sacred groves being constantly furnished with the images of the heroes or gods that were worshipped in them, a grove and an idol came to be used as convertible terms; 2 Kings xxiii. 6.

We have before observed, that these sacred groves were usually planted on the tops of hills or mountains, from whence they are called in Scripture a bamoth, or “high places." Perhaps such an exalted situation was chosen by idolaters, in respect to their chief god, the sun, whom they worshipped, together with their inferior deities, on the tops of hills and mountains, that they might approach as near to him as they could.* It is no improbable conjecture concerning the Egyptian pyramids, that they were intended as altars to the sun, as well as very likely for sepulchral monuments, like these ancient groves. Accordingly, they are all flat at the top, to serve the purposes of an altar. It is said, that altars to the sun, of the same form, though not so large as the pyramids, were found among the American idolaters.†

There might be another reason for planting the sacred groves on the tops of hills and mountains; namely, for the sake of retirement from noise and disturbance in their acts of worship. And on this account, probably, the worshippers of the true God had also their proseuchæ, or places of retirement for worship, generally on hills or high places. Accordingly we read, that Christ "went up into a mountain apart to pray;' Matt. xiv. 23. And at his transfiguration he retired with three of his "disciples, to the top of a high mountain apart;" chap. xvii. 1. I see no reason, therefore, to conclude, that those high places, of which we read in the Old Testament, where holy men and worshippers of the true God paid their devotion, were the sacred groves of the idolaters, but rather they were Jewish proseuchæ, or synagogues. Such were the high places by the city where Samuel lived, and where he sacrificed with the people, 1 Sam. ix. 12-14; and upon the

Tacitus speaks of some places, which were thought "maximè cœlo propinquare, precesque mortalium à Deo nusquam proprius audiri." Annal. lib. xiii. sect. Ivii. p. 281, edit. Glasg. 1743.

See Young's Historical Dissertation on Idolatrous Corruptions in Religion, vol. i. p. 222-228.

"Lucos et ipsa silentia adoramus," saith Pliny, in a passage before

hill of Gath, where was either a school of the prophets, or they had been thither to pay their devotion when Saul met them; see 1 Sam. x. 5-13. And of the same sort was the great high place at Gibeon, where Solomon sacrificed, and where God appeared to him in a dream; 1 Kings iii. 4, 5.

The grand difficulty on this head is how to reconcile their sacrificing in other places beside the national altar, as Gideon did at Ophrah, Judges vi. 24; Manoah in the country of Dan, chap. xiii. 16-20; Samuel at Mizpah, 1 Sam. vii. 10, and at Bethlehem, chap. xvi. 5; David in the threshing-floor of Ornan, 1 Chron. xxi. 22; and Elijah on Mount Carmel, 1 Kings xviii. 30, et seq.,-with the law in the book of Deuteronomy, "Take heed to thyself, that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest. But in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I commanded thee;" chap. xii. 13, 14.

The best solution, I apprehend, is, that it was done by special divine direction and command, God having an undoubted right to supersede his own positive laws, when and in what cases he pleases; and as this is expressly asserted to have been done in David's case before mentioned, 1 Chron. xxi. 18, it may the more reasonably be supposed in all the

rest.

This may intimate to us the true solution of another difficulty, how to reconcile the law which prescribes an altar" of earth only to be made in all places where God should record his name," Exod. xx. 24, with the order which Moses received to make a brazen altar in the court of the tabernacle.

Some have supposed, that the brazen altar was filled with earth and stones, and so was an altar of earth, though cased with brass. But the real solution I take to be this: "In all places where I record my name," means, in whatever particular place, beside the national altar, I shall cause my name to be recorded, by commanding my servants to sacrifice unto me, there thou shalt make an altar of earth.

The reason of God's appointing such plain and inartificial altars, on these special occasions, was in all likelihood to prevent that superstitious veneration which the people would probably have entertained for them, as having a more than ordi

nary sanctity in them, if they had been more expensive and durable; whereas being raised just to serve a present exigence, and presently pulled down, or falling of themselves, they could not administer any temptation to superstition or idolatry.

But to return: Though some places were called by the name of high places, which had never been polluted with heathen idolatry, and in which God was acceptably worshipped, nevertheless, all which had been actually so defiled the Israelites are commanded utterly to destroy; insomuch, that it is left upon record, as a stain and blemish upon the character of some of the more pious kings of Judah, that they did not destroy them, but suffered the people, who were very prone to idolatry, to sacrifice in them: which is the case of Asa, 1 Kings xv 14; Jehoshaphat, chap. xxii. 43; and several others.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE CITIES OF REFUGE.

THE Latin word asylum, used for a sanctuary, or place of refuge, has so near an affinity with the Hebrew word bus eshel, a tree or grove, as to make it probable, that the sacred groves, which we spoke of in the last chapter, were the ancient places of refuge, and that the Romans derived the use of them from the eastern nations. So we find in Virgil, that the asyla were groves :*

Hinc lucum ingentem quem Romulus acer asylum
Rettulit.

Æneid, viii. 1. 342. And God's altar appears to have been the asylum of the Jews, before the cities of refuge were appointed; Exod. xxi. 14. Some persons have imagined, that all the cities of the Levites, in number forty-two, were asyla. But that appears to be a mistake; for in the book of Numbers, chap. xxxv. 6, among the cities that were given to the Levites, only six are mentioned as appointed to be cities of refuge.

These asyla were not only intended for Jews, but for Gentiles, or for strangers, who dwelt among them; ver. 15. They were not designed as sanctuaries for wilful murderers,

* Mr. Jones supposes, that the reason why these groves were considered as places of refuge, was the opinion which prevailed, that the demons, to whom they were dedicated, afforded their assistance to those who fled to them for protection. "Asylorum origo mihi deducenda videtur ex antiquorum erga mortuos reverentia, et opinione eorum potentiæ opem ferendi supplicibus. Illi, qui à potentioribus metuebant, ad sepulcra virorum eximiorum confugiebant." Vid. Senecam in Troad. act iii. Ita Plutarchus Thesei sepulcrum fuisse asylum dicit in vitâ Thesei, sub fin. He observes, that God never appointed his altar for an asylum; nevertheless, it was so considered before the giving of the law in Exodus concerning the cities of refuge. On which account he imagines, that the origin of asyla was not a divine institution, but that God, by his appointment of cities of refuge, perhaps intended to check and restrain the superstitious and idolatrous use of groves and altars for this purpose. Annot. MS. in Godwini Mos. et Aaron.

and all kinds of atrocious villains among the Jews, as they were among the Greeks and Romans, and now are in Roman Catholic countries, but merely for securing those who had been guilty of involuntary homicide, Deut. xix. 4—10, from the effects of private revenge, until they were cleared by a legal process. And it is observable, that the Israelites are commanded to "prepare the way," that is, to make the road good, "that every slayer may flee thither" without impediment, and with all expedition; ver. 3. And, as Godwin observes, the rabbies inform us, among other circumstances, that at every cross road was set up an inscription, Asylum ! Asylum! Upon which Hottinger remarks, that it was probably in allusion to this custom that John the Baptist is described as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;" Luke iii. 4—6. He was the Messiah's forerunner, and in that character was to remove the obstacles to men's flying to him as their asylum, and obtaining, σwrηptov TOV Osov, the salvation of God.

For any thing farther on this subject we refer to Godwin's Moses and Aaron, especially with Hottinger's notes.

* Privilegia asylorum, inquit Jonesius, summa erant, certa enim in illis supplicibus salus, nec ullus inde sub quovis prætextu ad pænum extrahendus, δεδώκασι γαρ δε αδειαν ενταυθα ικετεύουσι. Pausan. lib. ii. p. 108, 1. 45, edit. Xyland. Hanov. 1613. Nec de eo qui in asylum confugerat, judicium instituebant, nec examinabant, an talis vitæ dignus erat, an non. Eum verò Diis relinquendum censebant. Ita Leotycidam, quamvis proditionis reum, nunquam extrahere conati sunt Lacedæmonii. Pausan. lib. iii. p. 171, 1. 44, et seq. Ita Livius, lib. xliv. cap. xxix. Sanctitas templi insulæque inviolatos præestabat omnes. Et idem de cujuslibet generis maleficis, quinetiam obæratis, testatur Tacitus; Annal. lib. iii. cap. Ix. Verum est quod aliqui aliquando hæc violârunt privilegia; sed ii habebantur hominum scelestissimi, nec à pœnâ ab hominibus erant liberi, nisi nimia eos tuebatur potentia. Vid. Thucyd. lib. i. sect. cxxvi. p. 69, 70, et sect. cxxxiv. p. 174, 175, edit. Hudson. Saltem verò violatorum horum privilegiorum acerrimi, vindices habebantur Dii. Vid. Justin. lib. viii. cap. i. ii.; Pausan. lib. i. p. 36, 1. 20, et seq.; et lib. vii. p. 445, l. 50, et seq. p. 447, 1. 37, edit. Xyland. Hanov. 1613.

+ Middleton's Letter from Rome, p. 156-158, of his Miscellan. Works, vol. v. octavo.