'tis fearful to
report, and harder to believe,

[6540] "Nam certamen habent laethi quae viva sequatur
Conjugium, pudor, est non licuisse mori,"

and burn them alive, best goods, servants, horses, when a grandee dies,
[6541]twelve thousand at once amongst the Tartar's, when a great Cham
departs, or an emperor in America: how they plague themselves, which
abstain from all that hath life, like those old Pythagoreans, with
immoderate fastings, [6542]as the Bannians about Surat, they of China, that
for superstition's sake never eat flesh nor fish all their lives, never
marry, but live in deserts and by-places, and some pray to their idols
twenty-four hours together without any intermission, biting of their
tongues when they have done, for devotion's sake. Some again are brought to
that madness by their superstitious priests (that tell them such vain
stories of immortality, and the joys of heaven in that other life), [6543]
that many thousands voluntarily break their own necks, as Cleombrotus
Amborciatus, auditors of old, precipitate themselves, that they may
participate of that unspeakable happiness in the other world. One poisons,
another strangles himself, and the King of China had done as much, deluded
with the vain hope, had he not been detained by his servant. But who can
sufficiently tell of their several superstitions, vexations, follies,
torments? I may conclude with [6544]Possevinus, _Religifacit asperos mites,
homines e feris; superstitio ex hominibus feras_, religion makes wild
beasts civil, superstition makes wise men beasts and fools; and the
discreetest that are, if they give way to it, are no better than dizzards;
nay more, if that of Plotinus be true, _is unus religionis scopus, ut ei
quem colimus similes fiamus_, that is the drift of religion to make us like
him whom we worship: what shall be the end of idolaters, but to degenerate
into stocks and stones? of such as worship these heathen gods, for _dii
gentium daemonia_, [6545]but to become devils themselves? 'Tis therefore
_exitiosus error, et maxime periculosus_, a most perilous and dangerous
error of all others, as [6546]Plutarch holds, _turbulenta passio hominem
consternans_, a pestilent, a troublesome passion, that utterly undoeth men.
Unhappy superstition, [6547]Pliny calls it, _morte non finitur_, death
takes away life, but not superstition. Impious and ignorant are far more
happy than they which are superstitious, no torture like to it, none