s poor friends here on earth,
his kindred and allies, informs, succours, &c. punisheth those that are bad
and do amiss, as a good genius to protect and govern mortal men appointed
by the gods, so they will have it, ordaining some for provinces, some for
private men, some for one office, some for another. Hector and Achilles
assist soldiers to this day; Aesculapius all sick men, the Dioscuri
seafaring men, &c. and sometimes upon occasion they show themselves. The
Dioscuri, Hercules and Aesculapius, he saw himself (or the devil in his
likeness) _non somnians sed vigilans ipse vidi_:" So far Tyrius. And not
good men only do they thus adore, but tyrants, monsters, devils, (as [6509]
Stuckius inveighs) Neros, Domitians, Heliogables, beastly women, and arrant
whores amongst the rest. "For all intents, places, creatures, they assign
gods;"

"Et domibus, tectis, thermis, et equis soleatis
Assignare solent genios"------

saith Prudentius. Cuna for cradles, Diverra for sweeping houses, Nodina
knots, Prema, Pramunda, Hymen, Hymeneus, for weddings; Comus the god of
good fellows, gods of silence, of comfort, Hebe goddess of youth, _Mena
menstruarum_, &c. male and female gods, of all ages, sexes and dimensions,
with beards, without beards, married, unmarried, begot, not born at all,
but, as Minerva, start out of Jupiter's head. Hesiod reckons up at least
30,000 gods, Varro 300 Jupiters. As Jeremy told them, their gods were to
the multitude of cities;

"Quicquid humus, pelagus, coelum miserabile gignit
Id dixere deos, colles, freta, flumina, flammas."

"Whatever heavens, sea, and land begat,
Hills, seas, and rivers, God was this and that."

And which was most absurd, they made gods upon such ridiculous occasions;
"As children make babies" (so saith [6510]Morneus), "their poets make
gods," _et quos adorant in templis, ludunt in Theatris_, as Lactantius
scoffs. Saturn, a man, gelded himself, did eat his own children, a cruel
tyrant driven out of his kingdom by his son Jupiter, as good a god as
himself, a wicked lascivious paltry king of Crete, of whose rapes, lusts,
murders, villainies, a whole volume is too little to relate. Venus, a
notorious strumpet, as common as a barber's chair, Mars, Adonis, Anchises'
whore, is a great she-goddess, as well as the rest, as much renowned by
their poets, with many such; and these gods so fabulously and foolishly
made, _ceremoniis, hymnis, et canticis