To set this matter in as fair a light as possible, I shall here very briefly deduce the history of fanaticism from the most early ages to the present. And if we are able to fix upon any one material or fundamental point, wherein the chief professors have universally agreed, I think we may reasonably lay hold on that, and assign it for the great seed or principle of the spirit. The most early traces we meet with of fanatics in ancient story are among the Egyptians, who instituted those rites known in Greece by the names of Orgia, Panegyres, and Dionysia; whether introduced there by Orpheus or Melampus we shall not dispute at present, nor in all likelihood at any time for the future. * These feasts were celebrated to the honour of Osiris, whom the Grecians called Dionysius, and is the same with Bacchus which has betrayed some superficial readers to imagine, that the whole business was nothing more than a set of roaring, scouring companions, overcharged with wine; but this is a scandalous mistake, foisted on the world by a sort of modern authors, who have too literal an understanding; and, because antiquity is to be traced backwards, do therefore, like Jews, begin their books at the wrong end, as if learning were a sort of conjuring. These are the men who pretend to understand a book by scouring through the index; as if a traveller should go about to describe a palace, when he had seen nothing but the privy; or like certain fortune-tellers in North America, who have a way of reading a man's destiny by peeping into his breech. For, at the time of instituting these mysteries, there was not one vine in all Egypt, † the natives drinking nothing Diod. Sic. L. 1. Plut. de Iside et Osiride. but ale; which liquor seems to have been far more ancient than wine, and has the honour of owing its invention and progress, not only to the Egyptian Osiris, but to the Grecian Bacchus; who, in their famous expedition, carried the receipt of it along with them, and gave it to the nations they visited or subdued. Besides, Bacchus himself was very seldom, or never drunk; for it is recorded of him, that he was the first inventor of the mitre, which he wore continually on his head (as the whole company of bacchanals did,) to prevent vapours and the head-ach after hard drinking. And for this reason, say some, the scarlet whore, when she makes the kings of the earth drunk with her cup of abomination, is always sober herself, though she never balks the glass in her turn, being, it seems, kept upon her legs by the virtue of her triple mitre. Now, these feasts were instituted in imitation of the famous expedition Osiris made through the world, and of the company that attended him, whereof the bacchanalian ceremonies were so many types and symbols. From which account it is manifest, that the fanatic rites of these bacchanals cannot be imputed to intoxications by wine, but must needs have had a deeper foundation. What this was, we may gather large hints from certain circumstances in the course of their mysteries. For, in the first place, there was, in their processions, an entire mixture and confusion of sexes; they affected to ramble about hills and deserts; their garlands were of ivy and vine, emblems of cleaving and clinging; or of fir, the parent of turpen + Id. L 4. * Diod. Sic. L. 1. and 3. tine. It is added, that they imitated satyrs, were attended by goats, and rode upon asses, all companions of great skill and practice in affairs of gallantry. They bore for their ensigns certain curious figures, perched upon long poles, made into the shape and size of the virga genitalis, with its appurtenances; which were so many shadows and emblems of the whole mystery, as well as trophies set up by the female conquerors. Lastly, in a certain town of Attica, the whole solemnity, stripped of all its types, was performed in puris naturalibus, the votaries not flying in covies, but sorted into couples. The same may be farther conjectured from the death of Orpheus, one of the institutors of these mysteries, who was torn in pieces by women, because he refused to communicate his orgies to them; † which others explained, by telling us he had castrated himself upon grief for the loss of his wife. Omitting many others of less note, the next fanatics we meet with of any eminence, were the numerous sects of heretics appearing in the five first centuries of the Christian era, from Simon Magus and his followers to those of Eutyches. I have collected their systems from infinite reading, and, comparing them with those of their successors, in the several ages since, I find there are certain bounds set even to the irregularity of human thought, an. those a great deal narrower than is commonly apprehended. For, as they all frequently interfere even in their wildest ravings, so there is one fundamental point wherein they are sure to meet, as lines in a centre, and that is, the * Dionysia Brauronia. † Vid. Photium in excerptis è Conone. community of women. Great were their solicitudes in this matter, and they never failed of certain articles, in their schemes of worship, on purpose to establish it. The last fanatics of note were those which started up in Germany a little after the reformation of Luther, springing as mushrooms do at the end of a harvest; such were John of Leyden, David George, Adam Neuster, and many others, whose visions and revelations always terminated in leading about half a dozen sisters apiece, and making that practice a fundamental part of their system.* For human life is a continual navigation, and if we expect our vessels to pass with safety through the waves and tempests of this fluctuating world, it is necessary to make a good provision of the flesh, as seamen lay in store of beef for a long voyage. * When the Reformation had opened to all men the perusal of the Holy Scripture, it was a natural consequence, that, among the ignorant and enthusiastic, were found many disposed to hurry from Christianity into heresies of their own device. John of Leyden is well known as the leader of those enthusiastic anabaptists who seized the city of Munster, in 1533, and made it for many months a scene of cruelty, blasphemy, and extravagance. Neus ter, or Nestorius, was head of a sect who also baptized adults, and expected a reign of the saints upon earth. David George was founder of the heretics called Familists, for whom he laid down a number of blasphemous tenets, maintaining particularly, that all the previous doctrines of Moses, of the prophets, and of the gospel itself, were only provisions ad interim, for the regulation of religion, until the coming of him the said David George, who assumed the title and prerogatives of the true Messias. Most of these heretics added gross debauchery to their enthusiasm, and some of them would not allow their female disciples to be clothed, because they said they were the Naked Truth.-See JESSOP'S Discovery of the Errors of the Anabaptists. Now, from this brief survey of some principal sects among the fanatics in all ages, (having omitted the Mahometans and others, who might also help to confirm the argument I am about,) to which I might add several among ourselves, such as the family of love, sweet singers of Israel, and the like and, from reflecting upon that fundamental point in their doctrines about women, wherein they have so unanimously agreed, I am apt to imagine, that the seed or principle, which has ever put men upon visions in things invisible, is of a corporeal nature; for the profounder chemists inform us, that the strongest spirits may be extracted from human flesh. Besides, the spinal marrow being nothing else but a continuation of the brain, must needs create a very free communication between the superior faculties and those below; and thus the thorn in the flesh serves for a spur to the spirit. I think it is agreed among physicians, that nothing affects the head so much as a tentiginous humour, repelled and elated to the upper region, found by daily practice to run frequently up into madness. A very eminent member of the faculty assured me, that, when the quakers first appeared, he seldom was without some female patients among them for the furor -persons of a visionary devotion, either men or women, are, in their complexion, of all others the most amorous; for zeal is frequently kindled from the same spark with other fires, and, from inflaming brotherly love, will proceed to raise that of a gallant. If we inspect into the usual process of modern courtship, we shall find it to consist in a devout turn of the eyes, called ogling; an artificial form of canting and whining by rote, every interval, for want of other matter, made |