i. e.

For, as the Eye grows ftiff, and altogether blind, When from its Socket rent; fo Soul and Mind Lose all their Pow'rs, when from the Limbs disjoin'd. For, at this Rate, it would no more be Man, nor conse quently us, who should be concerned in this Enjoyment; for we are compofed of two principally effential Parts, the Separation of which is the Death and Ruin of our Being. Inter enim jetta eft vitai paufa, vagéque Deerrarunt paffim motus ab fenfibus omnes'.

i. e.

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

We do not fay, that the Man suffers, though the Worms feed upon his Members, and that the Earth confumes them.

Et nibil boc ad nos, qui coitu conjugioque
Corporis atque animæ confiftimus uniter aptiTM.

i. e.

Justice can

The Founda

tion of Rewards and Punifhments in

another Life.

What's that to us? for We are only We, While Soul and Body in one Frame agree. Moreover, upon what Foundation of their 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, fince themselves 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 Sentence, That it is impoffible to establish any Thing certain of the immor tal Nature by the mortal? She does nothing but err VOL. II. through

Lucret. lib. iii. v. 872.

$

m Id. ibid. v. 857:

Book II. throughout, but especially when the meddles with Divine 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 Steps with the facred Lamp of Truth, which it has pleaTed God to communicate to us; we daily fee, nevertheless, that if the fwerve never fo little from the ordinary Path, and ftrays from, or wanders out of the Way, fet out and beaten by the Church, how foon fhe lofes, confounds, and fetters herself, tumbling and floating in this vaft, turbulent, and waving Sea of human Opinions, without Reftraint, and without any View; fo foon as she loses this great and common Road, the is bewildered in a Labyrinth of a thousand feveral Paths. Man cannot be any Thing but what he is, nor imagine beyond the Reach of his Capacity:

The Ridicu

Loufnefs of prerending to know God by comparing him with Man.

'

6

'Tis

a greater Prefumption, fays Plutarch, in ⚫ them who are but Men, to attempt to speak and difcourfe of the Gods and Demi-Gods, than it is in a Man, ignorant of Mufic, to judge of Singers; or in a Man, who never was in a Camp, to difpute about Arms and Martial Affairs, prefuming, by fome light Conjecture, to comprehend the Effects of an Art he is totally a Stranger to.' Antiquity, I believe, thought to pafs a Compliment upon the Divinity, in affimilating it to Man, invefting it with his Faculties, and adorning it with his quaint Humours, and more shameful Neceffities; offering it our Aliments to eat, our Dances, Masquerades, and Farces to divert it, our Vestments to cover it, and our Houfes to dwell in; careffing it with the Odours of Incenfe, and the Sounds of Mufic, besides 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 Diffipation of Things by its felf created and preserved: As Tiberius Sempronius, who caused the rich Spoils and Arms he had gained from the Enemy in Sardinia to be burnt for a Sacrifice to Vulcan: As did Paulus Æmilius those of Macedonia

I

The general Practice of ap peafing the Divinity, by facrificing Men

Macedonia to Mars and Minerva. So Alexan-
der, arriving in the Indian Ocean, threw fe-
veral great Veffels of Gold into the Sea, in
Favour of Thetis; and, moreover, loaded
her Altars with a Slaughter, not of innocent
Beasts only, but of Men alfo; as feveral Na-
tions, and ours amongst the reft, were ordinarily used to
do: And I believe there is no Nation that has not tried
the Experiment.

Sulmone creatos

Quattuor bic juvenes, totidem

to it.

quos educat Ufens, Viventes rapit, inferias quos immolet umbris ".

i. e.

He took of Youths, at Sulmo born, Four;
Of thofe at Ufens bred, as many more;

Of them alive, in moft inhuman wife,
To offer to the God, in Sacrifice.

Zamolxis the
God of the

Getes.

The Getes hold themselves to be immortal, and that their
Death is nothing but a beginning a Journey towards their
God Zamolxis. Once in five Years they dif-
patch one, from among them, to him, to in-
treat fome Neceffaries of him; which Envoy
is chosen by Lot, and the Form of dispatching him, after
having inftructed him, by Word of Mouth, what he is
to deliver, is, that three of the By-standers hold out fo
many Javelins, against which the reft throw his Body with
all their Force. If he happens to be wounded in a mor-
tal Part, and immediately dies, they think it a sure Ar-
gument of the Divine Favour; but, if he escape, they
think him wicked and accurfed, and another is deputed,
after the fame manner, in his Stead. Ameftris, the Mo-
ther of Xerxes, being grown Old, caufed, at once, four-
teen young Men, of the beft Families of Per- Sacrifice of
fia, to be buried alive, according to the Re- fourteen young
ligion of the Country, to gratify fome infer- Men.

nal Deity: And yet, to this Day, the Idols of Themixtiran

S 2

are

» Æneid. lib. x. v. 517, &c. • Herodot. lib. iv. p. 289. P She was the Wife of Xerxes, who was born of Atoffa, Daughter of Cyrus. Plutarch. de Superftitione, c. 13, et Herodotus, lib. vii. p. 477.

are cemented with the Blood of little Children, and they delight in no Sacrifice, but of these pure and infantine Souls; a Juftice thirsty of the Blood of Innocents. Tantum Religio potuit fuadere malorum P.

i. e.

Such impious Ufe was of Religion made,
Such dev'lish Acts Religion could perfuade.

and Senfelefs

ness of this Practice.

The Carthaginians facrificed their own Children to Saturn; Carthaginian and they who had none of their own, bought Children facri- of others, the Father and Mother being, in ficed to Saturn. the mean Time, obliged to affift at the Ceremony, with a gay and contented Countenance. It was a The Barbarity trange Fancy to gratify the Divine Bounty with our Affliction; like the Lacedæmonians, who regaled their Diana with the Tormenting of young Boys, whom they caused to be whipped, for her fake, very often to Death. It was a favage Humour to think to gratify the Architect by the Subverfion of his Building; to feek to take away the Punifhment 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 Satisfaction to God for the Crimes committed by the Army of the Greeks.

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

i. e.

And that the Chafte fhould, in her nuptial Band,
Die by a most unnat'ral Father's Hand.

And that the two noble and generous Souls of the two Decii, the Father and the Son, to incline the Favour of the Gods to be propitious to the Affairs of Rome, fhould throw themselves headlong into the Thickest of the Enemy. Quæ fuit tanta Deorum iniquitas, ut placari populo Romano non poffent, nifi tales viri occidiffent? How great

t

was the Resentment of the Gods, that they could not be reconciled to the People of Rome, unless fuch Men perifhed? To which may be added, that it is not in the Criminal to caufe himfelf 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 Chaftifements, but what he appoints; and cannot call that a Punishment, which the Sufferer 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 Tyrant of Samos, who, to interrupt the continued Course of his good Fortune, and to balance it, went and threw the dearest and most precious Jewel he had into the Sea; 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 Breast, Eyes, Genitals, Beauty, the Shoulders, or the Throat? "Tantus eft perturbatæ mentis, &fedibus fuis pulsæ, furor, ut fic Dii placentur, quemadmodum ne bomines quidem fæviunt. So great is the Fury of troubled Minds, when once difplaced from the Seat of Reason, as to think the Gods should be appeased, with what even Men are not so mad as to perform. The Ufe of this natural Contexture has not only Respect to us, but alfo to the Service of God, and other Men. And it is as unjust to hurt it for our Purpose, as to kill ourfelves upon any Pretence whatever. It seems to be great Cowardice and Treachery to exercife Cruelty upon, and to destroy the Functions of the Body, that are ftupid and fervile, in Order to fpare the Soul the Trouble of governing them according to Reason. Ubi iratos Deos timent, qui fic propitios habere merentur? In regie libidinis S 3 volup

Herodot. lib. iii. p. 201, 202. • Div. Aug. de Civitate Dei, lib. vi. c. 10.