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   See an example hereof in Terence’s Eunuch, act iii. scene v. Cyprian, epist. ii. “They imitate those gods they worship; the religion of those wretched creatures is made up of sin.” Augustine, epist. CCII. “Nothing renders men so unsociable, by perverseness of life, as the imitation of those whom they commend and describe in their writings.” Chalcidius in Timæus: “So it comes to pass, that instead of that gratitude that is due to Divine Providence from men for their original and birth, they return sacrilege.” See the whole place.