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have early and unguardedly formed. Do not lament the wick edness of the times, and complain that your children are ruined; but think, what have you done for them? You have neglected to call into your aid, in the government of them, that most powerful of principles, the early fear of God. Could they fail to feel a powerful reverence for the name of God, if they had been daily witnesses of domestic worship? You are shocked with their profaneness-Think where they first learned it, and where they might first have been guarded against it. Do you complain of their ingratitude, their irrever. ence for your advice and correction? Ah! they have not been taught their duty to the Great First Parent! Do you complain of the negligence and unfaithfulness of servants? How should it be otherwise, when so little care is taken to sanction and enforce, with the sense of religion, the sentiment of fidelity? Where are the domestics who are accustomed to hear in the families in which they live these injunctions of the apostles?"Servants, be obedient unto your masters in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord, and

not to men."

There is also another consideration, which powerfully enforces this most interesting duty; and this is that it will prepare your children and domestics for the public services of the sanctuary. Little benefit comparative

ly can be derived from the instruction, which is attempted to be conveyed from the pulpit, if some provision of religious rudiments and of serious impressions has not been made at home. They hear the preacher; but, without any thing to guide their thoughts, the services are to them a mere show, which engages their eyes, or sounds which strike their ears: If they have not been trained up in habits of devotion, accustomed to serious deportment at prayer, and instructed in the scriptures and the elements of christianity else where, can you expect them to enter with pleasure and interest into the service of the house of God?

I confess, when I look at the awful strides, which, from the circumstances in which we have been placed, vice, fraud, and general unprincipledness have made and will continue to make among us, my heart sometimes sinks within me. Where then, ye patriots, ye lovers of your country, who tremble for her safetywhere can a check be placed to this increase of corruption, if it be not placed at home? The force of moral principle can never be preserved, if lost, or restored, but by the aid of religion; and if the little domestic societies, of which every community is composed, are not first well princi pled, the day of reformation is removed to an indefinite distance, and the day of evil is not far off. It is in your houses, and not in a larger association, that you can form nurseries of good men and good citizens. These are the fountains, into which the salt must be cast, or the streams, which

issue from them, will yet flow corrupting and corrupted, and every year will swell this dead sea with new pollution, till it spreads pestilence over our country, and overwhelms the city of our God.

Some, however, who do not feel for their country, may yet feel for themselves. To such I would say religion is the great business of our lives, and these

lives are short and precarious. This is our day, in which we are exhorted to mind the things which belong to our peace, before they are hidden from our eyes forever. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom," and this fear will not cease to be our truest wisdom, when the maxims and the fashions of the present age shall have vanished like a dream. B.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

THE holy scriptures, in all which concerns our salvation, are sufficiently level with the understandings of men in general,so that no one who inquires with a humble, devout, and diligent mind, and faithfully follows the guidance of the light which God will give him, will be exposed to any errors, endangering his final and eternal interests. In our researches for divine truth, the grand inquiries therefore should be, have Ithe humble, devout, and diligent mind, which becomes a disciple of Christ? Am I sincerely disposed to receive the instruction which he communicates, and to bring my will, and affections, and conduct, into entire obedience to his commands?" So seek, and you will find. So knock, and it will be opened to you."

But every one, who is accustomed to read the scriptures, is aware, that they contain names of sects and offices, of which it is desirable to know more, than the sacred writers have informed us; -that there are in them many references to sentiments and customs, which were perfectly in

telligible in the times in which they were made, but are now necessarily obscure to those, who have no source of information concerning them, but the scriptures. The influence, which established sentiments and customs have upon modes of thought and of expression, is well known to those who have traced phraseol ogies and opinions to their sources; and it is universal. Indeed so many examples of this influence might easily be exposed in our common conversation, that no one who knows any thing of the nature of language, will for a moment consider the obscurity, which is occasioned by such references, as an objection to the scriptures. It would have required many volumes, in addition to the Bible, to have given such an account of every name, and such an illustration of every slight reference which it contains, as would have conveyed all the knowledge, which many readers in common life would gladly have possessed. But happily, we have volumes, which contain the information which we want;

and

though they are not accessible to all christians, much labor is not demanded, either to acquire, or to communicate it.-Confining our attention, in these numbers, to the New Testament, we intend, under the title below, to give to our readers a series of these i Justrations.

The object of these numbers is, first, to excite attention to the gospels; and second, to assist those who love the word of God, and are endeavouring better to understand it. We are persuaded that this department of our miscellany will be interesting to many, who read the New Testa ment with care and seriousness, but who have neither the leisure nor books, which are requisite, for a regular and minute investigation; and we cannot but hope that, by the momentary gratification of curiosity, which in some instances we may give to others, they may be induced to read the records of our religion, which they have neglected; and that in the pursuit, to which they are thus prompted, of the most valuable Knowledge, they may catch the spirit of their Master, and be come in truth his disciples.

To each illustration, we shall attach the authorities from which we have derived it; and we shall follow the order of texts, as they are arranged by Lightfoot.

Illustrations of passages in the New Testament, which refer to climate, places, offices, senti ments, manners, and customs among the Jews in the time of our Saviour.

great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb."

The words which we have print ed in italics indicate, that John was to be a Nazarite from his birth. But what is a Nazarite?

but

The name was derived from the Hebrew verb nazar; that is, he was separated. It was first applied to Joseph, who was separated from his brethren; though it had no such meaning in its application to him, it was af terwards used to imply a peculiar separation and devotedness to God; and on that account was applied to the Nazarites. A Nazarite was separated by a profession of holiness, beyond the common prescription of the law; and he who made this profession, and practised the purity to which it bound him, was ranked with the high priest, and was suppos ed to possess the highest sanctity of character. There were however two sorts of Nazarites. Those, who in their infancy, or before their birth, were devoted to God by their parents. 2. Those who devoted themselves. The first were always Nazarites for life. The second, only for a limited time. The rabbies say, that the shortest term, for which this vow of separation could be made, was thirty days.

1.

The Nazarites, who volunta» rily separated themselves to God, when the days of their vow were fulfilled, shaved their heads at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burnt their hair in the fire under the sacriLuke i. 15. "He shall be called fice of the peace offerings. Hence

1.

probably, the Gentiles obtained the custom of sacrificing their hair to their gods; a custom which Lucian represents as common, and with which he himself complied. Suetonius says also, that Nero cut off his first beard, and put it into a golden box set with jewels, and consecrated it to Jupiter Capitolinus. Apollo is called in Homer "the nourisher of hair," and schylus speaks also of hair, which had been nourished and consecrated.

"The law of the Nazarites " may be read in the sixth chapter of Numbers. But a remarkable passage concerning this class of Jews occurs in the book of Amos. "I raised up of your sons for prophets," said God," and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, prophesy not." [See chap. ii. 11, 12,] These expressions indicate, that the Nazarites enjoyed no small degree of the favor of God. The interdiction concerning wine was more strict upon them, even than upon the priests, for they were forbidden to taste any thing that came of the vine tree, from the kernel, even to the husk." It was probably from this prohibition, that the Jewish doctors derive the opinion, which they assert without the least hesitation, that the vine was the tree in Paradise, by tasting the fruit of which Adam disobeyed and fell.

But three instances of Nazarites from their birth are named in the scriptures Sampson, Samuel, and John the Baptist.

The habit, worn by a Nazarite during his separation, was a garment of hair. Such an one was worn by John, and by Elijah before him; and Grotius thinks it not unworthy of remark, that he who came in the spirit and power of Elias, and who was called Elias by the prophets, should resemble his prototype in his dress.

So high was the estimation which the Jews had of those who were separated to God as Nazarites, that they were considered, says Maimonides, as possessing for the time the sanctity of the high priest; the purpose of their separation being, their closer attention to the study of the law and the other exercises of relig ion. In this sentiment of the Jews, we find perhaps the best illustration of the words of our Lord in Matthew xi. 18 and 19. "John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he hath a devil. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold a man gluttonous, and a wine bibber a friend of publicans and sinners." At least his re

proach, in this application of it, has great force. In reference to their sentiments of the holiness of a Nazarite, he reminds them that John, the promised Elias whom they had rejected, was a Nazarite from his birth. But to intimate at the same time the divine benignity of his own dispensation, and the greater freedom to which the gospel admitted its believers, he told them that the Son of Man came eating and drinking-he ate and drank with publicans and sinners. [See Jenning's Jew. Antiq. v. i. p. 415,

and seq. Lewis' Orig. Heb. B. 2. chap. xix. Lightfoot's Hor. Heb. in text. Grotius in Matth. iii. 4.]

2.

Matthew i. 18. "Mary was espoused to Joseph."

Before the giving of the law, says Maimonides, if a man and a woman agreed to marry, he introduced her into his house, and she became his wife:-but after the giving of the law, it was a precept in Israel, when a man would marry a woman, that he should receive her before witnesses, and afterwards that she should become his wife. This reception of a woman, with an intention and agreement of marrying her on a future day, was called an espousal; and not only was it customary, in many places, for a man to espouse a woman for a considerable time before he intended to marry her; but espousals even of their young children were not unfrequently made by parents. Lightfoot's Hor. Heb. in Matth. i. 18. and Calmet's Dict. on the word marriage.

A 3.

Luke i. 63. "He asked for a writing table."

Not for a "writing table," but for a tablet. The ancient tablets were made of wood, of brass, or of ivory. They were square, or oblong, with a hole either on one side, or at one end, by which they might be suspended against the side of a room. Children were taught to read and to write upon them; and they appear to have been used as registers of domestic expenses, &c. The sort of tablet, for which Zacharias asked, was made of pine, from which it derived its name, and was cov

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Luke ii. 7. "She brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn."

The place which is here called an inn, is called by travellers in the east, a 66 caravansary;" some of which are simply places of rest, (by the side of a fountain if possible ;) and being at proper distances to accommodate travellers, are so named, though they be merely naked walls.--Others have an attendant, who is supported by the benevolence of passengers--and others more considerable establishments, where families reside, and where travellers may be supplied with provisions. Of this sort, without doubt, was that of Bethlehem.— Just behind these caravansaries, says Tavernier, are the stables, where

are

the lodgings are many times as comfortable, as in the chambers of the house; and some, on account of their warmth, prefer them in winter.-The manager of the caravansary of Bethlehem was probably well known to the shepherds, and was therefore as accessible by night, as by day. [See Taylor's Frag. 1st hundred, p.45.and 3d hundred, p. 160.

5.

Luke ii. 8. "There were in the same country shepherds, abid

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