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,[199] 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 Plutarch
that would eat his children[200] 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
superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy
in the minds of men. Therefore atheism 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 Cæsar) were
civil times; but superstition hath been the confusion of many states,
and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_,[201] that ravisheth all the
spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people, and
in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted
to practice in a reversed order. It was gravely said by some of the
prelates in the Council of Trent,[202] where the doctrine of the
schoolmen bare great sway, that the schoolmen were like astronomers,
which did feign eccentrics[203] and epicycles,[204] and such engines of
orbs to save[205] the phenomena, though they knew there were no such
things; and, in like manner, that the schoolmen had framed a number
of subtle and intricate axioms and theorems, to save the practice of
the Church. The causes of superstition 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, barbarous times,
especially joined with calamities and disasters. Superstition, without
a veil, is a deformed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an ape to
be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition 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 avoiding superstition, when men think to
do best if they go furthest from the superstition formerly received;
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.