MORAL LAW 



3t 



fcome animai or other, as the object of its adora 

 tion. The city of Lentopolis worshipped a lion ; 

 the city of Mendez, a goat ; Memphis, the Apis ; 

 and the people at the lake Myris, adored the 

 crocodile. These animals were maintained, in 

 01 near their temples, with delicate meats ; 

 were bathed, anointed, perfumed, had beds pre 

 pared for them ; and when any of them happen 

 ed to die, sumptuous funerals were prepared in 

 honour of the god. Of all these animals, the 

 bull, Apis, was held in the greatest veneration. 

 Honours of an extraordinary kind were conferred 

 on him while he lived, and his death gave rise 

 to a general mourning. 



Such was the abominable idolatry that prevail 

 ed even among the most enlightened nations of 

 antiquity. They changed the glory of the incor 

 ruptible God into &quot; the similitude of an ox that 

 eateth grass,&quot; and into images made like to cor 

 ruptible man and to birds, and to four-footed 

 beasts, and creeping things. And if the Egyp 

 tians, the Greeks, and the Romans, who are 

 distinguished from the rest of the world for their 

 improvements in literature, science, and the 

 arts, had so far renounced their allegiance to the 

 God of heaven, we may rest assured that the 

 surrounding nations were sunk still farther into 

 the pollutions of idolatry and of mental debase 

 ment. The Phenicians, the Syrians, the Ca- 

 naanites, the Chaldeans and Babylonians, the 

 Arabians, the Scythians, the Ethiopians, and 

 the Carthaginians, the ancient Gauls, Germans, 

 and Britons, were, if possible, more deeply de 

 based ; and mingled with their idolatrous rites, 

 many cruel, obscene, and vile abominations 

 Such is still the moral and religious debasement, 

 even in modern times, of the greater part of the 

 nations which dwell upon the earth. Even the 

 Hindoos, theBirmans, the Chinese, the Persians, 

 and the Japanese, though ranked among the most 

 polished nations of the heathen world, are sunk 

 into the grossest ignorance of the true God, and 

 are found perpetrating, in their religious worship, 

 deeds revolting to humanity, and stained with 

 horrid cruelty and injustice. 



The moral effects which were produced by a 

 departure from this fundamental law of the Crea 

 tor, were such as correspond with the abomina 

 tions of that religious system which was adopt 

 ed. Man is an imitative being ; and he gene 

 rally imitates the actions of those whom he 

 conceives to be placed in a superior rank and 

 station. When, therefore, the gods were intro 

 duced to his view, as swollen with pride, mad 

 with rage, fired with revenge, inflamed with lust, 

 engaged in wars, battles, and contests, delight 

 ing in scenes of blood and rapine, in hatred and 

 mutual contentions, and in all kinds of riot and 

 debauchery, it was natural to suppose that such 

 passions and crimes would be imitated by their 

 Winded votaries. Accordingly we find, that 

 sucn vices universally prevailed, even among the 



politest nations of antiquity; and some of their 

 sacred rites, solemnized in honour of their gods, 

 were so bestial and shocking, as to excite horror 

 in every mind possessed of the least sense of de 

 cency and virtue. They gloried in the desolation 

 and destruction of neighbouring nations. To 

 conquer, and oppress, and enslave their fellow- 

 men, and to aggrandize themselves by slaughter 

 and rapine, was the great object of their ambi 

 tion. The law of kindness and of universal 

 benevolence was trampled under foot, and even 

 the common dictates of humanity, equity, and 

 justice, were set at defiance. But this was not 

 all Idolatry soon began to instigate its votaries 

 to the perpetration of the most revolting and un 

 natural cruelties. Dreadful tortures were in 

 flicted on their bodies, to appease their offended 

 deities ; human victims, in vast numbers, were 

 sacrificed, and even their infants and little chil 

 dren were thrown into the flames, as an offering 

 to the idol which they adored. 



The Mexicans were accustomed to treat them 

 selves with the most inhuman austerities, think 

 ing that the diabolical rage of their deities 

 would be appeased by human blood. &quot; It makes 

 one shudder,&quot; says Clavigero, &quot; to read the aus 

 terities which they practised upon themselves, 

 either in atonement for their transgressions, or 

 in preparation for their festivals. They mangled 

 their flesh as if it had been insensible, and let 

 their blood run in such profusion, as if it had 

 been a superfluous fluid in the body. They 

 pierced themselves with the sharpest spines of 

 the aloe, and bored several parts of their bodies, 

 particularly their ears, lips, tongues, and the fat 

 of their arms and legs.&quot; The priests of Baal, 

 we are told, in the book of Kings, &quot; cut them 

 selves with knives and lancets, till the blood 

 gushed out upon them.&quot; When the Carthagi 

 nians were vanquished by Agathocles, king of 

 Sicily, they conceived that their god, Jupiter La- 

 tialis was displeased with their conduct. In 

 order to appease him, and propitiate his favour, 

 they sacrificed to him, at once, two hundred sons 

 of the first noblemen of their state. On the al 

 tars of Mexico, twenty thousand human beings 

 are said to have been sacrificed every year; and 

 fifty thousand were annually offered up in the va 

 rious parts of that empire, accompanied with cir 

 cumstances of such dreadful cruelty and horror, 

 as makes us shudder at the recital. In Hindos- 

 tan, even at the present day, several thousands 

 of women are annually burned on the funeral 

 piles of their deceased husbands, as victims to 

 the religion they profess; besides multitudes of 

 other human victims, which are crushed to death 

 under the wheels of that infernal engine which 

 supports the idol Juggernaut. Were the one 

 hundredth part cf the ah./minations which have 

 been perpetrated under the system of idolatry, 

 in those countries where it has prevailed, to be 

 fully detailed, it would exhibit a picture of de- 



