And to the Worship, which naturally men conceived fit to bee used
towards their Gods, namely Oblations, Prayers, Thanks, and the rest
formerly named; the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their
Images, both in Picture, and Sculpture; that the more ignorant sort,
(that is to say, the most part, or generality of the people,) thinking
the Gods for whose representation they were made, were really included,
and as it were housed within them, might so much the more stand in feare
of them: And endowed them with lands, and houses, and officers, and
revenues, set apart from all other humane uses; that is, consecrated,
and made holy to those their Idols; as Caverns, Groves, Woods,
Mountains, and whole Ilands; and have attributed to them, not onely
the shapes, some of Men, some of Beasts, some of Monsters; but also the
Faculties, and Passions of men and beasts; as Sense, Speech, Sex, Lust,
Generation, (and this not onely by mixing one with another, to propagate
the kind of Gods; but also by mixing with men, and women, to beget
mongrill Gods, and but inmates of Heaven, as Bacchus, Hercules,
and others;) besides, Anger, Revenge, and other passions of living
creatures, and the actions proceeding from them, as Fraud, Theft,
Adultery, Sodomie, and any vice that may be taken for an effect of
Power, or a cause of Pleasure; and all such Vices, as amongst men are
taken to be against Law, rather than against Honour.
Lastly, to the Prognostiques of time to come; which are naturally, but
Conjectures upon the Experience of time past; and supernaturall, divine
Revelation; the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles, partly
upon pretended Experience, partly upon pretended Revelation, have
added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination; and made men
believe they should find their fortunes, sometimes in the ambiguous
or senslesse answers of the priests at Delphi, Delos, Ammon, and other
famous Oracles; which answers, were made ambiguous by designe, to own
the event both wayes; or absurd by the intoxicating vapour of the place,
which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes: Sometimes in the leaves
of the Sibills; of whose Prophecyes (like those perhaps of Nostradamus;
for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times)
there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republique:
Sometimes in the insignificant Speeches of Mad-men, supposed to
be possessed with a divine Spirit; which Possession they called
Enthusiasme; and these kinds of foretelling events, were accounted
Theomancy, or Prophecy; Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their
Nativity; which was called Horoscopy, and esteemed a part of judiciary
Astrology: Sometimes in their own hopes and feares, called Thumomancy,
or Presage: Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches, that pretended
conference with the dead; which is called Necromancy, Conjuring, and
Witchcraft; and is but juggling and confederate knavery: Sometimes in