l_ and _aerial_ beings, who have the
guardianship of individual persons and things, and are called _demons,
genii_, and _lares_; superior indeed to men, but inferior to the gods
above named.

"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the Pagans besides
those above enumerated, unless their images, statues, and symbols should
be accounted such (because they were also sometimes abusively called
'gods'), which could not be supposed by them to have been unmade or
without beginning, they being the workmanship of their own hands, we
conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods which
make so great a show and noise was really either nothing but several
names and notions of one supreme Deity, according to his different
manifestations, gifts, and effects upon the world personated, or else
many inferior understanding beings, generated or created by one supreme:
so that one unmade, self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged
by the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism
(or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity of unmade
minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from eternity, and
independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling and blending some way or
other, unduly, creature-worship with the worship of the Creator."[203]

[Footnote 203: Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.]

That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first and chief
object of worship is evident from the apologies which they offered for
worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.

1. They claimed to worship them _only_ as inferior beings, and that
therefore they were not guilty of giving them that honor which belonged
to the Supreme. They claimed to worship the supreme God incomparably
above all. 2. That this honor which is bestowed upon the inferior
divinities does ultimately redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize
his state and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3.
That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and men, so
those celestial gods are also mediators between men and the supreme God,
and, as it were, convenient steps by which we ought with reverence to
approach him. 4. That demons or angels being appointed to preside over
kingdoms, cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us,
thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly, that it can
not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy those i