GENERAL PREFACE

Introductory Treatise on Religious Worship in General. Herein emerges a sufficient idea of the uncommon practices that humans have put into use to serve God, etc. Upon reading this, we find ourselves obliged to confess that—excluding the marks of Revelation which must be recognized in some religions—they all (a) agree in many matters, having the same principles and fundamental rules in the minds of many people, who generally agree in their positions, maintaining the same advancements and progress on the same footing. The common people are imitators of one another regarding this point: but however it may be, all humans have certain extravagances that they practice in their religion; nevertheless, they have a Being or Beings as their object, whom they fear or honor, and who are consequently elevated above them. These Beings they call Gods, Guardian Gods, DemonsIn this context, "Demons" refers to the classical Greek daimon, signifying a spirit or lesser deity that acts as an intermediary between gods and humans, rather than the modern concept of an evil entity., etc. Indeed, it is certain that they are regarded as very powerful, since one yields to them in what all nations allow to be called a Spiritual Service.

As for the strange stubbornness noted in this worship, it is undoubtedly born from a false idea one has of the Divinity and His attributes. If all nations could agree to behold God as a single Being, perfectly Supreme through His Essence, Virtues, and His immeasurable absolute Perfection; then I. the offices of a great number of vicars of the Divinity, Intercessors or MediatorsReligious figures or spirits believed to bridge the gap between the human and the divine., Patron Saints, etc.—whom people believe to be appointed for the salvation of the human race, to be an advocate for them before God, and to distinguish the matters that concern them—would soon be abolished: one would come to God entirely without any detour and by the shortest routes. II. One

(a) We use the very words with which Pierre Charron (1541–1603) was a French Catholic theologian and philosopher, a friend of Michel de Montaigne, known for his work De la Sagesse (Of Wisdom). Charron expresses himself in his 2nd Book of Wisdom.