The Gentile nations Author:George Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION. THE ORIGIN, CHARACTER, MYSTERIES AND ORACLES OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Ksowledoe of this Subject necessary—False Religion attests the R... more »eligious Tendency of Man—Heathen Idolatry must be studied with a distinct Recognition of Satanic Influence—Necessity of admitting the Evidence of Revelation—Orioin Of Idolatry— Idolatry in postdiluvian Times arose before the Dispersion—And emanated from Babel —Was not at first a violent Introduction of Error, but a fatal Perversion of Truth— Elements of Truth liable to this Perversion—Plurality of Persons in one Deity- Promised Incarnation—Rites of Patriarchal Worship—Man's primitive Purity and Fall—Similarity of the Adamic and Noachic Families—Hero-Worship considered as arising out of the promised Incarnation, and taking the Form of a Triad from the Great Father and his three Sons—Peculiar Case of Egypt—Animal-Worship—Folly of many Attempts to account for it—Originated in the Cherubim—Worship of material Elements —The Agency under which all this Error was evolved made apparent by the universal Worship of the Serpent Form—Thb Beligioug Chauactee Of This System—It practically obliterated the essential Principle of the Divine Unity—Banished all Idea of Divine Purity—And destroyed at onco the Knowledge of God, and Confidence in him— Character of Idolatrous Worship—General Admission—But the Being to whom this Worship was offered was not God—And the Service, although often grand and imposing, was generally associated with foul and filthy Abominations—'I'm: Mysteries—The Theory of Warburton refuted by Leland—Conflicting Theories as to the Origin of the Mysteries—Their Object equally contested—Their Origin defined—Their Object explained—Essential Elements of Heathen Mysteries—The Oracles of Heathen Worship—An undoubted Privilege ...« less