perience, and to that have added their own serious reflections; such men as these, in a well-ordered state, deserve to be highly rewarded and distinguished, as the Holy Spirit itself signifies to us in the sacred writings: "The skill of the physician shall lift up his head; and in the sight of great men he shall be in adnuration :"* since all their labours, lucubrations, and watchings, are de voted to the people's health, which of all human blessings is the dearest and most valuable. And yet this blessing is what mankind are the least careful to preserve. They do not only destroy it by riot and excess, but, through a blind credulity, they foolishly intrust it with persons of no skill or experience, who impose upon them by their imprudence and presumption, or seduce them by their flattering assurances of infallible recovery.t

SECTION IV.-ASTRONOMY.

As much as the Grecians desired to be esteemed the authors and inventors of all arts and sciences, they could never absolutely deny the Babylonians the honour of having laid the foundations of astronomy. The advantageous situa tion of Babylon, which was built upon a wide extended flat country, where no mountains bounded the prospect; the constant clearness and serenity of the air in that country, so favourable to the free contemplation of the heavens; perhaps also the extraordinary height of the tower of Babel, which seemed to be intended for an observatory; all these circumstances were strong motives to engage this people in a more nice observation of the various motions of the heavenly bodies and the regular course of the stars. The abbé Renaudot, in his Dissertation upon the Sphere, observes, that the plain which in Scripture is called Shinar, and in which Babylon stood, is the same that is called by the Arabians Sinjar, where the caliph Almamon, the seventh of the Habbassides, in whose reign the sciences began to flourish among the Arabians, caused the astronomical observations to be made, which for several ages directed all the astronomers of Europe; and that the sultan Gelaleddin Melikschah, the third of the Seljukides, caused a course of the like observations to be made, near three hundred years afterwards, in the same place: from whence it appears, that this place was always reckoned one of the most suitable in the world for astronomical observations.§

The ancient Babylonians could not have carried theirs to any great perfection, for want of the help of telescopes, which are of modern invention, and have greatly contributed of late years to render our astronomical inquiries more perfect and exact. Whatever they were, they have not come down to us. Epigenes, a great and credible author, according to Pliny, speaks of observations made for the space of seven hundred and twenty years, and imprinted upon squares of brick: which if it be true, must reach back to a very early antiquity. Those of which Calisthenes, a philosopher in Alexander's court, makes mention, and of which he gave Aristotle an account, include 1903 years, and consequently must commence very near the deluge, and the time of Nimrod's building the city of Babylon. ¶

We are certainly under great obligations, for which our acknowledgments are due, to the labours and curious inquiries of those who have contributed to the discovery or improvement of so useful a science; a science not only of great service to agriculture and navigation, by the knowledge it gives us of the regular course of the stars, and of the wonderful, constant, and uniform proportion of days, months, seasons, and years, but even to religion itself; with which, as Plato shows, the study of that science has a very close and necessary connexion; as it directly tends to inspire us with great reverence for the Deity, who,

Eccles. xxxviii. 3.

Palam est, ut quisque inter istos loquendo polleat, imperatorem illico vitæ nostræ necisque fieri.-Ad eo blanda est speranui pro se cuique duicedo.-Plin. l. xxix. c. 1.

A principio Assyrii propter planitiem magnitudinemque regionum quas incolebant, cum cœlum ex omm parte patens et apertum intuerentur, trajectiones motusque stellarum observaverunt.-Cic. lib. i. de Divin Memoirs of the Academy des Belles Lettres, Vol. I. Part. ii. p. 2. Porphyr. apud. Simplic. in l. ii. de cœlo.

n. 2.

Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. vii. c. 56.

with an infinite wisdom, presides over the government of the universe, and is present and attentive to all our actions.* But, at the same time, we cannot sufficiently deplore the misfortune of those very philosophers, who, by their successful application and astronomical inquiries, came very near the Creator, and were yet so unhappy as not to find him, because they did not serve and adore him as they ought to do, nor govern their actions by the rules and direc tions of that divine model.†

SECTION V.-JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY.

As to the Babylonian and other eastern philosophers, the study of the heavenly bodies was so far from leading them, as it ought to have done, to the knowledge of Him who is both their creator and governor, that for the most part it carried them into impious practices, and the extravagances of judicial astrology. So we term that deceitful and presumptuous science, which pretends to judge of things to come by the knowledge of the stars, and to foretell events by the situation of the planets, and by their different aspects. A science justly looked upon as a madness and folly by all the most sensible writers among the pagans themselves. O delirationem incredibilem! cries Cicero, in re futing the extravagant opinions of those astrologers, frequently called Chal deans, from the country that first produced them; who, in consequence of the observations made, as they affirmed, by their predecessors upon all past events for the space only of four hundred and seventy thousand years, pretend to know assuredly, by the aspect and combination of the stars and planets, at the instant of a child's birth, what would be his genius, temper, manners, the constitution of his body, his actions, and, in a word, all the events, with the duration of his life. He details a thousand absurdities of this opinion, which are sufficient to expose it to ridicule and contempt; and asks, why of all that vast number of children that are born in the same moment, and without doubt exactly under the aspect of the same stars, there are not two of them whose lives and fortunes resemble each other? He puts this farther question, whether that great number of men that perished at the battle of Canna, and died of one and the same death, were all born under the same constellations?

It is hardly credible, that so absurd an art, founded entirely upon fraud and imposture, fraudulentissima artium, as Pliny calls it, should ever acquire so much credit as this has done, throughout the whole world and in all ages. What has supported and brought it into such repute, continues that author, is the natural curiosity men have to penetrate into futurity, and to know be forehand the things that are to befall them: Nullo non avido futura de se sciendi; attended with a superstitious credulity, which is agreeably flattered with the grateful and magnificent promises of which those fortune-tellers are never sparing. Ita blandissimis desideratissimisque promissis addidit vires religionis, ad quas maxime etiamnum caligat humanum genus.§

Modern writers, and among others, two of our greatest philosophers, Gassendi and Rohault, have inveighed against the folly of that pretended science, with the same energy, and have demonstrated it to be equally void of principle and experience.||

As for its principles. The heavens, according to the system of the astrologers, are divided into twelve equal parts; which parts are taken, not according to the poles of the world, but according to those of the zodiac: these twelve parts or proportions of heaven, have each of them its attribute, as riches, knowledge, parentage, &c. The most important and decisive portion is that which is next under the horizon, and which is called the ascendant, because it is ready to ascend and appear above the horizon when a man comes into the world. The

*In Epinom. n. 989–992.

Magna industria, magna solertia: sed ibi Creatorem scrutati sunt positum non longe a se, et non inve aeruntquia quærere neglexerunt.-August. de Verb. Evang. Matth. Serm. lxviii. c. 1.

Lib. ii. de Div. n. 87, 99.

Plin. Procem. 1. xxx.

Gassendi Phys seet ü. l. 6. Rohault's Phys. part ii. ch. 27.

planets are divided into the propitious, the malignant, and the mixed: the aspects of these planets, which are only certain distances from one another, are likewise either happy or unhappy. I say nothing of several other hypotheses, which are all equally arbitrary; and I ask, whether any man of common sense can believe them upon the bare words of these impostors, without any proofs, or even without the least shadow of probability? The critical moment, and that on which all their predictions depend, is that of the birth. And why not as well the moment of conception? Why have the stars no influence during the nine months of pregnancy? Or is it possible, considering the incredible rapidity of the heavenly bodies, always to be sure of hitting the precise determinate moment, without the least variation, more or less, which is sufficient to overthrow all? A thousand other objections of the same kind might be made, which are altogether unanswerable.

As for experience, they have still less reason to flatter themselves on that side. Whatever they have of that, must consist in observations founded upon events that have always come to pass in the same manner, whenever the planets were found in the same situation. Now, it is unanimously agreed by astronomers, that several thousand years must pass before any such situation of the stars as they would imagine, can twice happen; and it is very certain, that the state in which the heavens will be to-morrow, has never yet been since the creation of the world. The reader may consult the two philosophers above mentioned, particularly Gassendi, who has more copiously treated this subject. But such, and no better, are the foundations upon which the whole structure of judicial astrology is built.

But what is astonishing, and argues an absolute want of all reason, is, that certain pretended wits, who obstinately harden themselves against the most convicting proofs of religion, and who refuse to believe even the clearest and most certain prophecies upon the word of God, do sometimes give entire credit to the vain predictions of those 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 punishes the voluntary blindness of men, by inflicting a still greater blindness; and who suffers evil spirits, that they may keep their servants still more in their nets, sometimes to foretell things which do really come to pass, and 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 Scripture revile the ignorance of the Babylonian astrologers, so much boasted of, calling them forgers of lies and falsehood: he moreover defies all the false gods to foretell any thing whatever; 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 two hundred years after that prediction; and that none of her prognosticators, who had flattered her with the assurances of a perpetual grandeur 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,

*His omnibus consideratis, non immerito creditur, cum astrologi mirabiliter multa vera respondent, occulto instinctu fieri spirituum non bonorum, quorum cura cst has falsas et noxias opiniones de astralibus fatis inserere humanis mentibus atque firmare, non horoscopi notati et inspecti aliqua arte, quæ nulla est.-De. Civ. Dei, 1, 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 prognostieators, 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."--Is. xlvii. 11-14.

Chaldeans, 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 practice, and on an occasion when it was certainly their interest to display their science and whole power.

ARTICLE IV.

RELIGION.

THE most authentic and general idolatry in the world, is that wherein the sun and moon were the objects of divine worship. This idolatry was founded upon a mistaken gratitude; which, instead of ascending up to the Deity, stopped short at the veil, which both covered and discovered him. 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 in order to testify that they would be glad to unite themselves to those false gods, 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: "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand."§

The Persians adored the sun, and particularly the rising sun, with the most profound veneration, to whom 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; of 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 among them by the name of Mithra. T

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 the 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.tt History informs us, 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 till that time, which occasioned great mourning and lamentation throughout the whole country. The Persians likewise honoured water, the earth, and the winds, as so many deities.§§

The cruel ceremony of causing children to pass through the fire, was undoubiedly 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 the Samaritans, that "they caused their children to pass through the fire. It is well known how common this barbarous custom became, in many provinces of Asia.

of

Besides these, the Persians had two gods of a more extraordinary nature, namely, Oromasdes and Arimanius. The former they looked upon as the au

* Dan. v. 2. ↑ Among the Hebrews, the ordinary name for the sun signifies a minister. Superstitiosus vulgus manum ori admovens, osculum labiis pressit. Minuc. p. 2. From thence comes the word adorare; that is to say, ad os manum admovere. The text is a kind of oath, Job xxxi. 26, 27. T2 Kings, xxiii. 11. Strab. 1. xv. p. 732. ** Ibid. Zonar. Annal. Vol. II. Her. 1. i. c. 131.

Her. 1. i. c. 131.

tt Xen. Cyrop. 1. viii. p. 215. Am. Mar. 1. xxiii Plut. in lib. de Isid. et Osirid. p. 369

thor 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 large 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 God, 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 within their cities, and thereby supposed their gods to reside among them, which was a proper way 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 or images for above a hundred and seventy years, he adds, that, if they had still preserved that ancient custom, their religion would have been the more pure and free from corruption; Quod si adhuc mansisset, castius dii observarentur; and to confirm his sentiment, he cites 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 particu lar persons to the public good, by teaching them that they ought never to sacrifice for themselves only, but for the king and the whole state, wherein every man was comprehended with the rest of his fellow-citizens.

The Magi were the guardians of all the ceremonies relating to their worship; and it was to them the people had recourse, in order to be instructed therein, and to know on what days, 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 their learning and knowledge, whether in religious or political concerns, to themselves and their families; nor was it lawful for them to instruct any strangers 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 that distinguished person. T

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, Jev Jeganεlay, gave the Magi great authority, both with the prince and the people, who could cffer no sacrifice without their presence and ministration. And before a prince in Persia could come to the crown, he was obliged to receive instruction for a certain time from some of the Magi, and to learn of them both the art of reigning, and that of worshipping the gods after a proper manner.** Nor did he determine any important affair of state, when he was upon the throne, without first taking their advice and opinion; 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.tt

*Herod. l. i. c. 131.

Cyrop. 1. viii. p. 233.

Anetoribus Magis Xerxes inflammasse templa Græciæ dicitur, quod parietibus includerunt deos, quibus omnia deberent esse patentia ac libera, quorumque hic mundus omnis templum esset et domus.-Cic. lib. ii. de Legib.

Melius Græci atque nostri, qui, ut augerent pietatem in deos, easdem illos urbes, quas nos incolere v luerunt. Adfert enim hæc opinio religionem utilem civitatibus.-Cic. lib. ii. de Legib..

il Lib. iv. de Civ. Dei, n. 31.

In Them. p. 126.

**Nec quisquam rex Persarum potest esse, qui non ante Magorum disciplinam scientiamque perceperit Co. de Divin. 1. i. n. 91.

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