hand to the Sun and then smote his breast with very vehement force The English aptly interpreting this sign as an acknowledgment of the Deity of the Sun and an Oath by that Idol of fidelity and peace used the same sign themselves gaining thereby Friendship and Traffick with a few Salvage People at the expence of the most valuable thing the Honour of God Of this external Honour he is jealous and he reserved it to himself amongst the Jews whom he had espoused by express command saying Lo tischtachaveh Thou shalt not before an Image or Idol put thy Body into such a figure as is a sign of worship In the same sence ought to be interpreted the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Seventy Thou shalt not bow down the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not denoting there a meer act of the mind but of the body either by bowing of its whole frame or its head or knee or which the notation of the word particularly importeth by the kissing of the hand a common ceremony among the Gentile Idolaters and ancient as the times of Job Three ways of exhibiting such external reverence are suggested by the Psalmist where he calls upon the people to worship with prostration to bow to kneel before God their Creator For the sake of external worship solemn Days and publick Assemblies have in great part been appointed By it our Light which retained in the heart only is as a Lamp burning in a Sepulchre doth so conspicuously shine before men that it induceth them to an happy consent in glorifying God with us By it is maintain'd the visible Society of Gods Church whose outward communion is preserved by the external signs of words gestures and actions relating to the Christian Religion and making up the profession of it This Communion he in effect renounceth who pretending to the heart of a Christian hath the tongue of a Blasphemer or the gesture of an Idolater who whatsoever secret thoughts he entertaineth concerning God saith openly of him that he is not Supreme or what inward hatred soever he conceiveth against Idols sitteth in their Temples and eateth of their Sacrifice External Ceremonies as is said by the Fathers of the Synod of Rhemes are therefore appointed that by them a declaration may be made of our affection towards God And common Reason teacheth that by giving away the outward signs of worship we are prodigal of the internal Honour of God which cannot be preserved or advanced amongst Societies of men meerly by a secret and invisible Intention Hitherto I have pursued the notion of Idolatry in a positive way according to the proper nature of Worship in which the Act passeth towards the Object But it may not be amiss to take a little notice of a kind of negative impiety which precedeth this positive false-worship and to which some it may be would give the name of negative Idolatry I mean by this that denial of any thing in the Idea of God which is proper to it succeeded by a Worship of Him according to that maimed and unagreeable Idea For the Idea of God being so intire that by any diminution it becometh the Idea of something else he that first removes part of the Idea and then adores the remainder adores as God that which is not like him He for instance sake who denies the constancy of Gods knowledg of human affairs yet worships him at certain times in which he owneth him to have that knowledg after the manner of those foolish Gentiles who worshipped the Sun by day and revelled by night when they thought he saw not such a one by breaking of such a necessary part of Gods Idea as renders it not his Image and yet adoring it as such first makes an Idol and then doth it homage So the god of the Muggletonians rob'd of his Spirituality immensity subsistences what is he but their Idol The Premisses being considered it will thence follow That in giving the Honour of God supreme or subordinate to any other thing be it internal Idea or personal Principle or outward Object with respect to any supposed inherent Divine Power original or derived or to any external Relation by internal worship and by the external signs of it or by either of them consisteth the Notion of Idolatry the thing designed in this Chapter CHAP. III. Of the Causes and Occasions of Idolatry in the World IT hath appeared in the foregoing Chapter what kind of evil Idolatry is and how it hath spread it self into numberless branches In this Chapter my purpose is to proceed further and to inquire into the Root of it and to consider from what Causes and Occasions it hath sprung and on what rotten and irrational grounds it is bottom'd The general Cause of Idolatry is the degenerate estate of the Soul exerting it self in the headiness of the Will which hurrieth men to folly under the wild conduct of Imagination and Sense The Scripture calleth this distemper The vanity of the mind and to it it ascribeth the Worship of Idols Of such Worshippers St. Paul observeth That when they knew God or had means of knowing him by the reasoning of their minds excited by the beauty order and excellence of his Works of Creation and Providence they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened In this estate of moral darkness they mistook and confounded the Objects they met with and honoured the Creature instead of God It is difficult if not impossible at this distance from persons and things to tell the causes and occasions of all their mistakes Neither could it have been done fully by the wisest of those times For the love of Idols in some like that of Persons in others was an unaccountable passion That therefore which I here undertake is not a full certain and manifest but a competent and probable account Those who worshipped Universal nature as an entire Object or the several visible parts of it distinctly were led to such adoration by one more general Cause and by divers which were more special The more general cause of the worship of material nature either in its own form or in the shapes put upon it by Art is the natural inclination of the mind in this body to help it self by sensible Objects The substance of God Almighty is not an Object which our mind can comprehend much less is our acutest sight able to reach it This Principle many own'd amongst the Heathens Such were they mention'd by Porphyrie who that they might signify the invisibility of Gods Essence painted his Statues with black Such were the Egyptians remembred by Plutarch who did therefore make the Crocodile an emblem of God because that creature by the help of a pellucid membrane descending from his forehead was able as they vulgarly conceited to see with closed eyes without being seen Now man living as it were in the confines of
Heaven and Earth his coelestial mind being united to a body of gross flesh and blood his understanding receiveth instruction through the gates of the outward senses and is in especial manner assisted by Phantasms which Light pictureth in the Brain This frame of man rendreth him covetous in his speculations of the help of some external and visible Object And amongst the numerous progeny of mankind there are very few heads metaphysical enough for that Proverb of the Arabians Shut up the five Windows that the House may be fill'd with Light It is the same thing to the vulgar not to appear and not to be and they would therefore have a visible Deity and one who might in a more bodily manner be present with them For this Reason when Osiris was worshipped throughout Egypt and his living Image was visible only in the superior part of it the Metropolis of Memphis the Priests took occasion to set on foot a Schism and those of Heliopolis would also have a sacred Bull that their Deity might be as visible and present to them as to the other Egyptians This Reason the Brachman gave to Monsieur Bernier for the erection of the Statues of Brahma and of other Deiitas or Deities To wit That something might be before the eyes of the worshipper for the fixing of his mind Of the like temper were the Heathens spoken of by Lactantius in his second Book of the Origine of Error They were jealous lest all their Religion should be a vain beating of the Air if they saw nothing present which they might adore This Affection then for Sense this wisdom of the Flesh is a general Cause of the Worship of material Idols But they being of divers kinds have accordingly divers more special Causes Such who worshipped Universal Nature or the Systeme of the material World perceived first that there was excellency in the several parts of it and then to make up the grandeur and perfection of the Idea they joyned them alltogether into one Divine Being Thus probably did Idolaters But Atheists also serv'd themselves on this Pretence as they do at this day seldome receding from any profitable Art Such a one of old was Pliny who maketh God and Nature the same And such a one in these times is the bold Author of Tractatus Theologico-politicus who defineth God the infinite power of matter Those who worshipped Nature in the parts of it were such as Pliny observeth who laboured under a weakness and narrowness of imagination It was his opinion That frail and wearied mortality mindful of its own infirm condition distributed Nature into its several parts that every one might worship that portion of it which was useful to him Usefulness indeed was a common motive And Cicero affirmeth in his first Book of the Nature of the Gods That the Egyptians consecrated no Beast from whence they did not derive some profit And in his second Book of the same Argument he citeth it as the saying of Perseus the Scholar of Zeno That they were held to be Gods from whom great advantage accrued to mans life Neither is there any name so commonly given amongst all Nations to Divine Power as that which signifieth the Goodness of it Such is the ancient Kod of the Germans in the Vocabulary of Goldastus and their more modern Gott or God which we have borrowed from them But Usefulness though it was a very common motive yet it was not the only one which inclined the World to Idolatry For that which ravished with its Beauty as the Rainbow worshipped saith Josephus Acosta by the Peruvians though not by those of Egypt who dwelt under a serene Heaven That which affrighted with its malignant Power as the Thunder worshipped saith the same Acosta by the Yncas of Peru and by the ancient Germans also who as Grotius noteth called their God of Heaven by the name of Thorn which signifieth him that Thundereth That which astonish'd with its greatness as the mighty swellings of the Earth in high Mountains worshipped here by the ancient Britains That I say which was beautiful hurtful or Majestick became a Deity as well as that which profited with its use Now all these powers being united in the Sun whose beauty is glorious whose heat scorcheth and refresheth and is the cause of barrenness in some places and in others of fruitfulness whose motion is admirable whose Globe of Light appeareth highly exalted That of all other parts of the visible World hath been the celebrated Idol For other parts of insensible nature lesser virtues were discerned in them But their motion and the cause of it being either not known or not consider'd the Gentiles esteemed of them as such Subjects in which a coelestial vigor resided Ignorance of nature was in them the Mother of Idolatry as ignorance in Art was the cause of that admiration amongst the Caribbians which ascribed the effect of Fire-locks to a Demon. On the same account Garlick and Onions obtain'd the reputation of Deities in Egypt Of such St. Chrysostom somewhere taketh notice and of the Apology which they made saying That God was in the Onion though the Onion was not God By this Onion they meant not the common and very delicious one among them which they were not forbidden to violate but did daily eat it but a certain Scilla which poysoned Mice and had a strange fiery virtue in it and was called the Eye of Typhon And I suppose it to be of the same kind with that of which the juice was used in the Lustration of Menippus in Lucian when he was initiated into the mysteries of Zoroaster It decreased saith saith Kircher in the increase of the Moon and increased in the decrease of it for the truth of which let it rest upon the Relato Concerning Beasts Birds Fishes and Insects they in like manner were ador'd for their beauty their beneficial hurtful or astonishing properties They were sometimes worshipped for these and other such reasons in the whole species of them For so Diana being turn'd as they feigned into a Merula a Mearl or Black-bird the whole kind of them was made sacred in the quality of her living Statues Sometimes some one sort of them was worshipped by reason of a particular effect of theirs esteemed of with high veneration by the World So the Mice Sminthoi were deified which eat in sunder the Cables of the Enemies of Troas Likewise such living creatures were worshipped as Beings which contained in them the Souls of some departed Hero's Friends and Benefactors or which were themselves portions of the Soul of the World Beasts at this day are upon both these accounts idoliz'd by the Pendets of Indostan And after this manner it is that they explain the several appearances of their Deity of which the first they say was in the nature of a Lion the second of a Swine a strange Cabbala and such as the Jews
of their Divinity and their Divine Precept words said to be used by Theodosius and Valentinian themselves Pacatus Drepanius in his Panegyric to Theodosius the Great describes the Emperour as one from whom Navigators expect a calm Sea Travellers a safe return and Soldiers Victory And of Constantine the Son of Constantius the uncertain Author of his Panegyrick affirmeth in deep Complement That his Beauty was great as his Divinity was certain But much of this flattery is so gross that it can scarce be swallowed by the common people who in private smile at their own publick fawnings For Spirits of all kinds men have seen some Apparitions and heard of more They have also had notions in the brain representing to them Images as spectres in the Air They have rightly judged the Soul so Divine in its operations as to superexist They have seen many external effects and could not guess at the Cause or ascribe it with such probability to Nature as to some higher invisible Power They have seen appearances in the Heavens and the very appearances have form'd in their fancy the counterfeit Idea of a Spirit For so the Heathen of the Eastern India believed the shadow of the Moon on the Eclipsed Sun to be a black Demon contending with it Men thus believing partly from good and partly from fanciful Reasons the existence of Demons and Ghosts and apprehending them truly as more spiritual active and superiour Beings it is not to be admired that their weakness ador'd them as dispensers of good and evil here below Touching Souls departed in particular Gratitude deified some but Admiration put more names into the Calendar The people were transported by their power and splendor on Earth and they thought their Puissance would increase in higher Regions Souls appeared otherwise to their mind than Bodies do to the eye to which they seem the lesser the higher they ascend And to this end the Devil was wont to represent Ghosts unto the eye or fancy of the Gentiles in vast proportions Such mighty figures Jamblichus where he writeth of the Egyptian mysteries ascribeth to Principalities and Archangels So that Solomon might aptly call the state of the dead the Congregation of Rephaim or Gyants Towards the advancement of the Souls of Heroes in the opinions of the Idolizers of them much was contributed by strange appearances real or invented at the time of their death So the Soul of Paul the Hermite was the more divinely esteemed of because S. Anthony as they tell us saw it flying to Heaven So Julius Caesar became one of the Roman gods whilst a Comet shining for Seven days together was judg'd to be his Soul receiv'd into Glory And this conceit they further inculcated by adding a Star to the top of his Statue Such Canonization of Heroes hath likewise been promoted by strange effects done or counterfeited at their Sepulchres and sometimes by their obscure manner of going out of the World which the people esteem'd an heavenly translation Empedocles hoping this way to arrive at Divine honour threw himself secretly into the flames of AEtna but his two Pattens which that Gulf of Fire cast up discovered his vain and miserable end Concerning the Soul of the World men seeing in all parts of the Creation motion and virtue judged erroneously of the greater World as they did truly of the lesser world of Man and made one Soul to be the Sovereign principle which actuated every part of it And some of the Stoicks esteem'd this Soul as a Form informing the Universe But the Platonists judged it rather a Form assistant imagining it unsutable to its Deity to be mixed with or vitally united to the grossest subcelestial matter and to have perception of all the motions of it This conceit is driven very far by the Indian Cabalists or Pendets Creation say those Doctors is nothing else but an extraction and an extension which God maketh of his own substance of those webs he draws from his own bowels as destruction is nothing else but a reprisal or taking back again of this Divine substance and these Divine webs into himself so that the last day of the World which they call Maperle or Pralea when they believe that all shall be destroyed shall be nothing else but such a general Reprisal This conceit in the superstitious maketh all things in nature adorable as parts of God And in the Atheistical it deifieth nothing at all for at the bottom of this imagination they think they see not God but Nature With them Coelum is the material Heaven Juno is the upper Air Neptune is the natural cause of water in the Caverns of the Earth Pluto is the thick Air next to this Globe and Rhea is the natural cause of showers Towards all the Idolatries already mention'd much was contributed by the figurative expressions of Orators especially by their Apostrophe's in the Encomiums of departed Hero's as also by the elegant fictions of Poets whose invention hath been justly reputed one of the great store-houses of Idols And for the Idolatry of Qualities I know not whence to fetch it so readily as by going thither For though the first ground of it was the consideration of many of these Qualities in their eminent degree as means by which the Pagan Heroes were Deified yet Poetry helped on that cause by shaping these Qualities into personal Powers negotiating as it were betwixt Heaven and Earth and conveighing them as the Angels did the Soul of Lazarus into a more heavenly habitation Poets design to move to surprize to make deep impression on the People They cannot do this so readily by proposing abstracted Truths to the mind as by cloathing them in such Metaphors and Pictures as may affect the brain Hence it is that they have used such a variety of fictions in which they have cloathed every thing they say with the appearances of a Person Peace and War Fame and Justice have such personal shape and action given to them as is necessary for the making a greater impression upon the Hearers For to give an ordinary instance in this matter it doth not so much affect us when a man says barely that a Kingdom shall want supplies of Bread as when he describes famine riding towards us pale and meager upon a Sceleton of Man or Beast attended with thousands of such ghastly objects from whence the uncloathed bones stare upon us and tell us that we after the dreadful extremities of hunger and thirst enforcing us to prey upon Toads and Serpents upon our Relations and our very selves shall become lean languishing dying as they By this transitory view of the Causes and Occasions of Idolatry so full of folly error and mistake it manifestly appeareth upon what weak and clay-like feet the Idols stand which the world hath worship'd with so vigorous a Devotion CHAP. IV. Of the Time in which the Vanity of Man introduced Idolatry into the World THe Nature
Cham esteeming the difference of their Dialects and the distraction of their opinions concerning God to have commenced together For the critical minute it is uncertain yet for the first objects of Idolatry we may assent to him and them he makes to be the Sun and the other heavenly bodies But the Sun in the first place That was the most glorious object which ravished the eye and it shewed it self no-where more gloriously than in the plains of Chaldea In those plains the Tower of Babel was built and as my private imagination leadeth me to think consecrated by the builders to the Sun as to the most probable Cause of drying up mighty Waters This Tower is thought to have beenbuilt inPyramidal form according to theScheme which we have of it in the frontispiece of Verstegan And this form was not improper though much unlike the figure of its Globe because it expressed its fiery nature the fire ascending in a conical shape The Ancients saith Porphyry cited by Eusebius did set forth the nature of Fire by Pyramids and Obelisks and dedicated Statues of divers figures to the Olympick gods as a Cone to the Sun and a Cylinder to the Earth But all will not allow this kind of reasoning to have place here such Philosophical considerations being thought by them matters much later than the times of Babel But for the building of Towers or Pyramids as Altaria or high Altars to the Sun and other heavenly bodies the practice is ancient and very general The Sun was not meerly a god of the Hills yet the Heathen thought it suitable to his advanced station to ascend them and to worship him upon ascents either natural or as was necessary in such flat Countries artificial that they might come as nigh as they could to the Deity they worshipped Accordingly Abenephius the Arabian in Kircher testifieth that the Pyramids of Egypt were called by their Priests the Altars of the Gods and that they wrote on them Theological Mysteries The same Kircher noteth that the Coptites called them the Pillars and Altars of Deities That Bama is said by Vatallus to signifie properly a very high place for sacrifice that such a one is mentioned by Virgil as sacred to Juno And that Lucan speaketh of Pyramids as the Egyptian Priests and Coptites had done The Pyramids of Egypt were raised upon certain square Platforms set one upon the other and gradually lessening until they ended in one least and blunt square of Stone Monsieur Vattier the Arabick Professor of the French King believed those blunt-tops to have been as Pedestals for some Colosses or Obelisks They might be sometimes put to that use though not at first designed for it For Caligula was pleased to set his Head on the shoulders of the Statues of the Grecian gods yet those Statues were not made to serve as such Supporters That Learned Professor might possibly have made a truer conjecture from a short passage in the Arabian Murtadi whose Book he translated For Murtadi speaks of the Maritine Pyramid as of a Temple of the Stars on which were placed the figures of Sun and Moon Such a Tower was that as I suppose which the Tausi of China built of a sudden in the Piazza of Pekin They built it in Pyramidal form with Tables upon Tables till it ended in one supreme Table And on that they prayed for Rain which the Sun the Original Jupiter Pluvins doth as a natural cause both send and remove The Corinthian Tower once belonged to Sol And it is very probable that the Sun was of old worshipped on a very high Mountain in Crete The Hill in the time of Peter Martyr of Angleria was called by the name of the Hill of Jove though the Cretians were then great strangers to their ancient Demonology A late Traveller hath informed us of a Pyramidal Tower in Mexico on the top of which the Heathen Priests worshipped towards the Sun an American Deity I should have thought that he had meant the same with Cortesius and that which he called the Fane of the Idâ—… Horcolivo's But they differ much in their measuâ—… And the ascent of the former is said to be by 114 steps the latter by no less than an Hundred and thirty Among the Apalachites of Florida the Priests of the Sun called by the remarkable name of Jaovas worshipped their Idol on the top of a very high round steep and rocky Hill a full league in its winding Ascent The builders of the Hill or Tower of Babel surely designed that much higher yet so high that it might hide its head in the Clouds and would it may be have put it had it been finished to the like Idolatrous use It is reasonable for me here to expect an objection from the Scripture which seemeth to impute the building of the Tower of Babel to another end Come say the builders in the Eleventh of Genesis let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth To this objection two things may be replied First the end expressed is not exclusive of that which I supposed and it is not a wonder if vain men to encourage one another how many ends soever they had did propound that of their pomp and glory Secondly these builders designed a City and not only a Tower which was but the Appendix to it though such a necessary one as an Altar is to a Temple And their design of getting them a Name might rather refer to the City than distinctly to the Tower They intended to build a place of fixed Residence which might be as it were the Head and Center and Metropolis of all Towns whenever their Families should so encrease as to need further room for habitation They were resolved against the incommodities of a wandring life and they purposed to unite themselves into a more orderly body and to become a Corporation instead of a multitude And this was the way to get them a Name to be the first City of the World and to be owned as the Mother-Place of all Nations But I am not so fond of this private fancy as to contend further about the Legitimacy of it In this I am more assured that the Lights of Heaven which in the clear firmament of those Countries appeared so often and in such lustre whilest the Sun by day shone gloriously and the Moon and Stars shewed beautifully in the night to them who lay either on the ground or on flat Roofs and found no evil influence from them and which obtained afterwards the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from their continual motion were the first Idols of the World Amongst these the Sun excelling he was made the principal Idol and was nowhere more in honour than at Babylon Accordingly we read so soon of Bell the Babylonian and Baal the Phenician and Hebrew Name in the Theology of the Gentiles This Idol was originally and
Idolatry First then I enquire how far the Gentiles owned one supreme God This enquiry is not capable of any nice and accurate resolution For there is no one Systeme of the Gentile Theology as there is of Judaism Mahometanism and the Christian Religion Divers persons in divers places had divers apprehensions concerning a Deity and divers Rites of worship And those distinct Rites by the commerce of Nations were often so mixed together that they made a new kind of Religion It is not unlikely that the dregs of the people among the Gentiles whom God had given up to brutishness of mind did rise little higher than Objects of sense They worshipped many of them together each as supreme in its kind or no otherwise unequal than the Sun and the Moon or the other coelestial bodies by the adoration of which the ancient Idolaters as Job intimateth denied or excluded the God that is above Porphyry himself one of the most plausible Apologists for the Religion of the Gentiles doth own in some the most gross and blockish Idolizing of mean Objects He telleth us that it is not a matter at which we should be amaz'd if most ignorant men esteemed wood and stones Divine Statues seeing they who are unlearned look upon Monuments which have inscriptions on them as ordinary Stones and esteem valuable Tables as pieces of common wood and regard Books no otherwise than as so many bundles of Paper Sensible objects arrested the stupid and unactive minds of the vulgar who like those indevout Idolaters of Japan reason'd no further concerning the original or Government of the World For few Heads are exercised by Philosophy and we meet not with one Peasant of a Thousand among our selves who asks how the Sun enlightens this Globe though he believes the body of it no bigger than his Bushel Such Heads are inclined to turn the Truth of God into a Lie to exchange the Sovereign Deity for that which is esteemed a God but is not and to multiply the kinds of it according to the variety of considerable effects and appearances whose Causes are only known to the Secretaries of Nature It is more probable still that many Gentiles reached no higher in their devotion than to Demons Saint Paul taxeth them with offering to Devils and not to God The same Apostle inform'd the Lycaonians that the design of his Preaching was the converting of men from vanities that is from their many Idols which were not what they were judged to be which being no Deities were in that respect nothing and vanity unto one God the true and living God from whom therefore these many Idols had withdrawn many of the Heathen The Inferiour objects had thrust the Superiour out of possession as in the Case of that woman under the Papacy who is said to have forsaken God for the Virgin and the Virgin in Heaven for that Lady as she called her which she saw before her eyes in the Church Divers Idols I say might crowd the Sovereign God out of their minds Jehovah might be banished whilst their imaginations were filled with many hundreds of Jupiters with no fewer than Thirty thousand in the account of Hesiod if he swelleth not the reckoning with Names and Sir-names instead of distinct Gods Some of the Gentiles who knew God that is had means by the things that are seen of ascending to the knowledg of the invisible Creator did notwithstanding not truly know him nor reach him by that wisdom or vain sort of Philosophy which did not edifie them though it puffed them up PART 2. Of their worship of Universal Nature c. as God THis is the common oppinion concerning many of the Gentiles but there is not sufficient reason to believe the same thing concerning them all For it is evident from the History of ancient and modern Idolatry and from the Writings of some of the Gentiles that the acknowledgment of one supreme Deity was not wholly banished from all parts of the Pagan World But herein likewise some of them greatly erred For first There were those amongst them who acknowledged Universal Nature as that one supreme Deity This Deity the Egyptians vailed sometimes under the names of Minerva and Isis before whose Temple Sai as Plutarch witnesseth this Inscription was to be read I am all that which was and is and will be hereafter And in her Image were placed the emblems of all the kinds of things with which Nature is furnished Such a Deity the Arcadians worshipped under the proper Title of Pan who as Pornutus contendeth is the same with the Universe The same Pornutus proceedeth in shewing that his lower part was shaggy and after the fashion of a Goat and that by it was meant the asperity of the Earth Bardesanes Syrus describeth at large the Statue of the Universe by which the Brachmans worshipped Nature It was an Image of Ten or Twelve Cubits in heighth It had its hands extended in the form of a Cross. It had a face Masculine on the one side and Feminine on the other It had the Sun on one of its breasts and on the other the Moon And on the Arms were to be seen a very great number of Angels together with the Heavens Mountains Seas Rivers the Ocean Plants and Animals and such other parts in Nature as make up the Universe Yet I cannot say that this was the Statue of their supreme Deity For they tell us concerning it that this was the Image which God set before his Son when he made the World as a pattern by which he should form his Work But I may say it more truly of some worshippers of Isis that they supposed her supreme and did adore her not with others as the inferiour Earth but in the quality as I just now noted of universal Nature So Pignorius hath taught us and before him Servius and Macrobius Hence was it that the Infcription on an Antient Marble at Capua owneth Isis as all things A like opinion may be with ground entertained concerning Vesta and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire or Sun in the midst of her Temple as Plutarch in Numa hath suggested Wherefore no Image was consecrated to her besides that of her Temple which by its roundness denoted the World and by its sempiternal fire the Sun in it That fire was renewed each year on the first of March in allusion sure to the vigour of that Planet which then beginneth in especial manner to comfort those parts of the Earth Others again amongst the Gentiles ador'd the Sun as the one Sovereign Deity Such were they in Julius Firmicus who expressed their devotion in this form O Sol Thou best and greatest of things Thou mind of the Universe Thou Guide and Prince of all A like Egyptian form translated out of that language by Euphantus is remembred by Porphyrie and thus it beginneth O Sun thou Lord of all and ye the rest of the Gods
things and Brass and Iron because they were instruments of War and Ivory because it was the Tooth of an Elephant dead already or obnoxious to death But at last he concludeth from what reason I know not that an entire Tree or Stone might make a Mercury or an Image of a Demon. For the Europeans were not so costly and pompous in their Images till the Conquest of Asia the Fountain of Luxuries But though Platonists contented themselves with inward Ideas yet all the Gentile World did not but divers of them made and worshipped external representations of God the Creator So did the Egyptians who represented their supreme Cneph though diversly as appears from the description of him in Porphyry and his Image in Cartari So did the Greeks Porphyry himself confessing that they worshipped God in the Image of a man but making an excuse which Statuaries and Worshippers seldom thought of By God he means the supreme Deity and not some one only of the Divine Powers for he mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself and not only Divine Virtues in offering his reason for their worship by Images He there alloweth the Deity to be invisible and he yet thinks him well represented in the form of a Man not because he is like him in external shape but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that which is Divine is Rational That was not the common Cause but an inclination to a sensible Object and an apprehension of humane Figure as that which was most excellent and which belongeth to a King and Governour under which notion in the grosser Idea of it their reverence of earthly Potentates had pictured God in their heads When Origen objected to Celsus the vanity of worshipping the invisible God in the visible form of man Celsus neither denieth the matter of fact nor apologizeth after the manner of Porphyry but retorteth the objection on the Christians who professed that man was made after the Image of God And Origen observeth that Celsus did not understand how to distinguish here betwixt being the Image of God and being made after it And that he ignorantly cited the Christians as saying “ That God made Man his Image and an appearance like himself And at this day Pagans when they entertain a Phantasm of God they are most commonly Anthropomorphites A very late and principal Actor in the ruine of the Town of Sacoe in New-England was an Enthusiastick Indian called Squango who some years before pretended that God appeared to him in the form of a tall Man in Black Clothes Now the Gentiles worshipping such Ideas or external Images as forms of God do misplace his Honour by paying their relative veneration to Objects which were not like him but infinitely unworthy of him They turned the Glory of Gods Essence into vile and despicable similitudes A worse sort of Idolatry still if worse can be were those Gentiles guilty of who by Images such as those of Baal and Pan adored Nature or the Sun as the supreme God The very Prototypes here were Idols So that in this kind of worship both the ultimate and intermediate the direct and the relative Honour of God was devolved on the creature PART 7. Of the Idolatry of the Gentiles in their worship of Demons A Second branch of the Idolatry of the Gentiles even of their Philosophers and men of deep disputation was the worship of Demons In this worship they were Idolatrous four ways First By worshipping Demons as Powers which under God had a considerable share of the Government of the World by Commission from him Secondly By worshipping Demons which were Devils or wicked and accursed Spirits Thirdly By worshipping the Images of such Demons Fourthly By their immoderate officiousness towards these inferior Deities which left them little leisure for attendance on the supreme God First The Gentiles committed Idolatry by worshipping Demons as Powers which with subordination to God did by his allowance manage a great part of the Government of the World They did not deny the supremacy of God but they imagined that he ruled not the World by his immediate Providence but by several Orders of Demons and Heroes as his Substitutes and Lieutenants Such as these were the Twelve Angels or Presidents which the Egyptians believed to govern by Ternaries the four Quarters of the World In the Flaminian Obelisk the supreme Momphta or supramundane Osiris is represented as ruling the Twelve parts of the World by Twâ—…lve Solar Demons in the form of Twelve Hawks that is of Eagles for of that kind were the sacred Accipitres of that Country There as likewise in Greece and Italy several inferiour Deities were appointed over several places persons and things He that is not otherwise furnished may read in Kircher of the Genius of Fire Air Water the Earth Agriculture of the Clouds the Sun and Moon of Heat and Moisture and of Fourty eight Asterisms as the stations of Fourty eight Deities Pythagoras and Plato themselves were in this point Authors of egregious Idolatry Pythagoras invented or rather learned from Egyptians Chaldeans Thracians Persians his two Demons or Principles the one good the Parent of Unity Rest Equality Splendor the other evil the cause of Division Motion Inequality Darkness for such were the Terms which his School used in representing their nature And these became Objects of much hope and fear which ought to have been moved not by mens devices but by considerations taken from the Almighty Power Justice and Goodness of God who is one Plato seemeth to have ascribed much both of the frame and of the government of the World to the Genii next to God By Principles whom he esteemed highly divine but not by such as he judged three Subsistences of the same supreme numerical Substance If that had been his Creed as some would have it who can find in him the mysteries of the Athanasian Articles the earliest Hereticks who denied the coequal Divinity of the Son of God and therefore believed in another kind of Logos had never come in such numbers out of his school the place from whence the Fathers fetch them With them agreeth Petavius that learned Jesuit and in this Argument as learned as in any other He saith it is most evident concerning Arius that he was a very genuine Platonist Plato's principal Idea or Logos was distinct in number and nature from his supreme Cause or God And those who follow the Faith of the Nicene Fathers reason not with consistence whilst they suppose this Idea to be the second Person and yet find in Plato such distinctness of Being and which to me seems very remarkable a plain denial of his Generation It is true that Plato cited by Porphyry does call the second Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which is the Workman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first
79. You take notice of the three Platonick Principles as distinct substances and they themselves do so likewise but then you say not a word of that Union whereby those Three substances of the same species though numerically differing become but one God B. Suppose that to have been Plato's mind How would it have agreed to the one God of the Christians whom S. Paul opposeth to Gods many or many superior Spirits and Lords many or many inferior Spirits though of the same species in each order But I see not any-where in Plato that this was his opinion though Plotinus who lived where Christianity was planted doth sometimes express himself in that manner At other times the same Plotin who is a kind of Platonick Familist doth no otherwise unite his three Principles then by the union of a Center a lesser and a greater circumference which no man can conceive exactly in one another When he saith that the T' Agathon Nous and Psyche are joyned he meaneth rather that there is nothing betwixt them than that by mutual penetration and vital union they are one He interprets himself in that Chapter by saying of the three Principles that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing that interveneth No more doth any Planet come betwixt Saturn Jupiter and Mars and yet they are three Planets not one And this seems to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Indistant Distance of which notion he darkneth the sense by his obscure Phraseology If he meant much more Plato did not nor could he with consistence That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or T' Agathon of Plato was the supreme God I have already owned To him agreeth that description of God that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without Cause and the Cause of every thing else Though I find also that Nature or the indefinite Power of matter and motion the Venus of the Lucretians is said to be without Cause and in Phurnutus called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cause of all things that is of all the modifications of matter and the Phaenomena of the visible Universe But that Plato's Nous or Demiourgus contain in them the Idea of a God or a Being absolutely perfect is most contrary to the general Air of Platonism whatsoever little independent sayings may be that way misapplied Wherefore in Chap. 5. p. 79. I have called Nous and Psyche eminent Daemons and not Divine Persons though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used to signifie the supreme God as in that place where the Philosopher affirmeth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Divinity is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an envious Being In the Oracles of Zoroaster it is affirmed that the supreme God withdrew himself from the world By which is not meant that he sequestred himself wholly from all the affairs of it but as Pletho noteth that he did not communicate his Divinity either to the Nous or to the second God by which is understood in those Chaldee Oracles not the Logos but the Demiourgus or Psyche For the Nous It is not one single principle but a kind of Pantheon a Collection of many Ideas or Spirits as Aristotle who lay nigh to the bosom of Plato doth truly construe him It is such a thing as Christophorus Sandius in whose brain Paradoxes naturally flutter doth fancy the Spirit of God to be For in a distinct Treatise he endeavoureth to prove that it is the Body of the Good Angels Hence sometimes the three Principles are called T' Agathon Ideai and Psyche Hence he find it called the Exemplar or rather that which afforded an Exemplar they distinguishing nicely betwixt the form and the thing formed that is the Intellectual World according to whose pattern this sensible World is said to be made They who wholly blame the later Platonists for such Ideas excusing Plato are very unjust For they drub the feet when the Head was first in Fault The Exemplar saith Plato is all the Intelligible Animals in it self as this World is the circle of such as are sensible In another Book he saith that the Intellectual World containeth in it all Intelligent Animals as this sensible world containeth us and all living creatures The same Philosopher in the Conclusion of his Timaeus asserteth that this sensible world is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or second Image of the Intellectual God Also in the conclusion of the Book of the soul of the world he thus discourseth The Ruler of all he speaks of Psyche hath committed the Inspection and Government of the world to Daemons He made this world full of Daemons and Men and other Animals after the pattern of the best Image of the ungenerated eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Form meaning that of the Nous. And he had said before that this world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the generated Image of the eternal Gods of which therefore the Collection made up the Nous or Intellectual world Plato thus expressing himself it is no wonder that it is said in the Chaldee Oracles that the supreme God delivered to the second God or Psyche all the Intelligible Ideas Nor need we think it strange to hear Philo speak of an Intellectual Sun and Stars A. If it be thus That the Nous is an Intellectual world and that this world is a kind of second Temple made after the fashion of that first though inferior to it in Glory why do you in Chap. 5. pag. 79. call the Nous one Thing Being or Person B. A Thing it may be called as this world is being one Collection of things And a Person a publick Person being a Collection of Intelligent Beings of which the principal Nous or spirit seemeth to answer to the visible Sun Plotin mentioning it by it self and then speaking of the beauty of the Ideas which he there calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Intelligible Gods Thus we call the Collection of evil Spirits and the Prince of them by the name of Devil And in the Evangelical History the Principal spirit in a man possessed answered in the singular though he said his name was Legion Plato himself calls this visible world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sensible god and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a generated god though it be a Collection of innumerable Things and Persons and by the same reason he may call the Intellectual world as indeed he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Intelligent god or Nous though it be not a single principle The like may be said of Logos which Philo so understood or else he would not sometimes have called this world Logon as I have shewed him to have done The Chaldee Oracles call the Demiourgus the second God and he is more properly so than the Nous yet neither hath that principle in it the true Idea of God A. How doth that appear B. Two ways for
Verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Jupiter the Fire Juno the Air Pluto the Earth and Nestis or the womb the Water are the four Roots of all Things The like we find in the Form of the Pythagorick Oath in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A. This to me is a Pythagorick Riddle How do you expound it B. I construe the Dystich thus No or yea By Him from whom we learned the Tetractys for they swore by their Master a fountain containing in it the Roots or Elements of everflowing Matter For so I interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as some of eternal Matter of which the Elements are not the Roots and which is not here spoken of but of the second Matter which perpetually changeth its shapes the first being neither this or that but ingenerable and incorruptible Hyle Now if I am mistaken in this notion of the Tetractys I err with company For Hierocles in a place little observed does seem to say the same thing The Tetrad said he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the framer of all things and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cause or the T' Agathon frequently so called by the modern Platonists and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Idea or Intellectual World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The cause of the Heavenly that is of the ethereal first Matter and of that which is sensible A. This Interpretation of the Tetractys seems not wide of the scope of Pythagoras and Plato But for the Triad methinks you are more severe than you need to be in explaining or to express your humour more properly in exposing of it There must surely be somewhat more Divine in that Notion than you allow seeing it hath spread it self very widely among the Gentiles and thereby seems the dictate of that reason which is common to them all B. You argue upon an usual mistake Many such Doctrines are spread very far but often they come from one only root and that is not true reason but the authority of some one fam'd Master in Learning The Bellweather goes first and a numerous flock follow him upon no other motive often-times but because they see him go before them Orpheus is followed by Pythagoras and he by Plato and thousands of others in successive Ages A. There is no effect without its cause What I pray you did move Orpheus or Pythagoras or Plato or him whoever he was that was the Beginner to take up at first this Doctrine of the Triad B. The other extream opinion of those Philosophers who were meer Atomists A. How could that be they were the followers of Moschus or Mochus that is Moses whom Orpheus and Pythagoras and Plato rather follow than contradict B. That Moschus was Moses Mr. Selden Arcerius in his Notes on Jamblicus and divers others seem to believe for no other reason that I know of than because the names are a little like one another But Mochus or Moschus was plainly a Phaenician of later times and one who opened a School at Sidon He is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Laertius and Suidas Laertius maketh him a Phaenician and one of those Barbarians as he calls them from whom Philosophy had its birth e're it was propagated in Greece And he numbers him with Zamolxis the Thracian Atlas the Libyan and Vulcan the Egyptian But it is not of any moment here to inquire any further about him I know not whether he were such an Atomist as I am here speaking of to wit a perfect Materialist denying the Existence and the very notion of Incorporeal substance In opposition to such the Pneumatists framed the Platonick Triad after this manner The Swmatists or Materialists supposed nothing to be in the world but Body and all body to exist eternally of it self in its essence though not in its modes without all cause The Pneumatists opposed this Dogma by asserting one supreme Incorporeal substance the Aitia or cause of all Beings besides its own the T' Agathon or fountain-good whence all Essence flowed The Materialists supposed that this visible World was the only World and that all Ideas and all pretences of Incorporeal Beings were but so many impressions of motion on the brain This Dogma the Pneumatists opposed by asserting separate Ideas and an Intellectual World a Nous or Logos The Materialists supposed the frame of the visible World to have been made at adventure and by a fortuitous concourse of Atoms The Pneumatists opposed this Dogma by affirming two things First that there was not only Matter and Motion but a Demiourgus an Incorporeal workman governing the disorderly motion of the Chaos and disposing of the rude Materials in it into a Regular System Secondly That this Artificer did not work at adventure but accorrding to an excellent Exemplar laid before him A. I perceive you still so explain this Triad that you will not allow Plato to Christianize Nay I find elsewhere that you do not think him so much as to Mosaize which is very hard measure and such as others have not meted to him B. I do not say that he did not Mosaize but that to me it was not manifest that he did A. When he saith in his Timaeus That the Father having made the World was exceedingly transported at the work of his hands doth he not borrow from Moses who said That God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good B. It is not manifest that he did It is natural for any man to say after the description of an excellent and an agreeable performance that the Artist was pleased with what he had done Further it is here to be observed that Plato in that place speaketh not as Moses of God the supreme self-originated Father but of the third Principle or Demiourgus whom he stileth emphatically the Father and Genitor of the visible World For to the T' Agathon Plato ascribes not such Fatherhood and Generation but says of all things flowing from him that they were unbegotten that is not formed as he says this World was out of praeexistent Matter by Psyche A. Though the Demiourgus of Plato may not be the Mosaic maker of the World yet he may seem at least to be the Spirit of God which as Moses teacheth moved upon the face of the waters For Plato maketh his Third principle to agitate the Chaos B. Neither is that evident for the Text may be interpreted of a Wind of God that is according to the Jewish Idiom of a mighty wind so moving The Winds of God saith the Arabick Version blew upon the face of the waters A. Though you evade this yet I hope you will grant something in favour of Orpheus Pythagoras and Plato You will grant sure that they received the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul from the Cabala of Moyses and were thereby great Benefactors to the Gentile-world