CHAPTER IV

Christians have handsomely glossed the deformity of death, by careful consideration of the body, and civil rites which take off brutal terminations. And though they conceived all reparable by a resurrection, cast not off all care of enterrment. And since the ashes of Sacrifices burnt upon the Altar of God, were carefully carried out by the Priests, and deposed in a clean field; since they acknowledged their bodies to be the lodging of Christ, and temples of the holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon the sufficiency of soul existence; and therefore with long services and full solemnities concluded their last Exequies, wherein[80] to all distinctions the Greek devotion seems most pathetically ceremonious.

[80] Rituale Græcum opera J. Goar in officio exequiarum.

Christian invention hath chiefly driven at Rites, which speak hopes of another life, and hints of a Resurrection. And if the ancient Gentiles held not the immortality of their better part, and some subsistence after death; in several rites, customes, actions and expressions, they contradicted their own opinions: wherein _Democritus_ went high, even to the thought of a resurrection,[81] as scoffingly recorded by _Pliny_. What can be more express than the expression of _Phocyllides_?[82] Or who would expect from _Lucretius_[83] a sentence of _Ecclesiastes_? Before _Plato_ could speak, the soul had wings in _Homer_, which fell not, but flew out of the body into the mansions of the dead; who also observed that handsome distinction of _Demas_ and _Soma_, for the body conjoyned to the soul and body separated from it. _Lucian_ spoke much truth in jest, when he said, that part of _Hercules_ which proceeded from _Alchmena_ perished, that from _Jupiter_ remained immortal. Thus _Socrates_[84] was content that his friends should bury his body, so they would not think they buried _Socrates_, and regarding only his immortal part, was indifferent to be burnt or buried. From such Considerations _Diogenes_ might contemn Sepulture. And being satisfied that the soul could not perish, grow careless of corporal enterrment. The _Stoicks_ who thought the souls of wise men had their habitation about the _Moon_, might make slight account of subterraneous deposition; whereas the _Pythagorians_ and transcorporating Philosophers, who were to be often buried, held great care of their enterrment. And the Platonicks rejected not a due care of the grave, though they put their ashes to unreasonable expectations, in their tedious term of return and long set revolution.

[81] Similis reviviscendi promissa Democrito vanitas, qui non revixit ipse. Quæ, malùm, ista dementia est; iterari vitam morte. _Plin. l. 7 c. 55._

[82] +Kai tacha d'ek gaiês elpizomen hes phaos elthein leipsan apoichomenôn.+

[83] Cedit enim retro de terra quod fuit ante In terram, _etc._ _Lucret._

[84] Plato _in_ Phæd.

Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their Religion, wherein stones and clouts make Martyrs; and since the Religion of one seems madness unto another, to afford an account or rational of old Rites, requires no rigid Reader; That they kindled the pyre aversly, or turning their face from it, was an handsome Symbole of unwilling ministration; That they washed their bones with wine and milk, that the mother wrapt them in Linnen, and dryed them in her bosome, the first fostering part, and place of their nourishment; That they opened their eyes towards heaven, before they kindled the fire, as the place of their hopes or original, were no improper Ceremonies. Their last valediction[85] thrice uttered by the attendants was also very solemn, and somewhat answered by Christians, who thought it too little, if they threw not the earth thrice upon the enterred body. That in strewing their Tombs the _Romanes_ affected the Rose, the Greeks _Amaranthus_ and myrtle; that the Funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, Cypress, Firre, Larix, Yewe, and Trees perpetually verdant, lay silent expressions of their surviving hopes: Wherein Christians which deck their Coffins with Bays have found a more elegant Embleme. For that tree seeming dead, will restore it self from the root, and its dry and exuccous leaves resume their verdure again; which if we mistake not, we have also observed in Furze. Whether the planting of Yewe in Churchyards, hold not its original from ancient Funeral Rites, or as an Embleme of Resurrection from its perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture.

[85] Vale, vale, vale, nos te ordine quo natura permittet sequemur.

They made use of Musick to excite or quiet the affections of their friends, according to different harmonies. But the secret and symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which according to its progresse traced by antiquity, came down by _Cancer_, and ascended by _Capricornus_.

They burnt not children before their teeth appeared, as apprehending their bodies too tender a morsel for fire, and that their gristly bones would scarce leave separable reliques after the pyral combustion. That they kindled not fire in their houses for some dayes after, was a strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. And mourning without hope, they had an happy fraud against excessive lamentation, by a common opinion that deep sorrows disturbed their ghosts.[86]

[86] Tu manes ne læde meos.

That they buried their dead on their backs, or in a supine position, seems agreeable unto profound sleep, and common posture of dying; contrary to the most natural way of birth; Nor unlike our pendulous posture, in the doubtful state of the womb. _Diogenes_ was singular, who preferred a prone situation in the grave, and some Christians[87] like neither, who decline the figure of rest, and make choice of an erect posture.

[87] Russians, _etc._

That they carried them out of the world with their feet forward, not inconsonant unto reason: As contrary unto the native posture of man, and his production first into it. And also agreeable unto their opinions, while they bid adieu unto the world, not to look again upon it; whereas _Mahometans_ who think to return to a delightful life again, are carried forth with their heads forward, and looking towards their houses.

They closed their eyes as parts which first die or first discover the sad effects of death. But their iterated clamations to excitate their dying or dead friends, or revoke them unto life again, was a vanity of affection; as not presumably ignorant of the critical tests of death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflexion of figures, which dead eyes represent not; which however not strictly verifiable in fresh and warm _cadavers_, could hardly elude the test, in corps of four or five dayes.

That they suck'd in the last breath of their expiring friends, was surely a practice of no medicall institution, but a loose opinion that the soul passed out that way, and a fondnesse of affection from some _Pythagoricall_[88] foundation, that the spirit of one body passed into another; which they wished might be their own.

[88] Francesco Perucci Pompe funebr.

That they powred oyle upon the pyre, was a tolerable practise, while the intention rested in facilitating the accension; But to place good _Omens_ in the quick and speedy burning, to sacrifice unto the winds for a dispatch in this office, was a low form of superstition.

The _Archimime_ or _Jester_ attending the Funeral train, and imitating the speeches, gesture, and manners of the deceased, was too light for such solemnities, contradicting their funerall Orations, and dolefull rites of the grave.

That they buried a peece of money with them as a Fee of the _Elysian Ferriman_, was a practise full of folly. But the ancient custome of placing coynes in considerable Urnes, and the present practice of burying medals in the Noble Foundations of _Europe_, are laudable wayes of historicall discoveries, in actions, persons, Chronologies; and posterity will applaud them.

We examine not the old Laws of Sepulture, exempting certain persons from burial or burning. But hereby we apprehend that these were not the bones of persons Planet-struck or burnt with fire from Heaven: No Reliques of Traitors to their Countrey, Self-killers, or Sacrilegious Malefactors; Persons in old apprehension unworthy of the _earth_; condemned unto the _Tartara's_ of Hell, and bottomlesse pit of _Pluto_, from whence there was no redemption.

Nor were only many customes questionable in order to their Obsequies, but also sundry practises, fictions, and conceptions, discordant or obscure, of their state and future beings; whether unto eight or ten bodies of men to adde one of a woman, as being more inflammable, and unctuously constituted for the better pyrall combustion, were any rational practise: Or whether the complaint of _Perianders_ Wife be tolerable, that wanting her Funerall burning she suffered intolerable cold in Hell, according to the constitution of the infernal house of _Pluto_, wherein cold makes a great part of their tortures; it cannot passe without some question.

Why the Female Ghosts appear unto _Ulysses_, before the _Heroes_ and masculine spirits? Why the _Psyche_ or soul of _Tiresias_ is of the masculine gender; who being blinde on earth sees more then all the rest in hell; Why the Funeral Suppers consisted of Egges, Beans, Smallage, and Lettuce, since the dead are made to eat _Asphodels_ about the _Elysian_ medows? Why since there is no Sacrifice acceptable, nor any propitiation for the Covenant of the grave: men set up the Deity of _Morta_, and fruitlesly adored Divinities without ears? it cannot escape some doubt.

The dead seem all alive in the humane _Hades_ of _Homer_, yet cannot we speak, prophesie, or know the living, except they drink blood, wherein is the life of man. And therefore the souls of _Penelope's_ Paramours conducted by _Mercury_ chiriped like bats, and those which followed _Hercules_ made a noise but like a flock of birds.

The departed spirits know things past and to come, yet are ignorant of things present. _Agememnon_ fortels what should happen unto _Ulysses_, yet ignorantly enquires what is become of his own Son. The ghosts are afraid of swords in _Homer_, yet _Sybilla_ tells _Æneas_ in _Virgil_, the thin habit of spirits was beyond the force of weapons. The spirits put off their malice with their bodies, and _Cæsar_ and _Pompey_ accord in Latine Hell, yet _Ajax_ in _Homer_ endures not a conference with _Ulysses_: And _Deiphobus_ appears all mangled in _Virgils_ Ghosts, yet we meet with perfect shadows among the wounded ghosts of _Homer_.

Since _Charon_ in _Lucian_ applauds his condition among the dead, whether it be handsomely said of _Achilles_, that living contemner of death, that he had rather be a Plowmans servant then Emperour of the dead? How _Hercules_ his soul is in hell, and yet in heaven, and _Julius_ his soul in a Star, yet seen by _Æneas_ in hell, except the Ghosts were but images and shadows of the soul, received in higher mansions, according to the ancient division of body, soul, and image or _simulachrum_ of them both. The particulars of future beings must needs be dark unto ancient Theories, which Christian Philosophy yet determines but in a Cloud of opinions. A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomly illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in _Platoes_ denne, and are but _Embryon_ Philosophers.

_Pythagoras_ escapes in the fabulous hell of _Dante_,[89] among that swarm of Philosophers, wherein whilest we meet with _Plato_ and _Socrates_, _Cato_ is to be found in no lower place then Purgatory. Among all the set, _Epicurus_ is most considerable, whom men make honest without an _Elyzium_, who contemned life without encouragement of immortality, and making nothing after death, yet made nothing of the King of terrours.

[89] Del inferno. _cant. 4._

Were the happinesse of next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdome to live; and unto such as consider none hereafter, it must be more then death to die, which makes us amazed at those audacities, that durst be nothing, and return into their _Chaos_ again. Certainly such spirits as could contemn death, when they expected no better being after, would have scorned to live had they known any. And therefore we applaud not the judgment of _Machiavel_, that Christianity makes men cowards, or that with the confidence of but half dying, the dispised virtues of patience and humility, have abased the spirits of men, which Pagan principles exalted, but rather regulated the wildenesse of audacities, in the attempts, grounds, and eternal sequels of death; wherein men of the boldest spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor can we extenuate valour of ancient Martyrs, who contemned death in the uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in their decrepit Martyrdomes did probably lose not many moneths of their dayes, or parted with life when it was scarce worth the living. For (beside that long time past holds no consideration unto a slender time to come) they had no small disadvantage from the constitution of old age, which naturally makes men fearful; And complexionally superannuated from the bold and couragious thoughts of youth and fervent years. But the contempt of death from corporal animosity, promoteth not our felicity. They may set in the _Orchestra_, and noblest Seats of Heaven, who have held up shaking hands in the fire, and humanely contended for glory.

Mean while _Epicurus_ lies deep in _Dante's_ hell, wherin we meet with Tombs enclosing souls which denied their immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better then he spake, or erring in the principles of himself, yet lived above Philosophers of more specious Maximes, lye so deep as he is placed; at least so low as not to rise against Christians, who beleeving or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in their practise and conversation, were a quæry too sad to insist on.

But all or most apprehensions rested in Opinions of some future being, which ignorantly or coldly beleeved, beget those perverted conceptions, Ceremonies, Sayings, which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason. Whereby the noblest mindes fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholly Dissolutions; With these hopes _Socrates_ warmed his doubtful spirits, against that cold potion, and _Cato_ before he durst give the fatal stroak, spent part of the night in reading the immortality of _Plato_, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which this seemes progressional, and otherwise made in vaine; Without this accomplishment the natural expectation and desire of such a state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied Considerators would quarrel the justice of their constitutions, and rest content that _Adam_ had fallen lower; whereby by knowing no other Original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happinesse of inferiour Creatures; who in tranquillity possess their Constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures. And being framed below the circumference of these hopes, or cognition of better being, the wisedom of God hath necessitated their Contentment: But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of our selves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at last to tell us we are more then our present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments.