SECT. IV. The WORSHIP of God. Religentem effe oportet, Religiofum nefas... Tis of the last imporaance to feafon the paffions of a child with Devo tion, which feldom dies in a mind that has received an early tincture of it. Though it may feem extinguished for a while by the cares of the world, the heats of youth, or the allurements of vice, it generally breaks out and difcovers it felf again as foon as difcre-tion, confideration, age, or misfortunes have brought the man to himself. The fire may be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched and fmothered. A ftate of temperance, fobriety, and juftice, without devotion, is a cold, life lefs, lefs, infipid condition of virtue; and is rather to be styled Philofophy than Religion. Devotion opens the mind to great conceptions, and fills it with more fublime ideas than any that are to be met with in the moft exalted fcience; and at the fame time warms and agitates the Soul more than fenfual pleafure. It has been obferved by fome writers, that man is more diftinguished from the animal world by Devotion than by Reafon, as feveral brute creatures discover in their actions fomething like a faint glimmering of reafon, though they betray in no fingle circumftance of their behaviour any thing that bears the leaft affinity to devotion. It is certain, the propenfity of the mind to religious worhip, the natural tendency of the foul to fly to fome fuperior Being for fuccour in dangers and diftreffes, the gratitude to an invifible Superintendent which arifes in us upon receiving any extraordinary and unexpected good fortune, the acts of love and admiration with which the thoughts of men are fo wonderfully transported in meditating upon the Divine Perfections, and the univerfal concurrence of all the nations under heaven in the the great article of adoration, plainly thew that devotion or religious worship must be the effect of a tradition from fome first founder of mankind, or that it is conformable to the natural light of reason, or that it proceeds from an inftinct implanted in the foul it felf. For my part, I look upon all these to be the Concurrent caufes, but which ever of them shall be affigned as the principle of Divine Worship, it manifeftly points to a Supreme Being as the firft author of it. I may take fome other opportunity of confidering thofe particular forms and methods of devotion which are taught us by Christianity; but shall here observe into what errors even this Divine Principle may fometimes lead us, when it is not moderated by that right reafon which was given us as the guide of all our actions. The two great errors into which a miftaken devotion may betray us, are Enthufiafm and Superftition. There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthufiafm. A perfon that is crazed, tho' with pride or malice, is a fight We a fight very mortifying to human na ture; but when the diftemper arifes from any indifcreet fervors of devotion, or too intenfe an application of the mind to its mistaken duties, it deferves our compaffion in a more particular manner. may however learn this leffon from it, that fince devotion it felf (which one would be apt to think could not be too warm) may diforder the mind, unless its heats are tempered with caution and prudence, we should be particularly careful to keep our reafon as cool as poffible, and to guard our felves in all parts of life against the influence of paffion, imagina tion, and conftitution. Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is very apt to degenerate into Enthufiafm. When the mind finds her felf very much inflamed with her devotions, fhe is too much in clined to think they are not of her own kindling, but blown up with fomething Divine within her. If the indulges this thought too far, and humours the grow ing paffion, the at laft flings her felf into imaginary raptures and ecftafies; and when once the fancies herself under the influence of a Divine Impulse, it is no wonder wonder if the, flights human ordinances, and refuses to comply with any eftablished form of religion, as thinking her felf directed by a much fuperior guide. As Enthufiafm is a kind of excefs in devotion, Superftition is the excess not only of devotion, but of religion in general, according to an old Heathen faying, quoted by Aulus Gellius, Religentem effe oportet Religiofum nefas; A man fhould be religious, not fuperftitious; for as the author tells us, Nigidius obferved upon this paffage, that the Latin words which terminate in ofus generally imply vitious characters, and the having of any quality to an excess. An Enthufiafti religion is like an ob ftinate clown, a fuperftitious man like an infipid courtier. Enthufiafm has fomething in it of madnefs, Superftition of folly. Moft of the Sects that fall fhort of the Church of England have in them ftrong tinctures of Enthufiafm, as the Roman Catholick Religion is one huge over-grown body of childifh and idle Superftitions. The Roman Catholick Church feems indeed irrecoverably lost in this particuiar. If an abfurd dress or behaviour be ་་、, intro |