; they travel, not by walking or riding, but by measuring the road with the length of their bodies; in which method of loco-motion, fome of them confume years, before they complete their pilgrimage. A religious fect made its way fome centuries ago into Japan, termed Bubsdoifts, from Bubs, the founder. This fect has prevailed over the ancient fect of the Sintos, chiefly by its aufterity and mortifications. The spirit of this fect inspires nothing but exceffive fear of the gods, who are painted prone to vengeance, and always offended. The people of that religion pafs most of their time in tormenting themselves, to expiate imaginary faults and they are treated by their priests with defpotifm and cruelty, that is not paralleled but by the inquifitors of Spain. The manners of the people are fierce, cruel, and unrelenting, fuch as never fail to be inspired by horrible fuperftition. The notion of invisible malevolent powers, formerly univerfal, is not to this hour eradicated, even among Chriftians; for which I appeal to the fastings and flagellations among Roman-Catholics, held by them to be an effential part of religion. People infected with religious horrors, are never seriously convinced, that an upright heart and found morality make the effence of religion. The doctrine of the Janfenists, concerning repentance and mortification, shows evidently, however they may deceive themselves, that they have an impreffion of the Deity as a malevolent being. They hold the guilt contracted by Adam's fall to be a heinous fin, which ought to be expiated by acts of mortification, fuch as the torturing and macerating the body with painful labour, exceffive abstinence, continual prayer and contemplation. Their penances, whether for original or voluntary fin, are carried to extravagance; and they who put an end to their lives by fuch feverities, are termed the facred victims of repentance, confumed by the fire of divine love. Such fuicides are esteemed peculiarly meritorious in the eye of Heaven; and it is thought, that their fufferings cannot fail to appease the anger anger of the Deity. That celibacy is a state of purity and perfection, is a prevailing notion in many countries: among the Pagans, a married man was forbid to approach the altar, for fome days after knowing his wife; and this ridiculous notion of pollution, contributed to introduce celibacy among the Roman-Catholic priests. The Emperor Otho, anno 1218, became a fignal penitent: but instead of atoning for his fins by repentance and restitution, he laid himself down to be trod under foot by the boys of his kitchen; and frequently fubmitted to the discipline of the whip, inflicted by monks. The Emperor Charles V. toward the end of his days, was forely depreffed in spirit with fear of hell. Monks were his only companions, with whom he spent his time in chanting hymns. As an expiation for his fins, he in private difciplined himself with fuch severity, that his whip, found after his death, was tinged with his blood. Nor was he fatisfied with these acts of mortification: timorous and illiberal folicitude still haunting him, he aimed at fomething extraordinary, at some new and fingular act of piety, to display his zeal, and to merit the favour of Heaven. The act he fixed on was as wild, as any that superstition ever suggested to a diftempered 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 funeral proceffion, holding black tapers: he followed in his throud; 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 sprinkling 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. 01 The history of ancient facrifices is not fo accurate, as in every instance to ascertain upon what principle they were founded, whe ther ther 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 most direful effect of that paffion. It is needless to lose time in mentioning inftances, which are well known to those who are acquainted with ancient history. A number of them are collected in Historical Law-tracts (a): and to these I take the liberty of adding, that the Cimbrians, the Germans, the Gauls, particularly the Druids, practised human facrifices; for which we have the authority of Julius Cæfar, Strabo, and other authors. A people upon 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 (6), 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 be fore him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? `will' "the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thou"fands of rivers of oil? fhall I give my firft-born for my tranfgref"fion, 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?" The ancient Persians acknowledged Oromazes and Arimanes as their great deities, authors of good and ill to men. But I find (a) Tract 1. 4) Chap. 6. not any not that Arimanes, the evil principle, was ever an object of religious worship. The Gaures, who profess the ancient religion of Perfia, addrefs no worship 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 distinguish. 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 first 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 practised 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 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 refpect to the Jewish facrifices of burnt-offerings, meatofferings, fin-offerings, peace-offerings, heave-offerings, and waveofferings, these were appointed by God himself, in order to keep that ftiff-necked people in daily remembrance of their dependence on him, and to preserve 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 worship of facrifices performed to him: the offerings mentioned were liberally bestowed on him, not fingly as a token of their de pendence, pendence, but chiefly in order to avert his wrath, or to gain his favour*. ८८ 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 cities, honoured the most by the foul of Jove, is "facred 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, fhall be thine, broad-fronted, "unbroken, and wild: her to thee I will offer with prayer, gild'ing 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 choicest gifts Accept the little All that now remains For me to give. The people of Hindoftan, as mentioned above, atone for their * 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 fifh till land-animals became scarce; and that the matter as well as form of facrifices were established in practice, long before men had recourfe to fish for food. 3 F VOL. II. fins |
