kind of treason and another ranke of traitors as pernitious as any of the former and as odious before God and man Such are they which either upon private quarrels or received injuries or hope of gaine or any other silly respect forsake their countries and take part with the enemies to fight against it or they that in time of necessity refuse to fight or dare not fight in defence of it the former sort are called fugitives the latter cowards As touching the first they havebeen alwayes in detestation in well governed Policies and also evermore severely punished The Aeginates punished them with the losse of their right hand thumbs to the end they might no more handle a speare or a sword but an oare the Mitylenians with losse of their lives the inhabitants of Samos marked them in the face with the picture of an Owle and the Romans punished them after divers fashions Fabius Maximus caused all those that had fled from the Roman succours to the enemy to lose their hands Africanus the former though gentle and mild by nature yet in this respect he borrowed from forreine cruelty for having conquered Carthage and got into his power all those Romane Rebels that tooke part against his countrey he hung the Romans as traitors to their countrey and mitigated the punishment of the Latines as but perfidious confederates Africanus the later when hee had subdued the Punicke Nation he threw all fugitives amongst wilde beasts to be devoured Lucius Paulus aftor the conquest of the King of Persia committed these fellowes to the mercy of Elephants Generally there is no Nation under the Sunne which holdeth them not in execration and therefore our English fugitives who under cloke of Religion not onely abandon their countrey their kindred and their Prince but also conspire the undoing and sweare the destruction of them are they not worthy to be handled like traitours and to have their quarters spectacles of perfidy The bridge and gates of London beare witnesse of the wofull ends that these runnagates come unto As touching cowards I meane such as preferring their lives or liberty or any other by-respects before their countries welfare and either dare not or will not stand stoutly in defence of it in time of warre and danger they deserve no lesse punishment than the former seeing that as they are open oppugners so these are close underminers of the good thereof And therefore the Romanes did sharpely chasten them in their government as may appeare by diverse examples of the same as first they were noted with this ignominy never to eat their meat but standing and hereunto they were sworne Nay they were in such hatefull account amongst them that when Annibal offered the Senate 8000 captives to be redeemed they refused his offer saying That they were not worthy to be redeemed that had rather be taken basely than die honestly and valiantly The same Senate dealt more favourably with the captives which King Pyrrhus tooke for they redeemed them but with this disgrace degrading them from their honours and places untill by a double spoile they had woon their reputation againe L. Calpurnius Piso handled Titius the captaine of his horsemen in Sicilia one who being overcharged with enemies delivered his weapons unto them on this manner he caused him to goe bare footed before the army wearing a garment without seames he forbad him society with any save such as were noted with the same fault and from a Generall over horsemen he debased him to a common souldier How did the same Senate correct the cowardise of Caius Vatienus who to the end to priviledge himselfe from the Italicke warre cut off all the fingers of his left hand even they proscribed his goods and cast him into perpetuall prison that that life which hee refused to hazard in defence of his countrey he might consume in bondage and fetters Fulgosius saith That among the Germanes it was so unhonourable a part to lose but a shield in the warre that whosover had happened to doe so was suspended both from the place of common councell and from the temples of Religion insomuch that many as he reporteth killed themselves to avoid the shame The people called Daci punished cowards on this sort they suffered them not to sleepe but with their heads to the beds feet-ward and besides by the law they made them slaves and subjects to their owne wives What viler disgrace could there be than this And yet the Lacedemonians plagued them more shamefully for with them it was a discredit to marry in the stocke of a coward any man might strike them lawfully and in their attire they went with their clothes rent and their beards halfe shaven Thus are all kind of traitors continually punished of the Lord by one meanes or other and therefore let us learne to shun treason as one of the vilest and detestablest things in the world CHAP. IIII. Of such as have murthered their Rulers or Princes ZImri Captaine of halfe the chariots of Elah King of Israel conspired against his Lord as he was in Tirza drinking till he was drunke in the house of Arze his Steward and came upon him suddenly and smote him till hee died and possessed the Kingdome in his roome Howbeit herein he was the Lords rod to punish the house of Baasha yet when the punishment was past the Lord threw the rod into the fire for he enjoyed the Crowne but seven dayes for all Israel detesting his fact made Omri King over them who besieged him in Tirza and drove him into that extremity that hee went into the palace of the Kings house and burnt himselfe and the house with fire Iozachar the sonne of Shimeah and Ieozabed the sonne of Shomer came to no better end for murthering Iehoash King of Iuda for Amaziah his sonne after the kingdome was confirmed unto him caused them both to be put to death but their children he slew not according to that which is written in the Booke of the law The fathers shall not be put to death for the children nor the children for the fathers but every man shall beare this owne sin Neither did Shallum that slew Zacharia King of Israel prosper any better for he reigned but one month in Samaria when Menahim the sonne of Gadi rebelled against him and slew him as he had done his master Amon the sonne of Manasseh was slaine by his owne servants but the Lord stirred up the people of the Land to revenge his death and to kill all them that had conspired against their King But to let passe the holy histories of the sacred Scripture wherein ever after any treason the Holy Ghost presently setteth downe the punishment of traitours as it were of purpose to signifie how the Lord hateth all such Rebels that rose up against his owne ordinance let us consider a little the consequents of these in prophane yet credible authors and apply them unto our purpose Archelaus
his three and thirtieth Sermon Ad fratres in eremo relateth this strange example of one Cyril a Cittizen of Hippo a man well esteemed and beloved in the Citie He having one onely sonne did so cocker him forbearing either to checke him or correct him but loving him as that holy Father saith not onely above all things but even above God himselfe that by his too much liberty and indulgence his sonne grew wonderfull debaushed and gave himselfe to filthy drunkennesse Upon a time being vilely overtaken with drinke he came home and tumbled over his mother being great with childe would have ravished his sister slew his father and wounded to death two of his other sisters O fearefull effect of drunkennesse thus God punished the father for his too much love and indulgence of his sonne and the sonne for his vile impiety Not unlike to this I finde in Philip Lonicerus Page 486. A certain man saith he that gave himselfe to the studie of Godlinesse was daily assaulted with the temptation of the Divell who perswaded him if hee would bee quiet to choose one of these three sinnes either to make himselfe drunke or to commit adulterie with his neighbours wife or to kill his neighbour himselfe The poore man thinking drunkennesse the least sinne chose that but being enraged with wine he was easily drawn to the committall of the other sinnes for being with wine enflamed with lust he feared not to vitiate his neighbours wife nor yet to kill her husband comming in the meane while seeking to be revenged of him so giving himselfe to drunkennesse hee wraps himselfe in all other wickednesse On the eighteenth of August 1629 one Thomas Wilson labourer a knowne and common blasphemer of Gods name by oathes and curses and given much to drinking to excesse upon a slight occasion moved to displeasure against his wife and not daring to doe much violence unto her turned it upon himselfe and with his knife stabbed himselfe many of his friends and neighbours being present and so he died On the 10 day of May 1629 one Iohn Bone of Ely coachman unto one Master â—aluâ—â—â— of Beenham a fellow very vitious and exceeding in those two evils of prophane swearing and drunkennesse on the Sabbath day in the Sermon-time dranke himselfe drunke so that when he was to sit in the coach-box to drive the coach he fell out thereof under the horses feet where he was trodden to death or so hurt at least that he died shortly On the six and twentieth of November 1621 one Richard Borne servant to Iaspâ—r Bâ—rch Gardiner of Ely accustomed to travell upon the Lords day and making no reckoning of the Sabbath seldome or never comming to Church on that day but went onwards to Saint Iâ—es market and so spent the day and being drunke was at length overtaken by the just judgement of God and going up the streame in his boate which he had loaden with marketable wares he fell into the river and was so drowned On the third day of August 1618 one Thomas Alred of Godmanchester in the Countie of Huntington Butcher an accustomed Drunkard being entreated by a neighbour to unpitch a load of hay and being at that very time in drinke letting his pitch-forke slip out of his hand and stooping to take it up againe slipped from the cart with his head down-wards his fork standing 〈◊〉 with the tines he fell directly upon them which it once ran into his breast and stroke his heart so that he died suddenly On the sixteenth day of July 1628 one Iohn Vintner of 〈…〉 Gardiner a knowne drunkard and one that would prophanely especially in his 〈◊〉 scoffe at religion and abuse good men fell from the top of a 〈…〉 the ground and brake his necke and so died These â—ive lust examples were reported unto me and written with his owne hand by a worthy Minister Master Goorge Nelson Preacher of the Word of God in Godmanchester CHAP. IX Of rebellious and disobedient Children to their Parents AGathias in his Booke of the Persian manners reporteth this storie That certaine Philosophers going into Aegypt and finding there a promiscuous commixture of fathers and mothers with their daughters and sonnes and a miserable neglect of children towards their parents returned speedily into Greece and in a certaine Citie there finding the dead body of a man wanting buriall they in compassion committed the same into the earth the next day comming the same way againe they found the same body digged out of the earth which whilest they went about to bury the second time a fearefull spectrum appeared unto them and forbad them to doe it saying That he was a man unworthy to be buried because he had committed incest with his mother and despised and contemned his father This narration sheweth that the very earth doth execrate and abhorre such unnaturall lust and disobedience Laâ—terbius in his Booke of the discipline of children reports a storie of a certaine young man who had a father very old that had bestowed upon him all his substance This old man being by the fault of age unmannerly at the table of his sonne his sonne caused a woodden trough to be made for his father to eate his meate in like a hogge which when his sonnes young childe perceived he asked his father for what use it should serve his father answered That it was for his Grandfather to eate his meate in and what saith the childe must I provide the like for you when you are old Whereat his father being astonished threw away the trough and ever after entertained his old father with greater reverence and obedient respect CHAP. X. Of Murtherers ROmulus having marked out with a plough the compasse of the walls of the Citie of Rome which he was a building and had forbidden that no man should leape over the same his brother Rhâ—mus in scorne leaped over the wall which Romulus taking in evill part slew his brother and reigned alone but at length being hated of the people for his insolencie he himselfe was slaine by the fathers of the Senate at Caprea Constantine the Great after he had overcome Licinius his partner in the Empire and obtained the sole Monarchie grew both insolent and cruell for he first put to death his owne sisters next his owne sonne Crispâ—â— which he had by Minervea then he slew his owne wife Fausta in the bathes and lastly a number more of his friends For which cruelty though hee was a man endued with excellent vertues yet God strucke him with a filthy Leprosie which continued upon him untill such time that he was converted to the faith of Christ and baptised by Pope Silvester after which he proved a most famous protector of the Church of Christ. Perillus that devised the brasen Bull for the Tyrant Phalaris wherein men being inclosed and scorched with the heat that was under the Bull did imâ—tate the lowing of an Oxe to the end that there should be no compassion shewed unto them by
of all so strucke him after that he died Ioram King of Iuda although his father Iosaphat had instructed him from his childehood with holy and wholsome precepts and set before his face the example of his owne zeale in purging the Church of God from all Idolatry and superstition and maintaining the true and pure service of God yet did he so foulely runne astray from his fathers steps that allying himselfe by the marriage of Athalia to the house of Achab he became not only himselfe like unto the Kings of Israel in their filthy idolatry but also drew his people after him causing the inhabitants of Ierusalem and men of Iuda to runne a whoring after his strange gods for which cause Elias the Prophet most sharply reproved him by letters the contents whereof in summe was this That because he rebelled against the Lord God of his Fathers therefore the people that were in his subjection should rebell against him Presently the Arabians and Philistims rose up against him wasted his countrey robbed him of his treasures tooke away his wives and put all his children to the sword except little Ochozias his youngest sonne that was preserved And after all these miseries the Lord smote him with so outragious and uncurable disease in his bowels that after two yeares torment he died thereof his guts being fallen out of his belly with anguish Ioas also King of the same country was one to whom God had bin many wayes beneficiall from his infancy for he was even then miraculously preserved from the bloudy hand of Athalia and after brought up in the house of God under the tuition of that good Priest Iehoiada yet he was no sooner lifted up into his royall dignity but by and by he and his people started aside to the worship of stocks and stones at that time when hee had taken upon him the repaire of the House of God But all this came to passe after the decease of that good Priest his Tutor whose good deeds towards him in saving his life and giving him the Crowne he most unthankfully recompenced by putting to death his sonne Zacharias whom hee caused for reproving and threatning his Idolatry in a publique assembly incited thereto by the Spirit of God to be stoned to death in the porch of the Temple But seeing he did so rebelliously set himselfe against the holy Spirit as if he would have quite oppressed and extinguished the power thereof by the death of this holy Prophet by whom it spake God hissed for an army of Syrians that gave him battell and conquered his souldiers who in outward shew seemed much too strong for them His Princes also that had seduced him were destroyed and himselfe vexed with grievous diseases till at length his owne servants conspired against him for the death of Zacharias and slew him on his bed yea and his memory was so odious that they could not afford him a burying place among the sepulchres of their Kings Amazias the sonne of this wicked father carried himselfe also at the first uprightly towards God in his service but it lasted not long for a while after he was corrupted and turned aside from that good way which he had begun to tread in the by-paths of his father Ioas for after he had conquered the Idumaeans and slaine twenty thousand men of warre and spoyled divers of their cities in stead of rendring due thanks to God who without the ayde of the Israelites had given him that victory he set up the gods of the Edomites which he had robbed them of to be his gods and worshipped and burned incense to them so void of sence and reason was he And being rebuked by the Prophet of his adverse dealing he was so farre from humbling and repenting himself thereof that quite contrary he proudly withstood and rejected the Prophets threatnings menacing him with death if he ceased not Thus by this means having aggravated his sinne and growing more and more obstinate God made him an instrument to hasten his owne destruction for being proud and puffed up with the overthrow which he gave the Edomites he defied the King of Israel and provoked him to battell also but full evill to his ease for he lost the day and was carried prisoner to Ierusalem where before his face for more reproach foure hundred cubits of the wall was broken downe the Temple and Palace ransackt of his Treasures and his children carried for hostages to Samaria And not long after treason was devised against him in Ierusalem so that he fled to Lachish and being pursued thither also was there taken and put to death Likewise King Ahaz for making molten Images for Baalim and walking in the idolatrous wayes of the Kings of Israel and burning his sonnes with fire after the abhomination of the heathen in the valley of Ben-Hinnon was forsaken of the Lord and delivered into the hands of the King of Syria who carried him prisoner to Damascus and not onely so but was also subdued by Pekah King of Israel in that great battell wherein his owne sonne with fourescore thousand men at armes were slaine yea and two hundred thousand of all sorts men women and children were taken prisoners for all these chastisements did he not once reforme his life but rather grew worse and worse To make up the number of his sinnes he would needs sacrifice to the gods of Damascus also thinking to finde succour at their hands so that he utterly defaced the true service of God at Ierusalem broke in pieces the holy Vessels lockt up the Temple dores and placed in their steads his abhominable Idols for the people to worship and erected Altars in every corner of the city to doe sacrifice on But as he rebelled on every side against his God so God raised up enemies on every side to disturbe him the Edomites and Philistims assaulted him on every side beat his people tooke and ransackt his cities on the other side the Assyrians whom he had hired with a great sum for his help turned to his undoing and utter overthrow and confusion Wat shall we thinke of Manasses who re-edified the high places and Altars which the zeale of Ezechâ— as his father had defaced and throwne downe and adored and worshipped the planets of Heaven the Sunne the Moone and the Starres prophaned the porch of Gods Temple with Altars dedicated to strange gods committing thereon all the abhominations of the Gentiles yea and caused his sonnes to passe through the valley of Ben-Hinnon and was an observer of times and seasons and gave himselfe over to witchcraft charming and sorceries and used the help of familiar spirits and Soothsayers and that which is more placed a carved Image in the house of God flat against the second commandement of the Law So that he did not only go astray and erre himselfe in giving over his mind to most wicked and damnable heresies but also seduced the people by his pernitious example and
King of England sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet and Maud the Empresse after he had raigned twenty yeares was content to admit his young sonne Henry married to Margaret the French Kings daughter into participation of his Crowne but he like an unnaturall son to requite his fathers love sought to dispossesse him of the whole for by inciting the King of France and certaine other Nobles hee tooke armes and raised warre against his owne naturall father betwixt whom divers strong battels being fought as well in England by the Deputies and friends of both parties as also in Normandy Poytou Guian and Britain the victory alwayes inclined to the father so that the rebellious son with his allies were constrained to bend to his fathers will and to desire peace which he gently granted and forgave his offence Howbeit the Lord for his disobedience did not so lightly pardon him but because his hasty mind could not tarry for the Crowne till his fathers death therefore the Lord cut him short of it altogether causing him to die six yeares before his father being yet but young and like to live long Lothair King of Soissons in France committed the rule of the province of Guian to his eldest son Cramiris who when contrary to the mind of his father he oppressed the people with exactions and was reclaimed home he like an ungratious and impious son fled to his uncle Childebert and provoked him towarre upon his owne father wherein he himselfe was by the just vengeance of God taken and burned with his wife and children to death Furthermore it is not doubtlesse but to a very good end enacted in the law of God That he which curseth his father or mother should die the death and that rebellious children and such as be incorrigible should at the instance and pursuit of their owne parents by order of law be stoned to death As children by all these examples ought not onely to learne to feare to displease and revile their parents but also to feare and reverence them lest that by disobedience they kindle the fire of Gods wrath against them so likewise on the other side parents are here advertised to have great care in bringing up and instructing their children in the feare of God and obedience to his will lest for want of instruction and correction on their part they themselves incurre a punishment of their carelesse negligence in the person of their children And this is proved by experience of the men of Bethel of whose children two and forty were torne in pieces by Beares for that they had been so evill taught as to mocke the holy Prophet Elizeus in calling him bald-pate Heli likewise the high priest was culpable of this fault for having two wicked and perverse sonnes whom no feare of God could restraine being discontent with that honourable portion of the sacrifices allotted them by God like famished and unsatiable wretches fell to share out more than was their due and by force to raven all that which by faire meanes they could not get and that which is worse to pollute the holy Tabernacle of God with their filthy whoredomes in such sort that the Religion of God grew in disgrace through their prophane dealings And albeit it may seem that their father did his duty in some sort when he admonished and reproved them yet it is manifest by the reprehension of the man of God that he did no part of that at all or if he did yet it was in so carelesse loose and cold manner using more lenity than hee ought or lesse severity than was necessary that God turned their destructions when they were slaine at the overthrow of Israel by the Philistins to be his punishment for understanding the dolefull newes of his sonnes death and the Arkes taking at once he fell backewards from his stoole and burst his necke being old and heavy even fourescore and eighteene yeares of age not able either to help or stay himselfe David also was not free from this offence for hee so much cockered some of his children that they proved the greatest plagues and scourges unto him especially Absolon and Adonijah for the one openly rebelled against him and almost drove him out of his kingdome the other usurped the title and honour of the kingdome before his fathers death of this it is recorded That David so cockered and pampered him that he would never displease him from his youth But see how he was punished in them for this too great lenity both of them came to an untimely death and proved not onely the workers of their owne destruction but also great crosses to their father Ludovicus Vives saith That in his time a certain woman in Flanders did so much pamper and cocker up two of her sonnes even against her husbands will that she would not suffer them to want money or any thing which might furnish their roiotous life both in drinking banquetting and dicing yea she would stoale from her husband to minister unto them but as soone as her husband was dead she was justly plagued in them both for they fell from royoting to robbing which two vices are commonly linked together and for the same one of them was executed by the sword and the other by the halter she her selfe looking on as a witnesse of their destructions whereof her conscience told her that her indulgence was the chiefest cause Hither may we referre that common and vulgar story and I suppose very true which is almost in every childes mouth of him that going to the gallowes desired to speake with his mother in her care ere he dyed and when she came unto him in stead of speaking bit off her care with his teeth exclaiming upon her as the causer of his death because she did not chastise him in his youth for his faults but by her flatteries established him in vice which brought him to this wofull end and herein she was doubly punished both in her sonnes destruction and her owne infamy whereof she carried about her a continuall maâ—ke This ought to be a warning to all parents to looke better to the education of their children and to root out of them in time all evill and corrupt manners lest of small sprigs they grow to branches and of qualities to habits and so either be hardly done off or at least deprave the whole body and bring it to destruction but above all to keep them from idlenesse and vaine pleasures the discommodity and mischiefe whereof this present example will declare At a towne called Hannuel in Saxony the Devill transforming himselfe into the shape of a man exercised many jugling trickes and pretty pastime to delight young men and maids withall and indeed to draw after him daily great companies one day they followed him out of the city gates unto a hill adjoyning where he played a jugling tricke indeed with them for he carried them all away with him so that they were never
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
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
of Aquitain then did King Edwards part begin to incline and the successe of war which the space of fourty yeares never forsook him now frowned upon him so that he quickly lost all those lands which by composition of peace were granted unto him CHAP. XLI Of such as by force of armes have either taken away or would have taken away the goods and lands of other men NOw if they that oppresse their Subjects and devour them in this manner be found guilty then must they needs be much more that are carried with the wings of their owne hungry ambitious desire to invade their lands and Seigniories attended on with an infinite retinue of pillages sackings ruines of Cities and people which are alwayes necessary companions of furious unmercifull war There are no flouds so broad nor mountaines so steep nor rokces so rough and dangerous nor sea so long and furious that can restrain the rash and headstrong desire of such greedy minded Sacres so that if their body might be proportioned to the square and greatnesse of their mindes with the one hand they would reach the East and with the other hand the West as it is said of Alexander howbeit hereof they boast and glory no lesse than they that took delight to be sirnamed City-spoilers others burners of Cities some conquerours and many Eagles and Faulcons seeking as it were fame by infamy and by vice eternity But to these men it often commeth to passe that even then when they thinke to advance their Dominion and to stretch their bounds and frontiers furthest they are driven to recoil for fear of being dispossessed themselves of their owne lands and inheritances and even as they dealt with others rigorously and by strength of weapons so shall they be themselves rehandled and dealt withall after the same measure according to the Word of the Prophet denounced against such as they Cursed be thâ—â— that spoilest and dealest unfaithfully when thou hast made an end of spoiling others thâ—â— thâ— selfe shalt be spoiled and when thou hast done dealing traiterously then treason shall begin to be practised against thee And this curse most commonly never faileth to seise upon these great Theeves and Robbers or at least upon their children and successours as by particular examples we shall see after we have first spoken of Adonias who not content with his owne estate of being a Kings son which God had allotted him went about to 〈◊〉 the Crowne and Kingdome from his brother Solomon to whom by right it appertained for God had manifested the same by the mouth of his father David but both he and his assistants for their overbold and rash enterprise were iustly by Solomon punished with death Crassus King of Lydia was the first that made war against Ephesus and that subdued the Greekes of Asia to wit the Phrygians Mysians Chalybeans Paphlagonians Thracians Bythinians Ionians Dorians Aeolians and Pamphilians and made them all tributeries unto him by meanes whereof he being growne exceeding rich and puissant by the detriment and undoing of so many people vanted and gloried in his greatnesse and power and even then thought himselfe the happiest man in the world when most misery and adversity grief and distresse of his estate and wholehouse approuched nearest for first and formost one of his sonnes that was dear unto him was by oversight slain at the chase of a wilde Bore next himselfe having commenced war with Cyrus was overcome in battell and besieged in Sardis the chief City of his Kingdom and at last taken and carried captive to Cyrus despoiled of all his late glory and dominion And thus Crassus as saith Plutarch after Herodotus bore the punishment of the offence of his great Grandfather Gigas who being but one of King Caâ—daules attendants slew his master and usurped the Crowne at the provokement of the Queen his mistresse whom he also took to be his wife And thus this Kingdom decayed by the same meanes by which it first encreased Polycratâ—s the Tyran was one that by violence and tyrannous meanes grew from a base condition to an high estate for being but one of the vulgar sort in the City Samos he with the assistance of fifteen armed men seised upon the whole City and made himselfe Lord of it which dividing into three parts he bestowed two of them upon his two brethren but not for perpetuity for ere long the third part of his usurpation cost the elder of them the best part of his life and the younger his liberty for he chased him away that he might be sole possessour of the whole Island After this he invaded many other Islands besides many Cities in the same Land he raised the Lacedemonians from the fiege of Samos which they had begirt and when he saw that all things fell out so well to his owne wish that nothing could be more fearing so great prosperity could not but carry in the â—ail some terrible sting of adversity and mischance attempted by voluntary losse of something of value to prevent the mischief which he feared to ensue and this by the advice of his dear friend and allie the King of Aegypt therefore he threw a ring which he had of great price into the sea to the end to delude Fortune as he thought thereby â—ut the ring was after found in a fishes belly and offered as a present unto him and this was an evident presage of some inevitable this for tune that waited for him neither did it prove vain and frivolous for he was hanged upon a gibbet of Sardis by the commandment of Orates the Governour of the City who under pretence of friendship and colour of rendring his treasure into his hands and bestowing upon him a great part thereof promising also to passe the rest of his dayes under his wing for fear of the rage of Cambyses drew him to come privately to speak with him and so easily wrought his will upon him Aristodemus got into his hands the government of Câ—ma after he had made away the principall of the City and to keep it the better being obtâ—ined he first worme the vulgars hearts by presents then banished out of the City their children whom he had put to death and entertained the rest of the youth with such variety of pleasures and delights that by those devices he kept himselfe in his tyrannous estate many yeares but as soon as the children of those slain Citizens were growne to ripe yeares of strength and discretion being desirous to revenge their fathers deaths they set upon him in the night so at unawares that they put him and all his family to the slaughter Timophanes usurped a principality power and rule in Corinth a free City and became so odious thereby to the whole people yea and to his owne brother Tymoleon also that laying aside all respect of nature he slew him with his owne hands preferring the liberty of his Countrey before any unity or bond of
Chapter 6. An Angel of the Lord appeared unto Manoa and his wife who was barren promising them a sonne to be called Sampson that should deliver the Israelites out of the hands of the Philistims Iudg. 13. It was an Angell in Davids time which strooke the Israelites with the pestilence whereof died threescore and ten thousand and when David prayed put his sword up into his sheath and saved the rest the second booke of Samuel and twentie fourth Chapter Elias the Prophet was refreshed with meat and drink and in the strength thereof hee travelled fourtie dayes and fourtie nights even to Mount Horeb by the Ministerie of an Angell 1. Kings 19. Many legions of Angels environed the Prophet Elisha which his servant at his prayer his eyes being opened saw and beheld and all to defend him from the Assyrians that besieged Samaria 2. Kings 6. An Angell of the Lord slew in the campe of the Assyrians in one night an hundred fourscoure and five thousand men 2. Kings 19. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego being cast into the fierie Furnace by Nabuchadnezzar for not worshipping his golden Image were preserved alive and kept from hurt by an Angell of the Lord Daniel 3. It was an Angell that stopt the mouthes of the Lyons that they could not hurt Daniel that was cast into their Denne Daniel 10. The Angel Gabriel declared unto Zacharias that his wife should conceive with child and bring forth Iohn the Baptist in her old age Lukâ— 1. It was the same Angell that announced to the Virgine Mary that she should bring forth Iesus Christ our Saviour Luke 1. The same told the shepheards in the field of Christ his Nativitie and witnessed his resurrection and ascention into the heavens Mathew 28 Marke 16. Acts the first An Angell delivered the Apostles out of Prison Acts 5. An Angell freed Peter from his chaines Acts 12. and Paul and Silas Acts 16. An Angell comforted Paul upon the Sea and all those that were with him and delivered them from the Tempest Acts twentie seven All these Examples are out of the holy Scriptures which is of infallible truth and sheweth that to be which is spoken by the Prophet David in the foure and thirtieth Psalme That the Angell of the Lord pitcheth his tents round about them that feare him Now follow examples out of humane Writes and first to begin with a storie in Socrates lib. 6. cap. 6. and Sozomen lib. 8. cap. 4. When Arcadius was Emperour of Rome and Saint Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople there was Gainas an Arrian and a Barbarian by profession who being powerfull and great went about to thrust Arcadius out of his Seat but the Emperour compounding with him sent him unto Constantinople with a troupe of horse and foot under the pay of the Emperour This man desired to have a peculiar Church for them of his owne Sect for the free exercising of their Religion which being denyed by the Emperour at the perswasion of Saint Chrysostome the Tyrant raised his forces in the night to spoyle and havocke the Citie But they were resisted the first and second night by the shew of a great Armie of tall and lustie men and so terrified that they durst doe nothing The third night the Tyrant himselfe thinking this to be but a fable came in his owne person with his whole Armie and found the same resistance wherewith being terrified hee fled into Tracia where hee was slaine most miserably Thus this great Citie was protected by the ministery of Angels as Hierusalem once was from the Tyran Zenacherib In the reigne of Pompilius King of Poland as the Polonian Chronicles doe report in the first booke and twelfth Chapter there came two men oâ— a venerable countenance and habit to the Court gate desiring entrance and entertainment but they were repulsed by the Porter Then they went to one Pyastus a man of excellent holinesse and charity who entertained them into his house very lovingly broached a Vessell of sweet Wine for their drinke and killed a fat Hogge for their meate which hee had prepared against the first tonsure of his sonne according to the custome of that Countrey These men or rather Angels finding this kinde entertainment caused the Vessell of sweet Wine to multiply so that the more they dranke the more still remained behinde and the Hogge also in like manner At last they wrought means that Pompilius the King being dead this good man was chosen King in his stead and then disparished and were never more seen Nicephorus in his seventeenth booke Chapter thirty five reporteth a strange storie of a Jewish childe This boy playing among other Christian children was brought into the Temple by the Priest to care the reliques of the Sacrament as the custome was who tooke it amongst his followes Which as soone as the Jew his father understood he put him into a fierie oven to be tormented to death his mother sought him up and downe the Citie not knowing what was done and at last after three dayes found him alive in the Oven from whence being taken there was no smell of fire about him Thus God protected by his Angell this poore childe Instinian the Emperour after hee knew thereof caused the boy and his mother to be baptized and the father who refused he caused to be crucified to death Under the Emperour Mauritius the Citie of Antioch was shaken with a terrible Earthquake after this manner There was a certaine Citizen so given to bountifulnesse to the Poore that hee would never suppe nor dine unlesse hee had one poore man to be with him at his Table Upon a certaine evening seeking for such a guest and finding none a grave old man met him in the Market-place cloathed in white with two companions with him whom hee entreated to suppe with him But the old man answered him That he had more need to pray against the destruction of the Citie and presently shooke his handkerchiefe against one part of the Citie and then against another and being hardly entreated forbore the rest Which hee had no sooner done but those two parts of the Citie terribly shaken with an Earthquake were throwne to the ground and thousands of men slain Which this good Citizen seeing trembled exceedingly To whom the old man in white answered and sayed By reason of charity to the poore his house and Familie were preserved And presently these three men which no question were Angels vanished out of sight This storie Sigubert in his Chron. reporteth Anne 585. Philip Melancthon reporteth That in a certaine Village neare unto the Citie Sygnea a woman sent her sonne into the wood to fetch home her Kine in the meane while such a snow fell that the boy could not returne home againe his parents the next day taking more care for the boy then for the kine went out to seeke him and within three dayes found him in the middest of the wood sitting in a faire place where no snow had fallen They demanded of him
committed all these outrages he was repulsed with dishonour from the city of Elymais in Persia which he went about to spoile and rob and forced to fly to Babylon where after tidings of the overthrow of his two armies in Iudea with griefe and despight he ended his dayes Antiochus the sonne of this wretched father succeeding him as in his kingdome so in wickednesse perjury and disloyalty when to the end to consult about his owne affaires he concluded a peace with the Iewes and by solemne oath as well of himselfe as his princes confirmed the free exercise of their Religion behold suddenly he falsied his plighted and sworne faith and undid all that ever he had done but it was not long ere hee also was overtaken by the army of Demetrius and together with Lysias his Governour put to death A while after reigned Alexander his brother who whilest he was encombred with the troubles of Cilicla that revolted from him the King of Aegypt his father in law came traiterously to forestall him of his kingdome tooke his wife and gave her to hiâ— deadliest enemy and afterward gave him battell discomfited his forces and drove him to fly into Arabia for safety where in stead of helpe he found an hatchet to chop off his head which was sent for a Present to gratifie the King of Aegypt withall Not long after Antiochus his sonne recovered the Scepter of his Father but alas his raigne endured but a small space for being yet but a young childe hee was slaine by Tryphon in the way as he led him to warre against the Iewes And thus perished the cursed race of Antiochus which felt Gods wrath upon it even in the third generation Antiochus the sonne of Demetrius of whom mention was made but a little before after hee had chased Tryphon from the kingdome of Asia which he usurped and broken the league which he had made with the Iewes gave himselfe wholly to worke them mischiefe Therefore comming against Ierusalem he tooke it by force commanding his souldiers to put all to death that were within the same so that within three days there was such a massacre of young and old men women and children that the number of the slaine arose to foure score thousand carkasses After this having executed many more villanies against this people in so much as to make them renounce the law of God putting them cruelly to death that did not obey his commandement it came to passe that this cruell tyrant was first of all put to flight by the inhabitants of Persepolis a city of Persia for going aboue to rob their temple of their treasures next endamaged by an overthrow of his army in Iudaea which hee no sooner understood but he tooke counsell in his fury how to be revenged of Ierusalem and belched forth bitter threats against it But in the meane time the Lord stroke him with a sudden and incurable plague and surprised him with a horrible torment of his entrails Howbeit for all this he ceased not his malicious enterprise but hasted forward his journey towards the Iewes with such cagernesse that in the way he fell out of his chariot and bruised so his body that it became putrified and so full of corruption that very vermine scrawled out thereof and the rotten flesh dropping piecemeale away no man no not himselfe being able to endure the stinch thereof Then was he constrained in the midst of his torments to confesse that it was meet that he should submit himself unto God that he which is mortall ought not to exalt himselfe so high as to compare with the immortall God and in this estate this reprobate ended his wicked dayes by a strange and most miserable kind of death CHAP. IX Of those that persecuted the Sonne of God and his Church IF they who in the law injured and persecuted the Church of God were punished according to their deserts as we have already heard is it any marvell then if the enemies and persecuters of our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which labour by all means to discountenance and frustrate his Religion and to oppresse his Church doe feele the heavy and fearefull vengeance of God upon them for their very wickednesse and unbelieâ—e No verily for he that honoureth not the Sonne honoureth not the Father which sent him and is guilty therefore before God of impiety and prophanenesse From this hainous crime King Herod in no wise can be exempted that caused all the Infants of Bethlehem of two yeares old and under to be cruelly murthered in hope thereby to put the true Messias and Saviour of the world to death For which deed accompained with many other strange cruelties as by killing the ordinary Iudges of the house of David and his owne wife and children this Caitise was tormented with sundry intolerable griefes and at last devoured by an horrible and most fearefull death For as Iosephus reporteth his body was boyled and his bowels gnawne in two by a soft and slow fire fretting inwardly without any outward appearance of heate besides the ravenous and insatiable desire of eating which so possessed him that without chewing his meat in whole lumps descended into his body devouring it so fast as it could be throwne into his mouth and never ceasing to farse his greedy throat with continuall sustenance moreover his feet were so swolne and pust up with such a flegme that a man might see through them his privy parts so rotten and full of vermine and his breath so stinking that few or none durst approach neer unto him yea his owne servants for sooke him Now lying in this wretched plight when this wicked man saw no remedy could be found to asswage his griefe hee went about to kill himselfe and being not able to performe it he was constrained to endure all the pangs of a most horrible lingring and languishing death and at last mad and miserable bestraught of sense and reason to end his dayes As for Herod the Tetrarch sirnamed Antipas who to please Herodias had caused Iohn Baptist to be beheaded when hee had likewise prepared snares for our Saviours feet and being sent to him by Pilate to quit himself and gratifie him withall had jeasted and mocked at him his belly full behold his reproaches and mockes was he never so subtle turned into his owne bosome for first after that his army had been discomfited by the souldiers of King Aretas whose daughter in regard of Herodias his brother Philips wife he had repudiated a further shame and dishonour befell him even to be deprived of his Royall dignity and not only to be brought into a low and base estate but also being robbed of his goods to be banished into a farre countrey and there to make an end of the rest of his life As touching Pilate the governour of Iudea he did so excell in wickednesse and injustice that notwithstanding the restraint of his owne conscience the law of civill equity
containeth a description of so many miseries as this doth as it may appeare by Iosephus record of it For after that they had been afflicted in divers countries and tossed up and downe by the Deputies a long while there were slaine at Caesarea in one day twenty thousand At Alexandria another time fifty thousand at Zabulon and Joppe eight thousand and foure hundred besides the burning of the two Towns at Damascus ten thousand that had their throats cut As for Jerusalem when it had a long time endured the brunt of the warre both within and without it was pinched with so sore a famine that the dung of Oxen served some for meat others fed upon the leather of old shooes and buckles and divers women were driven to the extiemity to boyle and eat their owne children Many thinking to save their lives by flying to the Enemy were taken and slit in pieces in hope to finde gold and silver in their guts in one night two thousand were thus piteously dealt withall and at the last the whole City was by force taken and the holy Temple conslumed by fire And this in generall was the miserable issue of that lamentable warre during which fourscore and seventeen thousand Iewes were taken Prisoners and eleven hundred thousand slaine for within the city were inclosed from the beginning to the ending all those that were assembled together from all quarters of the earth to keep the Passeover as their custome was As touching the prisouers some were carried to Rome in triumph others were here and there massacred at their conquerors wils somes lot it was to be torn in pieces and devoured of wild-beasts others were constrained to march in troops against their fellowes and kill one another as if they had been enemies All which evils came upon them for the despight and fury which they used towards the Sonne of God and our Saviour and that was the cause why he foreseeing this desolation wept over Jerusalem and said That it should be besieged on every side and rased to the ground and that not one stone should be left upon another because it knew not the time of her visitation Likewise said he to the woman that bewailed him as he was led to the Crosse That they should not weep for him but for themselves and their children because of the dayes of sorrow which were to come wherein the barren and those that had no children and the dugs that never suckled should bee counted happy So horrible and pitifull was the destruction of this people that God would not suffer any of his owne children to bee wrapped in their miseries nor to perish with this perverse and unbelieving Nation for as Eusebius reporteth they were a little before the arrivall of these mischiefes advertised from heaven by the speciall providence of God to forsake the City and retire into some far Country where none of these evils might come neer them The reliques of this wretched people that remained after this mighty tempest of Gods wrath were dispersed and scattered throughout all nations under heaven beeing subject to them with whom they sojourned without King Prince Judge or Magistrate to lead and guide them or to redresse their wrongs but were altogether at the discretion and commandement of the Lords of those Countries wherein they made their abode so that their condition and kind of life is at this day so vile and contemptible as experience sheweth that no nation in the world is halfe so miserable which is a manifest badge of Gods vengeance yet abiding upon them And yet for all this these dispersed reliques ceased not to vomit out the foame of their malice against Christ it being so deep rooted an evill and so inveterate that time nor reason could revoke them from it And no marvell seeing that God useth to punish the greatest sinnes with other sinnes as with the greatest punishment so they having shut their eyes to the light when it shined among them are now given over to a reprobate and hardened sence otherwise it were not possible they should remain so obstinate And albeit God be thanked we have many converts of them yet I dare say for the most part they remain in malitious blindnesse barking against and despighting both our Saviour himselfe and all that professe his name although their punishments have been still according to their deserts as by these examples following shall appeare The Jewes of Inmester a Towne lying betwixt Calchis and Antioch being upon a time celebrating their accustomed playes and feasts in the midst of their jollity as their use is they contumeliously reviled not only Christians but even Christ himselfe for they got a Christian childe and hung him upon a Crosse and after many mocks and taunts making themselves merry at him they whipt him to death What greater villany could there be than this Or wherein could these Devils incarnate shew forth their malice more apparently than thus not content once to have crucified Christ the Saviour of the World but by imitation to performe it againe and as it were to make knowne that if it were undone they would doe it So also handled they a boy called Simeon of two years and an halfe old in the yeare of our Lord 1476. and an another in Fretulium five years after that But above all they massacred a poore Carpenters son in Hungary in hatred of Christ whom they falsly supposed to bee a Carpenters son for they cut in two all his veines and suckt out his blóud with quills And being apprehended and tortured they confessed that they had done the like at Thirna foure yeares before and that they could not be without Christià n bloud for therewithall they anointed their Priests But at all these times they suffered just punishment for being still taken they were either hanged burned murthered or put to some other cruell death at the discretion of â—he Magistrates Moreover they would at divers times buy the Host of some Popish Priest and thrust it through with their knives and use it most despightfully This did one Bleazarus in the yeare of our Lord 1492 the 22 of October but was burnt for his labour and eight and thirty at another time for the same villanie by the Marquesse Ioachinus for the caitifes would suffer themselves to be baptised for none other end but more securely to exercise their villanies Another Jew is recorded in the yeare of our Lord 147 to have stoln the picture of Christ out of a Church to have thrust it through many times with his sword whereout when bloud miraculously issued hee amazed would have burned it but being taken in the manner the Christians stoned him to death The truth of which story though I will not stand to avow yet I doubt not but it might be true considering that either the Devill might by his cunning so foster and confirme their superstition or rather that seeing Christ is the subject of their religion as well as
authority to doe the like mischiefe And that which is yet more and worst of all he made no account nor reckoning of the admonitions of the Prophets but the rather and the more hardened his heart to runne out into all manner of cruelty and wickednesse that his sinnes might have their full measure For the very stones of the streets of Ierusalem were stained from one corner to another with the guiltlesse and innocent bloud of those that either for disswading him from or not yeelding unto his abhominable and detestable Idolatry were cruelly murthered Amongst the number of which slaine innocents many suppose that the Prophet Esayas although he was of the bloud-royall was with a strange manner of torment put to death Wherefore the flame of Gods ire was kindled against him and his people so that he stirred up the Assyrians against them whose power and force they being not able to resist were subdued and the King himselfe taken and put in fetters and bound in chaines carried captive to Babylon but being there in tribulation hee humbled his soule and prayed unto the Lord his God who for all his wicked cruell and abhominable Apostasie was intreated of him and received him to mercy yea and brought him againe to Ierusalem into his unhoped for kingdome Then was he no more unthankfull to the Lord for his wonderfull deliverance but being touched with true repentance for his former life abolished the strange gods broke downe their Altars and restored againe the true Religion of God and gave strait commandement to his people to doe the like Wherein it was the pleasure of the Highest to leave a notable memoriall unto all posterity of his great and infinite mercy towards poore and miserable sinners to the end that no man be his sinnes never so hainous should at any time despaire for Where sin aboundeth there grace aboundeth much more Admit that this revolt of Manasses was farre greater and more outragious than was Solomons yet his true repentance found the grace to be raised up from that 〈◊〉 â—ull downefall for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and compassion on whom he will have compassion O the profound riches of the wisedome and knowledge of God! How unspeakable are his judgements and his wayes pâ—st finding out Amon the wicked sonne of this repentant â—ather committed also the like offence in serving strange gods but recanted not by like repentance and therefore God gave his owne servants both will to conspire and power to execute his destruction after hee had swayed the kingdome but two yeares CHAP. XVIII Of the third and worst sort of Apostata's BY how much the more God hath in these latter daies poured forth more plentifully his graces upon the sonnes of men by the manifestations of his Sonne Christ Iesus in the flesh and sent forth a more cleere light by the preaching of his Gospell into the world than was before times by so much the more culpable before God and guilty of eternall damnation are they who being once enlightened and made partakers of those excellent graces come afterwards either to despise or make light account of them or goe about to suppresse the truth and quench the spirit which instructed them therein This is the Sinne against the Holy Ghost which is mentioned in the sixth and tenth chapter to the Hebrewes and in the twelfth of Luke and in another place it is called a Sinne unto death because it is impardonable by reason that no excuse of ignorance can be pleaded nor any plaister of true repentance applyed unto it The Apostata's of the old Testament under the Law were not guilty of this sinne for although there were many that willingly and malitiously revolted and set themselves against the Prophets of God making warre as it were with the Holy Ghost yet seeing they had no such cleere testimonies of Christ Iesus and declaration of Gods Spirit as we have their sinne cannot be properly said directly to be against the Holy Ghost and so never to be remitted according to the description of this sinne in those passages of Scripture which were before recited as it may manifestly appeare by the former example of King Manasses The Apostle himselfe likewise doth averre the truth hereof when he saith If we sinne willingly after that we have received the knowledge of the Truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sinnes but a fearefull looking for of judgement and violent fire which shall devoure the adversaries If any man despised Moses Law he died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be worthy which treadeth under foot the Sonne of God and counteth the bloud of the new Testament as a prophane thing whereby he was sanctified and doth despight to the Spirit of Grace Here we may see that this sinne is proper to those onely that lived under the Gospell and have tasted of the comfort and knowledge of Christ. Iudas Iscariot that wicked and accursed Varlet committed the deed and feeles the scourge of this great sinne for he being a Disciple nay an Apostle of Christ Iesus moved with covetousnesse after he had devised and concluded of the manner and complot of his treason with the enemie sold his Lord and Master the Savior of the World for thirty pieces of silver and betrayed him into the bands of theeves and murtherers who sought nothing but his destruction After this vile traitour had performed this execrable purpose by reason whereof he is called the sonne of perdition he could finde no rest nor repose in his guilty conscience but was horribly troubled and tormented with remorse of his wickednesse judging himselfe worthy of a thousand deaths for betraying that innocent and guiltlesse bloud If hee looked up he saw the vengeance of God ready to fall upon him and insnare him if hee looked downe he saw nothing but hell gaping to swallow him up the light of this world was odious to him and his own life displeased him so that being plunged into the bottomlesse pit of despaire he at last strangled himselfe and burst in twaine in the midst and all his bowels gushed out There is a notable example of Lucian who having professed Christianity for a season under the Emperour Trajan fell away afterwards and became so prophane and impious as to make a mocke at Religion and Divinity whereupon his sirname was called Atheist This wretch as he barked out like a foule mouthed dog bitter taunts against the religion of Christ seeking to rend and abolish it so he was himselfe in Gods vengeance torne in pieces and devoured of dogs Porphyrie also a whelp of the same litter after he had received the knowledge of the truth for despight and anger that he was reproved of his faults by the Christians set himselfe against them and published books full of horrible blasphemies to discredit and overthrow the Christian Faith But when he perceived how fully
information of one Richard Master Parson of Aldington and Edward Bocking Doctor of Divinity a Monke of Canterbury and divers others counterfeited such manner of trances and distortions in her body with the uttering of divers counterfeit vertues and holy words tending to the rebuke of sinne and reproving such new opinions as there began to spread that shee woon great credit amongst the people and drew after her a multitude of favourites besides she would prophecy of things to come as that shee should be helped of her disease by none but the Image of our Lady in Aldington whither being brought she appeared to the people to be suddenly relieved from her sicknesse by meanes of which hypocriticall dissimulation she was brought into marvellous estimation not only with the common people but with divers great men also insomuch that a book was put in print touching her fained miracles and revelations Howbeit not content to delude the people she began also to meddle with the King himself Henry the eight saying That if he proceeded to be divorced from his wife Queene Katherine he should not remaine King one month after and in the reputation of God not one day for which and many other tricks practised by her she with her complices was arraigned of high treason and after confession of all her knavery drawn from the Tower to Tyburne and there hanged the holy maidens head being set upon London bridge and the other on certaine gates of the City The other named la Pucella de Dieu marvellously deluded with her counterfeit hypocrisie Charles the seventh King of France and all the whole French Nation in such sort that so much credit was attributed unto her that she was honoured as a Saint and thought to be sent of God to the aide of the French King By her meanes Orleance was woon from the English and many other exploits atchieved which to be short I will referre the Reader unto the French Chronicles where they shall finde her admirable knavery at large discovered But touching her end it was on this sort as she marched on horsebake to the towne of Champaigne to remove the siedge wherewith it was guirt by the Duke of Burgoine and other of the English Captaines Sir Iohn Leupembrough a Burgonian Knight tooke her alive and conveyed her to the City of Roan where she faigning her selfe with child when the contrary was knowne was condemned and burnt And thus these two holy women that in a diverse kind mocked the people of England and France by their hypocrisie by the justice of God came to deserved destructions CHAP. XXI Of Conjurers and Enchanters IF God by his first Commandement hath enjoyned every one of us to love serve and to cleave unto him alone in the conjuction and unity of a true faith and hope unremovable there is no doubt but he forbiddeth on the other side that which is contrary to this foresaid duty and herein especially that accursed familiarity which divers miserable wretches have with that lying Spirit the Father of errour by whose delusions and subtilty they busie themselves in the study of sorceries and enchantments whereupon it is forbidden the Israelites in the nineteenth of Leviticus to turne after familiar spirits or to seeke to Soothsayers to be defiled by them and the more to withdraw them from this damnable crime in the Chapter following there is a threat set downe against it in manner of a Commandement That if either man or woman have a spirit of divination or soothsaying in them they should dye the death they should stone them to death their bloud should be upon them so in the two and twentieth of Exodus the Law of God saith Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live and Moses following the same steps giveth an expresse charge in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy against this sinne saying Let nonebe found among thee that useth witchcraft nor that regardeth the Clouds or times nor a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that counselleth with a Spirit or a teller of Fortunes or that asketh counsell of the dead for all that doe such things are abhomination unto the Lord. And therefore this sinne 1 Sam. ver 15. is reputed amongst the most hainous and enormous sinnes that can be When they shall say unto you saith the Prophet Enquire at them that have a Spirit of Divination and at the Soothsayer which whispers and murmures answer Should not a people enquire at their God from the living to the dead To the Law and to the Testimony Wherefore it was a commendable thing and worthy imitation when they that had received the Faith by Pauls preaching having used curious Arts as Magicke and such like being touched with the feare of God brought their bookes and burned them before all men although the price thereof amounted to fifty thousand pieces of silver which by Budeus his supputation ariseth to five thousand French Crownes The Councels as that of Carthage and that other of Constantinople kept the second time in the suburbs utterly condemned the practices of all Conjurers and Enchanters The twelve Tables in Rome adjudged to punishments those that bewitched the standing corne And for the Civill Law this kind is condemned both by the Law Iulia and Cornelia In like manner the wisest Emperours those I mean that attained to the honour of Christianity ordained divers Edicts and Prohibitions under very sharp and grievous punishments against all such villany as Constantine in the ninth book of the Cod. tit 18. enacted That whosoever should attempt any action by Art Magicke against the safety of any person or should bring in or stir up any man to make him fall into any mischiefe or riotous demeanour should suffer a grievous punishment in the fifth Law he forbiddeth every man to aske counsell at Witches or to use the helpe of Charmers and Sorcerers under the paine of death Let them saith he in the sixth Law be throwne to wild beasts to be devoured that by conjuring or the helpe of familiar spirits go about to kill either their enemies or any other Moreover in the seventh Law he willeth that not so much as his owne courtiers and servants if they were found faulty in this crime should be spared but severely punished yet neverthelesse many of this age gave themselves over to this filthy sinne without either feare of God or respect of Law some through a foolish and dangerous curiosity others through the overruling of their owne vile and wicked affections and a third sort troubled with the terrours of an evill conscience desire to know what shall besall and happen unto them in the end Thus Saul the first King of Israel being troubled in himselfe and terrified with the army of the Philistims that came against him would needs foreknow his owne fortune and the issue of this doubtfull warre Now whereas before whilest he performed the duty of a good King and obeyed the commandement of God hee had cleansed his Realme
up for their deliverance some grievous punishment befell them for then being without law or government every man did that which seemed good in his owne eyes and so turned aside from the right way Now albeit these examples may seeme to have some affinity with Apostasie yet because the ignorance and rudenesse of the people was rather the cause of their falling away from God than any wilfull affection that raigned in them therefore we place them in this ranke as well as they have bin alwaies brought up and nuzled in Idolatry One of this câ—â—w was Ochosias King of Iuda sonne of Ioram who having before him an evill president of his wicked father and a worse instruction and bringing up of his mother Athaliah who together with the house of Achab pricked him forward to evill joyned himselfe to them and to their Idols and for that cause was wrapped in the same punishment and destruction with Ioram the King of Israel whom Iehu slew together with the Princes of Iuda and many of his neere kinsmen And to be short Idolatry hath been the decay and ruine of the kingdome of Iuda as at all other times so especially under Ioachas sonne of Iosias that raigned not above three moneths in Ierusalem before he was taken and led captive into Aegypt by the King thereof and there died from which time the whole land became tributary to the King of Aegypt And not long after it was utterly destroyed by the forces of Nabuchadnezzar King of Babel that came against Ierusalem and tooke it and carried King Ioachim with his mother his Princes his servants and the treasurers of the Temple and his owne house into Babylon and finally tooke Zedechias that fled away and before his eyes caused his sonnes to be slaine which as soone as he had beheld commanded them also to be pulled out and so binding him in chaines of yron carried him prisoner to Babylon putting all the Princes of Iudah to the sword consuming with fire the Temple with the Kings Palace and all the goodly buildings of Ierusalem And thus the whole kingdome though by an especiall prerogative consecrated and ordained of God himselfe ceased to be a kingdome and came to such an end that it was never re-established by God it is no marvell then if the like hapned to the kingdome of Israel which was after a sort begun and confirmed by the filthy idolatry of Ieroboams calves which as his successors maintained or favoured more or lesse so were they exposed to more or lesse plagues and incumbrances Nadab Ieroboams sonne being nuzled and nurtured up in Idoll worship after the example of his father received a condigne punishment for his iniquity for Baasa the sonne of Ahijah put both him and all the off spring of Ieroboams house to the sword and raigned in his stead who also being no whit better than those whom he had slaine was punished in the person of Ela his sonne whom Zambri also his servant slew And this againe usurping the crowne enjoyed it but seven dayes at the end whereof seeing himselfe in danger in the city of Tirza taken by Amri whom the people had chosen for their King went into the palace of the Kings house and burned himselfe As for Achab he multiplied Idolatry in Israel and committed more wickednesse than all his predecessors wherefore the wrath of God was stretched out against him and his for he himselfe was wounded to death in battell by the Syrians his son Ioram slain by Iehu and threescore and ten of his children put to death in Samaria by their governors and chiefe of the city sending their heads in baskets to Iehu Above all a most notable and manifest example of Gods judgement was seene in the death of Iezabel his wife that had been his spurre and provoker to all mischiefe when by her Eunuchs and most trusty servants at the commandement of Iehu she was throwne downe out of a window and trampled under the horse feet and last of all devoured of dogs Moreover the greatest number of the kings of Israel that succeeded him were murthered one after another so that the kingdome fell to such a low decline that it became first tributary to the King of Assyria and afterward invaded and subverted by him and the inhabitants transported into his land whence they never returned but remained scattered here and there like vagabonds and all for their abhominable Idolatry Which ought to be a lesson to all people Princes and Kings that seeing that God spared not these two Realmes of Iuda and Israel but destroyed and rooted them out from the earth much lesse will he spare any other kingdome and Monarchy which continue by their Images and Idol-worship to stirre up his indignation against them CHAP. XXV Of many evils that have come upon Christendome for Idolatry IF we consider and search out the cause of the ruine of the East Empire and of so many famous and flourishing Churches as were before time in the greatest part of Europe and namely in Greece we shall finde that Idolatry hath been the cause of all for even as it got footing and increase in their dominions so equally did the power of Saracens and Turkish tyranny take root and foundation among them and prospered so well that the rest of the world trembled at the report thereof God having raised and fortified them as before time he had done the Assyrians and Babylonians as whips and scourges to chasten the people and Nations of the world that wickedly had abused his holy Gospel and bearing the name of Christians had become Idolaters for no other name than this can be given them that in devotion doe any manner of homage to Images and pictures whatsoever may superficially be alleadged to the contrary For be it the Image either of Prophet Apostle or Christ Iesus himselfe yet it is necessary that the law of God stand whole and sound which saith Thou shalt make thy selfe no graven Image nor any likenesse of things either in heaven above or in earth beneath thou shalt not how downe to them nor worship them c. Wherefore he performed the part of a good Bishop that finding a vaile spread in the entrance of a Church dore wherein the Image of Christ or of some other Saint was pictured rent it in pieces with these words That it was against the authority of the sacred Scriptures to have any Image of Christ set up in the Church After the same manner Serenus Bishop of Marscilla beat downe and banished all Images out of his Churches as occasions of Idolatry and to shun them the more it was ordained in the Elibertine Councell that no Image nor picture should be set up in any Church for which cause also the Emperour Leo the third by an open Edict commanded his subjects to cast out of their Temples all pictures and statues of Saints Angels and whatsoever else to the intent that all occasions of Idolatry might be
the siege Machabeus put fire to the towne and consumed the place with the blasphemers in it to ashes Holofernes when Achior advanced the glory of the God of Israel replyed on this fashion Since thou hast prophesied unto us that Israel shall be defended by their God thou shalt prove that there is no God but Nabuchadnezzar when the sword of mine army shall passe through thy sides and thou shalt fall among their slaine but for this blasphemy the Lord cut him short and prevented his cruell purpose by sudden death und that by the hand of a woman to his further shame Nay this sinne is so odious in the sight of God that he punisheth even them that give occasion thereof unto others yea though they be his dearest children as it appeareth by the words of the Prophet Nathan unto King David Because of this deed saith he of murthering Vriah and defiling Bathshabe thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the childe that is borne unto thee shall surely die In the Empire of Iulian the Apostata there were divers great men that for the Emperours sake sake forsooke Christ and his religion amongst whom was one Iulian uncle to the Emperour and Governour of the East another Foelix the Emperours Treasurer the first of which two after hee had spoyled all Christian Churches and Temples pissed against the table whereon the holy Sacraments were used to be administred in contempt and strucke Euzoius on the care for reproving him for it the other beholding the holy vessels that belonged to the Church said See what pretious vessels Maries sonne is served withall After which blasphemy the Lord plagued them most strangely for Iulian fell into so strange a disease that his intrailes being rotten he voided his excrements at his mouth because when they passed naturally he abused them to the dishonour of God Foelix vomited bloud so excessively night and day at his blasphemous mouth that he died forthwith About the same time there lived a famous sophister and Epicure called Libanius who being at Antioch demanded blasphemously of a learned and godly schoolemaster What the Carpenters sonne did and how he occupied himselfe Marry quoth the schoolemaster full of the spirit of God the Creator of this world whom thou disdainfully callest the carpenters sonne is making a coffin for thee to carry thee to thy grave whereat the sophister jeasting departed and within few daies dying was buried in a coffin according to the prophesie of that holy man The Emperour Heraclius sending Embassadors to Cosroë the King of Persia to intreat of peace returned with this answer That he would never cease to trouble them with warre till he had constrained them to forsake their crucified Christ and to worship the Sunne But ere long he bore the punishment of his blasphemy for what with a domesticall calamity and a forrein overthrow by the hand of Heraclius he came to a most wofull destruction Michael that blasphemous Rabbine that was accounted of the Iewes as their Prince and Messias as he was on a time banquetting with his companions amongst other things this was chiefest sauce for their meat to blasphme Christ and his mother Mary insomuch as he boasted of a victory already gotten over the Christians God But marke the issue as he descended down the stayres his foot slipping he tumbled headlong and broke his neck wherein his late victory proved a discomfiture and overthrow to his eternall shame and confusion Three souldiers amongst the Tyrigetes a people of Sarmatia passing through a Wood there arose a tempest of thunder and lightening which though commonly it maketh the greatest Atheists to tremble yet one of them to shew his contempt of God and his judgements burst forth into blasphemy and despightings of God But the Lord soone tamed his rebellious tongue for he caused the winde to blow up by the root a huge tree that fell upon him and crushed him to pieces the other escaping to testifie to the World of his destruction At a village called Benavides in Spain two young men being together in a field there arose of a sudden a terrible tempest with such violence of weather and winde and withall so impetuous a whirlwinde that it amased those that beheld it The two young men seeing the fury thereof comming amaine towards them to avoid the danger ran away as fast as they possibly might but make what haste they could it overtooke them who fearing lest the same should swing them up into the ayre fell flatlong down upon the earth where the whirlwinde whisking about them a pretty while and then passing forth the one of them arose so altered and in such an agony that he was scarcely able to stand on his feet the other lying still and not stirring some others afarre off that stood under a hedge went to see how hee did and found him to be starke dead not without markes upon him of wonderfull admiration for all his bones were so crushed that the pipes and joynts of his legges and armes were as easie to be turned the one way as the other as though his whole body had been made of mosse and besides his tongue was pulled out by the roots which could not by any meanes be found though they sought for it most diligently And this was the miserable end of this wretched man who was noted to be a great outragious swearer blasphemer of Gods holy name the Lord therfore chose him out to make him an example to the world of his justice No lesse notable is the example of a young girle named Denis Benesield of twelve yeares of age who going to schoole amongst other girles when they fell to reason among themselves after their childish discretion about God one among the rest said that he was a good old father What hee said the foresaid Denis he is an old doting foole which being told to her mistresse she purposed to correct her the next day for it but it chanced that the next day her mother sent her to London to the market the wench greatly intreating her mother that she might not goe so that she escaped her mistresses correction But the Lord in vengeance met with her for as she returned homeward suddenly she was stricken dead all the one side of her being black and buried at Hackney the same night A terrible example no doubt both to old and young what it is for children to blaspheme the Lord and God and what it is for parents to suffer their young ones to grow up in blindnesse without nurtering them in the feare of God and reverence of his Majesty and therefore worthy to be remembred of all In the yeare 510 an Arrian Bishop called Olympius being at Carthage in the bathes reproached and blasphemed the holy and sacred Trinity and that openly but lighting fell downe from heaven upon him three times and he was burnt and consumed therewith There was also in the time
speedily executed Wherein the Lord made knowne unto them both how unpleasant and odious the prophanation of his Sabbath was in his sight and how seriously and carefully every one ought to observe and keepe the same Now albeit that this strict observation of the Sabbath was partly ceremoniall under the Law and that in Christ Iesus we have an accomplishment as of all other so also of this ceremony He being the true Sabbath and assured repose of our soules yet seeing we still stand in need of some time for the instruction and exercise of our Faith it is necessary that we should have at least one day in a weeke to occupy our selves in and about those holy and godly exercises which are required at our hands and what day fitter for that purpose than Sunday which was also ordained in the Apostles time for the same end and called by them Dies Dominicus that is the day of our Lord because upon that day he rose from the dead to wiâ— the morrow after the Iewes Sabbath being the first day of the weeke to which Sabbath it by common consent of the Church succeeded to the end that a difference might be put betwixt Christians and Iewes Therefore it ought now religiously to be observed as it is also commanded in the civill law with expresse prohibition not to abuse this day of holy rest in unholy sports and pastimes of evill example Neverthelesse in stead hereof we use the evill imployance abuse and disorder of it for the most part for beside the false worship and plentifull superstitions which reigne in so many places all manner of disorder and dissolutenesse is in request and beareth sway in these dayes this is the day for tipling houses and tavernes to be fullest fraught with ruffians and ribalds and for villanous and dishonest speech with lecherous and baudy songs to be most riâ—e this is the day when dicing dauncing whoring and such noysome and dishonest demeanors muster their bands and keep ranke together from whence foame out envies hatreds displeasures quarrels debates bloud sheddings and murthers as daily experience testifieth All which things are evident signes of Gods heavy displeasure upon the people where these abuses are permitted and no difference made of that day wherein God would be served but is contrarily mostdishonored by the overflow of wicked examples And that it is a thing odious and condemned of God these examples following will declare Gregory Turonensis reporteth That a husbandman who upon the Lords day went to plough his field as he cleansed his plow-share with an yron the yron stucke so fast into his hand that for two yeares hee could not be delivered from it but carried it about continually to his exceeding great paine and shame Another prophane fellow without any regard of God or his service made no conscience to convey his corne out of the field on the Lords day in Sermon time but hee was well rewarded for his godlesse covetousnesse for the same corne which with so much care he gathered together was consumed with fire from heaven with the barne and all the graine that was in it A certaine Nobleman used every Lords day to goe a hunting in the Sermon while which impiety the Lord punished with this judgement he caused his wife to bring forth a childe with a head like a dog that seeing he preferred his dogs before the service of God hee might have one of his owne getting to make much of At Kimstaâ— a towne in France there lived in the yere of our Lord 1559 a certain covetous woman who was so eager upon the world and greedy of gaine that she would neither frequent the Church to heare the word of God her selfe nor suffer any of her family to doe it but continually abode labouring and toyling about drying and pilling flax and doing other domesticall businesses neither would she be reclaimed by her neighbours who admonished and dehorted her from such untimely works One Sabbath day as they were thus busily occupied fire seemed to issue among the flax without doing any hurt the next Sabbath day it tooke fire indeed but was quickly extinct for all this she continued obstinate in her prophanenesse even the third Sabbath when the flax againe taking fire could not be quenched till it had burnt her and two of her children to death for though they were recovered out of the fire alive yet the next day they all three died And that which was most to be wondred at a young infant in the cradle was taken out of the midst of the flame without any hurt Thus God useth to exercise his judgements upon the contemners of his commandements The Centuriators of Magdeburge intreating of the manners of Christians made report out of another history that a certaine husbandman in Parochia Gemilacensi grinding corne upon the Lords day the meale began to burne Anno Dom. 1126 which though it might seeme to be a thing meere casuall yet they set it downe as a judgement of God upon him for breaking the Sabbath As also of that which they speake in the same place of one of the Kings of Denmarke who when as hee contrary to the admonition of the Priests who desired him to deferre it would needs upon the day of Pentecost make warre with his enemy died in the battell But that may be better knowne to us all which is written in the second booke of Macchabees of Nicanor the Iewes enemy who would needs set upon them on the Sabbath from which when other the Iewes that were compelled to be with him could no way disswade him he was slaine in the battell and most miserably but deservedly handled even the parts of his body shamefully dismembred as in that History you may read more at large Therefore in the Councell at Paris every one labouring to perswade unto a more religious keeping of the Sabbath day when they had justly complained that as many other things so also the observation of the Sabbath was greatly decayed through the abuse of Christian liberty in that men too much followed the delights of the world and their owne worldly pleasures both wicked and dangerous They further adde Multi nánque nostrum visu multi etiam quorundam relatu dedicimus c. For many of us have been eye-witnesses many have intelligence of it by the relation of others that some men upon this day being about their husbandry have been strucken with thunder some have been maimed and made lame some have had their bodies even bones and all burnt in a moment with visible fire and have consumed to ashes and many other judgements of God have been and are daily Whereby it is declared that God is offended with the dishonour of so high a day And our time hath not wanted examples in this kind whosoever hath observed them when sometimes in the faires upon this day the Wares have swumme in the streetes sometimes the scaffolds at Playes have falne downe
were there overthrown killed and hanged by troups In the yeare of our Lord 1525 there were certain husbandmen of Souabe that began to stand in resistance against the Earle of Lupsfen by reason of certaine burthens which they complained themselves to be overlaid with by him their neighbors seeing this enterprised the like against their Lords And so upon this small beginning by a certaine contagion there grew up a most dangerous and fearefull commotion that spread it selfe almost over all Almaine the sedition thus increasing in all quarters and the swaines being now full forty thousand strong making their owne liberty and the Gospels a cloake to cover their treason and rebellion and a pretence of their undertaking armes to the wonderfull griefe of all that feared God did not onely fight with the Romane Catholickes but with all other without respect as well in Souabe as in Franconia they destroyed the greater part of the Nobility sacked and burnt many castles and fortresses to the number of two hundred and put to death the Earle of Helfest in making him passe through their pikes But at length their strength was broken they discomfited and torn in pieces with a most horrible massacre of more than eighteen thousand of them During this sedition there were slaine on each side fifty thousand men The captaine of the Souabian swaines called Geismer having betaken himselfe to flight got over the mountaines of Padua where by treason he was made away In the yeare of our Lord 1517 in the Marquesdome of the Vandales the like insurrection and rebellion was of the commonalty especially the baser sort against the Nobility Spirituall and Temporall by whom they were oppressed with intolerable exactions their army was numbred of ninety thousand men all clowns and husbandmen that conspired together to redresse and reforme their owne grievances without any respect of civill Magistrate or feare of Almighty God This rascality of swaines raged and tyranized every where burning and beating down the castles and houses of Noblemen and making their ruines even with the ground Nay they handled the Noblemen themselves as many as they could attaine unto not contumeliously only but rigorously and cruelly for they tormented them to death and carried their heads upon speares in token of victory Thus they swayed a while uncontrolled for the Emperour Maximilian winked at their riots as being acquainted with what in juries they had been overcharged but when he perceived that the rude multitude did not limit their fury within reason but let it runne too lavish to the damnifying as well the innocent as the guilty he made out a small troup of mercinary souldiers together with a band of horsemen to suppresse them who comming to a city were presently so environed with such a multitude of these swaines that like locusts overspread the earth that they thought it impossible to escape with their lives wherefore feare and extremity made them to rush out to battell with them But see how the Lord prospereth a good cause for all their weak number in comparison of their enemies yet such a feare possessed their enemies hearts that they fled like troups of sheep and were slaine like dogges before them insomuch that they that escaped the sword were either hanged by flocks on trees or rosted on spits by fires or otherwise tormented to death And this end befell that wicked rebellious rout which wrought such mischiefe in that country with their monstrous villanies that the traces and steppes thereof remaine at this day to bee seene In the yeare of our Lord 1381 Richard the second being King the Commons of England and especially of Kent and Essex by meanes of a taxe that was set upon them suddenly rebelled and assembled together on Blackheath to the number of 60000 or more which rebellious rout had none but base and ignoble fellowes for their captaines as Wat Tiler Iacke Straw Tom Miller but yet they caused much trouble and disquietnesse in the Realme and chiefly about the city of London where they committed much villany in destroying many goodly places as the Savoy and others and being in Smithfield used themselves very proudly and unreverently towards the King but by the manhood and wisedome of William Walworth Major of London who arrested their chiefe captain in the midst of them that rude company was discomfited and the ringleaders of them worthily punished In like manner in the raigne of Henry the seventh a great commotion was stirred up in England by the Commons of the North by reason of a certaine taxe which was levied of the tenth peny of all mens lands and goods within the land in the which the Earle of Northumberland was slain but their rash attempt was soon broken and Chamberlain their captain with divers other hanged at Yorke for the same Howbeit their example feared not the Cornishmen from rebelling upon the like occasion of a tax under the conduct of the Lord Audley untill by woefull experience they felt the same scourge for the King met them upon Blackheath and discomfiting their troups took their captaines and ring leaders and put them to most worthy and sharp death Thus we may see the unhappy issue of all such seditious revoltings and thereby gather how unpleasant they are in the sight of God Let all the people therefore learne by these experiences to submit themselves in the feare of God to the higher powers whether they be Lords Kings Princes or any other that are set over them CHAP. VI. Of Murtherers AS touching Murther which is by the second commandement of the second Table forbidden in these words Thou shalt not kill the Lord denounceth this judgment upon it That he which striketh a man that hee dieth shall die the death And this is correspondent to that Edict which he gave to Noah presently after the universall floud to suppresse that generall cruelty which had taken root from the beginning in Cain and his posterity being carefull for mans life saying That he will require the bloud of man at the hands of either man or beast that killeth him adding moreover That whosoever sheddeth mans bloud by man also his bloud shall be shed seeing that God created him after his owne Image which he would not have to be basely accounted of but deare and precious unto us If then the bruit and unreasonable creatures are not exempted from the sentence of death pronounced in the law if they chance to kill a man how much more punishable then is man endued with will and reason when malitiously and advisedly he taketh away the life of his neighbour But the hainousnesse and greatnesse of this sinne is most lively expressed by that ordinance of God set downe in the 21 of Deutronomy where it is enjoyned That if a man be found slain in the field and it be not knowne who it was that slew him then the Elders and Iudges of the next towne assembling together should offer up an expiatory sacrifice
aloft upon the roofe of an house perceiving his intent threw downe a tile with both her hands upon his head and hit him such a knocke upon the necke through default of his armour that it so bruised his joynts that he fell into a sudden swound and lost his sight his raines falling out of his hand and he himselfe tumbling from his saddle upon the ground which when some of the soldiers perceived they drew him out of the gate and there to make an end of the tragedy cut off his head The cruelty of the Ephori was marvellous strange when being unwilling once to heare the equality of lands and possessions to be named which Agis their King for the good of the commonwealth according to the antient custome and ordinance of Licurgus sought to restore they rose up against him and cast him in prison and there without any processe or forme of law sttangled him to death with his mother and grandfather But it cost them very deare for Cleamenes who was joynt King with Agis albe it he had consented to the weaving of that web himself to the end he might raigne alone yet ceased he not to prosecute revenge upon them which hee did not onely by his daily and usuall practises openly but also privily for taking them once at advantage being at supper all together hee caused his men to kill them suddenly as they fat And thus was the good King Agis revenged But this last murtherer which was fullied and polluted with so much bloud he went not long unpunished for his misdeeds for soone after Antigonus King of Macedonia gave him a great overthrow in a battell wherein hee lost Sparta his chiefe city and fled into Aegypt for succour where after small abode upon an accusation laid against him he was cast into prison and though he escaped out with his company by cunning and craft yet as he walked up and down Alexandria in armor in hope that through his seditious practises the citizens would take his part and help to restore him to his liberty when he perceived it was nothing so but that every man forsooke him and that there was no hope left of recovery he commanded his men to kill one another as they did In which desperate rage and fury he himselfe was slain his body being found was commanded by King Ptolomey to be hangd on a gibbet and his mother wives and children that came with him into Aegypt to bee put to death And this was the tragicall end of Cleomenes King of Sparta Alexander the tyrant of Pheres never ceased to make and spy out all occasions of warre against the people of Thessaly to the end to bring them generally in subjection under his dominion he was a most bloudy and cruell minded man having neither regard of person or justice in any action In his cruelty he buried some alive others he clothed in beares and boares skins and then set dogs at their tailes to rend them in pieces others hee used in way of pastime to strike through with darts and arrowes And one day as the inhabitants of a certaine city were assembled together in counsell he caused his guard to inclose them up suddenly and to kill them all even to the very infants He slew also his owne uncle and crowned the speare wherwith he did that deed with garlands of flowers and sacrificed unto him being dead as to a god Now albeit this cruell Tygre was garded continually with troupes of souldiers that kept night and day watch about his body wheresoever hee lay and with a most ougly and terrible dog unacquainted with any saving himselfe his wife and one servant that gave him his meat tied to his chamber dore yet could hee not escape the evill chance which by his wives meanes fell upon him for she taking away the staires of his chamber let in three of her owne brethren provided to murther him as they did for finding him asleep one tooke him fast by the heeles the other by the haire wringing his head behind him and the third thrust him through with his sword shee all this while giving them light to dispatch their businesse The citizens of Pheres when they had drawne his carkasse about their streets and trampled upon it their bellies full threw it to the dogges to be devoured so odious was his very remembrance among them Iâ—gurth sonne to Manastabal brother to Micipsa King of Numidia by birth a bastard for hee was borne of a concubine yet by nature and disposition so valiant and full of courage that hee was not onely beloved of all men but also so deerely esteemed of by Micipsa that he adopted him joynt heire with his sonnes Adherbal and Hiempsal to his crowne kindly admonishing him in way of intreaty to continue the union of love and concord without breach between them which hee promised to performe But Micipsa was no sooner deceased but hee by and by not content with a portion of the Kingdome ambitiously sought for the whole For which cause hee first found meanes to dispatch Hiempsal out of his way by the hands of the guard who in his lodging by night cut his throat and then by battell having vanquished Adherbal his brother obtained the sole regiment without controlment Besides hee corrupted so by bribes the Senators of Rome that had soveraigne authority in and over his Kingdome that in stead of punishment which his murther cried for he was by the decree of the Senate allotted to the one halfe of the Kingdome Whereupon being growne yet more presumptuous hee made excursions and ryots upon Adherbals territories and did him thereby much injury and from thence falling to open warre put him to flight and pursued him to a city where hee besieged him so long till he was constrained to yeeld himselfe And then having gotten him within his power put him to the cruellest death he could devise which villanous deed gave just cause to the Romanes of that warre which they undertooke against him wherein hee was discomfited and seeing himselfe utterly lost fled to his sonne in law Bochus King of Mauritania to seeke supply of succour who receiving him into safegard proved a false gard to him and delivered him into the hands of his enemies and so was he carried in triumph to Rome by Marius fast bound and being come to Rome cast into perpetuall prison where first his gowne was torne off his backe by violence next a ring of gold pluckt off his eare lap and all and lastly himselfe starke naked throwne into a deepe ditch where combating with famine six dayes the seventh miserably ended his wretched life according to the merits of his misdeeds Orsius saith he was strangled in prison Methridates king of Parthia put to death the king of Cappadocia to get his kingdome and after under pretence of parlying with one of his sonnes slew him also for which cause the Romanes tooke up the quarrell and made warre upon him by meanes
it was good reason that she should partake some of that punishment which they both deserved as she did for being surprised by her enemies to the intent she might not be carried in triumph to Rome she caused an aspe to bite her to death Marke here the pittifull Tragedies that following one another in the necke were so linkt together that drawing and holding each other they drew with them a world of miseries to a most wofull end a most transparent and cleere glasse wherein the visages of Gods heavy judgements upon all murtherers are apparently deciphered CHAP. VI. Other examples like unto the former AFter that the Empire of Rome declining after the death of Theodosius was almost at the last cast ready to yeeld up the ghost and that Theodorick king of the Goths had usurped the dominion of Italy under the Emperor Zeno he put to death two great personages Senators and chiefe citizens of Rome to wit Simmachus and â—oetiâ—â— only for secret surmise which he had without probability that they two should weave some she web for his destruction After which cruell deed as he was one day at supper a fishes head of great bignesse beeing served into the table purposing to be very merry suddenly the vengeance of God assailed amased oppressed and pursued him so freshly that without intermission or breathing it sent his body a senselesse trunk into the grave in a most strange and marvellous manner for he was conceited as himselfe reported that the fishes head was the head of Simmachus whom he had but lately slaine which grinned upon him and seemed to face him with an overthwart threatning and angry eye wherewith hee was so scarred that he forthwith rose from the table and was possessed with such an exceeding trembling and icle ehilnesse that ran through all his joynts that he was constrained to take his chamber and goe to bed where soone after with griefe and fretting and displeasure hee died He committed also another most cruell and traiterous part upon Odoacer whom inviting to a banquet he deceitfully welcommed with a messe of swords in stead of other victuals to kill him withall that he might sway the Empire alone both of the Gothes and Romanes without checke It was not without cause that Attila was called the scourge of God for with an army of five hundred thousand men he wasted and spoiled all fields cities and villages that he passed by putting all to fire and sword without shewing mercy to any on this manner he went spoiling through France and there at one time gave battell to the united forces of the Romans Vicegothes Frenchmen Sarmatians Burgundians Saxons and Almaignes after that he entered Italy tooke by way of force Aquilea sacked and destroyed Millan with many other cities and in a word spoiled all the countrey in fine being returned beyond Almaigne having married a wife of excellent beauty though he was well wived before he died on his marriage night suddenly in his bed for having well carowsed the day before he fell into so dead a sleepe that lying upon his backe without respect the bloud which was often woont to issue at his nostrils finding those conduits stopped by his upright lying descended into his throat and stopped his winde And so that bloudy tyrant that had shed the bloud of so many people was himselfe by the effusion of his owne bloud murthered and stifled to death Ithilbald king of Gothia at the instigation of his wife put to death very unadvisedly one of the chiefe peeres of his realme after which murther as he sate banquetting one day with his princes environed with his gard and other attendants having his hand in the dish and the meat between his fingers one suddenly reached him such a blow with a sword that it cut off his head so that it almost tumbled upon the table to the great astonishment of all that were present Sigismund king of Burgundy suffered himselfe to be carried away with such an extreame passion of choler provoked by a false and malicious accusation of his second wife that he caused one of his sonnes which he had by his former wife to be strangled in his bed because he was induced to think that he went about to make himselfe king which deed being blowne abroad Clodomire sonne to Clodovee and Clotild king France and cousin german to Sigismund came with an army for to revenge this cruell and unnaturall part his mother setting forward and inciting him thereunto in regard of the injury which Sigismunds father had done to her father and mother one of whom he slew and drowned the other As they were ready to joyne battell Sigismunds souldiers forsooke him so that hee was taken and presently put to death and his sonnes which he had by his second wife were taken also and carried captive to Orleance and there drowned in a Well Thus was the execrable murther of Sigismund and his wife punished in their owne children As for Clodomire though he went conqueror from this battell yet was he encountered with another disastrous misfortune for as hee marched forward with his forces to fight with Sigismunds brother he was by him overcome and slaine and for a further disgrace his dismembred head fastened on the top of a pike was carried about to the enterview of all men Hee left behinde him three young sonnes whom his owne brethren and their uncles Clotaire and Childebert notwithstanding their young and tender yeres tooke from their grandmother Clotildes custody that brought them up as if they would install them into some part of their fathers kingdome but most wickedly and cruelly to the end to possesse their goods lands and seigniories bereft them all of their lives save one that saved himselfe in a Monastery In this strange and monstrous act Clotaire shewed himselfe more than barbarous when he would not take pity upon the youngest of the two being but seven yeares old who hearing his brother of the age of tenne yeres crying pittifully at his slaughter threw himselfe at his uncle Childeberts feet with teares desiring him to save his life wherewith Childebert being greatly affected entreated his brother with weeping eies to have pity upon him and spare the life of this poore infant but all his warnings and entreaties could not hinder the savage beast from performing this cruell murther upon this poore childe as he had don upon the other The Emperour Phocas attained by this bloudy means the imperiall dignity even by the slaughter of his lord and master Mauricius whom as he fled in disguised attire for feare of a treason pretended against him he being beforetime the Lievtenant Generall of his army pursued so maliciously and hotly that he overtooke him in his flight and for his further griefe first put all his children severally to death before his face that every one of them might be a severall death unto him before he died and then slew him also This murtherer was he that first exalted to
so high a point the popish horn when at the request of Boniface he ordained That the Bishop of Rome should have preheminence and authority over all other Bishops which he did to the end that the staine and blame of his most execrable murther might be either quite blotted out or at least winked at Vnder his regency the forces of the Empire grew wondrously into decay France Spaine Almaigne and Lombardy revolted from the Empire and at last himselfe being pursued by his son in law Priscus with the Senatours was taken and having his hands and feet cut off was together with the whole race of his off-spring put to a most cruell death because of his cruell and tyrannous life Among all the strange examples of Gods judgements that ever were declared in this world that one that befell a King of Poland called Popiel for his murthers is for the strangenesse thereof most worthy to be had in memory he reigned in the yeare of our Lord 1346. This man amongst other of his particular kinds of cursings and swearings whereof he was no niggard used ordinarily this oath If it be not true would rats might devoure me prophesying thereby his owne destruction for hee was devoured by the same meanes which he so often wished for as the sequell of his history will declare The father of this Popiel seeling himselfe neere death resigned the government of his kingdome to two of his brethren men exceedingly reverenced of all men for the valour and vertue which appeared in them He being deceased and Popiel being growne up to ripe and lawfull yeares when he saw himselfe in full liberty without all bridle of government to doe what hee listed he began to give the full swinge to his lawlesse and unruly desires in such sort that within few daies he became so shamelesse that there was no vice which appeared not in his behavior even to the working of the death of his owne uncles for all their faithfull dealing towards him which he by poison brought to passe Which being done he caused himselfe forthwith to be crowned with garlands of flowers and to be perfumed with precious oyntments and to the end the better to solemniâ—e his entry to the crowne commanded a sumptuous and pompous banquet to be prepared whereunto all the Princes and Lords of his kingdome were invited Now as they were about to give the onset upon the delicate cheere behold an army of rats sallying out of the dead and putrified bodies of his uncles set upon him his wife and children amid their dainties to gnaw them with their sharp teeth insomuch that his gard with all their weapons and strength were not able to chase them away but being weary with resisting their daily and mighty assaults gave over the battell wherefore counsell was given to make great cole â—ires about them that the rats by that means might be kept off not knowing that no policy or power of man was able to withstand the unchangeable decree of God for for all their huge forces they ceased not to run through the midst of them and to assault with their teeth this cruell murtherer Then they gave him counsell to put himselfe his wife and children into a boat and thrust it into the middest of a lake thinking that by reason of the waters the rats would not approach unto them but alas in vaine for they swum through the waters amaine and gnawing the boat made such chinkes into the sides thereof that the water began to run in which being perceived of the boatman amased them sore and made them make poste haste unto the shore where hee was no sooner arrived but a fresh muster of rats uniting their forces with the former encountred him so sore that they did him more scath than all the rest Whereupon all his guard and others that were there present for his defence perceiving it to be a judgement of Gods vengeance upon him abandoned and for sooke him at once who seeing himselfe destitute of succour and forsaken on all sides flew into a high tower in Chouzitze whither also they pursued him and climbing even up to the highest roome where hee was first eat up his wife and children she being guilty of his uncles death and lastly gnew and devoured him to the very bones After the same sort was an Archbishop of Mentz called Hatto punished in the yeare 940 under the reigne of the Emperour Otho the great for the extreme cruelty which he used towards certain poor beggers whom in time of famine he assembled together into a great barn not to relieve their wants as he might and ought but to rid their lives as he ought not but did for he set on fire the barne wherein they were and consumed them all alive and comparing them to rats and mice that devoured good corne but served to no other good use But God that had regard and respect unto those poore wretches tooke their cause into his hand to quit this proud Prelate with just revenge for his outrage committed against them sending towards him an army of rats and mice to lay siege against him with the engines of their teeth on all sides which when this cursed wretch perceived he removed into a tower that standeth in the midst of Rhine not far from Bing whither hee presumed this host of rats could not pursue him but he was deceived for they swum over Rhine thick and threefold and got into his tower with such strange fury that in very short space they had consumed him to nothing in memoriall whereof this tower was ever after called the tower of rats And this was the tragedy of that bloudy arch-butcher that compared poore Christian soules to brutish and base creatures and therefore became himselfe a prey unto them as Popiel King of Poland did before him in whose strange examples the beames of Gods justice shine forth after an extraordinary and wonderfull manner to the terrour and feare of all men when by the means of small creatures they made roome for his vengeance to make entrance upon these execrable creature-murtherers notwithstanding all mans devises and impediments of nature for the native operation of the elements was restrained from hindering the passage of them armed and inspired with an invincible and supernaturall courage to feare neither fire water nor weapon till they had finished his command that sent them And thus in old time did frogs flyes grashoppers and lice make war with Pharaoh at the command of him that hath all the world at his becke After this Archbishop in the same ranke of murtherers we finde registred many Popes of all whom the most notorious and remarkable are these two Innocent the fourth and Boniface the eighth who deserved rather to be called Nocents and Malefaces than Innocents and Boniface for their wicked and perverse lives for as touching the first of them from the time that he was first installed in the Papacie he alwayes bent his hornes against
got a band of souldiers to defend himselfe yet hee was surprised by the Earles sonnes who tormenting him as became a traitor to bee tormented at last rent his body into foure quarters and so his murder and treason was condignely punished Above all the execution of Gods vengeance is most notably manifested in the punishment and detection of one Parthenius an homicide treasurer to Theodobert king of France who having traiterously slaine an especiall friend of his called Ausanius with his wife â—apianilla when no man suspected or accused him thereof he detected and accused himselfe after this strange manner As hee slept in his bed suddenly hee roared out most pittifully crying for helpe or else hee perished and being demanded what he ailed he halfe asleepe answered That his friend Ausanius and his wife whome hee had slaine long agoe summoned him to judgement before God upon which confession hee was apprehended and after due examination stoned to death Thus though all witnesses faile yet a murderers own conscience will betray him Pepin and Martellus his sonne kings of France enjoying prosperity and ease fell into divers monstrous sinnes as to forsake their wives and follow whores which filthynesse when the Bishop of Tungâ—ia reproved Dodo the harlors brother murdered him for his labor but hee was presently taken with the vengeance of God even a lousie and most filthie disease with the griefe and stinke whereof being moved hee threw himselfe into the river of Mosa and there was drowned How manifest and evident was the vengeance of God upon the murderers of Theodorick Bishop of Treverse â— Conrade the author of it dyed suddenly the souldier that helped to throw him downe from the rocke was choaked as he was at supper two other servants that layd to their hands to this murder slew themselves most desperatly About the yeare of our Lord 700. Geâ—lian the wife of Gosbere prince of Wurtiburg being reproved by Kilianus for incest for shee married her husbands brother wrought such meanes that both hee and his brethren were deprived of their lives but the Lord gave her up to Satan in vengeance so that shee was presently possessed with him and so continued till her dying day A certaine woman of Millaine in Italie hung a young boy and after devoured him instead of meat when as she wanted none other victuals and when she was examined about the crime she confessed that a spirit perswaded her to doe it telling her that after it she should attaine unto whatsoever she desired for which murder shee was to râ—â—â—nted to death by a lingring and grievous punishment This Arlunus reporteth to have happened in his time And surely how soever openly the Divell sheweth not himselfe yet he is the mover and perswader of all murders and commonly the doctor For hee delighteth in mens blouds and their destruction as in nothing more A gentleman of Chaleur in Fossignie being in the Duke of Savoyes army in September the yeare of our Lord 1589 and grieving to behold the cruelties which were exercised upon the poore inhabitants of that countrey resolved to depart from the said army now because there was no safer nor neerer waie for him than to crosse the lake to Bonne he entreated one of his acquaintance named Iohn Villaine to procure him meanes of safe passage over the lake who for that purpose procured two watermen to transport him with his horse apparell and other things being upon the lake the watermen whereof the chiefest was called Martin Bourrie fell upon him and cut his throat Iohn Villaine understanding hereof complained to the magistrates but they being forestalled with a present from the murderer of the gentlemans horse which was of great value made no inquisition into the matter but said that hee was an enemy which was dispatched and so the murderers were justified but God would not leave it so unpunished for about the fifteenth of Iuly 1591 this Bourrie going with divers others to shoot for a wager as hee was charging the harquebuse which hee had robbed the gentleman of when hee murdered him it suddenly discharged of it selfe and shot the murderer through the heart so that hee fell downe starke dead and never stirred nor spake word In the first troubles of France a gentleman of the troups which besieged Moulins in Bourbonnois was taken with sickenesse in such sort that hee could not follow his company when they dislodged and lying at a Bakers house which professed much friendship and kindnesse to him hee put such confidence in him that hee shewed him all the money that he had but so farre was this wretch from either conscience or common honestie that assoone as it was night hee most wickedly murdered him Now marke how God revenged it it happened not long after that the murderer being in sentinell one of his owne fellowes unawares shot him through the arme with a harquebuse whereof he languished the space of three moneths and then died starke mad The town of Bourges being yeelded by Monsieur D'yvoy during the first troubles in France the inhabitants were inhibited from talking together either within or without the towne or from being above two together at a time under colour of which decree many were most cruelly murdered And a principall actor herein was one Garget captaine of the Bourbonne quarter who made a common practise of killing innocent men under that pretence But shortly after the Lord that heareth the crie of innocent bloud met with him for hee was stricken with a burning fever and ranne up and downe blaspheming the Name of God calling upon the Divell and crying out if any would goe along with him to hell hee would pay his charges and so died in desperate and franticke manner Peter Martin one of the Queries of the King of France his stable and Post-master at a place called Lynge in the way towards Poyctou upon a sleight accusation without all just forme of lawfull processe was condemned by a Lord to bee drowned The Lord commanded one of his Faulkners to execute this sentence upon him upon paine to bee drowned himselfe whereupon he performed his masters command But God deferred not the revenge thereof long for within three daies after this Faulkner and a Lackey falling out about the dead mans apparell went into the field and slew one another Thus he that was but the instrument of that murder was justly punished how much more is it likely that the author escaped not scot free except the Lord gave him a heart truely to repent It hath beene observed in the history of France since the yeare of our Lord 1560 that of a thousand murders which remained unpunished in regard of men not tenne of them escaped the hands of God but came to most wretched ends In the yeare of our Lord 1546 Iohn Diazius a Spaniard by birth living a student and Professor in Paris came first to Geneva and then to Strasbrough and there by the
alone and so committed to the mercy of the sea but the sea more mercifull to him than he was to Lothebroke carried him directly to the coast of Denmarke from whence Lothebroke came as it were there to be punished for his murder Here the boat of Lothebroke being well knowne hands were lay upon him and by torments he was enquired into but hee to save himselfe uttered an untruth of King Edmund saying That the King had put him to death in Northfolke Whereupon revenge was devised and to that end an army of men prepared and sent over which was the first occasion of the Danes arrivall in this land Thus was this murther wonderfully discovered by meanes of a dog Plutarch in his book Desolertia aâ—imalium reporteth the like story of a souldier of King Pyrrhus who being slain his dog discovered the murderers for when as the dog could by no meanes be brought from the dead body but fauning upon the King as it were desiring helpe at his hand the King commanded all his Army to passe by in good order by two and two till at length the murtherers came and then the dog flew upon them so fiercely as if he would have torne them in pieces and turning to the king ranne againe upon the murderers Whereupon being apprehended and examined they soone confessed the fact and received condigne punishment for their desert Plutarch ascribeth this to the secret of Natures instinct but we must rather attribute both this and all such like to the mighty finger of God who to terrifie men from shedding humane bloud doth stirre up the dumbe creatures to be revealers of their bloudy sinne The like story the same Author reporteth of the murder of the Poet Hesiod who being slaine by the sonnes of Ganyctor the murder though secret and the Murderers though unknowne to all the world save to God and their owne conscience were discovered and brought to punishment by the means of a dog which belonged to him that was murdered The like also we reade of two French Merchants which travailing together through a certaine Wood one of them rose against the other for the desire of his mony and so slew him and buried him but the Dog of the murdered Merchant would not depart from the place but filled the Woods with howlings and cryes The murderer went forward on his journey and the Inhabitants neere the said Wood found out the murdered corps and also the Dog whom they tooke up and nourished till the Faire was done and the Merchants returned at which time they watched the Highwayes having the Dog with them who seeing the murtherer instantly made force at him without all provocation as a man would doe at his mortall enemy which thing caused the people to apprehend him who being examined confessed the fact and received condigne punishment for so foule a deed The same Author reporteth yet a more memorable and strange story of another murder discovered also by the meanes of a dogge which I may not omit There was saith hee a certaine maid neere Paris who was beloved of two young men the one of whom as he was going to visite his love happened to be murdered by the way and buried now his dog which he had with him would not depart from the grave of his master at the last the young man being missed by his father and brethren was diligently sought for but not finding him at last they found his dog lying upon his grave that howled pittifully as soone as he saw his masters brother the grave was opened and the wounded corps found which was brought away and committed to other buriall untill the murderer should be descryed Afterward in processe of time the dogge in the presence of the dead mans brethren espied the murderer and presently assaulted him with great fiercenesse Whereupon he was appreliended and examined and when by no meanes nor policy he would confesse the magistrate adjudged That the young man and the dogge should combate together The dogge was covered with a dry sod skinne in stead of armour and the murderer with a speare and on his body a thinne linnen cloth and so they both came forth to fight but behold the hand of vengeance the man offering at the dogge with his speare the dogge leaped presently at his face and caught him fast by the throat and overthrew him whereat the wretch amased cryed out to the beholders Take pity on me and pull off the dogge from my throat and I will confesse all the which being done he declared the cause and manner of the whole murder and for the same was deservedly put to death All these murders were discovered by dogges the Lord using them as instruments to reveale his justice and vengeance upon this bloudy sinne but these following by other meanes The murder of the Poet Ibycus was detected by Cranes as you may see in the 36 chapter of this booke more at large set forth Luther recites such another story as that of Ibycus of a certain Almaigne who in travelling fell among theeves which being about to cut his throat the poore man espied a flight of Crows and said O Crows I take you for witnesses and revengers of my death About two or three daies after these murdering theeves drinking in an Inne a company of Crows came and lighted on the top of the house whereupon the theeves began to laugh and say one to another Looke yonder are they which must revenge his death whom we dispatched the other day The Tapster over-hearing them told it to the magistrat who presently caused them to be apprehended and upon their disagreeing in speeches and contrary answers urged them so far that they confessed the truth and received their deserved punishment There was one Bessus as Plutarch reporteth who having killed his father was brought both to knowledge and punishment by the meanes of Swallowes for his guilty conscience persuaded him that the Swallowes in their chattering language did say to one another That Bessus had killed his father whereupon not able to conceale his owne guiltinesse hee bewrayed his horrible fact and was worthily and deservedly for the same put to death But of all the examples that either reading or experience can afford none in my opinion is either more admirable or a more clearer testimony of Gods providence justice than that which hapned about a Lucquois Merchant who comming out of England to Roan in France and from thence making towards Paris was in the way on a mountain neer to Argentueil murdered by a Frenchman his servant and his body throwne amongst the Vines Now as this fact was a doing a blind man ran by being led by his dog who hearing one groane asked who it was Whereunto the murderer answered that it was a sicke man going to ease himselfe The blind man thus deluded went his way and the servant with his masters money and with Papers of his takes up at Paris a good summe
stove fell out among themselves and from words grew to blowes the Candles being put out insomuch that one of them was stabbed with a punyard Now the deed doer was unknowne by reason of the number although the Gentleman accused a Pursevant of the Kings for it who was one of them in the stove The King to finde out the homicide caused them all to come together in the stove and standing round about the dead Corps becommanded that they should one after another lay their right hand on the slain Gentlemans naked breasts swearing they had not killed him the Gentlemen did so and no signe appeared to witnesse against them the Pursevant onely remained who condemned before in his owne conscience went first of all and kissed the dead mans feet but as soone as he layed his hand on his breast the blood gushed forth in abundance both out of his wound and nosthrils so that urged by this evident accusation he confessed the murder and by the Kings owne sentence was incontinently beheaded whereupon as I said before arose that practise which is now ordinary in many places of finding out unknowne Murders which by the admirable power of God are for the most part revealed either by the bleeding of the corpes or the opening of the eye or some other extraordinary signe as daily experience doth teach The same Authour reporteth another example farre more strange in the same letter written to David Chytreus which happened at Itzehow in Denmarke A Traveller was murdered by the high-way side and because the murderer could not be found out the Magistrates of Itzehow caused the body to be taken up and one of the hands to be cut off which was carried into the prison of the Towne and hung up by a string in one of the Chambers about ten yeares after the murderer comming upon some occasion in to the prison the hand which had been a long time dry began to drop blood on the Table that stood underneath it which the Gaoler beholding stayed the fellow and advertised the Magistrates of it who examining him the murderer giving glory to God confessed his fact and submitted himselfe to the rigour of the Law which was inflicted on him as he very well deserved At Winsheime in Germany a certaine Theefe after many Robberies and Murders committed by him upon Travellers and Women with childe went to the Shambles before Easter and bought three Calves heads which when hee put into a Wallet they seemed to the standers by to be mens heads whereupon being attached and searched by the Officers and he examined how hee came by them answered and proved by witnesses that hee bought Calves heads and how they were transformed â—hee knew not whereupon the Senate amazed not supposing this miracle to arise of naught cast the party into prison and tortured him to make him confesse what villany he had committed who confessed indeed at last his horrible murders and was worthily punished for the same and then the heads recovered their old shapes When I read this story I was halfe afraid to set it downe least I should seeme to insert fables into this serious Treatise of Gods Judgements but seeing the Lord doth often worke miraculously for the disclosing of this foule sinne I thought that it would not seeme altogether incredible Another murderer at Tubing betrayed his murder by his owne sighes which were so deepe and incessant in griefe not of his fact but of his small booty that being but asked the question he confessed the crime and underwent worthy punishment Another murtherer in Spain was discovered by the trembling of his heart for when many were suspected of the murder and all renounced it the Judge caused all their breasts to be opened and him in whom he saw most trembling of brest he condemned who also could not deny the fact but presently confessed the same At Isenacum a certaine yong man being in love with a maid and not having wherewith to maintain her used this unlawfull meanes to accomplish his desire upon a night he slew his host and throwing his body into a Cellar tooke away all his money and then hasted away but the terrour of his owne conscience and the judgement of God so besotted him that hee could not stirre a foot untill he was apprchended At the same time Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon abode at Isenacum and were eye-witnesses of this miraculous judgement who also so dealt with this murderer that in most humble and penitent confession of his sinnes and comfort of soule he ended his life By all these examples wee see how hard it is for a murderer to escape without his reward when the justice of man is either too blinde that it cannot search out the truth or too blunt that it doth not strike with severity the man appointed unto death then the justice of God riseth up and with his owne arme he discovereth and punisheth the murderer yea rather than he shall goe unpunished sencelesse creatures and his owne heart and tongue rise to give sentence against him I doubt not but daily experience in all places affordeth many more examples to this purpose and especially the experience of our Judges in criminall causes who have continuall occasion of understanding such matters in their Circuits but these shall suffice for our present purpose CHAP. XII Of such as have murdered themselves WHen the Law saith Thou shalt not kill it not onely condemneth the killing of others but much more of our selves for charity springeth from a mans selfe therfore if they be guilty of murder that spill the bloud of others much more guilty are they before God that shed their owne bloud and if nature bindeth us to preserve the life of all men as much as lyeth in our power then much more are we bound to preserve our owne lives so long as God shall give us leave We are here set in this life as souldiers in a station without the licence of our Captaine we must not depart our soule is maried to the body by the appointment of God none must presume to put a sunder those whom God hath coupled and our life is committed to us as a thing in trust we must not redeliver it nor part with it untill he require it againe at our hands that gave it into our hands Saint Augustine in his first Booke De Civitate Dei doth most strongly evince and prove That for no cause voluntary death is to be undertaken neither to avoid temporall troubles least we fall into eternall nor for feare to be polluted with the sinnes of others lest by avoiding other mens sinnes we encrease our owne nor yet for our owne sinnes that are past for the which we have more need of life that we might repent of them nor lastly for the hope of a better life because they which are guilty of their owne death a better life is not prepared for them These be the words of Augustine wherein he alledgeth
boldly or rather furiously to the wall and cast himselfe downe headlong after which yet breathing hee got up on a steepe rocke and rending out his bowels with his owne hands threw them amongst the people calling upon the Lord of life that hee would restore them againe unto him The author of that booke commendeth this fact for a valiant and noble deed but surely wee are taught out of the booke of God by Gods spirit that it was a most bloudy barbarous and irreligious act for rather should a man endure all the reproaches and torments of an enemy than embrue his owne hands in his owne bloud and therefore if he were not extraordinarily stirred up hereunto by the spirit of God this must needs bee a just punishment of some former sinne wherein hee lay without repentance and a forerunner of an eternall punishment after this life Let us joyne Iudas and Pilate together the one being the betrayer of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ our Saviour the other the condemner of him and that against his conscience as they both agreed in one malicious practise against the life of Christ so they disagreed not in offering violence to their owne lives for Iudas hanged himselfe and his bowels gushed out and Pilat being banished to Vienna and oppressed with the torment of conscience and feare of punishment for his misdeeds to prevent all killed himselfe and so became a notable spectacle of Gods justice and Christs innocencie The Jewes as they are recorded in Scripture to bee a stiffe-necked and stubborne Nation above all the Nations under the Sunne so none were ever more hardy and daring in this bloudy practise of selfe-murther than they were which may bee thought a portion of Gods just judgement upon them for their sinnes three examples of greatest note I will propound which I thinke can hardly bee matched When the City of Jerusalem was taken by Herod and Sosius there was a certaine Jew that had hidden himselfe in a denne with his wife and seven children to whom Herod offered both life and liberty if hee would come forth but the stiffe-hearted wretch had rather die than bee captive to the Romanes therefore refusing Herods offer hee first threw downe his children headlong from a high rocke and burst their neckes next hee sent his wife after them and lastly tumbled himselfe upon their carkasses to make up the tragedie a horrible and lamentable spectacle of a proud and desperate minde The second example is nothing inferior to the former After the siege and sacking of Jotapata by the Romanes forty Jewes among whom was Iosephus the writer of this story having hid themselves in a cave by mutuall consent killed one another rather than they would fall into the hands of the Romanes Iosephus onely with one other by his persuasion by great art and industry after the other were slain proceeded not in that bloudy enterprise but yeelded themselves to the mercy of the enemies and so escaped with their lives This fearefull obstinacy may well be imputed to the justice of God upon them as for their other sinnes so especially for crucifying the Lord of life whose bloud they imprecated might fall on them and on their children The third example surpasseth both the former both in cruelty and obstinacy Eleazer the Jew after the taking of Jerusalem fled into the tower of Messada with nine hundred followers being besieged there by Sabinus Flavius a Roman Captaine when he saw that the walls were almost beaten downe and that there was no hope of escaping he persuaded his companions by a pithy and vehement Oration and drew them to this resolution that tenne should be chosen by lot which should kill all the rest together with their wives and children and that afterward they themselves should kill each other The former part of this Tragedy being performed the surviving tenne first set on fire the Tower that no prey might come unto the enemy the victuals only preserved to the end it might be knowne that not hunger but desperate valour drew them to this bloudy massacre then according to their appoyntment by mutuall wounds they dispatched one another and of so great a number not one remained besides one woman with her five children who hearing the horriblenesse of their determination hid her selfe in a cave in the ground and so escaped with the life of her selfe and her children and became a reporter of this whole story The like story is recorded by Livie touching the Campagnians who being besieged by the Romanes and constrained to yeeld up their City unto them upon composition Vibius a chiefe nobleman of the City with seven and twenty other Senatours that they might not fall into their enemies hands after they had glutted themselves with wine and good cheere dranke all of them poyson and so bewayling the state of their countrey and embracing each other and taking their last farewell died ere the enemies were received into the city Buthes otherwise called Boges by Herodotus Governor of Thracia being besieged in the city Eion by Cymon the Athenian captaine to the end that the enemy might receive no benefit nor great glory by his victory first caused the city to be fired and then by one consent they all killed themselves So likewise did Ariarathes king of Capadocia when he was besieged by Perdicca Cato Vticensis rather than he would fall into the hands of Iulius Caesar his enemy after his victory over Pompey fell upon his owne sword and slew himselfe having first read Plato's booke of the immortality of the soule So likewise did Marcus Antonius after that he was over come by Augustus And Cleopatra the Aegyptian Queene when as by her allurements she could not intice Augustus to her lust as she had done Anthony but perceived that she was reserved for triumph escaping out of prison and placing her selfe in her sumptuous sepulchre neere to the body of her dead paramour set an Aspe to her left arme by the venome whereof she died as it were in a sleepe Thus the Lord doth infatuate the mindes of wicked and ungodly persons and such as have no true knowledge nor feare of the true God in their hearts making them instruments of his vengeance and executioners of his wrath upon themselves Hannibal the sonne of Amilchar after many victories and much bloodshed of the Romans at last being overcome and doubting of the faith of Prusia the King of Bythinia to whom he was fled for succour poysoned himselfe with poyson which he alwayes carried in a Ring to that purpose At the destruction of Carthage when as Asdrubal the chiefe Captaine submitted himselfe to the mercy of Scipio his wife cursing and railing on him for his base mind threw her children into the midst of a fire and there ended her dayes and Asdrubal himselfe not long after followed her by a voluntary and violent death When Cinna besieged the city of Rome two brothers chanced to encounter
son to Lodouick the third was possessed tormented with a divell in the presence of his father the Peeres of the Realme which he openly confessed to have justly happened unto him because he had pretended in his mind to have conspired his fathers death and deposition what then are they to expect that doe not pretend but performe this monstrous enterprise A certaine degenerate and cruell son longing and gaping after the inheritance of his father which nothing but his life kept him from wrought this means to accomplish his desire he accused his father of a most filthy unnameable crime even of committing filtâ—inesse with a Cow knowing that if he were convicted therof the law would cut off his life herein he wroght a double villany in going about not only to take away his life which by the law of nature he ought to have preserved but also his good name without respecting that the stain of a father redoundeth to his posterity and that children commoÌ„ly do not only inherit the possessions but also imitate the conditions of their parents but all these supposes laid aside together with all feare of God he indicted him before the Magistrate of incest and that upon his own knowledge insomuch that they brought the poore innocent man to the rack to the end to make him confesse the crime which albeit amidst his tortures he did as soon as he was out he denyed again howbeit his extorted confession stood for evidence and he was condemned to be burned with fire as was speedily executed and constantly endured by him exclaiming still upon the false accusation of his son and his own unspotted innocency as by the issue that followed most cleerely appeared for his son not long after fell into a reprobate mind and hanged himselfe and the Judge that condemned him with the witnesses that bare record of his forced confession within one moneth died all after a most wretched and miserable sort And thus it pleased God both to revenge his death and also to quit his reputation and innocency from ignominy and discredit in this world Manfred Prince of Tarentum bastard son to Frederick the second smothered his father to death with a pillow because as some say he would not bestow the kingdome of Naples upon him and not content herewith he poisoned also the heirs of Frederick to the end he might attain unto the crown as Conrade his elder brother and his nephew the son of Henry the heir which Henry died in prison and now onely Conradinus remained betwixt him and the kingdome whom though he assayed to send after his father yet was his intention frustrate for the Pope thundered out his curses against him and instigated Charles Duke of Angiers to make war against him wherein bastard and unnaturall Manfred was discomfited and slaine and cut short of his purpose for which he had committed so many tragedies Martin Luther was wont to report of his own experience this wonderfull history of a Locksmith a yong man riotous and vicious who to find fuel for his luxury was so bewitched that he feared not to slay his own father mother with a hammer to the end to gain their mony and possessions after which cruell deed he presently went to a shoomaker and bought him new shooes leaving his old behind him by the providence of God to be his accusers for after an houre or two the slain bodies being found by the Magistrate and inquisition made for the murderer no manner of suspition being had of him he seeming to take such griefe therat But the Lord that knoweth the secrets of the heart discovered his hypocrisie and made his owne shooes which hee had left with the Shoomaker rise up to beare witnesse against him for the blood which ran from his fathers wounds besprinckled them so that thereof grew the suspition and from thence the examination and very soon the confession and last of all his worthy and lawfull execution From hence we may learne for a generall trueth that murder never so secret will ever by one means or other be discovered the Lord will not suffer it to goe unpunished so abominable it is in his sight Another son at Basil in the yeare of our Lord God 1560 bought a quantity of poyson of an Apothecary and ministred it to none but to his own father accounting him worthiest of so great a benefit which when it had effected his wish upon him the crime being detected in stead of possessing his goods which he aimed at he possessed a vile and shamefull death for he was drawne through the streets burnt with hot Irons and tormented nine houres in a wheele till his life forsooke him As it is repugnant to nature for children to deale thus cruelly with their parents so it is more against nature for parents to murder their children insomuch as naturall affection is of greater force in the descent than in the ascent the love that parents bear their children is greater than that which children redound to their Parents because the childe proceedeth from the father and not the father from the childe as part of his fathers essence and not the father of his Can a man then hate his own flesh or be a rooter out of that which himselfe planted It is rare yet sometimes it commeth to passe Howbeit as the offence is in an high degree so it is alwayes punished by some high judgement as by these examples that follow shall appeare The ancient Ammonites had an Idoll called Moloch to the which they offered their children in sacrifice this Idoll as the Jewes write was of a great stature and hollow within having seven chambers in his hollownesse whereof one was to receive meat another turtle Doves the third a sheep the fourth a ram the fifth a calfe the sixth an oxe and the seventh a childe his hands were alwayes extended to receive gifts and when a childe was offered they were made fire hot to burne it to death none must offer the childe but the father and to drowne the cries of it the Chemarims for so were the Priests of that Idoll called made a noise with bels cymbals and horns thus is it written that king Ahab offered his son yea and many of the children of Israel beside as the Prophet David affirmeth They offered saith he their sons and daughters to Divels and shed innocent blood c. this is the horrible crime Now marke the judgement concerning the Canaanites the landspued them out for their abominations Achab with his posterity was accur sed himselfe being slaine by his enemies and the crowne taken from his posterity not one being left of his off-spring to pis against the wall according to the saying of Elias as for the Jewes the Prophet David in the same place declareth their punishment when he saith That the wrath of the Lord was kindled and he abhorred his inheritance and gave them into the hands of the
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
her servant that was captive with her to her friends to purvey the same which he bringing the Centurion alone with the wronged Lady met him at a place appointed and whilest he weighed the money by her counsell was murdered of her servants so she escaping carried to her husband both his money and threw at his feet the villaines head that had spoiled her of her chastity Andreas King of Hungary having undertaken the voyage into Syria for the recovery of the Holy Land together with many other Kings and Princes committed the charge of his Kingdom and Family to one Bannebanius a wise and faithfull man who discharged his Office as faithfully as he took it willingly upon him Now the Queen had a brother called Gertrude that came to visit and comfort his sister in her husbands absence and by that meanes sojourned with her a long time even so long till he fell deadly in love with Bannebanius Lady a fair and vertuous woman and one that was thought worthy to keep company with the Queen continually to whom when he had unfolded his suit and received such stedfast repulse that he was without all hope of obtaining his desire he began to droup and pine untill the Queen his sister perceiving his disease found this perverse remedy for the cure thereof she would often give him opportunity of discourse by withdrawing her selfe from them being alone and many times leave them in secret and dangerous places of purpose that he might have his will of her but she would never consent unto his lust and therefore at last when he saw no remedy he constrained her by force and made her subject to his will against her will which vile disgracefull indignity when she had suffered she returned home sad and melancholy and when her husband would have embraced her she fled from him asking him if he would embrace a whore and related unto him her whole abuse desiring him either to rid her from shame by death or to revenge her wrong and make knowne unto the world the injury done unto her There needed no more spurres to pricke him forward for revenge he posteth to the Court and upbraiding the Queen with her ungratefull and abominable treachery runneth her through with his sword and taking her heart in his hand proclaimeth openly that it was not a deed of inconsideration but of judgement in recompence of the losse of his wives chastity forthwith he flieth towards the King his Lord that now was at Constantinople and declaring to him his fact and shewing to him his sword besmeared with his wives bloud submitteth himselfe to his sentence either of death in rigour or pardon in compassion but the good King enquiring the truth of the cause though grieved with the death of his wife yet acquit him of the crime and held him in as much honour and esteem as ever he did condemning also his wife as worthy of that which she had endured for her unwomanlike and traiterous part A notable example of justice in him and of punishment in her that forgetting the law of womanhood and modesty made her selfe a Bawd unto her brothers lust whose memory as it shall be odious and execrable so his justice deserveth to be engraven in marble with characters of gold Equal to this King in punishing a Rape was Otho the first for as he passed through Italy with an Army a certain woman cast her selfe downe at his feet for justice against a villain that had spoiled her of her chastity who deferring the execution of the law till his returne because his haste was great the woman asked who should then put him in minde thereof he answered This Church which thou seest shall be a witnesse betwixt me and thee that I will then revenge thy wrong Now when he had made an end of this warfare in his returne as he beheld the Church he called to minde the woman and caused her be fetched who falling downe before him desired now pardon for him whom before she had accused seeing he had now made her his wife and redeemed his injury with sufficient satisfaction not so I swear quoth Otho your compacting shall not infringe or colludo the sacred Law but he shall die for his former fault and so he caused him to be put to death A notable example for them that after they have committed filthinesse with a maid thinke it no sin but competent amends if they take her in marriage whom they abused before in fornication Nothing inferiour to these in punishing this sin was Gonzaga Duke of Ferrara as by this History following may appear In the year 1547. a Citizen of Comun was cast into Prison upon an accusation of murder whom to deliver from the judgement of death his wife wrought all meanes possible therefore comming to the Captain that held him Prisoner she sued to him for her husbands life who upon condition of her yeelding to his lust and payment of two hundred Ducats promised safe deliverance for him the poor woman seeing that nothing could redeem her husbands life but losse and shipwracke of her owne honesty told her husband who willed her to yeeld to the Captaines desire and not to pretermit so good an occasion wherefore she consented but after the pleasure past the traiterous and wicked Captain put her husband to death notwithstanding which injury when she complained to Gonzaga Duke of Ferrara he caused the Captain first to restore backe her two hundred Ducats with an addition of seven hundred Crownes and secondly to marry her to his wife and lastly when he hoped to enjoy her body to be hanged for his treachery O noble justice and comparable to the worthiest deeds of Antiquity and deserving to be held in perpetuall remembrance As these before mentioned excelled in punishing this sin so this fellow following excelled in committing it and in being punished for it his name is Novellus Cararius Lord of Pavie a man of note and credit in the World for his greatnesse but of infamy and discredit for his wickednesse This man after many cruell murders and bloudy practises which he exercised in every place where he came fell at last into this notorious and abhominable crime for lying at Vincentia he fell in love with a young maid of excellent beauty but more excellent honesty an honest Citizens daughter whom he commanded her parents to send unto him that he might have his pleasure of her but when they regarding their credit and she her chastity more than the Tyrans command refused to come he took her violently out of their house and constrained her body to his lust and after to adde cruelty to villany chopped her into small pieces and sent them to her parents in a basket for a present wherewith her poor father astonished carried it to the Senate who sent it to Venice desiring them to consider the fact and to revenge the cruelty The Venetians undertaking their defence made war upon the Tyran and
prisoners to Affrica amongst the which was Eudoxia the Empresse with her two daughters Eudocia and Placidia who was the cause of all this calamity but her trechery saved not her self nor them from thraldome And thus was Rome sacked and destroyed more than ever it was before insomuch that the Romane Empire could never after recover it selfe but decayed every day and grew worse and worse These were the calamities which the adultery of Valeutinian brought upon himselfe and many others to his owne destruction and the utter ruine of the whole Empire Childericke King of France son to Merouce for laying siege to the chastity of many great Ladies of his Realme the Princes and Barons conspired against him and drove him to flie for his life Eleonor the wife to King Lewis of France he that first cut through the sea surrowes towards Jerusalem against the Turkes and Saracens would needs couragiously follow her husband in that long and dangerous voyage but how Marrie whilest he travailed night and day in perill of his life she lay at Antioch bathing her selfe in all delights and that more licentiously than the reputation or duty of a married woman required wherefore being had in suspition and evill reported of for her lewd behaviour it was thought meet that she should be divorced from the King under pretence of consanguinity to the end she should not altogether be defamed The faire daughters of Philip the faire King of France escaped not at so good a rate for the King as soone as he smelt out the haunt of their unchastity caused them to be apprehended and imprisoned presently howbeit one of them namely the Countesse of Poictiers her innocency being knowne was set at liberty and the other two to wit the Queen of Navarre and the wife of Iohn de le March being found guilty by proofe were adjudged to perpetuall imprisonment and the Adulterers two brethren of the countrey of Anjou with whom these Ladies had often lyen were first cruelly flaine and after hanged Charles son of the aforesaid Philip the faire had to wife the daughter of the Earle of Artois that also offended in the like case and in recompence received this dishonour and ignominie to be divorced and put in prison and to see him married to another before her face In the reigne of Charles the sixth there befell a notable and memorable accident which was this one Iaques le Gris of the Countrey of Alanson being enamoured with a Lady no lesse faire than honourable the wife of the Lord of Carouge came upon a day when he knew her husband to bee from home to her house and faining as if he had some secret message to unfold unto her on her husbands behalfe for their familiarity was so great entred with her all alone into a most secret chamber where as soone as he had gotten her he locked the doore and throwing himselfe upon her forced her unto his lust and afterward saved himselfe by speedy flight Her husband at his returne understanding the injury and wrong which was done him by this vile miscreant sought first to revenge himselfe by justice and therefore put his cause to be heard by the Parliament of Paris where being debated it could not well be decided because he wanted witnesses to convince the crime except his owne wives words which could not be accepted so that the Court to the end that there might some end be made of their quarrell ordained a combate betwixt them which was forthwith performed for the two duellists entering the lists fell presently to strokes and that so eagerly that in short space the quarrell was decided the Lord of Carouge husband of the wronged Lady remained conquerour after he had slaine his enemy that had wronged him so wickedly and disloyally the vanquished was forthwith delivered to the hangman of Paris who dragged him to mount Falcon and there hanged him Now albeit this forme and custome of deciding controversies hath no ground nor warrant either from humane or divine Law God having ordained only an Oath to end doubts where proofes and witnesses faile yet doubtlesse the Lord used this as an instrument to bring the treacherous and cruell Adulterer to the deserved punishment and shame which by deniall he thought to escape A certaine Seneschall of Normandy perceiving the vicious and suspitious behaviour of his wife with the Steward of his house watched them so narrowly that he tooke them in bed together he slew the Adulterer first and after his wife for not all her pittifull cryings for mercy with innumerable teares for this one fault and holding up in her armes the children which she had borne unto him no nor her house and parentage being sister to Lewis the eleventh then King could not withhold him from killing her with her companion Howbeit King Lewis never made shew of anger or offence for her death Mâ—sselâ—na the wife of Claudius the Emperour was a woman of so notable incontinency that the would contend with the common harlots in filthy pleasure at last she fell in love with a faire young Gentleman called Silius and to obtaine more commodiously her desire she caused his wife Sillana to be divorced and notwithstanding she was wife to the Emperour then living yet she openly married him for which cause after great complaint made to the Emperour by the Nobles she was worthily put to death Abusahed King of Fez was with six of his children murdered at once by his Secretary for his wives sake whom he had abused And it is not long sithence the two Cities Dalmendine and Delmedine were taken from the King of Fez and brought uâ—der the Portugals dominion only for the ravishment of a woman whom the Governour violently took from her husband to abuse and was slain for his labour CHAP. XXIX Other examples like unto the former MArie of Arragon wife to Otho the third was so unchast and lascious a woman and withall barren for they commonly goe together that she could never satisfie her unsatiable lust she carried about with her continually a young lecher in womans clothes to attend upon her person with whom she daily committed filthinesse who being suspected was in the presence of many untyred and found to be a man for which villany hee was burnt to death Howbeit the Empresse though pardoned for her fault returned to her old vomit and continued her wanton traffique with more than either desired or loved her company at last she fell in love with the County of Mutina a gallant man in personage and too honest to be allured with her stale though he was often solicited by her wherefore like a Tvgre she accused him to the Emperour for extreame love converts to extreame hatred if it be crossed of offering to ravish her against her will for which cause the Emperour Otho caused him to lose his head but his wife being privy to the innocency of her husband traversed his cause
notoriously and fearefully manifested therein that when the holy Ghost would strike a terrour into the most wicked he threateneth them with this like punishment saying The Lord will raine upon each wicked one Fire snares and brimstone for their portion Howbeit this maketh not but that still there are too many such monsters in the World so mightily is it corrupted and depraved neither is it any marvell seeing that divers Bishops of Rome that take upon them to be Christs Vicars and Peters successours are infected with this filthy contagion As namely Pope Iulius the third whose custome was to promote none to Ecclesiasticall livings save only his buggerers Amongst whom was one Innocent whom this holy father contrary to the Suffrages of the whole Colledge would needs make Cardinall nay the unsatiable and monstrous lust of this beastly and stinking goat was so extraordinary that he could not abstaine from many Cardinals themselves Iohn de la Casae a Florentine by birth and by office Archbishop of Benevento and Deane of his Apostaticall chamber was his Legat and Intelligencer in all the Venetian Seigniories a man equall or rather worse then himselfe and such a one as whose memory ought to be accursed of all posterity for that detestable booke which he composed in commendation and praise of Sodomie and was so shamelesse nay rather possessed with some devillish and uncleane spirit as to divulgate it to the view of the world Here you may see poore soules the holinesse of those whom you so much reverence and upon whom you build your beliefe and religion you see their brave and excellent vertues and of what esteeme their lawes and ordinances ought to be amongst you Now touching the end that this holy father made it is declared in the former booke among the ranke of Atheists where we placed him And albeit that he and such like villaines please their owne humours with their abominations and approve and cleare themselves therein yet are they rewarded by death not only by the law of God but also by the law of Iulia. When Charlemaigne reigned in France there happened a most notable judgement of God upon the Monkes of S. Martin in Tours for their disordinate lusts they were men whose food was too much and dainty whose case was too easie and whose pleasures were too immoderate being altogether addicted to pastimes and merriments in their apparell they went clad in silke like great Lords and as Nichol. Gill. in his first Volume of French Chronicles saith their shooes were gilt over with Gold so great was the super fluity of their riches and pride in summe their whole life was luxurious and infamous for which cause there came forth a destroying Angel from the Lord by the report of Budes the Abbot of Clugnie and slew them all in one night as the first born of Aegypt were slaine save one only person that was preserved as Lot in Sodome was preserved This strange accident moved Charlemaigne to appoint a brotherhood of Canons to be in their roome though little better and as little profitable to their Commonwealth as the former It is not for nothing that the law of God forbiddeth to lie with a beast and denounceth death against them that commit this foule sin for there have been such monsters in the world at some times as we reade in Calius and Volaterranus of one Crathes a shepheard that accompanied carnally with a shee Goat but the Buck finding him sleeping offended and provoked with this strange action ran at him so furiously with his hornes that he left him dead upon the ground God that opened an Asses mouth to reprove the madnesse of the false Prophet Balaam and sent Lions to kill the strange inhabitants of Samaria employed also this Buck about his service in executing just vengeance upon a wicked varlet CHAP. XXXV Of the wonderfull evill that ariseth from this greedinesse of lust IT is to good reason that Scripture forbids us to abstain from the lust of the flesh and the eyes which is of the world and the corruption of mans own nature forsomuch as by it we are drawn to evill it being as it were a corrupt root which sendeth forth most bitter sowre and rotten fruit and this hapneth not only when the goods riches of the world are in quest but also when a man hunteth after dishonest and unchaste delights this concupiscence is it that bringeth forth whoredomes adulteries and many other such sinnes whereout spring forth oftentimes flouds of mischiefes and that divers times by the selfe-will and inordinate desire of private and particular persons what did the lawlesse lust of Potiphars Wife bring upon Ioseph Was not his life indangered and his body kept in close prison where he cooled his feet two yeares or more We have a most notable example of the miserable end of a certain woman with the sacking and destruction of a whole City and all caused by her intemperance and unbridled lust About the time that the Emperour Phocas was slain by Priscus one Gysulphus Governour and Chieftain of a Countrey in Lumbardy going out in defence of his Countrey against the Bavarians which were certaine reliques of the Hunnes gave them battell and lost the field and his life withall Now the Conquerours pursuing their victory laid siege to the chief City of his Province where Romilda his Wife made her abode who viewing one day from the wals the young and fair King with yellow curled lockes galloping about the City fell presently so extreamly in love with him that her minde ran of nothing but satisfying her greedy and new conceived lust wherefore burying in oblivion the love of her late husband with her young infants yet living and her Countrey and preferring her owne lust before them all she sent secretly unto him this message That if he would promise to marry her she would deliver up the City into his hands he well pleased with this gentle offer through a desire of obtaining the City which without great bloudshed and losse of men he could not otherwise compasse accepted of it and was received upon this condition within the wals and lest he should seeme too perfidious he performed his promise of marriage and made her his wife for that one night but soone after in scorne and disdaine he gave her up to twelve of his strongest lechers to glut her unquenchable fire and finally nailed her on a gibbet for a finall reward of her treâ—cherous and boundlesse lust Marke well the misery whereinto this wretched woman threw her selfe and not only her selfe but a whole City also by her boiling concupiscence which so dazled her understanding that she could not consider how undecent it was dishonest and inconvenient for a woman to offer her selfe nay to solicite a man that was an enemie a stranger and one that she had never seen before to her bed and that to the utter undoing of her selfe and all hers But even thus
bloud When the Cities of Greece saith Orosius would needs through too greedy a desire and ambition of reigne get every one the mastery and soveraignty of the rest they all together made shipwracke of their owne liberties by encroaching upon others as for instance the Lacedemonians how hurtfull and incommodious the desire of bringing their neighbour adjoyning Cities under their dominion was unto them the sundry discomfitures and distresses within the time of that war undertaken upon that onely cause befell them bear sufficient record Servius Tullus the son to a bondman addicted himselfe so much to the exploits of war that by prowesse he got so great credit and reputation among the Romans that he was thought â—it to be son in law of King Tarquinius by marrying one of his daughters after whose death he usurped the Crowne under colour of the Protectorship of the Kings â—oo young sonnes who when they came to age and bignesse married the daughters of their brother in law Tullus by whose exhortation and continuall provokement the elder of them which was called Tarquinius conspired against his father in law and practised to make himselfe King and to recover his rightfull inheritance and that by this meanes he watched his opportunity when the greatest part of the people were out of the City about gathering their fruit in the fields and then placing his companions in readinesse to serve his turne if need should be he marched to the palace in the royall robes garded with a company of his comederates and having called a Senate as he began to complain him of the treachery and impudency of Tullus behold Tullus himselfe came in and would have run violently upon him but Tarquinius catching him about the middle threw him headlong downe the staires and presently sent certaine of his guard to make an end of the murder which he had begun But herein the cruelty of Tullia was most monstrous that not onely first moved her husband to this bloudy practice but also made her coach to be driven over the body of her father which lay bleeding in the midst of the street scarce dead Manlius after hee had maintained the fortresse of Rome against the Gaules glorying in that action and envying the good hap and prosperity of Camillus went about to make himselfe King under pretence of restoring the people to their antient entire libertie but his practise being discovered hee was accused found guilty and by the consent of the multitude adjudged to be throwne headlong downe from the top of the same fortresse to the end that the same place which gave him great glorie might be a witnesse and a memoriall of his shame and last confusion for all his valiant deeds before done were not of so much force with the people to excuse his fault or save his life as this one crime was of weight to bring him to his death In former times there lived in Carthage one Hanno who because he had more riches than all the Common-wealth beside began to aspire to the domination of the Citie which the better to accomplish hee devised to make shew of marrying his onely daughter to the end that at the marriage feast hee might poison the chiefest men of credit and power of the City whom he knew could or would not any wayes withstand or countermand his purpose but when this devise tooke no effect by reason of the discovery thereof by certaine of his servants hee sought another meanes to effect his will Hee got together a huge number of bondslaves and servants which should at a sudden put him in possession of the city but being prevented herein also by the Citizens he seised upon a castle with a thousand men of base regard even servants for the most part whither thinking to draw the Africans and King of the Moores to his succour he was taken and first whipped next had his eyes thrust out and then his armes and legs broken in pieces and so was executed to death before all the people his carkasse being thus mangled with blowes was hanged upon a gallowes and all his kindred and children put to death that there might not one remaine of his straine either to enterprise the like deed or to revenge his death That great and fearefull warrior Iulius Caesar one of the most hardie and valiant pieces of flesh that ever was after hee had performed so many notable exploits overcome all his enemies and brought all high and haughtie purposes to their desired effect being prickt forward with the spurre of ambition and a high minde through the meanes and assistance of the mighty forces of the common-wealth which contrary to the constitution of the Senat were left in his hands hee set footing into the State and making himselfe master and Lord of the whole Romane Empire usurped a soveraigntie over them but as he attained to his dignitie by force and violence so he enjoyed it not long neither gained any great benefit by it except the losse of his life may be counted a benefit which shortly after in the open Senat was bereft him for the conspirers thereof as soone as hee was set downe in his seat compassing him about so vehemently overcharged him on all sides that notwithstanding all the resistance hee could make for his defence tossing amongst them and shifting himselfe up and downe he was overthrowne on the earth and abode for dead through the number of blowes that were given him even three and twenty wounds The Monarchie of Assyria was at one instant extinguished in Sardana palus and of Babylon in Balthasar Arbaces being the worker of the first and Darius King of Persia of the later both of them receiving the wages not of their wickednesse but also of their predecessors and great grandfathers cruelty and oppressions by whom many people and nations had been destroyed Moreover as the Babylonian Empire was overthrowne by Darius of Persia so was his Persian Kingdome in Darius the last King of that countrey his time this mans successor overturned by Alexander Again the great dominion of Alexander who survived not long after was not continued to any of his by inheritance but divided like a prey amongst his greatest captaines and from them the most part of it in short time descended to the Romanes who spreading their wings and stretching their greedie tallons farre and neere for a while ravened and preyed over all the world and enriched and bedecked themselves with the spoyles of many nations and therefore it was necessary that they also should be made a prey and that the farre fetcht Goths and Vandales should come upon them as upon the bodie of a great Whale that suffers shipwreck upon the sea shore since which time the Romane Empire went to decay and grew every day weaker than other yea and many Princes setting themselves against and above it have robbed it of the realmes and provinces which it robbed others of before And thus wee may see how all
him But if he would have given all the world it could not ransome him from death wherefore when he saw there was no remedie but hee must needs die hee commended his soule to the Divell to be carried into everlasting torments which words when hee had uttered hee gave up the ghost Another Usurer being ready to die made this his last Will and Testament My soule quoth he I bequeath to the divell who is owner of it my wife likewise to the divell who induced me to this ungodly trade of life and my deacon to the divell for soothing me up and not reproving me for my faults and in this desperate persuasion he died incontinently Usury consisteth not only in lending and borowing but buying and selling also and all unjust and crafty bargaining yea and it is a kinde of usurie to detain through too much covetousnesse those commodities from the people which concerne the publike good and to hoord them up for their private gain til some scarcitie orwant arise and this also hath evermore beene most sharpely punished as by these examples may appeare About the yeare 1543. at what time a great famine and dearth of bread afflicted the world there was in Saxonie a countrey peasant that having carried his corne to the market and sold it cheaper than he looked for as he returned homewards he fell into most heavy dumpes and dolours of minde with griefe that the price of graine was abated and when his servants sang merrily for joy of that blessed cheapnesse he rebuked them most sharpely and cruelly yea and was so much the more tormented and troubled in minde by how much he more he saw any poore soule thankfull unto God for it but marke how God gave him over to a reprobate and desperate sence Whilest his servants rode before hee hung himselfe at the cart taile being past recoverie of life ere any man looked backe or perceived him A notable example for our English cormorants who joyne barne to barne and heape to heape and will not sell nor give a handful of their superfluitie to the poore when it beareth a low price but preserve it till scarcity and want come and then they sell it at their owne rate let them feare by this lest the Lord deale so or worse with them Another covetous wretch when he could not sel his cornesodear as hee desired said the mise should eat it rather than he would lessen one jot of the price thereof Which words were no sooner spoken but vengeance tooke them for all the mise in the countrey flocked to his barnes and fieldes so that they left him neither standing nor lying corne but devoured all This story was written to Martin Luther upon occasion whereof he inveying mightily against this cruell usurie of husbandmen told of three misers that in one yeare hung themselves because graine bore a lower price than they looked for adding moreover that all such cruell and muddy extortioners deserved no better a doome for their unimercifull oppression Another rich farmer whose barnes were full of graine and his stacks untouched was so covetous withall that in hope of some dearth and deerenesse of corne he would not diminish one heape but hoorded up dayly more and more and wished for a scarcity upon the earth to the end hee might enrich his coffers by other mens necessities This cruell churle rejoyced so much in his aboundance that everie day he would go into his barnes and feed his eyes with his superfluitie Now it fell out as the Lord would that having supped and drunke very largely upon a night as hee went according to his custome to view his riches with a candle in his hand behold the wine or rather the justice of God overcame his sences so that he fell downe suddenly into the mow and by his fall set on fire the corne being dry and easie to be incensed in such sort that in a moment all that which he had scraped together and preserved so charily and delighted in so unreasonably was consumed and brought to ashes and scarce he himselfe escaped with his life Another in Misnia in the yeare 1559 having great store of corne hoordedup refused to succor the necessitie of his poore halfe famished neighbours for which cause the Lord punished him with a strange and unusuall judgement for the corne which he so much cherished assumed life and became feathered fowles flying out of his barnes in such abundance that the world was astonished thereat and his barnes left emptie of all provision in most wonderfull and miraculous manner No lesse strange was that which happened in a towne of France called Stenchansen to the Governour of the towne who being requested by one of his poore subjects to sell him some corne for his money when there was none to be gotten elsewhere answered hee could spare none by reason he had scarce enough for his owne hogs which hoggish disposition the Lord requited in it owne kinde for his wife at the next litter brought forth seven pigs at one birth to increase the number of his hogs that as he had preferred filthie and ougly creatures before his poore brethren in whom the image of God in some sort shined forth so he might have of his owne getting more of that kinde to make much of since hee loved them so well Equall to all the former both in cruelty touching the person and miracle touching the judgement was that which is reported by the same authour to have happened to a rich couetous woman in Marchia who in an extreame dearth of victuals denyed not onely to relieve a poore man whose children were ready to starve with famine but also to sell him but one bushell of corne when he wanted but a penny of her price for the poore wretch making great shift to borrow that penny returned to her againe and desired her he might have the corn but as he payed her the mony the penny fell upon the ground by the providence of God which as she stretched out obeisance and vaile bonnet to the hat and in every respect shew themselves as dutifull unto it as to his owne person imagining that his greatest enemies could not endure nor finde in their hearts to do it and therefore upon this occasion he might apprehend them and discover all their close practises and conspiracies which they might brew against him now there was one a stout hearted man that passing everie day up and downe that wayes could in no wise be brought to reverence the dignitie of the worthy hat so unreasonable a thing it seemed in his eyes whereupon being taken the tyran commanded him for punishment of his open contempt to shoot at an apple laid upon the crowne of the head of his dearest childe and if he mist the apple to be put to death the poore man after many excuses and allegations and entreaties that he might not hazard his childes life in that sort was notwithstanding
enforced to shoot and shooting God so directed his shaft that the apple was hit and the childe untoucht and yet for all this he adjudged him to perpetuall prison out of which he miraculously escaping watched the tyrans approach in so fit a place that with the shaft that should have beene the death of his sonne he strooke him to the heart whose unluckie end was a luckie beginning of the Switzers deliverance from the bondage of tyrans and of the recovery of their antient freedome which ever after they wisely and constantly maintained The Emperour Albert purposing to be revenged upon them for his injury as also for slaying many more of his men and breaking downe his castles of defence which he had caused to be builded in their countrey determined to mak war upon them but he was slaine ere he could bring it hat determination to effect by one of his owne nephews from whom being his overseer and gardant for bringing up he withheld his patrimonie against all equity neither by prayers or entreatie could be perswaded to restore it These things according to Nic. Gils report in his first volume of the Chronicles of France happened about the reigne of Saint Lewis Hither may be referred the history of Richard the first King of England called Richard Coeur de Lyon though not so much a fruite of ambition in him as of filthie covetousnesse This King when as Widomarus Lord of Linionice in little Britaine having found a great substance of treasure in the ground sent him a great part thereof as chiefe Lord and Prince of the countrey refused it saying That he would either have all or none but the finder would not condiscend to that whereupon the King layed siege to a castle of his called Galuz thinking the treasure to lye there but as he with the Duke of Brabant went about viewing the Castle a souldier within stroke him with an arrow in the arme the yron whereof festering in the wound caused that the King within nine daies after died And so because he was not content with the halfe of the treasure that another man found lost all his owne treasure that he had together with his life the chiefest treasure of all CHAP. XLII Of Vsurers and their theft IF open larcenies and violent robberies and extortions are forbidden by the law of God as we have seene they are then it is no doubt but that all deceit and unjust dealings and bargains used to the dammage of others are also condemned by the same law and namely Usurie when a man exacteth such unmeasurable gaine for either his mony or other thing which hee lendeth that the poore borrower is so greatly indammaged that in stead of benefitting and providing for his affaires which he aimed at he hitteth his further losse and finall overthrow This sinne is expressely prohibited in Leviticus 25 Deuteronomy 23 and Psalme 15 where the committants thereof are held guilty before Gods judgement Seat of iniquitie and injustice and against them it is that the prophet Ezechiel denounceth this threatening That he which oppresseth or vexeth the poore and afflicted he which robbeth or giveth to usurie and receiveth the encrease into their bags shall die the death and his bloud shall bee upon his pate Neither truely doth the justice of God sleepe in this respect but taketh vengeance upon all such and punisheth them after one sort or other either in body or goods as it pleaseth him I my selfe knew a grand usurer in the countrey of Vallay that having scraped together great masses of gold and silver by these unlawfull meanes was in one night robbed of fifteene hundred crownes by theeves that broke into his house I remember also another usurer dwelling in a town called Argental nigh unto Anovay under the jurisdiction of Tholosse in high Vivaria who being in hay time in a meadowe was stung in the foot by a serpent or some other venomous beast that he died thereof an answerable punishment for his often stinging and biting many poore people with his cruell and unmercifull usurie Nay it is so contrarie to equitie and reason that all nations led by the instinct of nature have alwayes abhorred and condemned it insomuch that the conditions of theeves hath bin more easie and tollerable than usurers for theft was wont to be punished but with double restitution but usurie with quadruple and to speake truely these rich and gallant usurers do more rob the common people and purloine from them than all the publike theeves that are made publike examples of justice in the world It is to be wished that some would examine usurers bookes and make a bond-fire of their obligations as that Lacedemonian did when Agesilaus reported that hee never saw a â—leerer fire or that some Lucullus would deliver Europe from that contagion as the Romane did Asia in his time Licurgus banished this canker worme out of his Sparta Amasis punished it severely in his Aegypt Cato exiled it out of Sicilie and Solo condemned it in Athens how much more should it he held in detestation among Christians S. Chrysostome compareth it fitly to the biting of an aspe as he that is stung with an aspe falleth asleepe as it were with delectation her hand to reach it miraculously turned into a serpent and bit her so fast that by no meanes it could be loosened from her arme untill it had brought her to a woefull and miserable end Sergius Galba before hee came to be Emperor being President of Africa under Claudius when as through penurie of victuals corne and other food was very sparingly shared out and divided amongst the armie punished a certaine souldier that sould a bushell of wheat to one of his fellows for an hundred pence in â—ope to obtaine a new share himselfe in this manner he coÌ„manded the Quaestor or Treasurer to give him no more sustenance since hee preferred lucre before the necessity of his owne body and his friends welfare neither suffered he any man else to sell him any so that hee perished with famine and became a miserable example to all the army of the fruits of that foule droupsie covetousnesse And thus wee see how the Lord rained downe vengeance upon all covetous Usurers and oppressors plaguing some on this fashion and some on that and never passing any but either in this life some notable judgement overtakes them either in themselves or their off-springs for it is notoriously knowne that usurers children though left rich yet the first or second generation became alwayes beggers or in the life to come they are thrown into the pit of perdition from whence there is no redemption nor deliverance CHAP. XLIII Of Dicers and Card-players and their theft IF any recreation be allowed us as no doubt there is yet surely it is not such as whereby we should worke the damage and hurt of one another as when by gaming we draw away another mans mony with his great losse and this
is one kinde of theft to usurpe any mans goods by unlawfull meanes wherefore no such sports ought to finde any place amongst Christians especially those wherein any kinde of lot or hazard is used by the which the good blessings of God are contrary to their true and naturall use exposed to chance and fortune as they tearme it for which cause Saint Augustine is of this opinion concerning them That the gaine which ariseth to any party in play should be bestowedupon the poor to the end that both the gamesters as well the winner as the loser might be equally punished the one by not carrying the stake being won the other by being frustrated of all his hope of winning Players at dice both by the Elibertine Constantinopolitan Councell under Iustinian were punished with excommunication and by a new constitution of the said Emperour it was enacted That no man should use Dice-play either in private or publique no nor approve the same by their presence under paine of punishment and Bishops were there appointed to be overseers in this behalfe to espie if any default was made Horace an heathen Poet avouched the unlawfulnesse of this thing even in his time when he saith that Dice-playing was forbidden by their law Lewis the eighth King of France renouned for his good conditions and rare vertues amongst all the excellent laws which he made this was one That all sports should be banished the Common-wealth except shooting whether with long bow or Crosse bow and that no Cards nor Dice should be either made or sold by any to the end that all occasion of gaming might bee taken away Surely it would be very profitable and expedient for the Weale-publique that this Ordinance might stand in use at this day and that all Merchants and Mercers whatsoever especially those that follow the reformation of Religion might forbeare the sale of all such paltry Wares for the fault in selling such trash is no lesse than the abuse of them in playing at them for so much as they upon greedinesse of so small a gaine put as it were a sword into a mad mans hand by ministring to them the instruments not onely of their sports but also of those mischiefes that ensue the same There a man may heare curses as rife as words bannings swearings and blasphemies banded up and downe there men fret themselves to death and consume whole nights in darke and divelish pastimes some lose their horses others their cloakes a third sort all that ever they are worth to the undoing of their houses wives and children and some again from braulings fall to buffetings from buffets to bloudshedding from bloudshedding to hanging and these are the fruits of those gallant sports But this you shall see more plainely by a few particular examples In a towne of Campania a certaine Iew playing at dice with a Christian lost a great summe of money unto him with which great losse being enraged and almost beside himselfe as commonly men in that case are affected hee belched out most bitter curses against Christ Iesus and his mother the blessed Virgin in the midst whereof the Lord deprived him of his life and sense and strooke him dead in the place as for his companion the Christian indeed he escaped sudden death howbeit he was robbed of his wit and understanding and survived not verie long after to teach us not onely what a grievous sinne it is to blaspheme God and to accompanie such wretches and not to shun or at least reprove their outrage but also what monstrous effects proceed from such kinde of ungodly sports and how grievously the Lord punisheth them first by giving them over to blasphemy secondly to death and thirdly and lastly to eternall and irrevocable damnation Let our English gamesters consider this example and if it will not terrifie them from their sports then let them looke to this that followeth which if their hearts be not as hard as adamant will mollifie and perswade them In the yeare 1533. neere to Belissana a citie in Helvetia there were three prophane wretches that played at dice upon the Lords day without the wals of the citie one of which called Vlrich Schraelerus having lost much mony and offended God with many cursed speeches at last presaging to himselfe good lucke he burst forth into these tearmes If fortune deceive me now I will thrust my dagger into the verie body of God as farre as I can now fortune failed him as before wherefore forthwith he drew his dagger and taking it by the point threw it against heaven with all his strength behold the dagger vanished away and five drops of bloud distilled upon the table before them and without all delay the divell came in place and carried away the blasphemous wretch with such force and noyse that the whole city was amased and astonished thereat the other two halfe beside themselves with feare strove to wipe away the drops of bloud out of the table but the more they wiped it the more clearly it appeared The rumor of this accident flew into the citie and caused the people to flocke thicke and threefold unto the place where they found the other two gamesters washing the boord whom by the decree of the Senate they bound with chaines and carried towards the prison but as they passed with them through a gate of the citie one of them was stroken suddenly dead in the midst of them with such a number of lice and wormes creeping out of him that it was both wonderfull and lothsome to behold the third they themselves without any further inquisition or triall to avert the indignation which seemed to hang over their heads put incontinently to death the table they tooke and preserved it for a monument to witnesse unto posterity both how an accursed pastime dicing is and also what great inconveniencies and mischiefes grow thereby But that we may see yet more the vanitie and mischievous working of this sport I will report one storie more out of the same authour though not equall to the former in strangenesse and height of sinne yet as tragicall and no lesse pitifull In the yeare 1550 there lived in Alsatia one Adam Steckman one that got his living by tximming pruning and dressing vines this man having received his wages fell to dice and lost all that he had gotten insomuch that he had not wherewith to nourish his family so that he fell into such a griefe of minde and withall into such paines of the head that he grew almost desperate withall one day his wife being busie abroad left the care of her children unto him but he tooke such great care of them that he cut all their throats even three of them whereof one lay in the cradle and lastly would have hanged himselfe had not his wife come in the meane while who beholding this pitifull tragedie gave a great outcrie and fell downe dead whereupon the neighbours running in
were eye witnesses of this wofull spectacle as for him by law he was judged to a most severe and cruell punishment and all these pitifull events arose from that cursed root of Dice-play We ought therefore to learne by all these things that have beene already spoken to abstaine not onely from this cursed pastime but also from extortion robberies deceit guile and other such naughty practices that tend to the hurt and detriment of one another and in place thereof to procure the good and welfare of each one in all kindenesse and equity following the Apostles counsell where he sayeth Let them that stole steale no more but rather travell by labouring with his hands in that which is good that he may have wherewith to succor the necessitie of others For it is not enough not to do evill to our neighbor but we are tyed to do him good or at least to endeavour to do it CHAP. XLIV Of such as have beene notorious in all kinde of sinne BY these fore placed examples we have seene how heavie the judgements of God have beene upon those that through the untamednesse of their owne lusts and affections would not submit themselves under the holy and mighty will of God but have countermanded his commandements and withstood his precepts some after one sort and some after another now because there have bin some so wicked and wretched that being wholy corrupted and depraved they have over flowed with all manner of sinne and iniquity and as it were maugred God with the multitude and hainousnesse of their offences we must therefore spend sometime also in setting forth their lives and ends as of the most vile and monstrous kinde of people that ever were In this ranke we may place the antient Inhabitants of the land of Canaan an irreligious people void of all feare and dread of God and consequently given over to all abhominabl wickednesse as to conjurings witchcrafts and unnameable adulteries for which causes the Lord abhorring and hating them did also bring them to a most strange destruction for first and formost Jericho the frontier citie of their countrey being assaulted by the Israelites for hindering their progresse into the country were all discomfited not so much by Iosuah his sword as by the huge stones which dropped from heaven upon their heads and lest the night overtaking them should breake off the finall and full destruction of this cursed people the day was miraculously prolonged and the Sunne made to rest himselfe in the middest of heaven for the space of a whole day and so these five Kings hiding themselves in a cave were brought out and their neckes made a footstoole to the captains of Israell and were hanged on five trees The tyran Pertander usurped the government over Corinth after hee had slaine the principall of the city he put to death his owne wife to the end to content and please his concubine nay and was so execrable as to lye with his owne mother he banished his naturall sonne and caused many children of his subjects to be gelded finally fearing some miserable and monstrous end and want of sepulchre in conscience of his misdeeds he gave in charge to two strong and hardy souldiers that they should gaâ—d a certain appointed place and not faile to kill the first that came in their way and to bury his body being slaine now the first that met them was himselfe who offered himselfe unto them without speaking any word and was soone dispatched and buried according to his commandement but these two were encountered with foure other whom he also had appointed to do the same to them which they had done to them In this ranke deservably we may place the second Dionysius his sonne that for his cruelties and extortions was slaine by his owne subjects who though at the first made shew of a better and milder nature than his father was of yet after he was installed in his Kingdom and growne strong his wicked nature shewd forth it selfe for first he rid out of the way his owne brethren then his neerest kindred and lastly all other that but any way displeased him using his sword not to the cutting downe of vice as it ought but to the cutting the throats of his innocent and guiltlesse subjects with which tyrannie the people being incensed began to mutinie and from mutinies fell to open rebellion persecuting him so that he was compelled to flie and take harbour in Greece where notwithstanding hee ceased not his accustomed manners but continued still freshly committing robberies and doing all manner of injuries and outrages in wronging men and forcing both women and maids to his filthie lusts untill hee was brought to so low and so base an ebbe of estate that of a King being become a beggar and a vagabond hee was glad to teach children at Corinth to get his poore living and so died in miserie Clearchus another tyran after hee had put to death the most part of the Nobles and chiefe men of account in the citie of Heraclea usurped a tyrannous authoritie over the rest amongst many of whose monstrous enormities this was one that hee constrained the widowes of those whom hee had slaine against their wils to marry those of his followers whom hee allotted them to insomuch that many of them with griefe and anger slew themselves now there were two men of stouter courage than the rest who pittying the miserable condition of the whole citie undertooke to deliver the same out of his cruell hands comming therefore accompanied with fiftie other of the same minde and resolution as though they would debate a privat quarrell before his presence as soone as convenience served they diverted their swords from themselves into the tyrans bosome and hewed him in pieces in the very midst of his guard Agathocles King or rather tyran of Sicilie from a porters sonne growing to be a man of warre tooke upon him the government of the countrey and usurped the crowne contrary to the consent of his people hee was one given to all manner of filthie and uncleane pollutions in whom treacherie crueltie and generally all kinde of vice reigned and therefore was worthily plagued by God first by a murder of his youngest sonne committed by his eldest sonnes son that aspired unto the crowne and thought that he might be an obstacle in his way for obtaining his purpose and lastly having sent his wife and children into Aegypt for safety by his owne miserable and languishing death which shortly after ensued Romulus the first King of Rome was as Florus testifieth transported by a devill out of this earth into some habitation of his owne for the monstrous superstitions conjurings thefts ravishments and murders which during his pompe hee committed and moreover he saith that Plutarch the most credible and learned Writer amongst Historiographers both Greek and Latin that ever writ avoucheth the same for true That hee was carried away one day by a
Emperour that in his lampes hee used baulme and filled his fish-ponds with rose-water the garments which he wore were all of the finest gold and most costly silkes his shooes glistered with precious stones curiously engraven he was never two dayes served with one kinde of meat nor wore one garment twice and so likewise for his fleshly wickednesse he varyed it every time Some dayes hee was served at meales with the braines of Ostriches and a strange fowle called a Phylocapterie another day with the tongues of Popingayes and other sweet singing birds being nigh to the sea hee never used fish in places farre distant from the sea all his house was served with most delicate fish at one supper his table was furnished with seven thousand fishes and five thousand fowles At his remoovals in his progresse there followed him commonly six hundred chariots he used to sacrifice with young children and preferred to the best advancements in the Common-wealth most light persons as Bawdes Minstrels Players and such like in one word hee was an enemy to all honesty and good order And when he was fore-told by his Sorcerers and Astronomers that he should die a violent death he provided ropes of silke to hang himselfe swords of gold to kill himselfe and strong poysons in Jacinths and Emerauds to poyson himselfe if needs hee should thereto be forced Moreover hee made an high tower having the boorded floore covered with gold plate and broidered with pretious stones from the which tower he might throw himselfe downe if hee were pursued of his enemies But notwithstanding all this provision Gods vengeance not permitting him to die as hee would hee was slaine of the souldiers drawne through the citie and cast into Tiber after hee had raigned two yeares and eight moneths Tigellinus one of the Captaines of Neroes guard and a chiefe procurer and setter forward of his tyranny was the cause of the death of many great personages in Rome and being enriched by their spoyle and other such like robberies after the death of Nero whom in his extremity hee forsooke plunged himselfe and wallowed in all manner of licentious and disordinate delights Now though hee was worthy of a thousand deaths for his cruelties towards many good citizens yet by the meanes of one Iunius the Emperour Galba his chiefe minion whose favour hee had by great summes of money bought and obtained for hee gave unto his daughter at one time five and twenty thousand crownes and to himselfe at another time a carknet worth fifteen thousand crownes for a present he was spared and kept in safety but as soon as Otho was installed in the Empire his downfall and destruction began presently to follow for Otho to the end to gratifie the Romans sent to apprehend him who was then in his houses of pleasure in the field banquetting and sporting with his harlots and using all manner of riot albeit by reason of a deadly disease which was upon him hee was even at deaths doore When hee saw himselfe thus taken and that no meanes of escape was left no not by the vessels which he had prepared at the sea shore for purpose if need were to convey him away and that hee which had commission to take him would give him no advantage of escaping though he offered him great rewards for the same he entreated onely leisure to shave his beard before he went which being granted he tooke a rasor and in stead of shaving cut his owne throat CHAP. XLV More examples of the same argument HIeronymus a true Tyran of Sicily enured and fashioned to all pride and of most corrupt and rotten manners began right after the death of his father Hiero that left him a peaceable and quiet Kingdom to shew â—orth his arrogance for he quickly made himselfe fearfull to his Subjects both by his stately and proud manner of speech as also by the hardnesse of accesse unto him together with a kinde of disdainfull contempt of all men but most of all did the inward pride of his heart appeare when hee had gotten a guard about his body for then he ceased not to bait bite and devoure and to exercise all kinde of cruelty against every man and all kind of ryot and excesse of filthinesse against himselfe so that he became so odious and contemptible to his subjects that they conspired against him to deprive him both of his life and kingdome which conspiracy though it came to light yet for all that wanted not his due effect for after hee had through listning to false reports put to death unjustly his truest and dearest friends and those that would indeed have helped him in his necessity both with good advice and other succour he was surprised as he walked in a narrow and strait way and there cruelly murthered Now there was one Andronodorus his brother in law that aspired to the crowne had corrupted his manners and thrust him forward to all these misdemeanours to the end by those practises he might make him odious to his people that by that meanes he might obtaine his owne purpose as indeed he did for after his death he seised upon the Scepter though with no long enjoyance for through the troubles and commotions which were raised in the countrey by his meanes both hee his wife and whole race together with the whole progenie of Hieronymus whether innocent or guilty were all utterly rooted out and defaced Andronicus was one of the most wickedest men that lived on the earth in his time for he excelled in all kinde of evill in ambition boldnesse in doing mischiefe cruelty whoredome adulterie and incest also to make up the whole number besides he was so treacherous and disloyall that hee traiterously slew the sonne and heire of the Emperour Emanuel shutting him in a sacke and so throwing him into the sea after which by violence he tooke possession of the Empire of Constantinople and like a strong theefe seised upon that which was none of his owne but as soone as he had gotten his desire then began his lusts to rage and rave then he fell to whoreing and forcing women and maids to his lust whom after he had once robbed of their chastities he gave over to his bands and ruffians to abuse and that which is more than all this he ravished one of his owne sisters and committed incest with her moreover to maintaine and uphold his tyrannous estate he slew most of the nobility and all else that bore any shew of honesty or credit with them and lived altogether by wrongs and extortions wherefore his subjects provoked with these multitudes of evils which reigned in him and not able to endure any longer his vile outrages and indignities rebelled against him and besieged him got him into their mercilesse hands and handled him on this fashion following first they degraded him and spoyled him of his imperiall ornaments then they pulled out one of his eyes and set him upon an asse backward with the tayle in his
escape unpunished for his perfidie and impietie For first his warre-like affaires in the East prospered not then a little before the end of his life he grievously complained that he had innovated the faith in his kingdome At last in those sighings and complaints he parted this life with a grievous and violent disease The Unkle of Iulian the Apostata called also Iulianus at Antioch in the temple prophaned the holy table with pissing upon it And when Eusoius the Bishop rebuked him for it he stroke him with his fist Not long after he was taken with a grievous disease of his bowels putrifying and miserably died his excrements comming from him not by their ordinary passages but by his wicked mouth Under the Emperour Valence a wonderfull haile the stones being as big as a man could hold in his hand was sent upon Constantinople and slew many both men and beasts for that the Emperour had banished many famous men that would not communicate with Eudoxius the Arrian and for the same reason a great part of Germa a Citie of Hellespont was throwne downe by an earthquake and in Phrygia such a famine succeeded that the Inhabitants were faine to change their habitation and to â—lee to other places After the martyrdome of Gregory the Bishop of Spoleta Flacchus the Governour who was author thereof was strucke with an Angel and vomited out his entrailes at his mouth and died Under the Empire of Alexander Mammea Agrippitus fifteene yeares old because he would not sacrifice to their Idols was apprehended at Praeneste whipt with scourges and hanged up by the heeles and at last slaine with the sword in the middest of whose torments the Governour of the Citie fell from the Tribunall seat dead Bajazet a most cruell enemy of the Christians was taken by Tamerlane the Tartarian King and bound in golden chaines and carried about by him in an iron cage latised and shewne unto all being used for a stirrop unto Tamerlane when he got upon his horse Gensericus the King of the Vandales exercising grievous cruelty against the Orthodox Christians he himselfe being an Arrian was possessed of the Devill and died a miserable death in the yeare 477. Honoricus the second King of the Vandales having used inexplicable cruelty against the Orthodox Christians hanging up honest matrons and virgins naked burning their bodies with torches cutting off their dugges and armes because they would not subscribe to the Arrian heresie was surprised himselfe with the vengeance of God for his land was turned into barrennesse through an exceeding drought so that numbers of men women and beasts died with famine the pestilence also seised upon them and he himselfe was stricken with such a disease of his body that his members rotted off one after another Anastatius Dicorus a grievous persecutor of the Church of Christ being admonished in a dreame that he should perish with thunder built him an house wherein he might defend himselfe from that judgement but in vaine for in a great thunder he fled from chamber to chamber and at last was found dead blasted with lightning to the great horror of the beholders Chasroes the King of Persia a grievous enemy to Christ and Christians committed horrible outrages against them for first he slew at Jerusalem ninety thousand men with Zachariâ— the Patriarch of Jerusalem and also raged in like manner in Aegypt Lybia Aethiopia and would grant them no condition of peace unlesse they would forsake Christ and worship the Sunne he also put to death with most cruell torments Anastatius a godly Monke because he constantly confessed the faith of Christ. But God met with him to the full for his eldest sonne Syroes tooke him prisoner and handled him in most vile manner he hanged an iron weight upon his neck and imprisoned him in an high tower which he had built to keepe his treasure denying him food and bidding him eat the gold which he had gathered together then he slew all his children before his face and exposed him to the scoffes and railings of the people and lastly caused him to be shot to death and so that great terror of the world and shedder of Christian bloud breathed out his soule after a miserable manner Regnerus the King of Denmarke abrogating Christian Religion and setting up Idolatrie in his Kingdome anew the divine vengeance overtooke him for Helles whom he had cast out of the Kingdome returned upon him with an army of the Gaules and overcomming him in battell tooke him prisoner and shut him up in a filthie prison full of serpents which setting upon him with their venomous bitings and stings brought him to a most horrible end Lysius the Emperour gave Heriâ—a his daughter a virgin because she was a Christian to be trampled under foot of horses but he himselfe was sâ—ain by the byting of one of the same horses A Popish Magistrate having condemned a poore Protestant to death before his execution caused his tongue to be cut out because he should not confesse the truth in requitall whereof the next childe that was borne unto him was borne without a tongue CHAP. II. Of Perjurie Pâ—ilip King of Macedon who was a great contemner of all oathes and held the Religion thereof as a vain thing for this cause as all Writers affirme the vengeance of God followed him and his posteritie for when he had lived scarce forty and sixe yeares he himselfe was slain and all his whole house in short time in short time after utterly extinguished 〈◊〉 one of his sonnes was slaine by Olympias his wife Also another sonne which he had by Cleopatra the 〈◊〉 of Aâ—â—alus â—he tormented to death in a brazen vessell compassed about with fire The â—est of his sonnes periffied in like manner and at last the famous Alexander his sonne after great conquest atchieved by him in the middle course of his victories periffied miserably some thinke by poyson In the Countrey of Arbernum there was a certaine wicked man that used ordinarily to for sweare himselfe but at one time after he had thus sinned his tongue was tyed up that he could not speake but began to low like an oâ—e yet repenting and grieving for his sinne he found the bond of his tongue loosed and a readinesse of speech given unto him againe whereby we see both the Iustice of God in punishing them that sinne in this kinde and his mercy in pardoning when they truly repent At this day we have an example fresh and famous of a certaine maid that had stolne and pilfered many things away out of her mistresses house of which being examined she forswore them and wisht that she might rot if she ever touched them or knew of them but notwithstanding she was carried to prison and there presently began so to rot stink that they were forced to thrust her out of prison and to convey her to the Hospitall where she lies in lamentable miserie
Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre reporteth that in a great plague one carkasse was seene to devoure it selfe in a grave which the people being superstitious thought it was a presage of the continuance of the pestilence whereupon they sent unto Wittenberge to Luther and other godly Ministers for their advise and counsell he answered that it was a delusion of the Devill and if they gave credit thereunto the sicknesse would increase and therefore advised them that despising this delusion of the Devill they should joyne together in prayer in Gods holy Temple to represse the furie and malice of the old Serpent which by that meanes they obtained At Rotingburge an honest and worthy Citizen having a beautifull daughter to whom many Sutors frequented there came also one in gallant apparrell and two men attending upon him to be a Sutor unto that beautifull maide but her father being displeased at his importunitie invited the godly Minister of the Town and some other good men to supper where entring into conference of divine matters this gallant abhorring the same desired them to talke of some other merry matters which they refusing to doe he shewed himselfe what he was and with his companions disparished into the aire leaving a filthy stinke behinde him thus the Devill doth go about to delude both men and women Manlius in Col. A certaine man abounding with wealth invited to supper a company of his neighbours and friends who when they refused to come upon occasions hee wished that all the Devils in Hell would come which wishes were not in vaine for presently great troopes of Devils came unto his house which hee entertained at the first and afterward as my Authour saith perceiving by their fingers and feet to be infernall Spirits he with his wife trembling ranne out of the house leaving a young infant in a cradle and a foole rocking of it both which were preserved alive after the departure of the Devils Iob. Fincel The Devill also appeared unto a Souldier that was given to play swearing and drinking and having played with him all night and woon his money hee told him it was time to depart and carryed him away with him into the aire whither God knowes for hee never was seene after In the yeare of our Lord 1536 there was at Franckford a maide grievously tormented with a paine in her head and a kinde of frenzie at the last she came to that passe that it was manifest that she was possessed with the Devill for if she touched any thing of any mans either head garment or anything else she drew money out of it of the usuall coyne of that countrey and presently put it into her mouth and swallowed it but sometimes they caught her hand and wrung their money from her and shewed it up and downe as a great wonder Shee also in her fits spake the high Dutch tongue perfectly which she never learned not heard of with many other things of great admiration Luther being demanded What course was to be taken to dispossesse her of this evill Spirit advised that shee should duely be brought unto the Church to heare Sermons and to bee prayed for publiquely in the Congregation by which meanes shortly after shee was delivered from Sathan and restored to her former health this relation the wise Senatours of Frankeford caused to bee published in Print Anno 1538. Certaine learned men in the Counsell of Basil went into a wood for recreation sake friendly to conferre about the controversies of that time Whilest they were there walking they heard a bird like unto a nightingall singing most sweetly above any Nightingall in the World and also sâ—w a bird upon an arme of a tree not like unto any bird one of the companie more hearty than the other said thus unto her I abjure thee in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ to tell us what thou art to whom the bird answered That she was one of the damned soules and appointed to stay in that place untill the last day and then to endure everlasting punishments whereupon she flue from the tree and cried O perpetuall and infinite 〈◊〉 Mâ—lâ—ncthon judged this to bee an evill spirit and so the event prooved for all that were present at this abjuration fell presently very sicke and shortly after died Manl. Collecta A certaine panish Clerke as Câ—sariuâ— reporteth exâ—elled all men in sweetnesse of singing whom when at a time a godly and holy man heard he said This is the voice not of a man but of the Divell 〈…〉 he had abjured in the name of Christ the Divell departed out of the bodie of the Clerke and the bodie fell downe into a dead carkasse Discip. de tempore Paulus Diaconius in his sixteenth Booke witnesseth That in the reigne of Anastasius the Emperour there were in Alexandria many women and children possessed of the Divell which being taken with furie uttered no other voice but like the barking of a dog In the yeare of our Lord 1545 an evill spirit haunted the Citie Rotuill sometimes in the shape of an hare sometimes of a Weesell sometimes of a Gâ—ose and with a cleere voice threatened that he would fire the Citie which malice of his though God prevented yet it strooke great terror into the minds of the people Iob. Finc lib. 1. In the Dukedome of Luneberge a certaine woman possessed of the Divel used to speake in her fits most pure Latine and Greeke to the great admiration of all that heard her Man in Collect. At Fribuge in Misnia a certaine man of great pietie and holinesse lying sicke and neere unto death the Divell came unto him in the habite of a Bishop hee being alone and exhorted the man to confesse all his sinnes which hee had committed in his life time and that having peâ—ne and Inkehorne he would write them downe in order but the old man being importuned by him answered Seeing thou urgest this write downe first this sentence The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head which the Divell-Bishop no sooner heard but he vanished away leaving a filthie savour behinde him and the man died in peace Manl. in Collect. Iob Fincelius in his third booke of miracles writeth a strange storie of a godly young maide infested long and possessed at length by the Divell who in her acted strange things to the admiration of all men but at length shee was freed from his malicious molestation by the earnest prayers of godly Ministers in the Church the Divell flying out of her in the forme of a swarme of flies out of a window This storie is at large related with many strange circumstances by Philippus Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre Page a hundred twenty and six The same Author relateth a storie of a maide of excellent beauty whom the Priest of the towne so induced and inveigled by his perswasions saying that the Pope had pardoned him for all such offences that shee became his Concubine Now when hee had invited many of