or the worship of idols, may be distinguished into two sorts. By the first, men adore the works of God, the sun, the moon, the stars, angels, daemons, men, and animals; by the second, men worship the work of their own hands, as statues, pictures, and the like; and to these may be added a third, that by which men have worshipped the true God under sensible figures and representations. This indeed may have been the case with respect to each of the above kinds of idolatry; and thus the Israelites adored God under the figure of a calf.

The stars were the first objects of idolatrous worship, on account of their beauty, their influence on the productions of the earth, and the regularity of their motions, particularly the sun and moon, which are considered as the most glorious and resplendent images of the Deity: afterwards, as their sentiments became Idolatry, more corrupted, they began to form images, and to entertain the opinion, that by virtue of consecration, the gods were called down to inhabit or dwell in their statues. Hence Arnobius takes occasion to rally the Pagans for guarding so carefully the statues of their gods, who, if they were really present in their images, might save their worshippers the trouble of securing them from thieves and robbers.

As to the adoration which the ancient Pagans paid to the statues of their gods, it is certain, that the wiser and more sensible heathens considered them only as simple representations or figures designed to recall to their minds the memory of their gods. This was the opinion of Varro and Seneca; and the same sentiment is clearly laid down in Plato, who maintains, that images are inanimate, and that all the honour paid to them has respect to the gods whom they represent. But as to the vulgar, they were stupid enough to believe the statues themselves to be gods, and to pay divine worship to stocks and stones.

Soon after the flood, idolatry seems to have been the prevailing religion of all the world: for wherever we cast our eyes at the time of Abraham, we scarcely see any thing but false worship and idolatry. And it appears from Scripture, that Abraham's forefathers, and even Abraham himself, were for a time idolaters.

The Hebrews were indeed expressly forbidden to make any representation of God: they were not so much as to look upon an idol: and from the time of the Maccabees to the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews extended this precept to the making the figure of any man: by the law of Moses, they were obliged to destroy all the images they found, and were forbidden to apply any of the gold or silver to their own use, that no one might receive the least profit from any thing belonging to an idol. Of this the Jews, after they had smitten for their idolatry, were so sensible, that they thought it unlawful to use any vessel that had been employed in sacrificing to a false god, to warm themselves with the wood of a grove after it was cut down, or to shelter themselves under its shade.

But the preaching of the Christian religion, wherever it prevailed, entirely rooted out idolatry; as did also that of Mahomet, which is built on the worship of one God. It must not, however, be forgotten, that the Protestant Christians charge those of the church of Rome with paying an idolatrous kind of worship to the pictures or images of saints and martyrs: before these they burn lamps and wax candles; before these, they burn incense, and, kneeling, offer up their vows and petitions; they, like the Pagans, believe that the saint to whom the image is dedicated, presides in a particular manner about its shrine, and works miracles by the intervention of its image; and that if the image was destroyed or taken away, the saint would no longer perform any miracle in that place.