LECTURE IX. FORMS AND STRUCTURE OF THE PATRIARCHAL RELIGION-HOW FAR CHANGED AFTER THE DISPERSION-REVENUES OF THE PRIESTHOOD-STRUCTURE ENLARGED INTO NATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS-THE AMBITION AND POWER OF PRIEST "Only the land of the priests bought he not."-GENESIS xlvii. 22. THE peculiar forms and structure of the early patriarchal government and religion are involved in great obscurity, and those of the latter still more than the former. Its doctrines have been but little inquired into; the clearer enunciation of truth in the Christian dispensation may have contributed to this neglect. Information as to ceremonies, now no longer suited to the advanced state of religion, appeared not likely to reward the trouble of research. The symbol was necessarily forgotten in the reality-the type in the antitype. The form became of less value when it ceased to be the vehicle of religious instruction; besides, the later dispensation of Moses, from the minuteness of its ceremonial details, promised less diffi culty in its examination, and a larger measure of spiritual information. Little more is known of the patriarchal government than its absolutism; or of its religious structure, than that the heads of families took upon themselves the performance of sacrificial rites. It may have been thought that no changes were made in them before the exodus, and for this reason there was less need of minutely examining what none appeared to question. Whether this neglect originated in these or other causes, it is seriously to be regretted. Difficulties encumber many important subjects in religion, which a knowledge of the patriarchal doctrines and forms might obviate, if not wholly remove. Some of these have already been noticed in the preceding lectures; a brief statement of the structure of the religion, or, in other words, the religious establishment and secular government, and of the changes both underwent in the course of time, is necessary to the elucidation of our present subject. The patriarchal government was threefold: the rule of a monarch, the authority of a father, the influence of a priest. In the same person were vested the power of the prince and father, and the priestly office. This union of prerogatives arose out of the necessities of the case, and continued long after those necessities had ceased to exist. Whether any change took place in it before the dispersion is doubtful; but after that the heads of families, as they formed themselves into tribes or principalities, assumed the united offices, and instead of one prince and priest, there were as many as there were distinct tribes. We have no grounds for believing that more than one altar and one priest existed before the deluge; or that, as the temporal government descended by hereditary right, the priestly office and privileges obeyed a different rule. A few remarks will make this statement sufficiently clear. After his expulsion from Eden Adam settled in its immediate neighbourhood, and within sight, at least, if not nearer, of the cherubim the sacrifices were offered, and the altar for that purpose built; this the history supposes, and without it the several facts cannot be understood. The cherubim was the visible symbol of the divine presence, and from it the voice proceeded, which communicated his will to Adam, and arraigned and sentenced Cain for the murder of Abel. For a long time this one altar must have sufficed for Adam's pious descendants. The very circumstance of its proximity to Eden must have endeared it to their affections; and though the necessities of subsistence may have often taken them to places too distant for a constant return to the daily or weekly sacrifices, yet would they naturally turn their faces at the usual hours of public worship, or on other occasions of private devotion, towards the place where the symbol of God's presence dwelt. In later times, when his ubiquity was more generally known, the pious Jew fondly turned his face, in his devotions, toward Jerusalem, even after the temple had been destroyed, and the visible symbol had departed from that city;* and whatever the recollections which attracted him to that hallowed spot, they were not more powerful nor more awakening than those which must have drawn the mind of Adam and his pious children to Eden. Where could prayer be more, or even so acceptably offered as before the cherubim, where the worshipper could behold the face of JEHOVAH? Where the sacrifice be so profitably participated in as the place in which some visible token of its acceptance by their heavenly father came from his pre * Daniel vi. 10. sence? These are questions which every mind would ask on the first proposition to build an altar elsewhere. The very proposal would amount to profanation, and, if adopted, would defeat its own object; for the altar at Eden would continue to retain its pre-eminence. There would attach to its locality a degree of reverential regard and sanctity, such as would not be attributed to other places. This feeling is natural to the human mind; it prevails now; it must have had even greater influence in those early times, from the circumstances which were peculiar to worship offered before the cherubim, for the voice, the visible token, and the glory were there, and there alone. So that the erection of other altars would have begotten a superstitious veneration for this, which could not subserve the interests of pure religion in this infancy of our race. But to these should be added another consideration: Adam was first parent, and priest, and king. While he lived, respect, love, filial submission, would have prevented any interference with his prerogatives. His feelings, his recollections, his hopes, surely kept him near to Eden; there he dwelt in the days of his innocence, when he had free and unrestrained |