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if they are not kept under exact

difcipline, that by way of caution and prevention, 'twere better, at cemig tain times, to affect some degree of needlefs referve, than hazard any ill to confequences from the other extreme.LA

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But when almost the whole of relibns gion is made to confift in the pious Ɑ fooleries of penances and fufferatib ings, as is practifed in the church ofled Rome (did no other evil attend it), ni yet, fince it is putting religion uponbus a wrong scent, placing it more imow these than in inward purity and id-bas tegrity of heart, one cannot guard bas too much against this, as well well as ally

other fuch abuses of religion, as a 16

make it to confist in fomething which arsi

it ought not. How fuch mockery

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SERMON MI Z Ż

XXII. 201

became a part of religion Vert at first,

or upon on what motives they were ima gined to be fervices accent bas acceptable to

God, is hard to give a better account of than what was hinted above; namely, that men of melancholy and motofel tempers, conceiving the Deity to be like themselves, a gloomy, discontented and forrowful being,believed he delighted, as they did, in fplenetic and mortifying actions, and therefore made their religious worship to confift of chimeras as wild and barbarous as their own dreams and vapoursannay, 98% (HANI

What ignorance and enthusiasm

impofture continue to fupport.-So that the political improvement of Arbos, dont wor

these delusions to the purposes of wealth and power, is made one of the strongest pillars which upholds the Romish religion;which, with all its pretences to a more ftrict mortification and fanctity,-when you examine it minutely, is little elfe than a mere pecuniary contrivance. And the trueft definition you can give of popery-is, that it is a fyftem put together and contrived to operate upon men's weakneffes and paffions, and thereby to pick their pockets, and leave them in a fit condition for its arbitrary defigns.sq

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And indeed that church has not

been wanting in gratitude for other good offices of this kind, which the doctrine of penances has done them

for, in confideration of its fervices, they have raised it above the level of moral duties, and have at length complimented it into the number of their facraments, and made it a neceffary point to falvation.

By thefe, and other tenets, no lefs politic and inquifitional,-popery has found out the art of making men miferable in fpite of their senses, and the plenty with which God has bleffed them.

So that in many countries where popery reigns,—but especially in that part of Italy where fhe has raifed her throne, though, by the happiness of its foil and climate, it is capable of producing as great variety and abundance as any country upon earth go

yet fo fuccessful have its spiritual directors been in the management and retail of thefe bleffings, that they have found means ton allay, if not entirely to defeat, them all, by one pretence or other. Some bitternefst is officioufly fqueezed into every man's cup for his foul's health, till, at length, the whole intention of nature and providence is destroyed's -It is not surprising, that where fuch unnatural severities are practised and heightened by other hardships, -the most fruitful land fhould be barren, and wear a face of poverty and defolation;-or that many thousa fands, as have been obferved, fhould

fly from the rigours of such a go vernment, and feek fhelter rather

Mods of basxs q

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