ship which represented the feelings of the Divine in visible external actions, was in its nature thoroughly symbolical. No one can seriously doubt that prostration at prayer is a symbolic act; for corporeal abasement very evidently denotes spiritual subordination: so evidently, that language cannot even describe the spiritual, except by means of a material relation. But it is equally certain that sacrifice also is symbolical; for how would the feeling of acknowledgment, that it is a God who supplies us with food and drink, display itself in action, but by withdrawing a portion of them from the use of man, and setting it apart in honour of the Deity? But precisely because the symbolical has its essence in the idea of an actual connection between the sign and the thing signified, was an inlet left for the superstitious error, that something palatable was really offered to the gods-that they tasted it. But it will scarcely do to derive the usage from this superstition; in other words, to assign the intention of raising a savoury steam as the original foundation of all sacrifice. It would then be necessary to suppose, that at the ceremony of libation the wine was poured on the earth, in order that the gods might lick it up! I have here only brought into view one side of the idea, which forms the basis of sacrifice, and which the other, certainly not less ancient, always accompanied, namely, the idea of atonement by sacrifice; which was from the earliest times expressed in numberless usages and legends, and which could only spring from the strongest and most intense religious feeling: We are deserving of death; we offer as a substitute the blood of the animal.' states a little further on, that we must not always presuppose, that a particular symbol corresponds exactly to a particular idea, such as we may be accustomed to conceive of it; that the symbols will partly, indeed, remain the same as long as external nature continues unchanged, but that their signification will vary with the different national modes of intuition and other circumstances; so that a moral and religious economy, like that of Judaism, might be engrafted on the nature-worship of Egypt-meaning, thereby, we suppose, that while many of the symbols were retained, a new and higher meaning was imparted to them.2 6 1 Müller's Introd. to Scientific System of Mythology, p. 196, Eng. Trans. Having given the sentiments of one high authority, bearing on the external resemblance in some points between Judaism and the religions of heathen antiquity, we shall give the sentiments of another as to the radical difference in spirit and character which distinguished the true from the false, an authority whose low views on some vital points of doctrine only render his opinion here the less liable to suspicion. "Heathenism," says Bähr, "as is now no longer disputed, was in all its parts a nature-religion ; that is, the deification of nature in its entire compass. That mode of contemplation, which was wont to perceive the ideal in the real, proceeded in heathenism a step farther; it saw in the world and nature, not merely a manifestation of Godhead, but the very essence and being of nature were regarded in it as identical with the essence and being of Godhead, and as such thrown together; the ultimate foundation of all heathenism is pantheism. Hence the idea of the oneness of the Divine Being was not absolutely lost, but this oneness was not at all that of a personal existence, possessing self-consciousness and self-determination, but an impersonal One, the great It, a neuter abstract, the product of mere speculation, which is at once everything and nothing. Wherever the Deity appeared as a person, it ceased to be one, and resolved itself into an infinite multiplicity. But all these gods were mere personifications of the different powers of nature. From a religion, which was so physical in its fundamental character, there could only be developed an ethics which should bear the hue and form of the physical. Above all that is moral rose natural necessity-fate, to which gods and men were alike subject; the highest moral aim for man was to yield an absolute submission to this necessity, and generally to transfuse himself into nature as being identified with Deity, to represent in himself its life, and especially that characteristic of it, perfect harmony, conformity to law and rule. The Mosaic religion, on the other hand, has for its first principle the oneness and absolute spirituality of God. The Godhead is no neuter abstract, no It, but I; Jehovah is altogether a personal God. The whole world, with everything it contains, is his work, the offspring of his own free act, his creation. Viewed as by itself, this world is nothing; he alone is-absolute being. He is in it, indeed, but not as properly one with it; he is infinitely above it, and can clothe himself with it, as with a garment, or fold it up and lay it aside as he pleases. Now this God, who reveals and manifests himself through all creation, in carrying into execution his purpose to save and bless all the families of the earth, revealed and manifested himself in an especial manner to one race and people. The centre of this revelation is the word which he spoke to Israel; but this word is his law, the expression of his perfect holy will. The essential character, therefore, of the special revelation of God is holiness. Its substance is, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." So that the Mosaic religion is throughout ethical it always addresses itself to the will of man, and deals with him as a moral being. Every thing that God did for Israel, in the manifestations he gave of himself, aims at this as its final end, that Israel should sanctify the name of Jehovah, and thereby be himself sanctified.”1 1 Symbolik, i. p. 35-37, where also confirmatory testimonies are produced from Creuzer, Görres, Hegel, Schlegel. SECTION SECOND. THE TABERNACLE IN ITS GENERAL STRUCTURE AND DESIGN. By the establishment of the Sinaitic covenant the relation between God and Israel had been brought into a state of formal completeness. The covenant of promise, which pledged the divine faithfulness to bestow upon them every essential blessing, was now properly supplemented by the covenant of law, which took them bound to yield the dutiful return of obedience he justly expected from them. The foundation was thus outwardly laid for a near relationship subsisting, and a blessed intercourse developing itself between the God of Abraham on the one hand, and the seed of Abraham on the other. And it was primarily with the design of securing and furthering this end, that the ratification of the covenant of Sinai was so immediately followed up by the adoption of measures for the erection of the tabernacle. I. The command is first of all given for the children of Israel bringing the necessary materials; "and let them make me," it is added, "a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them" (Ex. xxv. 8.) The different parts are then minutely described, after which the general design is again indicated thus: "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them; I am the Lord their God" (Ex. xxix. 45, 46.) With this representation of its general design, the names or designations applied to it perfectly correspond. (1.) Most commonly when a single name is used, it is that which answers to our word dwelling or habitation,1 although the word generally employed in our translation is tabernacle. Some משכך 1 times we find the more definite term house,1 the house of God, or the Lord's house (Deut. xxiii. 18; Josh. ix. 23; Judg. xviii. 31), or tent,2 (Ex. xxvi. 11.) The dwelling in its original form was a tent, because the people among whom God came to reside and hold converse, were then dwelling in tents, and had not yet come to their settled habitation. But afterwards this tent was supplanted by the temple in Jerusalem, which bore the same relation to the ceiled houses in the land of Israel, that the original tabernacle held to the tents in the wilderness. And coming, as the temple thus did, in the room of the tabernacle, and holding the same relative position, it was sometimes spoken of as the tent of God (Ez. xli. 1), though more commonly it received the appellation of the house of God, or his habitation. (2.) Besides these names, certain descriptive epithets were applied to the tabernacle. It was called the tent of meeting;3 for which our version has unhappily substituted the tent of the congregation. The expression is intended to designate this tent or dwelling as the place in which God was to meet and converse with his people; not, as is very often supposed, the place where the children of Israel were to assemble, and in which they had a common interest. It was this certainly; but merely because it was another and higher thing-because it formed for them all the one point of contact and channel of intercourse between heaven and earth. This is clearly brought out in Ex. xxix. 42, 43, where the Lord himself gives an explanation of the "tabernacle of meeting," and says concerning it: "Where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee; and there I will meet with the children of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory." (3.) The tabernacle is again described as the tabernacle of testimony, or tent of witness,* (Numb. ix. 15, xvii. 7, xviii. 2.) It received this designation from the law of the two tables, which were placed in the ark or chest that stood in the innermost sanctuary. These tables were called "the testimony," (Ex. xxxi. 18, xxxiv. 29), and the ark which contained them, "the ark of testimony," (Ex. xxv. 21, 22); whence also the whole tabernacle was called the tabernacle or tent of testimony. The witnessing, as previously noticed (chap. ii. sec. 1), had a twofold respect-to the holiness of בית 1 אהל 2 אהל מועד 3 ,משכן העדות אחל העדות 4 |