Page:The Pamphleteer (Volume 8).djvu/63

Rh Now, from all this, it may be inferred, that the most sublime part of  or inspection, consisted in beholding the gods themselves invested with a resplendent light; and that this was symbolical of those transporting visions, which the virtuous soul will constantly enjoy in a future state; and of which it is able to gain some ravishing glimpses, even while connected with the cumbrous vestment of body.

But that this was actually the case, is evident from the following unequivocal testimony of Proclus in Plat. Repub. p. 380. i. e. "In all initiations and mysteries, the gods exhibit many forms of themselves, and appear in a variety of shapes: and sometimes, indeed, an unfigured light of themselves is hurled forth to the view; sometimes this light is figured according to a human form, and sometimes it proceeds into a different shape." This doctrine, too, of divine appearances, in the mysteries, is clearly confirmed by Plotinus, Ennead. i. lib. 6. p. 55, and Ennead. 9. lib. 9. p. 700. And, in short, that magical evocation formed a part of the sacerdotal office in the mysteries, and that this was universally believed by all antiquity, long before the æera of the latter Platonists, is plain from the testimony of Hippocrates, or at least Democritus, in his Treatise de Morbo Sacro. p. 86, fol. For speaking of those who attempt to cure this disease by magic, he observes: i. e. "For if they profess themselves able to draw down the moon, to obscure the sun, to produce stormy and pleasant weather, as likewise showers of rain, and heats, and to render the sea and the earth barren, and to accomplish every thing else of this kind; whether they derive this knowledge from the Mysteries, or from some other institution or meditation, they appear to me to be impious, from the study of such concerns." From all which it is easy to see, how egregiously Dr. Warburton was mistaken, when, in p. 231 of his Divine Legation, he asserts,