an assemblage of several actions, forms, and circumstances,
serving to render a thing magnificent and solemn. Applied to religious
services, it signifies the external rites and manner in which the
ministers of religion perform their sacred functions, and direct or lead
the worship of the people. In 1646, M. Ponce, published a history of
ancient ceremonies, showing the rise, growth, and introduction of each
rite into the church, and its gradual advancement to superstition. Many
of them were borrowed from Judaism, but more from Paganism. In all
religions adapted to the nature of man there must be some positive
institutions for fixing the mind upon spiritual objects, and
counteracting that influence of material things upon habits and pursuits
which is, and must be, constantly exerted. Without such institutions,
religion might be preserved, indeed, by a few of superior understanding
and of strong powers of reflection; but among mankind in general all
trace of it would soon be lost. When the end for which they are
appointed is kept in view, and the simple examples of the New Testament
are observed, they are of vast importance to the production both of
pious feelings and of virtuous conduct; but there has constantly been a
propensity in the human race to mistake the means for the end, and to
consider themselves as moral and religious, when they scrupulously
observe what was intended to produce morality and religion. The reason
is obvious: ceremonial observances can be performed without any great
sacrifice of propensities and vices; they are palpable; when they are
observed by men who, in the tenor of public life, do not act immorally,
they are regarded by others as indicating high attainments in virtue;
and through that self-deceit which so wonderfully misleads the reason,
and inclines it to minister to the passions which it should restrain,
men have themselves become persuaded that their acknowledgment of divine
authority, implied in their respect to the ritual which that authority
is conceived to have sanctioned, may be taken as a proof that they have
nothing to apprehend from the violation of the law under which they are
placed. But, whatever be the causes of this, the fact itself is
established by the most extensive and the most incontrovertible
evidence. We find it, indeed, wherever mankind have had notions of
superior power, and of their obligation to yield obedience to the will
of the supreme Being.
Under the system of polytheism which prevailed in the most enlightened
nations previous to the publication of Christianity, this was carried so
far, that the connection between religion and morality was in a great
degree dissolved, rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, were
all that it was thought requisite to observe; when these were carefully
performed, there was no hesitation in ascribing piety to the persons who
did perform them, however deficient they might be in virtuous and pious
dispositions. Even under the Mosaical dispensation, proceeding as it
did, immediately from heaven, and adapted, as in infinite wisdom it was,
to the situation of those to whom it was given, the same evil early
began to be experienced; and although it was lamented and exposed by the
prophets, and the most enlightened men among the Jews, it was so far
from being eradicated, that it continued to acquire strength, till it
was exhibited in all its magnitude in the character prevalent among the
Pharisees at the period of Christ’s manifestation. With this highly
popular and revered class of men, religion was either merely a matter of
ceremony, or was employed, for base and interested purposes, to cast a
veil of sanctity over their actions. They said long prayers, but it was
for a show; they gave alms, but it was after they had sounded a trumpet,
that the eye of man might be fixed upon their beneficence; and, as to
the point now under review, they were most strikingly described by our
Saviour, when he said of them, “They pay tithe of mint, and anise, and
cummin, but they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and
mercy, and truth.” The Christian religion not only expressly guards
against an evil which had become so prevalent, but its whole spirit is
at variance with it, its own ceremonial observances being few, and
obviously emblematical of whatever is excellent and holy. But still the
Gospel finds human nature as other religions found it; and
ecclesiastical history, even from the earliest periods, shows with what
astonishing perverseness, and with what wonderful ingenuity, men
departed from the simplicity of Christianity, and substituted in its
room the most childish, and often the most pernicious, practices and
observances. The _power_ of godliness was lost in _forms_; and the
innovations of a profane _will-worship_ became almost innumerable. The
effect was, that men regarded God as less concerned with the moral
conduct of his creatures, than with the _quantum_ of _service_ they
performed in his temples; and religion and morals were so disjoined,
that one became the substitute for the other, to the universal
corruption of the Christian world.
serving to render a thing magnificent and solemn. Applied to religious
services, it signifies the external rites and manner in which the
ministers of religion perform their sacred functions, and direct or lead
the worship of the people. In 1646, M. Ponce, published a history of
ancient ceremonies, showing the rise, growth, and introduction of each
rite into the church, and its gradual advancement to superstition. Many
of them were borrowed from Judaism, but more from Paganism. In all
religions adapted to the nature of man there must be some positive
institutions for fixing the mind upon spiritual objects, and
counteracting that influence of material things upon habits and pursuits
which is, and must be, constantly exerted. Without such institutions,
religion might be preserved, indeed, by a few of superior understanding
and of strong powers of reflection; but among mankind in general all
trace of it would soon be lost. When the end for which they are
appointed is kept in view, and the simple examples of the New Testament
are observed, they are of vast importance to the production both of
pious feelings and of virtuous conduct; but there has constantly been a
propensity in the human race to mistake the means for the end, and to
consider themselves as moral and religious, when they scrupulously
observe what was intended to produce morality and religion. The reason
is obvious: ceremonial observances can be performed without any great
sacrifice of propensities and vices; they are palpable; when they are
observed by men who, in the tenor of public life, do not act immorally,
they are regarded by others as indicating high attainments in virtue;
and through that self-deceit which so wonderfully misleads the reason,
and inclines it to minister to the passions which it should restrain,
men have themselves become persuaded that their acknowledgment of divine
authority, implied in their respect to the ritual which that authority
is conceived to have sanctioned, may be taken as a proof that they have
nothing to apprehend from the violation of the law under which they are
placed. But, whatever be the causes of this, the fact itself is
established by the most extensive and the most incontrovertible
evidence. We find it, indeed, wherever mankind have had notions of
superior power, and of their obligation to yield obedience to the will
of the supreme Being.
Under the system of polytheism which prevailed in the most enlightened
nations previous to the publication of Christianity, this was carried so
far, that the connection between religion and morality was in a great
degree dissolved, rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, were
all that it was thought requisite to observe; when these were carefully
performed, there was no hesitation in ascribing piety to the persons who
did perform them, however deficient they might be in virtuous and pious
dispositions. Even under the Mosaical dispensation, proceeding as it
did, immediately from heaven, and adapted, as in infinite wisdom it was,
to the situation of those to whom it was given, the same evil early
began to be experienced; and although it was lamented and exposed by the
prophets, and the most enlightened men among the Jews, it was so far
from being eradicated, that it continued to acquire strength, till it
was exhibited in all its magnitude in the character prevalent among the
Pharisees at the period of Christ’s manifestation. With this highly
popular and revered class of men, religion was either merely a matter of
ceremony, or was employed, for base and interested purposes, to cast a
veil of sanctity over their actions. They said long prayers, but it was
for a show; they gave alms, but it was after they had sounded a trumpet,
that the eye of man might be fixed upon their beneficence; and, as to
the point now under review, they were most strikingly described by our
Saviour, when he said of them, “They pay tithe of mint, and anise, and
cummin, but they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and
mercy, and truth.” The Christian religion not only expressly guards
against an evil which had become so prevalent, but its whole spirit is
at variance with it, its own ceremonial observances being few, and
obviously emblematical of whatever is excellent and holy. But still the
Gospel finds human nature as other religions found it; and
ecclesiastical history, even from the earliest periods, shows with what
astonishing perverseness, and with what wonderful ingenuity, men
departed from the simplicity of Christianity, and substituted in its
room the most childish, and often the most pernicious, practices and
observances. The _power_ of godliness was lost in _forms_; and the
innovations of a profane _will-worship_ became almost innumerable. The
effect was, that men regarded God as less concerned with the moral
conduct of his creatures, than with the _quantum_ of _service_ they
performed in his temples; and religion and morals were so disjoined,
that one became the substitute for the other, to the universal
corruption of the Christian world.