he ought what can they expect from God What chastisement must their Parents fear that instead of being Reformers and Correctors shall be Corrupters of their Children Such may be compared to Munckies who do so love their young ones that they are ever making much of and hugging them in their Armes by which means they often fall into the hands of Hunters Even so it is with Parents who for want of chastising and putting their Children from them and putting them ou 〈…〉 learn Lawful employments come to fall 〈…〉 the hands of Justice and to ill ends with disgrace enough to their Family grief and shame to their neglective Parents and Friends The ancient Romans so much abhorred the Parents that did not correct their Children that for this cause alone they made a Law in the which they ordered and commanded That the Son that was taken in any offence should be for the first time reproved for the second punished severely and for the third hanged and the Father banished as a party in the fault because he did not sufficiently reprove and chastise him Objection Let me ask one Question by the way If those ancient Romans were living at this time in these our dayes what would they do seeing the pitiful and lamentable Estates of many of our Common-wealthes What Banishments Chaines Prisons and what kinde of Torments think you would they now invent to chastise an infinite number of Fathers who do not onely solicit seeing they cannot teach their Children themselves long before they send them to School and tuition of Masters their ruine but poyson them with â—â—â—r daily bad examples which doth so corrupt and vitiate them that all that can be done towards their future reclaiming comes to as much as nothing for those who from their Births should by good examples and advice instruct them to be vertuous do teach and ingraft in them the poysons of Blasphemy Swearing Drunkenness Gluttony and wickedly spend the Estates of their innocent Children Whore Lye prostrate and sell their Wives and Daughters in sight of the World How many Mothers are there at this day who like HERODIAS teach their Daughters to Dance spend all their time in learning Rhetorical-Complements entertaining Gallants Triming Dressing and Painting themselves colouring their Cheeks Lips and Eye-brows adorning themselves with rich Cloaths and Jewels as if they would set out a Shop of Wares and make themselves Pedlers and go to sell jets and prances in the Streets to which Parents what can be expected to happen less then did to the Royal Prophet David that his own Children were Executioners of the punishment of his sins in this kinde who were so unruly and unnatural wicked that one of them Amon by name Ravished his own Sister Thamer and another who was Absalom killed his Brother Amon and conspired the ruine and the death of his Father and at length forced him to flie from his House and lay with his Concubines wherefore it is an ancient Rule of Phylosophers That God often permits many sins to be committed and go unpunished in this life deferring it for a greater demonstration of his Clemency But the sin and offence that many Parents do commit against him in not giving good documents and examples to their Children he never lets that pass but some way or other makes them even cruel and afflictive Executioners of Gods Justice on their Fathers faults in this World and that justly for Parents cannot bestow on their Children a better Legacie then good wholesome and vertuous documents and sound knowledge with which he may make him immortal and of a perpetual fame for the Natural being the Mortal Body and this short and miserable life which we receive and give to our Children Death with a sudden and fierce snatch doth soon cut the thrid thereof To sum up what hath been said Suppose the Creatures do escape the dangers of the Mothers Womb happen to be Nursed with unwholesome and corrupted Milk of their infirm Nurses fall into greater and more dangerous evils and which is terrible if they come under the tuition of lewd Masters and under the power of wicked and perverse Guides to teach them yet this is nothing in comparison of the Souls mis-fed and mis-led for of far higher price and esteem is the maintenance of the Soul then that of the body And here we must not forget to quoat the Divine Plato who hath written more at large to this purpose then any of the ancient Heathen Phylosophers therefore it will be fit we make some profitable use of his Authority and Doctrine which is so rare and choice so super-natural and Divine written with discreet diligence and care handled at large and exactly and set forth in so gallant and lofty Stile that many Heathens that have read his Books Ziocha Of the Immortality of the Soul and another in which he principally treats of the short and miserable life of Man they cast themselves down head-long from high Rocks into the Sea and into deep Rivers that thereby ending and cutting the thrid of this miserable and sorrowful life they might enjoy that pleasant and quiet one which they hoped for towards which all Navigate as to a certain and secure Harbour of health and happiness This Phylosopher in the Dialogue that he made of Death and the frail and weak life of Man introduceth a great Phylosopher called Socrates the which with admirable Eloquence particularly declares the miseries calamities torments and vexations which attend our life saying thus Doest thou not know that humane Life is nothing else but a pilgrimage and a continual motion from one Estate to another the which Wise men do pass over with great joy and content and rejoyce and sing when they feel the miserable e 〈…〉 his our pilgrimage Doest thou not know very well that Man is composed of Body and Soul and that his Soul is inclosed and set in the Body as in a Tabernacle or House with which Dame Nature was pleased she should goe covered and laden and that with sorrow grief and sufficient care and extreamly against her will she being oppressed with such a load of frail Flesh so great troubles and so infinite a multitude of evils Although put the case that Nature were friendly would do us some favour or repart some of her courtesies to any of these oppressed Souls as to give them a light and agil Body or sooner to afford them liberty yet in the end such are the counterfeit and attendant weight of evils which are incident to them that the miserable and afflicted Souls not being able to bear so great a burthen they grow peevish mutinous afflictive and very desirous to pack from so streight a prison that they may go and enjoy the happiness of those Caelestial and Eternal blessings which they so much desire and cordially seek after Do but consider that the laying aside or leaving this Life is but a Truck or Exchange from worse to better What do we or what
forefathers Or from that cluster of bitter Grapes which the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of That the Fathers have eaten bitter Grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge A bitter Fruit indeed What is the first musical note that he expresses at his first coming into the World What are they but cries tears sighs sobs and groans which are certain Messengers Discoverers and Fore-tellers of the calamities which afterwards he is to undergoe the which he not being able to express in words endeavours to put us in minde of them with weeping tears All the Emperors Monarchs Princes and great Lords which commands the World and turns it upside down at their pleasures these at their birth sing the same Song are subject to the same frail condition The least Creature that Nature produces so soon as they be born begin to creep about and seek out for provisions and necessaries to maintain life The Chicken so soon as it gets out of the shell findes it self free of that enclosure there 's no such need of washing and cleansing as there is of man it presently runs after the Hen understands when she calls and begins to pick and eat it flies and fears the Kite although it never received nor saw any hurt by him but meerly by instinct of Nature it knowes to avoid danger now do but consider and contemplate man when he is first born and he will appear to be like a monstrous lump of Flesh which many other Creatures might easily devour he not having any strength or power to move or defend himself he would die with hunger not being able to take the Breast but would as soon suck a sweetned poysonous potion as that and would as soon take red fire hot Iron in his hand as any eatable thing not being of capacity to know good from evil If thou leavest him in the Cradle there will he nestle in his own Dung and batten in his own Urine not being able to cast those Natural excrements from him nor cleanse himself as the least of all other animals can do These are the sweets and odiferous scents with which Nature doth perfume man with such sort of stuffe doth she perfume and adorn this little room wherein is contained so much presumption and haughtiness of spirit that he esteems himself to be so valiant and strong as if he deserved to be Lord of all the other Creatures when many of them are more valiant and stronger then he But let 's trace his farther progress After he is lanched forth into this Gulf of miseries and sorrowes how its needful to suckle him and give him Food to maintain life for if they do not give it him he knowes not where to finde it This care is to be the Mothers for this reason Nature hath given them 2 Breasts like two small round Gourds proper places and fit to contain the Milk for the sustenance of their Children but how many Mothers are there at this day if the truth were spoken who are contented and think they have done too much for their Children by bringing them forth onely and that many times Abortives and oust out from their Entrails and are presently sent out to some Village to be nursed without either seeing or hearing of them at all for which cause there is many times a poor Child sent them instead of their own Such Women do rather take pleasure and contentment in a Foisting-hound or Lap-dog and with much more shameless delight do they kiss hugge and embrace it then if it were their own natural Child which they count a shame to feed cleanse swathe or take into their armes Most part of the other animals do not use this practice nor are so unnatural to their young ones they never commit them to any other although they have never so many but are a continual shield of defence and protection to them for they will not forsake them until they see them of sufficient strength and capacity to guide for the present and defend themselves from danger And which is more strange there is often strifes debates and emulacions betwixt the Males and Females which shall do most for them The truth of which hath not onely been experimentally demonstrated in the Apes but more in the Beares a sort of cruel fierce and ravenous Beasts which love their young ones so much that they doe not onely content themselves with cockering and giving them the teats but seeing that they are cast out without any form or shape they labour with a wearisome toil continually licking them until they have brought them to a Natural figure or likeness Also the Birds although they have many times 5 6 or a dozen under their Wings possess no Gainers of Corn yield no Milk nor have any store laid up to feed them yet they never leave nor forsake them but finde out new wayes force strength out of weakness and act as far as nature hath taught them that they may comply with Natures obligation and hatch and bring up their young ones But where can we finde a better or more sollide reason of humane misery then this That the poor Wretch is no sooner born but he is deprived of that which of just right doth belong unto him and Nature hath provided for him He is forced to suck the Milk of a strange person and often if it be a cheap Nurse they do not look whether she be crooked maimed or lame or whether she be infected with any foul vice or infirmity either in body or condition from the which they receive so much prejudice and hurt that it were far better they should be brought up in the Desart then come into the hands of such Nurses and if it were onely the body that received this damage it would not behalf so bad it 's not that onely that 's interested spoiled and hindered as formerly it was seen in Titus the Son of Vespatian the Emperor and many others who being brought up and suckled by an infirm Nurse passed the few dayes of his life in a weak sickly and unfortunate condition as Lapriadus writes But all this is nothing in comparison of the detriment and prejudice the Soul receives from that evil Character which is stamped therein by the lewd breeding and the wicked life of the Nurse Dion a Greek Historian in the life of Cayus Caligula the third Emperor of Rome writes That they did not impute to his Parents the wicked infamous and mischievous Nature of this lewd and blood-thirsty Emperor because it was certainly known he had suckt it with the Milk For the Nurse that gave him suck was of a wicked and cruel disposition by nature and had a custome to dip her Niple in blood and then give the Child the Teat from which he commenced to be such an inhumane and appetitious glutton as to eat mens blood for afterwards he not satisfying himself with continual Deaths Woundings and Wicked Actions which he committed but would suck and lick the Swords and Daggers
that they may take it all from them at once and place others in their rooms though they have been never so trusty Do but behold how these miserable Courtiers do sell their liberties to enrich themselves They must though against their wills do what their Princes commands them be it right or wrong just or unjust They must strive to laugh when they laugh weep when they weep approve what they approve of and condemn what they condemn They must set themselves to act what shall be proposed and execute what shall be commanded them even change and alter their Natural customes and conditions With the severe they must be severe with the sad they must be sad and in a manner transform their own lives beings and Natures to please delight and content them if they would attain to what they desire and not be cast out of favour If their Prince be vicious so must they be if cruel their messages must be to shed blood And though many times the Favourite endeavours to conform to the conditions of his Master and appear like him in his Natural inclinations Often it happens that for one fault committed one discontent or one neglect in pleasing his humour he turns him off and makes him lose the Fruits of all the Services he ever did him in his life which we shall finde verified in the Favourites of the Emperor Adrian whose condition was such that after many favours and rewards received and being raised to the highest patch of Dignities and Honors for any trivial fault or discontent they were not onely deprived of their Wealth and Favours received but were declared Capital Enemies to the Emperor which being well considered and understood by Divine Plato who took all Courtly pleasures Viands and Delights from the Athenians although he could not govern nor conquer himself but must needs return to the Court of Dionisius Tirant of Scicilia who afterwards sold him as a Slave to Pirates The like hapned to that ancient and wise Phylosopher Zeno from Phaleris the Tirant in recompence of many good services he had done caused him to be put to a cruel death the same paiment did King Anachreon give to Anaxagaras the like reward had Seneca from Nero and Calisthenes from Alexander the Great who because he would not acknowledge him to be a God and adore him he commanded his Hands and Feet to be cut off his Eyes to be plucked out his Ears and Nose to be pulled off and cast him into an obscure Dungeon where he died These and the like ends had many other great Favourits and Philosophers who would not obey the unjust and inhumane Laws and commands of Princes and Monarchs they died miserable and cruel deaths in recompence of all their services and good counsels they had given We will forbear to reckon up the great multitude of Vices and bad Customes which alwayes do follow and accompany Courtiers how amongst them all things go by contraries and all humane law and society is perverted and prevericated There are many in the Court that do vouchsafe thee their Hat that would willingly take thy Head from thy Shoulders there are such that will make thee a Leg that would be glad to carry a Leg of thee to thy Grave They kiss many hands that they would willingly see cut off there never wants one I know not what I do not understand it I cannot tell how or when it was done With these and the like expressions they cause poor pretender 〈…〉 r any other that hath business at Court to go away murmuring and complaining If in the Court thou wilt be bad thou canst not want companies of in any vice Wilt thou give thy self to Whoring there are the principal Masters of it Wilt thou quarrel or fight there are the chief Duelists or Hectors Wilt thou lie there will not want those will approve and encourage thee therein Wilt thou steal rob or pilfer there thou shalt finde the most dextrous and subtil of the Trade of whom thou mayest learn and commence Master If thou wilt cheat at Cards or Dice there wants not pro-provision for it I le assure thee if thou wilt swear false thou shalt not want one to pay thee for it in conclusion if thou wilt let lose the Reins of thy Appetite to all manner of sinful Vice in the World there thou shalt finde the best nay rather the worst examples and patterns for it in the whole World Here thou seest the portraicture of a multitude of Gallant and stately Courtiers which is not a life but a painful and large death In these and such like things do very many Youths pass their times which is nothing but transitory deaths Wilt thou understand what advantage ancient men do bring from Court being past the age of action Their Heads gray their Teeth decayed their Hands and Feet lame with Cout and Rhumes Pox and Stone wicked thoughts and their Souls made black and bespotted with sin to conclude there is little to be done in the Court and much murmuring If thou wouldst know more at large the lives of Courtiers read over the Books of Don Antonio and Guevarra Bishop of Mondonedo and of Aeneas Sylvio otherwise called Pope pius who writ two excellent and exact Treatises of this effect in which they do set forth to the life the gentle Courtiers so that there cannot more or less be said then what they have done Let 's leave the gallant emulating complemental and contra-meaning Courtiers in their so miserable and unquiet life and return to our purpose to contemplate briefly of the estate of Emperors Monarches Kings and Princes for whom we may conjecture by the outward appearance all the pleasures delights and good fortunes of the World were made for if we do consider what man hath need of to make his life quiet pleasant and happy and to enjoy this life in perpetual rest and contentment it will appear to our outward view that Nature hath provided more largely for Princes then for other men What thing can Man enjoy be more happy in this life then in great Riches aboundance of Temporal Goods Commands Dignities absolute power and free liberty to act good or evil or shall please his own palate without contradiction reprehension or chastisements power to run with loose Rain after all sorts of pleasures delights and pass-times and to have at his will whatever his appetite or reason can desire All that can be acquired for mans contentment his quiet and entertainment as rich Cup-boards Vessels of Gold and Silver to eat and drink in the many delicious and various Meats great magnificent and pompuous services and furniture rich Vestments and all with a Royal neatness and order with what ever else can be desired to delight the senses and maintain the pleasures of Humane concupiscence all which they have provided for them without asking or taking care even from the Cradle to the Crown It 's true if we should look no farther then on
four or five moneths there dyed three hundred thousand but those that are more moderate write two hundred and odd thousand it swept so cleer that when they came to clense the City they found in very many houses the last Person dead and with the heat of Summer almost rotted in their beds this Relation may appear to some a story that in such a City as that being but twenty three Parishes should be such a mortality truly I was eye witnesse to most of what is related as many Merchants of our English Nation can affirme and have no reason to give a false relation of that in which God hath been pleased to grant me so great a deliverance for which ever magnified be his Holy Name But to proceed on our purpose there remaines no other thing but to contemplate the other principal scâ—â—â—ge of God famine a certain and diligent â—â—ecutioner of his justice as he affirmes by the Prophets and Apostels that he will make their Land barren and unprofitable so also our Saviour Jesus Christ telling his Disciples the sign that should forego the last day after he had sayed men should kill one another and one â—ingdâ—me should rise up and make War agaiâ—st aâ—â—tâ—er Nation he addeth as a thing of greater degree of puniâ—hment that there shall be gâ—eat Pestilencies and mortall famines over all the World for War Pestilence and famine are the strokes with which God commonly avengeth himself of wicked men when he growes weary of of waiting for their too often late repentaâ—ce Le ts now see whether we have escaped the last more then the first I will not go about to write of the famines which commonly is known to have happened in Europe Asia and Africa but will only relate the most memorable which I find in the Historie both Divine and Pagan to the end that they that live in this World as in a Pallace of delights pleasures and pastimes without tasting in the least of the calamities and miseries to which man is subject may when they see God shoot the arrows of his wrath against his Creatures consider and understand the soveraign power and Omnipotency of their Creator and contemplate the pittyfull and sad condition of our nature which 〈…〉 ubject to so many miseries Le ts begin with that which the Romans suffered at the generall destruction of Italy when Alarico a capital enemy to Mankind besieged Rome they were brought to such a poor low and famished condition and to such an exceeding want of all things necessary that they began first to eat the Horses Dogges Cats Rats and Mice and all other sorts of vermine they could find and when these failed they eat one another the strongest devoured the weakest it is a certain and wonderfull thing to consider that when the justice of God followes and puts us to a streight that necessity brings us to such a point or resolution not to pardon even our best friends the Father the Son or the Mother the fruit of her Womb The like hapned in the siege of Jerusalem as Eusebus sets it forth at large but a more horrid and strange story followes when Scipio besieged the City of Numancia after he had attacked and cut off reliefe from them he put them to such an exstream necessity and mortal and canine famine that every day they sallied out and went to chase the Romans their besiegers as hungry Dogs do savage beasts to eat them so that without any loathing they eat the flesh and drank the blood of the Romans which they took not sparing one of them with as great appetite as others would eat Beefe or Mutton or drink at a cleer Fountain even so he that fell into their hands was presently riped open cleansed and quartered and sold in their Market by peices or retaile so that one Roman amongst them dead was of more value then alive in the 2. Kings 6. Chap 24. ver c. There is made mention of a great famine in Samaria in the time of Elisha the Prophet which exceeded that before mentioned where there was such want of sustenance that an Asse head was sold for fourscore peices of Silver and the fourth part of a kab of Pigions dung for five peices of Silver but what was worse and most inhumane of all that having eaten all the provision they had the Mothers eat their own Children in so much that a woman of the City complained to the King of Israel as he went upon the Wall that her neighbour would not stand to an agreement made betwixt them which was to eat the first day her Child and the next day the other womans the which saith she I accomplished for we boyled my son and did eat him I said unto her on the next day give thy Son that we may eat him and she hath hid him the which the King hearing rent his clothes and behold he had Sackcloth within upon his flesh c. Josephus in his seventh Book of the Warres of the Jewes in the third Chapter relates another accident much like this but executed with more fury and after a more strange manner there was saith he in Jerusalem when it was beseiged a Woman both noble and rich which had hidden in a certain house of the City part of her riches and fed sparingly on what she had which she could not long do in quiet for the Souldiers of the Garrison in a short time robed her of what she had layed up in store and if she intreated and begged for any thing to supply nature and some did give her any others immediately took it out of her hands and even force the bit out of her mouth then she seeing her selfe in such distresse ready to dye for hunger and without any hopes of remedy for to supply her necessity she without consideration of what might appear best began to arme her selfe against the wholsome lawes of nature and considering a Child she had then at her breast began to cry out saying Oh unhappy and unfortunate Babe or rather miserable mother what can I do with thee where shall I preserve thee things run and are so out of order that if I save thy life thou wilt be a slave to the Romans therefore it will be better that thou maintain and relieve thy Mother and afright the cursed Souldiers who have left me no hopes of remedy or comfort be thou an example of pitty to ages to come move compassion in the hearts of those that shall be hereafter borne these words being ended she beheaded her Child parted him in the midle and put halfe on a Spit roasted and eat it and layed up the other halfe for another time she had no sooner ended this Tragedy but the Souldiers came and smelling the roasted flesh began to threaten her with present death if she did not produce it but she was so mad and besides her selfe for what she had done that without fear she desired nothing more then to accompany her
unnaturall sort of diet there bred an infinite number of infirmities which brought men to their last refuge and made the stoutest heart to tremble there mightest thou see great companies of men women and children and aged fathers people of all ages going in the streets naked pale and shaking with cold some swollen up as with Dropsie others lying on the ground halfe dead resigning up their last breath of this sort of people many barnes stables and dunghills were full there were others so weak and faint that they had not ability to cast the word from their mouths to declare their malady and exstream necessity there were others also taken with trembling that appeared more like spirits and fantasies then men but above all it was a spectacle of greatest griefe to see many thousand mothers pale leane rejected surrounded and burdened with many young children the which being almost dead with famine could not cry nor ask succour from their sad and afflicted mothers and they instead of affording a remedy to their necessity could only look on them and that with exstream greife of heart witness those overflowing streames of teares which fell from their sorrowfull eyes and truly in my opinion this was the most deplorable representation of all the passages demonstrated in this tragick story when we consider how great a shew of compassion the poor dissolate mothers expressed towards their poor helpless children the same Paradin relates further that he saw in one Village called Longhaas in Burgonia a poor Woman who by exstream dilligence had gotten a peice of bread and being about to eat it a young child not full a year old which was sucking at her breast snatcht it out of her hand at which the doleful mother being astonished she stood stil observing how saverly the poor child made a shift to eat that mouthfull of dry hard and black bread as if it had been the finest morsel and when the mother would have picked up the crumbes that fell from its mouth the child gave so many screekes and so many throngs that the mother was forced to let it alone as if it had sure some certain understanding of what natures necessity required therefore it would admit of no company Oh Omnipotent God whose heart would not be ready to break with griefe to behold such a sad and dolefull spectacle as this The same Author relates that in another Village adjacent to the former two women not being able to find out any thing whereby to asswage their hungar they fed upon a poysonous root not understanding the malicious property thereof they were poysoned therewith in such a manner that all their parts both hands and feet were changed into a green like a Lizards skin and there came forth a contagious substance from betwixt the flesh and the nailes in so much that by reason of the venome thereof no remedy could befound to save them but they dyed in so much that at that time there was nothing within its degree and kind was not an executioner of Gods wrath against man for his sins in conclusion these miseries afflictions and calamities continuing so many yeares the poor farmers and labourers were forced to leave their Countries Townes and Villages and go to seek succour from the rich Merchants which long before had provided and laid up great quantity of Wheat in their Warehouses and Granaries from whom they bought their bread at dear and excessive prises and wanting money they sold trucked and pawned their Lands and inheritances at very low and invallied rates for that parcell of Land or houses which were worth a hundred they sold often for under ten so great was their cursed covetousness and excesse of lucre as if it were not sufficient for men to be chastised with the sharp and hard scourge of Gods anger when even all the Elements and Creaturs rose up against them but that man should be a persecutor afflicter and tormentor of man those ingardly covetuous and Usurous wretches foreseeing the occasion for them to do their business and to make hay whilest the Sun shines at least upon their vices as they thought they would not loose it but had their Factors and Brokers in the Villages to buy the Lands even at their own prises the which the poor Country-men made over with a good will that they might get wherewithall to eat and supply their necessity and with them and their furniture and houshold stuffe and apparell and with a free will would pawne even their very entrailes and liberty that they might not perish with famine there was a worse thing then this and it was that they were forced to take their Corn without measure and as the Sellar pleased to deliver it to be at adventure and buy as the Proverb is gato por liobre a Cat for a Hare I cannot omit to declare that there were Usurers that bought Lands cheaper then a Scrivener takes for a Bill of sale this is certainly known to be true but after these manifold and manifest evils you might see the poor people cast out of their houses with their wives and children and dying in Hospital for want of food and all by meanes of these rigid Usurers and false purchasers causers of their ruines and deaths and I fear they must one day give account of them as if they had been their actuall murderers and that before that righteous and just Judge from whom no secret can be hid Now having particularly given ye an account of three principal ways of punishment with which God being inceased with us for our many sins and transgressions useth to chastise his Creatures and especially when he sees them obstinate impenitent hardened and wallowing in their vicious wickednesse but all this is not so much when we consider the multitude of other infirmities to which humane bodies are subject every moment which puts the life in hazard upon every occasion Plynie and many other Greeke and Aâ—â—be Phisitians writ that in two thousand yeares there had been discovered above three hundred kinds of infirmities and maladies incident to mens bodyes besides such as are dayly discovered amongst which there are some so cruel and insupportable that they cannot well be set down without terrour to the apprehension of nature besides those which commonly are cured by cauterizing sawing off of Limbs taking out peices of Skull and Guts out of the belly as if they would take an inventory or anothomize the body alive also those which are cured by great strictness of dyet by reason of the fury and vigour of the disease as Cornelius Celsus writes that they have been forced to drink their Urine to quench their thirst and many even to eat their Plasters to satisfie their hungry appetites others were perswaded that they had swallowed alive Snake and told that they could not be cured to affright them that fear might facilitate their cure and then they would secretly put a live Snake into the close stool telling them that they had
many with the sword poysons and pure fear some doe drown strangle and destroy themselves others are torne in peices with the teeth of cruel and savage Creatures some have been wounded and killed by pecking of birds and others have been meat for fishes and worms all this considered no man knows what end he shall make or by which of these means his dissolution shall be for when he deems himself most firm healthy and strong then he is most subject to fall and the saddest change is then nearest and then approaching towards him death the separation of soul and body which is most fearfull and of all things most terrible Therefore to work upon our apprehension what sight what spectacle is more worth our view and contemplation then to see a man cast upon his sick bed tormented with the pangs of death and afflicted to the height therewith what a horror what a change is there in all the joynts and parts of his body what an alteration there is the feet grow cold the face turnes yellow the eye-strings break and the eyes sink in the mouth and lips shrink up the tongue grows black the teeth chatter their sweat is more cold then ice proceeding from mortall griefs and are the most evident signes of the conquest of death over nature for when the soul comes to separate from its so dearly beloved companion when these two so antient friends and consorts comes to take the last farewell embraces there is no joynt or limbe of nature remaines whole or in order but they all break besides there is the furious assaults of the devills the wicked angels the fearfull visions and representations which they make to the soul and conscience of the poore dying man its certain there is no invention no false Machination which they do not attempt to beguile and deceive him striving sometimes to make us believe that we have lived well that we might assuredly believe and securely rest upon this false opinion and not strive but neglect by a hearty repentance to obtain the mercy of God other whiles he sets before us an infinite number of foule and wicked transgressions which we have committed in our life times to cause us to dispaire and distrust our Gods grace and loving-kindnesse that is the houre in which that cursed one Sathan bestirs himself imploys al his force sharpens his weapons burnishes his Armes Insinuates secret Ielousies against the power of God at that instant of time he strives to disturb the soul the health and the peace of men then he animates and strengthens himself more then ever for by how much the nearer he knows he is to the end of his Kingdome by so much the more he rageth and grows feirce for which cause he useth at that houre the same practice he did at the time our Saviour Jesus Christ was on the earth when he drew neare to any that were possessed with Devils they never gave greater scriks tormented or afflicted themselves more furiously then when he came neere them and that because they knew that the houre was come that they must be commanded out of their habitations and forced out of the persons where they abode for this cause the Royall Prophet David so much lamented the death of his son Absolom saying I would I had dyed for thee oh my son considering then he dyed full of wicked vices and inormous sins and rebellions with which he passed that his sad and last houre Those that have gone through that passage the gate of death have swallowed that thorne with the which they have been strangled What is become of their fantastical Pride What is become of all their Pomps and Trophies Where is their Riches Delights and Pastimes Where are the Majesties the Excellencies and Dignities What is become of all the Gallantries Courrage and Inventions of them They are vanished away like a shaddow as the Psalmist expresses They are perished like a Garment devoured with Mothes and the Prophet Esayas sayth Serpents Dragons and Wormes have eaten consumed and destroyed them Let us consider a little man lying in his grave contemplate with me his condition there whoever beheld a more fearfull spectacle or stinking Monster is there any thing more horrible unsavory and vile then man being dead and consuming in the earth see here the Majestie the Excellency the Dignity of this world layed in the dust behold here the delicious and nice feeder the esteemed and honored even to kissing the feet and hands how a suddain and unexpected change hath altered his condition and made it so abominable that it cannot be so closely masked decked and honored with stately Sepulchers of Marble or Porpherie with glorious Statues of Brasse Pirameds Epetaphs Mournings and other Honourable Pompes but it may manifestly appear that under all this there is a gastly stinking and deformed Corps which few would desire to see come neare or remember there is none of the greatest and mightiest Lords of the Earth of whom it may not be said what Solomon in his book of Wisdome writes What profit have they reaped of their Pride What fruit have they gathered or carried with them of their great riches all these things are passed like a shaddow like an Arrow shot at the marke like the smoak which is dispersed with the winde like the memory of a Guest in an Inn which hath stayed but one day there le ts now leave the miserable body in its grave le ts not molest that quiet repose it hath for a short time in that little caverne of earth where it lyeth as in a bed of Down But now here follows the ultimate and most dangerous tryall and passage of this our humane Tragedie that which David so much dreaded that he prayed exceeding earnestly to God that he would not enter into judgment with his servant for at that instant that the soul departs from the body she must of necessity appear before the face of Almighty God in Judgment what fear what horror think you shall he carry with him that is overclouded with vice and wickedness what moment can be more frightfull what minute ought to be more feared contemplated and profoundly considered My members all tremble ther 's hardly a haire of my head but stands upright when I seriously Meditate thereof this is the Journey which the Prophet writes of that the Lord will make when he saith He will descend like lightning all hearts shall wax faint become foolish and melt away and all the world shall tremble with fear in that day their griefs troubles and afflictions shall exceed the paines of a woman in travell in this day the Lord will come full of wrath and anger to destroy the earth and roote out the wicked thereof the Sun shall be darkned and the Moon and Stars shall withdraw their Light his irefull fury shall break the hinges destroy the foundations of the earth le ts hearken also to the words of Saint Matthew in the language
or motion and although they applied to his most tender and sensible parts cauterizes of burning fire he felt no more pain nor made any more motion then a dead corps and after that he had come to himself again he gave wonderfull strange and incredible relations of what he had seen Herodoto affirmes that a Phylosopher called Atheo vanished after such a manner that the soule many times leaving the body at home wandred through strange Countries from Province to Province and related at its return very strange things which it had seen which appeared afterwards to be true by experience thereof made A child after he returned from such a rapture of spirit Prophesied the death of Julian the Emperor with the whole Tragical misfortunes which afterwards hapned to him how his enemies would come and whom they were that should kill him without ever hearing or being adverted thereof by any person Another Phylosopher shewed in a glasse the host of his enemies set in order and prepared for the Battel such so wonderfull and strange are the opperations of the soul of man so great is its power when it escapes and freeth it self from the Prison of the body when it maks a stay in the contemplation of Caelestial things which many times because it s not common and it seems to cast off nature the simple vulger do attribute to the devils which certainly is nothing else but the supernatural divinity of man that doth these things and that by reason of its great affinity it hath with the deity is there any thing more certain then that which is related of Leonardo Pictorio who so strictly began to tame his flesh with abstinence that he brought himself to eat but once a week and to this day many report that the Scithians can goe ten or twelue dayes without eating sustaining themselves with the juyce of a certain herb which they carry in their Mouths What more can be added to set forth the excellencies and praises of this creature Man but Divinity it self If we should in particular treat of its wonders the Histories are full of them Paper expressions and Ink would faile before the marvelous things that are to be spoken of it There have been many that no kinde of Poyson could damnify and that for some secret misterious vertue which was hidden within them King Mitridates seeing Himself overcome by Pompey had rather dy then fall into his hands alive he therefore took and made proof of the most desperate and pestilential potions thaâ— in those dayes were known but that did not hurt him being preserved by his own nature which served him as a soveraign medicine against all Poyson so he was forc't to kill himself with a dagger Galen that Prince of the Physitians writes that a Girl which was bred up and fed with that veriomous herb called Napellus or Hemlock it was converted into the substance of the body that afterwards no kinde of Poyson would do her harme but all those she lay with were poysoned with her breath Auiscene writes that in his time there was a man from whom all venomous beasts did fly for if it hapned he bit or touched any they presently dyed he also sayth that he had seen a sort of men which the Greeks called Ophergines heale venomous beasts by touching them with their hands and extract the Poyson out of any body onely by putting the hands upon the place damnified the very same vertue have the Psilos and Marcians people of Africk whose Embassador was seased to make proof there of in Roome his name was Xagon who was put into a vessel full of Vipers Snakes and little Serpents and other venomous Creatures he was no sooner put therein but in stead of biteing and afflicting of him they began to lick to fawn and make much of him each in its nature in conclusion we finde in man strange marvelous monsterous things in so much that many of the Antients considering the Excellency of his nature but not finding any thing that can be compared to the exquisite and industrious providence of him they commanded them that is the most learned to be called gods even for such they esteemed honored and adored them Some there were so constant in their opinion that they never laughed as Marcus Crassus for which he was called Agelasto as much as to say one that never smiled but was even in one constitution others never vomited as Pompey some never spit as Antonio the second some never found sicknesse in their bodies as Pontano writes of himself for he many times wittingly let himself fall from his condition yet felt no paine or grief nor found any detriment others there were who enjoyed so sharpe and peircing a sight that they could discerne things that were fifty or sixty leagues distance as if they had been much nearer Solinus and Plinie do affirme of one who was called Strabon that in time of the Punicke Warr he saw from one of the high Rocks or Promontories of Sicilia ships set saile out of the Port of old Carthage which is above a hundred Leagues distant Of Fiberius the Emperor its said that wakeing at a certain hour of the night he could see all things as clearly as if it were day in the Country of the Cardelinâ—s saith Plinie there are a sort of men that will run as swift as Grey-hounds and that its impossible to come near or take them unlesse it be by reason of age or infirmity Quintus Curtius and many others write that Alexander the Great was composed of such a temprature and strange equality and harmony of humers that his breath naturally surelt like Balsome and that when he sweat he cast such an oderifeâ—ous scent from him it seemed as if there had flowed Musk and Amber through the pores of his body Yet they relate a more strange thing then this and more hard to be believed that his body dead smelt sweetly as if it had been embalmed or filled with the most precious perfumes of the world Cayus Caezar was so excellent a Horseman that causing his hands to be tyed behinde him without Bridle or Saddle a wonderfull and almost incredible thing with onely his knees he would make the horse run stop turn leap gallope and curvet as well as if he had bridle or sadle Marcus Paulus a Venetian writes that the Tarters are so great searchers into the secrets of Nature and have so much power and command over the Devils that they can darken the ayre when they please that he once being beset with Thieves made an escape by this means Haytomus an Authour of singular repute and great authority in the History that he wrote of the Sarmatans affirms the same and goeth further relating that the Army of the Tartars being almost routed and overcome was succoured and preserved by a Enchantment of one of their Ensignes casting a mist and darkening the ayre about the host of their Enemies I have read in many antient Authors that