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He who inhabits this house put it into thy heart to hearken to the words of thy companions, or brethren, that they may receive thee*." It appears from hence (at least according to the opinion of the mishnical rabbies), that excommunicated persons were not excluded from the temple; though they were from the synagogue, as we learn from several passages in the evangelist John, chap. ix, 22; xii, 42; xvi, 2, where such persons are said to be aroruvaywys, excluded from the synagogue. Not that we are to infer from this, that the Jews accounted their synagogues more holy than the temple; but it shows what was, and should be, the true intent of excommunication, namely, the shaming and humbling an offender, in order to bring him to repentance; on which account he was excluded the society of his neighbours in the synagogue; but not his eternal destruction, by driving him from the presence of God in the temple, and depriving him of the use of the most solemn ordinances, and the most effectual means of grace and salvation. The temple was the common place of worship for Israelites; by allowing him to come thither they signified, that they did not exclude him from the common privilege of an Israelite, though they would not receive him into their familiarity and friendship. How much heavier is the yoke of Antichrist than the Jewish yoke of bondage! How much more cruel is the excommunication of popery, which deprives persons of all their liberties and privileges, of their goods and lives, and consigns over their souls to be tormented in Hell for ever! How infinitely more cruel, I say, is this modern excommunication than even that of the wicked and barbarous Jews, who crucified the Lord of glory!

* Mish. tit. Middoth. cap. ii, sect. ii; et Maimon. in loc. tom. v, p. 334, 335, edit. Surenhus.; Lightf. Hor. Hebr. 1 Cor. v, 5.

CHAP. IV.

OF THEIR GROVES AND HIGH PLACES.

We have several times had occasion to observe, that in order the more effectually to guard the Israelites from idolatry, the blessed God, in instituting the rites of his own worship, went directly counter to the practice of the idolatrous nations. Thus, because they worshipped in groves*, he expressly forbad "the planting a grove of trees near his altar," Deut. xvi, 21+. Nor would he suffer his people to offer their sacrifices on the tops of hills and mountains, as the heathens did‡, but ordered that they should be brought to one altar in the place which he appointed, Deut. xii, 13, 14. And as for the groves,

* Hæc (nemora sc.) fuere numinum templa, priscoque ritu simplicia rura Deo præcellentem arborem dicant. Nec magis auro fulgentia atque ebore simulacra quam lucos et ipsa silentia adoramus. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xii, cap. i, p. 4, tom. iii, edit. Harduin. 1685. See also Lucian. de Sacrif. tom. i, p. 355, C. D. edit. Salmur. 1619. These groves Plutarch calls aλan Jew, the groves of the gods, which he saith Numa frequented, and thereby gave occasion to the story of his commerce with the goddess Egeria; Plutarc. in Numa, p. 61, F. Oper. tom. i, edit. Francof. 1620. They are expressly enjoined, by the laws of the twelve tables, as a part of the public religion, Lucos in agris habento. Vid. Duodecim. Tabular. Fragm, tit. Ubi colendi ad calcem Cod. Justiniani, p. 751, apud Corp. Juris Civil. edit. Lips. 1720.

+ See Spencer's learned dissertation on this and the following verse, de Leg. Hebræor. lib. ii, cap. xxvii, xxviii. |

Sophocles introduces Hercules asking Hyllus, whether he knew Mount Eta, which was sacred to Jupiter? "Yes," saith he, "for I have often sacrificed upon the top of it. Trachin. v, 1207, 1208, tom. ii, p. 325, edit. Glasg. 1745. And Strabo saith of the Persians, ayaλμara xai Bwpes un ιδρύονται, θυκσι δε εν υψηλω τόπω τον φρανον ηγώμενοι Δια; Geograph. lib. xν, p. 732, C. edit. Casaub. 1620. See also Herodot. Clio, cap. cxxxi, p. 55, sect. 131, edit. Gronov.; Xenophon. Cyr. lib. viii, p. 500, 3d edit. Hutchins; and Appian (de Bello Mithrad. p. 361, 362, sect. ccxv, edit. Tollii, Amstel. 1670) saith, that Mithridates sacrificed to Jupiter according to the custom of his country, og λ, upon a high mountain.

which the Canaanites had planted, and the idols and altars which they had erected on the tops of high mountains and hills for the worship of their gods, the Israelites are commanded utterly to destroy them, ver. 2, 3.

The groves and high places do not seem to have been different, but the same places, or groves planted on the tops of hills, probably round an open area, in which the idolatrous worship was performed, as may be inferred from the following words of the prophet Hosea, "They sacrifice upon the tops of mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars, and elms," Hos. iv, 13. The use of groves for religious worship is generally supposed to have been as ancient as the patriarchal ages; for we are informed, that " Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord," Gen. xxi, 33. However, it is not expressly said, nor can it by this passage be proved, that he planted the grove for any religious purpose; it might only be designed to shade his tent. And this circumstance perhaps is recorded to intimate his rural way of living, as well as his religious character; that he dwelt in a tent, under the shade of a grove, or tree, as the word bus eshel, may more properly be translated; and in this humble habitation led a very pious and devout life.

The reason and origin of planting sacred groves is variously conjectured; some imagining it was only hereby intended to render the service more agreeable to the worshippers, by the pleasantness of the shade*; whereas others suppose it was to invite the presence of the gods. The one or the other of these reasons seems to be intimated in the forecited passage of Hosea, "They burn incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shade thereof is good," Hos. iv, 13. Others conceive their worship was performed in the midst of groves, because the gloom of such a place is apt to strike a religious awe upon the mind +; or else, because such dark conceal

This seems, according to Virgil, to have been the reason of Dido's building the temple of Juno in a delightful grove,

Lucus in urbe fuit mediâ, lætissimus umbrâ :

Hic templum Junoni ingens Sidonia Dido

Condebat.

Æneid. lib. i, v. 445.

+"Si tibi occurrit," saith Seneca, Epist. xli, " vetustis arboribus, et solitam altitudinem egressis frequens lucus, et conspectum cœli densitate

ments suited the lewd mysteries of their idolatrous worship*.

I have met with another conjecture, which seems as probable as any, that this practice began with the worship of dæmons, or departed souls. It was an ancient custom to bury the dead under trees, or in woods. "Deborah was buried under an oak, near Bethel," Gen. xxxv, 8; and the bones of Saul and Jonathan under a tree at Jabesh, 1 Sam. xxxi, 13. Now an imagination prevailing among the heathen, that the souls of the deceased hover about their graves, or at least delight to visit their dead bodies, the idolaters, who paid divine honours to the souls of their departed heroes, erected images and altars for their worship in the same groves where they were buried+; and from thence it grew into a custom afterwards to plant groves, and build temples, near the tombs of departed heroes, 2 Kings xxiii, 15, 16‡, and to surround their temples and altars with groves and trees §; and these

ramorum aliorum alios protegentium submovens : illa proceritas sylvæ, et secretum loci et admiratio umbræ, in aperto tam densæ atque continua, fidem tibi numinis facit. Et siquis specus saxis penitus exesis montem suspenderit, non manufactus, sed naturalibus causis in tantam laxitatem excavatus: animum tuum quadam religionis suspicione percutiet." See also a remarkable passage in Virgil, Æneid. viii, v. 347, et seq.

* For proof of the lewdness and obscenity of many of the religious rites of the heathen, vid. Herodot. Euterp. cap. Ixiv, p. 112, 113, edit. Gronov. et Clio, sect. cxcix, p. 80; Diodor. Sicul. lib. iv, init.; Valer. Maxim. lib. ii, cap. vi, sect. xv, p. 185, 186, edit. Thysii. Lugd. Bat. 1655; Juvenal. sat. ix, v. 24; and what Eusebius saith of a grove on Mount Libanus, dedicated to Venus, in his Life of Constantine, lib. iii, cap. lv. Compare 1 Kings xiv, 23, 24.

+ Plato, after having declared his approbation of the sentiment of Hesiod, that when any of the golden age died they became dæmons, and the authors of great good to mankind; and after having asserted, that all who died bravely in war were entitled to be ranked in the same class, reckons, among the honours they deserved, their sepulchres being esteemed and worshipped as the repositories of demons -ως δαιμονων ετω θεραπευσομεν τε was worntoμer AUTOV Tas Inxas. De Republ. lib. v, p. 662, D, E, edit. Ficin. Francofurt. 1602.

↑ See Arrian's description of the tomb of Cyrus, de Expedit. Alexandr. lib. vi, p. 435, edit. Blancard. Amstel. 1678.

§ On account of the custom of planting trees near temples, "the poets," as Strabo informs us, " styled all their temples groves, even those which had no plantations around them." Geograph. lib. ix, p. 412, D, edit. Casaub.

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 mo 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," Matt. 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. lvii, 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

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