minds of his hearers were not fitted for receiving these doctrines. I told you, says he, but you could not bear it. Many therefore were called, but few were chosen. To this elect were entrusted the most important secrets; and even among them there were degrees of information. There was a seventy, and a twelve. All this was in the natural order of things, and according to the habits of the Jews, and indeed of all antiquity. The Jewish Theosophy was a mystery; like the Eleusinian, or the Pythagorean, unfit for the vulgar. And thus the doctrines of Christianity were committed to the Adepti, in a Disciplina Arcani. By these they were maintained like the Vestal Fire.—They were kept up only in hidden societies, who handed them down to posterity; and they are now possessed by the genuine Free Masons."
N. B. This explains the origin of many anonymous pamphlets which appeared about this time in Germany, showing that Free Masonry was Christianity.—They have doubtless been the works of Spartacus and his partisans among the Eclectic Masons. Nicholai, the great apostle of infidelity, had given very favourable reviews of these performances, and having always shewn himself an advocate of such writers as depreciated Christianity, it was natural for him to take this opportunity of bringing it still lower in the opinion of the people. Spartacus therefore conceived a high opinion of the importance of gaining Nicholai to the Order. He had before this gained Leuchtsenring, a hot-headed fanatic, who had spied Jesuits in every corner, and set Nicholai on his journey through Germany, to hunt them out. This man finding them equally hated by the Illuminati, was easily gained, and was most zealous in their cause. He engaged Nicholai, and Spartacus exults exceedingly in the acquisition, saying, "that he was an unwearied champion, et quidem contentissimus." Of this man Philo says, "that he had spread this Christianity