Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/206

22 acquainted with the primary faith of any church, which by the reason of its predominancy is called saving faith, we may know from thence, the state and quality of that church. This may be illustrated by the following example; suppose it to be a predominant faith that nature is the creator of the universe; the consequence of such a faith is a belief that the universe is what is generally called God; that nature is the essence; that æther is the supreme God, whom the ancients called Jupiter; that air is a goodness, whom the ancients called Juno, and made the wife of Jupiter; that the ocean is an inferior deity, who according to the ancients is named Neptune; and since the divinity of nature extendeth even to the centre of the earth, that there also is a God who, in conformity to the ancients, may be called Pluto; that the sun is the palace of all the Gods, wherein they assemble when Jupiter calleth a council; and moreover that fire is life issuing from God; and thus that birds fly in God, beasts walk in God, and fishes swim in God; and further that thoughts are only different modifications of æther, as expressions of thought are only modulations of air; and that love-affections are mere occasional changes of state, owing to the influx of the sun's rays; and with respect to a life after death, and a heaven and hell, that these things are mere fictions, invented by the clergy with a view to aggrandize their own honour and wealth, but that notwithstanding their being fictions, they are still useful, and ought not to be publicly despised, inasmuch as they may be serviceable to keep the minds of the vulgar under the yoke of obedience to the civil magistrate; that those however, who are caught with the bait of religion, are recluse men, whose thoughts are mere phantasms, whose actions are ridiculous, and who, living in servile subjection to priests, believe what they do not see, and see what is