shadow forth her impudent, bestial, and abominable actions, which in those detestable mysteries were solemnized and commemorated; and, that whosoever declared or pronounced these words, had an immediate admission to those secret and reserved villanies, as they justly deserve to be termed.

There are yet several other synibols mentioned both by Arnobius, and Clemens Alexandrinus; which to prevent too great a length, I shall omit, and confine myself to some mentioned by Julius Firmicus Maternus, who, in his most excellent discourse concerning the error of profane religions, after he hath shewn the brutishness, stupidity, and folly of the heathens, in worshipping such filthy, vil. lainous, and barbarous deities, and in rendering to them such cruel, unclean and abominable services, as they did, proceeds to speak particu larly to the symbols, or marks used amongst the more devout and zealous adorerers of those black and murtherous Gods; the first whereof is "one used in a certain temple, that when a dying man was desirous to be admitted into the innermost parts thereof,he was to repeat this obscure and dark sentence, I have eaten of a taber, I have drunk of acymbal, I have learned the secrets of religion;" which symbol is also mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus,& with a small difference thus recorded by him, "I have eaten

of a taber, I have drunk of a cymbal, I have danced with a cup in mine hand, I have en. tered into the narriage bed. Which said father sufficiently intimates to us, that this symbol was used in the famous services of the Phry gians to Cybele the mother of the gods; the words and expressions whereof have a rela tion to the taber and cymbal which she invented, to the mad and brutish way of her wor shippers adoring of her, and to those abominable and horrid deeds, which in those diabolical rites they celebrated and admired.

The symbol used by the more devout and secret votaries of Mithras, the great and renowned god of the Persians, was Theos et Petras god of a rock, which was taken from the manner of the generation, or production of the said god, which as Jastin Martyr, and Jerom do both assure us, the Pagan Mythologists fancied to have been by the alone heat of lust from a stone or rock.

The symbol employed in the Orgia, or revels of Bacchus, was ELILIKERES, DIMORPHEI, or rather HELIXOKERES, DIMORPHE, having crooked horns, double faced; because, under such representations, that drunken god was worshipped and adored,

Lastly, That I may not mention any more, the said Julius Firmicus Maternus acquaints us with this following symbol of some idola. tors," that on a certain night they placed an image upright in a bed, and then wept round about it; which when they had sufficiently done, a light was brought in: and then the priest anointed the cheeks of all those who had lamented, pronouncing with a soft murmur these words; "Be confident, ye initiated ones of the saved God, for there shall be salvation unto us from our labours.'

I might yet produce several other examples of the same kind; but those already alledged, do sufficiently declare the nature of the Pagan symbols, that they were secret marks, words, or tokens, communicated at the time of initiation, or a little before, unto those who were consecrated, or entered in their reserved or hidden rites, and to none else; by the declaration, manifestation', or pronunciation whereof, those more devout idolaters knew each other, and were with all freedom and liberty of access admitted to their nocturnal and more intimate mysteries and villanies, from whence all others as profane and unworthy, were kept out, and excluded; which said symbols, those who had received them, were obliged

carefully to conceal, and not on any account whatsoever to divulge or reveal.

Now, for all these reasons, the apostles creed was by our ancestors very fitly termed a symbol, because it was studiously, concealed from the Pagan world, and not revealed to the Catechumens themselves, till just before their baptism, or initiation into the christian mysteries, when it was delivered unto them, as that secret note, mark, or token, by which the faithful in all parts of the world should interchangably know and be known.

That the creed was carefully preserved from the knowledge of the profane, is a thing a bundantly asserted by the primitive writers; St. Cyprian assures us hereof, that "the sacrament of faith, that is the creed, was not to be profaned, or divulged: for which he cites two texts of scripture; the one, Proverbs xxiii. 9. Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words; and the other, Matthew vii. 6. give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rent you. St. Ambrose most pathetically exhorts to the utmost vigilancy to conceal the christian mys

teries, and in particular, to be very "careful not by incautelousness to reveal the secrets of the creed or the Lord's prayer;" and in seve eral of the sermons of Petrus Chrysologus, there are frequent and earnest exhortations to preserve and hide the creed from public knowledge and observation, that the unwor thy and profane might not have this secret of God with them: nay, so exact and punctual were they in this regard, that the creed was not declared to the Catechumens themselves, till they were advanced to the higher form of that order; and being ripe and fit for baptism, were speedily by that ordinance to commence perfect members of the visible church of which custom St. Ambrose speaks, where he writes, that on a Lord's day, the lessons and şermons being ended, and the Catechumens of the lower rank dismissed, that then in the baptistery of the church, he delivered the symbol to some of the competentes," who were the superior rank of the Catechumens: Consonant unto which, it is related by Ferrandus Diaconus concerning a converted negro, " that first of all, according to custom, he was a Catechumen; and then after some time, as the feast of Easter drew nigh, (which was their solemn time of baptism) he was advanced to the rank of the competentes;" where, amongst