And as an invifible 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 statues, images, and pictures, which a more refined age forms of its divinities.

Almost all idolaters, of whatever age or country, concur in thefe 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 title the ftrange gods might not be denominated. The goddess

Hertha of our Saxon ancestors feems to be no other, according to Tacitus t, 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 ancient, has fpread itself over great and populous nations, and among them has been embraced by all ranks and conditions of men: 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 ftupidity of the people, and their incurable prejudices in favour of their particular fuperftitions. Even at this day, and in Europe, afk any of the vulgar, why he believes in omnipotent creator of the world; he will never

mention

* See Cæfar of the religion of the Gauls, De bello Gallico, lib. xi. + De moribus Germ.

mention the beauty of final caufes, of which he is wholly ignorant: He will not hold out his hand, and bid you contemplate the fupplenefs and variiety of joints in his fingers, their bending all one way, the counterpoife which they receive from the thumb, the foftnefs and fleshy parts of the infide of his hand, with all the other circumftances, which render that member fit for the use, to which it was deftined. To thefe he has been long accustomed: and he beholds them with liftleffness 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. Thefe 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 most zealous and refined, have denied a particular providence, and have afferted, that the Sovereign mind or firft 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, fay they, and rigid obfervance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theism; and from the fame principles are enabled to anfwer the principal objections against it. But fo little is this understood by the generality of mankind, that, wherever they obferve any one to affcribe all events to natural caufes, and to remove the particular interpofition of a deity, they are apt to fufpect him of the groffeft infidelity. A little philofophy, fays lord Bacon, makes men atheists: A great deal reconciles them to religion. For men, being taught, by fuperftitious prejudices, to lay

the

the stress 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 design 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.

Convulfions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though the most oppofite to the plan of a wife fuperintendent, imprefs mankind with the strongest fentiments of religion; the caufes of events feeming then the most unknown and unaccountable. Madness, fury, rage, and an inflamed imagination, though they fink men nearcit to 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 principles, they are never led into that opinion by any procefs of argument, but by a certain train of thinking, more fuitable to their genius. and capacity.

It may readily happen, in an idolatrous nation, though men admit the existence of feveral limited deities, yet is there 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 subjected 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, though

though 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 the general fovereign of heaven, his votaries will endeavour, by every art, to infinuate themselves into his favour; and fuppofing him to be pleased, like themfelves, with praife 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 outdoes his predeceffor in fwelling up the titles of his divinity, is fure to be outdone by his fucceffor in newer and more pompous epithets of praife. Thus they proceed; till at laft they arrive at infinity itself, beyond which there is no farther progrefs: And it is well, if, in ftriving to get farther, and to represent a magnificent fimplicity, they run not into inexplicable myftery, 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 reafon and true philosophy; though 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 exhaufted towards arbitrary princes, when every human quality has been applauded to the utmoft; their fervile courtiers represent them, at laft, as real divinities, and point them out to the people as objects of adoraHow much more natural, therefore, is it, that a limited deity, who at firft is fuppofed only

tion.

the

the immediate author of the particular goods and ills in life, fhould in the end bé reprefented as fovereign maker and modifier of the univerfe?

Even where this notion of a fupreme deity is already established; though it ought naturally to leffen every other worship, and abase 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 himfelf 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, the God of Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, became the fupreme deity or Jehovah of the Jews.

The

The Jacobins, who deny the immaculate conception, have ever been very unhappy in their doctrine, even though political reafons have kept the Romish church from condemning it. 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 Chrift 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 anathema

* Hiftoire abregée, p. 499.

tized