favour of Heaven. The act he fixed on was as wild as any that fuperftition ever fuggefted to a distempered brain it was to celebrate his own obfequies. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monaftery: his domeftics marched there in a funeral proceflion, holding black tapers: he followed in his fhroud : he was laid in his coffin with much folemnity: the fervice of the dead was chanted; and he himself joined in the prayers offered up for his requiem, mingling his tears with those of his attendants. The ceremony clofed with fprinkling holy water upon the coffin; and the affiftants retiring, the doors of the chapel were fhut. Then Charles rofe out of the coffin, and stole privately to his apartment. : The hiftory of ancient facrifices is not fo accurate, as in every inftance to afcertain upon what principle they were founded, whether upon fear, upon gratitude for favours received, or to folicit future favour. Human facrifices undoubtedly belong to the prefent head: for being calculated to deprecate the wrath of a malevolent deity, they could have no other motive but fear: and indeed they are a moft direful effect of that paffion. It is needless to lofe time in mentioning inftances, which are well known to those who are acquainted with ancient history. A number of them are collected in Hiftorical Law-tracts (a) and to thefe I take the liberty of adding, that the Cimbrians, the Germans, the Gauls, particularly the Druids, practifed hunian facrifices; for which we have the authority of Julius Cæfar, Strabo, and other authors. A people upon the Miflifippi, named Tenfas, worship the fun, and like the Natches their neighbours, have a temple for that luminary, with a facred fire in it, continually burning. The temple having been fet on fire by thunder, was all in flames, when fome French travellers faw them throw children into the fire, one after another, to appease the incensed deity. The Prophet Micah (b), in a paffage partly quoted above, inveighs bitterly against fuch facrifices: "Wherewith fhall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? fhall I come before "him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? VOL. IV. " will 66 . G (a) Tract 1. (4) Chap. 6. will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? fhall I give my "first-born for my tranfgreffion, the fruit of my body "for the fin of my foul? He hath fhewed thee, O man what is good: and what doth the Lord require ." of thee, but to do juftly, to love mercy, and to "walk humbly with thy God?" 66 The ancient Perfians acknowledged Oromazes and Arimanes as their great deities, authors of good and ill to men. But I find not that Arimanes, the evil principle was ever an object of any religious worship. The Gaures, who profefs the ancient religion of Perfia, addrefs no worship but to one God, all-good and all-powerful. Next, of worshipping the Deity in the character of a mercenary being. Under that head come facrifices and oblations, whether prompted by gratitude for favours received, or by felf-intereft to procure future favours; which, for the reafon mentioned, I fhall not attempt to diftinguish. As the deities of early times were thought to resemble men, it is not wonderful, that men endeavoured to conciliate their favour, with fuch offerings as were the most acceptable to themselves. It is probable, that the firft facrifices of that kind were of fweet-fmelling herbs, which in the fire emitted a flavour, that might reach the noftrils of a deity, even at a distance. The burning incenfe to their gods, was practifed in Mexico and Peru; and at prefent is practifed in the peninfula of Corea. An opportunity fo favourable for making religious zeal a fund of riches to the priesthood, is feldom neglected. There was no difficulty to persuade ignorant people, that the gods could eat as well as fmell: what was offered to a deity for food, being carried into the temple was understood to be devoured by him. With respect to the Jewish facrifices of burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, fin-offerings, peace-offerings, heaveofferings, and wave-offerings, thefe were appointed by God himself, in order to keep that fliff-necked people in daily remembrance of their dependance on him, and to preferve them if poffible from idolatry. But that untractable race did not adhere to the purity of the inftitu ,tion: : 147 tion they infenfibly degenerated into the notion that their God was a mercenary being; and in that character only, was the worship of facrifices performed to him: the offerings mentioned were liberally bestowed on him, not fingly as a token of their dependance, but chiefly in order to avert his wrath, or to gain his favour.* The religious notions of the Greeks were equally impure: they could not think of any means for conciliating the favour of their gods, more efficacious than gifts. Homer paints his gods as mercenary to an extreme. In the fourth book of the Iliad, Jupiter fays, "Of these 66 cities, honoured the moft by the foul of Jove, is fa"cred Troy. Never ftands the altar empty before me, "oblations poured forth in my prefence, favour that "afcends the skies." Speaking in the fifth book of a warrior, known afterward to be Diomedes, "Some god "he is, fome power against the Trojans enraged for vows unpaid: deftructive is the wrath of the gods.' Diomedes prays to Minerva, "With thine arm ward "from me the foe: a year old heifer, O Queen, shall "be thine, broad-fronted, unbroken, and wild: her "to thee I will offer with prayer, gilding with gold "her horns." Precifely of the fame kind, are the offerings made by fuperftitious Roman Catholics to the Virgin Mary, and to faints. Electra, in the tragedy of that name, fupplicates Apollo in the following terms. O! hear Electra too; Who, with unfparing hand, her choiceft gifts For me to give. The people of Hindoftan, as mentioned above, atone for their fins by auftere penances; but they have no notion of prefenting gifts to the Deity, nor of depracating his wrath with the blood of animals. On the contrary, G 2 they There is no mention in ancient authors of fish being offered to the gods in facrifice. The reafon I take to be, that the most favoury food of man was reckoned the most agreeable to their gods; that favages never thought of fish till land-animals became fcarce; and that the matter as well as form of facrifices were established in practice, long before men had recourse to fish for food. they reckon it a fin to flay any living creature; which reduces them to vegetable food. This is going too far; for the Deity could never mean to prohibit animal food, when man's chief dependence originally was upon it. The abitaining, however, from animal food, fhows greater humanity in the religion of Hindoftan, than of any other known country. The inhabitants of Madagafcar are in a stage of religion, common among many nations, which is, the acknowledging one fupreme benevolent Deity, and many malevolent inferior deities. Most of their worship is indeed addreffed to the latter; but they have so far advanced before several other nations, as to offer facrifices to the fupreme Being, without employing either idols or temples. Philofophy and found fenfe, in polifhed nations, have purified religious worship, by banishing the profeffion at least of oblations and facrifices. The Being that made the world, governs it by laws that are inflexible, because they are the beft poffible; and to imagine that he can be moved by prayers, oblations, or facrifices, to vary his plan of government, is an impious thought degrading the Deity to a level with ourselves: "Hear, O my people, and I will teftify against thee: I am 66 God, even thy God. I will take no bullock out of "thy houfe, nor he-goat out of thy fold: for every "beast of the foreft is mine, and the cattle upon a "thoufand hills. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink "the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving, "and pay thy vows to the Moft High. Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou "fhalt glorify me (a)". "Thou defireft not facrifice, "elfe would I give it; thou delighteft not in burntoffering. The facrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (b).” For I defired mercy, and not facri"fice, and the knowledge of Gol, more than burnt offerings (c)." In dark ages, there is great fhew of religion, with little heart-worship: in ages of philofophy, warm heart-worfhip, with little fhew *. (a) Pfalm go. This Ego ❝ nullam This is a proper place for the hiftory of idolatry; which, as will anon appear, fprung from religious worAhip, corrupted by men of fhallow understanding and grofs conceptions, upon whom things invisible make little impreffion. Savages, even of the lowest clafs, have an impreffion of invifible powers, though they cannot form any dif tinct notion of them. But fuch impreffion is too faint for the exercife of devation. Whether infpired with love to a good being, or with fear of an ifl being, favages are not at cafe without fone fort of visible object to animate them. A great ftone ferved that purpose originally; a very low inftrument indeed of religious worship; but not altogether whimsical, if it was introduced, G 3 * nullam naturam esse existimo, cui voluptati fint fœdata fan66 guine altaria, et animantium laniene. Quod fi qua tamen "eft cui ifta fint cordi, non ea mitis et benigna eft aliqua, fed "fera ac rabida, qualem pavorem poetæ fingunt, et Metum, ❝et Bellonam, et Malam Fortunam, et Difcordiam, quam in❝domitam appellant."―[In English thus: "I cannot conceive, "that there should exift a fuperior being, who takes delight in "the facrifice of animals, or in altars ftained with blood. If "fuch there be, his nature is not benevolent, but barbarous and cruel. Such indeed were the gods whom the poets have created: fuch were Fear and Terror, the goddefs of War, of "Evil Fortune, and of Difcord."] Arnobius batters down bloody facrifices with a very curious argument. "Ecce fi bos "aliquis, aut quodlibet ex his animal, quod ad placandas cædi66 tur mitigandafque ad numinum furias, vocem hominis fumat, "eloquaturque his verbis: Ergone, O Jupitur, aut quis alius "deus es, humanum. eft iftud et rectum, aut æquitatis alicu jus in æftimatione ponendum, ut cum alius peccaverit, ego "occidar, et de me fanguine fieri tibi patiaris fatis, qui nun“ quam te læferim, nunquam fciens aut nefciens, tuum numen "majeftatemque violarim, animal, ut fcis, mutum, naturæ 66 meæ fimplicitatem fequens, nec multiformium morum varie "tatibus lubricum ?" [In English thus: "What if the ox, "while he is led out to flaughter to appease the fancied wrath "of an offended deity, fhould affume the human voice, and in "these words attonith his conductors: Are thefe, O merciful "God, are these the dictates of humanity, or of justice, that "for the crime of another I fhould forfeit my life. I have ne66 ver by my will offended thee, and dumb as I am, and unin"formed by reafon, my actions, according to the fimplicity of my nature, cannot have given thee difpleasure, who has made 66 me as I am."]. If this argument were folid, it would be equally conclufive against animal food. |