and eat a Child in our Religious Affemblies, and when we rise from Supper conclude all in the Confufions of Incest. 'Tis reported likewife, that for this Work, we have an odd fort of Dogs, as officious as Bawds in putting out the Candles, Procurers of Darkness for the freer Satisfactions of our impious and fhamelefs Luft. This is the common Talk, and the Report is of long standing, and yet not a Man attempts to prove the Truth of the Fact. Either therefore, if you believe Report, examine the Grounds, or if you will not examine, give no Credit to the Report: And this diffembled Carelefnefs of yours against being better inform'd, plainly speaks, that you your felves believe nothing of it; you feem to care not to examine, only in truth because you dare not; for were you of opinion, that thefe Reports were true, you wou'd never give fuch Orders as you do about the Torturing of Christians; which you prescribe, not to make 'em confefs the Actions of their Life, but only to deny the Religion they profess. But the Chriftian Religion, as I have already intimated, began to fpread in the Reign of Tiberius; and the Truth pull'd down a World of Hatred in its very Cradle: For it had as many Enemies as Men without the Pale of Revelation, and even those within, the very Jews, the most implacable of any, out of a blind Paffion for the Law. The Soldiers from dragooning our Perfons, come to hate our Religion, and from a Bafeness of Spirit, our very Domesticks are as much bent upon Our a our Destruction as they. Thus are we conti nually invested on every fide, and continually betray'd, nay, very often we are furpriz'd and taken in our publick Meetings and Affemblies; and yet did ever any one come upon us, when the Infant was crying under the Sacrificer's Hand. Who ever catch'd us, like a Cyclops or Siren, with Mouths befmeared in humane Blood, and carry'd us in that cruel Pickle before a Judge? And as for Incest, Who ever discover'd any Relick of Immodesty in his Wife, after the became a Christian? And who can think that a Heathen wou'd connive at Wickedneffes of this monstrous Size in any Christian, had he Eyes to spy them out? or that he can be brib'd in our Favour, who feems never fo well pleas'd as when he is haling us to Punishment? If you fay, that thefe Abominations are always done in Secret, pray when, and by whom came you to this Knowledge? not by the Guilty themselves, for you know that the Perfons admitted into the Myftefies of all Religions, are by the very Form of Admiffion d Quis unquam taliter vagienti Infanti fupervenit. The Chriftian Sacrifice of Bread and Wine was never omitted in the first Ages of the Church in their publick Worship; they look'd upon their Service as not fo perfectly Chriftian and acceptable without, it, that the Holy Spirit did in an efpecial manner defcend upon the Confecrated Elements, that God was better pleas'd with their Prayers for this Commemoration of his Son, and that this was the Principle of Union between a Christian and the ever Bleffed Trinity; and therefore whenever the Heathens broke into their Affemblies they wou'd be fure to find this Sacrifice of a Child was there any fuch thing. Ex Formâ ominibus Myfteriis filentii Fides debeatur.] What Si lence was thought due to facred Rites, we may underftand by Horace's Favete linguis, by Ovid's Ore favent Populi nunc cum Admiffion under the fevereft Obligations to Secrefie; the Samothracian and f Elenfinian Myfteries you know are cover'd in profound Silence, how much more reasonable is it therefore to think, that fuch as these will be kept in the dark, which not only treasure up divine Wrath against the Day of Judgement, but if once discover'd, will whet humane Juftice to the highest Pitch of Vengeance? If therefore Christians betray not themselves, it follows, that they must be betray'd by thofe of another Religion; but how fhall Strangers be able to inform against us, when even the most pious 8 Myfteries are defended from the Approaches venit aurea Pompa ; by Virgil's-Fida Silentia Sacris; by Feftus's -Linquam pafcito, i. e. coerceto; by the Egyptians fetting up the Image of Harpocrates in the entrance of their Temples, and by the Romans placing the Statue of Angerona on the Altar of Volupia, Vid. Briffon. de Formulis, lib. 1. p. 8. f Eleufinia reticentur.] Horace protefts that he wou'd `not ftay in the House, or fail in the Ship, with a Perfon that fhou'd divulge the Mysteries of Ceres Vetabo, qui Cereris facrum Vulgarit arcana, fub iisdem Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum Alcibiades and his Companions for expofing the Rites of Ceres, ⚫ were not only excommunicated all religious and civil Intercourfe at Athens, but folemnly curs'd by the Priefts and Priefteffes; a Pratice not unlike to the Jewish Anathema. Vid. Plutar. Alcibiad. • Cum etiam pie Initiationes arceant Prophanos.] I know nothing more practis'd all the Heathen World over, than the excommu cating prophane Perfons from all holy Myfteries. Hence that of Virgil Procul, procul efte Prephani Conclamat Vates And that of Horace alfo.. Odi Propharum The Approaches of the Stranger, and the Prophane? unless you conclude the Christian Rites to be the wickedeft of any, and withal conclude that the Wicked are lefs cautious about the divulging of fuch Rites, than those of a better Religion. And thus you must be forc'd to acknowledge, you know nothing of our Profession, but by common Fame; and the Nature of Fame is too well known by ev'ry one to be credited in hafte. Your own Virgil tells you, Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum. Fame is an Ill, the Swifteft Ill that flies. The Flamens had a Commentaculumh, a kind of Rod in their Hands to keep off impure Perfons. Vid. Briffon. de formulis, lib. 1. Selden. de Syned. 1. 1. cap. 10. And among the Greeks that old Form from Orpheus continu'd,exas Exas ese Bécnλor. At Athens the Heἔσε βέβηλοι. rald cry'd out Tis Tide. Who is here? To which the People anfwer'd, wonde n'dfald, Many and good Men. Vid. Suid. in Tis Tñds. And we read in Livy, Decad. 4. lib. 1. of two young Men of Acarnania, who for not being Initiated, and crouding into the Eleufinian Myfteries were flain; for it was a capital Crime to be prefent without due Purification, and fuch purifying Rites were Men of all Ranks and Qualities oblig'd to perform before they cou'd approach the Altars and Statues. Not Nero himself cou'd prevail with his Confcience to let him be present at these Rites of Ceres, after the Herald had made the usual Proclamation for the Wicked to depart. Vid. Sueton. Ner. c. 34. But Antoninus the Philofopher, to fhew his innocence, went to the Temple of Ceres, and into the very Sacrarium by himself. Vid. Capitolin. in vit. Antonin. Philof. And was there but a little more of the natural Reverence of Heathens to holy things among Chriftian People, and did Christian Priefts exert the Power that God has given them with as much Vigour as the Idol Priests did, Men even as wicked as Nero, wou'd nor dare to approach our Altars merely upon the Invitation of a Place. But as matters ftand, it might go hard with the Prieft to make a notorious Offender lose his Preferment, by refusing him the Sacrament, and the Common Law might go near to nail the Canon. Why Why does he call Fame an Ill? because of her Swiftnefs? or because she's an Informer? or because she's a common Lier? For the last Reason without queftion. For she never lets even Truth come out of her Mouth, without being fophifticated, without detracting, adding, or brewing it with one Falfhood or another. Moreover, the Nature of Fame is such, that the cannot keep her felf upon the Wing without the Affiftance of Lies; for the lives by not proving; when fhe proves, The destroys her Being. She hovers no longer like Fame, but being as it were out of her Office, Certainty fucceeds in the Place of Report. And then 'tis no longer faid, for Example, that fuch a thing is fam'd to have been acted at Rome, or fuch a Person to have got the Government of fuch a Province, but that fuch things are actually fo and fo. Fame is a doubtful Sound, and lodges only among Uncertainties; and wou'd ever any Man of common Reflection build much upon this uncertain Puff? For let a Story be never fo general and diffufive, and never fo confidently afferted, 'tis always to be remember'd that it had a Beginning, and from that time has crept into a world of Ears, and out of a world of Mouths; and fo the Story very little at its firft Planting, and naughty perhaps in the very feed, comes at length to be fo overgrown and darkned by variety of Rumours, that Men care not to be at the Pains of tracing it up to the original Mouth, and to fee whether 7 ( |