimacy; for this was the temper and deportment of the Jews toward Gentile idolaters, and alfo toward publicans, thought of their own nation; but it could

+ It feems to be implied here by Chrift's mode of expreffion, that all publicans were not heathens.—Tertullian, as many after him have done, thought that no Jew was a publican, De Pudicitia, page 561. chap. 9. Si quis dubitat ethnicos effe publicanos apud Judaeam, ufurpatam jampridem Pompeii manu atque Luculli, legat Deuteronomium, non erit vectigal pendens ex filiis Ifrael. Nec tam execrabile effet nomen publicanorum apud Dominum, nifi extraneum, &c.' But his argument for this opinion was ill-founded. For, (befides that a prohibition, was it to be found, would be no proof that all declined the employment, fince too many things forbidden in their law were practised by them,) there are no words in the original, Deut. xxiii, 17. anfwering to these which he quotes from the book of Deuteronomy, • There shall be no tax-gatherer of the children of Ifrael.' Nor indeed in the Chaldee paraphrafes, either that of Onkelos, or that afcribed to Jonathan Ben Uzziel, nor in the Syriac and Vulgate translations. There are only fome words in the Septuagint verfion after 'There 'fhall not be a whoremonger (a fodomite, we fay,) of the children of Ifrael, which feem to come near them, Ουκ εςαι τελεσφορος απο θυσ γατέρων Ισραήλ, και εκ έςαι τελισκομενος απο υιών Ισραηλ. Here however TEλtopopos, which commonly fignifies a publican or tax-gatherer, denotes a person who prostitutes hertelf for hire,as many women did in honour of Venus, initia ferens, as tednoμevoç is initiatus; and the whole clause seems to have been at firft a marginal comment on the pre

fignify, that it was incumbent on, or lawful to him who fuffered the wrong, to fend the doer of it, though unreclaimed, out of the world by fome method of violence. *

ceding words, afterwards adopted by fome tranfcribers into the text; fuitably, the copies vary in exhibiting it. Compare Cafaubon. Exercitationes, 13. 36. and Le Clerc in Deuteronomium. That Jews were publicans, appears from the New Teftament itself: for Zaccheus and Matthew, otherwife called Levi, as their names fhew, were of the Jewish nation. Jofephus is alfo fuppofed to mention John the publican, as a Jew of influence and figure, De Bello, 2. 14.4 5. and perhaps rightly. He indeed fays, The powerful among the Jews, 'together with whom was John the publican, perfuade Florus to a cer→ • tain meafure by eight talents of filver, οι δυνατοι των Ινδαίων, συν * οις ὁ τελώνης Ιωάννης, πείθεσι τον Φλωρον αργυρια ταλαντοις οκτω; which manner of speaking appears to me confiftent enough with his being a heathen. But when I consider he expreffes himself afterwards, as if the favour was fold to Jews only, and as if they were all Jews, who, upon ill-ufage by the people of Caefarea, complained to Florus, putting him in mind of the eight talents, while he again ordered them. to be arrested and bound, blaming them for the removal of their code of laws out of Caefarea, it seems most probable this John was also a Jew, οι δε περι τον Ιωάννην δυνατοι δωδεκα προς Φλωρον ελθοντες --απωδύροντο περι των πεπραγμένων, &c.

*Though Mr. Bourn, in his Sermon above quoted, paraphrafes these words, 'Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican,' * Have no further acquaintance with him, confider him as unworthy ' of your regard;' he fuppofes they alfo authorized him to carry his cause before a Roman magiftrate, as the Jews held it lawful to prosecute a heathen or a publican in the Roman courts, however many of them fcrupled profecuting a brother Jew there. And the fame explication had been given by Erastus and Dodwell, p. 261. De Jure Laicorum. But what evidence is there, that the Jews fcrupled to profecute their brethren in the Roman courts, where they had received injuries from them, of which fuch courts only could take cognizance? and how few injuries comparatively would it be needful to trouble the Roman

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