And therefore from the like things past,they expect the like things to come;and hope for good or evil luck,superstitiously,from things that have no part at all in the causing of it:as the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio;the Pompeian faction for their war in Africa,another Scipio;and others have done in diverse other occasions since.In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by,to a lucky or unlucky place,to words spoken,especially if the name of God be amongst them,as charming,and conjuring (the liturgy of witches);insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread,bread into a man,or anything into anything.
Thirdly,for the worship which naturally men exhibit to powers invisible,it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men;gifts,petitions,thanks,submission of body,considerate addresses,sober behaviour,premeditated words,swearing (that is,assuring one another of their promises),by invoking them.Beyond that,reason suggesteth nothing,but leaves them either to rest there,or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves.
Lastly,concerning how these invisible powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to pass,especially concerning their good or evil fortune in general,or good or ill success in any particular undertaking,men are naturally at a stand;save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past,they are very apt,not only to take casual things,after one or two encounters,for prognostics of the like encounter ever after,but also to believe the like prognostics from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion.
And in these four things,opinion of ghosts,ignorance of second causes,devotion towards what men fear,and taking of things casual for prognostics,consisteth the natural seed of religion;which,by reason of the different fancies,judgements,and passions of several men,hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another.
For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men.One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them,according to their own invention.The other have done it by God's commandment and direction.But both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relied on them the more apt to obedience,laws,peace,charity,and civil society.So that the religion of the former sort is a part of human politics;and teacheth part of the duty which earthly kings require of their subjects.And the religion of the latter sort is divine politics;and containeth precepts to those that have yielded themselves subjects in the kingdom of God.Of the former sort were all the founders of Commonwealths,and the lawgivers of the Gentiles:of the latter sort were Abraham,Moses,and our blessed Saviour,by whom have been derived unto us the laws of the kingdom of God.
And for that part of religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of powers invisible,there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles,in one place or another,a god or devil;or by their poets feigned to be animated,inhabited,or possessed by some spirit or other.
The unformed matter of the world was a god by the name of Chaos.
The heaven,the ocean,the planets,the fire,the earth,the winds,were so many gods.
Men,women,a bird,a crocodile,a calf,a dog,a snake,an onion,a leek,were deified.Besides that,they filled almost all places with spirits called demons:the plains,with Pan and Panises,or Satyrs;the woods,with Fauns and Nymphs;the sea,with Tritons and other Nymphs;every river and fountain,with a ghost of his name and with Nymphs;every house,with its Lares,or familiars;every man,with his Genius;Hell,with ghosts and spiritual officers,as Charon,Cerberus,and the Furies;and in the night time,all places with larvae,lemures,ghosts of men deceased,and a whole kingdom of fairies and bugbears.They have also ascribed divinity,and built temples,to mere accidents and qualities;such as are time,night,day,peace,concord,love,contention,virtue,honour,health,rust,fever,and the like;which when they prayed for,or against,they prayed to as if there were ghosts of those names hanging over their heads,and letting fall or withholding that good,or evil,for or against which they prayed.They invoked also their own wit,by the name of Muses;their own ignorance,by the name of Fortune;their own lust,by the name of Cupid;their own rage,by the name Furies;their own privy members by the name of Priapus;and attributed their pollutions to incubi and succubae:insomuch as there was nothing which a poet could introduce as a person in his poem which they did not make either a god or a devil.
The same authors of the religion of the Gentiles,observing the second ground for religion,which is men's ignorance of causes,and thereby their aptness to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependence at all apparent,took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance,instead of second causes,a kind of second and ministerial gods;ascribing the cause of fecundity to Venus,the cause of arts to Apollo,of subtlety and craft to Mercury,of tempests and storms to Aeolus,and of other effects to other gods;insomuch as there was amongst the heathen almost as great variety of gods as of business.
