17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men.
This was evidently the case of all Gentilism. Nor
hath even amongst Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, who acknowledged but one God, this doctrine, and the
care taken in those nations to teach men to have true notions of a God, prevailed so far as to make men to have the
same and the true ideas of him. How many even amongst us, will be found upon inquiry to fancy him in the shape
of a man sitting in heaven; and to have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him? Christians as well as
Turks have had whole sects owning and contending earnestly for it,--that the Deity was corporeal, and of human
shape: and though we find few now amongst us who profess themselves Anthropomorphites, (though some I have
met with that own it,) yet I believe he that will make it his business may find amongst the ignorant and
uninstructed Christians many of that opinion. Talk but with country people, almost of any age, or young people
almost of any condition, and you shall find that, though the name of God be frequently in their mouths, yet the
notions they apply this name to are so odd, low, and pitiful, that nobody can imagine they were taught by a
rational man; much less that they were characters written by the finger of God himself. Nor do I see how it
derogates more from the goodness of God, that he has given us minds unfurnished with these ideas of himself,
than that he hath sent us into the world with bodies unclothed; and that there is no art or skill born with us. For,
being fitted with faculties to attain these, it is want of industry and consideration in us, and not of bounty in him,
if we have them not. It is as certain that there is a God, as that the opposite angles made by the intersection of two
straight lines are equal. There was never any rational creature that set himself sincerely to examine the truth of
these propositions that could fail to assent to them; though yet it be past doubt that there are many men, who,
having not applied their thoughts that way, are ignorant both of the one and the other. If any one think fit to call
this (which is the utmost of its extent) universal consent, such an one I easily allow; but such an universal consent
as this proves not the idea of God, any more than it does the idea of such angles, innate.
