Of Superstition

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.