ualities attributed by them to their gods; we shall have little
reason to think that the heathen world, i.e. the greatest part of
mankind, had such ideas of God in their minds as he himself, out of care
that they should not be mistaken about him, was author of. And this
universality of consent, so much argued, if it prove any native
impressions, it will be only this:--that God imprinted on the minds of
all men speaking the same language, a NAME for himself, but not any
IDEA; since those people who agreed in the name, had, at the same time,
far different apprehensions about the thing signified. If they say
that the variety of deities worshipped by the heathen world were
but figurative ways of expressing the several attributes of that
incomprehensible Being, or several parts of his providence, I answer:
what they might be in the original I will not here inquire; but that
they were so in the thoughts of the vulgar I think nobody will affirm.
And he that will consult the voyage of the Bishop of Beryte, c. 13,
(not to mention other testimonies,) will find that the theology of the
Siamites professedly owns a plurality of gods: or, as the Abbe de Choisy
more judiciously remarks in his Journal du Voyage de Siam, 107/177, it
consists properly in acknowledging no God at all. 16. Idea of God not
innate although wise men of all nations come to have it.

If it be said, that wise men of all nations came to have true
conceptions of the unity and infinity of the Deity, I grant it. But then
this,

First, excludes universality of consent in anything but the name;
for those wise men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this
universality is very narrow.

Secondly, it seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and best
notions men have of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought
and meditation, and a right use of their faculties: since the wise and
considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their
thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this as well as other
things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of men, making far the
greater number, took up their notions by chance, from common tradition
and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their heads about them. And
if it be a reason to think the notion of God innate, because all wise
men had it, virtue too must be thought innate; for that also wise men
have always had.

17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men.

This was