gospel, which has abolished the old distinction of meats; which generously indulges our bodies with every species. of salutary and agreeable food; which teaches us that every creature of God is good; that to the pure all things are pure; that nothing, which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that those things only defile him, which come out of the mouth, and proceed from the heart. Let it then be our great concern to have pure hearts, clean hands, and undefiled lips. Let us shun all moral evil with as much solicitude, and horror, as a conscientious Jew would avoid the flesh of a swine. Let us have no more fellowship with the works of darkness, especially with the perpetrators of midnight havock and mischief, than he would have with a porcellian or even idolatrous feast. Let all the worthy members and friends of this society be as zealous to purge it from the guilt and stain of that detestable outrage, which this Chapel lately experienced, as the most religious Hebrews were to purify themselves from the foulest legal uncleanness or abomination. LECTURE XXIV. Various ceremonies, observed in the Hebrew church respecting purifications and pollutions. Reasons and fitness of their observance. OUR last lecture explained the fitness and utility of those laws, which regulated the diet of the antient Hebrews; which restrained them not only from those kinds of food, which were evidently unsavory and vile, but from some meats, which many refined pagans and even christians have highly esteemed. We have shown that these nice regulations were intended to enforce on the Israelites a peculiar delicacy and purity of character, and especially to bar them from a dangerous mixture with idolatrous Gentiles; since these statutes taught them to kill for food and for sacrifice animals, which the heathens had deified, and also led them to abhor those, which idolaters had dedicated to demons or to magic. Similar reasons may be given for those rules in the Mosaic code, which relate to defilement and purification; which declare certain persons and things unclean, and prescribe the mode of cleansing them. Many of these rules may seem at first view to savor of puerile and rigid superstition ; as they pronounce persons defiled, and subject them to severe penance for things, which are merely casual and unavoidable, and imply no moral guilt; as they declare even inanimate substances, as vessels, garments &c. to be polluted only by touching the dead body of the smallest reptile, which the law had made unclean; and as in several cases they devote utensils thus polluted to destruction. For instance, they require earthen vessels, and ovens to be destroyed, if a dead mouse or even snail has chanced to fall into or upon them. It is natural to ask, was it consistent with divine wisdom and goodness to enact laws so minute and so severe respecting matters so apparently trivial? We will endeavour to solve this difficult question by stating the probable reasons of these statutes, both as they respect persons and things. The general reason seems to have been this. The Hebrews, in common with other nations in the rude ages of the world, required a set of institutions, which were palpable, which continually addressed their senses. The laws now before us were eminently of this description. But the fitness of these regulations will be more satisfactorily perceived, if we consider first, that they were a discipline well suited to civilize a gross people, who had just emerged from the most debasing servitude. By obliging such a people religiously to abstain from using or even touching any thing, which had even the shadow of uncleanness, their wise Lawgiver meant to raise them by degrees from a state of comparative barbarism to so much purity, decorum,and refinement of manners, as became a nation peculiarly related to Jehovah, and as naturally fitted them for the cultivation of knowledge, of order, and religion.. Second, these numerous and peculiar statutes concerning pollutions and purifications were intended to hold up the Israelites as a people separated from the impure gentiles, and consecrated to a pure and holy Divinity. By observing these statutes they remarkably distinguished themselves from other nations by tokens of singular purity. Accordingly the Jewish law made abstinence from every legal defilement the symbol and measure of extraordinary sanctity. Thus the Hebrew nation was bound to abstain from the touch of a dead body, and other pollu The Nazarites carried tions, common to other nations. their abstinence higher than the Hebrews in general; the ordinary priests higher than the Nazarites; and the high priest farther than all. Third, the laws in question were fitted to maintain in the Jews an awful reverence of the divine presence and sanctuary, by excluding from them every person in the least polluted, and by making it a very nice, careful, and difficult business to approach them. The presence and glory of Jehovah in his tabernacle would have sunk into contempt, if every person, clean or unclean, might have approached it, with the same facility, as he could enter his own habitation. But the regulations respecting the various kinds of uncleanness and of purgations were so many barriers around the sanctuary of God, and tended to inspire the most personal veneration for it, the most solicitous preparation to approach it acceptably, and the highest esteem of it, as a singular privilege; a privilege enhanced by the labor and difficulty, which preceded its enjoyment. Fourth, most of the things, which the Hebrew ritual pronounces unclean, had some natural impurity in them, and were naturally offensive to all mankind, especially to persons of any refinement. They were viewed even by the antient heathens as disqualifying persons for the sacred rites of their worship. It was therefore peculiarly necessary to the character and honor of the Jews, as a holy nation, that their law should stigmatize these impurities. At the same time fifth, the divine Lawgiver proclaimed the superior sanctity of his nature and worship by branding certain person and things as unclean, which the heathen nations not only allowed, but even dignified and consecrated. We add sixth, the superstition of early idolaters had created an endless multitude of imaginary pollutions and purgations. Thus the antient Zabians reckoned every thing unclean, which was taken from the human body, as the hair, the nails, and the blood. Hence all barbers were esteemed unclean; and all, who suffered a razor to pass upon their flesh, were obliged to wash themselves in the clear water of a fountain. The early Arabians and modern Turks have also an infinite number of defilements and ceremonies of purifications. The Hindoos, whose religion and manners have been greatly extolled by some infidel writers, as superior to those of Jews or Christians, abound with the most ridiculous and burdensome institutions on the subject of pollutions, abstinences, and expiations. Dr. Priestly, in a recent publication, has accurately compared their institutions with those of Moses, and shown in numerous particulars the contrasted excellence of the latter. Was it not highly useful and even necessary for the Lawgiver of Israel to check this dreadful current of superstition by reducing the list both of defilements and purifications within reasonable bounds, by declaring those things only to be unclean, which were naturally foul or disgusting, or which were fitted to excite a dread of moral impurity, a reverence for the presence of Jehovah, and an abhorrence of the filthy and idolatrous rites of the heathens? For example, the wisdom of the Hebrew ritual in representing the touch of a dead human body, or even of the bone or grave of a man, as peculiarly defiling; the wisdom of this will appear, if we recollect that the worship of dead he-. roes, and the practice of paying honors to their dead bod ies and to their tombs, were very prevalent among the antient pagans. What a check to this idolatry, what a religious abhorrence of it, was created by this law, which attached a pollution of seven days to the touch of a dead LI |