in use could be made to maintain a competition with them. Accordingly, he arrogated the name, power, prerogatives, works, relations and government of Jehovah. He claimed to be god of this world: its creator, providential ruler, dispenser of benefits, protector of his followers, and rightful object of their homage and obedience, in opposition to Jehovah. He took the then current name in Babylon of the sun, Bel--or, as pointed and commonly rendered, Baal--Lord of Heaven, Supreme Ruler, like the sun in the visible heaven; afterwards, with the same import, the Egyptian name of the same object, On, (often rendered Aven.) Also, Moloch, (Melek,) King; Baal-Zebub, Lord of Hosts--Zebub being a corruption of Zebaoth, hosts, as in the formula, Jehovah Zebaoth, Lord of Hosts; and among the Phœnicians, Baal Samen, Lord of Heaven. He arrogated the sun as his tabernacle or shekina, and the solar fire and light as his element: imitating, we may well believe, in respect to the first of these particulars, what had been exhibited in Eden, and from time to time prior to the age of Abraham, as it was afterwards, and especially to Moses in Midian, in the pillar of cloud, at the Red Sea, on Mount Sinai, and in the tabernacle. And in imitation of the tabernacle erected by Moses in the wilderness, the partisans of Baal created the tabernacle of Moloch, _i. e._, Baal under that name. Amos v.; Acts vii. Prideaux, Part I., Book 3, treating of the origin of idolatry, and yet describing it at an advanced stage, when, in addition to the sun, the planets and stars had been brought into its service, observes: "That they took upon themselves to address the being whom they worshipped," and whom he supposes they regarded as the true God, "by mediators of their own choosing. And their notion of the sun, moon, and stars being, that they were the tabernacles or habitations of intelligences which animated those orbs, in the same manner as the soul of man animates his body, and were the causes of all their motions; and that those intelligence were of a middle nature between God and them; they thought these the properest beings to become the mediators between God and them; and, therefore, the planets being the nearest to them of all these heavenly bodies, and generally looked on to have the greatest influence on this world, they made choice of them in the first place for their _God's-mediators_, who were to mediate for them with the Supreme God, and procure from him the mercies and favors which they prayed for; and accordingly they directed divine worship unto them as such. And here began all the idolatry that hath been practised in the world. They first worshipped them _per sacella_, that is, by their _tabernacles_, and afterwards by images also. By these _sacella_ or _tabernacles_ they meant the orbs themselves, which they looked on only as the _sacella_ or _sacred tabernacles_ in which the intelligences had their habitations.