That the Sun and Moon were objects of idolatrous regard among these people is very evident from the following injunction, "Take therefore good heed, "lest, when thou liftest up thine eyes unto heaven, and seest the SUN, and the Moon, "and the STARS, even all the HOST OF HEAVEN, thou shouldst be driven to wor

ship them and to serve them." Deuter. c. iv. v. 15, 19. This was, without doubt, intended to caution the Israelites against the idolatrous customs of the neighbouring nations. Having departed from the living God by worshipping the luminaries of heaven, these idolators continued to wander farther and farther from Him, and each succeeding step in this lamentable degradation was marked by increasing absurdity and impiety; for to the worship of the celestial bodies was added a still more despicable species of idolatry, that of bowing down to inanimate stocks and stones and paying them divine honours; so that the Pillars which were originally intended to commemorate divine goodness, and were resorted to as the places of supplication and the offering up of sacrifices and thanksgivings to the one eternal Jehovah, were converted into imaginary deities and supposed to possess a supernatural intelligence and virtue. The groves also, which in the beginning were planted for the benefit of shade and shelter, became the scenes of scandalous licentiousness, under the pretence of religious rites and sacred institutions. In time, the sculptor's aid was called in, and these rude pillars of stone were carved into various figures, not only of men and women, but even into the forms of other animals and symbolical devices; hence the following prohibitions to the Israelites on their taking possession of Canaan, "Take heed unto yourselves (for ye saw no similitude on the day that the "Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire) lest ye corrupt "yourselves, and make you a GRAVEN IMAGE, the similitude of any figure, the "likeness of any figure, MALE or FEMALE; the likeness of any BEAST that is on "the earth; the likeness of any WINGED FOWL that is in the air; the likeness of

any THING THAT CREEPETH on the ground; the likeness of any FISH that is in the waters beneath the earth." Deuter. c. iv. v. 18. Such it seems were the idols of the nations. And again in cap. 6. v. 14. of the same book, "Ye shall not "go after other gods, of the gods of the people that are round about you, but thus "shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their ALTARS, break down their PILLARS, "cut down their GROVES, and burn their GRAVEN IMAGES with fire." And in another place the prohibition is still more expressive. "Ye shall utterly destroy all "the places wherein the nations, which ye shall possess, served their gods, upon the HIGH MOUNTAINS, and upon the HILLS, and under every GREEN TREE; and ye "shall overthrow their ALTARS, and break their PILLARS, and burn their GROVES "with fire; and ye shall hew down the GRAVEN IMAGES of their gods, and destroy "the NAMES of them out of that place." Deuter. cap. xii. v. 2, 3. And in order to preclude every incitement to idolatry, the Israelites were forbidden to plant groves though this had been frequently done by their pious ancestor Abraham; “Thou "shalt not plant thee a GROVE of any trees near unto the ALTAR of the Lord thy God, "which thou shalt make thee; neither shalt thou set up any IMAGE which the "Lord thy God hateth." Deuter. c. xvi. v. 21, 22. But the nations of Palastine were not only sunk into the lowest state of stupidity and infatuation in their superstitions, but they proceeded to acts of the most unnatural barbarity, as appears from the following declaration, "Every abomination to the Lord which he hateth, that have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire." Thus was the wickedness of the Canaanites carried to its utmost extent in these unparallelled acts of cruelty. Some have been willing to hope that the expression, 'causing their children to pass through the fire,' implied no more than a speedy transit through the flames, attended with little or no injury; but the expression here is too decided to admit of such a construction: it is clear, from the expression now cited, that these people did actually burn their children.