THE Author first laye [...] down six Con­jectures, upon which he superstructs the main Fabrique of his Work and Arguments.

• 1. The Acknowledgment of the Americans.
• 2. From Rites and Customes.
• 3. From Words and Speech.
• 4. From Man devouring.
• 5. From the Conversion promis'd to the Jews.
• 6. From the Calamities threatned to the Jews.

I shall not premere vestigia, tread in the very steps of his Method, but shall begin first to enquire when America may be proved or collected to have been first planted and Inhabited, and how the Jews should come thither (all which the Author handles in his second Part) and I shall after observe upon the Conjectures, and comparative­ly weigh them and the Rites and Ceremonies for confuta­tion, or confirmation of what the Author hath alleged.

It is sayd Gen. 6. v. 1. Men began to be multiplyed upon the Earth; and this was long before the Flood, which was Anno mundi 1656. And it being certain, that all the World had sinned, which is evinced from the certainty that all the World was drowned, as Chap. 7. v. 19, 21, 22, 23. And Sin the Cause, as Chap. 6. v. 5, 6, 7. What hinders but [Page 2] that (without presumption) It may be sayd the now Ame­rica was also in some measure peopled, and those drowned with the Flood; for if in the space of lesse than three hundred years after the Flood, and from eight persons, Noah, and his Sons, and their Wives, there sprang up (as I shall hereafter shew) so great an increase of Mankind, as we read were in the two prodigious Armies for numbers, betwixt Ninus King of Assyria, and Zoroaster King of the Bactrians, Wh [...]t should▪ hinder but that in the revolution of 1656 years for so long it was from the Creation to the Flood, when men lived at least twice as long as after the Flood, and the affections of man boyled, and aspired to a full possession of the whole Earth which (as David saies) God gave to the children of men to possess [...] America might be then also peopled, together with the other three parts of the World.

After the Flood (which continued 1 [...]0 daies) the Ark rested upon mount Ararat, which, upon conference with Raleigh's History; a most subtile and elaborate disquisition that question, and rejection of the Gordaei, or Curdaei mountains, which I may presume to place and seat upon the Caucasi Hill [...] betwixt Imaus and Paraponisus, upon the very Hill Siciclegh, in the Province of Jeselbas, in the Ea­stern part of Persia near Tartary, in North. lat. 38. and long it▪ about 109 gr. where one of the springs rises of the River Almorgab that runs into the great River of Abiamu, now Abin, sometime Oxus, which empties into the Caspian Sea at the South-East corner thereof, which Province of Jeselbas is the ancient Margiara, a most rich, fruitfull, and delightfull soyle, as Boterus the Italian saies in his Relat. part 1. lib. 2. and celebrated by the ancient and faithful Geo­grapher Strabo for the excellency of the Vines (which I say) Noah there first planted; and Luis de Ʋrreta the Spanish Frier, lib. 1. E [...]iop. saies, Noe salio de area con sus [...]ijos en la [...]ierra de Armenia, que es en la provincia de Scythia. Noah went out of the Ark with his children in the land of Armenia which is in the Province of Scythia; and ab Armenia ubi Area con­stitit non [...]d [...]dum longumiter est ad Cathaiam, from Armenia [Page 3] where the Ark rested, is no very long way to Cathay, [...]aie [...] Jo. de Laë [...] de orig. gent. part. 14.

Now for the introducing of what I shall labour to prove, I will lay down some necessary principles from whence to deduce the conclusion, and probably to attain the scope and end of mine ayme.

The Flood being ceased, and Noah, and his Sons, and Daughters, safe landed upon dry ground out of the Ark, Gen. 9. v. 1. 7. God blessed them, and commanded them to in­cre [...]se and multiply; and there is no doubt, but there was an earnest naturall instinct, thirst, and appetition in all creatures for restauration, and to replenish the World, which now discovered it self ready again for use, and to fur­nish all manner of food and sustenance; and chap. 10. We read of the numerous increase of Mankind by Noah and his Sons, which increase was reinforced from two other speciall reasons and arguments, the one the strength of na­ture, and exquisite temperament of humours, and consti­tution of body to vivacity, whereby their lamps of life lasted so long even to many hundred of years; the other the permission, if not lawfulnesse of P [...]lygamie, and many Wives.

And now the pride and arrogance of this multitude and millions of men begun to shew it self, when all the Sons, and Off-spring of Noah, saving Heber and Phaleg (who were Gods more peculiar reserves both for language and people) journing from the East, where it is probable they made a long abode in the mountainous country, before they came down into the plain, for the fearfull memory of the late Flood: Finding themselves over-numerous to be contained in a small compasse of ground, and cohabi­tation, and Nimrod a prime stickler in all ambitious de­signes, they conferred together how to perform some mighty and magnificent work, which were easily done while they were now together, and before they parted, which might eternize their name and memory, whereas if they were once severed (as they peceived they begun to over-swell the banks, bounds, and capacity of those parts [Page 4] where they made abode) they should want heads to devise and contrive, hearts for courage, and hands to act and exe­cute so great and glorious a design, and the fresh memory of the Flood minding them of preservation, maugre (as mans simplicity was apt to imagine) the power and force of another Flood if it should happen, the country furnish­ing them with earth for brick, and slime for morter, they fell to work, and when they were in the heat and hardest travailes thereof, and made all the haste they could to get up to Heaven, God came down to them, as he took off the Chariot wheeles from Pharaoh's host in the Red-sea, so as they drove them heavily, so now he brake in sunder the Stern and Rudder of all their actions (as Tully sayes, vin­culum humane societatis est ratio & oratio) by confounding their language, so as alter alterius labium non perciperet, they could not understand one another, nor guesse by the motion of their lips at what was spoken, but they all stood amazed, and at last they resolved, or dissolved into 72 Languages, unusquisque secundum linguam suam in tribubus suis, & in gentibus suis, Japhet 15, Cham 31, Sem 27, as Aust. de Civit. Dei cap. 3. lib. 16. And from thence the Lord did scatter them abroad upon all the earth.

Now for the manuduction of some necessary conse­quences, it shall be requisite to enquire at what time and year after the Flood, the Confusion of Tongues at the building of Babel hapned, which by all Writers is agreed and stated to be in Phalegs time, as Gen. 10. ver. 25. from the Ety­mology of the word Phaleg, which is Division, as the skil­full in the Hebrew inform us, the Flood was in An. Mun. 1656.

Sem was 98 years old at the Flood, and begat Arphaxad two years after, as Gen. 11. 10.

Now the Division of Tongues granted to be in Phalegs time, it resteth to enquire in what parts of his age, which to discover, or most probably to evince, will be of speciall use to some part of our subsequent discourse.

Some will have that name given him at his birth, concei­ving that the Confusion of Tongues then hapned; but to [Page 5] that I cannot subscribe, because I read Gen. 10. v. 25. In his dayes was the earth divided, which word daies must im­port the time of his Manhood, not of his Birth, Infancy, or Childhood; for when we speak of such a thing done in such a mans daies, it implies when he was a man of action.

Again, an indefinite concession that his name was called Phaleg, because the Division of Tongues hapned in his dayes, or life-time, demonstrates no certainty.

Phaleg lived 239 years, and dyed An. mund. 1996, and These lived with Phaleg. Noah 8 Sem 239 Arphaxad 239 Sala 239 Heber 239 Reu 209 Serug 176 Thure 118 Abraham 48. 340 years after the Flood, and all these (as on the Margent) were contemporaries with Phaleg; and why should Phaleg have a name importing Division, rather than any of the rest which then lived with him, unless the name should be given him from some notable and confiderable circumstance, or accident of his life, and so from thence to be changed, as Abram to Abraham, Iacob to Israel, &c. and to make that the Epoche or Root from whence to supputate so great an action? but that is but conjecturall, and no firm founda­tion for a good Argument. And now not to dull or dazle my self with too curious prying and piercing into this obscurity of question, I offer my qualified opinion as followeth.

Phaleg was born An. Mun. 1757, and post Diluvium 101▪ he lived in all 239 years, till An Mun. 1996 and then died. I will grant that the name Phaleg was given him at his birth, not because the Division then hapned, or was ac­complished, but given him prophetically at his birth, when I suppose the building began, and the prophecie to be after fulfilled according to the secret and determinate counsell of God, when the conspiracy and practise should be ripe for his Judgment of Confusion and Dissipation, and to which purpose I suppose God (for his greater glory) did not at the inception and inchoation of the work instantly break them off, but permitted and suffered them to make some fair and far progresse in the work, to the end that having built, and bestowed the more time and cost therein, and then to be scattered, frustrated, and [Page 6] deluded of their hopes, it would be a far greater anxiety and vexation to them to have naufragium almost in portu, especially also when they were furnished of all materials, and all both Architects, Contrivers, and Engineers, as also of Labourers and Workmen in abundance, and they all strong, sound, and of perfect constitutions (proportionall to the length of the lives of the men of those dayes, which I presume to think to have been then even of common and ordinary persons omitted as of those which are mention­ed in Scripture) and yet to be dashed and defeated by so weak a seeming means, as though they had every one of them all their fives senses in compleat measure and per­fection, yet they could not understand what one sayd to another, but chattred like Jayes and Pyes, and were there­by disabled from action without any diminution or de­bilities of the faculties of the body or mind, and wanting nothing of the perfection of men, yet could not consult to doe any thing; therefore as they vauntingly sayd, Gen. 11. 4. Let us build us a Tower whose top may reach up to Hea­ven: So undoubtedly God suffered them to raise it very high, whereby to flatter their ambition while it was work­ing, and to let them see the sin of their Pride in their Confusion, and that their Tongues should cease to be any more any messenger of the mind to action.

I will not here reprove the modesty of some mens judg­ment, who allow forty years expended in the building of this Tower; for truly my fansie may incline to allow them as long time to build that Tower, as God allowed Noah to make the Ark, which was 100 years, as Aust. de Civ. Dei, lib. 15. cap. ult. and Contra Faust. lib. 12. cap. 18. and some give it 120 years, from Gen. 6. v. 3. that as Noah made the Ark sufficient (in that space of time) to endure that great long siege and battery of the seas, so God might give the Nimrodites or Babel-builders leave to try their art and ingene (which they thought was able in a like space of time) to contrive a fabrique and structure of such vast dimensions for height and breadth (as some have made it a mile and a quarter high) as might dare and wade through [Page 7] all future deluges, storms, tempests, rages of winde and weather whatsoever, and preserve them safe and alive; for the judgment and punishment of the Flood still stuck in their stomacks, and they would not take Gods word, Chap. 9. v. 11. never to drown the World again, and they want­ed the warrant of Noah's Faith, which Horace calls no o­ther than

to venter upon such another voyage as Noah's. Thus if we state the Division of Tongues to be but forty years after the beginning to build the Tower, it will be 140 years after the Flood, and in about the fortieth year of Phaleg's age, and an. Mun. 1797. or a­bout 1800.

Nimrod (who was the ancient Belus) was King of Baby­lon, and the first King that ever was, and by the computa­tion of the best Chronologers, he reigned 66 years, and al­though it is sayd of him Gen. 10. v. 9. Nimrod the mighty hunter, yet I suppose that doth but only intimate his open, imperious domineering, and ambitious spirit, and I be­leeve he was the great and chief author and ringleader of the building of Babel Tower, but I think also that he reigned not as King untill after the Confusion; but when he saw his hopes and purposes dashed, and a solstice of the work, and that he was now arrived at the Hercules Pillars, and nil ultra of his great action and adventure, and could not reach home to say with Nebuchadnezar, Is not this great Babel that I have built? yet he was unwilling to remove from the place where he had erected such a monument of his aspiring mind, but there he meant to stay and abide, expecting the dawning of another day, and how so great a wonder and miracle should conclude.

In the mean time the people being scattered and remo­ved into sundry parts of the World, Nimrod being of most note and renown (with a great party that adhered to him, as bad is ever most numerous) still kept together, and with­in some reasonable space of time (as we may conjecture [Page 8] about forty or fifty years) had now contracted and made a proper and peculiar language; and soon after Nimrod, having now many followers, set now his ambitious spirit on work to feed their eyes, mouth, and ears, with the sight, report, and noise of his undertakings; and at last obtain­ed to be the first of Kings, and Monarch of Babylon, while Sem with his children, and grand-children Phaleg and Heber, are thought (by some of the Fathers, and the best Chronologers) never to have engaged in the action of Babylon, but to have removed East-ward to India.

Now the Division of Tongues being (as before) about 140 years after the Flood, and there being a motus trepida­tionis at, and for about forty or fifty yeares after the Con­fusion of Languages, by the panique amazement that pos­sessed the builders of Babel, the summe is about 180 years; then adde 66 years, the time of Nimrods reign, the summe is about 240, or 250 years.

Thus have I prepared and made way for the credit of the story of Diodorus Siculus lib. 2. out of C [...]esias (who lived in the Persian Court) the summe of which story is, that Ninus (who was the Sonne of Nimrod, and succeeded him, and reigned 52 years) in an expedition of War against Zoro­aster King of the Bactrians, about the thirtie third of Ninus reign (as sundry Chronologers have it) carryed into the field 17 hundred thousand Footmen, and two hundred thousand Horsmen, against Zoroaster whose Army consisted of four hundred thousand men.

If I adde this summe of 33 of Ninus reign, to 250, the summe of years is, 283 after the Flood, and if this space and extension of time will not satisfie for so great a breed of men and people, I may yet adde more help to admit this expedition of Ninus to have been three hundred years after the Flood; for by how much lesse of time that in­crease of people spent (as some will not allow it two hun­dred, others a little above two hundred years) by so much the greater plenty and over-flow of people might the sooner extend, and move East-ward to the populating of Ame­rica.

[Page 9]And wee must not imagine that all the men in the world were in those two armies, But if so great a swarm of men were then sprung up out of Iaphe [...] and Cham within that time, who were yet like to be infested with continuall broyles and warres, by the pride, cruelty, insolence, and usurpation of Idolatrous Nimrod, what hinders to believe but that Sem and his children who were the true believers and children of God, and lived quietly and peaceably, and Gen. 9. 16. were blessed with great increase and multiplication, and kept their Hebrew language, and were not engaged in the action of Babel Tower, and suffered no interruption by that confusion, but travelling to the East, ampliated and grew very numerous? And as the progeny of Iaphes or Cham approached nearer towards them, so they removed still more East, and soon after planted and peopled the nea­rest, and more parts of America, and so verified that in Gen. 9. 19. The three Sonns of Noah overspread all the Earth.

It is not my meaning to infer out of my quotation of Diodorus a like generall planting and populacy all the world over, but I suppose that mankind having then (as wee use to say) all the world before them, and room enough, spread, dilated, and extended into that same moderate and temperate clymate, Eastward, declining the hotter regions to the South, and colder to the North, nam primi gentium mediam regionem inter [...]nimium calorem & frigus, &c. as I [...]. de Laët de orig. gent. pa. 91.

Now touching the Dispersion of the Iewes by the carri­ing away of the Ten tribes by Salmanasser King of Assyria, which is supposed by some to be the Fountain and origine of the people of America, although learned Brerewood (in his 13. Chap. of Enquiries, &c.) makes a solid confutation of the vaine and capriccious phancy (as he calls it) of the Tartars to be descended of the ten Tribes, as also the quo­tation out of Esdras touching Arsareth, yet if wee should admit the wandring of the Iewes into Tartarie after the Captivity, neverthelesse since that Captivity was about 1500 yeares after the Flood, wee cannot but suppose that [Page 10] those East parts of Asia were peopled long before that Cap­tivity, and consequently America also.

And to induce it and confirm what I have before de­clared, I further offer, that Ierome quaest. Heb: g. lib. 6, and he happily out of Ioseph: lib. 1. Antiq. cap. 7 both say that the Sonns of Sem (who was Noahs second Sonne, and came out of the Arke) travailed from Senaar, and possessed and Inhabited the part of Asia from That is in the same pa­rallell with Ba­bylon. Euphrates to the Indi­an Sea or Ocean, and the East part then of Asia remaining entire with the Globe of the Earth; for the streight of Ani­an (pernavigated onely in words) is yet to me but a fable, and so thinks Brerewood, and Purchas Amer. cap. 8. and magis inclino ad eam sententiam quae cohaerere credit, saies Jo. de Laët de orig. gent. pag. 12. & illud non minus famosum quam incertum fretum Ani [...]n, Pag. 72. & credo omnes partes continen­tis concatenatis, pag. 116. And Grotius there Anion utrum fretum sive sinus nondum constat, pag. 9. and though the Cos­mographers seem to own it, yet.

Dic mihi d [...]cte virum, aut quis sit da Tytire nobis.

Name or prove mee the men that ever sailed it through. And Arias Montanus is also clearly with me in his book de primis gentium sedibus, where speaking of the Americans, he holds them cum Asia continuatas, and doubts not further to say, that Sems▪ Sonns travailed to the parts of the new world which wee call America, and magis persuadeor &c. I am more perswaded that soon after the dispersion of Nati­ons at the Confusion of tongues, Noahs Sonns and Off­spring came and inhabited that part of the world, and Jo. de Laët orig. gent. pag. 7. ego autem Iudice, I am of opinion that we are not to think America to have bin peopled not above 500 or 1000 yeares since, but forthwith after the Confusi­on of tongues; now the Flood was Anno mundi 1656. and the confusion of tongues about 140 years after, as I have laid down before.

In Gen. the 9. v. 28. It is said, that Noah lived 350 yeares after the Flood. So Noah had so many yeares of his own life to bestow in repeopling and replanting the Earth. It is held that Noah came not to Babylon, nor was party to the [Page 11] arrogant attempt of the building of Babel, and if I er [...]e, li­benter [...]r [...]o, I am willing to erre, to think that as God pleased to make Noah the maine stock and restorer of mankind, so also hee allowed him convenient measure of time to see the work of the repeopling of the world in a good forward­nesse, for hee lived till Abraham was 57 yeares old, and di­ed as Functius saies, postquam totus fere orbis babitari caepisset.

And if there were a Fret or Streight betwixt the two Continents, though certainly very narrow, and yet a necessi­ty of passing over by boate, ship, or other vessell, wee may assure our selves that at the time of the said Captivity of the ten Tribes, and long before, ships▪ and shipping were well known and in use; for Iason about Anno mundi 2740 (which was above 500 yeares before that Captivity of the Ten tribes) sayled out of Greece, and performed his expedicion for the Golden Fleece unto Colchis in Mengrelia at the bottome of the Euxine, and about 20 yeares after Ʋlysses performed his travailes all about the Thuscan Sea, the Adriatique or Gulph of Venice, and the Grecian Islands in the Archipelago; And Solomon to Ophir (An. Mun. 2970) hundreds of yeares before the Captivity aforesaid.

And besides what I find argued by that learned and Iudi­cious Brerewood▪ that the Americans are the race of the Tar­tars, wherein (should I recede from my former argument and opinion, I should concur with his) he much presseth one reason from the known discovery, that the West parts of America next to Asia are (by a fit implication from the more generall, ancient, and constant confluence of the Tar­tars out of Asia) the most plentifully peopled of any part of America, where they have the best records of the series and succession of their Kings, and where are to be seen goodly buildings, and magnificent monuments of Antiquity, far ex­ceeding and excelling all other parts of the West Indies, all which also rather proves and confirmes than confutes my former arguments.

There was another Dispersion of the Iewes from the passion of our Saviour, but that was onely of the two tribes [Page 13] of Iuda and Benjamin who were harassed and canvassed by the Romans after the expugnation of Ierusalem, and wee gather from history that those Iewes were most scatte­red West, North, and South into Europe and Afrique, but from thence we cannot ground any plantation of America.

If the Iewes had gone over into America, by themselves, or with the Tartarians, then the commixture of Nations would have produced a diffusion of promiscuous and medly man­ners and customes, and the more Iewes the deeper die and influence of their rights and customes had also pierced and possessed those parts, & with it an inundation of the peoples rights, customes had also followed and overflowed, but we see they differ toto caelo, as appeares by Acosta, Maffeius, Pe. Mart. Jo. de Laët and others.

Thus far have I offered my weak conceptions, first how America may be collected to have bin first planted, not de­nying the Iewes leave to goe into America, but not admitting them to be the chief or prime planters thereof: for I am of opinion, that the Americans originalls were before the Cap­tivity of the Ten tribes, even from Sems near progeny (of which I have spoken enough already) besides that from the Confusion of languages, to that Captivity, there is a di­stance of about 13 or 1400 yeares, which is time sufficient for the plantation of America out of Asia before the Cap­tivity.

Now I come to enquire into the harmony and agreement together of the Iewes and Americans, in manners, customes, language and religion.

The First instance of the first Conjecture which the Au­thor Conject. 1. notes, is the Americans acknowledgment; but to this Acosta (who lived 17 yeares in the West Indies, and travai­led all the Country over as he saies himself) tells us lib. 5. cap. 25. that what the Americans talk of their begin­ning is nothing worth, and rather a dream than any likelyhood of a true story, nor will the weight of his experience, learning, and integrity, be overpeised by any.

The Second Conjecture is raised from rights and Conject. 2. customes, whereof the Author hath made a distinction of [Page 12] Common and Sacred, and given a select list of both, which are his chief life-guard.

The First is from their garment or Mantle which the Cust. 1. Americans use, as the Author, so also Acosta confesseth to be a square coat or cloak as most single, simple, and lesse charge, and no more peculiar to the Iewes or Americans than to any other Nation, and is the same with Elias Man­tle, & such as wee read of in Diodorus, used by the Chaldeans, & in Herodotus, by the Egyptians, & such as the very Irish wear, though of a thicker substance, because a colder Country; and reason shewes it is the most proper and ready garment for any Nation in an ho [...] clymate, and where the people have any modest sence and shame of their own nakednesse.

This Pharagraph must be thus conceived and apprehen­ded to be the Authors meaning, that they constantly, that is daily, usually, and very often, as the Iewes daily, usually, and very often did; Or that in such manner as the Iewes did sometimes, So the Indians did daily, usually, and very often, annoint their head.

In the old Testament wee read of two manner of Annointings, the one Sacred or Holy, the other Common or Prophane.

The Sacred or holy oyle or Annointing is that we read of Exod. 22. being a very sweet perfume, the confection or composition whereof was directed by God himself, and hee appointed that the Tabernacle, and all the instruments and vessells thereof should be annointed therewith, and Aaron the Priest and his Sonnes, as v. 30. And what Hannah spake 1▪ Sam. 2. 10. He will give strength to his King, & exalt the horn of his annointed, and what else the man of God said to old Ely, v. 35. of the same Chap. insinuates either a declaration of the manner of Inauguration of Kings among the Gentiles, whereof they had heard, or they spake it prophetically by [Page 14] application of what they heard Moses had told from the mouth of God, Deut. 17. touching the election and institu­tion of a King among the Israelites, which was after verifi­ed in the Kings of Juda, &c. who were annointed with the same holy oyle, as we may reade at large of Saul, David, So­lomon &c. and as the prophet Elisha was annointed, 1. K. 19. 16. all which was with oyle powred upon the head, and therefore Luke 6. v. 46. Christ saies to Peter, Mine head with [...]yle thou didst not annoint, but this woman hath annointed my feet with oyntment; as if he had said, I that am the truly an­nointed of the Lord, King, Priest, and Prophet, and should have had oyle powred upon mine head, as was upon Aärons, Davids, and Elishahs, such cost you were loth to bestow upon mine head, and you see how freely and joyfully she hath be­stowed it upon my feet.

The first place in Scripture where we read of Annoint­ing with oyle, is Gen. 28. 18. where it is said that Iacob (when his Father sent him on wooing) in his travail, ha­ving slept all night upon a stone for a pillow, and dreamed of the ladder to heaven, and of the wonderfull promises of Gods blessings to him revealed in a vision, he was so ra­vished therewith, that he brake forth into these expressions of Admiration; Surely the Lord is in this place; How dreadfull is this place? This is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of Heaven, and he builded an Altar there, and called it Bethel, and vowed a vow, and took the Stone (implying the same stone whereupon hee slept, & that rather than any other, because in his rest upon that Stone he had that glo­rious apparition) and powred oyle upon it, which doubt­lesse was no other than such as he carried with him in his travaile for his own refreshment, and which though he used as partly for food (as the widow of Zarephath 1. K. 17. 12. and as we eate it with fish, Salades and Herbes,) so also to supple his joints and tired Limbs (as 2 Chr. 28. v. 15.) yet he thought it not too precious so to be bestowed, whereby to make the Stone look smooth, cheerfull and shining, as also to preserve it from frost, raine, and the injury of weather, as wee doe metalls, wood, stones, (of more than ordina­ry [Page 15] use or esteem) that stand abroad, and in open aire; and although this was before the giving of the Law, yet I take this to be an annointing dedicated to Gods worship.

The other which I call Common or Prophane annoint­ing may be subdivided, and severally branched, and to be­gin with the best and highest, I surpose some were of most sweet and odoriserous sent and perfume by the con­fection and ingredients, as when they buried Asa it is said, Chro. 2. 16. 14. that they dressed him unguentis meretriciis as Ierome renders i [...], with wanton, Harlot-like, and delicate oyles and ointments, as the Harlot Prov. 7. v. 15. invites to her bed perfumed with Myrrh, Aloes, and Cynamon (two of the incredients of the Holy oyle) and such was the oyle in Ruth 3. 3. and such were the odours to which allusion is made 1. Cant 3. 12 4. 10. 14. & Amos 6. v. 6. and which Iudith used when she dressed her self for the surprise of Ho­lophernes, and I hope I shall not erre to suppose and say that such oyle it was that Iesus feet were annointed with, for she that bestowed it was Mary Magdalen, mulier peccatrix, a [...]inner, an old wanton, that was provided happily, or else knew soon how to provide costly and curious perfumed oyles and ointments to invite delight, but now a Convert, and as she first annointed his feet with what she was wont to annoint her self withall, so her haire (which she was wont to embroider, dresse and curl with all curiosity, wherewith to catch, ensnare, and entangle beholders eyes) shee now makes a towell or napkin wherewith to wipe and dry up the teares that she first washed his feet withall, & after annointed his feet with that oyl which I take to be such as is mentioned Mark 14. 3. a box of oyle of Nard very pre­cious, which unguenta spicata Galen reckons inter Rom [...]no­rum delicias, among the delicacies of the Romans, as Apro­nius caput et os suum unguento per fricabat. Cicero in ver. 5.

There was another annointing with oyle, to chear, com­fort, and exhilarate, and to look smooth, faire, and fresh, as David Ps. 104▪ 15. oyle to make him a cheerfull countenance, and as he annointed himself after his griefe for the death of his first Sonne by Bathshe [...]a. And as Pro. 27. 9. Oynt­ment [Page 16] and perfume rejoice the heart, and Athaeneus lib. 1. saies that Democritus the Philosopher of A [...]derites (being deman­ded how a man might live long) answered, si exteriora oleo, interiora melle irriget, to annoint outwardly with oyle, & in­wardly with hony, as one saies, unguenta non voluptatis tantum­modo, sed & valetudinis causa usurpantur, & such annointing is mentioned Mat▪ 6. 17. When thou fastest annoint thy head, &c.

There was another use of Annointing, which was to sup­ple and refresh the sinewes, joints, and muscles, as Psal. 109. Let it come like oyle into his bones, and Mich. 6. 15. Ho­mer both in his Ilyads and Odysses speakes often of a Custom among the Grecians of bathing or washing in the mor­ning, and after annointing with oyle; And Athenaens lib. 1. Deipnos gives a reason, for bathing is wholsome, but makes the skin harsh and rugged, and oyle makes it soft and smooth againe; And Thucydides saies, In gymnasio Lacedaemo­nii corpora nudarunt, & oleo perfuderunt, the Lacedemonians at their feats of exercise bared their bodies, and then an­nointed them with oyle.

Aenead: and Oleum quo super­unguntur Athletae ad adjiciendum Robur Ceroma dicitur, sayes Seneca, the oyle wherewith wrestlers annoint themselves to get strength is called Ceroma, and Plutarch in this Alexander saies, that the Gods bestowed oyle upon men for refreshment after wearinesse and labours.

There was another Annointing with oyle mentioned in Scripture, which was of such as were sick, as Mark 6. 13. Ia. 5. 14. that was a Power given by Christ to his Disciples, which was not from any expresse receipt, or cure, but onely for a signe and earnest of Spirituall health, and cure of the Soul, as were many other miracles done by them; this manner of annointing lasted as long as the gift to work miracles lasted Chrysost. Hom. 4. in Math. and Aust. de vera religione cap. 15. both confesse that they were vanished be­fore their times, and from that primitive use the Papists have extremely translated it into a Sacrament.

Other Annointing than what I have here mentioned, [Page 17] I find not in use among the lewes, save that in festis solebant Iudaei caput oleo ungere, upon their festivall daies the Iewes used to annoint their head with oyle, which was no other than that, because upon those high and great daies they were more publique in their meetings, and assemblies, ther­fore they annointed themselves both to smooth and chear the countenance, and to please by sent & perfume; And their head rather than any other part, both because the hair would better lodge and retain the sent▪ especially also being preserved warm with an hat or covering, and because when men are together in ordinary conference and dis­course, the outward seat of the seat of smelling (which is in the nose a member of the head) is nearer the object of de­light, as they talke nearer, and their heads are nearer to­gether by the salutations of kissing or embraceing, and so they contribute pleasing odours and perfumes to the de­light of one another.

Of all this that is said which is of odoriferous and sweet oyles, nothing makes for the scope of the Author to the use of the Indians, who never annoint to the purposes a­foresaid; but as they prefer the dark and tawny complexi­on, so they love to adulterate the colour of their hair. So in Florida, and some parts of Brasile, they annoint themselves, their skin with oyle, ut nudam cutem, &c. to crust, harden, and defend it against the scorching of the Sun, but of the annointing of the head, I reade no custome among them.

I confesse the Earings in use among the Americans, as was in Esay, & is with us, and all Europe over by perforation.

Auribus extensis ma [...]nos commisit elenchos—Iuve­nal. li. 2. sa [...]. 6. but the Nose-rings in Esay were onely naso impendentia, hanging down upon the forehead, as was most in use among us in late memory, but the Americans bore the sides of their nostrills through to hang their Iewells at; [Page 18] And so their lower lips also for lip rings; but I forbear to quote authority thereof, being confident of the readers con­sent and satisfaction in so clear a matter; In th [...] [...] let us observe and an [...]i [...] [...] [...]ane time Iewe [...] [...]e negative command to the [...], [...]evit. ca. 19. v. 27.

To say they wash themselves often, must implie, they wash their bodies often, and such washing the heat of Brasile, and other hot Clymates require, and such washing may also ea­sily and often be done by a people going almost naked, and so with small and little labour to dresse, and undresse; but the washing of the hands before meat (quoted out of Mar.) was with the Iewes, as with us, a common practise before meales, but otherwise of the washing of the body; and that quotation out of Marke, &c. is onely a note of the seeming outward purity, and cleanenesse of the Pharisees, and their ceremonious strictnesse, putting and placing religi­on in opere operato, and the forme of Godlinesse, for they washed before meat, at meat, upon drinking, pledging, changing of Pots, Glasses, &c. and therefore (for their se­verall often and frequent uses) they had in their dining­roomes great pitchers, or vessells of water, ever in readi­nesse, as at the marriage in Cana. Io. 2. But the Americans wash their bodies often to coole themselves, and to wont and accustome to the waters, they practising very much swimming, in fishing and diving, but Io. de. Laët. Ind. occid. lib. 15. cap. 2. saies, the Brasilians (one of the largest pro­vinces of all the West-Indians) eate their meat illotis mani­bus, with unwashed hands; And Purchas America cap. 5. saies, the Brasilians wash not before meales, and in his treatise of Nova francia cap. 8. he saies, they wash not at meales, except they be e [...]ceeding foule, and then they wipe upon their own, or their dogs hai [...]es; and whereas Lerius hath a non­nulli that wash before and after meals, this denotes but a few, & admits the generality not to wash; as for the Levitical law of washing, that respected onely clensing after supposed pol­lution [Page 19] by touching of unclean creatures, and other defi­lings and contamination, and contrary to Gods expresse command, whereas the question with us resteth onely in a voluntary, and nationall use and custome; yet for washing before meales, it is a common use among us, and other countries, who are any whit civilized by commerce, and so Linschot saies of the Cambians, Goans, Peguans, and Bengalans. I could here relate of the sundry superstitious particulars of the Pharisaicall washings, as the Jesuis Ser­rarius quotes them out of the Rabbins, enough to pose all America.

This is so cheap and prostitute a custome all the World over (and must needs be most among naked people) as inopem me copia fecit, if I should begin to exemplifie, I knew not when to end. It is a ravishment of the Intellectuals, with an high content of fruition or near hopes, which the soul breathes forth by her ministers the faculties of the body in all light volatile and aiery motions and activities.

This assertion is not exemplified by any quotation of Scripture, how, and in what manner, and measure it is in­tended, or extended; for the words Pater, Mater, have sundry other than naturall significations, and in many of them the same words are in use among us.

Perhaps the Americans might have that custome from the Tartars, as Sigism. Baro cap. de Tartaris saies, Ab equis & aliis animalibus quoquo modo interemptis suaviter vescuntur demptis porcis; they feed deliciously upon dead horses, or any other carrion whatsoever (howsoever killed) except Swines flesh. So did also the Egyptians, Arabians, Scy­thians, Samoëdes, who never descended from the Jews or [Page 20] Israelites, yet the Egyptians tempore plenilunio suilla carre vescuntur, saies Herod. lib. 2. The Egyptians eat Swines flesh in the new Moon: And Jo. de La [...]t descrip. Ind. occid. lib. 15. cap. 2. saies of the Brasilians, carnibus & piscibus indis­criminatim vescuntur, neque ab immundis animantibus abhor­rent, the Brasilians feed upon all manner of Fish and Flesh, and make no difference; nay they abstain not from unclean creatures; by which he may be thought (without any o­ver-strained presumption) to mean Swine; for lib. 10. cap. 19. he saies of some parts of Virginia, aluntque multos porcos, they bring up many Swine (which we must understand for food, if he assign no other cause) And so pag. 413. he speaks of the people of the Sichi in Peru, Aluntque multos porcos, qui omnium Peruvianorum optimi judicantur, they breed many Swine, which are counted the best of all Peru (which must intend the best for food and meat.) And the Epistles of the Jesuit Ni. Duran. printed 1636. saies of the people of Paraquaire (right West of Brasile) Sues habent quibus vescun­tur, they breed up Swine, and feed upon them; and Pet. Mart. Dec. 2. cap. 9. & 3. cap. 7. sales they have Swine­herds, and herds of Swine, and the Swines flesh is com­mended by the natives to be wholsomer, and of a better tast than their Mutton: And of the Chineses in Asia over a­gainst America, Maffeius lib. 6. saies, caro suilla maxime expe­titur mensis, no greater dainties at their table than Swines flesh: And Hierome adver. Vigilant. To. 2. saies of Jovinian, Inter Phasides & carnes suillas non tam amisit spiritum quam eructavit; and Lucian in his Saturnals, and Pliny, both say, that Swines flesh was a choice dish at Feasts. And though by the Leviticall Law Swines flesh was forbidden, being one of the creatures that divided the hoofe, but chewed not the cud; yet we read that the Gadarens (in the Tribe of Manasseh) had an heard of 2000 Swine drowned with the devils in the Lake; and we may presume to suppose that the Jews in the other Tribes had swine also, and may conclude, that they bred and brought them up for their own food and spending, or for the markets of other peo­ple near unto them.

Most of all the Americans (as our authors report, and must be true in nature) are fearfull, jealous, and inhospi­table people towards all strangers, whom they suspect to come to invade, or annoy, or expell them; and if in any place where they are subdued & civilized, they washed others feet, it was not an occult quality inherent from the Jewish race and derivation, but a trite use, and custome of their own barefoote experience, and afterwards (as bonum signum à mala causa) became a practise in seeming curtesie towards others where they were subdued.

In the [...]8 of Gen. 4. Abraham saies to the three Angels that came in humane shape unto him, Let a little water, I pray you, be brought, and wash your feet: Here Abraham offers them water, & wills them to wash their own feet, as best knowing, not where the shooe, but the want of a shooe pinched them most; of this we may read Gen. 19. 2. & 24. 32. & 43. 24. Iudges 19. v. 21. and sundry other places; and in hot coun­tries people went bare-foot, and used to wash their feet for refreshment after surbaiting, or solebaiting, and weariness of travaile; and this washing of feet was a speciall re­medie to unweary them, as Calvin calls it in the French, De­lasser.

Homer in his Odysses doth often mention the hospitality of washing of feet, as Polycaste Nestor's daughter washed Te­lemachus feet, and Ʋlysses when he returned home after his long travailes, and was not yet discovered, he refused to let any woman wash his feet, [...], nisi aliqua vetula, unlesse there were some old woman; and Plavus in his Persa, ferte aquam pedibus, bring water for the feet.

But the quotation as of the known custome and com­mendation of old Israel, cannot suite much with any practise of the Americans.

In the 13 of John we read of the greatest Master that ever was, that he washed his servants feet; but this was no cu­stome [Page 22] in Israel or Judah, nor was ever done by any of the Sachims or Casiques in America; and here the proffer of Christ to Peter was of so unspeakable condescension, as Peter (in an angry modesty, and bashfull indignation, ver. 8.) told him he should never wash his feet, that is, as the Centu­rion said to Christ, I am not worthy thou shouldest come under my roofe, can I have that brazen-faced boldnesse and impudence to permit thee (so far exceeding and excellent above all mortall men) to perform so mean an office to me, the meanest of men? but Christ soon cooled and converted him in the same verse: If I wash thee no [...], &c. Here our Savi­our teaches his Disciples humility, and brotherly love, as ver. 14, 15, 16, 17. and (as he draws nearer to his passion and parting) dictates and inculcates those things to them, that should be their practise to his glory, and their eternall comfort.

Grotius alleging Hunting, Computation by nights, Washing of new born children, and Dicing to be in use among the Americans, and to have been used also by the Germans; Joh. de Laët de orig. gent. answers, or observes upon it, and saies, that Hunting was as common to other people, especially the Scythians; so also Computation by nights familiar to many Eastern people, which they had from the Hebrews, and therefore the author doth a little impose upon the reader herein; for de Laët doth not say that the Indians had them from the Hebrews, but that many▪ Easterne people learned that computation from the Hebrews, and the Indians might have it from those Eastern people.

The Athenians began their day at Sun-set, so did the Jews, and so did the Gaules in Caesar's time, who Coment. lib. 6. saies, Galli [...]se omnes à Di [...]e prognatos dicunt, ob eam cau­sam spatia temporis non numero dierum sed noctium faciuntur; the Gaules say they descend from Pluto, and therefore com­pute their time by nights: And as the Americans fear [Page 23] Pluto, Dis, the Devill, the God of darknesse most, so their stupidity and ignorance may justly give the Night prece­dence in their computation of time; and although we will not forget our own usuall reckoning by nights, as Seve­night, Fortnight, yet wee offer not to strive with the Gaules for the petigre, though Seeing, we will not see, and are blind, though we have had a long Sun-shine; Wee reck­on also by months, as the Iewes did, though in neither are wee the more Iewish; In Cuba they reckon by the Sun, and say so many Suns, as Pet. Martyr Dec. lib. 4. cap. 8. I could perplex this question yet more, but non est tanti, It is not worth the labour.

The prophecy and promise of our Saviours comming in the flesh, was an encouragement to marriage among the Iewes, which made the condition of Iephtes Daughter be­waileable, because her hope was quite cut off, her Father having dedicated her to God in a single life, not sacrifised her by death (as some would have it) but unforced I thrust my self any further into that disquisition; But when Christ came into the world, he conferred the greatest ho­nour that ever was upon Virginity, by being himself born of a Virgin, himself living and dying a Virgin, and the great commendations wee otherwise have of Virginity, are most plentifully set forth both in the old and new Testa­ment; So as the very Elect are called the Virgins that follow the Lambe, Revel. 14. 4. and the Fathers call it the Ange­licall State, and condition; And if Saint Paul bee Cano­nicall, he doth satisfie us to the full; And Acosta lib. 6. cap. 20. saies, Virginitas quae apud omnes mortales in precio & honore est, apud hos Barbaros (speaking of the Americans) vilis & in­decora, and a little after, Virginitas quae ubique gentium maximo & prope divino honore [...]fficitur, inter belluas dedecori & infamiae est, Virginity which is honored all the world over (among those barbarous people, and no better than [Page 24] beasts) is a shame and disgrace, and basely esteemed. And it cannot be expected (upon a near inspection into that Na­tion) but that it may the sooner kindle lust, and the more easily and speedily inflame to execution; and principally from their heathenisme, want of Civility and Religion, having (as the Psal. saies) no fear of God before their eyes; as the Malabars in East India, who think if they die maides they shall never come into Pardise; but I am sory to read the Parallele, and that the allusion of the la­mentation for Jephtes Daughter should be quoted to coun­tenance the bawdinesse of these beastly and barbarous people, so contrary to the Law of God, by Moses, Levit. 19. v. 29.

While it was Gods command it was to be obeyed, and though Ipse dixit, that God said it, had bin enough, yet God may be thought to have commanded it for increase of people among his own children the Iewes, and that in­crease not to be seduced or endangered to Idolatry by en­termarriage with Idolaters; Chrys. upon Mathew frames another reason, which is, that because death was among the Iewes a punishment that went nearest the heart, and then especially the losse of a husband to a wife must be most grievous and insupportable, therefore there could be no such mitigatory or lenitive of sorrow to the widow, as to marry the husbands brother or near kinsman, where­by the first husband seemes in a manner still to live, and the estate to continue in the same stock, but that law after vanished, and as Austin saies, Commistio sororum & fratrum quanto fuit antiquior compellente necessitate, tanto postea facta est detestabili [...]r religione prohibente, and I hope those marriages were ceased and laid down long before the Captivity under Salmanasser.

Wee must consider the curse upon Cham gazing upon his Fathers nakednesse, and Ʋaler. Maximus saies that [Page 25] apud antiquos non erat fas filium simul cum patre balneari, in old time the Sonne was not suffered to be seen bathing with the Father; and Aristotle in his Hist. Animalium, tels of an Horse that having covered a Mare that was his own damm, after he perceived it, he brake his own neck down a precipice, with horrour or shame of the fact; be it true or false, the story is a divine beam in the Philosopher; but these Marriages among the Americans, derive partly from their own brutishnesse, partly from their heathenish poli­cy for safety and assurance in the confidence of their own safety and kindred, and being in many parts a Nomades, a wandring, fleeting, and removing people up and down in hords from place to place, and studious of numbers and faithfulnesse for strength and preservation from enemies and danger; yet Pet. Mart. lib. 7. cap. 10. of the Islanders, They have as many Wives as they please, saving of their own kindred: And Hierome in his second book against Iovini­an saies, Persae, Medi, Indi, & Ethiopes, cum matribus, aviis, filiabus, & neptibus, copulantur; lie with their Mothers, Grandmothers, Daughters, Neeces.

This place of Exodus Hierome translates, obstretricandi haben [...] facultatem, that is, the Hebrew women are skilfull in Midwifry; but because the office of a Midwife is of a another person distinct from the woman travailing, who cannot minister to her self as a stander by, therefore the translation seems to me improper, not that mine igno­rance in the Hebrew can judge it, but because I find it otherwise rendred in sense by sundry other learned men; Vatablus sayes the Hebrew women were vegetae, Tremellius, vividae, Pagnine, valde roboratae, the Italian, gagliarde, the French, vigonrenses, the Spanish, robustas, our English, lively; which word carries enough of skill, slight, de­vise, art, ingeniosity; but to come more close to the que­stion.

The danger and difficulty of women in Child-birth, is [Page 26] a curse entailed upon Eve, and all women kind ever since, for tasting and giving Adam the forbidden fruit, In sorrow shalt thou bring forth: Rachel had an hard travaile of Ben­jamin, and dyed of him, and Phinehas wife of Ichabod; Moses does not of himself say, that the Hebrew women were easily delivered, as if it were a nationall and naturall promptnesse and facility; but he sayes, the Hebrew Mid­wives (being charged of Pharaoh to destroy all the Male children when they saw them upon their stooles (which in­sinuates they had the usuall travaile and help of other wo­men) the Midwives who feared God, and for that reason spared the children) excused themselves by saying, the He­brew women are lively, and easily delivered before we come at them; so as nothing is proved of the Hebrews facility of childbirth above other women.

And we may further (without presumption) suppose, that when God intended so miraculous a preservation and increase of the Israelites, he might (by his power) facilitate the travaile of the women, and give them more easie deli­verance for accomplishment of his own great design and purpose in that particular.

Now it is a vain and empty cogitation and argument, to say that the Hebrew women (having understood of Pharaoh's command) raised themselves to the highest pitch of spirit, and uttermost strength of nature, and sphere of activity to their own deliverance in that great combat, and for preser­vation of their issue.

Besides, although we must grant that in nature (yet not to give a law alike to all constitutions and frames of body, which severally may recipere majus aut minus, and differ one from another) the danger, and danger is great in the tra­vaile of women, and child-bearing; there being but unus introitus, & mille exitus, but one way into the world, though a thousand out; yet Nature may be helped by Cu­stome (a second nature) and I do admit, that all barba­rous and savage people, who by their hardships of body, and nakednesse, or loosnesse (with little garment or cove­ring, which render them alwaies more nimble, active, and [Page 27] maniable, especially in warm countries and clymates, which is apt to dilatation, as cold is to constriction) are more able to endure, and more ready and facile to the dis­charge of their burthen.

I could here amplyfie and enlarge (by credible relations) of the manner and practise of the Irish, and the help and Midwifery of their Mantles, but I spare it; and in Strabo we read that the women in Spaine goe about their ordinary works as soon as they are delivered, and the husband lies in while the woman works; so the Tibareni in Asia Minor, and the Brasilians about the river Plate, as Purchas cap. 4. of America.

The quotation out of Ezek. might have been spared in so ancient and necessary a custome; Arist. Pol. 7. saies, apud barbaras gentes, &c. among the barbarous people there grew a strong custome to wash infants in cold water, as the Gaules also did. and Virg. Aenead. 9. sayes,

And follows in the same place,

Which serves also exactly for the Americans, and Avicen saies, festinandum ut infantum corpuscula perluantur [...]qua, and Strabo relates such a custom in Spaine, and Grotius quotes the like of the Germans out of Tacitus; yet Mexicanis usitatum [Page 28] non invenio, saies Io. de Laët▪ de orig. gent. pag. 37. I doe not finde it used among the Americans; so some particulars as the great Province of Mexico will not be comprised with­in the generall word they.

The confession and concession of the Author saves me the labour of any further inquiry in this.

Of this hath been spoken already in part to the 11 ^th, I now adde, Moses words are these, If a man dye, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife by the right of alliance; the word is, [...] of [...] a Son in Law, as in Deut. 25. 5. Moses said, his Kinsman shall marry his wife, and [...] among the Greekes is usually taken for a Kins­man, as in Homer and others, so [...] is, shall Kins­man it, as Beza judiciously renders it affinitatis jure, and our english translation by the right of Alliance, & the note upon the margent in the Geneva bibles, saies the Hebrew word doth not signifie the naturall brother should marry the brothers wife, but other Kinsman in a degree which might marry, as the Cosen (as is plentifully explaned in Ruth) and so it is rendred in Valablus, Tremellius, the Itali­an, French, and Spanish Bibles, though Pagnine have it Le­vir, the Husbands Brother, yet the note upon the side cor­rects it into Cognatus; and as Calvin in his Epistles, pag. 495. Phrasis est linguae Hebraicae, &c. It is the phrase of the Hebrew tongue, to call all Kinsmen Brothers; and hereof we may read largly and learnedly (among others) in Zan­chius de sponsal. lib. 1.

These most obscure, uncomely, and unnaturall matches, let the Americans still own, & be not once named among, or of those that were called the Children of God, but forbidden by him to the Israelites, though in practise among the in­cestuous Idolaters, as the note is upon the 18. of Levit. [Page 29] v. 16. as the Persians and other Nations had a law from those Idolaters to marry sisters, daughters, brothers, as Euseb. de Pr. Evang. lib. 6. cap. 8. and if the Popes dispen­sation be a law, the Papists have an easie remedy for incestu­ous marriages, and though some of them doe grant there was a fieri non debuit, yet by the Popes omnipotencie factum valet; for Princes the better to assure their Estates, as also to enlarge and augment their power and dominion, doe enter marry with their own near kindred, and in degrees clearly forbidden and incestuous before God, though a­lowed and confirmed by dispensation from the vice-God the Pope, wherewith themselves, and their issue, and pro­geny (if they have any) are all ever after deeply obliged as homagers to the Pope who gave them their Crown and greatnesse, and thus they serve their own turnes of the Pope, and he his own upon them, as to omit others, may be throughly instanced in the marriage of late yeares of Al­bert Arch-duke of Austria with the Insanoa Isabella Clara Eugenia.

• Charles the 5.
• Ferdinand 1.

• Ph. 2.
• Marie

• Maxim. 2. Ferdinand, Charles, Iohn.

• Ph. 3.
• Isabella Clara Eug.

Marie sister of Ph. 2. married Maxim. 2. by disp. from P. Paul the third.

Phil. 3. married Mary daughter of Cha. Son of Ferdi­nand.

• 1 Rodulph,
• 2 Ernest,
• 3 Matthias,
• 4 Maximili.
• 5 Albert,
• 6 Wencelaus,
• 7 Anna,
• 8 Elizabeth.

Isabella Clara Eugenia married Albert 5. Sonne of Maxim. 2. So Ph. 2. might truly call Albert Brother, Cosen, Nephew, Sonne; and by such (politicall and damnable) matches the Americans may with the Psalmist, as before, joine house to house, and land to land.

The meaning of the Author is, that the Parents among the Indians, sell or set what price they list upon their daughters, as from this quotation the Author would insi­nuate to have bin a custome among the Israelites.

The word Dowry, comes from the latine Dos, and that from the Greek [...] or [...], or the Indeclinable [...], all meaning a gift or donation, and all from [...] to Give.

In the first ages some men took wives where they list, as Gen. 6. 2. and Iudges 21. v. 21. others had them of the gift of the Parents, as Gen. 24. v. 5. and as Hamor said to Iacob of Dinah, The soul of my Son longeth for your Daughter, I pray you give him to wife, Gen. 34. v. 8. others bought their wives, as Jacob did Rachel, Gen. 29. 18. and Hos. 3. v. 2. and so it was also among the heathens.

In the first ages also, Riches and substance consisted most in flocks, and stock of Cattell, as we may read at large in Gen. of the Patriarchs, and after of Iob, and such was the practise of the antient heathen, as Pausanias in Mesieri, and those cattle first for use in sacrifices, after for foode and meate for men.

We reade in Herodotus, Thucidides and others, that it was a common practise in ancient time, for rovers at Sea, to land upon Maritime parts, and to steale, take, and car­ry away Virgins, and young maides, when they were play­ing in the fields (as Pluto did Proserpina) and to sell them for cattell, and to steale cattle also, and with them to buy maides to sell againe, as Laërtes (Ʋlysses Father) bought Euryclea for [...] the price of 20 oxen, Homer, Odyss. lib. 1. And in Homers Hymne of Venus, shee tells Anchises how she was taken and carried away.

Which is thus translated into the latine, Ʋirgines bene d [...]tatae ludebamus, a company of us maidens of good por­tions [Page 31] were playing, that is which would sell for good store of cattle, of which name of Alphesiboeus oxen finding, wee may read more in Servius upon Virg. his 5. and 7. Aeg­logues. and Strabo lib. 15. speaks of Virgins among the Indi­ans [...] bought with a paire of oxen, a com­mon practise among them▪

Againe Aristotle and Thucidides both tell us, that in an­cient times husbands bought their wives, which sheweth that in their times, It was not so, but that then parents gave portions with their daughters, yet wee read of Lycurgus (the great lawgiver of Lacedemon) that hee would have wives bring no portions, lest the greatnesse of the porti­on should make them insolent, and so I suppose it wittily meant by Seneca, where he saies, Insolens malum est beata uxor, which is clearly adapted to that of Syracides cap. 25. a wo­man that nourisheth her husband is full of reproach; and Iuvenal Sat. 6. lib 2. Intolerabilius nihil est quam faemina dives.

Tacitus of the Customes of the Germans, saies, Dotem non uxor marito sed maritus uxori dat, by which he meanes the purchase of a wife, and notes it for a difference from the use among the Romans, Antiquitus, in old time (saies one) the women ( munera quasi dotem à maritis acceperunt) had gifts from their husbands, as (or in manner of) a Dowrie, which is but a fain: expression & resemblance; for I suppose those were but love tokens, complements and earnests of af­fection, dona nuptialia, as Cicero pro Cluentio, I dare not adven­ture to call them [...] with Pausanius in his Laco­nicks, which I translate revelatoria as bestowed for putting off the vaile, or when the vaile was first put off, which was a yel­low vaile ( Flammeum, as Pliny calls it, lib. 21. ca. 8.) ca [...] over the face, whereupon some Critiques bring nuptiae from nubo, (because then the Covering is cast off) but I dare ad­venture to say they are such as Homer Odyss. 8. speaks of, when Vulcan had taken Mars in bed with Venus, he chained them together, with a curious chaine which he made on pur­pose, and would not loosen nor set them at liberty, till— [...]

[Page 32]Hee were promised that her Father should restore him all his love-tokens and gifts that he bestowed on her when he was a Suter to her, and so the Father having those gifts in his power, may not be improperly said to have sold his daughter.

But now to presse the argument nearer, from the Grounds of Reason and Religion, None will deny that as a daughter is a charge and burthen to her parent for her diet, apparell, and maintenance while unmarried (as Paul sais, hee is worse than an infidell that provides not for his Fa­mily) so beeing married, she becomes a charge to her hus­band, which the parent hath removed from himselfe, besides also the probable consequent and concomitant charge of children, and for these reasons Ʋlpian (one of the Fathers of the Civile Law) saith, Dos est proprium filiae patrimonium, & Paternum est officium dotare filiam, and this Dowry or Portion, is the just motion for a set Iointure to be made to the wife, and this the Civile Law calls donatio propter nuptias, and as the Greekes call a Dowry, or Portion, [...], because the woman brings it, So they call the Ioincture [...] which is a bringing to meete it, a quid pro quo, or a retaliation; for as the Civilian saies, Dos & Donatio propter nuptias must paribus passibus ambulare, go and march evenly and together, thus Dos or Dowry purely and candidly taken is ( quod à parente propter vinculum & onera ma­trimonii datur) that which the parent gives to knit the knot, and beare a part of the charge in marriage, and of this wee have plentifull confirmation, both in sacred and prophane story.

When Leah brought Iacob a sixt Sonne, she sayd, Now [...]ath God endowed me with a good Dowry, Gen. 30. v. 20. That is, although my Father Laban gave Iacob nothing in portion with me, yet this my fruitfulnesse is enough to content Iacob, who shall not (as David said afterwards) be ashamed when he speaketh with his enemies in the gate: And that the use and practise was such, for parents to give portions to their daughters, may be evinced cap. 31. v. 14, 15. Where Rachel expostulates thus against her Father; Is there any [Page 33] more portions? hath he not sold us? That is, our Father, who according to common use and custome of other pareuts, should have given us portions, hath sold us, that is, hath paid, or given us to Iacob for his wages; though it pleased God to provide that Iacob should have a portion with his wives, by the profit of his subtile, naturall, and philosophi­call experiment and conclusion, v. 37, 38, 39.

Again, Exod. 22. v. 17. If a man entice a maid to lye with her, and her father will not let him marry her, he shall pay ac­cording to the Dowry of Virgins: That is, she shall have a Dowry or Portion suitable to his quality whose daughter she is, as the ability of the young mans parents may bear it. So Deut. 22. v. 28, 29.

We read that Pharaoh King of Egypt gave Gezer to his daughter Salomon's wife in dotem, or in nomine dotis, as Hierom and Vatablus (pro muneribus saies Paguinus) and so might be still Dos profectitia (in the Civillians terms) from a pa­rent; this place to my sense is unfitly with us translated a Present; for though the word might be excused towards the glory and majesty of Solomon (though Sonne in Law to Pharaoh) yet it is too stooping, low, and unseemly from a Father to his own Daughter, since the word Present, imports alwaies on offering from an Inferiour to a Supe­riour.

And to return again to the name and signification of the word Dowry. In the 2 Mach. 1. 14. mention is made of Antiochus, that went to receive money in the name of a Dowry; which History though it be, as Iunius saith, Fabu­lous, and is Apocrypha, yet the receiving of Dowry, or Portion by a man with his wife, is Canonicall enough to our purpose.

Homer Il. 6. sh [...]w, that Hector called his wife Andromeda, Polydra, because she brought him a great portion; and in his first of his Odysses, he useth the word [...] for a portion with a daughter; and Plato lib. 6. And Laws give rules for portions and so lemnizations of Marriages; and Themisto­cles (who is also very ancient) said, Malo sponsam piam ca­rente dote optima, quam dotem optimam carente sponsa pia: And [Page 34] among the Romans, Dos magna parentum virtus. Probamque pauperiem sine dote quaero, &—decies centena dedisset—huic puero, all Horace. Vxor sine dote veniet, Terent. Nihil est quod dem, Euclio to Megadorus in Plaut. Aulularia, and there a little after, Convenisse dotis mea afferret filia, at last we agreed he should take my daughter with any portion; and ipse filiae nubili dotem conficere non potest, Tully ad Atticum, and Caesar Com. 6. sayes of the Gaules, Viri quantum pecuniae ab uxore dotis nomine accipiunt, tantum, &c.

Now whether Dowry be meant in the Authors quota­tion under the first or second sence, I cannot finde what either Saul gave for Portion, or David for Joincture; but to attain the meaning of the place as near as I can, I offer thus,

It is certain, that ever after the women of Israel sang Davids victory over Goliah, with an higher note and pitch of honour ten to one than Sauls, Saul sought his life, and so Sauls proposition, as it was but a trap for David (thinking David could never have paid the price of so dangerous a purchase) so Saul knew also that if David quit himself, and escaped, he should have his daughter in marriage, and ma [...]ying the Kings Daughter he should want no portion to himselfe, nor meanes of Joincture for his wife, for by his office of command in the Army, as Chap. 18. v. 5. 13. 17. and the profits of his spoiles and victories; and this exposi­tion, I think fits well, both to get David a portion with his wife, and to enable him to make her a Joincture.

I hope I have sufficiently proved the antiquity of the giving of portions by Parents to their children in the time of the Patriarchs, and under, and from the time of giving the Law. So as I suppose the Author cannot maintaine his pretended custome of the Israelites to sell their daugh­ters, after giving and knowledge of the Lawes for Dow­ries, and long before the carrying away of the Tenne Tribes, and contrary to all Laws of religion and nature.

I have also sufficiently maintained mine assertions by some of the most ancient prophane writers of best Test, and credit, and what Saul did in the height of his malice. [Page 35] If the Author be desirous the bloody and Idolatrous Ame­ricans may have leave to derive it ex traduce (for it is but a Crumme of the maine impure masse of mans nature) I hinder not, I shall onely conclude, that as I may not deny but that in some parts of America (as in the Island of Mo­cha, in the province of Chile) Proci (as one saies) sponsas suas à patentibus mercari solent, & bovem & oves, &c. pro filia­bus reddere; Suitors buy other mens daughters for wives: So I may further admit it a custome like to be much in use a­mong such barbarons, wandring, flitting, running, roming, & removing people, and quit the Author from proof of usuality & custome. I demand but to finde one Parallele among all the Americans, agreeing to the quotation, that a West Indian Potentate, Sachim, Weroance, or Casique, should, or useth to bestow a daughter in marriage under the termes of such a promise, with condition of Price, as Saul did (though the Americans have a number of strange foules) is rara avis, such a black Swan as I believe all America cannot shew or afford.

I could here mention the Athenian, Arabian, Persian, and Egyptian Law, and the Lawes of other Nations, for punishment of Adultery with death, and other shame­full separations, and I believe none of them were derived from the Iewes. In the meane time I note the Quotation is misprinted, and should be Math. 5. 32. & 19. 9. where our Saviour saith, Whosoever putteth away his wife, except it be for fornication, &c. and declares no other cause of divorce, & so no other cause was allowed among the Israelites, and de facto ad jus non valet, &c. from fact to right is no good argu­ment; the lewd practice of the Barbarous Americans, is a Lawlesse Law, and no just cause of divorce.

I believe it of the ordinary sort of people in America but from a particular instance, avouched or mentioned by this or that Author, of this or that severall and particular province or people, we must not fasten a beliefe or argu­ment of a generall nationall practice; In Gen. 24. 29. Re­becca went and her nurse, and in Sam. 2. 4. & 4. M [...]phibosheths nurse fled away with him. It may be objected, these were dry nurses, (as we call them) or some women or maides that took care of them, but it is cleare that of the 2. K. 11. 2. where Iehoshebah stole away Ioash and his nurse, Joash be­ing than but infantulus lactans, as some of the Fathers call him, a sucking child.

And although the Author quotes the Queens of Peru, yet I agree with him, that he did not like to quote, Esay 49. v. 23. Queenes shall be thy nurses, yet according to Nature (simply considered) I dare believe as far as any; Tacitus saies, sua quemque mater uberibus alit, every mother suckles her own child, and what is common in nature to all, can­not be termed a particular custome to any.

Againe it is the usuall practice with us (except onely for persons of delicate, tender, and easie lives, and education, and curiosity of dresse and attire) to commit their chil­dren to be nursed by others, so the barbarous people being empty of much of that cumber, acquainted and bred up in hardship and nakednesse, are evermore prepared, and ready to performe that office with the least trouble and perplex.

Though this be no true History, but an allegoricall vi­sion (according to the best divines) yet It may well be admitted, that for a woman that suckles her own child, to company with her husband, and so prooving, or becom­ing with child againe before the former be weaned, it must needs vitiate and corrupt the milke, besides the spoiling and exhausting the spring thereof, and thereby deprave and de­teriorate the humours, health, and constitution of the child, [Page 37] and for that reason, abstinence or continence of the husband from the wife (untill the child be weaned) ren­ders it more sound, strong, and firme; In new Spaine (as some write) the children suck 12 yeares. I believe the Au­thor is not willing I should believe this of the Israelites, yet in other places of America, the husband lies not with his wife for two yeares after her delivery; so also they write of the Floridans, but in the tenth Custome the Author hath discovered a remedium amoris, a speedy and sufficient meanes to quench the husbands heate when maides and Vir­gins desire the honour to be deflowred, and are moreover prostitute for many yeares after, even untill they be marri­ed, as is the common report of sundry Authors, touching the Americans; but the weaning of the child generally fol­lows the quality of the mother, the condition of her health and affaires.

The instance of the Tyrannous and cruell act of an hea­then Prince in Mar. 6. for a fowle end, I may not admit to derive from the line of a Iewish custome or Law, and so to make the Iewes patrons of all the parallele actions and customes of the Americans; Besides the puting of Iohn Bap­tist to death, was the act of a Roman Governour in Ju­dea, and but a Deputy though a King, and one that com­manded that execution, not by custome or Law, but of will and lust, and so Herod the Great dealt with his dearest Ma­riamne, and also took off his Sonnes head in prison, be­cause hee did but a little overhastily seeme to think of a law­full succession when his father lay a dying. And so also af­terwards was Iames the Apostle killed by the command of Agrippa Major, Acts 12. 1. 2.

But the Author doth not illustrate out of the Scripture, of any executed by the Princes own hands.

[Page 38]Nor doe wee read in the Histories of the West Indians, any such formalities of question, and Imprisonment; but as we say, a word and a blow, present death to the supposed ene­my or offendor.

The Quotation out of the Corinthians is very good evi­dence against the Author; for mention is there made of Stoning, and fortie stripes save one, both whith Paul under­went, and were customary punishments among the Iewes; but the Author quotes no such custome among the Iewes.

First, it is confined to Brasile by the Author out of Lerius.

Againe, it is well known how the Divines expound that of Deut. 21. v. 19. That talio not to be understood Identita­tis, as Goodwyn, or aequalitatis, as Weembs, but similitudi­nis, as both of them and others; and five considerations are to be had of the wrong, maine, or injury (which diversity and distinctions, I hope the Americans never trouble them­selves withall) and accordingly to set and estimate the mulct.

I deny not the custome of many parts of America there­in, but for the Iewes to be buried in the midst of the house, I finde no mention in Scripture; [...]and for the instance in David, I may suppose Iosephus mislead in his History, and Intelligence, therefore let us consider,

First, who may bee thought to have buried that treasure.

Secondly, to what purpose.

If any treasure were hidden or laid up close, It will be conceived, that either David commanded it, or Solomon, and [Page 39] wee may rather think David than Solomon could spare it in overplus, or redundance, above the treasures, which by the Scriptures record he left to Solomon for accomplishment of the great designes, according to the vast dimensions of the knowledge and wisdome of Solomons heart, as Syracides saies of him, ch. 27. Thou wert filled with understanding as with a flood, and thy mind covered the whole Earth. And if any aske how David could be so gathered and stored of wealth, It is answered, that the fountaines of his treasure were the good husbandry of his Cattle, Corne, Vines and Olives, 1. Chr. 27. and tributes from conquered Nations, and the spoiles of his many victories, and presents from confede­rate Princes and States, by all which he heaped what he could, having no divining spirit of Solomons future supplies from Ophir.

But I cannot imagine what either president, example, dictate, or reason, should move David to bury any treasure in his own sepulchre, or monument, as if he meant to count his Gold with Iobs complement, Thou art my Confidence, or should dedicate it to Pluto, the God of Darknesse, there to rest and rust uselesse, and without imployment, as it is recorded of Ioram, that he lived without being desired, when Gold animates all the world to Action, and (as the wise man saies) Money answers to all.

Againe, If David had designed it to serve future purposes of Solomon, yet to bury, or command it to be buried in his Se­pulchre, and thereby to seeme to be willing to carry it with him as far as he could, must have fallen under some sini­ster interpretation, to the blemish of the honour of his piety.

Nor can wee Imagine that though the Poets feign Pluto, the Devill, to be the God of riches, and that Spirits, Fai­ryes and Hobgoblins doe haunt graves and Sepul­chres, therefore as Gryphons are feigned to keepe the moun­taines of Gold; So David hoped that the simplicity of men would be afrayd to deale with (much more to offer vio­lence to) the monument of his treasure, for feare of fiends or Spirits that might haunt and keepe it, though he knew [Page 40] Solomons wisedome, (when he should have occasion to use it, and he must of all men be most privy and knowing thereof) could easily conjure those Ignes fatui, and take and enjoy those treasures to himself.

Againe, If David caused any treasure to be buried for Se­lomons private supplies, and which he would have kept very close and secret, then we may not imagine it to be buryed in the midst of his house, but rather in some spare out­roome, or place, or part, and whither it might be carried and conveyed, and where buried, with the least noise, no­tice, discovery or suspition; and they that doe make a de­scription of the City of Hierusalem, as Adrichoimimus and o­thers, doe place the Sepulchre of David, and the Kings of Iuda, in the South-West angle, and Corner of the City, near unto the wall, and far from the Kings palace, as may bee gathered out of Nehem. 3. & Niceph Eccl. Histor. lib. 8.

Nor can I imagine that the treasure was buried by So­lomon (though Iosephus saies it) in Davids Sepulchre, for Solomon knew as much in Religion, and could as well distinguish of godly and ungodly, and superstitious acts, as David (though he cannot be excused from the great er­rours of his life, by the seducement of Idolatrous wives and concubines, whom his affections Idolized▪) yet the best divines, both ancient and modern, make little doubt of his Salvation, onely the Papists (who me thinks should be the better perswaded of him, for his complements, and court­ing both of his Idols wives, and of his wives Idols) are of another mind, and yet (which is very strange) though they know so many waies to be saved, yet they cannot find the way to be sure of it.

Now after this short wry step out of the way, I return, and say, that besides the great uses which Sodomon had of treasure, for the glut of himself in all worldly pleasures and delights (as he confesseth of himself in the Second Chapter of his retractations) in the flower and strength of his age, and yeares, and when his stirring blood boyled towards action, and that he heard his Glory and Wisdome cryed up for the None-such and wonder of the world, [Page 41] which invited continuall concourse to his Court; And lesse can I imagine that any treasure was left by Solomon in Davids Monument, for if Solomon were really necessita­ted to lay great taxes upon his people, which yet I doe not reade in scripture clearly expressed and charged upon him, otherwise than by Ieroboams expostulation to Rehobo­am the Sonne of Solomon, in the beginning of his reign; For I passe over the tributes laid upon the Hittites, Amo­rites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Iebusites, which were not of Israel, 2. Chr. 7. 8. and if Solomon had bin in such want, hee might lawfully have relieved himself, and justified his sup­plie, out of the great magazine of the Monument, which if amassed by David, it was not to bar or banish his Son from the use of it, if by Solomon himself, sure he might be bold with his own.

Besides also the considerations of Engagements towards the warres, and insurrections of sundry Princes against him, some in envie to his glory, others weary of the yoke of homage, service, awe, ta [...]es and tributes to him (when his Sun was now grown low and in his west) all which found him work enough for the vent of his treasure; And because also the Scripture is silent and speakes nothing of Davids monument, but often after him of the Se­pulchres of the Kings of Iudah, for these reasons I can­not subscribe to Iosephus, that Hyrcanus or Herod took any treasure out of Davids monument, no more than I doe be­lieve Iosephus for Solomons magicall tricks of enchantments, & conjuration, and casting out of Decills at the Nose, by the smell of a root; Besides also that I finde confessed by Iose­phus, lib. 12. Ant. ca. 13. that what he writes of the Iudge­ment and death of Antiochus Epiphanes, others held and maintained the reasons of Polybius therein to be of greater truth and consequence than those of Iosephus, against whom Iosephus confesseth that he would not argue, and indeed he was like to get little by the argument with a man who lived and flourished before Iosephus, about two hun­dred yeares, and within twenty yeares of the action, and is otherwise generally held, a man of grave and faithfull [Page 42] relation; and Beroaldus (a late protestant writer, and Chronologer, whom Zanchius especially approves) doth often check at Iosephus, and findes faults with his frequent errours, De. mundo ca. 3. pa. 33. and sometimes Falsities, and lib. 3. cap. 8. he saies, Iosepho plus aequo nostri deferunt, wee give too much credit to Iose­phus, and instances in a particular, wherein he saies, Iosephus was parum cautus, immò egregiè mend [...]x & impudens; and Cal­visius a late Learned Chronologer, saies of Josephus, that he doth sometimes vacillare; and Capellus a later, saies of him, that he is sometimes fabulosae & sublestae fidei, a fabulous Author, and worthy but of a meane beliefe; and our Sandys in his travailes, lib. 3. saies of Josephus, a man not allwaies to be believed.

Againe, if David or Solomon had buried up treasure in a monument or Sepulchre (of which masse we must needs suppose Gold the chief Ingredient, and that this lay en­tombed in a dead sleep untill Rehoboams time, when Shi­shag King of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and carried away all the Golden shields) what inforcement lay upon Rehoboam to recrute them with shields of brasse? who might (and that lawfully) have repaired the losse in the same metall without the least sacrilege or violation to the Manes or memory of David or Solomon, neither of which may be in­tended to disherit the right heires therof, & to sacrifise that to oblivion which they had gathered with so great care, and undoubtedly meant should be kept and used for the sinewes and supportation of the State and Kingdome.

I read in the 1. Mach. 1. v. 24. that about A. M. 3782. when Antiochus entred Hierusalem, besides the spoile of the Temple, he took also the secret treasures that he found, Thesauros absconditos', reconditos, occultos, as they are seve­rally rendred by severall learned men, and in the next verse, It is said, And when he carried all away; by the words secret treasures found out, It shewes there was a narrow search, which surely could not be in the middle of the Kings palace, nor be meant of his grave or monument, both which were known, open, and unconcealed, but rather some more occult and obscure place; and from this expression in [Page 43] the Macch. of a thing done about 170 yeares before Christ, and about 230 yeares before Josephus flourished (who was borne 40 or 50 yeares after Christ, and may be thought to have written when he was about 40 or 50 yeares old) and which story was (at it ought to be) compiled by some of the prime Rabbines before Josephus, he might either ( per incuriam, or from other reason) fall a rifling of Da­vids monument, when he was to set down Hyrcanus his composition with Antiochus Eupator when he hired him (with a present out of the Temple) to raise his siege before Jerusalem, and depart.

It is also considerable, that neither Josephus, nor any o­ther Historian, saies that Antiochus pillaged the Monument of David, and I can hardly afford Antiochus so charitable a censure, as that he (who knew not whether hee should ever play another game for that Rest) would ever spare any of that which came to his view, discovery or knowledge, espe­cially riches and treasure which I may call private, and prophane, and not of the Temple, whereof we may hope he had more than ordinary reverence and veneration, for the glory, magnificence, and Majesty of the house of God, to whose power it was dedicated, and of whose power, mer­cies, and Judgements, hee had h [...]ard so great fame and re­port, which he either believed or feared, and therefore I believe he left little of secret treasures, or those in Davids Monument (to speake the Language of Josephus, if any were) for Hyrcanus to glean [...] out afterwards, for it is said Antiochus carried all away.

In Strabo I read of a golden bed, and a golden bathing tub, and other houshold-stuff of Gold found in Cyrus Monument in Pasargada, when Alexander rifled it, but Cur­tius tells of nothing but a rotten target, and two Scythyan bowes, and a sword, found in it.

In Albania they used to bury a mans wealth with him, saies Purchas, Asia. cap. 1. So also ca. 19. So also in Tartary ca. 13. And I suppose that among the heathen people, what with the opinion of the Elysian fiels with some of them, what of the transmigration of souls after death, with others, [Page 44] what with the staggering opinions of the immortality of the soul, with others, and with most an opinion of some work for the soul with the body after death (as in the East Indies they use to bury a new pair of shoes in the grave, for the deceased to travaile his long journey withall) for these fancies and phenomenes in their braine, they use to bury some of their choicest riches and delights with them, as the Grecians doe at this day their richest apparell, lib. 1. Sandys trav. When I had begun to dig into Davids Sepulchre, so many plentifull springs of matter opened and brake out upon me, as made mine invention thus to overflow in this discourse, which yet I hope shall not nauseate, as unplea­sant or unprofitable to reade.

I may answer, what Nation is there in the World, to whom this is not familiar? Is not the losse of a friend grie­vous? Is not the last leave of him much more? Is not the ex­pression of sorrow, the last tribute which nature can pay in affection to the memory of the deceased? Is not that affection the more inflamed at burialls by a common sym­pathy in sorrowes of the assembly? Are not women the most usuall ministers and attendants in siknesse? And they that dresse the body to the grave? And are thereby most fre­quent at burialls? Are teares any thing else than a natu­rall exhalation, and ebullition (of affection grieved) from compression of the heart, and that chiefly in the tender con­stitution of women, who receive a quicker impression of passion, and retaine it longer through debility of reper­cussion? So that of that Paralelle, I may say with our Savi­our, What went you out to see, a reede shaken with the wind?

It is true that Balsamum was a peculiar native of Jud [...]a, [Page 45] and especially Jericho, and Josephus saies the plants thereof were first sent to Solomon by the Queene of Saba, which is in Arabia Faelix, on the East side of the Red Sea (as Ethio­pia is on the West): and extendeth to the South Sea all along by the entrance into the Red Sea. It was after trans­planted out of Judaea to Memphis, now Caire in Egypt, by Cleopatra, to whom Herod the great sent it when he sided with Marke Anthony against Augustus.

It is now found in New- Spaine, and at Tolu in Cartagen [...], both in America, and of more Southerly, and severall lati­tudes differing from Judaea.

Trogus lib. 36▪ saies of Balsamum (in Judaea) in eis tantum regionitus gignitur. Pliny saies, lib. 12. ca. 25. Balsamum uni Iúdaeae concessum, and lib. 16. cap. 32. fastidit alibi nasci, Bal­sam growes onely in Iudaea, and likes no place else; but wee see that confuted, though Pliny knew not what became of it, and thought it could not be found out of Iudaea, but sure the Balsam trees of America come of no Iewish parents, and if they did, it were but a wooden help to the argument.

The Sachims or Sagamos here mentioned, are the same with the Paraquousii in Florida, the We [...]oances in Virginia, the Casiqui in Brasile. Peru, Cuba, Spaniola (other parts of America) and are all their Kings, and Rulers, and the same in native signification with reges, principes or duces, Kings, Princes or Governours, and not chiefe of families, as Valois, Burbon, Plantagenet, Ormond, Towmond, Oneale, &c. not that I deny they may have right of Inheritance and succession in the governments, from the family of which they are.

So have the French, English, Irish, and all others, and so had the antients their foot-Posts, and their veredarii, or Pegasarii, their horse-Posts; In America they must have foot-Posts, [Page 46] for they had no horses, and the people there must needs bee of great speed, beeing alwaies almost naked, and so void of the cumber and loade of cloathes, and continu­ally practised in the exercises of hunting, fishing, and fighting.

Now I have passed over the first part or branch of the Second Conjecture, from the list of Common and prophane Customes, and am come to the Second branch or part of the Second Conjecture, concerning

Circumcision primas tenet, is the leader of that list, which S [...]. Cust. 1. Acosta lib. 1. cap. 23. de nov [...] orbe, expresly denies to be in use among the Americans, who have, as he saith, [...]raeputia Integra, the foreskin on, and whole, and Emmanel de Morëas (who labours all he can to apparell the Americans in the Iewish cut and customs) yet he saies they would never be drawn to weare Circumcision.

I deny not but P. Martyr and others, make mention of Circumcision used in some places, but not generally, and so not nationall (as the Authors words cap. 4. pag. 9. and which I chiefly oppose) Nay Io. d [...] Laët. Ind. occ. lib. 4. cap. 15. pag. 218. saies of the Americans in Florida, nullus morbus eis familiarior quam lues venerea▪ no disease so common a­mong them as the French Pox, and lib. de [...]r. gent▪ pag. 145. saies of the Americans, Hae gentes proclives, &c. are all very leacherous, and almost all troubled with the French Pox, which frets and eates off the foreskin (a secret the Author touched tenderly) and Benzo lib. 1. ca. 18 saies, In parte­olis & viridibus caenobiorum, &c. they plant great store of Guya [...]um all about their Cloysters and religious houses, be­cause of men and women, because they are so much infected with the Pox, which is vernacula & endemialis to the Ameri­cans, as Renodaeus in his Sassafras. And Sandys trav. lib. 4. reports that certaine Merchants having contracted to serve the French army at the siege of Naples, with a quantity of Tunny sish, and not able to performe it, but hearing of a late▪ Battle in Barbary went thither and supplied the quanti­ty [Page 47] with mans flesh so drest, which proved so over high afee­ding, that their bodies brake out into foul ulces, and thence is called the Neopolitan disease, and Sandys conceives that Man-flesh eating breeds it the more among the Americans.

As for the Authors great Huge Grotius whom Samuel Maresius alwaies Magnus ille vir, and might be called Huge, Great, both for his name and learning, and whom Io. de Laët calleth alwaies Clarissimus vir, yet aliquando—magnus d [...]rmitat Homerus, both Maresius and Io. de Laët doe prove he may be somtime foild and found desective both in judge­ment and integrity.

I know that Circumcision might be derived from Abraham to the Arabians, and from them to the Ethiopians and E­gyptians, and Herod. lib. 2. saies, the Phenicians learned of the Egyptians to Circumcise, but some write that the Egyp­tian priests onely were circumcised, and that none were admitted to the learning of the Egyptians unlesse they were circumcised, and some report that Pythagorus circum­cised himself that he might be their scholar, and at this day Circumcision is used among the Turks, Mengrelians, F [...]z, Guiney, the Philipinaes, Benin, Zocotora, and the want of this absolute generall and constant character of propri­ety to the Americans, whom the Author labours to de­duce from the Iewes to whom Circumcision was singular­ly fixt ‘Ne [...] recutitorum [...]ugis inguina I [...]deorum. Mart.’ weighs down 1000 other petit, and inconsiderable cocur­rent testimonies; and where they are circumcised, saies Lin­schot they were taught by their priests from the Devills mouth.

In nova Francia they neither know God, nor acknow­ledge any Divine power under the name of Religion, but tell some sleight fables of the Creator of all. Io. de Laët Ind. occid. lib. 2. cap. 12. pag. 47.

The Souriquois in New France have no worship of God, or forme of religion, pag. 53.

[Page 48]The Attigonantes in new France have no Law, Govern­ment, or Religion, and worship the Devill. pag. 50.

They of Terra nova have no Religion or Government, and are rather beasts than men. pa. 34.

Richerius (who went out of France with one Nich. Du­ran [...]ius a Knight of Malta surnamed Villagognon, in his epistle pag. 264. of Calvins Epistles) speaks of the Americans, where he conversed, and saies, bonum a mal [...] non secernunt, &c. they know no difference betwixt Good and evill, and such things as other heathen by the light of nature call vitious, or not fit to be done, they account lawfull; they little dif­fer from beasts, nor doe they know there is a God.

In nova Belgia no sense of Religion, nor worship of God, pag. 75.

In Virginia their onely Religion is to worship every thing they are afraid of. pag. 82. They superstitiously wor­ship many Gods. pag. 72. They have little knowledge of one God. pa. 92.

In Caiana (which is in Guiana) they have no religion, but worship the Sun and the Moon. pag. 621. So also in Florida. 218. So in the Cannares in Peru. pag. 414. So also the Persi­ans and Massagetes▪

In Peru every one worshiped what he list, plants, woods, rivers, wild beasts, what he loved or feared most, afeer­ward they worshiped the Sun, and built temples, and had priests and sacrifices. pag. 398. 399. So also Benzo.

In Mexico they had 2000 Gods, as Gomara saies, and Purchas Amer. 2.

The Brasilians acknowledge no God▪ true nor false. Iar. pag. 302. So also P. Maffeius lib. 2. cap. 46. and so also Io. de Laët Ind. occid. pag. 543.

And now although the Author saies the Indians, And as he would carry all America before him with a word, yet I hope I have gotten the greatest part of America on my side, as Mexico, Peru, and Brasile. I plead not to circumscribe the pleasure of God who sheds the raies of his light where hee list.

In Peru, saies Aco [...]la, lib. 1. Nov. orb. cap. 25. they talke much of the Flood, but whether Noab's or some other is not cleare, Nonnulla de Noe & diluvio à patribus, &c. saies Iarricus of the Bra [...]ilians, pag. 302. and P. Maffeius lib. 2. cap. 46. So also Benzo, but all their discourse of the Flood is so full of fables, as it is liker a dreame than any thing else, saies De Laët de orig. g. pag: 115. yet I am willing enough to listen to their traditions ( ex traduce from their fathers) and will gaine by the bargain, insinuating that they were originalls from the Plantation by some of Sems posterity out of the Ark, as I have before shewed; and so they derive the fame of the Flood.

Iosephus lib. 1. cap. 3. of Antiq. saies that Adam under­standing by a propheticall spirit that the world should be drowned, and after burnt, caused two great and high pillars to be erected, the one of Stone, the other of Brick, and upon each of them caused to be engraven the arts & sciences then found out, and discovered, to the end that the stone Pillar might preserve from water, and the brick pillar from fire.

Againe it is agreed by all the antient fathers, that Pytha­goras and Plato travailed into Egypt, there to learne Anti­quities, and Plato (in his Timaeus) brings in an Egyptian Priest (who in his discourse with Solon of the world, men­tioning what novices in knowlege and learning the Gre­cians were) tells them that all the world shall be dissolved by fire (which is the opinion of all the Platonicks) So▪ Numenius the Pythagorean, So Ovid Metam. 1.

And Lucan saies, Communis mundo superest rogus—and Seneca ad Martiam, Fa [...]um ignibus vastis torrebit, incende [...]que mortalia, & omnis materia uno igne conflagra­bit, all the world shall make but one pile, in which all mor­tality shall burne, and one fire consume all; And the Sybills speak as much, as they are cited by Lactantius, and Augustine. So wee see the generall conflagration of all by fire might easily be conveyed by Sems off-spring, and traduction from Adam

So Champlaine saies of the people of New- France, Jo. de Laët Ind. occid. pag. 48. and of Virginia pag. 93. So those of Caiana in Guiana pa. 642. and in Peru pa. 398. 399. So in Brasile 543. But Nic. Duran. An. 1636▪ pag. 149. saies, of the people of [...]oioba, De altera vita nulla apud eos mentis, & obstupes [...]unt quum de mo [...]tuorum resurrectione dicentem audiunt, they never talk of another life, and stand amazed to heare any discourse of the resurrection of the dead, and believe nothing of joy or torment after death; and so saies P. Maffeius lib. 2. cap. 46. of the Brasilians, and so Iarricus, and of all matters of Re­ligion, and the knowledge of God, all the Americans both South and North of Panama, have onely a sleight touch and [...]as [...], being all Idolaters, as I [...]. de La. de orig. g. pa. 159. living rather like beasts than men, as Acosta in sundry places, and as Richerius in Calvins epistles pag. 264. as aforesaid.

For this William Key is onely cited, as at other times often, as the Clavis or key to unlock the mysteries of the Ame­ricans, [Page 51] and to regulate the inequalities of the Parallele.

What is used in some parts of America, must not be said to be the use of America, no more than the custome of Gavelkind in Kent may be said to be the custome of all England. I doe believe some parts have Kings, and some or most of them Priests, but I doe not believe that their Kings were Priests, no more than that the Bra [...]enes or Priests in the East- Indies were their Kings.

Wee reade in Plutarch that Numa the second King of the Romans was also at the same time the first Pontifex Maximus, and wrote twelve books of the office of Priests, and after it became a fashion of the Roman Emperours (by I­mitation from Augustus) to have the chiefe authority over all the service of the Gods, and to be called Pontifices Maximi, high Priests, as the Royality in Lacedemonia had predomi­nancy both in War and Sacrifices, as Aristot. Pol. 5 cap. 10.

Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phaebi (que) Sacerdos. Virg. Aen. 3.

Anius was both a King and Phaebus Priest.

[...], Plato in Pol. none was permitted among the Egyptians to raigne, that was not Priest; the Greeks also had their Kings, who were also their Priests, the office of the King was primum ut sacrorum & sacrificiorum principa [...]um haberet, Dion. Halicar. lib. 2. [...] ▪ Plut. de [...]. & Osyr. and as we may reade more at large in Cic. de Divinat. lib. 1. and the Caliphs of the Saracens were both Kings and Priests, as Paul. Aemil. Histor. Gall. lib. 4. 5. But in America their Priests are their wizzards or witches, as Whitea [...]re tells in Purchas cap. 6. of Amer. as in Virginia, Florida, Nova Fran­cia, and among the Souriquosians, and Attigonantes, in Mexico, Peru, Brasile, as P. Maffeius, Iarricus, de Laët, Pur­chas, &c. and their prophets are no other than witches con­sulting with the Devill for weather or war, or things lost or stolen, as Musorum, & Collymarum incolae colloquiis daemo­niorum familiari [...]er utebantur, those Inhabitants doe familiarly converse with evill Spirits. Ind. oc [...]i. pa. 381. and of this we may reade plentifully in Purchas his Ame­rica.

In Florida their Physicians (as among other savage peo­ple) are Magitians and Priests, as Purch. Amer. ca. 7. and Benzo lib. 1. ca. 26. Iidem sunt & medici & sacerdotes, their Physicians and Priests are all one, and their Priests being wizzards, and having conference with the Devill, are their best doctors.

And for Habite or apparrell of Priests, as there is a naturall awe and reverence of a deity, or supreame power that guides and governes all: So those persons that professe and instruct in the knowledge, feare, and mysteries of that pow­er, and are thought to converse more familiarly with God or that divine power, in thoughts, studies, and integrity of life, they are had in extraordinary esteeme and veneration, and from thence are by a like naturall policy, reason▪ and reverence, distinguished in habite and apparrell from other sorts▪ ranks and professions of men, and is every where a re­ceived custome.

There is no doubt but their temples were built of a figure and form easiest for apprehension and workman­ship, and strongest for duration and continuance, and such is the square figure; as the Cube denotes firmnesse and sta­bility; And for sumptuousnesse, wee know that honour, feare▪ and reverence, invite cost, and there is usually more of the hand where there is lesse of the heart, and a beliefe in opere operato is an easie religion; But God is a spi­rit, &c.

It may be conceived that at the laying of the foundation of a Temple the places for the lodgings of the Priests and daily ministers thereunto were also contrived, and set out, & [Page 53] the whole fabrique of the Temple, and lodgings & chambers for Priests and officers were erected together; for the services to be performed in the Temple, required necessarily the co­habitation of all the ministers that officiated thereunto, as in our Cathedralls the Bishops, Deanes, and Prebends, and o­ther functions and offices have their lodgings near the Church, which being considered from the grounds of best reason and discretion, needs no illustration.

This is a necessary consequent of the last, especially a­mong Idolaters and barbarous people, where the Devill hath taught the Priests how to cheate and abuse the people with variety of I [...]gling tricks and inpostures, by answers and seeming miracles, secretly, closely, and cunningly con­trived, as the false door to the vault under the table in the Temple of Bell, and a painted tongue of Iron in the mouth of an Image among the Papists, and upon a demand to the Image, a Priest spake through the head by the mouth of it, while a load-stone applied cunningly behind, gave the tongue a motion as if it had spoken, and many more such impostures of the Papists might be set forth and declared.

This Viracocchie is the Great God of Peru, of whom wee may reade at large in Acosta and others.

In the text quoted wee finde no mention of any sound made of the kissing of the hand, no more than in kissing of it wee use to doe, which would be accounted a rudenesse and ill manners to [...]se in England any such popysmata, or (as Zen [...]phon de re equestri saies, excitare closmo equos) any such popping or smacking. Besides wee see all that chapter of Job is [...]ull of Rhetoricall and Allegoricall divinity, per manum opera, per os locutio, so manum ad [...]s porrigere, est voci suae in opere c [...]ncordare, saies Gregory, action is meant by the [Page 54] hand, speech by the mouth: So to reach the hand to the mouth is to doe as a man speakes.

The Heathen had their Vestall fire preserved by Virgins▪ at the destruction of Troy they brought the use of it to Rome, and there also Numa instituted it, and had Priests be­longing to it, Vestales virgines ignem foci publici sempiternum custodiunto. Tully de leg. 3. and there was a necessity of the con­tinuance of that fire, because of the continuall sacrifices.

But I demand whether the Americans kindle, preserve▪ and rekindle their fire as the Grecians and Romans did▪ who (if it hapned to goe out) they kindled it againe by the Sun-beames, reverberated from a concave vessell, upon some dry and conbustible matter, in imitation of the first fire that came down from Heaven upon the Altar, Levit. 9. 24. and continued thereabout 1000 yeares, of which fire the report might come from the Iewes to the Egyptians, from them to the Grecians.

If necessity were the onely cause of their sacrifices, this seemes to quench their former fire, and if those sacrifices where the cause of their confidence, that were but brutish▪ so beasts and birds crave meate when they are hungry, and so man praies when he is in trouble, [...]s David saies▪ when he flew them they sought him, and having sacrifised, as the Papists when their beades are over, then (like boyes that have said their lesson) they goe and play, as one saies tru­ly of the Roman sacrifices, Ʋbi quod diis t [...]ibutum erat confl [...] ­grassent ad [...]pulas ipsi & [...]onvivia converteban [...]ur, when they have burnt up their oblations, and the Americans [...]umed up their most excellent incense of fragrant Gummes▪ as Ani­me, (opal, &c.) then they fall to frolique and feasting a­mong themselves.

The Tartars and Cathaians offer to their Idolls the first fruits of their milke, and the first morcell [...] of their meat, and the first draught of their drink at meales. So Purchas. The ancient Romans non gustabant vina aut novas fruges prius­quam sacerdotes primitias libassent, saies Plin. lib. 18. cap. 2. the ancient Romans tasted no wine or new fruits before the Priest had sacrifised of the first in oblation; but the Author doth not prove any custome▪ or command to the Israelites to offer the first fruits of Hunting or fishing.

I expected that the Author would have attempted to prove that the Iewes sacrifised the bodies of men, but failing he makes but a crooked parallele,

It is confessed that in the Islands of the Gulphe of Hon­dutas, in Co [...]umel and Jucatan, and in some parts of the pro­vince of Mexico, they offer their Sonnes and Daughters in sacrifice to Devills, and I hope the Author, (if happily (af­ter the common reading) he supposes that the King of Moab sacrifised his eldest Sonne upon the wall, which the marginall note▪ and some learned Authors think to have bin the King of Edoms Son, taken by a salley or ambush, but David seemes to crosse that againe, saying, they (that is the own parents) offered their (that is their own Sonns and Daughters unto Devills) in the recesse of thoughts and bottom of best reason, It cannot be other­wise, for no sacrifice can be so pleasing to the Devill (who was their God) as that wherewith the true God is most dis­pleased, and as the killing of a man (who is the image of God, and made for Gods glory, and the benefit of soci­ety) is an offence which even nature abhorres, and of high provocation to God, much more for a parent to kill the own child, which God hath given him for a blessing, and not onely by that unnaturall act to destroy that which [Page 56] should be dear to it, but in scorne and defiance to God, to be­stow his favour upon the Devill his greatest enemy, in a most transcendent obedience of Impiety, must needs be most wel­come & acceptable to the Devill) and I hope I say the Author believes no such custome among the Iewes or Israelites.

Homer in the 22 ^th of his Ilyads, represents Achilles kil­ing twelve young men of the Trojans, and sacrificing them at the funerall of his friend Patroclus. So after Polyxena was offered to paci [...]ie Achilles Ghost; So there were men slaine offred to Diana Taurica▪ as Lucan. 1.

Wee reade that the Carthaginians sacrifised their Sonnes and Daughters to Saturne, and Diodor. lib. 20. Antiq. saies, that when Carthage was distressed with a siege, the Priest told them that unhappinesse was fallen upon them because they offred up children which they bought for the sacrifice, and not their own, whereupon they forthwith slew, and sacrifised to Saturne 200 of the principall youths of the City; and Polyb▪ saies, that afterward Gelon (King of Sy­racuse) upon Articles of Peace which he made with the Car­thaginians, one was that they should never after offer their children to Saturne. And Plau [...]us in his Amphitru [...] calls Mercurie (his counterfeit servant) Saturnes sacrifice, saying to him Tun'me mactes carnifex nisi formam bodie dii meam per­dent faxo ut bubulis copiis onu [...]us sis Saturno hostia; and Plutar▪ de superst. saies, the Galati and Scythians spare their own, and buy other children, and fat them up (as wee doe chick­ins) for sacrifice. So Aug. lib. 7. cap. 19. de Civ. Dei. out of Caesars Comment. lib. 6. saies, that the Gaules sacrifised their young men to Saturne; and there is no doubt but the Bar­barous and Idolatrous Americans, (without the attractive of president, and imitation) have matter enough in the corrupt masse of their own nature to be seduced by the grand Impostor to perpetrate so horrid impieties.

The old land of Canaan had but one Temple, and that was at Jerusalem, almost in the midst of the Land, and a Temple in Peru, the midst of America, seemes to resemble America to Canaan; but the Author does not say that the Temple of Peru served for all America; Again, as the old Land of Canaan had the two Golden Idols of the Calves, the one at Dan, the other at Beersheba (the two extremi­ties and outmost bounds of Canaan) for the whole Land to come to worship; So in America from Davis streight on the North, to that of Magellane on the South, there was no­thing but Idolatry through the whole length of that great continent and part of the world; but from Dan to Beershe­ba was under one power and Iurisdiction, and from Davis streight to that of Magellane under many.

For sumptuousnesse, besides naturall arguments of ho­nour and reverence to supposed deities, wee may adde, that they are not like to spare for any cost to please the Devill, who will not spare to murder their own children to content him▪

Aarons miter was onely an Hat or Cap of linnen some­what full like a Turks Turband or Tulliband, and sat close to the head like a Cap of State or Maintenance, with a bordure a little above the brow, wrought with crown work in points or diamonds, some of the bordure left so long behind as might be there tied on a knot at the nape of the neck, as the Tassell or ends of a Cypresse ha [...]band, to keep the Miter fast on.

E [...]unic [...] manicas & habent redimicula mitrae. virg. Aen. 9.

Their coates have sleeves, and their miters laces, fillets, or strings, so also had the high▪ Priest among the Israe­lites, long and wide sleeves to his stole, or long coate, which came down to his ancles; but to say they had it in a manner as Aarons was, is such an Individu [...]m vagum, as the Reader can make small matter of it; and I doe not see but a minister (with a linnen cap and a lace turned up (may [Page 58] come as neare Aarons miter, onely the Author is ready to collect every the least shadow of Inducement that may flat­ter him towards his own opinion; but I demand where are the rest of Aarons ornaments in use among the American Priests? though I must allow that all the world over, every severall function & trade have their severall habit & accou­trements proper and peculiar to them, and common reason may instruct severall people and nations the invention and use of the same things proper to the same offices and occasions.

I demand how the Americans observed it, what enlarge­ment and liberty of servants? what ceasing from plowing and sowing? what profit of self-sowne crops? what re­demption and return to possessions, &c. and the like accor­ding to the Leviticall Law? The Iewes had it every 50 ^th yeare; Purchas out of Gomara speakes of some parts of Ame­rica, that though they seeme to have some such pingue otium (as scholars call a full playing day) yet it is with them but every fourth yeare; and this hoc aliquid nihil est, It cannot de­rive from the Iewes Iubile, & to fall from 50 to every fourth.

I believe he tells it, and may tell many more such Apo­cryphalls, which yet may be true of such ignorant and blind Idolaters; but shall every fable of the Americans, hol­ding analogy with some tales of the Talmud, be an evidence to convince the Americans to be of the race of the Iewes? so shall wee all at last be of one Petigre; besides, to tell a tale like another, i [...] out of the rank and c [...]assis of Rites and Customes.

These are gestures and behaviours onely to expresse how they desire to make their Gods believe they rejoice in their service, and further joy in their hopes of a blessing upon themselves, and their affaires.

[Page 59]In the place quoted it is said, Miriam the Prophetesse, which shewes that what shee did in acclamation and joy of that miraculous victory, and deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh, she did it by a propheticall motion, as Da­vid danced before the Ark, not ad petulantiam carnis, but ju­cunditatem Calvin. spiritus, not to tickle the flesh, but to ravish the spirit with pleasure and delights to Godward.

Of this I have partly spoken in Sac. Cust. 5. And doe add, that it had bin better they could have bin proved to live well and civilly, otherwise I may say that some of them be­lieve no Resurrection, others know nothing of a resur­rection, and none of them truly and rightly, and as they ought to believe; and without such beliefe, I believe little of their hopes from their buriall of the dead, which I value at little more rate than a meere common care of preserva­tion from infection by a putrifyed and corrupt aire arising from the stench of dead and diseased bodies.

In some part the Americans talke of an end of the world, in others nothing at all, And that it shall not end till after a great drought, I have onely once read a far glimering and obscure words, and rather taught them by the Spaniards since their conquest.

The yelling and crying shewes they rather feare than hope for a Resurrection, and truly I think so of them, for ‘— Deus est animus—’ as the heathen Poet said, every one hath a God within himself (the Conscience) which Tertullian calls Praejudicium Iudicii, another Paedagogi­um animae, another naturale Iudicatorium, another the Na­tures Consistory, another Gods deputy, another Antidated day of Iudgement, another a Domestique doomesday which with Juvenall [Page 60] ‘—Surd [...] verb [...]r [...] L [...]dit’ and makes that— ta [...]ita sudant praecordia cu [...]pa every one is able to read the hand writing upon the wall against him­self, which makes his knees (as [...]elshazzar) smite one against another.

Acosta in his proeme to his book de procuranda Iudaeorum salute, saies of the Americans, Innumer [...]b [...]les sunt barbarorum gentes ut caelo, loco, stitu, [...]abitu, ita ingenio, moribus, institutis la [...]issimè dissidentes, the barbarous people of America are in­numerable, and as in aire, situation and habit, so in dispo­sition, manners, and customes they differ exceedingly, and lib. 5. cap. 2. ferunt, &c. they say that at the Confusion of tongues there were 72 languages, but the Americans have 700 and more, so as scarce any champion or plaine coun­try a little broader than ordinary, but hath a severall lan­guage, and of the Tap [...]ians (in the province of Brasile) there are 76 Nations, and almost every one of them hath a seve­rall Language. Io. D [...] Laët▪ Ind. occid. pag. 548. Again, quot populi, [...]ot linguae. Io▪ de Laët de orig. pa. 55. and suum cuiq, praefecturae Idioma. pag. 92. and Rich [...]ius in Calvins epistles saies, maxime impedit Idiomatum divers [...]as, the diversity of their language is a maine hindrance to us, and because I perceive the Author a litttle willing to nible at words, and to put them upon the rack (to confesse to his desire) I say with de Laët de orig. Gent. pag. 24. Si cui place at otio suo [...]buti, If a man have a minde▪ to trifle away time, he may now and then hit upon some words among them that may agree in sound and sence with some of ours in Europe; as the Priest, chief or leader of every company among the Sa­moeds was called Papa. Purchas▪ Asia ca. 17. and in the Bra­silian tongue betwixt the River of Amazons and Orenoque Papa is a father. de orig. gent. pag. 182. and in New- Spaine the chiefe Priest was called Papa, as Purchas de▪ America cap. 2.

In the province of Cusco they call their Sisters Nanna, which among the English is the most common name for women, and so we are like to be of kindred to the A­mericans, [Page 61] but as Io. de Laët. de orig. gent. pag. 35. Si literas mutare, If wee fall a changing of letters, transposing of Syl­lables, adding and subtracting, wee may easily wrest some of them to our phancy as wee list.

And Io. de Laet his observations out of Sagardus prove them all to be various, diverse, and differing from one ano­ther in the severall parts of America, and in none of them any affinity at all with the, nay they have not so much as any trace or glimpse of Letters or writing (as the Hebrews had in perfect method) and all their languages being no other then medleys and confusions from their originall after the Flood.

I suppose it improper to make that an attribute or custome of the lewes, which was onely an act of Exigence, and necessity of famine for want of food, as at the siege of Samaria, 2. K. v. 25. 29. and when Titus [...]lay before Hie­rusalem; but the barbarous custome of the Americans is a nationall helluonisme innatured by a fierce malice and fewde, whetted and edged on with (the sweetest sawce to an angry stomack) Revenge, and so becomes an habituall practise and delight in eating of mans flesh as Acosta saith, h [...]manis carnibus pro sumnis deliciis vescuntur, & Iarricus saies▪ opta [...]issimae Brasiliis epulae sunt carnes humanae, Mans flesh is their daintiest dish, for they fat up young captives as wee doe capons for the palate, and in Scythia and other nor­thern parts both of Asia and Europe, as also in the Islands Sumatra, Bornea, and most of the East Indian Islands, and in the Southern part of Afrique, the people are Man-eaters. Hierome in his second book against Jovinian saies, that when he was a young man and in France, he saw Scots (a people of Britany, without indigitation, I should have thought he meant the Scyths or Scythians) eate mans-flesh, and that the Massagetes and Derbices, when their parents and kindred grow old, they cut their throates and eate, as better than suffer the wormes to eate them And

It is a received opinion, and truth taught and evidenced by the scriptures, and confirmed or subscribed unto by the Fa­thers, that before the day of Judgement the Gospell of Iesus Christ shall be preached and published all the world over, and that the Iewes shall be called and converted.

This word Calling or Conversion, must not carry the sense of a positive saving faith to all, that is, that generally all the Iewes shall be converted and saved, but onely a clear convincing manifestation of the errour of their ex­pected Messias, and other superstitious and detestable opi­nions, and an enlightning and instruction in the mystery of Christ his Incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection, ascen [...]ion and comming to Iudgement, and that the use and application thereof by faith to salvation is not (in the secret counsell of Gods Decree) bestowed generally upon all, but onely upon the elect Arminians or Iewes, other­wise the Iewes who (considered in their Nation) deserved the worse, should have a privilege of favour above all the world beside; for the knowledge of Christ in the Gospel is sufficient, but not efficient to the salvation of all.

Againe, to have it granted, that the people who have not yet received the Gospel, are Iewes, were a cunning petitio principii, making the medium of the Syllogisme. But they Americans are the people which have not yet received the Gospel; Ergo the Americans are the Iewes.

But let Brerewoods enquiries cap. 12. be well read, con­sulted, and weighed, where he makes a computation of Idolaters all the known world over, and wee shall finde vast parts thereof, and many whole Nations entirely and pure Idolaters, and such as never yet received the Gospel.

Besides those of the great and unknown region of Beach, and the South Continent beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and streights of Magellane, which he (most learnedly and Philosophically in his 14 Chapter) collects to be as large as all Europe, Asia and Afrique, and all which is probably (if peopled) Inhabited with Idolaters, yet of such peo­pling I should much doubt and haesitate, if I thought any [Page 63] of the Iewes were there, because the discoveries, plantations, and gospelling of those people, is a work of longer requisite time (not that I offer▪ to circumscribe the power of God) than may be effected before the end of the world, wherein (If I adhere to Napiers modest, grave, solid, and deep propositions and considerations upon the Revelations) I hope my sober embracement shall be no just reproach unto me.

Againe, the manner how the Iewes shall be enlightned, instructed, called, and converted, is further to be conside­red, for we are not to conceive that at the neare approach of the end of the world, all the Iewes collecttivè from their severall dispersions and separations, all the world over, shall be amassed together into one body of people, or place, and so united semel and simul, but that (though they be like [...]ain for killing their elder brother, made vagabonds all the world over) sparsim and disjunctivè they shall be enlightned and converted as aforesaid, in every one of those parts and corners of the earth where they dwell and inhabit, in distinct degrees, series, and succession of time, and some centuries of years before the end of the world; for as Acosta de Proc. Ind. Sal. lib. 1. cap. 2. Familiare est propheticis oraculi [...] ut tempora etiam sejunctissima uno velut aspectu subjiciuntur oculis, deque ijs universis pronuntient quae per partes implenda sunt. It is familiar in propheticall speeches to set before us at once the occurrences of things far distant from one another; and to speake of things generally and in grosse, which are to be accomplished in parts, and by retaile.

It cannot be denied (to passe by all other arguments or quotations) but that the guilt of the crucifying of our Sa­viour, hath entayled upon the Jews an ocean of miseries and infelicities ever since▪ and rendred them despicable to all men, and made them drink the dregs of the bitterest cup of all manner of cruelties, and that in sundry parts of the [Page 64] world, yet all this is no evidence that because the Ameri­cans have suffred so much, by and under the Spaniards, therefore they are the race of the Iewes, we know the Spa­niard is his craftsmaster in Cruelty, he cut off by the hand of the D. of Alva in 6 yeares 18000 by the hangman, besides other murders and massacres, and the Netherlands cost him 100 millions of money, and the lives of 400000 Christians, Raleighs Preface. But the Spaniard having dis­coverd and tasted of the wealth of America, and finding that without a totall subjugation of them, and utter destruction of the Natives (who were as impatient to be overmastred and enslaved to forraine usurpation) they could not assure themselves of those Riches, and Wealth of America, which to hold and enjoy,

And being still whetted and sharpned on with Gold­hunger, their sword devoured many Myriades of the Ame­ricans, by sundry unheard-of and unparelled murders and massacres, as wee may read at large in Barth. de Las. Casas and others, It may be the Spaniard perceiving some few apish imitations of the Iewish customes among the Ameri­cans taught them by the Devill, the Spaniard, by the same Satans suggestions taught them also to derive themselves from the Iewes, that the Spaniard might have the better warrant to execute all cruelties in accomplishment of the curse upon them.

But (to speak yet more close and home) If the Ameri­cans come of the 10 Tribes carried away by Salmanasser (which answers to the aime of the Author) and we grant them once setled in America, the Author shall be much posed by any History to ship them back againe to be enga­ged in the crucifying of Christ, and after to retransport them into America; and if the crucifying of our Saviour en­tailed the great curse, It must bee intended most probably towards them, and their posterity that were actors and engaged therein; and now there is work for the Author [Page 65] to prove that the Iewes often passed and repassed betwixt Iudaea and America, otherwise the Americans though derived from Salmanassers Israelites, yet are not so nearly concerned in the cause and Curse.

I come now to observe upon the Conjectures, and from all the Customes both Common and Sacred divisim and junctim as followeth.

Whosoever reads the stories of the West Indians or (our abbrevia­tor Observ. 1 of them) industrious Purchas, shall finde most of all the com­monly called rights or customes (peculiarly assigned by this trea­tise to the Americans) to be in use among other Nations, wher­in besides what I have quoted out of Purchas, I have also further illustrated from other Authors and reading.

And for the Americans to be derived from the Iewes, and to Observ. 2 retaine nothing of Iudaisme, or of their certaine Rights and Cust­omes, or the knowledge of Christ (having once had it) and if they were transplanted since his death, caret exemplo, saies Acosta lib. 1. cap. 13. and further thus, how comes it to passe (saies he) that the Hebrewes boast so much of their race and antiquity, and are so sedulous and strict conservers thereof in other parts of the world, and yet in the West Indies their race, ceremonies, Messias, and Iudaisme, are all cleane and quite lost? and after, quid opus est, &c. what need wee say more of what they say more, all which are Inania veritatis, & vanitatis plenissima, empty of all truth, and full of all vanity, and many learned men say the Americans cannot make out the mention or memory of their Nation for above 400 yeares.

I insist alwaies the more upon Acosta, because I finde none e­quall to him in esteeme and reputation, for experience, learning, Iudgement, and sincerity.

Brerewood Enquiries cap. 14. saies that Europe, Afrique, Asia, Observ. 3 and America are in Proportion as 1. 3. 4. 7. that is dividing the world into fifteene parts, Europe is 1. Afrique 3. Asia 4. America 7. and notwithstanding the greatnesse of America, and extent thereof, and all that is said of the multitude of people, diver­sity of Nations, variety of manners and language, yet whatso­ever the Author can gather to be an use or Custome in this or that peculiar part and place, he too loosely and largely a [...]ignes, attributes, and ascribes to the whole Nation by the great gr [...]pe, [Page 66] latitude and extent of the words the Americans, the Indians, They, &c.

Againe, he often makes that a Custome among the Americans, Observ. 4 which is drawn from the reason of nature, and necessity, and is common to all, as to dance, laugh and sing in matters of joy, to cry, howle and weep in accidents and objects of heavinesse and sorrow, and many such like, which granted (as is gathered and applied) will make all the world Iewes, or that those are no distinct characters of the Iewes which are used by all the world besides.

Againe, the 12 ^th of the common Customes was indeed no Cu­stome Observ. 5 of the Hebrewes, for every Custome imports an act resul­ting not from the Law of Nature and necessity, but from a liberty at first to will or nill to doe it, and if the Hebrew women had a naturall facility of child bearing, that was no Custome which was out of the power of the will; and Balsamum (which is a na­turall product of the temperament and constitution of the soile & clymate) is as improperly listed among the Customes of Iudaea or America; and the 25 ^th and 26 ^th are no Customes, but common results of reason to all the world.

So also the 3, 4, 5, 22, 24, 25, of the Sacred, have very little tast or relish of the propriety of Custome.

Againe, the Author picks up some properties of the Ameri­cans, Observ. 6▪ and puts them upon the rack to confesse themselves Cu­stomes, which for brevity I omit; but what was hatefull and abhorred of the Iewes, and forbidden of God to be used, and yet in use among the Americans, he passeth over, as Incest, So­domy, Witches, Wizardes, for all which they are branded of all Authors, as P. Maffeius saies, augurijs & ariolis [...]d insaniam, they are starck mad in love with their wiches and wizards, besides their Idolatries which are nationall, and epidemicall.

Againe, we reade of the uncleane and forbidden creatures, Observ. 7 Levit. 11. and the Israelites were not to eate of any creeping foure-footed creature, yet the Americans eate Crocodiles, Lagar­tos, Iguanaes all America over; In New- France snayles, dogs, their coates of beasts skins, all Carion▪ Descr▪ Ind. occid. pag. 46.

The Attig onantes eate Dogs for dainties, and fatted beares, pa. 50. In Florida immundissimis rebus utuntur, they eate the most unclean things that are▪

[Page 67]The Israelites might not eate any thing that died alone, or Observ. 8 was torne with beasts, as Levit. 17. 15. Nor of an oxe that had killed a man, as Exod. 21. v. 28. The Brasilians are neither trou­bled with curiosity nor conscience, but eate all manner of beasts howsoever slaine, and all manner of Carion, snakes, toades, glow­wormes, and all insects, lib. 15. ca. 2. 3.

The Israelites might eate no blood; the Americans besmeare Observ. 9 and beslaver their Idols mouths with the blood of their sacrifises, and suck the blood of their enemies.

The Israelites might not take an whore in marriage, Levit. 21. Observ. 10 v. 7. In America they take no other, for virginity is a thing not praise-worthy (as the Authors words are) and the young wo­men are common prostitutes for many yeares untill they marry. Observ. 11

The Israelites had the punishments of stoning, strangling, fighting with beasts, whipping with forty stripes save one, &c. and many other such, which I forbeare, and of which not one word is collected and proved by the Author to be in use among the Americans.

I might also instance in the Sabbath of the Iewes, of the which Observ. 12 not one word all America over, nor of their feast of Passover, Pen­tecost, Tabernacles, &c. And Acosta saies, lib. 5. ca. 9. that the best governed Provinces of America had most store of devilish super­stitions; yet lib. 6. ca. 12. he saies that the Devill (to the end to draw the more worship to himself) played the ape, and imitated God in teaching them a number of Ceremonies agreeable to those used in the true worship and service of the true God.

By what I have said, I conclude, that to much of what the Author hath said, I might safely answer with the three children in Daniel, Wee are not carefull to answer thee O King.

But to all I declare, that the collections of the alleged proba­bilities are in themselves [...]aint and lanquid, and confronted (as I conceive and hope) with so just and clear oppositions, as they vanish and dissolve, especially being halting and lame in the principall and mainepillars and properties that should have supported them; for as de Laët▪ de orig. gent. pag. 35. nisi mores in omnibus [...]ut saltem in pleris (que) & praecipuis, &c. unlesse the man­ners and customes agree in all, at least in most, and most materiall, I think but sleightly of the instances and paralleles; for had the Author had more for him than against him, and especially of the [Page 68] chiefest, I should charitably have greeted him with Horace—ubi plura nitent—non ego paucis Offendor maculis——

Of the second part of the treatise, namely the origine and planta­cion of the Americans, I chose rather to speak before in the first part, and first to derive and give then a beeing, when and from whence, and after to examine them by their Customes, whereby to shew the way, and after to stear and conduct the opinion and judgement.

• 1 Expulsion
• 2 Supernumerarinesse of Inhabitants
• 3 Want of meanes and livelihood
• 4 Desire of enlargement
• 5. Favour to Prisoners.

I conceive the Author wisheth that ampliation of the Gospel had led the Van, and to that end he seems to cite the sense of the Novangles. Now to speak freely and cheerfully, I like not the word Novangles; for though the contraction of the word in the Latin by Honor Regius be harmless, yet the word Novangles in English is too prostitute and subject (by unhappy cadence and partition) to the abuse of the Authors meaning, and to be ex­changed, and spoken Newfangles, the letter v lawfully borrowing the pronunciation of a consonant; but I proceed.

By Expulsion, I suppose an actuall banishment, or proscription coercive from the supreme power, or voluntary in fear of it.

But to speak my sense shortly (and I hope surely) I suppose the 3 ^d and 4 ^th motives in especiall to have been, are, and ever shall be, the perfect Pole, and Loadstar of direction in all Plantations.

Want and Wealth perrumpere ama [...] saxa—will break through stone walls. And I think I may answer for Bodine, that he willing­ly omitted ampliation, or propagation of the Gospel, as a meer fucus [Page 69] and complement, and no reality of motive from the mind of the Planters; and we know God loves Adverbs better than Adject­ives; but when, and wheresoever a Plantation is made, I am prone enough to beleeve, that all Opinionists, and Inconformists to Church Government in Adiaphorals and indifferencies, do natu­rally drain, and descend into places so planted by their own gra­vity of self-opinion, which is nothing else but nolumus hunc reg­nare super nos, we will be masters of our own consciences, and hope to raise a Government to our selves, which to our aiery, sublime, and sanctified spirits is no great difficulty, every one of us being able to make a better Pope, or Archpraesul, than any o­ther (that is not of us) a common Deacon: But they gather none of this counsell or encouragement out of Calvin (most justly for learning, candour, judgment, incomparable) his, or B [...]zaes, or Zanchius modest Epistles, and the Rule of the Canon Law is grave, and to be approved, which saies, Things of themselves indif­ferent, do i [...] some sort alter their nature when they are either comman­ded or forbidden by a lawfull Magistrate or Authority, and may not be omitted at every mans pleasure, contrary to the Law when commanded, nor committed when prohibited. And as Calvin saies in his Epistle, Edicta principum & magistratuum jus suum habent, & quamvis acerba sunt, contemni illa f [...]s non est, nec esse privatorum abusus corrigere, Proclamations of Princes and Magistrates have their right, and are not to be contemned, though they be sharp and severe, and private men have no power of reformation of publique abuses.

And to acquit my selfe from the suspected infirmity of a causelesse prejudicatory jealousy herein, and to be truly esteem­ed to behold things as I doe in reality and existence (and not in fancie) I doe but fairly demand the name of any one Orthodox Protestant, conformable, and moderate Minister (for of them I intend my speech onely) either removed or removing into a forrein Plantation, unlesse it be some unbeneficed or under­beneficed man, who (not animated with a spirit of separation) goes for novelty or advantage in attendance, and as Chaplaine to some Person or Party of quality and power.

And when I consider what I have read, that one Mr▪ Win­slow hath abundantly written, to answer and avoyd this matter of accusation; it doth evidence to mee that abundance of like [Page 70] opinions novanglicè such assertions as mine have been offered.

And I am confident, that not 4. of 40▪ unbiassed men will differ from me herein.

Leriu [...] tells ut that Villagagnon travelled upon a discontent with his estate, and though he pretended to go for Gods worship and glory, it plainly after appeared what Proselyte he proved.

Not but that I may also aver and avow, that many Lay men de­part also from us, whereof I knew some (that refused to kneele at prayers, or stand at the Creed) that went into New England, where what monstrous births of opinions (figured forth with a finger from heaven, by that monstrous birth of children whereof Mrs. Hutchinson was delivered, and Mrs. Dyers monstrous child also) the spirituall fornication of these times hath produced, are to be read at large in the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians in New England.

And the observations of Honor Regius (upon occurrences there) relate of Mr. Cotten (a man & Minister of prime note, and smooth and venerable carriage and esteem, but since, as he saies, a great father, fautor, and fosterer of strange opinions) that in Horrendos errores lapsus est, he fell into horrible errors of opinion and judge­ment, and more in pertinacity of defence.

I am no Champion for superrogatory and unnecessary rules, redundancies, forms, dresses, and impositions in Church▪ Govern­ment; but I heartily wish, that the Luminaria magna, the great Lights and leading stars of the first magnitude, the Bishops, had not been over-severe in introducing antiquated, or imposing new Ceremonies, but had rather unstitched, let fall, and discon­tinued some of use, but superfluous, and not onely unprofitably redundant, but scandalous, & offensive to weak capacities, whose judgements could not concoct some so hard, other so fulsome matter, though perhaps palliated under the amiable and lovely names of order and decency.

Again, for them that will teare authority in peeces, I will mind them of what I read of Luther (a man of as much animosity as ever was) who though he confessed that he hated Images with his heart, yet he abhorred and dehorted from insurrection, and put­ting them down without authority; and as Aug. saies, Aras eorum destruetis cum acceperitis potestatem, ubi non data potestas non faci­mus, ubi data non praetermittimus, prius agimus ut Idola in cordibus [Page 71] confringamus; speaking of Altars in his Tract de verb. Dom. in 2 Math. To. 10. Serm. 6. You may destroy their Altars when you have leave or authority, while we have no leave, we do it not; when we have, we presently do it; in the mean time we first la­bour to break down the Idols in their hearts. I could cite here much other pertinent matter out of Hieron. Socrates, Eusebius, and Aug. Ep. 118. ad Ian. He that will execute Phinehas zeal upon Cozby, &c. must be sure to have Phinehas warrant, Privata autho­ritate publicum negotium gessisse capitale esto. Platon de Leg.

In pag. 55. the Author gives a little touch upon the jus and right of entring into, and setling in anothers land or dominion, wherein Acosta hath learnedly and elaborately handled that que­stion, and Barthol. de las Casas, and sundry Civilians have travailed excellently herein; but I fear there is ever more of an inordinate desire of enlargement of wealth and dominion, than any war­rant of Law or Religion to attain, and consequently of force to maintain a possession, and to that end- qui minor est armis- is the ratio ultima, the ever finall result and resolution, and the ergo of the Syllogisme.

I know there are many Meanders and windings in this que­stion of Plantation, and setling in anothers land; and if the Commandement Exod. 22. v. 21. Thou shalt not oppresse a stranger, much lesse shalt thou (being a stranger) presume to oppresse a­nother at his own home; and the counsell of not removing a Land-mark be well considered, we may find argument to help us; I doe but now peepe into this question, and may happily hereafter adventure to tread the maze of it; in the mean time we are not to forget what we have sometimes suffered by the natives in the West-Indies, for our invasion and usurpation upon them, and we are now become staffeholders of a first precurious inte­rest, and begin to prescribe in intrusion, and an unprovoked conquest.

In the purchase from the King of Paspebay (mentioned by the Author) the best warrant ariseth from the circumstances of his, and his peoples treacheries, which subdued him to compliance for fear of our revenge, though we were first over-bold, and busie with him without a right.

The cautions and directions which the Author gives for setling and securing Plantations, are especially worthy of embracement [Page 72] and approbation; to which I adde, breviter per exemplum, ex­ample is the shortest and surest master.

I wish an increase of all happiness to the successesses mentioned in the tenth Chapter, if the foundation be layd upon pious prin­ciples, I may promise more in the building and progresse; but I fear too much of Bol [...]ons white devil of spirituall pride, and the sacred hunger of Gold (which the Americans call the Christians God) and too much meum and tuum have over-leavened the whole lump, and been the prime authors and actors in our planta­tions.

About 40 years since I adventured for the discovery of the North-west passage, to contract our travailes and returns to, and from the East Indies; and I confess that I embrace the inno­cence of such action to the fair advantage of trading, or to a plantation in an unhabited land, with better thoughts than to invade or exterminate natives, and by means (too commonly coarse and cruell) to get and to keep dominion.

I confesse again, that what the Author seems to commend in the Americans pag. 125. Desire of publique meetings, and to blame the divisions and separations that are in England, Cy [...]ius aurem vellit, is to my sense an evidence of condemnation to the Plantation in New-England, which is separated in Civill and Ec­clesiasticall government from us, whereas b [...]i [...]g of us, and going out of us, and warranting themselves sub au piciis, under the grace and favour of the Kings of England (as the Author men­tions pag. 78.) I suppose it more Christian and comely, that the Iudg 9. 14, 15. plantation there should have paralleled with our Church and Government, and not rend and tear from us by every bramble­brained noveli [...]t in superficiall ceremonies and indifferencies when I hope (though I confesse mixt with some fear as Phaebus said to Phäeton for the warrant of his affection, ‘—do pignora certa timendo)’ [Page 73] wee all hold, and retain the sheat Ancour of our Salvation in the right use of the word and Sacraments, and faith in Christ, and such departure I dare call an Irreligio [...]ity, I doe not a rebel­lion, and dare say with the Prophet to Naaman, Goe in peace; and I read with fear and reverence that of Calvin, Quicunque sese sepa­rant & abscindunt à caetu fidelium iidem sese à regno caelorum abji­ciunt

In the 125th page, the Author most justly reprehends the de­painted, bedawbed, (well might debawded) and debauched immodesty of women; then he proceeds to commend the Indians to wear their hair comely as the English doe, I am loth to under­stand the Author that those of New- England wear their hair like those of Old- England, who drown themselves in their dangling dresses and tresses, as ashamed to own their own faces, ‘—& erectos ad sidera tollere [...]ultus,’ their hair all powdered, whether to confute our Saviour when he said, no man can make one hair white or black, or to give a sent that may predominate to bad and offensive exhalations; and now that I have got hold of their locks, I shall not let goe till I have viewed and surveyed them a little more.

Thei [...] breeches with two wasts, the one reversed at the knees as big as the other, and in all points now better furnished, and de­cending into the top of a boot, dignum patella operculum, a ful and fowl cover for such a dish; the spurs jingling as the womens feet, Esay 3. long necked, roweled not for necessity & use in riding, but (by the impediment of those, and distention of the boot tops) to traverse the men into a pace and posture of gentle and deliberate going and walking, and thereby to help to dissemble some infir­mities, which by Venery, and misriding, and miswalking they have contracted, and which easily discover'd, but for their counterfit pace which these stradling spurs and boot tops have taught them; if I erre in my calculation I submit mine ig­norance to be corrected by those of more, but worse knowledg and experience.

And for their eare-wigle toes I confesse the fashion and the reason thereof such as my narrownesse could never yet fadome or comprehend; I read the fashion of piqued or pointed toed­shooes in antient use among us in England, and a law made ther­in to limit them, and because the point or pike end was subject [Page 74] to sink and fall, therfore they were reined up from the to [...] to the Leg above the Calfe, which from leather grew to silk, and from silk ribond to silver chaines, &c. till at last the ridiculous excesse thereof was restrained, and soon after the folly of the devise resolved it self into its dissolution.

I am not a little amased to consider the story of Monterinos, & what he relates of the report and discourse of the West Indians, as he travailed to Quito, but doth not mention the express place; Io. de Laët▪ Ind. occid. lib. 10. cap. 6. saies the people of the Pro­vince of Quito are mendaces, vani, nec ad civilia instituta se traduci patiuntur, Sacra Christiana aegrè & penè coacti amplectuntur, they are liars, vaine, and will not be brought under any civile discipline, and very hardly drawn to embrace any sacred or holy duties.

If the Author scruple what I have said, or offer any thing o­mitted by me to be spoken unto, I am ready to give a modest an­swer and reason, in the mean time as I conceive he expected to prevaile most by the power of his paralleles, and coherence of Customes. So when upon examination I found so great diversity, disparity, contrariety and discord betwixt the ancient Iewish rights, and the Customes of America, I resolved little to touch the historicall part of the treatise, but chiefly to bend my self to confute the wrong Petigree of the Americans, and to oppose and withstand a blind obedience and consent to weak, incertain, and fallacious conjectures, for as Scaliger saies, de rebus Sinarum Ple­num aleae est de iis aliquid statuere quae nobis per caliginem duntaxat nota sunt, It is but hap-hazard to assert any thing positively in matters that we can behold but through a mist and darknesse; and although in matters of Sacred knowledge wee may not of­fer to plumbe or sound the Abysse thereof, for as the Christian Pru­dentius saies,

Yet in these obscure and sublunary questions that reach not to the Caelum empyreum, wee may not be denied by any law of dis­course, conference, argumentation, or reason, to thresh upon the Subject in question, and to winnow and fan out the purest, clea­rest [Page 75] and the best grain of our private sence and opinion, and to offer and expose it to the view and test of others, and that liberty according to the law of reason (as a reasonable creature) I have assumed and practised.

When I had taken mine hand from the loome, and was ready to fold up this frolique and [...]urtivity, of minutes, there came un­to mine hands a small book entitled, the Hope of Israel, written by one Manasseh Ben Israel a Iew, shewing the place of the ten Tribes, &c. which he makes to be behind the Mountains Cordil­lerae on the South side of the ridge of the hills Andes in Peru, in So. lat. about 4 gr. and long. about 320 gr. and though I have of­ten travailed over those parts on dry foot, yet I could never find the least track or trace of any matter that might invite my sense and opinion to concur with him.

I find Manasseh Ben Israel a perfect Talmudist, and Rabbini­call doctour; In pag. 11. he confesses from Montecinus mouth that Francis the Indian was a kind of Talmudist also, for if Monteci­nus pressed him too much, he would make him tell him lies, which is a good staggering introduction to invite a mans belief of the consequent story.

Then he goes on and tells us some ravelled discourse till he come to Sect. 2. pag. 17. and there he reports of the plantation of the West Indies, & pag. 20. he saies the Spaniards are not altoge­ther mistaken to make the Indians to come of the ten Tribes, which words not altogether insinuates some mistaking, or a mistaking in part though not altogether.

As for his discourse of Arsareth I remit both the Author and the Iewe to Brerewoods 13. chap. of Enquiries, and I say with Iunius, whether Eretz in the originall be the same with Ararat in America, viderin [...] docti, let learned men that undertake it look to it, for he determines not.

As for Manassehs argument a Simili (as he calls it) Sect 6. Comparison of Americans with Iewish Customes, besi [...]ds that all people in the world may agree in many Customes (which I may rather call dictates of Nature) I have already given a full answer to them, onely I would know his authority, to prove a jubile of fifty yeares among the Americans, and when began, the ceremo­nies of the performance and observation, for to my sence the in­civilities [Page 76] and incultnesse of the Americans seemes not capable of the rites and properties thereof.

Manasseh goes on with sundry other imperfect relations, to in­duce an opinion of the Americans derivation from the Israelites, but all to little purpose, and confesseth that Grotius and de Lae [...] differ from him in judgement, but he modestly confesseth he wil not stand to confute them, which is bonum signum à mala causa, for he knowes it must be done by lying down and not otherwise.

In Sect. 17. he speakes of the Iew Solomon Molho, who was burnt alive at Mantua, by the command of the Emperour Cha. 5. because he practised to draw the Pope, C [...]a. 5. and Fra. the first of France to Iudaiize, but Iunius saies he feigned himself Solomon the Son of David, and was executed for a notorious counterfeit.

Then he proceeds to tell a number of strange stories, till hee comes to the greatest wonder of all, which is the Sabbaticall ri­ver, Sec. 20. where he drowns himself in diving for it, which river is saies Iunius (ut inquiunt Judae [...]rum fabulae) trans montes Caspios, &c. (as the Iewish tales tell us) beyond the Caspian Mountaines, where there is a large Kingdom divided from other people by the Sabbaticall river, and there Iunius further taxes the falshood of that chapter of the History of Esdras, to the fourth verse, and Frier Luis de Ʋrreta in his History of E [...]hiopia, saies of that Sabbathicall river, that [...]s Chimera sin fundamento, Imagines de Rabbinos, a groundlesse Chimera, and phancy of the Rabbins. And there he tells a strange fiction and fabulous report of a Iew that fill'd his budget with the sand of that river, and Sandys tra. lib. [...]. saies that the Iewes say that the ten Tribes are in Jndia about the Sabbaticall River.

I could here cite many others who de [...]ide that waterish fiction, and some think it is as likely to be the via lactea in the aire, yet Manasseh believes it, as he believes that which his Father told him of the hour-glasse of the Sabbaticall river sands which ran all the week, and stood still all the Sabbath, which I am willing to believe for company, if he never turned it; and as simply and plainly pag. 54. whatsoever it be, saies he, it is some where, and pag. 56. he saies these things he gathered concerning the ten Tribes who wee believe still keep the Iewish rites.

I confesse I finde him a man of so sharpe an appetite, and strong and easie and Ostrich concoction; as I cannot sit at table [Page 77] any longer with him, and therefore I now rise and offer others every one to seed according to his own phancie.

Having thus travailed into the West Indies, I am brought into remembrance of some time spent formerly in the canvasse and discusse of a question in the East Indies, which I now offer.

P [...]ol. lib. 7. cap. 4. Tab. 12. of Asia, saies that the Island Tapro­bane 1. From the Name. was antiently called Simonds Isle▪ after Salice, and the Inha­bitants Salae, which in sound alludes to our Seylam.

The first Island of any notable bignesse which Ptol. placed 2. Si [...]e and Latitude. South of India, and intra Gangem, within Ganges, was his Tapro­bane, and his Aurea Chersonesus extra Gangem, without Ganges, as is the now Sumatra.

2 Ptolomey gave the North promontory of Taprobane 12. gr. 30 min. of North lat. the North cape of Seylam agreeth truly ther­with, the North cape of Ptol. his aurea Chersonesus had 5 gr. of North lat. agreeable to the North cape of Sumatra.

3 Ptolomey placed South upon the East Sea, betwixt the mouths of Indus and Ganges, So stands Seylam.

4 Ab Eöo mari incipit prae [...]enta Indiae, saies Soli [...]us of Taprobane, it begins in the East Sea, and streches in a direct South and North line upon or towards India.

5 Pro certo credimus Taprobanam in alto vers. meridiem ante Indi­am jacere. Strabo▪ lib. 2. we are certainly perswaded that Tapro­bane lies▪ just before India to the South (that is length-wise) so doth Seylam.

6 Taprobana ins [...]a mul [...]o longius vers [...]s merid. quam sit Jndia sita, opposita Egyptiorum insulis cum quibus habet temperiem, & Cinnamo­miferae regioni, the Island Taprobane extends South towards Jn­dia, opposite (that is right Eastward) to some of the Egyptian Islands, and of the same temper with them, and the Cinamome re­gion, S [...]ra. lib. 2.

Ptol. his promontorium Aromata is now Cap [...] Guarda [...]uy by S [...] ­cotora at the mouth of the Red Sea, and is due East of Ptolomeys Cynamome region, which is the North part of the now Kingdom of Magadoxon Afrique.

[Page 78] Pliny saies lib. 6. cap 22. Taprobane lies medio in cursu solis occuren­te, that is, as the Sun meets us in the 12 a clock line. So stands Seylam North and South.

8 Ante Taprobonam multitudo Insularum jacet, saies Pliny, so the Maldiners and a flock of 7 or 8000 Islands before Seilam.

9 Againe the words of Ptol. in his Geograph. cap. 14. are con­siderable, Meridianus qui est per Indi fluminis principia paulo occi­dent [...]i [...]r est boreali Taprobanes promontorio, which shewes that this Taprobane cannot be our Sumatra, for the head of Jndus arising out of the hills betwixt Imaus and Causasus (now Nungraco [...] and Delanguer) cannot be said to be paul [...] but Permultum, very much more West than Sumatra, near about 20 gr. and Seylam very little, if not in the same longit.

10 Again the Equinoct. cuts through the midst of Ptol. his Aurea Cherson [...]sus, and so it doth Sumatra. Solinus.

11 Againe there is a small Island near Sumatra called Andramania, which is as much as aurea Insula, participating of the name and nature of Ptol. his aurea Chersonesus, or Chryse, which contributes also with me.

Solinus and Pliny, make Taprobane 7000 furlongs long, which 3. Bigness. is about 800 english miles, but by the face of the shoar, short and shallow (as Lins [...]hot lib. 1. cap. 13. among others hath observed) it seemes the rage of the Sea hath devoured a great part thereof: So as now it is not above 250 English miles long, and about 140 broad.

Ptol. his Taprobane abounded with Gold, pretious stones, &c. 4. Commo­dities. Linschot saies so of Seylam the best in all the East, and fishing for pearles, and mines of rich mettalls, and store of Elephants the best of all India, as S [...]rabo, Solinus, Pliny.

Warrs, Conquests, and time (which is the greatest Conque­rour) 5. Names. devours all men▪ Townes, Cities, Countries. So also it defaces, blots out, and corrupt names; I shall essay to scoure, refresh and renew some places long disguised and obscured, that may be be called in to support mine assertion, and I shall exem­plifie a little among our selves to usher in some after instances in Seylam and Sumatra.

Ptol. his Eblana is our Dublin in Ireland, his Itaena aestuarium our Eden in Cumberland, his Garienis Fluvius our river Yare, his Garie­ni [...] ostium our Yarnemouth, his Camalodunum our Maldon in Essex, [Page 79] his Sabrina our Severne▪ I might be infinite herein near and far off, but I premise but these few.

In India near to Taprobane Ptol. had the great emporium or trade Town of Colchi our Cochin, he had there near, the South Promon­tory Comaria, our now Cape Como [...]y, and more East, Promontorium Colligicum our now Cape C [...]ël, he had the great emporium Malanga upon the Indian shoar, & we Malacca though otherwise placed be­yond Ganges Gulph, or bay, near Sumatra, or the Aurea Chersonesus, which errour was crowded in by first making Sumatra to be Taprobane, and then Malacca to be near it as Malanga was to Sey­lam the true Taprobane; And to enter into Tabrobane Ptol. had there Nagadiba our Negubo in Seylam, he had Galiba our Chilaban, if nimbly and swiftly spoken.

Again Ptol. his Aurea Chersonesus had the Town Palandra, which alludes to Palimban now in Sumatra, and agrees in site, he had the Town Samarada in the North-east corner of his Au­rea Chersonesus which I presume may be that which first denomi­nated that Island to be Sumatra

It may be objected that Ptol. his Aurea Chersonesus was a pe [...] ­insula, but almost an Island, it is answered that it is evident enough that the store of slands which lye betwixt Sumatra and the Continent, and which the Sea hath not yet devoured and swallowed, though rent and torn from terra firma, doe clearly satisfie that the Sea hath cut off the neck of the land where Sumatra or the Aurea Chersonesus, and the continent were once joyned together.

Now for a conclusion, I will animadvert upon the story which Solinus and Pliny report after ehis manner.

A servant of Annius Plocomus who was Customer [...]or the red Sea, in the raign of Claudius, was carried with North-west winds from the Coast of Arabia besides Carmania, in 15 daies to Tapro­bane, which could not possibly be performed if Sumatra were Ta­probane, for from Babelmandel (the mouth of the red Sea) and so over to Carmania (now Narsingua in a right line to the next and most Western cape of Sumatra (esteemed the then Taprobane) is about 2400 miles (as miles answer to a degree in that latitude) so as he must have sailed every of those fifteen daies above 160 miles, and this I calculate in right lines, whereas it is without dispute that he was driven to and fro in a crooked, winding, and [Page 80] unsteady course, and sometimes by▪ side, crosse, contrary winds.

This short discourse of Taprobane I wrote many yeares since, as also a far longer o [...] Solomons Ophir, which I now intended to offer to view, but after much fruitlesse search for those papers, I conclude them lent or lost, but to whom, or where I know not, I well remember the Springs head of that discourse rose from Ophir and Havilah the Sonns of Ioctan, Gen. 10. 29. and Gen. 2. 11, 12. and the stream after continued and ran untill it branched into two, whereof the one emptyed it self into the Aurea Chersonesus before mentioned, the other at Sofala in Mo­zambique in Afrique (for the compasse of my resolution had variation) and mine opinion and judgement fluctuated betwixt those two, but in that Sea of matter I shall now saile no further, and therefore here