longer have access to the spot where God had more especially set his name. Again, of Rebekah we read, that when the children struggled within her," she went to inquire of the Lord," and an answer was received prophetic of the different fortunes of those children.* And when Isaac contemplated blessing his son, which was a religious act, a solemn appeal to God to remember His covenant unto Abraham, it was to be done 66 before the Lord." The place might be an altar such as was put up by Abraham at Hebron, by Isaac at Beer-sheba, or by Jacob at Beth-el, where they respectively dwelt; it might be a separate tent, and a tent actually was set apart by Moses outside the camp, before the Tabernacle was erected, where every one repaired who * Genesis, xxv. 22. + Ibid. xxvii. 7. xxxv. 6. sought the Lord;* or it might be a separate part of a chamber of the tent; but however that was, the expression is a definite one, and relates to some appointed quarter to which the family resorted for purposes of devotion. Accordingly the very same expression is used in after-times, when the Tabernacle had been set up, confessedly as the place where the people were to assemble for prayer and sacrifice. "He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation before the Lord, and he shall kill the bullock before the Lord." "Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose." Here there can be no question as to the meaning of the phrase; it occurs, * Exodus, xxxiii. 7. Deuteronomy, xvi. 16. † Leviticus, i. 3. indeed, some five-and-thirty times in the four last Books of Moses, and in all as significant of the place set apart for the worship of God. I conclude therefore that in those passages of Genesis which I have quoted, Moses employs the same expression in the same sense. Such are some of the hints which seem to point to places of patriarchal worship. 2. In like manner, and by evidence of the same indirect and imperfect kind, I gather that there were persons whose business it was to perform the rites of that worship-not perhaps their sole business, but their appropriate business. Whether the first born was by right of birth the priest also has been doubted; at the same time it is obvious that this circumstance would often, perhaps generally where there was no impediment, point him out as the fit person to keep alive in his own household, the fear of that God who alone could make it to prosper. Persons, however, invested with the sacerdotal office there undoubtedly were; such was Melchizedeck "the Priest of the Most High God," as he is expressly called, and the functions of his ministry he publicly performs towards Abraham, blessing him as God's servant, as the instrument by which His arm had overthrown the confederate kings, and receiving from Abraham a tenth of the spoil, which could be nothing but a religious offering, and which indeed, as such, is the ground of St. Paul's argument for the superiority of Christ's priesthood over the Levitical.† Such probably was Jethro "the Priest of Midian." Moreover we find the priests * Genesis, xiv. 18. † Hebrews, vii. 9. expressly mentioned as a body of function aries existing amongst the Israelites even before the consecration of Aaron and his * sons. Then if we read of Patriarchal Priests, so do we of Patriarchal " Preachers of Righteousness," as in Noah. So do we of Patriarchal Prophets, as in Balaam, as in Job, as in Enoch. All these are hints of a Patriarchal Church, differing perhaps less in its construction and in the manner in which God was pleased to use it, as the means of keeping Himself in remembrance amongst men, from the churches which have succeeded, than may be at first imagined. 3. Pursue we the inquiry, and I think a hint may be discovered of a peculiar dress assigned to the Patriarchal Priest when he officiated; for Jacob, being already pos* Exodus, xix. 22. † 2 Peter, ii. 5. |