Numina!——
But this is nothing to what has been done in America fourteen hundred years after the time of Juvenal. If the portentous worship of the Mexicans had been known in his days, he would not have thought it worth his while to take notice of the Egyptians. I have often admired at the uncommon pains those poor people must have taken to express the frightful and shocking, as well as bizarre and unutterable notions they entertained of the superlative malice and hellish implacable nature of their vitzliputzli, to whom they sacrificed the hearts of men, cut out whilst they were alive. The monstrous figure and laboured deformity of that abominable idol, are a lively representation of the direful ideas those wretches framed to themselves of an invisible over-ruling power; and plainly show us, how horrid and execrable they thought it to be, at the same time that they paid it the highest adoration; and at the expence of human blood endeavoured, with fear and trembling, if not to appease the wrath and rage of it, at least to avert, in some measure, the manifold mischiefs they apprehended from it.
Hor. Nothing, I must own, can render declaiming against idolatry more seasonable than a reflection upon the second commandment: But as what you have been saying required no great attention, I have been thinking of something else. Thinking on the purport of the third commandment, furnishes me with an objection, and I think a strong one, to what you have affirmed about all laws in general, and the decalogue in particular. You know I urged that it was wrong to ascribe the faults of bad men to human nature in general.
Cleo. I do; and thought I had answered you.
Hor. Let me try only once more. Which of the two, pray, do you think profane swearing to proceed from, a frailty in our nature, or an ill custom generally contracted by keeping of bad company?
Hor. Then it is evident to me, that this law is levelled at the bad men only, that are guilty of the vice forbid in it; and not any frailty belonging to human nature in general.
Cleo. I believe you mistake the design of this law; and am of opinion, that it has a much higher aim than you seem to imagine. You remember my saying, that reverence to authority was necessary, to make human creatures governable.
Hor. Very well; and that reverence was a compound of fear, love, and esteem.
Cleo. Now let us take a view of what is done in the decalogue: In the short preamble to it, expressly made that the Israelites should know who it was that spoke to them, God manifests himself to those whom he had chosen for his people, by a most remarkable instance of his own great power, and their strong obligation to him, in a fact, that none of them could be ignorant of. There is a plainness and grandeur withal in this sentence, than which nothing can be more truly sublime or majestic; and I defy the learned world to show me another as comprehensive, and of equal weight and dignity, that so fully executes its purpose, and answers its design with the same simplicity of words. In that part of the second commandment, which contains the motives and inducements why men should obey the Divine laws, are set forth in the most emphatical manner: First, God’s wrath on those that hate him, and the continuance of it on their posterity: Secondly, the wide extent of his mercy to those who love him and keep his commandments. If we duly consider these passages, we shall find, that fear, as well as love, and the highest esteem, are plainly and distinctly inculcated in them; and that the best method is made use of there, to inspire men with a deep sense of the three ingredients that make up the compound of reverence. The reason is plain: If people were to be governed by that body of laws, nothing was more necessary to enforce their obedience to them, than their awful regard and utmost veneration to him, at whose command they were to keep them, and to whom they were accountable for the breaking of them.