earnestly to desire to know the day wherein hee should die which also his schoolemaster the deuill reuealed vnto him but vnder such doubtfull tearmes that he dreamed in his foolish conceit of immortalitie and that he should neuer die It chanced on a time as he was singing masse at Rome in a Temple called Ierusalem which was the place assigned for him to die in and not Ierusalem in Palaestina as he made himselfe falsly beleeue he heard a great noise of deuils that came to fetch him away A note worthy the noting note that this was done in masse while whereat hee being terrified and tormented and seeing himselfe not able any waies to escape he desired his people to rend his body in pieces after his death and lay it vpon a charriot and let horses draw it whether they would which was accordingly perfourmed for as soone as hee was dead the pieces of his carkasse were carried out of the Church of Laterane by the wicked spirit who as he ruled him in life so he was the chiefe in his death and funerals By like means came Benedict the ninth to the Popedome for he was a detestable magitian Benno Balleus and in the ten yeres wherin he was Pope hauing committed infinite villanies and mischiefes was at last by his familiar friend the deuill strangled to death in a forrest whither he went to apply himselfe the more quieter to his coniurings Gregorio the sixt scholler to Siluester as great a coniurer â—s his master wrought much mischiefe in his time Bal. but was at last banished Rome and ended his life in misety in Germany Iohn the two and twentieth being of no better disposition then these we haue spoken of but following iudiciall astrologie fed himselfe with a vaine hope of long life whereof hee vanted himselfe among his familiars one day aboue the rest at Viterbum in a chamber which hee had lately builded saying that hee should liue a great while hee was assured of it presently the flore brake suddenly in pieces and hee was found seuen daies after crushed to pieces vnder the ruines thereof All this notwithhanding yet other Pope eased not to suffer themselues to be infected with this execrable poison as Hildebrand who was called Gregorie the seuenth and Alexander the sixt of which kind we shall see a whole legend in the next booke and 43 chapter do but marke these holy fathers how abominable they were to be in such sort giuen ouer to Satan Cornelius Agrippa a great student in this cursed Art and a man famous both by his owne workes and others report for his Necromancie Iouius in elogijâ— vtrorum illustrium went alwaies accompanied with an euill spirit in the similitude of a blacke dog but when his time of death drew neare and he was vrged to repentance he tooke off the enchaunted collar from the dogs necke and sent him away with these tearmes Get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast vtterly destroied mee neither was the dog euer after seene some say hee leapt into Araris and neuer came out againe Agrippa himselfe died at Lions in a base and beggerly Inne Zoreastres king of Bactria is notified to haue beene the inuentor of Astrologie and Magicke Theat hist but the deuill whose ministerie he vsed when he was too importunate with him burned him to death Charles the seuenth of Fraunce put Egidius de Raxa marshiall of his kingdome Fulgos lib. 9. cap. 1. to a cruell and filthie death because hee practised this arte and in the same had murdered an hundred and twenty teeming women and young infants he caused him to be hanged vpon a fâ—â—ke by a hote fire and rosted to death Bladud the sonne of Lud king of Britaine now called England in the yeere of the world 3100 hee that builded the citie Bath as our late histories witnesse and also made therin the hote bathes addicted himselfe so much to the deuilish arte of Necromancie that he wrought wonders thereby in so much that hee made himselfe wings and attempted to flie like Dedalus but the deuill as euer like a false knaue forsooke him in his iourney so that he fell downe and brake his necke In the yeere of our Lord 1578 one Sâ—mon Penbrooke dwelling in S. Georges parish in London being a figure setter and vehemently suspected to be a coniurer by the commaundement of the iudge appeared in the parish Church of S. Sauiour at a court holden there where whilst hee was busie in entertaining a proctour and leaned his head vpon a pew a good space the proctour began to lift vp his head to see what hee ailed and found him departing out of this life and straight waies hee fell downe rattling in the throat without speaking any one word this straunge iudgement happened before many witnesses who searching him found about him fiue deuilish bookes of coniuration and most abominable practises with a picture in tinne of a man hauing three dice in his hand with this writing Chance dice fortunately and much other trash so that euery one confessed it to be a iust iudgement against sorcerie and a great example to cause others to feare the iustice of God Now let euery one learne by these examples to feare God and to stand firme stedfast to his holy word without turning from it on any side so shall he be safe from such like miserable ends as these wicked varlets come vnto CHAP. XXXIIII Of those that through pride and vainglory stroue to vsurpe the honour due vnto God A Forgetfull and vnthankfull mind for the benefits which God bestoweth vpon vs is a braunch of the breach of this first commaundement as well as those which went before and this is when we ascribe not vnto God the glory of his benefits to giue him thanks for them but through a foolish pride extoll our selues higher then we ought presuming aboue measure and reason in our owne power desire to place our selues in a higher degree then is meet With this fond and foolish affection I know not how our first fathers were tickled and tainted from the beginning to thinke to empaire the glory of God Gen. 3. and they also were puffed vp with the blast of ambition that I know not with what fond foolish rash and proud conceit went about after the flood to build a city and tower of exceeding height by that meanes to win fame and reputation amongst men Gen. 11. In stead whereof they ought rather to haue praised God by remembring his gratious goodnesse in their miraculous deliuerance in their fathers persons from that generall deluge and shipwracke of the world but forasmuch as with a proud and high stomacke they lifted vp themselues against God to whome onely all glory appertaineth therefore God also set himselfe against them and against their ouer bold practises interrupting all their determined presumptuous purposes by such a confusion and alteration of tongues which he sent amongst them that one could not
of meat Fides fit apud Authorem snakes and of sauce serpents to the great terror of his conscience but that which is more one of the serpents leaped in his face and catching hold by his lip hung there till his dying day so that hee could neuer feed himselfe but hee must feed the serpent withall And this badge carried he about as a cognisance of an vnkind and vngratefull sonne Moreouer this is another iudgement of God that coÌ„monly as children deale with their parents so doe their children deale with them this in the law of proportion is most iust in the order of punishing most vsuall for the proofe wherof as experience daily teacheth so one example or two I wil subioine Theat histor It is reported how a certaine vnkind peruerse son beat his aged father vpon a time and drew him by the haire of his head to the threshold who when he was old was likewise beaten of his sonne and drawne also by the haire of the head not to the threshold but out of dores into the durt and how he should say he was rightly serued if he had left him at the threshold as he left his father and not dragged him into the streets which he did not to his thus did his owne mouth beare record of his impietie his own conscience condemn him before God and men Guiliel Lugdi Another old man being persuaded by his sonne that had married a young wife with faire and sugred promises of kindnesses and contentments to surrender his goods and lands vnto him yeelded to his request and found for a space all thinges to his desire Discipulus de temp but when his often coughing annoied his young and daintie wife hee first remooued his lodging from a faire high chamber to a base vnder roome and after shewed him many other vnkind and vnchildish parts and lastly when the old man asked for clothes hee bought foure elnes of clothes two whereof he bestowed vpon him and reserued the other two for himselfe Now his yoong sonne marking this niggardise of his father towards his grandfather hid the two elles of cloth and being asked why hee hid them whether by ingeniousnesse of wit or instinct of God he answered to the end to reserue them for his father against hee was old to be a couering for him Which answere touched his father so neere that euer after hee shewed himselfe more louing and obsequious to his father then hee did before Two great faults but soone and happily amended Would it might bee an example to all children if not to mitigate yet at least to learne them to feare how to deale roughly and crookedly with their parents seeing that God punisheth sinne with sinne and sinners in their owne kind and measureth the same measure to euerie man which they haue measured vnto others George Lanter de disciplina liberorum The like wee read of another that prouided a trough for his old decrepite vnmannerly father to eate his meat in who being demanded of his sonne also to what vse that trough should serue answered for his grandfather What quoth the child and must wee haue the like for you when you are old Which words so abashed him that hee threw it away forthwith At Millan there was an obstinate and vngodly sonne that wheÌ„ he was admonished by his mother of some fault which hee had committed made a wrie mouth Theat histor and pointed his fingers at her in scorne and derision Whereat his mother bâ—ing angrie Mandat 3. Cursing lib. 1. cap. 33. wished that he might make such a mouth vpon the gallows Neither was it a vaine wish for within few daies he was taken with a theft and condemned by law to be hanged and being vpon the ladder was perceiued to wryth his mouth in griefe after the same fashion which hee had done before to his mother in derision Henry the second of that name king of England sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet and Maud the Empresse Stow. chron after hee had raigned twentie yeares was content to admit his yoong sonne Henrie married to Margaret the French kings daughter into participation of his crowne but he like an vnnaturall sonne to requite his fathers loue sought to dispossesse him of the whole for by inciting the King of Fraunce and certaine other Nobles hee tooke armes and raised deadly warre against his owne naturall father betwixt whome diuerse strong battailes being foughten as well in England by the Deputies and friends of both parties as also in Normandie Poytou Guyan and Brittaine the victorie alwaies enclined to the father so that the rebellious sonne with his allies were constrained to bend to his fathers will and to desire peace which hee gently granted and forgaue his offence Howbeit the Lord for his disobedience did not so lightly pardon him but because his hasty mind could not tarrie for the crowne till his fathers death therefore the Lord cut him short of it altogether causing him to die sixe yeares before his father being yet but yoong and like to liue long Languet chron Lothair King of Soyssons in Fraunce committed the rule of the Prouince of Guyan to his eldest sonne Cramiris who when contrary to the mind of his father he oppressed the people with exactions and was reclaimed home hee like an vngratious and impious sonne fled to his vncle Childebert prouoked him to war vpon his owne father wherein he himselfe was by the iust vengeance of God taken burned with wife and children to death Leuit. 20. Furthermore it is not doubtles but to a very good end enacted in the law of God that he which curseth his father or mother shold dy the death that rebellious childreÌ„ such as be incorrigable should at the instance and pursute 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 reuile their parents but also to fear and reuerence them least that by disobedience they kindle the fire of Gods wrath against theÌ„ so likewise on the other side parents are here aduertised to haue great care in bringing vp and instructing their children in the fear of God and obedience to his will least for want of instruction and correction on their part they themselues incurre a punishment of their carelesse negligence in the person of their children And this is prooued by experience of the men of Bethel 2. King 2. of whose children two and fortie were torne in peeces by beares for that they had beene so euill taught as to mocke the holy Prophet Elizeus in calling him bald pate 1. Sam. 2.4 Heli likewise the high Priest was culpable of this fault for hauing two wicked and peruerse sonnes whome no feare of God could restraine being discontent with that honourable portion of the sacrifices allotted them by God like famished and insatiable wretches fell to share
Austria Greg. of Tours lib 2. who being tickled with an vnsatiable lust of raigne through the deceiuable persuasions of Cleodouius king of Fraunce 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 contrarie to his expectation for after his fathers death as hee was vewing his treasures and ransacking his coffers one of Cleodouius factors stroke him sodainly and murdered him so Cleodouius seased both vpon the crowne and treasures After the death of Hircanus Ioseph antiq Aristobulus succeeded in the gouernmēt of Iudea which whilest he stroue to reduce into a kingdome 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 and 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 teates euen his naturall mother And after persuaded with false accusations caused his late best beloued Antigonus to be slain by an ambush that lay by Stratos tower because in the time of his sicknesse hee entered the temple with pompe but the Lord called for quittance for the two bloosheads immediatly after the execution of them for his brothers blood was scarse washed of the ground ere in the extremity of his sicknesse he was carried into the same place there vomiting vp bloud at his mouth nosthrils to be mingled with his brothers he fell down starke dead not without horrible tokens of trembling and despaire Nero that vnnaturall Tyrant surpassed all that liued Corn. Tacit. lib. 14. as in all other vices so in this for hee attempted thrise by poyson to make away his mother Agrippina and when that could not preuaile by reason of her vsuall Antidots and preseruatiues hee assaied diuerse other meanes as first a deuise whereby shee should bee crushed to death as she slept Sueton. cap. 33. a loosened beame that should fall vpon her and secondly by shipwracke both which when shee escaped the one by discouery and the other by swimming hee sent Anicetus the Centurion to slaughter hir with the sword who with his companions breaking vp the gate of the city where shee lay rushed into her chamber and there murdered her It is written of her that when shee saw there was no remedy but death shee presented her belly vnto the murderer and desired him to kill her in that part which had most deserued it by bringing into the world so vile a monster and of himt hat he came to veiw the dead carcasse of his mother and handled the members thereof commending this and discommending that as his fancy led him in the mean time being thirstie to call for drinke so far was hee from all humanitie and touch of nature but he that spared not to embrew his handes in her blood that bred him was constrained ere long to offer violence vnto his own life which was most dear vnto him Munst Cosmog lib. 3. Henry the son of Nicolotus duke of Herulia had two wicked cruell and vnkind sons by the yonger of whom with the consent of the elder he was traiterously murdered because he had married a third wise for which cause Nicolotus their cousin Germane pursued them both with a iust reuenge for he depriued them of their kingdome and droue them into exile where they soone after perished Phil. Melanct. chron lib. 5. Munst Cosmog lib. 4. Selimus the tenth Emperour of the Turks was so vnnaturall a child that he feared not to dispossesse his father Baiaset of the crowne by treason and next to bereaue him of his life by poyson And not fatisfied therewith euen to murder his two brethren and to destroy the whole stocke of his own bloud But when hee had raigned eight yeares vengeance found him out and being at his backe so corrupted and putrified his reines that the contagion spread it selfe ouer all his bodie so that hee died a beast-like and irkesome death and that in the same place where hee had before oppressed his father Baiaset with an army to wit at Chiurle a citty of Thracia in the yeare of our Lord 1520 the month of September Casp Hedian lib. 6. cap. 29. Charles the younger by surname called Crassus sonne to Lodouick the third was possessed and tormented with a Deuill in the presence of his father and the peeres of the realme which hee openly confessed to haue iustly happened vnto him because hee had pretended in his mind to haue 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 cruel sonne longing and gaping after the inheritance of his father which nothing but his life kept him from wrought this meanes to accomplish his desire he accused his father of a most filthy and vnnameable crime euen of committing filthinesse with a cow knowing that if he were conuicted thereof Theat hist the law would cut off his life and herein he wrought a double villany in going about not onely to take away his life which by the law of nature he ought to haue preserued but also his good name without respecting that the staine of a father redoundeth to his posteritie Mandat 8. Calumniatiō lib. 2. cap. and that children commonly doe not only inherit the possessions but also imitate the conditions of their parents but all these supposes laid aside togither with all feare of God he indicted him before the magistrate of incest that vpon his owne knowledge insomuch that they brought the poore innocent man to the racke to the end to make him confesse the crime which albeit amidst his tortures he did assoone as he was out he denied againe howbeit his extorted confession stood for euidence and he was condemned to be burned with fire as was speedily executed and constantly endured by him exclaiming still vpon the false accusation of his sonne and his owne vnspotted innocencie as by the issue that followed most clearely appeared for his sonne not long after fell into a reprobate mind and hanged himselfe and the iudge 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 reuenge his death and also to quit his reputation and innocency from ignominy and discredit in this world Manfred prince of Tarentum Phil Melanct. Chron. lib. 4. No better fruit to be expected of an◠bastard im◠bastard sonne to Fredericke the second smothered his father to death with a pillow because as some say he would not bestow the kingdom of Naples vpon him not content
Heraclius hauing raigned Emperour but one yeere was poisoned by his stepmother Martina Zonoras tom 3. to the end to install her owne sonne Heraclon in the crowne but for this cruell part becomming odious to the Senat they so much hated to haue her or her sonne raigne ouer 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 loue with Constantine her sonne in law begotten vpon a concubine Zonoras 3. Annal. Sex Aur. whom when she could not persuade vnto her lust shee accused vnto the Emperour as a sollicitour of her chastitie for which cause hee was condemned to die but after the truth was knowen Constantinus put her into a hote bath and suffered her not to come forth vntill the heat had choaked her reuenging vpon her head his sonnes death and her owne vnchastitie CHAP. XII Of Subiect Murderers SEing then they that take away their neighbours liues doe not escape vnpunished as by the former examples it appeareth it must needs folow that if they to whom the sword of iustice is committed by God to represse wrongs and chastise vices doe giue ouer themselues to cruelties and to kill and slay those whome they ought in duty to protect and defend must receiue 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 haue bene 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 iustice to put to death Abimelech the high priest with fourescore and fiue other priests of the family of his father 1. Sam. 22. onely for receiuing Dauid into his house small or rather no offence And yet not satisfied herewith h◠vomited out his rage also against the whol city of the priests and put to the mercilesse sword both man woman and child without sparing any Hee slew many of the Gibeonites who though they were reliques of the Amorites that first inhabited that lād yet because they were receiued into league of amity by a solemne oth and permitted of long continuance to dwell amongst them should not haue bene awarded as enemies nor handled after so cruell a fashion Thus therefore he tyranizing and playing the butcher amongst his own subiects for which cause his house was called the house of slaughter practising many other foul enormities he was at the last ouercome of the Philistims sore wounded which when he saw fearing to fall aliue into his enemies hands and not finding any of his owne men that would lay their hands vpon him desperately slew himselfe The same day three of his sonnes and they that followed him of his owne houshold were all slaine The Philistims the next day finding his dead body despoiled among the carcasses beheaded it and caried the head in triumph to the temple of their god and hung vp the trunke in disgrace in one of their cities to be seene lookt vpon and pointed at And yet for all this was not the fire of Gods wrath quenched for in king Dauids time there arose a famine that lasted three yeeres the cause whereof was declared by God to be the murder which Saul committed vpon the Gibeonites 2. Sam. 21. wherefore Dauid deliuered Sauls seuen sonnes into the Gibeonites hands that were left who put them to the most shamefull death that is euen to hanging Amongst all the sinnes of king Achab and Iezabel which were many and great 1. King 21. the murder of Naboth standeth in the forefront for though hee had committed no such crime as might any way deserue death yet by the subtill and wicked deuise 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 hee made with the king of Siria receiued so deadly a wound that hee died thereof the dogges licking vp his blood in the same place where Naboths blood was licked 2. King 9. according to the foretelling of Elias the Prophet And secondly of Iezabel whome her owne seruants at the commandement of Iehu whome God had made executour of his wrath threw headlong out of an high window vnto the ground so that the walls were died with her blood and the horses trampled her vnder their feet and dogs deuoured her flesh till of all her dainty body there remained nothing sauing only her scull feet and palme of her hands Ioram sonne of Iehosaphat king of Iudah being after his fathers death possessed of the crowne and scepter of Iudah 2. Chron. 21. 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 vp the Edomites to rebell the Philistims and Arabians to make war against him who forraged his countrey sacked and spoiled his cities and tooke prisoners his wiues and children the yongest only excepted who afterwards also was murdered when he had raigned king but a small space And lastly as in doing to death his owne brethren hee committed crueltie against his owne bowels so the Lord stroke him with such an incurable disease in his bowels and so perpetuall for it continued two yeeres that his very entrails issued out with torment and so died in horrible misery Albeit that in the former booke we haue already touched the pride and arrogancie of king Alexander the Great yet wee can not pretermit to speake of him in this place his example seruing so fit for the present subiect for although as touching the rest of his life hee was verie well gouerned in his priuat actions as a monarch of his reputation might be yet in his declining age I meane not in yeeres but to deathward he grew exceeding cruell not only towards strangers as the Cosseis whome he destroied to the sucking babe but also to his houshold and familiar friends Insomuch that being become odious to most fewest loued hi◠and diuers wrought all meanes possible to make him away but one especially whose sonne in law and other neare friends he had put to death neuer ceased vntill he both ministred a deadly draught vnto himselfe Iustine whereby he depriued him of his wicked life and a fatall stroke to his wiues and children after his death to the accomplishment of his full reuenge Phalaris the tyrant of Agrigentum made himselfe famous to posterity by no other meanes Oros then horrible cruelties exercised vpon his owne subiects inuenting euery day new kinds of tortures to scourge and afflict the poore soules withall In his dominion there was one Perillus an artificer of his craft one expert in his occupation who to flatter and curry fauour with him deuised a new torment
sonne Ochosias that died without issue shee put to death all the blood roiall to wit the posterity of Nathan Salomons brother to whome by right of succession the inheritance of the crowne appertained to the end that shee might install her selfe into the kingly diademe after this cruell butchery of all the roiall male children except Ioas who by Gods prouidence was preserued aliue shee vsurped the crowne and scepter of Iuda full seuen yeeres at the end of which date Ioas was exalted to the crowne and she not onely deposed but slaine by the hands of her guard that attended vpon her Brunchild whome histories call Brunhault a Queene of France by marriage Aimon Nic. Gil. vol. 1. but a Spaniard by birth was a woman that bred much mischiefe in her age and that wrought many horrible and death-deseruing crimes for partly with her subtill deuises and partly with her owne hands shee murdered ten kings of France one after another shee caused her husband to slay his owne brother she procured the death of her nephew Meroueus whome against all equity and honestie she had secondly espoused for her husband for he being hated of his father for that vile incest and perceiuing himselfe in danger of taking made one of his owne seruants thrust him through After shee had committed these and many other foule factes shee went about also to defraud Clotairius the sonne of Chilpericke of the right of the crowne which pertained vnto him and to thrust in another in the roome Whereupon arose great warre in the which as shee dealt more boldly and manfully then the condition of her sexe would beare so she receiued the due wages of her braue and vertuous deeds for shee was taken prisoner with three of het nephewes whose throats she saw cut before her face and after her selfe was set vpon a camell and led through the host three daies togither euery man reuiling mocking reproching and despiting her and at last by the award and iudgement of the princes and captaines of the army shee was adiudged to be tyed by the haire of her head one arme one foot to the taile of a wild and vntamed horse and so to bee left to his mercy to be drawen miserably to her destruction which was no sooner executed but her miserable carkasse the instrument of so many mischiefes was with mens feet spurned bruised trampled and wounded after a most strange fashion and this was the wofull end of miserable Brunchild Let euery one both great and small learne by these examples to containe themselues within the limits of humanitie and not to bee so readie and prompt to the shedding of humane blood knowing nothing to be more true than this That he that smiteth with the sword shall perish with the sword CHAP. XV. Of such as without necessitie or conference vpon euery light cause mooue warre AS in surgerie so in a commonwealth we must account warre as a last refuge and as it were a desperate medicine which without very vrgent necessity when all other meanes of maintaining our estate against the assaults of the enemy faile ought not to be taken in hand and indeed the chiefe scope and marke that all those that lawfully vndertake warre Cic. Off. lib. 1. ought to propound to themselues should be nothing els but the good and quiet of the commonwealth with the peace and repose of euery member thereof And therefore so oft as any reasonable offers and conditions of peace are propounded they ought to be accepted to the end to auoid the masse of euils as ruines bloodsheds robberies which alwaies accompany warre as necessary attendants for whosoeuer doth not so but vpon euery light occasion runneth to armes and to trie the hazard of battaile they manifest their owne foolish and pernicious rashnes and their small conscience in shedding humane blood Amongst the good kings of Iuda Iosias for piety zeale in the seruice of God was most renowmed for hee purged the realme from all drosse of idolatry repaired the decaied temple and restored it to the first glory and yet for all this for committing this one crime he lost his life for as Nechao king of Aegypt was passing with an army towards the king of Babylon in Charcamis beside Euphrates to bid him battaile he would needs encounter him by the way 2. Chron. 35. and interrupt his iourney by vnprouoked warre yea though Nechao had by embassage assured him not to meddle with him but intreated onely free passage at his hand yet would not Iosias in any wise listen so opinionatiue and selfe willed was he but gaue him battaile in the field without any iust cause saue his owne pleasure which turned to his paine for he caught so many wounds at that skirmish that shortly after he died of them to â—he great griefe of the whole people and the Prophet Iereâ—â—e also that lamented his death King Iohn of France for refusing reasonable conditions of peace at the English mens hands was ouerthrowen by them two miles from Poytiers with a great ouerthrow Froiss vol. 1. Nic. Gil. vol. 2. for the Englishmen in regard of their owne small number and the huge multitude of the French to encounter with them timorously offered vp a surrender of all that they had either conquered taken or spoiled since their comming from Bordeaux and so to be sworne not to beare armes against him for seuen yeeres so that they might quietly depart But the king that crowed before the conquest affying too much in the multitude of his forces stopt his eares to all conditions not willing to heare of any thing but war war euen thinking to hew them in pieces without one escaping but it fell out otherwise for the Englishmen intrenching themselues in a place of aduantage and hard of accesse inclosed with thicke hedges and brambles disturbed and ouerthrew with their archers at the first onset the French horsemen and wounded most of their men and horses with multitude of arrowes it tarried not long ere the footmen also were put to flight on the other side the whole army of threescore thousand men by bare eight thousand English discomfited diuers great lords were found slaine in the field and diuers others with the king himselfe carried prisoners into England which was a great shake to the whole Realme and the occasion of many tumults and disorders that ensued afterwards Moreouer as it is a rash part to hazard the doubtfull euent of battaile indiscretely and without cause so it is a point of no lesse folly to thrust ones selfe voluntarily into any action of war without charge not being particularly called and bound thereunto or hauing a body vnsufficient and vnfit for the same And this was also one of the warlike points of discipline which the ancient Romans vsed That none should presume to fight for his countrey before hee had beene admitted by some captaine by a solemne oath Of all the histories that I euer read I know none
as the earth was corrupted and polluted with abundance of sinne so God sent abundance of water to purge and clense away the filthinesse thereof as at the latter day hee will send fire to purifie and refine heauen and earth from their dregs and restore them to their first and purest estate And thus God reuenged the extortion and crueltie of that age But yet for all this those sinnes were not then so defaced and rooted vp but that they be burnished againe and grown in time to as big a Bulke for euen at this day the greatest part of the world is giuen to practise fraud and deceit and by vnlawfull meanes to encroch vpon others goods which subtleties though they desire neuer so to disguise and cloke yet will they euer bee condemned reputed kinds of theft before God now as some are of greater power and authority than others in the world so answerable to their selues is the qualitie of their sinnes and by consequence the punishment the greater of power the greater theeues and the greater iudgement for if a poor man through pouerty and necessity cutteth a purse of stealeth any other trifle be culpable how much more culpable shall he that is rich bee that vsurpeth the goods of his neighbor Draco the lawgiuer of Athens appointed death to be the punishment of theft Solon mitigated that rigor and punished it with double restitution The Locrians put out his eies that had stolen ought from his neighbour The Hetrurians stoned them to death The Scythians abhorred theÌ„ more than all creatures because they had a communitie of all things except their cups The Vacceians vsed such seuerity towards this kind of men that if one had taken but a handfull of corne he was sure to die for it Marcus Fabius being Censor condemned his own son Buteâ— to death being apprehended for theft Tiberius the Emperor punished a souldior after the same manner for stealing a Peacock in sum there was no CoÌ„monwealth wherin this sin was not highly detested sharply punished except the Lacedemonian where it was permitted and tollerated for their exercise of warlike discipline It was a rash and seuere Theat histor yet as it proued a iust ded of Tamburlaine that mightie tyrant and conqueror of Asia when a poore woman complained to him of one of his souldiors that had taken from her a little milke and a peece of cheese without paiment he caused the souldiors belly to be ripped to see whither shee had falsly accused him or no and finding the milke in his stomacke adiudged him worthy of that punishment for stealing from so poore a woman When Theophilus raigned Emperour in the East there was a certaine souldiour possessed of a very gallant and braue horse which his captaine by all meanes possible sought to get from him Zonar Annal. 3. but he would not in any case part with him wherefore hee put him forth of pay and tooke his horse from him by force and sent him for a present to the Emperour Theophilus now it chanced that this poore souldiour was slaine in the battaile for want of his horse and his wife and children left destitute of succour insomuch that through necessity shee was constrained to flie to Constantionple and to complaine to the Emperour of the iniury done vnto her husband with this resolution entring the citie she met the Emperour riding vpon her husbands horse and catching the horse bridle chalenged him not onely for stealing the horse but also being the cause of her husbands death The Emperour wondering at the womans boldnesse examined her more narrowly and found out the whole practise of that wicked captaine whom he banished presently his Empire and bestowed his possession in recompence vpon the distressed widdow Ibicus the Poet being set vpon by theeues when hee saw that they would not only spoile him of his money but of his life also he cried for help and reuenge to the cranes that flew ouer his head a while after as these murdering theeues sat togither in the market place the same cranes appearing vnto them in the aire they whispered one another in the eare and said yonder flie Ibicus reuengers which though secretly spoken yet was ouerheard so that they being examined and found guiltie were put to death for their paines The like story Martin Luther Luther reporteth touching a trauailer only differing in this that as cranes detected the former so crows laid open the latter Albert. Krantz lib. 10. cap. 7. In the yeare 1384 when as al Saxony was so infested with theeues that no man could trauaile safely in the countrie the Princes calling a councill set downe this order That not only the theeues themselues should be seuerely punished but all that did protect or harbor any of them which decree wheÌ„ as Theodorick countie of Weringrode impugned the body of the councill sent for him and adiudged him to a most cruell and shamefull death Cranth lib. 10. cap. 30. In the year 1410 Henry duke of Luneburge a most iust seuere prince went about to purge his country from all thefts robberies insomuch as the least offence coÌ„mitted in that kind he suffered not to goe vnpunished now it happened as the Duke went towards Luneburge hee sent before him one of his chiefest officers to prouide necessaries against his comming who riding â—â—thout a cloake the weather being cold entreated a ploughman to lend him his cloke till his returne which wheÌ„ the clown refused to do he took it without leaue but it cost him his life for it for the ploughman awaited the dukes comming and directed his complaint vnto him on this maner What auaileth it O noble prince to seek to suppresse the outrage of theeues spoilers when as the chiefest officers dare commit such things vncontrolled as the lieutenant of Tzela hath but now taken froÌ„ memy cloke the duke hearing this complaint considering the cause dissembled his councill till his returne backe from Luneburge vnto the same place where calling for his leiutenant and rating him for his iniury he commanded him to be hanged vpon a tree a wonderfull seueritie in iustice and worthy to be commended for what hope is it to root out small and pettie theeues if we suffer grand theeues to goe vncorrected There is another kind of theft practised of them that be in authority who vnder the title of confiscation assume vnto themselues stollen goods and so much the readilier by how much the value of the things amounteth to more worth an action altogither vniust and contrary to both diuine and humane law which ordaine to restore vnto euery man his own truly he that in steed of restitution with holdeth the good of his neighbour in this manner differeth no more from a theefe than that the one stealeth boldly without feare the other timorously and with great danger and what greater corruption of Iustice can there be then this For who would follow the law vpon a theefe when
out more than was their due and by force to rauen all that which by faire meanes they could not get And that which is worse to pollute the holy Tabernacle of God with their filthie Whoredomes Contempt of holy things lib. 1. cap. 34. in such sort that the Religion of God grew in disgrace through their prophane dealings And albeit that it may seeme that their father did his dutie in some sort when hee admonished and reprooued them yet it is manifest by the reprehension of the man of God that hee did no part of that at all or if hee did yet it was in so careles loose cold maner vsing more lenitie thē he ought or lesse seueritie thē was necessary that God turned their destructions whē they were slain at the ouerthrow of Israel by the Philistims to bee his punishment for vnderstanding the doleful news of his sons death the arks taking at once he fel backwards from his stoole and burst his neck being old and heauy euen fourscore and eighteene yeares of age not able either to helpe or stay himselfe Lib. 2. cap. 10. de in titut christ fami Ludouicus Viues saith that in his time a certaine woman in Flaunders did so much pamper and cocker vp two of her sonnes euen against her husbands will that shee would not suffer them to want money or any thing which might furnish their riotous life both in drinking banquetting dicing yea she would steale from her husband to minister vnto thē but as soone as her husband was dead shee was iustly plagued in them both for they fell from rioting to robbing which two vices are commonly linked together and for the same one of thē was executed by the sword the other by the haltar shee her selfe looking on as a witnesse of their destructions whereof her conscience told her that her indulgence was the chiefest cause Hether may wee referre that common and vulgar story and I suppose verie true which is almost in euery childs mouth of him that going to the gallowes desired to speake with his mother in her eare ere hee died Cyriac. Spang and when she came vnto him in stead of speaking bit off her eare with his teeth exclaiming vpon her as the causer of his death because shee 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 herein she was doubly punished both in her sons destruction her own infamy wherof shee carried about her a continuall marke This ought to bee a warning to all parents to looke better to the education of their children and to root out of them in time all euill and corrupt manners least of small sprigs they grow to branches and of qualities to habites and so either be hardly done of or at least depraue the whole body bring it to destruction but aboue all to keepe them from idlenesse vain pleasures the discōmodity and mischiefe wherof this present example wil declare At a towne called Hannuel in Saxonie the Deuill transforming himselfe into the shape of a man Iob Fincel lib. de miracu exercised many iugling trickes and pretty pastimes to delight yoong men and maids withall and indeed to draw after him daily great companies one day they followed him out of the citie gates vnto a hill adioyning where hee plaid a iuggling tricke in deed with them for he carried them all away with him so that they were after neuer heard of This history is recorded in the annales of the forenamed city and auouched to be most true being a notable and fearefull admonition to all parents to set their children to learning and instruction and to withdraw them from all such vaine and foolish pastimes CHAP. II. Of those that rebell against their Superiours NOw as it is a thing required by law and reason that children beare that honour and reuerence to their naturall parents which is commanded so it is as necessary by the same respect that all subiects perfourme that duty of honor obedience to their Lords Princes and Kings which is not derogatory to the glory of God and the rather because they are as it were their fathers in supplying that duty towards their subiects which fathers owe their children as namely in maintaining their peace tranquility in earthly things and keeping them vnder the discipline of Gods Church to which two ends they were ordained Rom. 13. For this cause the scripture biddeth euery man to be subiect to the higher powers not so much to auoid the punishment which might befall the contrary as because it is agreeable to the will of God And in another place To honour the king and To giue vnto Caesar that which is Caesars 1. Pet. 2. Matth. 22. Exod. 22. as vnto God that which is Gods So also in Moses law we are forbidden to detract from or speake euill of the magistrate or to curse the ruler of the people Yet for all this the children of Israel were not afraid many times to commit this sinne but then especially when they charged Moses with conspiring the murder of those rebels that vnder Corah Dathan and Abiram captaines of that enterprise set themselues against him and Aaron Num. 16. whome not hee but God for their pride and stubbornnesse had rooted out and destroied and thus they backbited and slaundered Moses and mutined against him being their soueraigne magistrate and conductour that so meekely and iustly had brought them ought of Aegypt euen by the speciall commission of almighty God But the fury of Gods displeasure was so stirred vp against them for this their fact that they were scourged with a most grieuous plague whereof died about foure thousand and seuen hundred persons In the time of king Dauids flight from Absolom who pursued him to bereaue him of his kingdome 2. Sam. 16. there was one Semei a Ieminite that in his wicked and peruerse humour in stead of seruice due vnto his soueraigne especially in that extremitie not only presented not himselfe vnto him as a subiect Mandat 3. Cursers lib. 1. cap. 33. but as a railer cursed him with most reprochfull termes as of murderer and wicked man and also threw stones at him and his followers in most despightfull maner for which his malicious and rebellious act though whilst Dauid liued he was not once called in question yet was he not exempted from punishment therefore for in the end his wickednesse fel vpon his owne head and destruction ouertooke him by desert of another fault 1. King 2. at the commandement of Salomon 2. Sam. 20. The punishment of Shiba the sonne of Bichri tarried not all so long who hauing also with a proud and audacious heart stirred vp the greatest part of Israel to rebell against Dauid then when he thought to haue beene most at quiet enioyed not long his disloiall enterprise for being speedily pursued by Dauids
betwixt whome was great strife for the soueraigne dominion but to rid himselfe of all his trouble at once hee slew his brother Manlius by treason and after continued his raigne in tyranny and all vnlawfull lusts the space of twentie yeares but although vengeance all this while wincked yet it slept not for at the end of this space as hee was hunting hee was deuoured of wild beasts In the yeare of our Lord God 745 one Sigebert was authorised king of the Saxons in Brittaine a cruell and tyrannous Prince towards his subiects and one that chaunged the ancient lawes and customes of his realme after his owne pleasure and because a certaine Nobleman somewhat sharpely aduertised him of his euill conditions he malitiously caused him to bee put to death but see how the Lord reuenged this murder hee caused his Nobles to depriue him of his kingly authority and at last as a desolate and forlorne person wandering alone in a wood to bee slaine of a swine-heard whose maister hee being king had wrongfully put to death In the yeare of our Lord 678 Childerich king of Fraunce caused a Nobleman of his Realme called Bolyde to bee bound to a stake and there beaten to death without the pretence of any iust crime or accusation against him for which cruelty his Lords and commons being grieuously offended conspired togither and slew him with his wife as they were in hunting In the raigne of Edward the second and Edward the third Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in sheading much humane blood but hee was also iustlie recompenced in the end first he murdered king Edward the second lying in Barkley castell to the end hee might as it was supposed enioy Isabell his wife with whome hee had very suspitious familiarity Secondly hee caused Edward the third to conclude a dishonourable peace with the Scots by restoring to them all their ancient writings charters and patents whereby the kings of Scotland had bound themselues to be feudaries to the kings of England Thirdly he accused Edmund Earle of Kent vncle to king Edward of treason and caused him vniustly to be put to death And lastly he conspired against the king to worke his destruction for which and diuerse other things that were laid to his charge he was worthely and iustly beheaded In the raigne of Henry the sixt Humfry the good duke of Gloucester faithfull protector of the king by the meanes of certaine malicious persons and especially the Marques of Suffolke as it was suspected was arrested cast into hold strangled to death in the Abbey of Bury for which cause the Marques was not only banished the land for the space of fiue yeares but also banished out of his life for euer for as he sailed towards France he was met withall by a ship of warre and there presently beheaded and the dead corps cast vp at Douer that England wherein hee had committed the crime might be a witnesse of his punishment As the murder of a gentleman in Kent called maister Arden of Feuersham was most execrable so the wonderfull discouerie thereof was exceeding rare this Arden being somewhat aged had to wife a young woman no lesse faire then dishonest who being in loue with one Mosby more then her husband did not onely abuse his bed but also conspired his death with this her companion for togither they hired a notorious ruffian one Blacke Will to strangle him to death with a towell as hee was playing a game at tables which though secretly done yet by her own guiltie conscience and some tokens of blood which appeared in the house was soon discouered and confessed Wherfore she her selfe was burnt at Canterbury Michael maister Ardens man was hanged in chaines at Feuersham Mosby and his sister were hanged in Smithfield Greene another partner in this bloody action was hanged in chaines in the high way against Feuersham And Blacke Will the ruffian after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a scaffold at Flushing in Zealand And thus all the murderers had their deserued dewes in this life and what they endured in the life to come except they obtaine mercy by true repentance it is easie to iudge CHAP. XI Of Paricides or parent murderers IF all effusion of humane blood bee both horrible to behold and repugnant to nature then is the murdering of parents especially detestable when a man is so possessed with the deuill or transported with a hellish fury that he lifteth vp his hand against his owne naturall father or mother to put thē to death this is so monstrous and inormious an impiety that the greatest Barbarians euer haue had it in detestation wherefore it is also expressely commanded in the law of God that vvhosoeuer smiteth his father or mother in what sort soeuer though not to death Exod. 21. yet he shall die the death If the disobedience vnreuerence and contempt of children towards their parents are by the iust iudgement of God most rigorously punished as hath ben declared before in the first commandement of the second table how much more then when violence is offered aboue all when murder is cōmitted Diodor. Sic. Thus the Aegyptians punished this sin they put the cōmittants vpon a stack of thorns and burnt thē aliue hauing beaten their bodies before hand with sharp reeds made of purpose Solon being demanded why hee appointed no punishment in his lawes for Parricides answered that there was no necessity thinking that the wide world could not affoord 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 euery murderer a Parricide the one being in his opinion a thing execrable and the other impossible And in truth there was not for 600 years space according to Plutarchs report found in Rome any one that had cōmitted this execrable fact The first Parricide that Rome saw was Lucius Ostius after the first Punick war although other writers affirme that M. Malliolus was the first and Lucius the second howsoeuer it was they both vnderwent the punishment of the law Pompeia which enacted that such offendors should be thrust into a sack of lether an ape a cock a viper a dog put in to accōpany them then to be thrown into the water to the end that these beasts being enraged animated one against another might wreke their teene vpon them so depriue thē of life after a strange fashion being debarred of the vse of aire water earth as vnworthy to participate the very elements with their deaths much lesse with their liues which kind of punishmēt was after practised and confirmed by the constitution of Constantine the great And albeit the regard of the punishmēt seemed terrible the offence it self much more monstrous yet since that time there haue ben many so peruerse exceedingly wicked as to throw themselues headlong into that desperat gulfe As Cleodorick son of Sigebert king of
things a very niggard and pinchpenny shewed himselfe on the other side more then prodigall next he sent into Calabria for a Hermit reported to be a holy and deuout man to whome at his arriuall hee perfourmed so much dutie and reuerence as was wonderfull and vnseemely for hee threw himselfe on his knees and besought him to prolong his decaying life as if hee had beene a God and not a man but all that hee could doe was to no purpose no nor the reliques which Pope Sixtus sent him to busie himselfe withall nor the holy viall of Rheims which was brought him could prorogue this life of his nor priuiledge him from dying a discontent and vnwilling death he suspected the most part of his nearest attendants and would not suffer them to approch vnto him in his sicknesse after hee had thus prolonged the time in hope and yet still languished in extreame distresse of his disease it was at length told him in all speed that hee should not set his mind any longer vpon those vaine hopes nor vpon that holy man for his time was come and hee must needs die And thus hee that during his raigne shewed himselfe rough and cruell to his subiects by too many and heauy impositions was himselfe in his lattet end thus roughly and hardly dealt withall Christiern the eleuenth king of Denmarke Norway and Suecia after the death of king Iohn his father raigned the yeere of our Lord 1514 and was too intollerable in imposing burdens and taxes vpon his subiects for which cause the Swecians reuolted from his gouernment whome though after many battailes and sieges hee conquered and placed amongst them his garrisons to keepe them in awe yet ceased they not to rebell against him and that by the instigation of a meane gentleman who very quickely got footing into the kingdome and possessed himselfe of the crowne and gouernment Now Christiern hauing lost this prouince and beeing also in disdaine and hatred of his owne countrey and fearing least this inward heat of spight should grow to some flame of danger to his life seeing that the inhabitants of Lubeck conspiring with his vncle Fredericke began to take armes against him hee fled away with his wife sister to the Emperour Charles the fift and his young children to Zeland a prouince of the Emperours after hee had raigned nine yeeres after which the Estates of the realme aided by them of Lubeck assembling togither exalted his vncle Fredericke prince of Holsatia though old and ancient to the crowne and publishing certaine writings addressed them to the Emperour and the princes of his Empire to render a reason of their con-proceeding and to make knowne vnto them vpon how good siderations they had deposed and banished Christierne for the tyranny which hee exercised among them ten yeres after this hee got togither a new army by sea in hope to recouer his losses but contrary to his hope he was taken prisoner and in captiuity ended miserably his daies Henry king of Suecia was chased from his scepter for enterprising to burden his commons with new contributions Those that were deuisers of new taxes and tributes Nic. Gil. vâ—l 1. for the most part euer lost their liues in their labours for proofe whereof let the example of Parchenus or Porchetes serue who for giuing counsell to king Theodebert touching the raising of new subsidies was stoned to death by the multitude in the city Trieues Likewise was George Presquon cruelly put to death by the people for persuading and setting forward Henry of Suecia to the vexation and exaction of his subiects CHAP. XXXVIII More Examples of the same subiect Platiniae in vita Zacharin AIstulphus the nineteenth king of Lumbardy was not onely a most cruell tyrant but also a grieuous oppressour of his subiects with taxes and exactions Phil. Melanct. lib. 3. for hee imposed this vpon euery one of them to pay yeerely a noble for their heads against this man Pope Steuen prouoked king Pepin of France who comming with an army droue the tyrant into Ticinum and constrained him to yeeld to partiall conditions of peace howbeir Pepin was no sooner gone but he returned to his old byas wherefore the second time he came and droue him to as great extremitie in so much as another peace was concluded after the accomplishment whereof peruerse Aistulph still vexing his subiects was plagued by God with an apoplexie and so died Zonar lib. 3. Iustinian the Emperour as be was profuse and excessiue in spending so was hee immoderate and insatiable in gathering togither riches for hee exercised his wit in deuising new tributes and paiments and reioyced his heart in nothing more for which causes there arose a grieuous sedition at Constantinople against him wherein not onely the excellent and famous monuments of the Empire were burned but also fourty thousand men slaine and this was no small punishment for his oppression At Paris there is to be seene in the corne market a certain monument hard at the mouth of the common sinke which conuaieth away all the filth out of the city Eras in lingua the occasion whereof is reported to be this A certaine courtier seeing the king sad and melancholly for want of treasure counselled him to exact of euery countriman that brought ware into the city but one penny and that but for two yeares togither which when the king put in practise and found the exceeding commoditie thereof he not only continued that taxe but also inuented diuers others to the great damage of the Common-wealth and inriching of his owne treasurie Wherefore hee that put it first into his head when he saw that he had not so much authoritie in dissuading as hee had in persuading it to take punishment of himselfe for that inconsiderate deed and to warne others from attempting the like he commanded by his testament that his body should bee buried in that common sincke to bee an example of exaction and the filthinesse thereof Barnabe Vicount of Millane by the report of Paulus Ionius Tom. 2. ViuoruÌ„ illustrum was an vnconscionable oppressor of his subiects and tenants for hee did not only extort of them continuall imposts and payments but enioned them to keepe euery one a dog which if they came to any mishap or were either too fat or too leane the keeper was sure to bee beaten or at least some fine to be set on his head this tyrant was taken by Iohn Galeacius and after seuen months imprisonment poysoned to death Archigallo brother to Gorbonianus in nature Lanquet though vnlike in conditions for hee was a good Prince whereas this was a Tyrant was crowned King of Britaine in the yeare of the world 3671 we may well place him in this ranke of oppressors for he deposed the Noblemen and exalted the ignoble he extorted froÌ„ men their goods to enrich his treasure for which cause the estates of the realme depriued him of his roiall dignitie placed his yonger
brother Elydurus in his roome after he had raigned fiue yeares Hardiknitus king of Denmarke The same after the death of Harold was ordained king of England in the yeare of the Lord 1041 this king as he was somewhat cruell for he caused the body of Harold to be taken vp out of the sepulchre and smiting off his head to be cast out into the riuer Thames because he had iniured his mother Emma when he was aliue so hee was burdensome to his subiects in tributes and exaction for which cause growing into hatred with God and his subiects hee was stricken with suddaine death not without suspition of poysoning after he had raigned three years The same William Rufus second sonne of William the conquerour succeeded his father as in the kingdome of England so in disposition of nature for they were both cruell vnconstant and couetous and burdened their people with vnreasonable taxes insomuch that what with the morreine of men by pestilence and the oppressions of them by exactions the tillage of the earth was put off for one yeare being the yeare 1096 whereby ensued great scarsitie the yeare following throughout all the land but for the oppression William was iustly punished by sodaine death when being at his disport of hunting hee was wounded with an arrow glaunsing from the bow of Tyrill a French knight and so his tyranny and life ended togither The same Neither dooth the Lord thus punish oppressors themselues but also they that either countenance or hauing authoritie doe not punish the same as it appeareth by this example following In the yeare of our Lord 475 there liued one Corrannus a king of Scots who though hee gouerned the people in peace and quietnesse a long space and was indeed a good Prince yet because his Chancelour Tomset vsed extortion and exaction amongst his subiects and hee being aduertised thereof did not punish him hee was slaine traiterously by his owne subiects It is not vnworthie to bee noted how Edward the third king of England prospered a long while in the warres against France and got many worthie and wonderfull victories but when Prince Edward sonne vnto the foresaid Edward after conditions of peace concluded began to set taxes and impositions vpoÌ„ the country of Aquitaine then did king Edwards part begin to decline and the successe of war which the space of fortie years neuer forsooke him now frowned vpon him so that he quickly lost all those lands which by composition of peace were granted vnto him CAAP. XXXIX Of such as by force of armes haue either taken away or would haue taken away the goods and lands of other men NOw if they that oppresse their subiects and deuour them in this manner In this whole chapter note the nature of ambition and the fruits thereof bee found guiltie then must they needs bee much more that are carried with the wings of their own hungrie ambitious desire to inuade their lands and signiories attended on with an infinite retinue of pillages sackings ruines of cities and people which are alwaies necessarie companions of furious vnmercifull warre There are no flouds so broad nor mountaines so steepe nor rockes so rough and dangerous nor sea so long and furious that can restraine the rash and headstrong desire of such greedie minded Sacres so that if their bodie might bee 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 glorie no lesse than they that tooke delight to bee surnamed citie-spoilers others burners of cities some conquerors and many Eagles and Faulcons seeking as it were fame by infamy and by vice eternitie But to these men it often coÌ„meth to passe that euen then when they think to aduance their dominion and to stretch their bounds and frontiers furthest they are driuen to recoile for feare of being dispossessed themselues of their owne lands and inheritances and euen as they delt with others rigorously and by strength of weapons so shall they bee themselues rehandled and dealt withall after the same measure according to the word of the Prophet denounced against such as they Cursed bee thou that spoilest and dealest vnfaithfully when thou hast made an end of spoiling others thou thy selfe shall bee spoiled and when thou hast done dealing traiterously then treason shall begin to be practised against thee and this curse most commonly neuer faileth to sease vpon these great Theeues and Robbers or at least vpon their children and successours as by particular examples wee shall see after wee haue first spoken of Adonias who not content with his owne estate of being a kings sonne 1. King 12. which God had allotted him went about to get the crowne and kingdome from his brother Salomon Treason lib. 2. cap. 3. to whome by right it appertained for God had manifested the same by the mouth of his father Dauid but both hee and his assistants for their ouerbold and rash enterprise were iustly by Salomon punished with death â—arod Crassus king of Lidia was the first that made war against Ephesus and that subdued the Greekes of Asia to wit the Phrigians Mysians Chalybeans Paphlagonians Thracians Bythinians Ionians Dorians Aeolians and Pamphilians and made them all tributaries vnto him by meanes whereof hee being growne exceeding rich and puissant by the detriment and vndoing of so many people vaunted and gloried in his greatnesse and power and euen then thought himselfe the happiest man in the world wheÌ„ most misery and aduersity griefe and distresse of his estate and whole house approched neerest for first and formost one of his sonnes that was deare vnto him was by ouersight slaine at the chase of a wild bore next himselfe hauing commenced war with Cirus was ouercome in battaile and besieged in Sardis the chiefe city of his kingdome and at last taken and carried captiue to Cyrus despoiled of all his late glorie and dominion And thus Crassus as sayth Plutarch after Herodotus bore the punishmeÌ„t of the offence of his great grandfather Giges who being but one of king Candanles attendants slew his master and vsurped the crowne at the prouokement of the Queene his mistresse whom he also tooke to be his wife And thus this kingdome decaied by the same meanes by which it first encreased Policrates the Tyrant Herod 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 citie Samos hee with the assistance of sifteene armed men seased vpon the whole citie and made himselfe Lord of it which deuiding into three parts he bestowed two of them vpon his two brethren but not for perpetuitie for ere long the third part of his vsurpation cost the elder of them the best part of his life and the younger his liberty for he chased him away that hee might be
many warres and at length assaulted with such an extreame paine throughout his vvhole body that languishing and consuming he desired oft to poyson himselfe and at last died in great distresse Vitellius Saturninus one of his Leiutenants in those exploits became blind Tert. as Scap. another called Claudius Herminianus gouernour of Capadocia who in hatred of his owne wife that was a Christian had extreamely afflicted many of the faithfull was afterward himselfe afflicted with the pestilence persecuted with vermine bred in his owne bowels and deuoured of them aliue in most miserable sort Now lying in this miserie hee desired not to bee knowne or spoken of by any least the Christians that were left vnmurthered should reioice at his destruction confessing also that those plagues did iustly betide him for his cruelties sake Decius in hatred of Philip his predecessor that had made some profession of Christianity wrought tooth and naile to destroy the church of Christ vsing all the cruelties and torments which his wit could deuise against all those which before time had offered themselues to be persecuted for that cause But his diuelish practises were cut short by means of the warre which he waged against the Scythians Euseb booke 7. chap. 1. Ecclesi hist wherein when hee had raigned not full two yeares his armie was discomfited and he with his sonne cruelly killed Valerian albeit in the beginning of his Empire hee shewed himselfe somewhat mild and gentle towards the professors of religion yet afterwards he became their deadly enemie but when he had terribly persecuted them in his dominions it was not long ere he was taken prisoner in the Persian warres being threescore and ten yeares old and made a slaue to his conquerour al the rest of his life In the sermon of the congregatiō of saints Euseb histor ecclesiast booke 7. chap. 30. And whose condition was so miserable that Sapor king of Persia vsed his backe as a blocke or stirrop to mount vpon his horse Yea hee dealt so cruelly with the poore old man as Eusebius testifieth that to make vp the full number of his miseries he caused him to be flaine aliue Aurelian being vpon point to trouble the quiet of the church which it a while enioied vnder the Emperour Galien euen whilst he was deuising new practises against it a thunderbolt fell from heauen at his feet which so amased him that his malicious and bloodthirstie mind was somewhat rebated and repressed from doing that which he pretended vntill that returning to his old bent and perseuering to pursue his purpose when Gods thunder could not terrifie him Vepis Eutrop. Nicephor hee stirred vp his owne seruants to cut his throat Dioclesian went another way to worke for hee did not set abroach all his practises at one push but first assaied by subtle means to make those that were in his armie to renounce their faith then by open proclamation commanded that their churches should be rased and beaten downe Ruffin their bibles burned and torne in peeces that they that were Magistrats or bore any publike office in the Commonwealth if they were Christians should bee deposed and that all bondmen that would forsake their profession should be enfranchised Whē hee had thus left no deuise vnpractised that might further to abolish and destroy the religion of Christ and perceiuing that notwithstanding all his malice and cruell rage it euery day through the wonderfull constancie of Martyrs encreased and grew euen against the haire with very spight and anger he gaue vp the Empire And lastly when hee had beene tormented with diuerse and strange diseases and that his house had beene set on fire with lightning and burned vvith fire from heauen and hee himselfe so scarred with thunder that he knew not where to hide him hee sell mad and killed himselfe There was ioined to this man in the gouernment of the Empire one Maximian whose crueltie and tyranny against the Christians was so outragious also Mandat 7. Lib. 2. cap. 12. that vpon a solemne feastiuall day when infinite numbers of them vvere assembled together at Nicomedia in a temple to serue God he sent a band of Atheists to inclose them burne the temple and them together as they indeed did for there vvere consumed at that bondfire as Nicephorus writeth twentie thousand persons Euseb histor ecclesiast 7. 8. chap. 16. Nicephor lib. 7. chap 6. In like sort dealt he with a whole citie in Phrigia which after he had long besieged hee caused to bee burnt to cinders with all the inhabitants therein But the end of this wretch was like his life euen miserable for lying a while sicke of a greeuous disease the very vermine and such horrible stinke came forth of his body that for shame and griefe he hung himselfe Maximinus that raigned Emperour in the East Nicephor 7.22 was constrained to interrupt and make cease his persecution which he had begun by means of a dangerfull and greeuous sicknesse and to confirme a generall peace to all Christians in his dominions by publike edicts But alasse it was so brittle that it lasted but sixe months for euen then he sought all meanes possible againe to trouble and disquiet their rest sent forth a new edict quite contrary to the former importing their vtter destruction And thus being nothing amended but rather made worse by his sicknesse it assailed him afresh in such sort that euery day growing in extremity as he grew in crueltie it at last brought him to his death his carcasse being all rotten and full of corruption and wormes Against the Gentiles S. Chrisostome writeth of him that the apple of his eie fell out before he died Macentius and Licinius the one Emperour of Italy the other of the East perceiuing how the Emperour Constantine that raigned in the West was had in great reputation for maintaining the cause of the Christians began also to do the like but by and by their malice and hipocrisie discouered it selfe when they vndertooke to trouble afflict those whom before they seemed to fauour for which cause Constantine taking armes against them destroied them both one after another for Maxentius thinking to saue himselfe vpon a bridge on Tiber was deceiued by the breaking of the bridge and so drenched and drowned in the water Licinius was taken and put to death And thus two tyrants ended their daies for persecuting the church of Christ Lanques chron In the tenth year of the persecution of Dioclesian Galerius his chiefe minister and instrument in that practise fell into a greeuous sicknesse hauing a sore risen in the nether part of his belly which consumed his priuie members frō whence swarmed great plentie of wormes engendred by the putrifaction This disease could not bee holpen by any chirurgery or phisicke wherefore hee confessed that it iustly happened vnto him for his monstrous cruelty towards the Christians called in his proclamations which he had published against
the dung of oxen serued some for meate others fedde vpon the leather of old shooes and buckles and diuers women were driuen to the extremitie to boile and eate their owne children Many thinking to saue their liues by flying to the enemy were taken and slit in pieces in hope to find gold and siluer in their guts in one night two thousand were thus piteously dealt withall and at last the whole city was by force taken and the holy Temple consumed by fire And this in generall was the miserable issue of that lamentable warre during which fourescore and seuenteene thousand Iewes were taken prisoners and eleuen hundred thousand slaine for within the city were inclosed from the beginning to the ending all those that were assembled togither from all quarters of the earth to keepe the Passeouer as their custome was As touching the prisoners some were carried to Rome in triumph others were here and there massacred at their conquerours wils somes lot it was to be torne in peeces and deuoured of wild beasts others were constrained to march in troopes against their fellows and kill one another as if they had beene enemies All which euils came vpon them for the despite and fury which they vsed towards the Sonne of God and our Sauiour and that was the cause why he foreseeing this desolation wept ouer Ierusalem and said That it should be besieged on euery side and rased to the ground and that not one stone should be left vpon another because it knew not the time of her visitation Likewise said he to the women that bewailed him as he was led to the crosse That they should not weepe for him but for themselues and their children because of the daies of sorrow which were to come wherein the barren and those that had no children the dugs that neuer suckled should be counted happy So horrible and pitifull was the destruction of this people that God would not suffer any of his owne children to be wrapped in their miseries nor to perish with this peruerse and vnbeleeuing nation for as Eusebius reporteth they were a little before the arriuall of these mischiefes aduertised from heauen by the especiall prouidence of God to forsake the city and retire into some farre countrey where none of these euils might come neere them This example belongeth also to the contempt of the word Lib. 1. cap. 34. The relikes of this wretched people that remained after this mighty tempest of Gods wrath were dispersed and scattered throughout all nations vnder heauen being subiect to them with whome they soiourned without king prince Iudge or magistrate to lead and guide them or to redresse their wrongs but were altogither 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 vpon them And yet for all this these dispersed reliques ceased not to vomit out the fome of their malice against Christ it being so deepe rooted an euill and so inueterate that time nor reason could reuoke them from it And no maruell seeing that God vseth to punish the greatest sinnes with other sinnes as with the greatest punishment so they hauing shut their eies to the light when it shined among them are now giuen ouer to a reprobate and hardened sense otherwise it were not possible they should remaine so obstinate And albeit God be thanked wee haue many conuerts of them yet I dare say for the most part they remaine in malitious blindnes barking against despiting both our sauiour himselfe all that professe his name although their punishments haue bin still according to their deserts as by these examples following shall appeare The Iewes of Inmester a towne lying betwixt Calchis Antioch being vpon a time celebrating their accustomed plaies and feasts in the midst of their iollity as their vse is they contumeliously reuiled not onely Christians but euen Christ himselfe for they got a Christian child and hung him vpon a crosse and after many mocks taunts making themselues merry at him they whipt him to death What greater villany could there be then this or wherein could these deuils incarnate shew forth their malice more apparantly then thus not content once to haue crucified Christ the Sauiour of the world but by imitation to performe it againe and as it were to make known that if it were vndone they would do it So also handled they a boy called Simeon of two yeeres and an halfe old in the yeere of our Lord 1476 Iob Fincel lib. 3 another in Fretulium fiue yeres after that But aboue all they massacred a poore carpenters son in Hungary in hatred of Christ whom they falsly supposed to be a carpenters son for they cut in two all his veines suckt out his blood with quils And being apprehended and tortured they confessed that they had done the like at Thirna 4 yeeres before that they could not be without Christian blood for therwithall they anointed their priests But at all these times they suffered iust punishmēt for being still taken they were either hanged burned murdred or put to some other cruell death at the discretion of the magistrates Moreouer they would at diuers times buy the holy host of some popish priest and thrust it through with their kniues and vse it most despitefully this did one Eleazarus in the yere of our Lord 1492 the 22 of October but was burnt for his labour And eight and thirty at another time for the same villany by the Marquesse Ioachinus for the caitiues would suffer themselues to bee baptized for none other end but more securely to exercise their villanies Casp Hedius lib. 3. cap. 6. Another Iewe is recorded in the yeere of our Lord 147 to haue stollen the picture of Christ out of a Church and to haue thrust it through many times with his sword whereout when blood miraculously issued he amazed would haue 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 auow yet I doubt not but it might be true considering that either the deuill might by his cunning so foster and confirme their superstition or rather that seeing Christ is the subiect of their religion as well as of ours though after a corrupt and sacrilegious forme and that the Iewe did not so much aime at their religion as at Christ the subiect of it the Lord might shew a miracle not to establish their errour but to confound the Iewes impiety especially in those young yeeres of the Church But that their impiety may be yet more discouered I will here set downe the confession of one of their owne nation a Iewe of Ratisbone conuerted to the faith one very skilfull in the
home vnto his owne house was attached with so grieuous a sicknesse and such furious and mad fits withall that his wife and neerest allies not daring to come neere him hee like a franticke bedlem enraged and solitarily ended his life A counsellour of the same court called Bellâ—mâ—nt was so hote and zealous in proceeding against the poore prisoners for the word of Gods sake that to the end to packe them soone to the fire hee vsually departed not from the iudgement hall from morning to euening but caused his meat and drinke to be brought for his meales returning not home but only at night to take his rest But whilst hee thus strongly and endeauourously emploied himselfe about these affaires there began a litle sore to rise vpon his foote which at the first being no bigger then if a waspe had stung the place grew quickly so red and full of paine and so encreased the first day by ranckling ouer all his foot and inflaming the same that by the iudgement of Phisitians and Chirurgians through the contagious fire that spred it selfe ouer his whole body it seemed incurable except by cutting off his foot the other members of the body might be preserued which hee in no case willing to yeeld vnto for all the medicines that were applied vnto it found the second day his whole legge infected and the third his whole thigh and the fourth day his whole body in so much that he died the same day his dead body being all parched as if it had bene rosted by a fire And thus hee that was so hote in burning poore Christians was himselfe by a seeret flame of Gods wrath as by slow and soft fire burned and consumed to death Lewes de Vaine brother in law to Menier the president of the said parliament of Prouince History of Martyrs second booke with the brother and sonne of Peter Durand chiefe butcher of the city Aix the euening before their horrible crueltie was executed at Merindoll fell at debate amongst themselues and the morrow as instruments of Gods iudgements slew one another The Iudge of the city Aix one of that wretched crew drowned himselfe in his returne The same as hee passed ouer the riuer Durance As for the chiefe Iudge that was principall in that murderous action The same touching the condemnation of those poore soules of Merindoll and Cabrieres he likewise suddenly died before he saw the execution of that decree which himselfe had sed downe Iohn Mesnier lord of Oppede another chiefe officer of the foresaid parliament that got the leading of that murdering armie against the poore Christians aforesaid committed such excesse of cruelty that the most barbarous heathen in the world would haue yearned to doe For which cause hee was also summoned to appeare personally at the parliament of Paris there to answere to those extortions robberies oppressions which were laid to his charge and being conuinced and found guilty thereof was neuerthelesse released and set at liberty and that which is more restored to his former state Howbeit though he escaped the hands of men yet was he ouertaken by the hand of God who knew well enough the way how to entrap and abate his proud intents for euen then when hee was in the height of worldly prosperity and busier then euer in persecuting Christians euen then was hee pulled downe by a fluxe of blood which prouoking his priuie partes ingendred such a carnositie and thicknesse of flesh therein and withall a restraint of vrine that with horrible ourcries and rauing speeches hee died feeling a burning fire broiling his entrails from his nauell vpwards and an extreme infection putrifying his lower parts and beginning to feele in this life both in body and soule the rigour of eternall fire prepared for the deuill and his angels Iohn Martin Trombant of Briqueras in Piemont vaunting himselfe euery foot in the hindrance of the Gospell cut off a ministers nose of Angrogne in his brauery 2 Bookes of martyrs but immediatly after was himselfe assailed by a mad wolfe that gnawed off his nose as he had done the ministers and caused him like a mad man to end his life which strange iudgement was notoriously knowen to all the countrey thereabout and beside it was neuer heard that this wolfe had euer harmed any man before Gaspard of Reniaâ—me one of the magistrates of the city of Anuers that adiudged to death certaine poore faithfull soules receiued in the same place ere hee remooued a terrible sentence of Gods iudgement against himselfe for hee fell desperate immediatly and was faine to be led into his house halfe beside himselfe where crying that hee had condemned the innocent blood he sorthwith died CHAP. XVI Other Examples of the same subiect ABout the same time there happened a very straunge iudgement vpon an ancient lawier of Bourges one Iohn Cranequin a man of ripe wit naturall and a great practitioner in his profession but very ignorant in the law of God and all good literature so enuiously bent against all those that knew more then himselfe and that abstained from the filthie pollutions of poperie that hee serued in stead of a promootour to enforme Ory the inquisitour of them but for his labour the arme of God stroke him with a marueilous straunge phrensie that whatsoeuer his eies beheld seemed in his iudgement to be crawling serpents In such sort that after hee had in vaine experienced all kind of medicines yea and vsed the helpe of wicked sorcerie and coniuration yet at length his senses were quite benummed and depriued him and in that wretched and miserable estate hee ended his life Iohn Morin a mighty enemie to the professors of Gods truth one that laboured continually at Paris in apprehending and accusing the faithfull in so much that hee sent daily multitudes that appealed from him to the high court of the pallace died himselfe in most grieuous and horrible torment The Chauncellour of Prat hee that in the Parliaments of France put vp the first bill against the faithfull and gaue out the first commissions to put them to death died swearing and blaspheming the name of God his stomacke being most straungely gnawen in peeces and consumed with wormes The Chauncellour Oliuer beeing restored to his former estate Refer this among Apostaraes Lib. 1. cap. 18. hauing first against his conscience renounced his religion so also now the same conscience of his checking and reclaiming hee spared not to shedde much innocent blood by condemning them to death But such a fearefull iudgement was denounced against him by the very mouthes of the guiltlesse condemned soules that stroke him into such a feare and terrour that presently hee fell sicke surprised with so extreame a melancholy that sobbing forth sighes without intermission and murmurings against God hee so afflicted his halfe dead body like a man robd and dispossest of sense and reason that with his vehement fits hee would so shake the bedde as if a young man in
Gardiner who was one of the graund butchers in this land what a miserable end came hee vnto Euen the same day that B. Ridley and M. Latimer were burnt at Oxford hee hearing newes thereof reioiced greatly and being at dinner eate his meat merily Acts and Monuments pag. 1788. But ere hee had eaten many bits the sudden stroke of Gods terrible hand fell vpon him in such sort that immediatly he was taken from the boord and brought to his bed where hee continued fifteene daies in intollerable anguish by reason hee could not expell his vrine so that his body being miserably inflamed within who had enflamed so many godly martyrs was brought to a wretched end with his tongue all blacke and swollen hanging out of his mouth most horribly a spectacle worthy to be beholden of all such bloody burning persecutours Bonner Pag. 2114. bishop of London another archbutcher though hee liued long after this man and died also in his bed yet was it so prouided of God that as he had beene a persecutor of the light and a child of darkenesse so his carkasse was tumbled into the earth in obscure darkenesse at midnight contrary to the order of all other Christians and as he had beene a most cruell murderer so was hee buried among theeues and murderers a place by Gods iudgement rightly appointed for him 2099. Morgan bishop of S. Dauids sitting vpon the condemnation of the blessed martyr bishop Farrar whose roome he vniustly vsurped was not long after stricken by Gods hand after such a strange sort that his meat would not go downe but rise and picke vp againe sometime at his mouth sometime blowne out of his nose most horrible to behold and so continued to his death Where note moreouer that when maister Leyson being then sherife at bishop Farrars burning had fetcht away the cattell of the said bishop from his seruants house into his owne custodie diuers of them would neuer eat meat but lay bellowing and roaring and so died Bishop Thornton Suffragan of Douer another grand persecutor comming vpon a Saturday from the chapter house at Canterbury and there vpon the Sunday following looking vpon his men playing at bowles fell suddenly into a palsie and died shortly after But hee that will read more hereof I referre him to the latter end of the Acts and Monuments of the English Church where he shall find a whole catalogue of such like histories The ouerthrow of many mighty ones in our age serue for a looking glasse to represent the high exploits of the wonderfull iudgements which the king of kings hath sent vpon those that haue in any place or countrey whatsoeuer resisted and stroue against his truth whereof some after great victories which their singular dexteritie and worldly wisdome in the managing of their affaires haue atchieued by a peruerse and ouerthwart end contrary to their former prosperity haue darkened and obscured the renowme and glory of all their braue deeds their good report dying with their bodies and their credit empaired and buried with them in their graues Others in like manner hauing addressed all their forces laid their battery and placed all their peeces and canons against the wals of Sion and thinking to blow it vp and consume it to ashes haue made many breaches into the sides thereof yea they haue so bent all their strength against it and afflicted it with such outragious cruelty and vnmerciful effusion of blood that it is pitifull and lamentable to remember howbeit after all their pollicies and practises their courage hath bene at length abated and themselues raked one after another out of this world with manifest markes of the iust vengeance of God vpon them For though it may seeme for a time that God sleepeth and regardeth not the wrongs and oppressions of his seruants yet he neuer faileth to carry a watchfull eie vpon them and in his fittest time to reuenge himselfe vpon their enemies Along the verdant fields all richly dide With natures paintments and with Floraes pride Whose goodly bounds are liuely chrystall streames Begirt with bowres to keepe backe Phoebus beames Euen when the quenchlesse torch the worlds great eie Aduanc't his rayes orethwartly from the skie And by his power of heauenly influence Reuiu'de the seeds of springs decaied essence Then many flockes vnite in peace and loue Not seeking ought but naturall behoue Past quietly vncharg'd with other care Saue of their feed within that pasture faire These flockes a shepherd had of power and skill To fold and feed and saue them from all ill By whose aduise they liu'd whose wholsome voice They heard and feard with loue and did reioice Therein with melodie of song and praise And dance to magnifie his name alwaies He is their guide they are his flock and fold Nor will they be by any else controld Well knowing that whome he takes care to feed He will preserue and saue in time of need Thus liu'd this holy flocke at hearts content Till cruell beasts all set on rauishment Broke off their peace and ran vpon with rage Themselues their young and all their heritage Slitting their throats deuouring lambes and all And dissipating them that scapt their thrall Then did this iolly feast to fast transforme So askt the fury of that ragefull storme Their ioyfull song was turn'd to mournfull cries And all their gladnesse chang'd to welladaies Whereat heauen greeuing clad it selfe in black But earth in vprore triumpht at their wrack What profits then the sheepehooke of their guide Or that he lies vpon a beacons side With watchfull eie to circumscribe their traine And hath no more regard vnto their paine To saue them from such dangers imminent Say some as are so often incident T is not for that his arme wants strength to breake All proud attempts that men of might doe make Or that he will abandon vnto death His owne deare bought with exchange of his breath Nor must we thinke that though they die they perish Death dies in them and they in death reflorish And this liues losse a better life renews Which after death eternally ensues Though then their passions neuer seeme so great Yet neuer comfort wants to swage their heat Though strength of torments be extreame in durance Yet are they quencht by hopes and faiths assurance For thankfull hope if God be grounded in it Assures the heart and pacifies the spirit To them that loue and reuerence his name Prosperity betides and want of shame Thus can no tyrant pull them from the hands Of mightie God that for their safety stands Who euer sees and euer can defend Them whom he loues he loues vnto the end So that the more their furie ouer floweth The more ech one his owne destruction soweth And as they striue with God in policie So are they sooner brought to miserie Like as the sauage bore dislog'd from den And hotely chased by pursuit of men Runnes furiously on them that come him neare And gores himselfe
his faith and recoiled from Christ Iesus Christ Iesus would recoile from him and giue him ouer to death by depriuing him of his grace and spoiling him of the power of his quickning and sauing spirit These are the fearefull examples of Gods Iudgements which Saint Ciprian reporteth to haue light vpon Backsliders in his time adding moreouer that besides these many vvere possessed with Deuils robbed of their wits and enraged vvith furie and madnesse and all for this offence of Apostasie Amongst all the examples of our age of Gods seuere iustice vpon Apostataes the examples of Francis Spiera an Italian Lawier a man of credite and authoritie in his countrey is most pitifull and lamentable who hauing embraced the true religion vvith maruellous zeale and made open profession of the same Sleidan lib. 21.1 feared not freely to declare his opinion of euery point of doctrine that came in question and grew in knowledge euery day more and more But it was not long ere hee was complained off to the Popes Embassadour which when hee vnderstood and saw the danger wherein hee was like to fall After hee had long debated and disputed the matter in his owne conscience the counsaile of the flesh and wordlie wisedome preuailing hee resolued at last to goe to the Embassadour to the intent to appease his wrath and doe whatsouer hee should command Thus comming to Venice and ouerruled with immoderate feare he confessed that hee had done amisse and craued pardon for the same promising euer after to bee an obedient subiect to the Popes lawes and that which is more when it was enioined him that at his returne home hee should in his owne countrie openly recant his former profession hee refused not but performed his recantation in due sort But it chaunced very soone after that this miserable man fell sicke of bodie and soule and began to despaire of Gods mercie towardes him His Phisitian perceiuing his disposition iudged that the cause of his bodies disease was a vehement conceit and thought of mind and therefore gaue aduise to minister counsaile to his troubled mind verie carefully that the cause beeing taken away the effect also might surcease To this end many learned men frequented him euery day recalling into his mind and laying open before him manie expresse places of Scripture touching the greatnesse of Gods mercie which thinges hee auouched to bee true but said that those promises pertained not to him because hee had renounced Christ Iesus and forsworne the knowne truth and that for this cause nothing was prepared for him but hell fire which alreadie in soule hee saw and felt I would said hee willingly if it were possible loue God but it is altogether impossible I onely feare him without loue These and such speeches vsed he with a stedfast countenance neither did his tongue at any time run at randome nor his answers sauour of indiscretion or want of memorie but aduisedly warned all that stood by to take heed by his example how to listen too much to worldly wisdome especially then when they should bee called before men to professe the religion of Christ And lying in this extremity he refused all manner of sustenance rebuking and being angrie with his sonnes that opened his mouth to make him swallow some food to sustain him saying Since hee had forsaken his Lord and maister all his creatures ought to forsake him I am afeard of euery thing there is not a creature that hath not conspired to worke my destruction let me die let mee die that I may goe and feele that vnquenchahle fire which already consumeth mee and which I can by no means escape And thus he died indeed pined to death in despaire and horrible torment of conscience Centur. 3 cap. 12 Nichomachus a man that stoutly professed Christ Iesus in prosperity being brought to his triall at Troas and put into torments he denied him and being deliuered by that means consented to offer sacrifice vnto idols But assone as hee had finished his sacrifice he was hoisted vp by the spirit of darknesse whose darling now he was dashed against the earth so that his teeth biting his prophane tongue wherewith hee had denied his sauour in two he died incontinently Tamerus a professour of the true religion vvas seduced by his brother to cleaue vnto Poperie Theatrum historicum and to forsake his first loue but for his defection from the truth the Lord gaue him vp into a reprobat sence so that falling into despaire he hong himselfe Richard Denton a blacksmith dwelling at Wels in Cambridgeshire hauing beene a professor of the Gospell before time when William Wolsey Martyr whome the said Denton had first conuerted vnto the truth sent him certaine money out of prison at Ely with this commendations That he maruelled hee tarried so long behind him seeing he was the first that deliuered him the booke of scripture into his hand Acts monuments pag 1717. and told him that it was the truth his answere was this I confesse it is true but alasse I cannot burne But hee that could not burne in the cause of Christ was afterward burned against his will for in the yeare 1564 his house was set on fire and whilest hee went in to saue his goods hee lost his life There was also one Burton Bailife of Crowland in Lincolnshire who pretending an earnest friendship to the gospel in king Edwards time after the kings death began lustily to set vp the Popish masse againe and would haue beaten the poore Curate if hee had not setled himselfe thereto but see how the Lords iudgement ouertooke him as he came riding from Fennebancke one day a crow flying ouer his head let fall her excrements vpon his face so that it ran from the top of his nose downe to his beard Acts monuments pag. 2101 the poisoned sent and sauour whereof so annoied his stomacke that he neuer ceased vomiting vntill he came home and after falling deadly sicke would neuer receiue any meat but vomited stil and complained of that stincke cursing the crow that had poisoned him to be short within few daies he died desperately without any token of repentance of his former life Hither may wee ad the examples of one Hendrie Smith a Lawier of the middle temple Acts monuments and Arnoldus Bomelius a student of Louaine both which hauing professed the truth a while and after being seduced by euill companie the one of Gilford the other of Maister Tileman Smith afterward hanged himselfe in his chamber in the temple in the year of our Lord 1569. Bomelius murdered himselfe with his owne dagger And thus these two Apostataes felt the heauy scourge of Gods wrath for reuolting from the truth which they once professed CHAP. XVIII Of those which haue willingly fallen away THese kind of Apostataes which wee are now to speake of are such as without any outward compulsion threats or likelihood of daunger forsake freely Gods true Religion and
halfe dead and with in short space died altogether without any appearance of repentance Among many other iudges which shewed themselues hot and rigorous in persecuting and proceeding against the faithfull prisoners of Valence in Daulphin and other Romanes at that season when two ministers of the same citie suffered martyrdome one Lanbespin a Counsellor and Ponsenas the Kings attourney at the parlement of Grenoble both two hauing beene professors in times past were not the backwardest in that action but God made them both strange examples of his wrath for Lanbespin falling in loue with a young maid was so extreamely passionate therein that hee forewent his owne estate and all bounds of ciuill honestie to follow her vp and downe whether soeuer shee went and seeing his loue and labour despised and set at naught hee so pined away with verie thought that making no reckoning of himselfe such a multitude of lice so fed vpon him took so good liking of their pasture that by no meanes he could be clensed of them for they increased issued out of euery part of his body in such number as maggots are wont to engender in a dead rotten carrion At length a litle before his death seeing his owne miserie and feeling Gods heauie vengeance vpon him he began to despaire of all mercie to the end to abridge his miserable daies hee resolued to hunger starue himself to death which purpose the lice furthered for they stack so thick in his throat as if they would haue choked him euery momeÌ„t neither could he suffer any sustenance to passe downe by reason of them They that were eie witnesses of this pittifull spectacle were wonderously mooued with compassion and constrained him to eat whether hee would or not And that they might make him take cullisses and other stewed broathes because hee refused and stroue against them they bound his armes and put gagges into his mouth to keepe it open whilest others poured in the food And in this wise being gagged he died like a mad beast with aboundance of lice that went downe his throat in so much that the very Papists themselues stucke not to say Persecution lib. 1. cap. 15. That as hee caused the ministers of Valence to haue gagges thrust into their mouthes and so put to death so likewise hee himselfe died with a gag in his mouth As touching Ponsâ—nas commonly called Bourrell a very butcher indeed of poore Christians after hee had sold his owne patrimonie and his wiues and friends also to the end to buy out his office had spent that which remained in house keeping hoping in short space to rake vp twise as much as he had scattered fell suddainly into a strange and vnknown disease and shortly grew in despaire of Gods succour and fauor towards him by a strong remembrance of those of Valence and the other Romanes which hee had put to death which would neuer depart out of his mind but still presented themselues before him Persecution Lib. 1. cap. 15. so that as one bestraught of reason sense he denied his maker and called vpon his destroier the Deuill with most horrible and bitter cursings which when his clarke perceiued he laid out before him the mercies of God out of all places of the scripture to comfort and restore his decaied sence But in stead of returning to God by repentance and praier hee continued obstinate and answered his clarke whose name was Steuen in this wife Steuen Steuen thou art blacke So I am and it please you quoth hee but I am neither Turke nor Moore nor Bohemian but a Gascoigne of red haire No no answered he not so but thou art blacke but it is with sinne That is true quoth hee but I hope in the bountifull mercie of God that for the loue of Christ who died for mee my blacke sinnes shall not bee imputed to me There he redoubling his choler cried mainely after his clarke calling him Lutheran Huguenot villaine At which noise his friends without rushed in to know what the matter was but hee commanded that Steuen his clarke should presently haue a paire of bolts clapt on his heeles and to bee burned for an Heretike In briefe his choler and rage boiled so furiously in him that in short space hee died a fearfull death with horrible houling outcries his creditors scarce gaue them respite to draw his carcase out of his bed before they seased vpon all his goods not leauing his poore wife and children so much as a bed of straw to lie in so grieuous was the curse of God vpon his house Another great Prince hauing in former time vsed his authoritie and power to the aduancing of Gods kingdome afterwards being seduced by the allurements of the world renounced God and took part with the enemies of his church to make warre against it in which warre hee was wounded to death and is one notable example of Gods iust vengeance to all that shall in like manner fall away CHAP. XXI Of Heretikes AS it is a matter necessarily appertaining to the first commandemeÌ„t that the puritie and sinceritie of the doctrine of Gods word be maintained by the rule whereof hee would haue vs both know him and vnderstand the holy mysteries which are reuealed to vs therein so also by the contrarie whatsoeuer tendeth to the corrupting or falsifieng of the same word rising from foolish and strange opinions of humane reason the same transgresseth the limits of this commandement of which sort is Heresie an euill of it owne nature verie pernicious and contagious and no lesse to bee feared and shunned then the heate of persecution and by meanes whereof the whole nation of Christendome hath beene heretofore tossed with many troubles and the church of God greeuously vexed But as truth got euer the vpper hand and preuailed against falshood so the brochers and vpholders of falshood came euer to the worse and were confounded as well by the strength of truth as by the speciall iudgements of God sent downe vpon the most part of them Acts. 5.36.39 Euseb eccle hist lib 2. cap. 10. Ioseph antiq lib. 18. cap. 1. lib. 20 cap. 2. Theudas and Iudas Galilaeus were two that seduced the Iewes before Christ for the first of them said hee was a Prophet sent from God and that hee could deuide the waters of Iordan by his word as Ioshua the seruant of the Lord did The other promised to deliuer them from the seruitude and the yoke of the Romanes And both of them by that means drew much people after them so prone is the coÌ„mon multitude to follow nouelties and to beleeue euery new fangle that is but yesterday set on broch But they came both to a deserued destruction for Fatus the gouernour of Iury ouertooke Theudas sending his trunck to the graue carried his head as a monument to Ierusalem As for Iudas hee perished also al his followers were dispersed manifesting their ends that their works were
town of Champaigne to remoue the siege wherewith it was girt by the Duke of Burgoine and other of the English captaines Sir Iohn Leupembrough a Burgonian knight took her aliue and conueied her to the city of Roane where she faining her self with child when the contrarie was knowne was condemned and burnt And thus these two holy women that in a diuerse kind mocked the people of England and France by their hypocrisie by the iustice of God came to deserued destructions CHAP. XXIII Of Coniurers and Enchanters IF God by his first commandement hath enioined euery one of vs to loue serue and cleaue unto him alone in the coniunction and vnity of a true faith and hope vnremoueable there is no doubt but he forbiddeth on the other side that which is contrarie to this foresaid dutie and herein especially that cursed familiarity which diuerse miserable wretches haue with that lying spirit the father of error by whose delusions and subtiltie they busie themselues in the studie of sorceries and enchantments wherevpon it is forbidden the Israelites in the nineteenth of Leuiticus Leuit. 19.31 to turne after familiar spirites or to seeke to soothsayers to bee defiled by them and the more to withdraw men from this damnable crime in the chapter following there is a threat set downe against it in manner of a commandement 20.27 That if either man or woman haue a spirit of diuination or soothsaying in them they should die the death they should stone them to death their blood should be vpon them Exod. 22.18 so in the twentie two of Exodus the law of God saith Thou shalt not suffer a witch to liue and Moses following the same steps giueth an expresse charge in in the eighteenth of Deutronotny against this sinne saying Let none bee found among thee that vseth witchcraft Deu. 18.10.11 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 at the dead for all that doe such things are abhomination vnto the Lord 1. Sam. 15. Isay 8.19.20 and therefore this sinne in the 1. Sam. 15. Is reputed amongst the most hainous and enormous sinnes that can bee When they shall say vnto you saith the Prophet enquire at them that haue a spirit of diuination and at the soothsaier which whisper and murmure answer Should not a people inquire at their God From the liuing to the dead To the law and to the testimony Wherfore it was a commendable thing and worthy the imitation when they that had receiued the faith by Paules preaching Acts. 19.19 hauing before vsed 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 peeces of siluer which by Budeus his supputatiō ariseth to fiue thousand French crownes The counsels as that of Carthage and that other of Constantinople kept the second time in the suburbes vtterly condemned the practise of all coniurers and enchanters The twelue tables in Rome adiudged to punishmēts those that bewitched the standing corn And for the ciuill law this kind is condemned both by the law Iulia and Cornelia In like manner the wisest Emperours those I meane that attained to the honor of Christianity ordained diuerse edicts and prohibitions vnder very shape greeuous punishments against all such villanie as Constantine in the ninth booke of the Cod. tit 18. enacted that whosoeuer should attempt any action by art Magicke against the safety of any person or should bring in or stirre vp any man to make him fall into any mischiefe or riotous demeanour should suffer a greeuous punishment in the fifth law hee forbiddeth euery man to aske counsaile at witches or to vse the helpe of charmers and sorcerers vnder the paine of death Let them saith hee in the sixt law bee throwne to wild beasts to bee deuoured that by coniuring or the helpe of familiar spirits go about to kill either their enemies or any other Moreouer in the seuenth law hee willeth that not so much as his owne courtiers and seruants if they were found faulty in this crime should be spared but seuerely punished yet neuerthelesse many of this age giue themselues ouer to this filthy sinne without either feare of God or respect of law Some thorough a foolish and dangerous curiositie others through the ouerruling of their owne vile and wicked affections and a third sort troubled with the terrours of an euill conscience desire to know what shall befall and happen vnto them in the end Thus Saul the first king of Israel being troubled in himselfe 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 whilst he perfourmed the duty of a good king and obeied the commaundement of God hee had cleansed his realme of witches and enchaunters yet is he now so mad as to make them serue his owne turne and to vse their counsels in his extremitie adding this wickednesse to the number of his other great sinnes that the measure thereof might be full hee went therefore to a witch to seeke counsell who caused a deuill to appeare and speake unto him in the shape of Samuel and foretell him of Gods iust iudgement vpon his wickednesse his vtter and finall ruine and destruction Plutarch in the life of Romulus reporteth of one Cleomedes a man in proportion of body and cruell practises Plutarch Romulus huge and giantlike who for that hee was the cause of the death of many little children and was pursued by the parents of those dead infants who sought to be reuenged on him for that cruell part hee hid himselfe in a coffer closing the lid fast to him but when the coffer was broken vp the coniurer was not therein neither aliue nor dead but was transported by the malicious spirit the deuill vnto a place of greater torment Ancient histories make mention of one Piso a man of credit and authoritie among the Romanes Tacit. whome the Emperour Tiberius gaue vnto his sonne Germanicus for an helper counsellour in the managing of his affaires in Asia so well was he perswaded both of his sufficiencie courage and loialtie towards him It chanced a while after that hee was suspected to haue bewitched to death the said Germanicus the signes markes of which suspition were certaine dead mens bones digged out of the earth with diuers charmes and curses and Germanicus name engrauen in tables of lead and such like trash which witches exercise to murder men withall were found with him whereupon Tiberius himselfe accused him of that crime but would not haue the ordinary iudges to sit vpon it but by speciall priuiledge committed the enquiry thereof vnto the Senate Pise when euery man thought hee was preparing himselfe for his defence against the morrow like
deigne to acknowledge And thus it falleth out with all wicked miserable Atheists whose hearts imagine there is no God and therfore haue so little assurance in themselues that there need no thunder and lightning to amase them for the shaking of euerie leafe is sufficient to make them tremble To conclude this Atheist void of religion and feare of God and full of all prophanesse was according to his due desert murthered by one of his owne seruants of the which will follow more at large in the next booke Domitian likewise was so blinded with pride that he would be called a god and worshipped Oros lib. 7. ca. 7. of whome also wee will speake in the second booke and 34 chapter To these we may adde them also Dionys Halie Lib. 1. antiq Roman that to the end to make themselues feared and reuerenced as gods haue counterfaited the lightnings and thunders of heauen as we read of one Alladius a Latin king that raigned before Romulus who being a most wicked tyrant a contemner of God inuented a trick whereby to represent to the eare and eie the rattling swift shine of both thunder lightning that by that meanes astonishing his subiects he might be guised of them for a god but it chanced that his house being set on fire with true lightning ouerthrown with the violent strength of tempestuous rain togither with the ouerflowing of a pond that stood nere he perished by fire water burnt drowned all at once Did not the king of Elide the like and to the same end also by the deuice of a chariot drawn about with foure horses wherein were certaine iron workes which with wrinching about gaue an horrible sound resembling thunder and torches and squibs which hee caused to be throwen about like lightnings in such sort that he oftentimes burnt the beholders Diod. lib. 4. in this manner hee went vp and downe brauing it especially ouer an iron bridge which hee had of purpose built to passe and repasse ouer at his pleasure vntill Gods long suffering could not endure any longer such outragious and presumptuous madnesse but sent a thunderbolt from heauen vpon his head that all the world might see by his destruction the exceeding folly and vaine pride which bewitched him in his life time Which history the Poet in the person of Sibilla setteth downe at large to this effect I saw Salmon in cruell torments lie For counterfatting thunder of the skie And Ioues cleare lightning whilst with torches bright Drawne with foure steedes and brandishing his light He rode triumphantly through Elis streats And made all Grecia wonder at his feats Thinking to win the honor of a god Mad as he was by scattertng fire abroad With brazen engines and with courses faining A noise like that which in the clouds is raining And no where else but God from thickest skie No torch but such a thunderbolt let flie At him that headlong whirld him from his cell And tumbled downe into the deepest hell Thus this arrogant king was punished according to the quality of his offence euen in the same kind wherin he offended which thing though it bee found written in a Poet yet ought not be reiected for an old wiues tale seeing it is not incredible that a king might make such pastimes yron crashing noises nor that he might be iustly punished for the same and the rather because Caligula did the like as wee haue heard before And we read also that one Arthemisius in the time of the Emperour Iustinian counterfeited by certain engines and deuises in his owne house in Constantinople Agath lib. 5. bell Gothis such earthquakes lightnings and thunders that would astonish a wise braine to heare or behold them on a sodaine But aboue all others that by darkening the glorie of God to encrease their own power haue prowdly exalted theÌ„selues against him the Popes are the ringleaders whose vnbrideled boldnes hath ben so much the more impudent pernicious for that in tearming themselues the seruants of the seruants of God in word in deed take vnto them the authoritie and power of God himself as of pardoning absoluing sins creating laws ordinances at their pleasure in binding or vnbinding mens consciences which things appertain to God only nay they haue ben so brasen faced as to coÌ„mand Angels and deuils as Clement the fift did in one of his buls so impudent as to be carried like idols vpon their vassalâ— shoulders weare three crownes vpon their heads so prowd and arrogant as to constraine kings and Emperours to kisse their feet to make them their vassals to vsurpe Lordship dominion ouer them and all their lands and possessions and to dispossesse whome they like not of kingdomes enstall in their roomes whom they please and all this by the thunder of excommunication whereby they make themselues feared and stood in awe of By which dealings of theirs they verifie in themselues that which the scripture speaketh of Antichrist which is the man of sinne the sonne of perdition 2. Thes 2.3 an aduersarie and one that exalteth himselfe against all which is called God or which is worshipped till he bee set as a god in the temple of God shewing himselfe that he is God Wherefore also the heauie vengeance of God is manifest vpon them by the great and horrible punishments they haue beene tormented with for some of them haue had their eies pulled out others haue died in prisons a third sort haue beene smothered to death a fourth hath beene killed with the sword a fift hath died with hunger a sixt bene stoned a seuenth poysoned and yet there hath not wanted an eigth sort whom the deuill himselfe hath stifled This it is to ouerreach the clouds Sabel Aenead 9. lib. 7. Iohn le Maire de Besges Niâ—h Giles of the Chronicles of Fraunce and not content with earthly power to vsurpe a supremacy and praeeminence ouer kings such was the pride of Pope Boniface the eigth wheÌ„ he sent an embassage to Philip the Faire king of France to command him to take vpon him an expedition against the Sarasens beyond the sea vpon paine of forfeiting his kingdome into his hands and when hauing his sword by his side he shamed not to say that he alone and none else was Emperour and Lord of all the world in demonstration wherof he bestowed the Empire vpon Duke Albert together with the crowne of Fraunce and not content herewith his insolencie was so importunat that he charged Philip the Faire to acknowledge himselfe to bee his subiect in all causes as well spirituall as temporall and to leuie a subsidie for his holinesse out of his Clergie disabling his authority in bestowing church liuings which prerogatiue hee chalenged to his sea the conclusion of this bull was in these words Aliud credentes fatitos reputamus as much to say as whosoeuer is of another mind then this we esteeme him a foole Wherevnto
the King answered in this wise Philippus dei gratia Francorum rex Bonifacio se gerenti pro summâ— pontificé salutem modicam siue nullam Sciat tua maxima fatuitas in temporalibus nos alicui non subesse ecclesiarum prebendarum vacantium collationem ad nos iure regio pertinere secus autem credentes fatuos reputamus deuiantes in English thus Philip by the grace of God King of France to Boniface bearing himselfe for Pope little or no health Be it knowne vnto thy exceeding great foolishnesse that we in temporall affaires are subiect to none that the bestowing of benefices belongeth to vs by our royall right and if there bee any that thinke otherwise we hold them for erronious fooles A memorable answere well beseeming a true royall and French heart immediately hee assembling together aâ—â— nationall councill of all the Barons and prelates within his dominion at Paris wherein Boniface being pronounced an Heretike a Simonist and a manslaier it was agreed vpon by a ioint consent that the king should doe no more obeysance but reiect as nothing worth whatsoeuer he should impose Wherfore the king to tame his proud malicious nature dispatched secretly two hundred men at armes vnder the conduct of one captaine â—oguard towards Auian in Naples whither his holines was fled for feare of diuerse whose houses and castels he had caused to be rased downe there to surprise him on a sodaine which stratageme they speedily performed and carried him prisoner to Rome where hee died most miserably Peter Mesie a Spanish Gentleman of Seuill saith in many of his lectures that he died in prison enraged with famine Nicholas Gilles in his first volume of French chronicles reporteth that he died in the castell Saint Angelo through a flux of his belly which cast him into a frenzie that hee gnew off his owne handes and that at the hower of his death there were heard horrible thunders and tempests and lightnings round about this is hee in whose honour this fine Epitaph was made Intrauit vt vulpes regnauit vt leo mortuus est vt canis Sabel Aenead 9. lib. 7. He entered like a fox raigned like a lion and died like a dog And this was hee that on the first day of Lent giuing ashes to the bishop of Genes in stead of vsing the ordinarie forme of speech which is Momento homo quod cinis es in cinerem conuerteris Remember man that thou art ashes and into ashes thou shalt returne said in despight and mockerie Memento homo quia Gibellinus es cum Gibellinis in cinerem conuerteris Remember that thou art a Gibelline and together with the Gibillines thou shalt bee turned into ashes and in stead of laying the ashes vpon his forehead threw them into his eies and forthwith depriued him of his Bishoprick and would haue done worse if it had ben in his power mark what little account this holy father himselfe made of these ceremonies and therefore it is no maruell if others mocke at them seeing the Popes themselues make them but matters of pastime If it bee so therefore that no man ought to arrogate to himselfe any title of diety then consequently it is no lesse vnlawfull to giue that diuine honour to any other mortall creature and therefore the people of Cesarea faulted greatly when blasphemously they called King Herod a god as hath beene declared before Likewise it was high and prowd presumption in the Senate of Rome not to receiue any god to their Commonwealth without their owne foreapprobation and consent as if that God could not maintaine his dignitie nor stand without the good liking and assent of men or as if that man could deifie whom he listed which is a most rediculous and absurd thing And thus the Romans in time of Tiberius consecrating to themselues a whole legion euen thousands of false gods Tertullian apolog would not admit of the true God his sonne Christ but reiected him aboue all others Among al the vanities of the Athenians this was one worthy noting how they ordained that Demetrius AlexaÌ„ders successor for reestablishing their popular and ancient liberty with his father Antigonus should be called kings and honored with the title of Sauing gods and to haue a Priest that should offer sacrifice vnto them and moreouer caused their pictures to be drawn in the same baÌ„ner where the pictures of Iupiter Minerua the protectors of their city were drawen in brodered worke but this goodly banner as is was carried about in procession was rent in peeces by a tempestuous storme that arose soddainly God thereby manifesting how odious and displeasant both this new and old superstition was in his sight besides that doe but consider the laudable vertues that so commended this new god Demetrius to make them honour him in such sort they were violence and cruelties intemperance with all inordinate lasciuiousnes vilanies and whoredomes so that it was no maruel if they had made him a God being vnworthy altogether of humane society This new found god hauing gotten a great victory by sea as hee triumphed and braued it with ships after the same was so shattered with a sodain tempest that the greatest part of his nauy went to wrack and afterwards was vanquished by Seleuchus in a battel wherin his father Antigonus was slain wheÌ„ he thought to retire to Athens they shut their gates vpon him whom a little before they had canonized for a god for which cause he raised war against them so wearied them with onsets on ech side and so inclosed them both by sea land that being brought to extreame famine necessity they were compelled to entertaine him againe and to behold the horrible outrages of their own made god to their griefe confusion But not long after Seleuchus once againe damped his courage in so much that hauing liued three years in a countrie of Siuia like a banished outlaw for fear to be deliuered into his hands weary of his own life he stuffed himself so with food that he burst in peeces Therefore let euery man learne by these examples not to translate the honor and maiestie of God to any creature but to leaue it to him alone who is iealous therof will not as the Prophet saith giue his glorie vnto another CHAP. XXV Of Epicures and Atheists AS touching voluptuous Epicures and cursed Atheists that deny the prouidence of God beleeue not the immortality of the soule think there is no such thing as life to come and consequently impugne all diuinity liuing in this world like brute beasts like dogs and swine wallowing in all sensuality they do also strike themselues against this commandement by going about to wipe out and deface the knowledge of God and if it were possible to extinguish his very essence wherein they shew themselues more then mad and brutish whereas notwithstanding all the euident testimonies of the vertue bounty wisedome and eternall power of
bitter and vnlooked for death which depriued him at once of all his pleasures to make him drinke the cup of Gods fierce wrath and to throw him down headlong into euerlasting paines and torments which were prouided for him Pope Leo saith S. Martin of Belay in his second book of memorable things hearing of the great losse which the French men sustained at Millan tooke so great ioy thereat that a catar and an ague insuing killed him within three daies after a happie man indeed to die with ioy Pope Iulius the third was one of the same stampe Bale Veag nothing inferiour to the former in all manner of dissolute and infamous liuing and vile and cursed talke making knowne by his impietie that hee had none other God but his belly Vide lib. 1. cap. 21. Heresie and that hee was none of Christs fold but one of Epicures crew hee was such a glutton and so passionate in his lusts and so prophane a despiser of God and his word that once at supper being enraged blaspheming because they had not serued in a cold pecock which he commanded to bee kept whole at dinner though there were other hote on the table a Cardinal that was present desired him not to be so moued for so small a trifle What quoth he if it pleased God to bee so angry for eating of an apple as to thrust Adam and Eue out of Paradise should not I which am his vicar be angrie for a pecocke which is far more worth then any apple See how this wicked wretch prophaned the holy scripture and like an Epicure and Atheist mocked God but hee died of the gout after he had ben long plagued with it together with other diseases leauing none other good name behind him saue the report of a most wicked and abominable man Philip Strozze whom Paulus Iouius reporteth to haue ben commonly bruted to be an Atheist Tom. 2. lib. 36. was an exile of Florence and afterwards prisoner there in the time of Cosimus Medius the Prince of that Commonwealth against whom this Philip had enterprised to make warre and being in prison hee killed himselfe with a sword of a Spaniard his keeper which by ouersight hee had left behind setting the point against his throat falling down vpon it so may all Atheists perish and come to naught Francis Rabelais hauing suckt vp also this poison vsed like a prophane villaine to make all religion a matter to laugh and mocke at but God depriued him of his sences that as hee had led a brutish life so he might die a brutish death for he died mocking all those that talked of God or made any mention of mercy in his eares How miserable was the end of Periers the author of that detestable booke intituled Symbalum mundi wherin he openly mocked at God and his religion euen hee fell finally into despaire and notwithstanding all that guarded him killed himselfe Iodelle also a Frenel tragicall Poet being an Epicure and an Atheist made a very tragicall and most pittifull end for he died in great miserie and distresse euen pined to death after he had rioted out al his substance and consumed his patrimonie Lignereles the courtier to make himselfe seeme a man of seruice made open profession of Atheisme but his end and destruction came from thence whence hee looked for credit and aduancement To bring the matter to an end I will here set downe a notable and strange thing that chanced in the reigne of Lewis the ninth as Enguerran de Monstrelet in his second volume of Hystories recordeth it vpon the fifteenth day of Iune in the yeare of our Lord God 1464 there happened a strange thing in the pallace at Paris so it was that there was a matter in law to bee tried betwixt the Bishop of Angiers and a rich Cittizen whome the Bishop charged to haue spoken before manie witnesses that hee beleeued not that there was eithere God or Deuill Heauen or hell Now whilest the Bishops Lawier laid to his charge these things the place began to tremble verie much wherein they were and a stone fell downe from the roofe amongst them all without hurting any yet euery man was sore afraid and departed out of the house vntill the morrow when the matter was begun againe to bee pleaded which was no sooner in hand but the chamber begun afresh to shake and one of the summers came forth of his mortise hole falling downwards two foot and there staied so that all that were within the hall looking to haue beene slaine outright ran out so violently that some left behind them their caps others their hoodes others their slippers summarily glad was hee that could get out first neither durst they plead any more causes in that place vntill it was mended Thus much reporteth Enguerran without mention of any decision of that matter now for as much as nothing happeneth by chance it is most likely that God by that accident would giue vs to vnderstand both how monstrous and detestable all such speeches are as also how men ought to feare abhorre them seeing that the dumbe senslesse creatures wood beames planckes and stones and the earth at selfe by nature stedfast and fixed are so farre from enduring them that they are moued withall There was a certaine blasphemous wretch that on a time being with his companions in a common Inne carousing and making merrie Discipulus de tempore Sermon 132. asked them if they thought a man was possessed with a soule or no wherevnto when some replied that the soules of men were immortall and that some of them after release from the body liued in heauen others in hell for so the writings of the Prophets and Apostles instructed them hee answered and swore that hee thought it nothing so but rather that there was no soule in man to suruiue the bodie but that Heauen and hell were meere fables and inuentions of Priests to get gaine by and for himselfe hee was ready to sell his soule to any that would buy it then one of his companions tooke vp a cup of wine and said sell mee thy soule for this cup of wine which hee receiuing bad him take his soule and dranke vp the wine Now Sathan himselfe was there in a mans shape as commonly hee is neuer farre from such meetings and bought it againe of the other at the same price and by and by bad him giue him his soule the whole companie affirming it was meet hee should haue it since hee had bought it not perceiuing the Deuill but presentlie hee laying hold on this soule seller carried him into the aire before them all toward his owne habitation to the great astonishment and amazement of the beholders and from that day to this hee was neuer heard of but tried to his paine that men had soules and that hell was no fable according to his godlesse and profane opinion Pherecides by birth a Syrian a tragicall Poet and a
Philosopher by profession Aelianus de var. hist lib. 4. boasted impudently amongst his schollers of his prosperity learning and wisdome saying that although hee offered no sacrifices vnto the gods yet hee lead a more quiet and prosperous life then those that were addicted to religion and therefore hee passed not for any such vanitie But ere long his impietie was iustly reuenged for the Lord strooke him with such a strange disease that out of his bodie issued such a slimie and filthie sweat and engendered such a number of lice and wormes that his bowels being consumed by them hee died most miserably Theat historicum At Hamburge not long since there liued an impious wretch that despised the preaching of the Gospell and the ministers thereof accounting it as a vaine thing not worthie the beleeuing of any man neither did he thus himselfe only but also seduced many others bringing them to all Atheisme and vngodlinesse Wherfore the Lord iustly recompenced him for his impiety for he that before had no sence nor feeling of God in his conscience being touched with the finger of the almightie grew to the contrary euen to too much feeling and knowledge of God that hee fell into extreame despaire affirming now his sins to be past forgiuenes because he had withdrawne others from the truth aswell as himselfe whereas before he thought himselfe guiltie of no sinne and that God was so iust that he would not forgiue him wheras before he thought there was no God so mighty is the operation of the Lord when he pleaseth to touch the conscience of man finally continuing in this desperate case hee threw himselfe from the roofe of a house into a well and not finding water enough to drowne him hee thrust his head into the bottome thereof till hee had made an end of his life Theat historicum In the yeare of our Lord 1502 there liued one Hermannus Biswick a grand Atheist and a notable instrument of Sathan who affirmed that the world neuer had beginning as foolish Moses dreamed and that there was neither Angels nor deuils nor hell nor future life but that the soules of men perished with their bodies besides that Christ Iesus was nothing els but a seducer of the people and that the faith of Christians and whatsoeuer else is contained in holy writs was meere vanity These articles full of impietie and blasphemie hee constantly auouched to the death And for the same cause was togither with his bookes burnt in Holland A certaine rich man at Holberstadium abounding with all manner of earthly commodities Theatr. histor gaue himselfe so much to his pleasure that he became besotted therewith in such sort that hee made no reckening of religion nor any good thing but dared to say that if he might lead such a life continually vpon earth hee would not enuie heauen nor desire any exchange Notwithstanding ere long contrary to his expectation the Lord cut him off by death and so his desired pleasure came to an end But after his death there appeared such diabolicall apparitions in his house that no man daring to inhabit in it became desolate for euery day there appeared the image of this Epicure sitting at a boord with a number of his guests drinking carousing and making good cheare and his table furnished with delicates and attended on by many that ministred necessaries vnto them beside with minstrels trumpetters and such like In summe whatsoeuer he delighted in his life time was there to be seene euery day the Lord permitting Satan to bleare mens eies with such strange shewes to the end that others might be terrified from such epicurisme and impietie Not inferiour to any of the former in Atheisme impiety and equall to all in maner of punishment was one of our own nation of fresh and late memory called Marlin Marlow by profession a scholler brought vp from his youth in the Vniuersitie of Cambridge but by practise a play-maker and a Poet of scurrilitie who by giuing too large a swinge to his owne wit and suffering his lust to haue the full raines fell not without iust desert to that outrage and extremitie that hee denied God and his sonne Christ and not only in word blasphemed the trinitie but also as it is credibly reported wrote bookes against it affirming our Sauiour to be but a deceiuer and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer of the people and the holy Bible to be but vaine and idle stories and all religion but a deuice of pollicie But see what a hooke the Lord put in the nosthrils of this barking dogge It so fell out that in London streets as he purposed to stab one whome hee ought a grudge vnto with his dagger the other party perceiuing so auoided the stroke that withall catching hold of his wrest he stabbed his owne dagger into his owne head in such sort that notwithstanding all the meanes of surgerie that could be wrought hee shortly after died thereof The manner of his death being so terrible for hee euen cursed and blasphemed to his last gaspe and togither with his breath an oth flew out of his mouth that it was not only a manifest signe of Gods iudgement but also an horrible and fearefull terrour to all that beheld him But herein did the iustice of God most notably appeare in that hee compelled his owne hand which had written those blasphemies to be the instrument to punish him and that in his braine which had deuised the same I would to God and I pray it from my heart that all Atheists in this realme and in all the world beside would by the remembrance and consideration of this example either forsake their horrible impietie or that they might in like manner come to destruction and so that abominable sinne which so flourisheth amongst men of greatest name might either be quite extinquished and tooted out or at least smothered and kept vnder that it durst not shew it head any more in the worlds eye CHAP. XXVI Touching the transgressours of the second commandement by Idolatrie WEe haue hitherto seene how and in what sort they that either by malice or impiety or Apostasie or heresie or otherwise haue transgressed the first commandement haue beene punished Let vs now consider the iudgements that haue befallen Idolatours the breakers of the second commaundement But before wee proceed wee must know that as it is required of vs by the first commaundement to hold God for our true and onely God to repose all our whole trust and confidence in him and call vpon him serue and worship him alone so in the second the contrary to this is forbidden which is to doe any manner of seruice honour and reuerence by deuotion to Idols forasmuch as he is a spirit that is to say Iohn 4. of a spirituall nature and essence which is infinite and incomprehensible so loueth he a spirituall worship and seruice which is answerable to his nature and not by
where Gods word is generally despised not regarded nor profited by there some notable destruction approcheth Philip Melanc in collectaneis Manlij In a certain place there was acted a tragedie of the death and passion of Christ in shew but indeed of themselues for hee that plaied Christs part hanging vpon the crosse was wounded to death by him that should haue thrust his sword into a bladder full of blood tied to his side who with his fall slew another that plaied one of the womens part that lamented vnder the crosse his brother that was first slaine seeing this slew the murderer and was himselfe by order of iustice hanged therfore so that this tragedie was concluded with four true not counterfeit deaths and that by the diuine prouidence of God who can endure nothing lesse then such prophane and ridiculous handling of so serious and heauenly matters In the Vniuersitie of Oxford the historie of Christ was also plaied and cruelly punished that not many years since for he that bore the person of Christ the Lord stroke him with such a giddinesse of spirit braine that he became mad forthwith crying when he was in his best humour that God had laid this iudgement vpon him for playing Christ Three other actors in the same play were hanged for robbing as by credible report is affirmed Most lamentable was the iudgement of God vpon one Iohn Apowel somtimes a seruingman for mocking iesting at the word of God this Iohn Apowell hearing one William Malden reading certaine English praiers mocked him after euery word with cōtrary gauds flouting termes insomuch that at last he was terribly afraid so that his hair stood vpright on his head and the next day was found besides his wits crying night and day without ceasing The deuill the deuill Acts and monuments pag. 2103. O the deuill of hell now the deuill of hell there he goeth for it seemed to him as the other read Lord haue mercie vpon vs at the end of the praier that the deuill appeared vnto him and by the permission of God depriued him of his vnderstanding this is a terrible example for all those that bee mockers at the word of God to warne them if they do not repent least the vengeance of God fall vpon them in like manner Thus wee see how seuerely the Lord punisheth all despisers and prophaners of his holy things and thereby ought to learne to carrie a most dutifull regard and reuerence to them as also to note them for none of Gods flocke whosoeuer they be that deride or contemne any part of religion or the ministers of the same CHAP. XXXV Of those that prophane the Sabboth day IN the fourth last commandement of the first table it is said Remember to keep holy the sabboth day by which words it is ordained and enioined vs to seperate one day of seuen from al bodily and seruile labor not to idlenes loosenes but to the worship of God which is spirituall and wholesome Which holy ordināce whē one of the childrē of Israel in contempt broke as they were in the wildernesse Numb 15. by gathering stickes vpon the sabboth he was brought before Moses Aaron the whole congregation by them put in prison vntill such time as they knew the Lords determination concerning him knowing well that he was guiltie of a most grieuous crime And at length by the Lords owne sentence to his seruant Moses condemned to be stoned to death without the host as was speedily executed wherin the Lord made known vnto them both how vnpleasant odious the prophanation of his Sabboth was in his sight and how seriously and carefully euery one ought to obserue and keepe the same Now albeit that this strict obseruation of the sabboth was partly ceremoniall vnder the law and that in Christ Iesus wee haue an accomplishment as of all other so also of this ceremonie hee being the true sabboth and assured repose of our soules yet seeing wee still stand in need of some time for the instruction and exercise of our faith it is necessarie that we should haue at least one day in a weeke to occupie our selues in and about those holy and godly exercises which are required at our hands and what day fitter for that purpose then sunday Which was also ordained in the Apostles time for the same end and called by them Des dominicus that is The day of our Lord Because vpon that day he rose from the dead to wit the morrow after the Iewes sabboth being the first day of the weeke to which sabboth it by cōmon consent of the church succeeded to the end that a difference might be put betwixt Christians Iews Therfore it ought now religiously to be obserued as it is also commanded in the ciuil law with expresse prohibition not to abuse this day of holy rest in vnholy sports pastimes Cod. lib. 3. tit 12. leg 10. of euill example Neuerthelesse in steed hereof we see the euill emploiance abuse and disorder of it for the most part for beside the false worship and plentifull superstitions which raigne in so many places all manner of disorder and dissolutenesse is in request beareth sway in these daies this is the day for tipling houses and tauernes to be fullest fraught with ruffians and ribalds and for villanous and dishonest speech with lecherous and baudie songes to be most rise this is the day when gourmandise and drunkennesse shew themselues most frollick othes blasphemies flie thickest and fastest this is the day when dicing dancing whoring and such noisome and dishonest demeanours muster their bands and keep ranke togither from whence fome out enuies hatreds displeasures quarrels debates bloodsheddings and murders as daily experience testifieth All which things are euident signes of Gods heauy displeasure vpon the people where these abuses are permitted and no difference made of that day wherin God would be serued but is cōtrarily most dishonored by the ouerflow of wciked examples And that it is a thing odious and condemned of God these examples following will declare Gregory Turonensis reporteth that a husbandman who vpon the Lords day went to plow his field as he cleansed his plowshare with an iron the iron stucke so fast into his hand that for two yeeres hee could not be deliuered from it but carried it about continually to his exceeding great paine and shame Discipulus de tempore ser 117. Another profane fellow without any regard of God or his seruice made no conscience to conuey his corne out of the field on the Lords day in sermon time but hee was well rewarded for his godlesse couetousnesse for the same corne which with so much care he gathered togither was consumed with fire from heauen with the barne and all the graine that was in it A certaine noble man vsed euery Lords day to go a hunting in the sermon while Theatr. hist which impietie the Lord punished
The fathers shal not be put to death for the children nor the children for the fathers but euerie man shall beare his owne sinne 2. King 15. Neither did Shallum that slue Zacharia king of Israel prosper any better for he raigned but one month in Samaria wheÌ„ Menahim the sonne of Gadi rebelled against him and slew him as he had done his maister Amon the sonne of Manasseh was slaine by his owne seruants but the Lord stirred vp the people of the land to reuenge his death to kill all them that had conspired against their king But to let passe the holy histories of the sacred scripture wherein euer after any treason the Holy-ghost presently setteth down the punishment of traitors as it were of purpose to signifie how the Lord hateth all such rebels that rose vp against his owne ordinance Let vs consider a little the consequents of these in prophane yet credible authors and applie them vnto our purpose Iâ—lian lib. 1. Archelaus King of Macedonia had a mignion called Cratenas whome he loued most entirely but he againe required him not with loue but with hatred and stretched all his wits to enstall himselfe in his kingdome by deposing and murthering him which though he accomplished yet his deserts were cut short by the vengeance of God for he continued not many daies in his roialtie but he was serued with the same sauce that he had made Archelaus before him to tast of euen betraied and murdered as he well deserued Ludouicus Sfortia to the end to inuest himselfe with the dukedome of Millain spared not to shed the innocent blood of his two nephewes the sonnes of Galeachus togither with their tutors and one Francis Calaber a worthy and excellent man But the Lord so disposed of his purposes that he in stead of obtaining the kingdome was taken prisoner by the king of France so that neither hee nor any of his offspring enioyed that which he so much affected When Numerianus was to succeed Carus his father in the Empire Phil. Melanct. chron lib. 3. Arrius Axer his father in law to the end to translate the Empire vnto himselfe entred a conspiracie and slew his sonne in law that nothing mistrusted his disloialty But the Pretorian army vnderstanding the matter discharged Arrius and elected Dioclesian in his roome who laying hold vpon his competitor laid an action of treason to his charge and put him to death in the sight of the multitude Theodericke and Fredericke conspired against their owne brother Thurismund king of the Visigothes Chron. Sigebert to the intent to succeed him in his kingdome And albeit that nature reclaimed them from the act yet they slew him without all compassion But after thirteene yeres raigne the same Theodericke was requited by his other brethren with the same measure that hee before met to his brother Thurismund And so though vengeance slept a while yet at length it wakened Aelias Antonius Gordianus the third Emperour of Rome Phil. Melanct. chron Aventin lib. 2. though so excellent a young prince that hee deserued to be called the Loue and Iewell of the world yet was hee slaine by one promoted by himselfe to high honour called Philip Arabs when hee was but two and twentie yeere old after whose decease this Philip got himselfe elected Emperour by the band confirmed by the Senat. Ingratitude punished All which notwithstanding after fiue yeeres Decius rebelled and his owne souldiers conspired against him so that both he at Verona and his sonne at Rome were slaine by them about one time Aâ—entin lib. 2. After the death of Constantine the Great his three sonnes deuiding the Empire betwixt them succeeded their father Constantine the eldest had for his share Spaine France the Alpes and England Constance the second held Italy Africa Graecia and Illiricum Constantine the younger was king and Emperour of the East But ambition suffered them not to enioy quietly these their possessions for when the eldest being more proud and seditious thâ—n the other not content with his alotted portion made warre vpon his brother Constance his prouinces and stroue to enter Italy hee was slaine in a battell by Aquileia when he was but fiue and twentie yeere old by which meanes all the prouinces which were his fell to Constance and therewithall such a drowsinesse and epicurisme for want of a stirrer vp after his brothers death that he fell into the gout and neglected the gouernment of the Empire Wherfore in Auspurge and in Rhetia they created a new Emperour one Magnentius whose life before-time Constance had saued from the souldiers Notable ingratitude punished and therefore his treachery was the greater This Magnentius depriued and slew Constance but was ouercome by Constantine the third brother in Illiricum yet in such sort that the conquerour could not greatly brag for he lost an infinite company of his men and yet missed of his chiefe purpose the taking of Magnentius for he escaped to Lyons and there massacring all that he mistrusted at last growing I suppose in suspition with his owne heart slue himselfe also And so his traiterous ingratefull and ambitious murder was reuenged with his own hands Ritius lib. 1. regib Hispan Victericus betraied Luyba king of Spaine and succeeded in his place seuen yeeres after another traitor slew him succeeded also in his place Mauritius the Emperour was murdered by Phocas togither with his wife fiue of his children he seating himselfe Emperor in his Rome Howbeit traitours and murderers can neuer come to happy ends for as hee had slaine Mauritius so Priscus Heraclianus and Phorius three of his chiefest captaines conspiring against him with three seuerall armies gaue him such an alarme at once at his owne dores that they soone quailed his courage and after much mangling of his body cut him shorter by the head and the kingdome at one blow In the time of Edward the second and Edward the third in England Lanquet one Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much blood and at last king Edward himselfe lying at Barkley castle to the end that he might as it was supposed enioy Isabell his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity After this hee vniustly accused Edmond Earle of Kent of treason and caused him to be put to death therefore and lastly he conspired against king Edward the third as it was suspected for which cause he was worthily and deseruedly beheaded Among this ranke of murderers of kings we may fitly place also Richard the third vsurper of the crowne of England Stow. and diuers others which he vsed as instruments to bring his detestable purpose to effect as namely Sir Iames Tirrell knight a man for natures gifts worthy to haue serued a much better prince then this Richard if he had well serued God and bene indued with as much truth honestie as he had strength wit also Miles Forest Iohn Dighton two villains fleshed
fared till king Charles the sixt sent an army of men to his succour Cap. 125 126. for he was his subiect by whose support he ouercame those rebels in a battaile foughten at Rose Be◠to the number of forty thousand the body of their chieftaine Philip Arteuill slaine in the throng hee caused to bee hanged on a tree Nic. Gil. vol. 2. And this was the end of that cruell Tragedy the countrie being brought againe into the obedience of their old Lord. A while before this Froiss vol. r. cap. 182. whilest king Iohn was held prisoner in England there arose a great cōmotion of the cōmon people in France against the nobilitie and gentilitie of the realme that oppressed them this tumult began but with an hundred men that were gathered togither in the countrey of Beauvoisin but that small handfull grewe right quickly to an armefull euen to nine thousand that ranged and robbed throughout al Brie along by the riuer Marne to Laonoise and all about Soissons armed with great bats shod with iron an headlesse crue without gouernour fully purposing to bring to ruine the whole nobility In this disorder they wrought much mischief broke vp many houses and castles murdered many Lords so that diuerse Ladies and knights as the Dutchesses of Normandy Orleance were faine to flee for safegard to Meaux whither when these rebels would needes pursue them they were there ouerthrowen killed and hanged by troupes In the yere of our Lord 1525 Sleid. lib. 4. there were certaine husbandmen of Souabey that began to stand in resistance against the Earle of Lupsfen by reason of certaine burdens which they complained themselues to be ouerlaid with by them their neighbors seeing this enterprised the like against their lords And so vpon this small beginning by a certaine contagion there grew vp a most dangerous and fearfull commotion that spread it selfe almost ouer all Almaine the sedition thus increasing in all quarters and the swaines being now full fortie thousand strong making their owne liberty and the Gospels a cloake to couer their treason and rebellion and a pretence of their vndertaking armes to the wonderfull griefe of all that feared God did not only fight with the Romane Catholikes but with all other without respect as well in Souabe as in Franconia they destroied 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 Helfestin making him passe through their pikes But at length their strength was broken they discomfited and torne in pieces with a most horrible massacre of more than eighteene thousand of them During this sedition there were slaine on each side fifty thousand men The captaine of the Souabian swaines called Geismer hauing betaken himselfe to flight got ouer the mountaines to Padua where by treason hee was made away In the yeere of our Lord 1517 in the Marquesdome of the Vandales the like insurrection and rebellion was of the comminaltie especially the baser sort against the nobilitie spirituall and temporall by whom they were oppressed with intollerable exactions their army was numbred to stand of ninety thousand men all clownes and husbandmen that conspired togither to redresse and refourme their owne grieuances without any respect of ciuill magistrate or feare of Almightie God This rascality of swaines raged and tyranized euery where burning and beating downe the castles and houses of noble men and making their ruines euen with the ground Nay they handled the noble men themselues as many as they could attaine vnto not contumeliously only but rigorously and cruelly for they tormented them to death and carried their heads vpon speares in token of victory Thus they swaied a while vncontrolled for the Emperour Maximilian winked at their riots as beeing acquainted with what iniuries they had bene ouercharged but when he perceiued that the rude multitude did not limit their fury within reason but let it runne too lauish to the damnifying as well the innocent as the guilty hee made out a certaine small troupe of mercenary souldiers togither with a band of horsemen to suppresse them who comming to a city were presently so inuironed with such a multitude of these swaines that like locusts ouerspread the earth that they thought it impossible to escape with their liues wherefore feare and extremitie made thē to rush out to battel with thē But see how the Lord prospereth a good cause for all their weake number in comparison of their enemies yet such a feare possessed their enemies hearts that they fled like troupes of sheepe and were slaine liee dogs before them insomuch that they that escaped the sword were either hanged by flockes 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 countrey with their monstrous villanies that the traces and steppes thereof remaine at this day to be seene In the yeere of our Lord 1381 Stow Chron. Richard the second being king the commons of England and especially of Kent and Essex by meanes of a taxe that was set vpon them suddenly rebelled and assembled togither on Blackheath to the number of 60000 or more which rebellious rout had none but base and ignoble fellowes for their captaines as Wat Tilour Iacke Straw Tom Miller but yet they caused much trouble and disquietnesse in the realme and chiefly about the citie of London where they committed much villanie in destroying many goodly places as the Sauoy and others and being in Smithfield vsed themselues very proudly and vnreuerently towards the king but by the manhood and wisdome of William Walworth Maior of London who arrested their chiefe captaine 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 seuenth Stow Chron. a great commotiō was stirred vp in England by the commons of the North by reason of a certaine taxe which was leuied of the tenth penny of all mens lands good within the land in the which the Earle of Northumberland was slaine But their rash attempt was soone broken and Chamberlaine their captaine with diuers others hanged at Yorke for the same Howbeit their example scared not the Cornish men frō rebelling vpon the like occasion of a taxe vnder the conduct of the lord Audley vntill by wofull experience they felt the same scourge for the king met them vpon blacke heath and discomfiting their troupes tooke their captains and ringleaders and put them to most worthy and sharpe death Thus we may see the vnhappie issue of all such seditious reuoltings and thereby gather how vnpleasant they are in the sight of God Let all people therefore learne by these experiences to submit themselues in the feare of God to the higher powers whether they be lords kings princes or any other that are set ouer them CHAP. VI. Of Murderers AS
touching Murder which is by the second commaundement of the second table forbidden in these words Exod. 21. Thou shalt not kill the Lord denounceth this iudgement vpon it that he which striketh a man that hee dieth shall die the death And this is correspondent to that edict which he gaue to Noah presently after the vniuersall flood to suppresse that generall crueltie which had taken root from the beginning in Cain and his posterity being carefull for mans life Gen. 9. saying That hee will require the blood of man at the hands of either man or beast that killeth him adding moreouer That whosoeuer sheddeth mans blood by man also his blood shall be shed seeing that God created him after his owne image which he would not haue to be basely accounted of but deare and pretious vnto vs. Exod. 21. If then the bruit and vnreasonable 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 reason when maliciously and aduisedly he taketh away the life of his neighbour But the hainousnes greatnes of this sinne is most liuely expressed by that ordinance of God set downe in the 21 of Deuteronomie where it is enioyned That if a man be found slaine in the field Deut. 21. and it be not knowen who it was that slue him then the Elders and Iudges of the next towne assembling togither should offer vp an expiatorie sacrifice by the hands of the priests to demand pardon for that cruell murder that the guilt of innocent blood might not be imputed vnto them And if by ouersight or negligence without any malice hatred or pretence one killed another yet was he not exempted from all punishment Num. 35. but suffered to fly to the citie of refuge to be kept and as it were inclosed vntill his innocencie were made manifest or at the least vntill the death of the high priest From this it may seeme arose the custome of Painyms in the like case which was that if a man vnwillingly had committed murder hee did presently auoid the countrey and go vnto some man of power and authority of a straunge nation and present himselfe at his gate sitting with his face couered humbly intreating pardon and reconciliation for his murder and for one whole yeere hee might not returne into his owne counrrey On this manner was the sonne of a certaine king of Phrygia entertained in king Craesus court Herod lib. 1. who vnaduisedly had slaine his owne brother Whereby it is manifest how odious and execrable in all ages and all places and all people this homicide and murder hath beene insomuch that men did shun their very meeting and companie and abandon them out of their temples and publicke assemblies as people excommunicate and prophane And yet for all this mankind for the most part like sauagde beasts hath by the instigation of that wicked spirit who was a murderer from the beginning bene too too addicted to this kind of cruelty not being afraid to offer violence to nature and shed innocent blood Such was the franticke peruerse crueltie of the second man Cain Gen. 4. when without any occasion but only through enuy he slew his only brother Abel and that traiterously which deed albeit it was done in secret and without the view of men yet it could not shun the piercing eie of God who reprooued him for it saying That the blood of Abell cried for vengeance from the earth And although this cursed and wicked murderer receiued not immediatly a condigne punishment answerable to his crime God to the end to spare mans blood vsing vndeserued fauour towards him yet escaped he not scotfree for he was pursued with a continuall torment and sting of conscience togither with such an incessant feare that he became a vagabond and a runnagate vpon the earth and seeing himselfe brought into so miserable an estate he fell to complaining that the punishment was greater then he was able to beare Thus God permitted this wretch to draw out his life in such anguish that for a greater punishment he might pine away the rest of his daies without comfort A man may find in this world many such brother-murdering Cains who for no occasion sticke not to cut their throats whom for the bond of common nature wherein all men are linked togither as branches of one root they ought to acknowledge for their brethrē friends vpon whome the heauie hand of God hath not beene more slacke to punish either by one means or other then it was vpon their eldest brother Cain But seeing the number of them is so great and it is not so conuenienr to heap vp here so huge a multitude togither it shall suffice only to recount the most famous and notablest of them as of those that haue ben men of note and reputation in the world or that through an ambitious desire of raigning haue by armes sought to atchieue their purposes for these for the most part are the greatest murderers and butchers of all that through their wicked affections worldly pomp or desire of reuenge haue no remorse of making the blood of men runne like riuers vpon the earth making no more account of the life of a man then of a fly or a worme Iudg. 9. Such an one was Abimelech one of the sonnes of Gedeon who to the end to vsurpe the regiment of the people which his father before him refused got togither a rout of rascall vile fellowes by whose aid comming to his fathers house hee slew seuenty of his brethren euen all except Ioathan the yongest that stole away and hid himselfe After which massacre hee raigned in iollitie three yeeres and at the end thereof was cut short by God togither with the Sichemites his prouokers and maintainers who were also guiltie of all the innocent blood which hee had shed for God sent the spirit of diuision betwixt them so that the Sichemites began to despise him and rebell against him but they had the worst end of the staffe and were ouercome by him who pursuing the victory tooke their citie by force and put them all to the edge of the sword And after hee had thus destroied their citie put fire also to the castle wherein he consumed neere about a thousand persons of men and women that were retired thither to saue their liues And thus God brought vpon them the mischiefe which they had consented and put their hands vnto For as they had lent him aid and furtherance to the shedding of his breethrens blood so was their own blood with their wiues and childrens shed by him yet this tyrant not content therewith made warre also with the inhabitants of Tebez and tooke their city and would haue forced the tower also wherein the citizens had inclosed themselues but as he approched to the wall a woman threw downe a peece of a milstone vpon
his head wherewith finding himselfe hurt to death he commanded one of his souldiers to kill him outright And thus this wicked murderer that had shedde the blood of many men yea of his owne brethren had his braines knockt out by a woman and died a most desperate death The bloody treacherie of Baana and Rechab 2. Sam. 4. chiefe captaines of Ishbosheth Sauls sonne in conspiring against and murdering their master whilst hee slept abode not long vnpunished for hauing cut off his head they presented it for a present to king Dauid hoping to gratifie the king Treason lib. 2. cap. 3 4. and to receiue some recompence for their paines But Dauid beeing of an vpright and true kingly heart could nor endure such vile treachery though against the person of his enemie but entertained them as most vile traitours and master murderers commaunding first their hands and feet to be cut off which they had especially imploied as instruments about that villany and afterwards caused them to be slaine and then hanged for an example to all others that should attempt the like For the like cause was Ioab generall of king Dauids host for killing Abner traiterously who forsaking Ishbosheth had yeelded himselfe to the king cursed of Dauid with all his house Treason lib. 2. cap. 3. with a most grieuous and terrible curse And yet notwithstanding a while after he came againe to that passe as to murder Amasa one of Dauids chiefe captaines making shew to salute and imbrace him 2. Sam. 20. For which cruell deed albeit that in Dauids time he receiued no punishment yet it ouertooke him at last and the same kind of crueltie which hee had so traiterously and villanously committed towards others fell vpon his owne head being himselfe also killed as he had killed others which happened in king Salomons raigne who executing the charge and commandement of his father put to death this murderer in the tabernacle of God 1. King 2. and by the altar whither he was fled as a place priuiledged for safety CHAP. VII A suit of Examples like vnto the former LEauing the Scripture wee find in other writers notable examples of this subiect Herod lib. 1. As first of Astyages king of the Medes who so much swarued from humanitie that hee gaue in straight charge that young Cyrus his owne daughters sonne now ready to be borne should be made away by some sinister practise to auoid by that meanes the danger which by a dreame was signified vnto him Notwithstanding the yong infant finding friends to preserue him aliue and growing vp by meanes of the peeres fauor to whom his grandfather by his cruell dealings was become odious obtained the crowne out of his hands and dispossessing him seated himselfe in his roome This Cirus was that mighty and awfull king of Persia whome God vsed as an instrument for the deliuery of his people out of the captiuity of Babylon as he foretold by the Prophet Isaiah who yet following kind made cruell war in many places for the space of thirty yeres and therfore it was necessary that he should tast some fruits of his insatiable and bloodthirstie desire as hee indeed did for after many great victories and conquests ouer diuers cuntries atchieued Oros lib. 2. going about to assaile Scithia also hee and his army togither were surprised ouercome and slaine to the number of two hundred thousand persons and for his shame receiued this disgrace at a womans hand who triumphing in her victory threw his head into a sacke full of blood with these tearmes Now glut thy selfe with blood which thou hast thirsted after so long time Cambyses Cyrus sonne was also so bloody and cruel a man Herod lib. 3. that one day he shot a noble mans sonne to the heart with an arrow for being admonished by his father of his drunkennes to which he was very much giuen which he did in indignation and to shew that hee was not yet so drunken but he knew how to draw his bow Hee caused his owne brother to be murdered priuily for feare hee should raigne after him and slew his sister for reproouing him for that deed In his voiage to Aethiopia when his armie was brought into so great penury of victuals that they were glad to feed vpon horse flesh hee was so cruel and barbarous that after their horses were spent hee caused them to eate one another But at his returne from Aegypt the Susians his chiefe citizens welcomed him home with rebellion and at last as hee was riding it so chanced that his sword fell out of the scabberd and himselfe vpon the point of it so that it pierced him through and so hee died After that Xerxes by his ouerbold enterprise had distuâ—bed the greatest part of the world Diodor. lib. 11. passed the sea trauersed many countries to the end to assaile Greece with innumerable forces he was ouercome both by sea by land and compelled priuily to retire into his countrie with shame discredit where he had not long beene but Artabanus the captaine of his guard killed him in his pallace by night who also after that many other mischiefes committed by him was himselfe cruelly murdered The thirtie gouernours which the Lacedemonians set ouer the Athenians by compulsion were such cruell Tyrants oppressors and bloodsuckers of the people that they made away a great part of them vntil they were chased away themselues violently and then being secretly dogged pursued were all killed one after another Pirrhus King of Epire that raigned not long after Alexander the great was naturally disposed to such a quicknesse heat of courage that he could neuer be quiet but wheÌ„ he was either doing some mischiefe to another or when another was doing some vnto him euer deuising some new practise of molestation for pastimes sake This his wild and dangerous disposition began first to shew it selfe in the death of Neoptolemus who was conioined King with him whom hauing bidden to supper in his lodging vnder pretence of sacrifice to his gods he deceitfully slew preuenting by that meanes Neoptolemus pretended purpose of poisoning him when occasion should serue After this he conquered Macedonia by armes and came into Italie to make warre with the Romanes in the behalfe of the Tarentines and gaue them battaile in the field and slew fifteene thousand of them in one day he took their campe reuoked many cities from their alliance spoiled much of their country euen to the wals of Rome and all this in a trice without breathing Againe by Ascoly he encountred them the second time where there was a great ouerthrow of ech side of fifteen thousand meÌ„ But the Romans had the worst took their heeles WheÌ„ he was intreated by the Sicilian Embassadours to lend them aid to expulse the Carthaginians out of their isle hee yeelded presently and chased them out Being recalled by the Tarentines into Italy for their succour hee was conquered
battaile yet was hee encountred with another desastrous misfortune for as hee marched forward with his forces to fight with Sigismunds brother he was by him ouercome and slain and for a further disgrace his dismembred head fastened on the top of a pike carried about to the enterview of all men Hee left behind him three yoong sonnes whom his owne brethren and their vncles Clotaire and Childebert notwithstanding their yong tender yeares tooke from their grandmother Clotildes custodie that brought them vp as if they would enstall them into some part of their fathers kingdome but most wickedly and cruelly to the end to possesse their goods lands signiories bereft them al of their liues saue one that saued himselfe in a monestarie In this strange monstrous act Clotaire shewed himselfe more then barbarous when hee would not take pitty vpon the youngest of the two being but seuen yeare old who hearing his brother of the age of tenne yeares crying pittifully at his slaughter threw himselfe at his vncle Childeberts feet with teares desiring him to saue his life wherewith Childebert being greatly affected entreated his brother with weeping eies to haue pitty vpon him and spare the life of this poore infant but al his warnings and entreaties could not hinder the sauadge beast from performing this cruell murder vpon this poor child as he had done vpon the other The Emperour Phocas attained by this bloody means the emperiall dignity Nicephor lib. 18. cap. 58. euen by the slaughter of his Lord maister Mauricius whom as he fled in disguised attire for feare of a treason pretended against him hee being beforetime the leiutenant general of his army pursued so maliciously hotely that he ouertook him in his flight for his further griefe first put all his childrē seuerally to death before his face that euery one of thē might be a seuerall death vpon him before he died and then slew him also This murderer was hee that first exalted to so high a point the popish horn whē at the request of Boniface he ordained that the bishop of Rome shold haue preheminence authority oueral other bishops which he did to the end that the stain blame of his most execrable murder might be either quite blotted out or at least wincked at Vnder his regencie the forces of the Empire grew wonderously into decay France Spaine Almaigne and Lumbardy reuolted from the Empire and at last himselfe being pursued by his sonne in law Priscus with the Senators vvas taken and hauing his handes and feet cut off was togither with the whole race of his ofspring put to a most cruel death because of his cruell and tyrannous life Among all the strange examples of Gods iudgements that euer were declared in this world that one that befell a king of Poleland called Popiell for his murders is for the strangenesse thereof most worthy to bee had in memory hee raigned in the year of our Lord 1346 this man among other of his particular kinds of cursings and swearing whereof he was no niggard vsed ordinarily this oth If it bee not true would rats might deuour me Munst Cosmog Mandat 3. Cursing lib. 1. cap. 32. prophecying thereby his owne destruction for hee was deuoured euen by the same means which hee so often wished for as the sequele of his historie will declare The father of this Popiell feeling himselfe neare death resigned the gouernment of his kingdome to two of his brethren men exceedingly reuerenced of all men for the valor and vertue which appeared in them He being deceased and Popiell being growne vp to ripe and lawfull yeares when hee saw himselfe in full libertie without all bridle of gouernment to doe what he listed he began to giue the full swindge to his lawlesse and vnruly desires in such sort that within few daies he became so shamelesse that there was no kind of vice which appeared not in his behauior euen to the working of the death of his owne vncles for all their faithfull dealing towards him which hee by poyson brought to passe Which being done he caused himself forthwith to be crowned with garlands of flowers and to bee perfumed with pretious ointments and to the end the better to solemnize his entrie to the crowne commanded a sumptuous and pompous banket to be prepared wherevnto all the princes and lords of his kingdome were inuited Now as they were about to giue the onset vpon the delicate cheare behold an army of rats sallying out of the dead and putrified bodies of his vncles set vpon him his wife and children amid their dainties to gnaw them with their sharp teeth insomuch that his guard with all their weapons strength were not able to chase them away but being weary with resisting their daily mightie assaults gaue ouer the battaile wherfore counsell was giuen to make great coale fires round about them that the rats by that meanes might bee kept off not knowing that no pollicy or power of man was able to withstand the vnchangeable 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 murderer Then they gaue him counsaile to put himselfe his wife children into a boat and thrust it into the middest of a lake thinking that by reason of the waters the rats would not approch vnto thē But alasse in vain for they swum through the waters amaine gnawing the boat made such chinckes into the sides thereof that the water began to run in which being perceiued of the boatmen amazed them sore and made them make post hast vnto the shore where he was no sooner arriued but a fresh muster of rats vniting their forces with the former encountred him so sore that they did him more scath then all the rest Wherevpon all his guard and others that were there present for his defence perceiuing it to be a iudgement of Gods vengeance vpon him abandoned and forsooke him at once who seeing himselfe destitute of succour and forsaken on all sides flew into a high tower in Chousuitze whether also they pursued him and climing euen vp to the highest roome where he was first eat vp his wife and children shee being guilty of his vncles death and lastly gnew and deuoured him to the very bones After the same sort was an Archbishop of Mentz called Hatto Munsteer Cosmographie punished in the year 940 vnder the raigne of the Emperour Otho the great for the extreame cruelty which he vsed towards certaine poore beggers whom in time of famine he assembled together into a great barne not to releeue their wants as he might ought but to rid their liues as he ought not but did for hee set on fire the barne wherein they were and consumed them all aliue comparing them to rats mise that deuoured good corne but serued to no other good vse Mandat 8. Auarice and vnmercifulnesse But God
Constantinople exercising more cruelty at his returne then euer hee had done before him for he not only put to death Leontius and Tiberius but also all that any way fauoured their parts It is said of him that he neuer â—â—â—w his mangled nose but he caused one of them to be executed to death At last he was slaine by Philippicus to verifie the word of the Lord That he which striketh with the sword shall perish with the sword Albonius king of Lumbardy drinking vpon a time to his wife Rosimund in a cup made of her fathers skull whome he in battaile had slaine so displeased her therewith that shee attributing more to naturall affection then vnity of marriage decreed with her selfe to hazard life and kingdome to be reuenged vpon this grieuous iniury wherefore shee thus practised A knight called Hemichild was enamoured with one of her maids him she brought into a secret darke place by pollicie in shew to enioy his loue but indeed to be at her commaund for shee supplied his loues place and then discouering her selfe put it to his choise either to kill her husband or to be accused by her of this villany Hemichild chose the former and in deed murdered his lord in his bed and after the deed done fled with her to Rauenna But marke how the Lord requited this murder euen most strangely for they both which had beene linkt togither in the fact were linkt togither also in the punishment and as they had beene ioynt instruments of anothers destruction so he made them mutuall instruments of their owne for Rosimund thinking to poison him too made him drinke halfe her medicine but he feeling the poison in his veines staied in the midway and made her sup vp the other halfe for her part so they died both togither The Electors of the Empire disagreeing in suffrages Munst cosâ—n Philip. Melan. lib. 5. Adolphus duke of Nassauia Albertus duke of Austria tooke vpon them the regiment and managing of the state whereupon grewe grieuous warres in all Germany and dissention betweene the two statemen so that Adolphus was slaine by the duke of Austria in battaile by the city of Spire whose death was thus notably reuenged All that tooke part against him or that were accessary to the murder perished most strangely Albert Earle of Hagerloch was slaine Otto of Ochsensteme hanged the bishop of Mentz died suddenly of an apoplexie in his sellar the bishop of Stratsbrough was butchered by a butcher the Earle of Leimingen died of a phrensie the duke of Austria himselfe was slaine by his nephew Iohn from whome he had taken the gouernment of Sueuia because of his vnthriftinesse generally they all came to destruction so grieuous is the crie of innocent blood against those that are guiltie thereof After the death of Woldimirus king of Rhythenia his son Berisus succeeded in the kingdome Treason lib. 2. cap. 3. who though hee was a vertuous and religious prince yet could not his vertue or religion priuiledge him from the malice of his brother Suadopolcus who gaping and itching for the crowne slue his brother this good prince as he was sleeping in his chamber togither with his Esquire that attended vpon him Chron. Pol. lib. 2. cap. 10. and not content herewith but adding murder to murder he assaulted another of his brethren by the same impiety and brought him to the same end Whereupon the last brother Iorâ—slaus to be reuenged on this villany set vpon him with an army of men and killing his complices droue him to flie to Crachus king of Polonia for succour who furnishing him with a new army sent him backe against his brother in which battell his successe being equall to his former he lost his men and himselfe escaping the sword died in his flight to Polonia and was buried in a base and ignoble sepulchre fit enough for so base ignoble a wretch And that we may see how hatefull and vngodly a thing it is to be either a protectour or a sauer of any murderer marke the iudgement of God that fell vpon this king of Polonia though not in his owne person yet in his posterity Treason lib. 2. cap. 3. for he being dead his eldest sonne and heire Crachus was murdered by his younger brother Lechus as they were hunting so disguised and torne that euery man imputed his death not to Lechus whose eies dropt crocadiles teares but to some sauadge and cruell beast Howbeit ere long his treachery being discouered and disseised of his kingdome hee died with extreame griefe and horrour of conscience And thus wee see that Crachus his kingdome came to desolation for maintaining a murderer Iohn the high priest of Ierusalem sonne and successour to Iudas had a brother tearmed Iesus to whome Bagoses the lieuetenant of Antaxerxes army promised the priesthood Ioseph anâ—iq Iudaic. l. r 1. c 7 meaning in deed to depose Iohn and install him in his roome vpon which occasion this Iesus growing insolent spared not to reuile his brother that in the temple with immodest opprobrious speeches so that his anger being prouoked ProfanatioÌ„ of holy things lib. 1. cap. 34. hee slue him in his rage a most impious part for the high priest to pollute the holy temple with blood that of his owne brother and so impious that the Lord in iustice could not choose but punish the whole natioÌ„ for it most seuerely For this cause Bagoses imposed a tribute vpon them euen a most grieuous tribute that for euery lambe they offered vpon the altar they should pay fifty groats to the king of Persia besides the prophanation of their temple with the vncircumcised Persians who entred into it at their pleasures and so polluted the sanctuary and holy things of God this punishment continued vpon them seuen yeeres and all for this one murder Gerhardus Earle of Holsatia after he had conquered the Danes in many and sundry battailes Treason lib. 2. cap. 3. was traiterously slaine in the city Kanderhusen by one Nicolaus Iacobus a rich Baron so that whome the open enemie feared in the field him the priuie subtill foe murdered in his chamber But the traitour and murderer albeit he fled to the castle Schaldenburg and got a band of soldiers to defend himselfe yet he was surprised by the Earls sonnes who tormenting him as became a traitor to be tormented at last rent his body into foure quarters and so his murder and treason was condignly punished Aboue 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 Greg. of Tours lib. 3. cap. 36. who hauing traiterously slaine an especiall friend of his called Ausanius with his wife Papianilla when no man suspected or accused him thereof hee detected and accused himselfe after this strange manner As hee slept in his bed suddenly hee roared out most pitifully crying for helpe or else hee perished
and consent of parties is committed bee condemned how much more greeuous and hainous is the offence and more guiltie the offendour when with violence the chastity of any is assailed and enforced This was the sinne wherwith Sichem the sonne of Hemor the Leuit is marked in holy scripture for hee rauished Dina Iaacobs daughter Gen. for which cause Simeon and Lui her brethren reuenged the iniury done done vnto their sister vpon the head of not onely him and his father but all the males that were in the citie by putting them to the sword It was a custome among the Spartanes Messenians during the time of peace betwixt them to send yearely to one another certaine of their daughters to celebrate certaine feasts and sacrifices that were amongst them now in continuance of time it chanced that fiftie of the Lacedemonian Virgines being come to those solemne feasts were pursued by the Messenian gallants to haue their pleasures of theÌ„ but they iointly making resistance and fighting for their honesties stroue so long not one yeelding themselues a prey into their hands till they all died wherevpon arose so long miserable a warre that all the countrie of Messena was destroied thereby Aristoclides a Tyrant of Orchomenus a city of Arcadia fell enamoured with a maid of Stymphalis who seeing her father by him slaine because hee seemed to stand in his puâ—poses light fled to the Temple of Diana to take Sanctuarie neither could once bee pluckt from the image of the goddesse vntill her life was taken from her but hir death so incensed the Arcadians that they fell to armes sharpely reuenged her cruell iniury Appius a Romane a man of power and authoritie in the city â—â—us Liuius enflamed with the loue of a Virgin whose father hight Virginius would needs make her his seruant to the end to abuse her the more freely whilst he endeuoured with all his power and pollicie to accomplish his immoderate lust her father slew her with his own hands more willing to prostitute her to death than to so foule an opprobrie and disgrace but euery man prouoked and stirred vp with the wofulnesse of the euent with one consent pursued apprehended and imprisoned the foule lecher who fearing the award of a most shamefull death killed himselfe to preuent a further mischiefe In the yeare of our Lord 1271 vnder the raign of the Emperour Rodolphe Nic. Gil. vol. 1. the Sicilians netled and enraged with the horrible whoredomes adulteries Rapes which the Garrisons that had the gouernment ouer them committed not able to endure any longer their insolent outragious demeanor entred a secret coÌ„mon conspiracy vpon a time appointed for the purpose which was on Easter sunday at the shutting in of the euening to set vpon them with one accord and to murder so many as they could as they did for at that instant they massacred so many throughout the whole island that of all the great multitude there suruiued not one to beare tidings or bewaile the dead At Naples it chaunced in the Kings pallace Bâ—mb lib. 3. hist Venet. as young King Fredericke Ferdinands sonne entered the priuie chamber of the Queene his mother to salute her and the other Ladies of the court that the Prince of Bissenio waighting in the outward chamber for his returne was slaine by one of his owne seruants that suddainely gaue him with his sword three deadly strokes in the presence of many beholders which deed hee confessed that hee had watched three yeares to performe in regard of an iniurie done vnto his sister and in her to him Benzoni Milan of the new found land whome hee rauished against her will The Spaniards that first tooke the Isle Hispaniola were for their whoredomes and Rapes whhich they committed vpon the wiues and Virgins all murdered by the inhabitants The inhabitants of the Prouince Cumana when they saw the beastly outrage of the Spanish nation The same author that lay along their coasts to fish for pearle in forcing and rauishing without difference their women young and old set vpon them vpon a Sunday morning with all their force and slew all that euer they found by the sea coasts Westward till there remained not one aliue And the fury of the rude vnciuill people was so great that they spared not the Monkes in their cloisters but cut their throates as they were mumbling their Masses burnt vp the Spanish houses both religious and priuate burst in peeces their belles drew about their Images hurld downe their crucifixes and cast them in disgrace and contempt ouerthwart their streetes to bee trodden vpon nay they destroyed whatsoeuer belonged vnto them to their very dogges and hennes and their owne Countriemen that serued them in any seruice whether religious or other they spared not they beate the earth and cursed it with bitter curses because it had vpholden such wicked and wretched caitifes Now the report of this massacre was so fearefull and terrible that the Spaniards which were in Cubagna doubted much of their liues also and truly not without great cause for if the Indians of the Continent had beene furnished and prouided with sufficient store of barkes they had passed euen into that Island and had serued them with the same sauce which their fellows were serued with for they wanted not will but hability to doe it And these are the goodly fruits of their adulteries and Rapes which the Spanish nation hath reaped in their new found land The great calamity and ouerthrow which the Lacedemonians endured at Leuctria wherein their chiefest strength and powers were weakened and consumed was a manifest punishment of their inordinate lust committed vpon two Virgines â—i Mel. lib. 2. whome after they had rauished in that very place they cut in peeces and threw them into a pit and when their father came to complaine him of the villanie they made so light account of his words that in stead of redresse he found nothing but reproch and derision so that with griefe hee slew himselfe vpon his daughters sepulchre but how greeuously the Lord reuenged this iniurie hystories doe sufficiently testifie and that Leuctrias calamitie doth beare witnesse Pausan lib. 2. Brias a Grecian captaine being receiued into a Citizens house as a guest forced his wife by violence to his lust but when he was asleepe to reuenge her wrong she put out both his eies and afterward complained to the citizens also who depriued him of his office and cast him out of their city Macrinus the Emperour punished two souldiours that rauished their hostesse on this manner hee shut them vp in an oxes bowels with their heads out and so partly with famishment and partly with wormes and rottennesse they consumed to death Iohan magnus Rodericus king of the Gothes in Spaine forced an Earles daughter to his lust for which cause her father brought against him an army of Sarasens and Moores and not onely slew him
with his sonne but also quite extinguished the Gothicke kingdome in Spaine in this warre and vpon this occasion seuen hundred thousand men perished as hystories record and so a kingdome came to ruine by the peruerse lust of one lecher Anno 714. At the sacking and destruction of Thebes by king Alexander a Thracian captaine which was in the Macedonian army tooke a noble Matron prisoner called Tymoclea whome when by no persuasion of promises he could entise to his lust he constrained by force to yeeld vnto it Plut. in vita Alexand. Sabel lib. 5. c. 6. but this noble minded woman inuented a most witty subtile shift both to rid her selfe out of his hands and to reuenge his iniurie she told him that she knew where a rich treasure lay hid in a deepe pit whether when with greedinesse of the gold he hastened standing vpon the brinke pried and peared into the bottome of it she thrust him with both her hands into the hole and tumbled stones after him that he might neuer find meanes to come forth for which fact she was brought before Alexander to haue iustice who demanding her what she was she answered that Theagenes who led the Thebane army against the Macedonians was her brother Alexander perceiuing the maruellous constancie of the woman and knowing the cause of her accusation to bee vniust manumitted and set her free with her whole family When Cn. Manlius hauing conquered the Gallo-Grecians pitched his army against the Tectosages people of Narbonia towards the Piren mountains amongst other prisoners a very fair womā wife to Orgiagous Regulus was in the custodie of a Centurion that was both lustfull and couetous Liuiu◠lib. 38. This lecher tempted her first with faire persuasions and seeing her vnwilling compelled her with violence to yeeld her body as a slaue to fortune so to infamy and dishonor after which act somewhat to mitigate the wrong he gaue her promise of release and freedome vpon condition of a certaine summe of money and to that purpose sent her seruant that was captiue with her to her friends to puruey the same which hee bringing the Centurion alone with the wronged lady met him at a place appointed and whilest hee weighed the money by her counsaile was murdered of her seruants so she escaping caried to her husband both his money and threw at his feet the villaines head that had spoiled her of her chastitie Andreas king of Hungary hauing vndertaken the voiage into Siria for the recouety of the holy land together with many other kings and Princes committed the charge of his kingdome and family to one Bannebanius Chronica Hungariae a wise and faithfull man who discharged his office as faithfully as hee tooke it willingly vpon him now the Queene had a brother called Gertrude that came to visite and comfort his sister in her husbands absence and by that meanes soiourned with her a long time euen so long till hee fell deadly in loue with Bannebanus lady a faire vertuous woman one that was thought worthie to keepe company with the Queene continually to whome when hee had vnfolded his suit and receiued such stedfast repulse that hee was without all hope of obtaining his desire he began to droupe and pine vntill the Queene his sister perceiuing his disease found this peruerse remedie for the cure thereof shee would often giue him oportunitie of discourse by withdrawing her selfe from them being alone and many times leaue them in secret and dangerous places of purpose that he might haue his will of her but she would neuer consent vnto his lust and therefore at last when hee saw no remedie hee constrained her by force and made her subiect to his will against her will which vile disgracefull indignitie when shee had suffered shee returned home sad and melancholy and when her husband would haue embraced her she fled from him asking him if he would embrace a whore and related vnto him her whole abuse desiring him either to rid her from shame by death or to reuenge her wrong make knowne vnto the world the iniury done vnto her There needed no more spurs to pricke him forward for reuenge he posteth to the court and vpbraiding the Queene with her vngratefull and abhominable trecherie 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 iudgement in recompence of the losse of his wiues chastitie foorthwith hee 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 wiues blood 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 greeued with the death of his wife yet acquite him of the crime and held him in as much honour and esteeme as euer hee did condemning also his wife as worthy of that which shee had endured for her vnwomanlike and traiterous part A notable example of iustice in him and of punishment in her that forgetting the law of womanhood and modestie made her selfe a baud vnto her brothers lust whose memory as it shall be odious and execrable so his iustice deserueth to be engrauen in marble with caracters of gold Equall to this king in punishing a Rape was Otho the first Albert. Krant lib. 3. for as he passed through Italy with an armie a certaine woman cast her selfe downe at his feet for iustice against a villaine that had spoiled her of her chastitie who deferring the execution of the law till his returne because his hast was great the woman asked who should then put him in mind thereof hee answered This church which thou seest shall be a witnesse betwixt mee and thee that I will then reuenge thy wrong Now when hee had made an end of his warfare in his returne as hee beheld the church hee called to mind the woman and caused her to be fetcht who falling down before him desired now pardon for him whom before she had accused seeing he had now taken her to wife redeemed his iniury with sufficient satisfaction Not so I sweare quoth Otho your compacting shall not infringe or collude the sacred ◠but hee shall die for his former fault and so he caused hi◠be put to death A notable example for them that after they haue 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 historie following may appear in the yeare 1547 a citizen of Comun Theat histor was cast into prison vpon an accusation of murder whome to deliuer frō the iudgement of death his wife wrought all means possible therefore comming to the captaine that held him prisoner she sued to him for her husbands life
who vpoÌ„ condition of hir yeelding to his lust and payment of 200 duccats promised safe deliuerance for him the poor woman seeing that nothing could redeeme her husbands life but losse shipwrack of her owne honesty told her husband who willed her to yeeld to the captains desire not to pretermit so good an occasion wherfore she consented but after the pleasure past the traiterous and wicked captaine put her husband to death notwithstanding which iniury when she complained to Gonzaga duke of Ferrara hee caused the captaine first to restore backe her 200 dukats with an addition of 700 crowns secondly to marry her to his wife and lastly when hee hoped to enioy her body to be hanged for his trecherie O noble Iustice and comparable to the worthiest deeds of antiquitie and deseruing 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 Theat histor his name is Nouellus Cararius Lord of Pauie a man of note and credite in the world for his greatnesse but of infamy and discredit for his wickednesse This man after many cruell murders and bloodie practises which he exercised in euery place where he came fell at last into this notorious and abhominable crime for lying at Vincentia hee fell in loue with a young maid of excellent beautie but more â—ent honestie an honest citizens daughter whome hee â—anded her Parents to send vnto him that hee might haue his pleasure of her but when they regarding their credit and shee her chastitie more then the Tyrants command refused to come he tooke her violently out of their house and constrained her body to his lust and after to ad crueltie to villanie chopt her into small peeces and sent them to her Parents in a basket for a present wherewith her poore father astonished caried it to the Senate who sent it to Venice desiring them to consider the fact and to reuenge the cruelty The Venetians vndertaking their defence made war vpon the Tyrant and besieging him in his own city took him at last prisoner and hanged him with his two sons Francis and William Diocles sonne of Pisistratus Tyrant of Athens for rauishing a maid Lanquet was slain by her brother whose death when Hippias his brother vndertooke to reuenge and caused the maidens brother to be racked that he might discouer the other conspirators he named al the tyrants friends which by commandement being put to death the Tyrant asked whither there were any more none but only thy selfe quoth hee whome I would wish next to be hanged wherby it was perceiued how abundantly he had reuenged his sisters chastitie by whose notable stomacke all the Athenians being put in remembrance of their libertie expelled their tyrant Hippias out of their city Mundus a young Gentleman of Rome Lanquet chron rauished the chast Matron Paulina in this fashion when he perceiued her resolution not to yeeld vnto his lust hee persuaded the priests of Isis to say that they were warned by an Oracle how that Anubius the god of Aegypt desired the company of the said Paulina to whome the chast Matrone gaue light credence both because she thought the Priests would not lie and also because it was accounted a great renowne to haue to do with a god and thus by this meanes was Paulina abused by Mundus in the temple of Isis vnder the name of Anubius which thing being after disclosed by Mundus himself was thus iustly reuenged the Priests were put to death the temple beaten downe to the ground the image of Isis throwne into Tiber and the young men banished In the yeare of our Lord 955 Edwine succeeding his vncle Eldred was king of England Lanquet This man was so impudent that in the very day of his Coronation hee soddainely withdrew himselfe from his lords and in sight of certaine persons rauished his owne kinswoman the wife of a Nobleman of his realme and afterward slew her husband that he might haue vnlawfull vse of her beautie for which act he became so odious to his subiects and nobles that they iointly rose against him and depriued him of his crowne when hee had raigned foure yeares CHAP. XX. Other examples of Gods Iudgements vpon Adulterers AMongst all other things this is especially to bee noted how God for a greater punishment of the disordinate lust of men stroke them with a new yet filthy and stinking kind of disease called the French pocks though indeed the Spaniards were the first that were infected therewith by the heat which they caught among the women of the new found lands Paulus Iouius Ben. b. sowed the seeds thereof first in Spaine and from thence sprinkled Italy therewith where the Frenchmen caught it when Charles the eight their king went against Naples Guicciardine froÌ„ whence the contagion spread it selfe throughout diuers places of Europe Barbary was so ouergrowen with it that in all their cities the tenth part escaped not vntouched nay almost not a family but was infected From thence it ranne to Aegypt Siria and to the great Cair and it may nerehand truly be said that there was not a corner of the habitable world where this not only new and strange for it was neuer heard of in ancient ages but terrible and hideous scourge of Gods wrath stretched not it selfe They that were spotted with it and had it rooted in their bodies led a languishing life full of aches and torments and carried in their visages filthy markes of vncleane behauiour as vlcers boiles and such like that greatly disfigured them And herein we see the words of S. Paul verified 1. Cor. 6.18 That an Adulterer sinneth against his owne body Now for so much as the world is so brutishly carried into this sinne as to none more the Lord therefore hath declared his anger against it in diuers sorts so that diuers times hee hath punished it in the very act or not long after by a strange death Sabell Of which Alcibiades one of the great captaines of Athens may stand for an example who being polluted with many great and odious vices and much giuen to his pleasures and subiect to all vncleannesse ended his life in the middest thereof for as he was in companie of a Phrigian strumpet hauing flowne thither to the king of Persia for shelter was notwithstanding set vpon by certaine guards which the king induced by his enemies sent to slay him but they though in number many through the coÌ„ceiued opinion of his notable valor durst not apprehend him at hand but set fire to the house standing theÌ„selues in arms round about it to receiue him if need were Hee seeing the fire leaped through the midst of it and so long defended himselfe amongst them all till strength failed in himselfe and blowes encreasing vpon him constrained him to giue vp his life amongst them Plinie telleth of Cornelius Gallus and Q.
Caracalla tooke to wife his mother in law allured thereunto by her faire enticements whose wretched and miserable end hath already beene touched in the tenth Chapter of this booke The Emperour Heraclius after the decease of his first wife married his owne neece the daughter of his brother which turned mightily to his vndoing for besides that that vnder his raigne and as it were by his occasion the Saracens entred the borders of Christendome and spoiled and destroied his dominions vnder his nose to his soule and vtter disgrace hee was ouer and aboue smitten corporally with so grieuous and irkesome a disease of dropsie that hee died thereof Thus many men run riot by assuming to themselues too much libertie and breake the bounds of ciuill honesty required in all contracts and too audaciously set themselues against the commaundement of God which ought to be of such authority with all men that none be they neuer so great should dare to derogate one iot from them vnlesse they meant wholly to oppose themselues as profest enemies to God himselfe and to turne all the good order of things into confusion All which notwithstanding some of the Romish Popes haue presumed to encroch vpon Gods right and to disanull by their foolish decrees the lawes of the almightie Sleid. lib. 9. As Alexander the sixt did who by his bull approoued the incestuous marriage of Ferdinand king of Naples with his owne Aunt his father Alphonsus sister by the fathers side which otherwise saith Cardinall Bembus had beene against all law and equitie and in no case to be tollerated and borne withall Henry the seuenth king of England after the death of his eldest sonne Arthur caused by the speciall dispensation of Pope Iulius his next sonne named Henry to take to wife his brothers widdow called Katherine daughter to Ferdinando king of Spaine for the desire hee had to haue this Spanish affinitie continued who succeeding his father in the crowne after continuance of time began to aduise himselfe and to consult whether this marriage with his brothers wife might be lawfull or no and found it by conference both of holy and prophane lawes vtterly vnlawfull whereupon hee sent certain bishops to the Queene to giue her to know That the Popes dispensation was altogither vniust and of none effect to priuiledge such an act to whome shee answered that it was too late to call in question the Popes bull which so long time they had allowed of The two Cardinals that were in Commission from the Pope to decide the controuersie and to award iudgement vpon the matter were once vpon point to conclude the decree which the king desired had not the Pope impeached their determination in regard of the Emperour Charles nephew to the said Queene whome hee was loth to displease wherefore the king seeing himselfe frustrate of his purpose in this behalfe sent into diuers countries to know the iudgement of all the learned Diuines concerning the matter in controuersie who especially those that dwelt not farre off seemed to allow and approoue the diuorce thereupon hee resolued reiecting his old wife to take him to a new and to marry as he did Anne of Bullaine one of the Queenes maids of honour a woman of most rare and excellent beauty Now as touching his first marriage with his brothers wife how vnfortunate it was in it owne nature and how vniustly dispensed withall by the Pope we shall anon see by those heauie sorrowfull and troublesome euents and issues which immediatly followed in the necke thereof And first and foremost of the euill fare of the Cardinall of Yorke with whome the king beeing highly displeased for that at his instance and request the Pope had opposed himselfe to this marriage requited him and not vndeseruedly on this manner First he deposed him from the office of the Chancellourship secondly depriued him of two of his three bishopricks which he held lastly sent him packing to his owne house as one whom hee neuer purposed more to see Yet afterward being aduertised of certaine insolent and threatning speeches which hee vsed against him hee sent againe for him but he not daring to refuse to come at his call died in the way with meere griefe and despight The Pope gaue his definitiue sentence against this act and fauoured the cause of the diuorced ladie But what gained hee by it saue onely that the king offended with him reiected him and all his trumperie retaining his yearely tribute leuied out of this realme and conuerted it to another vse and this was the recompence of his goodly dispensation with an incestuous mariage wherein although to speake truly and properly he lost nothing of his owne yet it was a deepe checke and no shallow losse to him and his successors to be depriued of so goodly a reuenue and so great authoritie in this realme as hee then was CHAP. XXV Of Adulterie SEeing that marriage is so holy an institution and ordinance of God as it hath been shewed to be it followeth by good right that the corruption thereof namely Adulterie whereby the bond of marriage is desolued should bee forbidden for the woman that is polluted therewith despiseth her owne husband yea and for the most part hateth him and foisteth in strange seed euen his enemies brats in stead of his owne not onely to bee fathered but also to bee brought vp and maintained by him and in time to bee made inheritours of his possessions which thing being once known must needs stirre vp coles to set anger on fire and set a broch much mischiefe and albeit that the poore infants are innocent and guiltlesse of the crime yet doth the punishment and ignominy thereof redound to them because they can not be reputed as legitimate but are euer marked with the blacke cole of bastardy whilst they liue so grieuous is the guilt of this sinne and vneasie to be remooued For this cause the very heathen not onely reprooued adultery euermore but also by authority of law prohibited it and allotted to death the offenders therein Abimelech king of the Philistims a man without circumcision and therefore without the couenant Gen. 26. knowing by the light of nature for he knew not the law of God how sacred and inuiolable the knot of marriage ought to bee expressely forbad all his people from doing any iniury to Isaac in regard of his wife and from touching her dishonestly vpon paine of death Out of the same fountaine sprang the words of Queen Hecuba in Euripides speaking to Menelaus as touching Helen when she admonished him to enact this law That euery woman which should betray her husbands credit and her owne chastitie to another man should die the death In old time the Aegyptians vsed to punish adultery on this sort the man with a thousand ierkes with a reed Diodor. and the woman with cutting off her nose but hee that forced a free woman to his lust had his priuie members cut off By the law of
Iulia adulterers were without difference adiudged to death insomuch that Iulius Antonius a man of great parentage and reputation among the Romanes Lib. 4. Annal. whose sonne was nephew to Augustus sister as Cornelius Tacitus reporteth was for this crime executed to death Aurelianus the Emperour did so hate and detest this vice that to the end to scare and terrifie his souldiers from the like offence he punished a soldier which had committed adultery with his hostesse in most seuere manner euen by causing him to be tied by both his feet to two trees bent downe to the earth with force which being let goe returning to their course rent him cruelly in pieces the one halfe of his body hanging on the one tree and the other on the other Yea and at this day amongst the very Turkes and Tartarians this sinne is sharply punished So that we ought not wonder that the Lord should ordaine death for the adulterer If a man saith the law lie with another mans wife â—euit 20.10 if I say he commit adultery with his neighbours wife the adulterer and the adulteresse shall die the death Deut. 22.22 And in another place If a man be found lying with a woman married to a man they shall die both twaine to wit the man that lay with the wife and the wife that thou maist put away euill from Israel Yea and before Moses time also it was a custome to burne the adulterers with fire Genes 38. as it appeareth by the sentence of Iuda one of the twelue Patriarchs vpon Thamar his daughter in law because he supposed her to haue plaied the whore Beside all this to the end this sinne might not be shuffled vp and kept close there was a meanes giuen whereby if a man did but suspect his wife for this sin though shee could by no witnes or proofe be conuinced her wickednesse notwithstanding most strangely and extraordinarily might be discouered Numb 5. And it was this The woman publikely at her husbands sute called in question before the priest who was to giue iudgement of her after diuers ceremonies and circumstances perfourmed and bitter curses pronounced by him her belly would burst and her thigh would rot if shee were guilty and she should be a curse amongst the people for her sinne but if she was free no euill would come vnto her Thus it pleased God to make knowne that the filthinesse of those that are polluted with this sinne should not lie hid This may more clearely appeare by the example of the Leuites wife of whome it is spoken in the 19 20 and 21 chapters of Iudges who hauing forsaken her husband to play the whore certaine moneths after hee had againe receiued her to be his wife she was giuen ouer against her will to the villanous and monstrous lusts of the most wicked and peruerse Gibeonites Rape li. 2. c. 19. that so abused her for the space of a whole night togither that in the morning shee was found dead vpon the threshold which thing turned to a great destruction and ouerthrow in Israel for the Leuit when hee arose and found his wife newly dead at the dore of his lodging hee cut and dismembred her body into twelue pieces and sent them into all the countries of Israel to euery tribe one to giue them to vnderstand how vile and monstrous an iniurie was done vnto him whereupon the whole nation assembling and consulting togither when they saw how the Beniamites in whose tribe this monstrous villanie was committed make no reckening of seeing punishment executed vpon those execrable wretches they tooke armes against them and made warre vpon them wherein though at the first conflict they lost to the number of forty thousand men yet afterward they discomfited and ouerthrew the Beniamites and slew of them 25000 rasing and burning downe the city Gabea where the sinne was committed with all the rest of the cities of that tribe in such sort that there remained aliue but sixe hundred persons that saued their liues by flying into the desart and there hid themselues foure moneths vntill such time as the Israelites taking pitty of them least they should vtterly be brought to nought gaue them to wife to the end to repeople them againe foure hundred virgins of the inhabitants of Iabes Gilead reserued out of that slaughter of those people wherein man woman and child were put to the sword for not comming forth to take part with their brethren in that late warre And forasmuch as yet there remained two hundred of them vnprouided for the Ancient of Israel gaue them libertie to take by force two hundred of the daughters of their people which could not be but great iniury and vexation vnto their parents to be thus robbed of their daughters and to see them married at all aduentures without their consent or liking These were the mischiefes which issued and sprang from that vile and abominable adultery of the wicked Gabaonites with the Leuits wife One sin punished with another whose first voluntary sinne was in like manner also most iustly punished by this second rape and this is no new practise of our most iust God to punish one sinne by another and sinners in the same kind wherein they haue offended When king Dauid after hee had ouercome the most part of his enemies 2. Sam. 11. and made them tributaries vnto him and enioyed some rest in his kingdome whilst his men of war pursuing their victory destroied the Ammonites and were in besieging Rabba their chiefe citie hee was so inflamed with the beauty of Bathshabe Vriahs wife that hee caused her to be conueied to him to lie with her to which sinne hee combined another more grieuous to wit when he saw her with child by him to the end to couer his adultery he caused her husband to be slaine at the siege by putting him in the vantgard of the battaile at the assault and then thinking himselfe cocksure married Bathshabe But all this while as it was but vaine allurements no solid ioy that fed his mind and his sleep was but of sinne not of safety wherein he slumbered so the Lord awakened him right soone by afflictions and crosses to make him feele the burden of the sinne which hee had committed 2. Sam. 12. first therefore the child the fruit of this adultery was stricken with sicknesse and died next his daughter Thamar Absoloms sister was rauished by Ammon one of his owne sonnes 2. Sam. 13. 2. Sam. 15. thirdly Ammon for his incest was slaine by Absolom and fourthly Absolom ambitiously aspiring after the kingdome and conspiring against him raised warre vpon him and defiled his concubines and came to a wofull destruction All which things being grieuous crosses to king Dauid were inflicted by the iust hand of God to chastise and correct him for his good not to destroy him in his wickednesse neither did it want the effect in him for he was so farre from swelling
nature also Martin Luther hath left recorded in his writings many examples of iudgements on this sin but especially vpon clergie men whose profession as it requireth a more strict kind of cōuersation so their sins and iudgements were more notorious both in their owne natures and in the eie and opinion of the world some of which as it is not amisse to insert in this place so it is not vnnecessary to beleeue them proceeding from the mouth of so worthie a witnesse There was saith he a man of great authoritie learning that forsaking his secular life betooke himselfe into the colledge of preists Luther in epist consolat ad Lucum Cranach whether of deuotion or of hope of libertie to sin let thē iudge that read this history this new adopted priest fell in loue with a Masons wife whom he so woed that he got his pleasure of her what fitter time but whē Masse was singing did he daily chuse for the performing of his villany In this haunt hee persisted a long season till the Mason finding him in bed with his wife did not summon him to law nor pennance but took a shorter course cut his throat Luther Another nobleman in Thuringa being taken in Adulterie was murdered after this strange fashion by the adulteresses husband he bound him hand foot cast him into prison to quench his lust seeing that Ceres that is gluttony is the fewel of Venus that is lust denied him al maner of sustinance the more to augment his pain set hote dishes of meat before him that the smel sight thereof might more prouoke his appetite the want therof torment him more In this torture the wretched lecher abode so long vntil he gnew off the flesh frō his own shoulders and the eleuenth day of his imprisonment ended his life this punishmēt was most horrible too too seuere in respect of the inflicter yet most iust in respect of God whose custome is to proportion his iudgements to the quality of the sinne that is committed Luther affirmeth this to haue happened in his childhood and that both the parties were known vnto him by name which for honor and charity sake he would not disclose There was another nobleman that so delighted in lust Luther Mandat 1. Atheisme li. 1. cap. 25. was so inordinat in his desires that he shamed not to say that if this life of pleasure passing from harlot to harlot might endure euer he would not care for heauē or life eternal what cursed madnesse impiety is this a man to be so forgetful of his maker himself that he preferred his whores before his Sauiour and his filthy pleasure before the grace of God doth it not deserue to be punished with scorpions Yes verily as it was indeed for the polluted wretch died amongst his strumpets being stroken with a suddaine stroke of Gods vengeance In the yeare 1505 a certaine Bishop well seene in all learning and eloquence and especially skilfull in languages was notwithstanding so filthy in his conuersation that he shamed not to defile his bodie and name by many Adulteries but at length hee was slaine by a cobler whose wife hee had often corrupted being taken in bed with her and so receiued a due reward of his filthinesse Lanquet chron In the yeare of our Lord 778 Kenulphus king of the West Saxons in Britaine as hee vsually haunted the company of a a certaine harlot which he kept at Merton was slaine by one Clito the kinsman of Sigebert that was late king The same Sergus a king of Scotland was so foule a drunkard glutton and so outragiously giuen to harlots that hee neglected his owne wife and droue her to such penurie that shee was faine to serue other noblewomen for her liuing wherefore she murdered him in his bed and after slew her selfe also Arichbertus eldest son vnto Lotharius king of France died euen as he was imbracing his whores In summe to conclude this matter our English Chronicles report that in the yeare of our Lord 349 there was so great plentie of corne and fruit in Britaine that the like had not ben seene many yeares before but this was the cause of much idlenesse gluttony lechery and other vices in the land for vsually ease and prosperitie are the nurses of all enormitie but the Lord requited this their riotous and incontinent life with so great a pestilence mortalitie that the liuing scantly sufficed to bury the dead Petrarch Petrarch maketh mention of a certaine Cardinall that though hee was seuenty yeares old yet euery night would haue a fresh whore to this end had certain bauds purueiors and prouiders of his trash but he died a miserable and wretched death And Martin Luther reported that a bishop being a common frequenter of the Stues in Hidelberge came to this miserable end The bords of the chamber whither hee vsed to enter were loosened that assoone as hee came in hee flipt through and broke his necke But aboue all that which wee find written in the second booke of Fincelius is most strange and wonderfull Iob. Fincelius lib. 2. of a Priest in Albenthewer a towne neare adioining to Gaunt in Flaunders that persuaded a yong maid to reiect and disobey all her parents godly admonitions to become his concubine whē she obiected how vile a sinne it was and how contrary to the law of God hee told her that by the authority of the Pope hee could dispence with any wickednesse were it neuer so great and further alledged the discommodities of marriage and the pleasure that would arise from that kind of life in fine he conquered her vertuous purpose and made her yeeld vnto his filthie lust But when they had thus pampered their desires together a while in came the deuill and would needs conclude the play for as they were banquetting with many such like companions he tooke her away from the priests side and notwithstanding her pittifull crying and all their exorcising and coniuring carried her quite away telling the Priest that very shortly he would fetch him also for hee was his owne darling CAAP. XXVIII More examples of the same argument I Cannot passe ouer in silence a history truly tragical touching the death of many men who by reason of an Adulterie slew one another in most strange and cruell manner indeed so strangely that as farre as I euer red or knew there was neuer the like particular deed heard of wherein God more euidently poured forth the stream of his displeasure turning the courage and valor of ech part into rage and furie to the end that by their owne meanes he might bee reuenged on them In the Dukedome of Spoleto which is the way from Ancona to Rome of the ancient Latines called Vmbria there were three brethrē who kept in their possession three cities of the said dukedome namely Faligno Nocera and Treuio the eldest of whom whos 's
sole possessor of the whole Island after this he inuaded many other Islands besides many cities in the same land he raised the Lacedemonians from the siege of Samos which they had begirt And when hee 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 taile some terrible sting of aduersitie and mischance attempted by voluntary losse of something of value to preuent the mischiefe which he feared to ensue and this by the aduise of his deare friend and ally the king of Aegypt therefore hee threw a ring which hee had in great price into the sea to the end to delude fortune as he thought thereby but the ring was after found in a fishes belly and offered as a present vnto him and this was an euident presage of some ineuitable misfortune that waited for him neither did it proue vaine and friuolous for hee was hanged vpon a gibbet of Sardis by the commandement of Orates the gouernour of the city who vnder pretence of friendship and coulor of rendering his treasure into his hands and bestowing vpon him a great part thereof promising also to passe the rest of his daies vnder his wing for fear of the rage of Cambises drew him to come priuately to speak with him and so easily wrought his will vpon him Aristodemus got into his hands the gouernment of Cuma Dionâ—s Halicar lib. 7. after hee had made away the principall of the citie and to keepe it the better being obtained hee first won the vulgars hearts by presents then banished out of the Citie their children whome hee had put to death and entertained the rest of the youth with such varietie of pleasures and delights that by those deuises hee kept himselfe in his tyrannous estate many yeares but assoone as the children of those slaine Citizens were growne to ripe yeares of strength and discretion being desirous to reuenge their fathers deaths they set vpon him in the night so at vnawares that they put him and all his family to the slaughter Plutarch Tymophanes vsurped a principality power and rule in Corinth a free citie and became so odious thereby to the whole people yea and to his owne brother Tymoleon also that laying aside all respect of nature hee slew him with his owne hands preferring the libertie of his countrie before any vnity or bond of bloud When the cities of Greece sayth Orosius would needes through too greedie a desire and Ambition of raigne Lib. 3. cap. 12. get euery one the maisterie and soueraigntie of the rest they altogither made shipracke of their owne liberties by encroching vpon others as for instance The Lacedemonians how hurtfull and vncommodious the desire of bringing their neighbour adioining citties vnder their dominion was vnto them the sundrie discomfitures and distresses within the time of that warre vndertaken vpon that onely cause befell them Oros lâ—b 3. ca. 2. beare sufficient record Seruius Tullus the sonne to a bondman addicted himselfe so much to the exploits of warre that by Prowesse hee got so great credite and reputation among the Romanes that hee was thought worthie to bee made the sonne in law of king Tarquinius by marrying one of his daughters Titus Liuius after whose death hee also vsurped the crowne vnder colour of the Protectorship of the kings two yong sonnes Who when they came to age and bignesse maried the daughters of their brother in law Tullius by whose exhortation and continuall prouokement the elder of them which was called Tarquinius conspired against his father in law and practised to make himselfe king and to recouer his rightfull inheritance and that by this means he watched his oportunitie when the greatest part of the people were out of the citie about gathering their fruit in the fields and then placing his companions in readinesse to serue his turne if need should be he marched to the pallace in the roiall robes guarded with a company of his confederats and hauing called a Senate as hee began to complaine him of the trecherie and impudencie of Tullius behold Tullius himselfe came in would haue run violently vpon him but Tarquinius catching him about the middle threw him headlong down the staires and presently sent certaine of his guard to make an end of the murder which hee had begun But herein the cruelty of Tullia was most monstrous that not only first moued her husband to this bloudy practise but also made her coach to be driuen ouer the body of her father which lay bleeding in the middest of the street scarce dead Manlius after hee had maintained the fortresse of Rome against the Gaules glorying in that action Parricide lib â— cap. 11. and enuying the good hap and prosperity of Camillus went about to make himselfe king vnder pretence of restoring the people to their ancient entire libertie but his practise being discouered he was accused found guiltie and by the consent of the multitude adiudged to be throwne headlong downe from the top of the same fortresse to the end that the same place which gaue him great glory might bee a witnesse and memoriall of his shame and last confusion for all his valiant deedes before done were not of so much force with the people to excuse his fault or saue his life as this one crime was of weight to bring him to his death In former times there liued in Carthage one Hanno Oros lib. 4. c. 6. who because hee had more riches than all the Commonwealth beside began to aspire to the domination of the citie which the better to accomplish he deuised to make shew of marrying his only daughter to the end that at the mariage feast he might poyson the chiefest men of credit and power of the citie whome hee knew could or would any waies withstand or countermand his purpose but when this deuise tooke no effect by reason of the discouerie thereof by certain of his seruants he sought another meanes to effect his will He got togither a huge number of bondslaues and seruants which should at a sodaine put him in possession of the citie but being preuented herein also by the citizens hee seased vpon a castle with a thousand men of base regard euen seruants for the most part whither thinking to draw the Affricanes and king of the Moores to his succour he was taken first whipped next had his eies thrust out and then his armes and legs broken in peeces and so was executed to death before al the people his carcas being thus mangled with blows was hanged vpon 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 reuenge his death That great and fearefull warriour Iulius Caesar one of the most hardie and valiants peeces of flesh that euer was after he had performed so many notable exploits ouercome all his enemies
vsurpe and appropriate certaine lands and dominions to him which belonged not vnto him This Emperour had many children whome hee desired to leaue rich and mightie and therefore by all meanes possible he endeauoured to augment his liuing euen by getting from other men whatsoeuer hee could and amongst all the rest this was one especiall practise wherein hee laboured tooth and naile to alienate from the Empire the land of the Swizzers and to leaue it for an euerlasting inheritance to his heires which although the Swizzers would in no case condiscend nor agree vnto but contrariwise sued earnestly vnto his maiesty for the maintenance of their auncient liberties and priuiledges which were confirmed vnto them by the former Emperours and that they might not bee distracted from the Empire yet notwithstanding were constrained to vndergoe for a season the yoake of most grieuous tyrannie and seruirude imposed by force vpon them and thus the poore comminalty endured many mischiefes and many grieuous and cruell extortions and indignities at the hands of the Emperours officers whilst they liued in this wretched and miserable estate Amongst the rest there was one called Grislier that began to erect a strong fort of defence vpon a little hill neere vnto Altorfe to keepe the countrey in greater awe and subiection and desiring to discrie his friends from his foes hee inuented this deuise Hee put a hat vpon the end of a long pole and placed it in the field before Altorfe where great multitudes of people with this commandement That euery one that came by should do obeisance vaile bonnet to the hat and in euery respect shew themselues as dutifull vnto it as to his owne person imagining that his greatest enemies could not endure nor find in their hearts to doe it and therefore vpon this ocasion he might apprehend them and discouer all their close practises conspiracies which they might brew against him now there was one a stout hearted man that passing euery day vp and downe that waies could in no wise be brought to reuerence the dignity of the worthy hat so vnreasonable a thing it seemed in his eies whereupon being taken the tyrant commaunded him for punishment of his open contempt to shoot at an apple laid vpon the crown of the head of his dearest child and if hee mist the apple to be put to death the poore man after many excuses and allegations and entreaties that hee might not hazard his childs life in that sort was notwithstanding enforced to shoot and shooting God so directed his shaft that the apple was hit the child vntoucht and yet for all this he adiudged him to perperuall prison out of which hee miraculously escaping watched the tyrants approch in so fit a place that with the shaft that should haue bene the death of his sonne he stroke him to the heart whose vnluckie end was a luckie beginning of the Switzers deliuerance from the bondage of tyrants Nic. Gil. vol. 1. and of the recouery of their ancient freedome which euer after they wisely and constantly maintained The Emperour Albert purposing to be reuenged vpon them for his iniury as also for slaying many more of his men and breaking down his castles of defence which he had caused to be builded in their countrey determined to make war vpon them but he was slaine ere he could bring that determination to effect by one of his owne nephewes from whom being his ouerseer and guardant for his bringing vp he withheld his patrimony against all equity neither by praiers or entreatie could be persuaded to restore it These things according to Nicholas Gils report in his 1 volume of the Chronicles of France happened about the raigne of Saint Lewes CHAP. XL. Of Vserers and their thest IF open larcinies and violent robberies and extortions are forbidden by the law of God as wee haue seene they are then it is no doubt but that all deceit and vniust dealings and bargaines vsed to the dammage of others are also condemned by the same law and namely Vsurie when a man exacteth such vnmeasurable gaine for either his money or other thing which he lendeth that the poore borrower is so greatly indammaged that in steed of benefitting and prouiding for his affaires which he aimed at hee hitteth his further losse and finall ouerthrow This sinne is expressely prohibited in Leuiticus 25 Leuit. 25.36 Deutronomie 23 Deut. 23.19 and Psalme 15 Psal 15.5 where the committants thereof are held guiltie before Gods iudgement seat of iniquitie and iniustice and against theÌ„ it is that the Prophet Ezechiell Eze. 18.12.13 denounceth this threatning That he which oppresseth or vexeth the poore and afflicted he which robbeth or giueth to vsurie and receiueth the encrease into his bags shall die the death and his bloud shall bee vpon his pate Neither truly doth the iustice of God sleep in this respect but taketh vengeance vpon all such and punisheth them after one sort or other either in body or goods as it pleaseth him I my self knew a grand vsurer in the country of Vallay that hauing scraped togither great masses of gold siluer by these vnlawful means was in one night robbed of fifteene hundred crownes by theeues that broke into his house I remember also another Vsurer dwelling in a Towne called Argentall nigh vnto Anouay vnder the iurisdiction of Tholosse in high Viuaria who being in hay time in a medow was stong in the foot by a serpent or some other venomous beast that hee died thereof an answerable punishment for his often stinging and biting many poore people with his cruell and vnmercifull vsurie Nay it is so contrary to equitie and reason that all nations led by the instinct of nature haue alwaies abhorred and condemned it insomuch that the condition of theeues hath ben more easie and tollerable then vsurers for theft was wont to be punished but with double restitution but vsurie with quadruple and to speake truly these rich and gallant vsurers doe more rob the common people and purloine from them then all the publicke theeues that are made publicke examples of iustice in the world It is to bee wished that some would examine vsurers bookes De offâ—cio princip lib. 4. ca. 14. and make a bondfire of their obligations as that Laced emonian did when Agesilaus reported that he neuer saw a clearer fire or that some Lucullus would deliuer Europe from that contagion as that Romane did Asia in his time Alex. ab Alex. lib. 1. cap. 7. Licurgus banished this Canckerworme out of his Sparta Amasis punished it seuerely in his Aegypt Cato exiled it out of Sicile and Solon condemned it in Athens how much more should it bee held in detestation among Christians S. Chrisostome Chrisost in Mat. cap. 5. compareth it fitly to the biting of an aspe as hee that is stung with an aspe falleth asleepe as it were with delectation but dieth ere hee awaketh so money taken in vsury delighteth and
contenteth at the first but it infecteth all his possessions sucketh out the marrow of them ere it be long Seing theÌ„ it is so abhominable both by the law of God and nature let vs shun it as a toad and flie from it as a cockatrice but when these persuasions will not serue let them turne their eies to these examples following wherin they shal see the manifest indignations of God vpon it In the Bishopricke of Coline a notable famous Vsurer lying vpon his death bed readie to die mooued vp and downe his chops and his lips as if hee had beene eating something in his mouth D sâ—ipul de temporâ— and being demaunded what hee ear hee answered his money and that the Deuill thrust it into his mouth perforce so that hee could neither will nor choose but deuour it in which miserable temptation he died without any shew of repentance The same Author telleth of another Vsurer that a little before his death called for his bags of gold and siluer and offered them al to his soule vpon condition it would not forsake him but if hee would haue giuen all the world it could not ransome him from death wherefore when hee saw there was no remedie but hee must needes die hee commended his soule to the deuill to bee carried into euerlasting torments which wordes when hee had vttered hee gaue vp the ghost Another Vsurer being ready to die made this his last Will and testament My soule quoth he I bequeath to the Deuill who is owner of it my wife likewise to the Deuill who induced mee to this vngodly trade of life Iohannes Auglus and my Deacon to the Deuill for soothing me vp and not reprouing me for my faults and in this desperate persuasion he died incontinently Vsurie consisteth not onely in lending and borrowing but in buying and selling also and all vniust and craftie bargaining yea and it is a kind of Vsurie to detaine through too much couetousnesse those coÌ„modities from the people which concerne the publicke good and to hoord them vp for their priuate gaine till some scarsitie or want arise and this also hath euermore ben most sharply 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 Saxony a countrie peasant that hauing carried his corne to the market and sold it cheaper than hee looked for as hee returned homewards hee fell into most heauie dumpes and dolours of mind with greife that the price of graine was abated and when his seruants sang merrily for ioy of that blessed cheapenesse hee rebuked them most sharpely and cruelly yea and was so much the more tormented and troubled in mind by how much the more he saw any poore soule thankfull vnto God for it but marke how God gaue him ouer to a Reprobate and desperate sence Whilest his seruants rode before hee hung himselfe at the cart taile being past recouery of life ere any man looked backe or perceiued him A notable example for our English cormorants who ioine barne to barne and heap to heap and will not sell nor giue a handfull of their superfluitie to the poore when it beareth a low price but preserue it til scarsity and want come and then they sell it at their owne rate let them feare by this least the Lord deale so or worse with them Another couetous wretch when hee could not sell his corne so deare as hee desired said the mise should eat it rather then he would lessen one iot of the price thereof which words were no sooner spoken but vengeance tooke them for all the mise in the countrie flocked to his barnes and fields so that they left him neither standing nor lying corne but deuoured all this story was written to Martin Luther Luther vpon occasion whereof hee inueighing mightilie against this cruell vsurie of husbandmen told of three misers that in one yeare hung themselues because graine bore a lower price than they looked for adding moreouer that all such cruell and muddie extortioners deserued no better a doome for their vnmercifull oppression D. Pomeranus Another rich farmer whose barnes were full of graine and his stackes vntouched was so couetous withall that in hope of some dearth and dearenesse of corne hee would not deminish one heape but hoorded vp daily more and more and wished for a scarsitie vpon the earth to the end hee might enrich his coffers by other mens necessities this cruell churle reioiced so much in his abundance that euery day hee would goe into his barnes and feed his eies with his superfluity now it fell out as the Lord would that hauing supped drunke very largely vpon 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 iustice of God ouercame his senses so that hee fell downe sodainely into the mow and by his fall set on fire the corne being drie and easie to be incensed in such sort that in a moment all that which he had scraped togither and preserued so charily and delighted in so vnreasonably was consumed and brought to ashes and scarce hee himselfe escaped with his life Another in Mifina in the yeare 1559 hauing great store of corne hoorded vp refused to succour the necessitie of his poore and halfe famished neighbours Iob. Flucel li. 2. for which cause the Lord punished him with a strange and vnusuall iudgement for the corne which hee so much cherished assumed life and became feathered soules flying out of his barns in such abundance that the world was astonished thereat and his barnes left emptie of all prouision in most woonderfull and miraculous maner No lesse strange was that which happened in a Towne of Fraunce called Stenchansen to the gouernour of the Towne The same author who being requested by one of his poore subiects to sell him some corne for his money when there was none to be gotten els where answered hee could spare none by reason hee had scarce enough for his owne hogs which hoggish disposition the Lord requited in it owne kind for his wise at the next litter brought forth seuen pigs at one birth to increase the number of his hogs that as he had preferred filthy ougly creatures before his poore brethren in whome the image of God in some sort shined forth so hee might haue of his owne getting more of that kind to make much of since he loued theÌ„ so well Equall to all the former both in cruelty touching the person and miracle touching the iudgement The same was that which is reported by the same author to haue happened to a rich couetous woman in Marchia who in an extreame dearth of vittailes denied not onely to relieue a poore man whose children were ready to starue with famine but also to sell him but one bushel of corne when â—e wanted but a penny of hir price
for the poor wretch making great shift to borrow that penny returned to her againe and desired her hee might haue the corne but as he paied her the mony the penny fell vpon the ground by the prouidence of God which as shee stretched out her hand to reach it miraculously turned into a serpent and bit her so fast that by no meanes it could bee loosened from her arme vntill it had brought her to a wofull and miserable end Fulgos lib. 2. cap 2. Sergius Galba before hee came to bee Emperour being President of Affrica vnder Claudius when as through penurie of vitailes corne and other food was verie sparingly shared out and deuided among the army punished a certaine souldiour that sold a bushell of wheat to one of his fellowes for a hundred pence in hope to obtaine a new share himselfe in this maner he commanded the Quaestor or treasurer to giue him no more sustinance since hee preferred lucre before the necessitie of his owne bodie and his friends welfare neither suffered hee any man els to sell him any so that he perished with famine and became a miserable example to all the armie of the fruits of that foule dropsie couetousnesse And thus we see how the Lord raigned down vengeance vpon all couetous Vsurers and oppressors plaguing some on this fashion and some on that and neuer passing any but either in this life some notable iudgement ouertakes them either in themselues or their ofsprings for it is notoriously knowne that Vsurers children though left rich yet the first or second generation became alwaies beggers or in the life to come they are throwne into the pit of perdition from whence there is no redemption nor deliuerance CHAP. XLI Of dicers and card plaiers and their theft IF any recreation be allowed vs as no doubt there is yet surely it is not such as whereby wee should worke the dammage and hurt of one another as when by gaming we draw away another mans money with his great losse and this is one kind of theft to vsurpe any mans goods by vnlawfull meanes wherfore no such sports ought to find any place amongst Christians especially those wherin any kind of lot or hazzard is vsed by the which the good blessings of God are contrary to their true and naturall vse exposed to chance and fortune as they tearme it for which cause Saint Augustine is of this opinion concerning them Epist 54. à Maced That the gain which ariseth to any partie in play should be bestowed vpon the poore to the end that both the gamesters aswell the winner as the looser might bee equally punished the one by not carrying the stake being woon the other by being frustrated of all his hope of winning Plaiers at dice both by the Elibertine and Constantinoplitane councell vnder Iustinian were punished with excommunication Can. 79. Can. 50. and by a new constitution of the said Emperor it was enacted that no man should vse dice play either in priuate or publicke no nor approue the same by their presence vnder paine of punishment and bishops were there appointed to be ouerseers in this behalfe to espie if any default was made Cod. li. 3. tit 43. Horace an Heathen Poet auouched the vnlawfulnes of this thing euen in his time Od. 24. lib. 3. Lndere doction scu graeco iubeas trocho seu malis vetita legibus alea. wheÌ„ he saith that dice playing was forbidden by their law Lewis the eight king of France renowned for his good conditions and rare vertues amongst all the excellent lawes which hee made this was one That all sports should bee banished the Commonwealth except shooting whether with long bow or crossebow and that no cards nor dice should either bee made or sold by any to the end that all occasion of gaming might bee taken away Surely it would bee very profitable and expedient for the weale publicke that this ordinance might stand in effect at this day and that all Merchants and Mercers whatsoeuer especially those that follow the reformation of Religion might forbeare the sale of all such paltrie 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 vpon greedinesse of so small againe put as it were a sword into a mad mans hand by ministring 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 blasphmies banded vp and down there men fret themselues to death and consume whole nights in darke and deuillish pastimes some lose their horses others their cloakes a third sort all that euer they are worth to the vndoing of their houses wiues and children and some againe from braulings fal to buffitings from buffets to bloodsheding from bloudsheading to hanging and these are the fruits of those gallant sports Discipu de tempâ—r ser 12. But this you shall see more plainly 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 vnto him with which great losse being enraged almost beside himselfe as commonly men in that case are affected he belched out most bitter curses against Christ Iesus his mother the blessed virgin in the midst whereof the Lord depriued him of his life and sence and stroke him dead in the place as for his companion the Christian indeed he escaped sodain death howbeit he was robbed of his wit and vnderstanding Blasphemy li. â— cap. 31. suruiued not very long after to teach vs not onely what a grieuous sinne it is to blaspheame God and to accompany such wretches and not to shun or at least reproue their outrage but also what monstrous effects proceed from such kind of vngodly sports how grieuously the Lord punisheth them first by giuing them ouer to blasphemie secondly to death and thirdly and lastly to eternall and irreuocable damnation let our English gamesters consider this example and if it will not terrifie them from their sports then let them look to this that followeth which if their hearts be not as hard as adamants will mollifie and persuade them In the yeere 1553 neare to Belissan a citie in Heluetia Ioh. Fincel Andreas Muscabus in diabol blasphemiae there were three prophane wretches that plaied at dice vpon the Lords day without the wals of the citie one of which called Vlrich Schraeterus hauing lost much mony and offended God with many cursed speeches at last presaging to him selfe good lucke he burst forth into these termes Mandat 4. Breach of Saboth lib. 1. cap. 35. Mandat 3. Blasphemy lib. 1. cap. 31. If fortune deceiue me now I will thrust my dagger into the very 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
In this ranke deseruably we may place the second Dionysius his sonne Sabell that for his cruelties and extortions was slaine by his owne subiects 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 kingdome and growne strong his wicked nature shewed forth it selfe for first he rid out of the way his owne brethren then his nearest kindred and lastly all other that but any way displeased him vsing his sword not to the cutting downe of vice as it ought but to the cutting the throats of his innocent and guiltlesse subiects with which tyrannie the people being incensed began to mutiny from mutinies fell to open rebellion persecuting him so that he was compelled to flie and to take harbour in Greece where notwithstanding he ceased not his accustomed manners but continued still freshly committing robberies and doing all manner of iniuries and outrages in wronging men and forcing both women and maids to his filthie lust vntill hee was brought vnto so low and so base an eb of estate that of a king being become a begger and vagabond he was glad to teach children at Corinth to get his poore liuing and so died in misery Clearchus another tyrant after hee had put to death the most part of the Nobles and chiefe men of account in the citie Heraclea vsurped a tyrannous authoritie ouer the rest Sabel amongst many of whose monstrous enormities this was one that hee constrained the widdowes of those whome hee had slaine against their wils to marry those of his followers whom hee allotted them to in so much that many of them with griefe and anger slew themselues now there were two men of stouter courage than the rest who pittying the miserable condition of the whole citie vndertooke to deliuer the same out of his cruell handes comming therefore accompanied with fifty other of the same mind and resolution as though they would debate a priuat quarell before his presence assoon as conuenience serued they diuerted their swords from themselues into the tyrants bosome and hewed him in peeces in the very midst of his guard Agathocles king or rather Tyrant of Sicile Sabel from a potters sonne growing to be a man of warre tooke vpon him the gouernment of the countrie and vsurped the crowne contrarie to the consent of his people he was one giuen to all maner of filthie and vncleane pollutions in whome trecherie crueltie and generally all kind of vice raigned and therfore was worthely plagued by God first by a murder of his yongest sonne committed by his eldest sonnes sonne that aspired vnto the crown and thought that he might be an obstacle in his way for obtaining his purpose and lastly hauing sent his wife and children into Aegypt for safetie by his own miserable and languishing death which shortly after ensued Romulus the first king of Rome was as Florus Florus testifieth transported by a deuill out of this earth into some habitation of his own for the monstrous superstitions coniurings thefts rauishments and murders which during his pompe hee committed and moreouer hee saith that Plutarch Plutarch the most credible learned writer among Historiographers both Greek and Latine that euer writ auoucheth the same for true that hee was carried away one day by a spirit in a mightie tempest of thunder and lightning before the view of the whole multitude to their great astonishment insomuch that they fled at the sight thereof What shall wee say of Silla that monster in cruelty that most odious and execrable Tyrant that euer was by whom all ciuill order and humane pollicy was vtterly defaced and all vice and confusion in steed thereof set vp Did hee not procure the death of sixe thousand men at one clap Plutarch at the discomfiture of Marius and hauing promised to saue the liues of three thousand that appealed vnto his mercy did he not cause them to be assembled within a parke and there to haue their throats cut whilest hee made an oration to the Senate It was hee that filled the channels of the streets of Rome other cities in Italy with blood slaughters innumerable and that spared neither altar temple or other priuiledged place or house whatsoeuer from the pollution and destainement of innocent bloud husbands were slain in their wiues armes infants in their mothers bosomes and infinite multitudes of men murdered for their riches for if any were either rich or owners of faire houses or pleasant gardens they were sure to die besides if there were any priuate quarrell or grudge betwixt any citizen and some of his crue hee suffered his side to reuenge themselues after their owne lusts so that for priuate mislike and enmitie many hundreds lost their liues hee that saued an outlaw or proscribed person in his house of which there were too many of the best sort in his time or gaue him entertainement vnder his roofe whether hee were his brother sonne or parent whatsoeuer was himselfe for recompence of his courtesie and humanity proscribed and sold and condemned to death and hee that killed one of them that was proscribed had for reward two talēts the wages of his murder amounting in value to twelue hundred crownes whether it was a bondslaue that slew his master or a son that murdered his father comming to Prenest he began to proceed in a kind of iusticiall form amongst the citizens as it were by law and equitie to practise wrong and iniury but ere long either being wearie of such slow proceedings or not at leisure to prosecute the same any further he caused to meet together in one assembly two thousand of thē whom he committed al to the massacre without any maner of compassion as he was sitting one day in the midst of his pallace in Rome a souldior to whom he had granted the proscription of his dead brother as if he had been aliue whom he himselfe before the ciuill war had slain presented him in lieu of thāks for that great good turn the head of one Marcus Marius of the aduerse factiō before the whole city with his hāds al embrued in bloud which he also washed in the holy waterstack of Apolloes temple being neer vnto that place and all this being cōmended countenanced by Sill◠he decreed a general disanulment abrogation of all titles and rights that were passed before his time to the end to haue more libertie both to put to death whō he pleased to cōfiscat mēs goods also to vnpeople to repeople cities to sack pull down build to depose make kings at his pleasure the goods which he had thus seazed he shamed not to sell with his own handssitting in his tribunall seat giuing oftentimes a faire woman a whole country or the reuenues of a city for her beauty and to plaiers iesters iuglers minstrels and other wicked effranchised slaues great and vnnecessary rewards yea
and to diuerse married women also whome pleasing his eie he depriued their husbands of perforce and espoused them to himselfe maugre their wils being desirous to ally himselfe with Pompey he commanded him to cast off his lawfull wife and taking from Magnus Glabrio his wife Aemilia made him marry hir though alreadie great with child by her former husband but shee died in trauaile in his house In feasts and banquettings hee was too immoderate for it was his continuall and daily practise the wine that he dranke vsually was forty yeare old and the company that he delighted to keepe was compact of minstrels tumblers players singers and such like rascals and with these hee would spend whole daies in drinking carousing dancing and all dissolutenesse Now this disordinate life of his did so augment a disease which was growne in his bodie to wit an impostume that in time it corrupted his flesh turned it into lice in such sort that though he had those that continually followed him to sweepe them off and to louse him night day yet the encrease was still so plentiful that al would not serue to cleare him for a moment in so much that not his apparrell though neuer so new and changeable nor his linnen though neuer so fresh nor his bath nor his lauer no nor his meat and drinke could bee kept vnpolluted from the flux of this filthy vermine it issued in such abundance oftentimes in a day hee would wash himselfe in a bath but to no great purpose for his shame increased the more the day before hee died hee sent for one Granius who attending his death delaied to pay that which hee ought to the Commonwealth and being come in his presence he commanded him to bee strangled to death before his face but with straining himselfe in crying after his execution his impostume burst and vomitted out such streames of bloud that his strength failed him withall and passing that night in great distresse the next day made vp his wicked and miserable end Dion After that Caligula began to addict himselfe to impietie and contempt of God presently being not curbed with anie feare nor shame he became most dissolute in all kind of wickednesse for at one time he caused to be slaine a great number of people for calling him young Augustus as if it had beene an iniury to his person to be so entituled and to say briefly of all his murders there were so many of his kindred friends senatours and citizens made away by his meanes that it would be too long and tedious here to recite wherefore seeing that hee was generally hated of the people for his misdeeds hee wished that they all had but one head to the end as it might seeme that at one blow he might dispatch them all In sumptuousnes and costlinesse of dishes and banquets hee neither found nor left his equall Sueton. for hee would sup vp most pretious stones melted by art and swallow downe treasures into his belly his banquets were often serued with golden loaues and golden meates in giuing rewards hee was sometime too too prodigall for he would cast great summes of mony amongst the people certaine daies togither vntill his bagges were drawne dry and then new strange shiftes must be practised to fill them vp againe his subiects hee ouercharged with many new found and vniust taxes exacting of them a tribute euen for their meat if there were any money controuersies to be decided the fourth part of the same was his share which way soeuer the matter inclined the eight peny of euery porters gaine throughout the city which with trauell they earned hee tooke into his purse yea and that which is more filthy and dishonest the very whores and common strumpets paid him a yeerely reuenue for their bauderies which act though most villanous and slaunderous yet is made a sampler to some of our holy popes to imitate and indeed hath of many beene put in practise but to our porpose whereas before his prodigality was so great as to scatter mony like seed amidst the people now his niggardlinesse grew on the other side so miserable that he would haue the people vpon the first day of the yeere euery one to giue him a newyeres gift hee himselfe standing at the dore of his house like a beggar receiuing the peoples almes moreouer of all that euer gaue their lusts the bridle to abuse other mens wiues hee was most impudent and notorious for diuerse times hee vsed to feast many faire ladies and their husbands and after his good cheare ended to ouerview them seuerally apart as Marchants doe their wares and to take hir that pleased his fancy best into some secret place to abuse at his pleasure neither after the deed done to be ashamed to glory and vaunt himselfe in his filthy and wicked act Hee committed Incest with his owne sisters forcing them to his lust and by one of them had a daughter borne whome saith Eutropius his abhominable concupiscence abused also in most filthy preposterous maner at length many conspired his destruction but especially one of the Tribunes which office wee may after the custome of our French nation rightly tearme the Marshalship and the officer one of our foure Marshals as Budeus saith who shewed himselfe more eagerly affected in the cause than the rest pursued his enterprise in more speedy and desperate maner for as the Tyrant returned from the Theatre by a by-way to his pallace the third day of the feast which hee celebrated in honour of Iulius Caesar the Tribune presented himselfe as if in regard of his office to impart some matter of importance vnto him and hauing receiued a currish word or two at his hands as his custome was hee gaue him so sodaine a stroke betweene the head and the shoulders that what with it and the blowes of his complices that going for the same entent rushed vpon him he was slain amongst them no man stirring a foot to deliuer him out of their handes though many looked on and might haue aided him if they would hee was no sooner slain but his wise incontinently was sent after and his daughter also that was crushed to death against a wall and thus came his wretched selfe with his filthie progeny to a wretched and miserable end Sueton. Nero shewed himselfe not onely an enemie to God in persecuting his church but also a peruerter and disturber of humane nature in embruing his hands in the bloud of his owne mother and grandmother whome hee caused to bee put to death and in killing his owne wife and sister and infinit numbers of all kind of people beside in Adulteries hee was so monstrous that it is better to conceale them from modest eares than to stir vp the puddle of so stinking and noisome a dunghill for which his villanies the Senate condemned him to a shamefull and most ignominious death his armies and forces forsooke him which when hee vnderstood he
mightily the hand of God was stretched foorth to the reuenge of those wicked deedes and villanies which were committed by the Spaniards in those quarters Peter Loys bastard son to Pope Paule the third Sleidan lib. 19. Bal. was one that practised many horrible villanies robberies murders adulteries incest and Sodomitries thinking that because his father was Pope therefore no wickednesse was vnlawfull for him to commit He was by the report of all men one of the most notorious vildest and filthiest villaines that euer the world saw he forced the Bishop of Faence to his vnnaturall lust so that the poore Bishop with meere anger and griefe that hee should be so abused died immediately being made Duke of Plaisence and Parme hee exercised most cruell tyrany towards many of his subiects insomuch that diuerse gentlemen that could not brooke nor endure his iniuries conceiued an inward hate against him and conspired his death and for to put in practise the same they hired certaine ruffians and roisters to watch the oportunitie of slaying him yea and they themselues oftentimes went apart with these roisters keeping themselues vpon their guards as if some priuate and particular quarrels had beene in hand one day as the Duke went in his horselitter out of his castell with a great retinue to see certaine fortifications which he had prepared being aduertised by his father the Pope by the helpe of Magicke which he practised to looke diligently to himselfe the tenth day of September in which notwithstanding he was slaine for as he returned into his castell the conspirators to the number of sixe and thirtie marched before him as it were to do him honor but indeed to doe him villany for assoone as he was entred the castell they drew vp the drawbridge for feare of his retinue that were without and comming to him with their naked swords cast in his teeth his tyrannie and so slew him in his litter togither with a Priest the maister of his horse and fiue Almaignes that were of his guard his dead body they hung by a chaine ouer the wals and shaking it to and fro to the view of the people threw it downe headlong at last into the ditch where the multitude to shew their hates wounded it with daggers and trampled it vnder their feet and so whome they durst not touch in his life him being dead they thus abused and this befell vpon the tenth day of September in the yeere of our Lord 1547. Some of the Bishops of Rome for their rare and notable vertues and the glory of their braue deeds may be honoured with this dignity to be placed in this worthy ranke for their good conditions and behauiours were such that no tyrant butcher theefe robber ruffian nor any other euer excelled them in crueltie robbery adulterie and such like wickednesse or deserued more the credit and reputation of his place than they And hereof we haue a manifest example in Iohn the thirteenth who pulling out the eies of some of his Cardinals cutting out the tongues of others hewing off the hands noses and priuy members of others shewed himselfe a patterne of such crueltie as the world neuer saw the like Hee was accused before the Emperour Otho in a synode first of incest with two of his owne sisters secondly for calling the deuill to helpe him at dice thirdly for promoting young infants to bishoprickes bribed thereto by the gift of certaine peeces of gold fourthly for rauishing maides and wiues and lying with his fathers concubine yea and lastly for lying with his owne mother and many other such monstrous villanies for which cause hee was deposed from the papacie though reinstalled againe by the sute and cunning practise of his whores by whome as hee recouered his triple crowne so he lost shortly after his vicious life by the meanes of a married whore that betraied him Benno Bal. Pope Hildebrand sirnamed Gregory the seuenth was adorned with all these good qualities namely to be bloody minded a poisoner a murderer a coniurer also a consulter with spirits and in a word nothing but a lumpe and masse of wickednesse hee was the stirrer vp of many battels against the Emperor Henry the fourth and a prouoker of his own son to depose and poyson his father as hee did but this wicked I would say holy Pope was at last banished his Cathedrall citie to Salernum where he ended his daies in miserie Pope Clement the sixt of name contrary to his nature for his inclemencie crueltie pride towards the Emperor Lewis of Bauarie was intollerable he procured many horrible wars against the Empire and caused the destruction of twenty thousand Frenchmen by the king of England yea and poysoned the good Emperour also so well he wished to him Howbeit ere long himselfe was stifled to death and that sodainly not by any practise of man as it was thought but by the speciall hand of God in recompence of all his notable acts Iohn the foure and twentith was deposed by the councell of Constance for these crimes following heresie Simonie Benno Bal. manslaughter poysonings cousenings adultry Sodomitry and was cast into prison where remaining three years he falsly made shew of amendment of his wicked life therefore was graced with a Cardinals hat but it was not that which he expected for which cause with despight griefe he died It would bee too long to run ouer the discourse of euery particular Pope of like conditions and therefore wee will conteÌ„t our selues in briefe with the legend of Pope Alexander the sixt reported by two authors of credite and renowne vnsuspected to wit Guicciardine a Florentine gentlemaÌ„ Guicciardine lib. 2. Bembus Bembus a Venetian cardinall this man saith Guicciardine attained to the Papacy not by worthinesse of vertues but by heauinesse of bribes and multitude of faire promises made to the cardinals for his election promising large recompence to them that stood on his side whereupon many that knew his course of life were filled with astonishment amongst whome was the king of Naples who hearing of this election coÌ„plained to his queene with tears that there was such a pope created that wold be a plague to Italy al ChristeÌ„dome beside the great vices which swaied in him of which the same author speaking maketh this catalogue and pettigree in his own language which followeth Guiâ—â—tardine lib. 2. Costum d it il oscensimi non sincerita non verita non fede non religione auaritia insatiabile ambitione immoderata crudelta pinque barbara eo ardentissima cupidita di escaltare in qualunque modo i figli voli i quali erano molti that is to say He was endued with most filthie conditions and that neither sincerity truth faith nor religion was in him but in steed of them couetousnesse vnquenchable ambition vnmeasurable more then barbarous crueltie and a burning desire of promoting his owne children for he had many by what meanes soeuer He
persuaded king Charles the eight of Fraunce to vndertake war against Naples and after hee had brought him to it presently he forsooke him and entred a new league with the Venetians Venetian histor lib. 6. and the other princes of Italy to driue him home again This was he saith Cardinall Bembus that set benefices and promotions to sale that hee which would giue most might haue most and that poysoned Iohn Michell the Cardinall of Venice at Rome for his gold and treasure which hee abounded with whose insatiable couetousnesse prouoked him to the committall of all mischiefe to the end he might maintaine the forces of his son who went about to bring the whole lands and dominions of all Italy into his possession in adulteries hee was most filthy and abhominable in tyrany most cruell and in Magicke most cunning and therefore most execrable supping one night with Cardinall Adrian his very familiar friend in his gardē hauing foreappointed his destruction that night by poyson through the negligence and ouersight of his butler to whom hee had giuen the exploit in charge that was deceiued by mistaking the bottles hee dranke himselfe the medicine which he had prepared for his good friend the Cardinall and so hee died saith Bembus not without an euident marke of Gods heauy wrath in that he which had slaine so many Princes and rich men to enioy their treasures and went now about to murder his host which entertained him with friendship and good cheare into his house was caught in the same snare which he had laid and destroied by the same meanes himselfe which he had destinated for another being thus dead the whole city of Rome saith Guicciardine ran out with greedines ioy to behold his carcasse not being able to satisfie their eies with beholding the dead serpent whose venime of ambition trecherie cruelty adultry auarice had impoisoned the whole world Some say that as he purposed to poyson certaine Cardinals he poysoned his owne father that being in their company chanced to get a share of his dregs and that hee was so abhominable to abuse his owne sister Lucrece in the way of filthines When Gemen the brother of Baiazet the Emperor of the Turkes came and surrendred himselfe into his hands was admitted into his protection he being hired with two hundred duccats by Baiazet gaue poyson to his new client euen to him to whom hee had before sworne and vowed his friendship besides that he might mainteine his tyranny hee demanded and obtained aid of the Turke against the king of France which was a most vnchristian and antichristian part he caused the tongue two hands of Antony Manciuellus a very learned wise man to be cut off for an excellent oration which he made in reproofe of his wicked demeanours and dishonest life It is written moreouer by some that hee was so affectionated to the seruice of his good Lord and master the deuil that he neuer attempted any thing without his counsel and aduise who also presented himself vnto him at his death in the habite of a post according to the agreement which was betwixt them and although this wretched Antichrist straue against him for life saying that his terme was not yet finished yet he was enforced to diflodge and depart into his proper place where with horrible cries and hideous fearefull grones he died Thus we see how miserable such wretched and infamous miscreants and such pernicious cruell Tyrants haue ended their wicked liues their force power being execrable and odious In his book of the clemencie of a prince and therfore as saith Seneca not able to continue any long time for that gouernment cannot bee firme and stable where there is no shame nor feare to doe euill nor where equity iustice saith and piety with other vertues are contemned and troden vnder foot for when cruelty once beginnerh to predominate it is so vnsatiable that it neuer ceaseth but groweth euery day from worse to worse by striuing to maintaine and defend old faults by new vntill the fear and terror of the poore afflicted and oppressed people with a continuall source and enterchange of euils which surcharge them conuerteth it selfe from forced patience to willing fury breaketh forth to doe vengeance vpon the tyrants heads with all violence whence ariseth that saying of the Satyricall Poet to the same sence Where he saith Ad generum cereris sine cede sanguine pauci Descendunt reges sicca morte tyranni Few tyrants die the death that nature sends But most are brought by slaughter to their ends CHAP. XLIIII Of calumniation and false witnesse bearing WEe haue seene heretofore what punishments the Lord hath laid vpon those that either vex their neighbours in their persons as in the breakers of the fift sixt and seuenth commandements or dammage thē in their goods as in the eight now let vs looke vnto those that seeke to spoile them of their good names and rob them of their credite by slanderous reproches and false and forged calumniations and by that means goe against the ninth commandement which sayth Thou shalt not beare false witnesse against thy neighbour in which words is condemned generally all slanders all false reports all defamations and all euill speech els whatsoeuer wherby the good name and credit of a man is blemished stained or impouerished and this sin is not onely inhibited by the diuine law of the almighty but also by the lawes of nature and nations for there is no country and people so barbarous with whom these pernicious kind of creatures are not held in detestation of tame beasts sayth Diogenes a flatterer is worst and of wild beasts a backbiter or a slaunderer and not without great reason for as there is no disease so daungerous as that which is secret so there is no enemy so pernicious as hee which vnder the colour of friendship biteth and slandereth vs behind our backes but let vs see what iudgements the Lord hath shown vpon them to the end the odiousnesse of this vice may more clearely appeare And first to begin with Doeg the Edomir 1. Sam. 22.9 who falsly accused Achimelech the high priest vnto Saul for giuing succor vnto Dauid in his necessity flight for though he told nothing but that which was true yet of that truth some he maliciously peruerted some he kept back falshood cōsisteth not only in plain lying but also in concealing or misusing the truth for Achimelech indeed asked counsell of the Lord for Dauid ministred vnto him the shew bread the sword of Goliah but not with any intent of malice against king Saul for he supposed and Dauid also made him beleeue that he went about the kings businesse that he was in great fauor with the king which last clause the wicked accuser left out by that means not only prouoked the wrath of Saul against the high priest but also when al other refused became
woman to the Emperour Adrian is very worthy to be remembred Fulgos lib. 6. cap. 2. who appealing and complaining to the Emperour of some wrong when hee answered that he was not at leisure then to heare her sute shee told him boldly and plainly That then he ought not to be at leisure to be her Emperour which speech went so neare the quicke vnto him that euer after he shewed more facilitie and courtesie towards all men that had any thing to do with him The kings of Fraunce vsed also this custome of hearing and deciding their subiects matters as wee read of Charlemaigne the king and Emperour who commanded that he should be made acquainted with all matters of importance and their issues throughout his realme King Lewes the first treading the steps of his father Charlemaigne accustomed himselfe three daies in a weeke to heare publikely in his pallace the complaints and grieuances of his people and to right their wrongs and iniuries King Lewes sirnamed the Holy Aimo a little before his death gaue in charge to his sonne that should succeed him in the crowne amongst other this precept To be carefull to beare a stroke in seeing the distribution of iustice and that it should not be peruerted not depraued CHAP. XLVI Of such princes as haue made no reckening of punishing vice nor regarded the estate of their people IT cannot choose but be a great confusion in a common-wealth when iustice sleepeth and when the shamelesse boldnesse of euill doers is not curbed in with any bridle but runneth it owne swinge and therefore a Consull of Rome could say That it was an euill thing to haue a prince vnder whome license and libertie is giuen to euery man to doe what him listeth for so much then as this euill proceedeth from the carelesnes and slothfulnesse of those that hold the sterne of gouernment in their hands it can not be but some euill must needs fall vpon them for the same The truth of this may appeare in the person of Philip of Macedonie whome Demosthenes the oratour noteth for a treacherous and false dealing prince after that he had subdued almost all Greece not so much by open warre as by subtilty craft and surprise and that being in the top of his glory hee celebrated at one time the marriage of his sonne Alexander whome hee had lately made king of Epire and of one of his daughters with great pompe and magnificense as hee was marching with all his traine betwixt the two bridegroomes his owne sonne his sonne in law to see the sports and pastimes which were prepared for the solemnitie of the marriage behold suddenly a young Macedonian gentleman called Pausanias ran at him and slew him in the midst of the prease for not regarding to doe him iustice when hee complained of an iniury done vnto him by one of the peeres of his realme Plutarch Tatius the fellow king of Rome with Romulus for not doing iustice in punishing certaine of his friends and kinsfolkes that had robbed and murdered certaine Embassadors which came to Rome and for making their impunitie an example for other malefactours by deferring and protracting and disappointing their punishment was so watcht by the kindred of the slaine that they slew him euen as he was sacrificing to his gods because they could not obtaine iustice at his hands What happened to the Romanes for refusing to deliuer an Embassadour Tit. Liuius Plutarch who contrary to the law of nations comming vnto them plaid the part of an enemie to his own country euen well nigh the totall ouerthrow of them and their citie for hauing by this meanes brought vpon themselues the calamitie of warre they were at the first discomfited by the Gaules who pursuing their victory entred Rome and slew al that came in their way whether men or women infants or aged persons and after many daies spent in the pillage spoiling of the houses at last set fire on all and vtterly destroied the whole city Childericke king of France Paul Aemil. is notified for an extreame dullard and blockhead and such a one as had no care or regard vnto his realme but that liued idly and slothfully without intermedling with the affaires of the common wealth for he laid all the charge and burden of them vpon Pepin his lieutenant generall therefore was by him iustly deposed from his roiall dignity mewed vp in a cloister of religion to become a monke because he was vnfit for any good purpose albeit that this sudden change mutation was very strange yet there ensued no trouble nor commotion in the realme thereupon so odious was hee become to the whole land for his drowsie and idle disposition Paul Aemil. For the same cause did the princes Electours depose Venceslaus the Emperour from the Empire and established another in his roome King Richard of England amongst other foule faults which he was guilty of incurred greatest blame for this because he suffered many theeues and robbers to roue vp and down the land vnpunished for which cause the citizens of London coÌ„menced a high sute against him coÌ„pelled him hauing raigned 22 yeres to lay aside the crown resigne it to another in the presence of all the states died prisoner in the Tower Moreouer this is no small defect of iustice when men of authority do not only pardon capitall and detestable crimes but also grace and fauour the doers of them and this neither ought nor can be done by a soueraigne prince without ouerpassing the bounds of his limited power which can in no wise dispence with the law of God Exod. 21. whereunto euen kings themselues are subiect for as touching the willing and considerate murderer Dâ—ut 19. Thou shalt plucke him from my altar saith the Lord that hee may die thy eye shall not spare him to the end it may goe well with thee which was put in practise in the death of Ioab 1 King 2. who was slaine in the Tabernacle of God holding his hands vpon the hornes of the Altar for hee is no lesse abominable before God that iustifieth the wicked Prou 17. than hee that condemneth the iust and hereupon that holy king S. Lewes when hee had granted pardon to a malefactour Nich. Gilles reuoked it againe after better consideration of the matter saying That hee would giue no pardon except the case deserued pardon by the law for it was a worke of charitie and pittie to punish an offender and not to punish crimes was as much as to commit them In the yeere of our Lord 978 Egebrede the sonne of Edgare end Alphred king of England was a man of goodly outward shape and visage but wholly giuen to idlenesse and abhorring all princely exercises besides he was a louer of riot drunkennesse and vsed extreame cruelty towards his subiects hauing his eares open to all vniust complaints in feats of armes of all men most ignorant so