VI. I pass over the honours they pay to
reptiles, and their worship
of vile things, each of which has its peculiar cultus and festival, and
all share in a common devilishness; so that, if they were absolutely
bound to be ungodly, and to fall away from honouring God, and to be led
astray to idols and works of art and things made with hands, men of
sense could not imprecate anything worse upon themselves than that they
might worship just such things, and honour them in just such a way;
that, as Paul says, they might receive in themselves that recompense of
their error which was meet, Rom. i. 27. in the very objects
of their worship; not so much honouring them as suffering dishonour by
them; abominable because of their error, and yet more abominable from
the vileness of the objects of their adoration and worship; so that
they should be even more without understanding than the objects of
their worship; being as excessively foolish as the latter are
vile.