300 MALICE OF THE DEVIL. 



opinion that it was the Sonne of God. A most cruell and 

 horrible pride to dare thus impudently affront his God. 

 Truely wee shall not finde it very strange that hee makes 

 himselfe to be worshipped as God by ignorant Nations, 

 seeing hee would seeke to be worshipped by God himselfe, 

 calling himselfe God, being an abhominable and detestable 

 creature. The other cause and motive of idolatrie is the 

 mortall hatred he hath conceived for ever against man- 

 kinde. For as our Saviour saith, hee hath beene a mur- 

 therer from the beginning, and holdes it as a condition and 

 inseparable qualitie of his wickednesse. And for that hee 

 knowes the greatest misery of man is to worship the crea 

 ture for God ; for this reason hee never leaves to invent all 

 sortes of Idolatries to destroy man and make him ennemy 

 to God. There are two mischiefes which the divell causeth 

 in idolatry : the one, that hee denies his God, according to 

 Deut.xxxii. the text, &quot;Thou hast left thy God who created thee&quot;; the 

 other is, that hee doth subiect himselfe to a thing baser 

 than himselfe ; for that all creatures are inferior to the rea 

 sonable, and the divell, although hee be superior to man in 

 nature, yet in estate he is much inferior, seeing that man 

 in this life is capable of Divinitie and Eternitie. By this 

 meanes God is dishonoured, and man lost in all parts by 

 idolatry, wherewith the divell in his pride is well content. 



CHAP. n. Of many liindes of idolatry the Indians 

 have used. 



sap. xiv. Idolatry, saieth the Holy-Ghost by the Wise man, is the 

 cause, beginning, and end of all miseries ; for this cause the 

 enemy of mankinde hath multiplied so many sortes and 

 diversities of idolatry, as it were an infinite matter to spe 

 cific them all. Yet we may reduce idolatry to two heades, 

 the one grounded vppon natural! things, the other vpon 



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