The Land and the Book; Or Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 edition. Excerpt: ... place, the church. The forms of cursing and swearing, however, are almost infinite, and fall on the pained ear all day long. If the laws of Moses concerning things and persons unclean were intended to keep the Jews from mingling with 1 Matt. xxvi. 74. Matt. v. 34-36. METAWELIES--CEREMONIAL DEFILEMENT. 285 the surrounding nations, nothing more effectual could have been devised for this purpose. I know by experience that it even renders it very unpleasant to reside in a Metawely village, and is an effectual barrier against forming any intimate relations with them. You never contract friendships with persons who will neither eat, drink with, nor visit you, and into whose houses you can not enter without contracting or imparting defilement. The law must be broken down before people thus situated can either unite in religious ceremonies or contract family alliances. These Metawelies do thus live separated, both in fact and feeling, from their neighbors, hating all, hated by all. Of course, they refuse to eat with all classes except themselves, and so it was with the Jews. Even the Apostles esteemed it a thing unclean to associate or to eat with one of another nation. Peter said to Cornelius, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come to one of another nation;l and it required a voice from heaven thrice repeated to convince him that he should not call any man common or unclean. Nor did this divine vision permanently cure him of this deeply-rooted feeling, for not long after it he separated himself, and refused to eat with Gentile converts at Antioch, and was led into a guilty dissimulation in consequence, which Paul openly and sternly rebuked.2 We need not, therefore, be surprised at the strength of this...