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were handsomely contempered by a mixture of the fresh Element.

Many have taken voluminous pains to determine the state of the soul upon disunion; but men have been most phantasticall in the singular contrivances of their corporall dissolution: whilst the sobrest Nations have rested in two wayes, of simple inhumation and burning.

That carnall interment or burying was of the elder date, the old examples of Abraham and the Patriarchs are sufficient to illustrate; And were without competition, if it could be made out, that Adam was buried near Damascus, or Mount Calvary, according to some Tradition. God himself, that buried but one, was pleased to make choice of this way, collectible from Scripture-expression, and the hot contest between Satan and the Arch-Angel, about discovering the body of Moses. But the practice of Burning was also of great Antiquity, and of no slender extent. For (not to derive the same from Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian Funerals of Homer, in the formall Obsequies of Patroclus, and Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban warre, and solemn combustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the Eighth Judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the Trojans, from the Funerall Pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy, And the burning of Penthesilea,1 the Amazonean Queen: and long continuance of that practice, in the inward Countries of Asia; while as low as the Reign of Julian, we find that the King of Chionia2 burnt the body of his Son, and interred the ashes in a silver Urne.

The same practice extended also farre West, and besides Herulians, Getes, and Thracians, was in use with most of the Celta, Sarmatians, Germans, Gauls, Danes,

1 Q. Calaber. lib. i.

2 Gumbrates king of Chionia a Countrey near Persia.— Ammianus Marcellinus.

Arnold. Montan. not. in Cæs. Commentar. L. L. Gyraldus Kirkmannus.

Swedes, Norwegians; not to omit some use thereof among Carthaginians and Americans: Of greater Antiquity among the Romans then most opinion, or Pliny seems to allow. For (beside the old Table Laws of burning or burying within the City,1 of making the Funerall fire with plained wood, or quenching the fire with wine.) Manlius the Consul burnt the body of his Son: Numa by special clause of his Will, was not burnt but buried; and Remus was solemnly buried, according to the description of Ovid.2

Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose body was burned in Rome, but of the Cornelian family; which, being indifferently, not frequently used before; from that time spread, and became the prevalent practice. Not totally pursued in the highest runne of Cremation; For when even Crows were funerally burnt, Poppaa the wife of Nero found a peculiar grave enterment. Now as all customes were founded upon some bottome of Reason, so there wanted not grounds for this; according to severall apprehensions of the most rationall dissolution. Some being of the opinion of Thales, that water was the originall of all things, thought it most equall to submit unto the principle of putrefaction, and conclude in a moist relentment. Others conceived it most natural to end in fire, as due unto the master principle in the composition, according to the doctrine of Heraclitus. And therefore heaped up large piles, more actively to waft them toward that Element, whereby they also declined a visible degeneration into worms, and left a lasting parcell of their composition.

Some apprehended a purifying virtue in fire, refining the grosser commixture, and firing out the Æthereall particles so deeply immersed in it. And such as by tradition or rationall conjecture held any hint of the

1 12 Tabul. part i. de jure sacro.

Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito, neve urito, tom. 2. Rogum asciâ ne polito, to. 4. Item vigeneri Annotat. in Livium, et Alex ab Alex cum Tiraquello. Roscinus cum dempstero.

2 Ultimo prolato subdita flamma rogo. Car. Neapol. Anaptyxi.

De Fast. lib. iv. cum

G

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 Egyptians 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 accordingly.-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 Ægypt, 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 total destruction in this kinde of death, which happened to Ajax Oileus.1

The old Balearians 2 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.*

The Musselman beleevers will never admit this fiery

1 Which Magius reades εξαπόλωλε.

2 Diodorus Siculus.

8 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 Mausoleums 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.

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