oses) gave us the law, the most
excellent of all institutions; nor did he appoint that it should be
heard once only, or twice, or often, but that, laying aside all other
works, we should meet together every week to hear it read, and gain a
perfect understanding of it."

XXX. [p. 465.] Acts xxi. 23. "We have four men which have a vow on them;
them take, and purify thyself with them that they may shave their
heads."

Joseph. de Bell. 1. xi. c. 15. "It is customary for those who have been
afflicted with some distemper, or have laboured under any other
difficulties, to make a vow thirty days before they offer sacrifices, to
abstain from wine, and shave the hair of their heads."

Ib. v. 24. "Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges
with them, that they may shave their heads."

Joseph. Antiq. 1. xix. c. 6. "He (Herod Agrippa) coming to Jerusalem,
offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving, and omitted nothing that was
prescribed by the law. For which reason he also ordered a good number of
Nazarites to be shaved." We here find that it was an act of piety
amongst the Jews to defray for those who were under the Nazaritic vow
the expenses which attended its completion; and that the phrase was,
"that they might be saved." The custom and the expression are both
remarkable, and both in close conformity with the Scripture account.

XXXI. [p. 474.] 2 Cor. xi. 24. "Of the Jews, five times received I forty
stripes save one."

Joseph. Antiq. iv. c. 8, sect. 21. "He that acts contrary hereto let him
receive forty stripes, wanting one, from the officer."

The coincidence here is singular, because the law allowed forty
stripes:--"Forty stripes he may give him and not exceed." Deut. xxv. 3.
It proves that the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was guided
not by books, but by facts; because his statement agrees with the actual
custom, even when that custom deviated from the written law, and from
what he must have learnt by consulting the Jewish code, as set forth in
the Old Testament.

XXXII. [p. 490.] Luke iii. 12. "Then came also publicans to be
baptized." From this quotation, as well as from the history of Levi or
Matthew (Luke v. 29), and of Zaccheus (Luke xix. 2), it appears that the
publicans or tax-gatherers were, frequently at least, if not always,
Jews: which, as the country was then under a Roman government, and the
taxes were paid to the Romans, was a circumstance not to be expected.
That it was the tr