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ancient authors, we may add, as sources of information respecting the places of Scripture, the works of modern travellers. These writers, it is true, giving, as they profess to do, merely the result of their personal observation, can describe only the present character of these places. But then their present character is, in many respects, their original character. There is less variety in these places than might be supposed. Their natural aspect presents scarcely any variation, and their manners and customs little more. The hills still stand round about Jerusalem, as they did in the days of David and of Solomon. The dew falls on Hermon, the cedars grow on Libanus; and Kishon, that ancient river, draws its streams from Tabor, as in the times of old. The sea of Galilee still presents the same natural accompaniments, the fig-tree springs up by the wayside, the sycamore spreads its branches, and the vines and the olives still climb the sides of the mountains. The desolation which covered the cities of the Plain is not less striking at the present hour, than when Moses, with an inspired pen, recorded the judgment of God; the swellings of Jordan are not less regular in their rise, than when the Hebrews first approached its banks; and he who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho, still incurs the greatest hazard of falling among thieves. There is, in fact, in the scenery and manners of Palestine, a perpetuity that accords well with the everlasting import of its historical records, and which enables us to identify with the utmost readiness the local imagery of every great transaction."*. "Extraordinary as it may seem," observes the author of the history of the Jews, speaking of the passage of the Israelites through the desert, we can almost trace their march, at least in its earlier stations; for while the face of cultivated countries, and the manners of

*Palestine, p. 29.

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† Vol. i. p. 89.

civilized nations are in a perpetual state of change, the desert and its inhabitants are alike unalterable. The same wild clans pitch their tents in the same valleys, where waters, which neither fail nor increase, give nourishment to about the same extent of vegetation." The observations of these two authors respecting Palestine and the desert, apply equally to other places of Scripture.

Some relics of the works of art are to be found in these places, coeval with some of the most splendid passages in sacred history—as though time were forbidden to complete his work upon them, that they might remain to point out the spots on which the mercy or judgment of Jehovah had been signally displayed. Such are the marble pillars of Tadmor, which, if not erected by Solomon, point out the spot where he erected a city of that name; and the gigantic pyramids, for the erection of which the Israelites, during their bondage in Egypt, were set to make bricks.

Thus the descriptions of these places furnished by modern travellers, may be consulted as valuable commentaries on the works of the more ancient writers, and on the holy Scriptures themselves.

The object of the following lectures is to describe the places of Scripture; and, as a description of these places has been assumed to comprehend a description both of their position and character, they will, first, attempt to fix the position of places, and then, exhibit their character,—so far at least as it can be ascertained, both from the Scriptures and other sources.

For convenience we shall class these places under the following divisions :-Antediluvian Countries ;Countries possessed by Noah and his immediate descendants ;-Countries connected with the possession of Canaan ;-Canaan ;-and Countries travelled over by the Apostles and first preachers.

C

LECTURE II.

ANTEDILUVIAN COUNTRIES.

Or the Antediluvian world, but little is recorded in Scripture, and of that little the description is brief and general. Only very few places are mentioned, and those are mentioned rather on account of the historical facts connected with them, than on account of the places themselves. The first place of which we have any mention is

Of the situation of this place conjectures have been formed and published, as fanciful as they are numerous. Some of the more sober of them maintain, that the situation of it is now sought for in vain, there being no place in the earth, at present, where, from one channel or source, there spring four principal or considerable rivers. The authors of this theory totally disown any intention to bring the Mosaic record into disrepute. They maintain that the face of the earth, from the operation of the waters of the deluge upon it, had, in the time of Moses, undergone a vast change, and that he described Eden from some traditionary or written documents of a much earlier date than his own time, and which were of equal authority with what he himself saw, or with what was revealed to him immediately by God that there were a series of inspired men from

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Adam downwards, they suppose to be intimated by Jude, when he says, (ver. 14) Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these things," &c. In the Mosaic account of this place, however, it is evidently implied, that, even in his day, there existed marks whereby its situation might be discovered. He writes thus, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." This is all in the past tense; and, had he intended merely to speak of Eden as the residence of our first parents, he might have concluded his description of it here. But, apparently with the design of pointing out its situation to those to whom he was writing, he proceeds, in the present tense :"The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates," Gen. ii. 8, 10-14.

Accordingly, with considerable plausibility, Bochart and other learned men maintain, that the marks which Moses here represents as characterising Eden, still, to a greater or less extent, exist, and, consequently, that its situation is to be found.

The channel flowing through Eden, whence issued four other channels or rivers, they regard as that formed by the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates; and the four other channels or rivers flowing from it, the two rivers above this junction, and the two principal streams into which, after having flowed together for some considerable distance, they diverge, and by which they empty themselves into the Persian Gulf.

As descriptive of this union and separation of the waters of these two rivers, the language of Moses is perfectly consistent. If we understand by the term head," what some understand by it-a source or commencement of a river, it is consistent; for a person ascending the common channel, on arriving at the point where the Euphrates and the Tigris united their waters, he might be said, with the strictest propriety, to have arrived at the commencement of these rivers; and, on the contrary, descending it, till he had arrived at the point of their separation, he might, with equal propriety, be said to have arrived at the commencement of the two other rivers, into which this channel diverged. And this illustration of it seems to be given by the Septuagint version, which renders the word which, in our English version, is translated "head," by one which signifies beginning. But the term often signifies chief, or principal; and it will bear this rendering in the passage before us. The language of Moses, therefore, may be " From thence it was divided into four principal streams," excluding, as unworthy of notice, other inferior streams, which might branch off in their progress to the ocean.

Having pointed out the confluence or divergence of waters, which they suppose to correspond with that said to have existed in and about Eden, the authors above adverted to maintain, with equal plausibility, that the country in the neighbourhood of these waters corresponds with that said to have been in the neighbourhood of the waters of Eden.

"The name of the first of these rivers," says Moses, “is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good there is bdellium and the onyx stone."

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The land of Havilah, washed by the first of Moses' rivers, appears to be described in the sacred writings themselves. In Gen. xxv. 18, we are informed, that