Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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These Scripture evidences, if we were backward to credit what histories say of this matter, may assure us of the temper and disposition of Satan, and may enable us to believe what bloody work he hath made in the world, which I shall briefly sum up in these particulars:—

[1.] First, These inhuman, or rather, as Purchas calls them, over-human sacrifices, were practised in most nations. Not only the Indians, Parthians, Mexicans, &c., but Æthiopians, Syrians, Carthaginians, Grecians, Romans, Germans, French, and Britons used them.

[2.] Secondly, These cruelties were acted not only upon slaves and captives, but upon children, whose age and innocency might have commanded the compassions of their parents for better usage.

[3.] Thirdly, These sacrificings were used upon several occasions, as at the sprouting of their corn, at the inauguration, coronation, and deaths of their kings and noblemen, in time of war, dearth, pestilence, or any danger; in a word, as the priests in Florida and Mexico used to say, whenever the devil is hungry or thirsty, that is, as oft as he hath a mind.