that he was merciful, forgiving iniquities, transgressions, and sins. When the Priest had made an end "of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar," he was commanded to bring the living Goat, which was destined by lot to escape, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the Goat; "and thou shalt send him away by the hand of a fit person into the wilderness; and the Goat shall bear all their iniquities into a land not inhabited, and he shall let go the Goat into the wilderness, and the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited.”

The above regulations and ordinances, may be considered in the light of cautionary means to preserve the Hebrews as a people, distinct from the nations that should surround them ; having in themselves a beneficial tendency to counteract the propensity to imitate idolatrous practices, which was so prevalent among these people; and to render a compliance with the divine commands, uniform and extensive.

To these means of preserving upon their minds an habitual sense of religion, we may also add the numerous Festivals, instituted in commemoration of great and important events;

which, while they were expressive of gratitude in the existing generation, became interesting memorials to posterity, of those peculiar manifestations of the divine interposition, with which they were favoured. This was of the utmost importance to a people whose ignorance precluded an access to written memorials; while the exhilarations these festivals occasioned, impressed, through the influence of the social principle, those events the more deeply upon their minds.

But the observance of the seventh Day as a Sabbath, holy to the Lord, or as a day of sacred rest, was particularly enjoined upon them; and it was commanded that they should keep it with peculiar solemnity. On that day the heads of families, with their household, their slaves, their cattle, were to cease from every kind of labour: They were to assemble in a holy convocation; and it is probable, from the practices of the Jews recorded in the New Testament, that some portions of the law were read. The usual sacrifices were, on that day, to be doubled. "On the Sabbath day, (thou shalt offer) two lambs of the first year, without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and the drink offering thereof; this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering,

and his drink offering."* To inspire them with the deeper reverence for its sanctity, a miracle was statedly performed on the day preceding the Sabbath, that it might not be profaned by their collecting of manna on that day. In the subsequent degeneracy of this people, the prophets frequently upbraided them with neglecting the Sabbath, as the source of their degeneracy; and to delight in it was the leading characteristic of a pious man. "Blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it." If thou turn away thy foot from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable-then shalt thou delight thyself, in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride on the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father."+

We are informed that the Sabbath was instituted to commemorate two great events; the cessation of the great Creator from his work, after the plan of creation was completed, at six distinct periods; and the liberation of this people from the bondage of Egypt. The celebration of these two events, with due solemnity, enabled them habitually to contemplate their Jehovah as the universal sovereign. It had a

* Numb. c. xxviii. v. 9, 10. † Isaiah Ivi. 2. ‡ Isa. lviii. 13, 14,

tendency to check their perverse propensity to serve other Gods; to impress their minds with the deep veneration of his transcendent attributes; and to inspire every pious principle within them. It afforded them leisure to recollect their sufferings, and the sufferings of their ancestors under the Egyptian yoke; to cherish every grateful feeling for their miraculous deliverance; and also for the high honour conferred upon them, in their being selected as the peculiar people of God, from a depraved and idolatrous generation. The mind of man is, at all times, strongly impressed by sensible objects; nor is it in the power of mental culture to render us indifferent to their influence; but those who are uncultivated or grossly ignorant, will yield themselves up entirely to such impressions, if no means be employed, or opportunity afforded, to direct their thoughts into another channel. This people were minutely instructed in all the doctrines of true theology, and in all the duties of morality; but such instructions would have lost their influence, without frequent and solemn pauses for reflection.

At every period of the world, and in every nation where a religion of any kind was pro

fessed, a belief of an intercommunication between the Being worshipped and his devout worshippers, was necessarily an article of the public faith; for it is essentially connected with the expectation or blessings, or calamities, rewards or punishments; so that whenever there was a per, suasion of the influence or superintendency of these beings, some manifestations of their will were always supposed to exist. Hence the numerous tribes of Magicians, Diviners, Soothsayers, Astrologers, &c. that surrounded the temples of the heathen deities. These principles, so inseparable from the very idea of religion, were confirmed to the Israelites by the only living and true God; for his immediate interposition constituted the grand characteristic of their govern

ment.

In whatever manner the communications were made, they were such as left no room for doubt upon the minds of the subjects. Noah was convinced that it was by the command of God, when he built the ark and prepared for the general deluge. Abraham knew that it was enjoined upon him, by divine authority, to quit his country, his kindred, and his father's house, and to go to a country which he knew not; and also to sacrifice his son. The occasional appearances to the other Patriarchs, Isaac, and Jacob, were accompanied with sufficient evidences to induce