}

As the eye ftiffens, and becomes quite blind,
When from its focket rent; fo foul and mind
Lofe all their pow'rs, when from the limbs disjoin'd.

For, at this rate, it would no more be man, nor confe quently us, who fhould be concerned in this enjoyment; for we are compofed of two effential parts, the fepara. tion of which is the death and ruin of our being.

Inter enim jeta eft vitai pausa, vagéque
Deerrarunt paffim motus ab fenfibus omnes *.

When once that pause of life is come between,
'Tis juft the fame as we had never been.

We do not fay, that the man fuffers, though the worms feed upon his members, and that the earth confumes them.

Et nihil boc ad nos, qui coitu conjugioque
Corporis atque anime confiftimus unter apti †.

What's that to us? for we are only we,'
While foul and body in one frame agree.

The foundation

of rewards and punishments in

another life.

fince them

Moreover, upon what principle of juftice can the gods take notice of, or reward man, after his death, for his good and virtuous actions, which they themselves promoted and produced in him? And why should they be offended at, or punish him for wicked ones, felves have created him in fo frail a condition, and when, with one glance of their will, they might prevent him from falling? Might not Epicurus, with great colour of human reafon, object that to Plato? Did he not often fave himself with this fentence," that it is im"poffible to establish any thing certain of the immor

Lucret. lib. iii. ver. 871.
VOL. II.

S

+ Id. ibid. ver. 857.

❝ tal

"tal nature by the mortal? She does nothing but err "throughout, but efpecially when the meddles with di"vine things." Who does more evidently perceive this, than we do? for although we have given her certain and infallible principles, and though we have enlightened her fteps with the facred lamp of truth, which it has pleafed God to communicate to us; we daily fee, nevertheless, that if she swerve never fo little from the ordinary path, and strays from, or wanders out of the way, fet out and beaten by the church, how foon the lofes, confounds, and fetters herself, tumbling and floating in this vaft, turbulent, and waving fea of human opinions, without reftraint, and without any view; fo foon as the lofes this great and common road, fhe is bewildered in a labyrinth of a thousand feveral paths. Man cannot be anything but what he is, nor imagine beyond the reach of his capacity: "It is "a greater prefumption, fays Plutarch, "in them who are but men, to attempt "to fpeak and difcourfe of the gods and demi-gods, "than it is in a man, ignorant of mufic, to judge of fingers; or in a man, who never was in a camp, to dif

The ridiculoufnefs of pretending to know God by comparing him with man.

pute about arms and martial affairs, prefuming, by "fome light conjecture, to comprehend the effects of an "art he is totally a ftranger to.' Antiquity, I believe, thought to pass a compliment upon the Divinity, in affimilating it to man, invefting it with his faculties, and adorning it with his humours, and more difparaging neceffities; offering it our aliments to eat, our dances, mafquerades, and farces to divert it, our veftments to cover it, and our houfes to dwell in; careffing it with the odours of incenfe, and the founds of mufic, befides garlands and nofegays: and, to accommodate it to our vicious paffions, foothing its juftice with inhuman vengeance, and fuppofing it delighted with the ruin and difipation of things by itself created and preferved: as Tiberius Sempronius, who caufed the rich fpoils and armis he had gained from the enemy in Sardinia to be burnt for a facrifice to Vulcan: as did Paulus Æmilius thofe of Macedonia

So

The general practice of ap

peafing the divi

cing men to it. nity, by facrifi.

Macedonian to Mars and Minerva. Alexander, arriving in the Indian occan, threw feveral great veffels of gold into the fea in favour of Thetis; and, moreover, loaded her altars with a flaughter, not of innocent beafts only, but of men alfo; as feveral nations, and ours amongst the reft, were ordinarily used to do and I believe there in no nation that has not tried the experiment.

-Sulmone creatos

Quatuor bic juvenes, totidem quos educat Ufens,
Viventes rapit, inferias quos immolet umbris *.

He took of youths, at Sulmo born, four;
Of thofe at Ufens bred, as many more;
The whole alive, in moft inhuman wife,
To offer to the god, in facrifice.

The Getes hold themselves to be immortal, and that their death is nothing but the beginning a journey towards their god Zamolxis. Once in five

Zamolxis the god years they difpatch one, from among them, of the Getes. to him, to intreat fome neceffaries of him; which envoy is chofen by lot, and the form of difpatching him, after having inftructed him, by word of mouth, what he is to deliver, is, that three of the by-ftanders hold out fo many javelins, against which the reft throw his body with all their force. If he happens to be wounded in a mortal part, and immediately dies, they think it a fure argument of the divine favour; but if he efcape, they think him wicked and accurfed, and another is deputed, after the fame manner, in his ftead. Ameftris, the mother of Xerxes, being grown old, caufed, at once, fourteen young men, of the best families Sacrifice of fourof Perfia, to be buried alive, according teen young men. to the religion of the country, to gratify fome infernal deity and yet, to this day, the idols of Themixtiran • Æneid. lib. x. ver. 517, &c. + Herodot. lib. iv. p. 289. She was the wife of Xerxes, who was born of Atoffa, daughter of Cy. rus. Plutarch. de Superftitione, cap. 13. et Herodotus, lib. vii. p. 477.

S 2

are

are cemented with the blood of little children, and they delight in no facrifice, but of thefe pure and infantine fouls; a juftice thirfty of the blood of innocents.

Tantum religio potuit fuadere malorum *.

Such impious ufe was of religion made,
Such dev'lish acts religion could perfuade.

Carthaginian children facrificed to Saturn.

The Carthaginians facrificed their own children to Saturn;
and they who had none of their own,
bought of others †, the father and mo-
ther being, in the mean time, obliged
to affift at the ceremony, with a gay and contented
The barbarity
countenance. It was a strange fancy to
and fenfeleffnefs gratify the Divine bounty with our af-
of this practice. fliction; like the Lacedæmonians, who
regaled their Diana with the tormenting of young boys,
whom they caufed to be + whipped, for her fake, very
often to death. It was a favage humour to think to
gratify the architect by the fubverfion of his building;
to feek to take away the punishment due to the guilty,
by punishing the innocent; and to imagine, that poor
Iphigenia, at the port of Aulis, fhould, by her death,
and by being facrificed, make fatisfaction to God for
the crimes committed by the army of the Greeks.

Et cafta inceftè nubendi tempore in ipfo
Hoftia concideret matatu mafta parentis §.

That the chafte virgin, in her nuptial band,
Should die by an unnat'ral father's hand.

And that the two noble and generous fouls of the two Decii, the father and the fon, to incline the favour of the gods to be propitious to the affairs of Rome, fhould throw themselves headlong into the thickeft of the enemy. Que fuit tanta Decrum iniquitas, ut placari populo Romano non poffent, nifi tales viri occidiffent? "How great

+ Plutarch, ibid.

Luc. lib. i. ver. 102. the Notable Sayings of the Lacedæmonians. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. iii. cap. 6.

99, 100.

1 Idem. in Lucr. lib. i. ver.

was

"was the refentment of the gods, that they could not be reconciled to the people of Rome, unless such men pe"rifhed?" To which may be added, that it is not in the criminal to caufe himself to be fcourged, according to his own measure, nor at his own time, but that it purely belongs to the judge; who confiders nothing as chaftisements, but what he appoints; and cannot call that a punishment, which the fufferer chufes. The Divine vengeance prefuppofes an abfolute diffent in us, both from its juftice, and our punishments; and therefore it was a ridiculous humour of Polycrates *, the ty rant of Samos, who, to interrupt the continued courfe of his good fortune, and to balance it, went and threw the dearest and moft precious jewel he had into the fea; believing, that, by this misfortune of his own procuring, he fatisfied the revolution and viciffitude of fortune; and fhe, to ridicule his folly, ordered it fo, that the fame jewel came again into his hands, being found in the belly of a fish. And then to what end are those tearings and difmemberings by the Corybantes, the Menades, and in our times by the Mahometans, who cut and flash their faces, bofoms, and members, to gratify their prophet, forafmuch as the offence lies in the will, not in the breaft, eyes, genitals, beauty, the fhoulders, or the throat? Tantus eft perturbate mentis, et fedibus. fuis pulfa, furor, ut fic Dii placentur, quemadmodum ne bomines quidem fæviunt; "fo great is the fury of trou"bled minds, when once difplaced from the feat of rea "fon, as to think the gods fhould be appeafed, with "what even men are not fo mad as to perform." The ufe of this natural contexture has not only refpect to us, but also to the fervice of God, and other men. And it is as unjust to hurt it for our purpose, as to kill ourselves upon any pretence whatever. It feems to be great cowardice and treachery to exercife cruelty upon, and to deftroy the functions of the body, that are ftupid and fervile, in order to fpare the foul the trouble of governing them according to reafon. Ubi iratos Deos timent,

Herodot. lib. iii. p. 201, 202.

↑ Div. Aug. de Civitate Dei, lib. vi, cap. 10.