CHAP. VII.

Of Church-Yards; why the Vulgar are generally afraid of passing through them at Night: The Original of this Fear: That there is nothing in them now, more than in other Places to be afraid of.

THE most of ignorant People are afraid of going through a Church-Yard at Nighttime. If they are obliged upon some hasty and urgent Affair, they fear and tremble, till they are beyond its Bounds, but they generally avoid it, and go further about. It would, no Question, be better if there were fewer Path-ways through Church-Yards than there are, both as it would prevent several Abuses committed in them, and also cause the Ashes of the Dead to be in greater Quiet, and more undisturbed Peace: We should not then see. Church-Yards changed into common Dunghills, nor should we tread so frequently upon the Bones of our Friends: But when for the Conveniency of Neighbourhood, or other Reasons, there are allowed public Ways, it is a G 2

very

very great Weakness to be afraid of passing through them.

The Reason of this Fear is, a Notion they have imbib'd, that in Church-Yards there is a frequent walking of Spirits at the Dead-time of Night. Indeed there is at that Time something awful and horrible every where, and it must be confess'd something more solemn in a Church-Yard, than in the Generality of other Places; but that it is then more frequented with Apparitions and Ghosts than other Places are, is at this Time of Day entirely groundless, and without any Reason.

The Original of this Timorousness may be deduc'd from the Heathens: For they believed that the departed Ghosts came out of their Tombs and Sepulchres, and wander'd about the Place where the Body lay buried. Thus * Virgil tells us, that Maris could call the Ghosts out of their Sepulchres: And † Ovid, that Ghosts came out of the Sepulchres, and wandered about: And Clemens Alexandrinus, in his Admonitions to the Gentiles, upbraids them with the Gods they worshipped; which,

* Mærin sæpe animas imis excire sepulchris,

-Vidi- Bucol. 8. Virg.

Nunc animæ tenues.-Sepulchris.-Errant.-Ovid. Fast.

says

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* says he, are wont to appear at Tombs and Sepulchres, and which are nothing but fading Spectres and airy Forms. And the learned Mr. Mede observes, from a Passage of this same ancient Father, † "That the Heathens supposed the Presence and Power of Damons (for so the Greeks called the Souls of Men departed) at their Coffins and Sepulchres; "as tho' there always remain'd some natural Tye between the Deceased and their Relicts." Agreeable to this, Dr. Scot, in his Discourse of the Christian Life, speaks of

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gross and sensual Souls, who appeared often, "after their Separation, in Church-Yards or "Charnel-Houses, where their Bodies were laid,

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The Soul that is infected with a great Lust "to the Body, continues so, for a great while after Death, and suffering many Reluctances, "hovers about this visible Place, and is hardly drawn from thence by Force; by the Dæmon "that hath the Guard and Care of it. By the "visible Place, he means § their Monuments "and Sepulchres, where the shadowy Fantasms, "of such Souls, have sometimes appeared."

* Poos oun, &c. Admonit. ad Gent. P. 37.

† Mede, Lib. 3. P. 633, de Cultu Dæmon. Scot. Christ. Life, P. 71, Part 1.

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It having therefore been a current Opinion of the Heathens, that Places of Burial and Church-Yards were frequently haunted with Spectres and Apparitions, it is easy to imagine, that the Opinion had been handed from them, among the Ignorant and unlearned, throughout all the Ages of Christianity to the present Day. And indeed, tho' now there may be no such Things, yet that there have been, need not be disputed; not that they were the real Souls of Men ́departed: For I cannot see for what Reason it should be supposed, “(* howδε ever unacquainted such Souls might be with "the Pleasures of Spirits) that they are permit"ted to wander, to hover about, and linger after “their Bodies." It seems rather to be true, what is mentioned of such Apparitions in St. Athanasius's Questions to Antiochius, that +these Apparitions of the Saints which appear at Tombs and Temples, are not the Souls of the Saints themselves, but the good Angels appearing in their Likeness. And I imagine it must be so too, with the Souls of bad Men, they appear not themselves, but they are represented by the evil Angels. For the Souļ upon the Departure, returns to GOD that

Scot. Christ. ibid.

+ Athan. Tom. 2. P. 310.

gave it, who allots it its Station in the World of Spirits, where it is kept till the Day of Judgment in Happiness or Misery, when it shall receive its Completion of the one, or the other. However, whatever these Apparitions were, they are a certain Proof, that such Appearances have been in such Places; and indeed, to add no more, it is the whole Voice of Antiquity.

But now with us, GOD be thanked, the Scene is changed, we live not in the Darkness of Errour, but in the Light of Truth; we worship not Damons, but the GOD of the whole Earth; and our Temples are not the Temples of Idols, but the Temples of the Holy GOD. If among the Heathens such Delusions were permitted, it was because GOD had forsaken them: But when he vouchsafes to have his Residence in his Holy Temple, we are the further from Harm, the nearer we approach it; * There the Sparrow hath found her an House, and the Swallow a Nest, where she may lay her Young; and there shall no harm happen to good Men, but they shall be rather protected, because they are so near their Father's House, the House of Prayer.