came to the immense temple of Keylas; and from the description he has given of it, it was undoubtedly formed on the very same plan, which Lightfoot has proved with his profound learning to have been the plan of the temple at Jerusalem. The temple at Keylas has been deserted for ages; its origin is unknown even to the natives. It is only known to have existed from the most remote antiquity, and to have once been the object of great veneration through the whole of India. Its extent, and grandeur, prove that it must have been a national work. It was either built before or after the temple at Jerusalem; if after, we should certainly have some records of it; if before, as is most likely, it was formed after the plan of the tabernacle, and the plan must have been known therefore to other nations besides the Hebrews.

"

It will now be asked, what is the connexion between these desultory remarks and the origin of the heathen Oracles. If there was such a coincidence between the chief circumstances of the Levitical and Patriarchal ritual on the one hand; and between the original customs of the early nations, and uncorrupted patriarchism on the other; it will necessarily follow, that it is possible, and probable, that the peculiar characteristic of the ancient religion of the Jews was common also to the religion of the Patriarchs, and known therefore in the first ages among the primitive settlements of mankind. Oracular responses were evidently delivered in some mysterious manner from the adyta, the penetralia, or the holy of holies, both of the temple at Jeru salem and the tabernacle in the wilderness. The Patriarchal worshippers too, as is repeatedly related in the book of Genesis, are said to have gone to enquire of the Lord, that is, to consult the oracle, in the appointed way, in their own places of worship. Thus Rebekah (Gen. xxv. 22.) went to enquire of the Lord and the Lord said to her, &c.: the answer was a prophecy of the future destiny of her children. In what manner the oracular responses were given, we cannot certainly tell: divines have enumerated several modes in which God imparted his will to mankind in the early ages of uncorrupted truth; and it is certain that the knowledge of Religion, while men were still few, must have been universal; and that so long as they continued to preserve the faith of Noah, to whatever part of the globe they might have retired from Nachshevan, there, according to his promise, the God of Revelation would be with them. Wherever the respective families of the sons of Noah proceeded they carried with them the useful and innocent memorials of the deluge, and the traditions and religion of their ancestors; they would es

tablish also their respective places of worship in groves, on hills, in caverns, or in plains. They would for a time worship the true God. So long as they preserved the purity of their faith, oracular responses would be given; and though these tokens of the divine presence would be withdrawn as they gradually became infected with the corruptions of the encroaching idolatry; the veneration for the places where these oracular responses had been delivered would remain for ages. It would be perverted, as indeed it uniformly was perverted, to the purposes of priestcraft; but the impression would not be entirely lost, till the light of reason, rekindled by the renewed revelation, had exposed the absurdity, and silenced the pretensions of the imposture. All this appears so very theoretical, that it ought to be rejected by every sober-minded reader, unless the whole hypothesis shall appear to be confirmed by undoubted facts.

The Oracle of Dodona was the most celebrated in all Greece. Though the testimony of Herodotus is not of much value on this point, both on account of the late period in which he flourished, and the very contradictory and absurd tales which he so gravely relates, and which were evidently of later origin; yet Homer and Hesiod mention Dodona, as a sacred place, having its holy grove, &c. &c. Hesychius tells us, it was once called Hella: it seems to have been venerated from the earliest ages, and its oracle was consulted, it is said, before any temple was built. Though the exact situation of Dodona is not known, some placing it in Thessaly, others in Epirus, Thesprotia, &c. &c., yet it is generally acknowledged to have been in the northern part of Greece, and to have been consecrated to Dodonaan Jove.

I refer to the learned Joseph Mede, book i. Disc. 50., to the writers collected in Poole's Synopsis, to Bochart, and others, to prove that Dodonim the son of Javan, the son of Japhet, estab lished his family in that part of Greece. Though Mr. Faber has wrought up all his materials with great ingenuity into one magnificent theory, yet the very perfection to which he has brought his hypothesis, is with me one chief reason for suspecting the solidity of some part of the structure. A systematising spirit, says Sir Wm. Jones, is not friendly to the discovery of truth. Mr. Faber would take the whole of the families of the sons of Noah to Shinar, and thence disperse them. I cannot but think with Mede, Sheringham, Sulpicius Severus, and a long list of others, that mankind dispersed quietly to their respective settlements, that Dodanim the son of Noah, of whom we are now more par◄ ticularly speaking, retired to the north of Greece; and there

established the patriarchal religion, and worshipped the true God; and possibly, at least during his own life, oracular responses were given in the mode appointed in those early ages by the giver of Revelation. His descendants relapsed into idolatry. The oracle ceased; the place was venerated; interested men perverted that veneration to their own purposes; till accident, or revolution, or the increase of knowledge, overthrow the whole system of priestcraft and deception.

We might trace the early histories of the oracles of Delphi, Amphiaraus, Ammon, Trophonius, and others; and through the corruptions of subsequent ages we should undoubtedly find the remnant of the pure Patriarchal religion, however afterwards corrupted and perverted.

The history of Micah, as related in the book of Judges, appears to be a complete history of the manner in which these ora cles were established by the heads of families and tribes. No religion was properly established and enforced, because the several tribes had not taken possession of their appointed homes. Micah therefore resolved to set up a place of worship in his own house. He made his son, (the interpreters say his eldest son,) a priest, and united with the worship of Jehovah, the veneration of graven images. The tabernacle, or chapel, or place set apart for worship, was made on the plan of the tabernacle at Shiloh. He consulted the Teraphim, and an enigmatical answer was returned. We may justly conclude, that as the giver of Revelation was pleased to communicate his will to man in those ages, by oracular responses, the answer which Micah would have received, if his worship had been pure, would have been decided, and directory. There is a mystery and difficulty in the whole history, which I am anxious to see entirely solved. The Danites consult the Oracle. Micah had engaged a Levite to take place of his son: this priest returns to the consulters an ambiguous answer, of the very precise nature which the heathen oracles were accustomed to return. We may justly suppose, that the Levite deceived the Danites, by fabricating an answer of this nature. On their return from the expedition in which they were then engaged, they stole the Teraphim, and other images, and established idolatry in their tribe.

This narrative seems to contain a complete history of the probable manner in which the Oracles were first established. A private individual, who had not entirely lost the knowledge of the true God, but who was partly, through apparent ignorance, contaminated with the surrounding idolatry, establishes a worship, which combines both truth and error; founded on, though

not entirely compatible with, the original religion of his fathers. The learned Spencer (in, bis treatise De Urim et Thummim) supposes the Teraphim of Micah to have been the exact resemblances of the Urim and Thummim used in the tabernacle of Shiloh: this is doubtful; but it is certain that when Micah set up the graven images, he did not intend to offend Jehovah. This tabernacle and oracle, established by Micah, is forcibly taken away; and was adopted by a whole tribe, as their chief place of worship. So, it is reasonable to suppose, the oracles of the Heathen were set up; they united true Patriarchism, with incipient Idolatry: they gave oracular responses, because these were common to the places of worship appointed by Jehovah; and Priestcraft continued, in a corrupt state, what had originally been the criterion, and peculiar characteristic, of uncontaminated Patriarchism.

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SECTION VIII-Origin of Pride of Rank,

> I know that I shall indeed be deemed fanciful if I merely hint at the possible origin of another strange peculiarity in the history of the human race; the origin of pride of rank. The tables of pedigree were carefully preserved among the Jews, that the line in which the Messiah was to descend might be kept distinct; and the genealogy of the Priests be recorded, to prevent the intrusion of improper persons into the sacred office. The tables of pedigree were handed down from the beginning; and either in tradition, or in letters, must have been preserved among the Patriarchs. The first beginnings of idolatry were, an attempt to set aside the acknowledged line of the future Messiah. Nimrod assumed the title of the Son;" assuming most probably, as Mr. Faber with much ingenuity has attemptsed to prove, the name and office of their expected Messiah. To effect this, he must have been able to make out some title from his descent, which was from Ham the eldest son of Noah; who according to the usual customs of the Patriarchs would have inherited the birth-right; one of the privileges of which was, to be the progenitor of the branch from which one parent of the Messiah was to descend. The Patriarchs esteemed that line of descent to be the most noble, from which the Messiah was to be born: the excluded tribes would not easily resign their claims; they too therefore would preserve their line of descent, and the ambition of being supposed to have descended from some celebrated ancestor would have become universal,

Ishmael for instance, as the first-born of Abraham, is said by the best commentators to have derided Isaac, because he claimed the inheritance, and the birth-right; which were allotted to Isaac. The Arabians still commemorate the immediate descen dants of Ishmael, and boast of their lofty descent and there is much traditional evidence on record to show that it is not improbable that they remembered and asserted in those early times the claims of their progenitor. The Edomites undoubtedly opposed Israel on this account: and we know that this family were so tenacious of their pedigree, that it has even been inserted by Moses in the sacred canon; as if to prove to the surrounding nations at the time when the Pentateuch was written, by the miracles which he wrought, that the line of Esau was rejected and that of Jacob approved. The people of Edom must have known that the ancestors enumerated in their tables, had apostatised from the worship of Jehovah, and could bring no proof that they were entitled to the birth-right except the sole circumstance, that their father had been the elder born of Isaac. In opposition to this claim he relates minutely the sale of his birth-right by Esau; the subsequent blessing of Isaac ; the perseverance of Jacob and his family in the true Religion; the uninterrupted pedigree of Jacob; and the evident proofs of a miraculous nature, by which God confirmed the right of the second brother to the forfeited inheritance of the elder. Though it is true, that men wish to be renowned, as partaking in some measure of the honor of their fathers, yet when these tables of pedigree were first formed, little or no temptation of this kind existed. They were compiled for political and religious purposes; and were therefore entirely independent of any of those feelings which are the offspring of a more advanced stage of society. All this however is a theory which may be rejected at pleasure. The fact is certainly curious, that in the very earliest ages men should be so anxious to preserve the respective tables of descent, and identify themselves with the names of their "fathers.

SECTION IX.-The subject of Idolatry illustrated from the Book of Job, and the Poems of Homer.

It is most probable that Job was contemporary with Nahor; and that Idolatry, though it had made some progress, could neither have been universal nor formidable, for it was an offence punishable by the civil magistrate, that is, by each patriarchal