without getting drunk, and there were women that prostituted themselves in honour of Venus, particularly at Corinth. It is well known what the god of gardens, and the mysteries of Ceres and Cybele, were. Thus they honoured the gods whom they thought kind and beneficent. But for the infernal deities, Hecate, the Eumenides, or Furies, the Parcæ, or Destinies, and others, with the stories of whom they were terrified, they were to be appeased with nocturnal sacrifices, and frightful inhuman ceremonies. Some buried men alive, others sacrificed children, and sometimes their own:§ as the worshippers of Moloch mentioned with so much detestation in Scripture, who still kept up this abominable custom in Africa in Tertullian's time.* To this fear and dread were owing all the rest of their cruel and troublesome superstitions; as letting themselves blood with lancets, or cutting themselves with knives, as the false prophets of Baal and the priests of Cybele did;† as their fasting, and bathing in cold water, and other such things. They thought thereby to avert particular evils or public calamities, which they were threatened with in dreams and prodigies, according to the interpretation of their soothsayers. They prevented sickness, plagues, hail, and dearths, as they thought, For upon such occasions mankind is apt rather to do things that Clem. Alex. in protrept. § Wisd. xiv. 23. Manè die, quo tu indicis jejunia, nudus are of no use at all, than to omit any thingth at may be thought serviceable. All their lustrations or expiations for crimes were troublesome superstitions of this sort: they consisted in purifying the body by water or fire, and performing certain sacrifices; but there was no mention of either repentance or conversion. It will seem strange perhaps that people so wise as the Grecians should be led away by such gross superstitions, and so easily suffer themselves to be imposed upon by astrologers, diviners, soothsayers, and many other sorts of conjurers. But it must be considered, that, till Alexander's time, and the reign of the Macedonians, they had made no great progress in such learning as might cure them of superstition. They excelled in arts, their laws were wise; in a word, they had brought every thing to perfection that makes life easy and agreeable: but they took little pains in the speculative sciences, geometry, astronomy, and physics. The anatomy of plants and animals, the knowledge of minerals and meteors, the shape of the earth, the course of the planets, and the whole system of the world, were still mysteries to them. The Chaldeans and Egyptians, who already knew something of them, kept it a great secret, and never spake of them but in riddles, with which they mixed an infinite number of superstitious fables. As these sciences depend chiefly upon experience, a succession of ages always improves them, and they are at present in the greatest perfection they ever were. They are taught openly to any one that will apply himself to them; and they agree perfectly with our holy religion, which condemns condemns all superstition, divination, and magic; however, we find but too many that give ear to astrologers, and such impostors, not only peasants and ignorant people of the lowest sort, but las dies that value themselves upon their wit, politeness, and knowledge; and men that, notwithstanding they have had a good education, set up for freethinkers, and cannot possibly submit to the dictates of true religion. What then must be the case when all this nonsense made a part of religion; when conjurers were taken for men really inspired; when astrology, pyromancy, necromancy, and such knaveries, were esteemed divine knowledge? How was it possible to resist the authority of the priests, who gravely recounted an infinite series of proofs in confirmation of their doctrine, and were implicitly obeyed by whole nations? They could not help believing them, when they did not know how to account for these things in a philosophical manner; and if they had known, they must have been very bold to have contradicted them. A proneness to idolatry was not therefore peculiar to the Israelites. It was a general evil; and the hardness of heart, with which the Scripture so often reproaches them, is not for being more attached to earthly things than other people, but for being so much as they were, after having received such particular favours from the hand of God, and seen the great wonders that he had wrought for them. It is true, much resolution is necessary to resist the influence of bad example in all other nations. When an Israelite was out of his own country, and among infidels, infidels, they reproached him with having no religion at all, because they did not see him offer any sacrifice, or worship idols: and when he told them of his God, the Creator of heaven and earth, they laughed at him, and asked where he was. These taunts were hard to bear: David himself says that, when he was an exile, He fed himself day and night with his tears, because they daily asked him, where his God was.* Weak minds were staggered with these attacks, and often gave way to them. The propensity that all mankind has to pleasure, heightened the temptation: as the heathen feasts were very frequent and magnificent, curiosity easily prevailed upon young people, especially women, to go and see the pomp of their processions, the manner of dressing out the victims, the dancing, the choirs of music, and ornaments of their temples. Some officious body engaged them to take a place at the feast, and eat the meat that was offered to idols, or come and lodge at his house. They made acquaintance and carried on love intrigues, which generally ended either in downright debauchery, or marrying contrary to the law. Thus did idolatry insinuate itself by the most common allurements of women and good cheer. In the time of Moses the Israelites were engaged in the infamous mysteries of Baal Peor by the Midianitish women,† who were the strange women that perverted Solomon. Besides, the law of God might appear too severe to them. They were not allowed to sa * Psalm xlii. 3. † Numb. xxv. th crifice crifice in any place but one, by the hands too of such priests only as were descended from Aaron, and according to some very strict rules. They had but three great feasts in the whole year, the passover, pentecost, and feast of tabernacles: a very few for people that lived in plenty, and in a climate that inclined them to pleasure: as they lived in the country, employed in husbandry, they could not conveniently meet together but at feasts, and for that reason were obliged to borrow some of strangers, and invent others. Do not we ourselves, who think we are so spiritual, and no doubt ought to be so, if we were true christians, often prefer the possession of temporal things to the hope of eternal? and do not we endeavour to reconcile many diversions with the Gospel, which all antiquity has judged inconsistent with it, and against which our instructors are daily exclaiming? It is true we hold idolatry in detestation, but it is now no longer a familiar sight, and has been quite out of fashion above a thousand years. We are not then to imagine that the Israelites were more stupid than other people, because the particular favours they had received from God could not reclaim them from idolatry. But it must be owned that the wound of original sin was very deep, when such holy instructions and repeated miracles were found insufficient to raise men above sensible things: and here we may see the absolute necessity of that holy Spirit which the Gospel has promised to purify the heart from all its defilements. But however impure the state of the Israelites may appear, we see a much greater |