This Zeal has been univerfally looked upon from Heaven with a gracious Eye. All civilized Nations have reaped Fruit from their Devotion. Impious Men and Actions have every-where had fuitable Events.

The Pagan Hiftories acknowledge Dignity, Order, Juftice, Prodigies, and Oracles, employed The Ideas for their Profit and Inftruction in their fabu- which the Palous Religions: God in his Mercy vouch- gan Hiftories: fafing, perhaps, by these temporal Benefits, give of God. to cherish the tender Principles of a kind of brutish Knowledge, which they had of him, by the Light of Nature, through the falfe Images of their Dreams. And thofe which Man has framed out of his own Invention, are not only falfe but impious and injurious. And of all the Religions, which St. Paul found in Repute at Athens, that which they devoted to the fecret and unknown God, feemed to him the most excufable.

What St. Paul thought of the Athenians un

known God.

clofely, judg

What Pytha

goras thought of the Idea which Man can form of

Pythagoras fhadowed the Truth a little more ing that the Knowledge of this first Cause, and Being of Beings, ought to be indefinite without Prescription, without Declaration: That it was nothing but the extreme Effort of our Imagination towards Perfection, every Man amplifying the Idea of him, according to his Capacity. But, if Numa attempted to conform the Devotion of his People to this Project, to unite them to a Religion purely mental, without any present Object and material Mixture, he attempted a Thing of no Ufe.

a

God.

palpable Religion for the People, according to Montaigne.

The Mind of Man cannot poffibly maintain itself, floating in fuch an Infinity of rude ConcepThere must be tions. There is a Neceffity of adapting them to a certain Image proportioned to his Capacity. The Divine Majefty has, therefore, in fome Measure, fuffered himself, for our Sakes, to be circumfcribed in corporal Limits. His Supernatural and Celestial Myfteries have Signs of our earthly State. His Adoration is expreffed by Offices and Words that are fenfible; for it is R 4 Man

Book II. Man that believes, and that prays. I omit the other Arguments that are made use of upon this Subject. But I can hardly be induced to believe, that the Sight of our Crucifixes, that the Picture of our Saviour's Paffion, that the Ornaments and Ceremonious Motions in our Churches, that the Voices accommodated to the Devoutnefs of our Thoughts, and that this Roufing of the Senfes, do not warm the Souls of the People with a religious Paffion of a very falutary Effect.

The Worship

of the Sun the moft excufable Adcration.

Of the Objects of Worship, to which they have given a Body, Body, according as Neceffity required in this univerfal Blindness, I fhould, I fancy, moft incline to those who adored the Sun,

la lumiere commune,

L'oeil du monde et fi Dieu au chef porte des yeux,
Les rayons du Soliel font fes yeux radiaux,

Qui doument vie à tous, nous maintrennent et gardent,
Et les faits des hommes en ce monde regardent:
Ce beau, ce grand Soleil, qui nous fait les faifons,
Selon qu'il entre, ou fort de fes douze maifons:
Qui remplit l'univers de fes vertus cognuës,
Qui d' untrait de fes yeux nous diffâpre les nuës :
L'efprit, l'ame du monde, ardent & flamboyant,
En la courfe d'un jour tout le ciel tournoyant,
Plein d'immense grandeur, rond, vagabond, et ferme :
Lequel tient deffous luy tout le monde pour terme :
En repos, fans repos, oyfif et fans fejour,
Fils aifne de nature, et le pere du jourt.

i. e.

The common Light that fhines indifferently
On all alike, the World's enlight'ning Eye;
And, if th'Almighty Ruler of the Skies
Has Eyes, the Sun-Beams are his radiant Eyes,
That Life and Safety give to Young and Old,
And all Men's Actions upon Earth behold.
This great, this beautiful and glorious Sun,
Which Seafons gives by Revolution;

Ronfard.

That

That with his Virtues fills the Universe,

And with one Glance does fullen Clouds difperfe;
Earth's Life and Soul, that, flaming in his Sphere,
Surrounds the Heavens in one Day's Career;
Immensely great, moving yet firm and round,
Who the whole World below has made his Bound;
At Reft, without Reft, idle without Stay,
Nature's firft Son, and Father of the Day.

Forafmuch as, befides this his Magnitude and Beauty, 'tis the Piece of this Machine which we difcover at the remotest Distance from us, and therefore fo little known, that they were pardonable for entering into the Admiration and Reverence of it.

b

a

Thales, who was the firft that inquired" into Things of this Nature, thought God to be a Spirit, that made all Things of Water. Anaximander, that the Gods were, at different and distant Seasons, dying and entering into Life *, and that there was an infinite Number of Worlds. Anaximenes, that the Air was God" that he was immense infinite, and always in Motion. Anaxagoras' was the first Man who believed, that the Description and Manner of all Things were conducted by the Power and Reason of an infinite Spirit. Alcmeon afcribed Divinity to the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and the Soul. Pythagoras has made God to be a Spirit, diffused through the Nature of all Things, from whence our Souls are extracted. Parmenides, a Circle furrounding Heaven, and fupporting the World by its Heat and Light. Empedocles" pronounced the four Elements, of which all Things are compofed, to be God. Protagoras had nothing to fay, whether there were Gods or not, or what they were.. Democritus was one while of Opinion, that the Images and their Circuitions were Gods; at another Time, he deified that Nature, which darts out thofe Savages; and, at another Time, he pays this Attribute to our Knowledge and Understanding. Plato puts his Opinion into various Lights.

h

t

y

He

* Cic. ibid. Idem, ibid: d Id. ibid. c. 12.

" Cic. de Natura Deorum, lib. i. c. 10. z Idem, ibid. c. 11. Id. ibid. b Id. ibid. • Id. ibid. He was a Sophift of Abdera. Id. ibid. f Id. ibid.

He says, in his Timaus, that the Father of the World cannot be named; and, in his Book of Laws, that he thinks Men ought not to inquire into his Being: And elfewhere, in the very fame Book, he makes the World, the Heaven, the Stars, the Earth, and our Souls, Gods, admitting, moreover, those which have been received by ancient Inftitution in every Republic. Xenophon i reports a like Perplexity in the Doctrine of Socrates; one while that Men are not to inquire into the Form of God, and presently makes him maintain that the Sun is God, and the Soul God: One while, he fays, he maintains there is but one God, and afterwards, that there are many Gods. Speufippus, Plato's Nephew, makes God to be a certain Power governing all Things, and that it is an Animal. Ariftotle one while fays, it is the Soul, and another while the World: One while he gives this World another Master, and at another Time makes God the Ardor of Heaven. Xenocrates makes the Gods to be eight in Number, of whom five were among the Planets; the fixth confifted of all the fixed Stars, as fo many of its Members; the seventh and eighth the Sun and Moon. Heraclides Ponticus" is of a wavering Opinion, and finally deprives God of Senfe, and makes him fhift from one Form to another, and afterwards fays, 'tis Heaven and Earth. Theophraftus wanders in the fame Uncertainty amongst all his Fancies, one while afcribing the Superintendency of the World to the Understanding, at another Time to Heaven, and one while alfo to the Stars. Strato will have it to be Nature, having the Power of Generation, Augmentation, and Diminution, but without Form and Sentiment. Zeno makes it to be the Law of Nature, commanding Good and forbiding Evil, which Law is an Animal, and takes away the accuftomed Gods, Jupiter, Juno, Vefta, &c. Diogenes Apolloniates' afcribes

m

the

1 Cic. de Natura Deorum, Lib. i. c. 12. * Cic. de Natura Deorum, c. 13. Id. ibid. Id. ibid. Id. ibid. Id ibid. Id. ibid. Id. ibid. c. 14. I cannot imagine where Montaigne learned, that Age was the Deity acknowledged by Diogenes of Apollonia; Age muft furely have been printed instead of Air, in one of the firft Editions of his Effays, from whence

the Deity to Age. Xenophanes makes God round, feeing and hearing, but not breathing, nor having any Thing in common with the Nature of Man. Arifto thinks the Form of God to be incomprehenfible, deprives him of Senfe, and knows not whether he be an Animal or fomething else. Cleanthes" one while fuppofes him to be Reason, another while the World; fometimes the Soul of Nature, at other Times the fupreme Heat, called Ether, rolling about and encompaffing all. Perfeus", the Difciple of Zeno, was of Opinion, that Men who have been remarkably useful and profitable to human Life, are firnamed Gods. Chryfippus made a confufed Collection of all the foregoing Opinions, and reckons Men alfo, who are immortalized amongst a thousand Forms, which he makes of Gods. Diagoras and Theodorus flatly deny that there were ever any Gods at all. Epicurus makes the Gods fhining, tranfparent, and perflable, lodged betwixt the two Worlds, as betwixt two Groves, fecure from Shocks, invefted with a human Figure, and the Members that we have, but which are to them of no Ufe. Ego Deum genus effe femper duxi, et dicam cœlitum, Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus.

y

i. l.

this Error was continued in all the following Editions. "Tis certain, however, that Cicero fays, exprefsly, that Air is the God of Diogenes Apolloniates, in his Natura Deorum, lib. i. c. 12. with whom agrees St. Auftin, in his Book de Civitate Dei, lib. viii. c. 2. from whom it alfo appears, that this Philofopher afcribed Senfe to the Air, and that he called it the Matter out of which all Things were formed, and that it was endowed with Divine Reafon, without which nothing could be made. M. Bayle, in his Dictionary, at the Article of Diogenes of Apollonia, infers, that he made a Whole, or a Compound, of Air and the Divine Virtue, in which, if Air was the Matter, the Divine Virtue was the Soul and Form; and that, by Confequence, the Air, animated by the Divine Virtue, ought, according to that Philofopher, to be be filed God. As for the rest, this Philofopher, by afcribing Understanding to the Air, differed from his Mafter Anaximenes, who thought the Air inanimate.

Diog. Laert. in the Life of Xenophanes, lib. ix. fect. 19.

Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. c. 14. " Idem, ibid.

Idem, ibid. c. 15. Id. ib. See a learned and judicious Remark on this Paffage by the Prefident Boulier, Tom. i. of the Tranflation, by the Abbe d'Olivet, p. 247. y Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. i. c. 23. and Sextus Empiric, adv. Mathem. lib. viii. p. 317. z Cic. de Divinatione, Lib. ii. C. 17.