far from being approved, even by those who are under the most sincere convictions of the importance of true religion and it is easy to conceive how open to scorn and censure they must be from others, who think they have a talent for ridicule, and have accustomed themselves to regard all pretensions to piety as hypocritical or superstitious. But "Wisdom is justified of her children." Religion is what it is, "whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear;" and whatever in the smallest degree promotes its interests, and assists us in performing its commands, whether that assistance be derived from the medium of the body or the mind, ought to be esteemed of great weight, and deserving of our most serious attention.

However, be the danger of superstition what it may, no one was more sensible of that danger, or more in earnest in maintaining, that external acts of themselves are nothing, and that moral holiness, as distinguished from bodily observances of every kind, is that which constitutes the essence of religion, than Bishop Butler. Not only the Charge itself, the whole intention of which is plainly nothing more than to enforce the necessity of practical religion, the reality as well as form, is a demonstration of this, but many passages besides to the same purpose, selected from his other writings. Take the two following as specimens. In his Analogy he observes thus: "Though mankind have, in all ages, been greatly prone to place their religion in peculiar positive rites, by way of equivalent for obedience to moral precepts; yet, without making any comparison at all between them, and consequently without determining which is to have the preference, the nature of the thing abundantly shows all notions of that kind to be utterly subversive of true religion: as they are, moreover, contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture; and likewise to the most express particular declarations of it, that nothing can render us accepted of God, without moral virtue." And to the same purpose in his Sermon, preached before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in February, 1738-9. "Indeed, amongst creaAnalogy, Part II, Chap. 1.

Matt, xl. 19.

† Ezek, ii, 5

tures naturally formed for religion, yet so much under the power of imagination as men are, superstition is an evil, which can never be out of sight. But even against this, true religion is a great security, and the only one. True religion takes up that place in the mind, which superstition would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us under the strongest obligations to oppose it. On the contrary, the danger of superstition cannot but be increased by the prevalence of irreligion; and, by its general prevalence, the evil will be unavoidable. For the common people, wanting a religion, will of course take up with almost any superstition which is thrown in their way: and in process of time, amidst the infinite vicissitudes of the political world, the leaders of parties will certainly be able to serve themselves of that superstition, whatever it be, which is getting ground; and will not fail to carry it to the utmost length their occasions require. The general nature of the thing shows this; and history and fact confirm it. It is therefore wonderful, those people who seem to think there is but one evil in life, that of superstition, should not see that atheism and profaneness must be the introduction of it."*

He who can think and write in such a manner, can never be said to mistake the nature of real religion: and he, who, after such proofs to the contrary, can persist in asserting of so discreet and learned a person, that he was addicted to superstition, must himself be much a stranger both to truth and charity.

And here it may be worth our while to observe, that the same excellent Prelate, who by one set of men was suspected of superstition, on account of his Charge, has by another been represented as leaning to the opposite extreme of enthusiasm, on account of his two discourses On the Love of God. But both opinions are equally without foundation. He was neither superstitious, nor an enthusiast: his mind was much too strong, and his habits of thinking and reasoning much too strict and severe, to suffer him to descend to the weaknesses of either character. His piety was at once fervent and rational.

* Ser. xvi.

When impressed with a generous concern for the declining cause of religion, he laboured to revive its dying interests; nothing he judged would be more effectual to that end, among creatures so much engaged with bodily things, and so apt to be affected with whatever strongly solicits the senses, as men are, than a religion of such a frame as should in its exercise require the joint exertions of the body and the mind. On the other hand, when penetrated with the dignity and importance of "the first and great commandment," love to God, he set himself to inquire, what those movements of the heart are, which are due to Him, the Author and Cause of all things; he found, in the coolest way of consideration, that God is the natural object of the same affections of gratitude, reverence, fear, desire of approbation, trust, and dependence, the same affections in kind, though doubtless in a very disproportionate degree, which any one would feel from contemplating a perfect character in a creature, in which goodness, with wisdom and power, are supposed to be the predominant qualities, with the further circumstance, that this creature was also his governor and friend. This subject is manifestly a real one; there is nothing in it fanciful or unreasonable: this way of being affected towards God is piety, in the strictest sense: this is religion, considered as a habit of mind; a religion, suited to the nature and condition of man.t

II. From superstition to Popery, the transition is easy: no wonder then, that, in the progress of detraction, the simple imputation of the former of these, with which the attack on the character of our Author was opened, should be followed by the more aggravated imputation of the latter. Nothing, I think, can fairly be gathered in support of such a suggestion from the Charge, in which Popery is barely mentioned, and occasionally

Matt. xxii. 38.

Many of the sentiments, in these Two Discourses of Bishop Butler, containing the sovereign good of man; the impossibility of procuring it in the present life; the usatisfactoriness of earthly enjoyments; together with the somewhat beyond and above them all, which once attained, there will rest nothing further to be wished or hoped; and which is then only to be expected, when we shall have put off this mortal body, and our union with God shall be complete; occur in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Book I. §. 11.

only, and in a sentence or two; yet even there, it should be remarked, the Bishop takes care to describe the peculiar observances required by it, "some as in themselves wrong and superstitious, and others of them as being made subservient to the purposes of superstition." With respect to his other writings, any one at all conversant with them needs not to be told, that the matters treated of both in his Sermons and his Analogy did none of them directly lead him to consider, and much less to combat, the opinions, whether relating to faith or worship, which are peculiar to the Church of Rome: it might therefore have happened, yet without any just conclusion arising from thence, of being himself inclined to favour those opinions, that he had never mentioned, so much as incidentally, the subject of Popery at all. But fortunately for the reputation of the Bishop, and to the eternal disgrace of his calumniators, even this poor resource is wanting to support their malevolence. In his Sermon at St Bride's before the Lord Mayor in 1740, after having said that "our laws and whole constitution go more upon supposition of an equality amongst mankind, than the constitution and laws of other countries;" he goes on to observe, that "this plainly requires, that more particular regard should be had to the education of the lower people here, than in places where they are born slaves of power, and to be made slaves of superstition: meaning evidently in this place, by the general term superstition, the particular errors of the Romanists. This is something: but we have a still plainer indication what his sentiments concerning Popery really were, from another of his additional Sermons, I mean that before the House of Lords on June the 11th, 1747, the anniversary of his late Majesty's accession. The passage alluded to is as follows; and my readers will not be displeased that I give it them at length. "The

value of our religious Establishment ought to be very much heightened in our esteem, by considering what it is a security from; I mean that great corruption of Christianity, Popery, which is ever hard at work to bring us again under its yoke. Whoever will consider the Po

* Serm. xvii,

pish claims, to the disposal of the whole earth, as of divine right, to dispense with the most sacred engagements, the claims to supreme absolute authority in religion; in short, the general claims which the Canonists express by the words, plenitude of power-whoever, I say, will consider Popery as it is professed at Rome, may see, that it is manifest, open usurpation of all human and divine authority. But even in those Roman Catholic countries where these monstrous claims are not admitted, and the civil power does, in many respects, restrain the papal; yet persecution is professed, as it is absolutely enjoined by what, is acknowledged to be their highest authority, a general council, so called, with the Pope at the head of it; and is practised in all of them, I think, without exception, where it can be done safely. Thus they go on to substitute force instead of argument; and external profession made by force, instead of reasonable conviction. And thus corruptions of the grossest sort have been in vogue, for many generations, in many parts of Christendom; and are so still, even where Popery obtains in its least absurd form: and their antiquity and wide extent are insisted upon as proofs of their truth; a kind of proof, which at best can only be presumptive, but which loses all its little weight, in proportion as the long and large prevalence of such corruptions have been obtained by force."* In another part of the same Sermon, where he is again speaking of our ecclesiastical constitution, he reminds his audience that it is to be valued, "not because it leaves us at liberty to have as little religion as we please, without being accountable to human judicatories; but because it exhibits to our view, and enforces upon our consciences, genuine Christianity, free from the superstitions with which it is defiled in other countries; which superstitions, he observes, "naturally tend to abate its force." The date of this Sermon should here be attended to. It was preached in June, 1747; that is, four years before the delivery and publication of the Charge, which was in the year 1751; and exactly five years before the Author died, which was in June, 1752.

* Serm. xx.

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