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
to the hurting and endangering of many sometime one thing sometime another hath fallen out to the great damage and hurt of many that have no conscience of this day yea often to the endangering of their lives and that which is most strange within these late yeares a whole town hath been twice burnt for the breach of the Sabbath by the inhabitants as all men judged The just report thereof I passe over here to set downe untill such time as I shall be better instructed Famous and memorable also is that example which happened at London in the yeare 1583 at Paris garden where upon the Sabbath day were gathered together as accustomably they used great multitudes of prophane people to behold the sport of Beare baiting without respect of the Lords day or any exercise of religion required therein which prophane impiety the Lord that he might chasten in some sort and shew his dislike thereof he caused the scaffolds suddenly to breake and the beholders to tumble headlong downe so that to the number of eight persons men and women were slaine therewith besides many others which were sore hurt and bruised to the shortening of their dayes The like example happened at a towne in Bedford shire called Risley in the yeare 1607 Where the floore of a chamber wherein a number were gathered together to see a play on the Sabbath day fell downe by meanes whereof many were sore hurt and some killed Surely a friendly warning to such as more delight themselves with the cruelty of beasts and vain sports than with the works of mercy and Religion the fruits of a true faith which ought to be the Sabbath dayes exercise And thus much for the examples of the first Table whereof if some seeme to exceed credit by reason of the strangenesse of them yet let us know that nothing is impossible to God and that hee doth often worke miracles to controll the obstinate impiety and rebellion of mortall men against his commandement Besides there is not one example here mentioned but it hath a credible or probable Author for the avoucher of it Let us now out of all this that hath been spoken gather up this wholsome lesson to love God with all our heart and affection to the end we may worship him invocate his holy name and repose all the confidence of our salvation upon him alone through Christ Iesus seeking by pleasing and obeying his will to set forth his glory and render him due thanks for all his benefits FINIS THE SECOND BOOKE CHAP. I. Of rebellious and stubborne children towards their Parents WEe have seene in the former Booke what punishments they have incurred that either malitiously or otherwise have transgressed and broken the commandements of the first Table Now it followeth to discover the chastisements which God hath sent upon the transgressors of the second Table And first concerning the first commandement therof which is Honour thy father and mother that thy dayes may be prolonged in the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee C ham one of old Noah's sonnes was guilty of the breach of this Commandement who in stead of performing that reverence to his father which he ought and that presently after the deluge which being yet fresh in memory might have taught him to walke in the feare of God came so short of his duty that when he saw his nakednesse hee did not hide it but mocked and jeasted at it for which cause hee was cursed both of his father and of God in the person of his youngest sonne Chanaan and made a servant to the servants of his brethren which curse was fulfilled in his posterity the Canaanites who being forsaken of God were rooted up and spued out of their land because of their sinnes and abhominations Marvellous strange was the malice of Absolon to rebell so furiously against his father David as to wage warre against him which he did with all his strongest endeavours without sparing any thing that might further his proceedings insomuch that he grew to that outrage and madnesse through the wicked and pernitious counsell of Achitophel that hee shamed not villanously to commit incest with his fathers concubines and pollute his bloud even before the eyes of the multitude by which means being become altogether odious and abhominable hee shortly after lost the battell wherein though himselfe received no hurt nor wound yet was he not therefore quit but being pursued by Gods just judgement fell unwittingly into the snare which he had deserved for as he rode along the forrest to save himselfe from his fathers army his moyle carrying him under a thicke oake left him hanging by the haire upon a bough betwixt heaven and earth untill being found by Ioab he was wounded to death with many blowes Whereby every man may plainly see that God wanteth no means to punish sinners when it pleaseth him but maketh the dumbe and sencelesse creatures the instruments of his vengeance for hee that had escaped the brunt and danger of the battell and yet not having therefore escaped the hand of God was by a bruit beast brought under a sencelesse tree which God had appointed to catch hold of him as an executioner of his just judgement which if wee consider is as strange and wonderfull an accident as may possible happen and such an one as God himselfe provided to punish this wicked proud and rebellious wretch withall for seeing his outrage and villany was so great as to rebell against his father and so good and kinde a father towards him as he was it was most just that he should endure so vile a punishment Beside herein doubtlesse God would lay open to the eyes of all the world a fearefull spectacle of his judgements against wicked and disobedient children thereby to terrifie the most impudent and malitious wretches that live from this horrible sinne And for the same cause it was his pleasure that that wicked and false Achitophel should fall into extreme ignominy and confusion for forsaking David and setting forward with counsell and presence yong Absolon against his father for which cause with despaire he hung himselfe Now by this example it is easie to perceive how unpleasant this sin is in Gods sight and how much he would have every man to hate and detest it seeing that Nature her selfe teacheth and instructeth us so farre as to yeeld duty and obedience unto those that begat nourished and brought us up Notwithstanding all this yet is the world full of ill advised and ill nurtured youth that are little lesse disobedient unto their parents than Absolon was as Adramalech and Saraser that slew their father Sennacherib as he was worshipping in the Temple of Nisroth his god but whereas they looked for the soveraignty they lost the benefit of subjection and were banished into Armenia their brother Esarhaddon raigning in their stead Gregory of Tours maketh mention of one Crannius the son of Clotarius King of France
Vessell whose steersman they are appointed and those that are their charge to whom they ought to give a good example of life and to bee unto them as it were a glasse of vertue for they are set aloft as it were upon a stage to bee gazed at of every commer Their faults and vices are like foule spots and scars in the face which cannot by any means bee hid And therefore they ought to be carefull to lead an honest and vertuous life that thereby they might perswade and move the meaner sort of people to doe the like For it is a true saying of the Philosopher Like Prince like People insomuch that every one desireth to frame himselfe according to the humour of his superiour whose will and manners serve simply for a law to do evill to the which men use by taking any occasion too hastily to give themselves over with too much liberty whereupon followeth an unrecoverable ruine no lesse than the fall of a great house which for want of pillars and supporters that should uphold it suddenly falleth to the ground so this ship being deprived of her governour is set loose and layd open to the mercy of the waves violence of windes and rage of tempests without any direction and government and so the body of man not having any more the light of his owne eyes abideth in darknesse all blinded not able to do any thing that is right and good but ready every minute to fall into some pit And this is the perversity and corruption of this world CHAP. III. That Great men which will not abide to be admonished of their faults cannot escape punishment by the hand of God IN this poore and miserable estate every man rocketh himselfe asleep and flattereth his owne humour every man pursueth his accustomed course of life with an obstinate minde to doe evill yea many of those that have power and authority over others according as they are indued and perswaded with a foolish conceit of themselves make themselves beleeve that for them every thing is lawfull and that they may doe whatsoever they please never imagining that they shall give up an account of their actions to receive any chastisement or correction for them even as though there were no God at all that did behold them And being thus abused by this vaine and fickle security they swimme in their sinnes and plunge themselves over head and eares in all kinde of security giving hearty welcome and entertainment to all that approve and applaud their manners and that study to feed and please their humour As contrariwise none lesse welcome unto them than they that tell them of their faults and contradict them never so little for they cannot abide in any case to bee reprooved whatsoever they doe And now adayes every base companion will forsooth storme and fume as soone if hee be reproved of a fault as if hee had received the greatest wrong in the world so much is every man pleased with himselfe and puffed up with his owne vice and foolish vanities And what should a man doe in this case It is as hard to redresse those great mischiefes as if wee should goe about to stop and hinder the course of a mighty streame there where the banke or causey is broken downe if it bee not by applying extreame and desperate medicines as to desperate diseases which are as it were given over by the Physitian and to the which a light purgation will doe no good For as for admonitions and warnings they are not a whit regarded but they that give them are derided or laughed to scorne or reviled for their labours What must wee therefore doe it is necessary that wee assay by all means to bring these men if it be possible to some modesty and feare of God which if it cannot bee done by willing and gentle means force and violence must be used to plucke them out of the fire of Gods wrath to the end they be not consumed if not all yet at least those that are not grown to that height of stubbornnesse and of whom there is yet left some hope of amendment For even as when a Captaine hath not prevailed by summoning a city to yeeld up it selfe he by and by placeth his cannon against their walls to put them in seare in like sort must we bring forth against the proud and high minded men of this world an army of Gods terrible judgements throwne downe by mighty and puissant hand on the wicked more terrible and searefull than all the roaring or double canons in the World whereby the most proud are destroyed and consumed even in this life all their pride and power how great soever it be being not able to turne backe the vengeance of God from lighting upon their heads to their utter destruction and confusion And it is manifest by infinite examples Now because that the nature of man is fleshly and given to be touched with things that are presented before their faces or hath been done before time it is a more forcible motive to stirre them up than that which as yet cannot be made manifest but is to come Therefore I purpose here to set down the great and fearfull judgments wherwith God hath already plagued many in this world especially them of high degree whose example will serve for a glasse both for these that live now or shall live hereafter And to the end that the justice of God may more cleerely appeare and shew it selfe in such strange events before we go any further we will run over certaine necessary points concerning this matter CHAP. IIII. How the Iustice of God is more evidently declared upon the mighty ones of this world than upon any other and the cause why SEeing then that these men are more guilty and culpable of sinne than any other they deserve so much a more grievous punishment by how much their misdeeds are more grievous for doubtlesse There is a God that judgeth the earth as the Psalmist saith who as hee is benigne and mercifull towards those that feare and obey him so he will not suffer iniquity to goe unpunished This is hee saith the Prophet that executeth justice mercy and judgement upon the earth for if it be the duty of an earthly Prince to exercise not only clemency gentlenesse but also sharpnes and severity therby punishing chastising malefactors to suppresse all disorders in the common wealth then it is very necessary that the justice of our great God to whom all soveraign rule authority belongs and who is the Iudge over al the world should either manifest it self in this world or in the world to come chiefly towards them which are in the highest places of acount who being more hardened and bold to sin do as boldly exempt themselves from all corrections and punishments due unto them being altogether unwilling to be subject to any order of justice or law whatsoever and therefore by how much the more they cannot
be punished by man and that humane lawes can lay no hold upon them so much the rather God himselfe becommeth executioner of his owne justice upon their pates and in such sort that every man may perceive his hand to be on them Let any adversity or affliction light upon a man of low degree or which is poore and desolate no man considereth of it rightly but talking thereof mâ—n cease not to impute the cause of this poore soules misery either to poverty or want of succour or some other such like cause Therefore if any such be in griefe or by chance fallen into some pit and drowned or robbed and killed in the way by theeves straightway this is the saying of the world That it commeth thus to passe either because he was alone without company or destitute of help or not well looked to and regarded and thus they passe over the matter But as concerning great men when they are any way afflicted no such pretences or excuses can be alleadged seeing they want neither servants to attend upon them nor any other means of help to succor them therefore when these men are overtaken and surprised with any great evill which by no means they can eschew and when their bold and wicked enterprises are pursued and concluded with strange and lamentable events in this we must acknowledge an especiall hand of God who can intangle and pull downe the proudest and arrogantest He that lives and those whom the world feareth to meddle withall These proud gallants are they against whom God displaieth his banner of power more openly than against meaner and baser persons because these poore soules finde oftentimes to their paines that they are punished without cause and tormented and vexed by those tyrants not having committed any offence at all to deserve it whereas as Philip Comine saith who dare be so bold as to controll or reprehend a King and his favorites or to make enquiry of his misdeeds or having made inquisition of them who dare presume to informe the Iudge therof who dare stand up to accuse them who dare sit down to judge them Nay who dare take knowledge of them and lastly who dare assay to punish them Seeing then in this case that our worldly justice hath her hands bound behind her from executing that which is right it must needs be that the sovereigne Monarch of heaven and earth should mount up into his Throne of Iudgement and from thence give his definitive unchangable sentence to deliver up the most guilty and hainous sinners to those paines and torments which they have deserved and that after a strange and extraordinary manner which may serve for an example to all others CHAP. V. How all men both by the Law of God and Nature are inexcusable in their sinnes NOw to the end that no man should pretend ignorance for an excuse God hath bestowed upon every one a certaine knowledge and judgement of good and evill which being naturally engraven in the tables of mans heart is commonly called the Law of Nature wherby every mans owne conscience giveth sufficient testimony unto it selfe when in his most secret thoughts it either accuseth or excuseth him for there is not a man living which doth not know in his heart that he doth an evill deed when he wrongeth another although he had never been instructed elsewhere in that point So although that in Tarquinius Superbus time Cicero saith there was no written Law established in Rome forbidding the ravishing and deflouring of wives and virgins yet the wicked sonne of this Tarquine was not therefore lesse guilty of an hainous crime when contrary to the Law of Nature he violently robbed Lucrece of her chastity for no man can be ignorant that it is a most grievous crime to lay siege to the chastity of a married woman with such outrage and so the whole people of Rome did esteeme of it as a crime most wicked strange and intolerable and worthy of grievous punishment Every man knoweth thus much that hee ought not to doe that to another which he would not another should do to him which sentence the Emperour Severus made alwaies to bee spoken aloud and declared by the sound of the trumpet in the way of advertisement as often as punishment was taken upon any offendor as if it were a generall Law pertaining to all men This is that equity and justice which ought to be ingraffed in our hearts whereof nature her self is the schoolmistresse from this fountaine all humane and civill Lawes are derived if we had not rather say that they are derived from that true spring of equity which is in the Law of God which Law he hath given for a plaine and familiar manifestation of his will concerning just holy and reasonable things touching the service honour and glory which is due unto himselfe and the mutuall duty friendship and good will which men owe one to another whereunto he exhorteth and enticeth every one by faire and gracious promises and forbiddeth the contrary by great and terrible threatnings so gentle and mercifull is he towards us and desirous of our good This is that Law which was published before the face of more than six hundred thousand persons with the mighty and resounding noise of Trumpet with earthquake fire and smoake and with thunders and lightnings to make men more attentive to heare and more prepared to receive it with all humility feare and reverence and also to put them in minde that if they were disobedient and rebellious he wanted no power and ability to punish them for he hath lightning thunder and fire prepared instruments to execute his just vengeance which no creature under heaven is able to avoid when by the obstinate transgression of wicked men he is provoked to anger and indignation against them This is that holy law which hath been set forth by the Prophets by the rule whereof all their warnings exhortings and reproovings have been squared To this Law the onely begotten Son of God our Saviour and Redeemer Iesus Christ conformed his most holy doctrine bringing men to the true use and observation thereof from which they had declined and whereof he is the end the scope and perfect accomplishment so that so farre it is that a Christian man may be ignorant of it and have it in contempt that none can be counted and reputed a true Christian if hee frame not his life by the rule thereof if not fully yet at least as farre forth as hee is able otherwise what a shame and reproach is it for men to call themselves by the name of Gods children Christians and Catholiques and yet to doe every thing clean contrary to the will of God to make no reckoning of his Law to lead a dissolute and disordered life and to be as evill if not worse than the vilest miscreants and Infidels in the world God willeth and requireth that he alone should bee worshipped and prayed unto and yet the greater part of
his companions where threats were blowne out on every side against the Faithful swore before them all That before he died he would â—ide up to his spurs in the bloud of the Lutherans But it hapned in the same night that the hand of God so stroke him that he was strangled and choaked with his own bloud and so he rode not but bathed himselfe not up to the spurs but up to the throat not in the bloud of Lutherans but in his owne bloud before he died In the raign of Francis de Valois of late memory the first King of France of that name those men that shewed themselves frowardest sharpest and most cruell in burning and murthering the holy Martyrs were also forwardest examples of the vengeance of God prepared for all such as they are For proofe whereof the miserable end of Iohn Roma a Monke of the Order of the White Friers may serve who although in regard of his hood and habit ought not to be placed in the number of men of note yet by reason of the notable example of Gods vengeance upon him wee may rightly place him in this ranke This man therefore at that time when the Christians of Cabrier and Merindol began to suffer persecution having obtained a Commission from the Bishop of Provence and the Embassadour Avignion to make inquisition after and seise upon the bodies of all them that were called Lutherans ceased not to afflict them with the cruellest torments he could devise Amongst many of his tortures this was one To cause their boots to be filled with boiling grease and then fastning them overthwartwise over a bench their legs hanging over a gentle fire to seeth them to death The French King advertised of this cruelty sent out his Letters Patents from the Parliament of Provence charging That the said Iohn de Roma should be apprehended imprisoned and by processe of law condemned Which news when the Caitife heard he fled backe as fast as he could trot to Avignion there purposing to recreate and delight himselfe with the excrements of his oppression and robbery which hee had wrung out of the purses of poor people but see how contrary to his hope it fell out for first he was robbed of his evill gotten goods by his owne servants and presently upon the same hee fell sicke of so horrible and strange a disease that no salve or medicine could be found to asswage his paine and beside it was withall so loathsome that a man could not endure his company for the stinke and corruption which issued from him For which cause the white Fryers his Cloysterers conveyed him out of their Covent into the hospitall where increasing in ulcers and vermine and being become now odious not onely to others but to himselfe also hee would often cry either to be delivered from his noysomnesse or to bee slaine being desirous but not able to performe the deed upon himselfe And thus in horrible torments and most fearfull despaire he most miserably died Now being dead there was none found that would give Sepulture to his rotten carkasse had not a Monke of the same Order dragged the carrion into a ditch which he provided for the purpose The Lord of Revest who a while supplied the place of the chiefe President in the Parliament of Provence by whose meanes many of the Faithfull were put to death after hee was put beside his office and returned home unto his owne house was attached with so grievous a sicknesse and such furious and mad fits withall that his wise and neerest allyance not daring to come near him he like a frantick bedlam enraged and solitarily ended his life A Counsellor of the same Court called Bellemont was so hot and zealous in proceeding against the poor prisoners for the Word of Gods sake that to the end to pack them soon to the fire he usually departed not from the Judgement Hall from morning to evening but caused his meat and drinke to bee brought for his meales returning not home but onely at night to take his rest But whilest hee thus strongly and endeavourously imployed himselfe about these affaires there began a little sore to rise upon his foot which at the first being no bigger than if a waspe had stung the place grew quickly so red and full of paine and so increased the first day by ranckling over all his foot and inflaming the same that by the judgement of Physicians and Chirurgions through the contagious fire that spread it selfe over his whole body it seemed incurable except by cutting off his foot the other members of the body might be preserved which hee in no case willing to yield unto for all the medicines that were applied unto it sound the second day his whole leg infected and the third his whole thigh and the fourth day his whole body insomuch that he died the sameday his deadbody being all partched as if it had been rosted by a fire And thus he that was so hot in burning poore Christians was himselfe by a secret flame of Gods wrath as by slow and soft fire burned and consumed to death Lewes du Vaine brother in law to Meniâ—r the President of the said Parliament of Provence with the brother and son of Peter â—urand chiefe butcher of the city Ajax the evening before the horrible cruelty was executed at Merindoll fell at debate amongst themselves and the morrow as instruments of Gods judgements slew one another The Judge of the City Aix one of that wretched crew drowned himselfe in his returne as he passed over the river Durance As for the chiefe Judge that was principall in that murtherous action touching the condemnation of those poore soules of Merindoll and Cabrieres he likewise suddainly died before he saw the execution of that decree which himselfe had set downe Iohn Mesnier Lord of Oppede another chiefe Officer of the aforesaid Parliament that got the leading of the murthering Army against the poore Christians aforesaid committing such excesse of cruelty that the most barbarous heathen in the world would have yearned to doe For which cause hee was also summoned to appeare personally at the Parliament of Paris there to answer those extortions robberies and oppressions which were layd to his charge and being convinced and found guilty theieof was neverthelesse released and set at liberty and that which is more restored to his former estate Howbeit though hee escaped the hands of men yet was hee overtaken by the hand of God who knew well enough the way how to entrap and abate his proud intents for even then when hee was in the height of worldly prosperity and busier than ever in persecuting Christians even then was hee pulled downe by a flux of bloud which provoking his privy parts engendred such a carnositie and thicknesse of flesh therein and withall a restraint of urine that with horrible outeries and raving speeches hee died feeling a burning fire broyling his entrailes from his navill upwards
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
so brazen-faced as to command angels and devils as Clement the fifth did in one of his buls so impudent as to be carried like Idols upon their vassals shoulders and weare three crownes upon their heads so proud and arrogant as to constraine Kings and Emperours to kisse their feet to make them their vassals to usurp lordship and dominion over them and all their lands and possessions and to dispossesse whom they like not of Kingdomes and install in their roome whom they please and all this by the thunder of excommunication whereby they make themselves feared and stood in awe of By which dealing of theirs they verifie in themselves that which the Scripture speaketh of Antichrist which is the man of sinne the sonne of perdition an adversary and one that exalteth himselfe against all which is called God or which is worshipped till he be set as a God in the Temple of God shewing himselfe that he is God Wherefore also the heavy vengeance of God is manifest upon them by the great and horrible punishments they have been tormented with for some of them have had their eyes pulled out others have dyed in prisons a third sort have bin smothered to death a fourth hath bin killed with the sword a fifth hath died with hunger a sixth hath been stoned a seventh poysoned and yet there hath not wanted an eighth sort whom the Devill himselfe hath stifled This it is to over-reach the clouds and not content with earthly power to usurp a supremacy and preheminence over Kings such was the pride of Pope Boniface the eighth when he sent an embassage to Philip the Faire King of France to command him to take upon him an expedition against the Sarazens beyond the sea upon paine of forfeiting of his Kingdome into his hands and when having his sword by his side he shamed not to say that he alone and none else was Emperour and Lord of all the world in demonstration whereof he bestowed the Empire upon Duke Albert together with the Crowne of France and not content herewith his insolency was so importunate that he charged Philip the Faire to acknowledge himselfe to be his subject in all causes as well spirituall as temporall and to levy a subfidy for his holinesse out of his clergy disabling his authority in bestowing Church livings which prerogative he challenged to his See the conclusion of this bull was in these words Aliud credentes fatuos reputamus as much to say as whosoever is of another mind than this we esteeme him a foole Whereunto the King answered in this wise Philippus Dei gratia Francorum Rex Bonifacio se gerenti pro summo pontifice salutem modicam sive nullam Sciat tua maxima fatuitas in temporalibus nos alicui non subesse Ecclesiarum Prebendarum vacantium collationem ad nos jure regio pertinere secus autem credentes fatuos reputamus deviantes In English thus Philip by the grace of God King of France to Boniface bearing himselfe for Pope little or no health Be it knowne to thy exceeding great foolishnesse that we in temperall affaires are subject to none that the bestowing of Benefices belongs to us by our royall right and if there be any that thinke otherwise we hold them for erroneous fools A memorable answer well beseeming a true royall and French heart Immediately he assembled together a nationall Councell of all the Barons and Prelates within his dominion at Paris wherein Boniface being pronounced an Hereticke a Symonist and a Manslayer it was agreed upon by a joint consent that the King should doe no more obeisance but reject as nothing worth whatsoever he should impose Wherefore the King to tame his proud and malitious nature dispatched secretly two hundred men at armes under the conduct of one Captaine Noguard towards Avian in Naples whither his Holinesse was fled for feare of divers whose houses and castles he had caused to be rased downe there to surprise him on a sudden which stratagem they speedily performed and carried him prisoner to Rome where he died most miserably Peter Mesie a Spanish Gentleman of Sevill saith in many of his Lectures that he died in prison inraged with famine Nicholas Gilles in his first volume of French Chronicles reporteth that he died in the castle Saint Angelo through a fluxe of his belly which cast him into a frenzy that he gnew off his owne hands and that at the houre of his death there were heard horrible thunders and tempests and lightenings round about this is he in whose honour this fine Epitaph was made Intravit ut Vulpes regnavit ut Leo mortuus est ut Canis He entred like a Fox raigned like a Lyon and dyed like a Dog And this was he that on the first day of Lent giving ashes to the Bishop of Genes in stead of using the ordinary forme of speech which is Memento homo quòd cinis es in cinerem converter is Remember man that thou art ashes and into ashes thou shalt returne said in despight and mockery Memento homo quia Gibellinus es cum Gibellinis in cinerem converter is Rember that thou art a Gibelline and together with the Gibell nes thou shalt be turned into ashes and in stead of laying the ashes upon his forehead threw them into his eyes and forthwith deprived him of his Bishopricke and would have done worse if it had been in his power marke what little account this holy father himselfe made of these ceremonies and therefore it is no marvell if others mocke at them seeing the Popes themselves make them but matters of pastime If it be so therefore that no man ought to arrogate to himselfe any title of deity then consequently it is no lesse unlawfull to give that divine honour to any other mortall creature and therefore the people of Caesarea faulted greatly when blasphemously they called King Herod a god as hath been declared before Likewise it was high and proud presumption in the Senat of Rome not to receive any god to their Common-wealth without their owne fore-approbation and consent As if that God could not maintaine his dignity nor stand without the good liking and assent of men or as if that man could defie whom he liâ—ted which is a most ridiculous and absurd thing And thus the Romanes in time of Tiberius consecrating to themselves a whole legion even thousands of false gods would not admit of the true God and his Sonne Christ but rejected him above all others Among all the vanities of the Athenians this was one worthy noting how they ordained that Demetrius Alexanders successor for re-establishing their popular and antient liberty with his father Antigonus should be called Kings and honoured with the title of Saving gods and to have a Priest that should offer sacrifice unto them and moreover caused their pictures to be drawne in the same banner where the pictures of Iupiter and Minerva the protectors of their city were drawne
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
fled to a Church of purer Religion and there was entertained into the Church by baptisme Socrates in his Ecclesiasticall History reporteth the like accident to have happened to a Iew who had beene oftentimes baptised and came to Paulus a Novatian Bishop to receive the Sacrament againe but the water as before vanished and his villany being detected he was banished the Church Vrbanus Formensis and Foelix Iducensis two Donatists by profession rushing into Thipasa a city of Mauritania commanded the Eucharist to be throwne among the dogs but the dogs growing mad thereby set upon their owne Masters and rent them with their teeth as being guilty of despising the body of Christ. Certainly a notable judgement to condemne the wicked behaviour of those miscreants who were so prophane as not only to refuse the Sacrament themselves but also to cast it to their dogs as if it were the vilest and contemptiblest thing in the world Theopompus a Phylosopher being about to insert certaine things out of the writings of Moses into his prophane works and so to abuse the sacred Word of God was stricken with a frenzy and being warned of the cause thereof in a dreame by prayers made unto God recovered his sences againe This story is recorded by Iosephus As also another of Theodectes a Poet that mingled his Tragedies with the holy Scripture and was therfore stricken with blindnesse untill he had recanted his impiety In a towne of Germany called Itzsith there dwelt a certaine husbandman that was a monstrous despiser and prophaner of the Word of God and his Sacraments he upon a time amidst his cups railed with most bitter termes upon a Minister of Gods Word after which going presently into the fields to overlooke his sheepe he never returned alive but was found there dead with his body all scortched and burnt as blacke as a cole the Lord having given him over into the hands of the Divell to be thus used for his vile prophanenesse and abusing his holy things This D. Iustus Ionus in Luthers Conferences reporteth to be most true In the yeare of our Lord 1553 a certain Coblers servant being brought up among the professors of the reformed Religion and having received the Sacrament in both kinds after living under Popery received it after their fashion in one kinde but when he returned to his old Master and was admonished by him to go againe to the Communion as he was wont then his sleepy conscience awaked and he fell into most horrible dispaire crying that he was the Divels bondslave and therewithall threw himselfe headlong out of the window so that with the fall his bowels gushed out of his mouth and he died most miserably When the great persecution of the Christians was in Persia under king Sapor in the yeare of our Lord 347 there was one Miles an holy Bishop and constant Martyr who preaching exhorting and suffering all manner of torments for the truth of the Gospel could not convert one soule of the whole city whereof he was Bishop to the faith wherefore in hatred and detestation of it he forewent it cleane but after his departure the Lord made them worthily â—ue their contempt of his Word for he sent the spirit of division betwixt King Sapor and them so that he came with an army of men and three hundred Elephants against it and quickly subverted it that the very apparance and memoriall of a city was quile defaced and rooted out For certainly this is a sure position where Gods word is generally despised and not regarded nor profited by there some notable destruction approcheth In a certaine place there was acted a tragedy of the death and passion of Christ in shew but in deed of themselves for he that played Christs part hanging upon the Crosse was wounded to death by him that should have thrust his sword into a bladder full of bloud tyed to his side who with his fall slew another that played one of the womens part that lamented under the Crosse his brother that was first slaine seeing this slew the murtherer and was himselfe by order of justice hanged therefore so that this tragedy was concluded with foure true not counterfeit deaths and that by the divine providence of God who can endure nothing lesse than such prophane and rediculous handling of so serious and heavenly matters In the Vniversity of Oxford the history of Christ was also played and cruelly punished and that not many yeares since for he that bore the person of Christ the Lord struck him with such a giddinesse of spirit and brain that he became mad forthwith crying when he was in his best humour That God had laid this judgment upon him for playing Christ. Three other Actors in the same play were hanged for robbing as by credible report is affirmed Most lamentable was the judgement of God upon Iohn Apowel sometimes a Serving-man for mocking and jeasting at the Word of God This Iohn Apowel hearing one William Malden reading certaine English prayers mocked him after every word with contrary gaudes and flouting termes insomuch that at last hee was terribly afraid so that his haire stood upright on his head and the next day was found besides his wits crying night and day without ceasing The Divell the Divell O the Divell of Hell now the Devill of hell there he goeth for it seemed to him as the other read Lord have mercy upon us at the end of the prayer that the Devill appeared unto him and by the permission of God depilved him of his understanding This is a terrible example for all those that be mockers at the Word of God to warne them if they doe not repent lest the vengeance of God fall upon them in like manner Thus we see how severely the Lord punisheth all despisers and prophaâ—â—rs of his holy things and thereby ought to learne to carry a most dutifull regard and reverence to them as also to note them for none of Gods flocke whosoever they be that deride or contemne any part of Religion or the Ministers of the same CHAP. XXXV Of those that prophane the Sabbath day IN the fourth and last Commandement of the first Table it is said Remember to keepe holy the Sabbath day By which words it is ordained and enjoyned us to separate one day of seven from all bodily and servile labour not to idlenesse and loosenesse but to the worship of God which is spirituall and wholesome Which holy ordinance when one of the children of Israel in contempt broke as they were in the wildernes by gathering sticks upon the Sabbath he was brought before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation by them put in prison untill such time as they knew the Lords determination concerning him knowing well That he was guilty of a most grievous crime And at length by the Lords owne sentence to his servant Moses condemned to be stoned to death without the host as was
then is the murdering of Parents especially detestable when a man is so possessed with the Devill or transported with a hellish fury that he lifteth up his hand against his own father or mother to put them to death this is so monstrous and inormous an impiety that the greatest Barbarians ever have had it in detestation wherefore it is also expresly commanded in the Law of God That whosoever smiteth his father or mother in what sort so ever though not to death yet he shall die the death If the disobedience unreverence and contempt of children towards their Parents are by the just judgements of God most rigorously punished as hath beene declared before in the first commandement of the second Table how much more then when violence is offered and above all when murder is committed Thus the Aegyptians punished this sinne they put the committants upon a stacke of thornes and burnt them alive having beaten their bodies beforehand with sharpe reeds made of purpose Solon being demanded why he appointed no punishment in his Lawes for Paricides answered that there was no necessity thinking that the wide world could not afford so wicked a wretch It is said that Romulus for the same cause ordained no punishment in his Common wealth for that crime but called every murderer a Paricide the one being in his opinion a thing execrable and the other impossible And in truth there was not for 600 yeeres space according to Plutarchs report found in Rome any one that had committed this execrable fact The first Paricide that Rome saw was Lucius Ostius after the first Punicke warre although other Writers affirme that M. Malliolus was the first and Lucius the second how soever it was they both underwent the punishment of the Law Pompeia which enacted That such offenders should be thrust into a sacke of Leather and an Ape a Cocke a Viper and a Dog put in to accompany them and then to be throwne into the water to the end that these beasts being enraged and animated one against another might wreke their teene upon them and so deprive them of life after a strange fashion being debarred of the use of the aire water and earth as unworthy to participate the very Elements with their deaths much lesse with their lives which kinde of punishment was after practised and confirmed by the constitution of Constantine the Great And albeit the regard of the punishment seemed terrible and the offence it selfe much more monstrous yet since that time there have beene many so perverse and exceeding wicked as to throw themselves headlong into that desperate gulfe As Cleodoricke sonne of Sigebert King of Austria who being tickled with an unsatiable lust of raigne through the deceivable perswasions of Cleodovius King of France slew his father Sigebert as he lay asleepe in his Tent in a forrest at noone time of the day who being weary with walking laid himselfe downe there to take his rest but for all that the wicked wretch was so farre from attaining his purpose that it fell out cleane contrary to his expectation for after his fathers death as he was viewing his treasures and ransacking his coffers one of Cleodovius factors strooke him suddenly and murdered him and so Cleodovius seised both upon the Crowne and Treasures After the death of Hircanus Aristobulus succeeded in the government of Judea which whilest he strove to reduce into a kingdome and to weare a crown contrary to the custome of his predecessors his mother other brethren contending with him about the same he cast in prison took Antigonus his next brother to be his associate but ere long a good gratefull son he famished her to death with hunger that had fed him to life with her teares even his naturall mother And after perswaded with false accusations caused his late best beloved Antigonus to be slaine by an ambush that lay by Strato's tower because in the time of his sicknesse he entred the Temple with pompe But the Lord called for quittance for the two bloodsheds immediately after the execution of them for his brothers blood was scarce washed off the ground ere in the extreamity of his sicknesse he was carried into the same place and there vomiting up blood at his mouth and nosthrils to be mingled with his brothers he fell downe starke dead not without horrible tokens of trembling and despaire Nero that unnaturall Tyran surpassed all that lived as in all other vices so in this for he attempted thrice by poyson to make away his mother Agrippina and when that could not prevaile by reason of her usuall Antidotes and preservatives hee assayed divers other meanes as first a devise whereby she should be crushed to death as she slept a loosened beame that should fall upon her and secondly by shipwracke both which when she escaped the one by discovery and the other by swimming he sent Anicâ—tus the Centurion to slaughter her with the sword who with his companions breaking up the gate of the City where she lay rushed into her Chamber and there murdered her It is written of her that when she saw there was no remedy but death she presented her belly unto the murderer and desired him to kill her in that part which had most deserved it by bringing into the world so vile a monster and of him that he came to view the dead carkasse of his mother and handled the members thereof commending this and discommending that as his fancy led him and in the meane time being thirsty to call for drinke so farre was he from all humanity and touch of Nature but he that spared not to embrue his hands in her blood that bred him was constrained ere long to offer violence to his own life which was most deere unto him Henry the son of Nicolotus Duke of Herulia had two wicked cruell and unkind sonnes by the yonger of whom with the consent of the elder he was traiterously murdered because he had married a third wife for which cause Nicolotus their cousin-german pursued them both with a just revenge for he deprived them of their kingdome and drove them into exile where they soon after perished Selymus the tenth Emperour of Turkes was so unnaturall a childe that he feared not to dispossesse his father Bajazet of the crown by treason and next to bereave him of his life by poyson And not satisfied therewith even to murder his two brethren and to destroy the whole stock of his own blood But when hee had raigned eight yeares vengeance found him out and being at his backe so corrupted and putrified his reins that the contagion spread it selfe over all his body so that he dyed a beast-like and irksome death and that in the same place where he had before oppressed his father Bajazet with an army to wit at Chiurle a city of Thracia in the year of our Lord 1520. in the moneth of September Charles the younger by surname called Crassus
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
French K. was fore troubled at his returne having to withstand him all the Venetian forces with the most part of the Potentates of Italie notwithstanding he broke through them all after he had put the Venetians to the worst but being returned after this victorious and triumphant voyage it happened that one day as he led the Queen to the Castle of Amboise to see some some sport at Tenise he stroke his forehead against the upper door-poste of the gallery as he went in that he fell presently to the ground speechlesse and died incontinently in the place from whence though the filthiest and sluttishest place about the Castle they removed not his body but laid it on a bed of straw to the view of the world from two of the clocke in the afternoon till eleven at midnight and this good successe followed at last his so much desired divorce CHAP. XXVII Of those that either cause or authorise unlawfull Divorcements ALthough the Commandment of our Saviour Christ be very plain and manifest That man should not separate those whom God hath joyned together yet there are some so void of understanding and judgement that they make no conscience to dissolve those that by the bond of marriage are united Of which number was Sampsons father in Law who took his daughter first given in marriage to Sampson and gave her to another without any other reason save that he suspected that Sampson loved her not But what got he by it Marry this the Philistims provoked against him consumed him and his daughter with fire because that by the meanes of his injury Sampson had burned their corne their vineyards and their olive-trees After the same sort dealt Saul with David when he gave him his daughter Michol to Wife and afterward in despight and hatred of him took her away again and bestowed her upon another wherein as in many other things he shewed himselfe a wicked and prophane man and was worthily punished therefore as hath been before declared Hugh Spencer one of King Edward of Englands chiefest favourites insomuch that his ear and heart was at his pleasure was he that first persuaded the King to forsake and repudiate the Queen his Wife daughter to Philip the Faire King of France upon no other occasion but onely to satisfie his owne appetite and the better to follow his delights And thus by this meanes she was chased out of England and driven to retire to King Charles her brother where hoping to finde rest and refuge she was deceived for what by the crafts and practises of the English and what by the Popes authority who thrust himselfe into this action as his custom is she was constrained to dislodge her selfe and to change her countrey very speedily wherefore from thence she went to crave succour of the County of Henault who furnished her with certain forces and sent her towards England where being arrived and finding the people generally at her command and ready to do her service she set upon her enemy Hugh Spencer took him prisoner and put him to a shamefull death as he well deserved for he was also the causer of the deaths of many of the Nobles of the Realme therefore he was drawne through the streets of Hereford upon an hurdle and after his privie members his heart and head were cut off his four quarters were exalted in four severall places to the view of the world Now if these be found guilty that either directly make or indirectly procure divorcements shall we accuse them that allow and authorize the same without lawfull and just occasion No verily no though they be Popes that take it upon them as we reade Pope Alexander the sixth did who for the advancement of his haughty desires to gratifie and flatter Lewis the twelfth King of France sent him by his son a dispensation to put away his Wife daughter to King Lewis the eleventh because she was barren and counterfeit and to recontract Anne of Bretaigne the widow of Charles the eighth lately deceased But herein though barrennesse of the former was pretended yet the Duchie of the later was aimed at which before this time he could never attain unto But of what force and vertue this dispensation by right was or at least ought to be it is easie to perceive seeing it is not onely contrary to the words of the Gospel Matth. 19. but also to their owne decrees secund part quest 7. Hi qui matrimonium where in is imported that marriage ought not to be infringed for any default or imperfection no not of nature But Popes may maim and clip both the Word of God and all other writings and do what soever themselves liketh be it good or bad CHAP. XXXIII Of Incestuous persons ALthough Incest be a wicked and abominable sin and forbidden both by the Law of God and man in so much that the very heathen held it in detestation yet are there some so inordinately vicious and dissolute that they blush not once to pollute themselves with this filthinesse Reuben the Patriarch was one of this vile crue that shamed not to defile himselfe with Bilha his fathers concubine but he was cursed for his labour for whereas by right of eldership and birth he ought to have had a certain prerogative and authority over his brethren his excellency shed it selfe like water and he was surpassed by his brethren both in encrease of progeny and renowne Ammon one of King Davids sonnes was so strongly enchanted with the love of his sister Thamar that to the end to fulfill his lust he traiterously forced her to his will but Absalom her naturall brother hunting for opportunity of revenge for this indignity towards his sister invited him two yeares after to a banquet with his other brethren and after the same caused his men to murder him for a farewell The same Absalom that slew Amnon for Incest with his sister committed himselfe incest with his fathers concubines moved thereto by the wicked counsell of Achitophel that advised him to that infamous deed of defiling his fathers bed but it was the forerunner of his overthrow as we have already heard Divers of the Roman Empetours were so villanous and wretched as to make no bones of this sin with their owne sisters as Caligula Antonius and Commodus and some with their mothers as Nero so much was he given over and transported to all licentiousnesse Plutarch telleth us of one Cyanippus that being overcome with wine defloured his owne daughter Cyane but he was slain of her for his labour Neither do I thinke it so unnaturall a part for her to kill her father as in him to commit incest with his owne daughter for the Oracle lessened or rather approved her fault when it abhorred and chastened his crime for when Syracusa was grievously infected with the pestilence it was pronounced by the Oracle That the plague should continue till the wicked person was
â—â— these murdering 〈…〉 together in the market Place the same cranes appearing unto 〈…〉 they whispered one another in the care and said â—onder 〈…〉 which though secretly spoken yet was overheâ—rd 〈…〉 they being examined and found guilty were put to death for their 〈◊〉 The like story Martin Luther reporteth touching a traveller only 〈…〉 in this that as Cranes detected the former so Crowes laid open the latter In the yeare 138â— when as all Saxony was so infested with Theeyes that no man could travell safely in the countrey the Princes calling a Councell for downe this order That not only the Theeves themselves should be severely punished but all that did protect or harbour any of them which 〈…〉 as Theodoricke Country of Weâ—ingrâ—de impugned the body of 〈◊〉 Councell sent for him and adjudged him to a most cruell and shamefull 〈◊〉 In the yeare 1410 Henry Duke of Luneburg a most just and severe Prince went about to purge his Countrey from all thefts and robberies insomuch that the least offence committed in that kinde he suffered not to go unpunished now it hapned as the Duke went towards Lunâ—burge he sene before him one of his chiefest officers to provide necessaries against his comming who riding without a cloak the weather being cold 〈◊〉 a ploughman to lend him his cloak till his returne which when the clowne refused to do he took it without leave but it cost him his life for â—â— for the ploughman awaited the Dukes comming and directed his complaint unto him on this manner What availeth iâ— Oâ— most noble Princeâ— to seek to suppres the courage of thieves and spoilers when as thy chiefest officers dare commit such things uncontrolled aâ— the Lieutenant of 〈◊〉 but now taken from me my cloak The Duke hearing this complaint and considering the cause dissembled his counsell 〈◊〉 his returne 〈◊〉 from Luneburge unto the same place where calling for his Lieutenant and rating him for his injury he commanded him to be hunged upon a tree A wonderfull severity in justice and worthy to be commended for what hope is it to root out small and pity thieves if we suffer grand thieves to go uncorrected There is another kinde of these practised of them that be in authority who under the title of confiscation assume unto themselves stollen goods and so much the reâ—dilier by now much the value of the things amounteth to more worth an action altogether unjust and contrary to both divine and humane lawes which ordain to restore unto every man his owne and truly he that in stead of restitution withholdeth the goods of his neighbour in this manner differeth no more from a 〈◊〉 than that the one stealeth boldly without fear the other â—nâ—orously and with great danger and what greater corruption of justice can there be than this For who would follow the Law upon a thiefe when he knoweth he shall rather run into further charge than recover any of his old losse Beside this it hapneth that poor small theeves are often drawne to the whip or driven to banishment of sent to the gallowes when rich grand theeves lie at their case and escape uncontrolled albeit the quality of their 〈◊〉 be far unequall according to the Poet The simple dove by law is censured When ravenou◠〈◊〉 escape unpunished The world was ever yet full of such ravenouâ— Raâ—ens so nimble in pilling others goods and so greedy of their owne gain that the poor people in stead of being maintained and preserved in the peaceable enjoying of their portions are gnawne to the very boneâ— amongst them for which cause Homer in the person of Agamemnon calleth them devourers of men Likewise also the Prophet David in the 〈◊〉 Psalme calleth them Eaters of his people and yet want they not flatterers and 〈◊〉 friends canker wormes of a Common-wealth that urge them forwards and devise daily new kinde of exactions like horse-leadâ—es to suckt out the very bloud of mens purses shewing so much the more wit and deceit therein by how much the more they hope to gain a great part 〈◊〉 of unto their selves being like hunger-starved Harpeis that will never be fortified but still match and catch all that commeth near their 〈◊〉 and these are they that do good to no man but hurt to all of whom the Merchant findeth himselfe agrieved the Artificer trodden under foot the poor labourer oppressed and generally all men endammaged CHAP. XXXVIII Of the excessive burdenings of the Comminalty AS it is a just and approved thing before God to do honour and reverence to Kings and Princes and to be subject under them in all obedience so it is a reasonable and allowable duty to pay such tributes and subsidies whereby their great charges and honourable estate may be maintained as by right or equity are due unto them and this is also commanded by our Saviour Christ in expresse words when he saith Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars And by the Apostle Paul more expresly Pay tributes render unto all men their due tribute to whom tribute belongeth and custom to whom custom Marke how he saith Give unto all men their due and therein observe that Kings and Princes ought of their good and just disposition to be content with their due and not seek to load and overcharge their subjects with unnecessary exactions but to desire to see them rather rich and wealthy than poor and needy for thereby commeth no profit unto themselves Further it is most unlawfull for them to exact that above measure upon their Commons which being in mediocrity is not condemned I say it is unlawfull both by the law of God and man the Law of God and man is tearmed all that which both God and man allow and agree upon and which a man with a safe conscience may put in practise for the former we can have no other schoolmaster nor instruction save the holy Scripture wherein God hath manifested his will unto us concerning this very matter as in Deuteronomy the eighteenth speaking of the office and duty of a King he forbiddeth them to be hoorders up of gold and siluer and espousers of many wives and lovers of pride signifying thereby that they ought to contain themselves within the bounds of modesty and temperance and not give the raines to their owne affections nor heape up great treasures to their peoples detriment nor to delight in war nor to be too much subject to their owne pleasures all which things are meanes of unmeasurable expence so that if it be not allowable to muster together multitudes of goods for the danger and mischief that ensueth thereof as it appeareth out of this place then surely it is much lesse lawfull to levy excessive taxes of the people for the one of these cannot be without the other and thus for the Law of God it is clear that by it authority is not committed unto them to surcharge and as it were trample downe their poor subjects by
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
Arabians to make warre against him who forraged his countrey sacked and spoiled his cities and tooke prisoners his wives and children the youngest onely excepted who afterwards also was murdered when he had raigned King but a small space And lastly as in doing to death his own brethren he committed cruelty against his owne bowels so the Lord stroke him with such an incurable disease in his bowels and so perpetuall for it continued two yeares that his very entrails issued out with torment and so he dyed in horrible misery Albeit that in the former booke we have already touched the pride and arrogancy of King Alexander the Great yet we cannot pretermit to speake of him in this place his example serving to fit for the present subject for although as touching the rest of his life he was very well governed in his private actions as a Monarch of his reputation might be yet in his declining age I meane not in yeares but to deathward he grew exceeding cruell not onely towards strangers as the Cosseis whom he destroyed to the sucking babe but also to his houshold and familiar friends Insomuch that being become odious to most fewest loved him and divers wrought all meanes possible to make him away but one especially whose sonne in law and other neere friends he had put to death never ceased untill he both ministred a deadly draught unto himselfe whereby he deprived him of his wicked life and a fatall stroke to his wives and children after his death to the accomplishment of his full revenge Phalaris the Tyran of Agrigentum made himselfe famous to posterity by no other meanes than horrible cruelties exercised upon his subjects inventing every day new kinds of tortures to scourge and afflict the poore soules withall In his dominion there was one Perillus artificer of his craft one expert in his occupation who to flatter and curry favour with him devised a new torment a brasen bull of such a strange workmanship that the voyce of those that were roasted therein resembled rather the roaring of a Bull then the cry of men The Tyran was well pleased with the Invention but he would needs have the Inventor make first triall of his owne worke as he well deserved before any other should take taste thereof But what was the end of this Tyran The people not able any longer to endure his monstrous and unnaturall cruelties ran upon him with one consent with such violence that they soone brought him to destruction and as some say put him into the brasen Bull which hee provided to roast others to bee roasted therein himselfe deserving it as well for approoving the devise as Perillus did for devising it Edward the second of that name King of England at the request and desire of Hugh Spencer his darling made warre upon his subjects and put to death divers of the Peeres and Lords of the Realme without either right or form of the law insomuch that queen Isabel his wife fled to France with her yong son for fear of his unbrideled fury after a while finding opportunity and means to return again garded with certain small forces which she had in those countreyes gathered together she found the whole people discontented with the Kings demeanours and ready to assist her against him so she besieged him with their succour and tooke him prisoner and put him into the Tower of London to be kept till order might be taken for his deposition so that shortly after by the Estates being assembled together he was generally and joyntly reputed and pronounced unworthy to be King for his exceeding cruelties sake which he had committed upon many of his worthy Subjects and so deposing him they crowned his young sonne Edward the third of his name King in his roome he yet living and beholding the same Iohn Maria Duke of Millan may be put into this ranke of Murtherers for his custome was divers times when any Citizen offended thim yea and somtimes without offence too to throw them amongst cruell Mastives to be torne in pieces and devoured But as he continued and delighted in this unnaturall kinde of murther the people one day incensed and stirred up against him ranne upon him with such rage and violence that they quickly deprived him of life And he was so well beloved that no man ever would or durst bestow a Sepulchre upon his dead bones but suffered his body to lie in the open streets uncovered save that a certaine harlot threw a few Roses upon his wounds and so covered him Alphonsus the second King of Naples Ferdinands sonne was in tyranny towards his subjects nothing inferiour to his father for whether of them imprisoned and put to death more of the Nobility and Barons of the Realme it is hard to say but sure it is that both were too outragious in all manner of cruelty for which so soone as Charles the eight King of France departing from Rome made towards Naples the hatred which the people bore him secretly with the odious remembrance of his fathers cruelty began openly to shew it selfe by the fruits for they did not nor could not dissemble the great desire that every one had of the approach of the Frenchmen which when Alphonsus perceived and seeing his affaires and estate brought unto so narrow a pinch he also cowardly cast away all courage to resist and hope to recover so huge a tempest and he that for a long time had made warre his trade and profession and had yet all his forces and armies complete and in readinesse making himselfe banquerupt of all that honour and reputation which by long experience and deeds of armes he had gotten resolved to abandon his kingdome and to resigne the title and authority thereof to his sonne Ferdinand thinking by that meanes to asswage the heat of their hatred and that so young and innocent a King who in his owne person had never offended them might be accepted and beloved of them and so their affection toward the French rebated and cooled But this devise seemed to no more purpose than a salve applyed to a sore out of season when it was growne incureable or a prop set to a house that is already falne Therefore he tormented with the sting of his owne conscience and finding in his minde no repose by day nor rest by night but a continuall summons and advertisement by fearefull dreames that the Noblemen which hee had put to death cryed to the people for revenge against him was surprised with so terrible terrour that forthwith without making acquainted with his departure either his brother or his owne sonne he fled to Sicilie supposing in his journey that the Frenchmen were still at his backe and starting at every little noyse as if he feared all the Elements had conspired his destruction Philip Comineus that was an eye-witnesse of this journey reporteth That every night he would cry that he heard the Frenchmen and that the very trees