and other idolatrous nations, should induce a doubt of the originality of the Jewish Law; and lead us to believe that the Legislator of the Hebrews borrowed many of his rites from the practice of the Egyptians, and others of the surrounding nations, in order to accommodate his Ritual to the habits and propensities of his countrymen, by preserving a similarity between his institutions and those idolatrous rites and customs to which they had been familiarized and attached; and, many of which he in a great measure, retained, (as these writers suppose) only altering them so far as to change their object, appropriating them to the service of the true God, and blending them with the rites which originated solely in the divine appointment. Some judicious and candid critics have considered my omitting to notice this question, as a defect in this work. And in deference to their judgment, I feel myself called on to adver to it as far as I judge it necessary in my present view of the subject.

In the first place, then, if the principles and reasonings adduced in the preceding Lectures, and confirmed in those which follow, are just and conclusive, the supposition which we are now considering, becomes totally superfluous, and even in the highest degree improbable. If the great Jehovah, the moral Governor of the world, did in reality separate the Jewish nation to be the depositaries of true religion and sound morality, in the midst of an idolatrous world, and for this purpose brought them forth out of Egypt by a series of stupendous and uncontrolled miracles: if he promulgated to them the Moral Law of the Decalogue, with the most awful display of divine power and majesty; if he established over them, as their form of national government, a Theocracy, which could not be supported without the continued interposition of an extraordinary providence; if he retained them in the wilderness for forty years, to discipline and instruct them, until the entire genera tion, which had been familiarized to the idolatry and corruptions of Egypt, had perished; and if he then planted them in the land of Canaan by a supernatural power, driving out before them its inhabitants, or compelling the Jews to exterminate them, as a punishment for their inveterate idolatry and its attendant crimes, commanding them carefully to avoid all similar profanation and guilt, under the terror of suffering similar

M

punishment ;-if these facts have been established, so as to prove that the Jewish Lawgiver was clearly delegated by God to institute a particular form of worship, with a variety of regulations and rites, to preserve the separation of this chosen people from the surrounding nations ;-then the supposition that he should borrow any thing from these rites and customs, in order to accommodate his system to the prejudices, habits, and propensities of his countrymen, becomes unnecessary, in proportion as we more clearly discern that he possessed authority to conciliate attention and enforce obedience without resorting to any such artifice. And if such an expedient was unnecessary, surely its adoption is extremely improbable. Thus to blend divine appointments and human inventions; to degrade the worship of the great Jehovah with the intermixture of rites, originally designed to honour the basest idols; to reprobate the whole system of idolatry, all its profanations and crimes, with the most vehement and indiscriminate condemnation, and prohibit every attempt to introduce any part of it, under the severest penalties; and yet secretly, as it were, pilfer from it some of its most attractive charms, varnish them with a new colouring, and exhibit them as the genuine features of true religion; this seems altogether irreconcilable with the dignity of an inspired Legislator, and the purity of a divine Law, and indeed forms a scheme so jarring and inconsistent, that it appears utterly incredible it should be adopted by Divine Wisdom.

The learned Spencer, the most distinguished champion for this opinion, of the rites of the Jewish Law having been borrowed from those of the Gentiles, especially the Egyptians, argues from the political wisdom of such a gradual reformation, by grafting new institutions on customs already familiarized; and he adduces examples from "the triple reformation, first "from Judaism to Christianity; next from Gentilism to Chris"tianity; and lastly, from Popery to Protestantism in each of "which (as he truly alleges) many instances occur, in which "the rites of the old religion were retained or imitated in the new." But in this reasoning he seems entirely to overlook the real bearing of the very examples he adduces. Christianity

• Spencer de Legibus Hebræorum, Lib. III. Hoge Comitum-A. D. 1686. Spencer, ut supra, Lib. III. cap. ii. sect. 4, p. 27.

borrowed from Judaism, because it was the completion of that system which in Judaism had been begun. Christ came, "not "to destroy the Law and the prophets, but to fulfil them."* Hence the moral precepts of the Old Testament were preserved and perfected in the New; the rites and ceremonies of the Law were typical of the grand events and leading truths of the Gospel; and the chief festivals of the Jewish church were succeeded and superseded by corresponding festivals in the Christian. But the moment that human prejudice in favour of ancient usages would have overstepped the bounds prescribed by scriptural truth, and obtruded upon Christians the observances of a national and ceremonial law, inconsistent with the character of a universal religion and a purely spiritual worship, that moment Divine Wisdom interposed its direct prohibition against an abuse so mistaken and so mischievous. And can we suppose the same wisdom would have acted so opposite a part at the establishment of the Jewish Law, as to permit this chosen people to receive by divine appointment a Ritual, which, by its similarity to idolatrous rites, could scarcely fail to make them regard such profanations with respect, and throw in their way a most seductive temptation to imitate them more extensively?-Human policy, short-sighted in its views and defective in its authority, might, to facilitate its immediate objects, find it necessary to employ an expedient attended with so much future hazard; but surely this were unworthy of a Divine Lawgiver.

The second example appealed to by Spencer-the reformation from Gentilism to Christianity, as conducted by the well-meaning, but weak and mistaken men, who influenced the proceedings of the Western Church in the fifth and sixth centuries, exhibits a memorable and melancholy instance of the corruptions originating from thus preferring the crooked artifices of human policy, to the plain dictates of divine truth. From what other source than this were derived the errors and idolatries adopted and sanctioned by the Church of Rome which for so many ages obscured and disgraced the whole system of the Christian faith, till the wise and manly zeal of the Protestant Reformers tore off this disfiguring mask of Paganism, and again exhibited

↑ Vide Middleton's Comparison of Popery and Paganism, 4th edit. Lond. 1741.

*

the unadulterated beauties of genuine Christianity, to attract the admiration and command the reverence of mankind. But. says Spencer, even in this reformation, many of the principles and usages of the Romish church were retained, and the progress of that reformation thus accelerated. True; the Christian world will always remember with gratitude, that though the Roman Church introduced many most injurious innovations, and loaded Christianity with a multitude of errors and superstitions, still she preserved all the great truths of the Gospel, and handed down to posterity many of the most valuable rites and usages of antiquity. These, therefore, it became the duty and the wisdom of the Reformers to retain, and only to reject those novelties and corruptions which artifice and superstition had introduced. And admirably indeed did the venerable founders of the Church of England execute this important discrimination. But they succeeded, because they made it their object to clear the divine Law from all intermixture of human depravation; not, as Spencer supposes of the inspired Lawgiver of the Jews, to debase the divine institutions to the level of idolatrous profanations.

But if the patrons of this system cannot defend it, as being evidently reasonable and useful, and recommended by examples of sufficient authority; still less can they support it by the authority of Scripture. Its greatest advocate indeed acknowledges, "It is no where in Scripture asserted in express words, that the "rites used among the Heathens gave occasion to any of the "Jewish institutions." He adds this reason for such silence: "perhaps because this circumstance could easily be discerned.

by men of more penetrating sagacity; or because, if God had "openly declared this origin and reason of the Mosaic Laws, "they would have fallen into contempt with the vulgar part of "mankind, who are wont to despise what is plain, and revere "only what is mystical and obscure."+ It is obvious to mark how inconsistent this observation is with the general scheme of this writer. The sole purpose of such imitation of Heathen rites, is supposed to be its tendency to attach the multitude by the adoption of customs to which they were already familiarized. Could it produce this effect, if it was not discernible by that * Ut supra, Lib. III. cap. iii, sect. 4. p. 27.

Spencer, Lib. III. cap initio.

66

multitude? or if diseerned, it would expose the Law to contempt. Or could the similarity be obvious, and the design to imitate unseen? Spencer however affirms, that, though it is not directly asserted, it is not obscurely intimated by some passages of Holy Writ; and at the head of these he places the sublime appeal of the Jewish Lawgiver to his people; "What "nation is there so great, that hath God so nigh unto them, as "the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? "And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this Law which I set before you "this day?"" In this passage," says this learned writer, Moses, in order to attach the Jews to God and his institu"tions may be considered as thus addressing them-I know "that you earnestly desire a God not hid in clouds or removed "to a distance from you, and to be perceived only by the "mind's eye, but a God who may prove his presence by prodigies, oracles, and illustrious signs, and almost exhibit himself "to your sight. I know that you look with a desiring eye on "the manners and sacred rites of other nations, and that nothing "can

66

66

can be more grateful to you, than that you, like other nations, "should have a religion full of rites and observances. And assuredly God has proved so compliant and indulgent to your "desires and wishes, that I now confidently ask you, What "nation is there which hath its gods so near, or exhibiting to "their worshippers such illustrious proofs of their presence and "their favour? And if you view the institutions of foreign nations, learn, even such of you as regard with the greatest partiality and attachment the rites of other religions, what "nation is there which celebrates the worship of the Divinity with rites so conspicuous for purity, dignity, and splendour;

66

16

for we do not worship the supreme and glorious God with 'that barbarous mixture of ceremonies, in which the ignorance "and superstition of the Heathens had combined so many things ridiculous and impure, but with rites amended, and "that have undergone the correction of the most wise God, "which are yet retained in the worship of the Heathens entire, "and without any correction." The latter part of this paraphrase, containing the peculiarity of this author's opinion (which I cannot but deem erroneous) assuredly receives no sup

*Deut. iv. 7 and 8.