Servile and Superstitious Fear is encreased by Ignorance of the certain Causes of Terrible Effects in Nature, &c., as also by frightful Apparitions of Ghosts and Spectres.
A further Consideration of Superstition as a Composition of Fear and Flattery.
A fuller Definition of Superstition, according to the Sense of the Ancients.
Superstition doth not alwaies appear in the same Form, but passes from one Form to another, and sometimes shrouds it self under Forms seemingly Spiritual and more refined.
Of Superstition
Having now done with what we propounded as a Preface to our following Discourses, we should now come to treat of the main Heads and Principles of Religion. But before we doe that, perhaps it may not be amiss to enquire into some of those Anti-Deities that are set up against it, the chief whereof are Atheism and Superstition; which indeed may seeme to comprehend in them all kind of Apostasy and Praevarication from Religion. We shall not be over-curious to pry into such foule and rotten carkasses as these are too narrowly, or to make any subtile anatomy of them; but rather enquire a litle into the Original and Immediate Causes of them; because it may be they may be nearer of kin then we ordinarily are aware of, while we see their Complexions to be so vastly different the one from the other.
And first of all for Superstition (to lay aside our Vulgar notion of it which much mistakes it) it is the same with that Temper of Mind which the Greeks call Δεισιδαιμονία, (for so Tully frequently translates that word, though not so fitly and emphatically as he hath done some others:) It imports an overtimorous and dreadfull apprehension of the Deity; and therefore with Hesychius Δεισιδαιμονία and Φοβοθεΐα are all one, and Δεισιδαίμων is by him expounded ὁ εἰδωλολάτρης, ὁ εὐσεβής, καὶ δειλὸς παρὰ θεοῖς, an Idolater, and also one that is very prompt to worship the Gods, but withall fearfull of them. And therefore the true Cause and Rise of Superstition is indeed nothing else but a false opinion of the Deity, that renders him dreadfull and terrible, as being rigorous and imperious; that which represents him as austere and apt to be angry, but yet impotent, and easy to be appeased again by some flattering devotions, especially if performed with sanctimonious shewes and a solemn sadness of Mind. And I wish that that Picture of God which some Christians have drawn of him, wherein Sowreness and Arbitrariness appear so much, doth not too much resemble it. According to this sense, Plutarch hath well defined it in his book περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας in this manner, δόξαν ἐμπαθῆ καὶ δέους ποιητικὴν ὑπόληψιν οὖσαν ἐκταπεινοῦντος καὶ συντρίβοντος τὸν ἄνθρωπον, οἰόμενον τε εἶναι θεοὺς εἶναι δὲ λυπηροὺς καὶ βλαβερούς, a strong passionate Opinion, and such a Supposition as is productive of a fear debasing and terrifying a man with the representation of the Gods as grievous and hurtfull to Mankind.
Such men as these converse not with the Goodness of God, and therefore they are apt to attribute their impotent passions and peevishness of Spirit to him. Or it may be because some secret advertisements of their Consciences tell them how unlike they themselves are to God, and how they have provoked him; they are apt to be as much displeased with him as too troublesome to them, as they think he is displeased with them. They are apt to count this Divine Supremacy as but a piece of tyranny that by its Soveraign Will makes too great encroachments upon their Liberties, and that which will eat up all their Right and Property; and therefore are lavishly afraid of him, τὴν τῶν θεῶν ἀρχὴν ὡς τυραννίδα φοβούμενοι σκυθρωπὴν καὶ ἀπαραίτητον, fearing Heaven’s Monarchy as a severe and churlish Tyranny from which they cannot absolve themselves, as the same Author speaks: and therefore he thus discloseth the private whisperings of their minds, ᾅδου τινες ἀνοίγονται πύλαι βαθείαι, καὶ ποταμοῖ πυρὸς ὁμοῦ καὶ στυγὸς ἀπορρῶγες ἀναπετάννυνται, &c., the broad gates of hell are opened, the rivers of fire and Stygian inundations run down as a swelling flood, there is thick darkness crowded together, dreadfull and gastly Sights of Ghosts screeching and howling, Judges and tormentors, deep gulfes and Abysses full of infinite miseries. Thus he. The Prophet Esay gives us this Epitome of their thoughts, chap. 33: The Sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath surprized the hypocrites: who shall dwell with the devouring fire? who shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Though I should not dislike these dreadful and astonishing thoughts of future torment, which I doubt even good men may have cause to press home upon their own spirits, while they find Ingenuity less active, the more to restrain sinne; yet I think it little commends God, and as little benefits us, to fetch all this horror and astonishment from the Contemplations of a Deity, which should alwayes be the most serene and lovely: our apprehensions of the Deity should be such as might ennoble our Spirits, and not debase them. A right knowledge of God would beget a freedome and Liberty of Soul within us, and not servility; ἀρετῆς γὰρ ἐλπὶς ὁ Θεός εστιν οὐ δουλείας πρόφασις, as Plutarch hath well observ’d; our thoughts of a Deity should breed in us hopes of Vertue, and not gender to a spirit of bondage.
But that we may pass on. Because this unnaturall resemblance of God as an angry Deity in impure minds, should it blaze too furiously, like the Basilisk would kill with its looks; therefore these Painters use their best arts a little to sweeten it, and render it less unpleasing. And those that fancy God to be most hasty and apt to be displeased, yet are ready also to imagine him so impotently mutable, that his favour may be won again with their uncouth devotions, that he will be taken with their formall praises, and being thirsty after glory and praise and solemn addresses, may, by their pompous furnishing out all these for him, be won to a good liking of them: and thus they represent him to themselves as Lucian, in his De Sacrificiis [c. I] speaks too truly, though it may be too profanely, ὡς κολακευόμενον ἥδεσθαι, καὶ ἀγανακτεῖν ἀμελούμενον. And therefore Superstition will alwaies abound in these things whereby this Deity of their own, made after the similitude of men, may be most gratified, slavishly crouching to it. We will take a view of it in the words of Plutarch, though what refers to the Jews, if it respects more their rites than their Manners, may seem to contain too hasty a censure of them. Superstition brings in πηλώσεις, καταβορβορώσεις, σαββατισμούς, ῥίψεις ἐπὶ πρόσωπον, αἰσχρὰς προκαθίσεις, ἀλλοκότους προσκυνήσεις, wallowings in the dust, tumblings in the mire, observations of Sabbaths, prosternations, uncouth gestures, and strange rites of worship. Superstition is very apt to think that Heaven may be bribed with such false-hearted devotions; as Porphyrie, Lib. 2, περὶ ἀποχῆς, hath well explained it by this, that it is ὑπόληψις τοῦ δεκάζειν δύνασθαι τὸ θεῖον, an apprehension that a man may corrupt and bribe the Deity; which (as he there observes) was the Cause of all those bloudy sacrifices and of some inhumane ones among the Heathen men, imagining διὰ τῶν θυσιῶν ἐξωνεῖσθαι τὴν ἁμαρτίαν like him in the Prophet that thought by the fruit of his body and the firstlings of his flock to expiate the sinne of his Soul. Micah 6.
But it may be we may seeme all this while to have made too Tragicall a Description of Superstition; and indeed one Author whom we have all this while had recourse to, seemes to have set it forth, as anciently Painters were wont to doe those pieces in which they would demonstrate most their own skill; they would not content themselves with the shape of one Body onely, but borrowed severall parts from severall Bodies as might most fit their design and fill up the picture of that they desired chiefly to represent. Superstition it may be looks not so foul and deformed in every Soul that is dyed with it, as he hath there set it forth, nor doth it every where spread it self alike: this πάθος that shrowds it self under the name of Religion, wil variously discover it self as it is seated in Minds of a various temper, and meets with variety of matter to exercise it self about.