word of God, do sometimes give entire credit to the vain predictions of these astrologers and impostors.

St. Austin, in several passages of his writings, informs us, that this stupid and sacrilegious credulity is a just chastisement from God, who frequently punisheth the voluntary blindness of men, by inflicting a still greater blindness; and who suffers evil spirits, that they may keep their servants still faster in their nets, sometimes to foretell things which do really come to pass, but of which the expectation very often serves only to torment them.

God, who alone foresees future contingencies and events, because he alone is the sovereign disposer and director of them, does often in Scripturet laugh to scorn the ignorance of the so-muchboasted Babylonish astrologers, calling them forgers of lies and falsehoods. He moreover defies all their false gods to foretell any thing whatsoever, and consents if they do, that they should be worshipped as gods. Then addressing himself to the city of Babylon, he particularly declares all the circumstances of the miseries with which she shall be overwhelmed above 200 years after that prediction; while none of her prognosticators, who had flattered her with the assurances of her perpetual grandeur, which they pretended to have read in the stars, should be able to avert the judgment, or even to foresee the time of its accomplishment. Indeed, how should they? since at the very time of its execution, when Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, saw a hand come out of the wall, and write unknown characters thereon, the Magi, the Chaldeans, the soothsayers, and, in a word, all the pretended sages of the country, were not able so much as to read the writing. Here then we see astrology and magic convicted of ignorance and impotence, in the very place where they were most in vogue, and on an occasion when it was certainly their interest to display all their science and power.

ARTICLE IV.

Religion.

The most ancient and general idolatry in the world, was that wherein the sun and moon were the objects of divine worship. This idolatry was founded upon a mistaken gratitude; which, instead of

*His omnibus consideratis, non immeritò creditur, cùm astrologi mirabiliter multa vera respondent, occulto instinctu fieri spirituum non bonorum, quorum cura est has falsas et noxias opiniones de astralibus fatis inserrere humanis mentibus atque firmare, non horoscopi notati et inspecti aliquâ arte, quæ nulla est. De Civ. Dei. l. v. c. 7.

†Therefore shall evil come upon thee, thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee, thou shalt not be able to put it off; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble: the fire shall burn them: they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. Isa. xlvii. 11-14. Dan. v.

ascending up to the Deity, stopped short at the veil which concealed him, while it indicated his existence. With the least reflection or penetration they might have discerned the Sovereign who commanded, from the minister* who did but obey.

In all ages mankind have been sensibly convinced of the necessity of an intercourse between God and man: and adoration supposes God to be both attentive to man's desires and capable of fulfilling them. But the distance of the sun and of the moon is an obstacle to this intercourse. Therefore foolish men endeavoured to remedy this inconvenience, by laying their hands upon their mouths, and then lifting them up to those false gods, in order to testify that they would be glad to unite themselves to them, but that they could not. This was that impious custom so prevalent throughout all the east, from which Job esteemed himself happy to have been preserved: When I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; my heart hath not been secretly enticed, nor my mouth kissed my hand.‡

The Persians adored the sun, and particularly the rising sun, with the profoundest veneration. To him they dedicated a magnificent chariot, with horses of the greatest beauty and value, as we have seen in Cyrus's stately cavalcade. (This same ceremony was practised by the Babylonians; from whom some impious kings of Judah borrowed it,|| and brought it into Palestine.) Sometimes they likewise sacrificed oxen to this god, who was very much known amongst them by the name of Mithra.

By a natural consequence of the worship they paid to the sun, they likewise paid a particular veneration to fire, ¶ always invoked it first in their sacrifices,** carried it with great respect before the king in all his marches; intrusted the keeping of their sacred fire, which came down from heaven, as they pretended, to none but the Magi; and would have looked upon it as the greatest of misfortunes, if it had been suffered to go out. History informs us,ft that the emperor Heraclius, when he was at war with the Persians, demolished several of their temples, and particularly the chapel in which the sacred fire had been preserved until that time, which occasioned great mourning and lamentation throughout the whole country. The Persians likewise honoured the water,‡‡ the earth, and the winds, as so many deities.

The cruel ceremony of making children pass through the fire, was undoubtedly a consequence of the worship paid to that element; for this fire-worship was common to the Babylonians and Persians. The Scripture positively says of the people of Mesopotamia, who were sent as a colony into the country of the Samaritans, that they

Minuc. p.

* Among the Hebrews, the ordinary name for the sun signifies minister. † Superstitiosus vulgus manum ori admovens, osculum labiis pressit. From thence is come the word adorare; that is to say, ad os manum admovere. The text is in the form of an oath, If I beheld, &c. Job xxxi. 26, 27. Herod. 1. i. c. 131. 2 Kings xxiii. 11. Strab. 1. xv. p. 732. Cyrop. I. viii. p. 215. Am. Mar. 1. xxiii. tt Zonar. Annal. vol. ii.

¶ ĺbid.

2.

** Xenoph.

Herod. l. i. c. 131.

caused their children to pass through the fire. It is well known how common this barbarous custom became in many provinces of Asia. Besides these, the Persians had two gods of a very different nature, namely, Oromasdes and Arimanius. The former they looked upon as the author of all the blessings and good things that happened to them; and the latter as the author of all the evils wherewith they were afflicted. I shall give a fuller account of these deities hereafter.

The Persians erected neither statues, nor temples, nor altars, to their gods; but offered their sacrifices in the open air, and generally on the tops of hills, or on high places. It was in the open fields that Cyrus acquitted himself of that religious duty, when he made the pompous and solemn procession already spoken of. It is supposed to have been through the advice and instigation of the Magi, that Xerxes, the Persian king, burnt all the Grecian temples, esteeming it injurious to the majesty of the Deity to shut him up within walls, to whom all things are open, and to whom the whole world should be reckoned as a house or a temple.

Cicero thinks,|| that in this the Greeks and Romans acted more wisely than the Persians, in that they erected temples to their gods within their cities, and thereby assigned them a residence in common with themselves, which was well calculated to inspire the people with sentiments of religion and piety. Varro was not of the same opinion (St. Austin has preserved that passage of his works¶.) After having observed, that the Romans had worshipped their gods without statues for above 170 years, he adds, that if they had still preserved their ancient custom, their religion would have been the purer and freer from corruption: Quod si adhuc mansisset, castiùs dii observarentur; and he strengthens his opinion by the example of the Jewish nation.

The laws of Persia suffered no man to confine the motive of his

sacrifices to any private or domestic interest. This was a fine way of attaching all private individuals to the public good, by teaching them that they ought never to sacrifice for themselves alone, but for the king and the whole state, wherein every man was comprehended with the rest of his fellow-citizens.

The Magi, in Persia, were the guardians of all the ceremonies relating to divine worship; and it was to them the people had recourse, in order to be instructed therein, and to know on what day, to what gods, and after what manner, they were to offer their sacrifices. As these Magi were all of one tribe, and as none but the son of a priest could pretend to the honour of the priesthood, they kept all

Cyrop. 1. viii. p. 233.

*Plut. in lib. de Isid. et Osirid. p. 369. † Herod. 1. i. c. 131. Auctoribus Magis Xerxes inflammâsse templa Græciæ dicitur, quòd parietibus inclu derent deos, quibus omnia deberent esse patentia ac libera, quorumque hic mundus omnis templum esset et domus. Cic. 1. ii. de Legib.

Meliùs Græci atque nostri, qui ut augerent pietatem in deos, easdem illos urbes, quas nos, incolere voluerunt. Adfert enim hæc opinio religionem utilem civitatibus. Ibid. TLib. iv. de Civ. Dei, n. 31.

their learning and knowledge, whether in religious or political concerns, to themselves and their families; nor was it lawful for them to instruct any stranger in these matters, without the king's permission. It was granted in favour of Themistocles,* and was, according to Plutarch, a particular effect of the prince's great consideration for him.

This knowledge and skill in religious matters, which made Plato define magic, or the learning of the Magi, the art of worshipping the gods in a becoming manner, ev garsiav, gave the Magi great authority both with the prince and people, who could offer no sacrifice without their presence and ministration.

It was even requisite that the king,t before he came to the crown, should have received instruction for a certain time from some of the Magi, and have learned of them both the art of reigning, and that of worshipping the gods after a proper manner. Nor did he deter

mine any important affair of the state, when he was upon the throne, without first consulting them; for which reason Pliny says, that even in his time they were looked upon in all the Eastern countries as the masters and directors of princes, and of those who styled themselves the kings of kings.

They were the sages, the philosophers, and men of learning, in Persia; as the Gymnosophists and Brachmans were amongst the Indians, and the Druids among the Gauls. Their great reputation made people come from the most distant countries to be instructed by them in philosophy and religion; and we are assured it was from them that Pythagoras borrowed the principles of that doctrine, by which he acquired so much veneration and respect among the Greeks, excepting only the tenet of transmigration, which he learned of the Egyptians, and by which he corrupted and debased the ancient doctrine of the Magi concerning the immortality of the soul.

It is generally agreed, that Zoroaster was the original author and founder of this sect; but authors are considerably divided in their opinions about the time in which he lived. What Pliny says upon this head may reasonably serve to reconcile that variety of opinions, as is very judiciously observed by Dr. Prideaux. We read in that author, that there were two persons named Zoroaster, between whose lives there might be the distance of 600 years. The first of

them was the founder of the Magian sect, about the year of the world 2900; and the latter, who certainly flourished between the beginning of Cyrus's reign in the East, and the end of Darius's, son of Hystaspes, was the restorer and reformer of it.

Throughout all the Eastern countries, idolatry was divided into * In Them. p. 126.

Nec quisquam rex Persarum potest esse, qui non antè Magorum disciplinam scientiamque perceperit. Cic. de Divin. l. i. n. 91.

In tantum fastigii adolevit (auctoritas Magorum) ut hodieque etiam in magnâ parte gentium prævaleat, et in oriente regum regibus imperet. Plin. 1. xxx. c. 1.

Hist. Nat. 1. xxx. c. 1.

VOL. II.

T

two principal sects; that of the Sabians, who adored images; and that of the Magi, who worshipped fire. The former of these sects had its rise among the Chaldeans, who, from their knowledge of astronomy, and their particular application to the study of the seven planets, which they believed to be inhabited by as many intelligences, who were to those orbs what the soul of man is to his body, were induced to represent Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Mercury, Venus, and Diana, or the Moon, by so many images, or statues, in which they imagined those pretended intelligences, or deities, were as really present as in the planets themselves. In time, the number of their gods considerably increased: this image-worship from Chaldea spread itself throughout all the East; from thence passed into Egypt; and at length came among the Greeks, who propagated it through all the western nations.

To this sect of the Sabians, was diametrically_opposite that of the Magi, which also took its rise in the same Eastern countries. As the Magi, held images in utter abhorrence, they worshipped God only under the form of fire; looking upon that, on account of its purity, brightness, activity, subtilty, fecundity, and incorruptibility, as the most perfect symbol of the Deity. They began first in Persia, and there and in India were the only places where this sect was propagated, and where they have remained even to this day. Their chief doctrine was, that there were two principles; one the cause of all good, and the other the cause of all evil. The former is represented by light, and the other by darkness, as their truest symbols. The good God they named Yazdan and Ormuzd, and the evil God Ahraman. The former is by the Greeks called Oromasdes, and the latter Arimanius. And therefore,* when Xerxes prayed that his enemies might always resolve to banish their best and bravest citizens, as the Athenians had Themistocles, he addressed his prayer to Arimanius, the evil god of the Persians, and not to Oromasdes, their good god.

Concerning these two gods, they had this difference of opinion; that whereas some held both of them to have been from all eternity; others contended that the good god only was eternal, and the other was created. But they both agreed in this, that there will be a continual opposition between these two, till the end of the world; that then the good god shall overcome the evil god, and that from thenceforward each of them shall have his peculiar world; that is, the good god, his world with all the good; and the evil god, his world with all the wicked.

The second Zoroaster, who lived in the time of Darius, undertook to reform some articles in the religion of the Magian sect, which for several ages had been the predominant religion of the Medes and Persians; but which, since the death of Smerdis, who usurped the throne, and his chief confederates, and the massacre of their adhe

*Plut. in Themist. p. 126.