But to proceed with refpect to the barbarity of this abfurd contrivance in religion, and the ill confequences attending it. THE fhedding of blood in fuch prodigious quantities, and fo openly and frequently as was done at facrifices, muft tend to make men cruel, or increase their natural inclination to be fo; for nothing fooner produces these effects than a familiarity with blood: and what deluges müft have been spilled, when two and twenty thoufand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thoufand fheep, were at one time flaughtered and offered up, and what a fhocking carnage muft this facrifice have been? But if the frequent fight of fuch quantities of blood, as were oftentimes shed on those occafions, was a means to render the people, who were only fpectators, cruel, as cannot well be doubted, what effect must it have had on the priests, who were always the butchers, the principal actors in this scene of flaughter? How neceffary foever it may be for some perfons to be employed in killing animals for our food, conftant experience fhews, that this employment is very apt to render them more cruel than others. Our legislature has been fo I Kings viii. 63. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, 1. 2. under the title de commerciis mutuis, tells us, the flaves always there kill the cattle; no citizens being fuf fered fo fenfible of this, that fuch are by law exempted from being of juries in cases of blood. And fo fhocking would this employment doubtlefs be to many, that if they could come at flesh-meat by no other means than killing creatures for their food with their own hands, they would fooner become Pythagoreans than obtain it on fuch difagreeable terms. I appeal to the compaffionate reader, whether, when he has chanced to fee the pretty innocent lamb lick the hand which at that instant plunged the murderous knife in its throat, or the huge ox fall beneath the repeated founding blows of the iron fledge, groaning, ftruggling, and convulfed in the pangs of death, he has not almost wished to live without animal food. Now, if the fight of one or two animals flaughtered in this manner, and for a neceffary purpose, has fo much influence on a compaffionate mind, how must fuch an one be affected by a carnage like that above-mentioned, and for a fuperftitious end only? BUT fhocking as this practice of facrificing beafts evidently appears to be, it is not, by much, fered to do it, because the Utopians think that pity and compaffion, which are among the best of our natural affections, are much impaired by the butchering of animals. And, tho' thefe Utopians were but an imaginary people, yet this ferves to fhew our judicious author's opinion concerning the influence that a familiarity with blood has upon men. much, the most cruel method men have used in the worship of their gods. We find it was a very ancient cuftom among many nations, particularly the Canaanites or Phanicians, Carthaginians, Gauls, Scythians, and the polite Greeks and Romans alfo, to facrifice their own fpecies, and fome of them even their own children. BOCHART and fome others affirm, that the Canaanites learned this custom by imitation of Abraham; but bishop Cumberland is of opinion it was previous to the flood, and practifed by the Canaanites long before, as well as at the time when Abraham refided among them. Suppofing this to be true, as the bishop feems to make it very probable, why might not Abraham, inftead of being tempted by God to offer his fon, that is, if we judge merely by the common rules of humanity, to commit one of the most unna-. tural, wicked crimes that man could perpetrate, be induced to this action by the custom of the people with whom he dwelled? And if this was truly the cafe, then the angel that was faid to have prevented the fact, might in reality have been only a larger thare of understanding and humanity in Abraham, than the ftupid and cruel Canaanites his neighbours • Sanchoniatho's Phoenician hiftory, tranflated from Eufebius by bifhop Cumberland, p. 147 & 171. neighbours were poffeffed of; and which, upon recollection, fhewed him that it was impoffible God fhould command fo barbarous a crime as the murder of his child'. I fhall not infift on this interpretation of a pasfage which has puzzled fo many learned divines to explain, and reconcile with all rational opinions entertained of God and his commands; but proceed to obferve, that the Egyptians were fo tenacious of this horrid practice of human facrifices, that when the Phenicians, who firft taught it them, were expelled Egypt by Tethmofis, or Amofis, a Thebaic king, and this custom was forbidden by him, he thought proper fo far to comply with it, as to substitute men of wax instead of real men. CESAR According to the account we have in the book of Genefis, Abraham was upon the very point of flaying his fon. The reader may not diflike to compare the behaviour of a pagan king, in a circumstance somewhat of the fame nature, with the conduct of Abraham. "The tu"telar god of Thebes appearing to Sabbaco, one of the pa"ftoral kings of Egypt, and ordering him to put to death "all the priests of Egypt, he judged that the gods were "displeased at his being on the throne, fince they ordered "him to commit an action contrary to their ordinary pleasure; and therefore he retired into Ethiopia." De P'Efprit des Loix, tome II. 1. 24. ch. 4. from Diod. Sic. 1. 2. But undoubtedly this prince would ftill have acted much more fenfibly, if he had regarded the imaginary appearance of his god as an idle dream or mere delufion, which it most certainly was, and then he needed not to have quitted his throne and his country. CESAR informs us, that the Gauls being a people much addicted to fuperftition, those who were afflicted with any grievous disease, or frequently expofed to the dangers of war, either offered human facrifices, or devoted themselves to the altar, because they believed that the immortal gods were not to be appeased, but by the life of one man being given up for the life of another. The care of these facrifices was committed to the Druids, who prepared large hollow images made of ofiers, into which they put men alive, and then fet fire to the images, the miferable victims perishing in the flames. The Gauls did indeed believe, that thieves, robbers, or other wicked people, were the most grateful offerings to the gods; but, in want of fuch, innocent perfons must be found to fupply their places &. AT Tyre it was a cuftom, in great calamities, for the kings to facrifice their fons to appease the anger of the gods; and private perfons, not to be lefs devout than their princes, when any great misfortune befel them, offered up their children likewife: but if they happened to have no children of their own, they bought them of poor perfons, that De bello Gallico, lib. 6. § 15. beginning, Natia eft omnis Gallorum admodum dedita religionibus, 6. |