136 ■■■^ ••' ■■ ESSAY ON THE 



^^ without moving the tongue, or using any of the organs of speech, 

 ^' I say inwardly I am Brahme, or the Supreme Beingi "' We are not 

 " conscious of pur being Bralune through mdydi or wordly illusion, 

 '* and the original taint or sin: but we know it, through r<$velation. 

 " It is forbidden to adore the Supreme Being, to offer prayers and. 

 "sacrifices to him, for it would be worshipping ourselves; but we may 

 ", adore and .worship collateral emanations from him, and of ^ su- 

 «^ perior degree: we may adore, and worship even mere mortals; of 

 *'^,. which kind of worship many instances are recorded, and therQ 

 «' are even now living oneSo The worship of images is recommended, 

 " when after consecration the deity has been called down and forced 

 «f into them with ppwerful spells/' Tbis is the dodfrine of the Greeks 

 and Romans ; ^nd I do not beljeve that there ever yv^as any other sort of 

 idolatry in the world, Tho Hindus are not acquainted with the refine- 

 ments of duHa and latria ; aiid the appellation of 7ni(.rttiy exa6lly like the 

 word idolum, E/IoAov in Gre^k, signifies both a material and spiritual image 

 of the deity^ or any diyioe beijig in general The spiritual murttis^&rQ 

 portions of the Supreme Being : the material ones^re the embodied 

 forms of thg deity : and §t^tu^^, called Silso ^ mdrtti, but more properly 

 fc/m6i or^^r^^/mi, >.re re_presentations of these embodied forms, and 

 into which the deity is forced through spells. As the words miirtti ancl 

 idolum signify botji the sjuppps^d epianatjons /rom the Supreme Being, 

 which are after his own image,and resemblance, and also carved repre- 

 sentations of these images and idols, the word idolatry implies the 

 worship of these emanations, and also of statues or idols : and there 

 might be, of course, nations of idolaters, though they should not wor- 

 Ship, either <?arved or molten images. That the Greek word Eiloxov is 

 synonymous wdth inurtti is obvious from Homer, who represents Her- 



