If therefore the most approved of the philosophers
did not think meet to pass over or disesteem any significant symbol of the Divinity which they observed even in
things that had neither soul nor body, I believe they regarded yet more those properties of government and conduct which they saw in such natures as had sense, and
were endued with soul, with passion, and with moral temper. We are not therefore to content ourselves with worshipping these things, but we must worship God through
them,—as being the more clear mirrors of him, and produced by Nature,—so as ever worthily to conceive of them
as the instruments or artifices of that God which orders
all things. And it is reasonable to believe that no inanimate being can be more excellent than an animate one, nor
an insensible than a sensible; no, though one should heap
together all the gold and emeralds in the universe. For
the property of the Divinity consists not in fine colors,
shapes, and slicknesses; but, on the contrary, those natures
are of a rank below the very dead, that neither did nor
ever can partake of life. But now that Nature which hath
life and sees, and which hath the source of her motion
from her own self, as also the knowledge of things proper
and alien to her, hath certainly derived an efflux and a
portion of that prudence which (as Heraclitus speaks)
considers how the whole universe is governed. Therefore
the Deity is no worse represented in these animals, than in
the workmanships of copper and stone, which suffer corruptions and decays as well as they, and are besides naturally void of sense and perception. This then is what I
esteem the best account that is given of their adoration of
animals.
[p. 135]
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