manners of a clean victim were a tacit reflection upon an unclean offerer. When the worshippers of the true God were corrupt in their principles or morals, their oblations were no longer either proper or acceptable: which was signified to them in those words of the Prophet-He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man: he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck: he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood*. The prophet adds the reason, why their devotion was thus censured-they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations; with which, such abominable sacrifices as the Heathens offered to their impure Deities, would have corresponded better than those appointed by the law of Moses. And this shews us the folly of the heathens, in sacrificing swine, dogs, and even human creatures which could happen only through their *Isa. lxvi. 3. + Inter quæ nonnunquam et homo fit hostia, latrocinio sacerdotis, dum cruor etiam de jugulo calidus exceptus paterá, dum adhuc fervet, et quasi sitienti idolo in faciem jactatus, crudeliter propinatur. Tertull. de Spect. сар. х. The like practice of offering human sacrifices to the Manes of those who were slain in battle, is alluded to in Virgil, who seems to have borrowed the sentiment from Homer, Iliad xxiii. 175. Sulmone creatos Quatuor hic juvenes, totidem quos educat Ufens En. x. 517. Instead of spiritual, they adopted physical reasons for some of their sacrifices; slaying the hog in honour of Ceres, because it roots up the grain. As if the Deity were mean enough to take delight in being revenged upon his own creatures, for exercising the instincts he hath implanted in them, and seeking their food in the common course of nature. Prima putatur Hostia sus meruisse mori, quia semina rostro Ovid. n ignorance concerning the origin of sacrifice, and their imperfect notions of moral purity. The characters of their Deities were strongly marked with uncleanness, cruelty, and all kinds of immorality: and as a false object of worship naturally leads to false devotion, we are not to wonder that the custom of sacrificing, which they had received by tradition, degenerated in many respects into downright absurdity. But there is another sense in which the institution of sacrifice is to be understood: for every sacrifice had its prophetic use, and was prefigurative of the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ: with respect to whom it was necessary that every animal, preferred to this sacred application, should be recommended by every possible character of innocence, purity, and perfection: therefore the sacrifices were taken from the three tribes of Sheep, Goats, and Oxen; each of which were always to be perfect in their kind. XIV. The Diet of the Hebrews being thus immediately connected with the most solemn Acts of religious Adoration, the daily course of their living carried with it an exhortation to purity of mind and body, and directed their faith to its greatest object, the vicarious Sacrifice of the Messiah. Unless the circumstances of man under the penalties of Sin had required a propitiatory sacrifice, perhaps animal food had never come into use, the human teeth, as well as the intestines, seeming rather adapted to a vegetable or farinaceous diet*: and if this is the origin of animal food, the consideration of it will reconcile every Christian Believer to a practice, which hath appeared very shocking to natural reason. Men * The Question, whether man is naturally carnivorous, was learnedly agitated by Dr. Wallis and Dr. Tyson: their observations are very curious and worth examining. See Phil. Trans. No. 269. p. 769. of abstraction and refinement, whose lives were remote from war and rapine, and devoted to rational exercises, reasoned themselves into an abhorrence of animal food: pronouncing it to be unnatural and barbarous, that poor innocent creatures should be put to death for the support of human life, which might well be supported by other means, and with a far better prospect of health and longævity. I say innocent creatures; for according to the observation of unenlightened heathens the lot hath universally fallen upon the more innocent part of the creation; Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio, Qui malè faciunt nobis; illis qui nil faciunt tenditur. Ter. Phorm. II. i. 16. The Pythagoreans are represented by Ovid exclaiming in a very pathetic manner against the cruelty of mankind, in behalf of Sheep and Oxen, Quid meruistis oves, placidum pecus? &c. And again in his Fasti; Apta jugo cervix non est ferienda securi, Unless we were hardened by daily custom, it would surely be impossible for any rational man to reflect without pity and indignation concerning the multitudes of harmless labouring oxen, which are daily led out to the slaughter; or the thousands of helpless bleating sheep, first stripped of their clothing, and afterwards bled to death, to supply the wants of the human species. But they, who carried their humanity to this un reasonable height, were ignorant of the best and truest Philosophy, and vitiated in their understandings by that old Egyptian Conceit of the Metempsy- · chosis: for thus it ought in reason to be. The moral necessities of man can be supplied only by the Death and Benefits of a propitiatory Sacrifice, the common substitute of all mankind: whence the Providence of God hath mercifully ordained, as well by the present condition of the natural Creation itself, as by the appointment of Revelation, that his bodily life should be sustained in a like manner: thereby to remind us every day (though few are wise enough to accept and apply the admonition) that the life of man is in a state of forfeiture; and that there can be neither the preservation of life, nor the remission of Sin, without the shedding of innocent blood. Thus doth the whole world conspire in offering up a daily sacrifice, and attesting the truth of the Christian doctrine, with the same insensibility that Caiaphas uttered a similar prophecy in its favour-It is necessary that one man should die, that the whole people perish not. XV. Fish and Fowls are distinguished upon the same moral principles of good and evil as the quadrupedes; though not with the same physical marks of distinction. Concerning the Fish, this rule was given in the Law--whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the Seas, and in the Rivers, them shall ye The progressive motion of fish is owing to the tail for so may a boat be driven forward by the agitation of a single oar from the stern. The fins serve to keep the fish upright, and support it while it is stationary in any part of the water. The centre of gravity being above the middle region of the body, (the reverse of which is the case with birds) a fish floats unnaturally with its back downwards, when the fins are taken off*. Their scales, which are very hard, bright, and radiated, compose a sort of armour, which serves for their defence, and adds at the same time an appearance of light and purity. The fish thus distinguished differ as much in their way of life from the smooth and slimy inhabitants of the waters, as in their colour and lineaments: for such fish are generally disposed to raise themselves from the bottom, and swim about with agility in the superior regions of the water; while the Eel buries itself in the mire, and all the crustaceous tribe lie scrabbling upon the ground. As for the testaceous, an eminent Naturalist† hath formed a new System, wherein they are distinguished from all other fish under the denomination of Worms: which, though somewhat bold, is not altogether unnatural, as their bodies are inarticulate, and without the common organs of sense. The moral of all this is as plain as before; the whole being a figurative monition, that a sordid and groveling way of life was to be abhorred by the Servants of God; whose minds being under the direction of divine truth and wisdom, their affections were to be raised from vice to virtue, from pollution to purity, from things temporal to things eternal. XVI. Among the Fowls, those were accounted clean, which are gentle in their nature, lofty in their flight, and musical in their voices; which last, I think, is not the qualification of any one bird of prey. The birds being distinguished, not by an approbation of the good and innocent, but by an exception of the bad, the observations I have to make on this part of the animal Creation must be reserved till we come to consider the other part of the subject. ↑ Linnæus. *See Borrelli, P. i, ccxiii. ccxiv. |