to examine how far it supports these principles and precepts, by a suitable system of penal Laws; and by that institution of civil government, which the Jewish Lawgiver ascribes to the same divine authority from which his religious scheme originated. Having thus taken a general view of the Hebrew religion and government, we shall be prepared to estimate, on what foundation the chief objections against them rest; and whether the Mosaic institutions deserve to be slighted, as containing little more than a multitude of useless, burdensome, unmeaning ceremonies, ill calculated to promote true religion and pure morality; or to be abused as inculcating unsocial principles, and commanding or encouraging inhuman practices. To prepare our minds for estimating justly the necessity and importance of the Jewish code, as a system of religious institutions, it is necessary to recall to our recollection the nature, extent, and effects of that gross idolatry, which had overspread the world at the time of its promulgation; since the Jewish Lawgiver states it to be one chief design of that system of religious and civil institutions, which he delivered to his nation by the appointment of God, to guard them against the infection of idolatry, and its attendant crimes; to separate unto himself a holy people, who by a steady adherence to the code of laws he had prescribed, should preserve amongst them a system of rational faith, and pure morality. "When the Lord thy God shall cut "off the nations from before thee, take heed to thyself that thou "enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations 66 serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not "do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to the "Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods: for even "their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to "their gods. Whatsoever thing I shall command you, observe "to do it thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it."* From this emphatic injunction, not to add to or diminish aught from the Mosaic code, it appears that every part of it had a direct and necessary connexion with its main design; and that in order to discover and to expound the purpose and the relation of its various parts, it is necessary previously to consider the origin and the nature of that idolatry, against which it was calculated to guard. : * Deut. xii. 29, &c. That the worship of the one true God was the religion of Noah and his posterity before the dispersion of mankind, admits not a doubt. In this primitive and patriarchal religion, as incidentally disclosed by Moses, we discover the leading characters of that worship which was afterwards restored and guarded by the Jewish institutions; and which was calculated to preserve the knowledge of God, as the Creator of the world, by the observance of the Sabbath; as well as to inculcate the heinousness of sin, and typify the death of Christ, by the use of sacrifice. These simple ceremonies, together with the observance of the great rules of morality, and the prohibition of blood, in order to excite a stronger abhorrence against shedding the blood of one another, formed the entire exterior of the religion of Noah. The higher we are able to trace the history of every ancient nation, and the nearer we approach the sources of Eastern tradition, the more plain traces do we discover of this pure and simple worship; in which every father of a family acted as its priest, and assembled his progeny round the rustic altar of earth, to join in the sacrifice and the prayers he offered to the Creator and Governor of the world; to deprecate his wrath, and implore his blessing. But the corrupt imaginations of men's hearts would not permit them to rest satisfied with a religion so pure and a ritual so simple they looked to the sun* in its glory, they observed the moon and the stars walking in their brightness: they felt the benefits which through their influence were derived to men. They perhaps first considered them as the peculiar residence, or the chief ministers, or the most worthy representatives, of the Divinity; and in honouring and worshipping them, possibly conceived they were honouring the majesty, and fulfilling the will of their Creator. But they soon forgot the Creator whom they could not see, and gave his glory to the creature, whose existence was obvious to sense and captivating to the imagination. They seemed to have conceived these luminaries to be moved and animated by distinct and independent spirits,† and therefore fit * Vide Job, xxxi. 26, 27. Deut. iv. 19. Wisdom of Sol. xiii. 2, 3. Maimonides de Idololatria, the five first chapters. Diod. Siculus, Lib. 1. cap. 1. Euseb. Præpar. Evang. Lib. 1. cap. ix. Herodotus, Clio, cap. cxxxi. Plato in Cratylus, p. 397.Vide also Banier's Mythology, Book III. ch. iii. Leland's Advantage of Revelation, Part I. ch. iii. And Bryant's Analys. of Mythology, who affirms, the gods of Greece were originally one god, the sun. Vol. I. 305. t Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. II. cap. xv. to xxiii. objects of immediate worship. To represent them in their absence, they erected pillars and statues on the tops of hills and mountains, or on pyramids and high buildings, raised for the purpose ;* as if they could thus approach nearer the presence of their divinities. They set apart priests, and appointed times and sacrifices suited to the luminary they adored. Hence the rising and the setting sun, the different seasons of the year, the new and full moon, the quarters of the heavens, the constellations and conjunctions of the stars, acquired a peculiar sacredness, and were conceived to possess a peculiar influence. It now became the interest of the priests to persuade men, that the† pillars and statues set up as representatives of the host of heaven, partook themselves of the same spirit, and communicated the same influence, as the sacred objects which they represented. Thus degraded man bowed down to the senseless image which he had himself set up, and forgot "that there was a lie in his right "hand."+ From similar principles,§ other men adopted different objects of worship; light and air, wind and fire, seemed to them active spirits, by whose beneficent energy all the operations of nature were conducted and controlled. Water and earth|| formed the universal parents, from which all things derived their origin, and to which they were still indebted for their sustenance. Thus these also became the objects, first of gratitude and admiration, next of awe and reverence. They also had their temples and emblematic images, their priests and worshippers. But the folly of idolatry did not stop here. Not satisfied with adoring the host of heaven and the elements of nature, as the beneficent instruments of blessing; human weakness led man, first to tremble with horror, and then to bow down with a base and grovelling superstition to objects of an opposite nature, to every thing which seemed gloomy and malignant. The mix * Maimonides More Nevochim, Pars III. cap. xxix. p. 423. Winder's History of Knowledge, Vol. I. cap. xii. sect. 3. + Maimonides ut supra. Herodot. Clio, cap. xiii.; and as to the use of mountains by the Persians, Ibid. Isaiah, xliv. 20. § Wisdom, xiii. 2. Herod. Clio, cap. cxxx. cap. xxviii. Hutchinson, Vol. I. p. 24, 25. Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. I. cap. x. Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. II. Vossius however imputes, as appears * ture of good and evil in the world, suggested the idea of an evil principle, independent of and at war with the good, which it was necessary to soothe and conciliate. Darkness, storm and pestilence, the fates, the furies, and a multitude of similar objects, were honoured with a heart-debasing homage, by their terrified and trembling votaries. Nor was this yet the worst: Gratitude to the inventor of useful arts, to the wise legislator, to the brave defender of his country, combined with the vanity of kings, the pride of conquerors, and even private affection and fond regret for the parent, the child, the consort, the friend, led men first to erect monuments to the memory of the dead, and then to worship them as divine. They sometimes transferred to these their fellow-creatures, the names of the luminaries and elements of nature, whose utility and beneficence they conceived were thus best represented. Hence in process of time, arose at communication of attributes and honours, of priests and worshippers. And, to close the degrading catalogue of idolatrous absurdities, and verify St Paul's assertion, that "professing "themselves to be wise they became fools," Egypt,‡the chief seat of ancient wisdom and policy, of arts and letters, introduced objects of worship, still more grovelling and base than any which had preceded. In some instances, the policy of its kings led them to encourage the preservation of those animals, whose labours they employed in cultivating the earth, or whose useful activity they saw exerted in destroying the venomous reptiles and destructive animals by which they were infested. For this purpose, they sanctified them as emblematic of some divinity, to me, a much greater antiquity to this species of idolatry, than the testimony of history warrants. Vide the authorities quoted in the note, p. 106. * Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. II. cap. xxiv. Leland's Advantage of Revelation, Part I. ch. iv. Warb. Div. Leg. B. II. sect. vi. Vide Selden de Diis Syris. Prolegomena, cap. iii. p. 53; and Bryant's Analys. of Mythology, Vol. I. p. 331, &c. Warburton's Divine Legat. B. IV. sect. iv. Vol. III. p. 197. Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. I. sect. xxxvi. Cudworth's Intellectual System, ch. iv. sect. xviii. This last learned writer maintains, that the Pagans generally acknowledged one supreme Deity. Admitting, however, his proofs to have all the force he himself attributes to them, they in no degree contradict the wide extent or practical mischiefs of idolatry, or the importance and necessity of a divine Revelation to counteract them. For, speaking of the difference which he supposes the Pagans generally to have made between the one supreme unmade Deity and their other inferior generated gods, he adds, "We are the rather concerned to make out this difference, or even worshipped them as in themselves divine; while, on the other hand, the Egyptian priests, with an affectation of mysterious wisdom, expressed the attributes of God, the operations of the elements, the motions and influences of the heavenly bodies, the rising and falling of the Nile and its effects, by symbolic representations derived from the known and familiar properties of animals and even vegetables. Hence these became first, representations of their divinities, and afterwards the direct objects of divine reverence. Thus man was taught to bow down to birds and beasts and creeping things, to plants and herbs, to stocks and stones. Nothing was too base for grovelling superstition to adore; the heavens, the earth, the air, the sea, each hill, each river, each wood, was peopled with imaginary deities; every nation, every city, every family, had its peculiar guardian gods. The name and reverence of the Supreme Father of the universe was banished from the earth; or, if remembered at all, men scrupled not to associate with him their basest idols; and deeming him too exalted and remote to regard human affairs, they looked to these idols as the immediate authors of evil and of good; they judged of their power, by comparing the degrees of prosperity their worshippers enjoyed. Was one nation or family more successful than another, their guardian gods were adopted by their rivals; and every day extended more widely this intercommunity of folly and of blasphemy. Connected with this worship was the opinion of the power of 66 66 "because it is notorious that they did many times also confound them together; attributing the government of the whole world to the gods promiscuously, and without "putting any due discrimination between the supreme and inferior. The true reason "whereof seems to have been this; because they supposed the supreme God not to do "all immediately in the government of the world, but to permit much to his inferior "ministers: one instance of which we had in Ovid, and innumerable such others might be cited out of their most sober writers." Cudworth further grants, "That "the same names were used to express, sometimes the supreme God, sometimes the 66 parts of nature, sometimes an hero or deified man." Vide Cudworth, p. 255. Amidst this confusion, the difference occasionally acknowledged by speculative men, to exist between the Supreme Intelligence, and the subordinate but more immediate agents in the government of the world, could produce no practical effect in checking the contagion of idolatry and its attendant crimes, and rather served to aggravate the guilt of those, who "knowing God, honoured him not as God," than to enlighten or reform mankind. |