ページの画像
PDF
ePub

ings about to the East, or Altar, to be superstitious. They are alike Vestiges of the ancient popish Ceremonial Law.

One who has left a severe Satire on the Retainers of those Forms and Ceremonies that lean towards

popish Superstition, tells us, * "If I were a Papist "or Anthropomorphite, who believes that God is "enthroned in the East, like a grave old King, I "profess I would bow and cringe as well as any "Limber-ham of them all, and pay my Adoration "to that Point of the Compass (the East): But if "Men believe that the Holy One who inhabits

Eternity, is also omnipresent, why do not they "make correspondent Ceremonies of Adoration to every Point of the Compass?"

66

Concession must be made by every Advocate for manly and rational Worship, that there is nothing more in the East, than in the Belfry at the West End, or in the Body of the Church. We wonder therefore how ever this Custom was retained by Protestants. The Cringes and Bowings of the Roman Catholics to the Altar, is in Adoration of the corporal † Presence, their Wafer-God, who is by their Fancies, seated there and enthroned.-In the Homilies

themselves towards the Mercy-Seat;-the Christians after them, in the Greek and Oriental Churches, have Time out of Mind, and without any known Beginning, used to bow in like manner; they do it at this Day. See Bingham's Antiquities.

* Hickeringill's Ceremony Monger, p. 15.

† I find in a curious Collection of godly Ballads in the Scotch Language, Edinburgh, 1621, the following Passage, which has

[blocks in formation]

Homilies of our Church, this is frequently stiled Idolatry, and the Act of a Fool.-A Regard for Impartiality obliges me to own, that I have observed this Practice in College Chapels at Oxford. -I hope it is altogether worn out in every other Place in the Kingdom; and for the Credit of that truly respectable Seminary of Learning and religious Truth, that it will not be retained there by the rising Generation!

The learned Moresin * tells us, that Altars, in papal Rome, were placed towards the East, in imi

been intended, no Doubt, as an Argument against Transubstantiation :

"Gif God be transubstantiall,

"In Breid with hoc est Corpus meum ;

"Why are ye sa unnaturall,

"To take him in your Teeth and sla him, &c."

The Rev. Mr. Joseph Warton, in his Dying Indtan, puts into his Hero's Charge a similar Thought:

"Tell her I ne'er have worship'd "With those that eat their God."

Dodsley's Collection, Vol. IV. Thus hath Superstition made the most awful Mysteries of our Faith the Subjects of Ridicule!

* Orientem in solem convertitur, qui Deos salutaț, aut orat apud nos, et Apul. ait, 2. Metam. tunc in orientem obversus vel incrementa solis augusti tacitus imprecatus, &c. Polyd. lib. 5. cap. 9. Invent. Orientem respicit precaturus et Imagines oriens spectant, ut ingredientes preces eoversum ferant ad ritum Persarum, qui solem orientem venerati sunt. Plutarch. in Numa. Deus interdicit Judæis oriente, prohibet Imagines, Exod. 20. Levit. 26, &c. Cæl. autem lib. 7. cap. 2. ant. lect. dicit, jam illud veteris fuit superstitionis, quod in Asclepio Mercurius scribit, Deum adorantes, si medius affulserit Dies in austrum couverti: si vero dies sit occiduus, in occasum: Si se tunc primùm promat Sol, exortiva est spectanda. Qui precabantur ad orientem conversi, erecto vultu, manibus passis, expansis et in cœlum sublatis ac protensis orabant. Virgil 8 Eneid, Ovid, lib. 4. Fast. &c. &c.

Moresini Deprav. Rel. Orig. & Increm. p. 117.

tation of the antient and heathen Rome.-Thu

Virgil's 11th Eneid:

Illi ad surgentem conversi lumina solem

Dant fruges manibus salsas.

As to the Position in the Grave," though we "decline (says Dr. Browne, in his Urne-burial) "the religious Consideration, yet in cœmeterial and

narrower burying Places, to avoid Confusion "and cross Position, a certain Posture were to be "admitted. The Persians lay North and South; "the Megarians and Phoenicians placed their "Heads to the East;-the Athenians, some think, "towards the West, which Christians still retain ; "-and Bede will have it to be the Posture of our "Saviour."-(This judicious Observer proceeds) "That Christians buried their Dead on their Backs,

[ocr errors]

or in a supine Position, seems agreeable to pro"found Sleep, and the common Posture of dying; "contrary also to the most natural Way of Birth; "not unlike our pendulous Posture in the doubtful "State of the Womb.-Diogenes (he adds) was

[ocr errors]

singular, who preferred a prone Situation in the "Grave; and some Christians like neither, (Rus"sians, &c.) who decline the Figure of Rest, and "make Choice of an erect Posture."

There is a Passage in the Grave-diggers' Scene in Hamlet,

"Make her Grave straight,”

which Dr. Johnson has thus explained. "Make "her Grave from East to West, in a direct Line " parallel

parallel to the Church; not from North to South, "athwart the regular Line. This I think is meant." Johnson in loco.

Moresin* tells us, that in popish Burying Grounds, those who were reputed good Christians lay towards the South and East, others who had suffered capital Punishment, laid violent Hands on themselves, or the like, were buried towards the North; a Custom that had formerly been of frequent Use in Scotland.--One of the Grave-diggers supposes Ophelia to have drowned herself. This Quotation therefore seems to confirm the learned Annotator's Explication.

* -In Cœmeteriis pontificiis, boni, quos putant, ad austrum et Oriens, reliqui, qui aut supplicio affecti, aut sibi vim fecissent, et id genus ad Septentrionem sepeliantur, ut frequens olim Scotis fuit Mos. Moresini Deprav. Rel. Orig. & Increm. p. 157.

If Rain fell during the Funeral Procession, it was vulgarly considered as a Presage of the Happiness of the Deceased in the other World!" Happy (says the old Proverb) is the Bride the Sun shines "on, and the Corpse the Rain rains on.”

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

Of the Time of Cock-crow: Whether evil Spirits wander about in the Time of Night; and whether they fly away at the Time of Cock-crow. Reflections upon this, encouraging us to have Faith and Trust in God.

IT is a received Tradition among the Vulgar, That at the Time of Cock-crowing, the Midnight Spirits forsake these lower Regions, and go to their proper Places. They wander, say they, about the World, from the dead Hour of Night, when all Things are buried in Sleep and Darkness, till the Time of Cock-crowing, and then they depart. Hence it is, that in Country-Places, where the Way of Life requires more early Labour, they always go chearfully to Work at that Time; whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they are apt to imagine every thing they see or hear, to be a wandring Ghost. Shakespear hath given us an excellent Account of this vulgar Notion, in his Tragedy of Hamlet.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the Cock crew,
Hor. And then it started like a guilty Thing

Upon a dreadful Summons. I have heard,

The

« 前へ次へ »