in mind upon all occasions. And if St.
John, who was contemporary with Josephus, and of the same country, made
use of this style, when he says that "Caiaphas being high priest that
year, prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not for that
nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children
of God that were scattered abroad," chap. 11;51, 52, he may possibly
mean, that this was revealed to the high priest by an extraordinary
voice from between the cherubims, when he had his breastplate, or Urim
and Thummim, on before; or the most holy place of the temple, which was
no other than the oracle of Urim and Thummim. Of which above, in the
note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9.

[11] This great number of seventy-two reguli, or small kings, over whom
Adonibezek had tyrannized, and for which he was punished according to
the lex talionis, as well as the thirty-one kings of Canaan subdued by
Joshua, and named in one chapter, Joshua 12., and thirty-two kings, or
royal auxiliaries to Benhadad king of Syria, 1 Kings 20:1; Antiq. B.
VIII. ch. 14. sect. 1, intimate to us what was the ancient form of
government among several nations before the monarchies began, viz. that
every city or large town, with its neighboring villages, was a distinct
government by itself; which is the more remarkable, because this was
certainly the form of ecclesiastical government that was settled by the
apostles, and preserved throughout the Christian church in the first
ages of Christianity. Mr. Addison is of opinion, that "it would
certainly be for the good of mankind to have all the mighty empires
and monarchies of the world cantoned out into petty states and
principalities, which, like so many large families, might lie under the
observation of their proper governors, so that the care of the prince
might extend itself to every individual person under his protection;
though he despairs of such a scheme being brought about, and thinks that
if it were, it would quickly be destroyed." Remarks on Italy, 4to, p.
151. Nor is it unfit to be observed here, that the Armenian records,
though they give us the history of thirty-nine of their ancientest
heroes or governors after the Flood, before the days of Sardanapalus,
had no proper king till the fortieth, Parerus. See Moses Chorehensis,
p. 55. And that Almighty God does not approve of such absolute and
tyrannical monarchies, any one may learn that reads Deuteronomy
17:14-20, and 1 S