fible, when the manners and cuftoms of Abyffinia were to them utterly unknown. The Jefuits, established in Abyffinia for above a hundred years, had told them of that people eating, what they call raw meat, in every page; and if any wri ter upon Ethiopia had omitted to mention it, it was because it was one of thofe facts too notorious to be repeated.

It must be from prejudice alone we condemn the eating of raw flesh; no precept, divine or human, that I know, forbids it; and if it is true, as later travellers have discovered, that there are nations ignorant of the ufe of fire, any law againft eating raw flesh could never have been intended as obligatory upon mankind in general. At any rate, it is certainly not clearly known, whether the eating raw flesh was not an earlier and more general practice than by preparing it with fire; I think it was.

Many wife and learned men have doubted whether it was at first permitted to man to eat animal food at all. I do not pretend to give any opinion upon the fubje&t, but many topics have been maintained fuccefsfully upon much more lender grounds. God, the author of life, and the bell judge of what was proper to maintain it, gave this regimen to our first parents Behold, I have given you every herb hearing feed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed: to you it fhall be for meat." Gen. i. 29. And though, immediately after, he mentions both beafts and fowls, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, he does not fay that he has defigned any of thefe as meat for man. On the contrary, he seems to have intended the vegetable creation as food for both man and bealt-"And to every beaft of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was fo." Gen. i. 30. After the flod, when mankind began to repoffefs the earth, God gave Noah a much more extenfive permiffion-" Every moving thing that liveth fhall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." Gen. ix. 3.

As the criterion of judging of their aptitude for food was declared to be their moving and having life, a danger appeared of mifinterpretation, and that thefe creatures thould be ufed living; a thing which God by no means intended, and therefore, immediately after, it is faid, "But fleth with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, fhall you not eat;" Gen. ix. 4. or, as it is rendered by the beft interpreters, "Flesh, or members, torn from living animals having the "blood in them, thou shalt not eat." We fee then, by this prohibition, that the abufe of eating living meat, or part, of Animals while yet alive, was known in the days of Noah.

and

and forbidden after being fo known, and it is precifely what is practifed in Abyffinia to this day. This law was. prior to that of Mofes, but it came from the fame legiflator. It was given to Noah, and confequently obligatory upon the whole world. Mofes, however, infifts upon it throughout his whole law; which not only fhews that this abuse was common, but that it was deeply rooted in, and interwoven with, the manners of the Hebrews. He pofitively prohibits it four times in one chapter in Deuteronomy, and thrice in one of the chapters of Leviticus-"Thou shalt not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; thou shalt pour it upon the earth like water." Deut. xii. Lev. xvii.

Although the many inftances of God's tenderness to the brute creation, that conftantly occur in the Mofaical precepts, and are a very beautiful part of them, and though the barba rity of the custom itself might reasonably lead us to think that humanity alone was a fufficient motive for the prohibition of eating animals alive, yet nothing can be more certain, than that greater confequences were annexed to the indulging in this crime than what was apprehended from a mere depravity of manners. One of the most learned and fenfible men that ever wrote upon the facred fcriptures obferves, that God, in forbidding this practice, ufes more fevere certification, and more threatening language, than against any other fin, excepting idolatry, with which it is conftantly joined. declares, "I will fet my face against him that eateth blood, in the fame manner as I will against him that facrificeth his fon to Moloch; I will fet my face against him that eateth flesh with blood, till I cut him off from the people." Lev. xvii. 10.

God

We have an inflance in the life of Sault that fhews the propenfity of the Ifraelites to this crime. Saul's army, after a battle, flew, that is, fell voraciously upon the cattle they had taken, and threw them upon the ground to cut off their flesh, and eat them raw, fo that the army was defiled by eating blood, or living animals. To prevent this, Saul caufed roll to him a great flone, and ordered those that killed their oxen to cut their throats upon that stone. This was the only lawful way of killing animals for food; the tying of the ox and throwing t upon the ground was not permitted as equivalent. The Ifraelites did probably in that cafe as the Abyffinians do at this day; they cut a part of its throat, fo that blood might be teen upon the ground, but nothing mortal to the animal followed from that wound. But, after laying his head upon a large ftone, and cutting his throat, the blood fell from on high, or was poured on the ground like water, and fufficient evidence appeared that the creature was Maimon, more. Nebochim. † Sam, xiv. 32. 33.

dead,

dead, before they attempted to eat it. The Abyffinians came from Paleffine a very few years after this; and there can be no doubt but that they carried with them this, with many other Jewish cuftoms, which they have continued to this day.

The author I laft quoted fays, that it is plain, from all the books of the caftern nations, that their motive for eating flefh with the life, or limbs of living animals cut off with the blood, was the purposes of idolatry, and fo it probably had been among the Jews; for one of the reafons given in Leviticus. for the prohibition of eating blood, or living flefh, is, that the people may no longer offer facrifices to devils, after whom they have gone a-whoring. Lev: xvii. 7.

That this practice likewife prevailed in Europe, as well as in Afia and Africa, may be collected from various authors. The Greeks had their bloody feafts and facrifices where they ate living flesh; thefe were called Omophagia. Arnobius

fays, "Let us pafs over the horrid fcenes prefented at the Bacchanalian feaft, wherein, with a counterfeited fury, though with a truly depraved heart, you twine a number of ferpents around you, and, pretending to be poffeffed with fome god, or fpirit, you tear to pieces, with bloody mouths, the bowels of living goats, which cry all the time from the torture they fuffer." From all this it appears, that the practice of the Abyffinians eating live animals at this day, was very far from being new, or impoffible.

I cannot avoid giving fome account of this Polyphemus banquet, as far as decency will pernit me. In the capital, where one is fafe from furprife at all times, or in the country villages, when the rains have become fo conftant that the val leys will not bear a horse to pass them, or that men cannot venture far from home through fear of being furrounded and fwept away by temporary torrents, occafioned by fudden fhowers on the mountains; a number of people of the belt fashion in the villages, of both fexes, courtiers in the palace, or citizens in the town, mect together to dine between twelve and one o'clock.

A long table is fet in the middle of a large room, and benches befide it for a number of guests who are invited. A cow or bull, one or more, as the company is numerous, is brought close to the door, and his feet ftrongly tied. The fkin that hangs down under his chin and throat, which I think we call the dew-lap in England, is cut only fo deep as to arrive at the fat, of which it totally confifts, and, by the feparation of a few fmall blood-veffels, fix or feven diops of blood only fall upon the ground. They have no flone, bench, nor altar upon which thefe cruel affaffins lay the animal's head in this operation. I fhould beg his pardon indeed for calling him an affaffin, as he is not fo merciful as to aim at

the

employed. Indeed, if we can depend on the juflnefs of the accounts which remain of the oldeft fectaries, there were fome who went greater lengths in this way than even Marcion.

Before I finish this topic, it will naturally occur to enquire, What that is, in particular, which our Lord denomina es blafphemy against the Holy Spirit? * It is foreign from my prefent purpose, to enter minutely into the difcuffion of this difficult queftion. Let it fuffice here to observe, that this blafphemy is certainly not of the conftructive kind, but &, manifeft, and malignant. Firft, it is mentioned as co

hended under the famne genus with abuse against man, and contradiftinguished only by the object. Secondly, it is further explained, by being called Speaking against, in both cafes. Ος αν ειπη λόγον κατα τα ύιου του ανθρώπου, ός δ' αν ειπη κατά του πνεύματος του αγίου. The expreflions are the fame, in effect, in all the Evangelifls who mention it, and imply fuch an oppofition as is both intentional and malevolent. This cannot have been the cafe with all who difbelieved the miffion of Jesus, and even decried his miracles; many of whom, we have reafon to think, were afterwards converted by the Apoftles. But it is not impoffible, that it may have been the wretched cafe of fome who, inftigated by worldly ambition and avarice, have flandered what they knew to be the caufe of God, and against conviction, reviled his work as the operation of evil fpirits.

* Mat. xii. 31. Mark, iii. 28. Luke, xii. 10.

Mr. BRUCE'S Account of a deteflable practice among the Abyffinians of eating live Flesh; and which, perhaps, elucidates the justice and propriety of the divine command against eating Blood.

N unnatural cuftom prevails univerfally in Abyffinia,
A and which in early age feems to have been commun

to the whole world. I did not think that any person of mo-
derate knowledge in profane learning could have been igno-
rant of this remarkable custom among the nations of the east.
But what fill more furprifed me, was the ignorance of part
of the law of God, the earlieft that was given to man, the
most frequently noted, infifted upon, and prohibited. I have
faid, in the courfe of the narrative of my journey from Ma-
fuah, that, a fmall distance from Axum, I overtook on the
three travellers, who feemed to be foldiers, driving a cow
way
before them. They halted at a brook, threw down the beaft,
and one of them cut a pretty large collop of flesh from its
buttocks, after which they drove the cow gently on as before.
A violent outcry was raifed in England at hearing this cir-
cumftance, which they did not hesitate to pronounce impof

fible,

file, when the manners and cuftoms of Abyffinia were to them utterly unknown. The Jefuits, established in Abyffinia for above a hundred years, had told them of that people eating, what they call raw meat, in every page; and if any writer upon Ethiopia had omitted to mention it, it was because it was one of thofe facts too notorious to be repeated.

It must be from prejudice alone we condemn the eating of raw flesh; no precept, divine or human, that I know, for bids it; and if it is true, as later travellers have difcovered, that there are nations ignorant of the ufe of fire, any law againft eating raw flesh could never have been intended as obligatory upon mankind in general. At any rate, it is cer tainly not clearly known, whether the eating raw flesh was not an earlier and more general practice than by preparing it with fire; I think it was.

Many wife and learned men have doubted whether it was at first permitted to man to eat animal food at all. I do not pretend to give any opinion upon the fubje&t, but many topics have been maintained fuccefsfully upon much more flender grounds. God, the author of life, and the bell judge of what was proper to maintain it, gave this regimen to our first parents Behold, I have given you every herb bearing feed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed: to you it fhall be for meat." Gen. i. 29. And though, immediately after, he mentions both beafts and fowls, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, he does not fay that he has defigned any of thefe as meat for man. On the contrary, he seems to have intended the vegetable creation as food for both man and bealt-" And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was fo." Gen. i. 30. After the flood, when mankind began to repoffefs the earth, God gave Noah a much more extenfive permiffion-" Every moving thing that liveth fhall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." Gen. ix. 3.

As the criterion of judging of their aptitude for food was declared to be their moving and having life, a danger appeared of mifinterpretation, and that thefe creatures thould be used living; a thing which God by no means intended, and therefore, immediately after, it is faid, "But fleth with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, thall you not eat;" Gen. ix. 4. or, as it is rendered by the beft interpreters, "Flesh, or members, torn from living animals having the "blood in them, thou shalt not eat." We fee then, by this prohibition, that the abufe of eating living meat, or part of Animals while yet alive, was known in the days of Noah.

and