Priestley's
reasonings on the existence of God, well remarked that 'Theists are
always for turning their God into an overgrown Man. Anthropomorphites
has long been a term applied to them. They give him hand and eyes, nor
can they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal Being. We make a
Deity ourselves, fall down and worship him. It is the molten calf over
again. Idolatry is still practised. The only difference is that now we
worship idols of our own imagination before of our hands.' [37:1]
This is bold language, but if the language of truth and soberness no one
should take offence at it. That Christians as well as Turks 'have had
whole sects earnestly contending that the Deity was corporeal and of
human shapes,' is a fact, testified to by Locke, and so firmly
established as to defy contradiction. And though every sincere
subscriber to the Thirty Nine Articles must believe, or at least must
believe he believes in Deity without body, parts, or passions, it is
well known that 'whole sects' of Christians do even now 'fancy God in
the shape a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and unfit
conceptions of him.
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