the subject. The first is that which I have just quoted. The second, in Leviticus, is as follows; "He put the breast-plate upon him; also he put in the breast-plate the Urim and the Thummim";* where the last clause should rather be translated, "when he had put in the breast-plate the Urim and the Thummim"; that is, when to the linen substratum of the breast-plate he had attached its jewels. This text, which speaks of the Urim and Thummim, and says nothing of jewels, is parallel with one in the book now before us, where the jewels are specified by name, and no Urim and Thummim are mentioned.†— The next text is in Numbers. "Joshua shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask for him, after the judgment of Urim before the Lord;"‡ that is, the high priest shall offer prayers for him, according to those most solemn and ceremonious forms, which require the priest to put on his breast-plate, along with the rest of his most sumptuous apparel. The fourth is in Deuteronomy. "Let thy Urim and thy Thummim," Moses says to the tribe of Levi,§ "be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at Massah," and so on; that is, Clothe thyself in thy richest sacerdotal vestments to serve and propitiate him, whom thy former unworthy conduct so provoked. The robe, which though mentioned in this passage after the ephod, was to be worn beneath it,|| is not particularly described, the name probably being sufficient to mark a known fashion of the times. It was to be put on by dropping it upon the shoulders over the Ex. xxxix. 10 – 13. * Lev. viii. 8. ‡ Numb. xxvii. 21. It may be thought a corroboration of the view which I present, that in this text we read of the "judgment of Urim," a similar expression to what is used in Ex. xxviii. 15, 30, of the breastplate. § Deut. xxxiii. 8. Compare Lev. viii. 7. head, and its hem was to be hung around the feet with alternate golden bells, and pomegranates of some material dyed blue.* The mitre was to be distinguished from that of the other priests, by a golden plate over the forehead, engraven with the words, in' "Holiness to Jehovah." + p, Such was the distinctive magnificence of the highpriest's attire. The inferior priests were also to wear a tunic, a girdle, and a turban, costly from their materials and embroidery.‡ These garments, it is to be presumed, were national property. At all events, that they were not worn except when the priest was officiating in his office, may be inferred from various texts.§. Nothing is said of any covering for the hands or feet. The former would have been inconvenient in the performance of the priest's duties; the latter would have been inconsistent with the ideas of reverential deportment, entertained among eastern nations.|| - The forms of consecration for the priests are next described, being such as would tend to impress on their own minds, and those of the people, a sense of the dignity of their office. After bathing, they were to be clothed in their sacerdotal attire, and anointed with the sacred oil; a ceremony of institution to the highest offices, which we shall find to be also in use in later times, in the case of teachers and of temporal rulers. The ceremonies were then to proceed with the sacrifice of a bullock for a sin-offering, a ram for a burnt-offering, and another** for a peace or thank * Ex. xxviii. 31-35. xxviii. 40-42; xxxix. 27-29. † xxviii. 36-38. § xxviii. 43; Ezek. xlii. 14; xliv. 19. This remark explains Acts xxiii. 5. || Mohammedans enter their mosques barefoot. Compare also Ex. iii. 5; Joshua v. 15. Ex. xxix. 1-37. **The right ear, right hand, and right foot of the priests was to be offering. The distinctive nature and import of these sacrifices we shall presently see in another connexion. It may, however, be remarked here, that, from the manner in which they are first introduced in precepts o the Law, it seems probable, that they were already in use, and their names and general applications familiarly known.* These sacrifices were to be repeated daily through a week, at which time the ritual of consecration was to be complete, and the priesthood fully established in its charge and jurisdiction. In the thirtieth chapter, we first find those directions respecting the altar of incense, the brazen laver, and provision for the cost of the tabernacle by means of an equal tax, which, for convenience' sake, have been already mentioned. Directions are also given respecting the composition of the ointment to be used in the ceremonies of consecration of the tabernacle and the priests, and of a perfume sacred to the precincts of the Most Holy Place. Questions naturally arise respecting minute provisions of this nature, to which, as well as to others of different kinds, I designed remarks, made in a former Lecture, to apply. Whatever gave peculiarity to the ritual, gave it additional sanctity in such a people's view, - an object which their good required should be pursued; and this is the evident principle of the severe prohibitions of any imitation of what had been devoted to a sacred use. The thirty-first chapter records nothing but a desig touched with the blood of the ram of the peace-offering. Considering the habit of early times, in respect to conveying instruction by symbols, it is natural to suppose, that this was designed for an admonition to the priest, that he should be attentive and obedient to truth and duty, diligent in his work, and heedful of his ways. Ex. xxix. 20. * Compare x. 25; xxiv. 5. Pages 207-209; xxx. 1-10, 17-21, 11-16, § Pages 176-181. xxx. 22-38. nation of the artisans who were to execute the directions above detailed; * a repetition of the law respecting the Sabbath, introduced here, I suppose, lest those who had the important work of the tabernacle in hand, should imagine that its importance dispensed them from the observance of that rest; † and the relation, that God "gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." "The finger of God" is well understood to denote any direct agency of his. It would seem, in this instance, that, while Moses was himself left to record the details of the Law, its fundamental principles, to the end of causing them to be regarded with greater veneration, were committed to his hand, already engraven on durable stone tablets, a material used for important writings in the early period of the art. These principles, as I before suggested in the proper place, are set forth in the Decalogue; and that it was the Decalogue, and not the more extended Law, which was engraven on the tablets, I take to be apparent from several passages. I In the thirty-second chapter we read of what might naturally have been expected in the present unsettled circumstances of the people; a neglect of one of the important directions which they had lately received, amounting to a mutiny against the authority of Moses, and accordingly punished as such with the exemplary severity of military execution. The offence actually committed in this instance should be understood, lest, through misapprehension of it, erroneous inferences should be made. "The contempora * Ex. xxxi. 1 – 11. † xxxi. 12-17. xxxi. 18. ¶ xxxiv. 28; Deut. v. 22; ix. 10; x. 4. § See viii. 19; Luke xi. 20. Compare 1 Chron. xxviii. 19. || Ex. xxiv. 4. ries of Moses and Joshua," says Gibbon, "had beheld with careless indifference the most amazing miracles; . and, in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses."*- The distinct statement of the objection here proposed, divested of its form of irony, is this. If God had really wrought before the eyes of Moses' contemporaries such miracles as in the history are ascribed to him, it is incredible that they should have called in question his being and sovereignty. That they did call these in question, appears from their idolatries, related in the same books which record the miracles. The miracles, therefore, were not performed. -The reply is, that the idolatries charged were sins against the second, and not against the first commandment; and therefore, though they were highly blamable, and were severely punished, they in no degree implied a denial or doubt of Jehovah's sole and undivided sovereignty, and accordingly have no weight to establish the objection urged. A careful reader will not fail to see the case before us to have been as follows. The people, excited by the novelty of their situation, exulting in their just-acquired nationality, anxious to see their institutions matured, and perhaps moved by superstitious fears at the thought of not having, in the midst of them, some visible symbol of the divine leader, to whom they looked for guidance out of the mountainous solitude in which they found themselves embosomed, were impatient at the prolonged absence of Moses, on whom they had relied for the arrangements they were desiring. Under this impulse, they come in a tumultuous manner to # 6 History of the Decline and Fall," &c., chap. 15 ad init. |