greedily embraced at first, yet many of them are now sunk into oblivion, and probably more will soon follow their example. This much is certain, that the people of the present age have become, as it were, tired of new religions. They have made experiments, and they have cut their fingers. In other words, they have been misled, and they are determined to be on their guard for the future. ACCOUNT OF THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN, T HIS sort of people being the dregs and sink of tars. Our over-credulous ancestors vainly imagined all nations, our readers may wonder to see them that those Gypsies or Bohemians were so many spies placed among fanatics and enthusiasts: yet we are for the Turks, and that in order to expiate for the obliged to give an account of them, by reason of crimes which they had committed in their own their origin, which has some remarkable particulars country, they were condemned to steal from and rob in it. We give them the appellation of Bohemians, the Christians. A rare penance! We have perbut the Germans call the Zigenners, from which formed such another, though in a nobler and more the Italians name them Cingares. Borel informs us, heroical manner, by taking the cross, and making that Boem, in the old language of the Gauls, signi- war against those Infidels. But our opinion, that fies bewitched, which seems to agree with the no- the Bohemians come from the southern parts of Asia tion of common people, that they can foretel what and Africa, which our forefathers did not distinguish is to happen, discover hidden things, and are well from Egypt, before the way of going to the Eastversed in witchcraft. They go from place to place, Indies by the Cape of Good Hope was found out, having no fixed abode, as the ancient Germans did, is grounded on the testimony of one of the most and, in the north, the Druidesses, the Sybils, the ancient authors who wrote concerning them. He Voles and Fairies, so often mentioned by the Gauls. relates, "that in 1433, the Ciganes, who pretended Their first rise seems owing to the remains of the they were Egyptians, came into Germany;" and Druids, who were brought into so much contempt according to another writer cited by Pasquier, they by Christianity, that having lost all credit and power likewise came into France much about the same in the towns and cities, they were obliged to dwell time. The story is somewhat curious: "They in caves, and to wander about the country. Beg-were, says that author, by extraction, of the lower gars and vagrants are apt to associate together, which Egypt; and having abjured the Christian faith, were renders it probable, that others from Africa and Asia drove from their native country, became miserable, may have joined themselves to those Druids; for and an abomination to all mankind: the then eminstance, the Kaulits of Persia, who, like our Bo-peror rejected them also, as other Christian powers hemians, run about the country, live in other soli- had done, and told them they should go to the holy tary places, and have no religion or public worship, father at Rome. They went, confessed their sins, or rules, or any laws: They swarm over all Persia, and he enjoined them to go and travel about the and from thence spread southward to Arabia and world, doing penance, not lying in a bed, &c. This Egypt, northward to Tartary, and more distant pla- they performed for five years before they came to ces. Accordingly they are called Gypsies, upon the Paris; the chief of them arrived there on the sevensame account for which the Saxons call them Tar-teenth of August 1437, the rest on the day of the No. 37 10 F decollation decollation of St. John." The same writer says, that the ears of all of them were bored through, and had a ring, sometimes two, at each ear; their complexion was very black, and their hair frizzled; the women also very black and ugly, and their hair like a horse's tail. The habit of these women was of old coarse flax; some of them were witches, and looked into peoples hands to tell them their fortunes. In a word, these Egyptians, banished apostates, despised by all mankind, and condemned by the pope to a wandering life, bear a vast resemblance to our Bohemians. After all, the said author cited by Pasquier says, the pope did excommunicate them, and all those who had their fortunes told them, and that from Paris they went to Potoise, on Lady-day in September, 1428. We are inclined to trace the origin of the Bohemians still higher than those Egyptians, the ancient Druids, the Kaulits of Persia, or the Uxians of Armenia: Why may they not owe their rise to the Messalanians, wandering and dispersed in Thracia, Bulgaria, &c. who were mistaken for Sectaries and Heretics of divers kinds, under the name of Manichæans, and upon whom the compilers of Heretical catalogues have liberally bestowed a great number of odious appellations; by which, in process of time, they became more black and hateful to orthodox Christians, than the very devils in hell. The Messalians are supposed to have had their beginning under the reign of the emperor Constantius: They were but few at first, their number encreased gradually, and when they were taken notice of, as the writers of the fourth age charged them with the most of the Manichæan principles, they were reckoned amongst those Heretics. The first penal laws against Schismatics and Heretics were enacted at that time, and put in execution against the Messalians, who being prosecuted, from Pagans and Idolators, as they were thought to be rather than Christians, became most orthodox Christians out of fear or self-interest. As the Messalians are mentioned here only as bearing some resemblance to the Bohemians, we shall only relate what may evidence their conformity of sentiments and practice, They did not work, and lived by the alms which they received, to imitate the apostles whom Christ had forbid having any possession. This constant idleness, their voluntary poverty, their contempt of all the conveniences of life, and of all governinent, could not but lead them by degrees into a total neglect of discipline, and of all laws: This occasioned great crimes and disorders in their society; and among the sincere Messalians, many others crept in who minded nothing less than their prayers, They were therefore accused both of living together without observing any order, any rule, or even the most common decency, and of being true Cynics, who after wandering all day in the fields, met at night, and lay in the same place, without any regard to age, sex, &c. The orthodox moreover charged them with maintaining that we ought always to follow the dictates of nature, to eat, to drink, to ease one's self when it requires it, and that no fast is to be observed, but when necessary for the preservation or recovery of health. Besides all this, the orthodox of those days reproached them with their meetings and nocturnal feasts, in which the Pagans had heretofore taxed the Christians, and which have since been laid to the charge of other modern Heretics, to render them more odious to the Roman Catholics. We find in Italy, about the close of the thirteenth century, some Fraticelli, who were also called Bizoqui, that is, bigots or clownish, upon account of their unpolished way of life, or because they pretended to a greater and more refined devotion. The other name of Fratricelli, that is, little brothers,. either was given them because the first of them were monks, or rather it is the same as the name of Adelphian, which was bestowed upon the Messalians:: We shall soon see that there was some comformity of sentiments betwixt them: Their chief doctors were Pietro Maurato and Pietro di Foffombrone :: but an apostate monk from the convent of Pongilupi, was their ringleader; at least it is so reported. Be that as it will, these Fraticelli wandered about the country like the Messalians, to avoid the persecutions raised against them, upon account of their lewd life, and of the errors which they held, the necessary consequence whereof was their shocking disorderly behaviour. Both the Fraticelli and Messalians pretended that all goods ought to be in common, and condemned living by the work of ones hands. They denied all obedience to magistrates, allowed a plurality of wives, and those to be in common to which the Grecian and Italian orthodox added the heinous imputation of holding their meetings in the night, to be more at liberty to commit all sorts of crimes. We have informed our readers. that some ringleaders of the fanatical Baptists, and several of their followers, were guilty of those three capital errors: which may serve both as an indirect proof that the Fraticelli and Messalians probably. might not be accused without some grounds; and, by consequence, as a justification of the severities used against them. But, after all, it must be owned, that some particular persons might live and die in that that sect, without being acquainted with the bad principles of their evil tendency, as but too many do even amongst the orthodox; and though Heresies ought to be detested, certainly the inveterate hatred against the persons is highly to be avoided. But to return to our Messalians of Greece and of the East, and to our Italian Fraticelli: If there were amongst them so many professed libertines, as the historians and controvertists of those times mention, ignorance, joined to the persecutions raised against them, may have been the occasion of their actually putting in execution all the enormities of their false doctrine. A young person, for instance, commits a crime, and by that infamous action loses his reputation; he is despised, abandoned by every one; so out of despair runs head long into ruin and misery. This example needs no further comment. We must likewise take notice here, that both ancient and modern controvertists have often represented sects and heretical systems as more dangerous than they appear to have really been. Some may pretend to excuse this fault under colour of an unbounded zeal against Heresy: but zeal ought not to be bitter, or to destroy charity; and whilst a fiery and subtile controvertist inveighs too harshly against the venom of an erroneous opinion, he often does more mischief to public society, than the very person who had taken it up without much consideration, and probably might as easily have dropped it, if pride and shame had not, such is human frailty! prompted him to maintain it with obstinacy. This same false zeal has often made the said writers tax one and the said sect with maintaining inconsistent and evidently contradictory opinions; it cannot be denied that iniquity belies itself; scriptures says it, and we daily experience it. But that so many inconsistent propositions should so often be justly charged upon one and the same sect, is not very much to be credited. The authors of those imputations have been sensible of this defect in the accounts by them given; and instead of owning honestly their mistake, have invented new names of derision and contempt, to upbraid the sects which they had accused wrongfully of such palpable contradictions: Thus the Manichæans, the Messalians, &c. were called by a name which in Greek signifies a mixture of all sorts: Thus the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Luthereans and Calvinists, have been nicknamed, the sink and dregs of all prior Heretics. The name of Adelphians, bestowed on the Mesealians, was taken from Adelphius, one of their teachers: Flavian, patriarch of Antioch, having with great art enveighled him to discover the most secret articles of the doctrine which he held and taught, obtained that he should be banished from Syria. But to conclude our account of those sectaries; by wandering about, they in process of time went further and further, from the place of their origin. The persecutions they suffered, and ill treatment they received from the Catholics, and as we have said before, had as great a share in banishing them from citiesand great towns, and rendering them odious, as their erroneous opinions and wicked life. As they spread, so did their doctrine; and it is highly probable, that in Europe as well as in Asia, they meet many libertines who gladly associated themselves with them, upon account of the idle and lazy life, so much recommended by that sect. Tares soon grow amongst the good corn, and the common people, who are apt to form their judgment not from particular instances but general conclusions, easily mistook the good corn for tares. Thus they settled in Greece, in Thracia, Bulgaria, Transilvania, Hungary, and at last in Bohemia. In all the countries where the Sclavonian language is understood, the Messalians took, or their enemies in derision, gave them, the: naine of Bogomiles. Their abode in Bulgaria and the neighbouring countries, has rendered the word Bulgare odious throughout Europe, chiefly in France and Italy. It may likewise be presumed, that they went from: Bulgaria and Hungary into Bohemia, at a time when the Bohemians began to rebel against the church, and upon that account the orthodox took the Bohemians to be the same as the Bogomiles or Messalians. This being also a critical time for the church of Christ, and many beggars and miserable wretches taking part in these divisions, all were blended under the same denomination. Thus at last the name of Bohemians is universally given to vagrants and runaways, whoh ave no settled notions, laws or religion, who in well-governed kingdoms are banished from. all cities or towns, and dwell in caves and solitary places, and live only by begging or stealing, If the romantic stories, mentioned in the public gazettesconcerning some of those Bohemians, who within a few years have made inroads through high and low Germany, were of any authority or to be credited, the proofs of courage which they are said to give, must appear very singular and strange. HISTORY HISTORY OF THE BRETHREN OF THE ROSY-CROSS. HIS society took its rise in Germany. About the year 1394, a young man, who from five years old had been brought up in a convent, became acquainted at the age of sixteen with some magicians, learned their art, travelled into the East as far as Arabia, where the doctors of that country taught him wonderful secrets, and foretold him he should be the author of a general reformation. From Arabia he went into Barbary, and from thence to Spain, where he frequented the Moors and Jews who were versed in the Cabala. He there pretended to begin his reformation; but being banished from Spain, he came back into his native country Germany, and died in the year 1484, being one hundred and six years old. His body was not buried, but only deposited in a grotto. Fate or some oracle had ordered that the corps should remain in that state one hundred and twenty years; in consequence of which decree, it was not found out till 1604. A German chronicle of the Rosicrusians relates this discovery as follows: A Rosicrusian being probably more cunning then his brethren, took notice of a stone with a nail in it. He took out the stone, and found the grotto in which was deposited the body of their founder, with this inscription," At the end of one hundred and twenty years I shall be manifested." Over the monument, after these four letters A. C. R. C. these words were written, "In my life-time I have chosen this compendium of the world for my tomb," and several hieroglyphical figures about them. The body held in its hand a book in gold letters, which contained the praises of the founder, and gave an account of the vast treasures he had found, and of his dying without sickness or pain when aged above an hundred. This discovery occasioned the establishment of the Brethren of the Rosy-Cross; and in 1615, a German printed and published their apology and profession of faith. At first the number of the Brethren was four only, then eight; but it increased very much afterwards. They were to remain in a state of celibacy, and to make themselves known to the world by no other pame than the Enlightened of the Rosy-Cross. Their laws and rules forbade them to receive any reward for practising physic, and ordered them to do it out of charity; to do good to all mankind; to apply themselves to wisdom and piety: to reform the religious worship, by retrenching all superfluous ceremonies; to maintain steadily all the principles of the confraternity, which was to subsist to the end of the world. Their chief customs and opinions were, to dress according to the fashion of the country in which they lived; to be present at least once a year at their meetings, or to give a good reason for absenting; to wear constantly the character or impression of the Rosy-Cross, as a token of the brotherhood; to look upon themselves as appointed to reform all things, and as having the whole and sole right to all the gifts of nature, upon that account. They were to delare openly, that the pope was Antichrist, and that a time would come when they should pull down his triple crown. They rejected and condemned the doctrines of the pope and of mahomet, calling the one and the other blasphemies of the East and West: they owned but two sacraments, and admitted only the ceremonies of the primitive church. They called their society the confraternity of the Holy Ghost. They pretended to a right of naming their successor, and bequeathing to them all their privileges and virtues, as being their representatives; to know by revelation those who were worthy to be admitted as members of their society; to keep the devil in a state of subjection, and to discover hidden treasures. They moreover said, that their confraternity could not be destroyed, because God always opposed an impenetrable cloud to screen them from their enemies. Neither hunger, thirst, sickness, or any other infirmity, could hurt them; if any brother died, his burying-place and their assemblies were to be kept secret for one hundred and twenty years. They believed as a fundamental article of their faith, that if the sect failed, it might be renewed at the founder's monument or tomb. They bragged of having invented a new language, by which they could describe the nature of every being; yet they did not make use of speeches or parables; they avoided being thought the tered with quacks and fools. the inventors of novelties, and the account they gave | fooleries. So the world is like to be for ever pesof their wonderful performances, was not to be deemed either imprudent, foolish, malicious, or deceitful. But their bare word must be taken, and these enlightened brethren very much resemble quacks and Alchymists in this point, as they did in their jargons and their boasted mysterious sciences: Accordingly they were all instructed, and had their education in Arabian or German schools. Moreover, the Rosicrusians said, that another sun which borrowed its light from the sun of this world, enlightened the grotto in which their founder was deposited, and served to discover all the wonders of the said grotto, some of which were engraved on a copper-plate placed upon an altar: where, for instance, four figures are to be seen, with these four inscriptions, "Never empty, The yoke of the law, The liberty of the gospel, The glory of God." We shall not omit other strange things, which deserve and require the learned comments of some Alchymists or visionary cabalists; several of which have promised, as the bret ren of the Rosy-Cross, to repair the breaches and defects of the world; as if nature was subject to decay, or the divine providence, by which it is governed, could possibly be so far weakened, as to suffer its own work to be destroyed. They likewise flatter themselves that they shall be able to restore the primitive strength of constitution, and innocency of live in mankind; plenty and community of goods, the universal knowledge of the sciences, and the general agreement of all nations, in an unity of the gospel, in unity of religion, and holiness of life. Morhof mentions a diminutive sect, or a small swarm of the Rosicrusians, to which he gives the name of Collegium Rosianum, or society of Rosay, who was a visionary fanatic, and endeavoured to settle that confraternity in Savoy, near Dauphine about the year 1630. Their number was not to exceed three; one Mornius tried all possible ways of being admitted for a fourth, but was rejected, and could only obtain the favour of being reckoned as a servant. This small society was entrusted with three important secrets, perpetual motion; the art of changing metals; and an universal physic. What can be thought of such a society, which is supposed perfect in itself, adorned with universal knowledge, possessed of all wordly treasures, exempt from all human infirmities; yet no more seen than if it had been composed of pure spirits: all we can say is, that it bears a great resemblance to, and deserves to be ranked among fairy-tales. We must own nevertheless, that the common people are delighted, and love to entertain themselves with such No. 37.. The Rosicrusians were much talked of in France in the first fifteen or twenty years of the last age, and several who pretended to be of that society, were cast into prison. The foolish credulity of the people was raised by the following bill posted up in all public places; We who are deputies from the Rosicrusians, and dwell visibly or invisibly in this town, by the grace of the most High-shew and teach, without books or notes, to speak all the languages of the country where we please to live, to deliver our fellow-creatures from deadly error." In 1613, a Rosicrusian of Barbary, named Muley-Ibu-Hamet, with a handful of inen, having overcome the king of Fez and Morocco, was, they said, to conquer Spain. Some pretended Enlightened Brethren appeared then in Spain, but were soon quelled by the Inquisition. Much about that time, the pretended Enlightened i Brethren, before mentioned, occasioned some tu-mults in Spain, as the Rosicrusians had done; and. we must not omit giving our readers some account of them. The singularity of their notions, some points in which they either did, or other people. were resolved to believe they did agree with the Rosicrusians, made them be esteemed one and the same sect. Neither shall we pretend to multiply parties and divisions, but rank these Enlightened i Brethren amongst the most dangerous kind of contemplative men, and the most wicked Quietists; if what is reported of them be true, that they believed that when the mind is wholly absorbed in prayer, and intimately united to God, it does not become guilty of any of the crimes committed in that state by the body. They moreover held, that the sacraments were useless, &c. that all good works were supplied by raising the heart to God. The Inquisition taxed them with maintaining seventy-six erroneous opinions; and this is not to be wondered at, since that tribunal is known to be very nice, and to require an extraordinary exactness in religious matters. These enlightened Brethren made their appearance about the end of the sixteenth age: but the Inquisition put an early stop to the progress of their fanaticism. They shewed themselves again in the neighbourhood of Seville, in the beginning of the seventeenth age, at which period of time they were esteemed to be Rosicrusians. The Low Countries, and Picardy, produced like- wise, about 1525, some such enlightened Brethren as those of Spain. A taylor named Quintin, and one Copin of much the same trade, were the ringleaders of the enlightened Flemish men; for in those : 10.G days, |