The Worship of a Book, Idolatry.
1983. Much has been said in Scripture and by its votaries against idolatry, but I do most seriously consider the Old Testament as a more pernicious idol than any image or statue can be in the nature of things.
1984. An image or statue does not speak; it suggests nothing cruel, unjust, or indecent to the worshipper; neither do any of the objects usually treated as idols. It must evidently be an error to accuse idolaters of contemplating the inert image to which they kneel, as their God. They must see that it neither does nor can do any thing. They must perceive that, fixed in one place, the image cannot have that ubiquity or efficacy, essential to divine power. It follows that the object of adoration must be an invisible power associated with the idol, which may occupy the image only when invoked. In every temple devoted to Jupiter there might be a statue of Jupiter, and yet it was never held that there was more than one Jupiter. From the verses subjoined, from Pope’s translation of the Iliad, it appears that Homer gave to Jupiter a supremacy which made the other deities bear to him no higher relation than that which the archangels do to God, according to Christianity:
1985. “Let down our golden everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main;
Strive all, of mortal or immortal birth,
To drag by this the Thunderer down to earth.
Ye strive in vain. If I but lift this hand,
I heave the heavens, the ocean, and the land;
For such I reign, unbounded and above,