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fcreen in our ancient churches, from which the leffons in 

 the matins and other church offices ufed to be read. It was 

 fo called from the readers or cantors afking the benedidlion 

 of the abbot, dean, or otlicr fuperior, before he began, in 

 the following form : " Ji'.be Domine benediccre." 



JUBILEE, among the Jews, denotes every fiftieth year : 

 being that following the revolution of feven weeks of years ; 

 at which time ali the Haves were made free, and all lands re- 

 verted to their ancient owners. The jubilees were not re- 

 garded after the Babylonifli captivity. 



The word, according to fome authors, comes from the 

 Hebrewyofc/, which fignifies Jifty : but this muft be a mif- 

 take, for the Plebrew ^JtV, joM, does not fignify fifty ; 

 neither do its letters, taken as cyphers, or according to their 

 numei ical power, make that number ; being lo, 6, 2, and 30, 

 that is, 48 Others fay, that joM fignifies 3 ratii, and that 

 the jubilee was thus called becaufe proclaimed with a rair/s 

 horn, in memory of the ram that appeared to Abraham in 

 the thicket. Mafius chcofes to derive the word from Jubal, 

 the firil inventor of mufical inllruments, which, for that rea- 

 fon, were called by his name ; whence the word joiel and 

 jiilii/ic came to fignify the year of deliverance and remiffion, 

 bfcaufe proclaimed with 'he found of oneof thofe inftruments, 

 which at firll was no more than the horn of a ram. Hottinger, 

 v.iih whom Dr. Patrick agrees, is of opiniim, that Joitl is a 

 word invented to imitate the found of the inft rument ; and 

 that it does not fignify the inflrument irfelf, but the found 

 which it made. Others denve jol/el from ^^', jubal, in 

 hi hil S'3P, hoiil, which fignifies to i-ecal or return; be- 

 caufe this year rtltored all Haves to their liberty, &c. The 

 inftituM: n of this feftival is in Lev. xxv. 8. 17. 



The learned are divided about the year of jubilee ; fome 

 maintaining that it was every forty-ninth, and others that it 

 was every fiftieth year. The ground of the former opinion is 

 chiefly this, that the forty-ninth year, being of courfe a 

 fabbatieal year, if the jubilee had been kept on the fiftieth, 

 the land mult have had two fabbaths, or have lain fallow two 

 vears, which, without a miracle, would have produced a 

 dearth. On the otlicr hand it is alleged, that the fcripture 

 cjcpi-efsly declares for the fiftieth year. Lev xxv. 10, n. 

 And befides, if the jubilee and fabbatical year had been th.e 

 fame, there would have been no need of a prohibition to 

 low, reap. Sec. becaufe this kind of labour was prohibited 

 by the law of the fabbaticil year. (Lev. xxv. 4, C-) The 

 authors of the Univerfal Hilory, book i. chap. 7. note R, 

 endeavour to reconcile thefe opinions, by obferving, that 

 as the jubilee began in the firll month of the civil year, which 

 was the feventh of the eccleliailical, it might be faid to be 

 cither the forty-ninth or fiftieth, according as one or other 

 of thefe computations was followed. The political defign 

 of the law of the jubilee, was to prevent the too great op- 

 prefllon of the poor, as well as their being hable to perpetual 

 flavery. By this means the rich were prevented from accu- 

 mulating lands for perpetuity, and a kind of equality was 

 preferved through all the families of Ifrael, and the dif- 

 tinclion of tribes was alfo preferved, in refpeft both to their 

 families and po{feffions, that they might be able, wh?n there 

 was occafion, on the jubilee year, to prove their rigbt to the 

 inheritance of their anceilors. Thus alfo it would be known 

 with certainty of what tribe or family the Mefiiah fprung. 

 It ferved alfo, like the Olympiads of the Greeks, and the 

 Ludraof the Romans, for the readier computation of time. 

 The jubilee has alfo been fuppofed to be typical ^f the gof- 

 pel fiate and difpenfation, dcferibed by Ifaiah, Ixi. ver. 1, 2. 

 in reference to this period, as the " acceptable year of the 

 Lord." 



Some learned men have attempted to prove by a calcula- 



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tion, thought by others to be tolerably exaft, that if the 

 Jews had itill obferved the jubilees, the fifteenth year of Ti- 

 berius, when John the Baptiil firll began to preach, would have 

 been a jubilee, and confequently the laft ; fince fifty yeai'S 

 after, the Jewidi commonwealth was no longer in being. 

 This particular is of fome confequence, if it be well founded, 

 in our controverfy with the Jews, who pretend, that the fon 

 of David will come during the laft jubilee. And this alfo 

 exaftly agrees with the defign of the gofpel, already dated, 

 which R'as to proclaim the grand jubilee, the fpiritual free- 

 dom of the children of God foretold by the prophets Ifaiah 

 and Zechariali, and prefigured by the jubilees of the Jews. 

 Ullier places the firll jubilee, after the promulgation of the 

 law by Mofes, A. M. 2609, B. C. 1395 ; the fecond A. M. 

 2658, B.C. 1346; the third A.M. 2707, B.C. 1297, &c. 

 thus reckoning 49 years from jubilee to jubilee. 



Jubilee, in a more modern fenje, denotes a grand church 

 folemnity, or ceremony, celebrated at Rome, wherein 

 the pope grants a plenary indulgence to all finners ; at leaft 

 to as many as vifit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul at 

 Rome. 



The jubilee was firft eftabhfhcd by Boniface VIII. in 

 1300, in favour of thofc who Ihould go ad linnna apqfiolorum ; 

 and it was only to return every hundred years. But the firil 

 celebration brought in fuch ftore of wealth to Rome, that 

 the Germans called this the golden year ; which occafioned 

 Clement VI. 1350, to reduce the period of the jubilee to 

 fifty years. Urban VI. in 13S9, appointed it to be held 

 every thirty-five years, that being the age of our Saviour ; 

 and Paul II. and Sixtus IV. in 1475, brought it down to 

 every twenty-five, that every perfon might have the benefit 

 of it once in his life. 



Boniface IX. granted the i)rivilege of holding jubilees to 

 feveral princes and nionalleries : for inftance to the monks 

 of Canterbury, who had a jubilee every fifty years ; when 

 people flocked from all parts to vifit the tomb of Thomas 

 a Becket. Jubilees ai"terwards became more frequent, and 

 the pope granted them as often as the church, or himfelf, had 

 occafion for them. There was ufually one at the inaugura- 

 tion of a new pope. 



To be entitled to the privileges of the jubilee, the bull in- 

 joins fadings, alma, and prayers. It gives the prieils a full 

 power to abfolve, in all cafes, even thofe otherwife referved 

 to the pope ; to make commutations of vows, &c. in which 

 it differs from a p/en.Try indulgence. During the time of 

 jubilee, all other indulgences are fufpcnded. 



See an enumeration of the various writers, who liave 

 treated of the inllitution of the Roman jubilee, in the 

 " Bibliogr. Antiq." of Jo. Albert Fabricius ; and the fub- 

 jcft fully dated by the reverend Charles Chais, formerly 

 minifterof the French church at the Hague, in his " Lettres 

 Hifloriques et Dogmatiques fur les Jubilcs et des Indul- 

 gences," publiflied at the Hague in three vols. 8vo. 175 1. 

 Thefe letters contain the mod full and accurate account ttiat 

 has ever been given of the inditution of the jubilee, and of the 

 rife, progrefs, abufes, and enormities of the infamous traffic 

 of indulgences. This account is judicioufly coUedled from 

 the bed authors of antiquity, and from feveral curious re- 

 cords that have efcaped the refearches of other writers : it 

 is alfo interfperfed with curious andfomctimes ludicrous anec- 

 dotes, that render the work amufing as well as indrudlive. 

 In the fiid volume of thefe letters the learned author lays 

 open the nature and origin of the inditution of the jubilee ; 

 he proves it to have been a human invention, which owed its 

 rife to the avarice and ambition of the popes ; and its credit 

 to the ignorance and fuperdition of the people ; the celebra- 

 tion of which, was abfolutely unknown before the thirteenth 

 7 century. 



