The Ægyptians were afraid of fire, not as a Deity, but a devouring Element, mercilesly consuming their bodies, and leaving too little of them; and therefore by precious Embalments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome inclosure in glasses, contrived the notablest wayes of integrall conservation. And from such Ægyptian scruples imbibed by Pythagoras, it may be conjectured that Numa and the Pythagorical Sect first waved the fiery solution.
The Scythians who swore by winde and sword, that is, by life and death, were so far from burning their bodies, that they declined all interrment, and made their grave in the ayr: And the Ichthyophagi or fish-eating Nations about Ægypt, affected the Sea for their grave: Thereby declining visible corruption, and restoring the debt of their bodies. Whereas the old Heroes in Homer, dreaded nothing more than water or drowning; probably upon the old opinion of the fiery substance of the soul, onely extinguishable by that Element; And therfore the Poet emphatically implieth the total destruction in this kinde of death, which happened to Ajax Oileus.[8]
The old Balearians[9] had a peculiar mode, for they used great Urnes and much wood, but no fire in their burials; while they bruised the flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them into Urnes, and laid heaps of wood upon them. And the Chinois[10] without cremation or urnal interrment of their bodies, make use of trees and much burning, while they plant a Pine-tree by their grave, and burn great numbers of printed draughts of slaves and horses over it, civilly content with their companies in effigie, which barbarous Nations exact unto reality.
Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, and though they stickt not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, detested that mode after death; affecting rather a depositure than absumption, and properly submitting unto the sentence of God, to return not unto ashes but unto dust again, conformable unto the practice of the Patriarches, the interrment of our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient Martyrs. And so far at last declining promiscuous enterrment with Pagans, that some[11] have suffered Ecclesiastical censures, for making no scruple thereof.
The Musselman beleevers will never admit this fiery resolution. For they hold a present trial from their black and white Angels in the grave; which they must have made so hollow, that they may rise upon their knees.
The Jewish Nation, though they entertained the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes admitted this practice. For the men of Jabesh burnt the body of Saul. And by no prohibited practice to avoid contagion or pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends.[12] And when they burnt not their dead bodies, yet sometimes used great burnings near and about them, deducible from the expressions concerning Jehoram, Sedechias, and the sumptuous pyre of Asa; And were so little averse from Pagan[13] burning, that the Jews lamenting the death of Cæsar their friend, and revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his body was burnt for many nights together. And as they raised noble Monuments and Mausolæums for their own Nation,[14] so they were not scrupulous in erecting some for others, according to the practice of Daniel, who left that lasting sepulchral pyle in Echbatana, for the Median and Persian Kings.[15]
But even in times of subjection and hottest use, they conformed not unto the Romane practice of burning; whereby the Prophecy was secured concerning the body of Christ, that it should not see corruption, or a bone should not be broken; which we beleeve was also providentially prevented, from the Souldiers spear and nailes that past by the little bones both in his hands and feet: Nor of ordinary contrivance, that it should not corrupt on the crosse, according to the Law of Romane Crucifixion, or an hair of his head perish, though observable in Jewish customes, to cut the haires of Malefactors.
Nor in their long co-habitation with the Ægyptians, crept into a custome of their exact embalming, wherein deeply slashing the muscles, and taking out the braines and entrailes, they had broken the subject of so entire a Resurrection, nor fully answered the tipes of Enoch, Eliah, or Jonah, which yet to prevent or restore, was of equall facility unto that rising power, able to break the fasciations and bands of death, to get clear out of the Cere-cloth, and an hundred pounds of oyntment, and out of the Sepulchre before the stone was rolled from it.
But though they embraced not this practice of burning, yet entertained they many ceremonies agreeable unto Greek and Romane obsequies, And he that observeth their funeral Feasts, their Lamentations at the grave, their musick, and weeping mourners; how they closed the eyes of their friends, how they washed, anointed, and kissed the dead; may easily conclude these were not meer Pagan Civilities. But whether that mournful burthen, and treble calling out after Absalom, had any reference unto the last conclamation, and triple valediction, used by other nations, we hold but a wavering conjecture.
Civilians make sepulture but of the Law of nations, others do naturally found it and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick skinned as still to credit the story of the Phœnix, may say something for animal burning: More serious conjectures finde some examples of sepulture in Elephants, Cranes, the Sepulchral Cells of Pismires and practice of Bees; which civil society carrieth out their dead, and hath exequies, if not interrments.