Friendship with God, to pursue the fame means and practices as they did with one another; nor could they more naturally exprefs their defire of Friendship or of Reconciliation with God, than by the means by which They were wont to engage in Friendship with one another. All the world has agreed in This, that whatever is efteemed the greatest Mark of Refpect among any People, with That they approach God. Standing, Kneeling, Proftration, Covering the Head, or Uncovering it, Pulling off Shoes, Bowing, Kiffing the Hand, Touching the Forehead, Smiting the Breaft; in fhort, whatever is the Mark of the profoundest Respect amongst men, That is applied by them to God. And for the fame reason, whatever was the Method by which the Men of old engaged in Covenants, or whatever were the Federal Rites they used, or by which they endeavoured to establish the fecureft Friendships with one another, That would naturally be the means of entring into Friendship with God. Eating therefore and Drinking at His Table would be as natural a Sign of Friendship

43

with

with God, as it was with any of their own Species.

But fuppofing all this, How could it come into their Heads, that the Offering things in Fire, or the Burning them, was the fame as prefenting them on God's Table, or eating with Him? How could they imagine, that the Blood of Victims, or the Limbs of them, could ever be agreeable to God; Or that He would accept Them, or their Offerings of innocent Animals, as an Expiation, or Atonement for the Faults of Reasonable Creatures?

The Appearance of God to Mortals feems always to have been in Brightness and great Glory, whether He was Angry and in Displeasure, or benign and kind. Thefe Appearances are often mentioned in Scripture. When God appeared on Mount Sinai, it is faid, The Lord defcended upon it in Fire, Exod. xix. 18. And when Mofes repeats the Hiftory of This to the Children of Ifrael, he fays, The Lord fpake unto you out of the midst of the Fire, Deut. iv. 12. So it was when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Mofes in Flame of Fire out of the midst of the Za

Bufb

Bufh; the Bush burned with Fire, and the bush was not confumed, Exod. iii. 3. The Appearances of the Angel of God's prefence, or that Divine Person who reprefented God, being always in Brightnefs; or in other words, the Shechinah being furrounded with Glory, This feems to have given Occafion to thofe of Old to imagine * Fire to be what God dwelt in.

Whether it was that any Fire proceeded from God, and burnt up the Oblation in the first Sacrifices, as Some ingenious men have conjectured, we know not. It is certain that in after Ages This was the cafe. We are fure that a Fire from the Lord confumed upon the Altar the Burnt Offering of Aaron, Lev. ix. 27. And fo it did the Sacrifice of Gideon, both the Flesh and the unleavened Cakes, Judges vi. 21. When David built an Altar unto the Lord, and offered Burnt Offerings and Peace Offerings, and called upon the Lord,

Ipfe [Darius] Solem Mithren, facrumque et æternum invocans IGNEM, ut illis dignam vetere Gloria majoremque monumentis fortitudinem inspirarent. 2. Curtius, 1. iv.

C. 13.

He

He answered him from Heaven, by Fire upon the Altar of Burnt Offerings, 1 Chron. xxi. 26. The fame thing happened at the Dedication of Solomon's Temple,The Fire came down from Heaven, and confumed the Burnt Offering and the Sacrifices, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Houfe, 2 Chron. vii. 1. And much about a Hundred years afterwards, when Elijah made that extraordinary Sacrifice in proof that Baal was no God, The Fire of the Lord fell and confumed the Burnt Sacrifice, and the Wood, and the Stones, and the Duft, and licked up the Water that was in the Trench, 1 Kings xviii. 38. And if we go back long before the Times of Mofes, as early as Abraham's days, we meet with an inftance of the fome Sort. It came to pass, that when the Sun went down, and it was dark, behold a Smoaking Furnace, and a Burning Lamp, that palled between thefe pieces; Gen. xv. 17.

The First Appearances of God then being in Glory, or which is the fame thing, in Light, or Fire; and He fhewing his Acceptance of Sacrifices in fo many instances by confuming them with Fire, Z 2 Hence

:

Hence it was that the Eastern people, and particularly the Perfians, fell into the Worship of Fire itself, or rather they conceived Fire to be the Symbol of God's prefence, and they worshipped God in or by Fire. From the Affyrians, or Chaldeans, or Perfians, this worship was propagated Southward amongst the Egyptians, and Weftward among the Greeks; and by them it was brought into Italy. The Greeks were wont to meet together to worship in their Prytancia; and there They confulted for the Public Good; and There was a conftant Fire kept upon the Hearth, which was called Vesta by Some: The Fire itself was properly Vefta; and fo Ovid,

Nec tu aliud Veftam, quam vivam intellige Flammam,

Faft. /. vi.

The Prytaneia were Courts wherein a Fire was kept, that was never fuffered to go out; and Vefta was worshipped in

* Ἑσία, ἔνιοι γὰρ ὅτως ὠνομάκασιν· ὅτω δ ̓ ἂν κυριώτατα καλοίης τὴν ἐν Πρυτανείῳ, ἐφ ̓ ἧς τὸ τοὺς τὸ ἄσβεσον ἀνάπλεται. Julius Pollux. 1. i. c. I.

them,