with a tenacity exceeding even that of the tribe of Judah itself. The full history of the Samaritan sect belongs to a later period. But its origin dates The Samafrom the first moment of desolation. Then ritan sect. took place that union, in whatever proportions it may have been, between the remnant of the old Israelite' inhabitants and the Cuthæan colonists transplated from Central Asia, which alone can account for the singular position, neither Jewish nor Gentile, which the Samaritans have occupied ever since. In the inroad of the lions from the Jordan valley,2 through the tangled and deserted forests of Samaria, these foreign settlers saw a divine judgment on their alien rites, and though these rites lingered for two or three generations, they soon gave way to the traditions received from the Ephraimite or Benjamite priest, who revived for the last time the ancient sanctuary of Bethel, and from the poorer classes, who remained in the country after the court and aristocracy had been carried off. In the deep-rooted inveterate feud between the Jews and Samaritans, surviving even to our own time, but with a world-renowned bitterness at the time of the Christian era, we see a later outbreak of the fiery rivalry which burnt between the kingdoms of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. In the congenial kindness with which He who was Himself called in scorn a "Samaritan" attracted and was attracted by this despised sect; His gracious words to the Samaritan village-to the Sa "strangers," but never as Gentiles. Contrast Acts viii. 5, 16, with Acts x. 28, 46. (3.) From their own account of themselves. (4.) From their Jewish usages. (5.) From the many Israelites left in Palestine after the Captivity. maritan woman-to the Samaritan leper-concerning the Samaritan traveller- we read a continuation of the same lesson which is suggested by the whole course of the history which we have been studying. The doc Samaritan This kindly feeling towards Ephraim, Gerizim, Samaria, is the Biblical sanction of the truth imtrine of the pressed upon us by all sound ecclesiastical history. history, that the grace of God overflows the boundaries within which we should naturally suppose that it would be confined. The kingdom of Judah had, as we shall see, the sanctuary and the sacred ritual. "The Jews knew what they worshipped;" and in the fullest sense "the salvation" of the nation came from them. But this did not prevent the growth of the series of Prophets within the kingdom of Samaria, and throughout their teaching there is hardly a word to show that they laid any stress on the duty of conforming to the ritual of Judah. There is, indeed, a modern tradition that the travellers described' by Hosea were pilgrims to Jerusalem. But of this there is no trace in the original text. The moral evils, the sensual idolatries of Samaria, are attacked with no sparing hand, but hardly ever the sin of outward separation. Both kingdoms are impartially denounced; neither is by de liberate comparison placed above the other. The soil of the kingdom of Israel was as precious to distant pilgrims as the soil of Judea. The capital of Omri 1 Dr. Pusey on Hosea, p. 42. 2 The only exception is 2 Kings iii. 14, where Elisha refuses to speak to Jehoram, except for the sake of Jehoshaphat. Hos. xi. 12 has been alleged as an example to the contrary. But the LLX., the context, and the general rendering of Hebrew scholars confirm the translation which render it to be not "Judah ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints," but "Judah is inconstant with God, and with the faithful Holy One." See the comparison of the two kingdoms in Ezek. xxiii. 4, 11, 32. 3 2 Kings v. 17. was saved by as direct an intervention of Providence as ever rescued the capital of David.1 In. the life of Elijah a later Jewish tradition maintains that the rebuke which he addressed to Ahab was the first verse of the 76th Psalm: "In Judah is God known." But this, though it is what much of modern Judaism and of modern Christianity would require from him, is not the record of the ancient Scriptures. His rebuke to Ahab, as we have seen, was grounded on a far deeper basis. The question of the schism of Judah and Israel was one which he never for a moment stirred. The position of this greatest of the Prophets, living entirely apart from the authorized sanctuary of Judah, has been described with a thrilling sympathy in a remarkable sermon, preached more than twenty years ago by one who was struggling, with all the energy of a large and generous heart, to keep his balance in what he believed to be a schismatical and almost heretical Church. Elijah made no effort to set right what had gone so wrong; he paid no honor to the regular service of the Mosaic ritual; he never went on the yearly pilgrimage: in the one instance in which he is found in the kingdom of Judah, “he "passed by Jerusalem, he went on to Beersheba" he passed on along a forlorn "and barren way into "that old desert where the children of Israel had wan"dered to Horeb the mount of God." His mission and that of his successor was to make the best of what they found; "not to bring back a rule of religion that "had passed away," but to dwell on the Moral Law, which could be fulfilled everywhere; not on the Ceremonial Law, which circumstances seemed to have put out of their reach: "not sending the Shunammite to 1 2 Kings vii. 16. 2 Life of Dr. Wolff, i. 222. "Jerusalem, nor eager for a proselyte in Naaman, yet making the heathen fear the name of God, and prov. "ing to them that there was a Prophet in Israel.”1 When our hearts glow with admiration for the splendid character of Elijah, or in sympathy with the tenderness of Hosea, we are but responding to the call of Him who bids us do justice and mercy even to those to whom, on theological or ecclesiastical grounds, we are most opposed; and recognize that the goodness which we approve was found, not in the Priest or the Levite, but in the heretical, schismatical, Samaritan. The history of Judah will have other and equally important lessons to teach us; but the history of Samaria, the very names of Samaria and Samaritan, carry with them the savor of this great Evangelical doctrine. The Prophets of Judah looked forward to a blessed time when Ephraim should not envy Judah, and Judah should not vex Ephraim. The Prophets of Israel, and He who, like them, dwelt not in Judea but in Galilee, "whence no good thing2 could come," and in Samaria, "with which the Jews had no deal❝ings," were incontestable witnesses that such a hope was not impossible. 1 Newman's Sermons, viii. 2 John i. 46; vii. 41, 52. P. 415. 3 John iv. 9. |