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with whom he spent his time in chanting hymns. As an expiation for his fins, he in private disciplined himself with fuch feverity, that his whip, found after his death, was tinged with his blood. Nor was he fatisfied with thefe acts of mortification: timorous and illiberal folicitude still haunting him, he aimed at fomething extraordinary, at fome new and fingular act of piety, to difplay his zeal, and to merit the favour of Heaven. The act he fixed on, was as wild as any that fuperftition ever suggested 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 domestics marched there in funeral proceffion, 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 thofe of his attendants. The ceremony closed with fprinkling holy water upon the coffin; and the affistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out

of

of the coffin, and stole privately to his apartment.

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The history of ancient facrifices is not fo accurate, as in every inftance to afcerupon what principle they were founded, whether upon fear, upon gratitude for favours received, or to folicit future favour. Human facrifices undoubtedly belong to the present 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 these I take the liberty of adding, that the Cimbrians, the Germans, the Gauls, particularly the Druids, practifed human facrifices; for which we have the authority of Julius Cæ

* The Abbè de Boiffy derives human facrifices from the hiftory of Abraham preparing to facrifice his fon Ifaac, which, fays he, was imitated by others. A man who is fo unlucky at guefling had better be filent.

(a) Tract 1,

far,

far, Strabo, and other authors. A people on the bank of the Miffifippi, 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 (a), in a passage partly quoted above, inveighs bitterly against fuch facrifices: "Wherewith fhall I come "before the Lord, and bow myself be"fore the high God? fhall I come before "him with burnt-offerings, with calves

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of a year old? will the Lord be pleased

with thousands of rams, or with ten "thousands of rivers of oil? fhall I give

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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 justly, to love mer' cy, and to walk humbly with thy "God ?"

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The ancient Perfians acknowledged O

(a) Chap. 6.

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romazes 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 Persia, address no worfhip but to one. God, all-good and allpowerful.

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 was a natural endeavour in men to conciliate their favour by fuch offerings as were the most relished by themselves. It is probable, that the first facrifices of that kind, were of sweet-fmelling herbs, which in the fire emitted a flavour that might reach the nostrils of a deity, even at a diftance. The burning incenfe to their gods, was practifed in Mexico and Peru; and at present is practifed in the peninfula of Corea. An opportunity fo favour

able for making religious zeal a fund of riches to the priesthood, is feldom neglected. There was no difficulty to perfuade 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, heave-offerings, and wave-offerings, these were appointed by God himself, in order to keep that stiffnecked people in daily remembrance of their dependence on him, and to preferve them if poffible from idolatry. But that untractable race did not adhere to the purity of the inftitution: they infenfibly degenerated into the notion that their God was a mercenary being; and in that character only, was the worfhip of facrifices performed to him. The offerings mentioned were liberally beftowed on him, not fingly as a token of their dependence, but chiefly in order to avert his wrath, or to gain his favour *.

The

There is no mention in ancient authors of fifh

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