History of Joseph & his brethren

THE HISTORY

OF

JOSEPH & HIS BRETHREN,

EMBELLISHED WITH CUTS;

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

THE LIFE, JOURNEYINGS, AND DEATH

OF THE

APOSTLE PAUL.

GLASGOW:

PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.

41

JOSEPH’S FIRST DREAM.

In Canaan lived a man of righteousness,
Whom the great God in love was pleas’d to bless
With twelve sweet sons, one Joseph called by name,
Whose worthiness we’ll to the world proclaim.
Being endued with blessings from above,
He gained the favour of his father's love,
Now while his brothers hated him, behold!
He dream’d a dream, which unto them he told;
Saying, “As we were binding in the field
Our sheaves of wheat, it was to me revealed
That mine arose upright, and yours around,
Stood making low obedience to the ground.”
These words of his, they did anger breed;
They say, must you reign over us indeed?
The like of this was never known before,
Thus for his dreams they hated him the more.

HIS SECOND DRE

Soon after this as Joseph sleeping lay,
Free from the toils and troubles of the day,
He dreamed a second dream, and told the same
Unto his brothers, as to them he came;
Saying, in sleep appeared before my eyes,
The sun, the moon, the seven stars likowise,
All making their obedience unto me,
With meek and humble humility.
He told it likewise to his father dear,
Who chid him, saying, what is this I hear ?
Must I, thy mother, and thy brothers too,
Be all obliged to bow the kneo to you,
Low on the earth, as if you reigned and ruled
'Tis very hard that aged parents should
A meek and lowly veneration pay
To you who ought to honour and obey.

HE IS PUT INTO A PIT.

This very paragraph will clearly show
How they did seek young Joseph's overthrow,
His father sent him to the rural plain,
Where with their flocks his brothers did remain.
When afar off young Joseph they espied,
Behold, here comes the dreamer now, they cried
Let us conclude to take his life away,
And cast him in a pit without delay,
Then see how all his dreams will come to pass:
But Reuben, Reuben pitied him, alas!
And hid him in the pit, there to remain,
Till he might safe conduct him home again.
What mortal man is able to express,
Poor Joseph's grief when in the wilderness
He lay confined? no doubt his present tears
Caused his youthful eyes to flow with tears.

HE IS SOLD INTO EGYPT.

While in the pit young Joseph lay confined,
They sat them down to eat, and ere they dined
Some Ishmaelites from Egypt passed by;
Then Judah made his brothers this reply,
"What shall it profit to us now, I pray,
If we should take this precious life away?"
They all consented to the same with speed,
For loth they were to see their brother bleed.
Then from the lonesome pit the child they drew,
And sold him to those trading merchants, who
A score of silver pieces for him paid,
And then to Egypt he was soon conveyed.
When Reuben found him not, how did he grieve
The rest contrive their father to deceive,
By staining Joseph's coat with purple blood,
Which caused poor Joseph many a weeping flood.

TEMPTED BY POTIPHAR'S WIFE.

When Joseph to the land of Egypt came,
One Potiphar a man of noted fame,
Bought him with silver and preferred him straight,
Making him steward of his whole estate.
On whom his mistress cast her wanton eyes,
And he reproved her, and said, be wise,
And cast, henceforth, these idle thoughts away-
How can I do that wicked thing, I pray!
Now finding her entreaties would not do,
She went to seize him, but away he flew,
Leaving his garment in her hand also:
Now from that time she proved his mortal foe:
She said, my lord, (when he returned at night)
Thy Hebrew strove with all his might,
To mock thy lady, but was ne'er the near,
I cried, he fled, and left his garment here.

CAST INTO THE DUNGEON.

No sooner had she made this false report
Of Joseph's coming in so vile a sort,
But Potiphar immediately he flew
Into a sad and cruel passion too,
And cast him into prison where he lay
Till the chief butler and the baker, they
By Pharaoh's strict command were sent to be
Confined from their former liberty.
The baker and the butler both, we find
With dreams one night were much disturbed in mind
When they to Joseph did themselves apply,
He told them what their dreams did signify;
One he restores unto his former place,
The other, he must die in sad disgrace;
The butler must his former place supply,
The baker by the laws be doomed to die,

HE IS MADE LORD OF THE LAND.

Still Joseph lay confined in prison fast,
Until two tedious years were gone and past.
At length Pharaoh dreamed, but none in the land
Could his dream interpret or understand.
Then the chief butler to the king did say,
'I needs must own my faults this day:
In prison lies a Hebrew servant there,
Who will the truth of all your dreams declare:
Then from a prison to a palace straight,
Joseph was brought, and Pharoah did relate
His dreams, and did full satisfaction find,
Which eased the grief and anguish of his mind:
He gave such satisfaction to the king,
That from his royal hand he drew a ring,
And gave it Joseph, saying, "Thou shalt be
Next to myself in royal dignity."

HIS BRETHREN GOING TO BUY CORN.

Behold the dreams of Pharoah did fortell,
A mighty famine, which at length befell;
Joseph in Egypt was head ruler over all;
But when his brothers came, and seemed to fall
Before him, straight his dreams came in his mind,
Yet he spoke rough, and seemed most unkind:
You're spies said he, they answered, no,
We are true men, my lord, pray say not so,
Sons of one man, we twelve in number were,
The youngest now under his father's care
Remains at home, the other he is not.
He knew them, yet his anger seemed hot,
And for three days they were in prison cast,
Confined they lay, yet Joseph came at last,
And laid upon them all a strict command,
To bring their young brother out of hand.

THE CUP IN BENJAMIN'S SACK.

When they had eaten up their slender store,
Jacob ho needs must send them down for more;
But knowing that his youngest son must go,
His eyes with melting tears did overflow.
With presents then they did return again,
And Joseph doth them kindly entertain.
When he his brother Benjamin beheld,
His bowels yearned, his heart with joy was filled;
But here's a grief which did them all surround,
The nightly lord, his silver cup was found
On Benjamin ; this made them sore afraid,
That for that crime they would be captives made:
Then to the house of Joseph they returned,
Judah he pleaded, till his bowels yearned,
To be a captive in his brother's room,
Lest he should see his father's threatened doom.

JOSEPH DECLARETH HIMSELF.

"My lord, hear thy servant now I pray,
Our father, when wo brought the child away
Expressed such grief and sorrow for his sake,
That if he stay, his aged heart will break :
Seeing his tears, which fell like showers of rain,
I promised then he should return again.
Therefore, my lord, pray let him go, for I
Am loth to live to see my father die."
Joseph from tears could now no longer hold :
He said, "I am your brother whom you sold
To Egypt, when on me your anger fell ;
And is my father yet alive and well?”
Then on each other's necks they wept amain.
Their cries were heard, from tears could not refrain
"O fetch my father híther," Joseph cried,
"That for the family I may now provide."

JACOB'S JOURNEY INTO EGYPT.

The sons of Jacob Pharaoh did command,
To take both food and waggons from the land
Of Egypt, to fetch their father straight ;
They did, and poor old Jacob's joy was great
He said, still as his spirits did revive,
It is enough, Joseph is yet alive,
The son for whom I mourned, therefore !
Will go and see him now before I die.
Then on his journey still he doth proceed,
And in the land of Goshen, there indeed
Joseph did meet him, whom he straight did bring
Into the royal presence of the king.
When Jacob before king Pharaoh stood,
His age one hundred and thirty years, a good
Old man was he ; Pharaoh gave to his race,
The land of Goshen for a dwelling-place.

JOSEPH VISITS HIS FATHER

When Joseph knew his pious father lay
On his sick bed, to him he hastes away,
Joseph he brought Manasseh and Ephraim,
Placed them before his father's eyes now dim,
At sight of them, cries Jacob, "Who are these?"
"My sons," says Joseph, "from between my knees."
When near, he kissed them, and with sweet embrace
Admires his GOD before his Joseph's faco.
These boys of thine which were in Egypt born,
They shall be mine, not orphans or forlorn.
Manasseh he blest, commended to his GOD,
Bids him to mark the steps that Abraham trod,
Displeased was Joseph to see his elder son
Put by, and the younger tho blessing won ;
But Jacob replied, "Son, I know it well,
For Ephraim shall unto great nations swell."

JACOB BLESSETH HIS SONS.

Jacob he calls his first born, Reuben, near,
Weak as the water from the fountain clear ;
Simeon and Levi, men of cruelty,
They smote a man, and caused him so to die.
Judah's bright sceptre shan't from him depart
Till Shiloh come rejoicing every heart.
Zebulun's a small port where tall ships may pass,
Issachar well resembles the couchant ass.
Dan as a judge will do his people right,
Gad by a troop at last will win the fight ;
Asher his bread is fat, and of a dainty sort,
Naphtali's a hind loosed for the hunter's sport.
Joseph's a bough laden with pleasent fruit,
Near to a well, whose branches sap recruit :
Benjamin like a ravenous wolf doth slay,
Devours his prey, then bears the spoil away.

JOSEPH'S LOVE TO HIS FATHER.

Filial affection's to old Jacob good,
When Canaan's land lay destitute of food,
Then Joseph kind his aged father fed,
When thousands daily starved for want of bread;
His love expressed with mind sedate and calm,
Then with rich spices did his corpse embalm;
When breathless lay upon a bed of down,
He treats blest Jacob, father of renown;
Falls on his clay and with a kind embrace,
Salutes the late most venerable face
Of Pious Jacob, now growing stiff and cold,
It must be so when life is charged to mould,
Plenty of tears did from his eye balls flow,
To show mankind he did his duty know,
That nought's too much to pay a parent dear,
From children that the awful GOD do fear.

JACOB'S FUNERAL.

When seventeen long years Jacob had dwelt,
Behold, the fatal hand of death he felt:
To Joseph he commits the special care
Of his great funeral, and tells him where
He would be laid, which was fulfilled at large,
According to the tenor of his charge;
For having yielded up his vital breath,
He dropped into the frozen arms of death.
Numbers of mourning coaches out of hand
Prepared were; thus to his native land
He was conveyed a sleeping-place to have,
Near to the borders of his father's grave.
Upright he was, and just in all his ways;
Pray now observe the number of his days,
He was, when he dropt off this earthly stage,
One hundred and forty-seven years of age.

THE

LIFE OF ST. PAUL.

---

SAINT PAUL, though not one of the twelve, yet for his great eminence in the ministry of the gospel, had the honour to be styled an apostle, particularly above all the rest that were not of the number, and hath justly the next place to St. Peter allotted to him, both in regard they were so conversant in their lives, and inseparable in their deaths. He was born at Tarsus, not only of Jewish parents; but originally descended from an ancient Jewish family of the tribe of Benjamin in Judea, where he had his education, which was a flourishing Academy, whose scholars (as Strabo testifies) ex- celled those of Alexandria, and even Athens itself. In the schools of this city, he was brought up from his childhood, and became an excellent proficient in all the polite learning of the ancients, yet at the same time he was brought up to a manual trade, as even the most learned of their Rabbins were, for enabling them to get a livelihood if occasion required it ; it being a maxim (especially amongst the Jews,) that he who teacheth not his son a trade, teacheth him to be a thief ; for learning of old was net made an instrument to get a maintenance by, but for the better polishing the mind ; so that the learned among the Jews were frequently denominated (as Drusius observes,) from some one or other handy- craft trade, as Rabbie Judah, the baker ; Rabbie Jochanan, the Shoemaker, &c.

Having at Tarsus attained to a great perfection in the liberal arts and sciences. He was sent to Jerusalem to be instructed in the knowledge of the laws ; and for the better accomplishing him in that study, was put under the tuition of Raban Gamaliel the son of Simon, (the same probably that took up our Saviour in his arms.) He was an eminent doctor of the law, one of the families of the schools at Jerusalem, and a person of principal note and authority in the Jewish Sanhedrim, in which that grave and prudent speech, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, which he made on behalf the apostles and their doctrine, took great effect. At the feet of this great doctor St. Paul was brought up, as he himself testifies; and by his instructions he soon advanced to that degree, that he gained himself a reputation above all his fellow scholars. Moreover he was a strict professor of the sect of the Pharisees, which of all others amongst the Jews, was the severest and most magisterial; and the professors thereof, generally great applauders of themselves for their sanctity, despising and censuring all others as reprobates, and unworthy of their society, and presuming (as Josephus writes) to govern even princes themselves. With the fiery genius of this sect, our apostle was too deeply infected, which made him a most zealous persecuter of the Saints; so that when the blood of the martyr Stephen was shed, I (saith ho with sorrow after his conversion) was standing by, consented to his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. Nay, of all the apparators, and inquisitors, employed by the Sanhedrim, to execute their warrants; upon those upstart heretics, as they called them, who preached against the law of Moses, and the tradition of the fathers; he was the man that strove to be the forwardest. In this zeal to execute his office, as he was on his way to Damascus, with some others of his fellow officers, breathing out vengeance and destruction against the poor christians, their was on a sudden a most glorious light shot full upon him, and the rest that were with him, so that they fell to the ground in great amazement, and at the same time a voice from heaven was directed to him, saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' to which, amazed as he was, he answered, Lord who art thou? the voice replying, that it was Jesus whom he persecuted, and that it was hard for him to kick against the pricks. He again desired further instructions; Lord, said he, what wilt thou have me to do; upon which he was bid to rise, and go to Damascus, and there expect what should be further revealed to him; rising from the ground he found his sight gone. In this plight being led to Damascus, he was there throe days fasting, and probably then he saw that celestial vision mentioned by him, wherein he heard and saw things past utterance, and these divine revelations, which gave him occasion to say, that the gospel he preached, he was not taught by man, but had it revealed to him by Jesus Christ. The three days being expired, Ananias, a devout man, and one of the seventy disciples came to him, according to the command he had received from our Lord, who appeared to him, to go and enquire for one Saul of Tarsus, and having laid his hands on him, told him his message, upon which his sight was restored to him, and the gift of the Holy Ghost conferred on him; presently after he was baptized, and made a member of the church, to the great joy of the rest of the disciples, that he should become not only a professor, but a preacher of that faith, which he so lately was a bitter persecutor of. His stay at this time at Damascus was not long, for being warned away by a vision from heaven, he took a journey into Arabia, where he preached the gospel for three years, and then returned to Damascus, where the unconverted Jews eagerly sought his ruin, endeavouring to seize him, but he escaped through the help of the disciples, and the rest of his friends who wore zealous for his safety.

Thus far we have made an entrance into the life and acts of this great apostle, with which there is scarcely any thing equally memorable in history nor could the further prosecution thereof have been omitted, but that all the travels of this apostle in the pursuance of his ministry, from the time of his conversion to the last of his being at Rome, with the most principal transactions, and the severest accidents that happened to him therein, are already related in the exposition of the map of the voyages of the apostles, and more particularly those of St Paul, in which, for avoiding needless repetitions, the sequel of his life may not unfitly be referred. We shall therefore make some enquiry into the time and occasion of the several epistles wrote to the several churches; as also unto the time and manner of his death

When he went from Athens to Corinth, it is said he wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians, which he sent Silas and Timothy, who returned during his stay, and before his departure he wrote his second epistle to them, to excuse his not coming to them as he promised in his first. Not long after at Ephesus, he is said to have written his epistle to the Galatians; and before he left Ephesus, he wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians. Moreover, he sent from thence by Apollos and Silas to Titus, whom he left in that island to propagate the faith, and had him made bishop thereof, in which he gives him advice for the better execution of his episcopal office. At Macedonia, whither he went from Ephesus, having by Titus received an account of the church of Corinth's present state of affairs, he sent by him at his return, when he was accompanied by St. Luke, his second epistle to the Corinthians; and about the same time he wrote his first epistle to Timothy, whom he had left at Ephesus. From Corinth he went to Macedon, whither he sent his epistle to the Romans, by Phebe, a deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea, not far from Corinth. Going thence to Rome, he sent his epistle to the Phillipians by Epaphroditus, who had been sent from them with relief, not knowing to what straits he might be reduced by his imprisonment at Rome. In the next place, he sends by Tychicus his epistle to the Ephesians. Not long after, (if not about the same time) he wrote his epistle to the Colossians, and sent it by Epaphras, his fellow-prisoner for some time at Rome. As for his second epistle to Timothy, there is some dispute about the time of his writing it; only it seems probable by authentic authors, that it was written after the Philippians and Ephesians As for the epistle to the Hebrews, it is not known when, or from whence written, and rather conjectured than certainly known to have been St. Paul's. Tertulliah judgeth it to be written by Barnabas; but the most received opinion is, that it was St. Paul's, but written by him in Hebrew, and so sent to the Jews; but for the better publishing it to the Gentiles, translated into Greek, some say by St. Luke, and others by St. Clement, for the style of whose epistles to the Corinthians and Ephesians is observed by St. Jerome to come very near the style of this epistle, and to contain a purer vein of Greek than is found in the rest of St. Paul's epistles.

Our apostle having been now two years a prisoner at Rome, is at length set free, and soon after departs to visit other parts of the world, for the further divulging the gospel, but into what particular parts is variously conjectured; some think into Greece, and some parts of Asia, where he had not yet been; others will have it that he went preaching, as well into the Eastern as Western parts of the world; for in his epistle to the Corinthians it is said, that Paul being a preacher both Eastward and Westward, taught righteousness to the whole world, and went to the utmost bounds of the West. That he went into Spain, may be gathered both from his own words, as intimating so to do, and also from the testimony of other authors, as Theodoret, who writes, that he not only went into Spain to preach, but brought the gospel into the isles of the sea, and particularly into our island of Britain; and more particularly in another place, he reckons up the Gauls and the Britons amongst those people to whom the apostles, and especially the tent-maker, as he calls him, had divulged the Christian faith.

Farther mention of St. Paul we find none till his next and last coming to Rome, which is said to be about the 8th and 9th years of Nero's reign; and he came in the fittest time to suffer martyrdom he could have chosen; for whereas at other times, his privilege of being a Roman citizen gained him those civilities which common morality could not deny him, he had to do with a person with whom the crime of being a christian weighed down all apologies that could be alledged; a person whom lewdness and debauchery had made seven times more a Pagan than any custom or education could have done. What his accusation was, cannot be certainly determined, whether it was his being an associate with St. Peter in the fall of Simon Magus, or his conversion of Poppea Sabina, one of the Emperor's concubines, by which he was curbed in the career of his insatiate appetite. Neither can it be resolved how long he remained in prison, what the certain time of his suffering was, and whether (according to the custom) he was first scourged; only Barentons speaks of two pillars in the church of St. Mary, beyond the bridge in Rome, to which both he and St. Peter were bound, when they were scourged.

It is affirmed that St. Paul and St, Peter suffered upon the same day, though different kinds of death. will have it that they suffered on the same day of the year, but at a year's distance ; and others affirm that St. Paul suffered several years after St. Peter ; but all agree that Paul, as a Roman, had the favour to be beheaded, and not crucified. His execution was at the Aquæ Salviæ, 3 miles from Rome ; and he is said to have converted the three soldiers that guarded him thither, who also suffered for the faith. Some of the fathers add, that upon his death there flowed from his veins a liquor more like milk than blood, the sight whereof (saith St. Crysostom) converted the executioner.

He was buried about two miles from Rome, in the way called Via, Ostiensis, where Lucina, a noble Roman matron, not long after settled a farm for the maintenance of the church. Here he lay but indifferently entombed for several ages, till the reign of Constantine the Great, who in the year of our Lord, 318, at the request of Sylvester, bishop of Rome, built a very sumptuous church, supported with a hundred stately pillars, and beautified with a most rare and exquisite workmanship, and after all richly gifted and endowed by the emperor him- self. Yet was all this thought too mean au honour for so great an apostle by the emperor Valentinian, who sent an order to his Præfect Salustinus, to take that church down, and to erect in its room one more largo and stately, which, at the instance of the Pope Leo, was richly adorned, and endowed by the Empress Placidia, and doubtless, hath received great additions ever since, from age to age.

Thus was brought up, became converted, and a preacher of the gospel, and thus was put to death and buried, this great apostle of the Gentiles, superior in learning and natural parts, and not inferior in zeal to any of the rest of the apostles.