Shuckford says, “But if we look into Italy we not only find in general that the writers of their antiquities[1] remark, that their ancient deities were of a different sort from those of Greece, but according to Plutarch,[2] Numa, the second King of Rome, made express orders against the use of images in the worship of the Deity; nay, he says further, that the first 170 years after the building of the city, the Romans used no images, but thought the Deity invisible, and reputed it unlawful to make representations of him from things of an inferior nature; so that, according to this account, Rome being built about A. M. 3256,[3] the inhabitants were not greatly corrupted in their religion, even so late as A. M. 3426, which falls when Nebuchadnezzar was King of Babylon, and about 169 years after the time where I am to end this work. It is remarkable that Plutarch does not represent Numa as correcting or refining the ancient idolatry of Italy; but expresses, that this people never had these grosser deities, either before or for the first 170 years of their city; so that it is more than probable, that Greece was not thus corrupted when the Pelasgi removed from thence into Italy: and further, that the Trojans were not such idolaters at the destruction of their city, because, according to this account, Æneas neither brought with him images into Italy, nor such Gods as were worshiped by the adoration of images; and, therefore, Pausanias,[4] who imagined that Æneas carried the Palladium into Italy, was as much mistaken as the men of Argus, who affirmed themselves to have it in their city.[5] The times of Numa are about 200 years after Homer, and very probably the idolatry so much celebrated in his writings might by this time begin to appear in Italy, and thereby occasion Numa to make laws and constitutions against it.”[6]
After the above observations, Shuckford goes on to assert, in a style rather democratical for a Doctor of Divinity, that the first corruptions of religion were begun by kings and rulers of nations! And he produces several examples to support his assertion, which are not much in point. If he had said, that these corruptions had been produced by the knavery of his own order, the priests, working upon the timidity and weakness of timid and weak kings, and making them its tools, he would have been perfectly correct. For this is the mode by which half the miseries of mankind have been produced by this pernicious order of men. And when he says that the inhabitants of Italy were not greatly corrupted, he goes too far; he ought to have confined his observations to the Romans. But perhaps to them only he alluded.
6. The Chinese, with all their apparent idolatry, had only one God.
Speaking of the religion of the Chinese, Sir W. Jones[7] says, “Of the religious opinions entertained by Confucius and his followers, we may glean a general notion from the fragments of their works, translated by Couplet: they professed a firm belief in the Supreme God, and gave a demonstration of his being and of his providence, from the exquisite beauty and perfection of the celestial bodies, and the wonderful order of nature in the whole fabric of the visible world. From this belief they deduced a system of ethics, which the philosopher sums up in a few words at the close of the Lunyn. He” (says Confucius) “who shall be fully persuaded that the Lord of Heaven governs the universe, who shall in all things choose moderation, who shall perfectly know his own species, and so act among them, that his life and manners may conform to his knowledge of God and man, may be truly said to discharge all the duties of a sage, and to be exalted above the common herd of the human race!”
Marco Paulo[8] informs us, that in his time the Chinese paid their adoration to a tablet fixed against the wall in their houses, upon which was inscribed the name of the high, celestial, and
