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the Israelites from idolatry, and to make them a separate people deposi- CHAP. VI. tories of the important doctrine of the Divine Unity. The medium, by which this object is to be accomplished, was the adoption of the whole external ritual of Paganism, that was not absolutely polluted by cruelty or obscenity: I say the whole; for, however Warburton may avoid descending to particulars, Spencer has shewn at full length, that there is scarcely a single outward ordinance of the Mosaical Law which does not minutely correspond with a parallel outward ordinance of Gentilism. Now, if we may be allowed to argue upon ordinary principles, what should we think of adopting such a project, by way of preserving a newly converted pagan nation from the danger of lapsing into idolatry? Let us suppose that the Hindoos had recently embraced Christianity: would it be thought prudent to recommend the retaining of all their ceremonies, taking only special care that those ceremonies should be duly observed in honour of the true God? A very similar plan was formerly acted upon in Europe: and the consequences were pretty much what might have been anticipated; demonolatry, under a more specious garb, soon ripened into the great predicted apostasy. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to believe, that the wisdom of God would adopt a method, which seems far more likely to defeat than to promote the object to be accomplished. Nor is this the sole objection to the present theory: in a very principal part of it there is a defect of evidence; and, if such be the case with a leading part, a considerable degree of suspicion will be thrown over the soundness of the whole. Spencer derives the ark of the covenant from the ark of Osiris, and the forms of the Cherubim from the bestial hieroglyphics of the Egyptian superstition : and, in order that he may be enabled to do so, he contends, no doubt with the strictest accuracy, that the Cherubim, which surmounted the ark, were precisely the same in figure as the Cherubim which appeared to Ezekiel'. Now, though he is perfectly right in thus identifying the Cherubim of Moses with the Cherubim of Ezekiel, he is certainly mistaken in deducing them from the idolatry of Egypt. There was a manifestation of Cherubim at the gate of Paradise, long before Egypt existed as a nation:

? Spencer. de leg. Heb. ritual. lib. iii. dissert. 5.

BOOK VI. and it has been shewn, both that they were the same in form, as the Cherubim of the tabernacle and of Ezekiel; and that, from a remarkable passage in that prophet, we have reason to believe that they also covered with their extended wings the mercy-seat of a consecrated ark. Since then the hieroglyphical figures of Paradise, of the Hebrew tabernacle, and of Ezekiel's vision, all perfectly resembled each other in appearance; and since the inspired writers have been directed to bestow upon them all the very same appellation of Cherubim: there cannot, I think be a shadow of doubt, but that the covering Cherubim and the ark of the tabernacle were studiously copied from the covering Cherubim and the ark of Eden. Thus, so far as this particular at least is concerned, we are brought to the conclusion, that what was always accounted the very pith and marrow of the ritual Law was borrowed, not from the superstition of Egypt, but from ancient Patriarchism and we shall further be not unnaturally led to suspect, that such also was the true origin of the great bulk of the Mosaical ceremonial.

(3.) Here then we are almost unawares brought to the third hypothesis, by which the close resemblance between the ritual of Paganism and the ritual of the tabernacle may be satisfactorily accounted for: the resemblance in question might have been produced, without the necessity of supposing either derived from the other; for each of them might have been equally a copy of a yet more ancient ritual, even the ritual of the old Patriarchal church.

This last hypothesis, which I am persuaded is the true one, has in fact been incidentally established already, while the whole subject was discussed at large. In tracing the rise of Pagan Idolatry, it was first shewn, that it was a studied though perverted transcript of Patriarchism; and it has since been shewn, that the Cherubim and the ark of the tabernacle were equally a transcript of the Cherubim and the ark of the Patriarchal ritual. The two therefore, in the grand particularity wherein they resembled each other, were alike derived from a third ritual, which was the ancient common prototype of them both: and, as they not only borrowed the Cherubim and the ark, but likewise the important rite of expiatory sacrifice, from the old Patriarchal Church; we may rationally conclude, that the other corresponding parts of their ceremonials were derived also from the same primeval

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origin: Such a view of the,subject will remove all those strange difficulties, CHAP. 7. with which the theory of Spencer and Warburton is encumbered. The Egyptian ritual, like the other parallel rituals of the Gentiles, was distorted and perverted Patriarchism: the Levitical ritual was the very same Patriarchism, exhibited in a pure state, applied to its primitive legitimate purposes, and displayed with a degree of systematic magnificence unknown in the more simple ages of nomade life. When therefore this ritual was solemnly presented to the Israelites from mount Sinai, they could not have been startled, as if it were an unaccountable temptation to seduce them into the idolatry of Egypt: they in truth, with the exception perhaps of some few additional peculiarities, received nothing but what had long been perfectly familiar to them, nothing but what had been already consecrated by the use of their pious ancestors previous to any acquaintance with Egypt, nothing but what they well knew had been the established ceremonial of God's service even from the very days of Adam. Neither the Cherubim nor the ark, neither the sabbath nor sacrifice, neither the tabernacle nor the distinction between clean and unclean animals, were novel institutions now promulgated for the first time. As Christianity was built upon Judaism, so Judaism was built upon Patriarchism: and thus, however modified in subordinate matters, one grand scheme of theology, which has an incarnate Jehovah for its sun and its centre, runs from the fall of our first even to the consummation of all things.

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2. Such then being the origin both of the Pagan and of the Levitical ceremonial, we shall not be surprized to find the same train of thought pervading each of those institutions and passing through the latter of them into Christianity. Hence it is, that Paganism may be used with no inconsiderable effect in explaining the ritual Law.

(1.) The heathens viewed the Ark floating on the waves of the deluge, as an epitomical representation of the World: and the eight persons, preserved within it, were deemed a reappearance of the family of Adam, and were necessarily considered as the federal deputies of all mankind by whom, the larger World was tenanted. This mundane vessel was symbolized by the sacred boat; which sometimes contained a single mariner, sometimes three, sometimes eight, and sometimes the mystic bull as the acknowledged

BOOK VI. type of the great father: and it was ordinarily described, as being a form or image of his consort.

Such being the notions entertained of the derivative pagan ark; we may be sure, allowing for the difference between truth and its corruption, that similar notions were entertained of its prototype, and thence also of the derivative Levitical ark. The holy ark then of the tabernacle, by Josephus, by the Greek interpreters, and by the writers of the new testament, invariably called the boat, may be supposed to have spiritually represented the Church, long tossed about like the Noëtic Ark on the waves of a polluted world, but finally destined to comprehend within its pale the whole habitable earth or the greater ship of Adam: while the Cherubim, which jointly had eight heads, and which were stationed as the mariners of the ark of the covenant, will shadow out the eight members of the two great successive patriarchal families, severally considered as the symbols of the mass of individual believers whether belonging to the antediluvian or to the postdiluvian Church.

Nor let it be thought, that this is a mere conjecture lightly thrown out at random: I am greatly mistaken, if its truth may not be absolutely proved from Scripture itself. It was an ancient opinion, both among Jews and Christians and Pagans, that the Earth was purified by the waters of the deluge as by a sort of baptism: whence originated the various washings in the Levitical and heathen ceremonials, and the external sign of regeneration in the Church'. This opinion is expressly sanctioned by St. Peter: for he tells us, that the preservation of the Ark with its eight mariners by the water of the flood was a type or figure of the purification and salvation of the Church by the cleansing water of baptism. If then the purifying water of the flood shadowed out the purifying water of baptism, the Ark which was preserved by the one must represent the Church which is saved by the other and, accordingly, it has in every age been deemed a symbol of the great Christian society, floating on the waves of this troublesome world, affording salvation to all its true members, while those who are without stand exposed to the deluge of God's wrath, and finally bringing them

Spencer. de leg. Heb. rit. lib. iii. dissert. 3. c. 2.

21 Pet. iii. 20, 21.

to the spiritual Ararat or the holy Paradisiacal mountain of everlasting life'.

The Ark thus typifying the Church, the mariners of the Ark must of course typify the aggregate of its individual members: and, as Christ is the head of those members, Noah, the Adam of a new world, must have been a type of Christ the pilot of the ecclesiastical ark. Accordingly, we are assured in Holy Scripture, that both Adam and Noah were types of the promised Redeemer: for St. Paul draws out a long parallel between the protoplast and Christ; and our Saviour teaches us, that the future coming of the Son of man will bear a close resemblance to the days of Noah'. The resemblance no doubt will consist in this: as Noah was long a preacher of righteousness to an irreclaimable world, and as he finally preserved his family in an Ark while all the rest of mankind were swept away by the deluge; so Christ will have long been a preacher of righteousness to an impenitent race, will find but little faith upon the earth in the day of his second advent, and will preserve his family in the ark of the Church while the unrighteous are destroyed by the raging flood of God's fiery indignation.

But, if the Noëtic Ark be a type of the Church, and the Noëtic family a type of the members of that Church; then the ark of the covenant, and the eight heads of the super-imposed Cherubim, must similarly be images of the same: for, as the ark of the gentile great father and the Levitical ark of the covenant are equally derived from the sacred ark of Patriarchism, and as the ark of the great father had certainly a double reference both to the navicular Earth and to the mundane Ark of Noah; analogy requires us to suppose, that such also was the reference of the ark of the 'covenant. And with this conclusion again every scriptural particular will be found, to correspond. The ark of the tabernacle is spoken of by the sacred writers in Greek, as being a boat: and, in allusion to the typical covenant of God with Noah, it is styled the ark of the covenant; just as the ship of Osiris was denominated Baris or Barith-Is which is equivalent to the ship of the covenant,

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CHAP. VI.

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