SECT. IV. Against the heathen worship paid to departed men.
THERE have been, and now are, heathens, who say that they pay worship to to the souls of men departed this life. 161But here, in the first place, this worship is also to be distinguished, by manifest tokens, from the worship of the Supreme God. Besides, our prayers to them are to no purpose, if those souls cannot assist us in any thing; and their worshippers are not assured of this; nor is there any more reason to affirm that they can, than that they cannot: and what is worst of all is, that those men who are thus had in honour, are found to have been men remarkable for very great vices. A drunken Bacchus, an effeminate Hercules, a Romulus, unnatural to his brother, and a Jupiter, as unnatural to his father. So that their honour is a reproach to the true God, and that goodness which is well-pleasing to him; because it adds a commendation, from religion, to those vices which are sufficiently flattering of themselves.485485