Book iv

Cyril. Alex*an. in IIos. iv.13. Deut. xiv.. 2 Reg. xvi.

Melchior A-damus Hist.Eccl. cap.ccxxxiv.

Mariana in2. Paralip.xxviii. 4.

328 A DISCOURSE

with the very tree, still flourishes in that? University. But of these enough,and perhaps too much.

We shall now, in the next place, endeavour to show how this innocentveneration for Groves pafsed from the people of God to the Gentiles, andby what degrees it degenerated into dangerous superstitions : for thedevil was always God’s ape, and did so ply his Groves, Altars , and-Sacri-fices, and almost all other rites belonging to his worship, that every greentree was full of his abominations, and'numerous places were devotedto his impure service: Ilcec fiiere (says Pliny , speaking of Groves)Numimm templa, &c. “ These were of old the temples of the gods-;

“ and (after that simple^ but antient custom) men at this day consecrate“ the fairest and goodliest trees to some deity or other ; nor do we more“ adore our glittering* shrines.of gold and ivory than the Groves in which,“ with a profound and awful silence, we worship them.’- Quintilian ,speaking of the veneration paid an old umbrageous Oak, adds, In quilmsgrandia, et antique robora jam non tantam habent speciem, qucintam rcligio-nem: For in truth the very tree itself was sometimes deified, and thatCeltic statue of Jupiter was no better than a-prodigious tall Oak, whence,it is said, the Chaldean Theologues derived their, superstition towards it ; ;and the Persians , we read, used that tree in all their mysterious rites.And, as for wood in general, they paid it that veneration for its main-taining their deity, (represented by their perennial fire) that they wouldnot suffer any sort of wood to be used for coffins to inclose the dead in,(but wrapt them in plates of iron) counting it a profanation. In short,so much were people given up to this devilish and unnatural blindnefs,as to offer human sacrifices, not to the Tree-gods only, but to the Trees themselves as real gods.

Omnis et liumanis Iustrata cruoribus arb'es. ■ l-ucan.

Each tree besprinkled was with human gore.

Procopius tells us plainly,, that the Sclavii worshipped trees and wholeforests of them : See Jo. Dubravius, lib. i. Hist. Bohem. And that.for-merly the Gandenses did the like, Surius , the Legendary, reports in thelife of St. Avnadusso did the Vandals, says Albert Crantz;. and eventhose of Peru , as I learn from Acosta, lib. v. cap. xi. But one of the firstidols which procured particular veneration in them, rvas the Sidonian ..