Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    124/226 (page 112)
    Nor 'Vain Ambition, nor falfe Glory9s View, Nor worldly Cares thefe ever could fubdue : The diflant Stars they've brought down to our Eyes> As by their Wit they mounted to the Skies. 'Thus Heaven is gain'd ■i—p—• I may infert here alfo what Calius Rhodiginus has writ concerning thefe Matters, 1 7. c. 13. Thofe who have writ that the Socratick Inflitutions are a fort of Image, or, at lead, a Shadow of the Chriftian Inte¬ grity, and that the Old Teflament is confirmed by the Platonick Theology, and the new by the Wifdom and Manners of Socrates ; thefe truly, let it be faid with¬ out Envy, either^ folely, or with very few, leem to have conceived the Depth of the Things which God was pleafed by fome fecret way to inftill into the Minds of thofe Men : for in Plato's Book con¬ cerning the Soul, after Socrates has taught u9 that the Meditation of a true Philofopher confifts in this, that the Soul purge and feparate itfelf from the Body ; and that true Vertue con fids in a purifying, which is attained by Wifdom, Juflice, Fortitude, and, Temperanc e he prefently fubjoins. Wherefore thofe who have eflablifhed Myfleries, are by no means to be negle&ed, for they feem earneflly to admonifh us by fome fecret way, that whoever go to Hades, not fo purged and initiated, wallow in the Dirt as the Generality of Men do, but that the others live with the Gods ; and therefore it?s commonly faid. Multi Thyrjigeriy Jed Bacchi Perpauci, and only thefe very few are rightly inflrudleci in Philofophical Myfleries. And as Bacchus is taken for a genuine Philofopher, and a Man qualified ad Unguem ; fo the Platonicks think him fometimes taken for fome Chief Prieft, whom Mythologers affirm to have been twice born ; fignifying, that a Prieft, prefently upon his being ini¬ tiated, muft be reborn, or that the Mind of a perfect Prieft