placing it more in these than in inward purity and integrity of heart, one cannot guard too much against this, as well as all other abuses of religion, as make it to confift in fomething which it ought not.-How fuch mockery became a part of religion at first, or upon what motives they were imagined to be services acceptable to God, is hard to give a better account of than what was hinted above;namely, that men of melancholy and morofe tempers, conceiving the Deity to be like themfelves, 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 vapours.

What ignorance and enthusiasm at first introduced,—now tyranny and imposture continue to fupport.-So that the political improvement of these delufions to the purposes of wealth and power, is made one of the strongeft pillars which upholds the Romish religion; —which, with all its pretences to a more strict mortification and fanctity,-when you examine it minutely, is little elfe than a mere pe

cuniary contrivance.-And the trueft definition you can give of popery-is,—that it is a system 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.

And indeed that church has not been wanting in gratitude for the 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 less politic and inquifitional,-popery has found out the art of making men miferable in fpite of their fenfes, and the plenty with which God has bleffed them.

So that in many countries where popery reigns, but efpecially in that part of Italy where she has raised 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;-yet fo fuccefsful have its fpiritual directors been in the

management and retail of these bleffings, that they have found means to allay, if not entirely to defeat, them all, by one pretence or other. Some bitterness is officiously squeezed into every man's cup for his foul's health, till, at length, the whole intention of nature and providence is destroyed.—It is not surprizing, that where fuch unnatural feverities are prac tifed and heightened by other hardships,-the moft fruitful land fhould be barren, and wear a face of poverty and defolation;—or that many thousands, as have been obferved, fhould fly from the rigours of fuch a government, and feek shelter rather amongst rocks and defarts, than lie at the mercy of many unreafonable tafk-masters, under whom they can hope for no other reward of their induftry,-but rigorous flavery, made still worse by the tortures of unnecessary mortifications.—I say, unneceffary, because where there is a virtuous and good end proposed from any fober instances of felf-denial and mortification,-God forbid we should call them unneceffary, or that we fhould dispute against a thing-from the abuse to which it has been put;-and, therefore, what is faid in general upon this head, will be

understood to reach no farther than where the practice is become a mixture of fraud and tyranny, but will no ways be interpreted to extend to those self-denials which the difcipline of our holy church directs at this folemn feafon; which have been introduced by reason and good fenfe at first, and have fince been applied to ferve no purpofes,-but those of religion:-thefe, by reftraining our appetites for a while, and withdrawing our thoughts. from groffer objects,-do, by a mechanical effect, difpofe us for cool and fober reflections, incline us to turn our eyes inwards upon ourfelves, and confider what we are,—and what we have been doing;-for what intent we were fent into the world, and what kind of characters we were defigned to act in it.

It is neceffary that the mind of man, at fome certain periods, fhould be prepared to enter into this account; and without fome fuch difcipline, to check the infolence of unrestrained appetites, and call home the conscience,-the foul of man, capable as it is of brightness and perfection, would fink down to the lowest depths of darkness and brutality.- However Y

true this is, there ftill appears no obligation to renounce the innocent delights of our beings, or to affect a fullen distaste against them.-Nor, in truth,-can even the supposition of it be well admitted:--for pleasures arifing from the free and natural exercise of the faculties of the mind and body, to talk them down, is like talking against the frame and mechanifm of human nature, and would be no less fenfeless than the difputing against the burning of fire, or falling downwards of a ftone.-Befides this, -man is fo contrived, that he ftands in need of frequent repairs ;-both mind and body are apt to fink and grow unactive under long and clofe attention; and, therefore, must be reftored by proper recruits.-Some part of our time may doubtlefs innocently and lawfully be employed in actions merely diverting;—and whenever fuch indulgencies become criminal, it is feldom the nature of the actions themselves, -but the excefs which makes them fo.

But fome one may here ask,-By what rule are we to judge of excefs in thefe cafes?—If the enjoyment of the fame fort of pleasures may be either innocent or guilty, according to the use or abuse of them,—how shall we be