rather mourned, that he who hath done this deed might be carried out from among you." It was usual with the Jews to collect in large bodies at a funeral and to take a part in carrying a dead body to the grave they deemed a very laudable action. Over the deceased, when laid in the dust, was pronounced an oration, purporting, that though his body should be destroyed by corruption, God would again restore his life. To this practice the apostle continues his allusion." In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, after you have assembled with my spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus Christ attending you, deliver such a one to the adversary, for the mortification of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Which is to this effect. "Instead of rejoicing in this man, however distinguished in a worldly view, as one raised to a new life by his conversion, mourn over him, as one dead on account of his heinous guilt, and consign him to the world, the great adversary of our faith, as you would a corpse which, if left alone, would spread moral infection and death among you. For this purpose convene together, as the custom is in a funeral; and in separating him from the church, my heart and soul will be with you; and his expulsion will be farther sanctioned by the authority of Jesus Christ. In his name deliver him up to the adversary, as a dead body to the dust; and

if this punishment serve to reform him, if his evil habits moulder away, as the flesh in the grave, by shame and remorse, suffer him not to pine unto death, but receive him again into your communion. Having his character thus renovated and purified by repentance, as the soul is purified by its separation from flesh and blood, he will finally be saved in the day when the Lord Jesus shall come to raise the dead, and introduce his virtuous followers into glory."

The propriety of the Apostle's language depends on the circumstance, that the punishment of excommunication was so severely felt that many, unless they were again re-admitted, pined to death by grief and famine.

CHAPTER IX.

JCSEPHUS'S ACCOUNT OF THE GENTILE CONVERTS AT ANTIOCH.—AT DAMASCUS.-THE CONVERSION OF HELEN, QUEEN OF THE ADIABENES, AND OF HER SON IZATES.

IN the seventh book of the Jewish War, Josephus has this brief, but important, passage: "The Jews at Antioch were continually bringing over a great multitude of Greeks to their worship, and making them a part of themselves."*

Αει τε προσαγομενοι ταις θρησκείαις πολυ πληθος Ελληνων, κακείνους τροπῳ τινι μοιραν αντων πεποίηντο. B. J. lib. 7. c. ii. 3. To make the Pagan converts a part of themselves was very characteristic of the first christian teachers among the Jews. St. Paul inculcates, that a Jew and a Greek were become one in Christ. Gal. iii. 27. The language of Philo, if possible, is still more emphatic; who, on the authority of Moses, recommends the Jews to regard the converts from Heathenism not only as friends, but as beings possessing the same body and soul with themselves. Κελεύει δη τους απο του εθνους αγαπαν τους επήλυδας, μη μονον ὡς φίλους και συγγενεις, αλλα και ὡς ἑαυτους, κατά τε σώμα και ψυχην, ὡς διοντε, κοινοπραγούντας. Vol. ii. p. 392. or p. 705.

If learned men had sufficiently attended to the purport of this paragraph, the real sentiments of the Jewish historian in regard to christianity would not at this time have remained unobserved. But they followed the prejudices of education, and inconsiderately acquiesced in a notion which had no foundation in truth. Josephus, they suppose, is here speaking of Jews and the Jewish worship in the sense we now understand these terms. But the fact is quite otherwise; and for this assertion I shall produce satisfactory evidence. The spirit of proselytism which prevailed among the Pharisees till the days of our Saviour, ceased with the promulgation of his religion, on the part of those depraved and incorrigible Jews who opposed it. The reason is, that christianity was the vital part of judaism, and therefore judaism itself in the strictest sense; whereas those who opposed it retained only the exterior, the shell of judaism, which was both useless and disgustful, when separated from the spirit which animated it. Now what had the supporters of judaism to offer, or what had they to allure the Gentiles, when once separated from the gospel? A temporal king, whose object on one hand should be to emancipate the Jews, and on the other to destroy, or to subjugate the Gentile nations; and, moreover, a mere system of external rites, which the pagans had ever been in the

the

habit of regarding with derision and contempt. Would any sober minded heathens, men or women, become converts to a system so uninviting in itself, and so repugnant to their feelings? The judaizing zealots, in the days of the apostles, and afterwards, knew this, and they gave up hopes of making converts. Moreover, we shall see in the sequel, that those among the Jews, who obstinately resisted the claims of Jesus, so far from attempting to convert the Gentiles, themselves apostatized from the law and the prophets, and rolled in the very dregs of heathenism, When, therefore, we read in Josephus and Philo of pagan converts made to judaism, we are always to understand them as meaning that refined and spiritual judaism, which was taught by Christ and his apostles. Judaism, in this sense, had nothing to repel, and every thing to invite the notice and reception of the pagan world. It offered a benign Saviour, who came not to destroy, but to save all mankind; it abolished those repugnant rites which had hitherto separated the Jews from the rest of the nations; it proclaimed peace on earth, and good will in heaven; the pardon of sin, and the hope of eternal happiness to all without

Basnage (lib. v. c. vi. p. 417) refers to those passages in the Mishnah and in the Talmuds, which shew that the refrac tory Jews not only became indifferent to all proselytes, but treated them with the greatest contempt.