Thus at _Bethel_, the place where _Jacob_ built his temple, and where his grandfather _Abraham_ had built one before, _Jeroboam_ chose it for his idolatrous temple, call’d by the _Alexandrian Greeks_ in after times, οικος Ων, the temple of _On_. _S. Cyril_ in his comments on _Hosea_ writes, that _On_ is the sun, from its round form. The heathen had done all they could to corrupt the remembrance of the name of the true God, and turn’d _Beth-el_, which signifies the house of EL or God, to οικος Ων, the house of _On_, or the sun. As ηλιος, is a word undoubtedly made from EL, in the _Hebrew_, expressing God’s power and sovereignty; so much like _Elion_ a name of God in Scripture, signifying _Hypsistus_, the most high. _Gen._ xiv. 18. _Luke_ i. 37. in _Arabic_, _allah taâla_ the most high God. Whence _Atlas_ the name of consecration of the _African_ hero, _allah taâl_. [Illustration: TAB. V. _The prospect Northward from Rowldrich Stones._ _Stukeley del._ A. _the King Stone._ B. _the Archdruids barrow._ C. _king barrows or round barrows._ D. _long compton._] When these ancient patriarchal temples in other countries came to be perverted to idolatry, they consecrated many of them to the sun, thinking their round form ought to be referr’d to his disc; and that these pyramidal stones, set in a circle, imitated his rays. Hence call’d _Aglibelus_, _rotundus Deus_, as interpreted by _Bochart_. עגל בעל, ζευς επικυκλιος among the orientals, as _Schedius_ observes. And had the ancient _Greek_ writers seen our temples of _Stonehenge_, and the rest, they would have concluded them dedicated to the sun. These temples of ours are always of a round form: and there are innumerable of them, all over the _Britannic_ isles, nevertheless they are to be ranked into three kinds; for tho’ they are all circular, yet there are three manifest diversities which I have observ’d, regarding that threefold figure, by which the ancients, probably even from _Adam_’s time, express’d in writing, the great idea of the deity. This figure by _Kircher_ is call’d _ophio-cyclo-pterygo-morphus_. ’Tis a circle with wings, and a snake proceeding from it. A figure excellently well design’d to picture out the intelligence they had, no doubt, by divine communication, of the mysterious nature of the deity. And it was the way of the ancients in their religious buildings, to copy out or analogize the form of the divine being, as they conceiv’d it, in a symbolical manner. By this means they produc’d a most effectual prophylact, as they thought, which could not fail of drawing down the blessings of divine providence upon that place and country, as it were, by sympathy and similitude.