supposed that nothing would be reserved till the last judgment. Again, if God now did not openly punish any sin, it would be presumed that there was no divine providence." (0) It must therefore be confessed, that in each of the works of God, but more especially in the whole considered together, there is a bright exhibition of the divine perfections; by which the whole human race is invited and allured to the knowledge of God, and thence to true and complete felicity. But though those perfections are most luminously pourtrayed around us, we only discover their principal tendency, their use, and the end of our contemplation of them, when we descend into our own selves, and consider, by what means God displays in us his life, wisdom, and power, and exercises towards us his righteousness, goodness, and mercy. For though David justly complains, that unbelievers are fools, because they consider not the profound designs of God in the government of mankind; (p) yet there is much truth in what he says in another place, that the wonders of Divine Wisdom in this respect exceed in number the hairs of our head. (9) But as this argument must be treated more at large in due course, I at present omit it.

XI. But, notwithstanding the clear representations given by God in the mirror of his works, both of himself and of his everlasting dominion, such is our stupidity, that, always inattentive to these obvious testimonies, we derive no advantage from them. For, with regard to the structure and very beautiful organization of the world, how few of us are there, who, when lifting up their eyes to heaven, or looking round on the various regions of the earth, direct their minds to the remembrance of the Creator, and do not rather content themselves with a view of his works, to the total neglect of their Author? And with respect to those things that daily happen out of the ordinary course of nature, is it not the general opinion, that men are rolled and whirled about by the blind temerity of fortune, rather than governed by the providence of God? Or if, by the guidance and direction of these things, we are ever driven (as all men must sometimes

(o) De Civit. Dei. lib. 1. cap. 8. (p) Psalm xcii. 6. (7) Psalm xl. 12.

be) to the consideration of a God; yet, when we have rashly conceived an idea of some Deity, we soon slide into our own carnal dreams, or depraved inventions, corrupting by our vanity the purity of divine truth. We differ from one another, in that each individual imbibes some peculiarity of error: but we perfectly agree in an universal departure from the one true God, to preposterous trifles. This disease affects, not only the vulgar and ignorant, but the most eminent, and those who, in other things, discover peculiar sagacity. How abundantly have all the philosophers, in this respect, betrayed their stupidity and folly! For, to spare others, chargeable with greater absurdities, Plato himself, the most religious and judicious of them all, loses himself in his round globe. (r) And what would not befal others, when their principal men, whose place it was to excel the rest, stumble upon such gross deceptions! So also, while the government of human actions proves a providence too plainly to admit of a denial, men derive no more advantage from it, than if they believed all things to be agitated forwards and backwards by the uncertain caprice of fortune: so great is our propensity to vanity and error! I speak exclusively of the excellent of mankind, not of the vulgar, whose madness in the profanation of divine truth has known no bounds.

XII. Hence that immense flood of errors, which has deIuged the whole world. For every man's understanding is like a labyrinth to him: so that it is not to be wondered at, that the different nations were drawn aside into various inventions, and even that almost, every individual had his own particular deity. For, amidst the union of temerity and wantonness with ignorance and darkness, scarcely a man could be found, who did not frame to himself some idol or phantasm instead of God. Indeed, the immense multitude of gods proceeding from the mind of man, resembles the ebullition of waters from a vast and ample spring, while every one, with an extreme licentiousness of error, invents one thing or another concerning God himself. It is not necessary here to compose a catalogue of the superstitions which have perplexed

() Plut. de Philosoph. placitis, lib. 1. Plato in Timæo. Cic. lib. 1. de Natur. Deor.

the world; for it would be an endless task: and, without a word more being said, the horrible blindness of the human mind sufficiently appears from such a multiplicity of corruptions. I pass over the rude and unlearned vulgar. But among the philosophers, (s) who attempted with reason and learning to penetrate heaven, how shameful is the diversity! In proportion to the vigour of his natural genius, and the polish acquired by art and science, each of them seemed to give the more specious colouring to his own opinion: but, on a close inspection, you will find them all fading colours. The Stoics said, in their own opinion very shrewdly, that from all the parts of nature may be collected various names of God, but yet that the one God is not therefore divided. (t) As if we were not already too much inclined to vanity, without being farther and more violently seduced into error, by the notion of such a various abundance of gods. The mystical theology of the Egyptians also shews, that they all sedulously endeavoured to preserve the appearance of reason in the midst of their folly. (v) And any thing apparently probable might, at first sight, perhaps deceive the simple and incautious; but there never was any human invention by which religion was not basely corrupted. And this confused diversity emboldened the Epicureans, and other gross despisers of piety, to reject all idea of God. For, seeing the wisest of men contending with each other for contrary opinions, they hesitated not, from their dissentions, and from the frivolous and absurd doctrines maintained by the different parties, to infer, that it was vain and foolish for men to torment themselves with investigations concerning God, who does not exist. And this they thought they might do with impunity, supposing that a compendious denial of any God at all, would be better than feigning uncertain gods, and thereby occasioning endless controversies. They reason very ignorantly, or rather endeavour to conceal their own impiety behind the ignorance of men, which not at all justifies any encroachment on God. But from the general confession, that there is no subject productive of so many dis

(a) Lactant. Institut. div.

(t) Seneca, lib. 4. de benef. &c.

() Plutarch. lib. 1. de Isid. & Osirid. Cic. lib. 1. de Nat. Deor.

sentions among the learned as well as the unlearned, it is inferred, that the minds of men, which err so much in investigations concerning God, are extremely blind and stupid in celestial mysteries. Others commend the answer of Simonides, (w) who, being asked by Hiero the Tyrant, what God was, requested a day to consider it, When the tyrant, the next day, repeated the inquiry, he begged to be allowed two days longer. And, having often doubled the number of days, at length answered, "The longer I consider the subject, the more obscure it appears to me." He prudently suspended his opinion on a subject so obscure to him; yet this shews, that men, who are taught only by nature, have no certain, sound, or distinct knowledge, but are confined to confused principles; so that they worship an unknown God.

XIII. Now it must also be maintained, that whoever adulterates the pure religion, (which must necessarily be the case of all who are influenced by their own imagination,) he is guilty of a departure from the one God. They will profess, indeed, a different intention: but what they intend, or what they persuade themselves, is of little importance; since the Holy Spirit pronounces all to be apostates, who, in the darkness of their minds, substitute. demons in the place of God. For this reason Paul declares the Ephesians to have been "without God" (x)-till they had learned from the Gospel the worship of the true God. Nor should this be restricted to one nation only, since, in another place, he asserts of men in general, that they "became vain in their imaginations," (y) after the majesty of the Creator had been discovered to them in the structure of the world. And therefore the Scripture, to make room for the only true God, condemns, as false and lying, whatever was formerly worshipped as divine among the Gentiles; (2) and leaves no deity but in mount Sion, where flourished the peculiar knowledge of God. Indeed, among the Gentiles, the Samaritans, in the days of Christ, seemed to approach very nearly to true piety; yet we hear, from the mouth of Christ, that they "worshipped they knew not what:" (a) whence it follows, that they were under a vain and erroneous

(z) Cic. lib. 1. de Nat. Deor.

(y) Rom. i. 21. (z) Heb. ii. 18, 20.

(x) Ephes. ii. 12.
(a) John iv. 22.

delusion. In fine, though they were not all the subjects of gross vices, or open idolaters, there was no pure and approved religion, their notions being founded only in common sense. For though there were a few uninfected with the madness of the vulgar, this assertion of Paul remains unshaken, that "none of the princes of this world knew the wisdom of God." (b) But if the most exalted have been involved in the darkness of error, what must be said of the dregs of the people? Wherefore it is not surprising if the Holy Spirit reject, as spurious, every form of worship which is of human contrivance: because, in the mysteries of heaven, an opinion acquired by human means, though it may not always produce an immense mass of errors, yet always produces some. And though no worse consequence follow, it is no trivial fault, to worship, at an uncertainty, an unknown god: of which, however, Christ pronounces all to be guilty, who have not been taught by the law what god they ought to worship. And indeed the best legislators have proceeded no farther than to declare religion to be founded on common consent. And even Socrates, in Xenophon, (c) praises the answer of Apollo, which directed that every man should worship the gods according to the rites of his country, and the custom of his own city. But whence had mortals this right of determining, by their own authority, what far exceeds all the world? or who could so acquiesce in the decrees of the rulers or the ordinances of the people, as without hesitation to receive a god delivered to him by the authority of man? Every man will rather abide by his own judgment, than be subject to the will of another. Since, then, the following of the custom of a city, or the consent of antiquity, in divine worship, is too weak and frail a bond of piety, it remains for God himself to give a revelation concerning himself from heaven.

XIV. Vain, therefore, is the light afforded us in the formation of the world to illustrate the glory of its Author: which, though its rays be diffused all around us, is insufficient to conduct us into the right way. Some sparks indeed are kindled, but smothered before they have emitted any great

(b) I Cor. ii. 8.

(c) Xenoph. de Dict. et Fact. Soerat. lib. 1. Cic. de Legib. lib. 2. VOL. I.

K