multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and
solitary God, that was neither represented under any corporeal
figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed pomp
of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. ^9 The
sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the
contemplation of the existence and attributes of the First Cause,
were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve for themselves and
their chosen disciples the privilege of this philosophical
devotion. ^10 They were far from admitting the prejudices of
mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them as
flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and they
supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which
presumed to disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in
proportion as it receded from superstition, find itself incapable
of restraining the wanderings of the fancy, and the visions of
fanaticism. The careless glance which men of wit and learning
condescended to cast on the Christian revelation, served only to
confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the
principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity,
was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy
speculations, of the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated
dialogue, which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects
to treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of
ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of the weakness
of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the divine
perfections. ^11

[Footnote 9: Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
simulacra! - Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan