The practice of even human sacrifice was common among the Romans. It prevailed among the Cyprians, the Rhodians, the Ionians,-the Lacedemonians, the Cretans, &c. The Egyptians were devoted to the like abominable customs. The Germans and Gauls were famous for their excesses in the shedding of blood in expiation. The nations who worshipped Woden and Thor held it as a fixed principle among them, that their happiness could not otherwise be assured than by taking away the lives of others as vicarious offerings to their deities. It would be a puerile waste of time to pursue this well-known topic. Arabians, Persians, Phoenicians,—all nations soever of whom we have ancient accounts,-pursued the same frightful method of propitiating the gods, who, they thought, could never be sufficiently glutted with blood and carnage. If, therefore, any thing can be deemed natural to human kind, the notion of an atonement, prevailing thus universally, and, in the form in which it was adopted by the heathen sects,-in direct opposition to reason, and to many other feelings, must be so considered. Among savage tribes, the idea of propitiation and satisfaction by sacrifice universally prevails at this day. They lacerate their skins; they maim themselves by sudden violence and lingering tortures; and, often without seeming to have any definite purpose or motive, yet, oftener on the approach of some

and, indeed, has shewn to it little of that "complacency," which (as he informs us)" it but ill deserved;" and for which, as the reader must be aware, neither of these prelates was very remarkable.

visitation, an earthquake, or tempest, they systematically inflict upon themselves, and upon each other, cruel scars and wounds; by which they hope to appease the wrath of their deities. So, likewise, among professing Christians, and even in these kingdoms, numerous proofs are exhibited of the same principle influencing the conduct of the vulgar. The voluntary mortifications which they incur in different forms, to avert calamity, or atone for sin, demonstrate, in the clearest manner, the origin of sacrifice in a principle of the human mind; nor is it possible upon any other supposition to account for their senseless penances and pilgrimages, and worthless offerings of rags. Men may lament the wickedness, or ridicule the absurdity, of these rites, but they must seriously admit, that such contemptible devices to procure the remission of sins, or to propitiate the favour of heaven, bespeak the existence of a mighty influence sustaining those opinions, which can so subjugate or sway the reason; and which, therefore, if not originating in some ancient revelation, (a supposition which is, justly as it seems, rejected by the sceptics,) or even if derived from that origin, must, in either case, have their root and principle of propagation in the nature of the mind.

a

118-122, ante.

b 126-127 ante.

< The late Archbishop of Dublin has dismissed in a very summary manner the conclusion which I have been here endeavouring to maintain.-" No MAN," says he, "will assert that we have any natural instinct to gratify, in spilling the blood of an innocent creature." Hence he concludes the practice (and his argument at least requires that he should be interpreted to conclude the

Now, it is a fact incontestible beyond dispute, that there are no crimes so barbarous and inhuman, that whole civilized nations have not applauded them. Revenge, cruelty, treachery, treason, murder, theft, besides the most abominable vices of which we are not permitted even to speak, have been countenanced and encouraged by legislators, approved by the precepts of philosophers, and sanctioned by the example of moralists and priests. Every virtue has in its turn been expelled; every moral axiom, however plain, has been abandoned or denounced, whilst, in all ages and nations, there have constantly existed some types and similitudes of the Christian plan of redemption, suggestions of a principle of our nature, which demands and anticipates the sacrifice of Christ."

The infidel, therefore, who would cast obloquy upon revelation, must here assume a new shape, and admit, not only that the doctrines of propitiatory sacrifice and of atonement are consistent with reason, (a consistency which Christians indeed maintain, while, according to the old and just distinction between what is only inexplicable, and what is plainly contradictory

notion) of sacrifice, to be "against nature." against nature." He attempts no sort of proof; he disdains to answer any plausible pretext for the opposite theory; a theory which, notwithstanding his Grace's declaration, I think it equally unnecessary to give up, or to renounce my hitherto undisputed pretensions of belonging to his Lordship's

SPECIES.

a See LOCKE's chapter of Practical Principles, and an essay of Mr. HUME's, entitled A Dialogue, vol. 2, p. 377.

b Note (15,) referred to ante; see latter part.

to reason, they generally acknowledge that these difficult doctrines could never have been suggested, and cannot now be satisfactorily explained, by philosophical reasonings ;) the infidel, however, must go further; he must clearly prove, not only the credibility of such doctrines, but, also, that there is no truth more easy to be discovered. If he can effect this, it will be his business, in the next place, to found his battery of objections upon the admitted reasonableness of the system which he assails, and which, if it shall not appear to have been the result of obvious reasoning, must, accordingly, be supposed to have arisen from some original instinct of the human mind, since, on less evidence, and from far less conformity of conduct in men, we must infer the existence of a moral principle.*

Now, if the notion of an atonement is admitted to be natural, the conclusion seems to be inevitable and immediate, that some such revelation as the Christian was designed from the beginning of the world.

For suppose the sacred writings had been delivered to us, containing such doctrines, supported by such testimony, and, in short, had been in all respects the same as we have actually received them; giving us an account of the fall and corruption of man, of his subsequent redemption and forgiveness of actual sin, or of hereditary pollution, by a satisfactory sacrifice of the just for the unjust. Let us also suppose that these dogmas appear to be (as doubtless

a P. 8-10, and 19, ante.

they must) very unaccountable, and even, in the opinion (erroneous, perhaps, but nevertheless the opinion) of many reflecting Christians," as irreconcileable as Mr. Hume has represented them to be with our "ideas of generosity, lenity, impartiality, justice ;” also, that they are entirely new doctrines, which were never heard of or believed in any former time.

From a comparison of this hypothetical state of things with the true, from which we will, for argument's sake, suppose that it differs only in the last mentioned circumstance, it will be manifest that, in the former case, there is an obstacle to the revelation, which contains so strange (and therefore so incredible) a novelty, and that, under the latter, this obstacle is removed by the great prevalence of these notions, from the most remote antiquity, over the whole earth. For, that these notions did so prevail, since this did not arise from their conformity to reason, must have been occasioned by some natural determination of the mind to them; and as the reasonings above delivered, no less than the principles of the most celebrated sceptics

The following confession of the author of the Discourses on Sacrifice is of great value, because it was wholly undesigned. "It is to no purpose that THEORISTS endeavour to explain the practice as of gradual growth, the first offerings being merely of fruits. The transition to animal sacrifice is inconceivable, not to mention the sacrifice of Abel. The two things are toto cœlo different; the one" (i. e. the offering of fruits)" being an act of innocence, the other," (i. e. animal sacrifice,) "A CRUEL AND UNNATURAL RITE." MAGEE on the Atonement, 2nd vol.

b Essays, 2nd vol. p. 460.