But I fear this would be to stir things that are not
to be stirred, and to declare war not only (as Simonides
speaks) against length of time, but also against many nations and families of mankind, whom a religious reverence
towards these Gods holds fast bound like men astonished
and amazed. And this would be no other than going about
to remove so great and venerable names from heaven to
earth, thereby shaking and dissolving that worship and
persuasion that hath entered into almost all men's constitutions from their very birth, and opening vast doors to the
Atheists' faction, who convert all divine matters into human,
giving also a large license to the impostures of Euhemerus
the Messenian, who out of his own brain contrived certain
memoirs of a most incredible and imaginary mythology,
and thereby spread all manner of Atheism throughout the
world. This he did by describing all the received Gods
under the style of generals, sea-captains, and kings, whom
he makes to have lived in the more remote and ancient
times, and to be recorded in golden characters in a certain
[p. 85]
country called Panchon, with which notwithstanding never
any man, either Barbarian or Grecian, had the good fortune to meet, except Euhemerus alone, who (it seems)
sailed to the land of the Panchoans and Triphyllians, that
neither have nor ever had a being.
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