ped; and he was the same with what is called Moloch in Scripture. This idol was the deity to whom they offered up human sacrifices, and to this we owe the fable of Saturn's having devoured his own children. Princes and great men, under particular calamities, used to offer up their most beloved children to this idol. Private persons imitated the conduct of their princes, and thus in time the practice became general; nay, to such a height did they carry their infatuation, that those who had no children of their own purchased those of the poor, that they might not be deprived of the benefits of such a sacrifice, which was to procure them the completion of their wishes. This horrid custom prevailed long among the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, and the Carthaginians; and from them the Israelites borrowed it, although expressly contrary to the order of God.

The original practice was to burn these innocent children in a fiery furnace, like those in the valley of Hinnom, so often mentioned in Scripture; and sometimes they put them into a hollow brass statue of Saturn, flaming hot. To drown the cries of the unhappy victims, musicians were ordered to play on different instruments-and mothers-shocking thought!-made it a sort of merit to divest themselves of natural affections while they beheld the barbarous spectacle. If it happened that a tear dropped from the eyes of a mother, then the sacrifice was considered as of no effect; and the parent who had that remaining spark of tenderness was considered as an enemy to the public religion. This savage barbarity, which will for ever remain a disgrace to corrupted nature, was carried to such a height, that even mothers, divesting themselves of that tenderness peculiar to their sex and character, would often embrace their children and then cheerfully commit them to the flames. In latter times they contented themselves with making their children walk between two slow fires to the statue of the idol; but this was only a more slow and excruciating torture, for the innocent victims always perished. This is what in Scripture is called the making their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Moloch; and barbarous as it was, yet those very Israelites in whose favour God had wrought so many wonders, demeaned themselves so low as to comply with it.

It appears from Tertullian, who was himself a native of Carthage, that this inhuman practice continued to take place long after the Carthaginians had been subdued by the Romans. That celebrated father tells us, that children were sacrificed to Saturn or Moloch down to the proconsulship of Tiberius, who hanged the sacrificing priests themselves on the trees which shaded their temple, as on so many crosses raised to expiate their crimes, of which the soldiers were witnesses who assisted at these executions. In all times of pestilence, they used to sacrifice a vast number of children to their idols; and thus, by endeavouring to atone for their sins, they only increased the number. Sometimes they cut open the bowels of the victim and then threw it into the fire; but the most common practice was to burn it alive.

Diodorus relates an instance of this more than savage barbarity, which is sufficient to fill any mind with horror. He tells us that when Agathocles was going to besiege Carthage, the people seeing the extremity which they were reduced, imputed all their misfortunes to the anger their god Saturn, because that, instead of offering up to him children n

born, he had been fraudulently put off with the children of slaves and foreigners. That a sufficient atonement should be made for this crime, as the infatuated people considered it, two hundred children of the best families in Carthage were sacrificed, and no less than three hundred of the citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves,—that is, they went into the fire without compulsion.

Such was the religion of the ancient Carthaginians, the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, and indeed the Philistines, who were, as we have already observed, a remnant of the Canaanites.

SEC. III.-RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES AND CUSTOMS OF THE ASSYRIANS.

IN treating of the religion of the ancient Assyrians, we must be partly directed by sacred history, but more particularly by what has been transmitted to us by pagan writers. It is in general allowed that Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, was the first founder of idolatry: and there remains no manner of doubt but he was the same who was afterwards worshipped under the title of Belus, which in the Eastern language means strength." He is in Scripture called a mighty hunter before the Lord; and different opinions have been formed concerning the singularity of this very extraordinary character, but the whole may be reduced to a very narrow compass.

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The descendants of Noah soon forgot the knowledge of the true God, and plunged themselves into the grossest idolatries; but as the passions of men are often made subservient towards promoting the ends of Divine Providence, and as the worst intentions of men often become beneficial in the end, so Nimrod, by his ambition, laid the foundation of an empire, which existed for many years after his death, and in the end became a scourge to those people of whom God made choice. That he was a mighty hunter, cannot be doubted; and under that character he displayed his political abilities in two respects. The country in which he lived was infested with wild beasts, and therefore he acquired popularity by delivering the people from the ravages made by those furious creatures; and secondly, by hunting, he trained up the youth in all sorts of martial exercises, and inured them to all sorts of hardships. He formed them to the use of arms and discipline, that in a proper time he might make them subservient to his purposes, in extending his power over his peaceful neighbours. That he resided for some time at Babylon, or rather at the place which has since obtained that name, cannot be doubted; but Nineveh was the grand seat of his empire. This city was built on the eastern banks of the river Tigris, and it was one of the largest ever known in the world. It was above sixty miles in circumference; the walls were a hundred feet high, and so broad, that chariots could pass each other upon them. The walls were adorned with fifteen hundred towers, and each of these two hundred feet high, which may in some measure account for what we read in the book of Jonah, that Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey.

"Her lofty towers shone like meridian beams,

And as a world within herself she seems."

Fortified within such an extensive city, and regardless of the duty he owed to the Great Parent of the universe, Nimrod gave himself up to all manner of debauchery; and while he continued to trample upon the rights of his fellow-creatures, he proceeded to the highest degree of impiety, namely, to set up idols in temples which he had built, and even to worship the works of his own hands.

From what we shall learn in the course of this work, it will appear that the most ancient species of idolatry was that of worshipping the sun and moon. This idolatry was founded on a mistaken notion of gratitude, which, instead of ascending up to the Supreme Being, stopped short at the veil which both covered and discovered him. Had those idolaters considered things in a proper manner, they would have been able to distinguish between the great God himself and such of his works as point out his communicable attributes.

Men have, in all ages, been convinced of the necessity of an intercourse between God and themselves; and the adoration of God supposes him to be attentive to men's desires, and, consistent with his perfections, capable of complying with them. But the distance of the sun and moon is an obstacle to this intercourse. Therefore foolish and inconsiderate men endeavoured to remedy this inconvenience by laying their hands on their mouths, and then lifting them up to their false gods, in order to testify that they would be glad to unite themselves to them, notwithstanding their being so far separated. We have a striking instance of this in the book of Job, which, properly attended to, will throw a considerable light on ancient pagan idolatry. Job was a native of the confines of Assyria, and being one of those who believed in the true God, says, in his own vindication, "If I beheld the sun while it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand," &c.—Job xxxi. 26, 27.

This was a solemn oath, and the ceremony performed in the following

manner :

The person who stood before his accusers, or before the judge's tribunal, where he was tried, bowed his head and kissed his hand three times, and looking up to the sun, invoked him as an almighty being, to take the highest vengeance upon him if he uttered a falsehood.

As the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies were the first objects of worship among the Assyrians, so, in consistency with the corruption of human nature, they adored the fire as their substitute; and that sort of adoration was common among the Assyrians and Chaldeans, as will appear from the following passage in Eusebius, who lived in the fourth century.

"Ur, which signifies fire, was the idol they worshipped; and as fire will, in general, consume everything thrown into it, so the Assyrians published abroad that the gods of other nations could not stand before theirs. Many experiments were tried, and vast numbers of idols were brought from foreign parts; but they being of wood, the all-devouring god Ur, or fire, consumed them. At last an Egyptian priest found out the art to destroy the reputation of this mighty idol, which had so long been the terror of distant nations. He caused the figure of an idol to be made of porous earth, and the belly of it was filled with water. On cach

side of the belly, holes were made, but filled up with wax. This being done, he challenged the god Ur to oppose his god Canopus, which was accepted of by the Chaldean priests; but no sooner did the wax which stopped up the holes in the belly of Canopus begin to melt, than the water burst out and drowned the fire.

Adramelech was another idol belonging to the Assyrians; but his supposed power seems to have been confined to some of the more distant provinces; for we read, that when Salmanessar took captive the greatest part of the ten tribes, he sent in their room the inhabitants of a province called Sepharvaim; and these people were most horrid and barbarous idolaters, for they burnt their children alive, and committed such other abominations as are not proper to be mentioned.

In the latter times of the Assyrian empire, before it was joined to that of Babylon, Nisrock was the god worshipped in Nineveh; and it was in the temple of this idol that the great Sennacherib was murdered by his two sons Adramelech and Shanezzar. Both the ancients and the moderns agree, that this idol was represented in the shape of a fowl; but they differ much concerning the species; some thinking it was a dove, and others an eagle. The Jewish rabbis tell us that it was made of a plank of Noah's ark, which had been preserved on the mountains of Armenia.

Among the Assyrians, as well as many other nations, some worshipped the fire, and some images; but both agreed in sacrificing their children to their idols. In time, the number of their idols increased, till at last Efrahaddon removed the seat of empire to Babylon, soon after which the city and temples of Nineveh were neglected, and their magi, or wise men, who had been long in esteem among them, followed the court.

As it was the universal practice of the ancient heathen `nations to worship their idols in groves, before temples were erected, it may be proper here to inquire what gave rise to that notion? It is a principle acquired by experience without reading, that in every act of devotion the mind should be fixed on the grand object of worship. Every one who has walked in a grove will acknowledge that there was more than a common reverential awe upon his mind, which must be owing to the small number of objects that presented themselves. We may justly call them the haunts of meditation; but still, it cannot be denied, that many abominable crimes were committed in them: some parts near their altars were set apart for secret lewdness, and even for such unnatural practices as ought not to be related. Strange, that men cannot use things properly without abusing them!

It is remarkable, that none of those Eastern nations burnt the bodies of their deceased relations, although they offered in sacrifice those of their living ones. They buried the dead bodies in the earth; and this they did in consequence of a tradition common among them, that the first man was buried.

Their marriages were civil contracts between the parties, and polygamy, or a plurality of wives, was universally allowed. In their temples, discourses were delivered after the sacrifice was over, consisting chiefly of explanations of some of their mysteries, and exhortations to the people to obedient to their sovereigns. That the idolatry of the Assyrians had great, we have the evidence of many of the prophets, and all these

prophecies have been literally fulfilled. It is true they repented for some time, at the preaching of Jonah; but they soon relapsed into the practice of their former enormities; and God has now, in his infinite justice, left nothing of them besides the name. So true are the words of sacred Scripture, namely, that "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."

Let the following considerations, therefore, sink deep into the hearts of our readers:

First, that the least deviation from the truth is dangerous; for such is the corruption of human nature, such the propensity of man to everything evil, that he seldom knows where to stop. All idolatry was originally simple, but its professors soon added to it rites of the most odious and horrid nature.

Secondly, let every person learn to form worthy notions of the Divine attributes; for the want of that is one of the causes of idolatry, and of false religion in general. Let us once imagine God to be such a being as ourselves, and then we shall assuredly offer him up such sacrifice as is unworthy.

Lastly, while we bless God for the purity of religion, let us fear to offend him, lest he should deprive us of the many privileges we enjoy.

SEC. IV.-RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES AND CUSTOMS OF THE BABYLONIANS.

THE city of Babylon owes its origin to the vanity and madness of those people who built a tower on the spot, and not to Nimrod, as many ancient heathen writers would have us to believe; for Nimrod was alive at the time when the confusion of languages took place, and therefore, we cannot reasonably imagine he would boldly set himself at defiance against Heaven, after he had seen such a signal instance of the Divine displeasure. Thus we may naturally conclude, that what was left of the tower was some years after enclosed within a wall; but the exact time of its being enlarged, so as to deserve the name of a city, cannot now be known. In time, however, it rose to grandeur; but idolatry increased so fast in it, that many of the prophets denounced the most dreadful judgments upon it. Like the Assyrians, they worshipped the fire and images; of which we have a striking instance in the book of Daniel, chap. iii. Like most other ancient nations, the Babylonians had strange notions concerning the first promulgation of their religion. Whether they worshipped fire or images, yet they indiscriminately gave the names of Bell or Belus to all their deities. This idol was the same with what is called Baal in the Old Testament, and always signifies "strength." Some are of opinion that it was Nimrod, but more probably his son Ninus, who, according to ancient testimony founded the city and kingdom of Babylon. Berosius, a very ancient writer, tells us, that the god Belus having but the chaos of darkness, divided the heaven and earth from each other, and reduced the world into proper order; but seeing that there were no people to inhabit it, he commanded one of the gods to cut off his own head and mix the earth wis the blood, from whence proceeded men, with the several species of an and Belus regulated the motions of the sun, moon, and stars, with rest of the heavenly bodies.