is a God.  It is a wonder to read of that infinite superstition amongst the Indians in this kind, of their tenets in America, pro suo quisque libitu varias res venerabantur superstitiose, plantas, animalia, montes, &c. omne quod amabant aut horrebant (some few places excepted as he grants, that had no God at all).  So “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares his handy work,” Psalm xix.  “Every creature will evince it;” Praesentemque refert quaelibet herba deum.  Nolentes sciunt, fatentur inviti, as the said Tyrius proceeds, will or nill, they must acknowledge it.  The philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Pythagoras, Trismegistus, Seneca, Epictetus, those Magi, Druids, &c. went as far as they could by the light of nature; [6435]_multa praeclara, de natura Dei seripta reliquerunt_, “writ many things well of the nature of God, but they had but a confused light, a glimpse,”

[6436] “Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
Est iter in sylvis,”------

“as he that walks by moonshine in a wood,” they groped in the dark; they had a gross knowledge, as he in Euripides, O Deus quicquid es, sive coelum, sive terra, sive aliud quid, and that of Aristotle, Ens entium miserere mei. And so of the immortality of the soul, and future happiness. Immortalitatem animae (saith Hierom) Pythagoras somniavit, Democritus non credidit in consolalionem damnationis suae Socrates in carcere disputavit; Indus, Persa, Cothus, &c.  Philosophantur. So some said this, some that, as they conceived themselves, which the devil perceiving, led them farther out (as [6437]Lemnius observes) and made them worship him as their God with stocks and stones, and torture themselves to their own destruction, as he thought fit himself, inspired his priests and ministers with lies and fictions to prosecute the same, which they for their own ends were as willing to undergo, taking advantage of their simplicity, fear and ignorance.  For the common people are as a flock of sheep, a rude, illiterate rout, void many times of common sense, a mere beast, bellua multorum capitum, will go whithersoever they are led:  as you lead a ram over a gap by the horns, all the rest will follow, [6438]_Non qua eundum, sed qua itur_, they will do as they see others do, and as their prince will have them, let him be of what religion he will, they are for him.  Now for those idolaters, Maxentius and Licinius, then for Constantine a Christian. [6439]_Qui Christum negant male pereant, acclamatum est Decies_, for two hours’ space; qui Christum non colunt, Augusti inimici sunt, acclamatum est ter decies; and by and by idolaters again under that Apostate Julianus; all Arians under Constantius, good Catholics again under Jovinianus, “And little difference there is between the discretion of men and children in this case, especially of old folks and women,” as [6440] Cardan discourseth, “when, as they are tossed with fear and superstition,