in superstition; as may particularly be observed of gamesters and sailors; who, though, of all mankind, the least capable of serious reflection, abound most in frivolous and superstitious apprehensions. The gods, says Coriolanus in Dionysius,* have an influence in every affair; but above all, in war; where the event is so uncertain. All human life, especially before the institution of order and good government, being subject to fortuitous accidents; it is natural, that superstition should prevail every where in barbarous ages, and put men on the most earnest inquiry concerning those invisible powers, who dispose of their happiness or misery. Ignorant of astronomy and the anatomy of plants and animals, and too little curious to observe the admirable adjustment of final causes, they remain still unacquainted with a first and supreme Creator, and with that infinitely perfect spirit, who alone, by his almighty will, bestowed order on the whole frame of nature. Such a magnificent idea is too big for their narrow conceptions, which can neither observe the beauty of the work, nor comprehend the grandeur of its author. They suppose their deities, however potent and invisible, to be nothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps raised from among mankind, and retaining all human passions and appetites, together with corporeal limbs and organs. Such limited beings, though masters of human fate, being, each of them, incapable of extending his influence every where, must be vastly multiplied, in order to answer that variety of events which happen over the whole face of nature. Thus every place is stored with a crowd of local deities; and thus polytheism has prevailed, and * Lib. viii. still prevails, among the greatest part of uninstructed mankind.* Any of the human affections may lead us into the notion of invisible, intelligent power; hope as well as fear, gratitude as well as affliction: But if we examine our own hearts, or observe what passes around us, we shall find, that men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions. Prosperity is easily received as our due, and few questions are asked concerning its cause or author. It begets cheerfulness, and activity, and alacrity, and a lively enjoyment of every social and sensual pleasure: And during this state of mind, men have little leisure or inclination to think of the unknown, invisible regions. On the other hand, every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on inquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend. No topic is more usual with all popular divines than to display the advantages of affliction, in bringing men to a due sense of religion; by subduing their confidence and sensuality, which, in times of prosperity, The following lines of Euripides are so much to the present purpose, that I cannot forbear quoting them: Ουκ εςιν δεν τιςον, ετ ευδοξία, Ουτ' αν καλώς πρασσονία μη πραξειν κακως. Σεβωμεν αυλός. HECUBA. "There is nothing secure in the world; no glory, no prosperity. The "gods toss all life into confusion; mix every thing with its reverse; that "all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more 66 worship and reverence." make them forgetful of a divine providence. Nor is this topic confined merely to modern religions. The ancients have also employed it. "Fortune has never liberally, without envy,' says a Greek historian,* "bestowed an unmixed happiness on mankind; but, with all her gifts, has ever conjoined some disastrous circumstance, in order to chastise men into a reverence for the gods, whom, in a continued course of prosperity, they are apt to neglect and forget." What age or period of life is the most addicted to superstition? The weakest and most timid. What sex? The same answer must be given. "The leaders and examples of every kind of superstition," says Strabo," are the women. These excite the men to devotion and supplications, and the observance of religious days. It is rare to meet with one that lives apart from the females, and yet is addicted to such practices. And nothing can, for this reason, be more improbable, than the account given of an order of men among the Getes, who practised celibacy, and where notwithstanding the most religious fanatics." A method of reasoning, which would lead us to entertain a bad idea of the devotion of monks; did we not know by an experience, not so common, perhaps, in Strabo's days, that one may practise celibacy, and profess chastity, and yet maintain the closest connections and most entire sympathy with that timorous and pious sex. SECT. IV.-Deities not considered as Creators or Formers of the World. THE only point of theology in which we shall find a consent of mankind almost universal, is, that there is * Diod. Sic, lib. ii. + Lib. vii. invisible, intelligent power in the world: But whether this power be supreme or subordinate, whether confined to one being, or distributed among several, what attributes, qualities, connections, or principles of action, ought to be ascribed to those beings; concerning all these points, there is the widest difference in the popular systems of theology. Our ancestors in Europe, before the revival of letters, believed, as we do at present, that there was one supreme God, the author of nature, whose power, though in itself uncontrollable, was yet often exerted by the interposition of his angels and subordinate ministers, who executed his sacred purposes. But they also believed, that all natue was full of other invisible powers; fairies, goblins, elves, sprites; beings stronger and mightier than men, but much inferior to the celestial natures, who surround the throne of God. Now, suppose that any one, in those ages, had denied the existence of God and of his angels; would not his impiety justly have deserved the appellation of atheism, even though he had still allowed, by some odd capricious reasoning, that the popular stories of elves and fairies were just and well grounded? The difference, on the one hand, between such a person and a genuine theist is infinitely greater than that, on the other, between him and one that absolutely excludes all invisible intelligent power. And it is a fallacy merely, from the casual resemblance of names, without any conformity of meaning, to rank such opposite opinions under the same denomination. To any one who considers justly of the matter, it will appear, that the gods of all polytheists are no better than the elves or fairies of our ancestors, and merit as little any pious worship or veneration. These pre tended religionists are really a kind of superstitious atheists, and acknowledge no being that corresponds to our idea of a deity. No first principle of mind or thought: No supreme government and administration: No divine eontrivance or intention in the fabric of the world. The Chinese, when their prayers are not answered, beat their idols. The deities of the Laplanders are any large stone which they meet with of an extraordinary shape. The Egyptian mythologists, in order to account for animal worship, said, that the gods, pursued by the violence of earth-born men, who were their enemies, had formerly been obliged to disguise themselves under the semblance of beasts. The Caunii, a nation in the Lesser Asia, resolving to admit no strange gods among them, regularly, at certain seasons, assembled themselves completely armed, beat the air with their lances, and proceeded in that manner to their frontiers; in order, as they said, to expel the foreign deities.§. "Not even the immortal Gods," said some German nations to Cæsar," are a match for the Suevi."|| Many ills, says Dione, in Homer, to Venus wounded by Diomede, many ills, my daughter, have the gods inflicted on men: And many ills, in return, have men inflicted on the gods. We need but open any classic author to meet with these gross representations of the deities; and Longinus** with reason observes, that such ideas of the divine nature, if literally taken, contain a true atheism. Pere le Compte. + Regnard, Voyage de Laponic. Diod. Sic. lib. i. Lucian. de Sacrificiis. Ovid alludes to the same tradition, Metem. lib. v. l. 321. So also Manilius, lib. iv. § Herodot. lib. i. Lib. ix. 382. Cæs. Comment. de bello Gallico, lib. iv. ** Cap. ix. |