good remarks on the more objectionable parts of Bähr's system, yet adopts a number of its errors, displays throughout, indeed, the want of a sound discrimination, and utterly fails to establish the main point at issue. The objections given above to Bähr's view apply with increased force to this.

4. The view of what are distinctively called the typical writers, errs primarily and fundamentally in considering the tabernacle as too exclusively typical, in seeking for the adumbration of Christ and his salvation as the only reason of the things belonging to it. Hence no proper ground or basis was laid for the work of interpretation, and unless where Scripture itself had furnished the explanation, the most arbitrary and even puerile meanings were often resorted to, without the possibility of applying, on that system, any check to them. Not keeping in view the great idea or design of the tabernacle, everything for the most part was understood personally of Christ; and even where a measure of discretion was observed in abstaining from too great minutiæ, and keeping in view the larger features of the Christian system, as in Witsius' (Miscellanea Sacra), still all swims in a kind of uncertainty, because no care was taken to investigate the meaning of the symbols, before they were interpreted as types.

5. The only remaining view requiring a separate notice is what is commonly regarded as the Spencerian, although Spencer did not originate it, but found its leading principles already laid down by Maimonides.1 It proceeds on the ground of an accommodation in the grossest sense to the heathenish tendencies and dispositions of the people. The Egyptians and other nations had dwellings for their gods; it was not convenient or practicable at

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1 He is substantially followed by many of the later Rabbis, who represent the tabernacle and temple as constructed with the view of imitating, and, at the same time, outdoing the palaces of earthly monarchs. Various quotations may be seen in Outram. That from R. Shem Tob is the most distinct and graphic, and is held in great account by Spencer: God, to whom be praise, commanded a house to be built for himself, such as a royal house is wont to be. In a royal house all these things are to be found, of which we have spoken: namely, there are some to guard the palace; others, whose part it is to do things belonging to the royal dignity, to prepare banquets, and do other things necessary for the monarch. There are others, besides, who serve with vocal and instrumental music. There is a place also for making ready victuals; a place for burning perfumes; a table also for the king, and an apartment appropriated to himself, where none are permitted to enter, excepting his prime minister, and those who are specially favoured by him. In like manner God," &c.

once to abolish the custom; and God must, therefore, to prevent his people from lapsing into heathenism, suit himself to this state of things, have a tabernacle for his dwelling, with its appropriate furniture and ministering servants. We have already, in the introductory chapter, substantially met this view; as it rests upon the same false principles which pervade the whole system of Spencer. According to it God accommodates himself, not merely to what is weak and imperfect in his creatures, but to what is positively wrong; and lowers and adjusts his requirements to suit their depraved tastes and inclinations. Consequently the views of God, which such a structure was fitted to impart, and the services connected with it, must have been quite opposed to the spiritual nature of God, and an obstruction, rather than a help, to pious Israelites in their endeavours to worship and serve God aright. It was not a temporary and fitting expedient to aid men's conceptions of divine things, and to render the divine service more intelligible and attractive; but a sop put into the mouth of a rude and heathenish people, to keep them away from the grosser pollutions of idolatry. God's house could never be built on such a foundation.-Some of the older typical writers, such as Outram (De Sac. L. i. 3), trod too closely upon this view of the tabernacle, as regards its primary intention for Israel, and so also, we regret to say, does Dr Kitto of recent writers (Hist. of Palestine, i. 245-6.)

SECTION THIRD.

THE MINISTERS OF THE TABERNACLE-THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES.

THE general divisions of the tabernacle, and even its particular parts and services, were so peculiarly connected with the persons who were appointed to tread its courts, that it is necessary, before proceeding farther, to understand distinctly the place which these held in the Mosaic dispensation, and especially, how they stood related to God, on the one hand, and to the people on the other. This section must therefore be devoted to the consideration of the Levitical priesthood.

I. It is somewhat singular, that the earliest notices we have of a priesthood in Scripture, refer to other branches of the human family than that of the line of Abraham. The first person with whom the name of priest is there associated, is Melchizedec, who is described as "king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God.” To him Abraham, though the head of the whole chosen family, paid tithes of all, and thus virtually confessed himself to be no priest as compared with Melchizedec. Then, in the days of Joseph, we meet with Potipherah, priest of On, or Heliopolis in Egypt, and of the priests generally, as a distinct and highly privileged order in that country (Gen. xli. 45; xlvii. 22); and a few generations later still, mention is made of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Not till the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, and were placed under that peculiar polity which was set up among them by the hand of Moses, do we hear of any individual, or class of individuals, holding the office of the priesthood as a distinct and exclusive prerogative. How, then, did they make their approach to God and present their oblations? Did each worshipper transact for himself with God? Or, did the father of a family act as priest for the members of his household? Or,

was the priestly function among the privileges of the first-born? This last position has been maintained by many of the leading Jewish authorities (Jonathan, Onkelos, Saadias, Jarchi, Abenezra, &c.), and also by some men of great learning in Christian times (Grotius, Selden, Bochart, &c.). They have chiefly grounded their opinion on the circumstance of Moses having employed certain young men to offer the sacrifices, by the blood of which the covenant was ratified (Ex. xxiv. 5), connecting this fact, on the one hand, with the profaneness of Esau in having despised his birth-right, which is thought to have been a slighting of the priesthood, and, on the other, with God's special consecration of the first-born, after their redemption in Egypt. This opinion, however, may now be regarded as almost universally abandoned. The consecration of the first-born on the eve of Israel's departure from Egypt, did not, as we shall see, include their appointment to the priestly office; nor was this reckoned among the rights of primogeniture. These rights Scripture itself has plainly restricted to pre-eminence in authority among the brethren, and the possession of a double portion in the inheritance (1 Chron. v. 1-4). And it would appear, from the scattered notices of patriarchal history, that there was no bar then in the way of any one drawing near and presenting oblations to God, who might feel himself called to do so. So long, however, as the patriarchal constitution prevailed, it was by common consent felt due to the head of the family, as the highest in honour, and the proper representative of the whole, that he should deal with God in their behalf by the presentation of sacrifice. By degrees, as families. grew into communities, and the patriarchal became merged in more general and public authorities, the sacerdotal office also naturally came to be vested, at least on all great and special occasions, in the persons of those who occupied the rank of heads in their respective communities, or of others, who, being regarded as peculiarly qualified for exercising the priestly function, were expressly chosen and delegated to discharge it. So in particular with the chosen family. In earlier times each patriarch did the work of a sacrificer; but when they had become a numerous people, and were going as a people to offer sacrifice to God, while they were primarily represented by Moses, whom God had raised up for their head, and who, therefore, alone properly did the part

of a priest at the ratification of the covenant, by sprinkling the blood, they appear, as was natural, to have appointed certain of their number, pre-eminent in rank, in comeliness of person, or qualities of mind, to assist in priestly offices. These, no doubt, were the persons from whom Moses selected a few to furnish him with the blood of sprinkling on the occasion referred to, and who had previously been spoken of as a body under the name of priests (Ex. xix. 22).1

1 Vitringa, Obs. Sac. I. De Prærogativis Primogenitorum in Eccl. Vet. This subject, and the closely related one of the consecration of the Levites in the room of the first-born, is so ably and satisfactorily discussed there, that little has been left for subsequent inquirers. Of the general practice in appointing persons to exercise priestly functions, where no separate order existed for the purpose, and which prevailed in common with God's more ancient worshippers and many heathen nations, he says, "Nothing is more certain, than that the ancients required sacrifices to be performed, either by princes and heads of families, or by persons singularly gifted in body and mind, as being deemed more deserving than others of the divine fellowship." This holds especially of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Of the former, Müller says, that "the worship of a deity peculiar to any tribe was, from the beginning, common to all the members of the tribe; that those who governed the people in the other concerns of life, naturally presided over their religious observances, the heads of families in private, and the rulers in the community; and that it might be said with just as much truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings." And so much was it the practice in the properly historical periods of Greece, to have priestly offices performed by means of public magistrates or persons delegated by the community, that he does not think "there ever was in Greece a priesthood, strictly speaking, in contradistinction to the laity."-(Introd. to Mythology, p. 187, 188, Trans.) Livy testifies that among the early Romans, the care of the sacred things devolved upon their kings, and that after the expulsion of these, an officer was appointed for the purpose, with the name of Rex Sacrorum (L. II. 2). It was still customary, however, as is well-known, for private families to perform their own peculiar sacrifices and libations to the gods. On special occasions, besides, persons were temporarily appointed for the performance of sacred offices, as on the occasion of the taking of Veiæ, thus related by Livy, v. c. 22: "Delecti ex omni exercitu juvenes, pure lotis corporibus, candida veste, quibus deportanda Romam Regina Juno assignata erat, venerabundi templum iniere, primo religiose admoventes manus; quod id signum more Etrusco, nisi certæ gentis sacerdos, attrectare non esset solitus." In Virgil, we find: Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos" (Æn. iii. 80), on which Servius remarks: "Sane majorum hæc erat consuetudo, ut rex etiam esset sacerdos vel pontifex, unde hodieque Imperatores pontifices dicimus." So also Aristotle, speaking of the heroic times, says: στρατηγὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς, καὶ τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς κύριος (Pol. iii. 14),

There was nothing peculiar, therefore, in the fact of Melchizedec having been at once a king and a priest. The only remarkable thing was, that among such a people he should have been a priest of "the Most High God," and so certainly called of God to the office, that even Abraham recognised his title to the honcur. It is impossible with any certainty to trace the transition from this to that other state of things, which prevailed in some ancient countries, and in which the