MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 331 Poor abused mankind, that feeds on the wind to gain im- mortality, and rests on a shadow for support in matters of ever- lasting weight and consequence ! Believe me, Amorphus, your mere nonconformity is no better a defence against the devil, than the relics of a saint or the holy - water pot. Your disgust against established forms of prayer will procure no more blessings from heaven than the Latin de- votions of a priest or friar. Superstition does not always lie in the observance of more ceremonies than God has made, or in a mere affectation to serve him with rites and forms of the contri- vance of men. Anthernerus is as superstitious in his hatred of Christmas and Good - Friday, as Hemerino is in the too fond observation of them, because each of them place their merit in their zeal about a thing which God has left indifferent in his word, and for which he owes them no special reward. The severe separatist with all his singularities, and the high churchman with all his rituals and rubric, his saints and their festivals, the scrupulous, the precise, and the ceremonious wor- shipper, will be all shut out together from the kingdom of hea- ven, if they have no better certificate to shew at the gates of it, than such empty characters as these. These shapes of profes- sion, without real piety, have no place in the world of spirits, and are of no esteem in paradise, where God and angels dwell. Nothing can ever make way for our admission there, but a holy acquaintance with God, repentance of every known sin, and trust in Jesus the Saviour ; nothing but the life, and spirit, and power of godliness ; but patience, humility, and self denial, mor- tification and watchfulness, and faith that worketh by love. Mere forms are so easy a way of getting to heaven, that God would never allow them to be a sufficient title, lest his palace should be crowded with ten thousand hypocrites. XLVI. Cowardice and Self- love. I have often thought it is a right noble and gallant principle which enables a person to pass a just and solid judgment upon all things that occur, without ever being warpt aside by the influ- ence of fashion and custom: It is a noble soul that can practise steady virtue in opposition to the course of the humour of the multitude ; " 'Tis brave to meet the world, stand fast among " Whole crowds, and not be carried in the throng." It was a female muse wrote these lines, but there is a manly spirit and vigour in them. Not that we should be fond of run- ning counter to the custom of the age or nation wherein we dwell, out of a humourous singularity to strew our valour; but when those customs have a plain appearance of vice and foil y in them, we should dare to be virtuous and wise in spite of the world. sb3
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