SECTION III.

Containing an examination of the fact, Whether God and the offerers of facrifices, did, or did not, eat together of thefe facrifices.

IAM now to examine, whether God and the offerers of facrifices did, or did not, eat together of these facrifices; and, confequently, whether their eating together of them, was, or was not, a fymbol of friendfhip betwixt them, and a fœderal rite by which they engaged in, renewed, and kept up friendship with one another.

Firft. As to God; 'tis clear, that he is a pure, immaterial, and all-perfect fpirit, and, as fuch, incapable of eating and drinking in a literal fenfe. Nor is there any reason to .conceive that he did eat or drink of the facrifices which were offered to him, in a figurative or fymbolical fenfe; because, though thofe parts of facrifices, which he is fuppofed to have eaten and drank, were confumed upon his altar, yet neither the altar, nor the fire by which they were confumed upon it, were the fhechinah, or the fymbol of his being and prefence. Befides, fuch a representation of an eating and drinking god, had any fuch thing been intended, would have had a tendency to efface the notion of the

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pure

pure fpirituality of his nature, in the minds of his worshippers, and to make them conceive of him as a material and corruptible being.

To foften and palliate this, and the other abfurdities and ill confequences, with which his notion of the symbolical nature and defign of facrifices is embarraffed, our Author tells us, "That the customs of the world "had made facrifice (which he supposes to "have been the dapes, or epula, of which "God and the offerers did eat and drink "together) the ordinary way of addreffing "God.-And as this cuftom of facrificing ་་་ was spread every where, God, in his wif "dom, would, not abolish this manner "of worship, but laid hold of it to keep "his people a holy people, feparate from "the rest of mankind, and free from the

fuperftitions of the world. And this he "did in fuch a manner as would moft cer

tainly have its due effect. The Jews, "therefore, were permitted, in a certain "measure, to use such customs as were uni"verfal; and, at the fame time, by having

a peculiar inftitution, different from their "neighbours, they were kept from their idolatrys, and were made to ferve the great "ends of providence in the world *.”

ANSW.

• Page 312-314.

ANSW. This account of the origin, and of the reason of the inftitution of jewish facrifices, is obnoxious to various objections of great weight: but the only one which I have occafion to take notice of here, is, that had it been the real defign of facrifices to exhibit God and the offerers of them as eating and drinking together, and, confequently, to infufe into the minds of men a wrong and grofs notion of the nature of God, as being corporeal and corruptible; 'tis more probable, that God would have entirely abolished that mode of worship, than have continued it, or permitted the continuance of it, in condefcenfion to thofe prejudices in its favour, which had fprung from general practice and univerfal cuftom. We never find God, in other cafes, fo extremely complaifant to the prejudices of men and the cuftoms of the world, as to inftitute modes of worship of a bad tendency for the fake of them. At the time when the law of Mofes was given to the Jews, we find, that mankind were as univerfally accustomed to idol-worship, as to facrificing: and that the prejudice of the Jews in favour of this wrong way of worship, was as ftrong as it poffibly could be in favour of the rite of facrificing: and yet, because idolatry was a wrong mode of worship, as having a tendency to corrupt and efface men's notion of the unity of deity, God thought fit, in oppofition to univerfal S 4 cuftom,

cuftom, and the prejudices of the Jews themselves, to abolish idol-worship, and forbid the practice of it. If fo; it will be hard to give a reason why he did not, likewife, utterly abolish the way of worshipping by facrifice, provided that mode of worship had fuch a direct and natural tendency to eradicate out of the minds of men a just notion of the fpirituality and incorruptibility of his own nature, as it must have had, according to our Author's notion of the use and defign of it.-Again, at the time of the introduction of the Gofpel-ftate, the mode of facrificing was as univerfal, as it was at the time when the law of Mofes was given; and men, every where, were as tenacious of it, as mad upon it, and as unwilling to part with it, as ever they had been at any former time: and yet God, instead of paying any manner of regard to this general cuftom of the world, or to the ftrong and inveterate prejudices of men in its favour, did utterly abolish that mode of worship, without minding or regarding any inconveniencies or bad confequences which might arife from the abolition of it. And this he did, not because this mode of worship had any thing in its nature that was abfurd or irrational; fince the Jews, for many ages, had practifed it upon the footing of his own injunction and institution: but only because, being a part of a more imperfect scheme, it

was

was unfit for being admitted as a part of a more perfect and excellent difpenfation of religion, which he was then erecting under Jefus the Meffiah, for the general good and benefit, not of one nation only or chiefly, but of all mankind.-The firft of these two inftances, fhews us, that God is not led by the cuftoms of the world, and the prejudices of men, to adopt any thing, as a reli gious inftitution, that has a tendency to efface juft notions of his own nature and attributes: confequently, that he would not have inftituted facrifices as a mode of worship, if the defign of that inftitution had been to make men conceive of him as an eating and drinking God. The fecond inftance makes it equally evident, that no customs of the world, no prejudices of men, how general foever, can induce God to adopt any thing, as a religious inftitution, but what is fit for anfwering his own end and intention in that difpenfation of religion into which it is taken. And both, taken together, fhew us, that God was not induced, merely by the cuftoms of the world and the prejudices of men to adopt facrifices as modes of religious worship; confequently, that our Author's account of the origin, and of the reafon of the inftitution of Jewishfacrifices, is imaginary, and entirely without foundation.

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