Jewish antiquities Author:David Jennings Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: dwelt at Jerusalem," and are mentioned in the Acts, chap. ii. 5. But these devout men are expressly said to be Jews; that is, Jews by religion, not by nation; fo... more »r they belonged to several nations. And though they are afterward distinguished into Jews and proselytes, ver. 10, that doubtless means such as were born of Jewish parents, though in a foreign country, and who had been brought up in their religion; or such as were born of Gentile parents, and had become proselytes to it. Besides, there is the same reason against acknowledging them to be proselytes of the gate, as there is against acknowledging Cornelius and the eunuch to be such; namely, that the Jews were at that time subject to the Roman power. Upon the whole, there does not appear to be sufficient evidence in the Scripture history of the existence of such proselytes of the gate as the rabbies mention; nor indeed of any who with propriety can be styled proselytes, except such as fully embraced the Jewish religion . CHAPTER IV. OF THEIR KINGS. The alteration made in the form of the Hebrewconstitution, which originally was a proper Theocracy, by setting up the regal government, hath been already considered. As it was plainly an act of rebellion against God to make any change in his original settlement, the Jews are therefore charged with " rejecting him, that he should not reign over them, when they desired to have a king to judge them like all the nations;" 1 Sam. viii. 5,6, 7. Nevertheless, as he permitted divorces, " because of the hardness of their hearts," Matt. xix. 8, in like manner, foreseeing the perverse disposition they would have, after their settlement in Canaan, to such an alteration, he was pleased to give them some rules beforehand, concerning their choice of a king, and the manner of his admini...« less