SECT. 3, 4.] AND SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 239
such as were offered in the times of approaching wars, after victories,
and upon the solemn covenanting of nations or rulers; who yet in process of time also made use of stated solemn sacrifices, and of those that were confined to the interests of private families.
3. It doth not appear that there was as yet any peculiar office of priesthood erected or instituted. But the persons who enjoyed the revelation of the promise and the institution of sacrifices may be considered two ways:—(l.) Personally; (2.) As members of some society, natural or political. Families are natural societies. Greater voluntary combinations, for the preservation of human conversation unto all the ends of it, we may call political societies. Consider men in the first way, and every one was his own priest, or offered his own sacrifices unto God. Not that every one was instated in that office: for, to make an office common to all is to destroy it; as it includes an especial privilege, faculty, power, and duty, which being made common, their being ceaseth. But every one was to perform that duty for himself, which upon the erection of the priest- hood was confined and limited thereunto. It doth not, therefore, follow that because every one was to offer sacrifice, therefore every one was a priest in office. God giving out the prefigurations of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ roAvuepéic, by distinct parts and degrees, he ordained the duty of sacrificing before he erected an office for the peculiar discharge of it. Thus Cain and Abel, as we have before observed, offered their own sacrifices, but could not both of them be priests; nor indeed was either of them so: nor was Adam, nor was it possible he should be so, before the increase and multiplication of his family; for a priest is not of one, but must act in the name of others. Wherefore, sacrifice being a worship prescribed unto believing sinners, every one in his own person was to attend unto it, and did so at stated times or on solemn occa- sions, according as they apprehended the mind of God required it of them.
4, Secondly, As persons were united into any community, natural or political, this worship was required of them in that community; for this is a prescription of the law of nature, that every society, wherein men do coalesce according to the mind of God, should own
their dependence on him with some worship common unto them, and to be performed in the name of the society. Especially is it so with respect to that which is the foundation of all others, in a household or family. So God gives unto Abraham the testimony of sincerity, that he would order and take care of his worship in his family, Gen. xviii. 19. Hence there were sacrifices peculiar unto families before the law, wherein it cannot be doubted but the father of the family was the sacred administrator. So Job offered burnt-offerings for
240 PREFIGURATIONS OF THE PRIESTHOOD [EXERC, XXXIV.
himself and his family, chap. i. 5; and Jacob for his, Gen. xxxv. 3, 7. Yet are they not hereon to be esteemed priests by office, seeing they had their warrant for what they did from the light and law of nature, but the office of the priesthood depends on institution. And such family sacrifices were famous among the heathens. An eminent instance hereof the Roman historian gives us in C. Fabius, who, when Rome was sacked by the Gauls, and the Capitol besieged, upon the stated time of the solemn worship and sacrifices of the family of the Fabii, passed through the enemy’s camp to the Quirinal Hill, and discharged the accustomed “ sacra,” returning to the Ca- pitol without disturbance or affront from the enemy, Liv. lib. v. And the family ceremonies, in the sacrifice of an ox unto Hercules, by the Potitii and Pinarii, were adopted by Romulus and Numa into the use of the whole people, the posterity of those families being made as it were their public priests thereby. And after they had con- firmed the administration of their “sacra” in public solemnities for the whole community, yet they left it free to single persons and families to sacrifice for themselves as they saw good; for as they took up the former course probably from the form and example of “Mosaical institutions, so they retained the latter from the original practice and tradition of the world. Even the meanest of the people continued their family libations. ‘“Sacrima” they called the wine which their countrymen offered to Bacchus, as Festus testifies; and “carpur” the vessel out of which they drew the wine whereof they made a libation to Jupiter. “Struferta” and “ suovetaurilia” were the sacrifices of poor families. And something in resemblance of this original practice continued among the people of God after the giving of the law. So the family of Jesse had an yearly sacrifice, which was a free-will offermg, and a feast thereon, 1 Sam. xx. 6. But it may be by the 0")%7 Nat there was intended only a feast at which there was a slaughter of beasts. If a sacrifice be intended, the time and place were irregular. Or if the whole was pretended by David, yet is it hence evident that such things were in common use at that time, or no pretence could have been made of it. And if it was a sacrifice, it was offered by a legal priest, or the whole of it was an abomination. Philo, lib. iii. de Vita Mosis, admits all the people afresh to this duty at the passover: Néwou apoord&er ovuumay rb ebvos iephral, ToD nara mepos Exckorov rag iaep abrod Suclas dya~ yovrog rére nui ispoupyotvros'— By the appointment of the law the whole nation sacrificeth” (or “is employed in sacred duties”), “ whilst every one brings his own sacrifice and slays it.” But this saying of his is not without its difficulties, and deserves further inquiry. 5. Persons united into greater societies for the ends of human conversation had, as we observed, the use of sacrifices among them