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Sceptre. By the plainest rule in the world; that of common sense, the first and capital rule in every Art as well as grammar. For if Jacob made a declaration concerning some future prerogative, as the wordsThy father's Children shall bow down before theeprove he did; and that this was the first time that Judah heard of it, as the words-I will tell you what shall befall you in the last days-prove it was; What can this Prophecy be but the GRANT of a Sceptre?

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Though so many writers and interpreters (says the Bishop) have followed this sense, yet I do not re"member to have seen one passage or parallel

expression from the Scripture or any other writer "produced to justify the interpretation." As for any other Writers than those of Scripture, I know of none who have prophesied and the language of propuccy hath peculiarities unknown to other Compositions. But a Scripture-writer I am able to produce; and the same who has recorded this Prophecy of Jacob.— On Abraham's departure out of Haran, he being then seventy-five years of age, the Lord, as Moses tells us, appeared unto him and said-Unto thy SEED will I give this Land*. Was this now a grant, or a confirmation only of SEED? "A confirmation only, says his Lordship: All the grant contained in these words is the grant of the LAND: and this shews (will he say) that the Seed was now existing for a non-cntity is incapable of receiving any grant or donation: besides, a confirmation of nothing is nothing, and so on."-Notwithstanding all this, it so happens that Abraham had then no Seed.

Here now is a parallel expression, which holds à fortiori. For if it be a little anomalous to talk of a

* Chap. xii. ver. 7.

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thing's departing which was never yet in possession, it seems to be much more absurd to talk of giving to persons who were never yet in Being. Besides, the promise of Rule actually accompanies the promise of its duration: but the express promise of Seed does not accompany the promise of a provision for it: I suppose the reason of this difference of expression in the two places is, because to get a Son is a much commoner case than to get a Sceptre.

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His Lordship having thus shewn, that Judah's Sceptre was a Sceptre in possession, he will prove next, that it was not a civil, but a tribal sceptre; which did not stretch its sovereignty over a whole nation, but was confined to the economic rule of the single tribe of Judah.—“ Another thing supposed (says he) by "most interpreters is, that the Sceptre, here mentioned, " is an emblem of Dominion over all the tribes of "Jacob.. But how can that be? Had not Jacob "settled a sceptre in every tribe? as is evident, ver. 16. Dan shall judge his people as one of the Sceptres of Israel. Suppose a Father has divided "his estate amongst twelve Sons, and should say one of them, The Estate shall not depart from John, for many ages; could you possibly supposé "him to mean more than the share of the Estate given "to John? Could you understand him to mean that "all the estate, the twelve shares, should come to "John and continue in his family? The case is the "s same here. Twelve Princes are created; Of one "of them Jacob says, the Sceptre shall not depart from him until Shiloh come. Is it not plain then, "that the Sceptres are distinguished here; and that it " is foretold of one, that it shall long outlast the rest? "consequently the Sceptre here is an emblem of Authority IN AND OVER ONE TRIBE ONLY." pp. 328, 9.

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His Lordship's reasoning, on which he grounds his parallel, stands thus-Judah's sceptre was the same with Dan's now Dan's was a tribal Sceptre; therefore Judah's. But the very words of the Prophecy shew that the Sceptres were specifically different. Of Dan it is said, he shall judge his People AS ONE OF THE TRIBES OR SCEPTRES OF ISRAEL. Here is a tribal Sceptre marked out in express and proper terms. But of Judah's Sceptre it is said, THY FaTHER'S CHILDREN SHALL BOW DOWN BEFORE THEE. Who were these Children but the eleven tribes? So that here a civil and a sovereign Sceptre is as properly and expressly marked out for Judah, as before, a tribal one for Dan. This shall judge his own tribe; but the other shall, with his own tribe, judge the rest also. And yet if you will rely on his Lordship's Authority, he has a case in point; and he assures us "that Judah's grant is the same as that of a Father's to his Son John, who when he had divided his estate amongst his twelve Sons should say of John's part, that it should not depart for many ages."

He tells us next, "that the sense of the word LawGIVER will follow the fate of the word Sceptre." p.329. In this, I perfectly agree with him. And therefore, as his sense of the word Sceptre is found to be erroneous, his sense of the word Lawgiver must fall with it.

All that follows has nothing to do with the question of a tribal Sceptre, till we come to page 344. From thence to 350, he endeavours to take advantage of the hypothesis, to shew that this tribal Sceptre never departed from Judah till the coming of Christ: And here he had an easy task. But unluckily confounding economic with civil Rule, he embarrasses himself as much, to make out the completion of the Prophecy,

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as the supporters of the other two branches of the common interpretation are wont to do.-As where he talks of the Jews in Babylon ordering all matters relating to their own CIVIL and ECCLESIASTICAL Affairs. p.345.-Their coming back to their own Country as a People and a nation GOVERNED BY THEIR OWN LAWS-though never so FREE A PEOPLE as they had been formerly. They lived under subjection to the Persian Monarch, and under the empire of the Greeks and Romans. p. 347.-The Evangelists shew that they lived under their own. LAWS, and EXECUTED JUDGMENT amongst themselves. p. 349.-Had the exercise of JUDICIAL AUTHORITY amongst themselves. p. 350. Thus, like the Successors of Peter, who enlarged his Rock into a Citadel, his Lordship at last lengthens his tribal Sceptre into a sovereign. But if here he extends it over a People and Nation, he contracts it as much by and by; and we see it shrink up into a mere philosophical or Stoical Regality. His Lordship undertakes to prove that the Jews were a FREE PEOPLE, from their own consciousness of their free condition. When our Saviour (says the Bishop) tells the Jews "The truth shall make you free;" they reply, "We are Abraham's Children, and were never

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in bondage to any man." p. 349. This his Lordship urges as a proof of their Civil freedom. But if the Jews, who expected a carnal Messiah to lead real armies against their enemies, could suppose that Jesus made them an offer of sending Truth in person, to execute this commission for them, their stupidity must have exceeded every thing we have been told of it, by their Enemies. To be plain with his Lordship, the subject here debated, between Jesus and his adversa, ries, is most foreign from his Lordship's purpose. Our blessed Saviour is here addressing himself to the PHARISEES,

PHARISEES, a rank of men not ignorant of the Greek philosophy (though greatly mistaking its use when they brought so much of it into the Law), and therefore, with a Stoical dignity, he tells them-the truth shall set you free. They answer him in the same tone, We are Abraham's Children, and were never in bondage to any man. That is, "Our principles are of divine extraction, and we never suffered ourselves to be inslaved to human decisions." Surely (says his Lordship) they had not forgot their captivity in Babylon. Forgot! Why, Jesus had said nothing to put them in mind of it. The question is not about their freedom from Babylon, but from Error.-Much less (says he) could they be ignorant of the power of the Romans over them at that time, and yet we see they account themselves free. And why should they not, when the Question between Jesus and them was only who should make them so, HE or ABRAHAM. Strange! that his Lordship's own account of their civil condition under the power of the Romans should not have brought him to see, that the subject in hand was only of their moral Condition. Stranger still! that his solution of this difficulty should not have led him to discover that it was but imaginary-they were free (says his Lordship) for they lived by their own Laws, and executed judgment amongst themselves. Had he added—but, at the precarious nod of an arbitrary Tyrant-it would doubtless have given great force to his observation: For, about this time, Coponius, a Roman Knight, was named Procurator of Judea. Nay, even the precarious privilege of punishing capitally was now taken from them: They had a pagan Governor: and Justice was administered, not by their own Forms of Law, but by the Roman. An admirable character of civil Freedom!

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