e. the greatest part of mankind, had such ideas of
God in their minds as he himself, out of care that they should not
be mistaken about him, was author of. And this universality of
consent, so much argued, if it prove any native impressions, it will
be only this:- that God imprinted on the minds of all men speaking the
same language, a name for himself, but not any idea; since those
people who agreed in the name, had, at the same time, far different
apprehensions about the thing signified. If they say that the
variety of deities worshipped by the heathen world were but figurative
ways of expressing the several attributes of that incomprehensible
Being, or several parts of his providence, I answer: what they might
be in the original I will not here inquire; but that they were so in
the thoughts of the vulgar I think nobody will affirm. And he that
will consult the voyage of the Bishop of Beryte, c. 13, (not to
mention other testimonies,) will find that the theology of the
Siamites professedly owns a plurality of gods: or, as the Abbe de
Choisy more judiciously remarks in his Journal du Voyage de Siam,
107/177, it consists properly in acknowledging no God at all.
16. Idea of God not innate although wise men of all nations come
to have it. If it be said, that wise men of all nations came to have
true conceptions of the unity and infinity of the Deity, I grant it.
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