JEROBOAM king, who reigned wickedly, and

committed all the sins of Rehoboam.

NADAB, the son of Jeroboam, succeeded to the throne; he was a very bad prince, and was slain by Baasha.

BAASHA, a wicked prince.

ELAH, murdered by Zimri.

ZIMRI, a bad king.

OMRI, more wicked than Zimri.

AHAB, very cruel and sinful.

АHAZIAH, idolatrous and cruel.

JEHORAM, or JORAM, cruel and unfortunate.

JEHU, tyrannical and cruel.

JEHOAHAZ, a wicked idolater.

JEHOASH, or JOлsн, a bad king.

JEROBOAM II., an idolatrous prince.

ZACHARIAH, very wicked.

SHALLUM, a murderer.

MENAHEM, a wicked king.

PEKAHIAH, a bad prince.

PEKAH, very wicked.

FIRST CAPTIVITY, 2 Kings, xv. 29.—Interreg

num.

HOSHEA. He revolted from the king of Assyria.

SECOND CAPTIVITY, 2 Kings, xvii. 5, 6.

THIRD CAPTIVITY, 2 Kings, xviii. 9-12.

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE

PHARISEES, SADDUCEES, AND ESSENES,

JEWISH SECTS

THAT PREVAILED WHEN THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN.

EXTRACTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES.

BY F. J. POST.

"KNOWLEDGE IS POWER."

ISLINGTON, 1830.

2 mo. 22d.-THE PHARISEES were a sect among the Jews that had subsisted for nearly a century and a half before the coming of our Saviour, but the exact time of their first appearance cannot be ascertained. They affected the most profound regard to the law of God, but mixed with it the traditions of the Fathers, and used them as the interpreters of the Scriptures. They maintained that God had chosen the Hebrews out of all the nations of the earth, as his own peculiar people, and had bound himself to them by an everlasting covenant, which was unchangeable;

that Moses was the ambassador of God; and that the law was of Divine origin. They looked upon themselves as acceptable to God, not so much from their moral conduct, as their conformity to certain modes of mere human invention, introduced among them under pretence of their being the custom of the elders, i.e. ancients. They believed in fate moderated by free-will, or rather by Providence, who guides it. Their attachment to oral tradition was the cause of their strictness about the Sabbath, which their superstition carried so far, that they deemed it unlawful on that day to walk in the fields, to pluck the ears of corn, to heal the sick, or to aid their neighbours. Hence, also, their pretended peculiar zeal and purity, in the demureness with which they fasted, the exactness with which they paid their tithes, the ostentation with which they prayed, performing that duty not only aloud, but in the most public turnings of the streets, their frequent washings and ablutions, their unwearied endeavours to make converts to their religion, and lastly, their separating themselves from those not of their sect, their name being derived from the Hebrew verb o, phares, to divide. They held the soul

to be immortal, and had some slight knowledge of a resurrection, believing that the soul might again occupy the same body. This gave rise to their conjecture that Christ was either John the Baptist, or Elias, or one of the old prophets; and notwithstanding the violence with which they opposed the personal ministry of Jesus, yet in aftertimes they fell in with his revelation more than any other Jewish sect. The doctrines which they maintained were good at the bottom, but mixed with many superstitions.

The SADDUCEES fell greatly short of the Pharisees, both in number and influence. Their leading tenet was, that they denied the resurrection of the dead, believing that all our joys and pleasures end with our present life. According to themselves, their name was derived from py, zedek, the Hebrew word signifying justice; but the Pharisees and Talmud say, that their name was derived from a teacher of the Jews named Sadoc. The following is their origin, according to Brucker:-" Antigonus Sochæus, a native of Socho on the borders of Judea, who flourished in the time of Eleazer the high-priest, or about 300 years B.C., and was a pupil of Simeon the

Just, offended at the innovations introduced by the patrons of the traditionary institutions, and particularly at the pretensions which were made to meritorious works of supererogation -by means of which men hoped to entitle themselves to extraordinary temporal rewards — he maintained and taught that men ought to serve God, not as slaves for hire, but from a pure and disinterested motive of piety. This refined doctrine — which Antigonus only opposed to the expectation of a temporal recompense for works of religion and charity—his followers misrepresented, and extended to the rewards of a future life. Sadoc and Bathiezas, two of his disciples, taught that no future recompenses were to be expected, and consequently that there would be no resurrection of the dead. This doctrine they taught to their followers, and hence arose, about 200 years B.C., the sect of the Baithosoci or Sadducees. These appellations, derived from the names of the founders of the sects, seem to have been first used promiscuously, but by degrees the former fell into disuse, which accounts for the silence of the Sacred History and of Josephus concerning the Baithosoci." They