Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country; With Reasons for Preferring the Episcopacy (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. 1836 Excerpt: ...women, and children, and the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law." Deut. xxxi. 9-12. It is evident, therefore, that the Hebrews, and afterward the Jews--the latter being the name of the remnant, after the ten tribes disappeared--had a Liturgy on a most extensive scale, and that in the sense of prescribed forms of public worship. Every part of this service seems to have been prescribed, and the manner thereof. When our Saviour appeared, he found the Jews in thepossession and use of a public ritual. I think I am warranted to assume, that this point will not be disputed. It is abundantly proved by the concurrent authorities of Josephus, Scaliger, Buxtorf, Selden and others. Hammond and Lightfoot, of later time, have clearly shown, not only, that the Jewish Liturgy prescribed the forms of prayer and praise, but they have been able to determine the order and method of their hymns and supplications. It is evident that our Saviour conformed to that ritual, including all established orders of public worship, inasmuch as no notice occurs of a complaint brought against him for departing from it, or in any way treating it with disrespect. This would have been a material and grave charge, and would have been seized upon with avidity and determination, if any overt acts or neglect of his had laid him open. It would have occasioned such a clamour, and led to such results, as could not have been passed over by such fidelity of history, as is known and believed to have characterized the Evangelists. This total silence, therefore, is tantamount to a positive statement of the fact, so necessarily involved. Hence we account most satisfactorily--and so far as I ...