But then this,
First, excludes universality of consent in anything but the name;
for those wise men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this
universality is very narrow.
Secondly, it seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and
best notions men have of God were not imprinted, but acquired by
thought and meditation, and a right use of their faculties: since
the wise and considerate men of the world, by a right and careful
employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this
as well as other things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of
men, making far the greater number, took up their notions by chance,
from common tradition and vulgar conceptions, without much beating
their heads about them. And if it be a reason to think the notion of
God innate, because all wise men had it, virtue too must be thought
innate; for that also wise men have always had.
17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men. This was
evidently the case of all Gentilism. Nor hath even amongst Jews,
Christians, and Mahometans, who acknowledged but one God, this
doctrine, and the care taken in those nations to teach men to have
true notions of a God, prevailed so far as to make men to have the
same and the true ideas of him. How many even amongst us, will be
found upon inquiry to fancy him in the shape of a man sitting in
heaven; and to have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him?
Christians as well as Turks have had whole sects owning and contending
earnestly for it,- that the Deity was corporeal, and of human shape:
and though we find few now amongst us who profess themselves
Anthropomorphites, (though some I have met with that own it,) yet I
believe he that will make it his business may find amongst the
ignorant and uninstructed Christians many of that opinion.
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