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 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 Gen∣tiles; that the acknowledgment of one supreme Dei∣ty was not wholly banished from all parts of the Pa∣gan World. But herein, likewise, some of them great∣ly erred.

For, first, There were those amongst them who ac∣knowledged 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 b 1.1. Such a Deity the Arcadians wor∣shipped under the proper Title of Pan, who as Por∣nutus contendeth c 1.2, 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 d 1.3 describeth at large the Statue of the Universe, by which the Brachmans wor∣shipped 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 o∣ther 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 wor∣shippers 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 a 1.4, and before him, Servius and Macrobius. Hence was it that the Infcription on an Antient Marble at Capua, owneth Isis as all things b 1.5. A like opinion may be, with ground, entertained concerning Vesta, and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Fire, or Sun, in the midst of her Temple; as Plu∣tarch 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 re∣newed, each year, on the first of March c 1.6, in allu∣sion, 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 de∣votion in this form. O Sol! Thou best and greatest of things! Thou mind of the Universe▪ Thou Guide and Prince of all d 1.7. A like Egyptian form, translated out of that language, by Euphantus, is remembred by Porphyrie; and thus it beginneth e 1.8. O Sun thou

Lord of all, and ye the rest of the Gods! There Eu∣phantus (as may be probably imagined) found Baal, or some such word, in the original Egyptian; and gave us instead of it, the Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Such honour of the Sun we find on the Antient Egyptian Obelisk in∣terpreted by Hermapion a 1.9, and restored to its antient beauty, by Sixtus Quintus. On it the Sun is set forth as God; as the Sovereign disposer of the World which, it seems, he committed to the Govern∣ment of King Ramestes.

Others there were who mistook for the one supreme God, the Soul of the World, and, it may be, thought the Sun the Head in that great animated Body, or the place of that Souls principal residence. On this fashi∣on, Osiris, in Macrobius b 1.10, describeth his Godhead. The Heavenly world is my head; my belly the Sea; my feet the Earth: In Heaven are my Ears, and for my all∣seeing Eye, it is the glorious Lamp of the Sun. Pornu∣tus likewise, reciting the Dogmata of the Heathen Theology, discourseth c 1.11 to this effect. As we [men] are governed by a Soul, so the world hath its Soul also, by which it is kept in frame: And this soul of the World is called Jupiter. Aristotle himself doth some∣where stile God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a mighty Animal: So apt are the highest Aspirers in Philosophy to fall, some∣times into wild and desperate errors. Amongst the Romans who excelled Varro in knowledg? And yet S. Austin saith of him, that he believed no higher God than the Soul of the World d 1.12, but that by dis∣gusting Images, as debasers of Religion, he approach∣ed nigh to the true God. Others, both in Egypt and Persia, worshipped for the true God, a part only of his Idea; whilst they removed from it, the justice and mercy of sending, preventing, or taking away, any temporal evils in which they thought the supreme

Deity not concerned; whilst they believed certain Demons to be the chastizers of those who had not purged themselves sufficiently from matter a 1.13.

Notes

• b 1.1

  See the Sta∣tue of Ifis in Kirch. Oedip. Synt. 3. c. 4. p. 189.
• c 1.2

  Pornutus de Nat. Deor. c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, p. 69.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• d 1.3

  Bardes. Syr. ap. Porphyr. Fragm. at Styge, p. 283, 284.
• a 1.4

  Pignor. de Mensâ Isiacâ. p. 2, 3.
• b 1.5

  T•…•…. Tibi una. Quae es. omnia. dea. Isis. Arri∣us Babi•…•…us V. C;
• c 1.6

  Macrob. Sa∣turn. l. 1. c. 12. p. 242.
• d 1.7

  Sol. Opt. Max.—Mens mundi. Dux om∣nium Princepsq•…•….
• e 1.8

  Porphyr. de Abstinen. l. 4. p. 157. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• a 1.9

  See Marsh. Cron. Can. p. 433, 434.
• b 1.10

  Macrob. Sa∣turn. l. 1. c. 20. p. 299. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• c 1.11

  Pornut. de Nat. deor. p. 4. de Jove.
• d 1.12

  S. Aug. de Ci•…•…. Dei. l. 4, c. 31. p. 272, 273.
• a 1.13

  See Porphyr. de Abstin.