SECT. VII. Against the worship given to those things which have no real existence.

We read that the Greeks and Latins, and others likewise, worshipped things which had no real existence, but were 164only the accidents of other things. For, not to mention those outrageous things, fever, impudence, and such like;⁴⁹⁰⁴⁹⁰   See Tully’s third book of the laws. health is nothing else but a just temperature of the parts of the body; and good fortune, a correspondence of events with the wishes of men; and the affections, such as love, fear, anger, hope, and the like, arising from the consideration of the goodness or badness, the easiness or difficulty of a thing, are certain motions in that part of the mind, which is most closely connected with the body, by means of the blood; and they have no power of their own, but are subject to the command of the will, which is mistress of them, at least as far as respects their continuance and direction. So likewise the virtues, which have different names. Prudence, which consists in the choice of what is advantageous; fortitude, in undergoing dangers; justice, in abstaining from what is not our our own. Temperance, in moderating pleasure, and the like: there is also a certain disposition or inclination towards that which is right, which grows upon the mind by long exercise; which, as it may be increased, so it may be diminished by neglect, nay, it may entirely be destroyed in a man. And honour,⁴⁹¹⁴⁹¹   Tully in the fore-mentioned place; and Livy, book xxvii. to which we read of temples being dedicated, is only the judgment of one concerning another, as endued with virtue; which often happens to the bad, and not to the good, through the natural aptness of mankind to mistake. Since, therefore, these things have no real existence, and cannot be compared in excellence with those that have a real existence;⁴⁹²⁴⁹²   Perhaps some may explain this worship of the heathens in this manner; as to say, that it was not so much the things, which were commonly signified by those words, that they worshipped, es a certain divine power, from which they flowed, or certain ideas In the divine understanding. Thus they might be said to worship a fever; not the disease itself, which is seated in the human body, but that power which is in God, of sending or abating a fever: to worship impudence; not that vice which is seated in the minds of men, but the will of God, which sometimes allows men’s impudence to go on, which he can restrain and punish; and the. same may be said of the rest, as love, fear, anger, hope, which are passions, which God can either excite or restrain; or of virtues, which are perfect in the divine nature, and of which we see only some faint resemblances in men, arising from the ideas of those virtues which are most complete in God: and of honour, which does not consist so much in the esteem of men, as in the will of God, who would have virtue honourable amongst men. But the heathens themselves never interpreted this matter thus; and it is absurd to worship the attributes and ideas of God, as real persons, under obscure names, such as may deceive the common people. It is much more sincere and honest to worship the Deity himself without any perplexities. Le Clerc. nor have any knowlege of our prayers or veneration 165of them; it is most disagreeable to right reason to worship them as God; and he is rather to be worshipped upon their account, who can give us them, and preserve them for us.