ten Images, two Calves, and made a Grove, and worshiped all the Host of Heaven, and ferved Baal. So Manasseh erected Altars to Baal, and worshiped the Host of Heaven, chap. 21. 3. So Jofiah, when he deftroyed Idolatry, brought out the Veffels of the Hoft of Heaven. And the Jews, when after their return from Captivity, they would enter their folemn Protestation against Idolatry, they do it in this form-Thou even Ihou art Lord alone, thou hast made Heaven the Heaven of Heavens, with all their Hoft,&c. Nehemiah 9. 6. So Jeremiah 19. 13. Jerusalem and Judah shall be destroyed because they have burned Incense unto all the Host of Heaven, and have poured out Drink Offerings unto other Gods. So Zephaniah 1.5. God threatens to destroy the Worshipers of Baal, and of the Host of Heaven: And lastly, St. Stephen in his latt Speech upbraiding the Jews with their Idolatry, favs, that God gave them up to Worship the Host of Heaven So evident is the Practical Notion of Idolatry, through the whole Series of feripture, that it was the worshiping the Heavenly Bodies as the fupreme Deities, or as Job emphatically expreffes it, Chap.31.2.26. If I beheld the Sun when it shin'd, or the Moon walking in brightness, and my Heart bath been fecretly enticed, or my Mouth bath kissed my Hand this also were an iniquity to be punish'd by the Judge, for I should have denyed the most High God. What N2 What can be more plain than this Definition of Idolatry, that it is the Worship of the Sun and Moon, because it would have excluded the Worship due only to the most High God? And the very Word, that we commonly tranflate Images in general, signifies properly Images of the Sun. Thus Leviticus 26.30.God threatens them I will destroy your Images, as we tranflate it; but in the Hebrew your Chamanimi.e.Images of the Sun. So the second of Chronicles, chap.34. v. 7. And fo it is set sometimes in the Margent even in the English Translation [or Sun Images] as Isaiah 17.8. Ezek.6.4. And fo all learned Men of all Nations and Religions, ever understood the old Notion of Idolatry, till this last Age, when Folly and Paffion cast it at any thing that peevish Men were anMore Ne- gry with. So Rabbi Maimon the most learned voch.Lib.3. and judicious of the Jewish Doctors, difcourses at large, that the ancient Idolatry was nothing but the Religion of the Eastern Nations, who acknowledge no other Deities but the Stars, among whom the Sun was fupreme, in Oppofition to which false Principle, he says, God enacted the Law of Mofes. This was the sense of all the other old Heathen Nations, as may be seen at large in Eufebius's Collections of their several Opinions in his First and Third Book of the Preparation of the Gofpel, where he proves that the ancient Heathens worshipped only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons. The fame is attested by all the Histotians; by Diodorus Siculus of the Egyptians; by Herodotus of the Persians and Chaldeans; by Strabo and Justin of the Arabians; by Cafar of the Germans; so Macrobius, in his first Book Saturnal, proves it of all the ancient Idolaters, that it was the Worship of the Sun as the fupreme Deity: so in the ancient Hymn to Jupiter afcribed to Orpheus, it is the Sun only that is all along adored. pel, In short, so all the learned Men interpret all the several Idols that we read of in the Holy scriptures; particularly those two learned Proteftants, Mr. Selden, in his learned Book de Diis Syris; and Gerard Voffius, de Idololatria, proves all the Idols mentioned in Scripture to have been only fo many several Appellations of the Sun, whom the ancient Idolaters believ'd to have been the fupreme God and Creator of the World, as Baal, Baal Peor, Bel, Moloch, Dagon, Baalzebub Mythras, &c. In a word, the whole Nation of the Criticks, that agree in nothing else, are unanimous here; tho indeed the thing is so evident in all the Accounts, Histories and Descriptions of the Ancient Idolatry, that it is to me the greatest astonishment in the World, that Men should apply it to any other purpose. I I know there was another fort of Idolatry introduced afterward, the Worship of Men and Women,but I find no such practice in the Scriptures, but take it to have been much more modern, and a meer Invention of the vain and Iving Greeks; but whensoever it came in, it was grafted upon the old Stock, of giving the Worship of the fupreme God, not only to created, but to mortal Beings. : 1 Here it were easie to wander into a large Field of Mythologick Mystery; but besides that, I take all Mythology to be much more Fable than the hi teral Fable it felf: 1 have refolv'd to confine my felf to the Information of the Holy Scriptures, from whence, as we have the most infallible Teftimony that can be had, fo in this cafe we can have no other, all other Writings whatsoever being by fome Thousands of Years too modern to give any Account from their own Knowledge of those Ancient Times. And for a more acurate account of this, I shall refer the Reader to that admirable Book of Dr. Spencers, concerning the Jewish Laws and the Reafons of them, in which he proves every Minute Circumstance of the Ritual and ceremonial Law to have been enacted only for the prevention of Idolatry or Sun-Worship. There any Gentleman that delights in ancient Learning, may have his glut of pleasure and fatisfaction; for beside the great Compass and Variety of polite Literature, he he hath brought Wit, Sense, Reafon and Ingenuity into the Synagogue. I will only exemplific the thing in fome few particulars. The first is the Institution of fome Rites peculiar to God's own worship, both as a Bar to preferve them from any other worship, in which those Rites were not us'd, and as an Obligation to bind them the fafter to their Duty to himself; among these the chiefeft are Circumcifion and the Sabbath, which he instituted, as it were, the two Sacrnments of the Jewish Religion, or the worship of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, to distinguish them from their Neighbour Nations, who worship only his Creatures. With Circumcifion God fign'd his Covenant with Abraham, which was the first Revelation of himself against Idolatry, and the Foundation of the whole Mofaick Law, which was feal'd to, by this facred Rite of Circumcifion; so that without it, they were esteemed no better than Idolaters, and an uncircumcised Man signifies no less than an Heathen. This Reason is exprefly given by God himself at the first institution of it in his Covenant with Abraham: I will establish my Covenant between thee and me and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant, to be a God unto Thee, and to thy feed after thee. This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy feed after : thee, : |