66 says, the mysteries were full of delusion and portentous representations, calculated to impose upon the people, árárns σε καὶ τερατείας ἔμπλεα.”* He concludes his account of them with saying, "these are the mysteries of atheistical men. I "may rightly call those atheists, who are destitute of the "knowledge of him who is truly God, and most impudently "worship a boy discerped, or torn in pieces by the Titans, a "woman lamenting, and the parts which modesty forbids to "name." And he repeats it again, that they are ignorant of God, dyvošai tòv Jev, and do not acknowledge that God who really is or exists. +

This whole account of the heathen mysteries given by Clemens is transcribed and approved by Eusebius, who was himself a very able judge. And he introduces it by observing that Clemens knew these mysteries by his own experience.‡ The account which Arnobius, who had been a learned Pagan, gives of the mysteries, particularly of the Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated at Athens, is perfectly agreeable to that of Cle

mens.

Our learned and able advocate for the mysteries, to obviate the prejudice which might arise against them from the testimony of the ancient Christian writers, endeavours to account for the ill opinion they had of them, by observing that "they "bore a secret grudge to the mysteries for their injurious "treatment of Christianity at its first appearance in the world. "The Christians, for their contempt of the national deities, "were deemed atheists by the people, and were so branded "by the mystagogues, and exposed among the rest in Tarta"rus, in their solemn shows and representations. This, with"out doubt, was what sharpened the fathers against the mys"teries, and they were not always tender in loading what "they did not approve." This is by no means a proper

* Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gentes, p. 13, 14. Edit. Potter.

+ Ibid. p. 19, 20.'

+ Præp. Evangel. lib. ii. cap. 3. p. 61. et seq.

§ Advers. Gentes, lib. v. p. 173, et seq. Lugd. Bat. 1651. Div. Leg. vol. I. p. 199.

Edit. 4th.

apology for the ancient Christians, if the charge they brought against the mysteries was false and calumnious. But the truth is, the very reason our learned author gives of the sharpness which the ancient Christian writers expressed against the mysteries, is a proof that the design of them was not really such as he represents it to have been. For it appears from it, that the mystagogues and managers of the mysteries did what they could to uphold the common polytheism and idolatry: and this was the true cause of their enmity to Christianity. They represented the Christians as atheists, because they declared against the worship of the publicly adored deities. Whereas if the design of the secret doctrine of the greater mysteries had been to detect the error of the vulgar polytheism, and to teach the initiated that the popular deities were really no gods, the charge might have been retorted upon themselves.

The last thing this celebrated writer has urged, to take off the force of the testimonies of the ancient fathers of the church against the mysteries, and which he calls the strange part of the story, is, that, after all they had said against them," they "should so studiously and formally transfer the terms, phrases, "rites, ceremonies, and discipline of these odious mysteries "into our holy religion." To which purpose he has a long quotation from Casaubon's 16th Exercitation against the annals of Baronius.* And he adds, "Sure then it was some "more than ordinary veneration the people had for these mys"teries that could incline the fathers of the church to so fatal

a counsel." It will be allowed that the mysteries were had in great veneration among the Pagans, and that the fathers knew them to be so. And for that reason, if they had any notion that the design of the mysteries was what he represents it to have been, they would undoubtedly have taken advantage of that veneration, for drawing the people off from the worship of the popular divinities, to the adoration of the one true God, the Creator and Governor of the universe. The veneration

* Div. Leg. ubi supra, p. 200.

the people had for the mysteries affords not the least presumption, that the design of them was to detect and overthrow the popular polytheism, but rather the contrary. The Christians certainly did not consider them in this light: and yet, because of the veneration which was so generally paid them, they often applied to their own use the terms made use of in those mysteries, the better to gain upon the heathens, and to show that Christianity affected that in reality which the Pagan mysteries vainly pretended to.

I shall produce a remarkable passage of this kind from Clement of Alexandria, in the latter end of that very discourse, in which he shows he had the worst opinion imaginable of the mysteries.* He there speaks of the Christian religion, in allusion to the mysteries of Bacchus, and invites the heathens to quit the one in order to embrace the other. He all along employs the terms which were made use of in those rites and mysteries. He talks of celebrating "the venerable orgia of "the word." To the hymns which were sung at the mysteries, he opposes a hymn sung to the great King of the universe. He speaks of a Christian's being initiated, and cries out, “O "truly holy mysteries! being initiated I am made holy.— σε Ω τῶν ἁγίων ὡς ἀληθῶς μυστηρίων! ἅγιος γίνομαι μυᾶμενος.” He says, “ ́Iegopávre, dè ò xúgios.—The Lord himself acts the part of "an hierophant," or interpreter of the mysteries. And he concludes, "These are the Bacchanalia of my mysteries: come "then, and be initiated."

Can any man think that Clement makes this allusion to the mysteries, because he looked upon them to be really holy and useful things? The contrary plainly appears from this very passage, as well as from what he had said before, in the same discourse. But as they were accounted holy, and were had in great veneration among the Pagans, and as the latter Platonists and Pythagoreans represented them as the most perfect means of purifying the soul, he takes occasion to show

Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gentes, p. 92. Edit. Potter.

that that venerable sanctity and purity was really to be found in the Christian religion, and its sacred doctrines and rites, which they falsely attributed to their mysteries. Yet I agree with this learned writer in the judicious remark he makes, that the affecting to transfer the terms, phrases, and ceremonies of the mysteries into our holy religion had a bad effect. The symbolizing in this and several other instances with the Pagans, in their customs and ways of expression, from a desire, no doubt, of softening their prejudices against Christianity, contributed very early to vitiate and deprave that religion which, as he observes, a Pagan writer could not but see and acknowledge was "absoluta et simplex," as it came out of the hands of its author.*

It may perhaps be thought that I have insisted too largely upon the nature and design of the Pagan mysteries. But it seemed to me to be necessary for setting the subject I am upon, especially with regard to the civil theology of the Pagans, in a proper light. The learned Mr. Des Voeux several years ago, in his life of Julian, vol. II. p. 287, et seq. offered some judicious observations to show that the mysteries were not intended to overturn the Pagan polytheism. But his design did not lead him to consider this matter so fully as I have done. I shall only add, that, in the remarks that are here made, I have had a special regard to the fourth and last edition of the Divine Legation, in which there are several corrections and improvements made by the right reverend and learned author, which do not appear in the former editions of that celebrated work.

• Ammian. Marcell. Hist. lib. xxi. cap. 16. Div. Leg. ubi supra, p. 200.

CHAP. X.

The philosophical theology of the ancient Pagans considered. High encomiums bestowed upon the Pagan philosophy. Yet it was of little use for leading the people into a right knowledge of God and religion, and for reclaiming them from their idolatry and polytheism. This shown from several considerations. And, first, if the philosophers had been right in their own notions of religion, they could have but small influence on the people, for want of a proper authority to enforce their instructions.

HAVING considered the poetical and fabulous theology of the Pagans, which was taught by the mythologists, as also the civil theology which was countenanced and established by the public authority, and shown the deplorable state of religion in the Gentile world, with respect to both these, I shall now proceed to what Varro calls the physical or natural, and which, he says, was that of the philosophers. It is the more necessary to consider this, because of those gentlemen who had denied the necessity or even the expediency of divine revelation, have spoken with the highest admiration of the ancient heathen philosophers. That they held out a sufficient light to mankind to guide them into the right knowledge of religious truth and duty, if they would but have attended to their instructions: that in them we have an evident proof of what human reason can do, when duly exercised and improved and that the world needed no better direction than what those excellent persons gave, as appears from their admirable writings, many of which are come down to us, and are fitted to convey the noblest notions of religion and the Divinity. And it must be acknowledged that, if we are to take the account which the philosophers themselves give of the excellency of their philosophy, the greatest matters might be expected from it, for the instruction of mankind. The Stoics and others defined philosophy to be "rerum divinarum hu"manarumque scientia-the knowledge of things divine and "human." Plato calls it the gift, Cicero not only so, but