OTHER Reasons, my Lord, there are, why this plain home-spun Philosophy, of looking into our-selves, may do us wondrous service, in rectifying our Errors in Religion. For there is a sort of Enthusiasm of second hand. And when Men find no original Commotions in themselves, no prepossessing Panick which bewitches 'em; they are apt still, by the Testimony of others, to be impos'd on, and led credulously into the Belief of many false Miracles. And this Habit may make 'em variable, and of a very inconstant Faith, easy to be carry'd away with every Wind of Doctrine, and addicted to every upstart Sect or Superstition. But the knowledg of our Passions in their very Seeds, the measuring well the Growth and Progress of Enthusiasm, and the judging rightly of its natural Force, and what command it has over our very[1] Senses, may teach us to oppose more successfully those Delusions which come arm'd with the specious Pretext of moral Certainty, and Matter of Fact.
The new prophesying Sect, I made mention of above, pretend, it seems, among many other Miracles, to have had a most signal one, acted premeditately, and with warning, before many hundreds of People, who actually give Testimony to the Truth of it. But I wou'd only ask, Whether there were present, among those hundreds, any one Person, who having never been of their Sect, or addicted to their Way, will give the same Testimony with them? I must not be contented to ask, Whether such a one had been wholly free of that particular Enthusiasm? but, Whether, before that time, he was esteem'd of so sound a Judgment, and clear a Head, as to be wholly free of Melancholy, and in all likelihood incapable of all Enthusiasm besides? For otherwise, the Panick may have been caught; the Evidence of the Senses lost, as in a Dream; and the Imagination so inflam'd, as in a moment to have burnt up every Particle of Judgment and Reason. The combustible Matters lie prepar'd within, and ready to take fire at a Spark; but chiefly in a[2] Multitude seiz'd with the same Spirit. No wonder if the Blaze rises so of a sudden; when innumerable Eyes glow with the Passion, and heaving Breasts are labouring with Inspiration: when not the Aspect only, but the very Breath and Exhalations of Men are infectious, and the inspiring Disease imparts it-self by insensible Transpiration. I am not a Divine good enough to resolve what Spirit that was which prov'd so catching among the antient Prophets, that even the profane[3] Saul was taken by it. But I learn from Holy Scripture, that there was the[4] evil, as well as the good Spirit of Prophecy. And I find by present Experience, as well as by all Historys, Sacred and Profane, that the Operation of this Spirit is every where the same, as to the bodily Organs.
A Gentleman who has writ lately in defence of reviv'd Prophecy, and has since fallen himself into the prophetick Extasys, tells us, That the antient Prophets had the Spirit of God upon them under Extasy, with divers strange Gestures of Body denominating them Madmen, (or Enthusiasts) as appears evidently, says he, in the Instances of Balaam, Saul, David, Ezekiel, Daniel, &c.
And he proceeds to justify this by the Practice of the Apostolick Times, and by the Regulation which the[5] Apostle himself applies to these seemingly irregular Gifts, so frequent and ordinary (as our Author pretends) in the primitive Church, on the first rise and spreading of Christianity. But I leave it to him to make the Resemblance as well as he can between his own and the Apostolick way. I only know, that the Symptoms he describes, and which himself (poor Gentleman!) labours under, are as Heathenish as he can possibly pretend them to be Christian. And when I saw him lately under an Agitation (as they call it) uttering Prophecy in a pompous Latin Style, of which, out of his Extasy, it seems, he is wholly incapable; it brought into my mind the Latin Poet's Description of the Sibyl, whose Agonys were so perfectly like these.
[6] ——Subitò non vultus, non color unus,
Non comptae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument; majorque videri
Nec morale sonans: afflata est Numine quando
Jam propiore Dei——
And again presently after:
——Immanis in antro
Bacchatur Vates, magnum si pectore possit
Excussisse Deum: tanto magis Ille fatigat
Os rabidum, fera corda domans, Fingit que Premendo.
Which is the very Style of our experienc'd Author. For the Inspir'd (says he) undergo a Probation, wherein the Spirit, by frequent Agitations, forms the Organs, ordinarily for a Month or two before Utterance.
The Roman Historian, speaking of a most horrible Enthusiasm which broke out in Rome long before his days, describes this Spirit of Prophecy; Viros velut mente captâ, cum jactatione fanaticâ corporis vaticinari. Livy, xxxix. 13. The detestable things which are further related of these Enthusiasts, I wou'd not willingly transcribe: but the Senate's mild Decree in so execrable a Case, I can't omit copying; being satisfy'd, that tho your Lordship has read it before now, you can read it again and again with admiration: In reliquum deinde (says Livy) S. C. cautum est, &c. Si quis tale sacrum solenne & necessarium duceret, nec sine Religione & Piaculo se id omittere posse; apud Praetorem Urbanum profiteretur: Praetor Senatum consuleret. Si ei permissum esset, cùm in Senatu centum non minus essent, ita id sacrum faceret; dum ne plus quinque sacrificio interessent, neu qua pecunia communis, neu quis Magister sacrorum, aut Sacerdos esset.
So necessary it is to give way to this Distemper of Enthusiasm, that even that Philosopher who bent the whole Force of his Philosophy against Superstition, appears to have left room for visionary Fancy, and to have indirectly tolerated Enthusiasm. For it is hard to imagine, that one who had so little religious Faith as Epicurus, shou'd have so vulgar a Credulity, as to believe those accounts of Armys and Castles in the Air, and such visionary Phænomena. Yet he allows them; and then thinks to solve 'em by his Effluvia, and Aerial Looking-glasses, and I know not what other stuff: which his Latin Poet, however, sets off beautifully, as he does all.
——Rerum Simulacra vagari
Multa, modis multis, in cunctas undique parteis
Tenuia, quae facilè inter se junguntur in auris,
Obvia cùm veniunt, ut aranea bracteaque auri
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Centauros itaque, & Scyllarum Membra videmus,
Cerbereasque canum facies, simulacraque eorum
Quorum morte obita tellus amplectitur ossa:
Omne genus quoniam passim simulacra feruntur,
Partim sponte suâ quae fiunt aere in ipso;
Partim quae variis ab rebus cumque recedunt.
'Twas a sign this Philosopher believ'd there was a good Stock of Visionary Spirit originally in Human Nature. He was so satisfy'd that Men were inclin'd to see Visions, that rather than they shou'd go without, he chose to make 'em to their hand. Notwithstanding he deny'd the Principles of Religion to be[7] natural, he was forc'd tacitly to allow there was a wondrous Disposition in Mankind towards Supernatural Objects; and that if these Ideas were vain, they were yet in a manner innate, or such as Men were really born to, and cou'd hardly by any means avoid. From which Concession, a Divine, methinks, might raise a good Argument against him, for the Truth as well as the Usefulness of Religion. But so it is: whether the Matter of Apparition be true or false, the Symptoms are the same, and the Passion of equal force in the Person who is Vision-struck. The Lymphatici of the Latins were the Nympholepti of the Greeks. They were Persons said to have seen some Species of Divinity, as either some rural Deity, or Nymph; which threw them into such Transports as overcame their Reason. The Extasys express'd themselves outwardly in Quakings, Tremblings, Tossings of the Head and Limbs, Agitations, and (as Livy calls them) Fanatical Throws or Convulsions, extemporary Prayer, Prophecy, Singing, and the like. All Nations have their Lymphaticks of some kind or another; and all Churches, Heathen as well as Christian, have had their Complaints against Fanaticism.
One wou'd think the Antients imagin'd this Disease had some relation to that which they call'd Hydrophoby. Whether the antient Lymphaticks had any way like that of biting, to communicate the Rage of their Distemper, I can't so positively determine. But certain Fanaticks there have been since the time of the Antients, who have had a most prosperous Faculty of communicating the Appetite of the Teeth. For since first the snappish Spirit got up in Religion, all Sects have been at it, as the saying is, Tooth and Nail; and are never better pleas'd, than in worrying one another without mercy.
So far indeed the innocent kind of Fanaticism extends it-self, that when the Party is struck by the Apparition, there follows always an Itch of imparting it, and kindling the same Fire in other Breasts. For thus Poets are Fanaticks too. And thus Horace either is, or feigns himself Lymphatick, and shews what an Effect the Vision of the Nymphs and Bacchus had on him.
[8] Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus
Vidi docentem, credite posteri,
NYMPHASque discentes—
Evae! recenti mens trepidat metu,
Plenoque Bacchi pectore turbidum
[9] LYMPHATUR—————as Heinsius reads.
No Poet (as I ventur'd to say at first to your Lordship) can do any thing great in his own way, without the Imagination or Supposition of a Divine Presence, which may raise him to some degree of this Passion we are speaking of. Even the cold Lucretius[10] makes use of Inspiration, when he writes against it; and is forc'd to raise an Apparition of Nature, in a Divine Form, to animate and conduct him in his very Work of degrading Nature, and despoiling her of all her seeming Wisdom and Divinity.
[11] Alma Venus, coeli subter labentia signa
Quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferenteis
Concelebras——
Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas,
Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras
Exoritur, neque fit laetum neque amabile quidquam:
Te sociam studeo scribundis versibus esse,
Quos Ego de rerum naturâ pangere conor
Memmiadae nostro.
VOL. III. p. 39, 40. & 66, 67, 68.
VOL. III. p. 66. in the Notes.
See 1 Kings ch. xxii. ver. 20, &c. 2 Chron. ch. xviii. ver. 19, &c. And VOL. III. p. 116, 117.
1 Cor. ch. xiv.
Virg. Aen. lib. 6.
Lucret. lib. 4.
Infra, pag. 117.
Od. 19. lib. 2.
So again, Sat. 5. ver. 97. Gnatia Lymphis Iratis exstructa: where Horace wittily treats the People of Gnatia as Lymphaticks and Enthusiasts, for believing a Miracle of their Priests: Credat Judaeus Apella. Hor. ibid. See Heinsius and Torrentius; and the Quotation in the following Notes, ὑπὸ τω̑ν Νυμφω̑ν, &c.
VOL. III. p. 32.
Lucret. lib. 1.