Sacred religion! mother of form and fear.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.
One religion is as true as another.
Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand.
As if religion was intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.
He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat.
Lord M. What religion is he of?
Lord Sp. Why, he is an Anythingarian.
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public flame nor private dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd,
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,--entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;...freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,--these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Plain living and high thinking are no more.
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths,--all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.
His religion at best is an anxious wish,--like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.
I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.
"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion." "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince. "Sensible men never tell."
The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of Priestcraft and Superstition, and the stronghold of a merely ceremonial Religion.
I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake.
I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.