Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

after its import has been ascertained, may beneficially be summed up or comprised in very brief prayers or ejaculations.

The advantage resulting from this simple method has been proved by many who have recommended it. If we pray over the substance of Scripture, with our Bible before us, it may impress the memory and heart the more deeply. Should any references to the Scriptures be required, in confirmation of this statement, we would briefly notice that the following passages, among many others which might be cited, will, by addressing them to God, and, by a slight change also in the person, become admirable petitions for divine teaching; viz. Col. i. 9, 10. Eph. i. 17, 18, 19.-1 Pet. ii. 1, 2. The hundred and nineteenth Psalm contains numerous similar passages.

8. In the practical reading of the Scriptures, all things are not to be applied at once, but gradually and successively; and this application must be made, not so much with the view of supplying us with materials for talking, as with matter for practice.

Finally, this practical reading and application must be diligently continued through life; and we may, with the assistance of divine grace, reasonably hope for success in it, if to reading we add constant prayer and meditation on what we have read. With these we are further to conjoin a perpetual comparison of the sacred writings: daily observation of what takes place in ourselves, as well as what we learn from the experience of others; a strict and vigilant self-examination; together with frequent conversation with men of learning and piety, who have made greater progress in saving knowledge; and, lastly, the diligent cultivation of internal peace.

Other observations might be offered: but the preceding hints, if duly considered and acted upon, will make us "neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. i. 8.) And if, to some of his readers, the author should appear to have dilated too much on so obvious a topic, its importance must be his apology. Whatever relates to the confirmation of our faith, the improvement of our morals, or the elevation of our affections, ought not to be treated lightly or with indifference.

L

218

PART III.

A COMPENDIUM OF BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY AND

ANTIQUITIES.

BOOK I.-A SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.

[merged small][merged small][graphic]

Grotto at Nazareth, said to have been the House of Joseph and Mary. THIS country has in different ages been called by various NAMES, which have been derived either from its inhabitants, or from the extraordinary circumstances attached to it. Thus, in Jer. iv. 20. it is termed generally the land:

and hence, both in the Old and New Testament, the original word, which is sometimes rendered earth, land, or country, is by the context in many places determined to mean the promised land of Israel; as in Josh. ii. 3. Matt. v. 5. and Luke iv. 25. But the country occupied by the Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews, is in the sacred volume more particularly called,

1. The Land of Canaan, from Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, and grandson of Noah, who settled here after the confusion of Babel, and divided the country among his eleven children. (Gen. xi. 15. et seq.)

2. The Land of Promise (Heb. xi. 9.), from the promise made by Jehovah to Abraham, that his posterity should possess it (Gen. xii. 7. and xiii. 15.); who being termed Hebrews, this region was thence called the Land of the Hebrews. (Gen. xl. 15.)

3. The Land of Israel, from the Israelites, or posterity of Jacob, having settled themselves there. This name is of most frequent occurrence in the Old Testament: it is also to be found in the New Testament (as in Matt. ii. 20, 21.) Within this extent lay all the provinces or countries visited by Jesus Christ, except Egypt, and consequently almost all the places mentioned or referred to in the four Gospels. After the separation of the ten tribes, that portion of the land which belonged to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who formed a separate kingdom, was distinguished by the appellation of Judæa, or the land of Judah (Psal. lxxvi. 1.); which name the whole country retained during the existence of the second temple, and under the dominion of the Romans.

4. The Holy Land, which appellation is to this day conferred on it by all Christians, as having been hallowed by the presence, actions, miracles, discourses, and sufferings of Jesus Christ. This name is also to be found in the Old Testament (Zech. ii. 12.), and in the Apocryphal books of Wisdom (xii. 3.), and 2 Maccabees (i. 7.). The whole world was divided by the antient Jews into two

general parts, the land of Israel and the land out of Israel, that is, all the countries inhabited by the nations of the world, or the Gentiles: to this distinction there seems to be an allusion in Matt. vi. 32. All the rest of the world, together with its inhabitants (Judæa excepted), was accounted as profane, polluted, and unclean (see Isa. xxxv. 8. lii. 1. with Joel iii. 17. Amos vii. 7. and Acts x. 1.); but, though the whole land of Israel was regarded as holy, as being the place consecrated to the worship of God, and the inheritance of his people, whence they are collectively styled saints and a holy nation or people, (in Exod. xix. 6. Deut. vii. 6. xiv. 2. xxvi. 19. xxxiii. 3. 2 Chron. vi. 41. Psal. xxxiv. 9. 1. 5. 7. lxxix. 2. and cxlviii. 4.) yet the Jews imagined particular parts to be vested with more than ordinary sanctity, according to their respective situations. Thus the parts situated beyond Jordan were considered to be less holy than those on this side: walled towns were supposed to be more clean and holy than other places, because no lepers were admissible into them, and the dead were not allowed to be buried there. Even the very dust of the land of Israel was reputed to possess such a peculiar degree of sanctity, that when the Jews returned from any heathen country, they stopped at its borders, and wiped the dust of it from their shoes, lest the sacred inheritance should be polluted with it: nor would they suffer even herbs to be brought to them from the ground of their Gentile neighbours, lest they should bring any of the mould with them, and thus defile their pure land. To this notion, our Lord unquestionably alluded when he commanded his disciples to shake off the dust of their feet, (Matt. x. 14.) on returning from any house or city that would neither receive nor hear them; thereby intimating to them, that when the Jews had rejected the Gospel, they were no longer to be regarded as the people of God, but were on a level with heathens and idolaters.

5. The appellation of Palestine, by which the whole

land appears to have been called in the days of Moses, (Exod. xv. 14.) is derived from the Philistines, a people who migrated from Egypt, and having expelled the aboriginal inhabitants, settled on the borders of the Mediterranean: where they became so considerable as to give their name to the whole country, though they in fact possessed only a small part of it. The Philistines were for a long time the most formidable enemies of the children of Israel; but about the year of the world 3841, (B. C. 159.) the illustrious Judas Maccabæus subdued their country; and about sixty-five years afterwards Jannæus burnt their city Gaza, and incorporated the remnant of the Philistines with such Jews as he placed in their country.

The BOUNDARIES of the land promised to Abraham are, in Gen. xv. 18., stated to be from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. Of this tract, however, the Israelites were not immediately put in possession and although the limits of their territories were extended under the reigns of David and Solomon (2 Sam. viii. 3. et seq. 2 Chron. ix. 26.), yet they did not always retain that tract. It lies far within the temperate zone, and between 31 and 33 degrees of north latitude, and was bounded on the west by the Mediterranean or Great Sea, as it is often called in the Scriptures; on the east by Arabia; on the south by the river of Egypt (or the river Nile, whose eastern branch was reckoned the boundary of Egypt, towards the great desert of Shur, which lies between Egypt and Palestine,) and by the Desert of Sin or Beersheba, the southern shore of the Dead Sea, and the river Arnon; and on the north by the chain of mountains termed Antilibanus, near which stood the city of Dan: hence in the sacred writings we frequently meet with the expression, "from Dan to Beersheba," to denote the whole length of the land of Israel.

The land of Canaan, previously to its occupation by the Israelites, was possessed by the descendants of Canaan,

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »