GOD, one of the many names of the Supreme Being. God is also used in speaking of any false deity of the heathens. The Greeks and Latins, it is observable, did not mean by the name of god, an all-perfect being, of whose nature, eternity, infinity, omnipresence, and omnipotence, were essential attributes; amongst them, the word only implied an excellent and superior nature, and, accordingly, they gave the appellation of gods to all beings of a rank or class higher and more perfect than men, espe-
usually to those who were inferior agents in the divine administration. Thus men themselves, according to their system, might become gods after death; inasmuch as their souls might attain to a degree of excellence superior to that which they were capable of while in life.