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. Rather than relinquish this propenfity to adulation, religionists, in all ages, have involved themselves in the greatest abfurdities and contradictions. HOMER, in one paffage, calls OCEANUS and TETHYS the original parents of all things, conformably 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 ap pellation; 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 less excufable, as his profeffed intention was to deliver a true genealogy of the gods. Were there a religion (and we may fufpe&t Mahome, tanism of this inconfiftence) which fometimes painted the Deity in the most fublime colours 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 ascribed to him fuitable infirmities, paffions, and partialities, of the moral kind: That religion, after it was extinct, would also be cited as an inftance of those contradictions, which arife from the grofs, vulgar, natural conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propenfity towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more ftrongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and (and happily this is the cafe with Christianity) that it is free from a contradiction, fo incident to human nature. SECT. VII. Confirmation of this Doctrine. Ir appears certain, that, though the original notions of the vulgar represent the Divinity as a limited being, and confider him only as the particular cause of health or fickness; plenty or want; profperity or adverfity; yet when more magnificent ideas are urged upon them, they efteem it dangerous to refuse their affent. Will you say, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may be overcome by a greater force; is subject 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 endeavour, by an affected ravishment and devotion, to ingratiate themselves with him. As a confirmation of this, we may obferve, that the affent of the vulgar is, in this cafe, merely verbal, and that they are incapable of conceiving those fublime qualities, which they seemingly 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 first principle of all things, difcovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the fun as his image in the visible 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 escape the displeasure of this Divine Being, you must be careful never to fet your bare foot upon the ground, nor fpit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were confuming confuming a whole city*. Who can exprefs the perfections of the Almighty? fay the MAHOMETANS. Even the nobleft of his works, if compared to him, are but duft and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall fhort of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour render men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of fkin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth†, fay the Roman Catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half fquare, join them by the corners with two ftrings or pieces of tape about fixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that Infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity. The GETES, commonly called immortal, from their fteady belief of the foul's immortality, were genuine theists and unitarians. They affirmed ZAMOLXIS, their deity, to be the only true god; and afferted the worship of all other nations to be addreffed to mere fictions and chimeras. But were their religious principles any more refined, on account of these magnificent pretenfions? Every fifth year they facrificed a human victim, whom they fent as a meffenger to their deity, in order to inform him of their wants and neceffities. And when it thundered, they were so provoked, that, in order to return the defiance, they let fly arrows at him, and declined not the combat as unequal. Such at least is the ac count, which HERODOTUS gives of the theism of the im mortal GETEST. *HYDE de Relig, veterum PERSARUM. † Called the Scapulaire. VOL. II. Lib. iv. Ff SECT. SECT. VIII. Flux and reflux of Polytheism and Theism. Ir is remarkable, that the principles of religion have a kind of flux and reflux in the human mind, and that men have a natural tendency to rife from idolatry to theifm, and to fink again from theifm into idolatry. The vulgar, that is, indeed, all mankind, a few excepted, being ignorant and uninftructed, never elevate their contemplation to the heavens, or penetrate by their difquifitions into the fecret ftructure of vegetable or animal bodies; fo far as to difcover a Supreme Mind or Origi. nal Providence, which bestowed order on every part of nature. They confider these admirable works in a more confined and selfish view; and finding their own happinefs and mifery to depend on the fecret influence and unforeseen concurrence of external objects, they regard, with perpetual attention, the unknown caufes, which govern all these natural events, and distribute pleasure and pain, good and ill, by their powerful, but filent, operation. The unknown caufes are ftill appealed to on every emergence; and in this general appearance or confufed image, are the perpetual objects of human hopes and fears, wishes and apprehenfions. By degrees, the active imagination of men, uneasy in this abstract conception of objects, about which it is inceffantly employed, begins to render them more particular, and to clothe them in shapes more fuitable to its natural comprehenfion. It reprefents them to be fenfible, intelligent beings, like mankind; actuated by love and hatred, and flexible by gifts and entreaties, by prayers and facrifices. Hence the origin of religion: And hence the origin of idolatry or polytheism. But the fame anxious concern for happiness, which begets the idea of these invifible, intelligent powers, allows not mankind to remain long in the firft fimple con ception ception of them; as powerful, but limited beings; malters of human fate, but flaves to destiny and the courfe of nature. Men's exaggerated praifes and compliments still swell their idea upon them; and elevating their deities to the utmost bounds of perfection, at last beget the attributes of unity and infinity, fimplicity and spirituality. Such refined ideas, being somewhat disproportion ed to vulgar comprehenfion, remain not long in their o riginal purity; but require to be supported by the notion of inferior mediators or fubordinate agents, which interpose between mankind and their fupreme deity. These demigods or middle beings, partaking more of human nature, and being more familiar to us, become the chief objects of devotion, and gradually recal that idolatry, which had been formerly banished by the ardent prayers and panegyrics of timorous and indigent mortals. But as these idolatrous religions fall every day into groffer and more vulgar conceptions, they at last destroy themfelves, and, by the vile representations, which they form of their deities, make the tide turn again towards theism. But fo great is the propenfity, in this alternate revolution of human sentiments, to return back to idolatry, that the utmost precaution is not able effectually to prevent it. And of this, fome theifts, particularly the JEWS and MAHOMETANS, have been fenfible; as appears by their banishing all the arts of ftatuary and painting, and not allowing the reprefentations, even of human figures, to be taken by marble or colours; left the common infirmity of mankind should thence produce idolatry. The feeble apprehenfions of men cannot be satisfied with conceiving their deity as a pure spirit and perfect intelligence; and yet their natural terrors keep them from imputing to him the leaft fhadow of limitation and imperfection. They fluctuate between thefe oppofite fenti |