The MAN, which the lion on the standard of Judah, and the head on Reuben’s, typified, was, in the fulness of time, united to the divine essence. These are the emblems of the _terrestrial cherubim_: and the Psalmist calls them Merabha Hashekina, “The chariot of Divine Majesty:” “God sitteth between, and rideth upon, the cherubim,” or divine chariot. The _celestial cherubim_ were _fire_, _light_, and _air_, or spirit, which were typified by the _bull_, the _lion_, and the _eagle_. Those divine emblems, in a long revolution of time, {28} induced the ancients by degrees, to divide them, and make images of the divine persons, powers, and actions, which they typified, and to esteem them gods. They consecrated the bull’s head to the fire, the lion’s to light, and the eagle’s to the air, which they worshipped as gods. And, in proportion as they lost the knowledge of the emblems, they multiplied and compounded their heads with those of different creatures. The Egyptians commonly put the head of a lion, hawk, or eagle, and sometimes that of a ram, or bull, to their images; some of which resembled the human body. Their Apis, or Osiris, gave rise to Aaron’s, and apostate Israel’s, golden calf: and their sphynx had three heads. Diana of Ephesus was triformis; Janus of Rome, biformis, and, sometimes, quadriformis; and Jupiter, Sol, Mercury, Proserpine, and Cerberus, were triple-headed. Hesiod tells us, the ancient heathens had no less than thirty thousand _gods_. It is well known that the ancient heathens, especially the Greeks and Romans, abounded with male and female deities; and commonly in human effigy. As they imagined they could not safely trust themselves to the care of any one god, they therefore chose a multiplicity. They multiplied and changed them from childhood to old age. The Romans proceeded so far, as to make Cloacina the guardian goddess of each house-of-office. The heathens in general, appointed one god to preside over the land, and another over the water; one for the mountains, and another for the valleys. And they were so diffident of the power of their gods, that they chose a god, or goddess, for each part of the body; contrary to the religious system of their best poets and philosophers, and that of the present savage Americans: the former affirmed, _sapiens dominabitur astris_, &c.; “A wife, good man, will always be ruled by divine reason; and not pretend to be drawn to this or that, by an over-bearing power of the stars, or fortune:” and the latter assert, “that temporal good or evil is the necessary effect of their own conduct; and that the Deity presides over life and death.”