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SUBJOIN here (agreeable to my promife, hymn to Jupiter, ver. 107.) a fhort account of thofe glorious figures the Cherubim, which were placed in the Holy of Holies of the Jewish temple. This account is extracted from Duncan Forbes (Lord Advocate of Scotland) his Thoughts on Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 99. 4th edit. the whole of which treatife will well repay the reader's curiofity, if he thinks proper to peruse it.

"As the Cherubim are not fully described in the history of framing and building of the tabernacle or temple, and as the priests who might have seen them in the Sanctum San&torum, and the other perfons, who must have seen them on the walls and doors of the temple, might have failed before the second temple was compleatly finished, which would have furnished an excufe to the fucceeding Jews for being without thofe emblems in the fecond temple, and for neglecting the knowledge thereby conveyed; it pleafed God to exhibit to one of his prophets, Ezekiel, in vifion, at different times, the figure of thefe emblems, which he has in two feveral places, chap. 1ft and 10th, carefully recorded. And it is not a little furprifing, that though the Jews unanimously hold Ezekiel to be a prophet, and thefe paffages to be infpired, yet they never thought fit to give the figures he defcribes a place in their temple, or to guefs at the meaning of them, though they hold that thofe vifions contain the most important mystery.

The defcription of the creatures feen in this vifion by Ezekiel, is fo full, and fo anxiously and laboriously given, that there is no mistaking fome of the great lines of it. Each Cherub had Your heads, at leaft faces, and but one body; each had hands of a man, and wings; and the four faces were, firft, the face of a bull, which is property called a cherub; fecondly, to the right of the bull, the face of a man; thirdly, to the right of the man the face of a lion; and the face of the man and lion are faid, chap. i.

ver. 10. to have been on the right fide, whereas the face of the bull is faid to have been on the left fide; and, fourthly, the face of an eagle, without taking notice of any particular conjunction between the face of the bull, and that of the eagle.

And the prophet takes fo much care to inculcate, that the creatures, or figures thus reprefented, were the Cherubim, and that the description in the first and tenth chapter relate to the fame Cherubim, that there can be no doubt he defcribes the very Cherubim placed in the tabernacle and temple; unless it can be fuppofed that this description was given on fet purpose to deceive and mislead us.

Knowing thus, from Ezekiel, the form of the Cherubim, and knowing the ufage of the most antient nations, particularly the Egyptians, of framing compounded figures of this kind, for hieroglyphical or fymbolical purposes, from the remains of their antiquities ftill extant, we can entertain no doubt that this reprefentation was fignificative. He who cannot believe that the Cherubim was fet in the Holy of Holies to reprefent one animal, compounded of bull, man, lion and eagle, muft neceffarily admit, that the faces of thefe animals, fo joined, were intended to fignify feveral characters, powers, or perfons united together in one.

The Italian Janus was bifrons, fometimes quadrifrons; Diana was triformis; many Egyptian monuments fhew two, fometimes three heads of different creatures to one body; in vaft numbers of gems, particularly thofe called Abraxa's, human bodies have the heads fometimes of dogs, fometimes of lions, fometimes of eagles or hawks, &c. and no one can doubt that each of thofe reprefentations was fymbalical.

In confidering this fubject we must recollect that, though the building of the tabernacle was not fo early as to give birth to thofe ftrange compofitions over the heathen world, yet this E e

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figure was exhibited, immediately upon the expulfion of man from paradife, and was fo well known when Ifrael left Egypt, that the workman made the Cherubim, without any other direction than that of making them out of the gold that compofed the mercy-feat, and placing them on either end of it looking towards the mercy-feat, and ftretching their wings over it. So that the compound figures of the antients to represent their deities, had no other original but that at the east end of the garden of Eden.

However, the emblems or reprefentations of the heathen divinities may have been complicated of the forms of different animals originally; yet we fee, with length of time, they feparated thofe fymbols, fuppofed the different figures to be different deities, and at last worshipped them apart.

The Egyptian Apis, the bull, in imitation whereof the Ifraelites made their golden calf, and Jeroboam made his calves, was but one of thofe figures; and the deity called Baal amongft the Syrians, which is alfo called the heifer Baal, was the fame, and yet was the reprefentation of the great God, the Lord of all.

The Perfian Mithras was in all the devices of the fervants of that God pictured a lion, or with a lion's head; and the Egyptian fphinx, which stood at the entry of their temples, had but two of the cherubical figures, joined in a ftrange manner, the head of the man put on the body of the lion.

The eagle was to the Greeks and Romans an emblem facred to Jupiter or Jovis their great God, whom they pictured like a man; in the talon of this bird they put a thunderbolt, and this expreffion of thunder, proceeding from clouds, borne by the eagle, whofe way in the air is among the clouds, was the enfign of Nechny perng Zeus and we know from Sanchoniathon, that the Tyrians had a pillar facred to wind, or air in motion, as well as they had to fire, built, as they faid, by Ufous the fon of Hypfouranias, which fire and wind they worfhipped as Gods.

We know from antient authors, and we fee in antient gems and other monuments, that the Egyptians were very much accuftomed to make the body of their image or reprefentation human, fometimes with the head of a lion, fome times with that of a hawk or eagle, and fometimes with that of a bull, a ram, or fome other horned creature.

And as, from the original exhibition of the Cherubim renewed, and recalled to its proper ufe in the tabernacle and temple, we fee the antients had a pattern from whence they might have taken thofe reprefentations, which they monftroufly abufed, we may reasonably conclude that thefe reprefentations, which, naturally, and without fome inftitution, would never have come into the heads of any men, flowed from an early practice, that had a different intent from that, to which it was at last turned.

And from the application made by the antient Pagans of each of the figures in the Cherubim, to fignify a different deity, we may with reafon conclude, that they underftood that particular figure in the Cherubim, which they chofe for their protector or God, reprefented in the hieroglyphical ufage of the early times, the power, the thing, or perfon, that they intended to serve.

Thus, for example, if the curled hairs and horns in the bull's head were in hieroglyphical writing, made the emblem of fire in general, or fire at the orb of the Sun, thofe who took material fire for their deity would fet up that emblem, and worship it.

If the lion's piercing eyes, or any other confideration, brought that animal to be the emblem of light in general, or of light iffuing from the body of the Sun, fuch as took light for their God, if for their God, if any fuch were, would fet up the lion for their emblem.

And if the eagle's foaring flight and commerce thereby with the air, brought that bird to be the embiem of air, fuch as imagined a divinity in the air, in clouds, in winds, would take that bird to refemble their deity.

And the human figure in the Cherubim, muft. one should think, be the moft natural occafion of that univerfal mistake which all the heathens, at length, dropped into, of picturing their Gods with human bodies, and the with human bodies, and the very earliest gave fome countenance to injoining parts to the human body to, almoft, all their representations of their Gods.

Now, fo it is, that we do know from innumerable texts of Scripture, and from many paffages in heathen hiftorians and mythologists, that the objects of the earliest pagan adoration, after lofing the idea of the true God, were the powers in the heavens, that were fupposed to maintain this fyftem; the Sun, Moon and Stars, the hoft of heaven, the queen of heaven; fire, which was fuppofed to be one of the chief

agents

agents in fupporting the motion of the univerfal light iffuing from the fire; and the air, clouds, winds, &c. which had infinite force, and were supposed to act a very confiderable part in the government and prefervation of the material world. In particular, we know that fire at the orb of the Sun was worshipped by the antient Egyptians, who made use of Apis, the bull, for their emblem; and that the worshippers of Baal the heifer, believed their God had the command of fire. For, in the remarkable contention between Jehovah and Baal, managed on the one fide by Elijah, on the part of Jehovah, and on the other by four hundred and fifty priefts on the part of Baal, the test of all was, which of their deities could command fire to come down from heaven to confume the facrifice, and the iffue difgraced Baal, and destroyed all his priests: and therefore, it is no rafh conclufion, that the ox's or bull's head was the hieroglyhical emblem of fire, perhaps fire at the orb of the Sun.

We know alfo, that many of the Egyptians, and of the neighbouring nations, worshipped light; it was difficult to feparate the idea of light from that of fire. Those that served the moon and planets had no fire for their object. The Perfians, who worshipped fire, and eminently the body of the Sun, had light neceffarily in esteem as their beneficent principle. Oromafdes was light. Fob talked of worshipping light as idolatry. There were feveral temples in Egypt and in Canaan to the light of the fun and in Egypt, as well as Perfia, the lion was a facred emblem: wherefore it feems highly probable the lion was used as the fymbol or emblem of light, as the bull was made ufe of as the emblem of fire. We know also, that the earliest heathens took the air, wind, that which in the antient languages is expreffed by a word fignifying, promifcuoufly, wind and fpirit, that invifible agent which we feel, and which performs fo many confiderable effects in nature without being feen, for a deity; that to it they afcribed in fpiration; their Sibyls, their deliverers of oracles were inflated; futurities, the will of their God, was discovered by the countenance of clouds, and the flight of birds, which were religiously obferved by augurs, in the Hebrew cloud-mongers; thunder was the voice of their God, which was portentous, and much obferved. Thunder was afcribed to the great Jove, the thunderer, and the eagle with the thunderbolt was his enfign; whence we may, pretty fafely, conclude, that the eagle, to worshippers of the

air, reprefented, hieroglyphically, air, wind, fpirit.

If the deity, to give fome idea of himself from a fenfible object, had made choice of the heavens as the fenfible object, from which to take the imperfect idea of his immenfity, perfonality, and manner of existence and operation; if, by the vaftness and extent of them, his immenfity was to be reprefented; if by fire, the first perfon, neceffarily and continually generating and fending forth light, the fecond perfon, and conftantly and neceffarily supplied by air or fpirit, the third Perfon, the Trinity co exifting and co-operating for fupport of the whole, and in aid of each other was to be represented; then, upon discovering this to mankind, the heavens would become the type of Jehovah, the Divine Effence. Fire would become the type of the First Perfon, light of the Second, and air or spirit of the Third; and whatever emblems in hieroglyphical writings were used to exprefs thefe, as the names of the one, would or might be used for the appellations or names of the other.

So that, if this refemblance or reprefentation were to be expreffed in ftone, wood or metal, the emblems of fire, light, and air or fpirit, that is, from what has been faid, the bull, the lion and the eagle, ought to be conjoined together into the form of one animal; and every body, who understood the hieroglyphical emblems would immediately think on the heavens which they reprefented, and, from thence raise to himself the intended image of the Trinity in the Divine Effence."

Hymn to Apollo, note 34. p. 30. In a treatise called Delphi Phonicizantes (referred to by Spanheim, see p. 100. and note 112.) written by our learned countryman Dickinson, the reader will find pretty near the fame account of and E, as given in this note by Dr. Robinson, see p. 94, &c. There are in the fame treatise many other curious particulars deferving notice.

Hymn to Diana, p. 54. ver. 12. Turner in his Mythological Notes, p. 168-173. proves, that by these Cyclops (xvxλ) were meant nothing more than the Sun, the one bright eye in the forehead of the heaven; and if fo it is very plain, why Diana (or the Moon) fhould defire to have her bow and quiver, &c. from them, that is, the Sun, from whom all her light is borrowed. "The Cyclops therefore, fays he, that is, the eyes of the univerfe, are the fame with the Sun, who is exprefsly fo called: and E e a

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