SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 4.03 
authority that the revelation that Gop thus made of him- 
self was in time corrupted, by those that professing them- 
selves to be wzse became fools, to the grossest idolatry, 
which sunk men in the lowest depths of sensuality, vice, 
and wickedness*. 
In no country was this effect more lamentably stri- 
king than in Egypt, whose gods were all selected from 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
“ Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend, 
The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend ? 
The snake-devouring ibis these inshrine, 
Those think the crocodile alone divine ; 
Others where Thebes’ vast ruins strew the ground, 
And shatter’d Memnon yields a magic sound, 
Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape, 
And bow before the image of an ape! 
Thousands regard the hound with holy fear, 
Not one Diana :—and ’tis dangerous here 
To violate an onion, or to stain 
The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane. 
O holy nations, in whose gardens grow 
Such deities ! ” Juv. 
= 
This species of idolatry doubtless originally resulted 
from their having been taught that things z7 nature were 
symbols of things above nature, and of the attributes and 
glory of the Godhead. In process of time, while the cor- 
ruption remained, the knowledge which had been thus 
abused was Jost, or dimly seen. ‘The Egyptian priest- 
hood perhaps retained some remains of it; but by them 
it was made an esoteric doctrine, not to be communicated 
to the profane vulgar, who were suffered to regard the 
yarious objects of their superstitious veneration, not as 
@ Rom. i. 20, to the end of the chapter. 
Z2D2 
