1

as standing at the DOOR, and knocking; and as granting to him, that OVERCOMETH in those various preparatory trials which were analogous to the severe discipline that proved the courage and constancy of the aspirants, to sit with him on his throne, even as he himself also OVERCAME and sat down with his father in his throne*.

The whole of this is the identical-phraseology of the Mysteries, though admirably applicable to the character and office of the Messiah.

(2.) But there are also various texts, in which our Lord not obscurely uses the language of the Orgies to illustrate the nature of his own mission, though he does not so directly refer us to them by employing the precise word MYSTERY.

Thus we often find him alluding to the STRAIT DOOR and NARROW AVENUE of initiation, through which the aspirants with no small difficulty forced their bodies; exhibiting himself, as the MASTER of THE HOUSE or the HIERO PHANT; and, in that character, even nearly using the very formula of the Mysteries, BEGONE YE PROFANE, LET THE DOORS BE SHUT f.

"Enter ye in at the STRAIT GATE: for wide is "the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to de "struction, and many there be which go in thereat;

because STRAIT is the GATE and NARROW is the "way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that

* Rev. i. 5, 18. ii. 7, 8, 20, 21.

+ Εκας, εκας, εστε βεβηλοι. Θυρας δ' επίθεσθε βεβήλοις πασιν όμε. Orph. Fragm. p. 357. Gesner.

"find it *-SEEK, and ye shall FIND; KNOCK, and "it shall be OPENED unto you T-STRIVE to enter "in at the STRAIT GATE: for many, I say unto you, "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. "When once the MASTER OF THE HOUSE is risen up, and hath SHUT TO THE DOOR; and ye begin "to stand WITHOUT and to knock at the DOOR, saying, Lord, Lord, OPEN unto us: he shall answer "and say unto you, DEPART FROM ME, ALL YE WORKERS OF INIQUITY ."

86

Thus again, in all the beauty of contrast, after touching upon those heavenly Mysteries which were revealed to mere babes while they were hidden from the self-named wise and illuminated, he alludes to the heavy YOKE of bondage, which the aspirants were said to bear in the course of their initiation, and which an ancient hierophant describes as the HEAVY blue CHAIN originally endured by the just man that was preserved in a wonderful ship at the time of the deluge §.

"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and "earth, because thou hast HID these things from the

WISE and PRUDENT, and hast REVEALED them "unto BABES. No man KNOWETH the Son, but "the Father: neither KNOWETH any man the Fa"ther, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son

* Matt. vii. 13, 14.

+ Luke xi. 9.

Luke xiii. 24, 25, 27.

"The heavy blue chain didst thou, O just man, endure.” Taliesin's Preiddeu Annwn. apud Davies's Mythol. of the Brit. Druids, p. 515.

" will

"will REVEAL him. Come unto me, all ye that LABOUR and are HEAVY LADEN, and I will give you REST. Take my YOKE upon you, and LEARN " of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye "shall find REST unto your souls. For my YOKE "is EASY, and my burden is light *."

Thus likewise he both speaks of himself and his disciples, and is also spoken of by his apostle John, in language directly borrowed from the splendid illumination, which greeted the ravished eyes of the epopt; when, after he had groped his darkling uncertain way through many tortuous passages, he at length emerged from Tartarean gloom, and prepared to hear the solemn inaugural lecture of the hierophant and thus he places the true light, which it was his special office to communicate, in direct opposition to the spurious light of a false and simulated wisdom.

men.

"In him was life; and the life was the LIGHT of And the LIGHT SHINETH IN DARKNESS; "and the DARKNESS comprehended it not. That was the TRUE LIGHT, which LIGHTETH every man "that cometh into the world t-This is the con

66

* Matt. xi. 25, 27-30.

+ John i. 4, 5, 9. It is observable, that St. John here claims. for our Lord the identical title of the TRUE LIGHT which the epopta bestowed upon the artificial illumination of the greater Mysteries. Η, το ΦΩΣ ΤΟ ΑΛΗΘΙΝΟΝ, says the apostle of his divine Master: εκείνος εστιν ὁ αληθως ἔρανος και το ΑΛΗΘΙΝΟΝ nɛ, says Plato in allusion to the light of the Mysteries. Orig. cont. Cels. lib. vii. p. 352.

"demnation,

"demnation, that LIGHT is come into the world; "and men loved DARKNESS rather than LIGHT, "because their deeds were evil. For every one, "that doeth evil, hateth the LIGHT, neither cometh "to the LIGHT, lest his deeds should be reproved. "But he, that doeth TRUTH, cometh to the LIGHT, "that his deeds may be made MANIFEST that they are wrought of God *-Yet a little while is the "LIGHT with you: walk, while ye have the LIGHT, "lest DARKNESS come upon you: for he, that walk"eth in DARKNESS, knoweth not whither he goeth. "While ye have LIGHT, believe in the LIGHT, that ye may be the CHILDREN OF LIGHT. I am come

66

a LIGHT into the world, that whosoever believeth "in me should not abide in DARKNESS -I am the 16 LIGHT of the world: he, that followeth me, shall

66

not walk in DARKNESS, but shall have the LIGHT "of life -Ye are the LIGHT of the world.

Let

your LIGHT SO SHINE before men, that they may "see your good works and glorify your Father which " is in heaven §-The children of this world are in "their generation wiser than the CHILDREN OF

LIGHT-God is LIGHT, and in him is no DARKNESS at all. If we say that we have fellowship " with him, and walk in DARKNESS, we lye and do 66 not the truth: but, if we walk in the LIGHT, as he "is in the LIGHT, we have fellowship one with ano

* John iii. 19-21.

+ John xii. 35, 36, 46. § Matt. v. 14, 16.

John viii. 12,

|| Luke xvi. 8.

❝ther,

"ther, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleans"eth us from all sin *."

Thus again he reclaims to himself, as specially his own, a title with which the pagans decorated the god whom they revered in the Mysteries; for the being, venerated by the Hindoos as the supreme divinity, is represented as saying, I am IMMORTALITY, I am the RESURRECTION †: thus, in the very phraseology of an ancient hierophant, he mentions the resurrection from the dead as a figurative birth, into a new state of existence: and thus both St. John and St. Paul speak in an exactly similar strain of their divinę Master, the latter of them applying to him a remarkable mystical prophecy of David which might not at first appear to have any concern with his resurrection.

"I am the RESURRECTION and the LIFE"They, which shall be accounted worthy to obtain "that world and the RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, are the children of God, being the CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTION §-Jesus Christ, THE FIRST BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD -God RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, THIS LAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN THEE T."

Thus, in short, he perpetually employs the expressions PERFECT and PERFECTING to denote, either

* 1 John i. 6, 7.

+ Gita apud Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 211.

John xi. 25.

|| Rev, i. 5.

f Luke xx. 35, 36.

¶Acts xiii. 30, 34.