intimating, that nothing but the divine aid can overcome human weakness; as appears from these words of Cupid to his spouse-Et ecce, inquit, rurfum perieras mifella fimili curiofitate. Sed interim quidem tu provinciam, quæ tibi matris meæ precepto mandata eft, exequere gnaviter: cetera egomet videro *. When in these trials the afpirant had done his beft, the Gods would help out the rest. With this affiftance, the performs her penance, is pardoned, and reftored to favour: put again into poffeffion of DIVINE LOVE, and rewarded with IMMORTALITY, the declared end of all the MYS TERIES. There are many other circumftances in this fine Allegory equally ferving to fupport the fyftem here explained: as there are others which allude to divers beautiful platonic notions, foreign to the prefent discourse. It is enough that we have pointed to its chief, and peculiar purpofe; which it was impoffible to fee while the nature and design of the whole Fable lay undiscovered. But now perhaps it may be faid, "That all this is very well. An Allegory is here found for the GOLDEN ASS, which, it must be owned, fits the Fable. But ftill it may be asked, Was it indeed made for it? Did the Author write the tale for the moral; or did the Critic find the moral for the tale? For an Allegory may be drawn from almost any story: and they have been often made for Authors who never thought of them. Nay, when a rage of allegorizing happens to prevail, as it did a century or two ago, the Author himself will be either tempted or obliged, without the Commentator, to encourage this delufion. Ariofo and Tasso, writers of the highest reputation, one of whom wrote after the Gothic Romances, as the other after the Claffic Fables, without ever concerning themselves about any other moral than what the natural circumstances of the ftory conveyed; yet, to fecure the fuccefs of their poems, they fubmitted, in compliance to fashion and falfe tafte, to the ridiculous drudgery of inventing a kind of pofthumous * P. 123+ Allegory, Allegory, and fometimes more than one; that the reader himself might season their Fables to his own tafte. As this has been the cafe, To fhew that I neither impose upon myself nor others, I have referved the Author's own declaration of his having an Allegoric meaning, for the laft confirmation of my fyftem. It is in these words, At ego tibi fermone ifto Milefio Varias Fabulas conferam, aurefque tuas Modo fi PAPYRUM ÆGYPTIAM ARGUTIA A direct infinuation of its being replete with the profound Ægyp tian wifdom; of which, that Nation, by the invention of the MYSTERIES, had conveyed fo confiderable a part to the Greeks. Before I totally difmifs this matter it may not be improper to obferve, that both VIRGIL and APULEIUS have reprefented the genuine MYSTERIES, as Rites of perfect fanctity and purity; and recommended only fuch to their Countrymen; while they expose impure and impious Rites to the public execration; for it was their purpose to ftigmatize the reigning corruptions, and to recommend the ancient fanctity. On the other hand, a man attached by his office to the recommendation of the Myfteries, as then practised, was to do the best he could, when deprived of the benefit of this distinction; and was to endeavour to give fair colours to the foulest things. This was the cafe of JAMBLICHUS. His friend Porphyry had fome fcruples on this head. He doubts whether those Rites could come from the Gods, which admitted fuch a mixture of lewdness and impurity. Such a mixture Jamblichus confeffes; but, at the fame time, endeavours to account for their divine In init. Fab. original, original, by fhewing, that they are only the emblems of natural Truths; or a kind of moral purgation of the inordinate paffions *. You will fay, he might have given a better answer; That they were modern abuses and corruptions. He asks your pardon for that. Such a confeffion would have been condemning his own Platonic fanaticifm; that very fanaticifm which had brought in these abominations. He was reduced therefore to the neceffity of admitting that they were no after-corruptions, but coeval with the Rites themselves. And this admiffion of fo learned a Hierophant, is, as far as I am able to collect, the only support which any one can now have for faying, that the Myfteries were impure and abominable, even from their firft Infti. tution. Hitherto we have confidered the Legiflator's care in perpetuating the doctrine of a FUTURE STATE. And if I have been longer than ordinary on this head, my excufe is, that the topic was new +, and the doctrine itself, which is the main fubject of the prefent inquiry, much interested in it. A very remarkable circumstance (for which we are indebted to the obfervation of modern travellers) may convince us, that Rulers and Governors cultivated the belief of this doctrine with a more than common affiduity. Many barbarous nations have been discovered in thefe later times, on the coafts of Africa, which, De myfteriis, Sect. i. cap. xi. + A well-known writer, Mr. Jackfon (not to speak at present of Others of a 1 atr date) who had long and fcurrilously railed at the author of the D. L. in a number of miferable pamphlets, hath at length thought fit in a Thing, called Chronological Antiquities, to borrow from this book, without any acknowledgment, all he had to give the public concerning the pagan MYSTERIES; and much, concerning the HIEROGLYPHICS and origin of idolatry. But this is the common practice of fuch fort of writers: and is only mentioned here to fhew the reader to what clafs they belong. The treatment these volumes have met with from fome of the inoft worthless of my Countrymen, made me think it expedient to contraft their behaviour with that of the most learned and refpectable foreign Divines and Critics of France, Germany, and Holland, in their animadverfions on this work, occafionally inferted in the notes. in, in the distractions of Government, and tranfmigrations of People, have, it is probable, fallen from a civilized to a favage state of life. These are found to have little or no knowledge of a God, or obfervance of Religion. And yet, which is a furprising paradox, they still retain the fettled belief and expectation of a FUTURE STATE. A wonder to be accounted for no other way than by what hath been faid above of the Legiflator's principal conceru for the fupport of this Doctrine; and of the deep root, which by its agreeable nature, it takes in the Mind wherever it has been once received. So that though, as it hath been obferved, no Religion ever exifted without the doctrine of a Future State, yet the doctrine of a Future State hath, it seems, fometimes existed without a Religion. APPEN APPENDIX TO BOOK II. W E have seen with what art, and care in contrivance, the Sages of the GENTILE World endeavoured, by the intervention of the MYSTERIES, to prevent the memory of THE FIST CAUSE of all things from being totally obliterated from the minds of men; while the perverse constitution of the National Idolatries prevented the true God's being received into any PUBLIC Worship. To the SECRET of the Mysteries it was, that these Pfeudo Evangelists invited their more capable Disciples, awfully admonishing them to give beed unto it, as unto a light shining in a dark place. For it was no more than fuch a glimmering, till the rifing of the day-ftar of the Gofpel, in the hearts of the Faithful. But if the late noble Author of THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY deferves credit; all this care was as abfurd as it was fruitless. The Inftitutors of the Mysteries imparted this SECRET, as the true and only folid foundation of RELIGION; for the FIRST CAUSE was, in their ideas, a God whofe ESSENCE indeed was incomprehenfible, but his ATTRIBUTES, as well moral as natural, difcoverable by human reason. Such a God was wanted for that foundation: for unaffted reafon taught them, as, in its most affifted state, it had taught St. PAUL, That he who cometh to God, must believe that he is; and that he is a REWARDER of them who diligently feek kim. Thus Plato, in his Book of Laws, speaking of Religion, and it's use to civil Society, fays, "It is not of small confequence, that what we here "reafon about the Gods, fhould, by all means and methods, be made, "probable; as that they ARE, and that they are GOOD*." Hence, though their mistaken mode of teaching deprived the pagan world of the fruit of the Doctrine, the purpose however was laudable and rational. VOL. I. * ὡς θεός τ ̓ εἰσι, καὶ ἀγαθοί. X x But |