tive, the Pharisees were as ready to excite the people against him, as an enemy to their civil liberties and privileges. It is probable the Herodians were distinguished likewise by their compliance with some heathen idolatrous usages which Herod had introduced; who, as Josephus saith, built a temple to Cæsar near the head of the river Jordan*, erected a magnificent theatre at Jerusalem, instituted pagan games+, and placed a golden eagle over the gate of the temple of Jehovah; and, as he elsewhere intimates, furnished the temples, which he reared in several places out of Judea, with images for idolatrous worship, in order to ingratiate himself with the emperor and the people of Rome; though to the Jews he pretended, that he did it against his will, and in obedience to the imperial command §. This symbolizing with idolatry, upon views of interest and worldly policy, was probably the leaven of Herod, which our Saviour cautioned his disciples against. It is further probable, that the Herodians were chiefly of the sect of the Sadducees, who sat loosest to religion of all the Jews; since that, which is called by St. Mark, chap. viii, ver. 15, the leaven of Herod, is, in the parallel place in St. Matthew, chap. xvi, ver. 6, styled the leaven of the Sadducees. * Antiq. lib. xv, cap. x, sect. iii, p. 776. + Cap. viii, sect. i, ii, p. 766. De Bell. Judaic. lib. i, cap. xxxiii, sect. xxiii, p. 139. § Antiq. lib. xv, cap. ix, sect. v, p. 772. || See on this subject Prideaux's Connect. part ii, book v, sub fin.; Basnage's History of the Jews, book ii, chap. xiv. JEWISH ANTIQUITIES. CHAP. I. OF THE TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE. HAVING, in the last book, given an account of the most remarkable civil and ecclesiastical persons, officers, and sects among the Jews, we now proceed to the consideration of the most eminent structures, or places, which were esteemed sacred, or held in high veneration amongst them. On this head, Godwin treats first of the tabernacle and temple, though indeed but imperfectly, especially of the former; on the description of whose structure and sumptuous furniture Moses has bestowed almost as many pages as he has lines on his account of the creation of the world; no doubt because the tabernacle was a designed emblem of the blessings of the new creation, which far excelled those of the old; or, as the apostle styles it, was "a figure for the time then present," Heb. ix, 8, 9. We have an account of three public tabernacles before the building of Solomon's temple: venatah The first, which Moses erected for himself, lo, Exod. xxxiii, 7; and this the Septuagint calls Ty σunvnv auT8. In this tabernacle he gave audience, heard causes, and inquired of God; and perhaps, also, the public offices of religious worship were performed in it for some time, and therefore Moses styled it the tabernacle of the congregation. The second tabernacle was that which Moses built for God, by his express command, partly to be a palace of his presence as the king of Israel, chap. xl, 34, 35, and partly to be the medium of the most solemn public worship, which the people were to pay to him, ver. 26-29. This tabernacle was erected on the first day of the first month of the second year of the Israelites' migration out of Egypt, ver. 2, 17. The third public tabernacle was that which David erected in his own city for the reception of the ark, when he received it from the house of Obededom, 2 Sam. vi, 17; 1 Chron. xvi, 1. It is the second of these tabernacles we are now to treat of, called the tabernacle xar' son, by way of distinction and eminence. It was a moveable chapel, so contrived as to be taken to pieces and put together at pleasure, for the convenience of carrying it from place to place, during the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. The learned Spencer has fetched this tabernacle, with all its furniture and appurtenances, from Egypt; suggesting, that Moses projected it after the fashion of some such structure, which he had observed in that country, and which was in use among other nations; or at least that God directed it to be made with a view of indulging the Israelites in a compliance with their customs and modes of worship, so far as there was nothing in them directly sinful. And he quotes both sacred and profane writers to prove, that the heathens had such portable temples, in which they deposited the most valuable sacred or religious utensils. Such a temple or tabernacle we read of in the prophecy of Amos: "Ye have borne the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves,” Amos v, 26. It is indeed past dispute that the heathens had such tabernacles, as well as many other things, very like those of the Jews; but that they had them before the Jews, and especially that God condescended so far to the humour of the Israelites as to introduce them into his own worship, is neither proved, nor is it probable. It is more likely, that the heathens took these things from the Jews, who had the whole of their religion immediately from God, than that the Jews, or rather that God, should take them from the heathens. Besides, this account of the origin of the Jewish tabernacle and its furniture evidently thwarts the account which the apostle gives of the typical design and use of them, in the ninth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. And further, supposing those heathen tabernacles to * De Legibus Hebr. dissert. i. |