Previous  - next

The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles, observing the
second ground for Religion, which is mens Ignorance of causes;
and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes,
on which there was no dependence at all apparent, took occasion
to obtrude on their ignorance, in stead of second causes,
a kind of second and ministeriall Gods; ascribing the cause
of Foecundity, to Venus; the cause of Arts, to Apollo; of Subtilty
and Craft, to Mercury; of Tempests and stormes, to Aeolus;
and of other effects, to other Gods: insomuch as there was
amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods, as of businesse.

And to the Worship, which naturally men conceived fit to bee used
towards their Gods, namely Oblations, Prayers, Thanks, and the rest
formerly named; the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added
their Images, both in Picture, and Sculpture; that the more ignorant
sort, (that is to say, the most part, or generality of the people,)
thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made,
were really included, and as it were housed within them,
might so much the more stand in feare of them: And endowed them
with lands, and houses, and officers, and revenues, set apart
from all other humane uses; that is, consecrated, and made holy
to those their Idols; as Caverns, Groves, Woods, Mountains,
and whole Ilands; and have attributed to them, not onely the shapes,
some of Men, some of Beasts, some of Monsters; but also the Faculties,
and Passions of men and beasts; as Sense, Speech, Sex, Lust,
Generation, (and this not onely by mixing one with another,
to propagate the kind of Gods; but also by mixing with men,
and women, to beget mongrill Gods, and but inmates of Heaven,
as Bacchus, Hercules, and others;) besides, Anger, Revenge,
and other passions of living creatures, and the actions proceeding
from them, as Fraud, Theft, Adultery, Sodomie, and any vice that
may be taken for an effect of Power, or a cause of Pleasure;
and all such Vices, as amongst men are taken to be against Law,
rather than against Honour.

Lastly, to the Prognostiques of time to come; which are naturally,
but Conjectures upon the Experience of time past; and supernaturall,
divine Revelation; the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles,
partly upon pretended Experience, partly upon pretended Revelation,
have added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination;
and made men believe they should find their fortunes, sometimes in
the ambiguous or senslesse answers of the priests at Delphi, Delos,
Ammon, and other famous Oracles; which answers, were made ambiguous
by designe, to own the event both wayes; or absurd by the intoxicating
vapour of the place, which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes:
Sometimes in the leaves of the Sibills; of whose Prophecyes
(like those perhaps of Nostradamus; for the fragments now extant
seem to be the invention of later times) there were some books
in reputation in the time of the Roman Republique: Sometimes in

Previous  - next