564 
ROSICRUCXANS. 
authority of the legislation to enforce obedience in matters of religion 
by severe sanctions. 
A sudden stop, however, was soon put to these disgraceful pro- 
ceedings, by royal prorogation ; and from that period the convoca- 
tion has never been convened, but as a matter of mere form, and for 
the purpose of being again prorogued. The controversy which then 
commenced was carried on for several years with great abilitv and ani- 
mation on. the part of the bishoj>, and by various excellent pens— 
though opposed by men whose learning and talents gave an artificial 
lustre to bigotry and absurdity. No controversy, upon the whole, 
ever more fully and completely answered the purpose intended by it. 
The obscurity in which this subject had been long involved, was dis- 
sipated ; the public mind was enlightened and convinced ; church 
authority (the chimera vormiting fianies) w'as destroyed; and the name 
of Hoadley will be transmitted from generation to generation with 
increase of honour, of esteem, and grateful veneration. 
Rosicruciaxs. 
This name was assumed by a sect or cabal of hermetical philoso- 
phers, who arose, or w'ere at least first taken notice of, jn Germany', 
in the beginning of the fourteenth century. They bound themselves 
together by a solemn secret, which they all swore inviolably to pre- 
serve ; and obliged themselves, at their admission into the order, to a 
strict observance of several of the established rules. They pretended 
to know all sciences, and chiefiy medicine,; whereof they published 
themselves the restorers. They pretended to be masters of many 
important secrets, and, among others, of the philosopher’s stone ; all 
which they affirmed to have received by tradition from the ancient 
Egyptians, Chaldeans, the Magi, and Gymnosophists. — They have been 
distinguished by several names, from the several branches of their doc- 
trine. Because they pretend to protract the period of human life by 
means of certain nostrums, and even to restore youth, they w'ere 
called Immortales ; as they pretended to know all things, they have* 
been called Illuminati ; and because they have made no appearance 
for several years, they have been called the Invisible Brothers. Their 
society is often signed by letters F. R. C. which some of them inter- 
pret, Fratres Roris Cocti ; it being pretended, that the matter of the 
philosopher’s stone is dew concocted, exhaled, &c. Some make the 
present flourishing society of Freemasons, a branch of Rosicrucians, 
or rather the Rosicrucians themselves, under a new name, frame, or 
relation, viz. as retainers to building. It is certain there are some 
Freemasons who have all the characters of Rosicrucians ; but the sera 
and original of masonry and that of Rosicrucianisra, here fixed from 
Vaudjeus, who has w ritten expressly on the subject, are not consistent. 
The denomination appears to be derived from chemistry. 
It is not compounded, says Mosheim, as many imagine, of thew^ords 
rosa and cruXy rose and cross, but of ros, dew, and crux. Of all 
natural bodies, dew was deemed the most powerful solvent of gold ; 
and the cross, in the chemical language, is equivalent to light, because 
the figure of a cross exhibits at the same time three letters, of which 
