Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • John Beaumont
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    198/226 (page 184)
    root out all the Prepoffeffions and unreafonable Pre¬ judices which are fix’d in the Minds of Children ; fo that, when the young Men come to themfelves again, their Reafon may ad freely without being byafs’d by the Cheats otCuftom and Education. Thus alfo they become difcharged from the Remembrance of anyTyes of Blood, and are eftablifhed in a State of Equality and perfed Freedom to order their Adions, and difpofe of their Perfons as they think fit, with¬ out any other Controul than that of the Law of Nature. By this means alfo they become qualified, when they have any publick Office, equally and im¬ partially to adminifter Juftice, without having refped either to Friend or Relation. So far Mr .Beverly. Mr. Purchas, in the fourth Part of his Pilgrimage, L. i. c. 6. gives us fome farther Account relating to this Pradice in Virginia, to whom, for brevity fake, I refer the Reader. Garcilijfa de la Vega, in his Hiflory of the Tncas cf Peru, L. 6. c. 24. gives a Relation of a Pradice fome what like the foregoing, where he writes of the Ceremonies obferved in conferring Knighthood on the young Tncas, wrhich Honour rendred them capa¬ ble of all Imployments, both Military and Civil, and without which they were not allow’d capable of either. I refer you likewife to the Author. I have given you the foregoing Inftances of the Pradices ufed by the Americans for fubduing the luxuriant Spirit of Man, and bringing it to a new State, which, as it carries fome remote Refemblance to the Work of Regeneration, fo it feems to have no fmall Agreement with what has been pradifed among the Gentiles in the other parts of the World; who, in the Rites they ufed in their Expiations, and my- fticai Regenerations, pretended, as the Americans did, to fet the Mind of Man on a new foot, after its being purged and cleared of the vicious Habits contraded by it, through evil Impreffions and Pre- poffeffions^