man in every refpect, but his fuperior power and authority. No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in fuch an abfolute ignorance of causes, and being at the fame time fo anxious concerning their future fortunes, fhould immediately acknowledge a dependence on invifible powers, poffeffed of fentiment and intelligence. The unknown caufes, which continually employ their thought, appearing always in the fame aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or fpecies. Nor is it long before we afcribe to them thought, and reason, and paihion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with ourfelves.

In proportion as any man's course of life is governed by accident, we always find, that he encreafes in fuperftition; as may particularly be observed of gamefters and failors, who, though of all mankind, the leaft capable of serious meditation, abound moft in frivolous and fuperftitious apprehenfions. The gods, fays CORIOLANUS in DIONYSIUS, have an influence in every affair; but above all, in war; where the event is fo uncertain. All human life, especially before the institution of order and good government, being fubject to fortuitous accidents; it is natural, that fuperftition fhould prevail every where in barbarous ages, and put men on the most earneft enquiry concerning thofe invifible powers, who difpofe of their happiness or mifery. Ignorant of aftronomy and the anatomy of plants and animals, and too little curious to obferve the admirable adjustment of final caufes; they remain still unacquainted with a first and fupreme creator, and with that infinitely perfect fpirit, 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 ob,

* Lib. viii,

ferve the beauty of the work, nor comprehend the gran deur of its author. They suppose their deities, however potent and invisible, to be nothing but a fpecies of hu man creatures, perhaps raised from among mankind, and retaining all human paffions and appetites, together with corporeal limbs and organs. Such limited beings, tho' masters of human fate, being, each of them, incapable of extending his influence every where, must be vaftly 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 idolatry has prevailed, and still prevails, among the greatest part of uninstructed mankind *.

1

Any of the human affections may lead us into the notion of invifible, intelligent power; hope as well as fear, gratitude as well as affliction: But if we examine our own hearts, or obferve what paffes around us, we shall find, that men are much oftner thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable paffions. Profperity is easily received as our due, and few questions are afked concerning its caufe or author. It begets cheerfulness and activity and alacrity and a lively enjoyment of every focial and fenfual pleasure: And during this state of mind, men have little leisure or inclination to think of the unknown invifible regions. On the other hand, every difaftrous accident alarms us, and fets us on

* The following lines of EURIPIDES are so much to the prefent purpofe, that I cannot forbear quoting them:

Ουκ έσιν εδεν σχίζον, εν ευδοξία,

Ουτ' αν καλώς πρασσαλία μη πράξει, καθώς

Φορεσι δ' αυθ'οι θεοι παλιν τε και προσω

Ταραγμον εντιθείες, ως αγνωσία

Σεβώμεν αυλός.

HECUBA.

"There is nothing fecure in the world; no glory, no profperity. The "gods tofs all life into confufion; mix every thing with its reverse; that "all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more 66 worship and reverence,"

enquiries

enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehenfions fpring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, funk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeafing those fecret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is fuppofed entirely to 'depend.

No topic is more ufual with all popular divines than to display the advantages of affliction, in bringing men to a due fenfe of religion; by subduing their confidence and fenfuality, which in times of prosperity, make them forgetful of a divine providence. Nor is this topic confined merely to modern religions. The ancients have alfo employed it. Fortune has never liberally, without ens vy, fays a GREEK hiftorian *, bestowed an unmixed happiness on mankind; but with all her gifts has ever conjoined fome difaftrous circumftance, in order to chatize men into a reverence for the gods, whom, in a continued course of profperity, they are apt to neglect and forget.,

1.

What age or period of life is the moft addicted to fuperftition The weakest and moft timid. What sex? The fame anfwer must be given. The leaders and examples of every kind of fuperftition, fays STRABO†, are the women. These excite the men to devotion and fupplications, and the obfervance of religious days. It is rare to meet with one "that lives apart from the females, and yet is addicted to fuch practices. And nothing can, for this reason, be more improbable, than the account given of an order of men amongst the GETES, who practifed celibacy, and were notwithstanding the most religious fanatics. A method of reafoning, which would lead us to entertain a bad idea of the devotion of monks; did we not know by an expérience, not fo common, perhaps, in STRABO's days, that one may practise celibacy, and profefs chastity; and yet maintain the closest

connexions and moft entire fympathy with that timorous and pious fex.

or

SECT. IV. Detties not confidered as creators or formers of the world.

The only point of theology, in which we shall find a confent of mankind almoft univerfal, is, that there is invifible, intelligent power in the world: But whether -this power be fupreme or fubordinate, whether confined

to one being, or diftributed among feveral, what attri-**butes, qualities, connexions or principles of action ought -to be ascribed to thofe beings; concerning all these points, there is the wideft difference in the popular sy*ftems of theology. Our ancestors in EUROPE, before the revival of letters, believed, as we do at prefent, that there was one fupreme God, the author of nature, whose power, though in itself uncontroulable, was yet often exerted by the interpofition of his angels and fubordinate minifters, who executed his facred purposes. But they alfo believed, that all nature was full of other invifible powers; fairies, goblins, elves, fprights; beings, ftronger and mightier than men, but much inferior to the celeftial natures, who furround the throne of God. Now, fuppose, that any one in thofe ages, had denied the existence of God and of his angels; would not his impiety juftly have deserved the appellation of atheism, even though he had ftill allowed, by fome odd capricious reasoning, that the popular stories of elves and fairies were juft and wellgrounded? The difference, on the one hand, between fuch a person and a genuine theift is infinitely greater than that, on the other, between him and one that abfolutely excludes all invifible intelligent power. And it is

1

á fallacy, merely from the casual resemblance of names,

without

without any conformity of meaning, to rank fuch oppofite opinions under the fame denomination.

To any one, who confiders juftly of the matter, it will appear, that the gods of all polytheifts or idolators are no better than the elves or fairies of our ancestors, and merit as little any pious worship or veneration. These pretended religionists are really a kind of superftitious atheists, and acknowledge no being, that correfponds to our idea of a deity. No firft principle of mind or thought: No fupreme government and admini- 1 ftration: No divine contrivance 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 ftone which they meet with of an extraordinary fhape +: The EGYPTIAN mythologifts, in order to account for animal worship, faid, that the gods, pursued by the violence of earth-born men, who were their enemies, had formerly been obliged to disguise themfelves under the femblance of beafts t. The CAUNII, a nation in the Leffer ASIA, refolving to admit no ftrange gods among them, regularly, at certain feafons, affembled themselves compleatly armed, beat the air with their lances, and proceeded in that manner to their frontiers; in order, as they faid, to expel the foreign deities . Not even the immortal gods, faid fome GERMAN nations to CÆSAR, are a match for the SUEVI §.

尚

Many ills, fays 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

Pere le Comte.

Regnard, Voïage de Laponie.

Diod. Sic. lib. i. Lucian. de Sacrificiis. OVID alludes to the fame tradition, Metam. lib. v. 1. 321. So alfo MANILIUS, lib. iv.

Herodot, lib. i,

Cæf. Comment. de bell, Gallico, lib. iv.

inflicted