He from the Gods this dreadful answer brought, O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought, And Grecian blood once more atone the main. DRYDEN. These bloody sacrifices were, for certain, instances of the greatest degree of impiety, tyranny, and cruelty in the world, that either wicked demons, or wicked men, who neither made nor preserved mankind, who had therefore no right over them, nor were they able to make them amends in the next world for what they thus lost or suffered in this, should, after so inhuman a manner, command the taking away the lives of men, and particularly of the offerer's own children, without the commission of any crime. This was, I think, an abomination derived from him who was a murderer from the beginning; a crime truly and properly diabolical. 5. That, accordingly, Almighty God himself, under the Jewish dispensation, vehemently condemned the Pagans, and sometimes the Jews themselves, for this crime; and for this, among other heinous sins, cast the idolatrous nations (nay, sometimes the Jews too) out of Palestine. Take the principal texts thereto relating, as they lie in order in the Old Testament. "Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech.-Defile not yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you," &c. "Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones." "Take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared by following the nations, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination of the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods: for even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods." See chap. xviii. 10; 2 Kings, xvii. 17. "And Ahaz made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." Moreover, Ahaz burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children [his son in Josephus] in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel." * John viii. 44. + Lev. xviii. 21. + Lev. xx. 2. I 2 Chron xxviii. 3. "And the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim, &c." “†And Josiah defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no one might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire unto Molech." Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons; and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood." See Isaiah, lvii. 5. "The children of Judah hath done evil in my sight, saith the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it and they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, nor came it into my heart." "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth his ears shall tingle, because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burnt incense unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents. They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind," &c. "They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin." "**Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast born unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?" See chap. xx. 1 Cor. x. 20. Thou hatest the old inhabitants of thy holy land, for doing most odious works of witchcraft, and wicked sacrifices; and also those merciless murderers of children, and devourers of man's flesh, and feasts of blood, with their priests, out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the parents that killed with their own hands souls destitute of help." 6. That Almighty God never permitted, in any one instance, that such a human sacrifice should actually be offered to himself (though he had a right to have required it, if he had so * 2 Kings, xvii. 31. + 2 Kings. xxiii. 10. Jer. xix. 3-5. Psal. cvi. 37, 38. 1 Jer. xxxii. 35. pleased), under the whole Jewish dispensation, which yet was full of many other kinds of sacrifices, and this at a time when mankind generally thought such sacrifices of the greatest virtue for the procuring pardon of sin, and the divine favour. This the ancient records of the heathen world attest. Take their notion in the words of Philo Byblius, the translator of Sanchoniatho. "It was the custom of the ancients, in the greatest calamities and dangers, for the governors of the city or nation, in order to avert the destruction of all, to devote their beloved son to be slain, as a price of redemption to the punishing [or avenging] demons; and those so devoted were killed after a mystical manner." This the history of the king of Moabt, when he was in great distress in his war against Israel and Judah, informs us of; who then took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the city wall. This also the Jewish prophet Micah implies, when he inquires, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of fat kids of the goats? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? No, certainly, for he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble thyself, to walk with thy God? It is true, God did here try the faith and obedience of Abraham to himself, whether they were as strong as the Pagans exhibited to their demons or idols; yet did he withal take effectual care, and that by a miraculous interposition also, to prevent the execution, and provided himself a ram as a vicarious substitute, to supply the place of Isaac immediately. §And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham, and said, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, Here am I; and he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son. Thus though Jephtha|| has by many been thought to have vowed to offer up his only daughter and child for a sacrifice, and that as bound on him, upon supposition of his vow, by a divine law, Lev. xxvii. 28, 29, of which opinion I was once myself; yet upon more mature consideration I have, for some time, thought this to be a mistake, and that his vow extended only to her being devoted to Micah, vi. 6—8. * Ap. Marsh. p. 76, 77. + 2 Kings, iii. 27. Judges, xi. 36-39.. serve God at the tabernacle, or elsewhere, in a state of perpetual virginity; and that neither that law did enjoin any human sacrifices, nor do we meet with any example of its execution in this sense afterwards. Philo never mentions any such law, no more than Josephus: and when Josephus thought that Jephtha had made such a vow, and executed it, he is so far from hinting at its being done in compliance with any law of God, that he expressly condemns him for it, as having acted contrary thereto; or, in his own words, "*as having offered an oblation neither conformable to the law, nor acceptable to God, nor weighing with himself what opinion the hearers would have of such a practice." 7. That Isaac being at this time, according to Josephus†, who is herein justly followed by Archbp. Usher‡, no less than twenty-five years of age, and Abraham being, by consequence, one hundred and twenty-five, it is not to be supposed that Abraham could bind Isaac, in order to offer him in sacrifice, but by his own free consent; which free consent of the party who is to suffer seems absolutely necessary in all such cases; and which free consent St. Clement, as well as Josephus, distinctly takes notice of on this occasion. St. Clement describes it thus: "Isaac, being fully persuaded of what he knew was to come, cheerfully yielded himself up for a sacrifice." And for Josephus, after introducing Abraham in a pathetic speech, laying before Isaac the divine command, and exhorting him patiently and joyfully to submit to it, he tells us, that " Isaac very cheerfully consented;" and then introduces him, in a short but very pious answer, acquiescing in the proposal; and adds, that "he then immediately and readily went to the altar to be sacrificed." Nor did Jephtha¶ perform his rash vow, whatever it were, till his daughter had given her consent to it. 8. It appears to me that Abraham never despaired entirely of the interposition of providence for the preservation of Isaac, although in obedience to the command he prepared to sacrifice him to God. This seems to me intimated in Abraham's words to his servants, on the third day, when he was in sight of the mountain on which he was to offer his son Isaac, ** We will go and worship, and we will come again to you. As also in his answer to his son, when he inquired, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burntoffering. Both these passages look to me somewhat like such an expectation. However, * Antiq. B. v. chap. vii. sect. 10. + Antiq. B. 1. chap. xiii. § Clem. sect. 31. I Judges, xi. 36, 37. 9. It appears most evident, that Abraham, and I suppose Isaac also, firmly believed, that if God should permit Isaac to be actually slain as a sacrifice, he would certainly and speedily raise him again from the dead. This, to be sure, is supposed in the words already quoted, that both he and his son would go and worship, and come again to the servants; and is clearly and justly collected from this history by the author to the Hebrews, chap. xi. 17-19. By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting or reasoning that God was able to raise him from the dead. And this reasoning was at once very obvious, and wholly undeniable, that since God was truth itself, and had over and over promised that he would *multiply Abraham exceedingly; that he should be a father of many nations; that his name should be no longer Abram, but Abraham, because a father of many nations God had made him, &c.; that Sarai his wife should be called Sarah; that he would bless her, and give Abraham a son also of her; and that he would bless him; and she should become nations, and kings of people should be of her, &c.; and that in Isaac should his seed be called. And since withal it is here supposed that Isaac was to be slain as a sacrifice, before he was married, or had any seed, God was, for certain, obliged by his promises, in these circumstances, to raise Isaac again from the dead, and this was an eminent instance of that faith whereby Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, viz. that if God should permit Isaac to be sacrificed, he would certainly and quickly raise him up again from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure, as the author to the Hebrews here justly observes. 10. That the firm and just foundation of Abraham's faith and assurance in God for such a resurrection was this, besides the general consideration of the divine veracity, that during the whole time of his sojourning in strange countries, in Canaan and Egypt, ever since he had been called out of Chaldea or Mesopotamia, at seventy-five years of age, he had had constant experience of a special, of an overruling, of a kind and gracious providence over him, till this his 125th year, which against all human views had continually blessed him and enriched him, and in his elder age had given him first Ishmael by Hagar, and afterward promised him Isaac to ¶spring from his own body now dead,** and from the deadness of Sarah's womb, when she was past age, and when it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of woment and had actually performed that and every other *Gen. xvii. 2-6, 16. § Heb. xi. 19. **Heb. xi. 11. + Gen. xxi. 12. ++ Gen. xviii. 11. Gen. xv. 6. I Rom. iv. 19. |