" Tu quuni pro vitula, statuis dulccra Aulide natam, Ante urns, spai-gisque niola caput, improbe, salsa, Rectum auiuii son'as?" — Her., lib. ii. sat. iii. v. 199.
" When your own child you to the altar led, And pour'd tlie salted meal upon lier head; AVhcn you beheld the lovely victim slain, Umiatural fathci' ! were you sound of brain ? "
ON HUMAN SACRIFICES, 6^1
Agamemnon is introduced thus, apologizingfor himself on account of the utility and necessity of the sacrifice : —
" Vei'um ego, ut heorentes adverse littore naves
Eriperem, prudens placavi sanguine divos." " But I, while adverse winds tempestuous roar, To loose our fated navy from the shore, Wisely with blood the powers divine adore."
Francis' Horace. The Plebeian again charges him with madness : —
" Nempe tuo furiose ? "
" What! your own blood, you madman?"
But Philo, in his first Ijook, relates that one Saturn (there were many illustrious persons of that name, as well as of the name of Hercules), when the enemies of his country were oppressing it, sacri- ficed at the altars his own daughter, named Lelidem ; which among tliem, namely, the Tyrians, means only-begotten.
I have little or no doubt but that this Saturn was Jephthah the Israelite ; that their Hercules was Joshua, the celebrated Vossius has clearly proved, book i. of Idol.
But as we have made mention of Jephthah, it will not be foreig-n to our purpose briefly to treat of those three famous examples of human sacrifices recorded in the sacred writings. The first is con- tained in that celebrated history concerning the trial of Abraham ; an undertaking so wonderful and astonishing that no age hath ever produced or Avill produce its like. It even exceeds every thing that fabulous Greece hath presumed in story. A most indulgent and aiiectionate father, weighed down with age,^ is ordered to offer his only son, the pillar of his house and family, the trust of Heaven, a son solemnly promised him by God, the foundation of the future church, in whom, according to the oracles of God, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed ; this most innocent and most obedient son he is ordered to offer as a burnt-offering, — a dreadful kind of sacrifice indeed ! which required that the victim should be first slain, afterward cut in pieces, and lastly burnt, by the hands of a father ! What though the purpose was not accomplished, God having gi-a- ciously so ordained it, this obedience of the holy man is, notwith- standing, to be had in everlasting remembrance ! And forasmuch as he began the task with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, the Holy Spirit bears testimony to him as if he had really oftered his son : Heb. xi. 1 7, " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered
1 Abraham is said to have been now a hundred and thirty-three years of age; for some are of opinion that Isaac, at the time he was to have been sacrificed, was thirty- three years old. Josephus says twenty-five ; the Jews in Seder Olam, thirty-six. Nor is it any objection that he is called naar, for so Eciijamiu, the father of many childi'cn, is called, Gen. xliii. — Tk.
532 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART I.
up Isaac ; and he that had received the promises offered up his only- begotten." The fame of this transaction, no doubt, was spread m ancient times over many of the eastern nations. But that those who were altogether ignorant of the communion and friendship which Abraham cultivated with the Lord, and yet were convinced in their consciences that a more noble sacrifice than all cattle, and a more precious victim, was necessary to be offered to God (for if this persuasion had not been deeply impressed on their minds, the devil could not have induced them to that dreadful worship), assumed the courage of practising the same thing from that event, there is not any room to doubt. And, farther, if any report were spread abroad concerning the divine command and oracle which Abraham received, tlie eyes of all would be turned upon him as the wisest and holiest of men, and they would be led, perhaps, to conclude, falsely, that God might be propitiated by such kind of victims : for they did not this from any rivalship of Abraham, whom they respected as a wise and just man ; but, being deceived by that action of his, and endeavour- ing at an expiation of their own crimes, they did the same thing that he did, but with a very different end, for the offering up of Isaac was a type of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
But from that right and dominion which God naturally hath over all the creatures, or from that superior excellence and eminence wdiere- with he is endowed and constituted, he might, without any degree or suspicion of injustice or cruelty, exact victims as a tribute from man. But he hath declared his will to the contrary : Exod. xxxiv. 19, 20, " But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb ; and the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem ;" — partly, lest human blood, of which he has the highest care, should become of little account ; but esjDCcially because all mankind in general being polluted with iniquities, a type of his immaculate Son could not be taken from among them.