IT WERE better to have no opinion of God at all,
than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him.
For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely;
and certainly superstition is the reproach of the
Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: Surely
(saith he) I had rather a great deal, men should
say, there was no such man at all, as Plutarch,
than that they should say, that there was one Plu-
tarch, that would eat his children as soon as they
were born; as the poets speak of Saturn. And as the
contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is
greater towards men. Atheism leaves a man to
sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to
reputation; all which may be guides to an outward
moral virtue, though religion were not; but super-
stition dismounts all these, and erecteth an abso-
lute monarchy, in the minds of men. Therefore
theism did never perturb states; for it makes men
wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we
see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of
Augustus Caesar) were civil times. But supersti-
tion hath been the confusion of many states, and
bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth
all the spheres of government.The master of super-
stition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise
men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to prac-
tice, in a reversed order. It was gravely said by
some of the prelates in the Council of Trent, where
the doctrine of the Schoolmen bare great sway,
that the Schoolmen were like astronomers, which
did feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such en-
gines of orbs, to save the phenomena; though they
knew there were no such things; and in like man-
ner, that the Schoolmen had framed a number of
subtle and intricate axioms, and theorems, to save
the practice of the church. The causes of supersti-
tion are: pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies;
excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; over-
great reverence of traditions, which cannot but
load the church; the stratagems of prelates, for
their own ambition and lucre; the favoring too
much of good intentions, which openeth the gate
to conceits and novelties; the taking an aim at
divine matters, by human, which cannot but
breed mixture of imaginations: and, lastly, bar-
barous times, especially joined with calamities
and disasters. Superstition, without a veil, is a de-
formed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an
ape, to be so like a man, so the similitude of super-
stition to religion, makes it the more deformed.
And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms,
so good forms and orders corrupt, into a number of
petty observances. There is a superstition in avoid-
ing superstition, when men think to do best, if they
go furthest from the superstition, formerly re-
ceived; therefore care would be had that (as it
fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken away
with the bad; which commonly is done, when the
people is the reformer.
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