It Is Also Remarkable, That Brothers Shew More
Affection To One Another When Dead, Than When Living; For They
Persecute The Living Even Unto Death, But Revenge The Deceased With
All Their Power.
CHAPTER V
Their great exaction, and want of moderation
Where they find plenty, and can exercise their power, they levy the
most unjust exactions. Immoderate in their love of food and
intoxicating drink, they say with the Apostle, "We are instructed
both to abound, and to suffer need;" but do not add with him,
"becoming all things to all men, that I might by all means save
some." As in times of scarcity their abstinence and parsimony are
too severe, so, when seated at another man's table, after a long
fasting, (like wolves and eagles, who, like them, live by plunder,
and are rarely satisfied,) their appetite is immoderate. They are
therefore penurious in times of scarcity, and extravagant in times
of plenty; but no man, as in England, mortgages his property for
the gluttonous gratification of his own appetite. They wish,
however, that all people would join with them in their bad habits
and expenses; as the commission of crimes reduces to a level all
those who are concerned in the perpetration of them.
CHAPTER VI
Concerning the crime of incest, and the abuse of churches by
succession and participation
The crime of incest hath so much prevailed, not only among the
higher, but among the lower orders of this people, that, not having
the fear of God before their eyes, they are not ashamed of
intermarrying with their relations, even in the third degree of
consanguinity.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 46 of 58
Words from 12553 to 12823
of 16178
