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.

    141/226 (page 129)
    the mod excellent, for the precious Frame of Matt furpafles the other Fruits we have of Fecundity; they rightly therefore made the Virile Member the Image of that Idea. I have thought good to fay this, that ig~ norant Men may not think it fo foolifh a thing to have adorn'd Temples with a Virile Member, and to have given it a divine Worfhip, for Human Reafon conjedured thefe Things ; and it might fail, and Er¬ rors might eafily arife : But in the Chriflian Faith, nothing but Truth (bines, for it*s divinely infpired, and has expunged the Errors of the Antients; and in divine Things, Human Conjedures do not fuffice, but an Infpiration from Heaven is necelTary to en¬ lighten the Minds of Men, and fo inftrud them, that they may not be milled by fallacious Errors, and may be recalled from Human Conjedures, and direded to Heaven : So far Galeottus Martins. If thofe who read the Fathers, where they refled on the Religion of the an dent Gentiles, would take what is before written with them, they would not probably think the Gen¬ tiles fo ridiculous as the Fathers, on all Occafions, feem to make them. The uncommon Explication I gave of Virgil’s 4th Eclogue, has drawn after it the long Sequel of Thoughts I have here given you, which tho5 fomewhat remote from the Subjed of the Oracles of the Sibyls, firft propofed by me, may ftill be faid to relate to a fort of Oraculous Difpofition of Mind, which attends that New Birth I fo often mention. If the Uncom- monnefs of the Subjed may make it feem odd to fome Perfons, and drawr a Cenfure from them, perhaps it may draw alfo the PoeCs Reply s 0 major tandem pareas infane minori l S A