Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CV
Fab. CV.
A Man and a Wooden God.
A Man that had a Great Veneration for an Image he had in his House, found, that the more he Pray'd to't to Prosper him in the World, the More he went down the Wind still. This put him into such a Rage, to lye Dogging at his Prayers so much, and so Long, to so Little Purpose, that at last he Dasht the Head on’t to pieces against the Wall; and Out comes a Considerable Quantity of Gold. Why This 'us, says he, to Adore a Perverse and Insensible Deity, that will do More for Blowes than for Worship.
The Moral.
Most People, Clergy as well as Laity, Accommodate their Religion to their Profit, and reckon that to be the best Church that there's most to be got by.
REFLEXION.
This Fable runs better in the Humour, then it does in the Moral. It lays before us the Unprofitable Vanity of a False Worship, and gives us to Undersland, that the more zealous we are in a Wrong Way, the Worse. An Idol is an Abomination in the fight both of God, and of Good Men; and yet we are so to Govern our Selves, even in the Transports of That Abhorrence, as still to Preserve a Reverence for Religion it self, in the very Indignation we Express for the Corruptions of it. So that the License of this Buffoon went a little too far perhaps, for there must be No Playing with Things Sacred, nor Jesting, as we say, with Edge Tools. We have the Moral of this Abandon’d Libertine up and down the World in a Thousand Several Shapes. All People that Worship for Fear, Profit, or some other By End, fall More or Less within the Intendment of this Emblem. It is a kind of a Conditional Devotion for Men to be Religious no longer then they can Save, or Get by't. Put forsibly Hand now (says the Devil to the Almighty in the Case of Job) and Touch All that he hath, and be will Curse thee to thy Face. This Good Man Lost All, and, for an Example of Patience and Resignation to Future Ages, The Lord gave (says he) and the Lord hath Taken away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Here was No Dashing of the Two Tables one against the Other, for an Office, or an Egg at Easter, as the Fellow ferw'd his Idol here. The Whole Summe of the Moral is in short, Comprized in the Old Saying: He that serves God for Mony, will serve the Devil for Better Wages.