First, as to the general nature of these hidden doctrines, it appears, they must needs be such, which, if promiscuously taught, would bring prejudice to the State; Why else were they secreted? and, at the same time, benefit, if communicated with caution and prudence; Why else were they taught at all?

From their general nature, we come by degress to their particular. And first,

I. To the certain knowledge of what they were not: which is one step to the knowledge of what they were.

1. They were not the common doctrines of a Providence and future state; for ancient testimony is express, that these doctrines were taught promiscuously to all the initiated; and were of the very essence of these Rites-These doctrines were not capable of being hid and secreted, because they were of universal credit amongst the civilized part of mankind. There was no need to hide them; because the common knowledge of them was so far from being detrimental to Society, that, as we have shewn, Society could not even subsist without their being generally known and believed.

2. These secret doctrines could not be the metaphysical speculations of the Philosophers concerning the Deity, and the human soul. 1. Because this would be making the hidden doctrines of the schools of Philosophy, and of the mysteries of Religion, one and the same; which they could not be, because their ends were different: the end of pagan Philosophy being only Truth; the end of pagan Religion, only Utility. These indeed were their professed ends. But

12

Both

Both being ignorant of this important verity, That Truth and general Utility do coincide*, they Both, in many cases, missed shamefully of their end. The Philosopher, while he neglected utility, falling into the most absurd and fatal errors concerning the nature of God and of the Soult: And the Lawgiver, while so little solicitous of truth, encouraged a Polytheism very mischievous to Society. However, as we shall now see, he invented and successfully employed these Mysteries to remedy the disorders arising from it.2. Because revealing such metaphysical speculations to the members of civil Society, with what caution soever, would be injurious to the State, and productive of no good to Religion; as will be seen. when we come, in the third book, to examine what those metaphysical speculations were.-3. Because such speculations (as we shall then see) would overthrow every thing taught to ALL, in the Mysteries, concerning a Providence, and a future state: And yet we are told by the Ancients, that the doctrines of a Providence, and future state, were the FOUNDATION of the more secret ones, after which we are now enquiring.

I have been the more particular in refuting this notion, that the secret doctrines of the Schools, and of the Mysteries, might be the same; because I find it to be an error, into which some, even of the most knowing of the Ancients, were apt to fall. What misled them, was, 1. That the Schools and Mysteries both pretended to restore the soul to its original purity and perfection. We have seen how much the Mysteries pretended to it. As to the Philosophers, Porphyry, speaking of Pythagoras, tells us, that "he professed

philosophy, whose end is to free and vindicate the "soul from those chains and confinements, to which "its abode with us hath made it subject*." 2. That the Schools and Mysteries had each their hidden doctrines, which went under the common name of AПOPPHTA; and that, which had a common name, was understood to have a common nature. 3. And chiefly, that the Philosopher and Lawgiver, being frequently in one and the same person, and, consequently, the Institutions of the Mysteries and the Schools established by the same hand, it appeared reasonable to think, that the anopina, in both, were the same; they not distinguishing the twofold character of the ancient Sage, which shall be explained hereafter t.

II. Having, from the discovery of the general end and purpose of these SECRETS, seen what they could not be, we shall now be enabled to find what, in fact, they were.

To begin with a passage of Clemens Alexandrinus. -"After these (namely, lustrations) are the LESSER Mysteries, in which is laid the FOUNDATION of the "hidden doctrines, and preparations for what is to come afterwards t." From a knowledge of the foundation, we may be able to form an idea of the

* Φιλοσοφίαν δ' ἐφιλοσόφησεν, ἧς ὃ σκοπὸς, ῥύσασθαι καὶ διελευθερώσαι τῶν τοιύτων εἰς[μῶν τε καὶ συνδέσμων τὸν κατακεχωρισμένον ἡμῖν νῦν. De Vita Pythag. Edit. Cantabr. 1655, 8vo. pag. 201.

+ See B. III. Sect. 2.

† Μετὰ ταῦτα δέ ἐσι τὰ μικρὰ μυσήρια, διδασκαλίας τινὰ ὑπόθεσιν Ixoila, nj wgsnapaonevñs tãv peññóvlwv. Strom. v. pag. 424. "Ayv γὰρ καὶ ὁ προάγων, καὶ μυτήρια τὰ πρὸ μυτηρίων. Strom. i. pag. 203. Lin. 7. Edit. Sylburgh.

superstructure.

superstructure. This foundation (as hath been shewn) was the belief of a Providence, and future state;. and, its consequence on practice, inducement to a virtuous life. But there was one insuperable obstacle to a life of purity and holiness, the vicious examples of their Gods. EGO HOMUNCIO HOC NON FACEREM *? was the absolving Formula, whenever any one was resolved to give a loose to his appetites t. But the mischief went still farther; They not only thought themselves excused by the example, but even drawn, by a divine impulse of their Gods. When the young man in the Aulularia of Plautus apologises to Euclio for having debauched his Daughter, he says,

"Deus mihi IMPULSOR fuit, Is me ad illam ILLEXIT." And by a passage in his Amphitruo, where he makes Mercury joke upon the office of a Parasite in the

Terence, Eun. act. iii. sc. vi.-Euripides puts this argument into the mouth of several of his speakers, up and down his tragedies. Helen, in the fourth act of the Trojan Dames, says, "How could I resist a Goddess, whom Jupiter himself obeys?" Ion, in his play of that name, in the latter end of the first act, speaks to the same purpose: and in the fifth act of Hercules Furens, Theseus comforts his friend by the examples of the crimes of the Gods. See likewise his Hippolytus, act ii. sc. ii. The learned and ingenious Mr. Seward, in his tract of the Conformity between Popery and Paganism, has taken notice of a difficult passage in this tragedy, which he has very ably explained, on the system here delivered of the detection of Polytheism in the sacred Mysteries.

+ † — ὁ δὲ πολὺς καὶ ἀφιλοσόφημα ὄχλα ἐπὶ τὰ χείρω λαμβάνειν φιλεῖ τὰς περὶ αὐτῶν λόγος, καὶ πάσχει θάτερον, ἢ καταφρονεῖν τῶν θεῶν, ὡς ἐν 分 πολλῇ κακοδαιμονία κυλινδεμένων· ἢ τῶν αἰσχίςων τε καὶ παρανομωτάτων ἐδενὸς ἀπέχεται, θεοῖς ὁρῶν αὐτὰ προσκείμενα. Dion. Halicar. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ii. cap. 8.

* Act. 4. Sc. 10.

C 3

description

description he gives of his own obsequiousness to his father Jupiter, we see it was grown up into an avowed Principle:

"Amanti [patri] supparasitor, hortor, asto, admoneo, gaudeo.

Siquid patri volup' est, voluptas ea mihi multo " maxima est.

"Amat, sapit: recte facit, animo quando obse"quitur suo*."

He then addresses himself to the audience, and tells them gravely, that inen, in like manner, after the example of Jupiter, should indulge their passions, where they can do it decently.

"Quod omnes homines facere OPORTET, dum id " modo fiat bono."

And the licentious rites, in the OPEN worship of their Gods, gave still greater encouragement to these conclusions. Plato, in his book Of Laws, forbids drinking to excess; unless, says he, during the feasts of Bacchus, and in honour of that God t. And Aristotle, in his Politics, having blamed all lewd and obscene images and pictures, excepts those of the Gods, which Religion had sanctified. When St. Austin ‡ had quoted the Ego homuncio hoc non facerem, to shew his adversaries what mischief these stories did to the morals of the people; he makes the defenders of Paganism reply, that it was true; but then (say they) these things were only taught in the Fables of the poets, which, an attention to the MYSTERIES would rectify:" At enim

Civ. Dei, L. II. Cap. 7. in fine, et 8. in initio.

non