Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_000.lzh/D_002.TXT

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persed throughout the earth, and settled in the distant
parts of it; that as they were remote from those among
whom the true worship of God was preserved; they, by
degrees, lost sight of the true God, and forsook his wor-
ship; and this being the case, they began to worship the
sun in his stead, and which led on to the worship of the
moon, and the host of heaven; which seem to be the first
objects of idolatry. This was as early as the times
Job, who plainly refers to it, \\#Job 31:26,27\\.  And,
indeed, when men had cast off the true object of worship,
what more natural to substitute in his room than the sun,
moon, and stars, which were above them, visible by them,
and so glorious in themselves, and so beneficial to the
earth and men on it? Hence the people of Israel were
exhorted to take care that their eyes were not ensnared at
the sight of them, to fall down and worship them; and
which in after-times they did. \\#De 4:19, 2Ki 21:3\\.
It appears also that men took very early to the
deifying of their heroes after death, their kings, and great
personages, either for their wisdom and knowledge, or for
their courage and valour, and martial exploits, and other
things; such were the Bel, or Belus, of the Babylo-
nians; the Baal-peor of the Moabites.; and the Moloch
of the Phoenicians, and other Baalim lords, or kings,
mentioned in the Scriptures: and such were Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Hercules; and the rest of the
rabble of the heathen deities; and indeed their Lares,
and Penates, or household gods, were no other than the
images of their deceased parents, or more remote ances-
tors, whose memory they revered; and in process of time
their deities became very numerous; they had gods many
and lords many: even with the Jews, when fallen into
idolatry, their gods were according to the number of their
cities, \\#Jer 2:28\\. And as for the Gentiles, they wor-
shipped almost every thing; not only the sun, moon, and
stars; but the earth, fire, and water; and various sorts of
animals, as oxen, goats, and swine, cats and dogs, the
fishes of the rivers, the river-horse, and the crocodile,
those amphibious creatures; the fowls of the air, as the
hawk, stork, and ibis; and even insects, the fly; yea,
creeping things, as serpents, the beetle, &c.; as also ve-
getables, onions, and garlic; which occasioned the sati-
rical poet {9} to say, %O sanctas gentes quibus haec nascun-
tur in hortis, numina!%  0 holy nations, whose gods are
born in their gardens! Nay, some have worshipped the
devil himself, as both in the East and West Indies {10};
and that for this reason, that he might not hurt them.
Now though all this betrays the dreadful depravity of
human nature; the wretched ignorance of mankind; and
the sad stupidity men were sunk into; yet at the same
time such shocking idolatry, in all the branches of it, is a
full proof of the truth and force of my argument, that all
men, in all ages and countries, have been possessed of the
notion of a God; since, rather than to have no God,
they have chosen false ones; so deeply rooted is a sense
of Deity in the minds of all men.
\*@1.I am sensible that to this it is objected, that there have
been, at different times, and in different countries, some
particular persons {11} who have been reckoned atheists,
deniers of the Being of a God.  But some of these men
were only deriders of the gods of their country; they
mocked at them as unworthy of the name, as weak and
insufficient to help them; as they reasonably might;
just as Elijah mocked at Baal and his worshippers.
Now the common people, because they so behaved to-
wards their gods, looked upon them as atheists, as such
who did not believe there was any God. Others were so
accounted, because they excluded the gods from any con-
cern with human affairs; they thought they were other-
ways employed, and that such things were below their
notice, and not becoming their grandeur and dignity to
regard; and had much the same sentiments as some of
the Jews had, \\#Eze 9:9, Zep 1:l2\\. But these men
were not deniers of the existence of God, only of his
providence as to the affairs of the world: and others have
been rather practical than speculative atheists, as the fool
in \\#Ps 14:1\\ who not only live as if there was no
God; but wish in their hearts there was none, rather
than believe there is none; that so they might take their
fill of sin, without being accountable to a superior Being.
The number of real speculative atheists have been very
few, if any; some have boldly asserted their disbelief of
a God; but it is a question whether their hearts and
mouths have agreed; at least they have not been able to
maintain their unbelief long {12} without some doubts and
fears. And at most this only shows how much the rea-
son of man may be debased, and how low it may sink
when left to itself: these few instances are only parti-
cular exceptions to a general rule; which is not destroyed
thereby, being contrary to the common sense of man-
kind; even as it is no sufficient objection to the defi-
nition of man, as a rational creature, that there is now
and then an idiot born of his race, so not to the general
belief of Deity, that there is now and then an atheist in
the world.
\*@1.It is further objected, that there have been whole
nations in Africa and America, who have no notion of
Deity. But this is what has not been sufficiently proved;
it depends upon the testimonies of travellers, and what
one affirms, another denies; so that nothing can with
certainty be concluded from them.  \*"I should rather
"question,"\* says Herbert, Lord Cherbury {13}, \*"whether the
"light of the sun has shone on the remotest regions, than
"that the knowledge of the Supreme Being is hidden from
"them; since the sun is only conspicuous in its own
"sphere; but the Supreme Being is seen in every thing."\*
Diodorus Siculus {14} says, a few of the Ethiopians were
of opinion there was no God; though before he had
represented them as the first and most religious of all
nations, as attested by all antiquity. The Hottentots
about the Cape of Good Hope have been instanced in, as
without any knowledge of Deity: and certainly they are
a most beastly and brutish people that can be named, and
the most degenerate of the human species, and have
survived the common instincts of humanity {15}; yet, ac-
cording to Mr. Kolben's account of them, published


{9}  Juvenal, Sat. 15. v. 10.
{10} Peter Martyr de Angleria. Decad. l. l. 9. Vartoman. Navigat.
1. 5. c. 12, 23 and l. 6. c. 16, 27.
{11} Plutarch. de Placitis Philosoph. 1. l. c. 7.
{12} Plato observes, that no man that embraced this opinion from his
youth, that there is no God, ever continued in it to old age. De Legibus.
1. 10. p. 947.
{13} De Relig. Gent. c. 13. p. 225.
{14} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 148.
{15} See the Philosoph. Transac. Abridged. Vol. V. part 2. p. 154.