Catholic* form the game opinions of the saints whose images they worship as the Heathens did of their Gods ; and employ the same outward rites in honouring their images, as the Heathens did in the religious veneration of their statues. Thus as the Heathens had their luttlar Gods, such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Assyrians, Osiris and lsis to the Egyptians, aad Vulcan to the Leronians, thus also the Catholics attribute the defence of certain countries to certain saints. Have not the saints also to whom the safeguard of particular cities is committed, the same office as the Dii Provides of the Heathens.' Such as were at Delphi, Apollo; at Athens, Minerva; at Carthage, Juno ; and at Rome, Quirinus. And do not the saints to whom churches arc built and altars erected correspond to the Dii Palrooi of the Heathens ? Such as were in the Capitol, Jupiter, in the temple at Paphos, Venus, in the temple of Ephesus, Diana. Are not likewise, our Lady of Walsingham, our Lady of Ipswich, otir Lady of Wilsdon, and the like, imitations of Diana Agrotera, Diana Coripbca, Diana Ephesia, Venus Cypria, Veuus Paphia, Venus Gnidin, and the like ? The Catholics too, have substituted for the marine deities Neptune, Triton, Xereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, 8tc. Saint Christopher, Saint Clement, and others, and especially our Lady, as she is called by them, to whom seamen sing Ave Maris stella. Neither has the fire escaped their imitation of the Pagans. For instead of Vulcan and Vesta, the respective guardians of tire according to the Heathens, the Catholics have substituted Saint Agatha, ou the day of whose nati- vity they make letters for the purpose of extinguishing lire. Every artificer likewise and profession has a special saint in the place of a presiding God. Thus scholars have Saint Nicholas and Saint Gregory; painters Saint Luke; nor are soldiers in want of a saint corresponding to Mars, nor lovers of one who is a substitute for Venus.
All diseases too haTc their special saints instead of Gods, who arc invoked as possessing a healing power. Thus the venereal disease has Saint Roche ; the falling sickness Saint Cornelius, the tooth- ach Saint Apollin, &c. Beasts and cattle also have their presiding saints : for Saint Loy (says the Homily) is the horse-leach, and Saint Antony the swineherd, &c. The Homily adds,' " that in many points the Papists exceed the Gentiles in idolatry, and particularly in honouring and wor- shipping the relics and bones of saints, which prove that they be mortal men and dead, and there- fore no Gods to be worshipped, which the Gentiles would never confess of their Gods for very shame." And after enumerating many ridiculous practices of the Catholics in reference to these relics, the Homily concludes with observing, " that they are not only more wicked than the Gen- tile idolaters, but also no wiser than asses, horses, and mules, which have no understanding."
In the wcond place the Homilies shew* that the rites and ceremonies of the Papists in honour ' Tome a. p. 54. 1 p- *9-
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ing and worshipping their images or saints, are the same with the rites of the Pagans. " This, say (hey, is evident in their pilgrimages to visit images which had more holiness and virtue in them than others. In their candle-religion, burning incense, offering up gold to images, hanging up crutches, chairs, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and women of war, before images, as though by Ihem, or saints (as they say) lliey were delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity, or shipwreck." In spreading abroad after the manner of the Heathens, the miracles that have accompanied, images. " Such an image was sent from heaven, like the Palladium, or Diana of the Epbesians. Such an image was brought by angels. Such a one came itself far from the east to the west, as Dame Fortune Bed to Rome. Some images though they were hard and stony, yet for tender-heart and pity wept. Some spake more monstrously than ever did Balaam's ass, who had life and breath in him. Such a cripple came and saluted this saint of oak, and by and by he was made whole, and here hangeth his crutch. Such a one in a tempest vowed to Saint Christopher, and scaped, and behold here is bis ship of war. Such a one, by Saint Leonard's help, brake out of prison, and see where his fetters bang. And infinite thousands more miracles by like, or more shameless lies were reported."
After all this, I appeal to every intelligent reader, whether the religion of the Heathens, accord- ing to its genuine purity as delineated in this Introduction, and as professed and promulgated by the best and wisest men of antiquity, is not infinitely preferable to that of the Catholics ? And whether it is not more holy to reverence beings the immediate progeny of the ineffable principle of all things, and which are eternally centered and rooted in him ; and to believe that in reverencing these, we at the same time reverence the ineffable, because they partake of his nature, and that through these as media we become united with him,' than to reverence men, and the images of men, many of whom when living, were the disgrace of human nature? The Church of England a» we sec prefers the Pagans to the Pap 11 is , and 1 trust that every other sect of Protestant Christians will unanimously subscribe to her decision. And thus much in defence of the theology of Plato, and the religious worship of the Heathens.
It now remains that I should speak of the following work, of its author, and the translation. The work itself then is a scientific development of the deifonn processions from the meltable principle
' The ineffable principle of things, as is demonstrated in tbe Elements of Theology io this work, is beyond self-subsistence. Hence the first ineffable eroluliou from him consists of self-subsistcnt natures. As we therefore are only the dregs of the rational tialure, many media arc necessary to conjoin us with a yrimiple so hnmeoscly exalted above us. And these media are the golden chain of powers that have deified summits, or (hat have the ineffable united with the citable.
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of things, and this, as k appears to me id (he greatest perfection possible to mm. For the reason- ing ia every where consummately accurate, and deduced from eelf-evident priiiciplei ; and the conclusions are the result of what Plato powerfully call* geometrical neceaaitiei. To the reader of thia work indeed, who haa not been properly disciplined io Eleatic and Academic studies, and who haa not a genius naturally adapted to such abetruae speculations, it will doubtless appear to be perfectly unintelligible, and in the language of critical cant, nothing but jargon and revery. Thia, however, ia what Plato the great bierophant of this theology predicted would be the caae, if ever it was unfolded to the multitude at large. " For a$ it appears to me,^iayi he, there art
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to perceive them."'
In his seventh epistle also he oWrves a* follows : " Thus much, however, I shall &ay respecting all thoae who either have written or shall write, affirming that they know those thinga which are the objects of my study (whether they have heard them from me or from others, or whether they have discovered them themselves) thnt they have not heard any thing about these things conform- able to my opinion : for I never have written nor ever shall write about them.1 For a thing of ibis kind cannot be expressed by words like other discipline*, but by long familiarity, and living in conjunction with the thing itself, a light* as it were leaping from a fire will on a sudden be enkindled in the soul, and there itself nourish itself." And shortly after he adds ; " But if it appeared to me that the particulars of which I am speaking could be sufficiently communicated to the multitude by writing or speech, what could we accomplish more beautiful in life than to impart a mighty benefit to mankind, and lead an intelligible nature into light, ao as to be obvious to all men i I think, however, that an attempt of this kind would only be beneficial to a few, who from some small veatigea previously demonstrated are themselves able to discover these abstruse particulars. But with respect to the rest of manund, some it will fill with a contempt by no means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope that they shall now learn certain venerable things."4
Km nttvtamtomf*. Epist. 9.
* Plato means by this, that he has never written perspicuously about imuUigMa or true being; toe proper objects of intellect.
' This light is a thing of a very different kind from that which is produced by the evidence arising from truths perceptible by the multitude, as those who have experienced it well know.
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The prediction of Plato therefore, has been but too truly fulfilled in the fate which baj attended the writing! of the best of bis disciples, among whom Proclut certainly maintains the most distin- guished rank. This indeed, these disciples well knew would be the case ; but perceiving that the hand of Barbaric and despotic power was about to dettroy the school* of the philosophers, and foreseeing that dreadful naht of ifuorancc and folly which succeeded so nefarious an undertaking they benevolently disclosed in as luminous a manner as the subject would permit, toe arcana of their master's doctrines, thereby, as Plato expresses it, giving assistance to Philosophy, and also preserving it as a paternal and immortal inheritance, to the latest posterity. Proclus in the first book of this work has enumerated the requisites which a student of it ought to possess ; and it is most certain that be who does not possess them, will never fathom the depths of this theology, or perceive his mind irradiated with that admirable light, mentioned by Plato in the foregoing extract, and which is only to be seen by that eye of the soul which is better worth saving than tea thousand corporeal eyes.
With respect to the diction of Proclus in this work, its general character is that of purity, clearness, copiousness, and magnificence ; so that even the fastidious critic, who considers every Greek writer as partially barbarous who lived after the fall of the
ever unwillingly, be forced to acknowledge that Proclus is a splendid exception. The i Kepler, whose decision on this subject, outweighs in my opinion, that of a sown of mo critics, after having made a long extract from the commentaries of Proclus on Euclid, gives the following animated encomium of his diction. " O ratio fluit ipsi torrcntis instar, ripas bundans, et gurgitesque occulta ns, dum mci
it." i. e. " His language flows like a torrent, i hiding the dark fords and whirlpools of doubts, while his mind full of the majesty of things of such a magnitude, struggles in the straits of language, and the conclusion never satisfying him, exceeds by the copia of words, the simplicity of the propositions." If we omit what Kepler here says about the struggle of the mind of Proclus, and his never being satisfied with the conclusion, the rest of bis eulogy is equally applicable to the style of the present work, so far as it is possible for i to be combined with the rigid accuracy of geometrical i
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