name in the successive verses. And chap. xi. 18: "All the people of the land went into the house of the Baal and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces."

It is manifest from these and other like passages, that while the statues and images of Baal were many and various, in all countries and places, the Baal, the real object of worship, represented by them, was one. To him, under another of his designations, that of Moloch, human victims offered in sacrifice were supposed to pass through the element of fire.

Nor does this conclusion appear to be invalidated by the occurrence of the designation in a plural form, rendered Baalim. The usage in this respect seems analogous to that of the word Elohim. In both cases the article is often prefixed; and the reference is to one agent only. Thus, Judges viii. 33: "The children of Israel turned again . . . after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their Elohim." Again, chap. x. 10-16, the children of Israel said: "We have forsaken our Elohe, and also served the Baalim. And Jehovah said, Ye have forsaken me, and served other Elohim. and cry unto the Elohim which ye have chosen. And they put away the strange Elohe from among them, and served Jehovah."

Go

The terms, Baal-berith, signify the god of the covenant, i. e., of the covenant between Baal and his worshippers; as Melach Berith, Mal. iii. 2, signifies the Messenger of the Covenant of grace.

It is thus presumed to be evident beyond a doubt, that the whole system was based upon a theory and a sense of the necessity of mediation; and whether the earlier or later idolaters, the instructed or the ignorant, referred in their worship to a being beyond or superior

to Baal, regarding him as created by that superior being, and yet himself as creator of the world, or whether their homage terminated in him, does not affect the question under consideration.

Mosheim, in his Commentaries on the three first centuries of the Christian era, observes, with respect. to the costly and sumptuous buildings of the pagans, called temples, fanes, &c., and dedicated to the worship of their gods, that internally "they were ornamented with images of the gods, and furnished with altars," &c. "The statues were supposed to be animated by the deities whom they represented; for though the worshippers of gods like those above described must, in a great measure, have turned their backs upon every dictate of reason, they were yet by no means willing to appear so wholly destitute of common sense as to pay their adoration to a mere idol of metal, wood, or stone; but always maintained that the statues, when properly consecrated, were filled with the presence of those divinities whose forms they bore." Vol. i. 16.

CHAPTER XXI.

Idolatry an imposing and delusive Counterfeit of the Revealed System, in respect to the leading features of its Ritual, and the prerogatives ascribed to the Arch-deceiver-Reference to the Symbols of the Apocalypse.

THIS antagonist system was, in respect to the attributes and prerogatives impiously arrogated by the great Adversary, and in respect to the leading features of its ritual, a bold, seductive, and imposing counterfeit of the revealed system taught and practised by Noah and his descendants in the line of Shem.

To substitute a false appearance, a deceitful imitation, a resembling counterfeit, a cheat, a lie, was as obviously expedient, and even necessary, in such a case, as it is in keeping with the craft and subtlety of Satan to deceive and beguile. He had to entice, allure, and impose on those who knew what the true system was, and by what miracles and wonders it had been sanctioned; who witnessed its effects in the lives of those who practised it, were familiar with its institutions and public observances; and whose understandings must have been more or less influenced by its inherent and its hereditary claims, and by its voice of encouragement and hope to the righteous, and of alarm and terror to the wicked. Under such circumstances, to resist and counteract the system divinely prescribed and established, it was necessary to impose on the understandings of men, as well as to enlist their feelings, give scope to their propensities, and gratify their passions. To have called on them to worship him directly in his true character, without

disguise, or to worship him as a being of inferior claims to those of Jehovah, or by rites and ceremonials less significant and imposing, would not have been likely to secure their homage and allegiance. His own undisguised character would have been revolting; an inferior could not protect them against the superior Being; to dispense with public and visible rites and ceremonies. would have been to disappoint and resist their propensities and passions; and no others but such as were already in use could be made to maintain a competition with them.

Accordingly, he arrogated the name, power, prerogatives, works, relations and government of Jehovah. He claimed to be god of this world: its creator, providential ruler, dispenser of benefits, protector of his followers, and rightful object of their homage and obedience, in opposition to Jehovah. He took the then current name in Babylon of the sun, Bel-or, as pointed and commonly rendered, Baal-Lord of Heaven, Supreme Ruler, like the sun in the visible heaven; afterwards, with the same import, the Egyptian name of the same object, On, (often rendered Aven.) Also, Moloch, (Melek,) King; BaalZebub, Lord of Hosts-Zebub being a corruption of Zebaoth, hosts, as in the formula, Jehovah Zebaoth, Lord of Hosts; and among the Phoenicians, Baal Samen, Lord of Heaven.

He arrogated the sun as his tabernacle or shekina, and the solar fire and light as his element: imitating, we may well believe, in respect to the first of these particulars, what had been exhibited in Eden, and from time to time prior to the age of Abraham, as it was afterwards, and especially to Moses in Midian, in the pillar of cloud, at the Red Sea, on Mount Sinai, and in the tabernacle. And in imitation of the tabernacle erected by Moses in

the wilderness, the partisans of Baal erected the tabernacle of Moloch, i. e., Baal under that name. Amos v.; Acts vii.

Prideaux, Part I., Book 3, treating of the origin of idolatry, and yet describing it at an advanced stage, when, in addition to the sun, the planets and stars had been brought into its service, observes: "That they took upon themselves to address the being whom they worshipped," and whom he supposes they regarded as the true God, "by mediators of their own choosing. And their notion of the sun, moon, and stars being, that they were the tabernacles or habitations of intelligences which animated those orbs, in the same manner as the soul of man animates his body, and were the causes of all their motions; and that those intelligences were of a middle nature between God and them; they thought these the properest beings to become the mediators. between God and them; and, therefore, the planets being the nearest to them of all these heavenly bodies, and generally looked on to have the greatest influence on this world, they made choice of them in the first place for their God's-mediators, who were to mediate for them with the Supreme God, and procure from him the mercies and favors which they prayed for; and accordingly they directed divine worship unto them as such. And here began all the idolatry that hath been practised in the world. They first worshipped them per sacella, that is, by their tabernacles, and afterwards by images also. By these sacella or tabernacles they meant the orbs themselves, which they looked on only as the sacella or sacred tabernacles in which the intelligences had their habitations. And therefore, when they paid their devotions to any one of them, they directed their worship towards the planet