Parents towards them and this indulgency and fond love of Parents is the cause of two evils first that the children come to a shameful end secondly that their Parents hoary heads go down with sorrow to the grave and Solomon confirms the same The rod and k Prov. 29.15.17 reproof give wisdom but a childe left to himself bringeth his mother to shame and in the 17. vers Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest yea he shall give delight unto thy soul This Infancy of man is then but meer vanity for the first five years of it is but imbecillity the second five but puerility and the last five nothing but malice obstinacy and disobedience so that according to their good or bad education they become a blessing or a curse to their Parents Thirdly the adolescency or youth of man begins at 15 years of age and ends at thirty the greater part of it is spent under the restraint of their Tutors or Masters and by consequence freed from cares and curbed from vices if their Tutors or Masters discharge their duty but if they do not they commonly become so vicious that without the speciall grace of God they can never be recalled and continue prophane and unthrifty all their dayes And therefore Tutors and Masters who neglect their duty and are too indulgent towards their Pupils or Servants are the cause of their overthrow and will be called to a strict account for it before the Tribunal of God The remisness or indulgency of i 1 Sam. 2.2.3 and 3.17.18 Ely towards his two sons Hophny and Phineas drew a great judgment of God upon him and upon them both and the Pupils and Servants that reject the sharp reprehensions and corrections of their Tutors or Masters aggravate their own guilt and acquit their Tutors and Masters for they do not shew themselves onely disobedient to them but also to God for St. Paul chargeth them m Ephe. 6.5.9 Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the servants of Christ And ye masters do the same things unto them forbearing threatnings knowing that your master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him But when young men are freed from the subjection of their Tutors and Masters and have as it were the Bridle cast over their necks they run as fiercely after the pleasures delights and vanities of the flesh as untamed Colts run from their riders when they have cast them down and without Gods special grace miscarry in their race as it is confirmed by Solomon who in derision of their folly saith Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment n Eccles 11.9 The reason why in this age men are more addicted to their pleasure then in any other is Because their Passions are more predominant in them and experience doth shew That from twenty five yeers to thirty five yeers of age men are by the strength of their bodies the abundance and hear of their blood in which doth reside the vital spirits fitter for great enterprises where they may shew their courage and valor then at any other season and that the Passions of Love and Ambition are more violent in them then in any other age For the Adolescency of men is compared to the Spring their Maturity or Virility to the Summer their Declination to the Autumn or Harvest and their decrepit age to Winter the most irksome time of the yeer But as it is the most pleasant and precious age of men so is it the most dangerous for more are carried away with death in this age then in any other because of the distemper and excessive riots of young men which beget burning Feavers Pleurisies Sanguine Apoplexies and divers loathsom Diseases that sends them to their Grave before their time And as their Passions are more turbulent in that age so are their Actions more irregular Young men being most addicted to Vindication Spleen Indignation Wrath Rapines and Oppressions then others and as fickle and inconstant as the wind fit to undertake and active to execute but rash and inconsiderate for want of a rational solidity of Judgment In a word As this age of man hath many rare Prerogatives over the others so it is subject to great inconveniencies and fuller of vanity then any Fourthly The maturity of mans age begins at Thirty and continues till Fourty five In this age mens mindes are commonly full of the cares of this world they have wives children and servants to care for and as their families increase so doth their toyl and their cares The vices or sins of their youth are rather changed then forsaken their delights and pleasures are changed to Envy or Avarice their desires are now bent to attain to honor and riches and to out-go their neighbors in all things but in Vertue or a Godly life their thoughts flie high and are bent only upon Machavilian policies that they may by them over-reach their Brethren by false lights by falsifications of Wares by distinctions and equivocations and as for Religion they use it onely as a baite to deceive men and are more unsatiable after gain and money then the Horse-Leeches are after blood They account this saying of Solomon a Paradox He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase He that trusteth in his riches shall fall but the righteous shall flourish as a branch o Eccles 10.5 6 7 8. And so either by right or wrong they will become rich and honorable at least in shew according to the world but not really according to God for in his sight they are the most vile the poorest and the most despised Creatures under the Sun for they never take into consideration this saying of our blessed Saviour What availeth if a man getteth all the world and loose his own soul This virility of man is then but vanity and not inferior in Vices to Adolescency but they are not so visible to the eyes of men but as odious to the eyes of God Fiftly The declination of mens lives begins at fourty five yeers and continues till seventy This age of man is as much subject to Envy and Avarice as the former age is to Ambition and carking cares whereby it appears that mens Passions and Sins do rather change then forsake them for volupty and carnal delights to which young men are most addicted in their Adolescency doth change in their declining age to Envy and Avarice and sometimes their Avarice doth change to Ambition a Passion more incident to the virility or mature age of men then to old age
yet divers instances may be produced to prove That Avarice doth change into Ambition in mens declining age Martius Crassus p See Plutarch in his life had by a sordid kinde of Avarice attained to the greatest riches of any that we read of and yet out of Envy that he bore to the warlike atchievements of Pompeius and Caesar such an insatiable Ambition or desire of honor possessed him in his declining age That at threescore and three yeers of age he gave away half his estate to the common people of Rome to obtain a general Commission to be Commander in chief of the Roman Legions that were appointed to make war in the furthest parts of Armenia against the Parthians Which insatiable and unseasonable Ambition of his was ingeniously reproved by an old Armenian Knight of whom he did desire to be informed of the condition and distance of the way he was to undergo and power he was to oppose in this Parthian journy saying unto him That it was too great for him to undertake the same in his declining age and that the morning Sun of his age had been fitter for such an enterprise then the setting of it And had Crassus been ruled by this wholesom Counsel he had not by his insatiable desire of honor faln from the highest degree of worldly prosperity to the lowest degree of humane disgrace and misery as he did for by this rash enterprise he was the cause of his own death and of his eldest sons and of the lives of a great part of the bravest Nobility of Rome and of the rout and utter overthrow of his whole Army This is to prove That men in their declining age are fitter for Counsel then for Action and that is the reason that the Roman Senate the Counsel of Areopage and the Senate of Venice have been and are composed of men much advanced in their declining age because their Passions are commonly more moderate their Experience greater their Judgment more solid and their Counsels safer then of those who are in the youth or virility of their age for as Job saith With the ancient should be wisdom and in length of yeers understanding q Job 12.12 Contrarily there have been others in whom the desire of honor hath raigned in their youth and virility as their Noble Martial atchievements do witness who have changed this Ambitious Passion into the Sordid Passion of Avarice in their declining age As may appear by the lives of Vespasiaanus r See Dion and the English and the French Histories of Henry the seventh King of England and of Henry the fourth King of France Howsoever the desire of Wine of Money and the malicious Passion of Envy is more natural and doth commonly increase with age as much as rash Temerity and carnal Delights do diminish by age whereby I conclude That the declining age of men is not free from Vanity For what greater Vanity can there be then to Envy at another mans prosperity or to desire Wine when our head-piece is so weakened by age that it cannot overcome the vapors of it or to desire Money when we have less need of it sith we daily expect to be carried to our Graves Sixthly and Lastly The decrepit age of men begins at seventy and ends when Death strikes them with her Dart which is according to the course of life between fourscore or fourscore and ten For none attains to the days of Methuselah Å¿ Gen. 6.26 or of the Patriarks Abraham Isaac and Jacob for God hath shortened the days of men because of their transgressions as it appears Gen. 7.3 My Spirit saith the Lord shall not alwayes strive with man for he also is flesh yet his dayes shall be an hundred and twenty years and the oldest man that hath been known in this age of the world was a Shropshire Husbandman that was brought up to London as a wonder in the days of King James who was said to be one hundred and thirtie three years of age and this long life of his according to the opinion of the learned Physitians did proceed from the simplicity of his meate and drink for as soon as he came to be fed with the dainties of the Court he came to be diseased and suddenly departed this life Plinius and other Naturalists have much troubled themselves to finde out the naturall reasons why mens lives are so short the best reason they give for it is their immoderate diet and the variety of dainties and change of superfluous meats cooked with art inticing men to gluttony and drunkenness for daily experience doth shew that those who live soberly and live upon simple food avoiding slowth and idleness do live commonly longer then such as feed on dainties and use a sedentary life but the chief cause of it is that men do daily increase in sin and it is just with God for the punishment of their sins to shorten their lives sith as the Apostle Paul saith t Rom. 6.23 That the wages of sin is death howsoever the decrepit age of men except it be indowed with free grace and sanctified by the blessed Spirit of God it is the vanity of vanities and the misery of all miseries for the numerous infirmities incident to it and especially if penury doth accompany the same for old age with penury is the greatest affliction that can befal to generous spirits and the greatest tentation of Satan to intice men to despair for if rich men who have all manner of comforts cannot with patience support the infirmities of a decrepit age but murmure as some have done in my hearing that they were weary of their lives of what distemper must the poor aged people be who have no worldly comforts at all but are ready to starve for cold and to famish for want of food therefore tender and compassionated Christians should exercise their charity upon these objects of unparalleld misery as the most acceptable sacrifice they can offer to God and yet all the hearts of most men are so hardened by a just Judgment of God upon this Nation for its transgressions that they can look upon these dying objects of compassion whoperish daily in the streets without pity or reluctation Now for a conclusion and confirmation of the vanity and misery incident to the life of men I will make a short relation of the Maladies incident to every one of the ages of their lives first in their very conception they may be extinguished by ill sents and vapours and by divers accidents of bruises or falls secondly in their infancy by the squincy convulsions measles or the smal pox thirdly in their adolescency by the sword the pleuresie and burning feavers fourthly in their virility by sanguin apoplexies bloudy-flixes and consumptions fifthly in their declining age by the stone and the gout by dropsies paralepsies and flegmtick apoplexies and in the decrepit age by gouts aches cough the retentions of urine the strangullion poverty cold and
argued with his Prince after this manner Suppose saith he my Liege that Fortune be so favorable to you as to grant you the fruition of your hopes See Plutarch in Pyrrhus life in which I see small probability because the Roman State is potent and abounds in valiant and warlike men and experienced Commanders where will you then fix your hopes Pyrrhus answered when I shall have the possession of Italy I will cross over into Sicilia and subdue that and then replied Cynias where will you bend your Hopes to conquer Carthage said Pyrrhus and all the coasts of Africa and whether then saith Cynias we will then saith Pyrrhus return into Albania and joy in our Conquest and make good chear and be merry and who hinders you saith Cynias to be joyful and make good chear and be merry sith you have a rich Kingdom of your own and abound in Treasures and in all things that your heart can desire my counsel is then that you should give bounds to your hopes and prefer the certain to the uncertain events of Fortune By this Instance onely these things will be confirmed first That the hopes of men are insatiable secondly That young and sanguin men are most addicted to hopes and to undertake hard and difficult enterprises thirdly That rash and inconsiderate hopes void of probabilities are always deceitful and vanish into smoke for this young and valiant Prince was deluded by his hopes and was foiled in Italy by the Romans and in lieu of the conquest of Italy of Sicilia Carthage and the coast of Africa after the shedding of his subjects blood the exhausting of his Treasures and the many hazards he was in to lose his life he was inforced to return into Albania and was slain in the City of Argos by a woman that did cast a Tyle upon his head Fifthly The effects of worldly hope may be these first it is Hope that incourageth generous spirits to undertake all hard and difficult enterprises It was Hope that moved Alexander to forsake his Kingdom of Macedonia to undertake the conquest of Asia and that made him leave a certain good for an imaginary hope of conquest which had a prosperous success against all human probabilities by the secret decree of God The effects of worldly Hopes that the Persian Monarchy should be transferred to the Greeks as it was fore-told by the Prophet Daniel It was Hope that moved Ferdinand and Isabella King and Queen of Spain to undertake the conquest of the West-Indies and by Hope the Ottoman Family hath been inticed to undertake the conquest of the third part of the Kingdoms of the earth See the Spanish History but all their hopes had no other object then self-ends and vain-glory secondly It is Hope that induceth Polititians See the Turkish History and Statesmen to impaire their health and tire their spirits to dive into the mysteries of the Maximes and Reasons of State to propagate the increase honor and glory of their native Countrey as Cardidinal Ximenez did for Spain and the Cardinal de Riche-lieu for France See the French History yet their Hopes were mixt with self-ends and vain-glory It is Hope that moves Commanders and Souldiers to venture their lives in the dangerous atchievements of war under colour to fight for the Liberties and increase of the peace and extent of the demains of their native Countrey yet Marius Sylla and Cesar had a self-end in all their Military exploits tending more to the utter subversion of the Liberties and desolation of their native Countrey then to the increase of the good or glory of it fourthly It is Hope that inticeth Merchants to venture their means and lives at Sea and Tradsmen and Artificers to moyl and toyl and the Husbandman to to endure the heat in Summer and the cold blast of the Northerly windes in Winter Hope incourageth men in their calling nay all the injuries of the Meteors of the Air but all their Hopes have no other object then their private gain and to keep themselves and their Families in a decent condition and free from penury This hope is necessary and therefore more commendable then any of the former so it be kept within the bounds of moderation because it is profitable to the Common-wealth without which it could not subsist but the other are destructive to mankinde for they are cause of much shedding of blood and of the desolation of Kingdoms fifthly Moral Hope excels worldly Hope Moral Hope is better then wordly Hope for it is a preserver of Life and the Moderator of Grief and Sorrow and a Cordial against all Anguishes and Infirmities of the body it supports men in their greatest miseries and is the opposite of the passion of despaire for it moved a Rhodian who had been cast into a dungeon ful of Adders and Snakes for some horrid crimes by him committed to use daily antidotes for his preservation and to answer to some that perswaded him to rid himself by a violent way out of that misery where he lay no saith he as long as I have breath in my nostrils I will ever hope for my deliverance and it is daily seen Hope forsakes not men till death that the Gally-slaves and those that are condemned to die do ever hope to be redeemed or reprived and the sickest or the oldest man hath hope to recover or to live one year longer Nature having as it seems indowed men with this passion of Hope for the preservation of their beeing for as soon as Hope forsakes men they go the way of all flesh or fall into despaire sixthly If Moral Hope be thus qualified it will be of excellent use first Its objects must be a real good secondly This good must be absent or to come thirdly It must be difficult to obtain fourthly It must have some probability that it may be obtained for impossibilities destroy the nature and the proprieties of Hope Vertue is then the true object of moral Hope but it must be without mixture of self-ends and Vain-glory. But Sixthly The Spiritual Hope is free from both for it is a supernatual gift of God The Apostle St. Paul in the eighth of the Romans makes a clear definition of it Hope that is seen is not Hope Rom. 8.24.25 for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for but if we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it Now the object of this hope is the Rock of Eternity Christ Jesus our Lord and the Joy and Glory to come for as the Apostle saith in the same Chapter We are saved by hope The cause of this hope is the immediate grace of God for so excellent a Flower doth not grow in the Garden of our corrupt Nature The effects it prroduceth in all true Christians proceed from the Promises of God and the recompence of reward as the Apostle St. Paul saith of Moses Heb. 11.24 26. By faith when
Joseph the meekness of Moses the zeal of Phineas the fervency of David and the holiness of our blessed Saviour were the objects of mens ambition ambitious men would carry away the garland and be reputed as the only excellent upon earth Psal 16.3 But to be excessively ambitious after the fading and momentary riches honours and glory of this world or after the conquest of a Mole-hill for the greatest Kingdom in Christendom in comparison of the whole Globe of the World will appear but like a Mole-hill it is a meer vanity Eccles 6.2 and an evil disease Socrates being informed that Alcibiades was proud and ambitions and boasted of the great demains he possessed in Attica a Province of Greece See Plutarch in his Morals of which Athens was the Metropolitan City brought him into a place where there was a Map of the whole Earth and prayed him to shew him where stood his Possessions Alcibiades after an exact view of the same found out at last the Province of Attica which was no bigger then a great pins-head but could not see any sign of his demains whereupon Socrates said unto him Why are you then so proud and ambitious for a thing of so little Continent that it cannot be seen in this Card. Even so Princes and Commonwealths who out of ambition contend for enlargement of their demains will finde at the end when they have shed their subjects blood and exhausted their Treasures that they have only obtained with much ado a small Mole-hill of ground And will be enforced to say See the History of France as Charls the Fifth and Philip the Second Kings of Spain did who through their Ambition had been the cause of the death of a million of men and of the exhausting of all the Treasures that came out of the West Indies which did amount in threescore years to above two hundred millions of Crowns by the Wars they made about the Conquest of France viz. That with all this blood and incredible Treasures they had not won a Foot of ground in France and were further from the Conquest of it then they were the first day of their War And verily if the seventeen Provinces of the Low-Countries were represented in a Map and compared to the whole Globe of the Firmament of the Seas and the Earth they would not seem to be so big as a Mole-hill And yet they have this threescore years and ten been the object of the Ambition of him that stiles himself the greatest King in Christendom And notwithstanding his might and power See the History of the Netherlands and the innumerable lives of men that have been lost and the incredible Treasures that have been exhausted in the Conquest and preservation of them yet hath he been enforced to acknowledge seven of these Provinces to be free-States and at this very hour courts them by his Embassadors to obtain an offensive and defensive League with them For although the Ambition of Princes and Commonwealths have no bounds yet are they bounded by the Lord of Hosts and shall extend no further then he hath Decreed The beginning the encrease the decay and utter annihilation of Empires Monarchies and Commonwealths being wholly at his disposing Notwithstanding the desires of Ambitious men are never satisfied and are alwayes projecting to enlarge their bounds although they are ignorant of Gods will and pleasure therein these ambitious desires of theirs being oftentimes the fore-runners of their ruine and annihilation See Herodotus in his Life Croesus King of Lydia desiring ambitiously to enlarge his dominions made War against Cyrus who deprived him in one day of his Kingdom and of his incredible Treasures And Antiochus the great ambitiously desiring to enlage his Kingdom declared War against the Romans who took from him Armenia See Plutarch in the Lives of Lucullus and Pompeius and confined him beyond the Mount Taurus And because this fiery passion of Ambition is as predominant in all parts of Christendom in these dayes as it hath been in former Ages give me leave to enlarge my self upon these particulars 1. On the definition of this passion 2. On the composure of it 3. On the nature of the same 4. On those who are most addicted to it 5. On the Causes that move men to be Ambitious 6. On the proprieties of the same 7. On the pernitious effects of it 8. On the means to subdue the same First The definition Ambition is nothing but an exorbitant and irregular desire of worldly honour and glory Secondly It is a mixt passion composed of these The composure viz. of Audacity of Hope and Desire 1. Audacity expels the fears that might disswade Ambitious men from undertaking any perilous enterprises 2. Hope infuseth in them a confidence they shall attain to their ends 3. Desire gives them wings to prosecute with indefatigable labour the fruition of that which they aym at Thirdly It is of a fiery restless and insatiable nature 1. It is fiery because such as are more ambitious then others are of a bilious hot and dry constitution 2. It is restless because the bilious humour which is the most predominant in their bodies doth usually ascend up to their brains which makes them active in all their actions and sudden in all their undertakings The nature of Ambition And of this natural constitution were Caesar Henry the Fourth King of France and the last King of Sweden who were all three extraordinarily ambitious 3. It is insatiable because of the great predominancy the passion of desire hath over the other passions of which it is composed nothing being more insatiable then the desires of men Fourthly Those who are most ambitious are commonly of a haughty spirit envious and impatient when they see any other excel them in valor honor glory It was Ambition that moved Alexander to reject the fair offer that Darius King of Persia made unto him of the half of his Kingdom and of his eldest Daughter to be his wife if that would have satisfied his ambition so he might enjoy peaceably the other moity the rest of his days See Quintus Curtius in his Life but this answer of Alexander made unto Darius upon this offer did proceed from a haughty and imperious spirit viz. That as there was but one Sun in the Firmament so there could be but one Monarch upon Earth See Plutarch in Caesars Life And this saying of Caesar did proceed from a haughty and ambitious heart viz. That he would rather be the chiefest Magistrate in a petty City of Italy then the second in the City of Rome And this other that he spake to the Master of a ship in the midst of a storm Fear not saith he For thou dost carry in thy ship Caesar and his Fortune as if the Winde and the Sea had been bound to obey and comply with his ambitious designs But his passion of Sorrow when he wept seeing the Figure of
Christendom But God who derides at the ambition of Princes which do not tend to the execution of his secret will brought all his ambitious designs to nothing for his invincible Navie was beaten and scattered by the English valour and the greatest part of it swallowed up by the roaring Seas And the Catholike League in France was utterly subdued by the activity wisdom and valour of Henry the Fourth their lawfull king See the Netherland History Yet notwithstanding that the Hollanders have deprived him of seven of the Netherland Provinces and the Portuguies from his usurped kingdom of Portugal he hoped still ambitiously to make himself the absolute Monarch of Christendom by the divisions he hath lately fomented in Holland England France Scotland and Ireland by the means of the Machiavellian Principles spread abroad by the Jesuitical Locusts that he hath scattered among these Nations like so many swarms of Bees But I hope God will turn his Counsels into foolishness 2 Sam. 17.14 as he did that of Achitophel and make his unlimited Ambition the cause of his utter annihilation The Second Propriety of Ambition is That it hateth Parity and all Competitors and Equals Numerous Instances might be produced for proof of it but half a dozen shall serve 1. Romulus and Remus brethren having been chosen kings or Governors of the Fugitives that were the first Erectors of the Roman Commonwealth did not raign two years together Livie in his first Decade Lib. 1. but Romulus out of ambition to raign alone slew his brother Remus under colour that he had in derision leaped over the mud wals of the City of Rome 2. Lucius Tarquinius impatient of the long life raign of Servius Tullius his Father-in-Law possessed with an ambitious desire to raign in his stead by the wicked instigations of his wife Tullia Lib. 1. p. 76. threw him down the Senate-Chamber stairs and caused him to be murthered in the streets of Rome and this accursed and abhorred Tullia coming from the Senate in a Chariot with four horses where she had caused her Husband to be proclaimed King caused her Coachman to drive the Chariot over her Fathers body as he lay a dying and goared in his blood in the street And no marvel it was that she who to prosecute her ambitious design had already caused her Husband to murther her own sister and his own brother that was her first Husband would omit to act this unparalleld cruelty towards her Father-in-Law by whose untimely and violent death she came to have the fruition of her accursed ambition See Plutarch in their lives 3. Crassus Pompeius and Caesar having divided the power of the Roman Common-wealth between them Crassus being gone with a great Army into Asia to subdue the Parthians and Caesar with another Army into France and Pompeius with another Army left at Rome to preserve Italy all three of them being excessively ambitious and specially the two last could not be contented with their condition but under-hand aspired to be absolute Monarchs which Caesar after the death of Crassus easily obtained 4. After the death of Caesar Lepidus Marcus Antonius and Augustus Caesar did divide the power of the Roman Empire between them but before seven years came about Augustus Caesar the most ambitious of them became the absolute Monarch of the World by these means first Antonius and Augustus joyned together to deprive Lepidus of his part then Antonius and Augustus came to a second division but ambition being more predominant in Augustus then in Antonius who was addicted to volupty he soon deprived him of his part and became the only Monarch upon earth 5. See Herodian in his Life The Emperour Severus at his death left his two sons Bassianus and Geta equal Heirs of the Roman Empire but Bassianus transported with an unnatural ambition slew his brother Geta before a year came about in his Mothers arms to raign alone 6. Lewis the Twelfth King of France and Ferdinando King of Arragon by a mutual consent did divide the Kingom of Naples between them See the French History in the Life of Lewis the Twelfth But the Spaniard being more ambitious then the French under colour of a Toll paid for Cattel which did really appertain to the French but fained to be the Spaniards Ferdinando's pride and ambition disdaining to have a Competitor or Equal in that Kingdom deprived the French of all he held in the same The third Propriety of ambition is That it is never free from jealousie I mean that which is called the jealousie of State And for proof of it these following instances shall suffice 1. The Emperour Tiberius out of an ill-grounded jealousie that Germanicus his own Nephew who was extreamly beloved of the Senators Souldiers and common People for his vertue valour and noble parts should aspire to the Empire before his death See Tacitus in his Life caused Lucius Piso Governour of Syria to poyson him at a Banquet and then forsook the said Piso being accused and convinced of the Fact and suffered him to be sentenced and executed although he had a warrant under his own hand commanding him to rid him out of the way the which Warrant he durst not produce out of fear the Tyrant would deprive his children of his incredible Riches and yearly Revenews 2. Nero out of the same ambitious jealousie caused young Germanicus the true Heir of the Empire to be poysoned as he sate at his own Table 3. Domitianus out of the like jealousie See Tacitus and Dion in these Empeiors lives caused divers Roman Senators to be slain and was resolved to do the like to the Captain of his Guard and to the best beloved of his Concubines if they had not prevented him by taking away his life to preserve their own 4. Lewis the Eleventh King of France out of an ill-grounded but violent ambitious jealousie that his Brother Charls Duke of Normandy did aspire to the Crown See the History of France and of England caused him to be poysoned secretly by one of his own servants 5. Edward the Fourth King of England by the false impressions that his younger Brother Richard Duke of York had malitiously infused in his heart of this ambitious jealousie caused the Duke of Clarence his brother to be arraigned and drowned in a Butt of Malmsey 6. Richard the Third out of this State jealousie caused the Duke of Buckingham to be beheaded because he conceived him to be as willing then to disthrone him and to set his Crown upon the Earl of Richmonds Head as he had been ready in former times to make him that was an Usurper King of England 7. This ambitious jealousie is so cruel that it makes men trangress the Law of Nature and to put their own sons to death as Herod did Antipater his son See Josephus whereupon Augustus Caesar said ingeniously that it was better to be Herods Swine then his Son See the