"fuffer one to remain there a moment "who pays any worship to her image. "She may fay, that black is white, and "that puddled water is pure-God never contradicts her. The day on which God made his mother, was a fatal day 66 to us."

People who profefs the fame religion, and differ only in forms and ceremonies, may juftly be compared to neighbouring ftates, who are commonly bitter enemies to each other, if they have any difference. At the fame time, diffocial paffions never rage fo furioufly, as under the mask of religion; for in that cafe they are held to be meritorious, as exerted in the caufe of God. This obfervation is but too well verified in the difputes among Chriftians. However low religion was in the dark ages, yet men fought for forms and ceremonies as pro aris et focis. In the Armenian form of baptifm, the priest fays at the first immerfion, In name of the Father; at the fecond, In name of the Son; at the third, In name of the Holy Ghoft. This form is bitterly condemned by the Romish church, which appoints the three perfons of the Trinity to be joined in the fame expref

fion, in token of their union. Strahlenberg gives an account of a Christian sect in Ruffia, which differs from the established Greek church in the following particulars. First, In public worship they repeat Halleluia but twice; and it is a mortal fin to repeat it thrice. Second, In celebrating mafs, not five but feven loaves ought to be used. Third, The cross stamped upon a mass-loaf ought to have eight corners. Fourth, In figning with the cross at prayers, the end of the ring-finger muft be joined to the end of the thumb, and the two intermediate fingers be held out ́at full length. How trifling are these differences! and yet for these, all who diffent from them are held unclean, and no better than Pagans: they will not eat nor drink with any of the established church; and if a perfon of that church happen to fit down in a houfe of theirs, they wash and purify the feat *. There

are

* Chriftians, occupy'd too much with external forms, have corrupted feveral of the fine arts. They have injured architecture, by creating magnificent churches in the ugly form of a crois. And they have injured painting, by withdrawing the best

hands

C

are few fects founded upon more trivial differences than the Turkish and Perfian Mahometans. The epithets given to the Perfians by the Turks are, "Forfaken of "God, Abominable, Blafphemers of the Holy Prophet;" and fo bitter is their enmity to the Perfians, that the schools of the feraglio are open to young men of all nations, thofe of Perfia alone excepted. The Perfians are held to be fuch apoftates from the true faith, as to be utterly past recovery: they receive no quarter in war, being accounted unworthy of life or flavery: nor do the Perfians yield to the Turks in hatred. Whether coffee be or be not prohibited in the Alcoran, has produced much controverfy in the Mahometan church, and confequently much perfecuting zeal. A mufti, not fond of coffee, declared it to have an inebriating quality, and therefore to be virtually prohibited by Mahomet. Another mufti, fond of coffee for its exhilarating virtue, declared it lawful; "becaufe," faid he, "all things “ are lawful that are not expressly prohi

hands from proper fubjects, and employing them on the legendary martyrdom of pretended faints, and other fuch difagreeable fubje&s.

I

"bited

bited in the Alcoran." The coffeehouses in Conftantinople were for a long period alternately opened and fhut, according to the taste of the reigning mufti; till coffee at laft, furmounting all obftacles, came to be an established Mahometan liquor. Religion thus runs wild, whenever it lofes fight of its true ends, worshipping God, and enforcing justice to man. The Hindows hate the Mahometans for eating the flesh of cows: the Mahometans hate the Hindows for eating the flesh of fwine. The averfion that men of the fame religion have at each other for the most trivial differences, converts them frequently into brutal favages. Suppose, for example, that a man, reduced to the extremity of hunger, makes a greedy meal of a dead horse, a case so deplorable would wring every heart. And yet, let this be done in Lent, or on a meagre day -Behold! every zealot is inftantly metamorphos'd into a devil incarnate, the records of St Claude, a small district of Burgundy, is engroffed a sentence against a poor gentleman named Claude Guillon. The words are, "Having confi"dered the process, and taken advice of

VOL. IV.

3 C

In

the

"the doctors of law, we declare the faid "Claude Guillon duly convicted for ha

ving carried away and boiled a piece of a dead horfe, and of having eat the "fame on the 31st March, being Satur

day." And he was beheaded accordingly 28th July 1629; notwithstanding a defence above all exception, That he committed that irregularity to preferve his life. How was it poffible for the monsters to perfuade themfelves, that this fentence was agreeable to God, who is goodness itfelf!

No lefs prejudicial to morality than the relying too much on forms and ceremonies, is the treating fome fins with great feverity; neglecting others equally heinous, or perhaps more fo. In a book of rates for abfolution, mentioned above, no juft diftinction is made among fins; fome venial fins being taxed at a higher rate than many of the deepest dye. For example, the killing father, mother, brother, fifter, or wife, is taxed at five grofs; and the fame for inceft with a mother or fifter. The lying with a woman in the church is taxed at fix grofs; and at the fame time, abfolution for ufury is taxed at feven grofs,