Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/251

Rh ages, between the Ecclesiastical and Civil Law. Mankind have in a thousand instances been suspended between the crimes of sacrilege and high treason, and the distinctions of right and wrong have been buried in a chaos, from which they are not yet emerged.

Confession of sins hath been authorized in all times and in all nations. The antients accused themselves in the mysteries of Orpheus, of Isis, of Ceres, of Samothrace. The Jews confessed their sins on the day of solemn expiation, and still continue the same practice. Each penitent chuses his confessor, who becomes his penitent in turn, and each receives from his companion thirty-nine lashes whilst he is repeating, three times, the formule of confession, which consists only in thirteen words, and which consequently must be general.

None of these confessions were particular, and consequently could never serve for a pretence to those secret consultations, under the shadow of which fanatical penitents