walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed; and my mouth hath kissed my hand; this also was an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God that is above." Job. Chap. 31. v. 26. 27. 28. It is clear from this, that the species of Idolatry practiced in Job's time by certain families, tribes, or people known to him and his countrymen was the worship of the heavenly bodies. But what was the sort of worship usually practised in the time of Moses by those nations, with which he, the Legislator, was surrounded? It consisted in paying adoration to Idols or graven Images. These were either images of the Gods Baal-Peor and Ashtaroth or those of Calves. Indeed, we hear nothing from him in his travels through the wilderness but of Altars, Images, and Groves as connected with the worship of the country through which he passed. Indeed the second commandment delivered by him to the people from Mount Sinai shews what was the heathen worship of those times. "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image; nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth." But though this was the prevailing Idolatry of the day in those countries with which Moses

was acquainted,

Moses did not fail to caution the Israelites against the worship of the Sun or Moon also, and to threaten those, who were guilty of it, with Death. Deut. Chap. 4. v. 15-20, also Chap. 17. v. 2-6. Now with these materials in our hands, or bearing in mind that these two different sorts of worship prevailed in the two different countries in which Job and Moses might be said to have lived, we shall find no difficulty in laying the foundation of an argument, which will bring us to the same conclusion as in the other case. And first, it is a point agreed upon by all historians and divines, that when men first left the true God through unbelief, and went off into Idolatry, the worship, which they first substituted for that which they had left, was that of the Host of Heaven; but that the worship of Idols, or Images, or Likenesses of things, did not obtain till some ages afterwards; and this account carries with it its own conviction; because nothing like a reason of any sort can be given, why men, who had once the knowledge of the true God, should have gone off all at once into such a gross worship as that of Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, and Creeping things, whereas it is not difficult to imagine, why they should have adopted the worship of the heavenly bodies, when they must have daily seen

and felt their powerful and benign influence upon the earth, and this for the benefit of themselves. The learned Calmet observes upon the verses of Job which have been just quoted, "that they point out the worship of the Sun and Moon, which was much used in Job's time, and very anciently used in every part of the East; and in all probability that from which Idolatry took its rise." Dr. Adam Clarke speaks thus on the same passage. In this verse," says he, "Job clears himself of that Idolatrous worship, which was the most ancient and most consistent with reason of any species of Idolatry, namely Saboism, the worship of the heavenly bodies; particularly the Sun and Moon; Jupiter and Venus; the two latter being the Morning and Evening Stars, and the most resplendent of all the heavenly bodies, the Sun and Moon excepted." The learned and laborious Dr. Hales, as quoted in D'Oyley and Mant's Bible, makes the following short observation upon the same. "The only species of Idolatry," says he, "noticed in this book is Zabianism, or the worship of the heavenly bodies, which is the earliest on record, and an additional proof of the high antiquity of the composition." The learned Bishop Cumberland, having occasion to speak of the worship of

the Sun and Moon calls it the most ancient Idolatry (de Ligibus Patriarch: p. 439.) But it is unnecessary to multiply testimonies: history speaks but one language on this point. But if it be the fact that constellation-worship was long prior to that of Idols or graven Images, it is but reasonable to presume, that Job must have lived a long time before Moses. Had Job lived either in or after the time of Moses, he never could have said, when wishing to clear himself of Idolatry, "If I beheld the Sun when it shined, or the Moon walking in brightness," but he would have spoken in something like the following manner, If I beheld Baal-Peor, or looked to Ashteroth or any other Idol and my heart had been secretly enticed, and my mouth had kissed my hand, then I should have been worthy of punishment for I should have denied the God that is above.

But the truth of the proposition, that constellation-worship had its origin before that of Images, when men first departed from the true God, may be made to appear from facts. Moses, though he never entered into the promised land, yet fell in occasionally with Amalekites, Moabites, Midianites and others, but we hear from him no other account, as I have observed before, than that they sacrificed to Idols, the work of men's

hands; but Joshua, who succeeded Moses, entered into the territories of the Canaanites and became intimately acquainted with their customs, and he also, when speaking on the subject, gives us a similar account. We gather however accidently from Joshua by his mere mention of the name of a town, which he allotted to the tribe of Issachar, that it is probable that the worship of graven Images, which then prevailed among the Canaanites, was not the worship which their ancestors had adopted when first or originally they forsook Jehovah. The name of this town was Bethshemesh, which signifies the house or Temple of the Sun, or the temple which had been dedicated to the Sun. But history as well sacred as profane informs us, that there were many Bethshemeshs in Canaan. We may therefore fairly conclude that, though the Canaanites both in the time of Joshua and Moses were the worshippers of the Idols Baal-Peor and Ashteroth, their ancestors had been the worshippers of the Sun in a former age. And this is the conclusion, which Dr. Adam Clarke also adopts in his note upon the word Bethshemesh as mentioned by Joshua c. 19 v. "There were several cities or towns, says. he, of this name in Palestine, an ample proof that the worship of this celestial luminary (the

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