Two Dissertations on Sacrifices Author:William Owtram Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. The Places used for offering Sacrifices. THE places in which sacrifices might be lawfully offered present three principal subjects for examinat... more »ion : first, the places themselves ; secondly, the sanctuaries, courts, altars, rooms, and other parts which they contained ; thirdly, their nature and design. Before the tabernacle was erected at the immediate command of God, it was lawful to perform religious ceremonies in any place, and consequently in those little shrines which, from their being built in elevated situations, are generally called " high places." After the erection of the tabernacle this was forbidden to the Jews. For as long as that tabernacle, the depository of the ark, stood in the midst of the congregation, which was the case in the wilderness, or was fixed in any other more permanent situation, all victims were to be brought thither, and there they were to be sacrificed in the manner prescribed- To this purpose are the following observations of Jewish writers. ' While the people were in the wilderness, ' it was provided by the law, that no one should offer ' sacrifices in the high places; but this law ceased ' when they came to Gilgal, where, as there was no ' fixed or certain situation for the tabernacle, the ' people were separated into various places. But on ' the building of the sanctuary at Shiloh, which was ' reared with stone walls though it was covered with ' curtains, the same law that had been in force in the ' wilderness became binding again. For in this ' place the ark had a fixed and certain station. Levit. mvi. 30. t teit. xvii. 4, 5, 6. ' Hence that sanctuary is frequently called " the ' house of God." When the ark was at Nob and ' Gibeon, where it had no fixed station, it was law- ' ful again to perform divine worship in t...« less