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nagements peculiar, in a manner, to the Egyptians.

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Bifhop Patrick, in his commentary on this paslage, takes notice of thefe Egyptian coffins of fycamore-wood and of pufieboard; but he doth not mention the contrary ufage in the neighbouring countries, which was requifite, one might fuppofe, in order fully to illuftrate the place: but even this, perhaps, would not have conveyed the whole idea of the facred author, Maillet apprehends, that all were not inclofed in coffins, who were laid in the Egyptian repofitories of the dead, but that it was an honour appropriated to perfons of figure; for, after having given an account of feveral niches found in thole chambers of death, he adds, (Let. vii. p. 281.) But it must not be imagined that the bodies depofited in thefe gloomy apartments were all inclofed in chefis, and placed in niches. The greateft part were fimply embalmed and Twathed, after that manner which every one hath fome notion of; after which they laid them one by the fide of another without any ceremony. Some were even put in to these tombs without any embalming at all; or fuch a flight one, that there remains nothing of them in the linen in which they were wrapped, but the bones, and thofe half rotten. It is probable, that each confiderable family had one of these burial places to themfelves; that the niches were defigned for the bodies of the heads of the family, and that thofe of their domestics and flaves, had no other care taken of them, than the laying them on the ground, after having been embalmed, or even

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without that; which, without doubt, was alfo all that was done, even to the heads of families of lefs diftinction." After this he gives an account of a way of bu rial, practifed anciently in that country, which had been but late difcovered, and which confifted in placing the bodies after they were fwathed up, on a layer of charcoal, and covering them with a mat, under a depth of fand of feven or eight feet.

That coffins then were not univerfally ufed in Egypt, is undoubted from thefe accounts, and, probably, they were only perfons of diftinction who were buried in them. It is alfo reafonable to believe, that in times fo remote as thofe of Jofeph, they might be much lefs common then afterwards, and, confequently, that Jofeph's being put into a coffin in Egypt might be mentioned with a defign to exprefs the great honours which the Egyptians did him in death, as well as in life, being interred after the moft fumptuous manner of the Egpytians, embalmed, and put in a coffin. Agreeably to this, the Septuagint verfion, which was made for Egyptians, feems to reprefent coffins as a mark of grandeur, Job xxi. 32.

It is no objection to this account, that the widow of Nain's fon is reprefented as carried forth to be buried in a Σopos, [foros], or on a bier; for the prefent inhabitants of the Levant, who are well known to lay their dead bodies in the earth uninclofed, carry them frequently out to burial in a kind of coffin. So Dr. Ruffel in particular defcribes the bier used for the Turks at Aleppo, as a kind of cof

fit, much in the form of ours, only that the lid rifes with a ledge in the middle. Chriftians, indeed, as he tells us, are carried to the grave on an open bier but as the most common kind of bier there very much refembles our coffins, that used by the people of Nain might very poflibly be of the fame kind; in which cafe the word Eopos was very proper.

If the ufe of a coffin in burial was doing a particular honour to the dead, the embalming their bodies certainly was. The late Dr. Ward, in the differtations publifhed foon after his death, fuppofes the Jewith method of embalming to have been very different from the Egyptian, and that this is evident from feveral paffages of the New Teftament; but inftead of the Egyptian embowelling, he prefumes, that the Jews contented themfelves with an external unction; and that, instead of myrrh and caffia, they made ufe of myrrh and aloes; to which he adds a conjecture, that St. John might mention the circumftance of our Lord's embalming, the better to obviate the falfe report which then prevailed among the Jews, that the body of our Lord had been ftolen away in the night by his difciples; for the linen, he fuppofes, could not have been taken from the body and head, in the manner in which it was found in the fepulchre, on account of its clinging fo faft, from the vifcous nature of thefe drugs, had they been fo foolish as tó attempt it.

The modern eaftern method of

applying odours to the dead, cer tainly differs from that which was anciently made ufe of in that country. The prefent way in Egypt, according to Maillet, is to wafh the body divers times with rofewater, which, he elsewhere obferves, is there much more fragrant than with us; they afterwards perfume it with incenfe, aloes, and a quantity of other odours, of which they are by no means fparing; and then they bury the body in a winding-fheet, made partly of filk, and partly of cotton, and moiftened, as is fuppofed, with fome fweet fcented water, or liquid perfume, though Maillet only ufes the fimple term moistened; this they cover with another cloth of unmixed cotton, to which they add one of the richest fuits of cloaths of the deccafed. The expence, he fays, on thefe occafions, is very great, though nothing like what the genuine embalming coft in former times.

The modern Egyptian way of embalming them, if it may be called by that name, differs very much from the ancient. Whether the Jewish method in the time of our Lord, differed as much, or how far, is not fo well known. Το pals by the difference which Dr. Ward has remarked betwixt the. drugs, (the Egyptians uling. myrrh and caffina, and the Jews myrrh and aloes), which might be only in appearance, fince more. than two forts might be ufed by both nations, though thefe only. happened to be diftinctly mentioned, it doth not appear fo plain-to

See Dr. Ruffel's natural hiftory of Aleppo, p. 115, 130. † Letter X. p. 88.

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me as to the Doctor, that the Jews were not wont to embowel their dead in embalming. Their hope of a refurrection did not neceffarily prevent this; and as all other nations feem to have embalmed exactly according to the Egyptian manner, the fame caufes, which induced them to do fo, probably occafioned the Jews not to vary from them in this refpect. Thus, the accurate editor of the ruins of Palmyra, (p. 22.) tells us, they difcovered that the inhabitants of that city used to embalm their dead, and that upon comparing the linen, the manner of fwathing, the balfam, and other parts of the mummies of Egypt, (in which country they had been a few months be fore), with thofe of Palmyra, they found their method of embalming exactly the fame. Zenobia, who had her feat of government in Palmyra, was, as this writer obferves, a native of Egypt, but then he originally remarks that thefe bodies were embalmed before her time, Thus that paffage which the Doctor cites from Tacitus, concerning Poppaa, the wife of Nero, fuppofes, that it was the common ancient cuftom to fill the body with drugs, and not merely apply them externally: Corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos; fed regum ex terorum confuetudine differtum odoribus conditur; that is, "Her body was not confumed by fire, according to the Roman manner, but was buried, after having been ftuffed with odours after the manner of foreign princes;" not, it feems, merely of the Egyptians, but of thole who practifed burying in general.

It doth not however follow from hence that our Lord was embowel

led; though St. John fays he was buried with Spices, as the manner of the Jews was to bury; for thefe words do not neceflarily fignify, that all was done that was wont to be done in those cafes among the Jews. The contrary appears to be fact, from the farther preparations made by the women, who, it is to be fuppofed, were not unacquainted with what had been done, though Dr. Ward prefumes the contrary, fince St. Luke exprefsly tells us, that the women who came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the fepulchre, and how the body was laid.

If this indeed be admitted, the Doctor's thought concerning the difficulty of taking off the bandages, befmeared with very glutinous drugs, will appear to be ill founded; for in that cafe the women could have done nothing more as to the embalming him. That conjecture indeed feems to have made all the impreffion upon the Doctor's mind, which it might be expected the force of novelty would give it; but as aloes and myrrh do not appear to have that glutinous quality which the Doctor fuppofes; fo a much more obvious account may be given of St. John's making mention of a circumftance, about which the other evangelifts are filent. He appears to have publifhed his hiftory for the use of perfons lefs acquainted with the cuftoms of the East, than thofe for whofe information the others more immediately wrote. The Doctor himself has remarked, in his thirty-fecond differtation, that, in giving an account of the death of our Lord, St. John has reckoned the hours after the manner of the Romans; whereas the other evange

evangelifts fpeak according to the Jewish method of computation: the fame reafon that induced him to do that, naturally led him to fay to thofe who were wont to burn their dead, that our Lord was buried with, pices, which was, in general, the Jewish method of difpofing of their dead; which he might very well do, though the ftraitnefs of the time did occafion fome deviation from what they commonly practifed.

This fhortnefs of the time, we may believe, prevented them alfo from fwathing him with that accuracy and length of bandage which they would otherwife have ufed. The Egyptians, we are told, have ufed above a thousand ells of filleting about a body, befides what was wrapped about the head. Thevenot informs us, that he found it the cafe with the mummy, which he examined. See his travels, part p. 137. The Jews, it is reafonable to believe, fwathed them in fomething of the fame manner, which could not have been nicely performed in fuch a hurry as the difciples were then in.

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What Jofeph and Nicodemus did with the mixture of myrrh and aloes, doth not appear. Dr. Lardner, in his treatife on the credibility of the gofpel hiftory, fuppoles that they might poffibly form a bed of fpices. But with refpect to the quantity, which, he tells us, (from Bishop Kidder,) a mo- . dern Jew hath made an objection against the hiftory of the New. Teftament, affirming, that it was enough for two hundred dead bodies; which is faying in other words,

*Book 1. chap. viii. fect. 17. VOL. IX.

that Italf a pound of thefe drugs is fufficient to embalm a fingle body. Refpecting this, I would observe, that our English furgeons require a much larger quantity of drugs for embalming; and, in a receipt which the writer of thefe remarks hath feen of a very eminent one, the weight of the drugs employed, is above one-third of the weight of thofe which Nicodemus brought. Much lefs indeed would be wanted where the body is not embowelled; but even the cerate, or drugs ufed externally in our embalming, is found to be one-third of the weight of the myrrh and aloes brought for embalming our Lord. However, be this as it may, fince, from what. Jofephus obferves of the funeral of Ariftobulus, the aft of the high priefts of the Maccabees, it appears, that "the larger the quantity of the fpices used in their interments, the greater honour was thought to be done to the dead †:" we may hence eafily account for the quantity which Nicodemus brought in general, though we may not be able to tell, with the precifion that could be wifhed, how it was difpofed of. Dr. Lardner does not appear to have mentioned this paffage; but it entirely anfwers the objection of this moderu Jew.

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to be feared, is not fo much, or fo univerfally understood, or fo ferioufly and devoutly practifed, as it ought. This is. "the imploring from God a bleffing upon the good creatures which he fends us to our tables, and returning him our foJemn thanks after our repaft; commonly called, faying grace," God be bleffed, we know the world abounds with fober and pious examples of the conftant obfervation of this reafon ble duty. Indeed the moral reafon of it is very plain and obvious to any one who believes a providence. But the abfolute and pofitive nature of the commands refpecting it, is ftill more coercive, fo as to imply a very heinous fin of omiflion, if it be neglected; this we apprehend will evidently appear from a few confiderations; and therefore it fhall be our endeavour to fhew, that the act of faying grace, both before and after meat, is a special duty, which not only the Chriftian, but the Heathen world alfo, fuppofed incumbent on them, partly by the light of nature, but more exprefsly, and in a stronger manner, by the feveral injunctions fcattered up and down in the facred code. We will firft fpeak of the Hea

thens.

I. Athenæus tells us, in his Deipnofoph. lib. ii. that in the famous regulation made by Amphictyon, king of Athens, with refpect to the ufe of wine, both in facrifices, and at home, he required that the name of JUPITER THE SUSTAINER fhould be decently and reverently pronounced. The fame writer, in lib. iv. p. 149, quotes Hermeias, an author extant in his time, who informs us of a people in Egypt, inhabitants

of the city of Naucratis, whole cuftom it was, on certain occafions, after they had placed themfelves in the ufual posture of eating at the table, to rife again, and kneel; when the pricft, or precentor of the folemnity, began to chaunt a grace, according to a stated form amongst them; and when that was over, they joined in the meal, in a folemn facrificial manner. Heliodorus, if we mistake not, has a paffage in his Ethiopics, to the fame purpose, that it was the cuftom of the Egyptian philofophers to pour out libations and put up ejaculations before they fat down to meals. Porphyry, in his treatife De abfin, lib. iv. p. 408, gives a great character of the Samnean gymnofophifts in Egypt, for the ftrictness of their life: as one article in their favour, he obferves, that at the founding of a bell before their meals, which confifted only of rice, bread, fruit, and herbs, they went to prayers: which ended, and not before, the bell founded again, and they fat down to eating. In general, doubtlefs, this was a religious ufage or rite amongst the ancient Greeks, and derived from yet older ages, if a perfon of fuch eminence in learning and integrity as Clement of Alexandria, rightly informs us; who mentions, that thofe people, when they met together to refresh themselves with the

juice of the grape, fung a piece of mufic, in imitation of the Hebrew pfalms, which they called a fcholion. Livy, lib. xxxix. fpeaks of it as a fettled cuftom amongst the old Romans, that they offered facrifice and prayer to the gods, at their meals and compotations. But one of the fulleft teftimonies

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