SECT. VI. On the national Worship of the Hebrews. THE consideration of the devotional worship of the Israelites is of similar nature and importance to that pursued in the preceding Section. If we were to make a comprehensive survey, we should find the public worship of the various nations of mankind to be no inaccurate transcript of their abstract conceptions of the divine nature. Theoretical errors as to the character of the Deity, have uniformly led to corresponding errors in the popular religion. The worship of the ancient heathens was not only gross and licentious in general, as might be expected from the adorers of deified men; but was more or less licentious in pretty exact proportion to the supposed nature of the individual deity, in whose ho nour the particular festival might be held, The national worship, therefore, may be considered as the practical test to which we can bring the religious feelings and popular opinions of a nation. As in addressing a superior in our intercourse with mankind, we adapt our language to the disposition of the individual; so a religious address will itself partake of the character, whether real or imaginary, which it is intended to propitiate or honour. If we look into the ideas of the ancients respecting the worship of the Deity, we shall find that they fall generally under one of two comprehensive heads of error. The few who saw beyond the reigning superstitions, and either rejected the popular worship as absurd, or only complied with it as established by law and usage, went far into a contrary extreme; and maintained the plausible though mistaken argument, that it was unnecessary to apply to the Deity, who already knew our wants, and was a better judge than the petitioner of the expediency of granting them*. This *This is the tenour of Socrates's discourse with Alcibiades. His conclusion is, Εμοι μέν ἂν δοκεῖ κράτιστον είναι ἡσυχίαν ἔχειν. Maximus Tyrius enlarges still farther upon Plato's idea; and has a dissertation professedly to dissuade from prayer: in which he employs a number of subtle and somewhat plausible arguments, to show how useless it must needs be for mortals to attempt to change was the philosophical error; and, by restraining all communion between man and his Creator, was calculated to check his best and purest feelings, and to render him incapable of attaining that tranquil frame of mind, that pious confidence, which arises from well-directed devotion. Far worse, however, was the popular error, inasmuch as inactivity, though an evil, is a less evil than positive crime. The majority, who must always in all countries be blindly led by the practice of their ancestors, zealously embraced, without hesitation or inquiry, that polytheism and idolatry, the details of which are no less disgusting than degrading; and practised a religious worship, to which the Bacchanalian feasts, the Lupercalia, the Floral either the course of providence or of destiny; and also, how unworthy it would be of the divine nature to be moved by entreaty. These are his conclusions: Merarioas καὶ μεταγινώσκειν προσήκει μὴ ὅτι θεῷ, ἀλλ ̓ ἐδὲ ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ —and, ετε ἂν ἐυχομένοις δώσει παρὰ τὴν ἀξίαν, ὅτε ἐκ ευχομένοις ε δώσει κατὰ τὴν div. See the whole of the 30th Dissertation. This authority is the more valuable, because the arguments are exactly such as might be expected from natural reason on the subject. Apollonius Tyanæus and Porphyry held nearly the same opinion. See Leland, p. i. p. 375. games, the rites of Cybele, the Aphrodi sia, the Dionysia, and Thesmophoria be longed *. The antiquity of idolatrous worship, whatever was its origin, appears from the law of Moses, which forbade it; its universality is generally acknowledged. Both its universality and its antiquity show that it is the natural error of the human mind, which, being too conscious of its own weakness not to recur to superior power, and also too much enchained to the world with which it is conversant, to abstract its attention to a spiritual object of adoration, fixes and addresses itself to a sensible image of its Godt. That this is natural, appears not only from the practice of all uninstructed nations, but from the frequent relapses * The enormities of these festivals are sufficiently exposed by Leland, in his " Advantages of Revelation." The ancient Romans afford a melancholy instance. What idolaters they became is familiarly known. Yet according to Plutarch and Dionysius, Numa prohibited the erection of statues in the temples, which law was obeyed for 170 years, till Tarquinius Priscus introduced Etrurian superstitions. Plut, in Vit. Numæ, p. 141. August. de Civ. Dei, iv. xxxi. of the Jews into the custom of the countries by which they were surrounded, and even from the present habits of a large part of the Christian world; while the earnestness of the Roman Catholic devotions, however mixed with error, and the solemn awe of their religious processions, are a sufficient testimony of its effect. Experience, however, has proved, that in the rapid progress of evil, what was at first the emblem soon becomes the object; and the sanctity due only to the unseen original, is transferred to the visible representation. Thus we find that the images of departed ancestors become objects of worship, where departed ancestors are considered as tutelar deities where the sun, or other heavenly bodies, are looked upon as the gods of this world, there, as in Persia and Peru, veneration will be paid to emblematic fire; and in still ruder communities, the unmeaning work of human art, even an ancient stone or figure of unnatural proportion, will claim an hereditary title to vulgar and senseless superstition. * This prevalent error was at once foreseen and guarded against by the simple |