But the Lord sent lions among
them, we read; the land, I suppose, lying waste, the wild beasts
increased, and became very dangerous: so these poor ignorant
settlers sent to the king of Assyria, to beg for a Jewish priest, to
teach them, as they said, the manner of the god of that land, that
they might worship him, and not be terrified by the lions any more.
It was a simple, confused notion of theirs: but it brought a
blessing with it; for the king of Assyria sent them one of the
Jewish priests who had been carried away from Samaria; and he came
and lived at Beth-el, and taught them to fear the Lord. So these
poor people got some confused notion of the one true God: but they
mixed it up sadly with their old heathen idolatry, and made gods of
their own, and some of them even burnt their children in the fire,
to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim, from which
town they had come. And so they went on for several hundred years,
marrying with the remnant of the Israelites who were left behind,
and worshipping idols and the true God at the same time. Now these
people are the Samaritans, of whom you read so often in the New
Testament. The Jews, when they came back, hated and despised the
Samaritans, and would not speak to them, eat with them, trade with
them, because they were only half-blooded Jews, and did not observe
Moses' law rightly; and so they were left to themselves: but as
time went on, they seemed to have got rid of their old idolatry, and
built themselves a temple on Mount Gerizim, by Samaria, in Jacob's
old haunts, by Jacob's well, and there worshipped they knew not
what.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237