HKB
the Scriptures as he seemed to be in the heathen poets, he would have found the use of all these in the temple of God, and that by God’s appointment.”
“I shall not dispute with him,” says Middleton, “about the origin of these rites, whether they were first instituted by Moses, or were of prior use and antiquity amongst the Egyptians. The Scriptures favour the last, which our Spenser strongly asserts, and their Calmet and Huetius allow; but should we grant him all that he can infer from his argument, what will he gain by it? Were not all those beggarly elements wiped away by the spiritual worship of the Gospel? Were they not all annulled, on account of their weakness and unprofitableness, by the more perfect revelation of Jesus Christ?—(Gal. iv. 9; Heb. vii. 18.) If, then, I should acknowledge my mistake, and recall my words, and instead of Pagan, call them Jewish ceremonies, would not the use of Jewish rites be abominable still in a Christian church, where they are expressly abolished and prohibited by God himself?
“But to pursue his argument a little farther. While the Mosaic worship subsisted by divine appointment in Jerusalem, the devil likewise, as he tells us, had temples and ceremonies of the same kind, in order to draw votaries to his idolatrous worship, which, after the abolition of the Jewish service, was carried on still with great pomp and splendour, and above all places, in Rome, the principal seat of his worldly empire. Now, it is certain that in the early times of the Gospel, the Christians of Rome were celebrated for their zealous adherence to the faith of Christ, as it was delivered to them by the apostles, pure from every mixture either of Jewish or heathenish superstition, till, after a succession of ages, as they began gradually to deviate from that apostolic simplicity, they introduced at different times into the church the particular ceremonies in question. Whence, then, can we think it probable that they should borrow them from the Jewish or the Pagan ritual? From a temple remote, despised and demolished by the Romans themselves, or from temples and altars perpetually in their view, and subsisting in their streets, in which their ancestors and fellow-citizens have constantly worshipped?(95) The question can hardly admit any dispute; the humour of the people, as well as the interest of a corrupted priesthood, would invite them to adopt such rites as were native to the soil, and found upon the place, and which long experience had shown to be useful to the acquisition both of wealth and power. Thus, by the most candid construction of this author’s reasoning, we must necessarily call their ceremonies Jewish, or by pushing it to its full length, shall be obliged to call them devilish.