amongst civilized, that, when every strain of flattery has been
exhausted towards arbitrary princes, when every human quality has
been applauded to the utmost; their servile courtiers represent
them, at last, as real divinities, and point them out to the people
as objects of adoration. How much more natural, therefore, is it,
that a limited deity, who at first is supposed only the immediate
author of the particular goods and ills in life, should in the end
be represented as sovereign maker and modifier of the universe?

     Even where this notion of a supreme deity is already
established; though it ought naturally to lessen every other
worship, and abase every object of reverence, yet if a nation has
entertained the opinion of a subordinate tutelar divinity, saint, or
angel; their addresses to that being gradually rise upon them, and
encroach on the adoration due to their supreme deity. The Virgin
, ere checked by the reformation, had proceeded, from being
merely a good woman, to usurp many attributes of the Almighty: God
and St. N/ICHOLAS\ go hand in hand, in all the prayers and petitions
of the M/USCOVITES\.

     Thus the deity, who, from love, converted himself into a bull,
in order to carry off E/UROPA\; and who, from ambition, dethroned
his father, S/ATURN\, became the O/PTIMUS\ M/AXIMUS\ of the
heathens. Thus the deity, whom the vulgar Jews conceived only as the
God of , , and , became their  and
Creator of the world.[39]

     The J/ACOBINS\, who denied the immaculate conception, have ever
been very unhappy in their doctrine, even though political reasons
have kept the R/OMISH\ church from condemning it. The C/ORDELIERS\
have run away with all the popularity. But in the fifteenth century,
as we learn from B/OULAINVILLIERS\,[40] an I/TALIAN\ 
maintained, that, during the three days, when C/HRIST\ was interred,
the hypostatic union was dissolved, and that his human nature was
not a proper object of adoration, during that period. Without the
art of divination, one might foretel, that so gross and impious a
blasphemy would not fail to be anathematized by the people. It was
the occasion of great insults on the part of the J/ACOBINS\; who now
got some recompence for their misfortunes in the war about the
immaculate conception.

     Rather than relinquish this propensity to adulation,
religionists, in all ages, have involved themselves in the greatest
absurdities and contradictions.

     H/OMER\, in one passage, calls O/CEANUS\ and T/ETHYS\ the
original parents of all things, conformably to the established
mythology and tradition of the G/REEKS\: Yet, in other passages, he
could not forbear complimenting J/UPITER\, the reigning deity, with
that magnificent appellation; and accordingly denominates him the
father of gods and men. He forgets, that every temple, every street
was full of the ancestors, uncles, brothers, and sisters of this
J/UPITER\; who was in reality nothing but an upstart parricide and
usurper. A like contradiction is observable in H/ESIOD\; and is so
much the less excusable, as his professed intention was to deliver a
true genealogy of the gods.

     Were there a religion (and we may suspect Mahometanism of this
inconsistence) which sometimes painted the Deity in the most sublime
colours, as the creator of heaven and earth; sometimes degraded him
so far to a level with human creatures as to represent him wrestling
with a man, walking in the cool of the evening, showing his back
parts, and descending from heaven to inform himself of what passes
on earth;[41] while at the same time it ascribed to him suitable
infirmities, passions, and partialities, of the moral kind: That
religion, after it was extinct, would also be cited as an instance
of those contradictions, which arise from the gross, vulgar, natural
conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propensity,
towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more
strongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and
happily this is the case with Christianity) that it is free from a
contradiction, so incident to human nature.

           S/ECT\. VII. <Confirmation of this Doctrine>.

                                  

     It appears certain, that, though the original notions of the
vulgar represent the Divinity as a limited being, and consider him
only as the particular cause of health or sickness; plenty or want;
prosperity or adversity; yet when more magnificent ideas are urged
upon them, they esteem it dangerous to refuse their assent. Will you
say, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may
be overcome by a greater force; is subject to human passions, pains,
and infirmities; has a beginning, and may have an end? This they
dare not affirm; but thinking it safest to comply with the higher
encomiums, they endeavour, by an affected ravishment and devotion,
to ingratiate themselves with him. As a confirmation of this, we may
observe, that the assent of the vulgar is, in this case, merely
verbal, and that they are incapable of conceiving those sublime
qualities, which they seemingly attribute to the Deity. Their real
idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language, is still as
poor and frivolous as ever.

     That original intelligence, say the M/AGIANS\, who is the first
principle of all things, discovers himself <immediately> to the mind
and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the
visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams
over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory,
which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the