10 ANALYSIS OF THE FOLLOWING WORK.
which he deduces this meaning, " A virgin shall conceive," afford a precious specimen of the impostures with which men are sometimes deceived. Buxtorf proves that the Jews were acquainted with the Samaritan character before the destruction of the first temple. The Egyptians used three kinds of letters ; so that it was not uncommon for a nation to use more than one kind. On the other hand, there are ancient coins in the square letters. In fine, there are five reasons for believing in the superior an tiquity of the Hebrew characters : — 1. Their prescriptive right and immemorial claim to the antiquity ascribed to them. 2. The insufficiency of every reason assigned for the alleged change. 3. Various circumstances which rendered it impossible. 4. The numerous testimonies pf the Jews against it. And, lastly, The uncertainty that hangs over the whole history of these Samaritans. — Dig. II., Chap. III.
Resuming, after these digressions, the history of religion, the author comes to the legis lation of Sinai ; of which a report was widely diffused over the world. Before this period no laws were publicly promulgated or committed to writing ; and even among the Gentiles acknowledgments are found that Moses was the earliest legislator. The fundamental principles of the revelation, as communicated through Moses, are as fol low : — 1. That revelation is the only rule of all religious worship which is acceptable to God. 2. That salvation proceeds purely from sovereign grace, through the promised Seed. 3. That all typical institutions had a limit prescribed to their duration, beyond which it would not be lawful to adhere to them. — Chap. IV.
BOOK V.
THE CORRUPTION, RESTORATION, AND FINAL ABOLITION, OP MOSAIC THEOLOGY.
There was a twofold defection of the Jewish church;— partial, inasmuch as, through the grace of God, it was for a time recovered to the faith and obedience of the truth; final, when it terminated in the complete destruction of the nation. Under the former, despising revelation, the chosen people addicted themselves to worship sinful and erro neous; — first, in respect of the objects, which were the idols of foreign nations; and, secondly, in respect of the modes employed. — Chap. I. They borrowed the worship of the sun from the Chaldeans, the teraphim from Mesopotamia, the worship of the heifer from Egypt. The Moabites and Midianites seduced them into the sin of Baal-peor. With the Ammonites they worshipped Moloch ; with the Tyrians, Baal ; with the Philis tines, Beelzebub. Modes of worship cruel and abominable were derived from the same sources; such as the immolation of children, and libations to the queen of heaven. — Chap. II. The various names are noticed which are applied by Scripture to the idols of the heathen ; some of these names having reference to their imagined efficacy, some to their influence on the conscience, some to the matter of which they are framed, some to their external form, some to peculiar reasons on account of which they are so called, and some to the feelings of contempt and aversion with which they ought to be regarded. — Chap. III. An account is given of Baal-peor, the idol of the Moabites. — Chap. IV. The next idol to the worship of which the Israelites apostatized was Baal, and the different names ascribed to him are considered, — Baal-zebub, Baal-samen, and Baal-berith. — Chap. V. The different rites by which Baal was worshipped are described, and he is identified with the sun. — Chap. VI. Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon, the worship offered to him, the origin of Gehenna and To- phet, and the connection of this idol with the sun, next come under review. — Chap. VII. Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, is identified, under various forms and names, with the moon. — Chap. VIII. The sin of Aaron, in the formation of the golden calf, is affirmed to consist in the arbitrary worship of God, in a way which he had not appointed. — Chap. IX. That the ten tribes might not resort to the house of David, Jeroboam thought it necessary to institute a new species of worship, and for this pur pose he took the calf of Aaron as a model. Mention is also made in Scripture of tera phim used for vaticination, as also the ephod of Gideon, Judges xvii. 5, and viii. 27. —
ANALYSIS OF THE FOLLOWING WORK. 11
Chap. X. The apostasy of the Jews, which drew down the punishment of seventy years' captivity in Babylon, consisted in setting aside the three great principles of Mosaic theology; — rejecting the pure worship of the true God for idolatry; asserting justification by works, in opposition to the doctrine of justification by grace; and claim ing a perpetuity for Mosaic rites, to the disparagement of the promise of the Messiah, on whose coming they were to vanish aAvay. — Chap. XI. The reformation under Ezra effected important changes: — 1. The rebuilding of the temple; 2. The institution of the great synagogue ; 3. The diligent revision of the copies of the sacred books ; 4. The preaching of the word ; 5. The excommunication of the Cuthites ; and, 6. The separa tion of the people from strangers Chap. XII.