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teau, in his Mœurs des Sauvages observes, that they acknowledge one supreme Being or Spirit: though he adds, that they confound him with the sun, whom they call the Great Spirit, the author and master of life.* I believe this is true of many of those savages; but still it shows they had a notion of one supreme Deity, though they misapplied it to the sun. Some of the Americans, however, seem to have had a notion of a supreme Deity above the sun. Garcilasso de la Vega

says, that the most ancient inhabitants of Peru, before the Incas came among them, and whom he represents as extremely rude and uncultivated, yet acknowledged one supreme God, whom they called Pacha Camack; and said, that it was he that gave life to all things, and sustained and preserved the universe; but that as he was invisible, and they did not see him, they could not know him: and therefore to him they seldom erected temples, or offered sacrifices; though they showed their veneration for him by bowing their head, and lifting up their eyes, when his sacred name was mentioned. One temple, however, was erected to him, in a valley called the Valley of Pacha Camack, which was standing when the Spaniards first came into those parts. The Incas made them worship the sun from political views: in consequence of which Pacha Camack became in a great measure neglected. We are told also concerning some of the inhabitants of Florida, that they worshipped one God, the Creator of all things, whom they call Okee: their high priests offer sacrifice to him; but they believe he minds not human affairs himself, but commits the government of them to other deities, whom they therefore worship, especially the sun and moon.

Thus it appears that there are traces of the belief of one supreme Deity among many different nations in the several

them were principally solicitous to worship an evil being or beings, for fear of their doing them mischief.

* So we find in a passage, which I shall afterwards cite from Macrobius, that the civilized Roman and Greek Pagans, in their solemn acts of devotion to the sun, called him the Spirit of the World, the Power of the World, the Light of the World.

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parts of the world, and even among people which are accounted the most barbarous; and this can hardly be supposed to be merely owing to the force of their own reasoning, destitute as they are of learning and improvement. It is most natural to ascribe it to the remains of an ancient universal religion, which obtained from the beginning, and was derived from the first ancestors of the human race. It must be owned, that there have been and are other nations, among whom this great article of the ancient religion appears to have been almost entirely lost, and who acknowledged and worshipped many gods, without seeming to have had any distinct notion of one God that is absolutely supreme above all the rest. But not to insist upon this at present, I would observe, that even in those nations which still retain the notion of a supreme Deity, this venerable tradition, though highly agreeable to reason, came at length, through the negligence and corruption of mankind, to be amazingly perverted and depraved. It was covered and overwhelmed, so as to be scarce discernible under a monstrous load of superstitions and idolatries. Some nations which acknowledged a supreme Being rendered him no worship at all; in others his worship was so mixed and confounded with that of idol deities, that scarce. any traces of it appear in their worship, in their religion, and in their laws. The great number of divinities which were introduced from time to time, and the worship of which was established by public authority, turned off their attention and regards from the one true God, so that he was in a great measure neglected and overlooked, whilst they paid that worship to vain idols which was due to him alone. Mr. Locke, therefore, had just reason to say, that "in the crowds of wrong "notions and invented rites, the world had almost lost sight "of the only true God."* Lord Bolingbroke makes the same observation, that " they lost sight of him, and suffered imaginary beings to intercept the worship due to him

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* Locke's Reason. of Christ. in his Works, vol. II. p. 530, 531. Edit. 3d.

" alone."* Allowing the most favourable representations that can possibly be made of the state of the heathen world, consistently with truth and fact, the darkness and confusion the people were under with regard to the knowledge and worship of the one true God, was gross and deplorable to an astonishing degree; so that they stood in great need of an extraordinary divine interposition to recover them from it. This is what I shall now proceed to show. And it will be proper to take some notice of the principal steps by which this grand defection from the right knowledge and worship of the only true God was brought about, and came to prevail so generally among the nations. And in carrying on this inquiry, I shall have a particular regard to those Pagan nations which have been most admired for their wisdom, and among whom learning and philosophy seemed to make the greatest progress.

* Bol. Works, vol. IV. p. 80. et 461. Edit. 4to.

CHAP. III.

The first corruption of religion, and deviation from the knowledge and worship of the one true God, was the worship of heaven and the heavenly bodies. This the most ancient kind of idolatry. It began very early, and spread very generally among the heathen nations.

THE

HE most ancient idolatry, and which was probably the first deviation from the worship of the one true God, seems to have been the worshipof heaven and the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars. Diodorus Siculus acquaints us, that "the most ancient people of Egypt, looking up to the "world above them, and the nature of the universe, and being "struck with astonishment and admiration, supposed the sun ❝ and moon to be the eternal and first or principal gods." And he afterwards adds, that "they supposed that these gods go"vern the whole world."* This passage is cited by Eusebius, who also observes concerning the ancient Phoenicians, that of Tgwroí quoizol, the first natural philosophers among them, or the first who professedly applied themselves to inquire into the nature of things, "looked upon the sun and moon, and other 66 wandering stars, and the elements, and the things that were "connected with these, to be the only gods." Thus, instead of being led by contemplating the wonderful works of God, to adore him the glorious author, these searchers into nature worshipped the works themselves as gods. Trusting to their own wisdom, they began to neglect the ancient tradition which Moses lays down as the foundation of all religion, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. What has been said of the Egyptians and Phoenicians holds equally concerning the Assyrians and Chaldeans, whom many suppose

* Τῆς κατ' Αίγυπτον ἀνθρώπες τὸ παλαιὸν γενομένες ἀναβλέψαντας εἰς τὸν κόσμον, καὶ τὴν τῶν ὅλων φύσιν, καταπλαγέντας τε καὶ θαυμόσαντας ὑπολαβεῖν εἶναι θεὸς αἰδιὲς τε καὶ πρώτες τόν τε ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην τέτες δὲ τάς θεές ὑφίστανται τὸν σúμтavтa nóσμov diansiv. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. Euseb. Præpar. Evangel. lib. i. cap.

9. ab initio.

to have been the first that rendered divine worship to the heavenly bodies. It is not, however, probable, that any of these nations fell all at once into the grossest kind of this idolatry. They began very early to apply themselves to the study of astronomy, and to make observations on the stars, their motions and influences. Among them judicial astrology had its rise. By indulging their speculations, they came to regard them as living intelligent beings, a notion which afterwards obtained very generally among mankind.*

At

The learned Dr. Campbell is very positive that " beyond all doubt, man if, << left to himself, without instruction, will conceive the heavenly bodies to be all "animated; and that by inward life and power they perform all their motions." Campbell's Necessity of Revelation, p. 185, 186. And again, he says, "I cannot "help being assured, that mankind, left wholly to themselves, having no supernatu"ral revelation, will not only apprehend the heavenly bodies are animals, but "will confine their thoughts, their hopes, and fears, to these superior beings, "upon whom they judge by experience they depend; and will have no notion, no conception of an invisible Being, infinitely greater, who is over all, God "blessed for ever." Ibid. p. 211. and p. 393. He expresses himself to the same purpose in other places, and thinks this is the most natural way of accounting for their original idolatry. It appears to me very probable, that men began very early to look upon the sun, moon, and stars, to be animated beings; and that this, with the consideration of their influences on this lower world, was what

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principally gave rise to the first and most ancient idolatry. But I cannot carry it so far as to pronounce with this learned writer, that men, if left to themselves, would, “beyond all doubt," conceive the heavenly bodies to be all animated, and to perform all their motions by an inward life and power; and that it would be as natural for them to look upon the stars to be living beings, as to believe that the animals they see about them, men, birds, beasts, &c. are living beings. I should think that their constant unvaried motions, so different from the spontaneous motions of animals, would rather lead men to conclude, that they did not move by an inward life and power of their own. Or, supposing men to regard them as living beings, it would not necessarily follow, that they could not raise their views beyond them to an invisible Deity. They might still look upon them to be the creatures and subjects of the Supreme; especially considering that, as hath been already shown, the notion of the supreme Being, who created heaven and earth, had been communicated to mankind from the beginning. There have been Christians who believed the stars to be animated. So did the famous Origen, who believed them to be endued by God with reason and wisdom, and yet did not think they ought to be worshipped, but God only, who made them to be what they are, and gave them light and understanding—and that the sun, moon, and other stars, all join with just men in praising God, and his only begotten Son. Origen cont. Cels. lib. v. p. 237, 238. The same may be said of that learn

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