Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Sermon
the strongest that could possibly be devised , was presented with" a crown , on wliich he trampled . Then the HIEROPHANTES , or Grand Officiating Master , as we would term him , drawing the sacred knife , held it over the head of the initiated , wiio , feigning to be struck , fell to the ground as dead ; and soon after reviving , was supposed to have entered on a new existence , and obliged himself to a thorough renovation both of temper and conduct .
It is not , however , from Paganism alone that we can produce proofs of our position , that even the best institutions , when conducted with secresy , have generally excited calumny and abuse . The argument extends to Christianity itself : In the first ages of the church , the clandestine maimer iu which the Christians , from the persecuting spirit that prevailed , were obliged to celebrate their
Agapce or Love-feasts , and to commemorate the death of their Master in the ordinance of his appointment , afforded their enemies occasion of the vilest slander : and though Pliny the younger , who , at the desire of the emperor , had made the strictest inquisition in his province into the nature and design of their meetings , pronounced them in the most unreserved terms to be perfectly innocentyet we
, are assured by one of the early fathers , that their eating the flesh , and drinking the blood of Christ , in a figurative sense , were converted b y the malice of their adversaries into the actual devouring of children : nay , their charity and fraternal affection , however admirable , and even
on account of two Acarnanian youths , who imprudently venturing into the temple with the crowd on the day of the celebration of the mysteries , without having been qualified to be present , paid for their rash curiosity with their lives . Of the infamy which attended ( hose wiio divulged the mysteries , ive may judge from that strong expression of Horace , ¦ — Vetabo , i jiii Cercris sacrum Vulg ' uit arcaiue , sub ihdem
Sit Irah ' - . bus , fragitcimyue mecum Sohatpbasclum . Cafm . lib . iii . od . ¦ i _ Arid Ovid asks with emphasis , Quit Cereris rilus autlct vulgare profanis f Suetonius relates in his life of Claudius Ca-sar , thatnn attempt was made by that emperor to translate the solemnity in question from Attica to Rome . This .,
however , was not accomplished till the reign of Adrian , when the mysteries ceased to be Griecian , ami soon alter ceased likewise lo be pure . They were not totally abolished till the reign of the elder Theoclosius . For farther particulars respecting these celebrated ancient rites , which , as Diodorus Siculus assures us , were an exact representation of those of the Egyptian Isis , the curious reader is referred to a treatise of Meursius , entitled Eleusinia ; to Clemens Alexandrinus's Coborlalio ai Gent . ; Potter's Ant ijtiUies of Greece , . Vol . I . Hisloire du del , par L'AbbS Pluche , torn I . ; V Ani ' uju ' il- d . voiU ! par ses usages , par M .
Boulanger , torn . II . ; Warburton ' s Dissertations on tbe Mysteries of tbe Ancients , in his Divine Legation of Moses , book ii . section 4 . ; several papers in the Menwirej de . ' Academic des Belles Lcltres : and Tbe Reli g ion of tbe Ancient Greets illustrated—^ a work just translated from the French of M . Le Clerc de Septchenes , and of which the author of this sermon regrets that he had not an opportunity of -availing himself before he preached it , as it contains the fullest and best account he has seen of the Secret Worship of the ancients , its origin and object , aud the spirit cf the ceremonies by which it ivas accompanied .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Sermon
the strongest that could possibly be devised , was presented with" a crown , on wliich he trampled . Then the HIEROPHANTES , or Grand Officiating Master , as we would term him , drawing the sacred knife , held it over the head of the initiated , wiio , feigning to be struck , fell to the ground as dead ; and soon after reviving , was supposed to have entered on a new existence , and obliged himself to a thorough renovation both of temper and conduct .
It is not , however , from Paganism alone that we can produce proofs of our position , that even the best institutions , when conducted with secresy , have generally excited calumny and abuse . The argument extends to Christianity itself : In the first ages of the church , the clandestine maimer iu which the Christians , from the persecuting spirit that prevailed , were obliged to celebrate their
Agapce or Love-feasts , and to commemorate the death of their Master in the ordinance of his appointment , afforded their enemies occasion of the vilest slander : and though Pliny the younger , who , at the desire of the emperor , had made the strictest inquisition in his province into the nature and design of their meetings , pronounced them in the most unreserved terms to be perfectly innocentyet we
, are assured by one of the early fathers , that their eating the flesh , and drinking the blood of Christ , in a figurative sense , were converted b y the malice of their adversaries into the actual devouring of children : nay , their charity and fraternal affection , however admirable , and even
on account of two Acarnanian youths , who imprudently venturing into the temple with the crowd on the day of the celebration of the mysteries , without having been qualified to be present , paid for their rash curiosity with their lives . Of the infamy which attended ( hose wiio divulged the mysteries , ive may judge from that strong expression of Horace , ¦ — Vetabo , i jiii Cercris sacrum Vulg ' uit arcaiue , sub ihdem
Sit Irah ' - . bus , fragitcimyue mecum Sohatpbasclum . Cafm . lib . iii . od . ¦ i _ Arid Ovid asks with emphasis , Quit Cereris rilus autlct vulgare profanis f Suetonius relates in his life of Claudius Ca-sar , thatnn attempt was made by that emperor to translate the solemnity in question from Attica to Rome . This .,
however , was not accomplished till the reign of Adrian , when the mysteries ceased to be Griecian , ami soon alter ceased likewise lo be pure . They were not totally abolished till the reign of the elder Theoclosius . For farther particulars respecting these celebrated ancient rites , which , as Diodorus Siculus assures us , were an exact representation of those of the Egyptian Isis , the curious reader is referred to a treatise of Meursius , entitled Eleusinia ; to Clemens Alexandrinus's Coborlalio ai Gent . ; Potter's Ant ijtiUies of Greece , . Vol . I . Hisloire du del , par L'AbbS Pluche , torn I . ; V Ani ' uju ' il- d . voiU ! par ses usages , par M .
Boulanger , torn . II . ; Warburton ' s Dissertations on tbe Mysteries of tbe Ancients , in his Divine Legation of Moses , book ii . section 4 . ; several papers in the Menwirej de . ' Academic des Belles Lcltres : and Tbe Reli g ion of tbe Ancient Greets illustrated—^ a work just translated from the French of M . Le Clerc de Septchenes , and of which the author of this sermon regrets that he had not an opportunity of -availing himself before he preached it , as it contains the fullest and best account he has seen of the Secret Worship of the ancients , its origin and object , aud the spirit cf the ceremonies by which it ivas accompanied .