finall pyre of all things; or that this Element at last must be too hard for all the rest; might conceive most naturally of the fiery dissolution. Others pretending no natural grounds, politickly declined the malice of enemies upon their buried bodies. Which consideration led Sylla unto this practise; who having thus served the body of Marius, could not but fear a retaliation upon his own; entertained after in the Civill wars, and revengeful contentions of Rome.

But as many Nations embraced, and many left it indifferent, so others too much affected, or strictly declined this practice. The Indian Brachmans seemed too great friends unto fire, who burnt themselves alive, and thought it the noblest way to end their dayes in fire; according to the expression of the Indian, burning himself at Athens,1 in his last words upon the pyre unto the amazed spectators, Thus I make my-selfe immortall.

But the Chaldeans, the great Idolaters of fire, abhorred the burning of their carcasses, as a pollution of that Deity. The Persian magi declined it upon the like scruple, and being only solicitous about their bones, exposed their flesh to the prey of Birds and Dogges. And the Persees now in India, which expose their bodies unto Vultures, and endure not so much as feretra or Beers of Wood, the proper fuell of fire, are led on with such niceties. But whether the ancient Germans, who burned their dead, held any such fear to pollute their Deity of Herthus, or the earth, we have no Authentick conjecture.

The Ægyptians were afraid of fire, not as a Deity, but a devouring Element, mercilessly consuming their bodies, and leaving too little of them; and therefore by precious Embalments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome inclosure in glasses, contrived the notablest wayes of integrall conservation. And from such Ægyptian scruples imbibed by Pythagoras, it may be conjectured that Numa and the Pythagoricall Sect first waved the fiery solution.

1 And therefore the Inscription of his Tomb was made accord. ingly.-Nic. Damasc.

The Scythians who swore by winde and sword, that is, by life and death, were so farre from burning their bodies, that they declined all interrment, and made their graves in the ayr: and the Ichthyophagi or fisheating Nations about Egypt, affected the Sea for their grave: Thereby declining visible corruption, and restoring the debt of their bodies. Whereas the old Heroes in Homer, dreaded nothing more than water or drowning; probably upon the old opinion of the fiery substance of the soul, only extinguishable by that Element; And therefore the Poet emphatically implieth the totall destruction in this kinde of death, which happened to Ajax Oileus.1

The old Balearians2 had a peculiar mode, for they used great Urnes and much wood, but no fire in their burials, while they bruised the flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them into Urnes, and laid heapes of wood upon them. And the Chinois3 without cremation or urnall interrment of their bodies, make use of trees and much burning, while they plant a Pine-tree by their grave, and burn great numbers of printed draughts of slaves and horses over it, civilly content with their companies in effigie which barbarous Nations exact unto reality.

Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, and though they stickt not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, detested that mode after death; affecting rather a depositure than absumption, and properly submitting unto the sentence of God, to return not unto ashes but unto dust againe, conformable unto the practice of the Patriarchs, the interrment of our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient Martyrs. And so farre at last declining promiscuous interrment with Pagans, that some have suffered Ecclesiastical censures for making no scruple thereof.4

The Musselman beleevers will never admit this fiery

1 Which Magius reades εξαπόλωλε.

2 Diodorus Siculus.

* Ramusius in Navigat.

• Martialis the Bishop. Cyprian.

resolution. For they hold a present trial from their black and white Angels in the grave; which they must have made so hollow, that they may rise upon their knees.

The Jewish Nation, though they entertained the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes admitted this practice. For the men of Jabesh burnt the body of Saul. And by no prohibited practice to avoid contagion or pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends.1 And when they burnt not their dead bodies, yet sometimes used great burnings neare and about them, deducible from the expressions concerning Jehoram, Sedechias, and the sumptuous pyre of Asa: And were so little averse from Pagan burning, that the Jews lamenting the death of Casar their friend, and revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his body was burnt for many nights together.2 And as they raised noble Monuments and Mausolæums for their own Nation, so they were not scrupulous in erecting some for others, according to the practice of Daniel, who left that lasting sepulchrall pyle in Echbatana, for the Medean and Persian Kings.*

But even in times of subjection and hottest use, they conformed not unto the Romane practice of burning; whereby the Prophecy was secured concerning the body of Christ, that it should not see corruption, or a bone should not be broken; which we beleeve was also providentially prevented, from the Souldier's spear and nails that past by the little bones both in his hands and feet: Not of ordinary contrivance, that it should not corrupt on the Crosse, according to the Laws of Romane crucifixion, or an hair of his head perish, though observable in Jewish customes, to cut the hairs of Malefactors.

1 Amos vi. 10.

2 Sueton. in vita Jul. Cæs.

3 As that magnificent sepulchral Monument erected by Simon, Mach. i. 13.

+ Κατασκεύασμα θαυμασίως πεποιημένον, whereof a Jewish Priest had alwayes the custody, unto Josephus his dayes.-Jos. Antiq. lib. x.

Nor in their long co-habitation with Egyptians, crept into a custome of their exact embalming, wherein deeply slashing the muscles, and taking out the brains and entrails, they had broken the subject of so entire a Resurrection, nor fully answered the types of Enoch, Elijah, or Jonah, which yet to prevent or restore, was of equall facility unto that rising power, able to break the fasciations and bands of death, to get clear out of the Cerecloth, and an hundred pounds of oyntment, and out of the Sepulchre before the stone was rolled from it.

But though they embraced not this practice of burning, yet entertained they many ceremonies agreeable unto Greeke and Romane obsequies. And he that observeth their funerall Feasts, their Lamentations at the grave, their musick and weeping mourners; how they closed the eyes of their friends, how they washed, anointed, and kissed the dead; may easily conclude these were not meere Pagan-Civilities. But whether that mournfull burthen, and treble calling out after Absalom, had any reference unto the last conclamation, and triple valediction, used by other Nations, we hold but a wavering conjecture.

Civilians make sepulture but of the Law of Nations, others doe naturally found it and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick skinned as still to credit the story of the Phenix, may say something for animall burning: More serious conjectures finde some examples of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepulchrall Cells of Pismires, and practice of Bees; which civill society carrieth out their dead, and hath exequies, if not interrments.

CHAPTER II

THE Solemnities, Ceremonies, Rites of their Cremation or enterrment, so solemnly delivered by Authours, we shall not disparage our Reader to repeat. Only the last and lasting part in their Urns, collected bones and Ashes, we cannot wholly omit or decline that

Subject, which occasion lately presented, in some discovered among us.

In a Field of old Walsingham, not many moneths past, were digged up between fourty and fifty Urnes, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor farre from one another: Not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described: some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jawes, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion. Besides the extraneous substances, like peeces of small boxes, or combes handsomely wrought, handles of small brasse instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kinde of Opale.1

Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compasse, were digged up coals and incinerated substances, which begat conjecture that this was the Ustrina or place of burning their bodies, or some sacrificing place unto the Manes, which was properly below the surface of the ground, as the Ara and Altars unto the gods and Heroes above it.

That these were the urnes of Romanes from the common custome and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture, not farre from a Romane Garrison, and but five Miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient Record under the name of Brannodunum. And where the adjoyning Towne, containing seven Parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon Termination, still retains the name of Burnham, which being an early station, it is not improbable the neighbour parts were filled with habitations, either of Romanes themselves, or Brittains Romanised, which observed the Romane customs.

Nor is it improbable, that the Romanes early possessed this Countrey; for though we meet not with such strict particulars of these parts before the new Institution of Constantine, and military charge of the Count of the Saxon shore, and that about the Saxon Invasions, the Dalmatian Horsemen were in the Garri

1 In one sent me by my worthy friend, Dr. Thomas Witherley of Walsingham.

1