and portable. The dress and office of the High Priest, and the whole of the Ceremonials annexed to the Priesthood, were in the highest degree striking and impressive, and far beyond any thing of the kind in the heathen world.

When the nation was in the wilderness, even then an order and solemnity were observed, for which there was no precedent. The place of the tabernacle was in the centre, each of the twelve tribes had its prescribed place on the North or South, the East or West side of it. The Levites had their station nearest to it, and were employed in taking it down, carrying, or erecting it. They were not, however, allowed to touch the most sacred utensils, this duty remained solely with the priests. To them also exclusively appertained the carrying the ark, the place of which was the Holy of Holies, and over which was the place where the immediate presence of God was manifested.

How different from this were the most solemn processions of the heathens, when they carried the images of their gods from place to place, generally, at least, in the East, on the idea of giving them an airing, or amusing them with an excursion from their temples! (Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 292.) In time of public danger, they made a public feast in the temples, and the statues of the gods were brought in rich beds with pillows, and placed in the most honourable parts of the temple, as the principal guests.-Kennett's Antiquities of Rome, p. 84.

The Ark of the Hebrews was never removed on any such ideas as these. It contained no image to which such an excursion or entertainment could apply; and, after the building of the temple, it was never on any occasion removed out of it. Before this it had, by the order of God, been carried by the priests to the brink of the river Jordan, the waters of which were divided as their feet touched them; and on some solemn occasions it was permitted to be carried as a token of the Divine presence; and from the wonders thus wrought, the Hebrews must

have had a much higher idea of the object of their worship, than any of the heathens could have of theirs.

5. Sacrificing was a mode of worship more ancient than idolatry, and instituted, as there are the strongest reasons to believe, by the Deity himself, as soon as the guilt of man made such an offering necessary. But this universal practice was greatly corrupted by the heathen, who introduced superstitious customs, thus teaching the worshippers to reverence and fear the creature rather than the Creator, all of which were excluded from the religion of the Hebrews; while their sacrifices assumed a greatness, and excited an elevated hope, by manifesting that they were the pattern of heavenly things, and shadows of good things to come, when "a body should be prepared for him" who was the substance of them all.

The heathen sacrifices were different according to the rank of the particular deity to whom they were offered. (Potter, p. 216.) No distinction of this kind was suffered to offend the Holy One of Israel. With the heathens there was an order of Priests called Haruspices, whose sole business it was to examine the entrails, especially the liver, and to divine success, or the contrary, from the appearance. No such superstition dishonoured the moral Governor of the world in the Hebrew ritual.

We read of nothing among the heathen from which Moses could take such distinctions of offerings as we read in his institutions - The burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, peace-offerings, or of the heaving, or waving of them. These therefore, he could not borrow from them. These positive institutions by which the people were thus disciplined, Christian believers now know, and the whole Jewish nation might know, answered a divine purpose, and, as a school-master, brought the worshippers to Christ. Lastly: Among all the Heathen, especially in the time of Moses, Human Sacrifices were considered as the most

acceptable to the gods; but in the law of Moses nothing is mentioned with greater abhorrence, and they are expressly declared to have been a principal cause of the expulsion of the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan. The right of the Deity indeed, to claim the life which He has given, in any way that may please him, is evident, and is intimated by the command given to Abraham, to offer up Isaac. But when the faith of the Patriarch was proved, the offering was declined, and a ram substituted in his place.

6. If the heathen had any Temples before the time of Moses, which is uncertain, and not probable, they were constructed in a very different manner from the tabernacle, or the temple of Solomon. We no where read of such divisions as that of the Hebrew temple; of such a symbol of the divine presence as the covering of the Ark between the Cherubim, in the Holy of Holies; there was no table of shew-bread, nor such a candlestick as was in the holy place. The fire and the lamps, also, evidently had their use, as appointed by Moses, but though sacred, there was nothing in them to divert the reverence of the worshipper from the invisible Jehovah. This could not be said of the perpetual fires, either of the Persians, or of the Vestals at Rome: These were debasing superstitions.

7. Both the Hebrews and the heathen allowed the Privilege of Asylum to those who fled to their temples. But with the heathens this was carried to a length equally superstitious and dangerous to the community; because, whatever was the crime with which any person was charged, the criminal could not be apprehended, and much less could he be punished, without incurring the vengeance of the Deity, who, it was supposed, protected him. (Potter's Antiquities, p. 201.) But no person, charged with any crime, was protected by flying to the altar of the Hebrews, except till the cause could be heard by regular judges; when, if he appeared to be guilty, he was ordered to be

taken from the altar itself, and put to death. Even the City of Refuge could not protect him, who was found, upon inquiry, to have killed his neighbour with design.

8. Had Moses copied any thing from the heathen, he would probably have introduced something of their Mysteries, which were rites performed in secret, and generally in the night; to which peculiar privileges were annexed, and which it was deemed the greatest crime to reveal. The most remarkable of these mysteries were the Eleusinian, which were celebrated at Athens every fourth year. Whatever these rites were, (and they were of a very suspicious nature,) it was made death to reveal them, and if any person, not regularly initiated, was present at this exhibition, he was put to death without mercy. Vile as these mysteries must have been, according to the habits of the initiated, yet it was taken for granted, that those who had performed them, lived in a greater degree of happiness than other men, both before and after death.-Potter's Antiquities, vol. i. p. 389.

Nothing like this can be found in the Institutions of Moses. There was no secret in the Hebrew ritual. Every thing is described in the written law; and though none but the Priests could enter the holy place, and none the Holy of Holies, besides the High Priest, every thing that was done by them there, is as particularly described, as what was to be done by the people without.

9. The heathen had their Oracles, as well as the Hebrews; but the difference between them was very great. With the Hebrews, the responses were in a clear, articulate voice, free from ambiguity, and given only on solemn occasions, and with a solemnity becoming a message from God. They were also perfectly gratuitous, and confined to no particular time. But the Oracles of the heathen were always obscure, and generally ambiguous, delivered in a frantic manner, only at particular seasons, and always attended with great expence.

10. The heathen had also their Purifications; but how very different from those of the Hebrews! Nothing was used by them for this purpose, but pure water, evidently emblematic of inward purity. The only obscure article, in this respect, was that prescribed for cleansing after the touch of a dead body, on which occasion the water was mixed with the ashes of a red heifer; and certainly there was no precedent for this among the Egyptians, or any other nation. But the heathen used mixtures continually, and with such superstitious regard to particulars, as evidently taught the worshippers to reverence the creatures used, instead of the Creator. The purifications also among the Hebrews tended to recommend cleanliness, and consequently to promote health; but some of the most sacred rites of the heathen were filthy and disgusting,-as the Tauribolium, in which the person so purified, was covered with blood, his hair and his garments full of it, and in this condition he continued as long as he could, without washing himself or changing his dress!

11. Religion directed the choice of proper articles of Food, both with the heathen and the Hebrews; but with the latter, the most wholesome food was allowed, and nothing was forbidden for any reason which tended to nourish superstition. But no good reason can be given for the Egyptians abstaining from mutton, the Syrians from fish, the Hindoos from the flesh of cows, or the Priests, in some countries, from the flesh of animals of any kind. The only reasons given tended to superstition. The Hebrew priests also were not obliged to practise any peculiar austerities. They might drink wine, except during the time of their actual ministrations. They might marry and have families. The heathen priests on the contrary, (Potter, p. 391,) were obliged to submit to austerities equally superstitious, cruel, and debasing.

12. Moses assigned no part of the national worship to Females, but in the heathen temples there were Priestesses •