ish monks. It is possible however that some of these re-
cluses among the Jews might, on their conversion to
christianity, still retain their habits of devout retirement
from the world, and thus by degrees give birth to chris-
tian monkery. We are able to trace the origin of mo-
nastic institutions in the christian church to nearly the
middle of the third century. During the persecution of
the emperor Decius, Paul, a young gentleman of Egypt,
fled into a neighbouring desart and abode there in a cave
for ninety years. About twenty years after his re-
tiring, Anthony, a youth of the same province, allur-
ed by the religious fame of Paul, sequestered himself in
the same desart. Many others, catching the same spir-
it, resorted to him, and were formed into a body under
his direction and government.
From this source sprung
all the monastic institutions of Christendom. They can
claim no patronage nor warrant from the religion of the
New Testament; which every where enjoins contentment
and diligence in our several worldly callings, and directs
us to serve our Maker and contribute to social good by fil-
ling these with useful activity; whereas monks of every
description desert their proper stations in society, and
waste their lives in contemplative and useless indolence.

These observations, while they refute the arguments of papists in favor of their monks, equally silence the cavil of deists, who pretend that christianity is an unsocial, austere institution, which grew out of the Jewish sect above described. But as none of the peculiar doctrines and precepts of the gospel are to be found in those of the Essenes; so none of the peculiarities of the latter are adopted by the former. On the contrary, our Savior and his apos tles, by condemning the extreme nicety, superstition, and rigor of the Pharisees, have implicitly and even more

severely condemned the still greater superstitions of the Essenes; such as their scrupulous and frequent washings, their too rigid observance of the sabbath, their abstaining from meats, which God created for man's use, their severe restrictions of "Touch not, taste not, handle not," their will worship and affected humility in neglecting and afflicting the body, their forbidding marriage, that honorable, necessary, and divinę institution; these and other particulars, especially their denial of a future resurrection, which is the main object of the christian hope, are wholly inconsistent with, and pointedly condemned by the New Testament. Most of these articles are expressly reprobated by St. Paul in his epistle to the Colossians; which suggests a probability, that there was a sodality of Essenes at Colosse, and that some of the christians there favored their singularities.

While these remarks hold up christianity as an amiable and beneficent institution, directly opposed to a life of useless rigor and separation from the world; they suggest to you, my young friends, your future path of duty. You are now sequestered from the world for a season, that you may return to it with enlarged capacities of usefulness. Neither reason nor christianity will permit you, when you quit this literary retirement, to bury yourselves in indolent ease, in learned or even religious privacy. The spirit of the gospel, early and deeply imbibed, will carry you far beyond the Jewish Pharisees and Essenes in real devotion and sanctity, and at the same time render you social, active, and beneficent on the stage of the world.

Chap. ii. 18, 23.

LECTURE XXII.

Subordinate regulations of the

Peculiarities of the Hebrew ritual,

Israelites, to distinguish them from the absurd usages of idolaters.

HAVING

AVING considered the principal features of the antient Hebrew worship, we shall now contemplate some other parts of that instiution, and show their admirable tendency to preserve the Israelites from surrounding idolatry, and to keep alive the principles and practice of the true religion.

Beside the daily worship, the observance of weekly sabbaths, and of three annual feasts, which we formerly noticed, their ritual appropriated a religious service, consisting of animal and vegetable offerings, to the first day of every month, or to every new moon. As the moon is one of the great and benificent luminaries of heaven; so she was early esteemed and worshipped as a goddess by the heathen world. It was natural for her worshippers to celebrate her return and renovated splendor at the beginning of each lunar month, with peculiar ceremonies of joy and adoration. Agreeably many pagan writers represent these monthly celebrations as very joyous and magnificent, as accompanied with numerous and costly victims, with the blowing of trumpets, with a great show both of festivity and devotion, and in particular with sacrificing a goat to the object of their worship, because the horns of this animal resembled the curved figure of the new moon. As this species of idolatry was very prevalent in the eastern world, and the Hebrews themselves were strongly inclined to it; Jehovah wisely transferred to himself those occasions and rites of adoration, Numb. xxviii. 11, 16. 1. 10.

which superstition had thus profaned. He directed his people to consecrate every new moon to him, by performing many of the same ceremonies to his honor, which idolaters dedicated to this pretended queen of heaven. While in this way he indulged the taste of the Israelites for this monthly and pompous festival, he effectually barred its idolatrous abuse, and led them to acknowledge him as the one true God, of whom the moon in all her revolutions, as well as every other part of visible nature, was but the creature and minister. Agreeably the learned Grotius and Patrick justly observe, that the law, directing this celebration, repeatedly mentions Jehovah as the exclusive object of it, and in particular says that "the goat shall be offered for a sin offering to the Lord;" that is, says a Jewish rabbi; this goat was to be offered expressly to Jehovah, to extirpate the religion of those, who worshipped the moon; whereas the same animal, when directed to be offered on other solemnities, is simply styled a goat, or a sin offering, because there was no danger of mistaking the object of their sacrifice; but here this clause was necessary to root out that inveterate idolatry, which had long sacrificed to the moon at this season, as well as to the rising sun. How ready the Jews were to relapse into this idolatrous custom, appears from several passages of Jeremiah, which represent them as making cakes and burning incense to the queen of heaven; yea boldly telling the prophet, that when they did thus, they enjoyed health and plenty, and saw no evil; but that when they left off this practice they wanted all things.* Was it not wise and beneficent in the Mosaic law to crush this prevailing evil, by converting the occasion and rites of this idolatry into a religious solemnity to the true God?

Jerem. vii. 18.-xliv. 17. &c.

Further, as the ritual thus directed a monthly celebration, so it enjoined an annual service on the beginning of the seventh month" In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a holy convocation; it is the the day of blowing the trumpets unto you.' It appears that the month, here styled the seventh, was originally the first, and probably was so from the creation, and that it still continued the beginning of the Jewish civil year; though their sacred year was, by divine appointment, computed from their memorable departure from Egypt. The beginning therefore of their seventh month, according to the new or ecclesiastical reckoning, was really the commencement of the antient year, and was therefore fitly celebrated by some peculiar rites of religion. Accordingly, in addition to the common sacrifices of every day, and every new moon, a variety of special offerings is directed for this day. The blowing of trumpets is also enjoined as a memorial. As all nations made great rejoicings at the beginning of the year, and frequently sounded trumpets as one demonstration of their joy and thanksgiving; God wisely permitted and ordered his own people to observe similar ceremonies on the same occasion, in honor of himself. While the surrounding heathens at the beginning of the new year, worshipped the sun, as the king of heaven, the ruler of the scasons, and the author of their yearly blessings; the Hebrews at this season celebrated Jehovah, as the Creator of the sun, the Director of his annual revolutions, and the sole Dispenser of prosperous days and years. Their blowing of the trumpets was a joyful memorial of the creation of the world, when the first year began its course. It was a thankful commemoration of the goodness of Jehovah in