OR AN ILLUSTRATIONFW JERSEY OF THE().LEGE LIBRAR SACRED SCRIPTURES, BY AN EXPLANATORY APPLICATION OF THE CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THE EASTERN NATIONS, AND ESPECIALLY THE JEWS, THEREIN ALLUDED TO. TOGETHER WITH OBSERVATIONS ON MANY DIFFICULT AND OBSCURE TEXTS, COLLECTED FROM THE MOST CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS, AND THE MOST EMINENT CRITICS. BY SAMUEL BURDER. An obsolete custom, or some forgotten circumstance, opportunely adverted to, will some- BISHOP LOWTH. Philadelphia: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM W. WOODWARD, No. 52, PREFACE. O UR estimation of the holy scriptures should be proportionable to their importance and excellence. That ignorance of spiritual things, which is so natural to all men, demonstrates their necessity; and the happy influence which they have upon the mind in seasons of adversity and distress, proves their value and utility. They are admirably adapted to our circumstances, as they present us with a complete system of truth and a perfect rule of conduct, and thus make those who properly understand them wise unto salvation. But whatever relates either to faith or to practice, was delivered in ages very distant from the present, in places very remote from the spot which we inhabit, and by persons of habits and manners materially different from those with which we are familiar. General and permanently established usages, to which persons conformed themselves from early infancy, must have had a strong hold of the mind, and would greatly influence the turn 78221-cop. 2 |