naturally will, arise: religious bigotry, national antipathies, the renitency of habit, the pleas of passion, the deeply-instilled and fondly-cherished prejudices of a Mussulman education, the proud recollections of the departed greatness and glories of Mahometanism, these, and more than these, hereafter as heretofore, will unite to stay the universal diffusion of Christian liberty and light. Prophecy, however, assures us, that the everlasting Gospel shall prosper and prevail, until "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea; and, with respect to the Mahometan world more especially, the providence of God is already forming an illustrious commentary on his prophetic word, by the large and appropriate provisions made, as if preparatory to the event, in the present extraordinary posture of civil affairs over Asia.

In that decay of the Mahometan, and growth of the great Christian commonwealth, which have gone on together, with sure though chequered progress, from the commencement of the fifteenth century downwards; which have issued, in one direction, in the erection, on the ruins of the Mahometan, of a vast Christian empire, in the heart of India, and in another, in the drooping condition of the only remaining Mahometan

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states, beneath the overshadowing greatness of the European powers; in this great change, while the policy of this world may discern only "wars and rumours of wars," and "distress of nations with perplexity," the Christian moralist will mark the approaching fulfilment of that prophetic consummation, first announced in the promise of God to Abraham, that "in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed;" since, through every vicissitude of history and of human affairs, systematically carried onward; and terminating, only with the end of time, and the coming of Christ's kingdom.

SECTION VII.

RITUAL ANALOGY OF MAHOMETANISM WITH JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

FROM what has preceded, it is sufficiently clear, that, in its primitive construction, and, still more, throughout its subsequent modifications, the religion of Mahomet drew largely upon Judaism and Christianity, both for its system of morals, and for its scheme of doctrines: in each branch, at the same time, so maintaining its accustomed place, that it never appears as the parallel, without reminding us that it is but the perversion, of the one true revelation.

The analogy will be found to subsist in equal force, when we now extend the comparison; and trace the chief Mahometan rites and ceremonies, to their undoubted sources in the Law and Gospel. With comparatively limited exceptions, the ritual of this superstition was, in its original institution, as framed by Mahomet himself, either servilely copied after, or studiously conformed to, the rites and ceremonies previously sanctioned by the venerable authority of the Jewish and Christian systems. The Mahometan ordinances of circumcision, of baptism,

of Sabbaths, of ablutions, of stated times and postures of prayer, periodic fasts and festivals, prohibited meats, legal almsgiving, and pilgrimage, with sundry other articles of ritual observance, readily occur as examples, either of matter-offact conformity with, or of direct and palpable plagiarism from, the Jewish, or the Christian church. Nor should a less known feature of the ritual analogy be left out of our enumeration : namely, the undoubted existence in the creed of Mahometanism, contrary to what has been incautiously asserted by writers of great name, both of a sacrifice and of a priesthood.

This branch of our subject it is now my design to elucidate, by a short comparison of the Mahometan ritual, with the Jewish, and the Christian tracing the correspondence under the heads by which it is indicated in the preceding paragraph.

Circumcision, the initiatory seal of admission within the Jewish Church, must be considered the fundamental rite of Judaism. The national use of this rite among the ante-Mahometan Arabians, and the proof of its derivation from Ishmael, their forefather, and from a patriarchal tradition, are matters which belong to another place. It is our present business to notice,

*

* See Appendix, Nos. I, II.

that Mahometanism appears to have first raised the custom of circumcision*, as practised by the pagan Arabs, from the character of a mere prescriptive usage, into which it had long degenerated; and to have restored it to its primitive rank, as a religious ordinance; by adopting, after established Jewish precedent, the rite of circumcision as its initiatory fundamental.

With the Christian church, in which the sacrament of baptism was substituted for the rite of circumcision, Mahometanism, at the same time, contrives to maintain its spurious analogy; since, according to the Mahometan law, baptism, no less than circumcision, is accounted essential, in the admission of infidels to the rank of Mussulmans. The predilection for Judaism, t however, strongly appears in the prominence given to the Jewish rite, in preference to the spiritual Christian sacrament; which Mahometanism but too willingly lays aside, to return to the carnal letter of the law.

* "Circumcision, though it be not so much as once mentioned in the Koran, is yet held, by the Mohammedans, to be an ancient divine institution, confirmed by the religion of Islam." - Sale's Prelim. Disc. p. 141, 142. This omission, in fact, supplies the strongest proof of the known patriarchal antiquity of the rite; which thus would seem, in the judgment of Mahomet himself, to have required neither enforcement, nor ex. planation.

+ Reland, p. 74, 75.