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And to pretend that God has wrought miracles to confirm fuch commands,commands to break his own inviolable and eternal laws, is only adding the vileft fraud and imposture to prove and support the most notorious falfehood.

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ROM this fhort view of the opinions fo commonly entertained amongst the greatest part of mankind, concerning the deities or Deity worshipped by them, we shall proceed to the fecond head proposed to be treated on, viz. The barbarous methods of worship fo frequently practifed.

AGREEABLE to the opinions men entertain of their pretended deities, or the Deity, fuch, as hath been already obferved, it is reafonable to suppose will be their methods of worship; and thus we find it in fact: for mankind having too generally believed their gods, or the One God, to be cruel, divers parts of their devotion have been fuited to this belief.

THESE devotional cruelties have been exercised by men upon themselves, upon mere animals, or upon those of their own species. THE terrible and aftonishing barbarities of this kind, committed by many pagans,

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both ancient and modern, upon themselves, are well known, and fome of them will undoubtedly on this occafion occur to the reader: but having on another subject ' given divers inftances of thefe, I fhall here only just mention a few, and proceed to take notice of fome of the fame nature in ufe among christians.

THOSE practifed by them do not indeed appear at first fight fo horrid and shocking as several in use among the heathens; as the plunging themselves alive into gulphs; generals devoting themselves to certain destruction, by rushing into the army of the enemy; men casting themselves from high places on sharp hooks; throwing themfeves under the chariot-wheels of their gods to be crushed to death, and the like: yet, if confidered attentively, they will be found in feveral respects to be more pernicious than the others, and to proceed from the fame fentiments concerning the cruelty of the Deity they worship: for did they not think God cruel, they could not suppose he would approve, much less command, or be pleased with, their inflicting cruelties upon themselves.

BESIDE the extreme feverities exercised by many particular perfons among chriftians, fuch as living alone on defolate rocks and mountains,

Of falfe Religion, in a former volume.

mountains, denying themselves moft of the neceffaries, and in a manner all the conveniencies of life, fafting till almost dead, and the like; what multitudes of both sexes shut themselves up in monafteries and nunneries, where they become prifoners for life! fome indeed more at large, but others abfolutely confined; by which means they are in a great measure fecluded from the pleasures of converfation and fociety. Here they alfo practife many painful aufterities, and for the most part brutal naftinefs ", by wearing no linen, and continuing the fame habits as long as they will hang on their backs, 'till these wretches become naufeous to others, and one would think to themselves alfo; undergo many cruel punishments, particularly frequent and fevere fcourgings, and make a

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m St. Athanafius, in the life of St. Anthony who was the great father of the monaftic orders, tells us, "that An"thony's inner garment was hair-cloth, his upper of "leather, which was the habit he wore till his dying "day; neither washing the dirt off his body, no nor fo much as his feet, unless they were wet by chance, when he waded "through water on a journey." P. 53, 54. What kind of a religion must that be which teaches such filthiness!

"There is among the Roman Catholics a fect or an order called Flagellantes, who lafh themselves twice a day, and once in the night, with knotted cords ftuck with pins, and then lie groveling upon the ground crying out mercy! mercy! They also practise thefe fcourgings on their naked backs, upon particular occafions, through the streets of towns and cities.

vow never to answer one great and principal end of their creation.

A MONASTIC life, and celibacy by conftraint, are certainly very prejudicial to great numbers of people, by bringing upon them grievous distempers and afflictions both of body and mind; and extremely injurious to all countries where they are fuffered, by rendering many thousands of both fexes entirely useless, and in fo great a degree preventing the increase of the people; nay, they are an injury to the whole world, in leffening the number of the human fpecies. And what is ftill perhaps worst of all, they undoubtedly occafion the frequent murder of infants by their unnatural and unhappy mothers, and the committing other crimes of a most detestable kind.

We will finish this fubject with a few instances of cruelties exercised by fome christians upon themselves, to please a God of infinite goodness.

CRESSY, in his Church Hiftory, tells us, that St. Egwin girded himself with iron chains,

• The number of priests, clergy, and monaftics of both sexes in France is commonly computed at five hundred thousand, and the number of people in the whole at twenty millions; of which if we fuppofe fix millions to be adults, then one twelfth part of thefe are obliged to celibacy. And in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, it is probable, that the number of those to whom marriage is forbidden may be ftill proportionally greater than in France.

chains, and went in that manner on a pilgri

mage to Rome ?.

ACEPSEMAS, whom no perfon could be tired of praifing, faith Theodoret, paffed fixty years in a cell without speaking to or seeing any person .

THEODORET also relates, that Bara datus, a monk, contrived a fort of Cage for his habitation, coarfely formed of lattice-work, fo wide and open as to expofe him to all the inclemencies of the weather, and fo low that it could not admit the full height of his body, but obliged him to ftand always in the po fture of stooping. Another monk called Thalaleus, of a very bulky fize, fufpended himfelf in the air in a cage of a different kind, made fo low, and so strait also, that it left him no more room than to fit with his head perpetually bent down between his knees; in which posture he had spent ten years when Theodoret firft faw him '.

WE are told by the fame author, that Simeon Stylites, a very holy man, who wrought innumerable miracles; giving health to the fick, children to the barren; and who converted many thousands of pagans to the chriftian religion, had accustomed himself, after the example of Mofes and Elias, to keep a faft

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P. L. 21. c. 5. a Hiftory of the Church, L. 4. c. 28, Dr. Middleton's works, vol. I. p. 141.

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