d, Whitby, and Warburton in
the last century. Even liberal thinkers, like James Foster[3] and John
Locke,[4] declare that, at the coming of Christ, mankind had fallen into
utter darkness, and that vice and superstition filled the world. Infidel
no less than Christian writers took the same disparaging view of natural
religions. They considered them, in their source, the work of fraud; in
their essence, corrupt superstitions; in their doctrines, wholly false; in
their moral tendency, absolutely injurious; and in their result,
degenerating more and more into greater evil.

A few writers, like Cudworth and the Platonists, endeavored to put in a
good word for the Greek philosophers, but the religions of the world were
abandoned to unmitigated reprobation. The account which so candid a writer
as Mosheim gives of them is worth noticing, on account of its sweeping
character. "All the nations of the world," he says, "except the Jews, were
plunged in the grossest superstition. Some nations, indeed, went beyond
others in impiety and absurdity, but all stood charged with irrationality
and gross stupidity in matters of religion." "The greater part of the gods
of all nations were ancient heroes, famous for their achievements and
their worthy deeds, such as kings, generals, and founders of cities." "To
these some added the more splendid and useful objects in the natural
world, as the sun, moon, and stars; and some were not ashamed to pay
divine honors to mountains, rivers, trees, etc." "The worship of these
deities consisted in ceremonies, sacrifices, and prayers. The ceremonies
were, for the most part, absurd and ridiculous, and throughout debasing,
obscene, and cruel. The prayers were truly insipid and void of piety, both
in their form and matter." "The priests who presided over this worship
basely abused their authority to impose on the people." "The whole pagan
system had not the least efficacy to produce and cherish virtuous emotions
in the soul; because the gods and goddesses were patterns of vice, the
priests bad men, and the doctrines false."[5]

This view of heathen religions is probably much exaggerated. They must
contain more truth than error, and must have been, on the whole, useful to
mankind. We do not believe that they originated in human fraud, that their
essence is superstition, that there is more falsehood than truth in their
doctrines, that their moral tendency is mainly injurious, or that they
continually degenerat