All which may best be understood, if we consider it a little in that
Composition of _Fear_ and _Flattery_ which before we intimated: and
indeed _Flattery_ is most incident to _base_ and _slavish_ minds; and
when the fear and jealousy of a Deity disquiet a wanton dalliance with
sin, and disturb the filthy pleasure of Vice, then this fawning and
crouching disposition will find out devices to quiet an angry conscience
within, and an offended God without, (though as men grow more expert in
this cunning, these fears may in some degree abate). This the ancient
Philosophy hath well taken notice of, and therefore well defin’d
δεισιδαιμονία by κολακεία, and useth these terms promiscuously. Thus we
find Max. Tyrius in his Dissert. 4 concerning the difference between a
_Friend_ and a _Flatterer_. ὁ μὲν εὐσεβής, φίλος θεῷ, ὁ δὲ δεισιδαίμων,
κόλαξ θεοῦ· καὶ μακάριος ὁ εὐσεβής, ὁ φίλος θεοῦ, δυστυχὴς δὲ ὁ
δεισιδαίμων. ὁ μὲν θαρσῶν τῇ ἀρετῇ, πρόσεισι τοῖς θεοῖς ἄνευ δέους· ὁ δὲ
ταπεινὸς διὰ μοχθηρίαν, μετὰ πολλοῦ δέους, δύσελπις, καὶ δεδιὼς τοὺς
θεοὺς ὥσπερ τοὺς τυράννους. The sense whereof is this, _The Pious man is
God’s friend, the Superstitious is a flatterer of God: and indeed most
happy and blest is the condition of the Pious man, God’s friend, but
right miserable and sad is the state of the Superstitious. The Pious
man, emboldened by a good Conscience and encouraged by the sense of his
integrity, comes to God without fear and dread: but the Superstitious
being sunk and deprest through the sense of his own wickedness, comes
not without much fear, being void of all hope and confidence, and
dreading the Gods as so many Tyrants._ Thus _Plato_ also sets forth this
_Superstitious_ temper, though he mentions it not under that name, but
we may know it by a property he gives of it, viz.: _to colloque with
Heaven_, Lib. 10, _de Legibus_, where he distinguisheth of Three kinds
of Tempers in reference to the Deity, which he then calls πάθη, which
are, _Totall Atheism_, which he saies never abides with any man till his
Old age; and _Partial Atheism_, which is a Negation of Providence; and a
Third, which is a perswasion concerning the Gods ὅτι εὐπαράμυθοί εἰσι
θύμασι καὶ εὐχαῖς, _that they are easily won by sacrifices and prayers_,
which he after explaines thus, ὅτι παραιτητοί εἰσι τοῖσιν ἀδικοῦσιν,
δεχόμενοι δῶρα, &c., _that with gifts unjust men may find acceptance
with them_. And this Discourse of _Plato’s_ upon these three kinds of
Irreligious πάθη _Simplicius_ seems to have respect to in his comment
upon _Epictetus_, cap. 38, which treats about _Right Opinions_ in
Religion; and there having pursued the two former of them, he thus
states the latter, which he calls ἀθεΐας λόγον as well as the other two,
as a conceit θεοὺς παρατρέπεσθαι δώροις, καὶ ἀναθήμασι, καὶ κερματίου
διαδόσεσιν, _quod muneribus et donariis et stirpis distributione a
sententia deducuntur_, such men making account by their devotions to
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