Romans 1:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For the invisible things, &c.— For from the creation of the world those things of him which are invisible, are (being duly attended to) clearly seen by the things which are made; even his eternal power and divinity. Those invisible things of God, of which the Apostle here speaks, lie within the reach and discovery of men's reason and understanding; but yet they must exercise their faculties, and employ their minds about them: they are and can be discovered only if they be attentively considered: and yet the whole must be accompanied by divine light and divine grace (which are offered to all) in order to the production of any genuine good. Bishop Warburton has a peculiar remark upon the last words of this verse, and those in the next, wherein he observes, that the apostle evidently condemns the foolish policy of the Gentile sages, who when they knew God, yet glorified him not as God, by preaching him up to the people, but, carried away in the vanity of their imagination, bya mistaken principle of politics, that a vulgar or general knowledge of him would be injurious to society,—shut up his glory in their MYSTERIES, and gave the people in exchange for an incorruptible God, an image made like corruptible man, &c. wherefore God, in punishment for their sins, thus turning his truth into a lie, suffered even their mysteries, which they erected (though on these wrong principles) for a school of virtue, to degenerate into an odious sink of vice and immorality;—giving them up unto all uncleanness and vile affections. That this was the Apostle's meaning, appears not only from the general tenor of the passage, but from several particular expressions; as Romans 1:23 where he speaks of changing the glory of God to birds, beasts, and creeping things: for this was the peculiar superstition of Egypt, and Egypt was the first inventress of these mysteries. Again, he says, They worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, Romans 1:25. This was strictly true with regard to the MYSTERIES: the CREATOR was there acknowledged by a small and select number of the participants; but the general and solemn worship in these celebrations was to their natural idols. See Div. Leg. b. 2: sect. 4 and Pearson on the Creed, Art. I.