Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A40681
|
A Pisgah-sight of Palestine and the confines thereof with the history of the Old and New Testament acted thereon / by Thomas Fuller ...
|
Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661.
|
1650
(1650)
|
Wing F2455; ESTC R18096
|
609,969
|
642
|
two Barnes for her provision However I dare boldly say that though Sicily was the nearer Egypt was the bigger and better Barn and yeelded greatest store of corn in time of scarcity § 4. Flax also was a stable commodity of Egypt much whereof at this day is imported and used in England Of this the finest linen in the world was woven The Harlot could tell the silly young man she sought to inveigle I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry with carved works and fine linen of Egypt as commonly the worst of women get the best of wares to please their luxury As for the making of this linen cloth it will hardly be beleeved what Pomponius Mela hath reported that the ancient Egyptians used to have their men keep home and spin while their women managed their greater businesses abroad But surely where the man puts his hand to the spindle and the woman to the plough there the whole family will be ill clad and worse fed § 5. Horses of the best kind were very plentifull in Egypt Those were a prohibited commodity forbidden by Gods law to be brought by great numbers into Israel whose King was charged Not to multiply horses to himself nor to cause the people to return into Egypt partly lest whilest they went thither to course horses they should change religions and fall into love with Egyptian Idolatry partly lest they should place too much confidence in the legs of horses or arme of flesh whom God would have immediately to depend on his own protection § 6. Paper most usefull for intercourse anciently grew in Egypt alone being a sedgy weed on the rivers side which they divided into thin flakes whereinto it naturally parteth then laying them on a table and moistening them with the glutinous water of the River they pressed them together and so dried them in the Sun God foretelling his punishments on Egypt threatneth that The paper reeds of the brooks by the mouth of the brooks and every thing sown by the brooks shall wither be driven away and be no more § 7. Mummy must not be forgotten being mans flesh at the first embalmed for forty days together and afterward for many years buried in that hot and sandy Countrey Yet all art cannot finally avoid the curse pronounced on mankind Dust thou art and to dust thou must return so that if left alone these corpses of themselves moulder to ashes Oâ—herwise such cost and curiosity used for their longer preservation accidentally occasioneth their speedier destruction such bodies being taken up out of their graves bought and brought into forein Countreys for medicinall uses What is there such a dearth of drugs such a famine of Physick in nature that as in the siege of Samaria one man must feed on another However whilest some squeamish stomacks make faces to feed on the dead perhaps their hard hearts at the same time Eate up the living as if they were dead either by fraudulent contracts or forcible oppressions § 8. But these grand commodities of Egypt were also allaied with some great inconveniencies many noxious and venimous creatures swarming therein The Prophet called it the land from whence come the young and old Lion the Viper and the Viper and the fiery-flying Serpent This though mystically meant of the Kings of Egypt their Lion-like antipathy and cruelty to Israel styled also Serpents for their craft flying for the swift marching of their Armies winged on horse-backs fiery for the fierceness and heat of their fury yet was it also literally true of plenty of such beasts in Egypt where that moist and hot Countrey was both the pregnant mother to breed and tender nurse to feed them in great abundance Especially in the western deserts towards Cyrene an hideous and dismall place and therefore the Author of the book of Tobit fitted it with a meet inhabitant banishing thither and binding there Asmodeus the evill spirit in the utmost parts of Egypt § 9. Rain is very rare in this land and that onely in winter the windows of heaven here having no casements and the Egyptians supplying the want of rain by making gutters out of the river of Nilus into all their grounds and gardens God therefore in this respect preferreth the land of Canaan before this Countrey For the land saith he whither thou goest to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came where thou sowedst thy seed and watered it with thy feet as a garden of Herbs But the land whither thou goest to possess it is a land of mountains and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven Surely as it is more honour to receive a boon immediately from the hand of a Prince then in an indirect line from him by his servants so more peculiar was the favour of God to the Iews and the familiarity of the Iews with God having their land watered from heaven whilest the Egyptians looked not upward as men but downwards as beasts on that moisture which constantly procured the fruitfulness of their Countrey But this pleased them best as carnall souls had rather be at a certainty of plenty from Nature then at an uncertainty thereof even from the God of Nature himself However they are much mistaken who have confidently reported that it never raineth in Egypt seeing I have been informed the contrary by a right worshipfull Person and well accomplished traveller a great Patron and bountifull promoter of my present studies an eye-witness of much and violent rain at Grand-Cairo in Egypt but such as presaged a great mortality which ensued not long after § 10. The River of Nile is the happy Genius of the Egyptian soil called in Scripture Nachal Mitzraim or the river of Egypt as a most learned Authour hath observed Yea from this Nachal he clearly derived the name of Nilus with excellent proportion For as from Bahal Bââl Beel Bel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is deduced so  Nachal Nââl Neel Neil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  And to make the matter more plain Pomponius Mela reporteth that the fountain of Nilus is called Nachul by the Ethiopians A river wherein nature hath observed an even tenour of admirableness so that the birth the life and the death thereof I mean the fountain flowing and fall of the river are equally composed of a concatenation of wonders 1 Fountain The particular place thereof being never as yet known certainly So that as the Tares in the Gospell were beheld not when sown but when grown Nilus appears even at the first in a full stream and fair chanell 2 Flowing which constantly beginneth with the rising Sun on the seventeenth of Iune swelling by degrees untill it mount sometimes twenty four Cubits and that the uttermost for anciently sixteen was the highest it attained unto and answerable to the increase of this river is the plenty of scarcity of the following year Nor
their faces with painting though more cause to rent them with their nailes out of penitent indignation Thus painting used to reconcile in time widens the breaches in their faces and their flesh tainted at last with the poison thereof like rotten vessels spring the moe leakes the more they are repaired § 11. As for the other garments of whores it is probable that the publick and mercenary were distinguished from honest women by some habit peculiar to themselves Solomon observing that one came forth with the attire of an Harlot Sure I am the same custome long since was observed in England finding that Adam Francis Mercer and Lord Maior of London Anno 1352. procured an Act of Parliament that no known whore should wear any hood or attire on her head except raied or striped cloth of diverse colours But enough if not too much of so bad a subject Who so pleaseth God shall escape from her but the â—inner shall be taken by her SECT VIII Of Iewish Grave-clothes and burying Ornaments § 1. AFter some few years all the persons formerly described high and low rich and poor one with another meet at the house of death whither we will afford them our attendance to behold their funerall wardrobe Indeed by Iobs confession Naked shall I return thither again all are resolved naked into the wombe-generall of their Mother Earth and When he dieth he shall carry nothing away with him that is actively which he himself can put on or is sensible of though passively the dead may be carried out with such clothing upon them as decency and modesty requires § 2. First therefore his eyes being closed by one nearest or dearest unto him Ioseph shall put his hands upon thine eyes the body was washed and then prepared for embalming This embalming was twofold either by incorporation substituting spices in the rooms of their brains and bowells taken out so to preserve their corpses from corruption an Egyptian custome and so probably Iacob and Ioseph were embalmed or else onely by apposition or putting of sweet odours to the dead body called by the Iews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after which sort our Saviour was embalmed Of whom as a bone was not broken so no part of his body was taken away to hinder the entireness of his resurrection § 3. The next work was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to contrive the body and winde it into a modest method For though the pale cheeks of the dead will take no other dye yet the corpse may blush by proxy in the surviving kindred if not put into a decent posture Afterwards they were wrapped up in a Sindon bound hand and foot with grave-clothes generally called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more particularly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a napkin about their heads single by it self and not fastned to the rest of the grave-clothes as appears by that napkin in about our Saviours head not lying with the clothes after his resurrection but wrapped together in a place by it self This done the body was put into a Coffin laid and carried out on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a biere and then either 1 Buried the most ancient and generall custome of the Hebrews or 2 Burnt with fragrant spices to qualifie all noisome smels or 3 Both as the bodies of Saul and his sons whose flesh was burnt and bones buried As for Asa his buriall it was peculiar for the solemnity thereof they laid him in a bed which was filled with sweet odours and diverse kindes of spices prepared by the Apothecaries art and they made a very great burning for him And the reason that more state was used at his buriall then others was because he was a pious King and so well deserved it as also which was the main because he had a godly son and successour Iehoshaphat not grudging what cost he bestowed on his Fathers funerall A feast called the bread of men and elsewhere a cup of consolation was made at these burials probably at the cost of the friends of the party deceased to comfort them at their grief with moderate refection § 4. We presume the children and friends of this person deceased bemoaned him veirs spirantibus lachrymis with true and lively sorrow otherwise it was common amongst the Iews as amongst our modern Irish to send for Mourning women so cunning in wailing that they could make their eyes run down with tears and their eye-lids gush out with waters so to furnish forth the Funerall Such mock-tears were in all ages Credidimus lacrymis an hae simulare docentur Hae quoque habent artes quáque jubentur eunt Thy tears were trusted do they falshood know Yea they have tricks at will they come and go But as parents when their children cry for nothing use to beat them that they may cry for something so God threatned that he miseries of Ierusalem should afterwards turn their faigned and strained wailings into sound and sincere sorrow when those teares formerly but the adopted children should become the naturall issue of their heavy hearts § 5. Nothing more remains of the Iewish burying clothes except any will adde as part of their Metaphoricall garments the graves wherein they were interred These were proportioned to the deserts of the party deceased and love which the living bare unto him In which respect Hezekiah was buried in the chiefest or highest of the sepulchers of the sons of David but whether highest in posture as nearest to David or in structure as built most eminent above ground let others dispute They used to white over their sepulchers to appear beautifull without to which the hypocriticall Pharisees are resembled by our Saviour Yea the friends of the dead used to raise repair and rebuild such sepulchers many years after the party was deceased probably renewing the Epitaphs upon them witness the contradiction in the Iews actions with one hand out of pretended courtesie building and garnishing the tombes of the dead whilest at the same time with the other hand out of reall cruelty they killed the living Prophets among them Here the Map of Jewish Gods is to be inserted THE IDOLS OF THE IEWS CHAP. VII § 1. IT is hard exactly to define when Idolatry first began It is generally thought about the days of Enos Adams grandchild grounded upon Gen. 4. 26. though little certainty can be collected from those words so variously translated We may safely conceive it began very early in the infancy of mankinde it being true of the great World what is said of Man the Microcosme The wicked are estranged from the wombe they goe astray speaking lies as soon as they be born § 2. If we enquire into the causes of the variety of Idols and far spreading of