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to have slept what the common people opinion, sets himself above him in his own call a dog's sleep; or if his sleep was real, judgment, and in several particulars pre his wife was awake, and about her busi-tends to be the wiser person. This is a Your pen, which loves to moralize great provocation to the proud man, and upon all subjects, may raise something, me- gives a very keen edge to what he calls his thinks, on this circumstance also, and point zeal. And that this is the case very often, out to us those sets of men, who, instead of we may observe from the behaviour of growing rich by an honest industry recom- some of the most zealous for orthodoxy, mend themselves to the favour of the great, who have often great friendships and intiby making themselves agreeable compa- macies with vicious immoral men, provided nions in the participations of luxury and they do but agree with them in the same pleasure. scheme of belief. The reason is, because the vicious believer gives the precedency to the virtuous man, and allows the good Christian to be the worthier person, at the same time that he cannot come up to his perfections. This we find exemplified in that trite passage which we see quoted in almost every system of ethics, though upon another occasion:

'I must further acquaint you, sir, that one of the most eminent pens in Grubstreet is now employed in writing the dream of this miraculous sleeper, which I hear will be of more than ordinary length, as it must contain all the particulars that are supposed to have passed in his imagination during so long a sleep. He is said to have gone already through three days and three nights of it, and to have comprised in them the most remarkable passages of the four first empires of the world. If he can keep free from party strokes, his work may be of use; but this I much doubt, having been informed by one of his friends and confidents, that he has spoken some things of Nimrod with too great freedom. I am ever, sir, &c.' L.

No. 185.] Tuesday, October 2, 1711.

-Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ ?

Virg. n. i. 15.

And dwells such fury in celestial breasts? THERE is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what the world calls zeal. There are so many passions which hide themselves under it, and so many mischiefs arising from it, that some have gone so far as to say it would have been for the benefit of mankind if it had never been reckoned in the catalogue of virtues. It is certain, where it is once laudable and prudential, it is an hundred times criminal and erroneous; nor can it be otherwise, if we consider that it operates with equal violence in all religions, however opposite they may be to one another, and in all the subdivisions of each religion in particular.

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On the contrary, it is certain, if our zeal were true and genuine, we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic; since there are several cases which may excuse the latter before his great Judge, but none which can excuse the former.

Interest is likewise a great inflamer, and sets a man on persecution under the colour of zeal. For this reason we find none are so forward to promote the true worship by fire and sword, as those who find their present account in it. But I shall extend the word interest to a larger meaning than what is generally given it, as it relates to our spiritual safety and welfare, as well as to our temporal. A man is glad to gain numbers on his side, as they serve to strengthen him in his private opinions. Every proselyte is like a new argument for the establishment of his faith. It makes him believe that his principles carry conviction with them, and are the more likely to be true when he finds they are comformable to the reason of others, as well as to his own. And that this temper of mind deludes a man very often into an opinion of his zeal, may appear from the common behaviour of the atheist, who maintains and spreads We are told by some of the Jewish rab-his opinions with as much heat as those bins, that the first murder was occasioned by a religious controversy; and if we had the whole history of zeal from the days of. Cain to our own times, we should see it filled with so many scenes of slaughter and bloodshed, as would make a wise man very careful how he suffers himself to be actuated by such a principle, when it only regards matters of opinion and speculation.

I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and, I believe, he will often find, that what he calls a zeal for his religion, is either pride, interest, or illnature. A man, who differs from another in

who believe they do it only cut of a passion for God's glory."

Ill-nature is another dreadful imitator of zeal. Many a good man may have a natural rancour and malice in his heart, which has been in some measure quelled and subdued by religion; but if it finds any pretence of breaking out, which does not seem to him inconsistent with the duties of a Christian, it throws off all restraint, and rages in its full fury. Zeal is, therefore, a great ease to a malicious man, by making him believe he does God service, whilst he is gratifying the bent of a perverse revengeful temper. For this reason we find that most

of the massacres and devastations which have been in the world, have taken their rise from a furious pretended zeal.

particulars, were laid together and formed into a kind of creed, according to the opinions of the most celebrated atheists; I say, I love to see a man zealous in a good mat- supposing such a creed as this were formter, and especially when his zeal shows ed and imposed upon any one people in the itself for advancing morality, and promot- world, whether it would not require an ing the happiness of mankind. But when infinitely greater measure of faith, than I find the instruments he works with are any set of articles which they so violently racks and gibbets, galleys and dungeons: oppose. Let me therefore advise this genewhen he imprisons men's persons, confis-ration of wranglers, for their own and for cates their estates, ruins their families, the public good, to act at least so consistand burns the body to save the soul, I can- ently with themselves, as not to burn with not stick to pronounce of such a one, that zeal for irreligion, and with bigotry_for (whatever he may think of his faith and nonsense. C. religion) his faith is vain, and his religion unprofitable.

I

Cœlum ipsum petimus stultitia

Hor. Lib. 3. Od. i. 38. High Heaven itself our impious rage assails.-P. UPON my return to my lodgings last night, found a letter from my worthy friend the clergyman, whom I have given some account of in my former papers. He tells me in it that he was particularly pleased with the latter part of my yesterday's speculation; and at the same time inclosed the following essay, which he desires me to publish as the sequel of that discourse. It consists partly of uncommon reflections, and partly of such as have been already used, but now set in a stronger light.

inexcusable who tries to gain over a believer, because he does not propose the doing himself or the believer any good by such a conversion.

After having treated of these false zea- No. 186.] Wednesday, October 3, 17г1. lots in religion, I cannot forbear mentioning a monstrous species of men, who one would not think had any existence in nature, were they not to be met with in ordinary conversation, I mean the zealots in atheism. One would fancy that these men, though they fall short, in every other respect, of those who make a profession of religion, would at least outshine them in this particular, and be exempt from that single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervours of religion. But so it is, that infidelity is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it. There is something so ridiculous and perverse in A believer may be excused by the most this kind of zealots, that one does not know hardened atheist for endeavouring to make how to set them out in their proper colours. him a convert, because he does it with an They are a sort of gamesters who are eter-eye to both their interests. The atheist is nally upon the fret, though they play for nothing. They are perpetually teazing their friends to come over to them, though at the same time they allow that neither of them shall get any thing by the bargain. "The prospect of a future state is the seIn short, the zeal of spreading atheism is, cret comfort and refreshment of my soul; it if possible, more absurd than atheism itself. is that which makes nature look gay about Since I have mentioned this unaccount-me; it doubles all my pleasures, and supable zeal which appears in atheists, and infidels, I must farther observe, that they are likewise in a most particular manner possessed with the spirit of bigotry. They are wedded to opinions full of contradictions and impossibility, and at the same time look upon the smallest difficulty in an article of faith as a sufficient reason for rejecting it. Notions that fall in with the common reason of mankind, that are conformable to the sense of all ages, and all nations, not to mention their tendency for promoting the happiness of societies, or of particular persons, are exploded as errors and prejudices; and schemes erected in their stead that are altogether monstrous and irrational, and require the most extravagant credulity to embrace them. I would fain ask one of these bigoted infidels, supposing all the great points of atheism, as the casual or eternal formation of the world, the materiality of a thinking substance, the mortality of the soul, the fortuitous organization of the body, the motions and gravitation of matter, with the like

ports me under all my afflictions; I can look at disappointments and misfortunes, pain and sickness, death itself, and what is worse than death, the loss of those who are dearest to me, with indifference, so long as I keep in view the pleasures of eternity, and the state of being in which there will be no fears nor apprehensions, pains nor sorrows, sickness nor separation. Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all this is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news? If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.

'I must confess I do not know how to trust a man who believes neither heaven nor hell, or in other words, a future state of rewards and punishments. Not only natural self-love, but reason directs us to promote our own interests above all things. It can never be for the interest of a believer to do me a mischief, because he is sure upon the balance of accounts to find himself a loser by it. On the contrary, if he con

siders his own welfare in his behaviour to- mankind more than the thought that Christ wards me, it will lead him to do me all the died for him? Or what dispose us to set a good he can, and at the same time restrain stricter guard upon the purity of our own him from doing me any injury. An unbe-hearts, than our being members of Christ, liever does not act like a reasonable crea- and a part of the society of which that imture, if he favours me contrary to his pre-maculate person is the head? But these sent interest, or does not distress me when are only a specimen of those admirable init turns to his present advantage. Honour forcements of morality, which the apostle and good-nature may indeed tie up his has drawn from the history of our blessed hands; but as these would be very much Saviour. strengthened by reason and principle, so without them they are only instincts, or wavering, unsettled notions, which rest on no foundation.

'Infidelity has been attacked with so good success of late years, that it is driven out of all its out-works. The atheist has not found his post tenable, and is therefore retired into deism, and a disbelief of revealed religion only.

But the truth of it is, the greatest number of this set of men are those who, for want of a virtuous education or examining the grounds of religion, know so very little of the matter in question, that their infidelity is but another term for their ignorance. As folly and inconsiderateness are the foundations of infidelity, the great pillars and supports of it are either a vanity of appearing wiser than the rest of mankind, or an ostentation of courage in despising the terrors of another world, which have so great an influence on what they call weaker minds; or an aversion to a belief that must cut them off from many of those pleasures they propose to themselves, and fill them with remorse for many of those they have already tasted.

'The great received articles of the Christian religion have been so clearly proved, from the authority of that divine revelation in which they are delivered, that it is impossible for those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see, not to be convinced of them. But were it possible for any thing in the Christian faith to be erroneous, I can find no ill consequences in adhering to it. The great points of the incarnation and suffering of our Saviour, produce naturally such habits of virtue in the mind of man, that, I say, supposing it were possible for us to be mistaken in them, the infidel himself must at least allow that no other system of religion could so effectually contribute to the heightening of morality. They give us great ideas of the dignity of human nature, and of the love which the Supreme Being bears to his creatures, and consequently engage us in the highest acts of duty towards our Creator, our neighbour, and ourselves. How many noble arguments has St. Paul raised from the chief articles of our religion, for the advancing of morality in its three great branches!-To give a single example in each kind. What can be a stronger motive to a firm trust and reliance on the mercies of our Maker, than the giving his Son to suffer for us? What can make us love and esteem even the most inconsiderable of

"If our modern infidels considered these matters with that candour and seriousness which they deserve, we should not see them act with such a spirit of bitterness, arrogance, and malice. They would not be raising such insignificant cavils, doubts, and scruples, as may be started against every thing that is not capable of mathematical demonstration; in order to unsettle the mind of the ignorant, disturb the public peace, subvert morality, and throw all things into confusion and disorder. If none of these reflections can have any influence on them, there is one that perhaps may, because it is adapted to their vanity, by which they seem to be guided much more than their reason. I would therefore have them consider that the wisest and best of men in all ages of the world, have been those who lived up to the religion of their country, when they saw nothing in it opposite to morality, and to the best lights they had of the divine nature. Pythagoras's first rule directs us to worship the gods "as it is ordained by law," for that is the most natural interpretation of the precept. Socrates, who was the most renowned among the heathens both for wisdom and virtue, in his last moments desires his friends to offer a cock to Esculapius: doubtless out of a submissive deference to the established worship of his country. Xenophon tells us, that his prince (whom he sets forth as a pattern of perfection) when he found his death approaching, offered sacrifices on the mountains to the Persian Jupiter, and the Sun, "according to the custom of the Persians;" for those are the words of the historian.* Nay, the Epicureans and atomical philosophers showed a very remarkable modesty in this particular; for though the being of a God was entirely repugnant to their schemes of natural philosophy, they contented themselves with the denial of a providence, asserting at the same time the existence of gods in general; because they would not shock the common belief of mankind, and the religion of their country.'-L.

No. 187.] Thursday, October 4, 1711.

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to avoid the persons he speaks of, that I been very much towards intrigue and havshall insert his letter at length.

ing intelligence with women of wit, my whole life has passed away in a series of impositions. I shall, for the benefit of the present race of young men give some account of my loves. I know not whether you have ever heard of the famous girl about town, called Kitty. This creature (for I must take shame upon myself) was my mistress in the days when keeping was in fashion. Kitty, under the appearance of being wild, thoughtless, and irregular in all her words and actions, concealed the most accomplished jilt of her time. Her negligence had to me a charm in it like that of chastity, and want of desires seemed as great a merit as the conquest of them. The

girl, and whenever I talked to her with any turn of fondness, she would immediately snatch off my periwig, try it upon herself in the glass, clap her arms a-kimbow, draw my sword, and make passes on the wall, take off my cravat, and seize it to make some other use of the lace, or run into some other unaccountable rompishness, until the time I had appointed to pass away with her was over. I went from her full of pleasure at the reflection that I had the keeping of so much beauty in a woman, who, as she was too heedless to please me, was also too unattentive to form a design to wrong me. Long did I divert every hour that hung heavy upon me in the company of this creature, whom I looked upon as neither guilty nor innocent, but could laugh at myself for my unaccountable pleasure in an expense upon her, until in the end it appeared my pretty insensible was with child by my footman.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I do not know that you have ever touched upon a certain species of women, whom we ordinarily call jilts. You cannot possibly go upon a more useful work, than the consideration of these dangerous animals. The coquette is indeed one degree towards the jilt; but the heart of the former is bent upon admiring herself, and giving false hopes to her lovers; but the latter is not contented to be extremely amiable, but she must add to that advantage a certain delight in being a torment to others. Thus when her lover is in the full expectation of success, the jilt shall meet him with a sudden indifference, and admi-air she gave herself was that of a romping ration in her face at his being surprised that he is received like a stranger, and a cast of her head another way with a pleasant scorn of the fellow's insolence. It is very probable the lover goes home utterly astonished and dejected, sits down to his 'scrutoire, sends her word in the most abject terms that he knows not what he has done, that all which was desirable in this life is so suddenly vanished from him, that the charmer of his soul should withdraw the vital heat from the heart which pants for her. He continues a mournful absence for some time, pining in secret, and out of humour with all things which he meets with. At length he takes a resolution to try his fate, and explain with her resolutely upon her unaccountable carriage. He walks up to her apartment, with a thousand inquietudes, and doubts in what manner he shall meet the first cast of her eye; when, upon his first appearance, she flies towards him, wonders where he has been, accuses him of his absence, and treats him with a familiarity as surprising as her former coldness. This good correspondence continues until the lady observes the lover grows happy in it, and then she interrupts it with some new inconsistency of behaviour. For (as I just now said) the happiness of a jilt consists only in the power of making others uneasy. But such is the folly of this sect of women, that they carry on this pretty, skittish behaviour, until they have no charms left to render it supportable. Corinna, that used to torment all who conversed with her with false glances, and little heedless unguarded motions, that were to betray some inclination towards the man she would insnare, finds at present all she attempts that way unregarded; and is obliged to indulge the jilt in her constitution, by laying artificial plots, writing perplexing letters from unknown hands, and making all the young fellows in love with her until they find out who she is. Thus, as before she gave torment by disguising her inclination, she now is obliged to do it by hiding her person.

'As for my own part, Mr. Spectator, it has been my unhappy fate to be jilted from my youth upward; and as my taste has

"This accident roused me into à disdain against all libertine women, under what appearance soever they hid their insincerity, and I resolved after that time to converse with none but those who lived within the rules of decency and honour. To this end I formed myself into a more regular turn of behaviour, and began to make visits, frequent assemblies, and lead out ladies from the theatres, with all the other insignificant duties which the professed servants of the fair place themselves in constant readiness to perform. In a very little time, (having a plentiful fortune,) fathers and mothers began to regard me as a good match, and I found easy admittance into the best families in town to observe their daughters; but I, who was born to follow the fair to no purpose, have by the force of my ill stars made my application to three jilts successively.

'Hyæna is one of those who form themselves into a melancholy and indolent air, and endeavour to gain admirers from their inattention to all around them. Hyæna can loll in her coach, with something so fixed in her countenance, that it is impossible to conceive her meditation is employed only on her dress and her charms in that pos

ture. If it were not too coarse a smile, I should say, Hyæna, in the figure she affects to appear in, is a spider in the midst of a cobweb, that is sure to destroy every fly that approaches it. The net Hyæna throws is so fine, that you are taken in it before you can observe any part of her work. I attempted her for a long and weary season, but I found her passion went no farther than to be admired; and she is of that unreasonable temper, as not to value the inconstancy of her lovers, provided she can boast she once had their addresses.

'Biblis was the second I aimed at, and her vanity lay in purchasing the adorers of others, and not rejoicing in their love itself. Biblis is no man's mistress, but every woman's rival. As soon as I found this, I fell in love with Chloe, who is my present pleasure and torment. I have writ to her, danced with her, and fought for her, and have been her man in the sight and expectation of the whole town these three years, and thought myself near the end of my wishes; when the other day she called me into her closet, and told me, with a very grave face, that she was a woman of honour, and scorned to deceive a man who loved her with so much sincerity as she saw 1 did, and therefore she must inform me that she was by nature the most inconstant creature breathing, and begged of me not to marry her: If I insisted upon it, I should; but that she was lately fallen in love with another. What to do or say I know not, Dut desire you to inform me, and you will nfinitely oblige, sir, your humble servant,

CHARLES YELLOW.'

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He is a very unhappy man who sets his heart upon being admired by the multitude, or affects a general and undistinguishing applause among men. What pious men call the testimony of a good conscience, should be the measure of our ambition in this kind; that is to say, a man of spirit should contemn the praise of the ignorant, and like being applauded for nothing but what he knows in his own heart he deserves. Besides which, the character of the person who commends you is to be considered, before you set a value upon his esteem. The praise of an ignorant man is only good-will, and you should receive his kindness as hel

is a good neighbour in society, and not as a good judge of your actions in point of fame and reputation. The satirist said very well of popular praise and acclamations, "Give the tinkers and cobblers their presents again, and learn to live of yourself."* It is an argument of a loose and ungoverned mind to be affected with the promiscuous approbation of the generality of mankind; and a man of virtue should be too delicate for so coarse an appetite of fame. Men of honour should endeavour only to please the worthy, and the man of merit should desire to be tried only by his peers. I thought it a noble sentiment which I heard yesterday uttered in conversation: I know,' said a gentleman, a way to be greater than any man. If he has worth in him, I can rejoice in his superiority to me; and that satisfaction is a greater act of the soul in me, than any in him which can possibly appear to me.' This thought could not proceed but from a candid and generous spirit; and the approbation of such minds is what may be esteemed true praise: for with the common race of men there is nothing commendable but what they themselves may hope to be partakers of, and arrive at; but the motive truly glorious is, when the mind is set rather to do things laudable, than to purchase reputation.— Where there is that sincerity as the foundation of a good name, the kind opinion of virtuous men will be an unsought, but a necessary consequence. The Lacedæmonians, though a plain people, and no pretenders to politeness, had a certain delicacy in their sense of glory, and sacrificed to the Muses when they entered upon any great enterprise. They would have the commemoration of their actions be transmitted by the purest and most untainted memorialists. The din which attends victories and public triumphs, is by far less eligible than the recital of the actions of great men by honest and wise historians. It is a frivolous pleasure to be the admiration of gaping crowds; but to have the approbation of a good man in the cool reflections of his closet, is a gratification worthy an heroic spirit. The applause of the crowd makes the head giddy, but the attestation of a reasonable man makes the heart glad.

What makes the love of popular or general praise still more ridiculous, is, that it is usually given for circumstances which are foreign to the persons admired. Thus they riches, which may be taken out of one man's are the ordinary attendants on power and hands, and put into another's. The application only, and not the possession, makes those outward things honourable. The vulgar and men of sense agree in admiring would rather be possessed of; the wise man men, for having what they themselves applauds him whom he thinks most virtu

-Tollat sua munera cerdo
Tecum habita.-

Pers. Sat. iv. 51.

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