foot with the moft ftupid Papist and Heathen. For when once Men refufe or neg lect to think, and take up their Opinions upon truft, they do in effect declare they would have been Papifts or Heathens, had they had Popish or Heathen Priefts for their Guides, or Popish or Heathen Grandmothers› to have taught them their Catechisms.

3dly. SUPERSTITION is an Evil, which either by the means of Education, or the natural Weakness of Men, oppreffes almost all Mankind. And how terrible an Evil it is, is well defcrib'd by the antient Philofophers and Poets. TULLY fays, *If you give way to Superftition, it will ever haunt and plague you. If you go to a Prophet, or regard Omens; if you facrifice or obferve the Flight of Birds; if you confult an Aftrologer or Harufpex; if it thunders or lightens, or any place is confum'd with Lightning, or fuchlike Prodigy happens (as it is neceffary fome Juch often should) all the Tranquillity of the Mind is deftroy'd. And Sleep it Self, which

Superftitio enim inftat & urget, & quocunque te verteris perfequitur: five tu vatem, five tu omen audieres ; five immolares, five avem afpexeris, five Chaldæum; fi harufpicem videris ; fi fulferit, fi tonuerit, fi tactum aliquid de cœlo erit, fi oftenti fimile natum factumve quidpiam; quorum neceffe, eft plerumque aliquid eveniat: ut nunquam quietâ mente liceat confiftere. Perfugium videtur omnium laborum & follicitudinum effe fomnus; at ex ipfo plurime nafcuntur cure metufque. De Divin. 1. 2.

C 2

Seems

i

Seems to be an Afylum and Refuge from all Trouble and Uneafinefs, does by the aid of Superftition increase your Troubles and Fears.

HORACE ranks Superftition with Vice; and as he makes the Happiness of Man in this Life to confift in the practice of Virtue and Freedom from Superftition, fo he makes the greatest Misery of this Life to confift in being vicious and fuperftitious. *You are not covetous, fays he; that's well: But are you as free from all other Vices? Are you free from Ambition, exceffive Anger, and the Fear of Death? Are you so much above Superftition, as to laugh at all Dreams, panick Fears, Miracles, Witches, Ghosts, and Prodigys?

THIS was the ftate of Superftition among the Antients; but fince Uncharitablenefs and damning to all eternity for Trifles, has (in oppofition both to Reafon and Revelation) come into the World, the Evil of Superftition is much increas'd, and Men are now under greater Terrors and Uneafinefs of Mind than they poffibly could be when they thought they hazarded lefs.

* Non es avarus: abi; quid; cætera jam fimul ifto
Cum vitio fugêre? Caret tibi pectus inani
Ambitione? Caret mortis formidine & irâ ?
Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, fagas,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Theffala rides?

NOW

NOW there is no juft Remedy to this univerfal Evil but Free-Thinking. By that alone can we understand the true Caufes of things, and by confequence the Unreafonableness of all fuperftitious Fears. * Happy is the Man, fays the Divine VIRGIL, who has difcover'd the Caufes of Things, and is thereby cured of all kind of Fears, even of Death it felf, and all the Noife and Din of Hell. For by Free-Thinking alone Men are capable of knowing, that a perfectly Good, Juft, Wife and Powerful Being made and governs the World; and from this Principle they know, that he can require nothing of Men in any Country or Condition of Life, but that whereof he has given them an opportunity of being convinc'd by Evidence and Reafon in the Place where they are, and in that Condition of Life to which Birth or any other Chance has directed them; that an honeft and rational Man can have no juft reason to fear any thing from him: nay, on the contrary, muft have fo great a Delight and Satisfaction in believing fuch a Being exifts, that he can much better be fuppos'd to fear left no fuch Being should exist, than to fear any harm from him. And laftly, That God being incapable of having

*Felix qui potuit rerum cognofcere caufas, Atque metus omnes & inexorabile Fatum

Subjecit pedibus, ftrepitumque Acherontis avari.

any addition made either to his Power or Happiness, and wanting nothing, can require nothing of Men for his own fake, but only for Man's fake; and confequently, that all Actions and Speculations which are of no ufe to Mankind, [as for inftance, Singing or Dancing, or wearing of Habits, or Obfervation of Days, or eating or drinking, or flaughtering of Beafts (in which things the greatest part of the Heathen Worfhip confifted) or the Belief of Tranfubftantiation or Confubftantiation, or of any Doctrines not taught by the Church of England] either fignify nothing at all with God, or elfe dif please him, but can never render a Man more acceptable to him.

BY means of all this, a Man may poffefs his Soul in peace, as having an expectation of enjoying all the good things which God can bestow, and no fear of any future Mifery or Evil from his hands; and the very worst of his State can only be, that he is pleasantly deceiv'd.

WHEREAS fuperftitious Men are incapable of believing in a perfectly just and good Good.. They make him talk to all Mankind from corners, and confequently require things of Men under the Sanction of Mifery in the next World, of which they are incapable of having any convincing Evi dence that they come from him. They

make

make him (who equally beholds all the Dwellers
upon earth) to have favourite Nations and
People, without any Confideration of Me-
rit. They make him put other Nations un-
der Difadvantages without any Demerit.
And so they are more properly to be ftil'd
Demonifts than Theifts. No wonder there-
fore if fuch Wretches fhould be fo full of
Fears of the Wrath of God, that they are
fometimes tempted (with the Vicious) to
wish there was no God at all; a Thought
fo unnatural and abfurd, that even * Specu-
lative Atheists would abhor it. These Men
have no quiet in their own Minds; they
rove about in fearch of faving Truth thro
the dark Corners of the Earth, and are fo
foolish as to hope to find it (if I may fo fay)
hid under the Sands of Africa, where Cato
fcorn'd to look for it: and neglecting what
God fpeaks plainly to the whole World,
take up with what they fuppofe he has com-
municated to a few; and thereby believe
and practise fuch things, in which they can
never have Satisfaction. For fuppofe Men
take up with a Religion which confifts in
Dancing or Mufick, or fuch-like Ceremonys,
or in useless and unintelligible Speculations;
how can they be affur'd they believe and
perform as they ought? What Rule can
fuch Men have to know whether other Ce-
remonys, and ufelefs and unintelligible Spe-

* Clark's Sermons at Boyle's Lecture, vol. 1. p. 6.

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