and the whole Army of threescore thousand men by bare eight thousand English discomfited divers great Lords were found slain in the field and divers others with the King himselfe carried Prisoners into England which was a great shake to the whole Realme and the occasion of many tumults and disorders that ensued afterwards Moreover as it is a rash part to hazard the doubtfull event of battell indiscreetly and without cause so it is a point of no lesse folly to thrust ones selfe voluntarily into any action of war without charge not being particularly called and bound thereunto or having a body unsufficient and unfit for the same And this was also one of the warlike points of Discipline which the antient Romans used That none should presume to fight for his Countrey before he had been admitted by some Captain by a solemne Oath Of all the Histories that I ever read I know none more strange in matter of war than this which I now go about to recite of Henry of Luxenbourg Emperour of Germany who when he heard that his son Charles King of Bohemia was in the French Army and that Philip of Valois King of France was ready to give battell to the English albeit he was blinde and consequently unfit for war yet would needs take part with the French and therefore commanded his men at Armes to guide him into the place where the Field was to be fought that he might strike one blow They as foolish as himselfe not willing to crosse his minde and fearing to lose him in the prease tied him faste to the raines of their bridles being by this meanes so coupled together as if they meant all to perish together if need were as indeed they did for they were overcome in battell and the next day found all dead horse and men faste bound together This accident befell at Crecy neer Abrevile in which journey the French King sustained an inestimable damage for he lost fifteen of his chiefest Princes fourscore Ensignes twelve hundred Knights and about thirty thousand men In the yeer 1455. the Hungarians without any just cause or pretence made war upon the Emperour Otto onely moved with a desire of bringing under their subjection the Germane powers and the rather at this time because they supposed the Emperours strength of war to be weakened and his power of men lessened by those continuall troubles and wars which he had been daily occupied in notwithstanding Otto as by his former deeds of Armes he deserved the sirname of Great so in this exploit especially for he conscribed eight Legions of men out of Franconia Bavaria and Bohemia and with that small valiant handfull overturned and destroyed the huge unchristened multitude of his enemies for albeit the Bohemians being placed in the Rereward were as suddenly and unexpectedly assaulted by the enemy that craftily passed over the River Lycus to set upon them behinde as unhappily put to flight with the losse of the carriages and victuals which they were set to protect yet Otto with his other Legions renuing the battell and encouraging his souldiers gave the enemy such an encounter and repulse that he put them to flight and slew them with a miserable slaughter three of their Kings he took Prisoners and few of that vaste Army escaped with their lives On the Emperours side died many worthy men among whom Conrade the Emperours son in law and Burghard Duke of Suevia were two beside many other In this successive battell it is to be noted above the rest how religiously the Emperour both began and finished it the day before the Fight he enjoyned a Faste in his Army and directed his prayers to the Almighty relying more upon the presence of Gods helpe than his owne power after the Conquest gotten he caused solemne thankes to be given in all Churches to God for the great deliverance I would our moderne Generals and Captaines would learne by this example to follow his footsteps and not to make their prayers quaffings and their thanksgiving carousings as they use to do even as it were purposely to tempt the Lord and to stir up his wrath against them Penda King of middle England making war upon Anna King of East Angles slew him in open field with which victory being puffed up by pride he sent defiance to Osway King of Northumberland also who hearing of his approach proffered him great gifts and fair conditions of peace which when Penda obstinately refused he was slain in battell with thirty of his most noble Captaines although he had thrice the number of people which Osway had And thus the heathen and bloudy Pagan ended his cruelty and paid dear for his too much forwardnesse in war CHAP. XVIII Of such as please themselves overmuch in seeing Cruelties THe Romanes were so accustomed by long use of war to behold fightings and bloudshed that in time of peace also they would make themselves sports and pastimes therewith for they would compell poor captives and bondslaves either to kill one another by mutuall blowes or to enter combate with savage and cruell beasts to be torne in pieces by them The first according to Seneca that devised and put in practice this unkindely Combate of Beasts and Malefactours was Pompey who provided an Army of eighteen Elephants to fight with men and thought it a notable and commendable spectacle to put men to death after this new and strange fashion Oh how mens mindes are blinded with over much prosperity He esteemed himselfe at that time to be higher in dignity than all other when he thus threw to wilde beasts people of farre Countries and in the presence of the people caused so much bloud to be shed but not long after himselfe was betrayed by the treachery of the Alexandrians and slain by a bondslave a just quittance for murdering so many of that condition thus much of Seneca Now it is manifest that this was an ordinary pastime among the Romans albelt it is strange that any pastime or pleasure could arise by seeing poor Creatures interchangeably strike one another to death and humane bloud to run like water along the streets It was not then without cause but by a speciall will of God to revenge cruelty that the bondslaves conducted by Spartacus the Fencer rebelled against their masters in Rome after they had broken through the guards of Lentulus his house and issuing out of Capua gathered together above ten thousand fighting men and encamped themselves in mount Vesuvius where being besieged by Clodâ—us Glaber they sallied so rudely and boisterously upon him that the victory and spoil of their enemies tents remained on their sides after this they ran over all the Land forraged the Countrey and destroyed many Villages and Townes but especially these four Nola Nocera Terrenevae and Metaponte were by them sacked and spoiled with a strange and bloudy overthrow after all which having encountred two Consuls they overcame Lentulus on mount Appennine and discomfited Gaiuâ—
unmeasurable and unsupportable impositions As for that which the Prophet Samuel in the Name of God giveth notice to the Israelites of touching the right of a King wherein he seemeth to allow him the disposition of the goods and persons of his subjects I answer first That God being an immoveable Truth cannot contradict himselfe by commanding and forbidding the same thing and secondly that the word of the Text in the Originall signifieth nothing else but a custome or fashion as it appeareth by the 1 Sam. 11. 13. besides the speech that the Prophet useth importeth not a commandment but an advertisement of the subjection whereunto the people were about to thrust themselves by desiring a King after the manner of other Nations whose customes amongst them was to exercise authority and dominion as well over their goods as their persons for which cause God would have them forewarned that they might know how vile a yoak they put their owneneckes under and what grievous and troublesome servitude they undertook from the which they could no wayes be delivered no though they deâ—â—â—ed it with teares Furthermore that a King in Israel had no power in right and eqâ—ity to take away the possessions of any of his subjects and appropriate it to himselfe it appeareth by Naboaths refusall no King Achab to give him his vineyard though he requested it as it may seem upon very reasonable conditions either for his money or for exchange so that a man would thinke he ought not to have denied him howbeit his desire being thus crossed he could not mend himselfe by his authority but fell to vexe and grieve himselfe and to champe upon his owne bit untill by the wicked and detestable complot of Iezable poor Naboath was falsely accused unjustly condemned and cruelly murdered and then he put in possession of his vineyard which murder doubtlesse she would never have attempted nor yet Naboath ever have refused to yeeld his vineyard if by any pretence of Law they could have laid claim unto it but Naboath knowing that it was contrary to Gods Ordinance for him to part with his patrimony which he ought most carefully to preserve would not consent to sell over his vineyard neither for love nor money nor other recompence and herein he did but his duty approved by the holy Scripture Now how odious a thing before God the oppression of poor people is it is manifest by his owne words in the Prophesie of Ezechiel where he saith Let it suffice O Princes of Israel learn off cruelty and oppression and execute judgement and justice take away your exactions from my people and cease to thrust them from their goods and heritages Now concerning the law of man which all men agree unto because it is grounded upon reason and equity we finde no permission given to Kings to use the goods of other men at their pleasures for that was far from equity neither was there any such liberty bestowed upon them by those that first in the beginning exalted them to that degree of dignity but rather as divers worthy Authours avouch their owne vertues and good behaviour which woon them credit amongst the better sort installed them first unto that honour And truely there is nothing more rightfull and justin mans society than that every one should possesse and enjoy that which is his owne in peace and quietnesse without disturbance or violence in which respect also rules of justice are established called lawes which no good Kings will ever seek to stand against They are indeed Lords of the earth aâ— some say and truly but so that their Lordships stretch no further than right and passe not the rule of equity and notwithstanding the propriety of goods and possessions remaineth untouched To Kings saith Soâ—â—ca pertaineth the soveraignty over all things but to private men the propriety Tiberius Caesar being solicited by the Governours of the Provinces to lay heavier tributes and levy larger subsidies from his people made though a Painim this notable answer That a good shepherd ought to shear his sheep not to flea them Saint Lewis that good King amongst all his other wife and vertuous exhortations which he gave to his son before his death this was none of the least nor last That he should never crave any taxe or subsidie of his subjects but upon urgent necessity and very just cause and that if he did otherwise he should not be reputed for a King but for a tyran CHAP. XXXIX Of those that have used too much cruelty to wards their subjects in Taxes and Exactions IT is clear then by these foresaid assumptions that a King may not impose upon his Subjects unmeasurable taxes and subsidies least he make himselfe guilty of extortion the root and fountain many times of many great mischiefes and inconveniences and in very deed from whence oftner changes seditions and ruines of Common-wealths have proceeded than from any other cause beside What hapned to Roboam King of Israel for shewing himselfe too rigorous on this behalfe to his subjects but the defection of the greater part of his Kingdom from him for being come to the Crowne after the death of his father Solomon when the people came and made a supplication to him to be eased from his fathers burdens he despising the counsell of his sage and antient Counsellours and following the giddy advice of his young companions gave them a most sharpe and sowre reply saying That if his father had laid an heavy yoak upon them he would encrease it and if he had chastised them with rods he would correct them with scourges which when they of Israel heard they revolted from him all save the two Tribes of Iuda and Benjamin and stoned to death his Collectours and chose them another King to rule over them Thus Roboam was deprived often parts of his Kingdom thorow his owne unadvised tyranny and fled all amazed unto Jerusalem where he lived all his dayes without recovery of the same Achaeus King of Lydia was hanged up against a hill and his head throwne into a River running by because of the great subsidies which he exacted of his people Dionysius the first of that name a notorious and renowned Tyran not onely in regard of his exceeding cruelty but also of his unjust rackings and exactions was so violent in that practise of doing wrong that alboit he well knew the griefes and vexations of the people that ceased not to complain and lament their case continually yet he diminished not their burdens but multiplied them more and more and sucked and gnew out all that ever he could untill he left them naked empty and despoiled To conclude this grand theefe that durst not trust his wife nor owne daughters after he had been discomfited by the Carthaginians was slain by his servants Of the Roman Emperours that most vexed the Commonalty with tribures and taxes these three were chief Caligula Nero and Caracalla of whom this latter
up for their deliverance some grievous punishment befell them for then being without law or government every man did that which seemed good in his owne eyes and so turned aside from the right way Now albeit these examples may seeme to have some affinity with Apostasie yet because the ignorance and rudenesse of the people was rather the cause of their falling away from God than any wilfull affection that raigned in them therefore we place them in this ranke as well as they have bin alwaies brought up and nuzled in Idolatry One of this câ—â—w was Ochosias King of Iuda sonne of Ioram who having before him an evill president of his wicked father and a worse instruction and bringing up of his mother Athaliah who together with the house of Achab pricked him forward to evill joyned himselfe to them and to their Idols and for that cause was wrapped in the same punishment and destruction with Ioram the King of Israel whom Iehu slew together with the Princes of Iuda and many of his neere kinsmen And to be short Idolatry hath been the decay and ruine of the kingdome of Iuda as at all other times so especially under Ioachas sonne of Iosias that raigned not above three moneths in Ierusalem before he was taken and led captive into Aegypt by the King thereof and there died from which time the whole land became tributary to the King of Aegypt And not long after it was utterly destroyed by the forces of Nabuchadnezzar King of Babel that came against Ierusalem and tooke it and carried King Ioachim with his mother his Princes his servants and the treasurers of the Temple and his owne house into Babylon and finally tooke Zedechias that fled away and before his eyes caused his sonnes to be slaine which as soone as he had beheld commanded them also to be pulled out and so binding him in chaines of yron carried him prisoner to Babylon putting all the Princes of Iudah to the sword consuming with fire the Temple with the Kings Palace and all the goodly buildings of Ierusalem And thus the whole kingdome though by an especiall prerogative consecrated and ordained of God himselfe ceased to be a kingdome and came to such an end that it was never re-established by God it is no marvell then if the like hapned to the kingdome of Israel which was after a sort begun and confirmed by the filthy idolatry of Ieroboams calves which as his successors maintained or favoured more or lesse so were they exposed to more or lesse plagues and incumbrances Nadab Ieroboams sonne being nuzled and nurtured up in Idoll worship after the example of his father received a condigne punishment for his iniquity for Baasa the sonne of Ahijah put both him and all the off spring of Ieroboams house to the sword and raigned in his stead who also being no whit better than those whom he had slaine was punished in the person of Ela his sonne whom Zambri also his servant slew And this againe usurping the crowne enjoyed it but seven dayes at the end whereof seeing himselfe in danger in the city of Tirza taken by Amri whom the people had chosen for their King went into the palace of the Kings house and burned himselfe As for Achab he multiplied Idolatry in Israel and committed more wickednesse than all his predecessors wherefore the wrath of God was stretched out against him and his for he himselfe was wounded to death in battell by the Syrians his son Ioram slain by Iehu and threescore and ten of his children put to death in Samaria by their governors and chiefe of the city sending their heads in baskets to Iehu Above all a most notable and manifest example of Gods judgement was seene in the death of Iezabel his wife that had been his spurre and provoker to all mischiefe when by her Eunuchs and most trusty servants at the commandement of Iehu she was throwne downe out of a window and trampled under the horse feet and last of all devoured of dogs Moreover the greatest number of the kings of Israel that succeeded him were murthered one after another so that the kingdome fell to such a low decline that it became first tributary to the King of Assyria and afterward invaded and subverted by him and the inhabitants transported into his land whence they never returned but remained scattered here and there like vagabonds and all for their abhominable Idolatry Which ought to be a lesson to all people Princes and Kings that seeing that God spared not these two Realmes of Iuda and Israel but destroyed and rooted them out from the earth much lesse will he spare any other kingdome and Monarchy which continue by their Images and Idol-worship to stirre up his indignation against them CHAP. XXV Of many evils that have come upon Christendome for Idolatry IF we consider and search out the cause of the ruine of the East Empire and of so many famous and flourishing Churches as were before time in the greatest part of Europe and namely in Greece we shall finde that Idolatry hath been the cause of all for even as it got footing and increase in their dominions so equally did the power of Saracens and Turkish tyranny take root and foundation among them and prospered so well that the rest of the world trembled at the report thereof God having raised and fortified them as before time he had done the Assyrians and Babylonians as whips and scourges to chasten the people and Nations of the world that wickedly had abused his holy Gospel and bearing the name of Christians had become Idolaters for no other name than this can be given them that in devotion doe any manner of homage to Images and pictures whatsoever may superficially be alleadged to the contrary For be it the Image either of Prophet Apostle or Christ Iesus himselfe yet it is necessary that the law of God stand whole and sound which saith Thou shalt make thy selfe no graven Image nor any likenesse of things either in heaven above or in earth beneath thou shalt not how downe to them nor worship them c. Wherefore he performed the part of a good Bishop that finding a vaile spread in the entrance of a Church dore wherein the Image of Christ or of some other Saint was pictured rent it in pieces with these words That it was against the authority of the sacred Scriptures to have any Image of Christ set up in the Church After the same manner Serenus Bishop of Marscilla beat downe and banished all Images out of his Churches as occasions of Idolatry and to shun them the more it was ordained in the Elibertine Councell that no Image nor picture should be set up in any Church for which cause also the Emperour Leo the third by an open Edict commanded his subjects to cast out of their Temples all pictures and statues of Saints Angels and whatsoever else to the intent that all occasions of Idolatry might be
after heard of This history is recorded in the Annales of the aforenamed city and avouched to be most true being a notable and fearefull admonition to all parents to set their children to learning and instruction and to withdraw them from all such vaine and foolish pastimes CHAP. II. Of those that rebell against their Superiors NOw as it is a thing required by law and reason that children beare that honour and reverence to their naturall parents which is commanded so it is necessary by the same respect that all subjects performe that duty of honour and obedience to their Lords Princes and Kings which is not derogatory to the glory of God the rather because they are as it were their fathers in supplying that duty towards their subjects which fathers owe their children as namely in maintaining their peace and tranquility in earthly things and keeping them under the discipline of Gods Church to which two ends they were ordained For this cause the Scripture biddeth every man to be subject to the higher powers not so much to avoid the punishment which might befall the contrary as because it is agreeable to the will of God And in another place To honour the King and To give unto Caesar that which is Caesars as unto God that which is Gods So also in Moses law wee are forbidden to detract from or speake evill of the Magistrate or to curse the Ruler of the people Yet for all this the children of Israel were not afraid many times to commit this sin but then especially when they charged Moses with conspiring the murther of those Rebels that under Corah Dathan and Abiram Captaines of that enterprise set themselves against him and Aaron whom not he but God for their pride and stubburnnesse had rooted out and destroyed and thus they backbited and slandered Moses and mutined against him being their soveraigne Magistrate and Conductor that so meekly and justly had brought them out of Egypt even by the speciall commission of Almighty God But the fury of Gods displeasure was so stirred up against them for this their fact that they were scourged with a grievous plague whereof dyed about foure thousand and seven hundred persons In the time of King Davids flight from Absalom who pursued him to bereave him of his kingdome there was one Semei a Ieminite that in his wicked and perverse humour in stead of service done unto his Soveraigne especially in that extremity not only presented not himselfe unto him as a subject but as a railer cursed him with most reproachfull tearmes as of murtherer and wicked man and also threw stones at him and his followers in most despightfull manner for which his malitious and rebellious act though whilest David lived he was not once called in question yet was he not exempted from punishment therefore for in the end his wickednesse fell upon his owne head and destruction overtooke him by desert of another fault at the commandement of Solomon The punishment of Shiba the sonne of Bichri tarried not all so long who having also with a proud and audacious heart stirred up the greatest part of Israel to rebell against David then when he thought to have been most at quiet enjoyed not long his disloyall enterprise for being speedily pursued by Davids servants and besieged in the city Abel his head was cut off by the citizens and throwne over the wall as a just reward for his rebellious act But let us passe over these sacred histories and come to prophane yet probable and more neere examples When Camillus besieged the Phalischi a people in Hetruria neere to mount Floscon a Schoolemaster of the city who had the rule over the chiefe mens sons both touching instruction and governance led them out of the city gates one day in shew to walke but indeed to betray them into Camillus hands which unfaithfull dealing Camillus did not onely mislike but detest and refuse thinking it an unhonest part by such finister meanes to bring even his enemies in subjection and therefore reproving the trustlesse Schoolmaster and binding his hands behind his back he gave every one of his schollers a rod with commandement to whip him backe unto the parents whom hee had pretended so to deceive A most noble act in Camillus would wee could finde the like among Christians and a most deserved punishment of the Schoolmaster would no traitor might be served better Neither might that worthy Romane repent his deed for the Phalischi in admiration and love of this notable justice freely yeelded themselves and their city to him which otherwise in long time and without great effusion of bloud he could not have atchieved Did Tarpeia the daughter of Sp. Tarpeius speed any better when shâ—t betrayed the tower whereof her father was the overseer to Tatius King of the Sabines who at that season besieged Rome upon condition of a summe of gold or as other writers say of all that the souldiers wore on their left hands No verily for the Sabines as soon as they had obtained their purpose overwhelmed her with her left hand gifts to wit their shields and not their rings and bracelets which she hoped to the end to leave an example to the posterity how no promise nor oath ought to be of force to traitors to keep them from punishment Neither did these noble young men of Rome amongst whom were the Consull Brutus sonnes come to any better issue when they conspired to receive King Tarquinius into the city by night who by the vertue and valour of their father was worthily expulsed for their secret and wicked counsell being bewrayed to the Consuls Iunius and Pub. Valerius by Vindicio a bondslave they were apprehended having letters about them written to Tarquinius to the same effect and being condemned were first shamefully scourged with rods and after executed to death Pausanias King of Sparta having conspired with the Persians against his own countrey and as it were offered violence to his owne bowels fled into the Sanctuary of Pallas for reliefe when he saw the Ephori to go about to call him in question for his treason Now whereas it was irrelegious to take him from thence by violence they agreed to shut him up there continually and so to pine him to death Which when his mother understood she was the first person that brought a stone to stop up the doores to hinder him from getting forth and therein shewed a notable example of godly cruelty to her childe and cruell pitty to her countrey approving that saying of Aristippus who being demanded why hee neglected his sonne being borne of his body answered Doe wee not cast from us lice and flegme which are also bred of our bodies Insinuating That they which have nothing to commend them to their parents but generation are not to be esteemed as children much lesse they that degenerate When Brennus Captaine of the Gaules brother to Belinus and sonne to
conquered by the Normans comming with a forreine King being none of their naturall countrey In the yeare of our Lord sixe hundred threescore and eighteene Childerich King of France caused a Nobleman of his Realme called Bolyde to bee bound to a stake and there beaten to death without the pretence of any just crime or accusation against him For which cruelty his Lords and Commons being grievously offended conspired together and slew him and his wife as they were hunting In the raigne of Edward the second and Edward the third Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much humane bloud but he was also justly recompenced in the end first he murdered King Edward the second lying in Barkeley Castle to the end he might as it was supposed enjoy Isabel his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity Secondly he caused Edward the third to conclude a dishonorable peace with the Scots by restoring them all their ancient writings charters and patents whereby the Kings of Scotland had bound themselves to be feudaries to the Kings of England Thirdly he accused Edmund Earle of Kent uncle to King Edward of treason and caused him unjustly to bee put to death And lastly he conspi redagainst the King to worke his destruction for which and divers other things that were laid to his charge he was worthily and justly beheaded In the reigne of Henry the sixt Humfrey the good duke of Gloucester and faithfull protectour of the King by the meanes of certaine malicious persons to wit the Queene the Cardinall of Winchester and especially the Marquesse of Suffolke as it was supposed was arrested cast into hold and strangled to death in the Abbey of Bure For which cause the Lords hand of judgement was upon them all for the Marquesse was not onely banished the land for the space of five yeares but also banished out of his life for ever for as hee sailed towards France hee was met withall by a Ship of Warre and there presently beheaded and the dead corps cast up at Dover that England wherein he had committed the crime might be a witnesse of his punishment The Queene that thought by this meanes to preserve her husband in honour and her selfe in estate thereby both lost her husband and her state her husband lost his realme and the Realme lost Anjou Normandy with all other places beyond the sea Calice onely excepted As for the Cardinall who was the principall artificer of all this mischiefe he lived not long after and being on his death bed murmured and grudged against God asking wherefore hee should die having so much wealth and riches and saying That if the whole Realme would save his life he was able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it but death would not be bribed for all his aboundant treasure he died miserably more like a Heathen than a Christian without any shew of repentence And thus was the good Dukes death revenged upon the princiall procurers thereof As the murder of a gentleman in Kent called master Arden of Feversham was most execrable so the wonderfull discovery thereof was exceeding rare This Arden being somewhat aged had to wife a young woman no lesse faire than dishonest who being in love with one Mosbie more than her husband did not onely abuse his bed but also conspired his death with this her companion for together they hired a notorious Ruffin one Blacke Will to strangle him to death with a towell as he was playing a game at tables which though secretly done yet by her owne guilty conscience and some tokens of bloud which appeared in his house was soone discovered and confessed Wherefore she her selfe was burnt at Canterbury Michael master Ardens man was hanged in chaines at Feversham Mosbie and his sister were hanged in Smithfield Greene another partner in this bloudy action was hanged in chaines in the high way against Feversham And Blacke Will the Ruffian after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a seaffold at Flushing in Zeeland And thus all the murderers had their deserved dues in this life and what they endured in the life to come except they obtained mercy by true repentance is easie to judge CHA. XI Of the admirable discovery of Murders AS the Lord hath shewed himselfe a most just Judge in punishing most severely this horrible sinne of shedding mans bloud so hath he alwaies declared his detestation thereof and his will to have it punished by those who are in his stead upon the earth and have the sword of vengeance committed unto them by his miraculous and superhaturall detecting of such murderers from time to time who have carried their villanies so closely as the eye of man could not espy them plainely shewing thereby that the bloud of the slaine crieth to the Lord for vengeance from the earth as Abels did upon Cain and that God will have that law stand true and firme which he made almost before all other lawes He that sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed If I should commit to writing all the examples of this kinde which either are recorded in Authors or which dayly experience doth offer unto us it would require rather a full Booke than a short Chapter for that subject And therefore I will be content with some few and those for truth most credible and yet for strangenesse most incredible And to begin with our owne countrey About the yeare of our Lord 867 a certaine Nobleman of the Danes of the kings stock called Lothebrocus father to Inguar and Hubba entring upon a certaine time with his hawke into a cockboat alone by chance through tempest was driven with his hawke to the coast of Northfolke in England named Rodham where being found and detained he was presented to king Edmund that raigned over the East-Angles in Northfolke and Suffolke at that time The King as hee was a just and good man understanding his parentage and seeing his cause entertained him in his Court accordingly and every day more and more perceiving his activity and great dexterity in hunting and hawking bare speciall favour unto him insomuch that the Kings Faulconer bearing privy malice against him for this cause secretly as they were hunting together in a wood did murther him and threw him in a bush Lothebroke being thus murthered and shortly missed in the Kings house no tydings could be heard of him untill it pleased God to reveale the murther by his dog which continuing in the wood with the corps of his Master at sundry times came to the Court and fauned on the King so that the King suspecting some such matter at length followed the trace of the hound and was brought to the place where Lothebroke lay Whereupon inquisition being made at length by some circumstances of words and other suspitions it was knowne that he was murdered by Berikâ— the Kings Faulconer who for his punishment he was set into the same boat of Lothebroke
together riches for he exercised his wit in devising new tributes and payments and rejoyced his heart in nothing more for which causes there arose a grievous sedition at Constantinople against him wherein not onely the excellent and famous monuments of the Empire were burned but also forty thousand men slain and this was no small punishment for his oppression At Paris there is to be seene in the corne market a certaine monument hard at the mouth of the common sinke which conveyeth away all the filth out of the City the occasion whereof is reported to be this A certaine courtier seeing the king sad and melancholly for want of treasure counselled him to exact of every countriman that brought ware into the city but one penny and that but for two yeares together which when the King put in practise and found the exceeding commodity thereof he not onely continued that tax but also invented divers others to the great dammage of the common-wealth and enriching of his owne treasurie Wherefore he that put it first into his head when hee saw that he had not so much authority in dissuading as he had in persuading it to take punishment of himselfe for that inconsiderate deed and to warne others from attempting the like he commanded by his testament that his body should be buried in that common sinke to be an example of exaction and the filthinesse thereof Barnabe Vicount of Milan by the report of Paulus Iovius was an unconscionable oppressor of his subjects and tenants for he did not onely extort of them continuall imposts and payments but enjoyned them to keepe every one a dogge which if they came to any mishap or were either too fat or too leane the keeper was sure to be beaten or at least some fine to be set on his head This Tyran was taken by Iohn Galeacius and after seven moneths imprisonment poysoned to death Archigallo brother to Gorbonianus in nature though unlike in conditions for he was a good Prince whereas this was a tyran was crowned King of Britaine in the yeare of the world 3671 we may well place him in the ranke of oppressours for he deposed the Noblemen and exalted the ignoble he extorted from men their goods to enrich his treasure for which cause the Estates of the Realme deprived him of his royall Dignity and placed his younger brother Elydurus in his room after he had raigned five yeares Hardiknitus King of Denmarke after the death of Harold was ordained King of England in the year of our Lord 1041. This King as he was somewhat cruell for he caused the body of Harold to be taken up out of the Sepulclire and smiting off his head to be cast out into the River Thames because he had injured his mother Emma when he was alive so he was burdensom to his Subjects in tributes and exaction for which cause growing into hatred with God and his Subjects he was strucken with sudden death not without suspition of poysoning after he had raigned three yeares William Rufus second son of William the Conquerour succeeded his father as in the Kingdom of England so in disposition of nature for they were both cruell inconstant and covetous aud burdened their people with unreasonable taxes insomuch that what by the murraine of men by postilence and oppressions of them by exactions the tillage of the earth was put off for one year being the year 1099 whereby ensued great scarcity the year following throughout all the Land but for the oppression William was justly punished by sudden death when being at his disport of hunting he was wounded with an arrow glauncing from the bow of Tyrill a French Knight and so his tyranny and life ended together And here is further to be noted that the place where this King was slain was called New Forest in which same place Richard the Cousin germane of King William son to Duke Robert his brother was likewise slain This New Forest was made by William the Conquerour their father who plucked downe and depopulated divers Townes and Churches the compasse of 30. miles about to make this a Forest for wilde Beasts a most beastly sin yea a bloudy crying sin too too much practised in these dayes and that by great persons that make no conscience to turne Townes into pastures and men into sheep but let all them behold the just vengeance of God upon this Kings posterity for when then either cannot or will not revenge then God revengeth either in them or their posterity In the year 1548. the Commons of Guyenne Santonge and Augoulemois fell into a great Rebellion by reason of the extortions of the Customers and Farmours of Salt the Rebels in a few weekes grew to the number of fourty thousand men armed with clubs and staves who joyning with the Islanders by a generall consent ran upon the Officers of the Custome and with extreme sury put to sword all that they could take notwithstanding the King of Navarre sought by all meanes to appease them About the same time the Commons of Gascoigne rose in divers places upon the same causes and notwithstanding all that the Lord of Monneins the Kings Lieutenant and all other Officers could do they made a great spoil of many honourable Houses and massacre of much people insomuch that the Lord of Moneins himselfe was slain by them whilest he was making an Oration to them to pacifie their rage but at length these Rebels were suppressed by Francis of Lorraine Earle of Aumale and Anne of Mommorancye high Constable of France and the chief King-leaders and Captaines of them executed according to their deserts La Vergne was drawne in pieces by four horses L'Estonnac and the two brothers of Saulx had their heads cut off Tallemoigne and Galeferâ— the two Colonels of the Commons were broken upon the Wheele being first crowned with a crowne of burning iron as a punishment of the Soveraignty which they had usurped Thus the Lord punished both the one and the other and the one by the other the exactors for their oppression and the tumultuous Commons for their Rebellion Neither doth the Lord thus punish oppressours themselves but also they that either countenance or having authority do not punish the same as it appeareth by this example following In the year of our Lord 475. there lived one Corrannus a King of Scots who though he governed the people in peace and quietnesse a long space and was indeed a good Prince yet because his Chancellour Tomset used extortion and exaction amongst his Subjects and he being advertised thereof did not punish him he was slain traiterously by his owne Subjects It is not unworthy to be noted how Edward the Third King of England prospered a long while in the warres against France and got many worthy and wonderfull victories but when Prince Edward son unto the aforesaid Edward after conditions of peace concluded began to set taxes and impositions upon the Country
evill which request was so agreeable and acceptable to God that hee granted it unto him so that he obtained such an excellent measure of incomparable wisedome that he was commended and reputed more for it than for all his great riches and precious treasure beside There is mention made in the Book of the Kings of his judiciall throne wherein he used to sit and heare the causes of the people and execute justice among them and albeit he was the most puissant and glorious King of the earth yet notwithstanding hee scorned not to hear two harlots plead before him about the controversie of a dead infant Ioram King of Israel son of Achab though a man that walked not uprightly before God but gave himselfe to worke abomination in his sight yet he despised not the complaint of the poor affamished woman of Samaria when she demanded justice at his hands although it was in the time of war when Lawes use to be silent and in the besieging and famishment of the City neither did he reject the Sunamites request for the recovery of her house and lands but caused them to be restored unto her So that then it is manifest that those Kings which in old time reigned over the People of God albeit they had in every City Judges yea and in Jerusalem also as it appeareth in the nineteenth Chapter of the second Book of Chronicles yet they ceased not for all that to give ear to suits and complaints that were made unto them and to decide controversies that came to their knowledge and for this cause it is that Wisdom saith That by her Kings reigne and Princes decree justice whereunto also belongeth that which is said in another place That a King sitting in the Throne of judgement chaseth away all evill with his eyes Moreover that this was the greatest part of the Office and duty of Kings in antient times to see the administration of justice Homer the Poet may be a sufficient witnesse when he saith of Agamemnon That the Scepter and Law was committed to him by God to do right to every man answerable to the which Virgil describing the Queen of Carthage saith She sat in judgement in the midst of her People as if there was nothing more beseeming such a person than such an action And therefore the Poets not without cause feigne Iupiter alwayes to have Themis that is to say Justice at his elbow signifying thereby not that whatsoever Kings and Princes did was just and lawfull be it never so vile in it own nature as that wanton flatterer Anaxarchus said to Alexander but that equity and justice should alwayes accompany them and never depart from their sides And hereupon it was that Eacus Minos and Radamanthus the first King of Graecia were so renowned of old antiquity because of their true and upright execution of Justice and therefore were not honoured with any greater title than the name of Judges It is said of King Alexander that although he was continually busied in affaires of war and of giving battels yet he would sit personally in judgement to hear criminall causes and matters of importance pleaded and that whilest the accuser laid open his accusation he would stop one ear with his hand to the end that the other might be kept pure and without prejudice for the defence and answer of the accused The Roman Emperours also were very carefull and diligent in this behalfe as first Iulius Caesar who is recorded to have taken great paines in giving audience to parties and in dealing justice betwixt them In like manner Augustus Caesar is commended for his care and travell in this behalfe for he would ordinarily sit in judgement upon causes and controversies of his subjects and that with such great delight and pleasure that oftentimes night was fain to interrupt his course before his will was to relinquish it yea though he found himselfe evill at case yet would he not omit to apply himselfe to the division of judgement or else calling the parties before him to his bed The Emperour Claudius though a man otherwise of a dull and grosse spirit yet in this respect he discharged the duty of a good Prince for that he would intermeddle with hearing his subjects causes and do right unto them he chanced once to make a very pretty and witty end of a suit betwixt a son and his mother who denying and disclaiming him to be her son was by the Emperour commanded to marry him and so lest he should agree to that mischief was constrained to acknowledge and avow him for her son and to be short it was very ordinary and usuall among the Emperours to take knowledge of matters controverted but especially of criminall and capitall causes by meanes whereof the Apostle Paul desirous to shun the judgement and lyings in wait of his enemies the Jewes appealed from them to Caesar which he would never have done if Caesar had not in some sort used to meddle with such affaires and for further proof hereof hither may be added the saying which is reported of Nero in the beginning of his reigne That when he should signe with his hand a sentence of death against a condemned person he wished that he could neither write nor reade to the end to avoid that necessary action The bold answer of an old woman to the Emperour Adrian is very worthy to be remembred who appealing and complaining to the Emperour of some wrong when he answered that he was not at leasure then to hear her suit she told him boldly and plainly That then he ought not to be at leasure to be her Emperour which speech went so near the quicke unto him that ever after he shewed more facility and courtesie towards all men that had any thing to do with him The Kings of France used also this custome of hearing and deciding their subjects matters as we reade of Charlemaigne the King and Emperour who commanded that he should be made acquainted with all matters of importance and their issues throughout his Realme King Lewis the first treading the steps of his father Charlemaigne accustomed himselfe three dayes in a week to hear publiquely in his pallace the complaints and grievances of his people and to right their wrongs and injuries King Lewis sirnamed the Holy a little before his death gave in charge to his son that should succeed him in the Crown amongst other this precept To be carefull to bear a stroke in seeing the distribution of justice and that it should not be perverted nor depraved CHAP. XLVIII Of such Princes as have made no reckoning of punishing vice nor regarded the estate of their People IT cannot chuse but be a great confusion in a Common-wealth when justice sleepeth and when the shamelesse boldnesse of evill doers is not curbed in with any bridle but runneth it own swinge and therefore a Consull of Rome could say That it was an evil thing to have a Prince
under whom licence and liberty is given to every man to do what him listeth forsomuch then as this evill proceedeth from the carelesnesse and slothfulnesse of those that hold the sterne of government in their hands it cannot be but some evill must needs fall upon them for the same the truth of this may appear in the person of Philip of Macedony whom Demosthenes the Orator noteth for a treacherous and false dealing Prince after that he had subdued almost all Greece not so much by open war as by subtilty craft and surprise and that being in the top of his glory he celebrated at one time the marriage of his son Alexander whom he had lately made King of Epire and of one of his daughters with great pompe and magnificence as he was marching with all his train betwixt the two bridegroomes his own son and his son in law to see the sports and pastimes which were prepared for the solemnity of the marriage behold suddenly a young Macedonian Gentleman called Pausanias ran at him and slew him in the midst of the prease for not regarding to do him justice when he complained of an injury done unto him by one of the Peeres of the Realme Tatius the fellow King of Rome with Romulus for not doing justice in punishing certain of his friends and kinsfolkes that had robbed and murdered certain Embassadours which came to Rome and for making their impunity an example for other malefactors by deferring and protracting and disappointing their punishment was so watched by the kindred of the slain that they slew him even as he was sacrificing to his gods because they could not obtain justice at his hands What happened to the Romans for refusing to deliver an Embassadour who contrary to the law of Nations comming unto them played the part of an enemy to his own Countrey even well nigh the totall overthrow of them and their City for having by this meanes brought upon themselves the calamity of war they were at the first discomfited by the Gaules who pursuing their victory entred Rome and slew all that came in their way whether men or women infants or aged persons and after many dayes spent in the pillage and spoiling of the houses at last set fire on all and utterly destroyed the whole City Childericke King of France is notified for an extreme dullard and blockhead and such a one as had no care or regard unto his Realme but that lived idlely and slothfully without intermedling with the affaires of the Common-wealth for he laid all the charge and burden of them upon Pepin his Lieutenant Generall and therefore was by him justly deposed from his royall Dignity and mewed up in a Cloyster of Religion to become a Monke because he was unfit for any good purpose and albeit that this sudden change and mutation was very strange yet there ensued no trouble nor commotion in the Realme thereupon so odious was he become to the whole land for his drousie and idle disposition For the same cause did the Princes Electors depose Venceslaus the Emperour from the Empire and established another in his room King Richard of England among other foul faults which he was guilty of incurred greatest blame for this because he suffered many theeves and robbers to rove up and down the Land unpunished for which cause the Citizens of London commenced a high suit against him and compelled him having reigned two and twenty yeares to lay aside the Crown and resigne it to another in the presence of all the States and died prisoner in the Tower Moreover this is no small defect of justice when men of authority do not onely pardon capitall and detestable crimes but also grace and favour the doers of them and this neither ought nor can be done by a soveraigne Prince without overpassing the bounds of his limited power which can in no wayes dispence with the law of God whereunto even Kings themselves are subject for as touching the willing and considerate murderer Thou shalt plucke him from my Altar saith the Lord that he may die thy eye shall not spare him to the end it may goe well with thee which was put in practise in the death of Ioab who was slaine in the Tabernacle of God holding his hands upon the hornes of the Altar for he is no lesse abhominable before God that justifieth the wicked than he that condemneth the just and hereupon that holy King S. Lewis when he had granted pardon to a malefactor revoked it againe after better consideration of the matter saying That he would give no pardon except the case deserved pardon by the law for it was a worke of charity and pitty to punish an offendor and not to punish crimes was as much as to commit them In the yeare of our Lord 978 Egelrede the sonne of Edgare and Alphred King of England was a man of goodly outward shape and visage but wholly given to idlenesse and abhorring all Princely exercises besides he was a lover of ryot and drunkennesse and used extreame cruelty towards his subjects having his eares open to all unjust complaints in feats of armes of all men most ignorant so that his cruelty made him odious to his subjects and his cowardise encouraged strange enemies to invade his kingdome by meanes whereof England was sore afflicted with warre famine and pestilence In his time as a just plague for his negligence in Governement decayed the noble Kingdome of England and became tributary to the Danes for ever when the Danes oppressed him with warre he would hire them away with summes of money without making any resistance against them insomuch that from ten thousand pounds by the yeare the tribute arose in short space to fifty thousand wherefore he devised a new tricke and sought by treacherie to destroy them sending secret Commissioners to the Magistrates throughout the Land that upon a certaine day and houre assigned the Danes should suddenly and joyntly bee murdered Which massacre being performed turned to be the cause of greater misery for Swaine King of Denmarke hearing of the murder of his countrey-men landed with a strange army in divers parts of this Realme and so cruelly without mercy and pitty spoyled the Countrey and slew the people that the Englishmen were brought to most extreame and unspeakable misery and Egelrede the King driven to flie with his wife and children to Richard Duke of Normandie leaving the whole Kingdome to bee possessed of Swaine Edward the second of that name may well be placed in this ranke for though he was faire and well proportioned of body yet he was crooked and evill favoured in conditions for hee was so disposed to lightnesse and vanity that he refused the company of his Lords and men of honour and haunted amongst villaines and vile persons he delighted in drinking and riot and loved nothing lesse than to keep secret his owne counsailes though never so important so that he let
escape unpunished for his perfidie and impietie For first his warre-like affaires in the East prospered not then a little before the end of his life he grievously complained that he had innovated the faith in his kingdome At last in those sighings and complaints he parted this life with a grievous and violent disease The Unkle of Iulian the Apostata called also Iulianus at Antioch in the temple prophaned the holy table with pissing upon it And when Eusoius the Bishop rebuked him for it he stroke him with his fist Not long after he was taken with a grievous disease of his bowels putrifying and miserably died his excrements comming from him not by their ordinary passages but by his wicked mouth Under the Emperour Valence a wonderfull haile the stones being as big as a man could hold in his hand was sent upon Constantinople and slew many both men and beasts for that the Emperour had banished many famous men that would not communicate with Eudoxius the Arrian and for the same reason a great part of Germa a Citie of Hellespont was throwne downe by an earthquake and in Phrygia such a famine succeeded that the Inhabitants were faine to change their habitation and to â—lee to other places After the martyrdome of Gregory the Bishop of Spoleta Flacchus the Governour who was author thereof was strucke with an Angel and vomited out his entrailes at his mouth and died Under the Empire of Alexander Mammea Agrippitus fifteene yeares old because he would not sacrifice to their Idols was apprehended at Praeneste whipt with scourges and hanged up by the heeles and at last slaine with the sword in the middest of whose torments the Governour of the Citie fell from the Tribunall seat dead Bajazet a most cruell enemy of the Christians was taken by Tamerlane the Tartarian King and bound in golden chaines and carried about by him in an iron cage latised and shewne unto all being used for a stirrop unto Tamerlane when he got upon his horse Gensericus the King of the Vandales exercising grievous cruelty against the Orthodox Christians he himselfe being an Arrian was possessed of the Devill and died a miserable death in the yeare 477. Honoricus the second King of the Vandales having used inexplicable cruelty against the Orthodox Christians hanging up honest matrons and virgins naked burning their bodies with torches cutting off their dugges and armes because they would not subscribe to the Arrian heresie was surprised himselfe with the vengeance of God for his land was turned into barrennesse through an exceeding drought so that numbers of men women and beasts died with famine the pestilence also seised upon them and he himselfe was stricken with such a disease of his body that his members rotted off one after another Anastatius Dicorus a grievous persecutor of the Church of Christ being admonished in a dreame that he should perish with thunder built him an house wherein he might defend himselfe from that judgement but in vaine for in a great thunder he fled from chamber to chamber and at last was found dead blasted with lightning to the great horror of the beholders Chasroes the King of Persia a grievous enemy to Christ and Christians committed horrible outrages against them for first he slew at Jerusalem ninety thousand men with Zachariâ— the Patriarch of Jerusalem and also raged in like manner in Aegypt Lybia Aethiopia and would grant them no condition of peace unlesse they would forsake Christ and worship the Sunne he also put to death with most cruell torments Anastatius a godly Monke because he constantly confessed the faith of Christ. But God met with him to the full for his eldest sonne Syroes tooke him prisoner and handled him in most vile manner he hanged an iron weight upon his neck and imprisoned him in an high tower which he had built to keepe his treasure denying him food and bidding him eat the gold which he had gathered together then he slew all his children before his face and exposed him to the scoffes and railings of the people and lastly caused him to be shot to death and so that great terror of the world and shedder of Christian bloud breathed out his soule after a miserable manner Regnerus the King of Denmarke abrogating Christian Religion and setting up Idolatrie in his Kingdome anew the divine vengeance overtooke him for Helles whom he had cast out of the Kingdome returned upon him with an army of the Gaules and overcomming him in battell tooke him prisoner and shut him up in a filthie prison full of serpents which setting upon him with their venomous bitings and stings brought him to a most horrible end Lysius the Emperour gave Heriâ—a his daughter a virgin because she was a Christian to be trampled under foot of horses but he himselfe was sâ—ain by the byting of one of the same horses A Popish Magistrate having condemned a poore Protestant to death before his execution caused his tongue to be cut out because he should not confesse the truth in requitall whereof the next childe that was borne unto him was borne without a tongue CHAP. II. Of Perjurie Pâ—ilip King of Macedon who was a great contemner of all oathes and held the Religion thereof as a vain thing for this cause as all Writers affirme the vengeance of God followed him and his posteritie for when he had lived scarce forty and sixe yeares he himselfe was slain and all his whole house in short time in short time after utterly extinguished 〈◊〉 one of his sonnes was slaine by Olympias his wife Also another sonne which he had by Cleopatra the 〈◊〉 of Aâ—â—alus â—he tormented to death in a brazen vessell compassed about with fire The â—est of his sonnes periffied in like manner and at last the famous Alexander his sonne after great conquest atchieved by him in the middle course of his victories periffied miserably some thinke by poyson In the Countrey of Arbernum there was a certaine wicked man that used ordinarily to for sweare himselfe but at one time after he had thus sinned his tongue was tyed up that he could not speake but began to low like an oâ—e yet repenting and grieving for his sinne he found the bond of his tongue loosed and a readinesse of speech given unto him againe whereby we see both the Iustice of God in punishing them that sinne in this kinde and his mercy in pardoning when they truly repent At this day we have an example fresh and famous of a certaine maid that had stolne and pilfered many things away out of her mistresses house of which being examined she forswore them and wisht that she might rot if she ever touched them or knew of them but notwithstanding she was carried to prison and there presently began so to rot stink that they were forced to thrust her out of prison and to convey her to the Hospitall where she lies in lamentable miserie
THE THEATRE OF GODS JUDGEMENTS Wherein is represented the admirable Justice of GOD against all notorious sinners great and small specially against the most eminent Persons in the World whose exorbitant power had broke through the barres of Divine and Humane Law Collected out of Sacred Ecclesiasticall and Pagan Historie by two most reverend Doctors in Divinity THOMAS BEARD of Huntington and THO. TAYLOR the famous late Preacher of Mary Aldermanbury in LONDON The incomparable use of this Book for Ministers and others is largely expressed in the Preface The fourth Edition With Additions God hath Woollen feet but Iron hands Aug. LONDON Printed by S. I M. Hand are to be sold by Thomas Whitaker at the signe of the KINGS ARMES in St Pauls Churchyard MDCXLVIII To His Highnesse IAMES Duke of YORK SIR IN the lowliest posture of Humility these Historicall Examples extracted out of the choicest Authors both Ancient and Moderne by two learned Doctors are presented to Your Highnesse Neither would they presume to put themselves under so high a Patronage did I not humbly conceive that being Historicall Peeces they might be fit for Your Highnesse perusall History being the proper'st and most advantagious Study that Princes can apply themselves unto because it containes examples of all sorts In History Brave men stand as Marble Statues erected in the Temple of Immortality and Bad men as Malefactors upon Gibbets expos'd to the publick view of the world to all Posterity Although Your Highnesse hath a Royall Father for an incomparable living Patterne of all the Cardinall Vertues with their Attendants which breaking through these late Clouds of Civill Confusions shin'd with an advantage of lustre to the wonderment of the world as also against any thing that may have the least vicinity with Vice to imitate yet humbly under favour variety of Examples as of Witnesses in Law cannot doe amisse the one for confirmation of Truth the other for direction of Life In which opinion I rest Your Highnesse most Humble and most obedient Servant M. HERON THE PREFACE IF to avoid and eschew vice according to the saying of the Poet be a chiefe vertue and as it were the first degree of wisedome then it is a necessary point to know what vice and vertue is and to discerne the evill and good which either of them bring forth to the end to beware lest we dash our selves unawares against vice in stead of vertue and be caught with the deceitfull baits thereof For this cause the great and famous Philosopher about to lay open the nature of Morall vertues according to that knowledge and light which nature afforded him contented not himselfe with a simple narration of the properties essence and object of them but opposed to every vertue on each side the contrary and repugnant vice to the end that the sight of them being so out of square so hurtfull and pernicious vertue it selfe might be more admirable and in greater esteem And for this cause also God himself our soveraigne and perfect Law-giver that he might fashion and fit us to the mould of true and solid vertue useth ostner negative prohibitons then affirmative commandments in his Law to the end above all things to distract and turne us from cvill whereunto we are of our selves too too much inclined And as by this meane sin is discovered and made knowne unto us so is the pnnishment also of sin set before our eyes by those threatnings and curses which are there denounced to the end that whom the promises of life and salvation could not allure and perswade to doe well them the feare of punishment which followeth sin as a shadow doth the body might bridle and restraine from giving them over to impiety Now then if the very threatnings ought to serve for such good use shall not the execution and performance of them serve much more to wit when the tempest of Gods wrath is not onely denounced but also throwne downe effectually upon the heads of the mighty ones of the world when they are disobedient and rebellious against God And hereupon the Prophet saith That when Gods judgements are upon earth then the Inhabitants learne justice And doubtlesse it is most true that every one ought to reap profit to himself by such examples as well them which are presented daily to their view by experience as them which have been done in times past and are by benefit of History preserved from oblivion And in this regard History is accounted a very necessary and profitable thing for that in recalling to minde the truth of things past which otherwise would be buried in silence it setteth before us such effects as warnings and admonitions touching good and evill and layeth vertue and vice so naked before our eyes with the punishments or rewards inflicted or bestowed upon the followers of each of them that it may justly bee called an easie and profitable Apprentiship or Schoole for every man to learne to get wisedome at another mans cost Hence it is that History is termed of the ancient Philosophers The record and register of Time the light of Truth and the mistresse and looking-glasse of mans life insomuch as under the person of another man it teacheth and instructeth all those that apply their mindes unto it to governe and carry themselves vertuously and honestly in this life Wherefore they deserve great praise and commendation that have taken paines to inroll and put in writing the memorable acts and occurrents of their times to communicate the same to their posterity for there the high and wonderfull works of God doe most clearely and as it were to the view present themselves as his justice and providence whereby albeit hee guideth and directeth especially his owne to wit those that in a speciall and singular manner worship and trust in him as by the sacred Histories touching the state and government of the ancient and Primitive Church it may appeare yet hee ceaseth not for all that to stretch the arme of his power over all and to handle and rule the prophane and unbeleeving ones at his pleasure for he hath a soveraign Empire and predominance over all the World And unto him belongeth the direction and principall conduct of humane matters in such sort that nothing in the world commeth to passe by chance or adventure but onely and alwayes by the prescription of his will according to the which he ordereth and disposeth by a strait and direct motion as well the generall as the particular and that after a strange and admirable order And this a man may perceive if he would but mark and consider the whole body but especially the end and issue of things wherein the great and marvailous vertues of God as his bounty justice and power doe most clearely shine when he exalteth and favoureth some and debaseth and frowneth upon others blesseth and prospereth whom hee please and on the contrarie curseth and destroyeth whom he please and that deserve it It is hee also which
writeth of him That the apple of his eye fell out before he died Maxentius and Licinius the one Emperour of Italy the other of the East perceiving how the Emperour Constantine that raigned in the West was had in great reputation for maintaining the cause of the Christians began also to doe the like but by and by their malice and hypocrisie discovered it selfe when they undertook to trouble and afflict those whom before they seemed to favour For which cause Constantine taking arms against them destroyed them both one after another for Maxentius thinking to save himselfe upon a Bridge on Tyber was deceived by the breaking of the Bridge and so drenched and drowned in the water Licinius was taken and put to death And thus two Tyrants ended their dayes for persecuting the Church of Christ. In the tenth yeare of the persecution of Dioclesian Galerius his chiefe minister and instrument in that practise fell into a grievous sicknesse having a sore risen in the neither part of his belly which consumed his privy members from whence swarmed great plenty of wormes engendred by the putrefaction This disease could not be holpen by any Chirurgery or Physick wherefore he confessed that it justly happened unto him for his monstrous cruelty towards the Christians and called in his proclamations which he had published against them Howbeit notwithstanding he died miserably and as some write slew himselfe CHAP. X. More examples of Persecutors SAint Bartholomew one of the twelve Apostles after hee had preached Christ Jesus unto the Indians and delivered them the Gospell written by Saint Mathew and had converted many unto the Faith albeit the miracles which he wrought were strange and supernatural for hee restored many diseased persons to their health and clensed King Polemius his daughter from an unclean spirit wherewith she was possessed yet in regard that he destroyed their Idoll Astaroth and bewraied the subtilties of Satan he was by Astyages Polemius younger brother at the instigation of the Idolatrous Priests first cruell beaten with clubs after fleyed and last of all beheaded But within thirty dayes after both the wicked King and the sacrilegious Priests were poffessed with devills and brought to a wretched and miserable death Aphraats that heavenly Philosopher going out of his Cloyster towards the Temple to feed the flocke of Christ with some wholesome food of sound Doctrine and being perceived by the Emperour Valeus and demanded whither he went he answered To pray for him and his kingdome Yea but said the Emperour it were more convenient for thee that professest thy selfe a Monke to remaine at home in contemplation than to stray abroad True answered this holy man if Christs sheep enjoyed peace but as it becommeth an honest Matron to sit still within doors nevertheles if her house were on fire and the flame inviâ—oned her should she not stirre to helpe to quench it And should I lye still and see my Countrey set on fire by the persecution Whereat the Emperour being netled threatned him with death and one of his chamberlaines taunting him for his boldnesse used him most currishly But presently as he went to the Baths to make them ready for the Emperour the hand of God stroke him with an Apoplexy that he fell downe dead into the waters Under the Empire of Iulian the Apostate all they that either conspired or practised the death of Cyrillus a Deacon of Heliopolis scituate neer to Libanus came to a miserable end for after that Constantine was deceased by whose authority the holy Martyr had broken downe many of their Images and Idoils the abhominable Idolaters did not onely murther him but also devoured his liver with bread as if it had been the sweetest morsell of meat in the world But the all-seeing eye of God saw their villany and his revengefull rod bruised them in peeces for their teeth wherewith they chewed that unnaturall food fell all out of their heads and their tongues wherewith they tasted it rotted and consumed to nothing and lastly their eyes which beheld it failed them and they became blinde And thus were they all served not one excepted bearing justly the markes of Gods wrath for so inhumane and unnaturall a deed At Tyre a City of Phoenicia under the raigne of Dioclesian many Christians that stoutly professed and maintained the Faith and Religion of Christ Jesus were after many tortures and destructions exposed to wilde beasts to be devoured as Beares Libards wilde Boares and Buls the savage basts though made fierce and furious by fires and swords yet I know not by what secret instinct resused once to touch them or to come neere them but turned their teeth upon the Infidels that were without and came to set them on upon the Saints and tore many of them in pieces in their steads Howbeit although they escaped the jawes of wilde beasts yet they escaped not the swords of them that were more savage than any beasts and though the bowels of Beares refused to entombe them yet were they intombed in the flouds and crowned with the Crowne of sacred martyrdome Processus and Martianus Keeper of the Prison wherein the Apostles Peter and Paul were inclosed at Rome seeing the miracles which were wrought by their hands believed in Christ and together with seven and forty other prisoners were baptized Which when Paulinus the Judge perceived hee injoyned them to lay aside their conscience and offer sacrifice to Idols But they readier to obey God than man could neither by threats nor violence bee brought to it but chose rather to bee beaten with clubs or consumed with fire or scourged with Scorpions as they were than to yeeld to deny their Maker by doing worship to devilish and monstrous Idols But that Judge the procurer of their martyrdomes shortly after became himselfe an object of Gods wrath when his eye-sight failed him and an evill spirit so possessed and tormented him that in the extremity of terrours and griefe he breathed out ere long his last and miserable breath Nicephorus reporteth How the Emperour Trajan having caused five holy Virgins to be burned for standing in the profession of the Truth commanded certaine Vessells to be made of their ashes mingled with brasse and dedicated them to the service of a publique Bath but the Bath that before time instilled a wholesome and healthfull vapour into mens bodies now became pernitious and fatall unto them for all that washed themselves therein felt presently such a giddinesse in their braines and such a dimnesse of sight that they fell downe dead forthwith The cause of which mischiefe being perceived by Trajan he melted againe the Virgin-moulded Vessells and erected five statues to the honour of them so choaking as it were one superstition with another to his owne eternall infamy and disgrace Agapitus a youngman of fifteene yeares of age being apprehended by the inhabitants of Preneste and grievously tormented for refusing to offer sacrifice to their Idols and when
maintained the truth should be banished suddenly he was stroken with an inward and invisible plague which took away his life and forestalled his wicked and cruell determination from comming to the desired effect In all which examples we may see how God doth not onely punish heretiques themselves but also their favorers and supporters yea the very places and cities wherein they lived and broached their blasphemies as by the destruction of Antioch is seene which being a very sinke of hereticks was partly consumed with fire from Heaven above in the seventh yeare of Iustinus the Emperour and partly overthrowne with earth-quakes below wherein Euphrasius the Bishop and many other were destroyed Moreover besides those there were under Pope Innocent the third certaine heretickes called Albigenses or Albiani which being possessed with the same spirit of fury that the Maniches were affirmed that there were two Gods the one good and another evill they denied the Resurrection despised the Sacraments and said that the soules of men after their separation passed either into hogs oxen serpents or men according to their merits they would not spare to pollute the Temples appointed for the service of God with their excrements and other filthy actions and to defile the holy Bibles with ruine in despight and contumely This heresie like an evill weed so grew and increased that the branches thereof spread over almost all Europe a thousand cities were polluted therewith so that it was high time to cut it short by violence and the sword as it was for they were oppressed with so huge a slaughter that an hundred thousand of them were slaine partly by war partly by fire at one time Gregory of Tours hath recorded the life and death of an hereticall Monk of Bordeaux that by the help of Magicke wrought miracles and tooke upon him the name and title of Christ saying hee could cure diseases and restore those that were past help by physick unto their healths hee went attired with garments made of goats haire and an hood professing an austerity of life abroad whereas he plaid the glutton at home but at length his cousenage was discovered and he was banished the city as a man unfit for civill society In the yeare of our Lord God 1204 in the Empire of Otto the fourth there was one Almaricus also that denied the presence of Christ in the Sacrament and said that God spake as well in prophane Ovid as holy Augustine he scoffed at the doctrine of the Resurrection and esteemed heaven and hell but as an old wives fable Hee being dead his disciples were brought forth into a large field neere Paris and there in the presence of the French King degraded and burnt the dead carkasse of Almaricus being taken out of the Sepulchre and burnt amongst them it fell out that whilest they were in burning there arose so huge a tempest that heaven and earth seemed to move out of their places wherein doubtlesse the soules of these wicked men felt by experience that hell was no fable but a thing and such a thing as waited for all such Rebels against God as they were Anastasius Emperour of Constantinople being corrupted with the heresie of Eutiches published an Edict wherein all men were commanded to worship God not under three persons as a Trinity but as a Quaternity containing it in foure persons and could not by any counsell be brought from that devillish error but repelled from him divers Bishops with great reproach which came to perswade him to the contrary for which cause not long after a flash of lightning from Heaven suddenly seised upon him and so hee perished when he had raigned twenty eight yeares Iustinus the second also who after the death of Iustinian obtained the Imperiall Crowne was a man of exceeding pride and cruelty contemning poverty and murthering the Nobility for the most part In avarice his desire was so insatiate that he caused iron chests to be prepared wherein he might locke up that treasure which by unjust exactions he had extorted from the people Notwithstanding all this he prospered well enough untill he fell into the heresie of Pelagius soone after which the Lord bereft him of his wits and shortly aster of his life also when hee had raigned eleven yeares Mahomet by birth an Arabian and by profession one of the most monstrous hereticks that ever lived began his heresie in the yeare 625. His off-spring was out of a base stocke for being fatherlesse one Abdemonoples a man of the house of Ismael bought him for his slave and loved him greatly for his favour and wit for which cause he made him ruler over his merchandise and other businesse Now in the meane while one Sergius a Monk flying for heresie into Arabia instructed him in the heresie of Nestorius a while after his Master died without children and left behinde him much riches and his wife a widow of fifty yeares of age whom Mahomet married and when she died was made heire of all her riches So that now what for his wealth and cunning in Magick he was had in high honour among the people Wherefore by the counsell of Sergius hee called himselfe the great Prophet of God And shortly after when his fame was published he devised a Law and kinde of Religion called Alcaron wherein hee borrowed something almost of all the heresies that were before his time with the Sabellians he denied the Trinity with the Maniches he said there was but two persons in the Deity he denied the equality of the Father with the Sonne with Eunomius and said with Macedone that the Holy Ghost was a creature and approved the community of women with the Nicholaits he borrowed of the Jewes circumcision and of the Gentiles much superstition and somewhat he tooke of the Christian verity besides many devillish fantasies invented of his owne braine those that obeyed his Law he called Sarazins Now after he had lived in these monstrous abuses forty yeares the Lord cut him off by the falling sicknesse which he had dissembled a long time saying when he was taken therewith that the Angell Gabriel appeared unto him whose brightnesse hee could not behold but the Lord made that his destruction which be imagined would be for his honour and setting forth his Sect. Infinite be the examples of the destruction and judgement of private Heretiques in all ages and therefore we will content our selves with them that be most famous In the yeare of our Lord 1561 and the third yeare of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth there was in London one William Geffery that constantly avouched a companion of his called Iohn Moore to bee Christ our Saviour and could not bee reclaimed from this mad perswasion untill hee was whipped from Southwarke to Bedlam where the said Moore meeting him was whipped also untill they both confessed Christ to bee in Heaven and themselves to bee sinfull and wicked men But most strange it is how divers sensible and wise men
sinne did not experience by certaine examples teach us the contrary As first of all the King of Tyre whose heart was so exalted with the multitude of riches and the renowne and greatnesse of his house that he doubted not to esteeme himselfe a god and to desire majesty and power correspondent thereunto For which presumption God by the Prophet Ezechiel reproved him and threatned his destruction which afterward came upon him when by the power of a strange and terrible nation his goodly godhead was overcome and murthered feeling indeed that he was no god as hee supposed but a man subject to death and misery King Herod sirnamed Agrippa which put Iames the brother of Iohn to death and imprisoned Peter with purpose to make him taste of the same cup was puffed up with no lesse sacrilegious pride for being upon a time seated in his throne of judgement and arrayed in his royall robes shewing forth his greatnesse and magnificence in the presence of the Embassadors of Tyre and Sidon that desired to continue in peace with him as he spake unto them the people shouted and cryed That it was the voice of God and not of man which titles of honour he disclaimed not and therefore the Angell of the Lord smote him suddenly because he gave not the glory to God so that he was eaten with wormes and gave up the ghost Iosephus reporteth the same story more at large on this manner Vpon the second day of the solemnization of the playes which Herod caused to be celebrated for the Emperours health there being a great number of Gentlemen and Lords present that came from all quarters to his feast he came betime in the morning to the Theatre clad in a garment all woven with silver of a marvellous workmanship upon which as the Sun rising cast his beames there glittered out such an excellent brightnesse that thereby his pernitious flatterers tooke occasion to call him with a loud voice by the name of God for the which sacrilegious speech he not reproving nor forbidding them was presently taken with most grievous and horrible dolours and gripes in his bowels so that looking upon the people he uttered these words Behold here your goodly god whom you but now so highly honored ready to die with extreame paine And so he died indeed most miserably even when he was in the top of his honour and jollity and as it were in the midst of his earthly Paradise being beaten downe and swallowed up with confusion and ignominy not stricken with the edge of sword or speare for that had been far more honourable but gnawne in pieces with lice and vermine Simon Magus otherwise called Simon the Samaritane borne in a village called Gitton after he was cursed of Peter the Apostle for offering to buy the gifts of the Spirit of God with money went to Rome and there putting in practise his magicall arts and working miracles by the Devill was reputed a god and had an image erected in his honour with this inscription To Simon the holy god Besides all the Samaritanes and divers also of other nations accounted him no lesse as appeared by the reverence and honour which they did unto him insomuch as they called his companion or rather his whore Helena for that was her profession in Tyre a city of Phenicia the first mover that distilled out of Simons bosome Now he to foster this foolish and ridiculous opinion of theirs and to eternize his name boasted that he would at a certaine time fly up into heaven which as he attempted to doe by the help of the Devill Peter the Apostle commanded the unclean spirit to cast him down again so that he fell upon the earth and was bruised to death and proved himselfe thereby to be no more than a mortall wicked and detestable wretch Moreover elsewhere we read of Alexander the Great whose courage and magnanimity was so exceeding great that he enterprised to goe out of Greece and set upon all Asia onely with an army of two and thirty thousand footmen five hundred horse and an hundred and foure score ships and in this appointment passing the seas he conquered in short space the greatest part of the world for which cause he was represented to the Prophet Daniel in a vision by the figure of a Leopard with wings on his backe to notifie the great diligence and speedy expedition which he used in compassing so many sudden and great victories with pride he was so soone infected that he would brooke no equall nor companion in his Empire but as heaven had but one Sunne so he thought the earth ought to have but one Monarch which was himselfe which mind of his he made known by his answer to King Darius demanding peace and offering him the one halfe of his Kingdome to be quiet when he refused to accord thereunto saying He scorned to be a partner in the halfe and hoped to be full possessor of the whole After his first victory had of Darius and his entrance into Aegypt which he tooke without blowes as also he did Rhodes and Cilicia he practised and suborned the Priests that ministred at the Oracle of Hammon to make him be pronounced and entituled by the Oracle The sonne of Iupiter which kinde of jugling and deceit was common at that time Having obtained this honour forthwith he caused himselfe to be worshipped as a god according to the custome of the Kings of Persia neither wanted he flatterers about him that egged him forward and soothed him up in this proud humor albeit that many of the better sort endeavoured tooth and nayle to turne him from it It hapned as he warred in India he received so sore a wound that with paine thereof he was constrained to say Though he was the renowned sonne of Iupiter yet he ceased not to feele the infirmities of a weake and diseased body finally being returned to Babylon where many Embassadors of divers farre countries as of Carthage and other cities in Africa Spaine France Sicily Sardinia and certaine cities of Italy were arrived to congratulate his good successe for the great renowne which by his worthy deeds he had gotten as he lay there taking his rest many dayes and bathing himselfe in all kinde of pleasure one day after a great feast that lasted a whole day and a night in a banquet after supper being ready to returne home he was poysoned when before hee had drunke his whole draught he gave a deep sigh suddenly as if hee had been thrust through with a dart and was carried away in a swoone vexed with such horrible torment that had he not been restrained he would have killed himselfe And on this manner he that could not content himselfe with the condition of a man but would needs climbe above the clouds to goe in equipage with God drunke up his owne death leaving as suddenly all his worldly pompe as hee had suddenly gotten it which vanished like smoake none
in broidered worke but this goodly banner as it was carried about in procession was rent in pieces by a tempestuous storme that arose suddenly God thereby manifesting how odious and displeasant both this new and old superstition was in his sight besides that doe but consider the laudable vertues that so commended this new god Demetrius to make them honour him in such sort they were violence and cruelties intemperance with all inordinate lasciviousnesse villanies and whoredomes so that it was no marvell if they had made him a god being unworthy altogether of humane society This new found god having gotten a great victory by sea as he triumphed and braved it with ships after the same was so shattered with a sudden tempest that the greatest part of his navy went to wrecke and afterwards was vanquished by Seleuchus in a battell wherein his father Antigonus was slaine and when he thought to returne to Athens they shut their gates upon him whom a little before they had canonized for a god for which cause he raised war against them and so wearied them with onsets on each side and so inclosed them both by sea and land that being brought to extreame famine and necessity they were compelled to entertain him again and to behold the horrible outrages of their owne made god to their griefe and confusion But not long after Seleuchus once againe damped his courage insomuch that having lived three yeares in a countrey of Syria like a banished outlaw for feare to be delivered into his hands and weary of his owne life he stuffed himselfe so with food that he burst in pieces Therefore let every man learne by these examples not to translate the honour and majesty of God to any creature but to leave it to him alone who is jealous thereof and will not as the Prophet saith give his glory unto another CHAP. XXIII Of Epicures and Atheists AS touching voluptuous Epicures and cursed Atheists that deny the providence of God beleeve not the immortality of the soule think there is no such thing as life to come and consequently impugn all divinity living in this world like bruit beasts and like dogs and swine wallowing in all sensuality they doe also strike themselves against this commandement by going about to wipe out and deface the knowledge of God and if it were possible to extinguish his very Essence wherein they shew themselves more than mad and brutish whereas notwithstanding all the evident testimonies of the vertue bounty wisedome and eternall power of God which they dayly see with their eyes and feele in themselves doe neverthelesse strive to quench his light of nature which enlighteneth and perswadeth them and all Nations of this There is a God by whom we live move and have our being who although in his Essence is invisible yet maketh he himselfe knowne and as it were seene by his works and creatures and mighty government of the world that he that would seeke after him may as one might say handle and feele him Therefore they that would perswade themselves that this glorious heaven and massy earth wanted a guider and a governour have their understanding blinded from fight of things manifest and their hearts perverted from all shew of reason for is there any substance in this world that bath no cause of his subsisting Is there a day without a Sun Are there fruit and no trees Plants and no seeds Can it raine without a cloud Be a tempest without winde Can a ship sayle without a Pylot Or a house be built without a Carpenter or builder If then every part of this world hath his particular cause of being and dependance is it likely that the whole is without cause to be to it a furnishing and government Say you hogs and dogs doe you not beleeve that which you see or if your eyes be bored out that you cannot see must you thinke there is no Sunne nor light because your eyes are in darknesse and blindnesse Can you behold all the secrets of nature Is there nothing but a voice a singing of birds or an harmonious consort of musicall instruments in the world And yet who perceiveth these small things Can you behold the winde Can you see the sweet smell of fragrant flowers along the fields Can you see the secrets of your owne bodies your entrailes your heart and your braine And yet you cease not to beleeve that there are such things except you be heartlesse and brainlesse indeed Why then doe you measure God by your own sight and doe not beleeve there is a God because he is invisible since that he manifesteth himselfe more apparently both to understanding and sence than either voice smell or winde Doe not your owne oathes blasphemies and horrible cursings beare witnesse against you when you sweare by despight and maugre him whom you deny to be Doth not every thunderclap constraine you to tremble at the blast of his voyce If any calamity approach neere unto or light upon you or if death be threatned or set before your eyes doe not you then feele in spight of all your reason that the severe judgement of God doth waken up your dull and sleepy conscience to come to his tryall There was never yet any nation or people so barbarous which by the perswasion and instinct of nature hath not alwayes beleeved a certaine deity and to thinke otherwise is not only a derestable thing but also most absurd and so contrary to humane reason that the very Paynims have very little tolerated such horrible blasphemy The Athenians are witnesses hereof who banished Protagoras their city and countrey because in the beginning of one of his books he called in question the deity and caused his books to be burned openly Neither shewed they any lesse severity towards Diagoras sirnamed the Atheist when being as some say injuriously and falsly accused of this crime and for feare of punishment fled away they proclaimed that whosoever did kill him should have a talent of silver in recompence which in value is as much as six hundred crowns after the rate of five and thirty shillings French to the crowne How much more then is the state of Christendome at this day to be lamented which we see in many places infected with such a contagious pestilence that divers men invenomed with this deadly poison are so mischievous and wretched as to make roome for Atheisme by forbidding and hindering by all means possible the course of the Gospell wherein they make known what they are and what zeale they beare to the religion and service of God and with what affection they are led towards the good and safety of the commonwealth and what hereafter is to be hoped of him for where there is no knowledge nor feare of God there also is no bridle nor bond to restraine and hold men backe from doing evill whereupon they grow to that passe to be most insolent and prophane This is the Divinity and goodly instruction
those Truce-breaking Varlets He had scarce ended these speeches but the Christians battell and courage began to rebate Vladislaus himselfe was slaine by the Iâ—nizaries his horse being first hurt his whole Army was discomfited and all his people put to the sword saving a few that fled amongst whom was the right reverend Embassador of the Pope who as soone as he had thrust in over the eares withdrew himselfe forsooth farre enough from blowes or danger Then followed a horrible butchery of people and a lamentable noyse of poore soules ready to be slaughtered for they spared none but haled them miserably in pieces and executed a just and rigorous judgement of God for that vile treachery and perjury which was committed CHAP. XXVIII More examples of the like subject BVt let us adde a few more examples of fresher memory as touching this ungodly Perjury And first King Philip of Macedony who never made reckoning of keeping his oathes but swore and unswore them at his pleasure and for his commodity doubtlesse it was one of the chiefest causes why he and his whole Progeny came quickly to destruction as testifieth Pausanias for hee himselfe being 46 yeeres old was slaine by one of his owne servants after which Olympias his wife made away two of his sonnes Anideus and another which he had by Cleopatra Attalus his neece whom she sod to death in a Cauldron his daughter Thessalonicaes children likewise all perished and lastly Alexander after all his great victories in the middest of his pompe was poysoned at Babylon Gregorie Tours maketh mention of a wicked Varlet in France among the people called Averni that forswearing himselfe in an unjust cause had his tongue so presently tyed that he could not speake but roare and so continued till by his earnest prayers and repentance the Lord restored to himselfe the use of that unruly member There were in old time certaine people of Italy called Aequi whereof the memory remaineth onely at this day for they were utterly destroyed by Q. Cincinnatus These having solemnely made a league with the Romanes and sworne unto it with one consent afterward chose Gracchus Cluilius for their Captaine and under his conduct spoyled the Fields and Territories of the Romanes contrary to the former league and oath Wherupon the Romans sent Q. Fabius P. Volumnius and A. Posthumius Embassadors to them to complaine of their wrongs and demand satisfaction but their Captaine so little esteemed them that he bad them deliver their message to an Oake standing thereby whilest hee attended other businesse Then one of the three turning himselfe towards the Oake spake on this manner Thou hallowed oake and whatsoever else belongeth to the gods in this place heare and beare witnes of this disloyall part and favor our iust complaints that with the assistance of the gods wee may bee revenged on this injury This done they returned home and shortly after gathering a power of men set upon and over came that truce-breaking Nation In the yeer of Rome built 317 the Fidenates revolted from the friendship and league of the Romans to Toluminus the king of the Veyans and adding cruelty to treason killed foure of their embassadours that came to know the cause of their defection which disloyalty the Romans not brooking undertooke war against them and notwithstanding all their private and forrein strength overthrew and slew them In this battell it is said that a Tribune of the souldiers seeing Toluminus bravely galloping up and down and incouraging his souldiers and the Romans trembling at his approch said Is this the breaker of leagues and violater of the law of nations If there be any holinesse on earth my sword shall sacrifice him to the soules of our slaine embassadours and therewithall setting spurres to his horse he unhorst him and fastening him to the earth with his speare cut off his perfidious head whereat his army dismaied retired and became a slaughter to the enemies Albertus Duke of Franconia having slaine Conrade the Earle of Lotharingia brother to Lewis the fourth then Emperor and finding the Emperors wrath incensed against him for the same betooke himselfe to a strong castle at Bamberg from whence the Emperour neither by force nor policie could remove him for seven yeares space untill Atto the Bishop of Mentz by trecherie delivered him into his hands This Atto under shew of friendship repaired to the castle and gave his faith unto the earle that if he would come downe to parle with the Emperor he should safely return into his hold the Earle mistrusting no fraud went out of the castle gates with the Bishop towards the Emperour but Atto as it were suddenly remembring himselfe when indeed it was his devised plot desireth to returne back and dine ere he went because it was somewhat late so they do dine and returne Now the Earle was no sooner come to the Emperor but he caused to be presently put to death notwithstanding he urged the Bishops promise and oath for his returne for it was answered that his oath was quit by returning backe to dine as he had promised And thus the Earle was wickedly betrayed though justly punished As for Atto the subtill traitor indeed he possessod himselfe by this meanes of the Earles lands but withall the justice of God seised upon him for within a while after he was stricken with a thunderbolt and as some say carried into mount Aetna with this noyse Sicpeccatalues atque ruendorues Cleomenes King of Lacedemonia making warre upon the Argives surprised them by this subtilty he tooke truce with them for seven dayes and the third night whilest they lay secure and unwarie in their truce he oppressed them with a great slaughter saying to excuse his trecherie though no excuse could cleare him from the shame thereof that the truce which he made was for seven dayes onely without any mention of nights howbeit for all this it prospered not so well with him as he wished for the Argie vwomen their husbands slaine tooke armes like Amasons Tolesilla being their captainesse and compassing the citie walls repelled Cleomenes halfe amased with the strangenesse of the sight After which he was banished into Aegypt and there miserably and desperatly slew himselfe The Pope of Rome with all his heard of Bishops opposed himselfe against the Emperor Henry the fourth for he banished him by excommunication from the society of the Catholike Church discharged his subjects from the oath of fealty and sent a crowne of gold to Rodolph king of Suevia to canonize him Emperor the crowne had this inscription Petra dedit Petro Petrus diadema Rodulpho that is The Rocke gave unto Peter and Peter gave unto Rodolph the crown Notwithstanding Rodolph remembring his oath to the Emperour and how vile a part it was to betray him whom he had sworne to obey and defend at first refused the Popes offer howbeit by the persuasion of the Bishops sophistrie he was induced to undertake the
in the field hacked and hewed of his enemies carried on horsebacke dead his haire in despight torne and tugged like a dog besides the inward torments of his guilty conscience were more than all the rest for it is most certainly reported That after this abhominable deed hee never had quiet in his minde when he went abroad his eye whirled about his body was privily fenced his hand ever upon his dagger his countenance and manner like one alwaies ready to strike his sleep short and unquiet full of fearefull dreames insomuch that he would often suddenly start up and leap out of his bed and runne about his chamber his restlesse conscience was so continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression of that abhominable murther CHAP. V. Of such as rebelled against their Superiors because of Subsidies and Taxes imposed upon them AS it is not lawfull for children to rebell against their parents though they be cruell and unnaturall so also it is as unlawfull for subjects to withstand their Princes and Governors though they be somewhat grievous and burthensome unto them which we affirme not to the end that it should be licensed to them to exercise all manner of rigour and unmeasurable oppression upon their subjects as shall be declared hereafter more at large but we entreat onely here of their duties which are in subjection to the power of other men whose authority they ought in no wise to resist unlesse they oppose themselves against the ordinance of God Therefore this position is true by the word of God That no subject ought by force to shake off the yoke of subjection and obedience due unto his Prince or exempt himselfe from any taxe or contribution which by publicke authority is imposed Give saith the Apostle tribute to whom tribute belongeth custome to whom custome pertaineth feare to whom feare is due and honour to whom honour is owing And generally in all actions wherein the commodities of this life though with some oppression and grievance and not the Religion and service of God nor the conscience about the same is called into question we ought with all patience to endure whatsoever burthen or charge is laid upon us without moving any troubles or shewing any discontentments for the same for they that have otherwise behaved themselves these examples following will shew how well they have been appaied for their misdemeanors In the yeare of our Lord 1304 after that Guy Earle of Flanders having rebelled against Philip the Faire his Soveraigne was by strength of armes reduced into subjection and constrained to deliver himselfe and his two sons prisoners into his hands the Flemings made an insurrection against the Kings part because of a certain taxe which he had set upon their ships that arrived at certaine havens and upon this occasion great warre divers battels and sundry overthrowes on each side grew but so that at last the King remained conqueror and the Flemings for a reward of their rebellion lost in the battell six and thirty thousand men that were slaine beside a great number that were taken prisoners Two yeares after this Flemmish stirre there arose a great commotion and hurly burly of the rascall and basest sort of people at Paris because of the alteration of their coines who being not satisfied with the pillage and spoilage of their houses whom they supposed to be either causes of the said alteration or by counsell or other meanes any furtherers thereunto came in great troupes before the Kings Palace at his lodging in the Temple with such an hideous noise and outrage that all the day after neither the King nor any of his officers durst once stir over the threshold nay they grew to that overflow of pride and insolency that the victuals which were provided for the Kings diet and carried to him were by them shamefully throwne under feet in the dirt and trampled upon in despight and disdaine But three or foure daies after this tumult was appeased many of them for their pains were hanged before their own doores and in the city gates to the number of eight and twenty persons In the raigne of Charles the sixth the Parisians by reason of a certaine taxe which he minded to lay upon them banded themselves and conspired together against him they determined once saith Froissard to have beaten downe Loure and S. Vincents castle and all the houses of defence about Paris that they might not be offensive to them But the King though young in yeares handled them so ripe and handsomely that having taken away from them their armor the city gates and chaines of the streets and locked up their weapons in S. Vincents castle hee dealt with them as pleased him And thus their pride being quashed many of them were executed and put to death As also for the like rebellion were at Troyes Orlean Chalon Sens and Rhemes About the same time the Flandrians and especially the inhabitants of Gaunt wrought much trouble against Lewis the Earle of Flanders for divers taxes and tributes which he had layd upon them which they in no respect would yeeld unto The matter came to be decided by blowes and much bloud was shed and many losses endured on both sides as a meanes appointed of God to chastise as well the one as the other The Gaunts being no more in number than five or six thousand men overthrew the Earles army consisting of forty thousand and in pursuit of their victory tooke Bruges whither the Earle was gone for safety and lying in a poore womans house was constrained in the habit of a beggar to fly the City And thus he fared till King Charles the sixth sent an army of men to his succor for he was his subject by whose support he overcame those Rebels in a battell fought at Rose Bec to the number of forty thousand and the body of their chiefetaine Philip Artevil slaine in the throng he caused to be hanged on a tree And this was the end of that cruell Tragedy the countrey being brought againe into the obedience of their old Lord. A while before this whilest King Iohn was held prisoner in England there arose a great commotion of the common people in France against the nobility and gentry of the realme that oppressed them this tumult began but with an hundred men that were gathered together in the countrey of Beauvoisin but that small handfull grew right quickly to an armfull â—â—on to nine thousand that ranged and robbed throughout all Brie along by the river Marne to Laonoise and all about Soissons armed with great bats shod with yron an headlesse crue without Governour fully purposing to bring to ruine the whole nobility In this disorder they wrought much mischiefe broke up many houses and castles murthered many Lords so that divers Ladies and Knights as the Duchesses of Normandy Orleance were fain to fly for safegard to Meaux whither when these Rebels would needs pursue them they
heathen that they that hated them were lords over them In the yeare of our Lord 1551 in a town of Hassia called Weidenhasten The twentieth day of November a cruell mother inspired with Satan shut up all her doores and began to murder her four children on this manner shee snatcht up ā sharpe axe and first set upon her eldest son being but eight yeares old searching him out with a candle behinde a hogs-head where he hid himselfe and presently notwithstanding his pitifull praiers and complaints clave his head in two pieces and chopped off both his armes Next shee killed her daughter of five yeares old after the same manner another little boy of three yeares of age seeing his mothers madnesse hid himselfe poore infant behinde the gate whom as soone as the Tygre espied shee drew out by the haire of the head into the floore and there cut off his head the yongest lay crying in the cradle but halfe a yeare old him she without all compassion pluckt out and murdered in like sort These murders being finished the Diuell incarnate for certaine no womanly nature was left in her to take punishment of her selfe for the same cut her owne throat and albeit she survived nine dayes and confessing her fault dyed with teares and repentance yet we see how it pleased God to arme her own hands against her selfe as the fittest executioners of vengeance The like tragicall accident we reade to have happened at Cutzenborff a City in Silesia in the yeare 1536 to a woman and her three children who having slain them all in her husbands absence killed her selfe in like manner also to make up the tragedy Concerning stepmothers it is a world to reade how many horrible murders they have usually practised upon their children in law to the end to bring the inheritance to their own brood or at least to revenge some injury supposed to be done unto them of which one or two examples I will subnect as a taste out of many hundred leaving the residue to the judgment and reading of the Learned Constantius the son of Heraclius having raigned Emperour but one yeere was poysoned by his stepmother Martina to the end to install her own son Heraclon in the Crown but for this cruell part becomming odious to the Senat they so much hated to have her or her son raigne over them that in stead thereof they cut off her tongue and his nose and so banished them the City Fausta the wife of Constantine the great fell in love with Constantine her sonne in Law begotten upon a Concubine whom when shee could not perswade unto her lust she accused unto the Emperour as a solicitor of her chastity for which cause he was condemned to die but after the truth knowne Constantine put her into a hot bath and suffered her not to come forth untill the heat had choaked her revenging upon her head her sonnes death and her owne unchastity CHAP. XIIII Of Subject Murtherers SEeing then they that take away their neighbours lives doe not escape unpunished as by the former examples it appeareth it must needs follow that if they to whom the sword of Justice is committed of God to represse wrongs and chastise vices do give over themselves to cruelties and to kill and slay those whom they ought in duty to protect and defend must receive a greater measure of punishment according to the measure and quality of their offence Such an one was Saul the first king of Israel who albeit he ought to have beene sufficiently instructed out of the law of God in his duty in this behalfe yet was hee so cruell and bloody-minded as contrary to all Justice to put to death Abimelech the high Priest with fourescore and five other Priests of the family of his father onely for receiving David into his house a small or rather no offence And yet not satisfied therewith he vomited out his rage also against the whole city of the Priests and put to the mercilesse sword both man woman and child without sparing any He slew many of the Gibeonites who though they were reliques of the Amorites that first inhabited that land yet because they were received into league of amity by a solemne oath and permitted of long continuance to dwell amongst them should not have beene awarded as enemies nor handled after so cruell a fashion Thus therefore hee tyrannizing and playing the Butcher amongst his own subjects for which cause his house was called the house of slaughter and practising many other foule enormities he was at the last overcome of the Philistims and sore wounded which when he saw fearing to fall alive into his enemies hands and not finding any of his owne men that would lay their hands upon him desperately slew himselfe The same day three of his sons and they that followed him of his owne houshould were all slaine The Philistims the next day finding his dead body dispoyled among the carkasses beheaded it and carried the head in triumph to the temple of their god and hung up the trunke in disgrace in one of their Cities to be seene lookt upon and pointed at And yet for all this was not the fire of Gods wrath quenched for in King Davids time there arose a famine that lasted three yeeres the cause thereof was declared by God to be the murder which Saul committed upon the Gibeonites wherefore David delivered Sauls seven sons into the Gibeonites hands that were left who put them to the most shamefull death that is even to hanging Amongst all the sins of King Achab and Iezabel which were many and great the murder of Naboth standeth in the fore front for though hee had committed no such crime as might any way deserve death yet by the subtill and wicked devise of Iezabel foolish and credulous consent of Achab and false accusation of the two suborned witnesses he was cruelly stoned to death but his innocent blood was punished first in Achab who not long after the Warre which he made with the King of Syria received so deadly a wound that he dyed thereof the dogs licking up his blood in the same place where Naboths blood was licked according to the foretelling of Elias the Prophet And secondly of Iezabel whom her own servants at the commandement of Iehu whom God had made executor of his wrath threw headlong out of an highwindow unto the ground so that the wals were dyed with her blood and the horses trampled her under their feet and dogs devoured her flesh till of all her dainty body there remained nothing saving onely her skull feet and palme of her hands Ioram sonne of Iehosaphat King of Judah being after his fathers death possessed of the Crowne and Scepter of Judah by and by exalted himselfe in tyranny and put to death sixe of his owne brethren all younger than himselfe with many Princes of the Realme for which cause God stirred up the Edomites to rebell the Philistines and
any good end but ever some notable judgement or other fell upon them CHAP. XV. Of those that are both cruell and disloyall NOw if it be a thing so unworthy and evill beseeming a Prince as nothing more to be stayned with the note of cruelty how much more dishonourable is it when with cruelty disloyalty and falshood is coupled and when he is not ashamed not onely to play the Tyran but also the traitour dissembler and hypocrite to the end hee may more freely poure out the â—ome of his rage against those that put confidence in him This is one of the foulest and vilest blots that can be wherewith the honour and reputation of a man is not onely stayned but blasted and blotted out not ever to be recovered for what perswasion can one have of such Or who is so fond as to put affiance in them This was one of the notorious vices of King Saul when maligning the prosperity of David he cunningly promoted him to be Generall of his Army and married him to one of his daughters to this end that by exposing him to the hazards perils of warre he might bring him to speedy destruction seeking besides other unlawfull means to put him to death by but what was the end of this unjust murderer we have declared in the former Chapter But above all that by treason and deceit made way unto their cruelty the Emperour Antonius surnamed Caracalla was the chiefe who to revenge himselfe more at full upon the Citizens of Alexandria in Aegypt feyned as if he would come see their City built by Alexander and receive an Oracle from their god Which when he approached neere unto the Alexandrians prepared to entertain him most honourably and being entred he went first to visite their Temples where to cast more colours upon his treachery hee offered many sacrifices in the mean while perceiving the people gathered together from all quarters to bid him welcome finding opportunity fitting his wicked and traiterous enterprise he gave commandement that all the young men of the Citie should assemble together at one place saying That hee would acquaint them to range themselves in battell after the manner of the Macedonians in honour of King Alexander But whilest they thus assembled together in mirth and bravery hee making as though he would bring them in array by going up and down amongst them and holding them in talke his army enclosed them on all sides then with drawing himselfe with Kis guard he gave the watch-word that they should rush upon them which was performed with such outrage that the poor credulous people being surprised at unawares were all most cruelly massacred There might you see the most horrible barbarous and incredible butchery of men that ever was heard of for besides those that were actors in this bloody tragedy there were others that drew the slaine bodies into great ditches and very often haled in them that were scarce dead yea and sometimes that were altogether alive which was the cause that divers souldiers perished at the same time when those that having some strength of life left being haled to the ditch held so fast by the halers that divers times both fell in together The bloud that was shed at this massacre was so much that the mouth of the River Nilus and the sea shore were died with the streams thereof that ran downe by smaller Rivers into those plain places Furthermore being desirous to obtain a victory over the Parthians that he might get himselfe fame and reputation thereby he passed not at what rate he bought it he sent therefore Embassadours with Letters and Presents to the King of Parthia to demand his daughter in marriage though he never intended any such thing and being non-suted at the first with a deniall yet pursued he his counterfeit purpose with much earnestnes and with solemne Oath protested his singular good affection and love that he bore unto her so that in the end the match was condescended unto by all parties whereof the Parthian people were not a little glad in hope of so durable a peace which by this marriage was like to be established betwixt them The King therefore with all his subjects being ready to entertain this new Bridegroom went out with one consent to meet him in the mid-way their encounter was in a fair plain where the Parthians having sent backe their horses being unarmed and prepared not for a day of battle but of marriage and disport gave him the most honourable welcome they could but the wicked varlet finding opportunity so fit set his armed souldiers upon the naked multitude and hewed in pieces the most part of them and had not the King with a few followers bestirred him well he had been served with the like sauce After which worthy exploit and bloudy stratagem he took his voyage backeward burning and spoiling the townes and villages as he went till he arrived at Charam a City in Mesopotamia where making his abode a while he had a fancy to walke one day into the fields and going apart from his company to unburden nature attended upon by one onely servant as he was putting downe his breeches another of his company ran in and strucke him through with his dagger Thus God blessed the World by taking out of it this wicked Tyran who by treason and treachery had spilt so much innocent bloud Seturus Galba another bird of the same feather exercised no lesse perfidious cruelty upon the people of three Cities in Lusitania for hee assembled them together in colour of providing for their common affaires but when hee had gotten them into his hands unarmed and weaponlesse he took nine thousand of the flower of their youth and partly committed them to the sword and partly sold them for bondslaves The disloyall and treacherous dealing of Stilico towards the Gothes how dear it cost him and all Italie beside Histories do sufficiently testifie for it fell out that the Gothes under the conduct of Allaricus entered Italie with a puissant and fearfull Army to know the cause why the Emperor Honorius with-held the pension which by vertue of a league and in recompence of their aid to the Empire in time of war was due unto them which by riper judgement and deliberation of the Councell was quieted and to preserve their Countrey from so imminent a tempest offer was made unto them of the Spaniards and French-men if they could recover them out of the hands of the Vandales which usurped over them so that incontinently they should take their journey over the Alpes towards them and depart their Coasts Which offer and gift the Gothes accepting did accordingly fulfill the condition and passed away without commiting any riot or any damages in their passages But as they were upon mount Cinis making toward France behold Stilico Honorius his father in law a man of a stirring stubborne and rash spirit pursueth and chargeth them with battell unawares and
Cassius near Modene all which victories and lucky proceedings did so embolden and puffe up the courage of Captain Fencer that he determined to give an alarme to Rome and to lay siege unto it but the Romanes preparing and directing all their Forces to withstand their practices gave him and his crue so sore a repulse that from Rome they were fain to flie to the uttermost parts of Italie and there seeing themselves pent in on all sides and driven to deep extremity they gave so desperate an onset on their enemies that both their Captain and they were all slain And thus the Romans made jolly pastime with their Fencers and bondslaves and more I thinke at this time than they either looked or wished for for four hundred of them being taken by the bondmen were enforced to shew them pastime at the same game whereat they had oftentimes made themselves merry at their costs and to kill one another as they had before time caused them to do How curious and desirous the people of Rome was wont to be of beholding these bloudy and mischievous games Cornelius Tacitus in the fourth book of his Annales declareth at large where he reporteth That in the City of the Fidenates in the twelfth year of the Raigne of Tiberius the people being gathered together to behold the Fencers prizes were fifty thousand of them hurt and maimed at one time by the Amphitheatre that fell upon them a cruell pastime indeed and a strange accident not comming by adventure as some suppose but by the just vengeance of God to suppresse such pernitious and uncivill sports The same story is registred by Paulus Orosius in his seventh book with this adjection That at that time were slain more than twenty thousand persons I cannot passe over in silence two notable and memorable Histories of two Lions recorded by two famous Authours Seneca the one and Auluâ— Gellius the other The first of whom reporteth That he saw on the Theatre a Lion who seeing a slave that sometimes had been his keeper throwne among the beasts to be devoured acknowledged him and defended him from their teeth and would not suffer any of them to do him hurt The second bringeth the testimony of one Appianus that affirmeth himselfe to have seen at Rome a Lion who for old acquaintance sake which he had with a condemned servant fawned upon him and cleared him in like manner from the fury of the other beasts The History was this A certain bondslave too roughly handled by his master forsook him and fled away and in his flight retiring into a desart and not knowing how to bestow himselfe took up a cave for his lodging where he had not long abode but a mighty Lion came halting to his den with a sore and bloudy leg the poor slave all forgone at this strange and ugly sight looked every minute to be devoured but the Lion in another mood came fawningly and softly towards him as if he would complain unto him of his grief whereat somewhat heartened he bethought himselfe to apply some medicine to his would and to binde up the sore as well as he could which he had no sooner done but the Lion made out for his prey and ere long returning brought home to his Host and Chirurgion certain gobbets of raw flesh which he halfe roasting upon a rocke by the Sun-beames made his daily sustenance for the time of his abode there notwithstanding at length wearied with this old and savage life and hating to abide long in that estate he for sook the desart and put himselfe again to adventure now it chanced that he was taken by his old master and carried from Aegypt to Rome to the end to be an actor in those beastly Tragoedies but by chance his old patient the Lion taken also since his departure being ready amongst other beasts to play his part knew him by and by and ran unto him fawning and making much of him the people wondring at this strange accident after enquiry made of the cause thereof gave him the Lion and caused him to lead him in a string through the City for a miracle for indeed both this and the former deserve no other name Thus God reproveth the savage inhumanity of men by the example of the wilde and furious beasts at whose teeth poor servants found more favour than at their masters hands The Emperour Constamine weighing the indignity of these and such like pastimes and knowing how far they ought to be banished from the society of men by a publike Edict abolished all such bloudy and monstrous spectacles In like manner these monomachies and single combates performed in places inclosed for the purpose wherein one at the least if not both must of necessary die ought to be abrogated in a Christian policy as by the Laterane Councell it was well enacted with this penalty That whosoever should in that manner be slain his body should be deprived of Ecclesiasticall buriall and truely most commonly it commeth to passe that they that presume most upon their owne prowesse and strength and are most forward in offering combat either lose their lives or gain discredit which is more grievous than death CHAP. XIX Of such as exercise too much rigour and severity FUrthermore we must understand that God doth not only forbid murder and bloudshed but also all tyranny and oppression therein providing for the weak against the strong the poor against the rich and bondslaves against their masters to the end that none might be trode under foot and oppressed of others under pain of his indignation Insomuch therefore as the Romans used such rigour towards their servants it came to passe by a just judgement of God that they being Lords over all the World were three sundry times driven by their servants into great extremities As first in Rome within the wals at the sametime when they also were troubled with the seditious factions of their Tribunes Secondly in Sicily where they horribly laid waste the whole Countrey the cause of which commotion was because the Romans had chained a multitude of slaves together and in that order sent them to maâ—â—ur and till the ground for a certain Syrian first assembled two thousand men of them that came next hand then breaking up the Prisons multiplied his Army to fourty thousand and with them pulled downe Castles rased up Townes and destroyed every where The third undertaken by a Shepherd who having killed his master set at liberty all the â—ondmen and prepared an Army of them wherewith he spoiled Cities Townes Castles and discomfited the Armies of Servilius and Lucullus who were pretors at that time but at last they were destroyed and rooted out by little and little and this good service got the Romans at their servants hands As every Nation hath his proper vertue and vice ascribed to it so the Spaniards for their part are noted famous for cruelty towards their subjects and vassals insomuch that as experience
followeth by the order of our subject now to touch the transgression of the third Commandement of the second Table which is Thou shalt not commit Adultery in which words as also in many other Texts of Scripture Adultery is forbidden and grievous threatnings denounced against all those that defile their bodies with filthy and impure actions estrange themselves from God and conjoyne themselves to whores and ribauds This sin did the Israelites commit with the woman of Madian by means whereof they were to follow strange gods and to fall into Gods heavie displeasure who by a cruell Plague destroyed 24000. of them for the same sin And forasmuch as the Madianites through the wicked and pernicious counsell of Balaam did lay this snare for them and were so villanous and shamelesse as to prostitute and be Bauds to their owne wives therefore they were by the expresse Commandement of God discomfited their Kings and false prophets with all their men and women except onely their unpolluted virgins that had knowne no man slain and all their Cities and dwellings burned and consumed to ashes As every one ought to have regard and care to their honesty so maides especially whose whole credit and reputation hangeth thereupon for they that make no account thereof but suffer themselves to be polluted with any filthinesse draw upon them not onely most vile infamy but also many great miseries as is proved by the daughter of Hippomenes Prince of Athens who being a whore her father shut up in a stable with a wilde horse giving him no provender nor other meat to eat that the horse naturally furious enough but more enraged by famine might tear her in pieces and with her carkase refresh his hunger as he did Pontus Aufidian understanding that his daughter had been betrayed and sold into a lechers hands by a slave of his that was her schoolmaster put them both to death In like manner served Pub. Atilius Falisque his daughter that fell into the same infamy Vives reporteth that in our fathers dayes two brothers of Arragon perceiving their sister whom they ever esteemed for honest to be with childe hiding their displeasure untill her delivery was past came in suddenly and stabbed her into the belly with their daggers till they killed her in the presence of a sage matron that was witnesse to their deed The same Authour saith That when he was a young man there were three in the same Countrey that conspired the death of a companion of theirs that went about to commit this villany and as they conspired so they performed it strangling him to death with a napkin as he was going to his filthinesse As for Adulterers examples are infinite both of their wicked lives and miserable ends In which number many of them may be scored that making profession of a single life and undertaking the vow of chastity shew themselves monstrous knaves and ribauds as many of the Popes themselves have done As we reade of Iohn the Eleventh bastard son to Lando his predecessour who by meanes of his Adulteries with Theodora then Governesse of Rome came by degrees to the Papacy so he passed the blessed time of his holy Popeship with this vertuous Dame to whom he served instead of a common Horse to satisfie her insatiable and disordinate lust but the good and holy father was at last taken and castin prison and there smothered to death with a pillow Benedict the Eleventh diâ—ing on a time with an Abbesse his familiar was poysoned with certain figs that he eat Clement the Fifth was reported to be a common Bawd and a protectour of whores he went apart into Avignion and there stayed of purpose to do nothing but whore-hunt he died in great torment of the bloudy flux plurisie and grief of the stomacke In our English Chronicles we reade of Sir Roger Mortimer Earl of March in the time of Edward the Third who having secret familiarity with Isabel Edward the Seconds wife was not onely the cause to stir her up to make war against her husband but also when he was vanquished by her and deposed from his Crowne his young son being installed in his Throne caused him most cruelly to be put to death by thrusting a hot spit into his body at his fundament He also procured the Earle of Kent the Kings uncle to be arraigned and beheaded at Winchester for that he withstood the Queenes and his dealings and would not suffer them to do what they listed All these mischiefes sprung out from the filthy root of Adultery But the just judgement of God not permitting such odious crimes to be unpunished nor undetected it so fell forth at the length that Isabel the old Queen was discovered to be with childe by the said Mortimer whereof complaint being made to the King as also of the killing of King Edward his father and conspiring and procuring the death of the Earle of Kent the Kings uncle he was arreigned and indicted and by verdict found guilty and suffered death accordingly like a Traitor his head being exalted upon London-bridge for a spectacle for all murderers and adulterers to behold that they might see and fear the heavy vengeance of God CHAP. XXI Of Rapes NOw if Adultery which with liking and consent of parties is committed be condemned how much more grievous and hainous is the offence and more guilty the offendour when with violence the chastity of any iâ— assailed and enforced This was the sin wherewith Sichem the son of Hemor the Levite is marked in holy Scripture for he ravished Dina Iacobs daughter for which cause Simeon and Levi revenged the injury done unto their sister upon the head of not onely him and his father but all the Males that were in the City by putting them to the sword It was a custome amongst the Spartans and Messenians during the time of peace betwixt them to send yearly to one another certain of their daughters to celebrate certain feasts and sacrifices that were amongst them now in continuance of time it chanced that fifty of the Lacedemonian virgins being come to those solemne feasts were pursued by the Messenian gallants to have their pleasures of them but they joyntly making resistance and fighting for their honesties strove so long not one yeelding themselves a prey into their hands till they all died whereupon arose so long and miserable a war that all the Countrey of Messena was destroyed thereby Aristoclides a Tyran of Orchomenus a City of Arcadia fell enamored with a maid of Stymphalis who seeing her father by him slain because he seemed to stand in his purposes light fled to the Temple of Diana to take Sanctuary neither could once be plucked from the image of the goddesse untill her life was taken from her but her death so incensed the Arcadians that they fell to Armes and sharpely revenged her cruell injury Appius a Roman a man of power and authority in the City inflamed with the love of a virgine
whose father hight Virginius would needs make her his servant to the end to abuse her the more freely and whilest he endeavoured with all his power and policy to accomplish his immoderate lust her father slew her with his owne hands more willing to prostitute her to death than to so soul an opprobry and disgrace but every man stirred up with the wofulnesse of the event with one consent pursued apprehended and imprisoned the foul lecher who fearing the award of a most shamefull death killed himselfe to prevent a further mischief In the year of our Lord 1271. under the Raigne of the Emperour Rodolph the Sicilians netled and enraged with the horrible whoredomes adulteries and Rapes which the Garrisons that had the government over them committed not able any longer to endure their insolent and outragious demeanour entered a secret and common conspiracy upon a time appointed for the purpose which was on Easter Sunday at the shutting in of the evening to set upon them with one accord and to murder so many as they could as they did for at that instant they massacred so many throughout the whole Island that of all the great multitude there survived not one to bear tidings or bewail the dead At Naples it chanced in the Kings Palace as young King Fredericke Ferdinands son entered the Privy Chamber of the Queen his mother to salute her and the other Ladies of the Court that the Prince of Bissenio waiting in the outward chamber for his returne was slain by one of his owne servants that suddenly gave him with his sword three deadly strokes in the presence of many beholders which deed he confessed he had watched three yeares to performe in regard of an injury done unto his sister and in her to him whom he ravished against her will The Spaniards that first took the Isle Hispaniola were for their whoredomes and Rapes which they committed upon the wives and virgines all murdered by the inhabitants The inhabitants of the Province Cumana when they saw the beastly outrage of the Spanish Nation that lay along their Coasts to fish for Pearle in forcing and ravishing without difference their women young and old set upon them upon a Sunday morning with all their force and slew all that ever they found by the Sea-coasts Westward till there remained not one alive and the fury of the rude uncivill people was so great that they spared not the Monkes in their Cloysters but cut their throats as they were mumbling their Masses burnt up the Spanish houses both religious and private burst in pieces their bels drew about their Images hurld downe their Crucifixes and cast them in disgrace and contempt overthwart their streets to be troden upon nay they destroyed whatsoever belonged unto them to their very dogs and hennes and their owne countrymen that served them in any service whether religious or other they spared not they beat the earth and cursed it with bitter curses because it had upholden such wicked and wretched Caitises Now the report of this massacre was so fearfull and terrible that the Spaniards which were in Cubagna doubted much of their lives also and truly not without great cause for if the Indians of the Continent had been furnished and provided with sufficient store of barkes they had passed even into that Island and had served them with the same sauce which their fellowes were served with for they wanted not will but ability to do it And these are the goodly fruits of their Adulteries and Rapes which the Spanish Nation hath reaped in their new-found land The great calamity and overthrow which the Lacedemonians indured at Lectria wherein their chiefest strength and powers were weakened and consumed was a manifest punishment of their inordinate lust committed upon two virgins whom after they had ravished in that very place they cut in pieces and threw them into a pit and when their father came to complain him of the villany they made so light account of his words that in stead of redresse he found nothing but reproach and derision so that with grief he slew himselfe upon his daughters sepulchre but how grievously the Lord revenged this injury Histories do sufficiently testifie and that Leuctrian calamity doth bear witnesse Brias a Grecian Captain being received into a Citizens house as a guest forced his wife by violence to his lust but when he was asleep to revenge her wrong she put out both his eyes and afterward complained to the Citizens also who deprived him of his Office and cast him out of their City Macrinus the Emperour punished two Souldiers that ravished their Hostesse on this manner he shut them up in an Oxes bowels with their heads out and so partly with famishment and partly with wormes and rottennesse they consumed to death Rodericus King of the Gothes in Spain forced an Earles daughter to his lust for which cause her father brought against him an Army of Sarasens and Moores and not onely slew him with his son but also quite extinguished the Gothicke kingdom in Spain in this war and upon this occasion seven hundred thousand men perished as Histories record and so a kingdom came to ruine by the perverse lust of one lecher Anno 714. At the sacking and destruction of Thebes by King Alexander a Thracian Captain which was in the Macedonian Army took a noble Matron prisoner called Timoclea whom when by no perswasion of promises he could intice to his lust he constrained by force to yeeld unto it but this noble minded woman invented a most witty and subtle shift both to rid her selfe out of his hands and to revenge his injury she told him that she knew where a rich treasure lay hid in a deep pit whither when with greedinesse of the gold he hastened and standing upon the brinke pried and peered into the bottome of it she thrust him with both her hands into the hole and tumbled stones after him that he might never finde meanes to come forth for which fact she was brought before Alexander to have justice who demanding her what she was she answered that Theagenes who led the Thebane Army against the Macedonians was her brother Alexander perceiving the marvellous constancy of the woman and knowing the cause of her accusation to be unjust manumitted and set her free with her whole Family When Câ— Manlius having conquered the Gallo-Grecians pitched his Army against the Tectosages people of Narbonia towards the Pyrene monntaines amongst other prisoners a very fair woman wife to Orgiagous Regulus was in the custody of a Centurion that was both lustfull and covetous this lecher tempted her first with fair perswasions and seeing her unwilling compelled her with violence to yeeld her body as slave to fortune so to infamy and dishonour after which act somewhat to mitigate the wrong he gave her promise of release and freedom upon condition of a certain sum of money and to that purpose sent
for her living wherefore she murthered him in his bed and after slew her selfe also Arichbertus eldest son unto Lotharius King of France dyed even as hee was embracing his whores In summe to conclude this matter our English Chronicles report that in the yeare of our Lord 349 there was so great a plenty of corne and fruit in Britaine that the like had not been seene many yeares before but this was the cause of much idlenesse gluttony lechery and other vices in the land For usually case and prosperity are the nurses of all enormity but the Lord requited this their riotous and incontinent life with so great a pestilence and mortality that the living scantly sufficed to bury the dead Petrarch maketh mention of a certaine Cardinall that though hee was seventy yeares old yet every night would have a fresh whore and to this end had certaine bauds purveyours and providers of his trash but he dyed a miserable and wretched death And Martin Luther reported that a bishop being a common frequenter of the stewes in Hidelberg came to this mistrable end the boards of the chamber whither he used to enter went loosened that as soone as he came in he slipped through and broke his neck But above all that which we finde written in the second booke of Fincelius is most strange and wonderfull of a priest in Albenthewer a towne neare adjoyning to Gaunt in Flanders that perswaded a young maid to reject and disobey all her parents godly admonitions and to become his concubine when she objected how vile a sin it was and how contrary to the Law of God he told her that by the authority of the Pope he could dispence with any wickednesse were it never so great and further alledged the discommodities of marriage and the pleasure that would arise from that kinde of life in fine he conquered her vertuous purpose and made her yeeld unto his filthy lust But when they had thus pampered their desires together a while in came the devill and would needs conclude the play for as they were banquetting with many such like companions he tooke her away from the Priests side and notwithstanding her pittifull crying and all their exorcising and conjuring carried her quite away telling the Priest that very shortly he would fetch him also for he was his owne darling I may not here passe over in silence an Irish history famous both for notorious villany and excellent in justice wherein we may see by the adultery of one filthy Fryer occasion given not only of much bloodshed but of the ruine of a famous City called Rosse scituate in Leinster This City being first an unwalled towne was to prevent the sudden invasion of the Irish compassed about with a large and strong wall by the advice and charges of one Rose a chaste widdow and bountifull Gentlewoman This Rose had issue three sons who being bolstered out by their mothers wealth and their owne traffique made divers prosperous voyages into far countries but as one of the three chapmen was employed in his traffique abroad so the pretty poppet his wise began to play the harlot at home and that with none but a fat religious cloysterer of the towne they wallowed so long in this stinking puddle that suspition began to creepe into mens braines and from suspition the matter was so apparent that it grew to plaine proofe her unfortunate husband was no sooner come home but notice hereof was blowne in his eares so that with griefe and anger he grew for such is the nature of jealousâ—e almost starke mad and not only he but the whole towne took themselves as extreamely wronged by this shamefull fact whereupon divers of them conspiring together agreed as being a deed of charity to grub away such wilde shrubs from the towne and so flocking together in the dead of the night to the Abbey wherein this Fryet was cloystered the monument of which Abbey is yet to be seen at Rosse on the South side they undersparred the gates and breaking open the doores stabbed the Adulterer with the rest of the Covent through with their weapons where they left them goaring in their blood and gasping up their ghosts in their couches a cruell act I must needs confesse in the executioners who being carried away with private revenge had no measure in their cruelty but yet a just vengeance upon the executed that harboured and maintained so wretched a person but secret and deep are the judgements of God who punisheth one sin with another and maketh one wicked man a rod to plague another and after casteth the rod also into the fire for so did he here stirring up the rest of the Clergy to be a meanes to punish this cruelty for when as these three brethren not long after sped themselves into some far countrey to continue their trade the religious men being informed of their returne homeward every night did not misse to set a lantorne on the top of a high rock which was used to be set upon the Hulk tower a notable marke for Pilots in directing them which way to sterne their Ships and to eschew the danger of the rockes which are there very plentifull and so by this practise these three passengers bearing saile with a good winde made right upon the lantorne supposing it had been the Hulk tower and so ere they were aware their Ship was dasht upon the rockes and all the passengers over-whirled in the Sea And thus was Adultery punished with cruelty and cruelty with treason but see the end upon this there grew so great quarrels and discontentments between the townesmen and the religious the one cursing the other that the estate of that flourishing towne was turned upside downe and from abundance of prosperity quite exchanged to extreame penury CHAP. XXX More examples of the same argument I Cannot passe over in silence a history truly tragicall touching the death of many men who by reason of an Adultery slew one another in most strange and cruell manner and indeed so strangely that as far as I ever read or knew there was never the like particular deed heard of wherein God more evidently poured forth the streame of his displeasure turning the courage and valour of each part into rage and fury to the end that by their owne meanes he might be revenged on them In the Dukedome of Spaleto which is the way from Ancona to Rome of the antient Latines called Umbria there were three brethren who kept in their possession three Cities of the said Dukedome namely Faligno Nocera and Trevio the eldest of whom whose sirname was Nicholas as he passed from one town to the other being at Nocera lodged divers times in the Castle in the keepers and Captaines house whom he had there substituted to defend the place with an ordinary band of souldiers Now as he made his abode there a few dayes he grew to cast a more lascivious eye upon the Captaines wife than was
notoriously and fearefully manifested therein that when the holy Ghost would strike a terrour into the most wicked he threateneth them with this like punishment saying The Lord will raine upon each wicked one Fire snares and brimstone for their portion Howbeit this maketh not but that still there are too many such monsters in the World so mightily is it corrupted and depraved neither is it any marvell seeing that divers Bishops of Rome that take upon them to be Christs Vicars and Peters successours are infected with this filthy contagion As namely Pope Iulius the third whose custome was to promote none to Ecclesiasticall livings save only his buggerers Amongst whom was one Innocent whom this holy father contrary to the Suffrages of the whole Colledge would needs make Cardinall nay the unsatiable and monstrous lust of this beastly and stinking goat was so extraordinary that he could not abstaine from many Cardinals themselves Iohn de la Casae a Florentine by birth and by office Archbishop of Benevento and Deane of his Apostaticall chamber was his Legat and Intelligencer in all the Venetian Seigniories a man equall or rather worse then himselfe and such a one as whose memory ought to be accursed of all posterity for that detestable booke which he composed in commendation and praise of Sodomie and was so shamelesse nay rather possessed with some devillish and uncleane spirit as to divulgate it to the view of the world Here you may see poore soules the holinesse of those whom you so much reverence and upon whom you build your beliefe and religion you see their brave and excellent vertues and of what esteeme their lawes and ordinances ought to be amongst you Now touching the end that this holy father made it is declared in the former booke among the ranke of Atheists where we placed him And albeit that he and such like villaines please their owne humours with their abominations and approve and cleare themselves therein yet are they rewarded by death not only by the law of God but also by the law of Iulia. When Charlemaigne reigned in France there happened a most notable judgement of God upon the Monkes of S. Martin in Tours for their disordinate lusts they were men whose food was too much and dainty whose case was too easie and whose pleasures were too immoderate being altogether addicted to pastimes and merriments in their apparell they went clad in silke like great Lords and as Nichol. Gill. in his first Volume of French Chronicles saith their shooes were gilt over with Gold so great was the super fluity of their riches and pride in summe their whole life was luxurious and infamous for which cause there came forth a destroying Angel from the Lord by the report of Budes the Abbot of Clugnie and slew them all in one night as the first born of Aegypt were slaine save one only person that was preserved as Lot in Sodome was preserved This strange accident moved Charlemaigne to appoint a brotherhood of Canons to be in their roome though little better and as little profitable to their Commonwealth as the former It is not for nothing that the law of God forbiddeth to lie with a beast and denounceth death against them that commit this foule sin for there have been such monsters in the world at some times as we reade in Calius and Volaterranus of one Crathes a shepheard that accompanied carnally with a shee Goat but the Buck finding him sleeping offended and provoked with this strange action ran at him so furiously with his hornes that he left him dead upon the ground God that opened an Asses mouth to reprove the madnesse of the false Prophet Balaam and sent Lions to kill the strange inhabitants of Samaria employed also this Buck about his service in executing just vengeance upon a wicked varlet CHAP. XXXV Of the wonderfull evill that ariseth from this greedinesse of lust IT is to good reason that Scripture forbids us to abstain from the lust of the flesh and the eyes which is of the world and the corruption of mans own nature forsomuch as by it we are drawn to evill it being as it were a corrupt root which sendeth forth most bitter sowre and rotten fruit and this hapneth not only when the goods riches of the world are in quest but also when a man hunteth after dishonest and unchaste delights this concupiscence is it that bringeth forth whoredomes adulteries and many other such sinnes whereout spring forth oftentimes flouds of mischiefes and that divers times by the selfe-will and inordinate desire of private and particular persons what did the lawlesse lust of Potiphars Wife bring upon Ioseph Was not his life indangered and his body kept in close prison where he cooled his feet two yeares or more We have a most notable example of the miserable end of a certain woman with the sacking and destruction of a whole City and all caused by her intemperance and unbridled lust About the time that the Emperour Phocas was slain by Priscus one Gysulphus Governour and Chieftain of a Countrey in Lumbardy going out in defence of his Countrey against the Bavarians which were certaine reliques of the Hunnes gave them battell and lost the field and his life withall Now the Conquerours pursuing their victory laid siege to the chief City of his Province where Romilda his Wife made her abode who viewing one day from the wals the young and fair King with yellow curled lockes galloping about the City fell presently so extreamly in love with him that her minde ran of nothing but satisfying her greedy and new conceived lust wherefore burying in oblivion the love of her late husband with her young infants yet living and her Countrey and preferring her owne lust before them all she sent secretly unto him this message That if he would promise to marry her she would deliver up the City into his hands he well pleased with this gentle offer through a desire of obtaining the City which without great bloudshed and losse of men he could not otherwise compasse accepted of it and was received upon this condition within the wals and lest he should seeme too perfidious he performed his promise of marriage and made her his wife for that one night but soone after in scorne and disdaine he gave her up to twelve of his strongest lechers to glut her unquenchable fire and finally nailed her on a gibbet for a finall reward of her treâ—cherous and boundlesse lust Marke well the misery whereinto this wretched woman threw her selfe and not only her selfe but a whole City also by her boiling concupiscence which so dazled her understanding that she could not consider how undecent it was dishonest and inconvenient for a woman to offer her selfe nay to solicite a man that was an enemie a stranger and one that she had never seen before to her bed and that to the utter undoing of her selfe and all hers But even thus
he challenged him for dancing in Asia which he maketh a matter of so great reproach that not daring to maintain or excuse the fact he flatly denyeth it saying That no sober and discreet man ever would commit that fault unlesse his sence and reason was bereft him Plutarch also setting forth the vertues of women putteth in this among the rest that she ought to be no dancer and speaking in another place to all others as well as women biddeth them to repulse even their friends if they should lead and entice them to that exercise Besides all the ancient Doctors of the Church have utterly condemned them as unlawfull Thou learnest to sing prophane and idle songs saith Basil and forgettest the godly Psalmes and Hymnes which were enact â—ught thee thou caperest and leapest with thy feet in dances unwise as thou art when aâ— thou shouldest rather bend thy knees in prayer to the almighty but what gaine 〈◊〉 got thereby 〈◊〉 Marry this that virgins returne robbed of their virginities and married wives of their trâ—th to their husbands both and all lesse chaste than they went and more dishonest than they should if not in act which peradventure may be yet stainedin thought which cannot be eschewed Heare saith Chrysost. you maids and wives which are not ashamed to dance and trip it at others marriages and to pollute your seâ—es wheresoever a lascivious dance is danced there the devill beareth the other part and is the author of it It is better saith Ambrose to dig and delve upon holy daies than to dance And in another place writing to his sister he saith That he â—eed not care for dissolute behaviours and songs which are used as marriages to make him merry withall for when banquets are concluded with dances then is chastity in an evill case and in great danger to suffer shipwracke by those suspitious allurements Besides this dancing hath been absolutely forbidden by consent of the whole Church of Christ before time under paine of excommunication as it may appeare by the Constantinopolitan Councell under Iustinian the Emperour what answer can they make then to this that are Christians and allow of these forbidden sports Is it the denying of a mans selfe The spirituall regeneration The putting off the old man touching our conversation in this life And if all adultery and uncleanenesse all filthinesse and foolish talking jesting and such like ought not once to be named amongst us because they are things not comely If I say it be not lawfull to jeast or speake the least lascivious word that is how shall it be lawfull to doe an action with the motion and consent of the whole body which representeth nothing else but folly vanity and lasciviousnesse And this is for them that demand where dancing is forbidden in the Scripture which I touch as it were by the way and doe but point at not minding to frame any long discourse thereof seeing there is a particular treatise touching the same matter which he may reade that desireth to know any more touching it Now let us see what goodly fruits and commodities have risen therefrom The daughters of the children of Israel being dancing in Silo upon a festivall day after the manner of the uncircumcised Idolaters were ravished by the Benjamites for to be their wives and that mixtly without regard of one or other were they of never so high or base condition At the feast which Herod the Tetrarch made to the Princes and Captaines and Nobles of Galilee the daughter of Herodias pleased him and his company so well with her dancing that to gratifie this filthy strumpet the incestuous Tyran caused Iohn Baptist to be beheaded Lodowicke Archbishop of Magdeburge celebrating a solemne feast at a towne called Calven invited many of the worthy Citizens to make merry with him the place for their joyalty was the great hall wherein judiciall causes were appointed to be discussed Here after the banquet ended they fell a dancing men and women mixtly together such a ridiculous roundelay and such a multitude that what with the weight of their bodies or rather the indignation of God against them for this scurrilous and immodest behaviour the beames of the house began to crack and threaten a certain ruine whereat the Archbishop affrighted caught hold by a faire dame and began first to goe downe the staires but the steps afore loosened as soone as he trode upon them tumbled downe and he and his consort headlong withall and were crushed in pieces And thus he that was principall of the feast and sport was made an example to all the rest of the Lords vengeance because he dishonoured his calling and profession by such lewd and light behaviour and this was one goodly effect of dauncing Another we reade of in the Chronicles of the same City to this effect in a village called Ossemer adjoyning to Stendell As the Popish Priest played the minstrell to his parishioners that danced the morris before him and rejoyced in their merry May-games a tempest arose and a thunderbolt struck off his night hand together with the harpe which he played on and consumed about twenty foure men and women of the company a just punishment of so prophane a Priest who in stead of dehorting them as his duty bound him from that lascivious custome played the chiefe part in their madnesse and was an inticer of them unto it Moreover in many places by dances grievous and spitefull quarrels have been stirred up and many murders executed the examples whereof are so evident and notorious that it is not needfull now to stand upon them to conclude therefore this point with the saying of Lodovicus Vives There is not a greater vanity in the world than dancing for saith he I heard of certain men of Asia that comming into Spaine when they first saw the Spaniards dance were so sore affrighted that they ran away for feare supposing them to have been either possessed with some spirit or out of their wits at least and truly I thinke if a man had never seen a woman dance before he could hardly be of another judgement there being nothing that resembleth frenzie and lunacy more than the strange shakings and motions of the body at the noise of a beaten sheep-skin verily it is a pastime to mark the grave behaviour the measurable march the pomp and ostentation of women dancers and the great care they have to performe wisely so foolish an action it is very likely that all their wit at that time is distilled from their head into their feet for there it is more requisite and needfull than in their braine Thus much saith Lodovicus Vives Now touching Mummeries and Maskes I place them in the same ranke with the other for somuch as they are derived from the same fountaine and communicate the same nature and produce the same effects and oftentimes are so pernicious that divers honourable women have been ravished and conveyed away by their
him But if he would have given all the world it could not ransome him from death wherefore when he saw there was no remedie but hee must needs die hee commended his soule to the Divell to be carried into everlasting torments which words when hee had uttered hee gave up the ghost Another Usurer being ready to die made this his last Will and Testament My soule quoth he I bequeath to the divell who is owner of it my wife likewise to the divell who induced me to this ungodly trade of life and my deacon to the divell for soothing me up and not reproving me for my faults and in this desperate persuasion he died incontinently Usury consisteth not only in lending and borowing but buying and selling also and all unjust and crafty bargaining yea and it is a kinde of usurie to detain through too much covetousnesse those commodities from the people which concerne the publike good and to hoord them up for their private gain til some scarcitie orwant arise and this also hath evermore beene most sharpely punished as by these examples may appeare About the yeare 1543. at what time a great famine and dearth of bread afflicted the world there was in Saxonie a countrey peasant that having carried his corne to the market and sold it cheaper than he looked for as he returned homewards he fell into most heavy dumpes and dolours of minde with griefe that the price of graine was abated and when his servants sang merrily for joy of that blessed cheapnesse he rebuked them most sharpely and cruelly yea and was so much the more tormented and troubled in minde by how much he more he saw any poore soule thankfull unto God for it but marke how God gave him over to a reprobate and desperate sence Whilest his servants rode before hee hung himselfe at the cart taile being past recoverie of life ere any man looked backe or perceived him A notable example for our English cormorants who joyne barne to barne and heape to heape and will not sell nor give a handful of their superfluitie to the poore when it beareth a low price but preserve it till scarcity and want come and then they sell it at their owne rate let them feare by this lest the Lord deale so or worse with them Another covetous wretch when he could not sel his cornesodear as hee desired said the mise should eat it rather than he would lessen one jot of the price thereof Which words were no sooner spoken but vengeance tooke them for all the mise in the countrey flocked to his barnes and fieldes so that they left him neither standing nor lying corne but devoured all This story was written to Martin Luther upon occasion whereof he inveying mightily against this cruell usurie of husbandmen told of three misers that in one yeare hung themselves because graine bore a lower price than they looked for adding moreover that all such cruell and muddy extortioners deserved no better a doome for their unimercifull oppression Another rich farmer whose barnes were full of graine and his stacks untouched was so covetous withall that in hope of some dearth and deerenesse of corne he would not diminish one heape but hoorded up dayly more and more and wished for a scarcity upon the earth to the end hee might enrich his coffers by other mens necessities This cruell churle rejoyced so much in his aboundance that everie day he would go into his barnes and feed his eyes with his superfluitie Now it fell out as the Lord would that having supped and drunke very largely upon a night as hee went according to his custome to view his riches with a candle in his hand behold the wine or rather the justice of God overcame his sences so that he fell downe suddenly into the mow and by his fall set on fire the corne being dry and easie to be incensed in such sort that in a moment all that which he had scraped together and preserved so charily and delighted in so unreasonably was consumed and brought to ashes and scarce he himselfe escaped with his life Another in Misnia in the yeare 1559 having great store of corne hoordedup refused to succor the necessitie of his poore halfe famished neighbours for which cause the Lord punished him with a strange and unusuall judgement for the corne which he so much cherished assumed life and became feathered fowles flying out of his barnes in such abundance that the world was astonished thereat and his barnes left emptie of all provision in most wonderfull and miraculous manner No lesse strange was that which happened in a towne of France called Stenchansen to the Governour of the towne who being requested by one of his poore subjects to sell him some corne for his money when there was none to be gotten elsewhere answered hee could spare none by reason he had scarce enough for his owne hogs which hoggish disposition the Lord requited in it owne kinde for his wife at the next litter brought forth seven pigs at one birth to increase the number of his hogs that as he had preferred filthie and ougly creatures before his poore brethren in whom the image of God in some sort shined forth so he might have of his owne getting more of that kinde to make much of since hee loved them so well Equall to all the former both in cruelty touching the person and miracle touching the judgement was that which is reported by the same authour to have happened to a rich couetous woman in Marchia who in an extreame dearth of victuals denyed not onely to relieve a poore man whose children were ready to starve with famine but also to sell him but one bushell of corne when he wanted but a penny of her price for the poore wretch making great shift to borrow that penny returned to her againe and desired her he might have the corn but as he payed her the mony the penny fell upon the ground by the providence of God which as she stretched out obeisance and vaile bonnet to the hat and in every respect shew themselves as dutifull unto it as to his owne person imagining that his greatest enemies could not endure nor finde in their hearts to do it and therefore upon this occasion he might apprehend them and discover all their close practises and conspiracies which they might brew against him now there was one a stout hearted man that passing everie day up and downe that wayes could in no wise be brought to reverence the dignitie of the worthy hat so unreasonable a thing it seemed in his eyes whereupon being taken the tyran commanded him for punishment of his open contempt to shoot at an apple laid upon the crowne of the head of his dearest childe and if he mist the apple to be put to death the poore man after many excuses and allegations and entreaties that he might not hazard his childes life in that sort was notwithstanding
was this onely denounced but executed also as we may reade 1 Kin. 22. 38. 2 Kin. 9. 36 37 c. 2 Kin. 10. 7 c. Amaziah the Priest of Bethel under Ieroboam the wicked King of Israel perceiving how the Prophet Amos prophesied against the Idolatry of that place and of the King he falsly accused him to Ieroboam to have conspired against him also he exhorted him to flie from Bethel because it was the Kings Chappell and flie into Judah and prophesie there but what said the Lord unto him by the Prophet Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line and thou shalt die in a polluted land Loe there was the punishment of his false accusation How notable was the judgement that the Lord manifested upon Hamon the Syrian for his false accusing of the Jewes to be disturbers of the Common-wealth and breakers of the lawes of King Ahasuerosh Did not the Lord turne his mischief upon his own head The same day that was appointed for their destruction the Lord turned it to the destruction of their enemies and the same gallowes which he prepared for Mordecai was he himselfe hanged upon The men that falsly accused Daniel to King Darius for breaking the Kings edict which was that none should make any request unto any for thirty dayes space save onely to the King himselfe fared no better for when as they found Daniel praying unto God they presently accused him unto the King urging him with the stability which ought to be in the Decrees of the Kings of Media and Persia that ought not to be altered in such sort that King Darius though against his will commanded Daniel to be throwne amongst the Lions to be devoured of them but when he saw how miraculously the Lord preserved him from the teeth of the Lions and thereby perceived his innocency he caused his envious accusers to be thrown into the Lions den with their wives and children who were devoured by the Lions ere they could fall to the ground Notorious is the example of the two Judges that accused Susanna both how she was delivered and they punished But let us come to prophane â—istories Apelles that famous Painter of Ephesus felt the sting and â—â—tternesse oâ— this venomous viâ—er for he was falsly accused by Antiphilus another Painter an envier of his art and excellent workemanship to have conspired with Theodota against King Ptolomie and to have been the cause of the defection of Pelusium from him which accusation he laid against him to the end that seeing he could not attain to that excellency of art which he had he might by this false pretence worke his disgrace and overthrow as indeed he had effected had not great persuasions been used and manifest proofes alledged of Apelles innocency and integrity wherefore Ptolomie having made triall of the cause and found out the false and wrongfull practise he most justly rewarded Apelles with an hundred talents and Antiphilus the accuser with perpetuall servitude upon which occasion Apelles in remembrance of that danger painted out Calumniation on this manner a Woman gayly attired and dressed with an angry and furious countenance holding in her left hand a torch and with her right a young man by the hair of the head before whom marched an evill favoured sluttish usher quicke-sighted and pale-faced called Envy at her right hand sat a fellow with long eares like King Midas to receive tales and behinde her two waiting maids Ignorance and Suspition And thus the witty Painter to delude his own evill hap expressed the lively Image and nature of that detracting sin This tricke used Maximinus the Tyran to deface the Doctrine and Religion of Christ in his time for when he saw that violence and torments prevailed not but that like the Palme the more it was trodden and oppressed the more it grew he used this subtilty and craft to undermine it he published divers bookes full of Blasphemy of a conference betwixt Christ and Pilate and caused them to be taught to children in stead of their first elements that they might no sooner speak than hate and blaspheme Christ Moreover he constrained certain wicked lewd women to avouch that they were Christians and that vile filthinesse was dayly committed by them in their assemblies which also he published far and near in writing howbeit for all this the Lords truth quailed not but swum as it were against the stream and encreased in despight of Envy and for these false accusers they were punished one after another with notable judgements for one that was a chiefe doer therein became his owne murderer and Maximinus himselfe was consumed with wormes and rottennesse as hath beene shewed in the former Booke It was a law among the Romans that if any man had enforced an accusation against another either wrongfully unlawfully or without probability both his legs should be broken in recompence of his malice which custome as it was laudable and necessary so was it put in execution at divers times as namely under the Emperour Commodus when a prophane wretch accused Apollonius a godly and profest Christian and afterward a constant martyr of Christ Jesus before the Judges of certaine grievous crimes which when he could by no colour or likelyhood of truth convince and prove they adjudged him to that ignominious punishment to have his legs broken because he had accused and defamed a man without cause Eustathius Bishop of Antioch a man famous for eloquence in speech and uprightnesse of life when as hee impugned the heresie of the Arrians was circumvented by them and deposed from his Bishopricke by this meanes they suborned a naughty strumpet to come in with a childe in her armes and in an open Synod of two hundred and fifty Bishops to accuse him of adultery and to sweare that hee had got that childe of her body which though he denied constantly and no just proofe could be brought against him yet the impudent strumpets oath tooke such place that by the Emperours censure hee was banished from his Bishopricke howbeit ere long his innocency was knowne for the said strumpet being deservedly touched with the finger of Gods justice in extreame sicknesse confessed the whole practise how she was suborned by certaine Bishops to slander this holy man and that yet she was not altogether a lyar for one Eustathius a handy-crafts man got the childe as shee had sworne and not Eustathius the Bishop The like slander the same hereticks devised against Athanasius in a Synod convocated by Constantine the Emperour at Tyrus for they suborned a certaine lewd woman to exclaime upon the holy man in the open assembly for ravishing of her that last night against her will which slander he shifted off by this devise he sent Timotheus the Presbyter of Alexandria into the Synod in his place who comming to
the affaires of his Kingdome runne at six and at sevens To these vices he added the familiarity of certaine evill disposed fellowes as Pierce de Gaueston and Hugh the Spencers whose wanton counfell he following neglected to order his Common-wealth by sadnesse discretion and justice which thing caused first great variance betwixt him and his nobles so that shortly he became to them most odious and in the end was deprived of his kingdome for the Scots that were so curbed in his fathers dayes now playd rex through his negligence and made many irruptions into his land killing and discomfiting his men at three sundry battailes besides Charles of France did him much scath upon his lands in Gasconie and Guyan and at last Isabell his owne wife with the helpe of Sir Iohn of Henault and his Henowaies to whom the nobles and commons gave their assistance tooke him and deprived him of his crowne installed his young sonne Edward in his place keeping him in prison at Bartcley where not long after he was murdered by Sir Roger Mortimer CHAP. XLIX How rare and geason good Princes have beene at all times IT appeareth by all these former histories what a multitude there hath beene of dissolute proud cruell and vicious Princes and of tyrans and oppressors so that the number of good vertuous ones seemeth to have been but small in comparison of them which is also intimated by the tenor of the histories of the Kings of Juda Israel of whom being in number forty but ten onely were found that pleased God in their reignes and they of Juda and yet of them ten one was corrupted in his old age and fell away to vile iniquities but of Israel there was not one that demeaned not himself evill in his estate and dealt not unjustly and wickedly before the Lord. As for the first Emperors what manner of men they were for the most part we have already sufficiently declared Wherefore it was not unfitly spoken of him that jeasting-wise told the Emperor Claudius That all the good Caesars might be engraven in one little ring they were so few so that then a King or Prince endued with vertue bounty and clemency and that loveth his subjects endeth strifes and kindleth concord is a speciall note of Gods favour and a gift inestimable and that people that hath such a Prince for their support and stay are infinitely blessed they lie as it were upon a sunnie banke and ride in a most safe and quiet haven whilest others are exposed and laid open to the cruelty of time and are tossed and turmoyled with the waves of calamitie and oppression therefore this may be their song of mirth and rejoycing whilest other nations sing nothing but welladaies A sad afflicted soule all pale with griefe and wrong Being eas'd from sence of dole doth straitway change his song From moane to mirth for why his thick and cloudy night Is turn'd to purity of Titans glorious light The raging storme is past and feare of shipwracke gone Their weary ships at last a calmie shore have won The Pilot safely lies reposed under lee Not fearing frowne of skies or other miserie The strong and mighty blasts of furious winds are still They doe no more cast downe huge Firre trees at their will A pleasant gale succeeds of fruitfull Zephyrus Which recreates the seeds of spring voluptuous Pack hence you wicked ones with all your equipage Of murdering champions envenomed with rage Your horse are tir'd with toyle and all your strength 's pluckt downe Your swords have caught a foyle by lovely peaces crowne O blessed glorious peace that beautifiest each land And mak'st all dangers cease whereof in feare we stand Distill thy favours pure which are immortall things On us that lie secure in shadow of thy wings Even those thy holy traine which still attendance yeeld Let them wax young againe and flourish in our field Iustice and verity which ballance right from wrong Let them attend on thee with equity among Then shall the Swaines rejoyce under a Fig-tree lien And sing with cheerfull voice untill the Suns decline And all the world shall ring with ecchoes of our praise Which to the Lord our King we warble out alwayes The simple harmlesse Lambe no greedy Wolfe shall feare Nor Kid new wain'd from dam shall stand in awe of Beare But Sheepe and Wolfe shall make like friends one flocke and fold A fearelesse childe shall take the rule of Tigres old You flockes of Sion hill which through so many feares Of warre and crosses still have sowne your field with teares Take comfort to your hope strait comes the joyfull houre To reap a fruitfull crop for all your torments soure But alas it commeth to passe through the sinnes and wickednesse of men that Realmes are oftentimes scarred with the alarmes and assaults of foes and strangely afflicted with many evils when as the State of governement is troubled and changed by the iniquities of the people CHAP. L. That the greatest and mightiest Cities are not exempt from punishment of their iniquities WHereas great and populous Cities are as it were the eyes of the earth as Athens and Sparta were said to be of Greece there is no question but that they are so much the more blameable for glutting and overcharging themselves with sinnes by how much the more they abound with all manner of temporall goods and commodities and that at length they tumble into utter ruine and desolation for instead of being a patterne and direction unto others of wisedome and good governement as they ought they are for the most part examples of folly and vanity for where is more evils and dissolutenesse reigning than in them the principall cause whereof is that greedy worme Avarice which begetteth in all estates much fraud cousening and other naughty practises with many such like children for through it every man looketh to provide for his owne affaires and to get any commoditie or ease whatsoever to himselfe even with all his power not caring who be damnified so he be enriched The plenty of riches which there aboundeth instilleth pride and haughtinesse of minde into some maketh others dissolute and effeminate and besotteth others with carnall unhonest pleasures from which head spring rivers of evils as envies quarrels dissentions debates and murders all which things happen to them that being transported and distracted with the furious contrariety of their disordinate affection can finde no contentment nor agreement with themselves but must needs burst out into some outward mischiefes Hence is that wonderfull pompe and bravery as well of apparell as other things hence all gourmandise and drunkennesse are so common yea and adulteries so much frequented wherefore the anger of the Almighty must needs bee kindled to consume them in their sinnes One of the notablest Cities of the world for greatnesse and antiquity was Ninive the capitall and chiefe Citie of the Assyrian Empire howbeit her greatnesse and power could not so protect her but
of injuries reproches and cruelties and as it were sheepe appointed to the slaughter whereof some are massacred some hanged some headed some drowned some burned or put to some other cruell death yet notwithstanding their estate and condition is farre happier than that of the wicked for somuch as all their sufferings and adversities are blessed and sanctified unto them of God who turneth them to their advantage according to the saying of S. Paul That all things worke for the good to them that feare God for whatsoever tribulation befalleth them they cannot be separated from the love of God which he beareth unto them in his welbeloved son Christ Jesus be it then that God visiteth them for their faults for there is none that is clear of sin it is a fatherly chastisement to bring them to amendment be it that hee exerciseth them by many afflictions as hee did Iob it is to prove their faith and patience to the end they may be better purified like gold in the furnace and serve for example to others If it bee for the truth of the Gospell that they suffer then they are blessed because they are conformed to the image of the sonne of God that they might also be partakers of his glory for they that suffer with him are assured to reignâ— with him hence it is that in the midst of their torments and oppressions in the midst of fires and fagots flaming about them being comforted with the consolations of Gods spirit through a sure hope of their happy repose and incorruptible crowne which is prepared for them in the heavens they rejoyce and are so chearefull contrariwise the wicked seeing themselves ensnared in the evils which their owne sinnes brought upon them gnash their teeth fret themselves murmur against God and blaspheme him like wretches to their endlesse perdition There is therefore great difference betwixt the punishments of each of these for the one tendeth to honour and life the other to shame and confusion and even as it is not the greatnesse of torments that maketh the martyr but the goodnesse of the cause so the infliction of punishment unjustly neither maketh the party afflicted guilty nor any whit diminisheth his reputation whereas the wicked that are justly tormented for their sinnes are so marked with infamie and dishonour that the staine thereof can never be wiped out Let every one therefore learne to keepe himselfe from evill and to containe himselfe in a kinde of modesty and integrity of life seeing that by the plagues and scourges wherewith the world is ordinarily afflicted Gods fierce wrath is clearely revealed from heaven upon all impiety and injustice of men to consume all those that rebell against him Thinke upon this you inhabitants of the earth small and great of what qualitie or condition soever you be If you be mighty puissant and fearefull know that the Lord is greater than you for he is almighty all-terrible and all-fearefull in what place soever you are he is alwayes above you ready to hurle you down and overturne you to breake quash and crush you in peeces as pots of earth hee is armed with thunder fire and a bloudy sword to destroy consume and cut you in pieces heaven threatneth from above and the earth which you trample on from below shaking under your feet and being ready to spue you out from her face or swallow you up in her bowels in briefe all the elements and creatures of God looke askew at you in disdaine and set themselves against you in hatred if you feare not your Creator your Lord and Master of whom you have received your Scepters and Crownes and who is able when he please to bring Princes to nothing and make the Rulers of the earth a thing of nought Forsake therefore if you tender the good honour and repose of your selves and yours the evill and corrupt fashions of the world and submit your selves in obedience under the Scepter of Gods Law and Gospell fearing the just retribution of vengeance upon all them that doe the contrary for it is a horrible thing to fall into the hands of the Lord. And you which honour and reverence God already be now more quickned and stirred up to his love and obedience and to a more diligent practising of his will and following his commandements to the end to glorifie him by your lives looking for the happie end of your hope reserved in the heavens for you by Christ Jâ—sus our Lord to whom 〈…〉 everlasting Amen A briefe Summarie of more Examples annexed to the former by the same Author CHAP. I. Of such as have persecuted the Church of Christ. ZAcharias the sonne of Barachias of whom S. Mathew speaketh in the three and twentieth chapter and Saint Augustine in the 242 Sermon de Tempore in these words Zacharie the high-Priest reproving the rebellious people for the neglect of the worship of God and the sacred lawes was slaine of the people and the detestable band of the Jewes dyed the pavement with his bloud in the ninth yeare of the reigne of Ioas King of Judah which cruelty against this good man the whole nation of the Jewes payed deare for for when a yeare was past an armie of the Syrians came up against Ioas and slew all the Princes of the people in Judah and Hierusalem and there being but a small number of the Syrians God delivered into their hands the whole multitude of the Jewes Rabbi Iohosua reporteth that two hundred and eleven thousand were slaine in the field and ninetie foure thousand in the Citie for the expiation of the bloud of Zacharias which bloud boyled out of the earth till that day as it were out of a seething Caldron Egâ—as Patrensis a Prefect of the Emperor in Achaia when he had crucified Saint Andrew was possessed of Sathan and slaine Incommodous Emperour Commodus which was judged by the Senate more cruell than Domitian and more impure than Nero had a tragicall end both for his other vices and principally for persecuting the Church of Christ. In the time of Constantine one Teredates a great man in Armenia grievously persecuted the Church at which time Gregorie the Great famous for miracles suffered many indignities from him and at the last was shut up into a darke and muddie pit for the space of fourteene years But Teredates the Prince of that nation felt the horrible vengeance of God upon himselfe his houshold and his Nobles for they were all transformed into swine and lived like swine together and devoured one another Whether this storie be true or fabulous let the Reader judge But it is reported by Nicephorus lib. 8. cap. 35. In the reigne of Constantius after the Antiochian Synod in the which great Athanasius was condemned the Easterne Cities and especially Antioch were shaken and quashed with wonderfull Earthquakes in revenge of the injuries done to that good man Neither did Constantius the Emperour an assertor and maintainer of the Arrian heresie
Christ Iesus When he was demanded at any time how he did he answered most usually That he was fastened of God and that it was not in man but in Gods mercy for him to be released Iohn Peter sonne in law to Alexander that cruel Keeper of Newgate being a most horrible swearer and blasphemer used commonly to say If it be not true I pray God I may rot ere I die and not in vaine for he rotted away indeed and so dyed in misery Hither we may adde a notable example of a certaine yong gallant that was a monstrous swearer who riding in the company of divers gentlemen began to sweare and most horribly blaspheme the name of God unto whom one in the company with gentle words said he should one day answer for that the Yonker taking snuffe thereat Why said he takest thou thought for me Take thought for thy winding sheet Well quoth the other amend for death giveth no warning as soone commeth a lambes skin to the market as an old sheeps Gods wounds said he care not thou for me raging still on this manner worse and worse till at length passing on their journey they came riding over a great bridge upon which this gentleman swearer spurred his horse in such sort that he sprang cleane over with the man on his backe who as hee was going cried Horse and man and all to the Divell This terrible story Bishop Ridley preached and uttered at Pauls crosse and one Haines a Minister of Cornwall the reprehender of this man was the reporter of it to Master Fox out of whom I have drawne it Let us refraine then wretches that we are our divelish tongues and leave off to provoke the wrath of God any longer against us let us forbeare all wicked and cursed speeches and acquaint our selves as well in word as in deed to praise and glorisie God CHAP. XXXII Punishments for the contempt of the Word and Sacraments and abuse of holy things NOw it is another kind of taking the Name of God in vaine to despise his Word and Sacraments for like as among earthly princes it is accounted a crime no lesse than treason either to abuse their pictures to counterfeit or deprave their seales to rent pollute or corrupt their letters patents or to use unreverently their messengers or any thing that commeth from them So with the Prince of heaven it is a fin of high degree either to abuse his Word prophanely which is the letters patents of our salvation or handle the Sacraments unreverently which are the seales of his mercy or to despise his Ministers which are his messengers untous And this he maketh knowne unto us not only by Edicts and Commandments but also by examples of his vengeance on the heads of the offendors in this case For the former look what Paul saith That for the unworthy receiving of the Sacraments many were weake and sicke among the Corinthians and many slept How much more then for the abusing and contemning the Sacraments And the Prophet David That for casting the Word of God behinde them they should have nothing to do with his Covenant How much more then for prophaning and deriding his Word And Moses when the people murmured against him and Aaron saith That their murmurings were not against them which were but Ministers but against the Lord. How much more then is the Lord enraged when they are scoffed at derided and set at naught Hence it is that the Lord denounceth a Wo to him that addeth or taketh away from the Word and calleth them dogs that abuse such precious pearles But let us come to the examples wherein the grievousnesse of this sinne willly more open than by any words can be expressed First to begin with the house of Israel which were the sole select people of the Lord whom he had chosen out of all other nations of the world to be his owne peculiar flocke and his chiefe treasure above all other people of the earth and a kingdome of Priests and a holy Nation when as they contemned and despised his Word spoken unto them by his prophets and cast his law behinde their backe he gave them over into the hands of their enemies and of Ammi made them Loammi that is of his people made them not his people and of Ruhama Loruhama that is of such as had found mercy and favour at Gods hand a nation that should obtain no mercy nor favour as the Prophet Hosea speaketh This we see plainly verified first in the ten tribes which under Ieroboam fell away from the Scepter of Iuda for after that the Lord had sundry times scourged them by many particular punishments as the famin sword and pestilence for their idolatry and rebellion to his law at the last in the ninth yere of the raign of Hoshea King of Israel he brought upon them a finall and generall destruction and delivered them into the hands of the King of Ashur who carried them away captive into Assyria and placed them in Hala and in Habor by the river of Gosan and in the cities of the Medes and in stead of them seated the men of Babel of Cuthah Ava Hamath and Sepharvaim in the cities of Samaria Thus were they utterly rooted up and spued out of the land of their inheritance and their portion given unto strangers as was threatned to them by the mouth of Moses the servant of the Lord and the cause of all this is set down by the holy Ghost 2 Kin. 17. 13. to be for that though the Lord had testified to them by al his prophets seers saying Turn from your evill wayes and keepe my commandements and my statutes according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers neverthelesse they would not obey but hardned their necks then it followeth in the 18 ver Therfore the Lord was exceeding wroth with Israel and put them out of his sight and none was left but the Tribe of Iuda onely Now though the kingdome of Iuda continued in good estate long after the desolation of the ten tribes for this hapned in the raigne of Ahaz King of Iuda yet afterward in the raigne of Zedekiah the great and famous citie Ierusalem was taken by Nabuchadnezzar the King of Babel and utterly ruined and defaced the glorious and stately temple of the Lord built by Salomon the wonder of the world was burnt down to ashes together with all the houses of Ierusalem and all other great houses in the land all the rich vessels and furniture of the temple of gold silver and brasse were carried to Babel by Nabuzaradan the chiefe steward The king himselfe was bound in chaines and after he had seen his owne sons slaine before his eyes had his owne eyes put out that he might never more take comfort of the light The priests and all the greatest and richest of the people were carried away in captivity and only the poore were left behind to dresse the vines
and til the land Now what was the cause of this lamentable destruction of this holy City of the Temple and Sanctuary of the Lord and of his owne people it is set downe by the holy-Ghost in expresse word 2 Chro. 36. 15 16. That When the Lord sent unto them by his Messengers rising early and sending because he had compassion on them and on his habitation they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets and therefore the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy Behold here the grievous judgement of the Lord upon such as contemned his Word and despised his Prophets Thus was the first city and temple destroyed and did the second fare any better no verily but far worse for as their sinne was greater in that the former Iews contemned only the Word spoken by the Prophets which were but servants these despised the Word spoken by the Sonne himself which is the Lord of life so their punishment was also the greater for as the Apostle saith If they which despised Moses Law died without mercy how much sorer punishment are they worthy of which tread under foot the Sonne of God and count the bloud of the Testament as an unholy thing and neglect so great salvation which first began to be preached by the Lord himselfe and afterward was confirmed by them which heard him Therefore the destruction of the second city and temple by Titus and Vespasian Emperours of Rome was far more lamentable than that of the former yea so terrible and fearefull was the judgement of God upon that nation at this time that never the like calamitie and misery was heard or read of there at the siege of Ierusalem the famin was so great within the walls and the sword so terrible without that within they were constrained to eat not only leather and old shoo 's but horse-dung yea their owne excrements and some to devour their owne children and as many as issued out were crucified by the Romans as they had crucified the Saviour of the world till they had no more wood to naile them on So that it was most true which our Saviour foreprophesied That such should be the tribulation of that time as was not from the beginning of the world nor should be againe to the end At this destruction perished eleven hundred thousand Iewes as Historians report besides them which Vespasian slew in subduing the country of Galilee over and besides them also which were sould and sent into Aegypt and other provinces to vile slavery to the number of seventeene thousand two thousand were brought with Titus in triumph of which part he gave to be devoured of wilde beasts and part otherwise most cruelly were slaine By whose case all nations may take example what it is to reject the visitation of Gods verity being sent unto them and much more to persecute them which be sent of God for their salvation And here is diligently to be observed the great equity of this judgment they refused Christ to be their King and chose rather to be subject unto Caesar now they are by the said their owne Caesar destroyed when as Christs subjects the same time escaped the danger The like example of Gods wrathfull punishment is to be noted no lesse in the Romans also themselves for despising Christ and his Gospel for when Tiberius Nero the Emperor having received by letters from Pontius Pilat a true report of the doings of Christ Iesus of his miracles resurrection and ascention into heaven and how he was received as God of many good men was himselfe mooved with beleefe of the same and did confer thereof with the whole Senat of Rome to have Christ adored as God But they not agreeing thereunto refused him because that contrary to the law of the Romans he was consecrated said they for a God before the Senat of Rome had decreed and approved him Thus the vaine Senat which were contented with the Emperor to raign over them were not contented with the meeke King of glory the Sonne of God to be their King yea they contemned also the preaching of the two blessed Apostles Peter and Paul who were also most cruelly put to death in the later end of Domitius Nero his raigne and the yeare of Christ 69 for the testimony and saith of Christ. And therefore after much like sort to the Iews were they scourged and entrapped by the same way which they did prefer for as they preferred the Emperour and rejected Christ so did God stirre up their owne Emperours against them in such sort that both the Senators themselves were all devoured and the whole city most horribly afflicted the space almost of three hundred yeares together Neither were they only thus scourged by their Emperors but also by civill wars whereof three were sought in two yeares at Rome after Nero's death as likewise by other casualties for in Suetonius is testified five thousand were hurt and slaine by fall of a Theatre How heavy and searefull the judgement of God hath beene towards those seven famous Churches of Asia to the which the holy Ghost writeth his seven Epistles Revel 2 and 3. histories sufficiently testifie and experience sheweth for whereas in the Apostles time and long after in the dayes of persecution no Churches in the world more flourished after when they began to make light account of the word of God and to fall away from the truth to errors from godlinesse to impieties the Lord also made light account of them and removed his Candlesticke that is the ministery of his Gospell from amongst them and made them a prey unto their enemies and so they which before were subjects to Christ are now slaves to Mahomet and there where the true God was worshipped is now a filthy Idol adored and instead of the Gospel of Christ is the Turks Alcoran in stead of the seven stars and seven candlesticks are seven thousand priests of Mahomet and worshippers of him and thus for the contempt of the Gospel of Christ is the Chrurch of Christians made a cage of Divels Venerable Bede in his Ecclesticall history of England reporteth That about the yeare of our Lord 420 after that the Brittons had been long afflicted by the Irish Picts and Scots and that the Lord had given them rest from all their enemies and had blessed them with such great plenty of corn and fruits of the earth as had not been before heard of they fell into all manner of sins and vices and in stead of shewing themselves thankfull to the Lord for his great mercies provoked his indignation more fiercely against them for as he saith together with plenty grew ryot and this was accompanied with a train of many other foule enormities especially the hatred of the truth contempt of the Word and that not only in the Laity and ignorant people but even also in the Clergy and Sheepheards of the
Office under the Duchesse of Malfi after she was widow with whom in protract of time he grew to have such secret and privie acquaintance albeit she was a princesse and he her servant that he enjoyeed her as his owne wife And thus they conversed secretly together under the colour of Marriage accorded betwixt them the space of certain yeares untill she had bore unto him three children by which meanes their private dealings which they so much desired to smother and keep close burst out and bewrayed it selfe The matter being come to her brothers eares they took it so to the heart that they could not rest untill they had revenged the vile injury and dishonour which they pretended to have been done to them and their whole house equally by them both Therefore when they had chased them first from Ancona whither in hope of quietnesse they had fled out of Naples they drave them also out of Tuscane who seeing themselves so hotly pursued on every side resolved to make towards Venice thinking there to finde some safety But in the midway she was overtaken and brought backe to Naples where in short space she miserably ended her life for her brothers Guard strangled her to death together with her chambermaid who had served in stead of a Baud to them and her poor infants which she had by the said Bologne But he by the goodnesse of his horse escaping took his flight to Milan where he sojourned quietly a long while untill at the instant pursuit of one of her brothers the Cardinall of Arragon he was slain in the open streets when he least mistrusted any present danger And this was a true Cardinall like exploit indeed representing that mildenesse mercifulnesse and good nature which is so required of every Christian in traiterously murdering a man so many yeares after the first rancour was conceived that might well in halfe that space have been digested in fostering hatred so long in his cruell heart and waging ruffians and murderers to commit so monstrous an act wherein albeir the Cardinals cruelty was most famous as also in putting to death the poor infants yet Gods justice bare the sway that used him as an instrument to punish those who under the vail of secret Marriage thought it lawfull for them to commit any villany And thus God busieth sometime the most wicked about his will and maketh the rage and fury of the Devill himselfe serve for meanes to bring to passe his fearfull judgements CHAP. XXV Of unlawfull Marriages and their issues NOw to redres all such evils as have before been mentioned and to avoid all inconveniences in this case God of his bountifull mercy hath ordained Marriage as a remedy to be applied to all such as have not the gift of continency least they should fall into fornication which notwithstanding many shamelesse creatures that blush not at their owne filthinesse but rather rejoyce therein make no account of Such are they that making Marriage one of the Sacraments of the Church do neverthelesse despise as a vile and prophane thing albeit that the Apostle saith That Marriage is honourable among all men and the bed undefiled but whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge But they have it not in that estimation seeing by authority they are deprived of the use thereof and not of Adultery That which is honest and laudable is forbidden and that which is sinfull and unlawfull allowed of This saith Sleiden is the custom of the Germane Bishops for money to suffer their Priests to keep harlots not exacting any other punishment saving their purses to privilege their knaveries But these reines of liberty were let more loose in certain Villages of the Cantons of Switzers where it was not onely winked at but also commanded That every new Priest should have his private whore for his owne tooth that he might not intermeddle with other mens Neither was it without reason that Iohn le Maire said how under the shew and colour of chastity Priests whoredomes did overflow being men abandoned to all dissolute and riotous living Now then it were far better to marry than to burne yet in such sort to marry that all giddinesse and inconsideration set aside every one should matcht himselfe according to his degree and age with great respect and good advisement had unto them both to the end to avoid those mischiefes and enormities which oftentimes happen when either by an over-hardy foolish and rash presumption a man would nestle himselfe in an higher nest than his estate and calling requireth or by a sensuall and fleshly lust passing the bounds of reason goeth about to constrain and interrupt the law of nature The chiefest thing that is required in Marriage is the consent of parties as well of themselves that are to be joyned together as of each of their parents the contrary whereof is constraint where either party is forced as it hapned to those two hundred maids which the Benjamites took by force and violence to be their wives This was a reproach to Romulus the first King of Rome when he ravished the Sabine virgins that came to see their sports which was cause of great war betwixt them Moreover besides the mutuall joint of love which ought to be betwixt man and wife it is necessary that they that marry do marry in the Lord to serve him in greater purity and with lesse disturbance which cannot be if a Christian marry an Infidell for the great difficulties and hinderances that usually spring from such a root Therefore it was straitly forbidden the people of God to contract Marriages with Idolaters yea and the holy Patriarchs before any such law was given had carefully great regard in the Marriages of their children to this thing as the example of Abraham doth sufficiently declare Therefore they that have any manner of government and authority over unmarried folkes whether they be fathers morthers kinsmen or Tutors ought to have especiall care and regard thereof Yea Christian Princes and Lords or Rulers of Common-wealths should not in this respect be so supine and negligent in the performance of their Offices as once to permit and suffer this amongst them which is so directly contrary to the Word of God but rather by especiall charge forbid it to the end that both their Lawes might be conformable and in every respect agreeable to the holy Ordinance of God and that the way might be stopped to those mischiefes which were likely to arise from such evil concluded Marriages For what reason is it that a young maid baptised and brought up in the Church of Christ should be given in marriage to a worshipper of Images and Idols and sent to such a Countrey where the worship of God is not so much as once thought upon Is not this to plucke a soul out of the House of God and thrust it into the house of the devill out of Heaven into Hell than which what greater apostasie or falling from God can there
be whereof all they are guilty that either make up such Marriages or give their good will or consent to them or do not hinder the cause and proceedings of them if any manner of way they can Now that this confusion and mixture of Religion in Marriages is unpleasant and noysom to God it manifestly appeareth Gen. 6. where it is said that because the sonnes of God to wit those whom God had separated for himselfe from the beginning of the world to be his peculiar ones were so evill advised as to be allured with the beauties of the daughters of men to wit of those which were not chosen of God to be his people and to marry with them corrupting themselves by this contagious acquaintance of prophane people with whom they should have had nothing to do that therefore God was incensed against them and resolved simply to revenge the wickednesse of each party without respect Beside the monstrous fruits of those prophane Marriages do sufficiently declare their odiousnesse in Gods sight for from them arose gyants of strength and stature exceeding the proportion of men who by their hugenesse did much wrong and violence in the world and gained fearfull and terrible names to themselves but God provoked by their oppressions drowned their tyrannies in the Floud and made an end of the world for their sakes In the time of the Judges in Israel the Israelites were chastised by the hand of God for this same fault for they tooke to wives the daughters of the uncircumcised and gave them their daughters also In like sort framed they themselves by this meanes to their corrupt manners and superstitions and to the service of their Idolatrous gods but the Lord of heaven raigned downe anger upon their heads and made them subject to a stranger the King of Mesopotamia whom they served the space of eight yeares Looke what hapned to King Solomon for giving his heart to strange women that were not of the houshold of Gods people he that before was replenished with such admirable wisdome that he was the wonder of the world was in his olde age deprived thereof and besotted with a kinde of dulnesse of understanding and led aside from the true knowledge of God to serve Idols and to build them Altars and Chappels for their worship and all this to please forsooth his wives humours whose acquaintance was the chiefe cause of his misery and Apostasie CHAP. XXIV Touching incestuous Marriages NOw as it is unlawfull to contract marriages with parties of contrary religion so it is as unlawfull to marry those that are neare unto us by any degree of kindred or affinity as it is inhibited not only by the law of God but also by civill and politique constitutions whereunto all nations have ever by the sole instinct of nature agreed and accorded except the Aegyptians and Persians whose abhominations were so great as to take their owne sisters and mothers to be their wives Cambyses King of Media and Persia married his owne sister but it was not long ere he put her to death a just proofe of an unjust and accursed marriage Many others there were in protract of time that in their insatiable lusts shewed themselves no lesse unstaied and unbriedled in their lawlesse affections then he One of which was Antigonus King of Judea son of Herodes sirnamed Great who blushed not to marry his sister the late wife of his deceased brother Alexander by whom she had borne two children but for this and divers other his good deeds he lost not only his goods which were confiscated but was himselfe also banished out of his countrey into a forraine place from Judea to Vienna in France Herod also the Tetrarch was so impudent and shamelesse that he tooke from his brother Philip his wife Herodias and espoused her unto himselfe which shamelesse and incestuous deed Iohn Baptist reproving in him told him plainly how unlawfull it was for him to possesse his brothers wise but the punishment which befell him for this and many other his sins we have heard in the former booke and need not here to be repeated Anton. Caracalla tooke to wife his mother in law allured thereunto by her faire enticements whose wretched and miserable end hath already been touched in the former booke The Emperour Heraclius after the decease of his first wife married his owne neece the daughter of his brother which turned mightily to his undoing for besides that that under his raigne and as it were by his occasion the Saracens entred the borders of Christendome and spoiled and destroyed his dominions under his nose to his foule and utter disgrace he was over and above smitten corporally with so grievous and irksome a disease of dropsie that he dyed thereof Thus many men run ryot by assuming to themselves too much liberty and breake the bounds of civill honesty required in all Contracts and too audaciously set themselves against the commandement of God which ought to be of such authority with all men that none be they never so great should dare to derogate one jot from them unlesse they meant wholly to oppose themselves as profest enemies to God himselfe and to turne all the good order of things into confusion All which notwithstanding some of the Romish Popes have presumed to encroach upon Gods right and to disanull by their foolish decrees the lawes of the Almighty As Alexander the sixth did who by his Bull approved the incestuous marriage of Ferdinand King of Naples with his owne Aunt his father Alphonsus sister by the fathers side which otherwise saith Cardinall Bembus had been against all law and equity and in no case to be tollerated and borne withall Henry the seventh King of England after the death of his eldest son Arthur caused by the speciall dispensation of Pope Iulius his next son named Henry to take to wife his brothers widdow called Katherine daughter to Ferdinando King of Spaine for the desire he had to have this Spanish affinity continued who succeeding his father in the Crowne after continuance of time began to advise himselfe and to consult whether this marriage with his brothers wife were lawfull or no and found it by conference both of holy and prophane lawes utterly unlawfull whereupon he sent certaine Bishops to the Queene to give her to know That the Popes dispensation was altogether unjust and of none effect to priviledge such an act to whom she answered That it was too late to call in question the Popes Bull which so long time they had allowed of The two Cardinals that were in Commission from the Pope to decide the controversie and to award judgement upon the matter were once upon point to conclude the decree which the King desired had not the Pope impeached their determination in regard of the Emperour Charles nephew to the said Queene whom he was loath to displease wherefore the King seeing himselfe frustrate of his purpose in this behalfe sent into divers