LIST OF PLATES.

Judea or the Holy Land

Palestine, shewing the divisions of the tribes

Countries remote from Judea, mentioned in Scripture....

to face the Title

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338

546

553

601

603

A

POPULAR INTRODUCTION

TO THE

STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

PART I.

DIRECTIONS FOR READING THE BIBLE.

Introductory Observations.

ASSUMING the facts of the authenticity and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures;-that they contain the only satisfactory revelation of the will of God-the only disclosure of his great and beneficent purposes towards our fallen race;—that they are amply sufficient "to make us wise unto salvation ;"-that they are the storehouse of truth, the fountain of wisdom and piety, the repository of all that is great in idea, awful in importance, desirable in experience, and venerable in goodnessassuming all this as true, what, it may be asked, is of higher moment, than a correct understanding and an intimate acquaintance with a Book, upon which our present happiness and our eternal destiny are thus suspended?

Without the remotest design of discouraging those studies which more properly belong to the literary part of the Bible— as a critical acquaintance with its languages and structure, with Sacred History, natural, civil, and political-and with

B

sacred philosophy, natural and moral-we may be allowed to remark, that however excellent in themselves, and valuable for the purposes of Scriptural illustration and exposition, these branches of knowledge may be, there is, nevertheless, in the prosecution of such studies, a necessity for the exercise of the utmost caution and circumspection, lest, instead of ministering to our individual edification and improvement, they should become the means of obscuring our spiritual perception of the deeply interesting and momentous truths of the word of God. In such investigations the mind is chiefly occupied with the modes and circumstances of revelation; and while thus employed, we are too apt to forget that there is something beneath the surface of the letter, and so in danger of becoming imperceptibly estranged from its influence. While intently occupied in surveying the external beauties of the Sacred Temple, we lose sight of the resident schechinah, which should awe us in all our pursuits, and shed its hallowing influence over all our investigations.

Such being the case, we design, in the first place, to offer some remarks on the moral qualifications which are requisite, in order to ensure our success in deriving from the Holy Scriptures those important benefits which they are designed by their benevolent Author to convey to the human mind.

3

CHAPTER I.

OF THE DISPOSITION AND HABITS OF MIND WHICH ARE REQUIRED FOR A PROFITABLE PERUSAL OF THE BIBLE.

Importance of the subject-Gratitude for the fact and character of the Divine Revelation-Humility of Mind-Devout PrayerFreedom from all undue bias of Sentiment, and a Determination to submit to the whole will of God.

IN submitting to the candid consideration of the reader the following directions for a profitable reading of the Sacred volume, it is scarcely necessary to remark, that the state of mind which is brought to this employment is of the first importance, and demands the most serious regard. It is well known to every one that facts and circumstances are susceptible of a high degree of colouring, from the disposition with which they are regarded; and that a correct apprehension of moral truth, especially, is not to be expected, unless there be an unprejudiced and teachable state of mind. If a person be not convinced of his want of information, and be not animated with an upright intention of submitting without reserve to the discoveries of Truth, however opposed they may be to his previously adopted sentiments and his present pursuits, it is hardly to be expected that the clearest statement or the most cogent reasoning will exert any beneficial or lasting influence upon him. But if this is true in the ordinary affairs of human life, much more is it true in the pursuit and acquisition of Scriptural knowledge. The stream of revealed truth runs contrary to the current of our fallen nature: the revelations of the Spirit oppose the deeply-rooted prejudices of a depraved heart, which they cannot without Divine influence either controul or subdue. Nor is this the utmost. The human mind is as destitute of the ability rightly to apprehend the revealed will and purposes of God, as the human heart is opposed to their authority and controul-" The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned," 1 Cor. ii. 14. From these causes arises the necessity of preparing the heart to seek after God (1 Sam.