is King of the whole world hauing in the word Echad many superstitious subtilties that the letter Daleth in regard of his place in the Alphabet signifieth foure and the word Echad contayneth in numerall letters two hundred fortie and fiue whereunto adding three hael elohechem emes God our Lord is true they make vp the number of two hundred fortie and eight and so many members there are in mans bodie for euerie member a prayer secures them all And this verse thrice recited secureth against the ill spirit They esteeme it a holy prayer by which miracles may bee wrought and therefore vse it morning and euening They haue another prayer called Schone esre that is eighteene because it contayneth so many thankesgiuing which they say twice a day and the chiefe chanter of the Synagogue singeth it twice by himselfe They thinke by this prayer to obtaine remission of their sinnes They must pray it standing so that one foot must not stand more on the ground then the other like the Angels And their foote was a right foote When they come to those words in it Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts they leape vp three times aloft And hee say their Chachamim which speaketh a word during this prayer shall haue burning coales giuen him to eate after his death These eighteene thanksgiuings are for the eighteene bones in the chine or back-bone which must in saying hereof be bended After this followeth a prayer against the Iewes reuolted to Christianitie and against all Christians saying These which are blotted out that is reuolters shall haue no more hope and all vnbeleeuers shall perish in the twinkling of an eye and all thine enemies which hate thee O GOD shall be destroyed and the proud and presumptuous Kingdome shall quickly be rooted out broken layd euen with the ground and at last shall vtterly perish and thou shalt make them presently in our dayes obedient to vs Blessed art thou God which breakest and subduest them which are rebellious They call the Turkish Empire the Kingdome of Ismael the Roman Edomiticall proud c. They are themselues indeed exceeding proud impatient and desirous of reuenge The Talmud sayth That the lying spirit in the mouth of Achabs Prophets which perswaded him to goe and fall at Ramoth Gilead was none other but the spirit of Naboth whom hee had before flaine And Victor Carbensis a Christian Iew testifieth That there are not vnder heauen a more quarrelsome people themselues acknowledging the Christians farre meeker then themselues when they haue this Prouerb that the modestie of the Christians the wisedome and industrie of the Heathens and faith of the Iewes are the three pillers which sustaine the world But to returne to their deuotions After those other before mentioned followeth a prayer for the good sort for Proselytes reedifying of the Temple for sending the Messias and restauration of their Kingdome In the end they pray GOD to keepe them in peace and when they come to these words Hee that makes peace aboue shall make peace ouer all Israel Amen they goe backe three paces bow themselues downewards bend their head on the right hand then on the left if some Christian bee there with an Image they must not bow but lift vp their heart This they doe for honours sake not to turne their hinder parts on the Arke and thus they goe like Crabbes out of the Synagogue vsing certaine prayers not running but with a slow pace lest they should seeme glad that their Mattins were done Other their niceties in praying as laying the right hand on the left ouer the heart not spetting nor breaking winde vp or downe not interrupted by a King to cease prayer to shake his bodie this way and that way not to touch his naked bodie and to say Amen with all his heart for they that say Amen are worthie to say it in the world to come And therefore Dauid endeth a Psalme with Amen Amen signifying that one is to bee said heere and the other in the other world also in a plaine eminent place purged from all filth freed from the sight of women his face to the East standing his feet close together fixing his eyes on the ground eleuating the heart to heauen c. I hold it enough thus to mention Their praying to the East must be vnderstood from our Westerne parts because Ierusalem standeth that way for otherwise Rambam sheweth that Abraham prayed in Mount Moriah toward the West and the Sanctum Sanctorum was in the West which place also Abraham set forth and determined And because the Gentiles worshipped the Sunne toward the rising therefore Abraham worshipped Westward and appointed the Sanctuarie so to stand The Talmud saith Praying to the South bringeth wisdome toward the North riches I might heere also adde their Letanie and Commemoration of their Saints almost after the Popish fashion As thus for a taste Wee haue sinned before thee haue mercie on vs O Lord doe it for thy names sake and spare Israel thy people Lord doe it for Abraham thy perfect one and spare Israel thy people Lord doe it for him which was bound in thy porches to wit in Mount Moriah where the Temple was afterward builded and spare Israel thy people Lord doe it for him which was heard in the ladder Iacob from thy high place and spare Israel thy people Lord doe it for the merit of Ioseph thy holy one c. Lord doe it for him which was drawne out of the waters Moses and spare c. Lord doe it for Aaron the Priest with Vrim and Thummim Lord grant it for him that was zealous for thy name Phineas Lord doe it for the sweet Singer Dauid Lord doe it for him which built thine house They name not any but expresse him after this sort And then proceed in like manner with the titles attributes and workes of GOD. Doe it for thy Name Doe it for thy Goodnesse for thy Couenant thy Law thy Glorie c. in seuerall versicles And then to their Saints in a new passage Doe it for Abraham Isaac and Iacob Doe it for Moses and Aaron for Dauid and Salomon as if their combined forces should effect more then single Doe it for Ierusalem the holy Citie for Sion for the destruction of thy house for the poore Israelites for the bare Israelites for the miserable Israelites for the Widdowes and Orphans for the sucking and wained and if not for our sake yet for thine owne sake Then in another forme Thou which hearest the poore heare vs thou which hearest the oppressed heare vs Thou which heardest Abraham c. With renuing a commemoration of their Saints larger then before and after some repeating the diuine titles in another tune they oppose their Saint and wicked ones together as Remember not the lye of Achan but remember Iosua forgiuing him and remember Heli and Samuel and so on in a tedious length CHAP. XVI Of their Ceremonies at home after
against him and by the way enquired of his Astrologers and Diuiners touching his successe They taking a greene reed cleft it a sunder placing the parts thereof a good distance one from another and writ vpon the one the name of Vncam and Cingis on the other telling the King that whiles they were reading their coniuring charmes these reeds would fight together and the victory should remaine with him whose reede got the better which acordingly came to passe in the sight of the Armie Cingis his reed ouercomming the other as after Cingis himselfe did Vncam whom he slew in the field and possessed his daughter and state wherin he continued sixe yeeres conquering Cities and Kingdomes and at last was wounded at a Castle called Thaigin in the knee whereof he dyed and was buryed in Mount Altay The next Emperour after his account was Cin Can the third Baythin Can the fourth Allau the brother of Mangu Esu Can the fifth Mongu Can the sixth the seauenth Cublai Can who not only inherited what the former had conquered but in the sixtieth yeere of his raigne subdued in a manner the rest of those parts of the World The word Can signifieth Emperour Wheresoeuer these Emperours dye they are buryed in Altay aforesayd they which carry him killing all they meete within the way bidding them goe to the other world to serue their Emperor For this end they also slay the best horses to serue their dead Lord in another world When Mangu Can was buried there were more then ten thousand men slaine by the Souldiers which conueyed him In this Historie of M. Paul obserue that this Catalogue of Emperours is vnsound for W. de Rubruquis in Bathyes time was at the Court of Mangu Can to whom Bathy was subiect Occoday is left out and Esu put in The cause of this errour seemeth to bee the giuing of this name Can to the chiefe Dukes as Bathy c. and the want of exact written Chronicles in those times amongst them §. II. The great Exploits of CINGIS or CANGIVS the first Tartarian Emperor FOr further light into this Historie I thinke it not amisse to set downe what Haithon or Anthony the Armenian hath written of the Tartarian beginnings This our Author was Royally descended in Armenia where hee liued about three hundred yeeres since and at the request of Pope Clement the fift writ the History of the Tartars from Cingis or Cangius till Mango Can taken out of the Tartarian Histories the rest he partly saw with his eyes and partly learned of his Vnckle an eye-witnesse of the same who had attended on Haithon the Armenian King in the great Cans Court The Countrey where the Tartars first dwelt saith Haithon is beyond the Mount Belgian where they liued like beasts hauing neither letters nor Faith nor Habitation nor Souldiâ—rie nor reputation among their Neighbour-Nations There were of them diuers Nations called by one common name Mogli which were diuided into seuen principall Tribes whose names were Tartar Tangut Cunat Talair Sonieh Monghi Tebeth These all being subiects to their Neighbours a poore old man being a Smith who as they beleeue was ingendred of the Sun beames saw in his sleepe an armed man on a white horse which said vnto him O Cangius The will of the Immortall GOD is that thou bee the Gouernour of the Tartarians and Ruler of the seuen Nations to free them from their bondage and tribute This his vision when he reported to others they would not beleeue him vntill that the night following the chiefe men amongst themselues saw the same man with command from the immortall GOD to yeeld obedience vnto Cangius This they performed with all reuerence and spred in the midst of them a black felt with a seat thereon on which the seuen Princes or chiefe men placed Cangius calling him Can that is Emperor and kneeled before him This happily was then the most sumptuous Throne their State could afford but continued in the Royall inuestiture of their succeeding Soueraignes their exceeding Riches and Conquests notwithstanding at two of which solemnities saith our Author I my selfe haue beene present Cangius thus inthronized on his felt commanded them many things first to beleeue the immortall GOD and from thence forwards the Tartars began to call vpon the name of the immortall GOD seeking for his ayde in all their enterprises secondly hee commanded to make a generall view of all such as were able to beare armes appointing Captaines ouer tens ouer thousands and ouer ten thousands which made a full Regiment Hee commanded also those seuen principall heads of their Tribe to bereaue themselues of their dignities and for further triall of their obedience each of them to bring thither his eldest sonne and to cut off his head each with his owne hand which they refused not to doe in reuerence to that diuine ordinance whereby hee was made their Soueraigne Cangius hauing thus made tryall of their fidelitie subdued many Nations and one day hauing his horse slaine in battell vnder him was forsaken of his Tartars dispayring his recouerie after they saw him fall and might easily haue beene slaine had not his enemies through ignorance neglected him to pursue the rest which Cangius perceiuing conueyed himselfe into a thicket of shrubs and when his enemies returned to despoile the dead an Owle came and sate on the shrub vnder which Cangius was hidden which caused them not to suspect any to lurke there and so they departed He the next night fled to his people who seeing him and hearing the order of his escape gaue thanks to the immortall GOD who by meanes of that Bird had preserued him They also had after this that Fowle in such reuerence that it is accounted a happy thing to weare one of her feathers on their heads Cangius afterwards assaulting his enemies brought vnder both them and all the Countries on that side of Belgian The exact time of these things Haithon could not learne notwithstanding his much enquiry which he imputeth to their want of letters at that time These Countries thus conquered the armed man appeared to him the second time and commanded him in the name of the immortall GOD to passe the Mountayne Belgian and goe towards the West where he should conquer Kingdomes Signories and Lands And that thou mayest be assured that this is the will of GOD arise and goe with thy people towards the Mountayne to that part which ioyneth on the Sea There thou shalt dismount and turne thee toward the East and kneeling downe nine times shalt worship the immortall GOD and he which is Almightie shall shew thee the way by which thou mayest commodiously passe Cangius presently commands his people with their wiues and families to accompanie him in this enterprise and when they were come to the Sea forgat not with his followers to performe those nine worships and staying there that night in his prayers the next day hee saw that the Sea had gone nine foot backe from
Their markets are on Sundayes The Knights come hither exceeding yong the sooner to attaine Commendams at home which goe by Senioritie There are resident about fiue hundred and as many abroad to repaire vpon summons Sixteene of them are Counsellors of State called Great Crosses There are seuen Albergs or Seminaries one of which was of England till in the generall Deluge vnder Henrie the eight Saint Iohns without Smithfield sometime the Mansion of the Grand Prior of England was hooked into that crooked streame though still that Title continue an Irish man now enioying it Euery Nation feed by themselues in their seuerall Alberges and sit at table like Friars But how doe I pre-occupate my Christian Relations and fall into a Lethargie hauing opportunitie of such an Hospitall and such Hospitulars Now a word of the ancient Nauigations about Africa Hanno his voyage set forth by the Carthaginians seemed fabulous but Ramusius sheweth euery place by him mentioned to agree with the later Discoueries of the Portugals and thinketh guided by a Portugall Pilot skilfull of those Seas which skanned this Nauigation of Hanno that hee went as farre as Saint Thome Long before this Homer reporteth of Menelaus compassing the Ethiopians from Egypt which some interprete of sayling by the Cape of Good Hope as the Portugals Of this minde Strabo citeth Aristonichus Of Salomon and Iehoshaphat is said before Herodotus affirmeth the Phoenicians sayling in the Red Sea in Cambyses time but this was vsuall and yeerly as Plinie sheweth lib. 6. cap. 23. The same Plinie alledgeth out of Cornelius Nepos the sayling of Eudoxus out of the Red Sea round about Africa to Cales which Strabo relateth otherwise and refuteth The like may be shewed in some other instances of which reade Master Hakluyt his Epistle Dedicatorie Tom. 1. Ramusius part 1. pag. 111. and Galuanus in his Discoueries of the World Which I mention not to disparage or weaken the Portugals praises but to giue Antiquitie their due which I thinke could not ordinarily if at all compasse so long a Nauigation for want of the Compasse yet we should iniurie our Authors if wee should not beleeue somewhat although not so much as they report And this agreeth with the Greeke prouerbe of Hanno's Discoueries and Iubas Historie that hee which findeth sweetnesse in the one may swallow the other and as well entertayne Bauius as Mauius the Periplus of the one and Libyke Histories of the other not obtayning full credit nor wholly meet to be reiected And thus much of this African part of the World the Regions and Religions thereof the one most subiect to the burning beames of the heauenly Sunne the other least enlightning by the comfortable warmth of the Sunne of Righteousnesse blacke in body but more darkned and deformed spiritually as hauing onely some parts of Habassia entirely possessed with Christians besides what in Congo hath of later yeeres beene effected by the Portugals and that little which is subiect to them and Spaine all the rest being Pagan or Mahumetan And would God this were the case of Africa alone seeing that if we diuide the knowne Regions of the world into thirtie equall parts it is Master Brerewoods Computation The Christians part vnderstand it in all Sects and Professions bearing that name is as fiue the Mahumetans as sixe and the Idolaters as nineteene besides that huge heathenous Tract of the vnknowne South Continent which by probable reasons is by him coniectured to bee no lesse then Europe Africa and Asia together So farre is it from truth which one of our Country-men hath lustily bragged on behalfe of his Romish Mother That the Catholike Roman Religion hath had and hath yet a farre greater sway in the world then any other Religion euer had or hath whereas this our Africa hath more Mahumetans in two or three Cities then Romish Catholikes perhaps in her whole compasse And for Asia how pitifully doth he tumble together some names of a few Townes or little Ilands it seemeth vnknowne to himselfe as monuments of Romish Conquests What their American Conuersions are is touched elsewhere Yea euen in our Europe where this mysticall Babylon is situate the mother of the whoredomes and abominations of the Earth the number of Protestants is not much inferiour vnto them But his reasons haue beene alreadie proued vnreasonable by him whose Pen then and Prelacie since wee with all dutie acknowledge a pillar to the Truth and Ornament to our Church and State For my part I am sorrie his assertion is no truer as one seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betweene Catholike and Roman a great gulfe not easily without many prouisoes passable but betweene Heathen and Heauen a bottomlesse depth the way impassable and life impossible Let vs pray to him which is the Way the Truth the Life to make and be the Way by reuelation of his Truth vnto euerlasting Life to these poore Africans that as they are almost wholly in all professions Christian Iewish Morish Ethnike circumcised in the flesh so they may receiue that Circumcision of the Spirit not made with hands which may cut away this superfluitie of superstitions wherein they seeme more deuout then any part of the World and make them with meeknesse to receiue that Word which being grafted in them is able to saue their soules Amen Lord Iesus RELATIONS OF THE DISCOVERIES REGIONS AND RELIGIONS OF THE NEW WORLD OF NEW FRANCE VIRGINIA FLORIDA NEW SPAINE WITH OTHER REGIONS OF AMERICA MEXICANA AND OF THEIR RELIGIONS THE EIGHTH BOOKE CHAP. I. Of the New World and why it is named AMERICA and the West Indies with certaine generall discourses of the Heauens Ayre Water and Earth in those parts §. I. Of the names giuen to this part of the World and diuers opinions of the Ancients concerning the Torrid Zone NOw are wee shipped for the New World and the New Discoueries But seeing this Inkie Sea through which I vnder-take a Pilots office to conduct my Readers is more peaceable then That which on the back-side of this American World was called the Peaceable by Magellane the first Discouerer it yeeldeth vs the fitter opportunitie to contemplation and discourse in such Philosophicall subiects as the best Authors haue thought worthy the first place in their Histories of these parts Yet before we prie into Natures mysteries the better to know our intended voyage let vs enquire somewhat of the Names if any notice may thence arise of the places thereby knowne The New World is the fittest name which can be giuen to this vast and huge Tract iustly called New for the late Discouerie by Columbus An. Dom. 1492. and World for the huge intention thereof as Master Hakluyt hath obserued A new World it may bee also called for that World of new and vnknowne Creatures which the old World neuer heard of and here onely are produced the conceit whereof moued Mercator to thinke which I dare not thinke with him that the great
manner of sitting is crowned on their Temples with garlands their retiring places distinguished with cords by which the stranger may haue accesse to which of them hee liketh best And thus doe these Votaries of Venus sit holding it religion to bee irreligious none of them euer returning home till some guest haue cast money into her lap whom it is not lawfull for her to refuse but to accept of him and his price whatsoeuer he be and follow him aside from the Temple where hee defileth her At the giuing of the money hee vseth these words Tanti tibi deam Mylittam imploro that is at this price or for so much I implore vnto thee the goddesse Mylitta so the Assyrians call Venus and this money is consecrated to a sacred vse After this with the goddesse good leaue shee may returne home although for no great price againe saith our Author to be hired By this meanes the fairest are quickly dispatched the rest endure a restlesse and irkesome penance sometime a yeere two or three before they can be discharged of their honestie and the law together and hence might arise that former ambitious vpbraiding in Baruch Among their many Idols Bel bare the bell not here alone but in all the countries of Assyria and adioyning thereto as appeareth in the Historie of the Bible where Bel or Baal is so often mentioned as the Idoll of so many Nations and the sinne of the apostaticall Synagogue They built vnto him high places or else in stead thereof vsed the roofes of their houses to his worship they built him houses they made him Images erected Altars planted Groues bended to him the knee and kissed him in token of subiection vsed perfume and incense obserued to him holy dayes cut and lanced themselues in his seruice with other extaticall furies and religious frensies with ornaments of gold and iewels inuocations and immolations yea of their owne children he had also his peculiar prophets and priests These and such like doth the Scripture mention of this Babylonian Idoll whose contagion infected the East with a Catholike Idolatrie that could plead Antiquitie Vniuersalitie and Consent by euidence of Scripture-historie which later Babylon cannot doe and yet was but Catholike and generall errour Bel was sayth Plinie Inuentor sideralis scientiae the inuentor of Astrologie which Heurnius addeth hee defiled with impure Magicke as did his daughter Semiramis who warred vpon Zoroaster in enuie of his greater learning Bels magicke appeared in his sepulchre which Xerxes opening found a vessell of glasse and therein a carkasse swimming in oyle which reached not to the brim by a hand-breadth In a little pillar iust by was engrauen that he should dearely repent it which opening the sepulchre did not fill vp the vessell this Xerxes assayed to doe in vaine and therefore departed very heauie finding in his Grecian Expedition the truth of Bels prophecie The like is said to happen when Darius in hope of treasure opened the sepulchre of Semiramis hee found a chist which being opened a venimous pestilence issued that consumed the third part of men Ribera affirmeth that diuers later Authors and before them Theodoret doe esteeme the name Bel or Baal to be a generall name agreeing to all the gods of the Gentiles according to the signification of the word to wit a Lord It was a name generall to their Idols when it was put alone but particular with some addition as Bel-zebub Baal-zephon There were so many Baals in Syria sayth Drusius as there were Regions and almost as many as Cities The Moabites had their Chamos the Ammonites Moloch the Sydonians Astarte in Gaza Maruan in Hamath Asima c. all called Baal in like sort as the Europaeans varied the names of Iupiter as Iupiter Capitolinus Iupiter Ammon Stygius Olympius and the rest many gods and many lords sayth Saint Paul yet in the Easterne Dialect wee may reade many Baalim and in the Westerne many Ioues the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latine Iouis the ancient nominatiue Iouis pater Iouispiter and by contraction Iupiter not as Tully Lactantius and others quasi iuuans pater being all deriued that wee may note this by the way of that ineffable name which wee pronounce Iehoua And had they not intended the true God when they vsed Baal or Ioue absolutely without addition neither had the Lord prohibited thou shalt call mee no more Baali that is my Lord nor Paul applied that speech of Aratus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wee are his generation hauing foure verses before begunne his booke with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vnto the true GOD. Seruius is Author that Belus the father of Dido descended of that ancient BELVS the first King of the Assyrians which people worshipped Saturne and Iuno which were after worshipped in Africa whereupon the Punikes called GOD Bal from whence came those names Hannibal Adherbal and such like whom the Assyrians in some respect call Bel and Saturne and the Sunne This opinion that in Bel they worshipped the Sunne is followed by Tremellius and Iunius in their notes on Esaias Chap. 46.1 because the Assyrians Persians and Babylonians accounted the Sunne the greatest God and worshipped the Fire as a particle thereof To him the Iewes with this borrowed forreine Idolatrie dedicated Horses and Chariots which Iosias abolished together with the Altars on the roofe of Ahas his house the high places where their god might see their deuotions Hierom on that place of Esay sayth that Bel was Saturn which Suidas confirmeth Augustine relateth the vsuall opinion on those words Iud. 2. They serued Baal and Astaroth that Baal in those parts was the name of Iupiter and Astarte of Iuno and produceth the Punicke language in which Baalsamen signifieth the Lord of Heauen and for Astaroth which he readeth Astartibus he sayth it is in the plurall number in regard of the multitude of Iunoes Images each bearing the name of Iuno This also is exemplified in the blessed Virgin by Ribera sometime called our Ladie of Loretto sometime our Ladie of Monteferato c. according to the diuersitie of places wherein they worship not Marie the Virgin but their owne Idols the daughters of their whorish mother Babylon For the Tyrians Sydonians Philistims and other Syrian and Assyrian Nations the Scripture brandeth them with this Bel or Baal-Idolatrie in hatred of which name the Iewes called the Prince of Deuils as the Acaronites did their principall Idols by the name of Beelzebub Thus the Greekes and Latines hath confounded the Assyrian and Tyrian Bel which by Iosephus Scaliger who not vnworthily is called the Dictator of knowledge and great Prince of learnings state are distinguished and made two the one sayth he is written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the later 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and reproued Hierome for making Belus the father of Ninus and the Virgilian Belus to be one But in his notes on the fragments
of Berosus and other ancient Authors he sayth the Tyrians and Sydonians called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greekes made Belus and so Mr. Selden also is of opinion that these names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differ onely according to the proprietie of the language and not indeed for the Grammarians obserue that the Chaldee words often lose that middle letter Elias in his Thesbi obserueth that Baal signifieth the act of generation which may well agree with those beastly Baal-rites before mentioned Baal is read in the foeminine gender Tob. 1.5 Rom. 11.4 In Photius is mentioned that the Phoenicians and Syrians called Saturne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 EL and Bel and Bolathes Lilius Giraldus out of Seruius affirmeth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Assyrian language signifieth the Sunne from whence the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is deriued some attribute this to the Phoenician tongue in which Hal signifieth GOD. The Assyrians named Saturne and the Sunne Hel. The Indians called that Hercules which Tully de Nat. Deor. numbreth the first Belus But we find no end of these Labyrinths D. Willet in his Comment vpon Daniel hath these words The Chaldaeans had fiue Idols three gods and two goddesses Their first god was Bel a name contracted of Behel which commeth of Bahal which signifieth a Lord to whom was built that Temple before mentioned The second was the Sunne which they called Rach that is a King because he is chiefe among the Planets and the Persians call him Mithra as Iustinus Martyr sayth Dialog in Triphon The Priests of this Idoll were called Raciophantae Obseruers of the Sunne Their third god was Nego the Fire so called of the brightnesse this was carried about among them the Priests were called Ortophantae Their first goddesse was Shacha which was the Earth worshipped also of the Romans vnder the name of Tellus and Opis of the Syrians called Dorcetha In the honour of this goddesse they vsed to keepe a feast fiue dayes together in Babylon during which time the Masters were vnder the dominion of their seruants one of which was vsually set ouer the rest and royally clothed and was called Sogan that is great Prince our Lords of Mis-rule seeme to deriue their pedigree from hence This festiuall time was called Shache whereof Babylon was called Sheshach of keeping this Feast Ierem. 25.27 and 51.41 Their other goddesse was Mulitia which was Venus whose Priests were called Natitae or Natophantae But the chiefest of their Idols was Bel. Hee also interpreteth those words Dan. 1.4 Whom they might teach the learning and tongue of the Chaldaeans of Schooles wherein youth was brought vp in good letters to bee after employed in the State So among the Egyptians they had the like vse where Moses was taught the learning of the Egyptians Among the Israelites eight and fortie Cities were appointed for the Leuites which were as the common Schooles and Vniuersities for the whole Kingdome Samuel and Elizeus had their Schooles and Colledges of Prophets yea the rude Indians had their Gymnosophistes and the Romans had their Colledges of Augures This Bel or Baal Idolatrie passed out of Asia into Europe euen as farre as these parts of Britaine For the Celtae and Britanni worshipped Abellio Belenus or Belinus as appeareth by inscriptions in Lipsius and Scaliger and our famous Antiquarie Mr Camden mentioneth an Altar in Cumberland inscribed Deo sancto Belatucadro And on the Coynes of Cunobelinus the Brittish King was stamped Apollo or Belenus which in heathen mysteries are the same with the Sunne playing on a Harpe and the name Cunobelinus makes euidently to our purpose Heliogabalus is another Syrian idolatrous title for the Sunne as appeareth by an inscription Soli Alagabalo for so also is that name written Neither is Gabalus from any other deriuation the name of the Romane Emperour Priest of that god whose name he vsurped deriued from the Hebrew Ahgol-Baal that is the Round or Circular Lord either in respect of the Sunnes Circular bodie and iourney or of that round stone which the Syrians conceited as the Troians of their Palladium and the Ephesians of their Diana to haue diuinely descended Such stones as Mr Selden in relation of those things obserueth were the Baetaelia or Betuli of the Ancients dedicated to diuers deities somewhat of fashion like fire round and sharpe vpwards the beginning of which Baetuli some deriue from Iacobs stone at Bethel In the seuenteenth Chapter of the second Booke of Kings is mentioned Succoth Benoth an Idoll of the Babylonians Beda interpreteth it the Tabernacles of Benoth and so the word Succoth vsed Amos 5.25 is by Saint Stephen Act. 7.43 interpreted And so doth the Glosse on that part of the Kings interprete where Lyra according to the signification of the words a Tabernacle of wings relateth out of Rab. Sal. that this Idoll was made like to a Hen brooding her chickens which Idols the Babylonians framed in worship of that constellation called by the vulgar the Hen and chickens and of the learned Pleiades as others did to the Sunne others to the Moone Some applie it to the mysterie of their Idoll which Christ the Trueth truly sayth of himselfe protecting his worshippers as a Hen her chickens My learned friend Mr Selden hath gathered by the signification of Succoth Benoth the Tabernacles of the daughters that thereby is meant the Temple of Venus Mylitta or Vrania where the daughters of the Babylonians sate as before is said to performe their filthie deuotions yea by an easie deduction hee deriueth the name of Venus from this Benoth B and u easily exchanged the moderne Iewes pronounce θ like σ Venos Suidas also calls her Binos And in Africa was a Citie called Sicca Venerea a name transported by the Punikes from this Siccuth or Succoth Benoth where was a Temple of like nature in which the women purchased their marriage-money by prostituting their bodies It seemeth the Idolatrous Priests carried the Tabernacle of their Idoll on their shoulder in apish imitation of the true Priests and Leuites for so Amos sayth Yee carried Succoth or Sicchuth your King Chiun your Images which Drusius interpreteth Moloch and Hercules In the fourteenth Chapter of Daniel as the Latines read is a large historie both of Bel a dead statue and of a liuing Dragon which the Babylonians worshipped The Priests of Bel were seuentie besides their wiues and children whose fraud and coozenage Daniel detected making it manifest by their foot-steps in the ashes which hee had strewed in the Temple that they were the deuourers of that huge portion of fortie sheepe twelue measures of meale and sixe great pots of wine daily consecrated for Bels breake-fast He after slew the Dragon also for which the Babylonians forced the King to lodge him sixe dayes among the Lions But howsoeuer generally more authoritie is to bee ascribed to the
to the former report beares nothing on the top no not the weight of a feather The water is blackish and at sometimos presents terrible shapes perhaps of bituminous matter congealed There growes neither bush nor tree neere to Sodome by many miles and in his Iourney thither they passed such sands that their Mulets could not beare them and lighting they waded therein sometimes to the middle and sometimes ouer head and eares the Arabs also at the same time molesting them with arrowes shot from places of more secure footing Idumaea lieth Southward from Iudaea it had name of Edom the sir-name of Esau sonne of Isaak The historie of this people and the Horites whom the children of Esau expelled succeeding in their inheritance is related by Moses It was subdued by Dauid according to the prophecie The elder shall serue the younger They rebelled vnder Ioram the sonne of Iehosaphat as Isaak had also prophesied From that time they continued bitter enemies to the people of GOD till Hircanus the sonne of Simon compelled them to accept both the Iewish Dominion and Religion after which they were reckoned amongst the Iewes Of the Idumaeans were the Amalekites destroyed by Saul They were South from Iuda Eliphaz the Themanite it seemeth was of Esau his generation and of the right Religion The Idumaeans Moabites and Ammonites are by some placed in Arabia of which I will not contend I here mention them as both borderers and subiects to the Israelites of which wee reade much in the Scripture little else-where that maketh to our purpose South from Amalek was Kedar a Countrey abounding with flockes of Sheepe and Goates But I may not now dwell in the Tents of Kedar till I come to the Ismaelites On the East-side of the Lake of Sodome is that Region which the Moabites so often in Scripture mentioned sometimes inhabited and before them the Emims which were Giants tall as the Anakims Deut. 2.10 The Moabites were the posteritie of Lot by incest with his daughter Moab had on the East the Mountaines of Horeb on the West the salt Sea and part of Iordan Arnon on the South and the North border stretched from Iabbok to the Mountaines of Pisga That part of their Countrey betweene Iabbok and Arnon Sihon King of the Amorites had taken from them and lost againe to the Israelites Balac their King fearing to lose the rest sent for Balaam the Wizard to curse the Israelites who yet by Diuine power was forced to blesse them Yet the lustre of Balacs promises so dazeled his eyes that hee taught Balac to put a stumbling blocke before the Israelites and by sending amongst them their women to draw them to carnall and spirituall whoredome so to prouoke the wrath of GODS iealousie against them But the zeale of Phineas stayed it and Balaam in his returne homeward to his Countrey of Mesopotamia was slaine by the Israelites among the Madianites partakers with the Moabites in Balaams idolatrous proiect These Madianites descended of Abraham by Keturah and dwelt in a part of Arabia neere to the Moabites on the East Some of them dwelt neere to Mount Sinai Exod. 2.15 and in the Desart on the East side of the Red Sea Their mightie Armie was miraculously destroyed by the Sword of the LORD and Gedeon The Moabites were subiected to Israel by Dauid and so continued to the Kings of Samaria till that State being rent they freed themselues It seemeth they worshipped the Sunne as the names Kirchereseth Beth-Baalmeon and Balacs high places doe shew and wee haue obserued before in the worship of Bel and Baal Chemosh was another Idoll of theirs to which Salomon built an high place Pehor also and Baal-pehor and the rest whose Rites are now rotten and the memorie worne out This his name it seemes was borrowed of the hill Peor mentioned by Moses Where it is likely he had his Altars and Temple Origen saith the name Baal-peor signifieth filthinesse but what filthinesse hee knew not Salomon Iarchi writeth that they offered to him ordure placing before his mouth the likenesse of that place which Nature hath made for egestion Saint Ierome thought him to bee the same with Priapus and worshipped of the women ob Obscoeni magnitudinem And so Isidore Moses mentions Beth-peor whereby it appeares hee had a Temple Dauid ascribeth to his worship the eating of the sacrifices of the dead such it is like as the Heathen offered in memorie of the dead But some ascribe these conceits of dung-offerings to Iewish malice and agree not to that Priapeian coniecture In their Rebellion against Iehoram King of Israel hee and Iehoshaphat King of Iuda with the King or Vice-roy of Idumaea went to recouer them by force The Moabite in despaire offered a bloudie Sacrifice of his eldest sonne and heire or as Tremellius readeth it The King of Edoms sonne which caused the Israelites to returne The Ammonites and Moabites might not enter into the Congregation of GOD vnto the tenth Generation because they met not the Israelites with the bread and water in their way when they came out of Aegypt and for hiring Balaam against them Arias Montanus saith That the Moabites were circumcised in imitation of the Israelites but worshipped not their God but their owne Idols The Ammonites their brethren in the euill both of Lot their father and their owne inhabited Northward from Moab on the East were the hills Acrabim on the West the Amorite the hills Luith Basan c. made it a valley Their chiefe Citie was Rabbath after called Philadelphia These Ammonites had beene troublesome to the Israelites in the times of Iephte and of Saul And after Dauid in iust reuenge for violating the Law of Nations destroyed them Moloch or Melchon was their Idoll which is supposed to be Saturne whose bloudie butcherly sacrifices are before spoken of The word signifieth a King as Mithra signifies a Lord and it is like that these Easterne Nations intended as the Phoenicians also in their Adad that One and Great GOD Rex deorum although as to the King of visible creatures these mysteries were applied to the Sunne likewise Certaine it is that these Moloch-sacrifices passed hence into Afrike as there shall bee obserued It was a hollow Image saith Lyra of Copper in forme of a man In the hollow concauitie was made a fire with which the Idoll being heated they put a child into his armes and the Priests made such a noise with their Timbrels that the cries of the child might not moue the parents to compassion but they should rather thinke the childs soule receiued of the god into rest and peace others adde That this Moloch had seuen Roomes Chambers or Ambries therein one for Meale a second for Turtles a third for Sheepe the fourth receiued a Ramme the fift a Calfe the sixt an Oxe if a man would offer sonne or daughter the seuenth was readie for
on three hills to wit Sion on which the Iebusites built their Tower and which in Dauids time was further builded on and called the Citie of Dauid The second hill was Mount Moriah which Dauid bought of Arauna to erect thereon the Temple The third was the higher Acra called the Suburbe These were compassed with one wall without and within diuided with three walls by which the Citie of Dauid and Moriah and the higher Acra were seuered In the circuit of the walls were nine gates Hee that desireth further to reade or rather to see the old Ierusalem with her holy Fabriques let him resort to Arias Montanus his Antiquitates Iudaicae where he both relateth and in figures presenteth these things It is supposed that Melchisedech built it about the yeere of the World 2023. and called it Salem Hierome in his 129. Epistle hath these words Ipsa Metropolis tua prius Iebus postea Salem tertio Hierosolyma nunc Aelia As if it were called Iebus before it had the name of Salem which is not so probable Yea Ierome himselfe in his 126. Epistle confutes Iosephus and the vulgar opinion that Salem was Ierusalem and sayth that Salem was a Towne neere to Scythopolis which remayned to his time where also were still shewed the ruines of Melchisedeks Palace the monument of her ancient and antiquate splendor The like Saint Ambrose in his Commentarie on Hebr. 7. The Kings thereof were anciently called Melchi-zedek or Adoni-zedek that is Kings or Lords of Iustice or of Zedek which some will haue the first name thereof and Salem the second this signifieth Peace Righteousnesse indeed and peace did here kisse each other when the Lord our righteousnesse here preached peace and was made our peace and righteousnesse the true Melchizedek whose Kingdome is righteousnesse peace and ioy in the holy Ghost It was after called Ierusalem by addition of the word Iereth as some thinke to the former name Salem For so it is said of Abraham when GOD tried his obedience in here offering his sonne hee called the place Iehoua iereh the Lord will prouide from which and Salem by composition ariseth this name so fitting both the Citie and mysterie Iosephus sayth it was first called Solyma and by Melchisedech named Hierosolyma of a Temple by him there built as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had beene the language of Ierusalem elsewhere he attributeth it to Dauid from an Hebrew deriuation which and other like Etimologies haue caused Masius to pronounce him ignorant of the Hebrew and educated onely in the Greeke as Scaliger somewhere affirmeth of Philo his companion in Nation learning and in that Grecian eloquence wherein they neuer had companions neither of their owne nor scarse of any other Nation The Iebusites after possessed and of them some deriue the name Ierusalem quasi Iebussalem till Dauid expelled them who had before raigned in Hebron called Cariatharbe the Citie of foure men say some because of Adam Abraham Isaac and Iacob their both dwelling and buriall there yet Adam others say was buried in mount Caluarie with other speculations curious and vncertaine Hee translated the highest seat both of spirituall and temporall Regiment to Ierusalem where he raigned after three and thirtie yeeres to whom succeeded Salomon and the rest in order It then contayned in circuit fiftie furlongs compassed with a great ditch threescore foot deepe and two hundred and fiftie broad Nabuchodonosor destroyed it Nehemias re-edified it three and thirtie furlongs in circuit The Machabees Herod and others added to her excellence till Titus befieged and tooke it in which siege are said to haue perished eleuen hundred thousand people and being now a Sepulchre of dead carkasses was made a spectacle of diuine vengeance for murthering the Lord of Life But those struggling spirits and small remnants of life which remayned in this forlorne carkasse of the sometime Ierusalem breathed a new rebellion in the time of Adrian and thereby breathed her last as before is said Bernard de Breidenbach sayth he neuer saw any place which had a fairer prospect then Ierusalem presenting to the eye Arabia the Plaine of Iericho and the dead Sea But what doe wee now in Aelia or the now Ierusalem whose rarities the iournals of many testifie Concerning the former The Historie of this Citie the Scripture hath recorded and where Diuine Historie endeth Iosephus and Hegesippus that I speake not of late Writers haue largely supplied especially concerning her latest fates and as I may terme it in her funerall Sermon Strabo Iustine and others haue written of this people but not sincerely But the fountaines are cleere enough to acquaint vs with their true originall which commeth next to bee considered CHAP. II. Of the Hebrew Patriarchs and their Religion before the Law also of their Law and Politie §. I. Of the Patriarchs and Religion before the Law THe name of Hebrewes some deriue from Abraham as if they were called Hebraei quasi Abrahai Arias Montanus telleth vs that this name of Hebrewes was not appropriate to any familie but common to all such as hauing passed ouer the Riuer Euphrates fixed their Tents and abode betweene that Riuer and the great Sea Hee gathereth this from the Hebrew word which signifieth to passe ouer Such an one first of all was Heber seeking a life answerable to his name whose example sayth hee Thare imitated and after Abram for his twofold transmigration from Chaldaea and from Haran deserued that name and left it to his posteritie But Iosephus Augustine and others more fitly in my mind of Heber the fourth from Shem the sonne of Noah with whose familie as wee haue sayd continued the ancient Language of the world called of his name Hebrew his sonne Peleg or Phaleg bearing the name of that diuision which at the time of his birth the rest of the world in their Languages sustained This Peleg was grand-father to Serug whom some affirme to haue beene the first maker of Idols which were afterwards worshipped by Nahor his sonne and Thare his Nephew the father of Abram who preached openly that there was but one God Creator and Gouernour of all things and by this doctrine prouoking the Chaldaeans against him warned by Oracle departed towards Canaan Bellarmine so eagerly swalloweth this opinion that he taxeth Caluine of heresie for attributing to Abraham the contrarie namely that Abraham before GOD called him out of Vr was an Idolater an opinion so much more probable then the other as hauing better authoritie For Ioshua obiecteth to the Israelites their fore-fathers Idolatrie and nameth Abraham amongst them And Genebrard doth so interprete it Masius in his Commentaries on that place both zealous and learned Papists yea Lindanus specifieth the Idolatrie and calleth him a worshipper of Vesta Suidas sayth that Abraham by the obseruation of the Creatures in his studie of Astronomie lifted vp his mind aboue the starres
Salomon made two doores in the Temple one for mourners and excommunicates the other for the newly married At this if any entred the Israelites which came on the Sabbaths and sate betwixt those doores said He whose name dwelleth in this house glad thee with children If any entred at the other doore with his vpper lippe couered they knew that he was a mourner and said He which dwelleth in this house reioyce and comfort thee If his lippe were not couered they knew that hee was Menudde Excommunicate and said He which dwelleth in this house put into thy heart to heare the words of thy fellowes c. When the Temple was destroyed they decreed that the Bridegroomes and Mourners should enter the Synagogue and the men which saw them reioyced with the one and sate on the ground with the other If they did not amend they were excommunicated with a greater curse or Anathema And if they persisted obstinate they did Samatize them The word Anathema is sometimes taken generally but heere for a particular kinde Maran-atha signifieth The Lord commeth and so doth Sem-atha For by Sem and more emphatically Hassem they vsed to signifie the name meaning that Tetragrammaton and ineffable name of God now commonly pronounced Iehouah It may also be compounded of Sama after the Chaldee forme or of Sam and mitha which signifieth There is death Some Authors ascribe this to the institution of Henoch which they gather out of Iudg. 14. CHAP. III. Of the Religious places of the Israelites their Tabernacle Temples Synagogues IN the discouery of their antient Religion it seemeth fittest to discourse first of Places secondly of Times Thirdly of Rites Fourthly of Persons consecrated to Religion And first of the first Neither were the first men nor first Hebrews very Religious in this point of dedicating Places to Religion as appeareth in Histories both holy and Prophane And if for some vision made vnto them in some places they did for a time hallow the same with Altars and Sacrifices yet neither were they alway or only thus esteemed But Hee Whose is the Earth and all that therein is did by his Law appoint as it were a place of his residence amongst these whom he had chosen for his owne people And commanded them to erect a Tabernacle in the wildernesse fitting that their peregrination Afterward Salomon built him an house in Ierusalem which therefore is called the holy Citie and the Citie of the great King The TABERNACLE a moueable Temple that might be taken asunder and ioyned together againe was by Gods commandement erected in the wildernesse in the same manner and of the same matter which God had both commanded and shewed to Moses in the Mount the matter and forme whereof with all that thereunto appertained the Arke the Candlesticke the Altar c. In the booke of Exodus are liuely declared It was after as we reade in the booke of Ioshua with great solemnitie carried miraculously thorow Iordan by the Leuites deputed to that seruice And after their conquest of the Countrey placed in Shilo a Citie of Ephraim There did Ioshua diuide the Land to her new Conquerors there were their solemne Assemblies for State and religion In the time of Heli they remoued the Arke from the Tabernacle into the Armie which they had gathered against the Philistims of whom the Arke was taken The Tabernacle in the time of Saul was carried to Nob and in the time of Dauid to Gibeon where Salomon offered a thousand burnt offerings The Philistims forced by Diuine iudgements sent backe the Arke receiued by the Bethsamites curious to their cost It was after placed in Kiriath-Iarim in the house of Aminadab next of Obed-Edom and then by Dauid in the place which hee had fitted for the same in Ierusalem Whence it was remoued into the Temple which Salomon had built where it was till the time of the deportation in which time it was saith the Author of the second booke of the Maccabees hiddne by Ieremia the Prophet But that Author is beholden to the Councell of Trent for his credit the Iewes themselues in that point not beleeuing him who affirme that the second Temple came short of the former by the want of the fire from Heauen of the Arke of the Vrim and Thummim of the succession of Prophets and the glory of God betweene the Cherubims The TEMPLE was built on Mount Moriah by Salomon according to the patterne which he had receiued of Dauid to which worke he had gathered a greater masse of wealth then easily we shall reade of in the Persian Greeke Romane or any other Christian Turkish or Heathen Empire namely one hundred thousand Talents of Gold ten hundred thousand talents of siluer and afterward three thousand Talents of Gold and seuen thousand Talents of Siluer to which was added by the offerings of the Princes ten thousand talents of siluer and more then fiue thousand talents of Gold besides Iewels and brasse and iron without weight with Cedars and stones without number The Gold amounteth after the common computation of the common talent at sixe thousand crownes to six hundred forty eight millions of crownes and vpward the siluer to about the same summe But that which by vs is vnderualued accounting to the talent but six thousand crownes as some doe Master Brerewood in his learned worke de ponderibus precijs c. raiseth to a higher summe estimating the talent at foure thousand fiue hundred pound so that the hundred thousand talents of Gold which Dauid had prouided for that worke amount to foure hundred and fifty millions of our pounds and his million of siluer talents each of which is three hundred seuenty fiue pound to three hundred seuenty fiue millions besides thirteene millions and fiue hundred thousand pounds in gold and two millions sixe hundred twenty fiue thousand pounds in siluer afterwards by Dauid offered to the same purpose and by his Princes twenty two millions fiue hundred thousand seuen thousand and fiue hundred pounds in gold and three millions seuen hundred and fifty thousand pounds in siluer That I speake not all other prouisions of iewels metals and timber and the rest Now all that Cyrus got by the conquest of an Asia is valued but at one hundred twenty fiue millions if wee summe his fiue hundred thousand talents after the Aegyptian account which is a great deale more then Alexander found in the Persian Treasury so much renowned both at Susis and Persopolis which as Strabo hath numbred were but thirty two millions and seuen hundred and fifty thousand pounds That summe of Dauid I confesse had often troubled mee nor could I euer finde satisfaction in that doubt But in my opinion Master Brerewoods coniecture is probable that the Hebrew word in that place doth not signifie a Talent or that the word Talent doth not alway signifie the same summe in Scripture euen as amongst other Nations it also varied and
besides those that by diseases or other manifold lets were not partakers thereof and in regard of this Feast being assembled thither through GODS iust iudgement their whole huge multitudes were couped or caged together in the wals of this Citie to destruction vnder Titus The bloud of the Lambe they were to receiue in a vessell and to sprinkle the same with a bunch of Hysope on the doore posts and to eate it in the night which was the beginning of the fifteenth day roast with fire with sowre hearbes and vnleauened bread both the head feete and purtenance girded shod with staues in their hands in haste standing burning whatsoeuer was left of the same After the eating the Sacramentall Lambe standing they had other prouision which they eate sitting or after their manner of lying at Table in remembrance of their libertie as appeareth by Iohns leaning on his brest and Iudas his sop at Christs supper In the Law it was commanded that they should eate the Passeouer standing which they onely practised in the first celebration in Aegypt For so the Iewes set forth the difference of the Paschall night from other nights in their twice washing which on other nights they do but once in their vnleauened in their Endiue or sowre hearbes And whereas on other nights they sit or lie now they lie onely in token of their securitie The washing was therfore necessarie lest they should defile the beds whereon they lay with their dusty feete In which respect the Gentiles also vsed to wash their feete the Iewes their whole bodie And the Pharise maruelled at Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was not thus baptized or washed before he sate downe Some contented themselues onely with washing of the feete the want of which Office Christ obiected to another of his Pharisaicall hostes But in the Paschall rite a double washing was requisite because of their double Supper which in the flourishing state of the Iewes was also vsed in other their chiefe solemnities of the Pentecost and Tabernacles In the former they eate their Sacrifices in the later certaine Prayses were sung and it was called the supper dimissorie But this second Paschall Supper differed from that in other solemnities wherein they vsed iunkets which in this were forbidden and instead therof they had Endine and wilde Lettice mingled with Vinegar and other things which now they make as thick as mustard The Housholder first dipt his vnleauened soppe therein and eate it and then tooke from vnder the carpet or cloth another which he brake into as many pieces as he had Communicants in his company euery piece being as big as an Oliue which was giuen to each of them in order When he eate that sop first he said Blessed be thou Lord our God King of the world which hast sanctified vs with thy Commandements and hast giuen vs the precept of vnleauened bread And when he had eaten he said as he distributed to the rest This is the bread of affliction which our fore-fathers ate in the land of Aegypt Euery one which is hungry come and eate euery one which hath neede come and obserue the Passeouer After the destruction of Ierusalem they added these words Now we are here seruants but hereafter wee shall be in the land of Israel now we are here seruants hereafter in the land of Israel free After this he tasted of the Cuppe and deliuered to the next and he to the third and so on through the company This was called the Cup of thankesgiuing or of singing the Hymne which he deliuered with these words Blessed art thou O Lord our GOD King of the world Creator of the fruite of the Vine Then did they sing a Hymne and depart for the Canon forbad them to eate or drinke any thing after the Hymne These were the Paschall rites in the time of CHRIST who also vsed that reiterated both washing saith Scaliger and Supper and also the Hymne They were in the Eeuen of the foureteenth day to purge their houses of leauen and that throughout the Land where the Lambe might not be eaten All the Israelites were inioyned this dutie And they which by occasion of iourneying or vncleanenesse could not now celebrate the Passeouer were to obserue it the next moneth Numb 9. The day after or second day of this Paschall Feast they were to bring to the Priest a Gomer of the first-fruits of their Corne and a Lambe with other duties for a burnt offering to the LORD before which time they might not eate of the new yeeres fruites which at that time in those Countries beganne to ripen and so to acknowledge GOD the giuer thereof Philo saith That each priuate man which otherwise brought in his Sacrifice to the Priest Sacrificed or slew this Sacrifice with his owne handes And else where hee affirmeth the same Eleazarus or as other say the Synedrium ordayned three hundred and fiftie yeeres before the birth of Christ that the Passe-ouer should not bee solemnized on the second fourth or sixt day of the Weeke And therefore when it fell on the sixt day which wee call Fridaie it was deferred to the seuenth at the time of Christs Passion he with his Disciples ate it the night before according to the Law of God This Eleazarus ordained that the feast of Lots should not be celebrated on the second fourth or seuenth or Pentecost on the third fift or seuenth Or that of the Tabernacles on the first fourth and sixt Or the Fast of Expiation on the first third or sixt Or their New-yeeres day on the first fourth and sixt which decree is extant in the booke of Gamaliel Pauls Master which they did superstitiously to auoide two Sabbaths in so strict a rest together and carrying boughes on the Sabbath if that Feast fell thereon and on other such reasonlesse reasons After this sixteenth day of the moneth or second day of the vnleauened bread in which first of all sickle was thrust into the Haruest to offer the first fruits thereof vnto GOD were numbred seuen intire Weekes and the next day which was the fiftieth accounting inclusiuely was celebrated the feast of PENTECOST receiuing his name of that reckoning of fiftie And Schefuoth that is of Weekes because of this reckoning of seuen weekes it is called also the Feast of the Haruest of the first fruites the rites thereof are prescribed Leuit. 23. The institution was in respect of the Law then giuen on Mount Sinai and a type of that Euangelicall Law which Christ hauing ascended vp on high did write not in Tables of stone but in fleshly Tables of the heart when at the same time hee gaue the holy Ghost to his Disciples as a remembrance also of the Author of their Haruest-fruits and of their possession of that land where they had seede-time and haruest which in the wildernesse they wanted As the seuenth day in the weeke so the seuenth moneth in the yeere was in a great
Seth the sonne of Adam who affirme that two men being created in the beginning and the Angells dissenting the faeminine power preuailed in heauen for with them are males and females gods and goddesses Eue perceiuing that brought forth Seth and placed in him a Spirit of great power that the aduersaries powers might be destroyed Of Seth they say that Christ should come of his stock yea some of them conceiue him to be the very Christ The Heliognosti called also Deuictaci worshipped the Sunne which said they knew all the things of GOD and yeelded all necessaries to men Others there were which worshipped Frogges thereby thinking to appease Diuine Wrath which in Pharaohs time brought Frogges vpon the Land of Aegypt He reckoneth the Accaronites which worshipped a Flie of which else where is spoken as also the Thamuzites of Thamuz which hee saith was the sonne of a Heathen King whose Image the Iewish woman worshipped with teares and continuall sacrifices and that Pharao which ruled Aegypt in Moses time was of that name Astar also and Astarot he saith were Kings of Syria and Aegypt worshipped after their deaths But perhaps more truely we haue expressed these things in our former booke Beniamin Teudelensis speaketh of a sect in his time which he calleth Cyprians and Epicures who prophaned the euening before the Sabbath and obserued the euening of the first day I might adde to their sects the diuers Christs or Messiases which in diuers ages they had but that I haue referred to the tenth Chapter CHAP. IX Of the Samaritans IT remaineth to speake of the Samaritan Sects Samaria was the Citie royall of the ten Tribes after that Omri who as other his predecessors had raigned before at Ticzah had bought the Mountaine Shomron of one Shemer for two talents of siluer and built thereon this Citie which he called after the name Shemer Lord of the Mountaine In vaine therefore is it to seeke the name of the Samaritans from the signification of the word which is keeping seeing they are so called of the place and the place of this their ancient Lord It remayned the chiefe seate of the kingdome as long as the same endured and namely till the dayes of Hoshea their last King in whose time Salmanasar the Assyrian carried the Israelites thence Esarhaddon the son of Senacherib otherwise called Osnappar thus saith Hezra and therefore Epiphanius was deceiued in ascribing this act to Nabuchodonosor in the time of the captiuitie fortie yeeres before the returne sent to inhabite that Region Colonies from Babel and from Cuthan and from Aua and from Hannah and from Sepharuaim Babel is knowne Cutha and Aua are esteemed parts of the desart of Arabia the other of Syria and Mesopotamia It seemeth that most of them were of Cutha because all of them after passed into that name and were of the Iewes called Cuthaei as witnesseth Iosephus Elias Leuita giueth the same reason and addeth that a Iew might not say Amen to a Samaritans or Cuthans blessing The Cuthi saith he were the subtlest beggers of all men in the world and from them as he thinketh came those cosining Roging Gipsies or Egyptians which so many ages haue troubled so many countries of Europe These Heathens serued not the Lord and therefore the Lord sent Lyons among them which slew them wherefore they sent to the King of Assyria who sent thither one of the captiued Priests of Israel to teach them how to worship GOD Epiphanius calleth his name Esdras He dwelt at Bethel and as some conceiue taught rather that Idolatrous worship whereof Bethel had beene before the Beth-auen where Ieroboam had placed his golden Calfe then the true worship of the True Iehouah Howsoeuer euery Nation saith the Text made them gods and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made The men of Babel made Succoth Benoth and the men of Cutha made Nergal and the men of Hamath Ashima and the Auims Nibhaz and Tartak and the Sepharuams burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech their gods Thus they feared the Lord and serued their gods after the manner of the Nations and so continued A mungrell Religion begotten of a bastard or haereticall Iudaisme and wilde Paganisme What those gods were it is vncertaine and interpreters agree not Of Succoth Benoth is already spoken Wolphius interpreteth Nergal a wilde Hen Ashima a Goate Nibhaz a Dogge Tarkak an Asse Adramelech a Mule Anamelech a Horse Thus saith he the Hebrewes expound them and hee supposeth these creatures were among them canonized and sacred as the Persians are said to worship a Cock the Proembari of Africa a Dog other people other creatures Some are of opinion that Nergal was that continuall fire which these Cuthaeans after the Persian manner kept in their Pyraeths places inclosed for that purpose as in our Persian relations shal follow and Kimchi saith that Adramelech had the forme of a Peacock Anamelech of a Pheasant But neither are the trifling RR. too far to be trusted nor haue we any other good testimonie Thus their Religion continued till after the returne of the Iewes from captiuitie to whom they would haue beene officious helpers in building of the Temple which being refused they be came their enemies and hindred a building the long time But the Temple being built and Religion established among the Iewes and their state flourishing Sanballat gaue his Daughter Nicaso to Manasses the brother of Iaddus the high Priest in the time of Darius the last Persian Monarch This Nehemiah mentioneth but deigneth not to name him affirming that he chased him from him of which some descant whether it were by exile or excommunication or some other punishment R. Salomo interpreteth it of exile Pelican of excommunication Drusius hath a discourse out of a Iewish Author which relateth the forme of that first Anathema and iudiciall curse not vnmeete here to be mentioned denounced against the Samaritans for hindring the worke of the Temple Zorobabel and Ioshua saith hee gathered all the Congregation into the Temple of the Lord and brought three hundred Priests and three hundred Trumpets and three hundred Bookes of the Law and as many children and sounded And the Leuites singing and playing on instruments cursed with all kindes of Anathema's the Chutheans in the secret of the name Tetragrammaton and in writing written vpon Tables and with the Anathema of the house of the higher iudgement and the Anathema of the house of the lower iudgement that none of Israel should eate the bread of the Cuthean whereupon it is said He which eateth a Samaritans bread be as he that eateth Swines flesh and that a Cuthean should not bee a Proselyte in Israel nor should haue part in the Resurrection of the dead Thus they writ and sealed and sent vnto all Israel which were in Babylonia which heaped vpon them
finde two Paradises and two Hells one in this World and the other in the other and future for the body heere and the soule hereafter Euen as saith R. Saadia the white of the Egge comprehendeth the yolke so that first intelligible World infoldeth the second in this are nine Spheres mooued of the immoueable Empyreon in that nine orders of Angels Ricius reckoneth ten Hayes Hakadesch Offanim Erelim Hasmalim Seraphim Malachim Elohim bene Elohim Cherubim Some Diuines count them thus out of Dionysius Seraphim Cherubim Throni Dominationes Virtutes Potestates Principatus Archangels Angeli The tenth Order the Peripatetikes terme Anamastica the Cabalists Ischim that is Men moued of the vnchangeable GOD who in vnmoueable silence first created altogether and after by nine times speaking moued and promoted each thing to its owne distinction The Talmudists dreame of an earthly Messias to free them from this their slauerie the Cabalists if our Cabalists haue not seene these things through spectacles expect a spirituall deliuerie from sinne Doubtlesse they deliuer many excellent assertions howsoeuer their collection seemeth curious and vncertaine gathering the same on grounds without ground beyond all Sense Reason Scripture and therefore often leauened with other superfine absurdities Buxtorfius in his abbreuiat Heb. saith that by his abbreuiation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they vse to signifie the three parts of the Art Cabalastica Gematria Notarkon Temurah Gematria is that part which by like numbers contained in the letters of diuers words explaineth one by the other as Tzemach Zach. 3.8 hath in the numerall letters 138. and so many are in Menachem a name which they giue to the Messias and therefore by Tremach they there vnderstand the Messias So in Gen. 49.10 Shilo shall come containe 358. and so doth Messiah which is therefore there meant and many like examples Notaricon is when euery letter in one word shall note so many other words and make vp a sentence Thus the Maccabees are so called of these foure letters which they inscribed in their banners m. c. b. i. the first letters of so many words Exo. 15.11 Who is like thee amongst the gods O Lord So in Adams name they finde as the cause thereof words beginning with the same letters signifying ashes bloud gall whence are noted his corruption losse and calamitie as the Greekes in the same name find the the East West North and South A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Temurah is when one or two words are changed into one or more other by transposition of letters or inuersion of qualitie So out of the Hebrew words Psal. 21.2 The King shall reioyce in thy strength O Lord they expound the King Messias for this is gathered by transposition of the letters So Chrerem Anathema is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mercy and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the numerall letters hath 248. the iust number in their anatomie of the members of mans bodie The glosse is he which is anathematized if hee repent shall haue for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is mercy if not it pierceth his 248. members and destroyes the whole man Hence came our Anagrammatismes and Chronogrammatismes wherein some doe sometimes learnedly triflle and spend their wits foolishly This of all their Caball is true that it may better serue to conuince the Iewes with testimonie of their owne then for an instruction to vs who cannot enforce arguments out of Symbolicall senses If any be in loue with these mysteries let him resort to Paulus Ricius his Theoremes to Iohn Reuchlin to Iohannes Picus and his Commenter Archangelus to Abrahams supposed Booke of the creation to R. Ioseph Castiliensis his Porta lucis which Ricius hath also translated and epitomized to Galatinus and others Commendable is the labour of some of these and of many others both conuerted Iewes which haue sought to reclaime their peruerse brethren and of our owne as Mornaeus Gregentius Pomeranus out of whom they which please may borrow arguments to conuince the Iewish incredulitie and stubbornenesse and to confound them by their owne testimonies both from these elder Writers aboue mentioned and also from the later So great is the Truth and mightily it preuaileth that it extorteth not onely her owne weapons vsurped and stollen by her enemies but their owne also wherewith they come armed against the Truth and retorteth them on themselues as Dauid serued the Philistims Who cut off Goliahs head with Goliahs sword as Benaiah one of his Worthies slew an Aegyptian a man of great stature fiue cubits long and in the Aegyptians hand was a speare like a Weauers beame and hee went downe to him with a staffe and plucked the speare out of the Aegyptians hand and slew him with his owne speare Thus did Dioxippus the Champion if forrainers delight any deale with Horratus the Macedonian in a set combate and thus hath our Worthie and Champion come often into the field against the Popish Giants armed inwardly with Truth outwardly with Arguments wrested without wresting from his enemies Hee in his Latine and English workes hath obserued the two-fold rule of policie Diuide and Rule against the Papists Vnite and Rule for the Protestants which Breerely would haue brought into the like bryers But those his troupes are shewed not to bee Men but Apes like those that held Alexanders Armie in suspence and like Semiramis Elephants which were but stuffed Oxe-hides kill-cow-frayes But Macte virtute esto worthy Deane Euen so goe on still and fight the Lords battels that thy Sparta so happily vndertaken still adorne and shew the confusion of Babels bablers Diuide that Societie which now in their last age haue hissed with their forked venemous Tongues feared and enuyed at home for their arrogance no lesse then hated abroad for their heresies and treasons Let Saint Iohns Let England and the whole Church still sing the ten thousands that thou doest thus slay with their owne weapons and let the Apostolicall Truth escape whiles her Apostaticall Enemies the Pharisies and Sadducees are set together by the eares A happie and diuine stratageme which not to detract from others iust prayses in this or other parts of the battell hath beene singled and singularly managed by thy prowesse which speakest more iustly then he which vsed those words to these Babylonians in their owne Language that they may eate their owne dung and drinke their owne pisse together Doctor White also in that Lactea via his Milke-white Way to the true Church challengeth in all points of Poperie both authoritie of Scriptures Fathers and later Romanists and to produce the same against the Trent-Councell and the Iesuites But how hath that fatall name of Babel confounded mee Truely the likenesse of these Traditionaries Cabalists muddie Talmudists and Legendaries as will appeare to an easie Obseruer and Comparer of this ensuing Historie to their practice which haue
be washed and if hee should touch his eyes hee would be blinde his eares deafe his nose dropping his mouth stinking his hand scabbed with these vnwashed and therefore venemous hands and when hee washeth he must powre water three times on his right hand and as oft on the left before one hand may touch the other hee must not bee sparing in his water for store of water store of health after the hands the mouth and face must bee washed because they were created after the Image of God and how should the name of God be vttered out of a foule mouth hee must wash ouer a bason not ouer the ground he must drie his face very well for feare of wheales and wrinkles and that with a cleane Towel not with his shirt for this would make them blockish and forgetfull After all this followeth his Brachah or blessing Blessed bee thou O God our God King of the whole world who hast commanded vs to wash our hands Their hands they must alwayes wash on these occasions in the morning at their returne from the stoole from bathing when they haue cut their nayles haue scratched their naked bodie hauing pulled off their shooes with their hands haue touched a dead bodie haue gone amongst the dead haue companied with their wiues or haue killed a louse If hee respect not washing after these if he bee learned he shall forget his learning if vnlearned he shall lose his sense §. II. Of their Zizis and Tephillim and Holy Vestments THey haue a foure-cornered garment which some put on with the rest when they rise others then when they will pray The foure cornered parts thereof are made of linnen silke tyed together with two winding bands of such length that they may draw through their head betwixt them so that those two quadrangular pieces may hang downe one on his brest the other on his backe In euery of those foure corners hangeth a labell made of white woollen threds by a little knot downewards to the ground and the same is foure or eight or twelue fingers broad These labels they call Zizis Those which are deuout weare this garment euery day vnder a long outward coat in such sort that those labels may appeare out a little so that they may alwayes see them as monitories of the Commandements of God When they put them on they praise God that hath commanded them to weare these Zizis Hee say they that keepeth duely this Precept of Zizis doth as much as if hee kept the whole Law for there are in all fiue knots compared to the fiue bookes of Moses eight threds added to them make thirteene And the word Zizis maketh sixe hundred altogether amounting to sixe hunded and thirteene the number as you haue heard of Gods Commandements They ascribe the continencie of Ioseph in Potiphars house and of Boaz when Ruth slept by him to the Zizis May it please your patience a storie out of the Talmud One Rab. Iochanan saw a boxe full of Iewels which one of his Schollers Bar-Emorai purposed to steale but was forbidden by a voyce sounding out of the ayre Let it alone Bar-Emorai for it belongeth to R. Chaninas wife which in the other world shall put into the same violet wooll to make thred for Zizis that of them the iust men there may haue their fringed garments sewed Once hee which weareth this garment without intermission is fortified against the Deuill and all euill Spirits Besides this memorable Vestment they weare a certaine knot neare their nose out of Deut. 6.8 They shall bee frontlets betweene thine eyes They make it thus They take a little blacke foure-square calfe-skin which they fold eight times that it may haue foure double folds and distinct breadths They put into these distinct Scriptures the same being fourefold of parchment These Scriptures are taken out of Exod. 13. and Deut. 6. Then take they haires out of a Cow or Calues tayle and wash them cleane and binde them about those writings of Scripture so that any one may see that they are good by the ends of them appearing out of the skin This skinne they sew with cleane and fine strings taken out of Calues or Kines bodies or made of Bulls sinewes or if such strings cannot bee had with strings of Calue-skin-parchment Then doe they sew a long and blacke thong to that thick hide or skin and knit a knot about it This piece of worke they call Tephillim to put them in minde of often prayer and tye it so about their heads that the thicke knot wherein the Scriptures are may hang betwixt the eyes After this they take another foure-cornered skin which they fold as the former and write certaine verses out of Exodus in parchment and put it into a little hollowed skinne and sew it vpon the thicke-folded skin to which they adde a long thong and call it the Tephillim of the hand This they tye to the bare skin aboue the elbow of the left arme that so that which is written may bee ouer-against the heart which may hereby be the more enflamed to prayer That long string is so fastned that it commeth to the fore-part of the hand thus fulfilling that Commandement The words which I command thee this day shall bee on thine heart and thou shalt tye them for a signe in thy hand They tye on first this Tephillim of the hand and then that of the head and make their brachah or prayer saying Blessed bee thou O God our Lord who hast sanctified vs in thy Commandements and hast commanded vs to put on Tephillim looking while hee speaketh diligently on the knot on his fore-head In folding sewing knitting and tying them they verie subtilly frame the name of God Schaddai Other their manifold ceremonies about these Tephillim I willingly omit Their sanctitie is such that he which weareth them must be pure within and without and if hee lets them fall on the ground all that shall see them so lying must fast with him one whole day they must not bee hanged vp bare but in a bagge nor may they be left in a chamber where a man and his wife lye together except in a triple chest or bagge A man must not sleepe while he hath them on nor may hee breake winde and if he haue list to the stoole he must lay them foure ells from the place of his easement or lay them against his heart in a double bagge Their women seruants and sicke folkes are free from wearing them It is sufficient for women to say Amen to their prayers And all this Moses learned in Mount Sinai §. III. Of their Schoole or Synagogue Rites and their Mattins WEE haue beene tedious in furnishing our Iew to his Mattins at Sun-rising is their houre as you haue heard but their Rabbins haue inlarged and lengthened that time to about nine of the clocke Where many of the Iewes liue together they resort at a set houre to their Synagogue Thither they must
goe cheerfully before their Synagogue they haue an Yron fastned to make cleane their shooes according to Salomons counsell Keepe thy foote when thou goest into the house of God He that hath Pantofles must put them off as it is written For the place where thou standest is holy ground At the entrance in at the doore he pronounceth some things out of Dauids Psalmes they must enter with feare and trembling considering whose presence it is and for a while suspend their praying for the better attention And euerie Iew must cast in a halfe-penie at least into the Treasurie as it is written I will see thy face in righteousnesse that is in almes as they interpret it In this attention they bow themselues towards the Arke in which is the booke of the Law and say How faire are thy Tents O IACOB and thy dwellings O Israel And I will enter into thy house in the multitude of thy mercie I will bow downe in thy holy Temple in thy feare And O Lord I haue loued the habitation of thy house and the place of the Tabernacle of thy glorie and diuers other verses out of the Psalme After these things they begin to pray as is contained in their common Prayer-booke and because these prayers are verie many therefore they runne them ouer hee that cannot reade must attend and say Amen to all their prayers These prayers are in Hebrew rimes Their first prayer is The Lord of the World which raigned before any thing was created at that time when according to his will they were created was called King to whom shall bee giuen feare and honour He alway hath beene is and shall remaine in his beautie for euer Hee is One and besides him there is none other which may bee compared or associated to him without beginning and end with him is rule and strength He is my GOD and my deliuerer which liueth He is my Rocke in my need and time of my trouble my Banner my Refuge my Hereditarie portion in that day when I implore his helpe Into his hands I commend my Spirit Whether I wake or sleepe hee is with me therefore I will not be afraid This done they say then their hundreth benedictions one after another which are short and twice a day repeated First for the washing of their hands that if hee then forgot it he might now in the Congregation recite it Then for the creation of man and for that hee was made full of holes whereof if one should bee stopped he should dye then a confession of the Resurrection then for vnderstanding giuen to the Cocke as you haue heard to discerne day and night a sunder and with his crowing to awaken them and in order Blessed c. That he hath made me an Israelite or Iew Blessed c. That hee hath not made me a seruant Blessed c. That he hath not made me a woman The women heere say that he hath made me according to his will Blessed c. That exalteth the lowly Blessed c. That maketh the blind to see which they should say at their first wakening Blessed c. That rayseth the crooked at his rising Blessed c. That cloatheth the naked at his apparelling Blessed c. That raiseth them vp that fall Blessed c. That bringeth the prisoners out of prison Blessed c. That stretcheth the world vpon the waters when hee setteth his feet on the ground Blessed c. That prepareth and ordereth the goings of man when hee goeth out of his chamber Blessed c. That hath created all things necessarie to life when he puts on his shooes Blessed c. That girded Israel with strength his girdle Blessed c. That crowneth Israel with comelinesse when he puts on his hat Blessed c. That giueth strength to the wearie Blessed bee thou God our Lord King of the world who takest sleepe from mine eyes and slumber from mine eye-lids Then adde they two prayers to be preserued against sinnes euill spirits and men and all euill After this humbling themselues before GOD they confesse their sinnes and againe comfort themselues in the couenant made to Abraham Wee are thy people and the children of thy Couenant c. O happie wee how good is our portion how sweet is our lot how faire is our heritage Oh happie we who euery morning and euening may say Heare Israel The Lord our Lord is one God Gather vs that hope in thee from the foure ends of all the earth that all the inhabitants of the earth may know that thou art our God c. Our Father which art in Heauen be mercifull vnto vs for thy names sake which is called vpon vs and confirme in vs that which is written At that time will I bring you and gather you and make you for a name and praise among all the people of the earth when I shall turne your captiuities saith the Lord Then follow two short prayers for the Law giuen them And then they goe on to the Sacrifices which because they cannot execute in action out of the Temple they redeeme with words reading the precepts concerning sacrifices according to their times comforting themselues with the saying of HOSE We will sacrifice the calues of our lippes Then repeat they an Historie of Sacrifice and a Prayer of the vse of the Law and how many wayes it may bee expounded This done they with a still voyce that none can heare pray for the re-edifying of the Temple in these words Let thy will bee before thy face O GOD our Lord Lord of our Fathers that the holy house of thy Temple may bee restored in our dayes and grant vs thy will in thy Law After rising with great ioy and clamour they sing a prayer of prayse in hope hereof and sitting downe againe they reade a long prayer gathered heere and there out of the Psalmes and some whole Psalmes and part of 1. Chron. 30. And lastly the last words of Obadiah The Sauiours shall ascend into Mount Sion to iudge the Mount of Esau and the Kingdome shall bee the Lords Which they speake in hope of the destruction of the Christians whom they call Edomites and of their owne restitution In some of their close writings which they will not suffer to come into the hands of Christians they say that the soule of Edom entered into the bodie of Christ and that both hee and wee are no better then Esau They proceed singing And God shall bee King ouer all the earth In that day GOD shall bee one and his name one as it is written in thy Law O GOD Heare Israel GOD our GOD is one GOD And these words in their next Prayer they repeat resounding that last word One by the halfe or whole houre together looking vp to Heauen and when they come to the last letter thereof Daleth d. they all turne their heads to the foure corners and windes of the World signifying that GOD
agonie tooke his knife so left and thrust into his heart This their grace is long containing a commemoration of the benefits vouchsafed their fore-fathers and a prayer for regranting the same to send Elias and the Messias and that they may not be brought to begge or borrow of the Christians and for his blessing vpon all that house c. whereunto is answered with a loud voyce Amen and they say to themselues Feare the Lord yee his Saints for they that feare him haue no want the Lions lacke and suffer hunger but they which seeke the Lord shall want nothing that is good and while this is said there must not a crumme bee left in their mouthes The prayers must bee in that place where they haue eaten or else they shall lose the benefit of buriall and a certaine deuout Iew in the field remembring that he had forgotten his grace returned backe to the house and there performing his dutie had miraculously sent vnto him a doue of gold In Cities where are Synagogues about fiue in the afternoone their Clerke or some such officer goeth about and with knocking at their doores giues them notice of Euening prayer thither being come they sit downe and say this prayer of the first word called Aschre Blessed are they which dwell in thy house praising thee continually Selah Blessed are the people that are thus blessed are the people whose God is the Lord I will magnifie thee O God my King c. all that 145. Psalme throughout hee which saith this Psalme thrice a day shall haue his portion in eternall life Then the chiefe Chorister or Chanter singeth halfe their prayer called Kaddesch and then all say those eighteene prayses mentioned in Morning Prayer Then goeth their Chorister out of his Pulpit and kneeleth downe vpon the steps before the Arke and falleth downe with his face on his left hand all the people doing likewise saying O mercifull and gracious God I haue sinned in thy sight but thou art full of mercy be mercifull vnto me and receiue my prayer proceeding from an humble heart Reproue mee not O Lord in thy wrath nor correct mee in thine anger and so proceedeth through that whole sixt Psalme his countenance couered and inclined to the ground This is done in imitation of Ioshua Then the Praecentor or chiefe Chorister againe rising vp saith And we know not what to doe but that wee direct our eyes vnto thee And then they say vp the other halfe of their Kaddesch and so endeth their Euensong Now should they goe home and after supper returne to performe their Night-deuotions but because a full belly would rather be at rest and might easily forget his dutie after some pawse and stay they proceed before they goe to their other taske and in that time of pawsing betweene their vespers and nocturnes if there bee any strife betweene any and reconciliation cannot be made then hee which cannot reconcile his neighbour goeth to the common prayer-booke and shutting it knocketh thereon with his hand saying anikelao I conclude the businesse as if he should say I conclude praying till mine aduersarie be reconciled to me vntill which thing be effected they may not pray further and so sometimes their prayers are intermitted then and diuers dayes together if one partie will be stubborne These prayers are for substance much like the former as against the Christians and for their owne restitution by their Messias They depart out of the Synagogue with repetition of those sentences mentioned in the former Chapter At Supper they behaue themselues as at Dinner Going to bed they put off the left shooe before the right their shirt they put off when they are couered in their beds for feare of the walls beholding their nakednesse Hee that maketh water naked in his chamber shall be a poore man and the prayer Heare Israel must be his last words on his bed and sleeping on the same as in Psal. 4.5 Speake in your heart on your bed and bee silent Selah If hee cannot by and by sleepe he must repeat it till hee can and so his sleepe shall prooue good to him The bed must be pure for how else should they thinke on the name of GOD And it must be so placed that they must lye with their heads to the South their feet toward the North for by this meanes they shall bee fruitfull in Male children They haue also their Chamber Morals instructing of duties betwixt the Man and Wife vnmeet for sober and chaste eares T is time for our Pen to sleepe with them and end this Chapter CHAP. XVII Their weekely obseruation of Times viz. Their Mundayes and Thursdayes and Sabbath §. I. Of their Mundayes and Thursdayes HItherto haue wee heard of their prayers euery day obserued They haue also their times designed to the reading of the Law In the Talmud is reported that Ezra in the Babylonian Captiuitie was Author vnto the Iewes of ten Commandements First that on the Sabbath secondly on Munday and Thursday with singular solemnitie some part of the Law should bee read thirdly that Thursday should be Court or Law-day for deciding controuersies fourthly that it should bee a day of washing sweeping and cleansing in honour of the Sabbath fiftly that men should then eate Leekes the sixt that women should arise and bake their Bread so earely that at Sunne rising they might giue a poore man a piece of bread the seuenth that they should for modesties sake gird their Linnen to them the eighth that in the Bathes they should combe and part their haires verie carefully the ninth about selling their commodities to Marchants and buying womanly ornaments for the honour of their feasts and pleasing their husbands the last is of cleansing after vncleane issues Their learned men confirme this institution of Ezra by authoritie of Scripture They went three dayes in the desart and found no waters By waters they vnderstand the Law For so it is said Esay 55.1 Come yee to the waters that is to the Law and therefore they ought not to let three dayes passe without some solemne reading of the Law Munday and Thursday are chosen to bee the dayes because on Thursday Moses went the second time into the Mount and returned with the two Tables on the Munday on which day also the Temple was destroyed and the Law burnt This their deuotion is as ancient as that Pharisee Luke 18. I fast twice in the weeke that which the most deuout amongst them doe to this day obserue Yea it seemeth the deuouter sort fast foure dayes saith another on Munday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday the first for Mariners and trauellers by Sea the next for such as passe thorow desart places the third for Children which are troubled with the Squinancie of this Elias Leuita testifieth that after the beginning of the World it first assayled children and after that men so that sometimes when they neezed their spirit fled
away and they dyed whence came that custome of saluting and praying well to men in neezing The strangling of Achitophel they also interpret of this neezing farewell The fourth dayes fast is for Women which are with childe or giue sucke but the Tuesday and Wednesday in likelyhood were not ordinarie as the other Sunday might not bee thus honoured being the Christian Sabbath and Friday was the preparatiue to their owne Those two dayes are generally halfe holy-dayes Assembling earely in their Synagogues besides their ordinarie prayers they annexe many other Among others they vse one Prayer called Vchurachum of miraculous effect as appeared in Vespatians time who committing three Ships full of Iewes without Oare or Mariner to the wide Seas which arriued in three seuerall regions Louanda Arlado Burdeli worke for Geographers Those which arriued in this last port by tyrannicall Edict of the King were to be tryed whether they were true Iewes as Hananias Misael and Azarias made proofe of their Religion Whereupon three dayes being required as they said Nebuchadnezzar had granted them wherein to betake themselues to fasting and prayer in this time of respite three deuout Iewes Ioseph Beniamin and Samuel inuened each of them a prayer which they ioyned into one and continued in praying the same three dayes at the end whereof they cast themselues into the fire and there continued till it was consumed Hence arose this ordinance euery Munday and Thursday to vse the same prayer which is this And hee is mercifull and pardoning sinne doth not destroy the sinner Hee often turneth his anger from vs and doth not kindle all his wrath Thou O my God suffer me not to want thy mercie let thy gentlenesse and truth keepe mee alwayes Helpe vs O God our God and gather vs from the Gentiles c. for their restitution as in other their prayers and destruction of their enemies the Christians After this they prostrate themselues on their faces as before with many other orisons to the like effect §. II. Of their Law-Lectures THeir solemne ceremonie of the Law-lecture followeth In all their Synagogues they haue the fiue bookes of Moses written in great letters on Parchments of Calues-skins sowed together in length which at both ends are fastened to pieces of wood by which the booke may be lifted and carried This booke is kept in an Arke or Chest set in some wall of the Synagogue Before the doores of the Arke is a hanging of Tapestrie more or lesse precious according to the qualitie of their Feasts and for the most part wrought with Bird-worke The booke is wrapped in a linnen-cloath wrought with Hebrew words without that is hanged about some other cloath of Linnen Silke Veluet or Gold to which is fastened a plate of Siluer by a chayne of Gold vpon the which is written The crowne of the Law or holinesse of the Lord Then goeth one about crying Who will buy Gelilah etzchaijm This is an office whereby they are authorized to handle those pieces of wood and to open the booke of the Law Hee which giueth most for it hath it the money is reserued for the poore The pieces of wood are called etzchaijm tree of life according to Salomon Wisedome is a tree of life to them that lay holde thereon When the chiefe Chanter hath taken out the booke and goeth with it into the Pulpit they all sing out of Num. 10.35 Arise O Lord and let thine enemies bee scattered and let them that hate thee flye before thee And out of Esay 2.3 Many people shall goe and say Come let vs ascend to the mount of the Lord to the house of the God of IACOB and hee shall teach vs his wayes and wee will walke in his pathes for the Law shall goe out of Sion and the Word of the Lord from Ierusalem When this Praecentor layeth the booke on his arme hee saith Magnifie the Lord with mee and let vs exalt his name together to which all the people answer Exalt yee the Lord our God and bow before his foot-stoole for it is holy exalt yee the Lord our God and bow to the mountaine of his holinesse for Iehouah our God is holy There vpon a Table couered with silke hee layeth downe the booke and he which hath bought the Office taketh from it the cloathes wherein it is wrapped Then these two call some one of the Congregation by his owne and his Fathers name who commeth foorth and kisseth the booke not on the bare Parchment for that were a sinne but on the cloathes which couer it and taking it by those pieces of wood saith aloud Praise the Lord c. Blessed bee thou O Lord who hast chosen vs before any other people and giuen vs thy Law Blessed bee thou O God the Law-giuer Then the Praecentor readeth a Chapter out of the booke and then hee which was called foorth with like kissing and blessing returneth Then another is called foorth and doth likewise After him another who had need bee of strong armes for hee lifteth vp and carrieth this booke that all may see it all crying This is the Law which Moses gaue to the Israelites This Office is called Hagbahah and is sold as the former The women meane-while contend amongst themselues in this Synagogue by some Lattice to haue a sight of the Law for the women haue a Synagogue apart seuered with Lattices so besides their pretence of modestie to fulfill the saying of Zacharie The family of Dauid shall mourne apart and their wiues apart c. If he which carrieth the booke should stumble or fall it were ominous and should portend much euill These two Officers fold vp the booke as before and then come all and kisse the same and then it is carried to his place with singing After this they end their Prayers as at other times saying Lord leade mee in thy righteousnesse because of mine enemies direct thy way before me And The Lord keepe my going out and comming in from henceforth for euer Which they also say when they goe foorth on a iourney or to worke §. III. Of the Iewish Sabbath THey prepare themselues to the obseruation of their Sabbath by diligent prouision on the Friday before night of the best meates well dressed especially the women prouide them good Cakes They honour the Sabbath with three bankets first on the Friday night when their Sabbath beginneth another on the Sabbath day at noone the third before sunne-set Eate yee it to day to day is the Sabbath of the Lord to day yee shall not find it Manna in the field do you not see To day thrice mentioned and therefore by Moses owne ordaining that Manna must so often bee eaten on the Sabbath The richest Iewes and most learned Rabbins disdaine not some or other office at chopping of hearbs kindling the fire or somewhat toward this preparation The Table remaineth couered all that night and day They wash and if need
seuen gates thereof c. where as in the place fittest for him wee will leaue him The booke of the vertues of Mahomet saith That in glorying of his strength hee would boast that hee had knowne his eleuen wiues successiuely in one houre One of their Chronicles telleth of his Martiall affaires This Chronicle reckoneth from Adam to Noe one thousand two hundred fortie and two yeeres From thence to Abraham one thousand and fourescore Hence to Moses fiue hundred and fifteene After him to Dauid fiue hundred threescore and nine and from this time to Christ one thousand three hundred and fiftie from whence to Mahomet is numbred six hundred and twentie in all fiue thousand three hundred threescore and sixteene from Adam to Mahomet All the Prophets were in number an hundred and twentie thousand and the Messengers of GOD three hundred and fifteene whereof Adam Seth Esdrik Noe Abraham were Hebrewes Huth Schale Ishmael Schaib Mahomet were Arabians If this Historie of Mahomets life be long and tedious I thought good out of an Arabian Chronicle to adde this Epitome thereof His Mother dyed in a iourney to Mecca when he was fourescore yeeres old and his Nurse restored him to his Grand-father Abdalmutalif with whom hee liued eight yeeres The Seraphim preserued him but was neuer seene After that Gabriel was his Guardian of whom hee receiued the Law which he kept close three yeeres communicating it onely to some of his owne opinion by whose helpe hee became Priest and Prince of the Arabians and Saracens and about eighteene moneths after was carried into Heauen and being returned into the Earth he tooke Eubocara Ali and Zaid to be his companions in this enterprise He went to Zaif or Atharf and preached publikely and thence to Mecca ten yeeres going from place to place And of his Conuerts he chose some for guard of his Person who sware the obseruance of his Law to the number of fortie who now with Word now with the Sword set forward this Doctrine After ten yeeres Mecca was peopled onely with beleeuers and all Arabia was conuerted without difficultie Then hee sent to the neighbouring Kings to become of his Religion to the King of Persia to the Roman Emperour to King Cinna to the Lord of the two Seas to the King of Aethiopia c. After he returned to Ietrib and on Tuesday the twelfth of Rab in the eleuenth yeere dyed His Sepulture was appointed by GOD in the house of Aisca his Wife in the chamber where hee was wont to sleepe where at this day is a Temple of bricke His bodie was wrapped in three white clothes without any pompe His seale was a siluer Ring with this inscription Mahomet the Messenger of God He went twise on Pilgrimage and nineteene times conducted an Armie The place of his buriall is at Medina surnamed of him Talnabi that is of the Prophet not as some write at Mecca Neither doth his corps hang in the ayre by force of Load-stones drawing vp his yron Coffin or Chest but lieth buried in the ground if any where as Ludouicus Verttomannus by his owne view hath obserued Of this place and of Mecha we shall speake more in relating the Rites of the Pilgrims that visit them Some relate otherwise of the death of Mahomet as that hee dyed at fortie yeeres of age being poysoned by one of his disciples called Albunor to make triall of his boasting Prophesie that he would rise againe within three daies after his death This Albunor after comming to see him found his bodie torne in pieces and deuoured of dogs whereupon gathering together the bones that remained into a Coffin hee caused them to bee buried Which in my minde is not so probable as the former report The day of his death Scaliger accounteth the tenth yeere of the Hogira on Munday the twelfth of Rabie 1. or rather the euening before that is the sixteenth of Iune in the yeere of our Lord 631. and was borne the fifth of May An. Dom. 570. on the same day and moneth sixtie three Arabike yeeres before Vnto this which hath been spoken I haue thought good to adde out of Arabike Authors collected by Gabriel and Iohn the Maronites this which followeth Mahomed was borne at Mecca and in the fortieth yeere of his age and as Ben-Casem hath in the 933. of Alexander the Great began to vtter his doctrine first priuily after that publikely whereupon hee was banished the Citie in the fiftie two of his life or according to Abdillatif Ben-Iusof the fiftie three and fled to Iathreb from which flight which they call Hegeraton or Hegera which hapned A. B. 622. or thereabouts And although this yeere 1623. bee to them 1032. Yet because they reckon according to the yeeres of the Moone which they say consist of three hundred fiftie foure dayes the Moones course hath in this space exceeded that of the Sunne some moneths aboue thirtie one yeeres Whereupon their moneths are vncertaine In this Citie by subtile hypocrisies Mahomed became Politicall and Ecclesiasticall Prince and beganne to procure the friendship of many and to promulgate his lawes by degrees In the second yeere of his flight he enacted his lawes of Fasting in the third forbade wine and swines-flesh and so proceeded with the rest that within eight yeeres hee brought into subiection Mecca whence he had beene expulsed and Muna and went forward with his law and conquest As concerning his wiues Ben-Casem saith he had foure hee is also reported to haue many harlots and concubines and in this Chapiter Surato-lbaqra or de vacea hee bids them marrie one two three or foure wiues a man and to take as many concubines as they are able to keepe Ben-Sidi Ali saith That he gloried that he had the power of ten Prophets in copulation giuen him by God yea he ascribed all his villanies to God by ministerie of the Angell Gabriel His first wife was named Chodaige by whom he had two sonnes and foure daughters Zainab Fatema whom Ali married Om Kalihum the third and Rakia the fourth both which Abu-beer married His second wife was Aifee daughter of Aba-Becr the first Chalifa which was but six yeeres old Ben-Casem is our Author when Mohamed tooke her to wife the Moslemans call her The Mother of the faithfull who besides the knowledge of tongues perused diligently the Arabike histories loued exceedingly and alway praised Mohamed The third was named Mary which brought forth to Mohamed Ebrahim sirnamed Casem whence Mohamed is often called Abulcasem though Ben-Abdilatif will haue Ebrahim to be one and Casem another but Ben-Casem saith he had but three sons of which Ebrahim Casem dyed at eighteene moneths and Taiheb and Taher his sonnes by Codaigre dyed both in their cradles Mohameds last wife was Zainab whom also they call the Mother of the faithfull before the wife of Zaid Ben-Harteh Mohameds Master who diuorced her whereupon Mohamed gladly tooke her to wife He had foure Councellors or
the memorie of his owne designes occasioned so by the sword and fire it may be rooted out of the world againe The first Surat or Chapiter which is the Pater noster or daily prayer of the Muhamedans I will transcribe out of Erpenius called by them Opening as before is said and the Mother of the booke foundation treasure and perfection In the name of God the shower of mercie mercifull Praise to God the Lord of the Creatures the shewer of mercie mercifull the King of the day of Iudgement Wee worship thee and we call vpon thee Direct vs into the right way the way of them who are gracious towards them without anger against them and not them which erring not Amen The Copies of the Alcaron were diuers and after Mahomets death made if it could be worse at least otherwise then he left them For Hali had one Copie left him by Mahomet which the Iewes corrupted adding racing changing at their pleasure and promised him their assistance if hee would professe himselfe a Prophet But Ozimen commanded all the Bookes to be brought and deliuered into the hands of Zeidi and Abdalla to bring all into one booke and where they dissented to reade after the Copie of Corais and to burne all the rest They thus composed the Alcoran whereof they left foure Copies which after were lost And yet Hali Abitalib and Ibenmuzod then refused to deliuer their Bookes Whereupon arose diuers Readings and afterward diuers Schismes which to compound others often endeuoured by like labours after but could not throughly perfect the same Neither doth that which we haue translated agree with those things which Frier Richard and others cite out of it in their confutations thereof The truth thereof is such in his deuisings of new and seeking and altering the old that it is not probable in Viues opinion that euer hee read the Old and New Testament For saith he though I thinke of him exceeding badly yet thinke I him not so mad to change and wrest the Scripture there especially where it made nothing against him but he had partly heard of such things partly was so perswaded by his fellowes Apostata-Iewes and Christians This riming harsh confused packing worke disagreeing each Copie from other and all from truth and honestie hath beene translated into Latine once by an English man Robertus Retinensis and after by Ioannes Segobiensis a Spaniard at the Councell of Constance and after out of Arabian into Italian published by Andraea Ariuabene The first and last of these that of Robert of Reading and the Italian translations are here by vs followed For the Arabike I vnderstand not nor can warrant this when so great a man as Scaliger findeth great fault with it He that vndertooke to mend the Latine stile marred the sense and the Italian beguileth the world in professing to haue translated out of the Arabike Thus Scaliger who mentioneth another translation then in hand which we are almost out of hope to see In the meane while such as we haue we giue to you It containeth Chapters or Azoara's 124. euery of them beginning In the name of the mercifull and pittifull God Euthymius Zigabenus mentioneth but 113. Mr. Bedwel saith that all the Arabike copies which euer hee saw whether written in the East or West amongst the Moores in Barbarie doe constantly with one consent reckon 114. The reason of this difference is this some Interpreters doe not account the first for any Chapiter but make it a kinde of Preface Robert of Reading of the second Chapter maketh foure of the third three of the fourth foure of the fifth two of the sixth three The first of these are the words of Mahomet and is called the Mother of the Booke and is as it were their Creede the rest are all deliuered as the words of GOD hee being induced as speaker The first is in this sense In the name of the mercifull and pittifull God Thankes bee vnto God the Lord of the World mercifull pittifull Iudge of the day of Iudgement Wee pray vnto thee wee trust in thee Lead vs into the right way the way of them whom thou hast chosen not of them with whom thou art angrie and of the Infidels Postellus thus translateth it In the name of God mercifull pittifull Praise bee to God King of the World mercifull and pittifull King of the day of Iudgement O let vs serue him and wee shall bee helped Direct vs in the right point the point of them with whom thou art well pleased without anger against them and they shall not erre This prayer is saith hee as common to them as the Lords Prayer to vs and is so ouer and ouer with battologies by some of them repeated that they will say ouer the same word or two or three words an hundred times saying Alhamdu lillah hamdu lillah hamdu lillah and so on with these and the other words in like manner And thus doth the Priest in their publike prayers which they say supplieth the defects of such as are negligent in praying some will say and repeat it in the fields till with wearinesse they fall downe Others with wheeling about their bodies till they be besides themselues and then in imitation of Mahomet vtter some ridiculous obscure phantasticall speeches They diuide it into seuen periods which they cal miracles as they are here by the points That which is before them In the name c. Mahomet vsed to vtter alwayes when hee arose from his sicknesse or traunce and therefore is prefixed to all the Chapters and by deuout Authors also in the beginning of their Philosophicall workes By these words the point and the right point they vnderstand the Alcoran Now let vs see the Doctrine contained in this booke which with much labour I haue thus reduced into Theologicall heads reducing that which therein is confusedly heaped and handled in diuers places to this Method naming the Chapter or Azoara where the Reader may finde each sentence §. II. The Doctrine of the ALCORAN brought into common Places OF GOD he writeth that he is One necessary to all incorporeall which neither hath begotten nor is begotten nor hath any like him the Creator long-suffering searcher of the heart true That he will confound inchantments that without his gift none can beleeue this his Alcoran that hee hath no sonne for hee needeth nothing and he which setteth a second in the place of GOD shall goe into hell Az. 31. and he hath no partaker 32. yet in Azoar 67. hee induceth God speaking thus To Christ the sonne of Marie wee haue giuen the Gospell that by him men may obtaine the loue and fauour of GOD and that the beleeuers amongst them Christians shall receiue a great reward as also in Az. 2. he saith Euery one whosoeuer liueth rightly be he Iew or Christian or if he leaueth his owne Law and embrace another if hee worship GOD and doe good shall vndoubtedly
principalitie of the elements to the ayre the Image whereof they worshipped stiling it with the name of Iuno or Venus the Virgin whom the Quires of their Priests worshipped with effeminate voyces and gestures their skin polished and attire fashioned like women Yea their Priests became impure Ganymedes and sustained the Sodomiticall lusts of others in the Temples not shaming but glorying of such deuotions and composing themselues to all delicate lasciuious filthy behauiour and thus wantonly dressed with much minstrelsie call vpon the Goddesse to infuse into them a diuining and propheticall spirit Easily may that Impure spirit finde accesse and entertainment in such impure bodies But the Persians and all the Magi preferre the fire These diuide Iupiter into two powers metamorphosing his nature into both sexes They make the woman with a three formed countenance wound about with monstrous Serpents fit ensignes for the Deuils worship and worship a man which had driuen away kine applying his holies to the power of the Fire him they call Mithra whose blinde deuotions were done in places answerable namely in hidden Caues §. III. Of the same out of Christian and other Authors HESYCHIVS saith that Mithras or the Sun was chiefe god with the Persians and therefore the most religious and inuiolable oath of the King was by Mithra And this is confirmed by Firmicus also who saith that the Persians preferre the Fire before all the other Elements and that they call the same Mithra The reason is because they held as in the beginning of this worke we noted out of Zoroaster that the Sun and all the Stars are celestiall fires They performed their deuotions to the same in dark Caues where they could not see the brightnesse of that light This Hierome calls Mithras Den and Tertullian affirmeth that Mithras Knights or Souldiers were initiated in the same To whatsoeuer god they sacrificed they first called vpon the Fire and poured out their praiers thereto To this Fire they dedicated certaine Chappels or Oratories wherein to keepe it alway burning these were called Pyreia of which Claudian penetralibus Ignem Sacratum rapuere aditis They supposed that it came downe from heauen They worshipped all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoeuer had any resemblance of fire as the Carbuncle stone They obserued differing ceremonies in their Fire tnd Water-deuotions To the Fire they vsed these set words when they added fewell thereto Lord Fire eat They offered wine in a cup which they called Condy. The costly sacrifices of their Kings wee haue alreadie mentioned Plutarch tels that Artaxerxes married his owne daughter Atossa Heraclides addeth his other daughter Amestris And when Atossa was leprous his loue notwithstanding continued and he besought Iuno for her touching the ground with his hands replenishing the way between the Temple and Palace which was sixteene furlongs with offering of gold siluer purple horses Plutarch writeth that Amestris the wife of Xerxes in sacrifice to Pluto for her health buried twelue men quicke in the earth To Mithra saith Photius they offered men women and children And as they tell of Molochs seuen ambries so also is related of Mithra according to the number of the seuen Planets We may further adde from Gramay his Collections out of diuers Authors and from others concerning the Persian Religion that they sometimes obserued the Graecians Deities calling Iupiter Bel Hercules Sandes Venus Anaitis To Iupiter was sacred a Chariot with a beame of gold They Sunne the worshipped by the name of Mithra and Eldictus at Sun-rising and adored also the painted Image thereof They accounted the Horse the Suns peculiar beast and offered vnto him white Horses Ouer Darius his Tabernacle the Image of the Sunne enclosed in the Christall shone forth so that it might bee seene of all The order also of Darius his march when he warred against Alexander had in their first place their Fire which they called Sacred and Eternall carried on siluer Altars Next hereunto the Magi singing their country-Hymnes followed by three hundred sixtie fiue young men so many as their yeere had dayes clothed in bright red then came Iupiters Chariot drawne by white Horses after whom followed a horse of exceeding greatnesse consecrated to the Sun Their riders had white garments and golden rods Likewise both sides of the Kings Chariot were adorned with Images of gold and siluer two being most eminent among them the one of Peace the other of Warre That Souldier which was initiated in Mithraes hollowed orders was first proued by eightie seuerall kindes of punishment and if he continued stedfast he was washed putting on his head a crowne with a sword interposed Chaste Virgins were hollowed the Sunnes Priests or Nuns They worshipped Diana whom they called Nannea as some will haue it in that History of Antiochus They solemnized certaine Feasts the chiefe whereof was that of Mithra Another holy day they called the Destruction of vices in which the Magi killed venemous things and offered and the seruants lorded it fiue dayes together ruling both the Family and their Masters Magophonia they celebrated in memory of the Magi slaine by Darius Histaspis and his Colleagues Of their holy-day Sacaea before is spoken in which some report that the seruants changed offices and garments with the masters Minutius Foelix obiecteth against them their incestuous copulation with their mothers Arnobius derideth their worshipping of Riuers The Christian Fathers and Heathen Authors are plentifull in the narration of the Persian vanities Eusebius citeth a saying of Bardesanes Syrus Among the Persians there was a law to marry their sisters daughters and mothers which custome the Persians obserued also in other Countries and therefore other Nations hating them called them Magussaei of which are many in Egypt Phrygia and Galatia whose posteritie succeedeth them in the same wickednes This name Magussaei is deriued of Magi. §. IIII. Of the Persian Education and Schooles BVt of all other things this is most commendable and admirable which the Persians obserued for learning and practise of vertue if we giue like credite to Xenophon herein as others haue done They had a kinde of publike Schoole called the Free or liberall Market not for the sale of merchandize which kinde of Markets the ancient Persians wanted but the learning of ingenuous liberall and vertuous conditions This was diuided into foure parts one for children till seuenteene yeeres of age the second for youths to seuen and twentie the third for men till fiftie the fourth for old men In this liberall Market or Colledge was a Palace and Iudgement-place Early in the morning the children resort hither here also were the striplings and the riper-aged men daily the old men often The striplings boarded and lodged there except they were married and presented themselues to the Magistrates in Armour Each Court had twelue Prefects according to the number of the Persian Tribes To the children are old graue men appointed likewise
of Barbary the one swelling the other not at all heightned in the East and West Indies I could instance the like not mentioning those currents which hinder all courses of Tides Further the Floud continueth in some places seuen houres in some foure in most sixe In the Straits of Sunda some haue obserued that it flowes twelue houres and ebbes twelue In Negropont it is said to ebbe and flow seuen times a day and Patritius affirmeth that himselfe obserued at Ausser in Liburnia in a hand-made Strait of Sea-water the same to happen twentie times in a day Againe wee see these Tide-motions differ according to their daily weekely monethly and as some adde halfe yearely and yearely alterations All which varieties cannot be attributed to one simple cause neither to any vniuersall whether Sunne Moone or Natiue heat of the Sea or any the like although wee must needs acknowledge which we cannot know one principall cause hindred or altred by manifold accidents and therefore producing effects thus diuersified Other motions also may be obserued in the Sea as that namely which is continuall and if wee call the Tides the breathing this may be tearmed the pulse of the Sea whereby the waters alway wash the shore falling on and off couering and presently vncouering the feet of such as stand by which hath force to expell all Heterogenean or differing natures as drowned carkasses wrackes and the like This as that of the Tides Patritius Peucorus Lydiate and others attribute to a kinde of boyling which as in a vessell of seething water causeth it thus to rise and fall and to expell the drosse and things contrary But the heate which causeth this boyling one ascribes to the Sunne another to fires in the Sea another to the naturall heate of the Sea engendring spirits and causing rarefaction and motion Patritius doth not onely auerre this but that the Sea is as a sublunarie Planet mouing it selfe and moued by the superiour bodies to effect the generation of things for which cause Orpheus calls the Ocean Father of Gods Men and other things The saltnesse thereof is in his opinion the instrument of this motion and the neerest inward and most proper cause of marine mouings as in the two Mexican Lakes appeareth the one whereof is salt and ebbes and flowes which the other being fresh doth not This saltnes saith he with greater heat ingendreth more spirits in moysture the cause of greater Tides he thinketh to be the shallownesse and narrower shores the force of the Ocean thrusting the same most forwards where it findes interruptions and indraughts the certaintie of the motions hee ascribes according to his Philosophie to the soule of the world mouing this as other Planets For my censure it shall bee rather on my selfe then these opinions where silence rather then boldnesse becommeth Euen a foole whiles hee holdeth his peace is accounted wise And to borrow the words of a subtill Disputer Quod vbique clamare soleo nos nihil scire maximè conuenit huic disquisitions quae maris tracta motum Let this also bee arranged amongst the wonders of the Lord in the deepe rather to be admired then comprehended I might heere speake of other Sea-motions either particular or accidentall as that in the open Seas betweene the Tropikes vncertaine whether it may bee termed an Easterly winde or some impetuous violence caused by the superiour motions which draw together with them the inferiour Elements likewise those currents in diuers coasts as at Madagascar on the African and in the great Bay on the American shores From other accidents arise other motions caused by the windes in the ayre which somewhere haue their set seasons by whirle-pooles or rather contrarie currents meeting in the Sea by Capes Indraughts Riuers Ilands of the land by the conceptions and trauelling throwes in the waters in bringing forth some imminent tempest and the like I might speake of strange Currents in many Seas vpon the coast of Africke neere to Saint Laurence and Iohn de Noua and Mayella Captaine Saris hath related that the currents detayned him a long time euen almost to desperation of getting out and one of them so dreadfull that it made a noise like that at London Bridge with a fearefull rippling of the water the more the further from land and there where they founded an hundred fathom depth as it were proclaiming open defiance to winde and sayle notwithstanding their puffing threats and most swelling lookes in foure and twentie houres carrying them a whole Degree and nine Minutes from the course which vnder full sayle with the windes assistance they intended §. III. Of the Originall of Fountaines and other Commodities of the Sea I Might adde touching the Originall of Fountaines which both Scripture and reason finding no other store sufficient deriue from the Sea how they are from thence conueyed by secret Channels and concauities vnder the earth and by what workmen of Nature thus wrought into new fresh waters Scaligers experiment to proue the Sea-water at the bottome fresh by bottles filled there by cunning Diuers or otherwise is by Patritius his experience as hee saith found false And this freshnesse of the springs not withstanding their salt originall from the Sea may rather be ascribed to percolation and straining thorough the narrow spungie passage of the earth which makes them leaue behind as an exacted toll their colour thicknesse and saltnesse Now how it should come to passe that they should spring out of the earth being higher then the Sea yea out of the highest Mountaynes hath exercised the wits of Phylosophers some ascribing it to a sucking qualitie of the thirstie or spungie earth some to the weight of the earth pressing and forcing the waters vpwards some to the motion of the Sea continually as in a Pumpe thrusting forwards the water which expelleth the weaker ayre and followeth it till it finde an out-let whereof both by the continuall protrusion of the Sea and for auoyding a vacuum or emptinesse which Nature abhorreth it holdeth continuall possession some finde out other causes And Master Ladyate in a Treatise of the Originall of Springs attributeth the same to vnder-earth fires which no lesse by a naturall distillation worketh these waters vnder the earth into this freshnesse and other qualities then the Sunne and heauenly fires doe by exhalations aboue Yea such are his speculations of these hidden fires that hee maketh them the causes of Windes Earth-quakes Minerals Gemmes fertilitie and sterilitie of the earth and of the saltnesse and motion as is before said of the Sea But loath were I to burne or drowne my Readers in these fierie and watrie Disputes let vs from these speculations retire our selues to the experimentall profits and commodities which this Element yeeldeth Concerning the commodities of the Sea as the world generally so the little models of the world the Ilands whereof this of Great Britaine is iustly acknowledged the most excellent of
that one Boy with a burning firebrand will chase away thousands of them Some there are which hunt these beasts with Launces and Arrowes and liue on their flesh little differing from Beefe There is also found in their Riuers and Lakes the Torpedo or Crampfish of strange effect in Nature if holden in the hand and not stirring it makes no alteration but if it moues it selfe the arteries ioynts sinewes and all the members of the body suffer an exceeding torture and astonishment which presently ceaseth with letting goe the Fish The Aethiopians haue a superstitious conceit that it is good to driue away Deuils out of Men thinking it torments those Spirits no lesse then humane bodies They say I haue not made tryall thereof my selfe that if this fish bee laid amongst dead fishes and there stirre it selfe it makes them also to moue as if there were life in them There are many of them in Nilus in the end of the Prouince of Goyama where is a bottomlesse Lake so the Portugall thought that could not sound the bottom with his Pike whence continuallly springs abundance of water being the head of that Riuer little at the first and after a dayes iourney and a halfe running to the East and then entreth a Lake supposed the greatest in the World passing swiftly through the midst thereof without mixture of waters and casting it selfe ouer high Rockes takes freer scope but presently is swallowed of the Earth so that it in some places it may be stepped ouer After fiue dayes iourney towards the East it winds it selfe againe to the West and so passeth on in his way towards Egypt The Aethiopians affirme that it is easie to diuert the Riuers course and to famish Egypt but I thinke it farre easier to say then doe it Low places in Abassia are intemperately hote Their Winter continues from May to September and then begins in the Red Sea which I haue obserued Fernandes reports it to flow in all time of the Moones increase and to flow continually out all the time of the decrease In their Winter it raineth and thundreth commonly euery afternoone In the Kingdome of Zambea in which we now liue wee may see both the Poles the Antarctike higher with his Crosse-starres In this Tract of Heauen there is as it were a cloud or blot supposed more thinne then other parts about it are many Starres lesse then those which illustrate the other Pole They beginne their yeere with the Spring on the first of September numbring twelue moneths in each thirty dayes reckoning the odde dayes betweene August and September by themselues The Abassines expresse their ioy most by eating and drinking and therefore on Holidayes resort to their Churches which are shaded with trees where are set Vessels full of a liquor which they vse in stead of Wine which they make of Honey adding Opium and thereafter their holies they serue their bellies drinking to drunkennesse quarrels fighting They haue Grapes but except in the Vintage season they straine their dryed Raisons insomuch that Peter Paez a Iesuite writ from thence Anno 1604. that the Emperour desiring him to say Masse after the Romane rite they could find no Wine to doe it §. III. Of their Customes in priuate life and publike Gouernment and their late miseries THey sow little more then they must spend And for their apparell the richer buy it of the Moores attiring themselues after their fashion the rest both Men and Women vse a skinne or some course piece of linnen without adorning by Arte When they doe reuerence to any they cast off this cloth from their shoulders to the Nauell stripping themselues halfe naked They weare their haire long which serues them for a hat or head a-tire and for greater neatnesse gallantry they curle it in diuers manners and anoint it with Butter which in the Sunne shewes like dew on the grasse So curious are they herein that for feare of disordering their curles they haue a crotch fastned in the Earth whereon at night they lay their neckes and so sleepe with their heads hanging They brand themselues on the whole body specially on the face The nailes of their little fingers they suffer to grow to the greatest length imitating as much as may be the spurs of Cocks which also they sometimes fasten and fit to their fingers Their hands and feet which commonly are bare they dye reddish with the iuyce of a certaine barke They are a slothfull people scarsely prouiding necessaries for life not giuing themselues to hunting or fishing and although the materials of Woollen linnen Cottons are at hand yet doe the most of them couer their bodies like beasts with rude skins each man commonly wearing a Rammes skin the ends fastned at his hands and feet They lye on the hides of their Kine without other Beds In stead of Tables they haue great troughes rudely hollowed wherein they take their meat without cloth or Napkin Their vessels are of black Earth Few of them are Merchants besides the Mahumetans They haue no great Cities but many vnfortified Villages Their greatest Towne hath scarcely sixteene houses They vse little writing no not in their publike Iudgements they haue no Bookes but for their Holies and Officers for their accounts And because we haue mentioned their Iudgements it shall not be amisse to expresse their forme out of Fernandes The Emperour hath a House called Cala low without any vpper storie To the doore all such come as haue any suite euery one according to their differing Language crying Lord Lord some also imitating the voyces of Beasts whereby is knowne of what Prouince they are Then doth the Emperour commit their case to the Vmbari so are the Iudges called of the word Vmbare which signifies a three-footed stoole on which each of them sits some on the right others on the left hand In the Townes the Lords are Iudges where when any one sueth the Lord sends one of his Seruants to the Defendant assigning him a time to make his appearance and then the Plaintiffe and Defendant plead each his owne case this is the fashion in Barbary also and many other places and after they haue both said what they can all that are present giue sentence From this they may appeale to the Vmbares from them to the Azages or Supreme Iudges and from these to the Emperour Sometimes Iustices Itinerant or Visitors are sent into the Prouince to enquire of Crimes which places being bought cause Iustice to be sold and these to be Legall Theeues more dangerous then Out-lawes In the flourishing state of the Empire they say the Emperour was wont to hold a continuall Progresse in Tents esteeming it base to liue in any City But wheresoeuer he abode there was presently a City of Tents hauing due places assigned to all publike and priuate employments Churches Hospitals for sicke and for the poore Victualling-houses Shops of seuerall Trades and the like They say also that this mouing City was thirty miles
and in his other imployments His name was Iohn du Paui exiled from Portugall and thus inriched in Brasil A thousand of his slaues at one time entred into conspiracie with nine thousand other slaues in the Countrey and Barricadoed themselues for their best defence against their Masters who had much adoe to reduce some of them into their former seruitude To returne to Angola we may adde the report of another of our Countrey-men Andrew Battell my neere neighbour dwelling at Leigh in Essex who serued vnder Manuel Siluera Perera Gouernour vnder the King of Spaine at his Citie of Saint Paul and with him went farre into the Countrey of Angola their Armie being eight hundred Portugals and fiftie thousand Naturals This Andrew Battell telleth that they are all Heathens in Angola They had their Idolls of wood in the midst of their townes fashioned like a Negro and at the foot thereof was a great heape of Elephants teeth contayning three or foure tuns of them these were piled in the earth and vpon them were set the sculls of dead men which they had slaine in the warres in monument of their victorie The Idoll they call Mokisso and some of them haue houses built ouer them If any be sicke he accounteth it Mokisso's hand and sendeth to appease his angrie god with powring wine which they haue of the palme-tree at his feet They haue proper names of distinction for their Mokisso's as Kissungo Kalikete c. and vse to sweare by them Kissungowy that is by Kissungo They haue another more solemne oath in triall of Controuersies for which purpose they lay a kinde of Hatchet which they haue in the fire and the Ganga-Mokisso or Mokisso's Priest taketh the same red hot and draweth it neere to the skinne of the accused partie and if there bee two hee causeth their legges to bee set neere together and draweth this hot Iron without touching betweene them if it burnes that partie is condemned as guiltie otherwise hee is freed For the ceremonies about the dead they first wash him then paint him thirdly apparell him in new clothes and then bring him to his graue which is made like a vault after it is digged a little way downe vndermined and made spacious within and there set him on a seate of earth with his beades which they vse in chaines and bracelets for ornament and the most part of his goods with him in his lasting home They kill Goats and shed the blood in the graues and powre wine there in memoriall of the dead They are much giuen to diuination by birds If a bird flie on their left hand or crie in some manner which they interprete ominous and vnluckie they will cease from the enterprises which they haue in hand Their Priests are called Gange and so highly reputed that the people thinke it in their power to send plentie or scarcitie life or death They are skilfull in medicinall herbes and in poysons and by familiaritie with the Deuill foretell things to come In Angola euery man taketh as many wiues as he will There are mines of siluer and of most excellent copper They haue many Kine but loue dogs better then any other flesh and fat them to the shambles Andrew Battell saith that the dogs in those Countries are all of one sort prick eared Curres of a meane bignesse which they vse also to hunt with but they open not for they cannot barke and therefore they hang clappers made of little boords about their necks Hee hath seene a Mastiffe sold for three slaues Lopez affirmeth that a great dogge was exchanged for two and twentie slaues which might happen vpon some extraordinarie occasion The money in Angola is glasse-beades which they vse also as is said for ornament The King of Angola hath seemed willing to become Christian and hath sent to the King of Congo for that purpose but could not obtayne any Priests in that scarcitie to instruct him This Kingdome hath many Lordships subiect thereto as farre on the Sea-coast as Cape Negro Towards a Lake called Aquelunda lyeth a Countrey called Quizama the Inhabitants whereof being gouerned after the manner of a Common-wealth haue shewed themselues friendly to the Portugals and helped them in their warres against Angola The houses in Angola are made in fashion like a Bee-hiue The women at the first sight of the newe Moone turne vp their Bummes in despight as offended with their menstruous courses which they ascribe vnto her The men sometimes in a valorous resolution will deuote themselues vnto some haughtie attempt in the warres and taking leaue of the King will vow neuer to returne till they bring him a horse-head or some other thing very dangerous in the enterprise and will either doe it or die Horse tayles are great jewells and two slaues will bee giuen for one tayle which commonly they bring from the Riuer of Plate where horses are exceedingly increased and growne wilde They will by firing the grasse round about hemme the horses about with a fierie circle the fire still streightning and approching neerer till they haue aduantage enough to kill them Thus haue the Europaean Cattell of horse and kine so increased in that other World as they spare not to kill the one for their hides and the other for their tayles §. II. Of Congo NExt to Angola Northwards is the Kingdome of Congo the westerne Line whereof Lopez extendeth three hundred threescore fifteen miles the Northern fiue hundred and fortie the Eastern fiue hundred and the Southern three hundred and threescore The breadth thereof from the mouth of Zaire crossing ouer the Mountaynes of the Sunne and the Mountaynes of Crystal is six hundred miles And yet is it much streightned of the ancient bounds only the title except which stil holdeth the old stile Don ALVARO King of Congo and of Abundos and of Matama and of Quizama and of Angola and of Cacongo and of the seuen Kingdomes of Congere Amolaza and of the Langelungos and Lord of the Riuer Zaire and of the Anziquos and Anziquana and of Loango The present Kingdome is diuided into sixe Prouinces Bamba Songo Sundi Pango Batta Pemba Bamba is the chiefe for greatnesse and riches then gouerned by Don Sebastian Mani-Bamba the word Mani is a title of honour and signifieth a Prince or Lord when need requireth the Mani-Bamba may haue in campe foure hundred thousand men of warre Therein are mines of siluer and on the Sea-coast a kinde of shells which they vse for money for siluer and gold is not vsed for money amongst them In this Prouince are yeerely bought by the Portugals about fiue thousand Negros There are among them very mightie men that will cleaue a slaue in the middle or cut off a Bulls head at one blow Yea one of them did beare on his arme a vessell of wine contayning the fourth part of a Butt and might weigh three hundred and fiue and twentie pound vntill it was cleane emptied
together may no way compare with this Countrey either for commodities or goodnesses of soyle This sparke kindled in their hearts such constancie of zeale and forwardnesse that they furnished out Sir Thomas Gates who had happily returned with the rest from Bermudas with six ships 300. men and a hundred Kine with other Cattle Munition and prouision of all sorts Sir Thomas Dale hauing newes that it was a Fleet of enemies prepared himselfe and the rest to an encounter but it ended with a common ioy in the shaking of hands and not of Pikes Lawes are now made for lawlesnesse had marred so much before for the honour of God frequenting the Church obseruation of the Sabbath reuerence to Ministers obedience to superiours mutuall loue honest labours and against Adultery Sacriledge wrong and other vices Harbengers of Gods wrath and mans destruction The Colony consisted of seuen hundred men of sundry Arts and Professions few of them sicke which hauing left the Fort at Cape Henry fortified and kept by Captaine Dauies and the keeping of Iames Towne to that Noble and wel-deseruing Gentleman Master George Perole is remoued vp the Riuer fourescore miles further beyond Iames Towne to a place of higher ground strong and defencible by nature with good Ayre plenty of Springs much faire and open grounds freed from Woods and wood enough at hand Here they burnt brickes cut downe wood and euery man fals to somewhat they haue built they say competent houses the first story all of bricke that euery man may haue his lodging and dwelling by himselfe with a sufficient quantity of ground allotted thereto Here also they were building an Hospitall with fourescore lodgings and beds already sent for the sicke and lame as the Booke called the New life of Virginia relateth Master Whitaker in his Letter and Booke from Henrico 1612. testifieth the health and welfare of the Colonie Samuel Argal in the yeere 1613. affirmed likewise that hee found the state of Virginia farre better then was reported In one Voyage they had gotten 1100. bushels of Corne they found a slow kind of Cattle as bigge as Kine which were good meate and a medicinable sort of earth They tooke Pokohuntis Powhatans dearest daughter prisoner a matter of good consequence to them of best to her by this meanes being become a Christian and married to Master Rolph an English Gentleman Thus I haue beene bold somewhat largely to relate the proceedings of this Plantation to supplant such slanders and imputations as some haue conceiued or receiued against it and to excite the diligence and industry of all men of ability to put to their helping hand in this Action so Honourable in it selfe Glorious to God in the furtherance of his Truth and beneficiall to the Common-wealth and to the priuate purses of the Aduenturers if the blooming of our hopes be not blasted with our negligence As for the want of successe hitherto Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab euentu facta notanda putet Reason should preuaile with Men leaue sense and euent of things as an argument for Beasts That reason which sheweth Virginia's more then possibilities probabilities doth also point out the causes of those ill Successes Discontents at Sea Ignorance of the Country and of their Language Diuision in the Councell Commanders some of them not skilfull Souldiers nor forward Aduenturers Care to relade the Ships before they could prouide Houses of Victuals Ambition Cruelty Neglect of the Seasons for Fish and Land-commodities Brackish slimy Water at Iames Fort Riot Sloth False information in England Sending ill People that consumed the rest with idlenesse Want of Authority to punish them That kind of Aristocraticall Authority first established occasion of their Quarrels Iniuries to and from the Saluages and yet a necessity of their vse and helpe Sicknesse caused by the grosse and vaporous Aire and soyle about Iames Towne and drinking water The theeuish trucke and exchange which some secretly held with them The treachery of Fugitiues Falshood of the Sauages and the Many many faults as they report of Mariners in priuate truckings and night marts both with our Men and Sauages Their long stay and spending the Colonies reliefe besides Extraordinary casualties of fire cold shipwracke and if wee beleeue Ouiedo and obserue the like amongst the Spaniards the very Aire of the Indies seemes to be of inclination and disposition to contentions which easily ruine and dissolue the greatest and best enterprises that I speake not of the Deuils malice to Christian hopes Experience hath now made men wiser both to preuent and remedie these euils and to order their proceedings accordingly And although Fame fils not our eares with so often and many Virginian rumors as aforetimes yet we know that still waters are deepest and wee cannot but hope that those worthy Virginian-Consuls cunctando restituunt rem rather with carefull prouidence and watchfull diligence working sure then with humerous hastinesse laying foundations to a leisurely repentance seeking more the common good there then to be the common talke heere Once they there maintayne themselues now a long time without the wonted charge to the Company and diuers of our Nobility and Gentry doe now as after a long slumber while we are writing these things againe bethinke them of this Virginian Plantation whereunto the profitable Neighbour-hood of the Summer Iles or Bermudas may be good furtherance God Almighty prosper both that the Word may goe out of Bermuda and the Law of the Lord from Virginia to a truer conuersion of the American World then hitherto Our Humorists or Spanish insolencies haue intended §. III. Of the Soyle People Beasts Commodities and other Obseruations of Virginia FOr the description of the Countrey Master Hakluyt from Others Relations in his third Volume of Voyages hath written largely of those parts discouered for Sir Walter Raleigh Concerning the later Captaine Iohn Smith partly by word of mouth partly by his Map thereof in print and more fully by a Manuscript which hee courteously communicated to mee hath acquainted mee with that whereof himselfe with great perill and paine had beene the Discouerer being in his discoueries taken Prisoner as is before said and escaping their fury yea receiuing much honour and admiration amongst them by reason of his Discourses to them of the motion of the Sunne of the parts of the World of the Sea c. which was occasioned by a Diall then found about him They carried him Prisoner to Powhatan and there beganne the English acquaintance with that sauage Emperour The summe of his obseruation in that and other Discoueries since concerning the Countrey is this Virginia is situate betweene 34. and 44. degrees of Northerly latitude the bounds whereof on the East side are the great Ocean Florida on the South on the North Noua Francia the Westerne limits are vnknowne But that part which began to bee planted by the English Southerne Colony in the yeere 1606. is vnder the degrees 37.
weapons and sometimes separate themselues and their families till time waste away their indignation and then returne yet are the fierce and politike in warre These Nations and the Susolas Comos Camoles Quitones and other Names of Barbarisme vse Tobacco and a drinke made of the leaues of certaine trees boiled with water and put vp into certaine vessels which they drinke as hot as they can endure crying meane-while Who will drinke And when the women heare this cry they suddenly stand still without stirring any way although they be laden they beleeuing that if any woman should then moue her selfe some euill thing would enter into the drinke whereof they must die soone after and therefore if any such accident happen they cast all away and likewise if a woman passe by whiles they are brewing it if the vessell be vncouered When the women haue their naturall fluxe they must be their owne Cookes but for no body else They haue some Men married to other Men being attired in habit of Women and performing onely womanly offices In some places as they passed their Physicians which commonly are in sauage Nations Magicians and Priests had rattles of Gourds which they suppose to come from heauen and to haue great vertue none other daring to touch them Some vsed for boiling wild Gourds not by putting fire vnder but by heating stones continually in the fire and putting them into the liquor till it seethe Some people on the Mountaines for a third part of the yeere eate nothing but a powder made of straw In some places were trees of such venemous qualitie that the leaues thereof in standing waters would poison whatsoeuer dranke thereof Some acknowledged a certaine man in heauen called Aguar who gaue them raine and all good things All these people as he passed with a Negro and two others after he had escaped some of his first Masters which held him in hard slauerie held them for children of the Sunne and therefore receiued them with great reuerence and festiuall pompe and conueyed them still to the next nation Westward towards the South Sea till they came to Spaniards alwayes vsing to rob those people to whom they deliuered them of their little wealth which departed from the same with the greater content because they serued the next people and so successiuely with like sawce They found some rich Sables of muskie sent and Emeralds They were out in this Expedition and captiuity ten yeeres before they could recouer Spaine from 1527. to 1537. §. IIII. Other Obseruations of Florida THese things following Ortelius saith he had from his Nephew Caelius Ortelius by the relation of an eye-witnesse The King giueth or selleth rather to euery man his wife If a woman commit adulterie she is bound to a tree her armes and legges stretched out all day and sometimes whipped A woman three houres after she is deliuered of a child carries the Infant to the Riuer to wash it They obserue no discipline in their families with their children They haue fleas which bite so eagerly that they leaue a great deformitie like a leprie after They haue winged Serpents one of which I saw saith Nicolaus Challusius the wings whereof seemed to enable it to fly a little height from the ground The Inhabitants were very carefull to get the head thereof as was thought for some superstition Botero saith that they haue three sorts of Harts and of one of them make the same commodities which we doe of our Kine keeping them tame and milking them The Spaniard hath three Garrisons on the coast of Florida S. Iacomo S. Agostino and S. Philippo They are much addicted to venery and yet abstaine from their wiues after conception knowne When Ferdinando Soto entred Florida he there found amongst the Indians one Iohn Ortiz a Spaniard which by the subtiltie of the people vnder colour of deliuering a Letter which they had fastened to a cleft Cane was taken and liued twelue yeeres with them Vcita the Lord of the place made him his Temple-keeper because that by night the wolues came and carried away the dead corps Hee reported that these people are worshippers of the Deuill and vse to offer vnto him the life and bloud of their Indians or of any people that they can come by and when he will haue them doe that sacrifice vnto him hee speaketh vnto them and tels them that he is a thirst and enioynes them this sacrifice They haue a Prophecie That a white people should subdue them wherein the French and Spanish haue hitherto failed in their attempts Soto hauing in his greedy hopes neglected the many commodities he might haue enioyed to finde greater was brought to such dumps that hee thereon sickened and after died But before he tooke his bed he sent to the Cacique of Quigalta to tell him that he was the Child of the Sunne and therefore would haue him repaire to him he answered That if he would dry vp the Riuer he would beleeue him And when he was dead because he made the Indians beleeue that the Christians were immortall the Spaniards sought to conceale his death But the Cacique of Guachoya busily enquiring for him they answered that he was gone to heauen as many times he did and had left another in his place The Cacique thinking he was dead commanded two yong and well proportioned Indians to be brought thither saying it was their custome to kill men when any Lord died to wait on him by the way which their cruell courtesie the Spaniards refused denying that their Lord was dead One Cacique asked Soto what he was and why hee came thither He answered that he was the sonne of God and came to teach them knowledge of the Law Not so saith the Cacique if God bids thee thus to kill steale and worke all kind of mischiefe For their credulitie in like case Laudonniere telleth that a strange and vnheard-of lightening hapned within a league of their Fort which consumed in an instant 500. acres of meadow being then greene and halfe couered with water together with the foules that were therein It continued burning three dayes together and made the Frenchmen thinke that for their sakes the Indians had set fire on their dwellings and were gone to some other place But a certaine Paracoussy which is one of their petty Kings or Caciques sent to him a Present beseeching him to command his men that they should shoot no more towards his dwelling thinking that the Ordinance had caused all this which occasion he vsed to his owne good by arrogating that to himselfe which he saw their simplicitie conceiued of him Within two dayes after this accident fell such an heat that the Riuer I thinke was ready to seethe and in the mouth of the Riuer were found dead therewith fishes enow to haue laden fifty Carts whereof issued by putrifacton much sicknesse Calos is neere the Cape of Florida The King thereof made his subiects beleeue that his Sorceries and
nor vsed one Vessell or Dish aboue once Hee was rigorous in execution of his Lawes and for that purpose would disguise himselfe to see how they were executed and offer bribes to the Iudges to prouoke them to iniustice which if they excepted cost them their liues though they were his kinsmen or brethren His fall is before declared it shall not be amisse here to mention some prodigious fore-runners of the same The Idoll of Cholola called Quetzacoalt declared That a strange People came to possesse his Kingdome The King of Tescuco a great Magician and many Sorcerers told him as much The King shut vp the Sorcerers in prison where they vanished presently wherefore hee exercised that rage on their wiues and children which he had intended against them He sought to appease his angrie Gods by Sacrifices and therefore would haue remoued a great stone which by no humane industrie would be moued as refusing his atonement Strange voices were heard accompanied with Earthquakes and swellings of the waters A prodigious Bird of the bignesse of a Crane was taken which on his head had as it were a Glasse representing armed men and in the kings presence vanished A stranger thing befell a poore man who was taken vp by an Eagle and carried into a certaine Caue where he let him downe pronouncing these words Most mightie Lord I haue brought him whom thou hast commanded There he saw one like the King lying asleepe touching whom hauing receiued threatning Prophesies he was againe by that former Pursuiuant placed where he had bin taken vp These things as Diuellish illusions abusing GODS Prouidence and Iustice and imitating his Power to rob him of his glorie deserue to be mentioned Mutezuma hauing intelligence of Cortes his arriuall was much troubled and conferring with his Councell they all said that without doubt their great and ancient Lord Quetzacoalt who had said that he would returne from the East whither he was gone had now fulfilled his promise and was come Therefore did hee send Embassadors with presents vnto Cortes acknowledging him for Quetzacoalt sometime their Prince now esteemed a God and himselfe his Lieutenant The Mexican Historie described in Pictures and sent to Charles the fift which I haue seene with Master Hakluit in the first part sheweth their first Expedition and Plantation in this place then all drowned with water with great bogs and some drie bushie places their Kalendar and the names yeeres and conquests of their Kings In the second part their tributes are described the particulars whereof are reparations of certaine Churches so many baskets of Maiz grownd holding halfe a bushell and Almonds of Cacao baskets of Chianpinoli mantles paid euery fourth day and once a yeere Armours and Targets of Feathers all this was paid by the Citie Tlatilulco And in like proportion euery Towne and Nation subiect was to pay the Naturall or Artificiall commodities thereof as Armours garnished with feathers rich mantles white or of other colours Eagles aliue beames of timber boords salt made in long moulds for the Lords of Mexico onely pots of honie Naguas and Huipiles which were attire for women Copale for perfume Cotton Wooll Red-Sea-shels Xicharas in which they drinke Cacao others full of Gold in powder each containing two handfuls plates of Gold three quarters of a yard long and foure fingers broad as thicke as parchment Yellow Varnish to paint themselues Bells and Hatchets of Copper Turkesse-stones Chalke Lime Deere-skins Cochinile Feathers Frizoles Targets of Gold Diadems Borders Beades of Gold Beades of Gemmes Tigres-skins Amber Axi or West-Indian Pepper c. Concerning the State of Mexico vnder the Spaniards Robert Tomson who was there about the yeere 1555. saith that then it was thought there were a thousand and fiue hundred housholds of Spaniards and aboue three hundred thousand Indians The Citie is enuironed with a Lake and the Lake also with Mountaines about thirty leagues in compasse the raines falling from these Hils cause the Lake In this City resideth the Viceroy and heere the highest Indian Courts are kept There are weekly three Faires or Markets abounding with plenty of Commodities at a cheape price Many Riuers fall into the Lake but none goe out The Indians know how to drowne the City and would haue practised it had not the Conspirators beene taken and hanged The Indians here are good Artificers Gold-smiths Copper-smiths Black-smiths Carpenters Shoomakers Taylors Sadlers Embroderers and of all other Sciences and worke exceeding cheape liuing of a little They will goe two or three leagues to a Faire carrying not aboue a penny-worth of Commodities and yet maintaine themselues thereby Milos Philips saith that when Sir Francis Drake was on the South Sea the Viceroy caused a generall muster to be made of all the Spaniards in Mexico and found aboue seuen thousand housholds and three thousand singlemen and of Mestizoes twentie thousand Master Chilton testifieth that euery Indian payeth tribute to the King twelue Reals of Plate and a Hauneg of Maiz fiue Haunegs make a quarter English and euery Widow halfe so much And all their children aboue fifteene yeeres old pay after the same rate He hath great gaine by his fifths and by the Popes Buls this leaden ware was worth to the King at first aboue three Millions of Gold yeerely The greatnesse of exactions caused two Rebellions whiles he was there and the King will not suffer them to haue Oyle or Wine there growing although the Earth would prodigally repay them that they may still haue need of Spaine Tlaxcalla for their merits in the conquest of Mexico as before is shewed is free only they pay a handfull of Wheate a man in signe of subiection but some later encrochers haue forced them to till at their owne charge as much ground as their tribute would amount to There are in it two hundred thousand Indians Some of the wild people in New Spaine are deadly enemies to the Spaniards and eate as many as they get of them Iohn Chilton fell into their hands but being sicke and leane they thought as a Captiue Wench told him that he had the Pox and was but vnwholsome food and so let him depart It is an ill wind that blowes none to good sicknesse the Harbenger of death was to him a preseruer of life Mexico is now an Vniuersitie and therein are taught those Sciences which are read in our Vniuersities of Europe This Vniuersitie was there founded by Antony Mendoza and King Philip erected a Colledge of Iesuites Anno 1577. Mexico is an Archbishopricke There bee many Spanish Colonies or Plantations Compostella Colima Guadaleiara Mechocan Citie of Angele and others whereof diuers are Episcopall Sees Antonio Herrera reckoneth in this and other parts of America fiue Archbishoprickes twentie seuen Bishoprickes two Vniuersities foure hundred Monasteries and Hospitals innumerable In Guastecan not farre from Panuco is a Hill from whence spring two Fountaynes one of blacke Pitch the other of red very hot
To speake largely of New Gallicia Mechuacan Guastecan and other Regions would not be much to the Readers delight and lesse to to my purpose CHAP XI Of the Idols and Idolatrous Sacrifices of New Spaine §. I. Of their Gods THe Indians as Acosta obserueth had no name proper vnto God but vse the Spanish word Dios fitting it to the accent of the Cuscan or Mexican Tongues Yet did they acknowledge a supreme power called Vitziliputzli terming him the most puissant and Lord of all things to whom they erected at Mexico the most sumptuous Temple in the Indies After the Supreme God they worshipped the Sun and therefore called Cortes as he writ to the Emperour Sonne of the Sunne That Vitziliputzli was an Image of Wood like to a Man set vpon an Azure-coloured stoole in a Brankard or Litter at euery corner was a piece of wood like a Serpents head The stoole signified that he was set in Heauen He had the forehead Azure and a band of Azure vnder the nose from one eare to the other Vpon his head hee had a rich plume of feathers couered on the top with Gold hee had in his left hand a white Target with the figures of fiue Pine Apples made of white Feathers set in a crosse and from aboue issued forth a Crest of Gold At his sides he had foure Darts which the Mexicans say had beene sent from Heauen In his right hand hee had an Azured staffe cut in fashion of a wauing Snake All these ornaments had their mysticall sense The name of Vitziliputzli signifies the left hand of a shining feather Hee was set vpon an high Altar in a small boxe well couered with linnen Clothes Iewels Feathers and ornaments of Gold and for the greater veneration he had alwayes a Curtain before him Ioyning to the Chappel of this Idoll there was a Pillar of lesse work and not so wel beautified where there was another Idoll called Tlaloc These two were alwayes together for that they held them as companions of equal power There was another Idoll in Mexico much esteemed which was the God of Repentance and of Iubilees and Pardons for their sinnes Hee was called Tezcalipuca made of a blacke shining stone attired after their manner with some Ethnike deuices it had Earings of Gold and Siluer and through the nether lip a small Canon of Christall halfe a foot long in which they sometimes put an Azure Feather sometimes a greene so resembling a Turqueis or Emerald it had the haire bound vp with a haire-lace of Gold at the end whereof did hang an Eare of Gold with two Fire-brands of smoke painted therein signifying that he heard the Prayers of the afflicted and of sinners Betwixt the two eares hung a number of small Herons He had a Iewell hanging at his necke so great that it couered all his stomack vpon his armes Bracelets of Gold at his nauill a rich greene stone and in his left hand a Fan of precious Feathers of greene azure and yellow which came forth of a Looking Glasse of Gold signifying that he saw all things done in the World In his right hand he held foure Darts as the Ensignes of his Iustice for which cause they feared him most At his festiuall they had pardon of their sinnes They accounted him the God of Famine Drought Barrennesse and Pestilence They painted him in another forme sitting in great Maiestie on a stoole compassed in with a red Curtaine painted and wrought with the heads and bones of dead men In the left hand was a Target with fiue Pines like vnto Pine Apples of Cotton and in the right hand a little Dart with a threatning countenance and the arme stretched out as if he would cast it and from the Target came foure Darts The countenance expressed anger the body was all painted blacke and the head full of Quailes Feathers Quecalcauatl was their God of the Aire In Cholula they worshipped the God of Merchandize called Quetzaalcoalt which had the forme of a Man but the visage of a little Bird with a red bill and aboue a combe full of Warts hauing also rankes of teeth and the tongue hanging out It carried on the head a pointed Mitre of painted paper a Sithe in the hand and many toyes of Gold on the legs it had about it Gold Siluer Iewels Feathers and habits of diuers colours and was set aloft in a spacious place in the Temple All this his furniture was significant The name importeth Colour of a rich Feather No maruell if this God had many Suters seeing Gaine is both God and godlinesse to the most the whole World admiring and adoring this Mammon or Quetzaalcoalt Tlaloc was their God of Water to whom they sacrificed for Raine They had also their Goddesses the chiefe of which was Tozi which is to say Our Grand Mother of which is spoken before she was flayed by the command of Vitziliputzli and from hence they learned to flay men in Sacrifice and to clothe the liuing with the skins of the dead One of the Goddesses which they worshipped had a Sonne who was a great Hunter whom they of Tlascalla afterwards tooke for a God being themselues addicted much to that exercise They therefore made a great Feast vnto this Idoll as shal after follow They had another strange kind of Idoll which was not an Image but a true Man For they tooke a Captiue and before they sacrificed him they gaue him the name of the Idoll to whom he should be sacrificed apparelling him also with the same ornaments And during the time that this representation lasted which was for a yeere in some feasts sixe moneths in some in others lesse they worshipped him in the same manner as they did their God he in the meane time eating drinking and making merry When hee went through the streets the people came forth to worship him bringing their Almes with children and sicke folkes that hee might cure and blesse them suffering him to doe all things at his pleasure onely he was accompanied with ten or twelue men lest he should flee And hee to the end hee might bee reuerenced as hee passed sometimes sounded on a small Flute The Feast being come this fat Foole was killed opened and eaten The Massilians are said to haue vsed the like order nourishing One a whole yeere with the purest meats and after with many Ceremonies to leade him through the City and sacrifice him Lopes de Gomara writeth that the Mexicans had two thousand Gods but the chiefe were Vitziliputzli and Tezcatlipuca These two were accounted Brethren There was another God who had a great Image placed on the top of the Idols Chappell made of all that Countrey seeds grownd and made in paste tempered with childrens bloud and Virgins sacrificed whose hearts were plucked out of their opened brests and offered as first fruits to that Idoll It was consecrated by the Priests with great solemnitie all
inherited not the goods as is sayd already but they were wholly dedicated to his Oratorie or Guaca and for the mayntenance of the Family he left which with his Off-spring was alway busied at the Sacrifices Ceremonies and Seruice of the deceased King for being dead they presently held him for a God making Images and Sacrifices to him The Ensigne of Royaltie was a Red Rowle of Wooll finer then Silke which hung on his forehead which was a Diadem that none else might weare in the middest of their forehead at the eare the Noblemen men might When they tooke this Roll they made their Coronation Feast and many Sacrifices with a great quantitie of vessels of Gold and Siluer and many Images in the forme of Sheepe of Gold and Siluer and a thousand others of diuers colours Then the chiefe Priest tooke a young Child in his hand of the age of sixe or eight yeeres pronouncing these words with the other Ministers to the Image of Viracocha Lord wee offer this vnto thee that thou mayest mayntaine vs in quiet and helpe vs in our Warres mayntaine our Lord the Ingua in his Greatnesse and estate that hee may alway increase giuing him much knowledge to gouerne vs There were present at this Ceremonie men of all parts of the Realme and of all Guacas and Sanctuaries It is not found that any of the Inguas Subiects euer committed Treason against him Hee placed the Gouernours in euery Prouince some greater and some smaller The Inguas thought it a good rule of State to keepe their Subiects alway in action and therefore there are seene to this day long Causeys of great labour diuiding this large Empire into foure parts Hauing conquered a Prouince they presently reduced them into Townes and Communalties which were diuided into Bands one was appointed ouer tenne another ouer a hundred and another ouer a thousand and ouer tenne thousand another Aboue all there was in euery Prouince a Gouernour of the House of the Inguas to whom the rest gaue accounts of what had passed and who were eyther borne or dead At the Feast called Raymar the Gouernours brought the Tribute of the whole Realme to the Court at Cusco All the Kingdome was diuided into foure parts Chinchasuyo Collosuyo Andesuyo and Condesuyo according to the foure wayes which went from Cusco East West North and South When the Ingua conquered a Citie the Land was diuided into three Parts the first for Religion euery Idoll and Guaca hauing his peculiar Lands appropriated to their Priests and Sacrifices and the greatest part thereof was spent in Cusco where was the Generall and Metropolitan Sanctuary the rest in that Citie where it was gathered which all had Guacas after the fashion of Cusco some being thence distant two hundred leagues That which they reapt on the Land was put into Store-houses built for that purpose The second part of that diuision was for the Ingua for the mayntenance of his Court Kinsmen Noblemen and Souldiers which they brought to Cusco or other places where it was needfull The third part was for the Communaltie for the nourishment of the people no particular man possessing any part hereof in proper As the Family encreased or decreased so did the portion Their Tribute was to till and husband the Lands of the Ingua and the Guacas and lay it vp in Store-houses being for that time of their labour nourished out of the same lands The like distribution was made of the Cattel to the same purposes as that of the lands and of the wooll and other profits that thence arose The old men women and sicke folkes were reserued from this Tribute They payed other Tributes also euen whatsoeuer the Ingua would choose out of euery Prouince The Chicas sent sweete Woods the Lucanas Brancars to carrie his Litter the Chumtilbicas Dancers others were appointed to labour in the Mines and all were slaues to the Ingua Some hee employed in building of Temples Fortresses Houses or other Workes as appeareth by the remnants of them where are found stones of such greatnesse that men cannot conceiue how they were cut brought and layed in their places they hauing no Iron or Steele to cut Engines to carrie nor Morter to lay them and yet they were so cunningly layed that one could not see the ioynts Some of eight and thirtie foot long sayth Acosta eight broad and sixe thicke I measured and in the walles of Cusco are bigger none so little sayth Sancho in some buildings there as three Carts might carrie and some thirty spannes square Iohn Ellis which lately was there sayth some of them are twentie tunne weight strangely ioyned without morter They built a Bridge at Chiquitto the Riuer being so deepe that it will not admit Arches they fastened bundles of Reedes and Weedes which being light will not sinke which they fasten to eyther side of the Riuer they make it passable for man and beast it is three hundred foot long Cusco their chiefe Citie standeth in seuenteene degrees it is subiect to cold and Snow the Houses are of great and square stone It was besieged by Soto and by Pizarro and by him entred where they found more treasure then they had by the imprisonment of Atabaliba Quito is said to haue beene as rich as Cusco Hither Ruminagni fled with fiue thousand Souldiers when Atabaliba his Master was taken by the Spaniards and slue Illescas his Brother that withstood his Tyrannicall proceedings flayed him and made a Drumme of his skinne slue two thousand Souldiers that brought the bodie of Atabaliba to Quite to be interred hauing in shew of Funerall pompe and honour before made them drunke and with his Forces scoured the Prouince of Tamebamba hee killed many of his Wiues for smiling when hee told them they should haue pleasure with the bearded men and burnt the Wardrobe of Atabaliba that when the Spaniards came and entred Quito which had almost dispeopled Panama Nicaragua Cartagena and other their Habitations in hope of Peruuian spoyles they found themselues disappointed of their expected prey and in anger set fire on the Towne Aluarado with like newes came from Guatimala into those parts with foure hundred Spaniards but was forced to kill his Horse to feede his famished Company although at that time Horses were worth in Peru aboue a thousand Ducats a piece was almost killed with thirst was assaulted with showres of Ashes which the hote Vulcane of Quito dispersed two hundred and fortie myles about with terrible Thunders and Lightnings which Pluto had seemed to steale from Iupiter and here to vent them and after with Snowes on the colde Hils which exacted seuenty Spaniards for Tribute in the passage found many men sacrificed by the Inhabitants but could finde no Gold till Pizarro bought his departure with an hundred thousand Duckets Hee gaue Thankes hee sayd to God for his deliuerance by that Tract by which hee had passed to the Deuill This was hee that afterward being bruised with the fall
as heart-whole as euer he was Sir they answered bee not so wrathfull you know the day is comne and you know it ends with the Sun-setting He hasts him to the Emperour made preparation for his Bath about the third houre of the day The Emperour therein solaced himselfe and made merry with pleasant Songs after his vse came out about the seuenth houre well refreshed sate downe vpon his Bed cals Rodouone Birken a Fauourite of his to bring the Chesse-board sets his men his chiefe Fauourite and others with Boris Federowich Godonoue being then about him He in his loose Gowne Shirt and Linnen Hose faints and fals backward Great was the stirre and out-cry one sends for Aquauitae another to the Apotheke for Vineger and Rose-water with other things and to call the Physicians Meane time he was strangled and starke dead Some shew of hope was made of his recouery to still the out-cry Bodan Belscoy and Boris to whom the dead Emperour had bequeathed as the first of foure Princes to take charge of his Sonne and Kingdome being Brother to the Successors Wife goe out on the Terras accompanied with so many of the Nobility his familiar friends as was strange so suddenly to behold They called out to the Captaines and Gunnera to keepe their Guards strong and the Gates sure with their Peeces and Matches light wherevpon the Gates of the great Castle were presently shut with watch and ward I offered my Selfe my Men Powder and Pistols to attend the Prince Protector Hee accepted mee among his Familiars and Seruants passing by with a cheereful countenance towards me speaking aloud Be faithfull and faint not Eremiesca The Metropolitans Bishops and Nobility flocked into the inner Castle holding it a day of Iubilee for their redemption pressing who could first to the Booke and Crosse to sweare to the new Emperour Feodor Iuanowich It was admirable what dispatch there was in sixe or seuen houres The Treasury sealed vp and new Officers added to the old twelue thousand Gunners with their Captaines set for a Garrison about the Wals of the great Citie of Musco A Guard was giuen mee to keepe the English House The Embassadour S. I. B. trembled and expected hourely nothing but death from the rage of the Nobilitie and people His gates windowes and Seruants were shut vp his former plentifull allowance taken away Boris and three others of the greatest Peeres ioyned assistance with him in the Emperours Will for the Gouernment of the Kingdome viz. Knez Misthisloskie Knez Iuan Suskoy and Mekita Romanowich began to mannage and dispose of all affaires they proclayme the Emperour Feodore in his late Fathers stile thorow all the Kingdome take Inuentories of all the Treasure euery where Gold Siluer Iewels which was infinite make a suruay of all the Officers and Bookes of the Crowne Reuenues New Treasurers Counsellors and Officers in all Courts of Iustice are made new Lieutenants also Captaines and Garisons in all places of charge and importance most out of the Family of the Godonoues best to be trusted for attendance and seruice about the King and Queene by which meanes the Protector became strong He was with great obseruation magnified of all and so be haued himselfe to the Princes Nobility and people as he increased their loue After some pause I was sent for and asked what they should doe with S. I. B. his businesse being at an end he was not now said they to be reputed an Ambassadour I answered it stood with the honour of the King and Kingdome to dismisse him with honour and safely according to the Law of Nations otherwise the Queene whose Seruant hee was would take it ill c. They shooke their heads reuiled him saying he had deserued death by the Law of Nations practising so much mischiefe in a State They would haue sent a message to him by me to prepare his present dispatch with some other terrible words of displeasure I be sought that I might not be the messenger which somewhat offended them The Lord Protector sent for mee at Euening whom I found playing at the Chesse with Knez Iuan Gemskoy a Prince of the bloud and taking mee aside said I wish you to speake little in defence of Bowes the Lords take it ill Go shew your selfe from me and pacifie such and such Your answer was well considered of but many perswade reuenge vpon him for his ill behauiour I hope said I your greatnesse and wisdome will pacifie their furies I 'le do my best he sayd to make all well and so tell him from me I went to those Noblemen accordingly which complayning of their sufferings for his arrogance willed me to be quiet in the businesse Yet did not I leaue to deale effectually vnder hand for him intreating he might be sent for and dispatched beeing cooped vp and kept close as a prisoner and allowances taken from him At last he was sent for attended but with a meane messenger lead into a with drawing Roome where the Lords vsed him with no respect charged him with haynous matter practised against the Crowne and State would not spend time to heare his answere rayled on him especially the two Shalkans great Officers and some others who had suffered displeasure beatings from the Emperour through his complaints saying it were requisite to make him an example cutting off his Crane-legges and casting his withered carkasse into the Riuer pointing out of the window vnder him but God hath now giuen vs a more mercifull Emperour whose eyes he should see for Queene Elizabeths sake But put off your Sword which hee refused to doe saying it was against his Order and Oath they would inforce him else comming into the presence of so peaceable a Prince whose soule being clothed with mourning was not prepared for the sight of Armes And so hee put on patience and was brought single to the presence of the Emperour who by the mouth of his Chancelour commended him to Queene Elizabeth Wherewith Sir Ierome Bowes was conuayed to his Lodgings three dayes giuen for his departure out of Musco perhaps hee should haue a Letter sent after him He had now little meanes lesse money and none to supply him but my selfe who made meanes to get him thirty Carts to conuay his and his Seruants Stuffe and as many Post-horse for he could be allowed none of the Emperours charge I asked leaue of the Lord Protector to speake with him and to bring him out of the City Watch and ward was appointed in the streets that the people should not stirre at him A meane Sinoboarscoie was appointed to conduct him who vsed him with small humanity and much against the height of his mind to endure I with my Seruants and good friends accompanied him wel mounted out of Musco caused my Pauillion to be pitched by a Riuers side ten miles off and with my prouisions of Wines and Mead tooke leaue of him and his company He sadly prayed me to haue an eye an
of his late Father Iuan Vasilowich of famous memory who thought good out of his tender care of peace to make knowne to their Princely wisdomes how desirous he was of their aliance and brotherly amity promising all correspondence trade and commerce with them and theirs Letters also and Commissions to treate of such other matters as fell properly in question for the good of both sides I was dispatched with extraordinary grace termes and titles from the Emperour but especially from the Protector in priuate and publike and with Instructions and Commissions apart Hauing taken my leaue of the principall Princes and Officers I set forth well attended and accommodated in the reputation of an Embassadour wheresoeuer I came My iourney was ouer-land from Musco the twentieth of August sixe hundred miles to Vobsee and thence to Dorp in Liefland Perno Libo Wendon in Curland and so to Riga chiefe Citie of that Prouince where my Commission was to treat with Queene Magnus the next heire to the Russian Crowne she being now in great distresse and hauing small allowance issuing from the Crowne treasure of Poland She was kept in the Castle of Riga whereby leaue of the Cardinall Ragauile very hardly obtayned I spake with her found her dressing her daughters head both of them in old Garments of cloth of Siluer I told her her Brother so Cousin Germans call the Emperour Feodor had taken notice of the distresse wherein she and her daughter liued and desired her returne into her natiue Countrey there to hold her estate according to her birth And the Lord Protector Boris Fedorowich with due remembrance of his seruice doth vow the performance of the same I was interrupted and hasted away by the Lieutenant and got leaue a second time Shee complained of her small allowance not a thousand Dollers a yeere which I said she might remedy if she pleased Shee said she had no meanes to escape the King and State minding to make vse of her birth and bloud knowing their fashion in Russia she had small hope there to be otherwise dealt with then they vse to doe with their Queene Widowes which is to shut them vp in a Hellish Cloyster to which I preferre death I answered her case was different and times had altered that course none that hath a child being thereunto enforced After other words and promise of meanes to effect her escape within two moneths I left with her a hundred Hungarian Duckets and your Grace said I shall receiue foure hundred more this day seuen weekes or thereabout Her Highnesse receiued them very thankfully and her daughter then ten yeeres old twenty more and I tooke my leaue The next day as I passed out of the Towne Gates a Gentlewomanlike Mayden in her pleyted haire presented me a curious white wrought Handkerchiefe in the corner whereof was a little Hoop-ring set with Rubies but told mee not from whom I hied out of the Cardinals iurisdiction thorow Curland Prussia Meluin Danzike whence I sent one of my Seruants to the Narue with my Letters Handkerchiefe and Relation to the Emperour and Protector all sewed vp in his quilt doublet He past so speedily and safely that this Queene and her daughter were sent for stolne away very secretly and posted with thorow Liuonia before she was missing The Lieutenant sent diuers Horsemen after her but too late and was therefore displaced At her first comming as I learned after my returne she was much esteemed by the Empresse and Ladies had her Officers Lands and allowances appointed according to her state but not long after shee and her daughter were disposed into Maydes Monastery within two miles of Musco among the rest of the Queenes wherevpon she exclaymed that she was betrayed and that shee had giuen faith to me But neyther could I be permitted to see her or shee mee This piece of Seruice was very acceptable whereof I much repent me From Danzike I passed Cassubla Pomorenia Statine Meckelburgh Rostok Wismar where I escaped death miraculously Lubek where I had honourable entertaynment againe and from Hamborough arriued in England had gracious accesse to the Queene at Richmond her Maiesty professing much ioy that a Subiect of hers had attained to knowledge trust and abilitie for so waighty employment from so great a Prince I after translated the Letters and Master Secretary read them to the Queene I was well housed attended prouided and feasted by the Musconie Company was called againe to Greenwich and deliuered to her Maiesty what I was to say and what it pleased her to enquire of me In fine shee sayd well Ierome we haue lost a faire time and a great deale of treasure that our Realme might very opportunely haue beene possessed of harshly censuring Bowes his want of temperance c. Such was the Lord Treasurers good husbandry answerable to Her Maiesties frugality that though this businesse had beene kept ten yeeres a foot and the Emperour still vpheld in hope yet all the charge of Ambassadors and Messengers were layd on the Merchants both for entertainments and gifts giuen and sent of which the Queene bare the name and countenance receiuing thence many and rich Presents for that which at times cost the Company 20000. pounds The imputations and aspersions cast on me by false suggestions and subornations of Finch a hang-by of Sir Ierome Bowes who first faltered and after the other being remooued out of presence confessed that he was set on by him I omit so repaying the courtesie in releasing him when he had beene taken as a Spie c. With much helpe of friends Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir George Barnes prouision was made of Lions Buls Dogs gilt Halbords Pistols Peeces curious Armour Wynes Drugs of all sorts Organs Virginals Musicians Scarlets Pearles curious Plate and other things of good value according to my Commissions I tooke my leaue of the Queene receiued her Highnesse Letters to the Emperour and Protector with Letters Patents of grace and title for my passage with many good words and gracious promises Instructions also from the Lords and the Company with some recompence for fauour already done for them in the Emperours Court I departed well accommodated in company of tenne good ships arriued at Saint Nicolas posted twelue hundred miles to the Musco came to the Lord Protector now stiled Prince of the Prouince of Vaga who receiued me gladly sends for me againe the next day tels me of many strange alterations since I had gone from thence practises of the Mother of Demetrius and that Family discontents twixt him and his ioynt Commissioners for the Gouernment by the Emperours will Hee was now loth to haue any Competitor you shall heare much said he beleeue little more then I tell you On the other side I heard much discontent of the Nobility dissembling working on the aduantage c. I was brought before the Emperour the Counsell sitting in State and deliuered the accounts of my employment as did other his Embassadours