pofed that, by making fome terrible facrifices, they fhould be able to turn off his vengeance; without reflecting that fuch facrifices very often augmented their crimes, and plunged them into the most infamous and deteftable scenes of horror. Others again have fuppofed that, through the interceffion of fome inferior divinities,, which were held forth to them, by the vivacity of their imagination only, they should be able to appease the wrath of the Great and offended God.-Hence the idolatry of the fouthern nations of Europe and Afia. And we find some of their principal philofophers, notwithstanding all their learning, deaf to the voice of nature, and serving the most despicable of their divinities. But, in all ages, and in all parts of the world, we find that fome artful and defigning men, pretending to be fent, or infpired, by the Supreme Being, to declare his will among mankind, have gained an abfolute dominion and au thority over their fellow-creatures; from the veneration which the latter had for the Great Father of all things, from being convinced of the utility of fuch a divine meffage, and from the neceffity which they felt themselves under to know his will, and thereby to adore him more perfectly than they were capable of doing it from the light of nature only. I fhall hereafter compare the doctrines and examples of fome of the principal of those prophets and teachers, with thofe of Jefus Chrift and his Apoftles, and point out the villany and defign of the former; but at prefent, agree

able

able to my original plan, fhall proceed to take a brief furvey of the religion which has predominated in a confiderable part of the world for more than one thousand years past, and which has been adopted by feveral empires in Afia and Africa.

IN the fixth century after Jesus Christ, a most extraordinary man, called Mahomet, appeared upon the theatre of the world, in Arabia Felix, where he was born and bred. He was a man of mean parentage and condition, and very illiterate, but was witty, and had great natural talents. He was a fervant to a rich merchant of this country; and, after his master's death, having married his widow, he became poffeffed of much wealth, and of a numerous family. Among others, he entertained in it a monk, at least one who went by that name, whose libertine difpofitions had made him leave his convent and profeffion; but otherwife he was a man of great learning. Mahomet,' from his childhood, was subject to fits of the epilepfy; and, either from the heat of the climate, or from the neceffity which that disease laid him under, was very temperate, and abstained from wine; but, in other things, he was voluptuous, and diffolute to a great degree. He was afhamed of his disease, and, to disguise it from his wife and family, he pretended that his fits were fo many trances, into which he was caft by the God of Heaven; wherein he was instructed in his will, and in his true worship and laws, together

Europe; the people, in every place he paffed through, adoring him as a defcendant of their Supreme God. Moreover, the arts which this man made use of to make himself be continually refpected by the people, were very extraordinary, and fhew us, that Mahomet was not by any means his equal in this refpect. Among others, in all difficult affairs, he pretended to confult the head of a certain Mimer, who, during his lifetime, had the reputation of being a very wife man; and when he died, Odin had his head embalmed, and perfuaded the people that, by his enchantments, he made this head always reveal to him fuch fecrets as he wanted to know; and, for this purpofe, he always carried it with him where-ever he went.-Moreover, the Iceland Chronicles paint this man as being the most eloquent and perfuafive of all mankind; and that, by his great knowledge in magic, he could do fuch mighty works, that even his very enemies regarded him as a god. This man was the inventor of the Runic characters, or letters, which were fo long in ufe among thefe people.

Very foon after the arrival of Odin in the north, we find the ancient Celtic religion lose its primitive purity. This artful man, with all his magic and eloquence, found that he could not support himself in the abfolute authority which he had affumed, without giving the people a terrible god, and founding a new form of worship, to ferve as the bafis for his new dominion. The greatest alteration

alteration which he made in their ancient religion, was refpecting the number of the gods which they were to adore. The ancient Scythians had fuch a veneration and refpect for their Supreme God, that on all occafions they expreffed their hatred and contempt of the polytheifm of those very nations who treated them as barbarians; and their first care was to deftroy all the objects of their idolatrous worship, in those places where they established their authority; which was the cafe when they entered into Greece, under the conduct of Xerxes.-Odin affociated several of their subaltern divinities with their Supreme God, which he made those ignorant people believe were neceffary to have recourfe to in time of danger; as, from being more acceffible than the Supreme God, whose name alone ftruck them with refpect and terror, their fuccours would be more prompt and effectual. Each of these divinities was to prefide over a particular part of the univerfe (as will be hereafter more fully explained); and after this æra, if they rendered greater honours to the Supreme Divinity than to the others, it was because they regarded him as the god of war; imagining, from its being their favourite paffion, that no object was more worthy of his attention, nor over which he could more difplay his power and authority. And this is the reason that we often find him described in the Edda under the name of Odin, as the terrible and fevere god, the father of bloodshed, the destroyer of mankind, the god

of victory, who gives courage to warriors in the time of battle, and who points out those who are to be killed. The warriors, when they went to battle, made a vow to fend him a certain number of fouls, which they supposed to be his due, and which they confecrated to him; and, with this condition, they implored his fuccour in all their wars. This terrible god, whom Odin has defigned as the god of bloodshed and horror, and whom he taught his people to adore in a manner that must fill every thinking perfon with the ideas of carnage and brutality, is represented in the beginning of the Edda, as the God who lived and governed before the creation of the world, who directs every thing above, and every thing below; who made the heavens and the earth, and every living thing; and who, before the creation of the heavens and the earth, lived among the giants.

It is certain, that the predominating paffion of the ancient Celts was always that of war; but Odin greatly increased their natural ferocity, by making those bloody dogmas a part of their religion, and promising a state of happiness in another world, to thofe only who died heroes.-We are told, that all the Celts, and the Celtiberians, leaped for joy when they marched on to battle, from the agreeable hope which they had of going 'out of this world in a manner fo happy and fo agreeable; and, on the contrary, they were full of lamentations when they faw themselves attacked

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