17.

To the west of Arabia lay the country of Egypt, fa- CHAP. I. mous in the Old Teftament for God's bringing out from thence the children of Ifrael, his peculiar people, and Of Egypt. therefore ftyled by the prophet Hosea, chap. xi. 1. his Son, namely, by virtue of the covenant which God made with Abraham, Acts iii. 25. The fame country is mentioned by St. Matthew, chap. ii. 13, 14, 15, &c. on account of our Saviour's being carried thither to avoid the wicked purposes of Herod against his life; and being upon the death of Herod called back again out of Egypt into the land of Ifrael, whereby the prophetical part of Hofea's words in the place juft now cited did receive a literal and full completion, our bleffed Saviour being the Son of God by

nature.

Beyond Egypt weftward, not far from the Mediterranean sea, stood Cyrene, fo confiderable a city, as to give the name of Cyrenaica to the adjacent parts of Africk. Of this more in the fecond Part; I fhall here only observe, that of this place was Simon the Cyrenian, on whom the foldiers laid our Saviour's cross, to carry it after him to the place of crucifixion, Luke xxiii. 26.

18.

Of Cyrene.

There remains but one place more to be here taken no- 19. tice of, and that is Rome, the capital of the Roman em- or the RoOf Rome, pire, by whofe arms the Jewish nation was at first subdued, mans. and afterwards finally destroyed, or driven out of their own country; the very fame calamity which they causelessly feared would be the confequence of believing JESUS to be the Chrift, being by the juft judgment of God brought upon them as a punishment for their crucifying him. For, according to our Saviour's predictions, Matt. xxiii. 36. and xxiv. 34. the generation then prefent did not pass away before all that he there denounced against the Jews were fulfilled, and the Romans came and took away both their place and nation, John xi. 48.

.

Having thus given a general description of the several countries honoured with our Saviour's prefence, or fo

PART 1. much as mentioned or referred to in the Gospels, I come now to give a particular defcription of our Saviour's Journeyings, which I fhall distinguish according to the several most remarkable periods of his life here on earth.

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

Of our Saviour's Journeyings, from his Birth to his Baptifm, and Entrance upon his public Miniftry or Preaching of the Gospel.

WHEN the time appointed by the Divine Wisdom for

reth.

1.

the coming of the Meffias into the world drew nigh, the Of Naza Angel Gabriel was fent from God to the Virgin Mary, to let her know that the was fo highly favoured, as to be made choice of for the mother of Him, who should be called the Son of the Higheft, and fhould reign over the houfe of Jacob for ever, and of whofe kingdom there should be no end, that is, in fhort, of the Meffias, or Redeemer of the world. The bleffed Virgin then lived in a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, fituated in the fouth-weft part of Galilee, and fo not far from the confines of Samaria to the fouth, and nearer to the coafts or territories of Tyre and Sidon to the north-weft. It is at prefent (as we are informed by the late reverend and ingenious Mr. Maundrella, who vifited it but ten years ago, viz. A. D. 1697. in his return from Jerufalem to Aleppo) only an inconfiderable village, fituate in a kind of round concave valley on the top of an high hill. Here is a convent built over what is faid to be the place of the Annunciation, or where the bleffed Virgin received the joyful message brought her by the Angel. Here is also fhewn the house of Joseph, being the fame, as the friars of the convent tell you, wherein the Son of God lived for near thirty years in fubjection to man, Luke ii. 51. And not far diftant from hence they fhew likewise the fynagogue, wherein our blessed Lord preached that fermon, Luke iv. 16. by which his countrymen were so exafperated, or filled with wrath, that they rofe up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they

Journey from Aleppo to Jerufalem, p. 110, 111.

PART 1. might caft him down headlong, Luke iv. 28, 29. This fame precipice they now call the mountain of precipitation, for the reason juft mentioned. It is at least half a league distant from Nazareth fouthward, and in going to it you cross first over the vale in which Nazareth ftands; and then going down two or three furlongs, in a narrow cleft between the rocks, you there clamber up a fhort but difficult way on the right hand. At the top of this you find a great stone standing on the brink of the precipice, which is faid to be the very place whence our Lord was defigned to be thrown down by his enraged neighbours, had he not made a miraculous escape out of their hands. There are in this ftone feveral little holes, refembling the prints of fingers thrust into it: these, the friars will tell you, are the impreffes of Christ's fingers, made in the hard stone, whilft he refifted the violence that was offered to him. At this place there are seen two or three cisterns for saving water, and a few ruins, which is all that now remains of a religious building founded here by the pious Emprefs Helena, mother of Conftantine the Great. And whereas the places, where are shewn the house of Joseph and the fynagogue wherein our Saviour preached, were anciently dignified each with an handfome church by the fame Empress, these monuments of her piety are now likewise in ruins. Before we leave Nazareth, as it will not be altogether ber of the impertinent, so neither may it be altogether unuseful tion faid by (namely, in order to lay open the unreasonable and abfurd bigotry of the Papists) to obferve, that in how mean a moved by condition foever Nazareth may be at prefent, yet some part angels from Nazareth to of its ancient buildings, I mean the chamber wherein the

The cham

Annuncia

the Papifts

to be re

Loretto.

Virgin Mary is said to be fitting, when the Angel brought her thofe joyful tidings above related, has had better luck, even at the no lefs expence than of a downright miracle, if we can believe the popish legends: for in these it is faid, that this fame chamber being after the bleffed Virgin's departure had in great reverence by Christians, and remaining in Nazareth till the Holy Land was fubdued by the Turks and Saracens, A. D. 1291, it

was

was then most miraculously transported into Sclavonia. CHAP. II. But that country being unworthy of the Virgin's presence, it was by the angels carried over into Italy, and at length fettled at Loretto, then a village in the Ecclefiaftical State, or Pope's dominion, his Holiness's territories being, without doubt, the most worthy in the world to be the receptacle of fuch an holy apartment. So extraordinary an arrival of fo extraordinary a relick was quickly noised about; and not only the people of all ranks came to vifit it with great veneration, but even the popes themselves have paid it more than ordinary refpect, one of them building a most stately church over this chamber, which is now become, by presents made to the Lady of it, the richest in the world; another erecting the village of Loretto, where it ftands, into a city and bishop's fee. So that Nazareth and Loretto have as it were changed conditions one with the other, Nazareth being formerly a city and bishop's or archbishop's fee, but now a village; and Loretto being formerly a village, but now a city and bishop's fee.

2.

It is time to take leave for the prefent of Nazareth, and to attend the Virgin Mary in her journey thence to vifit Of the Hill her coufin Elifabeth, who, the Angel acquainted her, had Judea. Country of already gone fix months with the child, called afterwards John the Baptift. Elifabeth was the wife of Zacharias, a priest, and they dwelt in the hill country of Judea, Luke i. 39, 65. in the city, as is probably enough supposed, of Hebron, this being one of the cities given to the priests in the tribe of Judah, Jofh. xxi. 10, 13. and alfo faid expressly to lie in the mountains or hills, Joth. xi. 21. and xv. 48, 54: which running across the middle of Judea from fouth to north, gave to the tract they run along the name of the hill country. The bleffed Virgin having staid with her coufin Elifabeth about three months, then returned to her own house at Nazareth.

3.

Some time after there went out a decree from Cæfar Auguftus, that all the Roman world or empire should be Of Bethletaxed, that is, fhould have their names and conditions of

hem.