tell you, there are some in the world that fear God in an
excess, for whom yet it would not be better not so to fear him. For,
while they dread him as a governor that is gentle to the good and severe
to the bad, and are by this one fear, which makes them not to need many
others, freed from doing ill and brought to keep their wickedness with
them in quiet and (as it were) in an enfeebled languor, they come hereby
to have less disquiet than those that indulge the practice of it and are
rash and daring in it, and then presently after fear and repent of it.
Now that disposition of mind which the greater and ignorant part of
mankind, that are not utterly bad, are of towards God, hath, it is
very true, conjoined with the regard and honor they pay him, a kind of
anguish and astonished dread, which is also called superstition; but
ten thousand times more and greater is the good hope, the true joy,
that attend it, which both implore and receive the whole benefit of
prosperity and good success from the gods only. And this is manifest by
the greatest tokens that can be; for neither do the discourses of those
that wait at the temples, nor the good times of our solemn festivals,
nor any other actions or sights more recreate and delight us than what
we see and do about the gods ourselves, while we assist at the public
ceremonies, and join in the sacred balls, and attend at the sacrifices
and initiations. For the mind is not then sorrowful depressed, and
heavy, as if she were approaching certain tyrants or cruel torturers;
but on the contrary, where she is most apprehensive and fullest
persuaded the divinity is present, there she most of all throws off
sorrows, tears, and pensiveness, and lets herself loose to what is
pleasing and agreeable, to the very degree of tipsiness, frolic, and
laughter. In amorous concerns, as the poet said once,

When old man and old wife think of love's fires,
Their frozen breasts will swell with new desires;

but now in the public processions and sacrifices not only the old man
and the old wife, nor yet the poor and mean man only, but also

The dusty thick-legged drab that turns the mill,

and household-slaves and day-laborers, are strangely elevated and
transported with mirth and joviality. Rich men as well as princes are
used at certain times to make public entertainments and to keep open
houses; but the feasts they make at the solemnities and sacrifices, when
they now apprehend their