THE

MANNERS OF THE ISRAELITES.

PART I.

CHAP. I.

The Design of this Treatise.

THE people, whom God chose to preserve the true religion till the promulgation of the Gospel, are an excellent model of that way of living, which is most conformable to nature. We see in their customs the most rational method of subsisting, employing one's self, and living in society; and from thence may learn not only lessons of morality, but rules for our conduct both in public and in private life.

Yet these customs are so different from our own, that at first sight they offend us. We do not see, among the Israelites, those titles of nobility, that multitude of employments, or diversity of conditions, which are to be found among us. They are only husbandmen and shepherds, all working with their own hands; all married, and

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looking upon a great number of children as the most valuable blessing. The distinction of meats, of clean and unclean animals, with their frequent purifications, seem to us as so many troublesome ceremonies: and their bloody sacrifices quite disgust us. We observe, moreover, that this people were prone to idolatry; and, for that reason, are often reproached in Scripture for their perverseness and hardness of heart, and by the fathers of the church for being stupid and carnally minded. All this, joined to a general prejudice, that what is most antient is always most imperfect, easily influences us to believe, that these men were brutish and ignorant, and that their customs are more worthy of contempt than admiration."

And this is one reason why the Holy Scriptures, especially those of the Old Testament, are so much neglected, or read to so little purpose. Several well-meaning people, who have not quite got over such prejudices, are discouraged by the outward appearance of these strange customs; and either impute the whole, without distinction, to the

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It would not be difficult to prove that the major part, if not the whole, of the animals, the eating of whose flesh was forbidden under the Mosaic Law, are unfit for the purposes of nutrition. Blood, which is so often and so solemnly forbidden, affords a most gross and innutritive aliment. The laws relative to lepers and other infected persons, and those which forbad contact with dead or putrid carcases, were wisely ordered to prevent the reception and diffusion of contagion. Their frequent washings and bathings also had the most direct tendency to promote health, and insure a long and comfortable life.

imperfection of the old law; or imagine that some mysteries, beyond their comprehension, are concealed under these external appearances. Others, for want of faith, or uprightness of heart, are tempted, upon such pretences, to despise the Scripture itself, as if full of mean and trivial matters; or draw wrong conclusions from it to countenance their own vices.

But, upon comparing the manners of the Israelites with those of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and other people of former ages, which we hold in the highest veneration, these prejudices soon vanish. We observe a noble simplicity in them, greatly preferable to all refinements; that the Israelites had every thing that was valuable in the customs of their contemporaries, without many of their defects; and a great advantage over them in understanding (what ought to be our chief aim in this life) the nature of that true religion, which is the foundation of morality.

We must learn then to distinguish what is only offensive to us in their customs, from what is really blame-worthy; what we do not like, upon account of the distance of times and places, though it be itself indifferent, from that which, being good in itself, displeases for no other reason, than because we are corrupt in our manners. For most of the difference betwixt us and them does not proceed from our being more enlightened by Christianity, but from our being less guided by reason. The Christian religion did not introduce this great inequality of conditions, this disdain of labour, this eagerness

for diversion, this authority of women and young people, this aversion from a simple and frugal life, which make us differ so much from the ancients. It would have been much easier to have made good Christians of those shepherds and ploughmen whom we see in their history, than of our courtiers, lawyers, or farmers of the revenue, and many others that spend their lives in an idle and discontented poverty.

Let it be observed, that I do not pretend to make a panegyric upon this people; but to give a very plain account, like that of travellers, who have seen far distant countries. I shall describe what is good, bad, or indifferent, just as it is; and only desire the reader to divest himself of all prejudice, that he may judge of these customs by good sense and right reason alone; to discard the ideas that are peculiar to his own age and country, and consider the Israelites in the circumstances of time and place wherein they lived; to compare them with their nearest neighbours, and by that means to enter into their spirit and maxims. We must, indeed, be entire strangers to history, not to see the great difference which distance of time and place occasions in people's manners. We inhabit the same country which the antient Britons, and afterwards the Romans, dwelt in: and yet, how much do we vary from both in their way of living; nay, even from that of our own countrymen, who lived seven or eight hundred years ago? And at present

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Who would imagine that the present inhabitants of Great Britain, who spend so much time and money in unmeaning,

what likeness is there between our customs and those of the Turks, Indians, and Chinese? If then we consider these two sorts of distances together, we shall be so far from being astonished, that they who lived in Palestine three thousand years ago had customs different from ours, that we shall rather wonder if we find any thing in them alike.

We must not imagine, however, that these changes are regular, and always come on in the same space of time. Countries that are very near each other often differ widely in their religion and politics; as, at this day, Spain and Africa, which, under the Roman empire, had the same customs. On the contrary, there is now a great resemblance betwixt those of Spain and Germany,, though there was then none. The same holds good in respect to the difference of times. They that are not acquainted with history having heard it said that the people of former ages were more simple than we, suppose the world is always growing more polite; and that the farther any one looks back into antiquity, the more stupid and ignorant he will find mankind to have been.

But it is not really so in countries that have been inhabited successively by different people: the re

useless, and ridiculous modes of dress, are the descendants of a race of people, who in the very same climate and land went almost naked, not only during the scorching heats of summer, but also through the chilling blasts of winter? And yet were more healthy, vigorous and robust, than their present degenerate offspring.