may safely challenge their authors to produce in their support a single fact, a single instance, in the whole range of history, of any human creature ever using articulate sounds as the signs of ideas, unless taught, either immediately and at once by God, or gradually by those who had been themselves instructed. That there have been instances of persons, who, possessing all the natural powers of mind and body, yet remained destitute of speech from the want of an instructor, there can be no question. Diodorus Siculus (lib. iii. § 19, p. 187, tom. 1. Wessel.) informs us of an entire nation wanting the use of speech, and communicating only by signs and gestures. But, not to urge so extraordinary a fact, Lord Monboddo himself, in his first volume, furnishes several well attested instances; and relates particularly the case of a savage, who was caught in the woods of Hanover, and who, though by no means deficient either in his mental powers or bodily organs, was yet utterly incapable of speech. Had man then been left solely to the operation of his own natural powers, it is incumbent upon these writers to shew, that his condition would have differed as to speech from that of the Hanoverian savage.

As for those writers who admit the Mosaic account, and yet attribute to Adam the formation of language unassisted by divine instruction, they seem to entertain a notion more incomprehensible than the former; inasmuch as the first exercise of language by the father of mankind is stated to have preceded the production of Eve, and cannot, consistently with the Scripture account, be supposed to have been long subsequent to his own creation. So that, according to these theorists, he must have devised a medium of communication, before any human being existed with whom to communicate: he must have been able to apply an organ unexercised, and inflexible, to the arduous and delicate work of articulation; and he must at once have attained the use of words, without those multiplied preparatory experiments and concurring aids, which seem on all hands admitted to be indispensable to the discovery and production of speech.

To remedy some of these difficulties, it has been said, that the faculty of speech was made as natural to man as his reason, and that the use of language was the necessary result of his constitution. If by this were meant, that man spoke as necessarily as he breathed, the notion of an innate language must be allowed; and then the experiment of the Egyptian king to discover the primitive language of man, must be confessed to have had its foundation in nature: but if it be merely meant, that man was by nature invested with the powers of speech, and by his condition, his relations, and his wants, impelled to the

exercise of these powers, the difficulty returns, and all the obstacles already enumerated oppose themselves to the discovery of those powers, and to the means by which he was enabled to bring them into actual exertion. It may perhaps add strength to the observations already made upon this subject, to remark, that the author who has maintained this last mentioned theory, and whose work, as containing the ablest and most laborious examination of the question, has been crowned with a prize by the Academy of Berlin, and has been honoured with the general applause of the continental literati, has utterly failed, and is admitted to have failed, in that which is the grand difficulty of the question. For, whilst he enlarges on the intelligent and social qualities of man, all fitting him for the use of language, the transition from that state which thus prepares man for language, to the actual exercise of the organs of speech, he is obliged to leave totally unexplained. (See the account given of the Essay of Herder on the origin of language, in Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Acad. Roy. &c. de Berlin, 1771-and again an Analysis of that work by M. Merian, in the vol. of the same Mémoires for the year 1781.) Enough, perhaps more than enough, has been said in answer to those theories and objections, which have been raised in opposition to that which Scripture so obviously and unequivocally asserts, namely, the divine institution of language.

In addition to the proof which has been already derived

from this source, it should be remembered, that the laws given by God to the first pair respecting food for their preservation

(Gen. i. 29; ii. 9,) and marriage for the propagation of their species (Gen. ii. 22, 23,) together with the other discoveries of his will recorded in the beginning of Genesis, (i. 28; ii. 16-19; iii. 8-12, 14-22,) were communicated through the medium of language; and that the man and the woman are there expressly stated to have conversed with God, and with each other. Besides, in what sense could it be said that a meet companion for the man was formed, if there were not given to both the power of communicating their thoughts by appropriate speech? If God pronounced it "not good for man to be alone;" if, with multitudes of creatures surrounding him, he was still deemed to be alone, because there was none of these with which he could commune in rational correspondence; if a companion was assigned to him whose society was to rescue him from this solitude; what can be inferred, but that the indispensable requisite for such society, the powers and exercise of speech, must have been at the same time vouchsafed?

It should be recollected, too, that this is not the only instance recorded in Scripture of the instantaneous communication of language. The diversity of tongues occasioning the confusion of Babel, and the miraculous gift of speech to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, may render a similar exercise of divine power in the case of our first parents more readily admissible for it surely will not be contended, that such supernatural interference was less called for from the nature of the occasion, in the last named instance, than in either of the two former.

The writer of Ecclesiasticus pronounces decisively on the subject of this Number. When the Lord created man, he affirms that, having bestowed upon him "the five operations of the Lord, in the sixth place he imparted to him understanding: and in the seventh, speech, an interpretation of the cogitations thereof."-Eccles. xvii. 5.

It is not necessary to the purpose of this Number, nor does Scripture require us, to suppose with Stillingfleet (Orig. Sac. B. i. cap. i. 3.) and with Bochart (Hieroz. P. i. L. i. cap. 9.) that Adam was endued with a full and perfect knowledge of the several creatures, so as to impose names truly expressive of their natures. It is sufficient, if we suppose the use of language taught him with respect to such things as were necessary, and that he was then left to the exercise of his own faculties for farther improvement upon this foundation. But that the terms of worship and adoration were among those which were first communicated, we can entertain little doubt. On the subject discussed in this Number, the reader may consult Morinus, Exercit. de Ling. cap. vi.; Buxtorfii Dissertat. p. 1-20; Walton. Prol. 184; Warburt. Div. Leg. B. iv. S, iv. vol. ii. pp. 81, 82; Delan. Rev. Exam. Diss. 4; Winder's Hist. of Knowledge, chap. i. § 2; Barrington's Misc. Sacr. vol. iii. pp. 8. 45; Dr Beattie and Wollaston, as referred to; and, above all, Dr Ellis's Enquiry whence cometh Wisdom, &c. which, together with his work, entitled Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation, is too little known, and cannot be too strongly recommended. The former of these tracts of Dr Ellis I have never met with, but as bound up in the collection of Tracts, entitled The Scholar armed.

No. LIV.-Page 18. Col. 1.

ON THE NATURAL UNREASONABLENESS OF THE SACRIFICIAL RITE.

Outram states (De Sac. lib. ii. cap. i. § 3.) that the force of this consideration was in itself so great, as to compel Grotius, who defended the notion of the human institution of sacrifices, to maintain, in defiance of all just criticism, that Abel did not slay the firstlings of his flock; and that no more is meant, than that he brought the choicest produce of his flock, milk and wool, and offered them, as Cain offered the choicest of his fruits.

Indeed the natural unfitness of the sacrificial rite to obtain the divine favour, the total incongruity between the killing of God's creatures, and the receiving a pardon for the violation of God's law, are topics which have afforded the opponents of the divine institution of sacrifice too much occasion for triumph, to be controverted on their side of the question. See Philemon to Hydaspes, part 5. p. 10-15. The words of Spencer on this subject are too remarkable to be omitted: "Sacrificiorum materia (pecudum caro, sanguis effusus, &c.) tam vilis est, et a summâ Dei majestate tam longe dissita, quod nemo (nisi plane simplex et rerum rudis) quin sacrificia plane superflua,

What Dr Kennicott has remarked upon another subject, may well be applied to this. "Whatever custom has prevailed over the world, among nations the most opposite in polity and customs in general: nations not united by commerce or communication, (when that custom has nothing in nature, or the reason of things, to give it birth, and to establish to itself such a currency,) must be derived from some revelation: which revelation may in certain places have been forgotten, though the custom introduced by and founded on such revelation still continued. And farther, this revelation must have been made antecedent to the dispersion of Babel, when all mankind, being but one nation, and living together in the form of one large family, were of one language, and governed by the same laws and customs." (Two Dissert. p. 161.) For, as Sir Isaac Newton observes, all mankind lived together in Chaldæa under the government of Noah and his sons, until the days of Peleg. So long they were of one language, one society, and one religion. And then they divided the earth, being forced to leave off building the tower of Babel. And from thence they spread themselves into the several countries which fell to their shares, carrying along with them the laws, customs, and religion, under which they had till those days been educated and governed. (Chronol. p. 186.)

And again, as Kennicott observes from Delaney, whatever practice has obtained universally in the world, must have obtained from some dictate of reason, or some demand of nature, or some principle of interest, or else from some powerful influence or injunction of some Being of universal authority. Now, the practice of animal sacrifice did not obtain from reason; for no reasonable notions of God could teach men, that he could delight in blood, or in the fat of slain beasts. Nor will any man say, that we have any natural instinct to gratify, in spilling the blood of an innocent creature. Nor could there be any temptation from appetite to do this in those ages, when the whole sacrifice was consumed by fire; or

when, if it was not, yet men wholly abstained from flesh and, consequently, this practice did not owe its origin to any principle of interest. Nay, so far from any thing of this, that the destruction of innocent and useful creatures is evidently against nature, against reason, and against interest; and therefore must be founded in an authority, whose influence was as powerful, as the practice was universal: and that could be none but the authority of God, the Sovereign of the world; or of Adam, the founder of the human race. If it be said of Adam, the question still remains, what motive determined him to the practice? It could not be nature, reason, or interest, as has been already shewn; it must, therefore, have been the authority of his Sovereign and had Adam enjoined it to his posterity, it is not to be imagined, that they would have obeyed him in so extraordinary and expensive a rite, from any other motive than the command of God. If it be urged, that superstitions prevail unaccountably in the world; it may be answered, that all superstition has its origin in true religion: all superstition is an abuse: and all abuse supposes a right and proper use. And if this be the case in superstitious practices that are of lesser moment and extent, what shall be said of a practice existing through all ages, and pervading every nation? See Kennic. Two Diss. pp. 210, 211, and Rev. Exam. Diss. viii. p. 85-89.

It is to no purpose that theorists endeavour to explain the practice as of gradual growth; the first offerings being merely of fruits, and a transition afterwards made from this to animal sacrifice. Not to urge the sacrifice of Abel, and all the early sacrifices recorded in Scripture, the transition is itself inconceivable. The two things are toto cœlo different: the one being an act of innocence; the other a cruel and unnatural rite. Dr Richie's remarks on the subject of this Number are particularly worthy of attention. Essay on the Rectitude of Divine Moral Government under the Patriarchal Dispensation, § 53, 54.

No. LVI.- Page 18. Col. 1.

ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE NOTION OF THE EXPIATORY VIRTUE OF SACRIFICE.

It is notorious, as we have already seen in Nos. V. and XXXIII, that all nations, Jews and Heathens, before the time of Christ, entertained the notion, that the displeasure of the offended Deity was to be averted by the sacrifice of an animal; and that, to the shedding of its blood, they imputed their pardon1 and reconciliation. In the explication of so 1 See on this also Stanhope, Serm. xiii. Boyle Lect. vol. i. pp. 790, 794.

strange a notion, and of the universality of ite extent, unassisted reason must confess itself totally confounded. And, accordingly, we find Pythagoras, Plato, Porphyry, and other reflecting heathens, express their wonder, how 2 an institution so dismal, and big with absurdity, could have spread through the world.

So powerful is the inference, which this fact consequently supplies, against the human invention of sacrifice, that Dr Priestley, labouring to support that doctrine, and, at the same time, pressed by the force of the argument, has been obliged boldly to face about, and resolutely deny the fact; contending, in defiance, as we have already shewn, of all historical evidence, that the notion of expiating guilt by the death of the victim, was not the design of sacrifice, either among the nations of antiquity, or among such as have practised sacrifice in later times. This idea Dr Priestley considers too absurd for heathens. Christians alone, excepting that description who have proved themselves on this head as enlightened as heathens, could have swallowed such monstrous absurdities. If, however, the fact appears to be against Dr Priestley, what follows from his reasoning? A cruel, expensive, and unnatural practice has been adopted, and uniformly pursued, by the unaided reason of mankind for above four thousand years. It remains then for him, and the other advocates for the strength and sufficiency of human reason, to consider whether it be that sort of guide, on which implicit reliance is to be placed; and whether it be wise to intrust to its sole direction our everlasting concerns.

No. LVII.- Page 18. Col. 2.

ON THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE SUPPOSITION OF THE DIVINE INSITITUTION OF SACRIFICE.

The principal objections to this opinion are derived from the two following considerations: 1. The silence of the sacred historian on this head; which, in a matter of so great importance, it is said, is irreconcileable with the supposition of a divine command: 2. Those passages in the Old Testament, in which God seems openly to disown the institution of sacrifice.

I. The former is thus urged by Bishop Warburton. "The two capital observances, in the Jewish ritual, were the Sabbath, and Sacrifices. To impress the highest reverence and veneration on the sabbath, the sacred historian is careful to record its divine original : and can we suppose that, had sacrifices had the same original, he would have neglected to 2 See Kennic. Two Dissert. p. 202, and No. LIV. of this work.

establish this truth, at the time that he recorded the other, since it is of equal use, and of equal importance; I should have said, indeed of much greater?" (Div. Leg. B. ix. ch. ii. vol. 4. pp. 661, 662. ed. Hurd.)

To this it may be answered, that though the distinction of weeks was well known over all the eastern world, it is highly probable, that the Hebrews, during their residence in Egypt, were negligent in their observance of the sabbath; and that, to enforce a religious observance of it, it had become necessary to give them particular information of the time and occasion of its first institution; but that, in a country like Egypt, the people being in little danger of losing their veneration for sacrifices, the same necessity for directing their attention explicitly to their institution did not exist. The observation of Dr Delaney also deserves to be noticed; namely, that as the rite of sacrifice was loaded with many additional ceremonies, at its second institution, under Moses; in order to guard the Jews from the infections of the heathen, it might have been wisely designed by their lawgiver not to recall their attention to its original simplicity, lest they should be tempted to murmur and rebel against their own multifarious ritual. Rev. Exam. Diss. viii. vol. i. p. 94.

But, perhaps, an answer yet more satisfactory may be derived from considering the manner in which the history of the first ages of the world has been sketched by the sacred penman. The rapid view he takes of the antediluvian world, (having devoted but a few chapters to the important and interesting concerns of the Creation, the Fall, and the transactions of all those years that preceded the Flood,) necessarily precluded a circumstantial detail. Accordingly, we find several matters of no small moment connected with that early period, and also with the ages immediately succeeding, entirely omitted, which are related by other sacred writers.

Thus

Peter and Jude inform us of the angels that fell from their first estate, and are reserved in everlasting chains; also of a prophecy delivered by Enoch to those of his days; of the preaching of righteousness by Noah; and of the vexation which the righteous soul of Lot daily experienced, from the unlawful deeds of those with whom he lived, (2 Pet. ii. 4, 5, 7, 8, and Jude, 6, 14, 15.) None of these things are mentioned by Moses: and even such matters as he has deemed of sufficient consequence to notice, he introduces only as they may be connected with the direct historic line which he holds in view; and, whilst hastening on to those nearer events on which it was necessary for him to enlarge, he touches on other affairs, however important, but as they incidentally arise. In this way, the first mention of sacrifice is evidently introduced; not for the purpose of giving a formal history of the

rite, of explaining how or when it was insti tuted, in which case a formal account of its origin might have been expected; but merely as an occasional relation, in the history of the transfer of the seniority, or right of primogeniture, and so the parentage of the Messiah, from Cain into a younger line, which, according to Kennicott, was a thing absolutely necessary to be known; and also, probably, of the ruinous effects of the Fall, in the effervescence of that wicked and malicious spirit, which made its first baleful display in the murder of Abel. The silence, then, of the historian, as to the divine institution of sacrifice, furnishes no argument against it. Kenn. Two Diss. p. 211; Wits. Misc. Sac. Lib. ii. Diss. ii. § 2; also Richie's Pecul. Doct. vol. i. p. 136.

See

But then, according to the Bishop's reasoning, the relation given by Moses of the institution of the sabbath justifies the expectation, that, had sacrifice arisen from the divine command, its origin would likewise have been recorded. But in what way is the divine appointment of the sabbath recorded? Is it any where asserted by Moses, that God had ordered Adam and his posterity to dedicate every seventh day to holy uses, and to the worship of his name; or that they ever did so, in observance of any such command? No such thing. It is merely said, that, having rested from the work of creation, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." Now, so far is this passage from being universally admitted to imply a command for the sacred observance of the sabbath, that some have altogether denied the sabbath to have been instituted by divine appointment: and the fathers in general, and especially Justin Martyr, have been considered as totally rejecting the notion of a patriarchal sabbath. But although, especially after the very able and learned investigation of this subject by Dr Kennicott in the second of his Two Dissertations, no doubt can reasonably be entertained of the import of this passage, as relating the divine institution of the sabbath, yet still the rapidity of the historian has left this rather as matter of inference: and it is certain, that he has nowhere made express mention of the observance of a sabbath until the time of Moses.

Indeed, it may be a question, whether, considering accurately the passage which describes the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and the circumstances attending them, it does not in itself furnish sufficiently strong ground to infer the divine appointment of sacrifice. The familiar manner in which the mention of this sacrifice is introduced, joined to the peculiar force of the words yp, (which, as Kennicott, supported by Fagius, shews, ought not to be translated, generally, in process of time, but at the close of the appointed season,)

K

seems to indicate a prior and stated observance of this rite; and the manifest acceptance of Abel's sacrifice by God evinces an approbation of that pre-existing practice, which can leave little doubt respecting the source of its institution. And this advantage the case of sacrifice clearly possesses over that of the sabbath; namely, that in the patriarchal history we have repeated and explicit accounts of the continuance of the former, whilst the notices of the sabbatical observance, antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation, are obscure and infrequent. Now, were we to argue rigidly against the continued observance of the sabbath, from its not having been expressly recorded, we might contend, as has been already hinted, for the necessity of a more explicit statement of its divine origin in the time of Moses; whilst the unbroken tradition and uninterrupted practice of sacrifice, (a thing controverted by none that I know of, except Lord Barrington in his Miscellanea Sacra, vol. iii. Diss. ii. cor. 3. and by him upon grounds rather fanciful and refined,) might render it less necessary for Moses to be particular on this head.

But, in truth, the silence of the historian respecting either the sabbatical or sacrificial observance is but of little weight, when there are circumstances in the history, from which the practice may be collected. The very notoriety of a custom may be a reason, why the historian may omit the mention of its continuance. Of this Dr Kennicott states a striking exemplification in the case of circumcision, which though constantly observed by the Israelites, is yet never once mentioned in the sacred history as having been practised in a single instance, from the settling of the Israelites in Canaan, down to the circumcision of our blessed Saviour; that is, for a space of one thousand four hundred and fifty years. And even of the observance of the sabbath itself, we find not one instance recorded, in any of the six books that follow the Mosaic code. What is thus applied to the continuance, will equally hold for the origin of a

custom.

II. The second objection, derived from passages in the Old Testament in which God seems to disown the institution of sacrifice, is to be replied to by an examination of those passages. In the fiftieth Psalm God is described as saying, "I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, or thy burnt-offerings-I will take no bullock," &c. - "Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" And again in Psal. li. "Thou desirest not sacrifice

-thou delightest not in burnt-offerings." And again in Psal. xl. "Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings hast thou not required." Sacrifices here, it is said, are spoken of as not pleasing to God. But it is manifest, on an inspection of the context, that this is only

intended in a comparative sense, and as abstracting from those concomitants, without which sacrifice never could have been acceptable to a holy and righteous God. This is farther confirmed by the manner in which similar declarations are introduced, in Isa. i. 11, 12; lxvi. 3; Prov. xv. 8; and Amos, v. 21, 22. If the argument be carried farther, it will prove too much; it will prove, in direct contradiction to the testimony of Moses, that the Jewish sacrifices had not been ordained by God. These passages, then, from the Psalms must go for nothing in the present argument.

But, then, it is said that the prophet Jeremiah (vii. 22,) furnishes a decisive proof in these words,-"For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices." This, it is urged, as referring expressly to a time prior to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, clearly proves that God did not institute sacrifices before the promulgation of the law by Moses. But this, like the former passages, is manifestly to be understood in a comparative sense only; as may easily be collected from what immediately follows: "But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people;" that is, "The mere sacrifice was not that which I commanded, so much as that which was to give to the sacrifice its true virtue and efficacy, a sincere and pious submission to my will;" "to obey being better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams," (1 Sam. xv. 22.) In like manner, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," (Hos. vi. 6.) "Rend your hearts, and not your garments," (Joel, ii. 13.) "Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord," (Ex. xvi. 8.) "Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat which endureth to everlasting life," (John, vi. 27.) The Scripture abounds with similar instances, in which the negative form supplies the want of the comparative degree in the Hebrew idiom: not excluding the thing denied, but only implying a preference of the thing set in opposition to it.1

Dr Blayney, indeed, thinks it not necessary to consider the words of Jeremiah in a

comparative sense. The word by, he says, admitting the sense of propter, the passage should be read, "I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them, for the sake of burntofferings," &c. ; that is, God did not command these purely on their own account, but as a means to some other valuable end. The sense is substantially the same. Now, if the passage be not taken in this sense, but be supposed to

1 See Walt. Polyglot. Proleg. Idiotism. 6. Lowth on Hos. vi. 6. Mede, p. 352. Kenn. Two Diss. pp. 208, 209; and Jenn.

Jew. Ant. vol. i. p. 313.