HISTORY OF ALL RELIGIONS, WITH EXPLANATIONS OF THE DOCTRINES AND ORDER OF WORSHIP, AS HELD AND PRACTISED BY ALL THE DENOMINATIONS OF PROFESSING CHRISTIANS; COMPREHENDING A SERIES OF RESEARCHES, EXPLANATORY OF THE OPINIONS, CUSTOMS AND REPRESENTATIVE WHICH HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST ; INCONTROVERTIBLY PROVING BY THE POSITIVE DECLARATIONS OF THE PROPHETS, THAT HE IS THE TRUE MESSIAH. BY JOHN BELLAMY, Author of the OPHION, and Biblical Criticisms in the FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY CHARLES EWER, NO. 51 CORNHILL. 1820. PREFACE. HISTORIES of the different professions of religion have been written by eminent and learned men in all civilized nations; therefore, a publication of this nature may be deemed, by some, unnecessary. A consideration of this sort would certainly have had its due weight with me, had I not found that, though in many instances the authors have succeeded, yet in others, and those very important, they have been altogether defective. No writer has attempted to give us any information respecting those circumstances and things, which took place at a more remote date, than that of the ancient Egyptians; or concerning the religions of the first nations after the flood; or the various states and descent of all the patriarchal churches from Adam to that period. It does not appear to me, that any writer can be justified in presuming to call on the attention of the reader, unless he has something hitherto undiscovered to lay before him. I trust it will be found by the learned and the intelligent reader, that I have not merited any imputation of this nature, for I should not feel myself excused in sending the following sheets to the press, if they did not contain a variety of information, which has not been made known by any writer, and which I consider a duty to lay before the public. I have avoided an appeal to opinion as conclusive, but have in these researches, confirmed what is introduced, from the Bible. Some may suppose, that we ought not to carry our inquiries, respecting these things, beyond the time of the most remote Pagan antiquity. In such case, we must stop at a later date, than that of the ancient Egyptians ; this would be shutting up the fountain of knowledge in the Egyptian labyrinth, where every thing respecting the first people, and their descendants to the flood, would be wrapt in impen etrable darkness. Here profane history gives us no light; all is uncertainty and conjecture; therefore, we are necessarily driven to the sacred pages of the Bible, which not only point out the origin of the most ancient nations, but lead us to the beginning of time, when the Almighty gave the first dispensation to man. We must, however, acknowledge our gratitude to those writers, who have laboured to give information respecting the idolatrous worship of the inhabitants of Canaan, and the surrounding nations, before the Hebrews came out of Egypt; but had they attended to the meaning of those words, which so frequently occur, the Hebrew pronunciation of which is constantly retained in the English, and also in all the European Bibles, much information would at this day have been before the world. In translating the significative nomenclature of the Hebrew, I trust I have shown, that in their original institution, they were not contrary to divine order, but were used by the most ancient people as indices pointing to knowledge in every page of the book of nature. A knowledge given to the primeval people, who gave names to creatures and things, expressive |