without this distinction of superior and inferior deities in the theology of the Gentiles; they having a plurality in both sorts, and we Christians but one in each, as our apostle affirmeth. There wants but only the name of demons, instead of which the apostle puts Lords, and that for the honour of Christ, of whom he was to infer, one Lord; the name of Christ being not to be polluted with the appellation of an idol. For had he said, "there be Gods many, and demons many," to keep up the opposition, he would have been obliged to say, "to us, there is but one God, and * one demon." Or it may be he alludes unto the Hebrew name Baalim, which signifies Lords; and those Lords, as I told you, were nothing else but demons. For thus would St. Paul speak in the Hebrew tongue,- "There are (Elohim Rabbim and Baalim rabbim) many Gods and many Lords."

* εις Δαίμων.

CHAPTER IV.

The Gentiles' doctrine concerning the original of demons— viz., that they were the souls of men deified, or canonized, after death. This proved out of Hesiod, Plato, Trismegist, Philo Biblius, the translator of Sanchoniathon, Plutarch, Tully-Baal, or Bel, or Belus, the first deified king; hence demons are called in Scripture, Baalim. Demons and heroes, how they differ. Demons called, by the Romans, Penates, Lares, as also Dii Animales, soul gods.-Another and a higher kind of demons, such as never dwelt in bodies: these answer to angels, as the other (viz. the soul demons) answer to saints.

I

AND thus I have shewed you, (though but briefly, in regard to the abundance the argument would afford,) the nature and office of these demons, according to the doctrine of the Gentiles. come now unto another part of this doctrine, which concerns the original of demons, whom you shall find to be the SOULS OF MEN DEIFIED AFTER DEATH. For the canonizing of the souls of deceased worthies is not now first devised among Christians, but was an idolatrous trick, even from the days of the elder world; so that the Devil, when he brought in this apostatical doctrine amongst Christians, swerved but little from his ancient method of seducing mankind.

Let Hesiod speak in the first place, as being of the most known the most ancient. He tells us,

that*"when those happy men of the first and golden age of the world were departed this life, the great Jupiter promoted them to be demons; that is, keepers and protectors, or patrons of earthly mortals, and overseers of their good and evil works, givers of riches, &c., and this" saith he," is the kingly royalty given them."

And hence it is that Oenomaus, quoted by Eusebius, calleth these demon-gods, "Hesiod's Gods."

The next shall be Plato, who, in his Cratylus, says that Hesiod, and a great number of the rest of the poets, speak excellently, when they affirm that good men, when they die, attain great honour and dignity, and become demons (Sáμoves), which is, saith he, as much as to say (Aanμoves), wise ones; for wise ones, saith he, are only good ones, and all good ones are of Hesiod's golden generation.

The same Plato ‡ would have all those who die valiantly in the field "to be accounted of the golden kind," and § "to be made demons, and the Oracle to be consulted how they should be buried

*

Αυτὰρ ἐπεὶ μὲν τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γᾶια κάλυψεν

Τοὶ μὲν ΔΑΙΜΟΝΕΣ εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλὰς,
Εσθλοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων,
Οἱ ρὰ φυλάσσουσι δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα,
Ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι, πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ ̓ ἆιαν
Πλουτοδόται· καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον.

† Ησιοδέιοι θεὸι. Lib. 5. de Repub. § Δαίμονας effici.

and honoured; and accordingly, 樂 ever afterwards their sepulchres to be served and adored as the sepulchres of demons. In like manner should be done unto all who, in their life-time, excelled in virtue, whether they died through age or otherwise." This place Eusebius quotes, (Præp. Ev., bk. 13) to parallel with it the then harmless practice of Christians, in honouring the memory of martyrs, by holding their assemblies at their sepulchres; to the end that he might shew the Gentiles that Christians also honoured their worthies in the worthiest fashion. But it had been well if, in the next ages after, this custom of Christians (then but resembling) had not proved the very same doctrine of demons which the Gentiles practised.

But I go on, and my next author shall be Hermes Trismegistus, whose antiquity is said to be very near the time of Moses. I will translate you his words out of his Asclepius, which Apuleius translated into Latin. There, having named Esculapius, Osiris, and his grandfather Hermes, who were, as he saith, worshipped for demons in his own time, he adds further, that the Egyptians call them (namely, the demons) holy animals, and that amongst them (namely, the Egyptians)," through every city, the souls

* ὡς Δαιμόνων ὅντω θεραπεύσομέν τε καὶ προσκυνή σομεν αὐτῶν τὰς θήκας.

† Sancta animalia.

Per singulas civitates coli eorum animas, quorum sunt consecratæ virtutes.

of those are worshipped whose virtues are deified." And here note, by the way, that some are of opinion that the Egyptian Serapis, whose idol had a bushel upon his head, was Joseph, whose soul the Egyptians had canonized for a demon after his death.

:

Philo Byblius, the translator of Sanchoniathon, that ancient Phoenician historian, who lived before the times of Troy, and wrote the Acts of Moses and the Jews, saith Eusebius, very agreeably to the Scripture and (saith he) learned his story of Jerom-baal, a priest of the God JEVO ; Philo Byblius, I say, in a preface to his translation of this author, setteth down what he had observed and learned out of the same story, and might serve to help the understanding of those who should read it; namely, that all the barbarians, chiefly the Phoenicians and Egyptians, of whom the rest had it, accounted of those for the greatest gods (Dii maximi,) who had found out anything profitable for the life of men, or had deserved well of any nation; and that they worshipped these as Gods, erecting statues, images, and temples unto them. And more especially they gave the names of their Kings, as to the elements of the world, so also to these their reputed Gods; for they esteemed the natural deities of the sun, moon, and planets, and those which are in these, to be only and properly Gods; so that they had two sorts of Gods: some were immortals, and others were, as we may term them, mortalists.

Thus saith Philo Byblius, out of the Phoenician history; from which testimony we may borrow