gory really has place in the heathen mythology is undeniable even on the leaft reHection. CUPID the fon of VENUS; the Mufes the daughters of memory; PROMETHEUS, the wife brother, and EPIMETHEUS the foolish; HYGIEIA or the goddess of health defcended from ESCULAPIUS or the god of phyfic: Who fees not, in these, and in many other inftances, the plain traces of allegory? When a god is fuppofed to prefide over any paffion, event, or fyftem of actions, it is almost unavoidable to give him a genealogy, attributes, and adventures, fuitable to his fuppofed powers and influence; and to carry on that fimilitude and comparison, which is naturally fo agreeable to the mind of man.

ALLEGORIES, indeed, entirely perfect, we ought not to expect as the products of ignorance and fuperftition; there being no work of genius, that requires a nicer hand, or has been more rarely executed with fuccefs. That Fear and Terror are the fons of MARS is juft; but why by VENUS? That Harmony is the daughter of VENUS is regular; but why by MARS? That Sleep is the brother of Death is fuitable; but why defcribe him as enamoured of one of the Graces? And fince the antient mythologifts fall into mistakes fo grofs and obvious, we have no reason furely to expect fuch refined and long-fpun allegories, as fome have endeavored to deduce from their fictions f.

THE deities of the vulgar are fo little fuperior to human creatures, that where men are affected with ftrong fentiments of veneration or gratitude for any hero or public benefactor; nothing can be more natural than to convert him into a god, and fill the heavens, after this manner, with continual recruits from amongst mankind. Most of the divinities of the antient world are supposed to have once been men, and to have been beholden for their apotheofis to the admiration and affection of the people. And the real hiftory of their adventures, corrupted by tradition, and elevated by the marvellous, became a plentiful fource of fable; especially in paffing thro' the hands of poets, allegorifts, and priests, who fucceffively improved upon the wonder and aftonishment of the ignorant multitude.

PAINTERS too and sculptors came in for their share of profit in the facred myfteries; and furnishing men with fenfible representations of their divinities, whom they cloathed in human figures, gave great encrease to the public devotion, and determined its object. It was probably for want of these arts in rude and barbarous ages, that men deified plants, animals, and even brute, unorganized matter; and rather than be without a fenfible object of worship, affixed divinity to fuch ungainly forms. Could any ftatuary of SYRIA, in early times, have formed a just figure of APOLLO, the conic ftone, HELIOGABALUS, had never become the object of fuch profound adoration, and been received as a reprefentation of the folar deity.

HESIOD. Theog. 1.935

dId. ibid. & PLUT. in vita PELOP.

• ILIAD. xiv. 267.

f LUCRETIUS was plainly feduced by the ftrong appearance of allegory, which is obfervable in the pagan fictions. He firft addreffes himself to VENUS as to that generating power, which animates, renews, and beautifies the universe: But is foon betrayed by the mythology into incoherencies, while he prays to that allegorical perfonage to ap3

peafe the furies of her lover MARS: An idea not drawn from allegory, but from the popular religion, and which LUCRETIUS, as an EPICUREAN, could not confiftently admit of.

HERODIAN. lib. v. JUPITER AMMON is reprefented by CURTIUS as a deity of the fame kind, lib. iv. cap. 7. The ARABIANS and PESSINUNTIANS adored also shapeless, unformed stones as their deity. ARNOB. lib: vi. So much did their folly exceed that of the EGYPTIANS.

STILPO

STILPO was banished by the council of AREOPAGUS, for affirming that the MINERVA in the citadel was no divinity; but the workmanship of PHIDIAS, the fculptor. What degree of reafon may we expect in the religious belief of the vulgar in other nations; when ATHENIANS and AREOPAGITES could entertain fuch grofs conceptions?

THESE then are the general principles of polytheism, founded in human nature, and little or nothing dependent on caprice and accident. As the causes, which bestow on us happiness or mifery, are, in general, very unknown and uncertain, our anxious concern endeavors to attain a determinate idea of them; and finds no better expedient than to represent them as intelligent, voluntary agents, like ourfelves; only fomewhat fuperior in power and wifdom. The limited influence of thefe agents, and their great proximity to human weakness, introduce the various diftribution and divifion of their authority; and thereby give rise to allegory. The fame principles naturally deify mortals, fuperior in power, courage, or understanding, and produce hero-worship; together with fabulous hiftory and mythological tradition, in all its wild and unaccountable forms. And as an invisible fpiritual intelligence is an object too refined for vulgar apprehenfion, men naturally affix it to fome fenfible representation; fuch as either the more confpicuous parts of nature, or the ftatues, images, and pictures, which a more refined age forms of its divinities.

ALMOST all idolaters, of whatever age or country, concur in these general principles and conceptions; and even the particular characters and provinces, which they affign to their deities, are not extremely different. The GREEK and ROMAN travellers and conquerors, without much difficulty, found their own deities every where; and faid, this is MERCURY, that VENUS; this MARS, that NEPTUNE; by whatever titles the ftrange gods may be denominated. The goddess HERTHA of our SAXON ancestors feems to be no other, according to TACITUS, than the Mater Tellus of the ROMANS; and his conjecture was evidently juft.

SECT. VI. Origin of Theifm from Polytheism.

THE doctrine of one fupreme deity, the author of nature, is very antient, has fpred itself over great and populous nations, and among them has been embraced by all ranks and conditions of perfons: But whoever thinks that it has owed its fuccefs to the prevalent force of those invincible reasons, on which it is undoubtedly founded, would fhow himself little acquainted with the ignorance and stupidity of the people, and their incurable prejudices in favor of their particular fuperstitions. Even at this day, and in EUROPE, afk any of the vulgar, why he believes in an omnipotent creator of the world; he will never mention the beauty of final caufes, of which he is wholly ignorant: He will not hold out his hand, and bid you contemplate the fuppleness and variety of joints in his fingers, their bending all one way, the counterpoife which they receive from the thumb, the softness and fleshly parts of the infide of his hand, with all the other circumstances, which

h DIOG. LAERT. lib. ii. bello Gallico, lib. vi.

4

iSee CESAR of the religion of the GAULS, De * De moribus GERM.

render

render that member fit for the ufe, to which it was deftined. To thefe he has been long accustomed; and he beholds them with liftleffnefs and unconcern. He will tell you of the fudden and unexpected death of fuch a one: The fall and bruife of fuch another: The exceffive drought of this feafon: The cold and rains of another. These he afcribes to the immediate operation of providence: And fuch events, as, with good reafoners, are the chief difficulties in admitting a fupreme intelligence, are with him the fole arguments for it.

MANY theifts, even the moft zealous and refined, have denied a particular providence, and have afferted, that the Sovereign mind or first principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted courfe to thefe laws, and difturbs not, at every turn, the fettled order of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connexion, say they, and rigid obfervance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theifm; and from the fame principles are enabled to answer the principal objections against it. But fo little is this understood by the generality of mankind, that, wherever they obferve any one to afcribe all events to natu ral caufes, and to remove the particular interpofal of a deity, they are apt to fufpect him of the groffeft infidelity. A little philofophy, fays my lord BACON, makes men atheists: A great deal reconciles them to religion. For men, being taught, by fuperftitious prejudices, to lay the ftrefs on a wrong place; when that fails them, and they discover, by a little reflection, that the course of nature is regular and uniform, their whole faith totters, and falls to ruin. But being taught, by more reflection, that this very regularity and uniformity is the strongest proof of defign and of a fupreme intelligence, they return to that belief, which they had deferted; and they are now able to establish it on a firmer and more durable foundation.

CONVULSIONS in nature, diforders, prodigies, miracles, tho' the moft oppofite to the plan of a wife fuperintendent, imprefs mankind with the ftrongest fentiments of religion; the causes of events feeming then the most unknown and unaccountable. Madnefs, fury, rage, and an inflamed imagination, tho' they fink men nearest the level of beafts, are, for a like reason, often supposed to be the only difpofitions, in which we can have any immediate communication with the Deity.

We may conclude, therefore, upon the whole, that fince the vulgar, in nations, which have embraced the doctrine of theifm, ftill build it upon irrational and fuperftitious opinions, they are never led into that opinion by any process of argument, but by a certain train of thinking, more fuitable to their genius and capacity.

Ir may readily happen, in an idolatrous nation, that, tho' men admit the existence of feveral limited deities, yet may there be fome one God, whom, in a particular manner, they make the object of their worship and adoration. They may either fuppofe, that, in the diftribution of power and territory among the gods, their nation was fubjected to the jurifdiction of that particular deity; or reducing heavenly objects to the model of things below, they may reprefent one god as the prince or fupreme magiftrate of the reft, who, tho' of the fame nature, rules them with an authority, like that which an earthly fovereign exercises over his fubjects and vaffals. Whether this god, therefore, be confidered as their peculiar patron, or as

Ttt

the

the general fovereign of heaven, his votaries will endeavor, by every act, to infinuate themselves into his favor; and fuppofing him to be pleafed, like themselves, with praise and flattery, there is no eulogy or exaggeration, which will be fpared in their addreffes to him. In proportion as men's fears or diftreffes become more urgent, they ftill invent new ftrains of adulation; and even he who out-does his predeceffors in fwelling up the titles of his divinity, is fure to be outdone by his fucceffors in newer and more pompous epithets of praise. Thus they proceed; till at laft they arrive at infinity itfelf, beyond which there is no farther progrefs: And it is well, if, in ftriving to get farther, and to reprefent a magnificent fimplicity, they run not into inexplicable mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of their deity; on which alone any rational worship or adoration can be founded. While they confine themselves to the notion of a perfect being, the creator of the world, they coincide, by chance, with the principles of reason and true philosophy; tho' they are guided to that notion, not by reafon, of which they are in a great measure incapable, but by the adulation and fears of the most vulgar fuperftition.

WE often find, amongst barbarous nations, and even fometimes amongst civilized, that, when every ftrain of flattery has been exhausted towards arbitrary princes, when every human quality has been applauded to the utmoft; their fervile courtiers reprefent them, at laft, as real divinities, and point them out to the people as objects of adoration. How much more natural, therefore, is it, that a limited deity, who at firft is fuppofed only the immediate author of the particular goods and ills in life, should in the end be represented as fovereign maker and modifier of the universe?

EVEN where this notion of a fupreme deity is already eftablished; tho' it ought naturally to leffen every other worship, and abafe every object of reverence, yet if a nation has entertained the opinion of a fubordinate tutelar divinity, faint, or angel; their addreffes to that being gradually rife upon them, and encroach on the adoration due to their fupreme deity. The Virgin Mary, ere checked by the reformation, had proceeded, from being merely a good woman to ufurp many attributes of the Almighty": God and St. NICHOLAS go hand in hand, in all the prayers and petitions of the MUSCOVITES.

THUS the deity, who, from love, converted himself into a bull, in order to carry off EUROPA; and who, from ambition, dethroned his father, SATURN, became the OPTIMUS MAXIMUS of the heathens. Thus, notwithstanding the fublime ideas fuggefted by Moses and the infpired writers, many vulgar Jews feem still to have conceived the fupreme Being as a mere topical deity or national pro

tector.

"The JACORIN, who denied the immaculate conception, have ever been very unhappy in their doctrine, even tho' political reafons have kept the Romish church from condemning it. The CORDELIERS have run away with all the popularity. But in the fifteenth century, as we learn from BOULAINVILLIERS,, an ITALIAN Cordelier maintained, that, during the three days, when CHRIST was interred, the hypoftatic union was diffolved,

and that his human nature was not a proper object of adoration, during that period. Without the art of divination, one might foretel, that fo grofs. and impious a blafphemy would not fail to be. anathematized by the people. It was the occafion of great infults on the part of the JACOBINS ; who now got fome recompence for their misfortunes in the war about the immaculate conception. See Hiftoire abregée, pag. 499.

RATHER

RATHER than relinquish this propenfity to adulation, religionists, in all ages, have involved themselves in the greateft a bfurdities and contradictions.

HOMER, in one paffage, calls OCEANUS and TETHYS the original parents of all things, conformable to the established mythology and tradition of the GREEKS: Yet, in other paffages, he could not forbear complimenting JUPITER, the reigning deity, with that magnificent appellation; and accordingly denominates him the father of gods and men. He forgets, that every temple, every street was full of the ancestors, uncles, brothers, and fifters of this JUPITER; who was in reality nothing but an upftart parricide and ufurper. A like contradiction is obfervable in HESIOD; and is fo much the lefs excufable, that his profeffed intention was to deliver a true genealogy of the gods.

WERE there a religion (and we may fufpect Mahometanism of this inconfiftence) which fometimes painted the Deity in the most fublime colors, as the creator of heaven and earth; fometimes degraded him nearly to a level with human creatures in his powers and faculties; while at the fame time it afcribed to him fuitable infirmities, paffions, and partialities of the moral kind: that religion, after it was extinct, would alfo be cited as an inftance of thofe contradictions, which arife from the grofs, vulgar, natural conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propensity towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more ftrongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and happily this is the cafe with Chriftianity) that it is free from a contradiction, fo incident to human nature,

SECT. VII. Confirmation of this Doctrine.

Ir appears certain, that, tho' the original notions of the vulgar reprefent the Divinity as a very limited being, and confider him only as the particular caufe of health or fickness; plenty or want; profperity or adverfity; yet when more magnificent ideas are urged upon them, they esteem it dangerous to refuse their affent. Will you fay, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may be overcome by a greater force; is fubject to human paffions, pains and infirmities; has a beginning, and may have an end? This they dare not affirm; but thinking it fafeft to comply with the higher encomiums, they endeavor, by an affected ravifhment and devotion, to ingratiate themselves with him. As a confirmation of this, we may observe, that the affent of the vulgar is, in this cafe, merely verbal, and that they are incapable of conceiving thofe fublime qualities, which they feemingly attribute to the Deity. Their real idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language, is ftill as poor and frivolous as ever.

THAT original intelligence, fay the MAGIANS, who is the firft principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the fun as his image in the vifible univerfe; and when that bright luminary diffufes its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory, which refides in the higher heavens. If you would efcape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to fet your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even tho' it were confuming a Tit 2

whole