Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	destroy_v	life_n	sin_n	6,349	5	4.8398	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28435	Great is Diana of the Ephesians, or, The original of idolatry together with the politick institution of the gentiles sacrifices.	Blount, Charles, 1654-1693.	1680 (1680)	Wing B3303; ESTC R11068	21,456	56

chief and most eminent Office amongst the Romans was that of the Augurs the veneration and honour given unto them was so great that they were look'd upon not only as the Gods Interpreters but also as Messengers and Agents betwixt them and mankind Besides they were ever advanced to the Senate and the rather as is conceiv'd because from the first foundation of Rome until the change of the Government Kings were Augurs as not thinking it safe to disjoyn from the Regal power a discipline so full of Authority as was that of an Augur who were so highly esteem'd among the Ancients that no Magistrate was chosen nor business of importance done till they were first consulted Those who to Empire by dark paths aspire Still plead a Call to what they most desire Thus Romulus and Numa could receive their Scepters only from the Augurs hands as Titus Livy informs us VII The Heathen Priests thinking it dangerous to teach any way to God which men might go by themselves without further guiding and directing like Musicians who are unwilling to learn their Scholars to play by Notes lest they might grow able to improve themselves without a Master did not as our Christian Pastors do furnish the people with a record of their Gods commands whereby they might walk themselves without any other assistance but on the contrary they instituted Lustrations Expiations and the like which none but themselves could execute and all was only to render the Clergy absolutely necessary to the people The Original of Sacrifices seems to be as ancient as Religion it self for no sooner had men found out that there was a God but Priests stept up and said that this God had taught them in what manner he would be worshipp'd As Religion therefore seems to have began most anciently in the Eastern parts or as some will have it in Aegypt so did Sacrifices which from thence were propagated to Greece Italy and other remoter parts The number of Sacrifices says a learned Author were among the Aegyptians reckon'd to be 666 which without all question were multiplied by the Priests of several Countries where the said Aegyptian Sacrifices were receiv'd But what a madness was this to think to flatter the Divinity with Inhumanity to content the Divine goodness with the affliction of his Creatures and to satisfie the Justice of God with cruelty A Superstitious man serveth God out of fear whereas the truly Religious serves him out of love Superstition suffereth neither God nor man to live at rest as evidently appears by these Heathen Sacrifices What could be more sottish or irrational than to think that the slaughter of a poor innocent Creature who follow'd the simplicity of his own Nature without ever offending God should be so grateful to the Deity as thereby we might expiate our sins and render a sufficient attonement for the most execrable villanies of mankind as if the Almighty Justice could be no otherwise appeas'd for the errors of the Wicked but by the sufferings of the Innocent Now as Sacrifices were the most ancient and universal so the greatest and most mysterious fourbs that ever were invented or imposed upon mankind What have Sacrifices to do with sins could none but their unenlightned Priests make peace between God and man when sins were committed was there no address to be made to the Divine Majesty but by their Intercession were they the Courtiers of Heaven and must they be first bribed before men could receive a pardon for their sins an inward and hearty Repentance avail'd nothing amongst them Neither can the Heathens be excused by saying that at the same time when Sacrifices were offer'd they might repent for it doth so little appear that they commanded Repentance as we can hardly find any mention thereof in their Religious worship however we may hope that God did work it in some of their hearts for we find in Plato and other Philosophers sorrow for sin often enjoyn'd and we may read among the Septem Sapientes this Holy precept Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris which gives a brave entrance into the Christian Philosophy as it stands recorded in Holy Writ But this they ow'd to their Philosophy and not Theology VIII The stupidity of these Heathen Sacrifices are sufficiently already exploded by Lucian Arnobius and others The first condemning them as ridiculous the latter as impious for God will be serv'd in Spirit and that which is outwardly done is rather to glorifie our selves than God Yet however as monstrous as their Doctrines and Sacrifices appear they have been the chief support of the Gentiles Devotion for many thousand years and in some Nations continue to this day Perhaps melancholly men might at first light upon this Frenzy by observing how Nature had inevitably framed all Creatures to live by devouring and destroying one another a man eats not one morsel but he destroys an Animal or Vegetable life or at least prevents them from attaining that life which otherwise they would have enjoy'd Nay we cannot walk one step but probably we crush many Insects creeping under our feet and the same happens to other Creatures the Life of each being by Nature made predatory upon others Torva leoena Lupum sequitur Lupus ipse capellam Florentem Cytisum sequitur lasciva capella Virg. Ecclog Upon this consideration Aesop's Woolf being touch'd in conscience for the many murders he had committed vow'd never more to eat Flesh till being almost famish'd and espying a Hog in a puddle he was forced by an interpretation wiser than his vow to suppose the Hog a Fish and so by devouring it to save himself from starving It was also found by experience how many millions of violent accidents were ever ready at hand to destroy all things that had life in them whereas preservatives were rarely to be met with nor could the very best nourishment or Physick reprieve life any considerable time and that also ever atended with some mischievous quality enclining towards death wherefore but like a small Parenthesis intervening a long discourse Nor was the longest estate of life above a moment compared with that of death which is for ever irrecoverable Also the sickness of one man does often infect others and extends to the destruction of many thousands whereas the health of the soundest Body upon Earth does not diffuse it self to the good of any but it self IX So that by these and such like sinister observations the destruction of things in being appear'd to them to be more grateful to Heaven than their preservation whereupon men raised unjust out-cries against the miserable condition of Humane life laying that fault upon the Deity which did proceed only from themselves and by this means fell to an unworthy opinion of Cruelty in God and therefore we see the Heathens for three or four eminent Joves had many more Vejoves or mischievous supposed Deities Nay they erected Altars to most Diseases and Vices in hopes thereby to divert

thereupon such kind of Doctrines as they judged best capable of reception and most proper to each particular Genius of the time and people according as they found them more or less rude or subtle debauch'd or austere Hence grew their Oblations and Altars whereon they were offer'd these did always accompany their Prayers for they supposing their Gods to be like the Eastern Princes before whom no man might come empty handed and perhaps because a great part of their Offerings fell to the Priests share therefore they soon left off Numn Pompilius's Institution who according to the poverty of those times ordain'd a little Cake and Salt with a few Fruits and so Pythagoras appointed Honey Frankincense Fruits Flowers and other things but always incruenta till in process of time their Gods or at least their Priests grew so covetous that they could not be satiated without the bloud of Beasts whereupon men began to offer up Sheep Oxen and almost all manner of Beasts to one God or other who at length like corrupt Judges were not to be bribed but at high rates especially where either the petitioner was a Rich man or the Boon sued for very considerable or the God one of the better sort in such a case Sheep were despised and nothing less than an Ox would be accepted Thus by degrees they grew to such excess that at length in case of a publick Pestilence or upon some great Warlike undertaking it was not unusual to offer Hecatombs that is an hundred Oxen an hundred Sheep and as many Swine all at once upon a hundred several Altars But to exceed all this some grew to Sacrifice men and women The ancient Galli used to feed a man sumptuously for the space of one year and then upon a Festival day they carried him out of the City and stoned him to death as an Expiation for the sins of the people Also Apollonius Tyanaeus thought to stop the Plague at Ephesus by sacrificing a poor old Beggar Nay some went further than this and sacrificed their own Children thus Agamemnon upon his undertaking that renowned War of Troy offer'd up his only Daughter Iphigenia and if he could have procured one of the Gods themselves it is very probable he would have sacrificed him to Jupiter or Mars for the better success in his enterprize We read in ancient History of many Heathens who sacrificed their own lives to propitiate the Gods to their Countries as Codrus for the Athenians Menaeceus for the Thebans Anchorus for the Sydonians as also Curtius and the two Decii for the Romans whereof you may read at large in Livy's 8th Book Thus Humane Sacrifices grew every where so common that in Mexico 20000 men in a year were frequently slain upon their Altars for the more brutish and unnatural cruelties they used the more prevalent they thought them with Heaven and indeed they have usually been crown'd with the most success perhaps supposing the intentional piety to prevail above the unnatural act or rather that the general confidence of the Gods assistance to be thereby procured might raise a more than ordinary vigour in the Souldiers minds which is the chief cause of Victory Therefore when they were ready to joyn Battle with the enemy it was usual to make some Vow to the Gods for their assistance which when the other party understood they always out-vow'd the former in hopes thereby to win the Gods from them or at least to make the Souldiers believe they had thus the Crotoniatae in their War against the Locrenses Vow'd to Apollo the tenth of the spoil if he would give them victory whereupon the Locrenses to outvie them vow'd to the same God the ninth part if he would be on their side and that re-vie carried it Also the French under the conduct of Aristonicus against Flaminius vow'd to Mars a great Gold Chain but Flaminius to out-bid them vow'd to erect a magnificent Trophy and so prevail'd Much like the story of a corrupt Judge who being bribed with a Jar of Oyl the other party came the next day and presented him with a fat Ox whereupon he gave sentence for the Ox and when the Oyl-man murmur'd the Judge to excuse the business told him that in the place where the Jar of Oyl stood an unruly Ox brake in and overturn'd it so as it was quite forgotten And many times their Prayers were in themselves so wicked and execrable as could never hope for a reception unless usher'd in with a very tempting Oblation Da mihi fallere da justum sanctumque videri Noctem peccat is fraudibus objice nubem Horat. This Prayer one would think needed an Hecatomb at least to render it passable but their Gods unwilling to let their Altars grow cold would sometimes like Country-Attornies rather take small fees than none at all to assist them in their Frauds XIII Now as there were Sacrifices to obtain things of the Gods and Peace-offerings to appease their supposed wrath and fury so also were there others of thanksgiving for Benefits receiv'd thus the Thurii made a solemn Sacrifice to the North-wind for having dispers'd and sunk the great Fleet which Dyonisius had sent to invade their Country But these kinds of Sacrifices were most practised in private Families and therefore may rather be call'd Gentilitia than Sacra popularia of this sort were the Sacra Clodiae Aemiliae Julianae Corneliae gentis c. mention'd in Tully and others which private Sacra were made perpetual by the Laws and so recommended to Posterity Now because they were not only chargable but to be continued from Age to Age as long as the said Family or Inheritance lasted therefore Purchasers were glad adire haereditatem or to get such a living as was not clogg'd with these entail'd Sacrifices concerning which you may find a merry passage in Plautus where a Parasite brags that he had gotten an Inheritance sine sacris sine sumptu c. but however there were not so many of these Thanksgiving Sacrifices as of the other for as much as all men are naturally inclin'd to covet and wish well to themselves but few are so generous as when their turns are serv'd to give thanks especially if it put them to charge for thus we see many many men will be mighty charitable in giving their blessing good advice or ghostly counsel who nevertheless will not part with a farthing of money The base ingratitude of mankind is in a just proportion represented in the ten Lepers where although the reward expected for their Cure was only an honest acknowledgement in a few words yet when they had all they desir'd and needed no more there was but one in ten would trouble himself so much as to come and say Sir I thank you XIV Men may wonder why the Heathen Clergy did so highly extoll Sacrifices to appease Divine wrath against sinners and so little mention or make use of Repentance But the Reasons of most obvious conjecture were two