among the Jews, we shall not say any thing concerning it, because it is a bold attempt to set aside the utility of public and private worship; for if God does not take notice of the actions of men in this life, then the whole bounds of religion are removed; there is no motive to duty; there is nothing to restrain us as mortals from committing the most horrid, the most unnatural crimes. But that the reader may have a just notion of the sentiments of these people, which are the same with those of Epicurus, we shall here present him with what Lucretius has written on the subject. How the vast mass of matter, nature, free For how, good Gods, can those that live in peace, Rule this vast all, their labouring thoughts divide, 'Twixt heaven and earth, and all their motions guide; Send heat to us, the various orbs controul, Does beat their own aspiring temples down. Or through vast desarts breaks th' innocent wood, Mother to the bad, but strikes the just and good. All we shall here add is, that those who have been the most irreligious in this world, formed their notions upon the inequality of rewards and punishments. Were all the wicked to suffer just punishments in this life, and all the virtuous to be rewarded, what occasion would there be for a future judgment? In many cases God has shewn himself to be at the head of divine providence, but not in all; to convince men, that however hardened they may be in wickedness while in this world, yet there may be a time, or a period, when the mask of hypocrisy will be laid aside; nay, it will be stripped off, and the daring sinner will stand as a culprit at the bar of infinite justice. On the other hand, the oppressed virtuous man should rest satisfied in this that God will be his friend at the last day, notwithstanding all the sufferings he may have been subjected to in this world; for it is an established maxim both in natural and revealed religion, that the upright judge of the universe, will not deceive his creatures. Peter Williamson, who published the account of his captivity among those Virginian savages in 1758, has given us a particular description of their priests, who are, at the same time, a sort of vagabond quack doctors. They use a vast number of spells and charms; and although they are no strangers to the efficacy of herbs in curing many diseases, yet they are such amazing impostors, that they make their patients believe that they cannot be cured till they have invoked the assistance of one of their idols. This is a mystery of iniquity indeed, but not more than is to be met with in other Heathen nations. When they have been successful in war, they come home loaded with spoils, and having collected the whole tribe together, they light a fire and dance in a confused manner round it. Their priests partake of this solemnity, dressed in their sacerdotal habits, and these priests begin the song. Nothing can be more terrible than to behold their solemnities; for they roar out and make such a hideous noise, that even wild beasts would be afraid of them. When they go out to war, every one carries a hatchet or tomahawk in his hand, and when peace is concluded the hatchet is buried; probably it is owing to this custom that so many hatchets have been dug up in Virginia, some of which are now to be seen in the British Museum. We are assured that the Indians in Virginia look upon marriage as a very solemn act; and that the vows they then make are solemn and inviolable. The husband and wife may live separately if they cannot agree; but divorces are looked upon as scandalous. As for their children, they plunge them into cold water the moment they are born, and they educate them much after the same manner as the Canaries and other savages of North America, from their earliest infancy, till they arrive at years of manhood. These savages believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, but still they seem to have very odd notions concerning it. They look upon the separate state of departed souls as an habitation beyond the mountains, and into those unfrequented mansions, they imagine the soul retires after death. This may serve to shew, that although these people are barbarians and savages in their manners, yet they retain the first principles of natural religion. This will for ever remain as an eternal scandal to those who have denied this leading sentiment. Whether their notions concerning the immortality of the soul are of a corporeal nature or not, is not casily known. This probably was the reason why the Heathens have run into so many gross notions, concerning things of the utmost importance. The last thing we shall take notice of, is, what should always come last, namely, an account of their preparations for death, and their funeral solemnities. When When a person is taken sick, he sends for the priest, who comes and mumbles over him a great number of words which no person understands but himself. They beat drums so as to stupify the patient, and when he expires, they say that he would have lived longer had he not been guilty of some unpardonable crimes. This is undoubtedly a very good juggling trick, and the character of the priest is supported although the patient dies. In their funeral rites and ceremonies they differ but little from the other savages in America. When a person dies they wrap up his body for one day in linen cloth, or in the skins of beasts. Next day they cut the flesh from off his bones, and burn it in the fire. They then prepare for the funeral, and the women make a dreadful howl round the corpse. They make a wooden coffin in which they put the body, and then it is carried to the place of interment. The body is laid in the grave, which is generally in one of the woods, and there another howling begins, which continues for several days without intermission. They sacrifice some sheep and goats in honour of the deceased, and what will perhaps seem very surprising, they rejoice that they have been delivered from all the afflictions of a tumultuous world. The women dress themselves in white, and the men are dressed in the most sumptuous manner, according to the custom of their country. When they have deposited the body, they sing several mournful elegies, and they have an entertainment provided for them. This is just what the Greeks call a Dirge, and what we commonly call a funeral solemnity. They remember annually the deaths of their friends; all which may serve to shew, that these Heathens are not such strangers to natural religion as we are too fondly apt to imagine. An Account of the Religion of the Natives of Hispaniola. WITH respect to this part of South America, we are well acquainted with it, our connections with the people have been great, and therefore we can, with the greater clearness, give an account of their religious sentiments. That their religious sentiments are much the same with those we have already mentioned in our account of Peru, will appear from comparing them together. The Peruvians adored the sun, and so did the inhabitants of Hispaniola. The grand object of worship among the Heathens was the sun, and therefore we need not be surprised that so many persons were addicted to it. From what motives the Heathens were led to adore the sun, is not our business to enquire, but we shall now proceed to give an account of the religious sentiments of these people at present. Indeed we may naturally imagine, that the worship of the sun was in such honour and respect among idolators, that they looked upon every person who found fault with it as no better than a blasphemer. This, however, is a dangerous notion; for nothing can be considered as an object of worship but what is recorded as such in Divine Revelation. These people were actually guilty of offering up human sacrifices, and their merciless hearts were deaf to the cries of innocent children. We are sorry to say, that in the course of this work, we have had occasion to point out these crimes. Let them be ever so horrid in themselves, yet they are of great antiquity, they were practised among the ancient Canaanites, and if any regard is to be paid to history, they were common even among the ancient Britons. However, not to enlarge upon things remote from the subject, we shall only take notice, that as these people offer sacrifices to the sun, so they naturally expect some favours from him. Not that they have any reason for doing so, but only because superstition having laid hold of their minds, they do not chuse to quit the favourite object. It is true, that they have temples to the sun, but they are poor mean structures; for what they were in former times is entirely out of the question at present, which, however, we shall have occasion to take some notice of afterwards, and in the mean time we shall proceed to consider their mode of worship, duties, articles of marriage ceremonies, vows, solemn engagements, treaties of war and peace, their priests, religious obligations, attending upon their festivals, the manner in which the sick are healed on a death bed, their funeral rites, and what they observe in honour of the deceased, which increases according to the nature of his qualitv. The religious worship they paid their idols or demons, had something remarkable in it; for the Caquies always caused the solemnity of it to be proclaimed by heralds, and used on the day appointed for the ceremony, to walk in procession by beat of drum, at the head of the subjects of both sexes, who were dressed in their best clothes, but (strange to imagine) the maidens went naked. The whole company went aftetwards to the temples of those false gods, who were there represented in a very grotesque manner, and much in the same manner as our painters represent the devil. The priests used also to worship these idols, and pray pray to them with so much zeal, or rather with so many cries and howlings, as must necessarily terrify a company of poor wretches, who had not cun. ning enough to find out the trick which those insiduous priests concealed under their pretended devotion. It was then they presented the oblations of the devotees to their gods, which were partly cakes brought by women in baskets, adorned with flowers; after which, as soon as the priest had given the signal, they danced and sung the praises of the Zemes, whom we have already mentioned under the name of Chemens, and offered their cakes. The whole 'concluded with the praises of their ancient kings, and with prayers for the prosperity of the nation. The priests used to divide these cakes into several pieces, and distribute them among the men, and they were obliged to keep them a whole year in their houses, because they were considered as sacred, and antidotes against several sorts of disorders as well as common accidents. When the procession was got to the door of the temple, the Guagua, who was at the head of it, set himself down at the entrance, and all the people went in singing, and passed as it were in review before him. When they were got to the idol, they thrust a little stick down their throats, in order to make them vomit, for they were obliged to present themselves pure and unsullied before their god, and with their hearts as it were on their lips. Their Zemes revealed themselves to the priests, and these priests acted their parts so well as to make the people believe that the idols spoke to them, which was, in all respects, consistent with the tricks practised by the priests among the Greeks and Romans of old. If the idol danced and sung, it was a good omen, but if he discovered a sorrowful air, the people were sad and dejected, gave themselves up to grief and tears, and fasted till there were some hopes of their being reconciled to their gods. The account they give of the origin of mankind, is whimsical enough, and such as does hardly deserve a place in this work, were we not under the necessity of relating all their religious sentiments. Men, say they, came out of two caverns of a certain mountain, and out of one of them came those whom we may call the good, that is to say, the flower and choicest part of human kind; and from the other, the most vile and worthless part of them. The sun, greatly enraged at this, turned him into a stone, who keeps the opening of the mountain, to prevent the birth of mankind, and metamorphosed those new created beings into frogs, toads, &c. This notion is as ridiculous as some of those of the ancients, who believed that men sprung from oaks. Nay, what was still more ridiculous among these people in Hispaniola, they believed that the sun and moon both came out of caves. These caves were in such high reputation, that the people went annually in procession to them; for who would not visit the place where the object of their worship was born. These caves were embellished with pictures in the Indian taste, but before they entered, they always paid their devotions to two devils, who stood centinels at the gates; or rather to the figures of two devils, for we must not believe they were spirits, as all devils naturally are. Polygamy, or a plurality of wives, was allowed by the laws of the country, for men were permitted to marry as many women as they could support. As this custom was in every respect inconsistent with natural and revealed religion, so it must have led to the commission of unnatural crimes. There are some passions that no human laws can restrain nor bring into proper subjection; for shut nature out at the door, and she will come in at the window. The Spaniards were sensible of this, and therefore they made a pretext of it to put many of those poor idolators to death, under the most excruciating torments. This was not the way to convert these poor people to Christianity, as will appear from the following plain, artles anecdote. An old Cacique, of the province of Nicaragua, discoursing with a Spaniard, who attended upon one of these first conquerors, spoke thus to him : "Tell me, Christian, what you understand by Christianity? The Christians feed upon our provisions, lie with our wives, are idle, gamesters, and blasphemers; are mischievous, continually craving gold and silver; are abusive, and irreligious at mass; quarrel and fight with one another; on the whole, I take them to be a set of wicked wretches." There is perhaps more good sense and real truth in the words of this Heathen, than can be found in thousands of volumes, written in defence of Christianity; for how can a Heathen believe any doctrine to be true, while he, at the same, beholds with the utmost detestation, the person who teaches it, acting inconsistent with what he recommends to others. The Spaniards had no other object in view, when they invaded those countries, than that of acquiring riches, and those riches have actually been, in some measure, the ruin of their dominions in Europe. The importation of gold and silver from South America into Spain, has thrown the people of that country into a languid state of lazy indo lence. of peace, by promoting arts and manufactures, they have actually sent their millions of gold to other European nations to obtain in return the necessaries of life. This has brought dishonour upon them, and we may venture to affirm, that if ever the Spaniards become equally brave as their ancestors once were, they must relinquish their conquests in South America, and be content with the enjoyment of those possessions they have in Europe, which are indeed very extensive. It is in a manner needless to mention that these people believe the immortality of the soul, and a fature state of rewards and punishments. This sentiment being universal among the Heathens, we shall therefore only add, that the manner in which they.inter their deal, shews their firm belief of it, and they look upon it as the most comfortable notion that can be embraced. As they believed that the sun was the Supreme Being, so they interred their dead at that moment of time when that glorious luminary first made its appearance above the horizon, and the face was always towards it. If this does not point out a feint notion of the general resurrection, we know not what can. As the faces of the deceased were laid so as to front the rising sun, so it must have been in consequence of a fixed belief that the sun would one day raise their bodies. It is in a manner impossible to account for it on any other principle, for why all this care concerning the dead, if they were to perish for ever. The more we look into the practices of the Heathen nations, the more we are in love with the gospel, which has removed the clouds of darkness from before our eyes, and laid open a path leading to everlasting happiness.. An Account of the Religion of the Mexicans. We have already taken notice of the first population of America, so that it is needless to enlarge further on that subject. We have no doubt, but the inhabitants of Mexico offered human sacrifices, for although the Spaniards have related many things against them, which perhaps may not be true, yet this seems to be indisputable. But let their practices be ever so barbarous (and barbarous undoubtly they were) yet this will in no manner whatever vindicate the Spaniards for committing such horrid acts of cruelty as they confessedly did. The Heathens harboured only false notions of religion, or rather idolatry, offered human sacrifices to their idols, and the Spaniards, guided by a false zeal, extirpated No. 21. thousands of people because they were idolaters. The case before us is not what had these Indians done, but merely how they ought to have been treated by Christian adventurers. It was the duty. of the Spaniards to have convinced them of their errors, but not to have let loose the fury of a coercive power upon men, who were rather objects of pity than of punishment. Indeed, the Spaniards had no right to punish them; for although Joshua did so to the Canaanites of old, yet that has no application to the present argument. Joshua had a divine commission, and that was what the Spaniards could not pretend to, unless they give that name to the commission they had received from the pope. The truth is, the Spaniards only wanted their money, and therefore they did not pay any regard to the Lighest duties of moral obligation, but like some English adventurers in the present age, they murdered their thousands and ten thousands, that they might have an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves. In the capital city of Mexico were eight temples, equally magnificent, and built pretty near alike; but there was one which excelled all the rest in bigness and its prodigious extent, so that a city containing five hundred houses might have been built in the court of it. This edifice was a long time the centre of Mexican idolatry, and therefore we shall give a particular description of it. The worshippers first entered into a large quadrangle, surrounded with a great stone wall, where the figures of several serpents struck terror into the beholders, particularly at the front of the first door, which was filled with these figures, under which some very mysterious signification was concealed. Before their arrival at this gate, there stood a kind of a chapel, which was full as terrible. It was built of stone, raised thirty steps, having a terrace at the top, on which several trunks of great trees, all lopped of an equal height, were planted on a level at equal distances, on which poles were laid from tree to tree. to tree. On each of these poles hung the skulls of several unhappy wretches, who had been sacrificed, whose number could not be related without terror The four sides of the quadrangle had each a gate, exactly facing one another and looked to the four cardinal points. Four stone statues were placed over each gate, which seemed to point out the way, and to command those to return back who were for going thither with an irreligious heart. These were considered as porter gods, upon which account they were saluted at going in. The apartments of the sacrificing priests and masters were built in the inside of the wall of the quadrangle, together with some 7 B shops. shops that went round the whole, which however took up but little room, its extent being so vast, that eight or ten thousand persons used to dance in it at ease, on their most solemn days. In the centre of this quadrangle, a great stone edifice was erected, which in fair weather was seen to the tops of the highest buildings in the city. It always lessened in bigness upwards, till it formed a half pyramid, three sides of which were shelving, and the fourth supported by a staircase. It was a most sumptuous pile of building, according to the rules of architecture used in that country. It was four hundred feet high, and built so strong, that its top which was flat, was a square, forty feet on each side, and was finely paved with squares of jasper stones of all kinds of colours. The pillars which surrounded it in the form of rails, winded like the shell of a snail, an 1 both sides of it were faced with black marble. On the two sides of the rail or balustrade where the staircase ended, two statues supported two ancient candlesticks. At some distance from this was a stone of green colour, five feet in height, sharp bottomed; and here the unhappy wretch who was to be sacrificed, was laid on his back, when they ripped up his bosom and took out his heart. Above this stone, and opposite to the staircase, was a large strong chapel, the roof of which was of curious wood, under which their idol was seated on a very high altar, with curtains around it. We have hitherto touched on the sacrifices offered up by these people in a general cursory manner, and therefore it is necessary that we should now be a little more explicit, wishing sincerely that what we are going to relate had never happened, though the regard we have for truth obliges us to mention it. These bloody sacrifices among the Mexicans, were performed in the following manner. The victims were led to the altars, which might have been justly compared to so many charnel houses, or burying grounds. There they were closely guarded by some Mexican soldiers, who waited till such time as the poor victims should be put to death. To heighten their agitated misery, they were presented with the sight of thousands of their fellow creatures, who had been sacrificed before them. A priest holding an image in his hand, approached towards them, crying out, at the same time, there is your god. This done, they withdrew, going off from the other side of the terrace, when the victims were immediately brought upon it, this being the place appointed for the sacrifice. Here it was that the six servants of the priests slaughtered the victims, two of these took the victims by the feet, two others held his arms, a fifth held his head, and the sixth ripped open his stomach, whence they tore out his heart and held it up still smoaking to the sun, after which turning himself towards the idol, he threw the heart in his face. The victim being thus dispatched, they threw the body down from the terrace to the bottom, and we are assured, that they not only sacrificed all the captives they took in war, but actually feasted on them. They never sacrificed less than forty or fifty of these poor wretches at a time, and those nations who bordered on them, or were subject to them, imitated this bloody mode of worship. On solemn occasions it was the duty, or rather the office of the high-priest of the temple, to rip up the victim's stomach, and this he did in such a dexterous manner, that it surprised all those who saw him, except his own pupils, who were very expert butchers. It was a custom among them on certain festivals, to dress a man in the bloody skin just reaking from the body of one of their victims; and we are assured that some of their greatest princes and governors thought it no dishonour to have the skin wrapped about them, so as the person sacrificed was a gentleman, or a person of rank. However, when a poor person was wrapped in the skin, he ran up and down the streets like a madman, demanding charity from all he met with, and those who refused to comply with his request, he was sure to knock down. This bloody masquerade continued till such time as the skin began to corrupt, and then the vagrant returned home to his own house, in order to indulge himself in all sorts of voluptuousness. It was always their custom before they sat down to eat or drink, to offer the sun some part of the victuals of which they were to partake; and they had many other ceremonies, which although as 11diculous as any we have mentioned, yet were not more so than many of those practised by the learned Greeks, and by the political Romans. Like all other barbarians who embraced false religions, their penances were extremely severe. The priests were considered as they are in some Christian communities, as mediators between God and men, so that here was an absolute power lodged in the priest, and when this solemn penance was to be performed, it was the custom of the people to meet at midnight in the temple of the idol, when one of them used to call the rest together for their devotion, with a kind of horn, of which there is now one in the British Museum, and while the horn was sounded, another was employed in moving the idol. Then one of the priests let a little blood out of the ancle of the penitent, by pricking it with a thorn or a stone lancet. After this, he rubbed his temples and |