upon devotional writers, that they are apt to run into the language of
love. Perhaps the charge would be full as just, had they said that Love
borrows the language of Devotion; for the votaries of that passion are
fond of using those exaggerated expressions, which can suit nothing
below Divinity; and you can hardly address the greatest of all Beings
in a strain of more profound adoration, than the lover uses to the
object of his attachment. But the truth is, Devotion does in no small
degree resemble that fanciful and elevated kind of love which depends
not on the senses. Nor is the likeness to be wondered at, since both
have their source in the love of beauty and excellence. Both are
exceeding prone to superstition, and apt to run into romantic excesses.
Both are nourished by poetry and music, and felt with the greatest
fervour in the warmer climates. Both carry the mind out of itself,
and powerfully refine the affections from every thing gross, low, and
selfish.
But it is time to retire; we are treading upon enchanted ground,
and shall be suspected by many of travelling towards the regions of
chivalry and old romance. And were it so, many a fair majestic idea
might be gathered from those forgotten walks, which would well answer
the trouble of transplanting. It must however be owned, that very
improper language has formerly been used on these subjects; but there
cannot be any great danger of such excesses, where the mind is guarded
by a rational faith, and the social affections have full scope in the
free commerce and legitimate connections of society.
Having thus considered the various causes which contribute to deaden
the feelings of devotion, it may not be foreign to the subject to
enquire in what manner they are affected by the different modes of
religion. I speak not of opinions; for these have much less influence
upon the heart, than the circumstances which attend particular
persuasions. A sect _may_ only differ from an establishment, as one
absurd opinion differs from another: but there is a character and cast
of manners belonging to each, which will be perfectly distinct; and
of a sect, the character will vary as it is a rising or a declining
sect, persecuted or at ease. Yet while divines have wearied the world
with canvassing contrary doctrines and jarring articles of faith, the
philosopher has not considered, as the subject deserved, what situation
was most favourable to virtue, sentiment, and pure manners. To a
philosophic eye, free from prejudice, and accustomed to large views
of the great polity carried on in the moral world, perhaps varying
and opposite forms may appear proper, and well calculated for their
respective ends; and he will neither wish entirely to destroy the old,
nor wholly to crush the new.
The great line of division between different modes of religion, is
formed by Establishments and Sects. In an infant sect, which is always
in some degree a persecuted one, the strong union and entire affection
of its followers, the sacrifices they make to principle, the force of
novelty, and the amazing power of sympathy, all contribute to cherish
devotion. It rises even to passion, and absorbs every other sentiment.
Severity of manners imposes respect; and the earnestness of the new
proselytes renders them insensible to injury, or even to ridicule. A
strain of eloquence, often coarse indeed, but strong and persuasive,
works like leaven in the heart of the people. In this state, all
outward helps are superfluous, the living spirit of devotion is amongst
them, the world sinks away to nothing before it, and every object but
one is annihilated. The social principle mixes with the flame, and
renders it more intense; strong parties are formed, and friends or
lovers are not more closely connected than the members of these little
communities.
It is this kind of devotion, a devotion which those of more settled
and peaceable times can only guess at, which made amends to the first
Christians for all they resigned, and all they suffered: this draws
the martyr to a willing death, and enables the confessor to endure
a voluntary poverty. But this stage cannot last long: the heat of
persecution abates, and the fervour of zeal feels a proportional decay.
Now comes on the period of reasoning and examination. The principles
which have produced such mighty effects on the minds of men, acquire
an importance, and become objects of the public attention. Opinions
are canvassed. Those who before bore testimony to their religion
only by patient suffering, now defend it with argument; and all the
keenness of polemical disquisition is awakened on either side. The
fair and generous idea of religious liberty, which never originates
in the breast of a triumphant party, now begins to unfold itself. To
vindicate these rights, and explain these principles, learning, which
in the former state was despised, is assiduously cultivated by the
sectaries; their minds become enlightened, and a large portion of
knowledge, especially religious knowledge, is diffused through their
whole body. Their manners are less austere, without having as yet lost
any thing of their original purity. Their ministers gain respect as
writers, and their pulpit discourses are studied and judicious. The
most unfavourable circumstance of this æra is, that those who dissent,
are very apt to acquire a critical and disputatious spirit; for, being
continually called upon to defend doctrines in which they differ from
the generality, their attention is early turned to the argumentative
part of religion; and hence we see that sermons, which afford food
for this taste, are with them thought of more importance than prayer
and praise, though these latter are undoubtedly the more genuine and
indispensible parts of public worship.
This then is the second period; the third approaches fast; men grow
tired of a controversy which becomes insipid from being exhausted;
persecution has not only ceased, it begins to be forgotten; and
from the absence of opposition in either kind, springs a fatal and
spiritless indifference. That sobriety, industry, and abstinence from
fashionable pleasures, which distinguished the fathers, has made the
sons wealthy; and, eager to enjoy their riches, they long to mix
with that world, a separation from which was the best guard to their
virtues. A secret shame creeps in upon them, when they acknowledge
their relation to a disesteemed sect; they therefore endeavour to file
off its peculiarities, but in so doing they destroy its very being.
Connections with the establishment, whether of intimacy, business, or
relationship, which formerly, from their superior zeal, turned to the
advantage of the sect, now operate against it. Yet these connections
are formed more frequently than ever; and those who a little before,
soured by the memory of recent suffering, betrayed perhaps an aversion
from having any thing in common with the Church, now affect to come
as near it as possible; and, like a little boat that takes a large
vessel in tow, the sure consequence is, the being drawn into its
vortex. They aim at elegance and show in their places of worship,
the appearance of their preachers, &c. and thus impoliticly awaken
a taste it is impossible they should ever gratify. They have worn
off many forbidding singularities, and are grown more amiable and
pleasing. But those singularities were of use: they set a mark upon
them, they pointed them out to the world, and thus obliged persons
so distinguished to exemplary strictness. No longer obnoxious to the
world, they are open to all the seductions of it. Their minister, that
respectable character which once inspired reverence and affectionate
esteem, their teacher and their guide, is now dwindled into the mere
leader of the public devotions; or, lower yet, a person hired to
entertain them every week with an elegant discourse. In proportion as
his importance decreases, his salary sits heavy on the people; and he
feels himself depressed by that most cruel of all mortifications to
a generous mind, the consciousness of being a burden upon those from
whom he derives his scanty support. Unhappily, amidst this change of
manners, there are forms of strictness, and a set of phrases introduced
in their first enthusiasm, which still subsist: these they are
ashamed to use, and know not how to decline; and their behaviour, in
consequence of them, is awkward and irresolute. Those who have set out
with the largest share of mysticism and flighty zeal, find themselves
particularly embarrassed by this circumstance.
When things are come to this crisis, their tendency is evident: and
though the interest and name of a sect may be kept up for a time by the
generosity of former ages, the abilities of particular men, or that
reluctance which keeps a generous mind from breaking old connections;
it must, in a short course of years, melt away into the establishment,
the womb and the grave of all other modes of religion.
An _Establishment_ affects the mind by splendid buildings, music,
the mysterious pomp of antient ceremonies; by the sacredness of
peculiar orders, habits, and titles; by its secular importance; and
by connecting with religion, ideas of order, dignity, and antiquity.
It speaks to the heart through the imagination and the senses; and
though it never can raise devotion so high as we have described it in
a beginning sect, it will preserve it from ever sinking into contempt.
As, to a woman in the glow of health and beauty, the most careless
dress is the most becoming; but when the freshness of youth is worn
off, greater attention is necessary, and rich ornaments are required to
throw an air of dignity round her person: so while a sect retains its
first plainness, simplicity and affectionate zeal, it wants nothing an
establishment could give; but that once declined, the latter becomes
far more respectable. The faults of an establishment grow venerable
from length of time; the improvements of a sect appear whimsical from
their novelty. Antient families, fond of rank, and of that order which
secures it to them, are on the side of the former. Traders incline to
the latter; and so do generally men of genius, as it favours their
originality of thinking. An establishment leans to superstition, a
sect to enthusiasm; the one is a more dangerous and violent excess,
the other more fatally debilitates the powers of the mind; the one is
a deeper colouring, the other a more lasting dye; but the coldness
and languor of a declining sect produces scepticism. Indeed, a sect
is never stationary, as it depends entirely on passions and opinions;
though it often attains excellence, it never rests in it, but is always
in danger of one extreme or the other; whereas an old establishment,
whatever else it may want, possesses the grandeur arising from
stability.
We learn to respect whatever respects itself; and are easily led to
think that system requires no alteration, which never admits of any.
It is this circumstance, more than any other, which gives a dignity to
that accumulated mass of error, the Church of Rome. A fabric which has
weathered many successive ages, though the architecture be rude, the
parts disproportionate, and overloaded with ornament, strikes us with a
sort of admiration, merely from its having held so long together.
The _minister_ of a sect, and of an establishment, is upon a very
different footing. The former is like the popular leader of an army; he
is obeyed with enthusiasm while he is obeyed at all; but his influence
depends on opinion, and is entirely personal: the latter resembles a
general appointed by the monarch; he has soldiers less warmly devoted
to him, but more steady, and better disciplined. The dissenting teacher
is nothing if he have not the spirit of a martyr; and is the scorn of
the world, if he be not above the world. The clergyman, possessed of
power and affluence, and for that reason chosen from among the better
ranks of people, is respected as a gentleman, though not venerated
as an apostle; and as his profession generally obliges him to decent
manners, his order is considered as a more regular and civilized class
of men than their fellow-subjects of the same rank. The dissenting
teacher, separated from the people, but not raised above them, invested
with no power, entitled to no emoluments, if he cannot acquire
for himself authority, must feel the bitterness of dependance. The
ministers of the former denomination cannot fall, but in some violent
convulsion of the state: those of the latter, when indifference
and mutual neglect begin to succeed to that close union which once
subsisted between them and their followers, lose their former influence
without resource; the dignity and weight of their office is gone for
ever; they feel the insignificancy of their pretensions, their spirits
sink, and, except they take refuge in some collateral pursuit, and
stand candidates for literary fame, they slide into an ambiguous and
undecided character; their time is too often sacrificed to frivolous
compliances; their manners lose their austerity, without having
proportionally gained in elegance; the world does not acknowledge them,
for they are not of the world; it cannot esteem them, for they are not
superior to the world.
Upon the whole, then, it should seem, that the strictness of a sect
(and it can only be respectable by being strict) is calculated for a
few finer spirits, who make Religion their chief object. As to the
much larger number, on whom she has only an imperfect influence,
making them decent if not virtuous, and meliorating the heart without
greatly changing it; for all these the genius of an establishment is
more eligible, and better fitted to cherish that moderate devotion of
which alone they are capable. All those who have not strength of mind
to think for themselves, who would live to virtue without denying the
world, who wish much to be religious, but more to be genteel--naturally
flow into the establishment. If it offered no motives to their minds,
but such as are perfectly pure and spiritual, their devotion would
not for that be more exalted, it would die away to nothing; and it is
better their minds should receive only a tincture of religion, than be
wholly without it. Those too, whose passions are regular and equable,
and who do not aim at abstracted virtues, are commonly placed to most
advantage within the pale of the national faith.
All the greater exertions of the mind, spirit to reform, fortitude and
constancy to suffer, can be expected only from those who, forsaking the
common road, are exercised in a peculiar course of moral discipline:
but it should be remembered, that these exertions cannot be expected
from every character, nor on every occasion. Indeed, religion is a
sentiment which takes such strong hold on all the most powerful
principles of our nature, that it may easily be carried to excess. The
Deity never meant our regards to him should engross the mind: that
indifference to sensible objects, which many moralists preach, is not
perhaps desirable, except where the mind is raised above its natural
tone, and extraordinary situations call forth extraordinary virtues.
If the peculiar advantages of a sect were well understood, its
followers would not be impatient of those moderate restraints which
do not rise to persecution, nor affect any of their more material
interests: for, do they not bind them closer to each other, cherish
zeal, and keep up the love of liberty? What is the language of such
restraints? Do they not say, with a prevailing voice, Let the timorous
and the worldly depart; no one shall be of this persuasion, who is not
sincere, disinterested, conscientious. It is notwithstanding proper,
that men should be sensible of all their rights, assert them boldly,
and protest against every infringement; for it may be of advantage to
bear what yet it is unjustifiable in others to inflict.
Neither would dissenters, if they attended to their real interests, be
so ambitious as they generally are, of rich converts. Such converts
only accelerate their decline; they relax their discipline, and they
acquire an influence very pernicious in societies which ought to
breathe nothing but the spirit of equality.
Sects are always strict in proportion to the corruption of
establishments and the licentiousness of the times, and they are useful
in the same proportion. Thus the austere lives of the primitive
Christians counterbalanced the vices of that abandoned period; and
thus the Puritans in the reign of Charles the Second seasoned with
a wholesome severity the profligacy of public manners. They were
less amiable than their descendants of the present day; but to be
amiable was not the object: they were of public utility; and their
scrupulous sanctity (carried to excess, themselves only considered)
like a powerful antiseptic, opposed the contagion breathed from a most
dissolute court. In like manner, that sect, one of whose most striking
characteristics is a beautiful simplicity of dialect, served to check
that strain of servile flattery and Gothic compliment so prevalent in
the same period, and to keep up some idea of that manly plainness with
which one human being ought to address another.
Thus have we seen that different modes of religion, though they bear
little good-will to each other, are nevertheless mutually useful.
Perhaps there is not an establishment so corrupt, as not to make the
gross of mankind better than they would be without it. Perhaps there
is not a sect so eccentric, but that it has set some one truth in the
strongest light, or carried some one virtue, before neglected, to its
utmost height, or loosened some obstinate and long-rooted prejudice.
They answer their end; they die away; others spring up, and take their
place. So the purer part of the element, continually drawn off from
the mighty mass of waters, forms rivers, which, running in various
directions, fertilize large countries; yet, always tending towards the
ocean, every accession to their bulk or grandeur but precipitates their
course, and hastens their re-union with the common reservoir from
which they were separated.
In the mean time, the devout heart always finds associates suitable
to its disposition, and the particular cast of its virtues; while the
continual flux and reflux of opinions prevents the active principles
from stagnating. There is an analogy between things material and
immaterial. As, from some late experiments in philosophy it has been
found, that the process of vegetation restores and purifies vitiated
air; so does that moral and political ferment which accompanies the
growth of new sects, communicate a kind of spirit and elasticity
necessary to the vigour and health of the soul, but soon lost amidst
the corrupted breath of an indiscriminate multitude.
There remains only to add, lest the preceding view of Sects and
Establishments should in any degree be misapprehended, that it has
nothing to do with the _truth_ of opinions, and relates only to the
influence which the adventitious circumstances attending them may
have upon the manners and morals of their followers. It is therefore
calculated to teach us candour, but not indifference. Large views of
the moral polity of the world may serve to illustrate the providence
of God in his different dispensations, but are not made to regulate
our own individual conduct, which must conscientiously follow our own
opinions and belief. We may see much good in an Establishment, the
doctrines of which we cannot give our assent to without violating our
integrity; we may respect the tendencies of a Sect, the tenets of which
we utterly disapprove. We may think practices useful which we cannot
adopt without hypocrisy. We may think all religions beneficial, and
believe of one alone that it is true.
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Transcriber’s Note
The following changes have been made:
In the Contents the page number for “On the Pleasure derived from
Objects of Terror; with Sir Bertrand, a Fragment” has been changed
from 117 to 119.
Page 42 from: “from the fortuitous collison”
to: “from the fortuitous collision”
Page 64 from: “a jealous and wordly-minded prudence”
to: “a jealous and worldly-minded prudence”
Page 72 from: “paid to distinguished abilties”
to: “paid to distinguished abilities”
Page 97 from: “forbiding the vulgar tongue”
to: “forbidding the vulgar tongue”
Page 131 from: “could not open it agin.”
to: “could not open it again.”
Page 132 from: “creeking upon its hinges,”
to: “creaking upon its hinges,”
Page 176 from: “gives aditional fire”
to: “gives additional fire”
Page 233 from: “vastness of such an idea.”
to: “vastness of such an idea?’”
Last page from: “Biogrophical Memoirs”
to: “Biographical Memoirs”