could atone for their vices by ritual obfervances, he tells them, that even legal facrifices, when offered to him with corrupt difpofitions, were as difpleafing to him, as thofe abominable human Sacrifices would be, which the Law of Nature condemns. He that killeth an ox is as if he had flain a MAN; he that facrificeth a lamb as if he cut off A DOG'S NECK. Here we fee the ritual worship, commanded by God, is oppofed to the Sacrifice of Man, abominated by the Law of Nature; and to the Sacrifice of a Dog, the thing most abhorred by the Law of Mofes; in whose ritual this animal was held fo totally unclean, that the hire of a whore, and the price of a Dog, are put together, as equally unfit to be brought into the houfe of the Lord †. II. We come now to thofe two capital Paffages, on which the Enemies of Religion found theit impious Charge. The one, they confider as an indifpenfable COMMAND; the other as an ExAMPLE, adapted to inforce the execution of it. The pretended Command is in Leviticus, and contained in thefe words :-NONE DEVOTED, WHICH SHALL BE DEVOTED OF MEN, SHALL BE REDEEMED, BUT SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO Here is a Law, which our Philofophers, in their great fagacity, conceived did enjoin fomething. But being ftrangers to the fubject, and ignorant of the phrafeology, with heads likewife full of mischief, they discovered HUMAN SACRIFICES in a place where Mofes was speaking of quite another thing. The Chapter, in which this Law is found, contains directions for the making, and for the performance of Vows; a mode of obligation which had a natural place in a government THEOCRATICAL; where civil matters of obedience were intimately connected with religious. Now, that capital Command given to the chofen People, TO EXTERMINATE THE CANAANITES, a command fo neceffary to be observed, for the prefervation both of their civil and religious Systems, needed, above all things, frequent repetitions of the facred tie of Vows for its more exact performance; fome of the fofter as well as stronger paffions of our Nature, pufhed forward by the delufions of felf-intereft, being always at hand to defeat or retard the divine fentence denounced against an INCORRIGIBLE People (of which more hereafter). The repetition of Vows, therefore, *Levit. xxvii. 29. for for the speedier accomplishment of this great and laborious event (juft like the repetition of oaths of allegiance in common ftates for the better fecurity of the establishment) was enjoined, or at least encouraged, by the Leaders of the Jewish people. Sometimes the Vow was made by the People, in a Body; like that we find in the Book of Numbers-" And Ifrael vowed a Vow unto the "Lord, and faid, If thou wilt, indeed, deliver "this people [the Canaanites] into my hand, "then I will utterly deftroy their Cities. And the "Lord hearkened unto the Voice of Ifrael; and "delivered up the Canaanites: and they utterly deftroyed them and their Cities *." Sometimes again, the vow was made by Particulars; by fuch whofe power or fituation beft qualified them for the execution of this primary CoмMAND: and to these, and for this sole purpose, was this ftrangely mistaken Text directed. 66 -NONE DEVOTED, WHICH SHALL BE DE"VOTED OF MEN," (or, as it is explained in the immediately preceding verfe-no devoted thing, which a man fhall devote unto the Lord)-" fhall "be redeemed, but fhall be furely put to "death." Thefe Vows were called the SANCTIFYING or DEVOTING men Numb, xxi. 2, 3. or things. In † Levit. xxvii. 29. which, indeed, the Language of Religion is employed; and very naturally, for the reason given above. But to prevent the abufive interpretation of fuch Vows, in the manner of our PHILOSOPHERS, by fuffering more of Religion than the mere language to enter into the idea of them, the People are forbidden to extend their vows to what God himself had fanctified, fuch as the firfi-fruits.-Only the firfling of the beasts, which (fays Mofes) fhould be the Lord's firfling, no man shall fanctify it *. But if man was, for this reafon, not to fanctify the firft-fruits of beafts, much more was he restrained from fanctifying the first fruits of Man; fince the firfruits of Man were not to be put to death (like those whom human Vows had devoted), but to be redeemed. In a word, the men here devoted by men, and not to be redeemed, were NO SACRIFICES AT All, as the firft-fruits of the Children of Ifrael WERE, and, therefore, to be redeemed; but enemies taken in battle, to whom no quarter had been given; and whose lives, by the Law of Arms, were at the difpofal of the Conqueror. M. Voltaire's ignorance of the Law of Mofes, which occafions him to mistake a MILITARY EXECUTION for a RELIGIOUS SACRIFICE, might have * Lev. xxvii. 29. been been well excufed, had he forborne to abuse what he did not understand. But to know his Virgil no better is a difgrace indeed. દ "Quis ILLAUDATI nefcit Bufiridis aras?" fays the great Poet, in plain deteftation of human Sacrifices. Yet in the funeral Rites of Pallas, directed by the Hero of the Poem (the Model of Religious Piety and civil wisdom) the captives taken in war are flain at the lighted Pile, without the leaft mark of the Poet's cenfure or disapprobation "Vinxerat, et poft terga manus quos mitteret "" umbris "Inferias, cæfo fparfuros fanguine flammam." For their lives were forfeited by the Law of Arms, and only taken with a little more ceremony than is, at prefent, in ufe: the military execution being often performed at, Tombs and Altars for in the Pagan World, Superftition had occafioned a confused mixture of things, facred and prophane. But in the Jewish Republic, where the Church and State were incorporated, this commixture made no other confufion than what arifes from the mistakes of Men, ignorant of the nature of that Sacred Oeconomy. Their God was their King; and |