world, I have found such a uniformity and general I consent, that I was able to discover at what time of the year it was that the deluge began. The whole tenor of these bodies, thus preserved, clearly pointing forth the month of May."* I shall not trouble you with an abstract of the different and contradictory theories, which philosophers have advanced to account for the geological alterations which the earth sustained at that calamitous period, because the subject does not properly come within my design; but I shall take the account of the deluge precisely as it is related by Moses; and enquire in what manner it has been preserved or corrupted in the different mysteries of the idolatrous world.

In this enquiry, wheresoever we find a system of mysterious initiation, there we are sure to find also a tradition of the deluge, often obscure indeed, and not unfrequently fantastical, but possessing sufficient marks of a common original, to satisfy the most sceptical mind, that the deluge of Noah, and no other event, is intended to be perpetuated amidst the adventitious embellishments which the genius or ignorance of a people may have thrown

around it.

The events which attended this great convulsion of nature, were engrafted by designing men, on the pure system which was practised by the pious patriarchs of the antediluvian world; and con* Miln. Physico-Theological Lect. apud Hale's Chron. vol. i. p. 337.

H

stituted the chief line of distinction between ancient Masonry, and the surreptitious mysteries which were formed on its model and enjoyed the triumph of superior veneration for many succeeding centuries. The former directed its undivided attention to the One invisible God, the Creator and Governor of the world, including the rites of worship offered to that omnipotent Being, according to principles instituted by himself; while the latter, at the greatest extent of its departure from the truth, acknowledged a multiplicity of deities, the chief of which were indeed capable of a resolution into the patriarch Noah, as an incarnation of the divinity, and his three sons as a triplication of himself, who were therefore elevated into objects of divine worship, in contempt and consequent rejection of the true and only God. Hence, in most nations, the superior deities were represented as seated on a lotos leaf, as upon a throne consecrated by its symbolical reference to the Ark, which bore them safely on the surface of the troubled waters, while the rest of mankind were involved in one common destruction. And the reasons which were deemed of sufficient weight to decree divine honours to Noah, were at least, plausible and very attractive. God had always been represented as the Great Father of the human race. Noah was esteemed, and actually was, according to the flesh, the great father of mankind. God is said to have hovered over the face of the waters at the creation; and Noah actu

ally floated on the face of the waters at the deluge, which was universally accounted a new creation. The Lord Jehovah was to be the seed of woman and the produce of a pure virgin; and Noah, the universal father, was at once the seed of a woman, and born of the virgin Ark, without the intervention of any human creature. Hence Noah was elevated into an object of idolatrous worship, and became the chief deity of the gentile world.

The Mysteries were, most of them, conservators of this tradition; for their great founders, the Cabiri, could not carry their votaries beyond the period of the deluge, without involving a question, which, in those early ages, would probably have been fatal to their own private views. And thus, tho' they actually taught the doctrine of an endless succession of worlds, of which the Phoenix was made a significant emblem, yet the deluge was pronounced the creation of the present world, and as such it was described and perpetuated in the diluvian mysteries. And not only were the Deluge, the Ark, and the Ogdoad the main objects of these secret celebrations; but they also constituted the chief reference in all the astronomical as well as religious speculations of the whole heathen world. The learned and elaborate Bryant tells us, that "the Ark was looked on as a kind of Temple, a place of residence of the Deity, in the compass of Eight Persons."* And again, "The Egyptians did, in

* Anal, vol. ii. p. 233.

reality, make the history of the Ogdoas, the chief subject of the sphere. They esteemed the Ark an emblem of the system of the heavens. And when they began to distinguish the stars in the firmament, and to reduce them to particular constellations, there is reason to think, that most of the asterisms were formed with the like reference.' Hence we find that as the lower apartments of the Tower of Babel were dedicated to the purpose of initiation into the mysteries, so the uppermost tier were appropriated solely to astronomical researches; for the first arrangement of the fixed stars into constellations, was effected before the dispersion of our brethren from the plains of Shinar; and Nimrod was placed in the heavens under the name of Orion. The consequences of an open renunciation of the deity, which was the probable cause of the general deluge, were however, concealed by the crafty founders of idolatry, under the same veil which obscured the Great First Cause; and every thing relating to that event, tho' transmitted with unequivocal exactness, was studiously enveloped in a web of mystery, calculated to lead the enquirer astray. Hence the jargon about Deucalion, the Atlantians, Typhon and Osiris, the Argonauts, and all the various fables with which different nations have been equally amused and misled. The truth was concealed with great art under imposing ceremonies and fearful denunciations. Solemn oaths

* Anal, vol. ii. p. 244.

were administered to restrain the enquiry within certain prescribed limits; and the dictatorial hier-. ophant, invested with uncontrollable authority, could draw the line with his magic wand, and say, even to the initiated, " this is the boundary of your knowledge; thus far shall ye come, and no farther." And this accounts for the comparative ignorance of the adept himself; for the ineffable secrets were intrusted to none but kings and priests; and were conveyed, almost solely, by oral communication. Thus an extraodinary ceremony, referring to the deluge, was used in the initiations, which shows how mysteriously that event was preserved and transmitted. The violent death of some unhappy individual was here celebrated, whose body they affected to have lost; and much time was expended and many ceremonies used in the search; even the aspirant himself was made figuratively to die and to descend into the infernal regions, for the purpose of ascertaining the fate of him, whose disappearance they ceased not to deplore. This part of the ceremony was performed in darkness; and was accompanied with loud and ceaseless wailings and lamentations. The body at length being found, the aspirant was passed thro' the regenerating medium, and thus was said to be raised from the dead and born again. This was the commencement of joy and gladness; and the initiated was invested with his symbols amidst universal rejoicing and acclamation.