CHAP. I.

Of Atheists, and such as have made no Account of Religion with their Sacrilegious Actions and the Punishments thereof.

THAT HAT was a worthy law which was made by Numa Pompilius amongst the Romans, viz. "That men should not serve the gods in transitu, as they passed by; nor when they were in haste, or were about any other business: but that they should worship and pray to them when they had time and leisure, and had set all other business apart." He thought that the gods could never be attended upon with reverence and devotion enough: whereas, many of those that follow, were so much of the contrary mind, that they would abstain from no kind of affronts and abuses, both in word and deed, towards them whom they esteemed as their deities; most of those have been made as exemplary in their punishments, as they have been presumptuous in their impieties.

1. A young Florentine, anno 1527, esteemed a man very brave and valiant in arms, was to fight with another young man, who, because he was melancholy and spoke little, was called Forchebene. They went together with a great company to the place appointed, which was

VOL. II.

without the port of St. Gal; whither be ing come, a friend to the former went to hin and said, "God give you the victory!" The proud young man adding blasphemy to his temerity, answered, "How shall he choose but give it me?" They came to use their weapons, and after many blows given and taken, both by the one and the other, Forchebene, as if the minister and instrument of God, gave him a thrust in the mouth with such force, that having fastened his tongue to the poll of his neck (where the sword went through above the length of a span), he made him fall down dead, the sword remaining in his mouth, to the end that the tongue, which had so grievously offended, might, even in this world, endure punishment for so horrible a sin.

2. When Cambyses, King of Persia, had conquered Egypt, seeing the ox that is consecrated to Apis, he smote him in the hip, so that he died: the more wicked in this, that what he did to that idol beast, he did, as he supposed, to the true God, in contempt of religion. But not long after the counterfeit Smerdis rebelling against him, and having seized the greatest part of Persia, as Cambyses was mounting his horse, with a purpose to march against him, his sword fell out of the scabbard, the same sword with which he had before slain the ox; by this he re

ceived

ceived a wound in his hip in the same place wherein he had given one to the ox, and of this wound in a short time he died.

3. Urracha, the Queen of Arragon, made war with her son Alphonsus; and when she wanted money, she determined to rifle the shrine of St. Isidore at Leon in Spain: such as went with her feared to touch those treasures; she therefore with her own hands seized upon many things; but as she was going out of the temple she fell down dead. So dangerous it is to adventure upon that which ourselves are persuaded is sacrilege, though it should not be so in itself.

4. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, having rifled the temple of Proserpina, in Locris, and sailing thence with a prosperous wind: "See," said he, siniling to his friends, "what a good voyage the gods grant to them that are sacrilegious." From Jupiter Olympus he pulled off a garment of goid of great weight, which Hiero, King of Syracuse, had dedicated out of the spoils of the Carthaginians: and instead thereof caused a woollen one to be put upon him, saying, "that a garment of gold was too heavy in summer, and too cold in winter, but a woollen one was convenient for both seasons." He caused the golden beard of Esculapius at Epidaurus, to be taken off, saying, "It was not fit that he should have a beard when his father Apollo was beardless." He took out of the temples also the tables of gold and silver; and thereon being wrote (according to the custom of Greece), "That these were the goods of the gods;" he said, "He would make use of their goodness." Also the golden goblets and crowns, which the statues held out in their hands, he took from thence; saying, "he did but receive what was given; and that it was great folly to refuse what was proffered from their hands to whom we pray that we may receive.'

5. Heliogabalus would needs be married to one of the Vestal Virgins. He caused the perpetual fire, which was ever preserved burning in honour of Vesta, to be put out: and, as one that intended to wage war with the gods, he violated indifferently all the rites and ceremonies of

religion in Rome; by which impiety he so provoked gods and men against him, that he was assaulted and slain by his own soldiers.

6. Alphonsus, the tenth King of Spain, would usually blame Providence, and say, "that had he been present with Almighty God in the creation of the world, many things should have been better ordered and disposed than they were." But let it be observed, that he was thrust out of his kingdom, made a private man, died in infamy, and hated by all men.

7. Julianus, at first, feigned himself to be a Christian, and, as some say, was entered into orders for a deacon: from a worshipper of Christ, he afterwards turned a great persecutor and mocker of the Christians, and Christianity itself in contempt of which, he permitted the Jews to re-edify their Temple, which had been ruined under Titus; and the care of that affair was committed to Antiochenus Phi

lippus: but the divine power showed forth itself to the terror of all men; for so soon as they had laid the stones in the foundation of it, the earth began to make a horrid noise, and exceedingly trembled ; it cast out the foundation of the wall, sent forth a flame that slew the workmen, and consumed all the tools and instruments that were there, as well iron as other. This occasioned the work to be laid aside. The next night there were divers crosses found upon the garments of many men, and those in such manner set on, that they could not be washed, or any way got out thence. At last this Julianus, waging war with the Persians, by an unknown hand he received a deadly wound betwixt his ribs; when filling his hands with his own blood, and throwing it up towards heaven, he brake out into these words: "Satisfy thy malice, O Galilean! (so he called Christ) for I acknowledge I am overcome by thee."

8. Pope Leo the Tenth, admiring the huge mass of money, which, by his indulgences, he had raked together, said most atheistically, to Cardinal Bembus, Vide quantum hec Fabula de Christo nobis profuit; "See what a deal of wealth we have gotten by this fable of Christ." And when he lay upon his death-bed, the

same

Jerusalem of the treasures that were laid up in it but Divine vengeance had him in chase for it; for not long after he was overcome in battle by the Parthians, where he lost both his fame and life, and son, together with his ill-gotten goods; and being found by his enemies when dead, had molten gold poured into his mouth to upbraid his coveteousness.

17. Mahomet the Second being repulsed by the inhabitants of Scodra, in a furious assault he had made upon that city, wished that he had never heard of the name Scodra; and, in his choler and frantic rage, most horridly blasphemed against God, and impiously said, "That it was enough for God to take care of heavenly things, and not to cross him in his wordly actions." He kept no promise further than for his advantage, and took all occasions to satisfy his lust.

18. Phile melus, Onomarchus, and Phaillus, had spoiled the Temple of Delphos, and had their punishment divinely alloted to them. For whereas the ordained punishment of sacrilegious persons was the, that they should die by being thrownheadlong from some high place, or by being, cheked in the water, or burnt to ashes in the fire: not long after this plunder of theirs, one of them was burnt alive, another drowned, and the third was thrown headlong froman high and st p place; so that, by these kinds of death, they suiered according to that law which, amongst the Grecians, was made agamst sacrilege.

19. Agathocles, without any provocation, came upon the Liparenses with a flect, and exacted of them fifty talents of silver. The Liparenses desired a further time for the payment of some part of the money, saying, They could not present furnish so great a sm, unles they should make boid with such gifts as had been devoted to the gods, and which they had never used to abuse." Agatho cles forced them to pay all down orthwith, though part of the money was inscribed with the names of Eolus and Vulcan; so having received it he set sail from them: but a mighty wind and storm arose, whereby the ten sues that carried the money were all desh. in pieces. Whereupon it was and tan olus (the god of the wind) ad tax tn immediate (16) Fi

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revenge upon him, and that Vulcan remit-. ted his to his death; for Agathocles was afterwards burnt alive in his own country.

20. Cambyses sent fifty thousand soldiers to pull down the Temple of Jupiter Ammon; but all that number, having taken their repast betwixt Oasis and the Ammonians, before they came to the place, perished under the vast heaps of sand that the wind blew upon them; so that not so much as one of them escaped: and the news of their calamity was only known by the neighbouring nations.

21. Bulco Opiliensis, sometime Duke of Silesia, was a perfect atheist. "He lived," saith Eneas Sylvius, " at Uratislavia, and was so mad, that he believed neither heaven nor hell, or that the soul was immortal; but married wives, and sent them away as he thought good; did murder and mischief, and whatsoever he himself took pleasure to do.

22. Frederick, the emperor, is reported to have said, "That there were three principal impostors, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet; who, that th y might rule the world, had seduced all those that lived in their tin" And Heury, the Landgrave of esse, heard him speak it, "That if the pieces of the empire would adhere so his strutions, he would ordan and ser forth another and better way both for faith and manners."

2. There was a man living in the town of befo. 1, of a quick wit, a bold spirit, ar e heat tongue, but of a loose and debased behaviour, who, in my hearing," says the author of this relation," affirmed, that he did not believe there was either God or Devil, heaven or hell. Not long after he was apprehended, and, for a notorious crime, condemned to be hanged. Tue day before his execution I went to him," says my author, "on purpose to know if the thoughts of approaching death had made any alteration.in his former atheistical principles. And being admitted to him, I found he was now quite of another mind; for, with many tears, he bewailed his former delusions, and told me, That a prison, and the serious thoughts of death, had opened the eyes of his understanding, and that, when he formerly told me there was no God, yet he did not then heartily believe what he said: but that he,