sons, soon introduced honours to their dead bodies and their graves. The use of blood in their feasts for the dead, was soon accounted an act of communion with the dæmons themselves. How well suited to prevent these idolatries, did the Hebrew ritual represent the touch of a dead body, and every issue of blood as polluting, and rendering them unfit to appear before the presence of Jehovah, in his most holy place. 27, 28. The law itself evidently shows it had a regard to such superstitions: Ye shall not Levit. eat any thing with the blood, neither shall xix. 26, ye use enchantments, nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cutting in your flesh for the dead, nor print any mark upon you. I am the Lord. Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood, ought to be rendered, at, or before blood, and is an allusion to the idolatrous worship of dæmons, by gathering blood together for them as supposed their food, and coming themselves and eating part of it, whereby they were esteemed the dæmons' guests, and by this kind of communion with them, were supposed enabled to prophesy and foretel things to cometo have such familiarity with these spirits, as to receive revelations, and be inspired with the knowledge of secret things. Such עלהדם divinations by the dead became a very common, but a very dangerous practice of idolatry. The funeral customs of cutting the hair of their heads round about, throwing it into the sepulchres of their relations and friends, sometimes laying it on the face or breast of the deceased, as a sacrifice to the infernal gods-making cuttings in their flesh for the dead, printing some mark on their bodies, to show to what dæmon or idol-god they belonged, were known idolatrous customs, as many learned men have shown at large, after Maimonides, and is observed by Bishop Patrick on the place. This is confirmed by 7.-xlv. the after-explications of the Prophets, in particular the Prophet Jeremiah. Jerem. xvi. 6, 1. Several particu What, now, appears more likely to prevent these idolatries, than to represent dead bodies and all issues of blood, even involuntary, so far from sacred rites or acceptable acts of worship, or giving communion with gods, that they polluted both persons and things that touched them, and made them unfit to appear in the presence of Jehovah their God? It is moreover to be observed, there are lar laws prohibitions in the Mosaical ritual of ceragainst tain rites and customs in use among idolaidola- ters, which abuse of them in idolatrous toms. worship was a sufficient reason to forbid them, how indifferent, how innocent soever they might appear in themselves; for every trous cus danger of idolatry was of too great concern to be neglected. seeth a kid in his xxiii. 19. It will be sufficient here just to men- Not to tion these laws, and the superstitions, or idolatrous customs, which seem the occa- mother's sion of their prohibition. There is a law milk. that directs, Thou shalt not seeth a kid in Exod. his mother's milk. As this law is among others which are manifestly designed to forbid the use of idolatrous rites, it is natural to understand it was designed to answer the same end. It has been shown at large by learned men, that the very ancient idolaters, the Zabians, had a magical rite in which the sacrifice and eating of a goat was a considerable part. Abarbinel expressly affirms, "The ancient idolaters Bishop "were wont, when they gathered the Patrick "fruits of the earth, to seeth a kid in his place. "mother's milk, that their gods might be "more propitious to them." It is further observed by Dr. Cudworth, from a Karaite writer, who saith, "All the trees and "fields and gardens were sprinkled with "this broth (of a kid seethed in its mo"ther's milk) after a magical manner, to "make them more fruitful for another 66 99 year." And this the learned Bochart takes to be the truest interpretation. It may here be observed, once for all, that in such arguments, as so much depends on very ancient customs, it is unreasonable to expect a more positive proof, than the on the Not to of great probability of such magical rites, 66 Maimonides observes, "It was a cusfer honey. "tom among idolaters, that they offered "leavened bread, and chose sweet things "for their offerings to their gods; and "that they used to anoint them with honey;" as appears by their writings, often quoted by him. It is further remarked by our learned Spencer, from Porphyry, "that they (who offered sacrifices to dæ"mons) made honey a symbol of death, "and therefore they sacrificed to the ter"restrial gods an offering of honey. It Maimon. part III. 1. xlvi. 481. p. may be taken for certain," he adds, "that the ancient idolaters sometimes of"fered honey to the superior or heavenly Spencer's .. gods; but that they always offered it to "the infernal gods and dead heroes." Leg.Heb. 1. II. c. 9. It became the honour of Jehovah's worship not to be defiled with rites appropriated to the worship of dead men, and the infernal deities. And it was a manifest useful means to preserve the Hebrews from these idolatries, when they were directed by their ritual to avoid what the idolatrous customs of their neighbours. made sacred and religious, and in particular to the honour of the dead, a principal part of their idolatry. the fire to It is observed by Maimonides," as one Passing great artifice of the idolatrous priests, to through "work on the weakness of men's tempers;" Moloch. which has been found in experience a very likely way to lead men into very great superstitions. "They knew they feared no- Maimon. thing so much as the loss of their for- Mor. Neb. part "tunes and of their children: the wor- III. c. 37. shippers of fire therefore declared, that "if they did not make their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, all "their children would die. This passing through the fire may be considered as a rite of purification, or of initiation, by which parents dedicated their children to this idol. Such purifications, or lustrations by fire, were rightly understood to be an act of consecration to the honour and worship of Moloch, the sun, or prince of the heavenly host. This idolatrous rite, if it was not so originally, in time grew into a most barbarous and cruel superstition: they did not only cause the children to pass through the fire to purify them, but they were actually burned, as an offering |