I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say, that religion will
not have this condensing energy, unless it be founded on reason.
If it be merely the refuge of weakness or wild fanaticism, and not
a governing principle of conduct, drawn from self-knowledge, and a
rational opinion respecting the attributes of God, what can it be
expected to produce? The religion which consists in warming the
affections, and exalting the imagination, is only the poetical
part, and may afford the individual pleasure without rendering it a
more moral being. It may be a substitute for worldly pursuits; yet
narrow instead of enlarging the heart: but virtue must be loved as
in itself sublime and excellent, and not for the advantages it
procures or the evils it averts, if any great degree of excellence
be expected. Men will not become moral when they only build airy
castles in a future world to compensate for the disappointments
which they meet with in this; if they turn their thoughts from
relative duties to religious reveries.
Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom
of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon,
endeavour to blend contradictory things. If you wish to make your
son rich, pursue one course --if you are only anxious to make him
virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can
bound from one road to the other without losing your way.
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