A natural religiosity.

Back to Man's religion & God's religion

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There is in some people a natural religiosity—that is, a disposition to be religious.

If they had been born in Turkey, they would have been devout Muslims; if in Italy, they would have become priests, monks, or nuns, and as ready to burn a heretic as their fathers; if born and bred in England, they would be devout churchmen, pious dissenters, and so forth—just as the various circumstances of birth and education, habits and associations, might dispose or determine.

Now to these naturally religious minds, when fully ripened and blended with a stern spirit of self-denial, which usually accompanies and grows up with it—no system so thoroughly adapts itself as that of Popery—for it just meets and gives full play to that habit of mind which yields, like clay, to every object of grovelling, superstitious veneration.