say, that there is nothing so strange, but that an unrestrained superstition might have excogitated it. This solution does by no means meet the difficulty. If sacrifice had been in use only among the inhabitants of a single country, or among those of some few neighbouring countries, who might reasonably be supposed to have much mutual intercourse; no fair objection could be made to the answer. But what we have to account for is, the universality of the practice; and such a solution plainly does not account for such a circumstance; I mean not merely the existence of sacrifice, but its universality. An apparently irrational notion, struck out by a wild fanatic in one country and forthwith adopted by his fellow-citizens, (for such is the hypothesis requisite to the present solution,) is yet found to be equally prevalent in all countries. Therefore if we acquiesce in this solution, we are bound to believe, either that all nations, however remote from each other, borrowed from that of the original inventor; or that by a most marvellous subversion of the whole system of calculating chances, a great number of fanatics, severally appearing in every country upon the face of the earth, without any mutual communication, strangely hit upon the self-same arbitrary and inexplicable mode of propitiating the Deity. It is difficult to say which of the two suppositions is the most improbable. The solution therefore does not satisfactorily account for the fact of the universality. Nor can the fact, I will be bold to say, be satisfactorily accounted for, except by the supposition, that no one nation borrowed the rite from another nation, but that all alike received it from a common origin of most remote antiquity.”
Such is the account given of this disgusting practice. Very well has the Rev. Mr. Faber described it, as apparently an irrational notion struck out by a wild fanatic,—an arbitrary and inexplicable mode hit upon by fanatics of propitiating the Deity. As he justly says, why should that righteous man (meaning Abel) have imagined that he could please the Deity, by slaying a firstling lamb, and by burning it upon an altar? What connexion is there betwixt the means and the end? Abel could not but have known, that God, as a merciful God, took no pleasure in the sufferings of the lamb. How, then, are we to account for his attempting to please such a God, by what abstractedly is an act of cruelty?[1] Very true, indeed, Reverend Sir, an act of cruelty, as a type of an infinitely greater act of cruelty and injustice, in the murder, by the Creator, of his only Son, by the hands of the Jews: an act not only of injustice and cruelty to the sufferer, but an act of equal cruelty and injustice to the perpetrators of the murder, whose eyes and understandings were blinded lest they should see and not execute the murder—and lest they should repent and their sins be forgiven them. What strange beings men, in all ages, have made their Gods!!!
I cannot ascribe such things to my God. This may be will worship; but belief is not in my power. I am obliged to believe it more probable that men may lie, that priests may be guilty of selfish fraud, than that the wise and beneficent Creator can direct such irrational, fanatical, cruel proceedings, to use Mr. Faber’s words. The doctrine of the Atonement, with its concomitant dogmas, is so subversive of all morality, and is so contrary to the moral attributes of God, that it is totally incredible: as the Rev. Dr. Sykes justly observes of actions contrary to the moral attributes of God, that they are incredible even if supported by miracles themselves. However, I am happy to say that belief in this doctrine is no part of the faith declared by Jesus Christ to be necessary to salvation—no part in short of his gospel, though it may be of the gospel of Bishop Magee.
That in later times the practice of sacrifice was very general cannot be denied; but I think a time may be perceived when it did not exist, even among the Western nations. We read that it was not always pratised at Delphi. Tradition states that in the earliest time no bloody sacrifice took place there, and among the Buddhists, who are the oldest religionists of whom we have any
- ↑ See Faber, Pagan Idol. B. ii. Ch. viii. pp. 466, 482.
