and the mind may concur in rendering our religious services acceptable to God, and at the same time useful to ourselves. And what way can this be, but precisely that which is recommended in the Charge; such a cultivation of outward as well as inward religion, that from both may result, what is the point chiefly to be laboured, and at all events to be secured, a correspondent temper and behaviour; or, in other words, such an application of the forms of godliness, as may be subservient in promoting the power and spirit of it? No man, who believes the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and understands what he believes,, but must know, that external religion is as much enjoined, and constitutes as real a part of revelation, as that which is internal. The many ceremonies in use among the Jews, in consequence of a divine.command; the baptism of water, as an emblem of moral purity; the eating and drinking of bread and wine, as symbols and representations of the body and blood of Christ, required of Christians, are proofs of this. On comparing these two parts of religion together, one, it is immediately seen, is of much greater importance than the other; and, whenever they happen to interfere, is always to be preferred : But does it follow from hence, that therefore that other is of little or no importance, and, in cases where there is no competition, may entirely be neglected ? Or rather, is not the legitimate conclusion directly the reverse, that nothing is to be looked upon as of little importance, which is of any use at all in preserving upon our minds a sense of the Divine authority, which recalls to our remembrance the obligations we are under, and helps to keep us, as the Scripture expresses it, “ in the fear of the Lord all the day long?"* If, to adopt the instance mentioned in the Charge, the sight of a church should remind a man of some sentiment of

* Prov. xxii. 17.

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piety; if, from the view of a material building dedicated to the service of God, he should be led to regard himself, his own body, as a living " temple of the Holy Ghost,"* and therefore, no more than the other, to be profaned or desecrated by any thing that defileth or is impure; could it be truly said of such a one that he was superstitious," or mistook the means of religion for the end? If, to use another, and what has been thought a more obnoxious instance, taken from the Bishop's practice, a cross, erected in a place of public worship,† should cause us to reflect on Him who died on a cross for our salvation, and on the necessity of our own dying to sin," and of "crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts;" would any worse consequences follow from such sentiments, so excited, than if the same sentiments had been excited by the view of a picture, of the crucifixion suppose, such as is commonly placed, and with this very design, in foreign churches, and indeed in many of our own? Both the instances here adduced, it is very possible, may be 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 be 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, the nature of the thing abundantly shews all notions of that kind to be utterly subversive of true religion; as they are, moreover, contrary to the whole general 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 progation of the gospel, in February 1738-9. « Indeed, amongst creatures 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

* Analogy, Part ii. Chap. 1.

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be unavoidable. For the common people, wanting a religion, will, of course, take up with almost any supersti

, tion 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

l length their occasions require. The general nature of the thing shews 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. 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

+ Ser. xvi.

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. The 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 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