Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...

PART 1. How far the Gentiles were Ignorant of one Supreme God.

I Have insisted hitherto, on the Nature, Occasions, and Commencement of Idolatry. The next consi∣deration shall extend to the persons charged with it, and in the first place, to them who have first and most generally transgressed; that is to say, the Gentiles.

Concerning their worship, it is here proper for me to attempt the resolution of three Questions.

First, Whether the Gentiles acknowledged one Su∣preme God.

Secondly, Whether they made Religious Application to him.

Thirdly, Whether upon the concession of such ac∣knowledgment and Application, they may be, and re∣ally are chargeable with 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 a∣mong the Gentiles, whom God had given up to bru∣tishness 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 bo∣dies, by the adoration of which, the ancient Idolaters, as Job a 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 Idoli∣zing of mean Objects. He telleth us b that it is not a matter at which we should be amaz'd, if most ignorant men esteemed wood and stones Divine Sta∣tues, seeing they who are unlearned, look upon Mo∣numents which have inscriptions on them, as ordinary Stones; and esteem valuable Tables as pieces of com∣mon 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 c 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 a∣mong 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 va∣riety 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 a with offering to Devils and not to God. The same Apostle inform'd the Lycaoni∣ans b, 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 no∣thing, and vanity] unto one God, the true and li∣ving 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 c. 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 d of ascending to the knowledg of the invisible Creator] did not∣withstanding

not truly know him; nor reach him by that wisdom or vain sort of Philosophy a which did not edifie them, though it puffed them up.

Notes

• a

  Job 31. 28.
• b

  Porphyr. ap Euseb. de prae∣par. Evang. l. 3. c. 7. p. 98.
• c

  Mandeslo in his Trav. p. 154. They have no knowledg of the worlds creation, &c.
• a

  1 Cor. 10. 20.
• b

  Acts 14. 15.
• c

  D. M. Antid. ag. Idol. and Reply. p. 258. See Spal. de Rep. •…•…ccl. l. 7. c. 12. p. 287.
• d

  Rom; 1. 20, 21.
• a

  1 Cor. 1. 21. Psal. 79. 6. Jer. 10. 25. 1 Thes. 4. 5.