In truth, the whole tenor of the Jewish Law exhibits not a studied imitation, but a studied opposition to the principles and rites of idolatry. That law required the worship of the one true God exclusively; idolatry worshipped a rabble of deities. The Law proscribed all use of images, or resemblances of any creature, as emblems of the Divinity; idolatry multiplied them. The Law abhorred and condemned all impure rites and all human sacrifices; idolatry too frequently employed them. The Law forbad all necromancy and divination; it made no use of the inspection of the entrails of victims, or the observation of the flight of birds, to discover future events; it relied for this, when necessary, on the divine oracle consulted by public authority, and answering from the sanctuary, when the divine glory was displayed, by a distinct and audible voice.+ The Law forbad a variety of practices, in themselves apparently innocent, but which we know were employed in the superstitions of idolatry; such as worshipping in high places or in consecrated groves. Thus Maimonides‡ notices that the prohibition against rounding the corners of the hair on the head and the beard § was given because the idolatrous priests were accustomed to use that particular tonsure. He assigns a similar reason for not making

*Deut. xviii. 9-12,

+ During the life of Moses, the oracle answered by a distinct and audible voice: Vide Numbers, vii. 89. Joshua was to stand before the High Priest, who was to "ask counsel for him by the judgment of Urim before the Lord." Numb. xxvii. 21.-Interpreters have differed in explaining this passage; to me it appears to mean, that the High Priest was to put on his sacred robe whenever he was to consult the oracle, as it would be criminal to enter the sanctuary, except he was thus robed. The distinguishing ornament of this robe was the breastplate, containing the Urim and Thummim; that is, as I conceive, the twelve precious stones containing the names of the twelve tribes, as whose representative the High Priest appeared when thus consulting on some question of a national concern; when so consulting, he appears to have been accompanied by the supreme judge, at whose instance the oracle was resorted to; and it appears to me the response was delivered by an audible voice.-Compare Exod. xxviii. from verse 15 to the end, with Exod. xxxix. 8 to 22; Levit. viii. 8. Compare also 1 Samuel, xxiii. 9 to 12. and xxx. 7.; 2 Samuel, v. 23.; also Judges, i. 1. and the entire ch. xx. See on this subject, Lowman on the Hebrew Govern. ch. xi.; Spencer, Lib. III. dissert. vii. de Urim & Thummim, particularly the 2d section. In his opinions on this subject, Spencer has adopted an hypothesis as to the nature of the Urim and Thummim, which appears to me most contrary to truth and Scripture, and to be fully confuted by Witsius in his Ægyptiaca, Lib. II. cap. x. xi. xii, Lib. III. cap. xi.

Vide Maimonides More Nevochim, Pars III, cap. xli. p. 463; and for others, cap. xxxvii. p. 447,

§ Lev. xix, 27,

a garment of linen and woollen mixed together, this being a particular dress in idolatrous rites. Hence also he accounts for the prohibition against eating the fruits of the trees they should find in the land of Canaan for three years, + which by the planters had been consecrated to idols. Thus also idolaters were brought to believe that it was acceptable to their gods to sow the ground on particular occasions with certain mixtures of seeds, which was therefore prohibited. ‡ Idolaters were accustomed to use blood in consulting the dead, to consecrate bats § and mice, and other insects, as a sacrifice to the sun; these, therefore, were pronounced unclean. Indeed Spencer || has himself distinctly shewn that many of those precepts which at first view might appear trivial or irrational, were indispensably necessary to check the idolatry of the Sabeans, who worshipped the sun, and moon, and stars; and it is abundantly evident that all the peculiarities of the Ritual, as to its rites, sacrifices and purifications, and its distinctions between things clean and unclean, contributed to guard against the infection of idolatry; not only by an opposition of rites and sacrifices, which would make the worshippers of Jehovah regard with habitual horror and contempt the rites and sacrifices of idolaters, but by establishing a similar opposition even in the customs of common life,. and the use of even daily food, which would render all familiar intercourse between the peculiar people of Jehovah and idolaters impracticable. This effect really followed wherever these pre cepts of the Law were observed. Thus, according to Josephus,¶ when the Midianite women are represented as conferring with the young men whom their beauty had captivated, stating their fears of being forsaken by their lovers, and receiving their assurances of attachment, they go on, "If then," said they, this be resolution, not to forsake make use you "of such customs and conduct of life as are entirely different "from all other men, insomuch that your kinds of food are peculiar to yourselves, and your kinds of drink not common

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your

us,

since

Ib. ver. 19.

§ Lev. xi.—Vide also Patrick on Lev, xi, 19, Deut. xiv. and the correspouding passages,

|| Vide Spencer, Lib. I. from ch. v. to xi. and the entire 2d Book.-Consult also Lowman on the Hebrew Ritual, Part I, ch. ii, pp. 34, 44, & 45. and ch. iii. p. 53, with Part II. ch. iii, iv, & v.

Joseph. Antiq. B. IV. ch, vi. sect. 8.

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"to others, it will be absolutely necessary, if you would have "us for your wives, that you worship our gods; nor can there "be any other demonstration of the kindness which you say "you already have and promise to have hereafter for us, than "this, that you worship the same gods that we do. For has "any one reason to complain that, now you are come into this country, you should worship the proper gods of the same "country, especially while our gods are common to all men, "and yours such as belong to nobody else but yourselves? So "they said they must either come into such methods of worship "as all others came into, or else they must look out for another "world, wherein they may live by themselves, according to "their own laws." The same feeling of aversion and contempt from this studied opposition, not only in religious rites but in the customs of common life, was universal amongst the heathens towards the Jews. Tacitus, in his eloquent but ignorant and gross misrepresentation of their origin and manners, expresses it strongly: "Moses," (says he) "that he might attach the "nation for ever to himself, introduced rites new and in oppo"sition to the rest of mankind: all things we hold sacred, are "there profane; and what we deem abominable, are with them "permitted." And again, "they slaughter the ram in sacrifice,

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*

as if in contempt of Ammon; and they also offer up an ox, “which the Egyptians worship under the name of Apis." The decided feeling of opposition and hostility which the whole Jewish system excited, not merely in the vulgar, but in the most enlightened heathens, is evident in the passage already quoted from this philosophic historian: and still more in those which follow, where he terms their "rites perverse and polluted;" and while he remarks the good faith and benevolence for which they were noted in their intercourse with each other, charges them "with an hostile hatred towards the rest of mankind,"and declares that "those who adopt their principles and cus"toms, not only use circumcision, but are taught to despise "their own gods, to renounce their country, and to hold in contempt brothers, children, parents." And though he observes a similitude between the Jewish ideas of a future state, and the Egyptian opinions, he gives this noble testimony of the superiority of the Jewish theology: "With regard to the gods (says

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* Historiarum, Lib, V. sect. 4.

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he) their opinions are directly opposite: the Egyptians set up "and adore a number of animals and graven images; the Jews "conceive the Divinity as one, and to be understood only by "the mind: they deem those profane, who form any images of "the gods, of perishable materials, and after the likeness of "men: the Divinity they describe as supreme, eternal, un"changeable, imperishable; hence there are no images in their "cities or their temples: with these they would not flatter kings, or honour Cæsars." How illustrious this testimony; how strange that this sagacious historian could not perceive how grossly he contradicted himself, when, notwithstanding this, he countenanced the vulgar calumny of an ass's head having been found in the most holy place; and when afterwards, comparing the Jewish rites with those of Bacchus, he speaks of these as festive and cheerful, while he brands the religion of the Jews as sordid and absurd. So necessary was the authority of an acknowledged Revelation to give the truths of religion, even amongst the most enlightened heathens, their due weight and practical influence; and so decided was the contrast between not only the general principles of Judaism and idolatry, but also the particular rites of each-a contrast by which the Jewish Ritual so effectually contributed to the end for which it was originally designed, even to serve as a partition-wall to separate the chosen people of God from the surrounding nations, and form a barrier against the corruptions of heathenism—a purpose with which the supposition, that it borrowed and consecrated many of these rites and practices, appears to be entirely inconsistent.

The evidence on which this supposition is founded, has been proved to be as inconclusive as the supposition itself appears to be improbable.-Witsius* has shewn, with a clearness which renders it altogether unnecessary to discuss the subject afresh, that the authors on whose testimony the superior antiquity of the Egyptian religion has been maintained, and who have asserted or supposed that the Mosaic Law derived from this source many of its principles and rites, lived so long after the facts,

*Witsii Ægyptiaca, Lib. III. cap. i.; this examines the credibility of the authors relied upon by Spencer, cap. ii. iii. iv. & v.; adduces the testimony of antiquity in proof that Heathenism borrowed Judaism, not Judaism from Heathenism; which he establishes in a variety of instances, and by very strong proofs.

were so grossly ignorant of the Jewish history and system, so rash or so prejudiced, that their testimony can have no authority to obtain credit, not merely, as he expresses it, with a strict investigator of antiquity, but "even with any man of plain sense and moderate erudition."* In truth, the fancied resemblance between the rites of Judaism and idolatry amounts to little more than this, that in both were priests, temples, altars, sacrifices, festivals, calculated to catch the attention, captivate the senses, and engage the imaginations of the worshippers, by their splendour or their solemnity. But we have sufficiently proved that these were all directed to opposite objects of worship, the former to the one supreme God, the latter to the basest idols; and as the objects of worship, so the rites employed, we have seen, were designedly contrasted, and, so far from imitating idolatrous practices, any thing similar to such was strictly forbidden, even in particulars of themselves clearly innocent, as in worshipping in groves or on high places.

Should it be asked, why should an inspired Lawgiver, instead of a simple and purely spiritual worship, adopt a Ritual, thus, in the variety and the splendour attending it, bearing even a remote resemblance to the more gross inventions of idolatry? it may be answered, that the Jewish Ritual, with its temple, its festivals, its priests, its sacrifices, its distinctions of food, its purifications, &c. &c. not only served as a barrier against idolatry, but contributed to give the true religion dignity and attraction in the estimation both of strangers and of the Jews themselves; it marked out the Hebrew nation as a holy people, a nation of priests to Jehovah their God and King; it attached them to their religion by the habitual association of festive rites, of national exaltation and prosperity; it engaged their imagination and their senses, made them feel the necessity of circumspection and purity when they approached the presence of God, and by all these means formed some counterpoise to the seductions of idolatry. On this subject Josephus well observes, t "All our actions and studies, and all our words, in Moses's set"tlement, have a reference to piety towards God; for he hath ❝left none of these things in suspense or undetermined. For "there are two sorts of ways of coming at any kind of learn* Witsius, Lib. III. cap. i. sect. 2.

Joseph. contra Apion. Lib. II. sect. 17 & 18.