Chap. X.]

DUTIES OF HOSPITALITY.

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show, that delicate attentions and courteous treatment of guestswere well understood in those primitive times.

St. Paul makes use of these attractive examples of patriarchalhospitality, to encourage Christians, and to persuade them to theobservance of this duty, saying, that they who have practised ithave had the honor of entertaining angels under the form of njen.*One ground of the condemnation of the wicked in the day ofjudgment will consist in their not having received strangers withhospitality.f St. Paul makes one of the qualifications of a bishopto consist in his being “given to hospitality.”! St. Peter en-joins, “ Use hospitality one to another without grudging.” § Theprimitive Christians made the exercise of hospitality a specialpart of their duty, and were so exact in its discharge, as to ex-cite the admiration of the surrounding heathen, by whom theywere watched with a vigilant eye. They were hospitable to allstrangers, —more especially to those who were of the same faith.Letters of recommendation, given to believers, procured them ahospitable reception wherever the name of Christ was known.

Besides the protection, relief, and personal comfort, whichhospitality affords, and which especially it was accustomed toafford in ancient times, when “violence was abroad in theearth,” and the restraints of law were comparatively feeble ; itsfruits at all times are, the cultivation of social intercourse, mu-tual kindness and good feeling, the removal of unjust prejudices,&c., — objects always important. Josephus understands theprovision of the law of Moses, which required all the Hebrewsto assemble three times a year at Jerusalem, to have been partlydesigned to give opportunity for the cultivation of a friendly in-tercourse and good feeling by personal acquaintance, festive en-tertainments, and other social meetings.|| This assembling ofthe great body of the nation thrice a year, in the capital city,must have furnished infinite occasions for giving and receivinghospitality.

So far as the exercise of festive and social hospitality is con-cerned, it is liable to two very manifest abuses, which ought tobe carefully guarded against by every good man.

* Heb. xiii. 2. t Matt. xxv. 43. t 1 Tim. iii. 2. § 1 Peter iv. 9.

|| Antiquities of the Jews, Lib. IV. ch. 8, sect. 7.

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