Having now done with what we propounded as a _Preface_ to our following _Discourses_, we should now come to treat of the _main Heads and Principles of Religion_. But before we doe that, perhaps it may not be amiss to enquire into some of those _Anti-Deities_ that are set up against it, the chief whereof are ATHEISM and SUPERSTITION; which indeed may seeme to comprehend in them all kind of Apostasy and Praevarication from Religion. We shall not be over-curious to pry into such foule and rotten carkasses as these are too narrowly, or to make any subtile anatomy of them; but rather enquire a litle into the Original and Immediate Causes of them; because it may be they may be nearer of kin then we ordinarily are aware of, while we see their Complexions to be so vastly different the one from the other. And first of all for SUPERSTITION (to lay aside our Vulgar notion of it which much mistakes it) it is the same with that Temper of Mind which the Greeks call Δεισιδαιμονία, (for so Tully frequently translates that word, though not so fitly and emphatically as he hath done some others:) It imports _an overtimorous and dreadfull apprehension of the Deity_; and therefore with _Hesychius_ Δεισιδαιμονία and Φοβοθεΐα are all one, and Δεισιδαίμων is by him expounded ὁ εἰδωλολάτρης, ὁ εὐσεβής, καὶ δειλὸς παρὰ θεοῖς, _an Idolater, and also one that is very prompt to worship the Gods, but withall fearfull of them_. And therefore _the true Cause and Rise of Superstition_ is indeed nothing else but _a false opinion_ of the Deity, that renders him dreadfull and terrible, as being rigorous and imperious; that which represents him as austere and apt to be angry, but yet impotent, and easy to be appeased again by some _flattering devotions_, especially if performed with sanctimonious shewes and a solemn sadness of Mind. And I wish that that Picture of God which some Christians have drawn of him, wherein Sowreness and Arbitrariness appear so much, doth not too much resemble it. According to this sense, Plutarch hath well defined it in his book περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας in this manner, δόξαν ἐμπαθῆ καὶ δέους ποιητικὴν ὑπόληψιν οὖσαν ἐκταπεινοῦντος καὶ συντρίβοντος τὸν ἄνθρωπον, οἰόμενον τε εἶναι θεοὺς εἶναι δὲ λυπηροὺς καὶ βλαβερούς, _a strong passionate Opinion, and such a Supposition as is productive of a fear debasing and terrifying a man with the representation of the Gods as grievous and hurtfull to Mankind_.