nferior beings
that worship or honor which is bestowed upon them; nor suspect that any
of these inferior deities will factiously go about to set up themselves
against the Supreme God.

The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God in images,
statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically
worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And
since we live in bodies, and can scarcely, conceive of any thing without
having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this
infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under
a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into
Atheism.

To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned furnish no real
justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but they are certainly a tacit
confession of their belief in the one Supreme God, and their conviction
that, notwithstanding their idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped.
The heathen polytheists are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and
pronounced to be "_inexcusable_." They had the knowledge of the true
God--" they _knew God_" and yet "they glorified him not as God." "They
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of
corruptible man." And, finally, they ended in "worshipping and serving
the creature _more_ than the Creator."[204]

[Footnote 204: Romans i. 21, 25.]

It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians had some
knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy conceptions of his
character. It is equally certain that a powerful and influential
religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian mind. Their extreme
"carefulness in religion" must be conceded by us, and, in some sense,
commended by us, as it was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the
same time it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology
of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted by
polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.[205] The Homeric gods were
for the most part idealized, human personalities, with all the passions
and weaknesses of humanity. They had their favorites and their enemies;
sometimes they fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were
susceptible of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange
indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. The conduct of the
Homeric heroes was, however, better than their creed. And there is this
strange incongru