the Bishop of Eureux his house which was accordingly executed This happened in the yeare 1453. In the raigne of the same King 1457 there was a certaine Curate of a village neere to Soissons who to revenge himselfe of a Farmer that retained from him the tenths which were appointed to the Knights of the Rhodes went to a Witch of whom he received in gift a fat toad in an earthen pot which she had a long while fed and brought up which she commanded him to baptise as he also did and called it by the name of Iohn albeit I tremble to recite so monstrous and vile a fact yet that every man might see how deadly besotted those sort of people are that give themselves over to Satan and with what power of errour he overwhelmeth them and beside how full of malice this uncleane spirit is that as it were in despight of God would prophane the holy Sacrament of Baptisme This good holy Curate after he had consecrated the holy host gave it also to the toade to eat and afterward restored it to the Witch again who killing the toade and cutting it in pieces with other such like sorceries caused a young wench to carry it secretly into the Farmers house and to put it under the table as they were at dinner whereupon immediately the Farmer and his children that were at the table fell suddenly sicke and three dayes after died the Witch her selfe being detected was burned but the Curate suffered onely a little imprisonment in the Bishop of Paris house and that not long for what with friendship and money he was soone delivered Froissard who was Treasurer and Canon of Chymay reporteth of another Curate in the countrey of Beare under Charles the seventh that had a familiar spirit which hee called Orthon whose helpe hee used to the disturbance of the Lord of Corosse by causing a terrible noise to bee heard every night by him and his servants in his castle because the said Lord withheld his tythes from him and converted them to his owne use In the yiare 1530 at Nuremburg a certaine Priest studied Art Magick and being very covetous of gold and silver the Devill whom hee served shed him through a Chrystall certaine treasures hidden in the city he by and by greedy of this rich prey went to that part of the city where hee supposed it to have lien buried and being arrived at the place with a companion whom he brought to this pretty pastime fell a searching and digging up a hollow pit untill he perceived a coffer that lay in the bottome of the hole with a great blacke dog lying by it whither he was no sooner entred but the earth fell downe and filled up the hole and smothered and crushed him to death So this poore Priest was entrapped and rewarded by his master no otherwise than he deserved but otherwise than he expected or looked for Howbeit they are not onely simple Priests and Friers that deale with these cursed Arts but even Popes themselves Silvester the second as Platina and others report was first a conjuring Frier and gave himselfe to the Devill upon condition he might be Pope as he was indeed and having obtained his purpose as it seemed he began earnestly to desire to know the day wherein he should die which also his Schoolmaster the Devill revealed unto him but under such doubtfull tearmes that he dreamed in his foolish conceit of immortality and that he should never die It chanced on a time as he was singing Masse at Rome in a Temple called Ierusalem which was the place assigned him to die in and not Ierusalem in Palestina as he made himselfe falsly to beleeve he heard a great noise of Devils that came to fetch him away note that this was done in Masse while whereat he being terrified and tormented and seeing himselfe not able any way to escape hee desired his people to rend his body in pieces after his death and lay it upon a charriot and let horses draw it whither they would which was accordingly performed for as soone as he 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 and in the ten yeares wherein he was Pope having committed infinite villanies and mischiefs was at last by his familiar friend the Devill strangled to death in a forrest whither he went to apply himselfe the more quieter to his conjurings Gregory the sixth scholler to Silvester as great a conjurer as his master wrought much misery in his time but was at last banished Rome and ended his life in misery in Germany Iohn the two and twentieth being of no better disposition than these we have spoken of but following judiciall astrology sed himselfe with a vain hope of long life whereof he vaunted himselfe among his familiars one day above the rest at Viterbum in a chamber which he had lately builded saying that he should live a great while he was assured of it presently the floore brake suddenly in pieces and he was found seven daies after crushed to pieces under the ruines thereof All this notwithstanding yet other Popes ceased not to suffer themselves to be infected with this execrable poison as Hildebrand who was called Gregory the seventh and Alexander the sixth of which kinde we shall see a whole legend in the next booke Doe but marke these holy Fathers how abhominable they were to be in such sort given over to Satan Cornelius Agrippa a great Student in this cursed Art and a man famous both by his owne works and others report for his Necromancy went alwaies accompanied with an evill spirit in the similitude of a blacke dogge but when his time of death drew neer and he was urged to repentance hee tooke off the inchanted collar from the dogs neck and sent him away with these termes Get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast utterly destroyed mee Neither was the dog ever after seen some say he lept into Araris and never came out againe Agrippa himselfe died at Lyons in a base and beggarly Inne Zeroastres King of Bactria is notified to have bin the inventer of Astrology and Magicke But the Devill whose ministry he used when he was too importunate with him burned him to death Charles the seventh of France put Egedius de Raxaâ— Marshall of his Kingdome to a cruell and filthy death because he practised this Art and in the same had murthered an hundred and twenty teeming women and yong infants he caused him to be hanged upon a forke by a hot fire and roasted to death Bladud the sonne of Lud King of Britaine now called England in the yeare of the World 3100 hee that builded the city of Bath as our late Histories witnesse and also
in many witnesseth they are intolerable in that kinde for which cause they have borâ—â— the markes of Gods Justice for their rigorous and barbarous handling of the poor West Indians whom they have brought to that extremity by putting them to such excessive travels in digging their mines of Gold as namely in the island Hispagnola that the most part by sighes and teares wish by death to end their miseries many first killing their children have desperately hung themselves on high trees some have throwne themselves headlong from steep mountaines and others cast themselves into the sea to be rid of their troubles but the Tyrans have never escaped scot-free but came alwayes to some miserable end or other for some of them were destroyed by the inhabitants others slew one another with their owne hands provoked by insatiable avarice some have been drowned in the sea and others starved in the Desart in fine few escaped unpunished Bombadilla one of the Governours of Hispagnola after he had swayed there a while and enriched himselfe by the sweat and charge of the inhabitants was called home again into Spain whitherward according to the commandment received as he imbarqued himselfe shipping with him so much treasure as in value mounted to more than an hundred and fifty thousand duckats beside many pieces and graines of Gold which he carried to the Spanish Queen for a Present whereof one weighed three thousand duckats there arose such a horrible and outragious tempest in the broad sea and beat so violently against his ships that four and twenty vessels were shivered in pieces and drowned at that blow there perished Bombadilla himselfe with most of his Captaines and more than five hundred Spaniards that thought to returne full rich into the Country and became with all their treasures a prey unto the fishes In the year of our Lord 1541. The eight day of September there chanced in the City Guatimala which lyeth in the way from Nicaragna Westward a strange and admirable judgement After the death of Alvarado who subdued this province and founded the City and was but a little before slain in fight it rained so strangely and vehemently all this whole day and night that of a sudden so huge a deluge and floud of waters overflowed the earth streaming from the bottom of the mountains into the lower grounds with such violence that stones of incredible bignesse were carried with it which tumbling strongly downewards bruised and burst in pieces whatsoever was in their way In the mean while there was heard in the air fearfull cries and voices and a blacke Cow was seen running up and downe in the midst of the water that did much hurt The first house that was Overthrowne by this tempest was dead Alvarado's wherein his widow a very proud woman that held the Government of the whole Province in her hand and had before despited God for her husbands death was slain with all her houshold and in a moment the Citie was either drowned or subverted there perished in this tempest of men and women sixscore persons but they that at the beginning of the floud â—ted saved their lives The morrow after the waters were surceased one might see the poor Spaniards lie along the fields some maimed in their bodies other with broken armes or legs or otherwise miserably wounded And thus did God revenge the monstrous Spanish cruelties exercised upon those poor people whom instead of inâ—icing by fair and gentle meanes to the knowledge of the true God and his Son Christ they terrified by extraordinary tyranny for such is the Spanish nature making them thinke that Christians were the cruellest and most wicked men of the earth In the year of our Lord 1514. happened the horrible sedition and butchery of the Croysadoes in Hungary the story is this There was a generall discontent amongst the people against the King and chiefest of the Realme because they went not about to conquer those places again from the Turke which he held in Hungary Thereupon the Popes Legate published Pardons for all those that would crosse themselves to go to war against the Turke Whereupon suddenly there gathered together a wonderfull company of thieves and robbers from every corner of Hungary who together with great multitudes of the common people that were oppressed by the insolency of the Nobility creating themselves a Generall committed a most horrible spoil almost over all Hungary murdering all the Gentlemen and Bishops they could meet withall the richest and those which were noblest descended they empailed alive This cruell rage continuing at last the King raised Forces against them and ere long they were defeated in a set battle by Iohn the son of Vayvod Stephen who having cut the most of them in pieces took their Leaders and put them to death by such strange torments as I have horrour to remember for the Generall of this seditious troop called George he caused to be stript naked and a Crowne of hot burning iron to be set upon his head then some of his veines to be opened and made Lucatius his brother to drinke the bloud which issued out of them After that the chiefest of the Peasants who had been kept three dayes without meat were brought forth and forced to fall up on the body of George yet breathing with their teeth and every one to tear away and eat a piece of it Thus he being torne in pieces his bowels were pulled out and cut into morsels whereof some being boyled and the rest roasted the Prisoners were constrained to feed on them which done all that remained were put to most horrible and languishing deaths An example of greater cruelty can hardly be found since the world was a world and therefore no marvell if the Lord hath punished the King and Realme of Hungary for such strange cruelties by suffering the cruell Turkes to make spoil of them Cruell chastisements are prepared for them that be cruell and inhumane During the Peasants war in Germany in the year 1525. a certain Gentleman not content to have massacred a great number even of those which had humbly craved pardon of him used in all company to glory of his exploits and to tell what murders and thefts he had committed But some moneths after he fell sicke and languished many dayes of an extreme pain in the reines of his back through the torment whereof he fell into despair and ceased not to curse and deny his Creatour who is blessed for ever untill that both speech and life failed him Neither did the severity of Gods justice here stay but shewed it selfe on his posterity also for his eldest son seeking to exalt the prowesse and valour of his father vaunted much of his fathers exploits in an open assembly at a banquet wherewithall a countriman being moved stabbed him to the heart with his dagger and some few dayes after the Plague fals among the residue of his Family and consumeth all that remaineth CHAP. XX. Of Adulteries IT
and conspired his destruction Therefore while hee remained in this wretched state Gods Angell punished him in the person of his eldest sonne which died suddenly in one night together with all the first borne of Aegypt wherewithall both hee and all his people being greatly moved and grieved at length gave the Israelites not onely leave but also hasted them to depart but anon as he saw them going like a man bestraught he ranne after them againe and pursued them with a mighty army untill God in the meane while opening a passage for his children overthwart the deep Red sea attended him in the mid way where hee surprised and ensnared him overthrew and violently overturned the wheeles of his chariots and put his whole army to a burly burly and that he might utterly destroy him caused the sea from each side to returne to his channell which drowned and devoured him and all his army And this is one of the noblest and fearfullest judgements of God that can be mentioned and therefore is very often recounted in many places of the Scripture as a thing most memorable above others Neither ought wee to marvell if so notable a History as this is not set downe among the writings of prophane authors for that besides their Histories doe not ordinarily stretch so farre as to record such antient acts there is also no doubt but the successors of that Tyrant and all the Aegyptians sought all means possible to cancell and blot out the memory of their so great and horrible ruine And if by chance any Historiographer make mention of the departure of the Israelites out of Aegypt it is done in such sort that the truth is not onely disguised but wholly perverted by them and in place thereof nothing but lies and falshood foisted in Like as Pharaoh by his unjust and outragious persecuting of the children of God made himselfe so guilty of Gods wrath that he deserved to be utterly destroyed with the greatest part of his people so also after their miraculous deliverance whosoever laboured either to hurt hinder or resist them did no lesse incurre Gods displeasure and fierce wrath against them wherewith they were consumed whereof the overthrow and discomfiture of Amalech is a plaine example who admit all the great wonders which God had done for the Israelites in Aegypt and in the red sea whereof the brute being blowne into all corners of the earth hee could not be ignorant yet was he so malitious and foolish hardy as to take up armour against them and to meet them to bid them battell but he and his wicked complices were by Ioshuah and his poore people though unwarliking and unacquainted with such actions lately crept out of bondage wherein they had been only exercised to make mortar and bricke and not to handle weapons discomfited and overthrowne for the Lord of Hosts who is the divider of victories to whom he pleaseth at the servent prayers of his servant Moses fought for them to the confusion of Amalech and all his traine and therefore he commanded Moses to put this deed of his in writing as a thing worthy to be remembred who also erected an Altar in the same place for a perpetuall monument of so noble a victory As Amalech and for the like sinne were Arad a King of the Canaanites Sehon King of Amorites and Og King of Basan with their people and cities destroyed and rased downe so the Madianites enterprising to withstand the foresaid Israelites by the wicked and pernicious counsell of Balaam were subdued and put to the sword even five Kings of them together not one escaping save the young Virgins which had never committed fornication with man After that the Children of Israel had continued a season peaceably in the Land of Canaan which the Lord had bestowed upon them then did Eglon King of Moab rise up and subdued them by warre and tyrannized over them eighteene yeares And although it was Gods will that they should be thus chastised because of their corruption and iniquity neverthelesse this Moabite his Rod hee caused in regard of his love to his people to be slaine by Ahud an Israelite as hee was taking his case in his chamber In like manner was his wrath stirred up against Iabin King of Asor who had oppressed Israel twenty yeares whose army though it was great and well appointed was notwithstanding by Baraks handfull of men under the conduct and rule of Deborah the Prophetesse wondrously discomfited in such sort that of all the multitude there remained not one that felt not the edge of the sword except Sisera their Captaine who escaping from the battell by betaking him to his heeles turned in by chance into the house of a woman called Iahel who hating him as he slept with a hammer fastened a naile into his temples and thus escaping from those whom he feared he was murthered by her whom he trusted And so this valiant warriour as he was overcome in battell by the conduct of a woman so was he put to death by the hand of a woman That which happened to the Madianites in the time of Gideon is admirable and very strange who being furnished with a mighty army of souldiers with the Amalekites and other their Allyes to destroy Israel were so scarred and scattered at the sound of the trumpets and brightnesse of torches of three hundred men at the most that were with Gideon that through the marvellous astonishment they were in they turned their blades into their owne bosomes and murthered one another till the greatest part of them were destroyed and the residue being put to flight and pursued by the men of Ephraim two of their Kings Oreb and Zeb were taken and slaine A while after it came to passe that the Princes of the Philistims who had oppressed the people of God by the space of forty yeares being assembled together with all their people in the Temple of Dagon their god even then when after their sacrifices they thought to make themselves most sport and pastime with poore Sampson whose eyes in mockery contempt they had put out were altogether massacred by the fall of the house which Sampson by his strength pulled upon their heads which was the greatest overthrow that before times by his means they had received In the raigne of Saul King of Israel Agag King of Amalech the posterity of those that laid wait for Israel in the desart as they came out of Aegypt were by Saul following the commandement of the Lord set upon who running upon him and his people made a great slaughter and butchery of them not sparing man woman nor childe but the King onely whom he tooke to mercy and led captive which he ought not to have done This Captaine being thus spared by one that was but little better than himself could not so escape for the Prophet Samuel became the executioner of Gods vengeance upon him since Saul refused it and with his own
committed all these outrages he was repulsed with dishonour from the city of Elymais in Persia which he went about to spoile and rob and forced to fly to Babylon where after tidings of the overthrow of his two armies in Iudea with griefe and despight he ended his dayes Antiochus the sonne of this wretched father succeeding him as in his kingdome so in wickednesse perjury and disloyalty when to the end to consult about his owne affaires he concluded a peace with the Iewes and by solemne oath as well of himselfe as his princes confirmed the free exercise of their Religion behold suddenly he falsied his plighted and sworne faith and undid all that ever he had done but it was not long ere hee also was overtaken by the army of Demetrius and together with Lysias his Governour put to death A while after reigned Alexander his brother who whilest he was encombred with the troubles of Cilicla that revolted from him the King of Aegypt his father in law came traiterously to forestall him of his kingdome tooke his wife and gave her to hiâ— deadliest enemy and afterward gave him battell discomfited his forces and drove him to fly into Arabia for safety where in stead of helpe he found an hatchet to chop off his head which was sent for a Present to gratifie the King of Aegypt withall Not long after Antiochus his sonne recovered the Scepter of his Father but alas his raigne endured but a small space for being yet but a young childe hee was slaine by Tryphon in the way as he led him to warre against the Iewes And thus perished the cursed race of Antiochus which felt Gods wrath upon it even in the third generation Antiochus the sonne of Demetrius of whom mention was made but a little before after hee had chased Tryphon from the kingdome of Asia which he usurped and broken the league which he had made with the Iewes gave himselfe wholly to worke them mischiefe Therefore comming against Ierusalem he tooke it by force commanding his souldiers to put all to death that were within the same so that within three days there was such a massacre of young and old men women and children that the number of the slaine arose to foure score thousand carkasses After this having executed many more villanies against this people in so much as to make them renounce the law of God putting them cruelly to death that did not obey his commandement it came to passe that this cruell tyrant was first of all put to flight by the inhabitants of Persepolis a city of Persia for going aboue to rob their temple of their treasures next endamaged by an overthrow of his army in Iudaea which hee no sooner understood but he tooke counsell in his fury how to be revenged of Ierusalem and belched forth bitter threats against it But in the meane time the Lord stroke him with a sudden and incurable plague and surprised him with a horrible torment of his entrails Howbeit for all this he ceased not his malicious enterprise but hasted forward his journey towards the Iewes with such cagernesse that in the way he fell out of his chariot and bruised so his body that it became putrified and so full of corruption that very vermine scrawled out thereof and the rotten flesh dropping piecemeale away no man no not himselfe being able to endure the stinch thereof Then was he constrained in the midst of his torments to confesse that it was meet that he should submit himself unto God that he which is mortall ought not to exalt himselfe so high as to compare with the immortall God and in this estate this reprobate ended his wicked dayes by a strange and most miserable kind of death CHAP. IX Of those that persecuted the Sonne of God and his Church IF they who in the law injured and persecuted the Church of God were punished according to their deserts as we have already heard is it any marvell then if the enemies and persecuters of our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which labour by all means to discountenance and frustrate his Religion and to oppresse his Church doe feele the heavy and fearefull vengeance of God upon them for their very wickednesse and unbelieâ—e No verily for he that honoureth not the Sonne honoureth not the Father which sent him and is guilty therefore before God of impiety and prophanenesse From this hainous crime King Herod in no wise can be exempted that caused all the Infants of Bethlehem of two yeares old and under to be cruelly murthered in hope thereby to put the true Messias and Saviour of the world to death For which deed accompained with many other strange cruelties as by killing the ordinary Iudges of the house of David and his owne wife and children this Caitise was tormented with sundry intolerable griefes and at last devoured by an horrible and most fearefull death For as Iosephus reporteth his body was boyled and his bowels gnawne in two by a soft and slow fire fretting inwardly without any outward appearance of heate besides the ravenous and insatiable desire of eating which so possessed him that without chewing his meat in whole lumps descended into his body devouring it so fast as it could be throwne into his mouth and never ceasing to farse his greedy throat with continuall sustenance moreover his feet were so swolne and pust up with such a flegme that a man might see through them his privy parts so rotten and full of vermine and his breath so stinking that few or none durst approach neer unto him yea his owne servants for sooke him Now lying in this wretched plight when this wicked man saw no remedy could be found to asswage his griefe hee went about to kill himselfe and being not able to performe it he was constrained to endure all the pangs of a most horrible lingring and languishing death and at last mad and miserable bestraught of sense and reason to end his dayes As for Herod the Tetrarch sirnamed Antipas who to please Herodias had caused Iohn Baptist to be beheaded when hee had likewise prepared snares for our Saviours feet and being sent to him by Pilate to quit himself and gratifie him withall had jeasted and mocked at him his belly full behold his reproaches and mockes was he never so subtle turned into his owne bosome for first after that his army had been discomfited by the souldiers of King Aretas whose daughter in regard of Herodias his brother Philips wife he had repudiated a further shame and dishonour befell him even to be deprived of his Royall dignity and not only to be brought into a low and base estate but also being robbed of his goods to be banished into a farre countrey and there to make an end of the rest of his life As touching Pilate the governour of Iudea he did so excell in wickednesse and injustice that notwithstanding the restraint of his owne conscience the law of civill equity
containeth a description of so many miseries as this doth as it may appeare by Iosephus record of it For after that they had been afflicted in divers countries and tossed up and downe by the Deputies a long while there were slaine at Caesarea in one day twenty thousand At Alexandria another time fifty thousand at Zabulon and Joppe eight thousand and foure hundred besides the burning of the two Towns at Damascus ten thousand that had their throats cut As for Jerusalem when it had a long time endured the brunt of the warre both within and without it was pinched with so sore a famine that the dung of Oxen served some for meat others fed upon the leather of old shooes and buckles and divers women were driven to the extiemity to boyle and eat their owne children Many thinking to save their lives by flying to the Enemy were taken and slit in pieces in hope to finde gold and silver in their guts in one night two thousand were thus piteously dealt withall and at the last the whole City was by force taken and the holy Temple conslumed by fire And this in generall was the miserable issue of that lamentable warre during which fourscore and seventeen thousand Iewes were taken Prisoners and eleven hundred thousand slaine for within the city were inclosed from the beginning to the ending all those that were assembled together from all quarters of the earth to keep the Passeover as their custome was As touching the prisouers some were carried to Rome in triumph others were here and there massacred at their conquerors wils somes lot it was to be torn in pieces and devoured of wild-beasts others were constrained to march in troops against their fellowes and kill one another as if they had been enemies All which evils came upon them for the despight and fury which they used towards the Sonne of God and our Saviour and that was the cause why he foreseeing this desolation wept over Jerusalem and said That it should be besieged on every side and rased to the ground and that not one stone should be left upon another because it knew not the time of her visitation Likewise said he to the woman that bewailed him as he was led to the Crosse That they should not weep for him but for themselves and their children because of the dayes of sorrow which were to come wherein the barren and those that had no children and the dugs that never suckled should bee counted happy So horrible and pitifull was the destruction of this people that God would not suffer any of his owne children to bee wrapped in their miseries nor to perish with this perverse and unbelieving Nation for as Eusebius reporteth they were a little before the arrivall of these mischiefes advertised from heaven by the speciall providence of God to forsake the City and retire into some far Country where none of these evils might come neer them The reliques of this wretched people that remained after this mighty tempest of Gods wrath were dispersed and scattered throughout all nations under heaven beeing subject to them with whom they sojourned without King Prince Judge or Magistrate to lead and guide them or to redresse their wrongs but were altogether at the discretion and commandement of the Lords of those Countries wherein they made their abode so that their condition and kind of life is at this day so vile and contemptible as experience sheweth that no nation in the world is halfe so miserable which is a manifest badge of Gods vengeance yet abiding upon them And yet for all this these dispersed reliques ceased not to vomit out the foame of their malice against Christ it being so deep rooted an evill and so inveterate that time nor reason could revoke them from it And no marvell seeing that God useth to punish the greatest sinnes with other sinnes as with the greatest punishment so they having shut their eyes to the light when it shined among them are now given over to a reprobate and hardened sence otherwise it were not possible they should remain so obstinate And albeit God be thanked we have many converts of them yet I dare say for the most part they remain in malitious blindnesse barking against and despighting both our Saviour himselfe and all that professe his name although their punishments have been still according to their deserts as by these examples following shall appeare The Jewes of Inmester a Towne lying betwixt Calchis and Antioch being upon a time celebrating their accustomed playes and feasts in the midst of their jollity as their use is they contumeliously reviled not only Christians but even Christ himselfe for they got a Christian childe and hung him upon a Crosse and after many mocks and taunts making themselves merry at him they whipt him to death What greater villany could there be than this Or wherein could these Devils incarnate shew forth their malice more apparently than thus not content once to have crucified Christ the Saviour of the World but by imitation to performe it againe and as it were to make knowne that if it were undone they would doe it So also handled they a boy called Simeon of two years and an halfe old in the yeare of our Lord 1476. and an another in Fretulium five years after that But above all they massacred a poore Carpenters son in Hungary in hatred of Christ whom they falsly supposed to bee a Carpenters son for they cut in two all his veines and suckt out his blóud with quills And being apprehended and tortured they confessed that they had done the like at Thirna foure yeares before and that they could not be without Christià n bloud for therewithall they anointed their Priests But at all these times they suffered just punishment for being still taken they were either hanged burned murthered or put to some other cruell death at the discretion of â—he Magistrates Moreover they would at divers times buy the Host of some Popish Priest and thrust it through with their knives and use it most despightfully This did one Bleazarus in the yeare of our Lord 1492 the 22 of October but was burnt for his labour and eight and thirty at another time for the same villanie by the Marquesse Ioachinus for the caitifes would suffer themselves to be baptised for none other end but more securely to exercise their villanies Another Jew is recorded in the yeare of our Lord 147 to have stoln the picture of Christ out of a Church to have thrust it through many times with his sword whereout when bloud miraculously issued hee amazed would have burned it but being taken in the manner the Christians stoned him to death The truth of which story though I will not stand to avow yet I doubt not but it might be true considering that either the Devill might by his cunning so foster and confirme their superstition or rather that seeing Christ is the subject of their religion as well as
not respecting or beleeving there was either a God or a Devill or a hell or a Heaven and therefore he was damned there was no remedy And in this miserable case without any signe of repentance he dyed But let us come to our homebred English stories and consider the judgments of God upon the persecutors of Christs Gospell in our own countrey And first to begin with one Doctor Whittington under the raigne of King Henry the seventh who by vertue of his office being Chancellour to the Bishop had condemned most cruelly to death a certaine godly woman in a town called Chipping sadberry for the profession of the truth which the Papists then called Heresie This woman being adjudged to death by the wretched Chancellor and the time come when she should be brought to the place of her martyrdome a great concourse of people both out of towne and country was gathered to behold her end Amongst whom was also the foresaid Doctor there present to see the execution performed The godly woman and manly Martyr with great constancy gave over her life to the fire and refused no paines or torments to keep her conscience cleere and unreproveable against the day of the Lord. Now the Sacrifice being ended as the people began to returne homeward they were encountred by a mighty furious Bull which had escaped from a Butcher that was about to kill him for at the same time as they were slaying this silly Lamb at the townes end a Butcher was as busie within the towne in slaying of this Bull. But belike not so skilfull in his art of killing of beasts as the Papists be in murthering Christians the Bull broke loose as I said and ranne violently through the throng of the people without hurting either man or childe till he came to the place where the Chancellour was against whom as pricked forward with some supernaturall instinct hee ranne full butt thrusting him at the first blow through the paunch and after goaring him through and through and so killed him immediately trayling his guts with his hornes all the street over to the great admiration and wonder of all that saw it Behold here a plaine demonstration of Gods mighty power and judgement against a wretched persecutor of one of his poore flocke wherein albeit the carnall sence of man doth often impute to blinde chance that which properly pertaineth to the only power and providence of God yet none can be so dull and ignorant but must needs confesse a plaine miracle of Gods almighty power and a worke of his own finger Stephen Gardiner also was one of the grand butchers in this land what a miserable end came hee unto Even the same day that Bishop Ridley and Master Latimer were burned at Oxford he hearing newes thereof rejoyced greatly and being at dinner ate his meat merrily but ere he had eaten many bits the sudden stroke of Gods terrible hand fell upon him in such sort that immediately he was taken from the board and brought to his bed where he continued 15 dayes in intolerable anguish by reason he could not expell his urine so that his body being miserably inflamed within who had inflamed so many Godly Martyrs was brought to a wretched end with his tongue all blacke and swolne hanging out of his mouth most horribly a spectacle worthy to be beholden of all such bloudy burning persecutors Bonner Bishop of London another arch butcher though he lived long after this man and dyed also in his bed yet was it so provided of God that as he had been a persecutor of the light and a child of darknesse so his carkasse was tumbled into the earth in obscure darkenes at midnight contrary to the order of all other Christians and as he had been a most cruell murtherer so was he buried amongst theeves and murtherers a place by Gods judgement rightly appointed for him Morgan Bishop of S. Davids sitting upon the condemnation of the blessed Martyr Bishop Farrar whose roome he unjustly usurped was not long after stricken by Gods hand after such a strange sort that his meat would not go downe but rise and picke up againe sometime at his mouth sometime blowne out of his nose most horrible to behold and so continued unto his death Where note moreover that when Master Leyson being then Sheriffe at Bishop Farrars burning had fetcht away the cattell of the said Bishop from his servants house into his owne custody divers of them would never eate meat but lay bellowing and roaring and so dyed Adde unto this Bishop Morgan Iustice Morgan a Judge that sate upon the death of the Lady Iane this Iustice not long after the execution of the said Lady fell mad and being thus bereft of his wits dyed having ever in his mouth Lady Iane Lady Iane. Bishop Thornton Suffragan of Dover another grand persecutor comming upon a Saturday from the Chapter-house at Canterbury and there upon the Sunday following looking upon his men playing at bowles fell suddenly into a palsey and dyed shortly after And being exhorted to remember God in his extremity of sicknesse So I do saith he and my Lord Cardinall too c. After him succeeded another Suffragan ordained by the foresaid Cardinall and equall to his Predecessor in cruell persecuting of the Church who injoying his place but a short time fell downe a paire of staires in the Cardinals chamber at Greenwich and broke his necke and that presently let it be noted after he received the Cardinals blessing The like sudden death hapned to Doctor Dunning the bloudy and wretched Chancellour of Norwich who after he had most rigorously condemned and murthered a number of simple and faithfull servants of God was suddenly stricken with death even as he was sitting in his chaire The like also fell upon Berry Commissary of Norfolke another bloudy persecutor who foure dayes after Queene Maries death having made a great Feast whereat was present one of his concubines as he was comming home from the Church where he had ministred the Sacrament of Baptisme fell downe suddenly to the ground with a heavy groane and never stirred after thus ending his miserable life without any shew of repentance So Doctor Geffrey Chancellor of Salisbury another of the same stampe was suddenly stricken with the mighty hand of God in the midst of his buildings where he was constrained to yeeld up his life which had so little pitty of other mens lives before and it is to be noted that the day before he was thus stricken he had appointed to call before him ninety poore Christians to examine them by inquisition but the goodnesse of God and his tender providence prevented him Doctor Foxford Chancellor to Bishop Stockesley dyed also suddenly So did Iustice Lelond the persecutor of one Ieffery Hurst Alexander the Keeper of Newgate a cruell enemy to those that lay in that prison for Religion dyed very miserably being so swollen that he was more like a monster than a man and
authority to doe the like mischiefe And that which is yet more and worst of all he made no account nor reckoning of the admonitions of the Prophets but the rather and the more hardened his heart to runne out into all manner of cruelty and wickednesse that his sinnes might have their full measure For the very stones of the streets of Ierusalem were stained from one corner to another with the guiltlesse and innocent bloud of those that either for disswading him from or not yeelding unto his abhominable and detestable Idolatry were cruelly murthered Amongst the number of which slaine innocents many suppose that the Prophet Esayas although he was of the bloud-royall was with a strange manner of torment put to death Wherefore the flame of Gods ire was kindled against him and his people so that he stirred up the Assyrians against them whose power and force they being not able to resist were subdued and the King himselfe taken and put in fetters and bound in chaines carried captive to Babylon but being there in tribulation hee humbled his soule and prayed unto the Lord his God who for all his wicked cruell and abhominable Apostasie was intreated of him and received him to mercy yea and brought him againe to Ierusalem into his unhoped for kingdome Then was he no more unthankfull to the Lord for his wonderfull deliverance but being touched with true repentance for his former life abolished the strange gods broke downe their Altars and restored againe the true Religion of God and gave strait commandement to his people to doe the like Wherein it was the pleasure of the Highest to leave a notable memoriall unto all posterity of his great and infinite mercy towards poore and miserable sinners to the end that no man be his sinnes never so hainous should at any time despaire for Where sin aboundeth there grace aboundeth much more Admit that this revolt of Manasses was farre greater and more outragious than was Solomons yet his true repentance found the grace to be raised up from that 〈◊〉 â—ull downefall for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and compassion on whom he will have compassion O the profound riches of the wisedome and knowledge of God! How unspeakable are his judgements and his wayes pâ—st finding out Amon the wicked sonne of this repentant â—ather committed also the like offence in serving strange gods but recanted not by like repentance and therefore God gave his owne servants both will to conspire and power to execute his destruction after hee had swayed the kingdome but two yeares CHAP. XVIII Of the third and worst sort of Apostata's BY how much the more God hath in these latter daies poured forth more plentifully his graces upon the sonnes of men by the manifestations of his Sonne Christ Iesus in the flesh and sent forth a more cleere light by the preaching of his Gospell into the world than was before times by so much the more culpable before God and guilty of eternall damnation are they who being once enlightened and made partakers of those excellent graces come afterwards either to despise or make light account of them or goe about to suppresse the truth and quench the spirit which instructed them therein This is the Sinne against the Holy Ghost which is mentioned in the sixth and tenth chapter to the Hebrewes and in the twelfth of Luke and in another place it is called a Sinne unto death because it is impardonable by reason that no excuse of ignorance can be pleaded nor any plaister of true repentance applyed unto it The Apostata's of the old Testament under the Law were not guilty of this sinne for although there were many that willingly and malitiously revolted and set themselves against the Prophets of God making warre as it were with the Holy Ghost yet seeing they had no such cleere testimonies of Christ Iesus and declaration of Gods Spirit as we have their sinne cannot be properly said directly to be against the Holy Ghost and so never to be remitted according to the description of this sinne in those passages of Scripture which were before recited as it may manifestly appeare by the former example of King Manasses The Apostle himselfe likewise doth averre the truth hereof when he saith If we sinne willingly after that we have received the knowledge of the Truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sinnes but a fearefull looking for of judgement and violent fire which shall devoure the adversaries If any man despised Moses Law he died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be worthy which treadeth under foot the Sonne of God and counteth the bloud of the new Testament as a prophane thing whereby he was sanctified and doth despight to the Spirit of Grace Here we may see that this sinne is proper to those onely that lived under the Gospell and have tasted of the comfort and knowledge of Christ. Iudas Iscariot that wicked and accursed Varlet committed the deed and feeles the scourge of this great sinne for he being a Disciple nay an Apostle of Christ Iesus moved with covetousnesse after he had devised and concluded of the manner and complot of his treason with the enemie sold his Lord and Master the Savior of the World for thirty pieces of silver and betrayed him into the bands of theeves and murtherers who sought nothing but his destruction After this vile traitour had performed this execrable purpose by reason whereof he is called the sonne of perdition he could finde no rest nor repose in his guilty conscience but was horribly troubled and tormented with remorse of his wickednesse judging himselfe worthy of a thousand deaths for betraying that innocent and guiltlesse bloud If hee looked up he saw the vengeance of God ready to fall upon him and insnare him if hee looked downe he saw nothing but hell gaping to swallow him up the light of this world was odious to him and his own life displeased him so that being plunged into the bottomlesse pit of despaire he at last strangled himselfe and burst in twaine in the midst and all his bowels gushed out There is a notable example of Lucian who having professed Christianity for a season under the Emperour Trajan fell away afterwards and became so prophane and impious as to make a mocke at Religion and Divinity whereupon his sirname was called Atheist This wretch as he barked out like a foule mouthed dog bitter taunts against the religion of Christ seeking to rend and abolish it so he was himselfe in Gods vengeance torne in pieces and devoured of dogs Porphyrie also a whelp of the same litter after he had received the knowledge of the truth for despight and anger that he was reproved of his faults by the Christians set himselfe against them and published books full of horrible blasphemies to discredit and overthrow the Christian Faith But when he perceived how fully
information of one Richard Master Parson of Aldington and Edward Bocking Doctor of Divinity a Monke of Canterbury and divers others counterfeited such manner of trances and distortions in her body with the uttering of divers counterfeit vertues and holy words tending to the rebuke of sinne and reproving such new opinions as there began to spread that shee woon great credit amongst the people and drew after her a multitude of favourites besides she would prophecy of things to come as that shee should be helped of her disease by none but the Image of our Lady in Aldington whither being brought she appeared to the people to be suddenly relieved from her sicknesse by meanes of which hypocriticall dissimulation she was brought into marvellous estimation not only with the common people but with divers great men also insomuch that a book was put in print touching her fained miracles and revelations Howbeit not content to delude the people she began also to meddle with the King himself Henry the eight saying That if he proceeded to be divorced from his wife Queene Katherine he should not remaine King one month after and in the reputation of God not one day for which and many other tricks practised by her she with her complices was arraigned of high treason and after confession of all her knavery drawn from the Tower to Tyburne and there hanged the holy maidens head being set upon London bridge and the other on certaine gates of the City The other named la Pucella de Dieu marvellously deluded with her counterfeit hypocrisie Charles the seventh King of France and all the whole French Nation in such sort that so much credit was attributed unto her that she was honoured as a Saint and thought to be sent of God to the aide of the French King By her meanes Orleance was woon from the English and many other exploits atchieved which to be short I will referre the Reader unto the French Chronicles where they shall finde her admirable knavery at large discovered But touching her end it was on this sort as she marched on horsebake to the towne of Champaigne to remove the siedge wherewith it was guirt by the Duke of Burgoine and other of the English Captaines Sir Iohn Leupembrough a Burgonian Knight tooke her alive and conveyed her to the City of Roan where she faigning her selfe with child when the contrary was knowne was condemned and burnt And thus these two holy women that in a diverse kind mocked the people of England and France by their hypocrisie by the justice of God came to deserved destructions CHAP. XXI Of Conjurers and Enchanters IF God by his first Commandement hath enjoyned every one of us to love serve and to cleave unto him alone in the conjuction and unity of a true faith and hope unremovable there is no doubt but he forbiddeth on the other side that which is contrary to this foresaid duty and herein especially that accursed familiarity which divers miserable wretches have with that lying Spirit the Father of errour by whose delusions and subtilty they busie themselves in the study of sorceries and enchantments whereupon it is forbidden the Israelites in the nineteenth of Leviticus to turne after familiar spirits or to seeke to Soothsayers to be defiled by them and the more to withdraw them from this damnable crime in the Chapter following there is a threat set downe against it in manner of a Commandement That if either man or woman have a spirit of divination or soothsaying in them they should dye the death they should stone them to death their bloud should be upon them so in the two and twentieth of Exodus the Law of God saith Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live and Moses following the same steps giveth an expresse charge in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy against this sinne saying Let nonebe found among thee that useth witchcraft nor that regardeth the Clouds or times nor a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that counselleth with a Spirit or a teller of Fortunes or that asketh counsell of the dead for all that doe such things are abhomination unto the Lord. And therefore this sinne 1 Sam. ver 15. is reputed amongst the most hainous and enormous sinnes that can be When they shall say unto you saith the Prophet Enquire at them that have a Spirit of Divination and at the Soothsayer which whispers and murmures answer Should not a people enquire at their God from the living to the dead To the Law and to the Testimony Wherefore it was a commendable thing and worthy imitation when they that had received the Faith by Pauls preaching having used curious Arts as Magicke and such like being touched with the feare of God brought their bookes and burned them before all men although the price thereof amounted to fifty thousand pieces of silver which by Budeus his supputation ariseth to five thousand French Crownes The Councels as that of Carthage and that other of Constantinople kept the second time in the suburbs utterly condemned the practices of all Conjurers and Enchanters The twelve Tables in Rome adjudged to punishments those that bewitched the standing corne And for the Civill Law this kind is condemned both by the Law Iulia and Cornelia In like manner the wisest Emperours those I mean that attained to the honour of Christianity ordained divers Edicts and Prohibitions under very sharp and grievous punishments against all such villany as Constantine in the ninth book of the Cod. tit 18. enacted That whosoever should attempt any action by Art Magicke against the safety of any person or should bring in or stir up any man to make him fall into any mischiefe or riotous demeanour should suffer a grievous punishment in the fifth Law he forbiddeth every man to aske counsell at Witches or to use the helpe of Charmers and Sorcerers under the paine of death Let them saith he in the sixth Law be throwne to wild beasts to be devoured that by conjuring or the helpe of familiar spirits go about to kill either their enemies or any other Moreover in the seventh Law he willeth that not so much as his owne courtiers and servants if they were found faulty in this crime should be spared but severely punished yet neverthelesse many of this age gave themselves over to this filthy sinne without either feare of God or respect of Law some through a foolish and dangerous curiosity others through the overruling of their owne vile and wicked affections and a third sort troubled with the terrours of an evill conscience desire to know what shall besall and happen unto them in the end Thus Saul the first King of Israel being troubled in himselfe and terrified with the army of the Philistims that came against him would needs foreknow his owne fortune and the issue of this doubtfull warre Now whereas before whilest he performed the duty of a good King and obeyed the commandement of God hee had cleansed his Realme
him to prison but the two unknowne witnesses who were indeed two fiends of hell began to say you shall not need for we are sent to punish his wickednesse and so saying they hoisted him up into the ayre where he vanished with them and was never after found In the yeare of our Lord 1055 Goodwine Earle of Kent sitting at the table with King Edward of England it happened that one of the cupbearers stumbled and yet fell not whereat Goodwine laughing said That if one brother had not holpen another meaning his legs all the wine had been spilt with which words the King calling to mind his brothers death which was slaine by Goodwine answered So should my brother Alphred have holpen me had not Goodwine been then Goodwine fearing the Kings new kindled displeasure excused himselfe with many words and at last eating a morsell of bread wished it might choke him if he were not guiltlesse of Alphreds bloud But he swore falsly as the judgement of God declared for he was forthwith choaked in the presence of the King ere he removed one foot from that place though there be some say he recovered life againe Long time after this in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth there was in the city of London one Anne Averies widow who forswore her selfe for a little money that she should have paid for six pounds of tow at a shop in Woodstreet for which cause being suddenly surprised with the justice of God shee fell downe speechlesse forthwith and cast up at her mouth in great abundance and with horrible stinke that matter which by natures course should have been voided downewards and so died to the terrour of all perjured and forsworne wretches There are in histories many more examples to be found of this hurtfull and pernitious sin exercised by one nation towards another and one man towards another in most prophane and villanous sort neither shaming to be accounted forsworne nor consequently fearing to displease God and his majesty But forasmuch as when we come to speak of murtherers in the next book we shall have occasion to speake of them more or of such like I will referre the handling thereof unto that place onely this let every man learne by that which hath been spoken to be sound and fraudlesse and to keep his faith and promise towards all men if for no other cause yet for feare of God who leaveth not this sin unpunished nor holdeth them guiltlesse that thus taketh his name in vaine CHAP. XXIX Of Blasphemers AS touching Blasphemy it was a most grievous and enormous sin and contrary to this third Commanmandement when a man is so wretched and miseble as to pronounce presumptuous speeches against God whereby his name is slandered and evill spoken of which sinne cannot chuse but be sharply and severely punished for if so be that God holdeth not him guiltles that doth but take his name in vain must he not needs abhor him that blasphemeth his Name See how meritoriously that wicked and perverse wretch that blasphemed and murdered as it were the name of God among the people of Israel in the desart was punished he was taken put in prison and condemned and speedily stoned to death by the whole multitude and upon that occasion as evill manners evermore begat good lawes the Lord instituted a perpetuall law and decree that every one that should blaspheme and curse God of what estate or degree soever should be stoned to death in token of detestation which sentence if it might now adaies stand in force there would not raign so many miserable blasphemers and deniers of God as the world is now filled and infected with It was also ordained by a new law of Iustinian That blasphemies should be severely punished by the judges and magistrates of Commonweales but such is the corruption and misery of this age that those men that ought to correct others for such speeches are oftentimes worst themselves and there are that thinke that they cannot be sufficiently feared and awed of men except by horrible bannings and swearings they despight and maugre God nay it is further come to that passe that in some places to swearc and ban be the markes and ensignes of a Catholike and they are best welcome that can blaspheme most How much then is that good King Saint Lewis of France to be commended who especially discharged all his subjects from swearing and blaspheming within his realm insomuch that when he heard a nobleman blaspheme God most cruelly he caused him to be laid hold on and his lips to bee slit with an hot yron saying hee must be content to endure that punishment seeing he purposed to banish oathes out of his kingdome Now wee call blasphemy according to the Scripture phrase every word that derogateth either from the bounty mercy justice eternity and soveraigne power of God Of this sort was that blasphemous speech of one of King Iorams Princes who at the time of the great famine in Samaria when it was besieged by the Syrians hearing Elizeus the Prophet say that the next morrow there should be plenty of victuals and good cheap rejected this promise of God made by his Prophet saying that it was impossible as if God were either a lyar or not able to performe what he would for this cause this unbeleeving blasphemer received the same day a deserved punishment for his blasphemy for he was troden to death in the gate of the city under the feet of the multitude that went out into the Syrians campe forsaken and left desolate by them through a feare which the Lord sent among them Senaccherib King of Assyria after he had obtained many victories and â—â—odued much people under him and also layd siege to Ierusalem became â—â—proud and arrogant as by his servants mouth to revile and blaspheme the living God speaking no otherwise of him than of some strange idoll and one that had no power to help and deliver those that trusted in him for which blasphemies he soone after felt a just vengeance of God upon himselfe and his people for although in mans eyes he seemed to be without the reach of danger seeing he was not assayled but did assayle and was guarded with so mighty an army that assured him to make him lord of Ierusalem in short space yet the Lord overthrew his power and destroyed of his men in one night by the hand of his Angell 185 thousand men so that he was faine to raise his siege and returne into his owne kingdome where finally he was slaine by his owne sons as he was worshipping on his knees in the temple of his god In the time of the Machabees those men that were in the strong hold called Gazara fighting against the Iewes trusting to the strength of the place wherein they were uttered forth most infamous speeches against God but ere long their blasphemous mouths were encountred by a condigne punishment for the first day of
fled to a Church of purer Religion and there was entertained into the Church by baptisme Socrates in his Ecclesiasticall History reporteth the like accident to have happened to a Iew who had beene oftentimes baptised and came to Paulus a Novatian Bishop to receive the Sacrament againe but the water as before vanished and his villany being detected he was banished the Church Vrbanus Formensis and Foelix Iducensis two Donatists by profession rushing into Thipasa a city of Mauritania commanded the Eucharist to be throwne among the dogs but the dogs growing mad thereby set upon their owne Masters and rent them with their teeth as being guilty of despising the body of Christ. Certainly a notable judgement to condemne the wicked behaviour of those miscreants who were so prophane as not only to refuse the Sacrament themselves but also to cast it to their dogs as if it were the vilest and contemptiblest thing in the world Theopompus a Phylosopher being about to insert certaine things out of the writings of Moses into his prophane works and so to abuse the sacred Word of God was stricken with a frenzy and being warned of the cause thereof in a dreame by prayers made unto God recovered his sences againe This story is recorded by Iosephus As also another of Theodectes a Poet that mingled his Tragedies with the holy Scripture and was therfore stricken with blindnesse untill he had recanted his impiety In a towne of Germany called Itzsith there dwelt a certaine husbandman that was a monstrous despiser and prophaner of the Word of God and his Sacraments he upon a time amidst his cups railed with most bitter termes upon a Minister of Gods Word after which going presently into the fields to overlooke his sheepe he never returned alive but was found there dead with his body all scortched and burnt as blacke as a cole the Lord having given him over into the hands of the Divell to be thus used for his vile prophanenesse and abusing his holy things This D. Iustus Ionus in Luthers Conferences reporteth to be most true In the yeare of our Lord 1553 a certain Coblers servant being brought up among the professors of the reformed Religion and having received the Sacrament in both kinds after living under Popery received it after their fashion in one kinde but when he returned to his old Master and was admonished by him to go againe to the Communion as he was wont then his sleepy conscience awaked and he fell into most horrible dispaire crying that he was the Divels bondslave and therewithall threw himselfe headlong out of the window so that with the fall his bowels gushed out of his mouth and he died most miserably When the great persecution of the Christians was in Persia under king Sapor in the yeare of our Lord 347 there was one Miles an holy Bishop and constant Martyr who preaching exhorting and suffering all manner of torments for the truth of the Gospel could not convert one soule of the whole city whereof he was Bishop to the faith wherefore in hatred and detestation of it he forewent it cleane but after his departure the Lord made them worthily â—ue their contempt of his Word for he sent the spirit of division betwixt King Sapor and them so that he came with an army of men and three hundred Elephants against it and quickly subverted it that the very apparance and memoriall of a city was quile defaced and rooted out For certainly this is a sure position where Gods word is generally despised and not regarded nor profited by there some notable destruction approcheth In a certaine place there was acted a tragedy of the death and passion of Christ in shew but in deed of themselves for he that played Christs part hanging upon the Crosse was wounded to death by him that should have thrust his sword into a bladder full of bloud tyed to his side who with his fall slew another that played one of the womens part that lamented under the Crosse his brother that was first slaine seeing this slew the murtherer and was himselfe by order of justice hanged therefore so that this tragedy was concluded with foure true not counterfeit deaths and that by the divine providence of God who can endure nothing lesse than such prophane and rediculous handling of so serious and heavenly matters In the Vniversity of Oxford the history of Christ was also played and cruelly punished and that not many yeares since for he that bore the person of Christ the Lord struck him with such a giddinesse of spirit and brain that he became mad forthwith crying when he was in his best humour That God had laid this judgment upon him for playing Christ. Three other Actors in the same play were hanged for robbing as by credible report is affirmed Most lamentable was the judgement of God upon Iohn Apowel sometimes a Serving-man for mocking and jeasting at the Word of God This Iohn Apowel hearing one William Malden reading certaine English prayers mocked him after every word with contrary gaudes and flouting termes insomuch that at last hee was terribly afraid so that his haire stood upright on his head and the next day was found besides his wits crying night and day without ceasing The Divell the Divell O the Divell of Hell now the Devill of hell there he goeth for it seemed to him as the other read Lord have mercy upon us at the end of the prayer that the Devill appeared unto him and by the permission of God depilved him of his understanding This is a terrible example for all those that be mockers at the Word of God to warne them if they doe not repent lest the vengeance of God fall upon them in like manner Thus we see how severely the Lord punisheth all despisers and prophaâ—â—rs of his holy things and thereby ought to learne to carry a most dutifull regard and reverence to them as also to note them for none of Gods flocke whosoever they be that deride or contemne any part of Religion or the Ministers of the same CHAP. XXXV Of those that prophane the Sabbath day IN the fourth and last Commandement of the first Table it is said Remember to keepe holy the Sabbath day By which words it is ordained and enjoyned us to separate one day of seven from all bodily and servile labour not to idlenesse and loosenesse but to the worship of God which is spirituall and wholesome Which holy ordinance when one of the children of Israel in contempt broke as they were in the wildernes by gathering sticks upon the Sabbath he was brought before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation by them put in prison untill such time as they knew the Lords determination concerning him knowing well That he was guilty of a most grievous crime And at length by the Lords owne sentence to his servant Moses condemned to be stoned to death without the host as was
by the hands of the Priests to demand pardon for that cruell murther that the guilt of innocent bloud might not be imputed unto them And if by oversight or negligence without any malice hatred or pretence one killed another yet was he not exempted from all punishment but suffered to fly to the city of refuge to be kept and as it were inclosed untill his innocency were made manifest or at the least untill the death of the high Priest From this it may seeme arose the custome of Painims in the like case which was that if a man had unwillingly committed murther he did presently avoid the countrey and goe unto some man of power and authority of a strange nation and present himselfe at his gate sitting with his face covered humbly intreating pardon and reconciliation for his murther and for one whole yeare he might not returne into his countrey On this manner was the sonne of a certaine King of Phrygia entertained in King Craesus court who unadvisedly had slaine his owne brother Whereby it is manifest how odious and execrable in all ages and all places and all people this murther hath been insomuch that men did shun their very meeting and company and abandon them out of their temples and publicke assemblies as people excommunicate and prophane And yet for all this mankinde for the most part like savage beasts hath by the instigation of that wicked spirit who was a murtherer from the beginning been too too addicted to this kind of cruelty not being afraid to offer violence to nature and shed innocent bloud Such was the franticke and perverse cruelty of the second man Cain when without any occasion but onely through envy he slew his 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 eye of God who reproved him for it saying That the bloud of Abel cried for vengeance from the earth And although this cursed and wicked murtherer received not immediately a condigne punishment answerable to his crime God to the end to spare mans bloud using undeserved favour towards him yet escaped hee not scot free for he was pursued with a continuall torment and sting of confcience together with such an incessant feare that he became a vagabond and a runnagate upon the earth and seeing himselfe brought into so miserable an estate he fell to complaining that the punishment was greater than 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 murthering Cains who for no occasion sticke not to cut their throats whom for the bond of common nature wherein all men are linked together as branches to one root they ought to acknowledge for their brethren and friends upon whom the heavy hand of God hath not beene more slacke to punish either by one meanes or other than it was upon their eldest brother Cain But seeing the number of them is so great and it is not so convenient to heape up here so huge a multitude together it shall suffice onely to recount the most famous and notablest of them as of those that have beene men of note and reputation of the world or that through an ambitious desire of raigning have by armes sought to atchieve their purposes for these for the most part are the greatest murtherers and butchers of all that through their wicked affections worldly pompe or desire of revenge have no remorse of making the bloud of men run like rivers upon the earth making no more account of the life of a man than of a flie or a worme Such an one was Abimelech one of the sonnes of Gedeon who to the end to usurpe the regiment of the people which his father before him refused got together a rout of rascal and vile fellowes by whose aid comming to his fathers house he slew seventy of his brethren even all except Ioathan the yongest that stole away and hid himselfe After which massacre he raigned in jolity three yeares and at the end thereof was cut short by God together with the Sichemites his provokers and maintainers who were also guilty of all the innocent bloud which he had shed for God sent the spirit of division 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 overcome by him who pursuing the victory tooke their city by force and put them all to the edge of the sword And after he had thus destroied their city put fire also to the castle wherein he consumed neere about a thousand persons of men and women that were retired thither to save their lives And thus God brought upon them the mischiefe which they had consented and put their hands unto for as they had lent him aid and furtherance to the shedding of his brethrens bloud so was their owne bloud with their wives and childrens shed by him yet this tyran not content therewith made war also with the inhabitants of Tebez and tooke their city and would have forced the tower also wherein the citisens had inclosed themselves but as he approched to the wall a woman threw downe a piece of a milstone upon his head wherewith finding himselfe hurt to death he commanded one of his soldiers to kill him outright And thus this wicked murtherer that had shed the bloud of many men yea of his owne brethren had his braines knockt out by a woman and died a most desperate death The bloudy treachery of Baana and Rechab chiefe captaines of Ishbosheth Sauls son in conspiring against and murthering their master whilest he slept abode not long unpunished for having cut off his head they presented it for a present to king David hoping to gratifie the king and to receive some recompence for their paines But David being of an upright and true kingly heart could not endure such vile treachery though against the person of his enemy but entertained them as most vile traitors and master-murtherers commanding first their hands and feet to be cut off which they had especially imployed as instruments about that villany and afterwards caused them to bee slaine and then hanged for an example to all others that should attempt the like For the like cause was Ioab Generall of king Davids host for killing Abner traiterously who forsaking Ishbosheth had yeelded himselfe to the King cursed of David with all his house with a most grievous and terrible curse And yet notwithstanding a while after he came againe to that passe as to murder Amasa one of Davids chiefe captains making shew to salute and embrace him For which cruell deed albeit that in Davids time he received no punishment yet it overtooke him at last and the same kinde of cruelty
it was good reason that she should partake some of that punishment which they both deserved as she did for being surprised by her enemies to the intent she might not be carried in triumph to Rome she caused an aspe to bite her to death Marke here the pittifull Tragedies that following one another in the necke were so linkt together that drawing and holding each other they drew with them a world of miseries to a most wofull end a most transparent and cleere glasse wherein the visages of Gods heavy judgements upon all murtherers are apparently deciphered CHAP. VI. Other examples like unto the former AFter that the Empire of Rome declining after the death of Theodosius was almost at the last cast ready to yeeld up the ghost and that Theodorick king of the Goths had usurped the dominion of Italy under the Emperor Zeno he put to death two great personages Senators and chiefe citizens of Rome to wit Simmachus and â—oetiâ—â— only for secret surmise which he had without probability that they two should weave some she web for his destruction After which cruell deed as he was one day at supper a fishes head of great bignesse beeing served into the table purposing to be very merry suddenly the vengeance of God assailed amased oppressed and pursued him so freshly that without intermission or breathing it sent his body a senselesse trunk into the grave in a most strange and marvellous manner for he was conceited as himselfe reported that the fishes head was the head of Simmachus whom he had but lately slaine which grinned upon him and seemed to face him with an overthwart threatning and angry eye wherewith hee was so scarred that he forthwith rose from the table and was possessed with such an exceeding trembling and icle ehilnesse that ran through all his joynts that he was constrained to take his chamber and goe to bed where soone after with griefe and fretting and displeasure hee died He committed also another most cruell and traiterous part upon Odoacer whom inviting to a banquet he deceitfully welcommed with a messe of swords in stead of other victuals to kill him withall that he might sway the Empire alone both of the Gothes and Romanes without checke It was not without cause that Attila was called the scourge of God for with an army of five hundred thousand men he wasted and spoiled all fields cities and villages that he passed by putting all to fire and sword without shewing mercy to any on this manner he went spoiling through France and there at one time gave battell to the united forces of the Romans Vicegothes Frenchmen Sarmatians Burgundians Saxons and Almaignes after that he entered Italy tooke by way of force Aquilea sacked and destroyed Millan with many other cities and in a word spoiled all the countrey in fine being returned beyond Almaigne having married a wife of excellent beauty though he was well wived before he died on his marriage night suddenly in his bed for having well carowsed the day before he fell into so dead a sleepe that lying upon his backe without respect the bloud which was often woont to issue at his nostrils finding those conduits stopped by his upright lying descended into his throat and stopped his winde And so that bloudy tyrant that had shed the bloud of so many people was himselfe by the effusion of his owne bloud murthered and stifled to death Ithilbald king of Gothia at the instigation of his wife put to death very unadvisedly one of the chiefe peeres of his realme after which murther as he sate banquetting one day with his princes environed with his gard and other attendants having his hand in the dish and the meat between his fingers one suddenly reached him such a blow with a sword that it cut off his head so that it almost tumbled upon the table to the great astonishment of all that were present Sigismund king of Burgundy suffered himselfe to be carried away with such an extreame passion of choler provoked by a false and malicious accusation of his second wife that he caused one of his sonnes which he had by his former wife to be strangled in his bed because he was induced to think that he went about to make himselfe king which deed being blowne abroad Clodomire sonne to Clodovee and Clotild king France and cousin german to Sigismund came with an army for to revenge this cruell and unnaturall part his mother setting forward and inciting him thereunto in regard of the injury which Sigismunds father had done to her father and mother one of whom he slew and drowned the other As they were ready to joyne battell Sigismunds souldiers forsooke him so that hee was taken and presently put to death and his sonnes which he had by his second wife were taken also and carried captive to Orleance and there drowned in a Well Thus was the execrable murther of Sigismund and his wife punished in their owne children As for Clodomire though he went conqueror from this battell yet was he encountered with another disastrous misfortune for as hee marched forward with his forces to fight with Sigismunds brother he was by him overcome and slaine and for a further disgrace his dismembred head fastened on the top of a pike was carried about to the enterview of all men Hee left behinde him three young sonnes whom his owne brethren and their uncles Clotaire and Childebert notwithstanding their young and tender yeres tooke from their grandmother Clotildes custody that brought them up as if they would install them into some part of their fathers kingdome but most wickedly and cruelly to the end to possesse their goods lands and seigniories bereft them all of their lives save one that saved himselfe in a Monastery In this strange and monstrous act Clotaire shewed himselfe more than barbarous when he would not take pity upon the youngest of the two being but seven yeares old who hearing his brother of the age of tenne yeres crying pittifully at his slaughter threw himselfe at his uncle Childeberts feet with teares desiring him to save his life wherewith Childebert being greatly affected entreated his brother with weeping eies to have pity upon him and spare the life of this poore infant but all his warnings and entreaties could not hinder the savage beast from performing this cruell murther upon this poore childe as he had don upon the other The Emperour Phocas attained by this bloudy means the imperiall dignity even by the slaughter of his lord and master Mauricius whom as he fled in disguised attire for feare of a treason pretended against him he being beforetime the Lievtenant Generall of his army pursued so maliciously and hotly that he overtooke him in his flight and for his further griefe first put all his children severally to death before his face that every one of them might be a severall death unto him before he died and then slew him also This murtherer was he that first exalted to
so high a point the popish horn when at the request of Boniface he ordained That the Bishop of Rome should have preheminence and authority over all other Bishops which he did to the end that the staine and blame of his most execrable murther might be either quite blotted out or at least winked at Vnder his regency the forces of the Empire grew wondrously into decay France Spaine Almaigne and Lombardy revolted from the Empire and at last himselfe being pursued by his son in law Priscus with the Senatours was taken and having his hands and feet cut off was together with the whole race of his off-spring put to a most cruell death because of his cruell and tyrannous life Among all the strange examples of Gods judgements that ever were declared in this world that one that befell a King of Poland called Popiel for his murthers is for the strangenesse thereof most worthy to be had in memory he reigned in the yeare of our Lord 1346. This man amongst other of his particular kinds of cursings and swearings whereof he was no niggard used ordinarily this oath If it be not true would rats might devoure me prophesying thereby his owne destruction for hee was devoured by the same meanes which he so often wished for as the sequell of his history will declare The father of this Popiel seeling himselfe neere death resigned the government of his kingdome to two of his brethren men exceedingly reverenced of all men for the valour and vertue which appeared in them He being deceased and Popiel being growne up to ripe and lawfull yeares when he saw himselfe in full liberty without all bridle of government to doe what hee listed he began to give the full swinge to his lawlesse and unruly desires in such sort that within few daies he became so shamelesse that there was no vice which appeared not in his behavior even to the working of the death of his owne uncles for all their faithfull dealing towards him which he by poison brought to passe Which being done he caused himselfe forthwith to be crowned with garlands of flowers and to be perfumed with precious oyntments and to the end the better to solemniâ—e his entry to the crowne commanded a sumptuous and pompous banquet to be prepared whereunto all the Princes and Lords of his kingdome were invited Now as they were about to give the onset upon the delicate cheere behold an army of rats sallying out of the dead and putrified bodies of his uncles set upon him his wife and children amid their dainties to gnaw them with their sharp teeth insomuch that his gard with all their weapons and strength were not able to chase them away but being weary with resisting their daily and mighty assaults gave over the battell wherefore counsell was given to make great cole â—ires about them that the rats by that means might be kept off not knowing that no policy or power of man was able to withstand the unchangeable decree of God for for all their huge forces they ceased not to run through the midst of them and to assault with their teeth this cruell murtherer Then they gave him counsell to put himselfe his wife and children into a boat and thrust it into the middest of a lake thinking that by reason of the waters the rats would not approach unto them but alas in vaine for they swum through the waters amaine and gnawing the boat made such chinkes into the sides thereof that the water began to run in which being perceived of the boatman amased them sore and made them make poste haste unto the shore where hee was no sooner arrived but a fresh muster of rats uniting their forces with the former encountred him so sore that they did him more scath than all the rest Whereupon all his guard and others that were there present for his defence perceiving it to be a judgement of Gods vengeance upon him abandoned and for sooke him at once who seeing himselfe destitute of succour and forsaken on all sides flew into a high tower in Chouzitze whither also they pursued him and climbing even up to the highest roome where hee was first eat up his wife and children she being guilty of his uncles death and lastly gnew and devoured him to the very bones After the same sort was an Archbishop of Mentz called Hatto punished in the yeare 940 under the reigne of the Emperour Otho the great for the extreme cruelty which he used towards certain poor beggers whom in time of famine he assembled together into a great barn not to relieve their wants as he might and ought but to rid their lives as he ought not but did for he set on fire the barne wherein they were and consumed them all alive and comparing them to rats and mice that devoured good corne but served to no other good use But God that had regard and respect unto those poore wretches tooke their cause into his hand to quit this proud Prelate with just revenge for his outrage committed against them sending towards him an army of rats and mice to lay siege against him with the engines of their teeth on all sides which when this cursed wretch perceived he removed into a tower that standeth in the midst of Rhine not far from Bing whither hee presumed this host of rats could not pursue him but he was deceived for they swum over Rhine thick and threefold and got into his tower with such strange fury that in very short space they had consumed him to nothing in memoriall whereof this tower was ever after called the tower of rats And this was the tragedy of that bloudy arch-butcher that compared poore Christian soules to brutish and base creatures and therefore became himselfe a prey unto them as Popiel King of Poland did before him in whose strange examples the beames of Gods justice shine forth after an extraordinary and wonderfull manner to the terrour and feare of all men when by the means of small creatures they made roome for his vengeance to make entrance upon these execrable creature-murtherers notwithstanding all mans devises and impediments of nature for the native operation of the elements was restrained from hindering the passage of them armed and inspired with an invincible and supernaturall courage to feare neither fire water nor weapon till they had finished his command that sent them And thus in old time did frogs flyes grashoppers and lice make war with Pharaoh at the command of him that hath all the world at his becke After this Archbishop in the same ranke of murtherers we finde registred many Popes of all whom the most notorious and remarkable are these two Innocent the fourth and Boniface the eighth who deserved rather to be called Nocents and Malefaces than Innocents and Boniface for their wicked and perverse lives for as touching the first of them from the time that he was first installed in the Papacie he alwayes bent his hornes against
conquered by the Normans comming with a forreine King being none of their naturall countrey In the yeare of our Lord sixe hundred threescore and eighteene Childerich King of France caused a Nobleman of his Realme called Bolyde to bee bound to a stake and there beaten to death without the pretence of any just crime or accusation against him For which cruelty his Lords and Commons being grievously offended conspired together and slew him and his wife as they were hunting In the raigne of Edward the second and Edward the third Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much humane bloud but he was also justly recompenced in the end first he murdered King Edward the second lying in Barkeley Castle to the end he might as it was supposed enjoy Isabel his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity Secondly he caused Edward the third to conclude a dishonorable peace with the Scots by restoring them all their ancient writings charters and patents whereby the Kings of Scotland had bound themselves to be feudaries to the Kings of England Thirdly he accused Edmund Earle of Kent uncle to King Edward of treason and caused him unjustly to bee put to death And lastly he conspi redagainst the King to worke his destruction for which and divers other things that were laid to his charge he was worthily and justly beheaded In the reigne of Henry the sixt Humfrey the good duke of Gloucester and faithfull protectour of the King by the meanes of certaine malicious persons to wit the Queene the Cardinall of Winchester and especially the Marquesse of Suffolke as it was supposed was arrested cast into hold and strangled to death in the Abbey of Bure For which cause the Lords hand of judgement was upon them all for the Marquesse was not onely banished the land for the space of five yeares but also banished out of his life for ever for as hee sailed towards France hee was met withall by a Ship of Warre and there presently beheaded and the dead corps cast up at Dover that England wherein he had committed the crime might be a witnesse of his punishment The Queene that thought by this meanes to preserve her husband in honour and her selfe in estate thereby both lost her husband and her state her husband lost his realme and the Realme lost Anjou Normandy with all other places beyond the sea Calice onely excepted As for the Cardinall who was the principall artificer of all this mischiefe he lived not long after and being on his death bed murmured and grudged against God asking wherefore hee should die having so much wealth and riches and saying That if the whole Realme would save his life he was able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it but death would not be bribed for all his aboundant treasure he died miserably more like a Heathen than a Christian without any shew of repentence And thus was the good Dukes death revenged upon the princiall procurers thereof As the murder of a gentleman in Kent called master Arden of Feversham was most execrable so the wonderfull discovery thereof was exceeding rare This Arden being somewhat aged had to wife a young woman no lesse faire than dishonest who being in love with one Mosbie more than her husband did not onely abuse his bed but also conspired his death with this her companion for together they hired a notorious Ruffin one Blacke Will to strangle him to death with a towell as he was playing a game at tables which though secretly done yet by her owne guilty conscience and some tokens of bloud which appeared in his house was soone discovered and confessed Wherefore she her selfe was burnt at Canterbury Michael master Ardens man was hanged in chaines at Feversham Mosbie and his sister were hanged in Smithfield Greene another partner in this bloudy action was hanged in chaines in the high way against Feversham And Blacke Will the Ruffian after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a seaffold at Flushing in Zeeland And thus all the murderers had their deserved dues in this life and what they endured in the life to come except they obtained mercy by true repentance is easie to judge CHA. XI Of the admirable discovery of Murders AS the Lord hath shewed himselfe a most just Judge in punishing most severely this horrible sinne of shedding mans bloud so hath he alwaies declared his detestation thereof and his will to have it punished by those who are in his stead upon the earth and have the sword of vengeance committed unto them by his miraculous and superhaturall detecting of such murderers from time to time who have carried their villanies so closely as the eye of man could not espy them plainely shewing thereby that the bloud of the slaine crieth to the Lord for vengeance from the earth as Abels did upon Cain and that God will have that law stand true and firme which he made almost before all other lawes He that sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed If I should commit to writing all the examples of this kinde which either are recorded in Authors or which dayly experience doth offer unto us it would require rather a full Booke than a short Chapter for that subject And therefore I will be content with some few and those for truth most credible and yet for strangenesse most incredible And to begin with our owne countrey About the yeare of our Lord 867 a certaine Nobleman of the Danes of the kings stock called Lothebrocus father to Inguar and Hubba entring upon a certaine time with his hawke into a cockboat alone by chance through tempest was driven with his hawke to the coast of Northfolke in England named Rodham where being found and detained he was presented to king Edmund that raigned over the East-Angles in Northfolke and Suffolke at that time The King as hee was a just and good man understanding his parentage and seeing his cause entertained him in his Court accordingly and every day more and more perceiving his activity and great dexterity in hunting and hawking bare speciall favour unto him insomuch that the Kings Faulconer bearing privy malice against him for this cause secretly as they were hunting together in a wood did murther him and threw him in a bush Lothebroke being thus murthered and shortly missed in the Kings house no tydings could be heard of him untill it pleased God to reveale the murther by his dog which continuing in the wood with the corps of his Master at sundry times came to the Court and fauned on the King so that the King suspecting some such matter at length followed the trace of the hound and was brought to the place where Lothebroke lay Whereupon inquisition being made at length by some circumstances of words and other suspitions it was knowne that he was murdered by Berikâ— the Kings Faulconer who for his punishment he was set into the same boat of Lothebroke
then is the murdering of Parents especially detestable when a man is so possessed with the Devill or transported with a hellish fury that he lifteth up his hand against his own father or mother to put them to death this is so monstrous and inormous an impiety that the greatest Barbarians ever have had it in detestation wherefore it is also expresly commanded in the Law of God That whosoever smiteth his father or mother in what sort so ever though not to death yet he shall die the death If the disobedience unreverence and contempt of children towards their Parents are by the just judgements of God most rigorously punished as hath beene declared before in the first commandement of the second Table how much more then when violence is offered and above all when murder is committed Thus the Aegyptians punished this sinne they put the committants upon a stacke of thornes and burnt them alive having beaten their bodies beforehand with sharpe reeds made of purpose Solon being demanded why he appointed no punishment in his Lawes for Paricides answered that there was no necessity thinking that the wide world could not afford so wicked a wretch It is said that Romulus for the same cause ordained no punishment in his Common wealth for that crime but called every murderer a Paricide the one being in his opinion a thing execrable and the other impossible And in truth there was not for 600 yeeres space according to Plutarchs report found in Rome any one that had committed this execrable fact The first Paricide that Rome saw was Lucius Ostius after the first Punicke warre although other Writers affirme that M. Malliolus was the first and Lucius the second how soever it was they both underwent the punishment of the Law Pompeia which enacted That such offenders should be thrust into a sacke of Leather and an Ape a Cocke a Viper and a Dog put in to accompany them and then to be throwne into the water to the end that these beasts being enraged and animated one against another might wreke their teene upon them and so deprive them of life after a strange fashion being debarred of the use of the aire water and earth as unworthy to participate the very Elements with their deaths much lesse with their lives which kinde of punishment was after practised and confirmed by the constitution of Constantine the Great And albeit the regard of the punishment seemed terrible and the offence it selfe much more monstrous yet since that time there have beene many so perverse and exceeding wicked as to throw themselves headlong into that desperate gulfe As Cleodoricke sonne of Sigebert King of Austria who being tickled with an unsatiable lust of raigne through the deceivable perswasions of Cleodovius King of France slew his father Sigebert as he lay asleepe in his Tent in a forrest at noone time of the day who being weary with walking laid himselfe downe there to take his rest but for all that the wicked wretch was so farre from attaining his purpose that it fell out cleane contrary to his expectation for after his fathers death as he was viewing his treasures and ransacking his coffers one of Cleodovius factors strooke him suddenly and murdered him and so Cleodovius seised both upon the Crowne and Treasures After the death of Hircanus Aristobulus succeeded in the government of Judea which whilest he strove to reduce into a kingdome and to weare a crown contrary to the custome of his predecessors his mother other brethren contending with him about the same he cast in prison took Antigonus his next brother to be his associate but ere long a good gratefull son he famished her to death with hunger that had fed him to life with her teares even his naturall mother And after perswaded with false accusations caused his late best beloved Antigonus to be slaine by an ambush that lay by Strato's tower because in the time of his sicknesse he entred the Temple with pompe But the Lord called for quittance for the two bloodsheds immediately after the execution of them for his brothers blood was scarce washed off the ground ere in the extreamity of his sicknesse he was carried into the same place and there vomiting up blood at his mouth and nosthrils to be mingled with his brothers he fell downe starke dead not without horrible tokens of trembling and despaire Nero that unnaturall Tyran surpassed all that lived as in all other vices so in this for he attempted thrice by poyson to make away his mother Agrippina and when that could not prevaile by reason of her usuall Antidotes and preservatives hee assayed divers other meanes as first a devise whereby she should be crushed to death as she slept a loosened beame that should fall upon her and secondly by shipwracke both which when she escaped the one by discovery and the other by swimming he sent Anicâ—tus the Centurion to slaughter her with the sword who with his companions breaking up the gate of the City where she lay rushed into her Chamber and there murdered her It is written of her that when she saw there was no remedy but death she presented her belly unto the murderer and desired him to kill her in that part which had most deserved it by bringing into the world so vile a monster and of him that he came to view the dead carkasse of his mother and handled the members thereof commending this and discommending that as his fancy led him and in the meane time being thirsty to call for drinke so farre was he from all humanity and touch of Nature but he that spared not to embrue his hands in her blood that bred him was constrained ere long to offer violence to his own life which was most deere unto him Henry the son of Nicolotus Duke of Herulia had two wicked cruell and unkind sonnes by the yonger of whom with the consent of the elder he was traiterously murdered because he had married a third wife for which cause Nicolotus their cousin-german pursued them both with a just revenge for he deprived them of their kingdome and drove them into exile where they soon after perished Selymus the tenth Emperour of Turkes was so unnaturall a childe that he feared not to dispossesse his father Bajazet of the crown by treason and next to bereave him of his life by poyson And not satisfied therewith even to murder his two brethren and to destroy the whole stock of his own blood But when hee had raigned eight yeares vengeance found him out and being at his backe so corrupted and putrified his reins that the contagion spread it selfe over all his body so that he dyed a beast-like and irksome death and that in the same place where he had before oppressed his father Bajazet with an army to wit at Chiurle a city of Thracia in the year of our Lord 1520. in the moneth of September Charles the younger by surname called Crassus
son to Lodouick the third was possessed tormented with a divell in the presence of his father the Peeres of the Realme which he openly confessed to have justly happened unto him because he had pretended in his mind to have conspired his fathers death and deposition what then are they to expect that doe not pretend but performe this monstrous enterprise A certaine degenerate and cruell son longing and gaping after the inheritance of his father which nothing but his life kept him from wrought this means to accomplish his desire he accused his father of a most filthy unnameable crime even of committing filtâ—inesse with a Cow knowing that if he were convicted therof the law would cut off his life herein he wroght a double villany in going about not only to take away his life which by the law of nature he ought to have preserved but also his good name without respecting that the stain of a father redoundeth to his posterity and that children commoÌ„ly do not only inherit the possessions but also imitate the conditions of their parents but all these supposes laid aside together with all feare of God he indicted him before the Magistrate of incest and that upon his own knowledge insomuch that they brought the poore innocent man to the rack to the end to make him confesse the crime which albeit amidst his tortures he did as soon as he was out he denyed again howbeit his extorted confession stood for evidence and he was condemned to be burned with fire as was speedily executed and constantly endured by him exclaiming still upon the false accusation of his son and his own unspotted innocency as by the issue that followed most cleerely appeared for his son not long after fell into a reprobate mind and hanged himselfe and the Judge that condemned him with the witnesses that bare record of his forced confession within one moneth died all after a most wretched and miserable sort And thus it pleased God both to revenge his death and also to quit his reputation and innocency from ignominy and discredit in this world Manfred Prince of Tarentum bastard son to Frederick the second smothered his father to death with a pillow because as some say he would not bestow the kingdome of Naples upon him and not content herewith he poisoned also the heirs of Frederick to the end he might attain unto the crown as Conrade his elder brother and his nephew the son of Henry the heir which Henry died in prison and now onely Conradinus remained betwixt him and the kingdome whom though he assayed to send after his father yet was his intention frustrate for the Pope thundered out his curses against him and instigated Charles Duke of Angiers to make war against him wherein bastard and unnaturall Manfred was discomfited and slaine and cut short of his purpose for which he had committed so many tragedies Martin Luther was wont to report of his own experience this wonderfull history of a Locksmith a yong man riotous and vicious who to find fuel for his luxury was so bewitched that he feared not to slay his own father mother with a hammer to the end to gain their mony and possessions after which cruell deed he presently went to a shoomaker and bought him new shooes leaving his old behind him by the providence of God to be his accusers for after an houre or two the slain bodies being found by the Magistrate and inquisition made for the murderer no manner of suspition being had of him he seeming to take such griefe therat But the Lord that knoweth the secrets of the heart discovered his hypocrisie and made his owne shooes which hee had left with the Shoomaker rise up to beare witnesse against him for the blood which ran from his fathers wounds besprinckled them so that thereof grew the suspition and from thence the examination and very soon the confession and last of all his worthy and lawfull execution From hence we may learne for a generall trueth that murder never so secret will ever by one means or other be discovered the Lord will not suffer it to goe unpunished so abominable it is in his sight Another son at Basil in the yeare of our Lord God 1560 bought a quantity of poyson of an Apothecary and ministred it to none but to his own father accounting him worthiest of so great a benefit which when it had effected his wish upon him the crime being detected in stead of possessing his goods which he aimed at he possessed a vile and shamefull death for he was drawne through the streets burnt with hot Irons and tormented nine houres in a wheele till his life forsooke him As it is repugnant to nature for children to deale thus cruelly with their parents so it is more against nature for parents to murder their children insomuch as naturall affection is of greater force in the descent than in the ascent the love that parents bear their children is greater than that which children redound to their Parents because the childe proceedeth from the father and not the father from the childe as part of his fathers essence and not the father of his Can a man then hate his own flesh or be a rooter out of that which himselfe planted It is rare yet sometimes it commeth to passe Howbeit as the offence is in an high degree so it is alwayes punished by some high judgement as by these examples that follow shall appeare The ancient Ammonites had an Idoll called Moloch to the which they offered their children in sacrifice this Idoll as the Jewes write was of a great stature and hollow within having seven chambers in his hollownesse whereof one was to receive meat another turtle Doves the third a sheep the fourth a ram the fifth a calfe the sixth an oxe and the seventh a childe his hands were alwayes extended to receive gifts and when a childe was offered they were made fire hot to burne it to death none must offer the childe but the father and to drowne the cries of it the Chemarims for so were the Priests of that Idoll called made a noise with bels cymbals and horns thus is it written that king Ahab offered his son yea and many of the children of Israel beside as the Prophet David affirmeth They offered saith he their sons and daughters to Divels and shed innocent blood c. this is the horrible crime Now marke the judgement concerning the Canaanites the landspued them out for their abominations Achab with his posterity was accur sed himselfe being slaine by his enemies and the crowne taken from his posterity not one being left of his off-spring to pis against the wall according to the saying of Elias as for the Jewes the Prophet David in the same place declareth their punishment when he saith That the wrath of the Lord was kindled and he abhorred his inheritance and gave them into the hands of the
and stones echoed France into his eares And on this manner was his flight to Sicilie King Charles in the meane while having by force and bloodshed to terrifie the rest taken two passages that were before him the whole Realme without any great resistance yeelded it selfe unto his mercy albeit that the young King had done what he could to withstand him But at length seeing the Neapolitanes ready to rebell and himselfe in danger to be taken prisoner he fled from the Castle of Naples and with a small company got certaine Brigandines wherein he sayled to the Island Ischia thirty miles from Naples saying at his departure this verse out of the Psalmes How vaine are the watchmen and gards of that City which is not garded and watched by the Lord which he often repeated and so long as Naples was in his view And thus was cruelty punished both in Ferdinand the father and Alphonso the sonne Artaxerxes Ochus the eight King of the Persians began his raigne with thus many murders he slew two of his owne brethren first secondly Euagoras King of Cyprus his partner and associate in the kingdome thirdly he tooke Gidon traiterously and was the cause of forty thousand mens deaths that were slaine and burned therein beside many other private murders and outrages which he committed for which cause the Lord in his justice rained downe vengeance upon his head for Bagoas one of his Princes ministred such a fatall cup to his stomacke that it mortified his senses and deprived him of his unmercifull soule and life and not onely upon his head but upon his Kingdome and his sonne Arsame also for he was also poysoned by the same Bagoas and his Kingdome was translated to Darius Prince of Armenia whom when the same Bagoas went about to make taste of the same cup which his predecessors did he was taken in his owne snare for Darius understanding his pretence made him drinke up his owne poyson which he provided for him and thus murder was revenged with murder and poyson with poyson according to the Decree of the Almighty who saith Eye for eye tooth for tooth c. In the yeare of the World 3659. Morindus a most cruell and bloody minded Prince raigned here in England who for his cruelties sake came to an unhappy and bloody end for out of the Irish seas came forth a Monster which destroyed much people whereof he hearing would of his valiant courage needs fight with it and was devoured of it so that it may truly here be said that one Monster devoured another There was as Aelianus reporteth a cruell and pernicious Tyran who to the end to prevent all practises of conspiracy and treason as Tyrans are ever naturally and upon desert timerous that might be devised against him enacted this Law among his subjects That no man should conferre with another either privately or publikely upon paine of death and so indeed he abrogated all civill society For speech as it was the beginning and birth of fellowship so it is the very joynt and glue thereof but what cared he for society that respected nothing but his owne safety hee was so farre from regarding the common good that when his subjects not daring to speake signified their mindes by signes he prohibited that also and that which is yet more when not daring to speake or yet make signes they fell to weeping and lamenting their misery he came with a band of men even to restraine their teares too but the multitudes rage being justly incensed they gave him such a desperat welcome that neither he nor his followers returned one of them alive And thus his abominable cruelty came to an end together with his life and that by those meanes which is to be observed by which he thought to preserve and maintaine them both Childericus who in the yeare 697 succeeded in the Kingdome of France Theodoricke that for his negligence and sluggish government was deposed and made of a King a Frier exercised barbarous and inhumane cruelty upon his subjects for he spared neither noble or ignoble but mixtly sent them to their graves without respect of cause or justice One of the noble sort he caused to be fastened to a stake and beaten with clubbes not to death but to chastisement which monstrous cruelty so incensed the peoples mind against him that there wanted no hands to take part with this club-beaten man against the Tyran his enemie Wherefore they layed wait for him as he came one day from hunting and murdered him together with his wife great with childe no man either willing or daring to defend him Tymocrates the King or rather Tyran of the Cyrenians will give place to none in this commendation of cruelty For he afflicted his subjects with many and monstrous calamities insomuch that he spared not the priests of his gods which commonly were in reverent regard among the Heathen As the bloody death of Menalippus Apollo's priest did witnesse whom to the end to marry his faire and beautifull wife Aretaphila he cruelly put to death how beit it prospered not with him as he desired for the good woman not contented with this sacrilegious contract sought rather meanes to revenge her first husbands death than to please this new letchers humour Wherefore she assayed by poyson to effect her wish and when that prevailed not she gave a yong daughter she had to Leander the Tyrans brother to wife who loved her exceedingly but with this condition that he should by some practise or other worke the death and destruction of his brother which indeed he performed for he so bribed one of the groomes of the Tyrans chamber that by his helpe he soone rid wicked Tymocrates out of the way by a speedy and deserved death But to abridge these long discourses let us looke into all times and ages and to the histories of all Countries and Nations and we shall finde that Tyrans have ever come to one destruction or other Diomedes the Thracian King fed his horses with mans flesh as with provender but was made at last provender for his owne horses himselfe by Hercules Calippus the Athenian that slew Dion his familiar friend and deposed Dionisius the Tyran and committed many other murders amongst the people was first banished Rheginum and then living in extreame necessity slaine by Leptines and Polysperchon Clephes the second King of the Lumbards for his savage cruelty towards his subjects was slaughtered by one of his friends Damasippus that massacred so many Citizens of Rome was cut off by Scylla Ecelinus that played the Tyran at Taurisium guelding Boyes deflowring Maydes mayming Matrons of their Dugs cutting children out of their mothers bellies and killing 1200 Patavians at once that were his friends was cut short in a battell In a Word if we read and consult Histories of all Countries and times we shall find seldome or never any notorious Tyran and oppressor of his subjects that came to
dreaming of nothing lesse whereat they being at the instant amazed quickly gathered their spirits together and putting themselves in defence fought it out with such courage and eagernesse that the traitors Army was wholly discomfited and he himselfe with one of his sonnes slain The Gothes having gotten this victory broke off their voyage to France and turned their course backe again to Italie with purpose to destroy and spoil and so they did for they laid waste all the Countrey of Piemont and Lumbardy and elsewhere and besieged Rome it selfe so that from that time Italie never ceased to be scourged and tormented with the Gothes for the space of eighteen yeers Moreover whosoever else have been found to follow the steps of these truce peace and promise-breakers void of truth and regard of reputation alwayes underwent worthy punishment for their unworthy acts and fell headlong into confusion and ignominy making themselves subjects worthy to be curst and detested of all men CHAP. XVI Of Queenes that were Murtherers IF these and such like cruelties as we have spoken before be strange and monstrous for men what shall we then say of wicked and bloudy women who contrary to the nature of their sex addict themselves to all violence and bloudshedding as cursed Iezabel Queen of Israel did of whom sufficient hath been spoken before Athaliah Ahabs daughter and wife to Ioram King of Judah was a bird of the same feather for she was possessed with such a spirit of fury and rage that after the death of her son Ochosias that died without issue she put to death all the bloud royall to wit the posterity of Nathan Solomons brother to whom by right of succession the inheritance of the Crown appertained to the end that she might install her selfe into the kingly diadem after this cruell butchery of all the royall male children except Ioas who by Gods providence was preserved alive she usurped the Crowne and Scepter of Juda full seven yeeres at the end of which date Ioas was exalted to the Crowne and she not onely deposed but slain by the hands of her Guard that attended upon her Semiramis the Queen of Assyria was a woman of an ambitious spirit who through her thirst of reigning counterfeited her sex and attired her selfe like a man to get more authority and reverence to her selfe She was the destruction of many thousand people by the unjust war which she stirred up besides that she was a notorious strumpet and withall a murderer of those that satisfied her lust for still as they came from her bed some lay privily in watch to kill them lest they should bewray her villany it is reported that she was so shamelesse that she solicited her owne son to commit incest with her who in detestation of her filthinesse and cruelty raised a power against her and conquering her in one great battell caused her most deservedly to be put to death Brunchild whom Histories call Brunhault a Queen of France by marriage but a Spaniard by birth was a woman that bred much mischiefe in her age and that wrought many horrible and death-deserving crimes for partly with her subtle devices and partly with her owne hands she murdered ten Kings of France one after another she caused her husband to slay his owne brother she procured the death of her nephew Meroveus whom against all equity and honesty she had secondly espoused for her husband for he being hated of his father for that vile incest and perceiving himselfe in danger of taking made one of servants thrust him through After she had committed these and many other foul facts she went aboutalso to defraud Clotairius the son of Chilpericke of the right of the Crowne which pertained unto him and to thrust in another in his room whereupon arose great war in the which as she dealt more boldly and manfully than the condition of her sexe would bear so she received the due wages of her brave and vertuous deeds for she was taken prisoner with three of her nephewes whose throats she saw cut before her face and after her selfe was set upon a Camell and led through the hoste three dayes together every man reviling mocking reproaching and despighting her and at last by the award and judgement of the Princes and Captaines of the Army she was adjudged to be tied by the hair of her head one arme and one foot to the tail of a wilde and unâ—â—med horse and so to be left to his mercy to be drawne miserably to her destruction which was no sooner executed but her miserable carkase 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 Edilburga the daughter of Offa King of Mercia in England who was married to Brigthricus King of the West Saxons was a woman so passing all the bounds of humanity and so given to cruelty and other beastly conditions that she first poysoned divers of the Nobles of the Kingdom and then having practised this wickednesse upon them she at length poysoned also the King her husband for which cause flying over into France unto Charles the Great for fear of punishment among her owne people when by reason of her beautie it was offered unto her that she should marry either with the King himselfe or with his son because she chose the son before the father married neither the one nor yet the other but was thrust into a Monastery where she not forgetting her old trade playing the harlot with a Monke was expulsed from thence and ended her life in great penury and misery About the same time that this Edilburga was thus working her feats in England Irene another most idolatrous and cruell minded woman being Emperesse of the Greekes was as busie for her part at Constantinople This wicked woman through the meanes of Pope Adrian took up the body of Constantine Emperour of Constantinople her owne husbands father and when she had burned the same she caused the ashes to be cast into the sea because he disannulled images Afterward reigning with her son Constantine the sixth son to Leo the fourth and being at dissention with him for disallowing the worshipping of images caused him to be taken and laid in prison who afterward through power of friends being restored to his Empire again at last she caused the same her owne son to be cast in prison and his eyes to be put out so cruelly that within short space he died After this the said Emperesse as it were triumphing in her cruelty and idolatry caused a Councell to be held at Nice where it was decreed That images should again be restored to the Church but this Councell was after repealed by another Councell holden at Frankford by Charles the Great and at length this wicked woman was deposed by Nicephorus who reigned after and was expulsed the Empire and after the example of Edilburga
her servant that was captive with her to her friends to purvey the same which he bringing the Centurion alone with the wronged Lady met him at a place appointed and whilest he weighed the money by her counsell was murdered of her servants so she escaping carried to her husband both his money and threw at his feet the villaines head that had spoiled her of her chastity Andreas King of Hungary having undertaken the voyage into Syria for the recovery of the Holy Land together with many other Kings and Princes committed the charge of his Kingdom and Family to one Bannebanius a wise and faithfull man who discharged his Office as faithfully as he took it willingly upon him Now the Queen had a brother called Gertrude that came to visit and comfort his sister in her husbands absence and by that meanes sojourned with her a long time even so long till he fell deadly in love with Bannebanius Lady a fair and vertuous woman and one that was thought worthy to keep company with the Queen continually to whom when he had unfolded his suit and received such stedfast repulse that he was without all hope of obtaining his desire he began to droup and pine untill the Queen his sister perceiving his disease found this perverse remedy for the cure thereof she would often give him opportunity of discourse by withdrawing her selfe from them being alone and many times leave them in secret and dangerous places of purpose that he might have his will of her but she would never consent unto his lust and therefore at last when he saw no remedy he constrained her by force and made her subject to his will against her will which vile disgracefull indignity when she had suffered she returned home sad and melancholy and when her husband would have embraced her she fled from him asking him if he would embrace a whore and related unto him her whole abuse desiring him either to rid her from shame by death or to revenge her wrong and make knowne unto the world the injury done unto her There needed no more spurres to pricke him forward for revenge he posteth to the Court and upbraiding the Queen with her ungratefull and abominable treachery runneth her through with his sword and taking her heart in his hand proclaimeth openly that it was not a deed of inconsideration but of judgement in recompence of the losse of his wives chastity forthwith he flieth towards the King his Lord that now was at Constantinople and declaring to him his fact and shewing to him his sword besmeared with his wives bloud submitteth himselfe to his sentence either of death in rigour or pardon in compassion but the good King enquiring the truth of the cause though grieved with the death of his wife yet acquit him of the crime and held him in as much honour and esteem as ever he did condemning also his wife as worthy of that which she had endured for her unwomanlike and traiterous part A notable example of justice in him and of punishment in her that forgetting the law of womanhood and modesty made her selfe a Bawd unto her brothers lust whose memory as it shall be odious and execrable so his justice deserveth to be engraven in marble with characters of gold Equal to this King in punishing a Rape was Otho the first for as he passed through Italy with an Army a certain woman cast her selfe downe at his feet for justice against a villain that had spoiled her of her chastity who deferring the execution of the law till his returne because his haste was great the woman asked who should then put him in minde thereof he answered This Church which thou seest shall be a witnesse betwixt me and thee that I will then revenge thy wrong Now when he had made an end of this warfare in his returne as he beheld the Church he called to minde the woman and caused her be fetched who falling downe before him desired now pardon for him whom before she had accused seeing he had now made her his wife and redeemed his injury with sufficient satisfaction not so I swear quoth Otho your compacting shall not infringe or colludo the sacred Law but he shall die for his former fault and so he caused him to be put to death A notable example for them that after they have committed filthinesse with a maid thinke it no sin but competent amends if they take her in marriage whom they abused before in fornication Nothing inferiour to these in punishing this sin was Gonzaga Duke of Ferrara as by this History following may appear In the year 1547. a Citizen of Comun was cast into Prison upon an accusation of murder whom to deliver from the judgement of death his wife wrought all meanes possible therefore comming to the Captain that held him Prisoner she sued to him for her husbands life who upon condition of her yeelding to his lust and payment of two hundred Ducats promised safe deliverance for him the poor woman seeing that nothing could redeem her husbands life but losse and shipwracke of her owne honesty told her husband who willed her to yeeld to the Captaines desire and not to pretermit so good an occasion wherefore she consented but after the pleasure past the traiterous and wicked Captain put her husband to death notwithstanding which injury when she complained to Gonzaga Duke of Ferrara he caused the Captain first to restore backe her two hundred Ducats with an addition of seven hundred Crownes and secondly to marry her to his wife and lastly when he hoped to enjoy her body to be hanged for his treachery O noble justice and comparable to the worthiest deeds of Antiquity and deserving to be held in perpetuall remembrance As these before mentioned excelled in punishing this sin so this fellow following excelled in committing it and in being punished for it his name is Novellus Cararius Lord of Pavie a man of note and credit in the World for his greatnesse but of infamy and discredit for his wickednesse This man after many cruell murders and bloudy practises which he exercised in every place where he came fell at last into this notorious and abhominable crime for lying at Vincentia he fell in love with a young maid of excellent beauty but more excellent honesty an honest Citizens daughter whom he commanded her parents to send unto him that he might have his pleasure of her but when they regarding their credit and she her chastity more than the Tyrans command refused to come he took her violently out of their house and constrained her body to his lust and after to adde cruelty to villany chopped her into small pieces and sent them to her parents in a basket for a present wherewith her poor father astonished carried it to the Senate who sent it to Venice desiring them to consider the fact and to revenge the cruelty The Venetians undertaking their defence made war upon the Tyran and
Countries to know the judgement of all the learned Divines concerning the matter in controversie who especially those that dwelt not far off seemed to allow and approve the divorce Thereupon he resolved rejecting his olde wife to take him to a new and to marrie as he did Anne of Bulloine one of the Queenes maides of honour a woman of most rare and excellent beauty Now as touching his first marriage with his brothers wife how unfortunate it was in it owne nature and how unjustly dispensed withall by the Pope we shall anon see by those heavy sorrowfull and troublesome events and issues which immediatly followed in the neck thereof And first and formest of the evill fare of the Cardinall of Yorke with whom the King being highly displeased for that at his instance and request the Pope had opposed himselfe to this marriage requited him and not undeservedly on this manner first he deposed him from the office of the Chancellorship secondly deprived him of two of his three bishoprickes which he held and lastly sent him packing to his owne bouse as one whom he never purposed more to see yet afterward being advertised of certaine insolent and threatning speeches which he used against him he sent againe for him but he not daring to refuse to come at his call dyed in the way with meere griefe and despight The Pope gave his definitive sentence against this act and favoured the cause of the divorced Ladie but what gained he by it save only that the King offended with him rejected him and all his trumpery retained his yearely tribute levied out of this Realm and converted it to another use and this was the recompence of his goodly dispensation with an incestuous marriage wherein although to speake truly and properly he lost nothing of his owne yet it was a deep check and no shallow losse to him and his successors to be deprived of so goodly a revenue and so great authority in this Realme as he then was CHAP. XXVII 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 Adultery whereby the bond of marriage is dissolved should be 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 even his enemies brats in stead of his owne not only to be fathered but also to be brought up and maintained by him and in time to be made inheritors of his possessions which thing being once knowne must needes stir up coales to set anger on fire and set abroach much mischiefe and albeit that the poore infants are innocent and guiltlesse of the crime yet doth the punishment and ignominie thereof redound to them because they cannot be reputed as legitimate but are even marked with the black coale of bastardy whilest they live so grievous is the guilt of this sin and uneasie to be removed For this cause the very Heathen not only reproved adultery evermore 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 covenant knowing by the light of nature for hee knew not the law of God how sacred and inviolable the knot of marriage ought to be expresly forbad all his people from doing any injury to Isaac in regard of his wife and from touching her dishonestly upon paine of death Out of the same fountaine sprang the words of queene Hecuba in Euripides speaking to Menelaus touching Helen when she admonished him to enact this law That every woman which should betray her husbands credit and her owne chastity to another man should die the death In olde time the Aegyptians used to punish adultery on this sort the man with a thousand jerkes with a reed and the woman with cutting off her nose but he that forced a free woman to his lust had his privy members cut off By the law of Iulia adulterers were without difference adjuged to death insomuch that Iulius Antonius a man of great parentage and reputation among the Romanes whose son 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 souldier which had committed adultery with his hostesse in most severe manner even by causing him to be tyed 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 sin 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 if I say he commit adultery with his neighbours wife the Adulterer and the Adulteresse shall die the death 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 maiest put away evill from Israel Yea and before Moses time also it was a custome to burne the Adulterers with fire as it appeareth by the sentence of Iuda one of the twelve Patriarchs upon Thamar his daughter in law because he supposed her to have played the whore Beside all this to the end this sin might not be shuffled up and kept close there was a meanes given whereby if a man did but suspect his wife for this sin though she could by no witnesse or proofe be convinced her wickednesse notwithstanding most strangely and extraordinarily might be discovered And it was this The woman publikely at her husbands suit called in question before the Priest who was to give judgement of her after divers ceremonies and circumstances performed and bitter curses pronounced by him her belly would burst and her thigh would rot if she were guilty and she should be a curse amongst the people for her sin but if she was free no evill would come unto her Thus it pleased God to make knowne that the filthinesse of those that are polluted with this sin should not be hid This may more clearely appeare by the example of the Levites wife of whom it is spoken in the 19 20 and 21. Chapters of Iudges who having forsaken her husband to play the whore certaine moneths after he had againe received her to be his wife she was given over against her will to the villanous and monstrous lusts of the most wicked and perverse Gibeonites that so abused her for the space of a whole night together that in the morning she was found dead upon
the sonne and Tarquinius the father that they rebelled forthwith and when he should enter the City shut the gates against him neither would receive or acknowledge him ever after for their King Whereupon ensued war abroad and alteration of the state at homeâ— for after that time Rome endured no more King to beare rule over them but in their roome created two Consuls to be their governours which kinde of government continued to Iulius Caesars time Thus was Tarquinius the father shamefully deposed from his crowne for the adultery or rather rape of his son and Tarquinius the son slaine by the Sabians for the robberies and murders which by his fathers advice he committed against them and he himselfe not long after in the war which by the Tuscane succours he renued against Rome to recover his lost estate was discomfited with them and slaine in the middest of the rout In the Emperour Valentinianus time the first of that name many women of great account and parentage were for committing adultery put to death as testifieth Ammianus Marcellinus When Europe after the horrible wasting and great ruines which it suffered by the furious invasion of Attila began to take a little breath and finde some ease behold a new trouble more hurtfull and pernitious than the former came upon it by meanes of the filthy lechery and lust of the Emperour Valentinianus the third of that name who by reason of his evill bringing up and government under his mother Placidia being too much subject to his owne voluptuousnesse and tyed to his owne desires dishonoured the wife of Petronius Maximus a Senatour of Rome by forcing her to his pleasure an act indeed that cost him his life and many more beside and that drew after it the finall destruction of the Romane Empire and the horrible besacking and desolation of the City of Rome For the Emperour being thus taken and set on fire with the love of this woman through the excellent beauty wherewith she was endued endeavoured first to entice her to his lust by faire allurements and seeing that the bulwarke of her vertuous chastity would not by this meanes be shaken but that all his pursute was still in vaine he tryed a new course and attempted to get her by deceit and policie which to bring about one day setting himselfe to play with her husband Maximus he won of him his Ring which he no sooner had but secretly he sent it to his wife in her husbands name with this commandement That by that token she should come presently to the Court to doe her duty to the Empresse Eudoxia she seeing her husbands Ring doubted nothing but came forthwith as she was commanded where whilest she was entertained by certaine suborned women whom the Emperour had set on he himselfe commeth in place and discloseth unto her his whole love which he said he could no longer represse but must needes satisfie if not by faire meanes at least by force and compulsion and so he constrained her to his lust Her husband advertised hereof intended to revenge this injury upon the Emperour with his owne hand but seeing he could not execute his purpose whilest Actius the Captaine Generall of Valentinianus army lived a man greatly reverenced and feared for his mighty and famous exploits atchieved in the wars against the Burgundians Gothes and Attila he found meanes by suggesting a false accusation of treason against him which made him to be hated and suspected of the Emperour to worke his death After that Actius was thus traiterously and unworthily slaine the griefe of infinite numbers of people for him in regard of his great vertues and good service which he had done to the Commonwealth gave Maximusâ—it â—it occasion to practise the Emperours destruction and that by this meanes He set on two of Actius most faithfull followers partly by laying before them the unworthy death of their master and partly by presents and rewards to kill the Emperour which they performed as hee was sitting on his seat of judgement in the sight of the whole multitude among whom there was not one found that would oppose himselfe to Maximus in his defence save one of his Eunuchs who stepping betwixt to save his life lost his owne and the amazement of the whole City with this sudden accident was so great that Maximus having revenged himselfe thus upon the Emperour without much adoe not only seised upon the Empire but also upon the Empresse Eudoxia and that against her will to be his wife for his owne dyed but a little before Now the Empresse not able to endure so vile an indignity being above measure passionate with griefe and desire of revenge conspired his destruction on this manner She sent secretly into Africa to solicite and request most instantly Gensericus King of the Vandales by prayers mingled with presents to come to deliver her and the City of Rome from the cruell tyranny of Maximus and to revenge the thrice unjust murder of her husband Valentinian adding moreover that he was bound to doe no lesse in consideration of the league of friendship which by oath was confirmed betwixt them Gensericus well pleased with these newes laid hold upon the offered occasion which long time hee had more wished than hoped for and forthwith being already tickled with hope of a great and inestimable booty rigged his ships and made ready his armie by Sea lanching forth with three hundred thousand men Vandales and Moores and with this huge fleete made straight for Rome Maximus meane while mistrusting no such matter especially from those parts was sore affrighted at the sudden brute of their comming and not yet understanding the full effect of the matter perceiving the whole Citty to bee in dismay and that not only the common people but also the Nobilitie had for feare forsaken their houses and fled to the Mountaines or Forrests for safety hee I say destitute of succour tooke himselfe also to his heeles as his surest refuge but all could not serve to rid him from the just vengeance of God prepared for him for the murders which hee had beene cause of for certaine Senatours of Rome his private and secret foes finding him alone in the way of his flight and remembring their olde quarrels fell upon him suddenly and felled him downe with stones and after mangled him in pieces and threw his body into Tiber. Three dayes after arrived Gensericus with all his forces and entering Rome found it naked of all defence and left to his owne will and discretion where albeit he professed himselfe to be a Christian yet he shewed more pride and cruelty and lesse pitty than either Attila or Allaricus two heathen Kings For having given his souldiers the pillage of the City they not only spoiled all private houses but also the Temples and Monasteries in most cruell and riotous manner All the best and beautifullest things of the City they took away and carried a huge multitude of people
prisoners to Affrica amongst the which was Eudoxia the Empresse with her two daughters Eudocia and Placidia who was the cause of all this calamity but her trechery saved not her self nor them from thraldome And thus was Rome sacked and destroyed more than ever it was before insomuch that the Romane Empire could never after recover it selfe but decayed every day and grew worse and worse These were the calamities which the adultery of Valeutinian brought upon himselfe and many others to his owne destruction and the utter ruine of the whole Empire Childericke King of France son to Merouce for laying siege to the chastity of many great Ladies of his Realme the Princes and Barons conspired against him and drove him to flie for his life Eleonor the wife to King Lewis of France he that first cut through the sea surrowes towards Jerusalem against the Turkes and Saracens would needs couragiously follow her husband in that long and dangerous voyage but how Marrie whilest he travailed night and day in perill of his life she lay at Antioch bathing her selfe in all delights and that more licentiously than the reputation or duty of a married woman required wherefore being had in suspition and evill reported of for her lewd behaviour it was thought meet that she should be divorced from the King under pretence of consanguinity to the end she should not altogether be defamed The faire daughters of Philip the faire King of France escaped not at so good a rate for the King as soone as he smelt out the haunt of their unchastity caused them to be apprehended and imprisoned presently howbeit one of them namely the Countesse of Poictiers her innocency being knowne was set at liberty and the other two to wit the Queen of Navarre and the wife of Iohn de le March being found guilty by proofe were adjudged to perpetuall imprisonment and the Adulterers two brethren of the countrey of Anjou with whom these Ladies had often lyen were first cruelly flaine and after hanged Charles son of the aforesaid Philip the faire had to wife the daughter of the Earle of Artois that also offended in the like case and in recompence received this dishonour and ignominie to be divorced and put in prison and to see him married to another before her face In the reigne of Charles the sixth there befell a notable and memorable accident which was this one Iaques le Gris of the Countrey of Alanson being enamoured with a Lady no lesse faire than honourable the wife of the Lord of Carouge came upon a day when he knew her husband to bee from home to her house and faining as if he had some secret message to unfold unto her on her husbands behalfe for their familiarity was so great entred with her all alone into a most secret chamber where as soone as he had gotten her he locked the doore and throwing himselfe upon her forced her unto his lust and afterward saved himselfe by speedy flight Her husband at his returne understanding the injury and wrong which was done him by this vile miscreant sought first to revenge himselfe by justice and therefore put his cause to be heard by the Parliament of Paris where being debated it could not well be decided because he wanted witnesses to convince the crime except his owne wives words which could not be accepted so that the Court to the end that there might some end be made of their quarrell ordained a combate betwixt them which was forthwith performed for the two duellists entering the lists fell presently to strokes and that so eagerly that in short space the quarrell was decided the Lord of Carouge husband of the wronged Lady remained conquerour after he had slaine his enemy that had wronged him so wickedly and disloyally the vanquished was forthwith delivered to the hangman of Paris who dragged him to mount Falcon and there hanged him Now albeit this forme and custome of deciding controversies hath no ground nor warrant either from humane or divine Law God having ordained only an Oath to end doubts where proofes and witnesses faile yet doubtlesse the Lord used this as an instrument to bring the treacherous and cruell Adulterer to the deserved punishment and shame which by deniall he thought to escape A certaine Seneschall of Normandy perceiving the vicious and suspitious behaviour of his wife with the Steward of his house watched them so narrowly that he tooke them in bed together he slew the Adulterer first and after his wife for not all her pittifull cryings for mercy with innumerable teares for this one fault and holding up in her armes the children which she had borne unto him no nor her house and parentage being sister to Lewis the eleventh then King could not withhold him from killing her with her companion Howbeit King Lewis never made shew of anger or offence for her death Mâ—sselâ—na the wife of Claudius the Emperour was a woman of so notable incontinency that the would contend with the common harlots in filthy pleasure at last she fell in love with a faire young Gentleman called Silius and to obtaine more commodiously her desire she caused his wife Sillana to be divorced and notwithstanding she was wife to the Emperour then living yet she openly married him for which cause after great complaint made to the Emperour by the Nobles she was worthily put to death Abusahed King of Fez was with six of his children murdered at once by his Secretary for his wives sake whom he had abused And it is not long sithence the two Cities Dalmendine and Delmedine were taken from the King of Fez and brought uâ—der the Portugals dominion only for the ravishment of a woman whom the Governour violently took from her husband to abuse and was slain for his labour CHAP. XXIX Other examples like unto the former MArie of Arragon wife to Otho the third was so unchast and lascious a woman and withall barren for they commonly goe together that she could never satisfie her unsatiable lust she carried about with her continually a young lecher in womans clothes to attend upon her person with whom she daily committed filthinesse who being suspected was in the presence of many untyred and found to be a man for which villany hee was burnt to death Howbeit the Empresse though pardoned for her fault returned to her old vomit and continued her wanton traffique with more than either desired or loved her company at last she fell in love with the County of Mutina a gallant man in personage and too honest to be allured with her stale though he was often solicited by her wherefore like a Tvgre she accused him to the Emperour for extreame love converts to extreame hatred if it be crossed of offering to ravish her against her will for which cause the Emperour Otho caused him to lose his head but his wife being privy to the innocency of her husband traversed his cause
French K. was fore troubled at his returne having to withstand him all the Venetian forces with the most part of the Potentates of Italie notwithstanding he broke through them all after he had put the Venetians to the worst but being returned after this victorious and triumphant voyage it happened that one day as he led the Queen to the Castle of Amboise to see some some sport at Tenise he stroke his forehead against the upper door-poste of the gallery as he went in that he fell presently to the ground speechlesse and died incontinently in the place from whence though the filthiest and sluttishest place about the Castle they removed not his body but laid it on a bed of straw to the view of the world from two of the clocke in the afternoon till eleven at midnight and this good successe followed at last his so much desired divorce CHAP. XXVII Of those that either cause or authorise unlawfull Divorcements ALthough the Commandment of our Saviour Christ be very plain and manifest That man should not separate those whom God hath joyned together yet there are some so void of understanding and judgement that they make no conscience to dissolve those that by the bond of marriage are united Of which number was Sampsons father in Law who took his daughter first given in marriage to Sampson and gave her to another without any other reason save that he suspected that Sampson loved her not But what got he by it Marry this the Philistims provoked against him consumed him and his daughter with fire because that by the meanes of his injury Sampson had burned their corne their vineyards and their olive-trees After the same sort dealt Saul with David when he gave him his daughter Michol to Wife and afterward in despight and hatred of him took her away again and bestowed her upon another wherein as in many other things he shewed himselfe a wicked and prophane man and was worthily punished therefore as hath been before declared Hugh Spencer one of King Edward of Englands chiefest favourites insomuch that his ear and heart was at his pleasure was he that first persuaded the King to forsake and repudiate the Queen his Wife daughter to Philip the Faire King of France upon no other occasion but onely to satisfie his owne appetite and the better to follow his delights And thus by this meanes she was chased out of England and driven to retire to King Charles her brother where hoping to finde rest and refuge she was deceived for what by the crafts and practises of the English and what by the Popes authority who thrust himselfe into this action as his custom is she was constrained to dislodge her selfe and to change her countrey very speedily wherefore from thence she went to crave succour of the County of Henault who furnished her with certain forces and sent her towards England where being arrived and finding the people generally at her command and ready to do her service she set upon her enemy Hugh Spencer took him prisoner and put him to a shamefull death as he well deserved for he was also the causer of the deaths of many of the Nobles of the Realme therefore he was drawne through the streets of Hereford upon an hurdle and after his privie members his heart and head were cut off his four quarters were exalted in four severall places to the view of the world Now if these be found guilty that either directly make or indirectly procure divorcements shall we accuse them that allow and authorize the same without lawfull and just occasion No verily no though they be Popes that take it upon them as we reade Pope Alexander the sixth did who for the advancement of his haughty desires to gratifie and flatter Lewis the twelfth King of France sent him by his son a dispensation to put away his Wife daughter to King Lewis the eleventh because she was barren and counterfeit and to recontract Anne of Bretaigne the widow of Charles the eighth lately deceased But herein though barrennesse of the former was pretended yet the Duchie of the later was aimed at which before this time he could never attain unto But of what force and vertue this dispensation by right was or at least ought to be it is easie to perceive seeing it is not onely contrary to the words of the Gospel Matth. 19. but also to their owne decrees secund part quest 7. Hi qui matrimonium where in is imported that marriage ought not to be infringed for any default or imperfection no not of nature But Popes may maim and clip both the Word of God and all other writings and do what soever themselves liketh be it good or bad CHAP. XXXIII Of Incestuous persons ALthough Incest be a wicked and abominable sin and forbidden both by the Law of God and man in so much that the very heathen held it in detestation yet are there some so inordinately vicious and dissolute that they blush not once to pollute themselves with this filthinesse Reuben the Patriarch was one of this vile crue that shamed not to defile himselfe with Bilha his fathers concubine but he was cursed for his labour for whereas by right of eldership and birth he ought to have had a certain prerogative and authority over his brethren his excellency shed it selfe like water and he was surpassed by his brethren both in encrease of progeny and renowne Ammon one of King Davids sonnes was so strongly enchanted with the love of his sister Thamar that to the end to fulfill his lust he traiterously forced her to his will but Absalom her naturall brother hunting for opportunity of revenge for this indignity towards his sister invited him two yeares after to a banquet with his other brethren and after the same caused his men to murder him for a farewell The same Absalom that slew Amnon for Incest with his sister committed himselfe incest with his fathers concubines moved thereto by the wicked counsell of Achitophel that advised him to that infamous deed of defiling his fathers bed but it was the forerunner of his overthrow as we have already heard Divers of the Roman Empetours were so villanous and wretched as to make no bones of this sin with their owne sisters as Caligula Antonius and Commodus and some with their mothers as Nero so much was he given over and transported to all licentiousnesse Plutarch telleth us of one Cyanippus that being overcome with wine defloured his owne daughter Cyane but he was slain of her for his labour Neither do I thinke it so unnaturall a part for her to kill her father as in him to commit incest with his owne daughter for the Oracle lessened or rather approved her fault when it abhorred and chastened his crime for when Syracusa was grievously infected with the pestilence it was pronounced by the Oracle That the plague should continue till the wicked person was
notoriously and fearefully manifested therein that when the holy Ghost would strike a terrour into the most wicked he threateneth them with this like punishment saying The Lord will raine upon each wicked one Fire snares and brimstone for their portion Howbeit this maketh not but that still there are too many such monsters in the World so mightily is it corrupted and depraved neither is it any marvell seeing that divers Bishops of Rome that take upon them to be Christs Vicars and Peters successours are infected with this filthy contagion As namely Pope Iulius the third whose custome was to promote none to Ecclesiasticall livings save only his buggerers Amongst whom was one Innocent whom this holy father contrary to the Suffrages of the whole Colledge would needs make Cardinall nay the unsatiable and monstrous lust of this beastly and stinking goat was so extraordinary that he could not abstaine from many Cardinals themselves Iohn de la Casae a Florentine by birth and by office Archbishop of Benevento and Deane of his Apostaticall chamber was his Legat and Intelligencer in all the Venetian Seigniories a man equall or rather worse then himselfe and such a one as whose memory ought to be accursed of all posterity for that detestable booke which he composed in commendation and praise of Sodomie and was so shamelesse nay rather possessed with some devillish and uncleane spirit as to divulgate it to the view of the world Here you may see poore soules the holinesse of those whom you so much reverence and upon whom you build your beliefe and religion you see their brave and excellent vertues and of what esteeme their lawes and ordinances ought to be amongst you Now touching the end that this holy father made it is declared in the former booke among the ranke of Atheists where we placed him And albeit that he and such like villaines please their owne humours with their abominations and approve and cleare themselves therein yet are they rewarded by death not only by the law of God but also by the law of Iulia. When Charlemaigne reigned in France there happened a most notable judgement of God upon the Monkes of S. Martin in Tours for their disordinate lusts they were men whose food was too much and dainty whose case was too easie and whose pleasures were too immoderate being altogether addicted to pastimes and merriments in their apparell they went clad in silke like great Lords and as Nichol. Gill. in his first Volume of French Chronicles saith their shooes were gilt over with Gold so great was the super fluity of their riches and pride in summe their whole life was luxurious and infamous for which cause there came forth a destroying Angel from the Lord by the report of Budes the Abbot of Clugnie and slew them all in one night as the first born of Aegypt were slaine save one only person that was preserved as Lot in Sodome was preserved This strange accident moved Charlemaigne to appoint a brotherhood of Canons to be in their roome though little better and as little profitable to their Commonwealth as the former It is not for nothing that the law of God forbiddeth to lie with a beast and denounceth death against them that commit this foule sin for there have been such monsters in the world at some times as we reade in Calius and Volaterranus of one Crathes a shepheard that accompanied carnally with a shee Goat but the Buck finding him sleeping offended and provoked with this strange action ran at him so furiously with his hornes that he left him dead upon the ground God that opened an Asses mouth to reprove the madnesse of the false Prophet Balaam and sent Lions to kill the strange inhabitants of Samaria employed also this Buck about his service in executing just vengeance upon a wicked varlet CHAP. XXXV Of the wonderfull evill that ariseth from this greedinesse of lust IT is to good reason that Scripture forbids us to abstain from the lust of the flesh and the eyes which is of the world and the corruption of mans own nature forsomuch as by it we are drawn to evill it being as it were a corrupt root which sendeth forth most bitter sowre and rotten fruit and this hapneth not only when the goods riches of the world are in quest but also when a man hunteth after dishonest and unchaste delights this concupiscence is it that bringeth forth whoredomes adulteries and many other such sinnes whereout spring forth oftentimes flouds of mischiefes and that divers times by the selfe-will and inordinate desire of private and particular persons what did the lawlesse lust of Potiphars Wife bring upon Ioseph Was not his life indangered and his body kept in close prison where he cooled his feet two yeares or more We have a most notable example of the miserable end of a certain woman with the sacking and destruction of a whole City and all caused by her intemperance and unbridled lust About the time that the Emperour Phocas was slain by Priscus one Gysulphus Governour and Chieftain of a Countrey in Lumbardy going out in defence of his Countrey against the Bavarians which were certaine reliques of the Hunnes gave them battell and lost the field and his life withall Now the Conquerours pursuing their victory laid siege to the chief City of his Province where Romilda his Wife made her abode who viewing one day from the wals the young and fair King with yellow curled lockes galloping about the City fell presently so extreamly in love with him that her minde ran of nothing but satisfying her greedy and new conceived lust wherefore burying in oblivion the love of her late husband with her young infants yet living and her Countrey and preferring her owne lust before them all she sent secretly unto him this message That if he would promise to marry her she would deliver up the City into his hands he well pleased with this gentle offer through a desire of obtaining the City which without great bloudshed and losse of men he could not otherwise compasse accepted of it and was received upon this condition within the wals and lest he should seeme too perfidious he performed his promise of marriage and made her his wife for that one night but soone after in scorne and disdaine he gave her up to twelve of his strongest lechers to glut her unquenchable fire and finally nailed her on a gibbet for a finall reward of her treâ—cherous and boundlesse lust Marke well the misery whereinto this wretched woman threw her selfe and not only her selfe but a whole City also by her boiling concupiscence which so dazled her understanding that she could not consider how undecent it was dishonest and inconvenient for a woman to offer her selfe nay to solicite a man that was an enemie a stranger and one that she had never seen before to her bed and that to the utter undoing of her selfe and all hers But even thus
meanes nay and some Masquers have been well chastised in their owne vices as it happened in the raigne of Charles the sixth to six that masqued it to a marriage at the hostle of S. Pauls in Paris being attired like wilde horses covered with loose flax dangling down like haire all bedaâ—bed with grease for the fitter hanging thereof and fast bound one to another and in this guise entered the hall dancing with torches before them but behold suddenly their play turned to a tragedy for a sparâ—â— of one of their torches fell into the greasie flax of his neighbour and set it immediatly on fire so that in the turning of an hand they were all on â—lame then gave they out a most horrible ouâ—â—ry one of them threw himself headlong into a tub of water provided to â—ince their drinking cups and goblets and upon that occasion standing not far off two were burnt to death without stirring once from the place The bastard Foix and the Earle of Jouy escaped indeed present death but being conveyed to their lodgings they survived not two daies the King himselfe being one of the sâ—â— was saved by the Dutchesse of Berry that covering him with her loose and tide garments 〈◊〉 the fire before it could seise upon his flesh Froyssard the reporter of this tragedy â—aith That the next morrow every man could say thaâ— this 〈◊〉 wonderfull signe and advertisement sent by God to the King to warne him to renounce all such fond and foolish devices which he delighted too much in and more then it became a King of France to doe and this was the event of that gallant Masque It resteth now that we speak somewhat of Playes and Comedies and such like toyes and May-games which have no other use in the world but to deprave and corrupt good manners and to open a doore to all uncleanenesse the eares of yong folke are there polluted with many filthy and dishonest speeches their eyes are there infected with lascivious and unchaste gestures and countenances and their wits are there stained and embrued with so pernitious liquor that except Gods good grace they will ever savour of it the holy and sacred Scripture ordained to a holy and sacred use is oftentimes by these filthy swine prophaned to please and to delight their audience in few words there is nothing else to be found among them but nourishment to our sences of foolish and vaine delights For this cause many of the sager Romanes as Nasica and divers other Censors hindred the building of the Theatres in Rome for an opinion they had that their sports and pastimes which were exercised therein served to no other purpose but to make the people idle effeminate and voluptuous and besides the masters guiders and actors of Playes were alwayes debarred as men infamous from bearing any publike Office or dignity in the Common-wealth Tiberius Caesar himselfe though of most corrupt and rotten manners and conversation yet in open Senate complained and found fault with the immodesty of Stage-players and banished them at that same time out of Italie When Domitian was Censor he put out of the Senate a Citizen of Rome because he was too much addicted to the imitation of the fashions of Players and Dancers And Plutarch saith that we ought to shun all such spectacles If then such pastimes were by the judgements of the Romanes noted with infamy shall we have their equals in follies in better account Basil calleth such sports and pastimes the work-house forge and common shop of all wickednesse and therefore Chrysostome prayeth and admonisheth the faithfull of his time to abstaine from frequenting such places S. Augustine also for biddeth to bestow our money upon tumblers juglers and players and such like Beside by the Constantinopolitan Councell under Iustinian it was inhibited to be once present at such sports under the paine of excommunication and that the ancient Christians did by common consent not only condemne but also utterly abstaine from such pastimes it may appeare by the testimony of Tertullian writing to the Gentiles to this effect We renounce and send back faith he sports and playes unto you as to the head and fountaine from whence they were first derived we make no reckoning of thâ—se things which we know were drawne from superstition we love not 〈◊〉 be hâ—ld the folly of turning with Chariots nor the unchastity of the Theatre nor the cruelty of sword playing nor the vanity of leaping â—râ—stling and dancing but take pleasure in exercises of better report and lesse hâ—râ— Moreover how odious and irksome in the sight of the Lord such spectacles are and what power and sway the devill beareth therein they 〈◊〉 of God upon a Christian woman reported by Tertullian may sufficiently instruct us There was a woman saith he that went to the 〈◊〉 to see a play and returned home possessed with an uncleane spirit who being rebuked in a conjuration for daring to assault one of the â—aith that professed Christ answered that he had done well because he found her upon his owne ground The same author reporteth another example as strange of a woman also that went to see a Tragedie acted to whom the night following appeared in a dreame the picture of a sheete a presage of death casting in her teeth that which she had done and five daies after death himselfe seised upon her As touching wanton songs and unchaste and ribald bookes that I may be briefe I will content my selfe only with that which is alleadged by Lodovicus Vives concerning that matter The Magistrate saith he ought to banish out of his dominion all unhonest Songs and Poems and not to suffer novelties to be published day by day in rimes and ballads as they are as if a man should heare in a City nothing but foolish and scurrilous Ditties such as would make even the â—onger sort that are well brought up to blash and stir up the indignation of men of honour and gravity this ought Magistrates to prevent and to discharge the people from reading Amadis Tristram Launcelot due Lake Melusine Poggius scurrillities and Boccace novelties with a thousand more such like toyes and thus much out of Vives CHAP. XXXVII Of Theeves and Robbers IT followes that we speake in the next place of such as by their greedy covetousnesse and unquenchable desire of lucre transgresse the fourth commandement of the second Table to wit Thou shalt not steale wherein not only simply theft but also Sacriledge is condemned and first of Sacriledge Into this sin fell wretched Aehan in the time of Ioshua when in the sack of Jericho he seeing a Babylonish garment with certaine gold and silver covered it and stole it away and hid it in his Tent contrary to the commandement of the Lord for which cause the Lord was offended with his whole people as if they all had been accessary to the crime and enâ—eebled them so before their enemies that they
together riches for he exercised his wit in devising new tributes and payments and rejoyced his heart in nothing more for which causes there arose a grievous sedition at Constantinople against him wherein not onely the excellent and famous monuments of the Empire were burned but also forty thousand men slain and this was no small punishment for his oppression At Paris there is to be seene in the corne market a certaine monument hard at the mouth of the common sinke which conveyeth away all the filth out of the City the occasion whereof is reported to be this A certaine courtier seeing the king sad and melancholly for want of treasure counselled him to exact of every countriman that brought ware into the city but one penny and that but for two yeares together which when the King put in practise and found the exceeding commodity thereof he not onely continued that tax but also invented divers others to the great dammage of the common-wealth and enriching of his owne treasurie Wherefore he that put it first into his head when hee saw that he had not so much authority in dissuading as he had in persuading it to take punishment of himselfe for that inconsiderate deed and to warne others from attempting the like he commanded by his testament that his body should be buried in that common sinke to be an example of exaction and the filthinesse thereof Barnabe Vicount of Milan by the report of Paulus Iovius was an unconscionable oppressor of his subjects and tenants for he did not onely extort of them continuall imposts and payments but enjoyned them to keepe every one a dogge which if they came to any mishap or were either too fat or too leane the keeper was sure to be beaten or at least some fine to be set on his head This Tyran was taken by Iohn Galeacius and after seven moneths imprisonment poysoned to death Archigallo brother to Gorbonianus in nature though unlike in conditions for he was a good Prince whereas this was a tyran was crowned King of Britaine in the yeare of the world 3671 we may well place him in the ranke of oppressours for he deposed the Noblemen and exalted the ignoble he extorted from men their goods to enrich his treasure for which cause the Estates of the Realme deprived him of his royall Dignity and placed his younger brother Elydurus in his room after he had raigned five yeares Hardiknitus King of Denmarke after the death of Harold was ordained King of England in the year of our Lord 1041. This King as he was somewhat cruell for he caused the body of Harold to be taken up out of the Sepulclire and smiting off his head to be cast out into the River Thames because he had injured his mother Emma when he was alive so he was burdensom to his Subjects in tributes and exaction for which cause growing into hatred with God and his Subjects he was strucken with sudden death not without suspition of poysoning after he had raigned three yeares William Rufus second son of William the Conquerour succeeded his father as in the Kingdom of England so in disposition of nature for they were both cruell inconstant and covetous aud burdened their people with unreasonable taxes insomuch that what by the murraine of men by postilence and oppressions of them by exactions the tillage of the earth was put off for one year being the year 1099 whereby ensued great scarcity the year following throughout all the Land but for the oppression William was justly punished by sudden death when being at his disport of hunting he was wounded with an arrow glauncing from the bow of Tyrill a French Knight and so his tyranny and life ended together And here is further to be noted that the place where this King was slain was called New Forest in which same place Richard the Cousin germane of King William son to Duke Robert his brother was likewise slain This New Forest was made by William the Conquerour their father who plucked downe and depopulated divers Townes and Churches the compasse of 30. miles about to make this a Forest for wilde Beasts a most beastly sin yea a bloudy crying sin too too much practised in these dayes and that by great persons that make no conscience to turne Townes into pastures and men into sheep but let all them behold the just vengeance of God upon this Kings posterity for when then either cannot or will not revenge then God revengeth either in them or their posterity In the year 1548. the Commons of Guyenne Santonge and Augoulemois fell into a great Rebellion by reason of the extortions of the Customers and Farmours of Salt the Rebels in a few weekes grew to the number of fourty thousand men armed with clubs and staves who joyning with the Islanders by a generall consent ran upon the Officers of the Custome and with extreme sury put to sword all that they could take notwithstanding the King of Navarre sought by all meanes to appease them About the same time the Commons of Gascoigne rose in divers places upon the same causes and notwithstanding all that the Lord of Monneins the Kings Lieutenant and all other Officers could do they made a great spoil of many honourable Houses and massacre of much people insomuch that the Lord of Moneins himselfe was slain by them whilest he was making an Oration to them to pacifie their rage but at length these Rebels were suppressed by Francis of Lorraine Earle of Aumale and Anne of Mommorancye high Constable of France and the chief King-leaders and Captaines of them executed according to their deserts La Vergne was drawne in pieces by four horses L'Estonnac and the two brothers of Saulx had their heads cut off Tallemoigne and Galeferâ— the two Colonels of the Commons were broken upon the Wheele being first crowned with a crowne of burning iron as a punishment of the Soveraignty which they had usurped Thus the Lord punished both the one and the other and the one by the other the exactors for their oppression and the tumultuous Commons for their Rebellion Neither doth the Lord thus punish oppressours themselves but also they that either countenance or having authority do not punish the same as it appeareth by this example following In the year of our Lord 475. there lived one Corrannus a King of Scots who though he governed the people in peace and quietnesse a long space and was indeed a good Prince yet because his Chancellour Tomset used extortion and exaction amongst his Subjects and he being advertised thereof did not punish him he was slain traiterously by his owne Subjects It is not unworthy to be noted how Edward the Third King of England prospered a long while in the warres against France and got many worthy and wonderfull victories but when Prince Edward son unto the aforesaid Edward after conditions of peace concluded began to set taxes and impositions upon the Country
gold yet after the receit thereof he traiterously caused him to be hanged contrary to both his oath and all equity and reason but this cruell perfidie of his went not long without punishment for both hee and all the rest that were any wayes accessarie or consenting to the death of this King came to a wretched end but especially his foure brethren Ferdinand Gonsal Iohn Martin of Alcantara and Diego of Almagro who as they were principall in the action so were they in the punishment the first that was punished was Iohn Pizarre who with many other Spaniards was surprised in the City of Cusco and slaine by the men of warre of Mangefrem and Artabaliba next after that there arose such a division and heart-burning betwixt the Pizarres and Almagro and their partakers that after they had robbed and wasted and shared out the great and rich Countrey of Peru they slew one another by mutuall strokes and albeit that there was by common consent an agreement accorded betwixt them for the preserving of their unity and friendship yet Francis Pizarre envying that Almagro should bee Governour of Cusco and he not interrupted all their agreements by starting from his promises and re-kindled the halfe-quenched fire of warre by his owne ambition for hee presently defied Amagro and sent his brother Ferdinand before to bid him battaile who so well behaved himselfe that hee tooke Almagro prisoner and delivered him bound to his brother Francis who caused him to bee strangled in prison secretly and after to be beheaded in publique Now Ferdinand being sent by his brother towards Spaine with a great masse of gold to cleare himselfe of the death of Almagro could not so well justifie the fact as that all his treasure could save him from the prison and what became of him afterwards knowne it is to God but not to the world A while after the fellowes and friends of Almagro whose goods the Pizarrists hath seised upon tooke counsell with Don Diego Almagro his sonne to revenge the death of his father therefore being in number but twelve with unsheathed swords they desperately burst into Francis Pizarres house then Marquesse and Governour of Peru and at the first brunt slew a Captaine that guarded the enterance of the Hall and next him Martin of Alcahtara and other more that kept the entrance of the Chamber so that hee fell dead even at his brother the Marquesses feet who albeit his men were all slaine before his eyes and himselfe left alone amiddest his enemies yet gave not over to defend himselfe stoutly and manfully untill all of them setting upon him at once hee was stabbed into the throat and so fell dead upon the ground and thus finished hee and his complices their wretched dayes answerable to their cruell deserts but their murderers though they deserved to bee thus dealt withall yet for dealing in this sort without authority were not faultlesse but received the due wages of their furious madnesse for Don Diego himselfe after he had beene a while Governour of Peru had his army overcome and discomfited by the Emperours forces and was betrayed into their hands by his owne Lieutenant of Cusco where he thought to have saved himself and right soone lost his head with the greatest Captains and favourites that hee had who were also quartered Now of the five brethren wee have heard foure of their destructions onely one remaineth namely Gonzalle Pizarre to bee spoken of who being sent for by the Conquerours to be their Chieftaine and Protector against the Viceroy that went about to make them observe the Emperours lawes and decrees touching the liberty of the Indian Nation was betrayed and forsaken by the same men that sent for him and so fell into his enemies hands that cut off his head The Generall of his army a covetous and cruell man that in short space made away above three hundred Spaniards and all as it were with his own hand was drawn up and downe at a horse tayle the space of halfe a quarter of an houre and then hanged upon the gallowes quartered in foure parts The Monke of Vauvard called Vincent who with his crosse and porteise had encouraged Pizarre and his army against Artabaliba and was for that cause created Bishop of Peru when Diego came to the governement fled into the Island Puna to escape his wrath but in seeking to avoyde him he fell into as great a snare for the Islanders assaulted him one night and knockt him to death with staves and clubs together with forty Spaniards of his fellowship that accompanied him in his flight and started not from him in his death And thus the good and holy Monke for medling with and setting forward the murder of so many poore people was for his paines and good deeds justly rewarded by the Indians of that Island Moreover after and beside all these troubles seditions and civil warres of Peru all they that returned from Spaine suffered shipwracke for the most part for their fleet had scarce attained the midst of their course when there arose so terrible a tempest that of eighteen ships thirteen so perished that they were never heard of after and of the five which remained two were tumbled backe to the coast of Saint Dominick all berent and shivered in pieces other three were driven to Spaine whereof one hitting against the bay of Portugall lost many of her men The Admirall her selfe of this fleet perished near unto Saint Lucar de Baramede with two hundred persons that were within her and but one onely of them all got safe into the haven of Calix without dammage Here we may see how mightily the hand of God was stretched forth to the revenge of those wicked deeds and villanies which were committed by the Spaniards in those quarters Peter Loys bastard son to Pope Paul the third was one that practised many horrible villanies robberies murthers adulteries incest and Sodomitries thinking that because his father was Pope therefore no wickednesse was unlawfull for him to commit He was by the report of all men one of the most notorious vilest and filthiest villaines that ever the world saw he forced the Bishop of Faence to his unnaturall lust so that the poor Bishop with meer anger and grief that he should be so abused died immediately Being made Duke of Plaisence and Parma he exercised most cruell tyranny towards many of his subjects insomuch that divers Gentlemen that could not brook nor endure his injuries conceived an inward hate against him and conspired his death and for to put in practise the same they hired certain Ruffians and Roysters to watch the opportunity of slaying him yea and they themselves oftentimes went apart with these Roysters keeping themselves upon their guards as if some private and particular quarrels had been in hand One day as the Duke went in his horse-litter out of his Castle with a great retinue to see certain Fortifications which he had prepared being advertised by his father the
justice and judgement upon the earth a God that loveth not iniquity â— with whom the wicked cannot dwell nor the fooles stand before his presence It is hee that huteth the workers of unrighteousnesse and that destroyeth the lyers and abhorreth all deceitfull disloyall perjurous and murdering persons as with him there is no exception of persons so none of what estate or condition soever bee they rich or poore noble or ignoble gentle or carter-like can exempt themselves from his wrath and indignation when it is kindled but a little if they delight and continue in their sinnes for as S. Paul saith Tribulation and anguish upon the soule of every man that doth evill Now according to the variety and diversity of mens offences the Lord in his most just and admirable judgement useth diversity of punishments sometimes correcting them one by one particular otherwhiles altogether in a heap sometimes by stormes and tempests both by sea and land other times by lightning haile and deluge of waters often by overflowing and breaking out of rivers and of the sea also and not seldome by remedilesse and sudden fires heaven and earth and all the elements being armed with an invincible force to take vengeance upon such as are traytors and rebels against God â— sundry times hee scourgeth the world as it well deserveth with his usuall and accustomed plagues namely of warre and famine and pestilence which are evident signes of his anger according to the threats denounced in the law tâ—â—â—hing the same and therefore if at any time hee deferre the punishment of the wicked it is for no other end but to expect the fulnesse of their sinne and to make them more inexcusable when contrary to his bountifulnesse and long suffering which inviteth and calleth them to repentance they harden themselves and grow more obstinate in their vices and rebellion drawing upon their heads the whole heape of wrath the more grievously to assaile them And thus the vengeance of God marcheth but a soft pace as saith Valerius Maximus to the end to double and aggravate the punishment for the slacknesse thereof CHAP. LII That the greatest punishments are reserved and layed up for the wicked in the world to come NOtwithstanding all which hath beene spoken and howsoever sinners are punished in this life it is certaine that the greatest and terriblest punishments are kept in store for them in another world And albeit that during this transitory pilgrimage they seeme to themselves oftentimes to live at their ease and enjoy their pleasures and pastimes to their hearts contentment yet doubtlesse it is so that they are indeed in a continuall prison and in a dungeon of darkenesse bound and chained with fetters of their owne sinne and very often turmoyled and but chered with their owne guilty conscience overcharged with the multitude of offences and fore-feeling the approach of hell And in this case many languish away with feare care and terror being toyled and tyred with uncessant and unsupportable disquietnesse and tossed and distracted with despaire untill by death they be brought unto their last irrevokable punishment which punishment is not to endure for a time and then to end but is eternall and everlastingly inherent both in body and soule I say in the body after the resurrection of the dead and in soule after the departure out of this life till all eternity for it is just and equall that they which have offended and dishonoured God in their bodies in this life should be punished also in their bodies in the world to come with endlesse torments of which torments when mention is made in the holy Scripture they are for our weake capacity sake called Gehenna or a place of torment utter darkenesse and hell fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth c. againe eternall fire a poole and pit of fire and brimstone which is prepared for the devill and his darlings and how miserable their estate is that fall therein our Saviour Christ giveth us to know in the person of the rich glutton who having bathed himselfe in the pleasures and delights of this world without once regarding or pittying the poore was after cast into the torments of hell and there burneth in quenchlesse flames without any ceasing or allaying of his griefes therefore whatsoever punishments the wicked suffer before they die they are not quitted by them from this other but must descend into the appointed place to receive the surplus of their payments which is due unto them For what were it for a notorious and cruell Tyran that had committed many foule and wicked deeds or had most villanously murdered many good men to have no other punishment but to be slaine and to endure in the houre of death some extraordinary paine could such a punishment ballance with his so many and great offences Whereas therefore many such wretches suffer punishment in this world we must thinke that this is but a taste and scantling of those torments and punishments which are prepared and made ready for them in the world to come And therefore it often commeth to passe that they passe out of this life most quietly without the disturbance of any crosse or punishment but it is that they might be more strangely tormented in another world Some not considering this point nor stretching the view of their understanding beyond the aspect of their carnall eyes have fallen into this foolish opinion to thinke that there is neither justice nor judgement in heaven nor respect of equity with the Highest when they see the wicked to flourish in prosperity and the good and innocent to bee overwhelmed with adversity yea and many holy men have fallen into this temptation as Iob and David did who when they considered the condition of the wicked and unjust how they lived in this world at their hearts ease compassed about with pleasures and delights and waxing old in the same were carried to their sepulchres in peace they were somewhat troubled and perplexed within themselves untill being instructed and resolved by the Word of God they marked their finall end and issue and the everlasting perdition which was prepared for them and by no means could be escaped And thus it commeth to passe saith S. Augustine that many sinnes are punished in this world that the providence of God might be more apparant and many yea most reserved to be punished in the world to come that we might know that there is yet judgement behinde CHAP. LIII How the afflictions of the godly and the punishment of the wicked differ WHich seeing it is so it is necessary that the wicked and perverse ones should feele the rigor of Gods wrath for the presumption and rebellion wherewith they daily provoke him against them and although with those that feare God and strive to keepe themselves from evill and take paines to live peaceably and quietly it oftentimes goeth worse here below than with others being laid open to millions
escape unpunished for his perfidie and impietie For first his warre-like affaires in the East prospered not then a little before the end of his life he grievously complained that he had innovated the faith in his kingdome At last in those sighings and complaints he parted this life with a grievous and violent disease The Unkle of Iulian the Apostata called also Iulianus at Antioch in the temple prophaned the holy table with pissing upon it And when Eusoius the Bishop rebuked him for it he stroke him with his fist Not long after he was taken with a grievous disease of his bowels putrifying and miserably died his excrements comming from him not by their ordinary passages but by his wicked mouth Under the Emperour Valence a wonderfull haile the stones being as big as a man could hold in his hand was sent upon Constantinople and slew many both men and beasts for that the Emperour had banished many famous men that would not communicate with Eudoxius the Arrian and for the same reason a great part of Germa a Citie of Hellespont was throwne downe by an earthquake and in Phrygia such a famine succeeded that the Inhabitants were faine to change their habitation and to â—lee to other places After the martyrdome of Gregory the Bishop of Spoleta Flacchus the Governour who was author thereof was strucke with an Angel and vomited out his entrailes at his mouth and died Under the Empire of Alexander Mammea Agrippitus fifteene yeares old because he would not sacrifice to their Idols was apprehended at Praeneste whipt with scourges and hanged up by the heeles and at last slaine with the sword in the middest of whose torments the Governour of the Citie fell from the Tribunall seat dead Bajazet a most cruell enemy of the Christians was taken by Tamerlane the Tartarian King and bound in golden chaines and carried about by him in an iron cage latised and shewne unto all being used for a stirrop unto Tamerlane when he got upon his horse Gensericus the King of the Vandales exercising grievous cruelty against the Orthodox Christians he himselfe being an Arrian was possessed of the Devill and died a miserable death in the yeare 477. Honoricus the second King of the Vandales having used inexplicable cruelty against the Orthodox Christians hanging up honest matrons and virgins naked burning their bodies with torches cutting off their dugges and armes because they would not subscribe to the Arrian heresie was surprised himselfe with the vengeance of God for his land was turned into barrennesse through an exceeding drought so that numbers of men women and beasts died with famine the pestilence also seised upon them and he himselfe was stricken with such a disease of his body that his members rotted off one after another Anastatius Dicorus a grievous persecutor of the Church of Christ being admonished in a dreame that he should perish with thunder built him an house wherein he might defend himselfe from that judgement but in vaine for in a great thunder he fled from chamber to chamber and at last was found dead blasted with lightning to the great horror of the beholders Chasroes the King of Persia a grievous enemy to Christ and Christians committed horrible outrages against them for first he slew at Jerusalem ninety thousand men with Zachariâ— the Patriarch of Jerusalem and also raged in like manner in Aegypt Lybia Aethiopia and would grant them no condition of peace unlesse they would forsake Christ and worship the Sunne he also put to death with most cruell torments Anastatius a godly Monke because he constantly confessed the faith of Christ. But God met with him to the full for his eldest sonne Syroes tooke him prisoner and handled him in most vile manner he hanged an iron weight upon his neck and imprisoned him in an high tower which he had built to keepe his treasure denying him food and bidding him eat the gold which he had gathered together then he slew all his children before his face and exposed him to the scoffes and railings of the people and lastly caused him to be shot to death and so that great terror of the world and shedder of Christian bloud breathed out his soule after a miserable manner Regnerus the King of Denmarke abrogating Christian Religion and setting up Idolatrie in his Kingdome anew the divine vengeance overtooke him for Helles whom he had cast out of the Kingdome returned upon him with an army of the Gaules and overcomming him in battell tooke him prisoner and shut him up in a filthie prison full of serpents which setting upon him with their venomous bitings and stings brought him to a most horrible end Lysius the Emperour gave Heriâ—a his daughter a virgin because she was a Christian to be trampled under foot of horses but he himselfe was sâ—ain by the byting of one of the same horses A Popish Magistrate having condemned a poore Protestant to death before his execution caused his tongue to be cut out because he should not confesse the truth in requitall whereof the next childe that was borne unto him was borne without a tongue CHAP. II. Of Perjurie Pâ—ilip King of Macedon who was a great contemner of all oathes and held the Religion thereof as a vain thing for this cause as all Writers affirme the vengeance of God followed him and his posteritie for when he had lived scarce forty and sixe yeares he himselfe was slain and all his whole house in short time in short time after utterly extinguished 〈◊〉 one of his sonnes was slaine by Olympias his wife Also another sonne which he had by Cleopatra the 〈◊〉 of Aâ—â—alus â—he tormented to death in a brazen vessell compassed about with fire The â—est of his sonnes periffied in like manner and at last the famous Alexander his sonne after great conquest atchieved by him in the middle course of his victories periffied miserably some thinke by poyson In the Countrey of Arbernum there was a certaine wicked man that used ordinarily to for sweare himselfe but at one time after he had thus sinned his tongue was tyed up that he could not speake but began to low like an oâ—e yet repenting and grieving for his sinne he found the bond of his tongue loosed and a readinesse of speech given unto him againe whereby we see both the Iustice of God in punishing them that sinne in this kinde and his mercy in pardoning when they truly repent At this day we have an example fresh and famous of a certaine maid that had stolne and pilfered many things away out of her mistresses house of which being examined she forswore them and wisht that she might rot if she ever touched them or knew of them but notwithstanding she was carried to prison and there presently began so to rot stink that they were forced to thrust her out of prison and to convey her to the Hospitall where she lies in lamentable miserie
true In Barnewell neare to Cambridge one at the signe of the Plough a lusty young man with two of his neighbours and one woman in their company agreed to drinke a barrell of strong beere they drunke up the vessell three of them died within foure and twenty houres the fourth hardly escaped after great sicknesse This I have under a Justice of Peace his hand neare dwelling besides the common fame A Butcher in Haslingfield hearing the Minister inveigh against drunkennesse being at his cups in an Ale-house fell a scoffing at the Minister and his Sermons As he was drinking the drinke or something in the cup quackned him and stuck so in his throat that he could neither get it up not downe but strangled him presently At Tillingham in Dengy hundred in Essex three young men meeting to drinke strong waters fell by degrees to halfe pintes one fell downe dead in the roome and the other prevented by company comming in escaped not without much sicknesse At Bungey in Norfolke three comming out of an Ale-house in a very darke evening swore they thought it was not darker in hell it selfe one of them fell off the bridge into the water and was drowned the second fell off his horse the third sleeping on the ground by the river side was frozen to death This have I often heard but have no certaine ground for the truth of it A Bay life of Hedly upon the Lords day being drunke at Melford would needs get upon his mare to ride through the street affirming as the report goes that his mare would carry him to the Devill his mare casts him off and broke his necke Instantly reported by sundry sufficient witnesses Company drinking in an Ale-house at Harwich in the night over against one Master Russels and by him once or twice willed to depart at length he came downe and tooke one of them and made as he would carry him to prison who drawing his knife fled from him and was three dayes after taken out of the sea with the knife in his hand Related to me by Master Russel himselfe Maior of the town At Tenby in Pembroke-shire a drunkard being exceeding drunke broke himselfe all to pieces from an high and steep rock in a most fearefull manner and yet the occasion and circumstances of his fall so ridiculous as I thinke not fit to relate least in so serious a judgement I should move laughter to the Reader A Glasier in Chancery lane in London noted formerly for profession fell to a common course of drinking whereof being oft by his wife and many Christian friends admonished yet presuming much of Gods mercy to himselfe continued therein till upon a time having surcharged his stomacke with drinke he fell a vomiting broke a veine lay two dayes in extreame paine of body and distresse of minde till in the end recovering a little comfort died Both these examples were related to me by a Gentleman of worth upon his owne knowledge Foure sundry instances of drunkennesse wallowing and tumbling in their drinke slaine by carts I forbeare to mention because such examples are so common and ordinary A Yeomans sonne in Northampton-shire being drunke at Wellingbrough on a market day would needs ride his horse in a brayery over the ploughed lands fell from his horse and brake his necke Reported to me by a kinsman of his owne A Knight notoriously given to drinke carrying sometime payles of drinke into the open field to make people drunke withall being upon a time drinking with company a woman comes in delivering him a ring with this poesie Drinke and die saying to him This is for you which he tooke and wore and within a week after came to his end by drinking Reported by sundry and justified by a Minister dwelling within a mile of the place One of Aylesham in Norfolke a notorious drunkard was drowned in a shallow brooke of water with his horse by him Two examples have I knowne of children that murdered their owne mothers in drinke and one notorious drunkard that attempted to kill his father of which being hindered he fired his barne and was afterward executed one of these formerly in print At a Taverne in Bread-street in London certaine Gentlemen drinking healths to their Lords on whom they had dependance one desperate wretch steps to the tables end layes hold on a pottle pot full of Canarie Sacke sweares a deepe oath What will none here drinke a health to my noble Lord and Master and so setting the pottle pot to his mouth drinks it off to the bottome but was not able to rise up or to speake when he had done but fell into a deepe snoaring sleepe and being removed laid aside and covered by one of the servants in the house attending the time of his waking was within the space of two houres irrecoverably dead Witnessed at the time of the printing hereof by the same servant that stood by him in the act and helpe to remove him In Dengy hundred neare Mauldon about the beginning of his Majesties reigne there fell out an extraordinary judgement upon five or six that plotted a solemne drinking at one of their houses laid in Beere for the purpose drunke healths in a strange manner and died thereof within a few weekes some sooner and some later Witnessed to me by some that was with one of them on his death-bed to demand a debt and oftentimes spoken of by Master Heydâ—n late Preacher of Mauldon in the hearing of many the particular circumstances were exceeding remarkable but having not sufficient proofe for the particulars I will not report them A man in Suffolke overtaken with wine though never in all his life before as he himselfe said a little before his fall seeming to bewaile his present condition and others that knew him so say of him yet going downe a paire of staires against the perswasion of a woman sitting by him in his chamber fell and was so dangerously hurt as he died soone after not being able to speake from the time of his fall to his death The names of the parties thus punished I for beare for the kindreds sake yet living These examples before going are taken out of the report of that worthy Preacher of Gods word in Ipswich Master Samuel Ward in his Sermon called A woe to Drunkards to the which I will adde one more of mine owne knowledge lately executed A young Gentleman of good fame credit and behaviour being in July last overtaken by drinke and riding homeward void of wit and feare was throwne by his horse and his braines knocked out with the pummell of his sword An example more remarkable for two causes first because he was not formerly given to that vice and secondly in that a friend of his meeting him by the way intreated him that he would ride softly and he would conduct him home but he desperately spurring his horse over rough wayes was thus overthrowne and perished but I hope God had mercy on his soule Saint Augustine in
that siâ—ted Peter and buffered Paul But to leave the Holy Scripture Philip Melancthon reporteth That he heard of two men credible and faith-worthy that a certain Bottonian young woman two yeares after her death returned againe to humane shape and went up and downe in the house and sate at meate with them but eate little This young seeming woman being at a time amongst other virgines a certaine Magitian came in skilfull in diabolicall Arts who said to the beholders This woman is but a dead carkasse carried about by the Devill and presently he tooke from under her right arme-hole the charme which hee had no sooner done but she fell downe a dead filthie carkasse Martin Luther reporteth the like of a woman at Erford in Germany who being animated by the Devill accompanied a young student that was in love with her and went up and downe divers yeares but at last the Devill being cast out by the prayers of the Church she returned to a dead and filthie carkasse The same Luther in his Colloquies telleth us how Sathan oftentimes stealeth away young children of women lying in child-bed and supposteth others of their owne begetting in their stead in the shapes of Incubus and Sucoâ—bus one such childe Luther reporteth of his owne knowledge at Halbersted which being carried by the parents to the Temple of the Virgine Mary to be cured the Devill asked the childe being in a basket upon the river whither it was going the young infant answered That hee was going to the Virgin Mary whereupon the father threw the basket and the childe into the river The like hee reporteth of another at Pessovia which representing in all lineaments a humane shape it was nothing else but a meere elusion of the Devill this childe saith he delighted in nothing but in stuffing it selfe with food and egesting the same in a filthy manner but was discovered and disrobed and cast out by the Prayers of the Church At Babylon in the Temple of Apollo a souldier breaking open a golden Chest there flew out such a pestilent spirit that infected the whole world with the plague thus Aventine lib. 2. cap. 17. Bruno the Bishop of Herbipolis accompanying the Emperour through an arme of the Sea heard this voyce sounding in his eares Ho Ho thou Bishop I am thy Malus Genius and whithersoever thou goest thou art mine at this time I have no power to hurt thee but thou shalt see me shortly againe and so it came to passe For not long after being in a roome with divers others part of the roofe fell downe and flew this wicked Bishop alone all the rest remaining safe and sound Vrbanus Regius in a Sermon at Wittenberge Anno 1538 concerning good and bad Angels relateth a storie of a certaine young maide possessed by the Devill for whom when prayers were made in the Church he seemed to be quiet for the time as if he were departed out of her watching an opportunity to do her further mischiefe as he did indeed for when as lesse care was taken of her supposing her to be found shee going to wash her hands at the brinke of a river running by the Devill tumbled her headlong in and drowned her in a fearefull manner Platina Nauclerus and other Historiographers write of Pope Bennet the ninth who died in the yeare 1405 that hee appeared or the Devill for him in a prodigious and bestiall forme like a Beare in his body and in his head and tayle like an Asse and when he was asked by some Why he shewed himselfe in so ougly a shape answered That this shape was imposed upon him for his wicked and bestiall behaviour when he was alive In the hill countries of Bohemia there used to appeare an evill Spirit in the habit and shape of a Monk whom the countrie people called Rubezall This devillish Monke used to joyne himselfe unto travellers over those hils and to bid them be of good courage for hee would lead them the right way thorow the woods but when as he had purposely led them out of the way so that they could not tell which way to turne themselves he would leapâ— into a tree and laugh at them with such a loud noyse that the whole wood would ring of him This was a morrie Devill such as our Robin-Goodfellow is said to be but yet in his mirth hee alwayes affected mischiefe Theat Hist. pag. 120. Chunibert King of Lumbardie consulted with one of his trusty counsellours about putting to death his two brothers Aldo and Grauso Whilest they were thus consulting in a by-window there sate a great flie by them one of the feet whereof the King with his knife which he had in his hand cut off in the meane while Aldo and Grauso entering into the Pallace met with a man with one of his feet cut off who told them the King was purposed to slay them if they passed on whereupon they returned and hid themselves in the Temple of Romanus the Martyr The King hearing thereof was much troubled how his Counsell might be revealed and charged his Privie Counsellours with infidelity But the Counsellour answered That hee had not departed from his presence since the matter was contrived but there sate a flie whose foot they cut off which no question was the Devill as it was had revealed this secret in the shape of a man Hereupon the King was reconciled to his brethren and embraced them with love ever after Thus the Devill sometimes doth good but it is with an intent of greater mischiefe Et sinon aliquâ nocuisset mortuus esset Cronica Hedion While certaine Mariners were sayling in the Sea a Monster was taken by them in every thing like unto a woman which being detained in the ship a good while one of the Mariners fell in love with her tooke her to his wife and begot one childe of her after three yeares they returning to the same place againe where the same Monster was taken this woman-Devill leaped into the Sea with her childe in her armes the childe was drowned but shee vanished away Thus it is easie for the Devill to take upon him the shape of a man or a woman Ex Colloquiis Lutheri A certaine Nobleman invited Martin Luther and other learned men to his house the Nobleman after dinner went out a hunting where a Hare of great bignesse and a Fox of great swiftnesse offered themselves unto his hounds The Nobleman riding upon a good horse followed them amaine but his horse falling downe under him dyed and the Hare vanished into the aire This was certainly a diabolicall delusion Luther The same Luther writeth That certaine Noblemen riding a race they cryed out let the last bee the Devils one of the Noblemen having a spare horse hasted forward with the rest of his company but his horse that was leâ—t free came softly behinde and was carried up by the Devill into the aire The Devill is not to be invited for he is ready to come uncalled Philip
Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre reporteth that in a great plague one carkasse was seene to devoure it selfe in a grave which the people being superstitious thought it was a presage of the continuance of the pestilence whereupon they sent unto Wittenberge to Luther and other godly Ministers for their advise and counsell he answered that it was a delusion of the Devill and if they gave credit thereunto the sicknesse would increase and therefore advised them that despising this delusion of the Devill they should joyne together in prayer in Gods holy Temple to represse the furie and malice of the old Serpent which by that meanes they obtained At Rotingburge an honest and worthy Citizen having a beautifull daughter to whom many Sutors frequented there came also one in gallant apparrell and two men attending upon him to be a Sutor unto that beautifull maide but her father being displeased at his importunitie invited the godly Minister of the Town and some other good men to supper where entring into conference of divine matters this gallant abhorring the same desired them to talke of some other merry matters which they refusing to doe he shewed himselfe what he was and with his companions disparished into the aire leaving a filthy stinke behinde him thus the Devill doth go about to delude both men and women Manlius in Col. A certaine man abounding with wealth invited to supper a company of his neighbours and friends who when they refused to come upon occasions hee wished that all the Devils in Hell would come which wishes were not in vaine for presently great troopes of Devils came unto his house which hee entertained at the first and afterward as my Authour saith perceiving by their fingers and feet to be infernall Spirits he with his wife trembling ranne out of the house leaving a young infant in a cradle and a foole rocking of it both which were preserved alive after the departure of the Devils Iob. Fincel The Devill also appeared unto a Souldier that was given to play swearing and drinking and having played with him all night and woon his money hee told him it was time to depart and carryed him away with him into the aire whither God knowes for hee never was seene after In the yeare of our Lord 1536 there was at Franckford a maide grievously tormented with a paine in her head and a kinde of frenzie at the last she came to that passe that it was manifest that she was possessed with the Devill for if she touched any thing of any mans either head garment or anything else she drew money out of it of the usuall coyne of that countrey and presently put it into her mouth and swallowed it but sometimes they caught her hand and wrung their money from her and shewed it up and downe as a great wonder Shee also in her fits spake the high Dutch tongue perfectly which she never learned not heard of with many other things of great admiration Luther being demanded What course was to be taken to dispossesse her of this evill Spirit advised that shee should duely be brought unto the Church to heare Sermons and to bee prayed for publiquely in the Congregation by which meanes shortly after shee was delivered from Sathan and restored to her former health this relation the wise Senatours of Frankeford caused to bee published in Print Anno 1538. Certaine learned men in the Counsell of Basil went into a wood for recreation sake friendly to conferre about the controversies of that time Whilest they were there walking they heard a bird like unto a nightingall singing most sweetly above any Nightingall in the World and also sâ—w a bird upon an arme of a tree not like unto any bird one of the companie more hearty than the other said thus unto her I abjure thee in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ to tell us what thou art to whom the bird answered That she was one of the damned soules and appointed to stay in that place untill the last day and then to endure everlasting punishments whereupon she flue from the tree and cried O perpetuall and infinite 〈◊〉 Mâ—lâ—ncthon judged this to bee an evill spirit and so the event prooved for all that were present at this abjuration fell presently very sicke and shortly after died Manl. Collecta A certaine panish Clerke as Câ—sariuâ— reporteth exâ—elled all men in sweetnesse of singing whom when at a time a godly and holy man heard he said This is the voice not of a man but of the Divell 〈…〉 he had abjured in the name of Christ the Divell departed out of the bodie of the Clerke and the bodie fell downe into a dead carkasse Discip. de tempore Paulus Diaconius in his sixteenth Booke witnesseth That in the reigne of Anastasius the Emperour there were in Alexandria many women and children possessed of the Divell which being taken with furie uttered no other voice but like the barking of a dog In the yeare of our Lord 1545 an evill spirit haunted the Citie Rotuill sometimes in the shape of an hare sometimes of a Weesell sometimes of a Gâ—ose and with a cleere voice threatened that he would fire the Citie which malice of his though God prevented yet it strooke great terror into the minds of the people Iob. Finc lib. 1. In the Dukedome of Luneberge a certaine woman possessed of the Divel used to speake in her fits most pure Latine and Greeke to the great admiration of all that heard her Man in Collect. At Fribuge in Misnia a certaine man of great pietie and holinesse lying sicke and neere unto death the Divell came unto him in the habite of a Bishop hee being alone and exhorted the man to confesse all his sinnes which hee had committed in his life time and that having peâ—ne and Inkehorne he would write them downe in order but the old man being importuned by him answered Seeing thou urgest this write downe first this sentence The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head which the Divell-Bishop no sooner heard but he vanished away leaving a filthie savour behinde him and the man died in peace Manl. in Collect. Iob Fincelius in his third booke of miracles writeth a strange storie of a godly young maide infested long and possessed at length by the Divell who in her acted strange things to the admiration of all men but at length shee was freed from his malicious molestation by the earnest prayers of godly Ministers in the Church the Divell flying out of her in the forme of a swarme of flies out of a window This storie is at large related with many strange circumstances by Philippus Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre Page a hundred twenty and six The same Author relateth a storie of a maide of excellent beauty whom the Priest of the towne so induced and inveigled by his perswasions saying that the Pope had pardoned him for all such offences that shee became his Concubine Now when hee had invited many of
made therein the Bathes addicted himselfe so much to the Devillish art of Necromancy that hee wrought wonders thereby insomuch that he made himselfe wings and attempted to flee like Dedalus but the Devill as ever like a false knave forsooke him in his journey so that hee fell downe and brake his necke In the yeare of our Lord 1578 one â—â—mon Penbrooke dwelling in Saint Georges parish in London being a figure setter â—nd vehemently suspected to be a Conjurer by the commandement of the Iudge appeared in the parish Church of Saint Saviour at Court holden there where whilest he was busie in eutertaining a Proctor and leaned his head upon a pew a good space the Proctor began to lift up his head to see what he ayled and found him departing out of this life and straightwayes he fell downe ratling in the throat without speaking any one word This strange judgement happened before many witnesses who searching him found about him five devillish books of conjuration and most abhominable practises with a picture in tin of a man having three dice in his hand with this writing Chance dice fortunately and much other trash so that every one consessed it to be a just judgement against Sorcery and a great example to cause others to feare the just judgement of God Now let every one learne by these examples to feare God and to stand firme and 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 unto CHAP XXII Of those that through pride and vaine-glory strove to usurpe the honour due unto God AForgetfull and unthankfull minde for the benefits which God bestoweth upon us is a branch of this first Commandement as well as those which went before And this is when we ascribe not unto God the glory of his benefits to give him thanks for them but through a foolish pride extoll our selves higher than we ought presuming above measure and reason in our owne power desire to place our selves in a higher degree than is meet With this sond and foolish affection I know not how our first fathers were tickled and tainted from the beginning to think to impaire the glory of God and they also were puffed up with the blast of ambition that I know not with what fond foolish rash and proud conceit went about after the floud to build a city and tower of exceeding height by that means to win same and reputation amongst men In stead whereof they ought rather to have praysed God by remembring his gracious goodnesse in their miraculous deliverance in their fathers persons from that generall deluge and shipwracke of the world but forasmuch as with a proud and high stomacke they lifted up themselves against God to whom all glory onely appertaineth therefore God also set himselfe against them and against their over bold practises interrupting all their determined presumptuous purposes by such a confusion and alteration of tongues which he sent among them that one could not understand another so that with shame they were constrained to leave their begun worke And besides in stead of that strong and sure habitation which they dreamed on to maintain and defend themselves by against all enemies and 〈◊〉 fortresse and castle wherby they went about to keep other in subjeâ—â—â—on to them they were forced to forsake the place by the just judgement of God who scattered and dispersed them hither and thither that he might bring them to that estate and condition which they most of all feared and strove to shun And thus God resisteth the proud and favoureth the humble loe here the punishment wherewith God punished their sin remaining still upon them this day for a chastisement of their proud spirits With the staine of this sinne most commonly the mightiest Potentates of this world are defiled who although both by word and writing avouch and confesse their power to be by the grace of God yet for the most part they are very unthankfull for the same and so proud and high minded that they shew themselves most obstinate and ungratefull of all men for oftentimes they rob him of the honour and glory which is peculiar unto himselfe and attribute it to themselves in setting forth their brave and sumptuous shewes and triumphs this is the sinne whereof Nabuchadnezzar King of Babell was reproved for God having bestowed upon him a kingdome with such pompe and renowne that he made whole nations to tremble before his face and putting many people in subjection under him he in stead of giving thanks for these great benefits exalted himselfe suffering his heart to swell and his understanding to waxe hard with pride not regarding the Lord who extolled him so high and yet notwithstanding he was constrained to confesse and acknowledge him for the true God to have an everlasting Kingdome and an infinite power as well by the forewarning of dreames which Daniel interpreted as by the miraculous deliverance of three young men out of the burning furnace therefore as he walked one day in his royall palace at Babylon and vaunted of his greatnesse and magnificence saying to himselfe Is not this great Babell which I have built for the house of the Kingdome by the might of my power and for the honour of my Majesty Now whilest the word was yet in his mouth a voyce was heard from heaven saying O King to thee it is spoken Thy Kingdome shall depart from thee and according to the tenour of the voyce hee was immediately deposed from his royall seat spoiled of all his glory driven from the society of men deprived of sense and made a companion for the bruit beasts and wilde asses eating grasse like oxen even so long untill his haire was growne stiffe like Eagles feathers and his nailes like the clawes of birds In which estate he continued the space of seven yeares even he that a little before was so proud and arrogant and he that had conquered so many kingdomes and nations that triumphed over Ierusalem with the Kings thereof This is a most excellent looking glasse for Kings to behold the ficklenesse and instability of all their power and pomp when it pleaseth God to humble and bring them under there is neither Scepter Crowne stay or strength of man that is able to hinder and turne aside the hand of the Almighty the King of Kings from abasing and weakning the most high and strong of this world let them be never so brave and jolly and bringing them into a low contemptible and brutish estate Besides this which we have already touched there is another kinde of pride and presumption most damnable and detestable of all and it is when a man doth so much forget himselfe as to seise and take upon him that honour which onely appertaineth to God ascribing to himselfe a certaine deity One would hardly thinke that there were any such in the world so proud as to commit this
the squadron of Switzers now joyned to the French in attire and armour like a Switzer thinking by this tricke to save his life but all his counterfeiting could not save him from being taken and from lying ten yeares prisoner in the Tower of Loches where he also died and so all his high and ambitious thoughts which scarcely Italie could containe were pend up in a strait and narrow roome With the like turbulent and furious spirit of ambition have many Roman Bishops been inspired who what by their jugling trickes cousenages and subtill devises and what by force have prospered so well that of simple Bishops which they were wont to be they are growne temporall Lords and as it were Monarchs having in their possessions lands cities castles fortresses havens garrisons and guards after the manner of Kings nay they have exalted themselves above Kings so intollerable is their impudence and made them subject to their wils and yet they call themselves the Apostles pedigree whom Christ forbad all such domination But what of that It pertaineth not to them to succeed in vertue but in authoritie the Apostles for if that charge had concerned them then Pope Lucius the second would never have beene so shamelesse as to request in right of his Popeship the soveraigntie over Rome as hee did neither when it was denyed him to have gone about to usurpe it by force and to bring his minde about to have layed siege to the Senat house with armed men to the end that either by banishing or murdering the Senatours then assembled together he might invest himselfe with the Kingly dignitie but what got he by it Marry this the people being in an uprore in the Citie upon the sight of this holy fathers proud attempt tooke themselves to armes and ran with such violence upon master Pope that they forthwith stoned his Holinesse to death but not like Stephen the Martyr for the profession of Christ Iesus but like a vile and seditious theefe for seeking the Common-wealths overthrow Pope Adrian the fourteenth a monkes sonne succeeding Lucius both in the Papacie and also in ambition tooke in hand his omitted enterprises for he excommunicated the Romanes untill they had banished Arnold a Bishop that gave them counsell to retaine the power of electing their magistrate and governing their citie in their hands a thing repugnant to his intent and after hee had degraded the Consuls to make his part the stronger he caused the Emperour Fredericke to come with an armie to the citie whom notwithstanding hee handled but basely for his paines for hee did not onely checke him openly for standing on his feet and holding the stirrop of his horse with his left hand but also denied him the crowne of the Empire except hee would restore to him Poville which he said pertained unto him how beit he got the Crowne notwithstanding and before his returne from Rome into Germanie more than a thousand citizens that would not yeeld nor subscribe unto the Popes will were slaine After Frederickes departure the Pope seeing himselfe destitute of his further aid first excommunicated the King of Sicilie that in right of inheritance possessed the foresaid Poville but when this served him to small purpose he practised with Emanuel the Emperour of Greece to set upon him which thing turned to his finall confusion After this through his intollerable pride hee fell out with Fredericke the Emperour and to revenge himselfe upon him discharged his subjects from their fealtie to him and him from his authoritie over them Now marke his end As he walked one day towards Aviane a flie got in at his mouth and downe his throat so farre that it stopped the conduit of his breath so that for all that his physitions could do hee was choked therewith And thus he that sought by all the meanes he could to make himselfe greater than he ought to be and to get the masterie of every thing at his owne will and pleasure and to take away other mens rights by force was cut short and rebated by a small and base creature and constrained to leave this life which he was most unworthy of Hither may be referred that which befell the Emperour Albert Duke of Austria and one of his lievtenants in Switzerland for going about to usurpe and appropriat certaine lands and dominions to him which belonged not unto him This Emperour had many children whom he desired to leave rich and mighty and therefore by all meanes possible he endeavoured to augment his living even by getting from other men whatsoever he could and amongst all the rest this was one especiall practise wherein he laboured tooth and nayle to alienate from the Empire the land of the Switzers and to leave it for an everlasting inheritance to his heires which although the Switzers would in no case condiscend nor agree unto but contrariwise sued earnestly unto his Majesty for the maintenance of their antient liberties and priviledges which were confirmed unto them by the former Emperors and that they might not be distracted from the Empire yet notwithstanding were constrained to undergo for a season the yoke of most grievous tyranny and servitude imposed by force upon them and thus the poore communaltie indured many mischiefes and many grievous and cruell extortions and indignities at the hands of the Emperours officers whilest they lived in this wretched and miserable estate Amongst the rest there was one called Grislier that began to erect a strong fort of defence upon a little hill neere unto Altorfe to keepe the countrey in greater awe and subjection and desiring to descrie his friends from his foes he invented this devise He put a hat upon the end of a long pole and placed it in the field before Altorfe where were great multitudes of people with this commandement That everie one that came by should do but dieth ere he awaketh so mony taken in usurie delighteth and contenteth at the first but it infecteth all his possessions and sucketh out the marrow of them ere it be long Seeing then it is abhominable both by the law of God and nature let us shun it as a toad and flie from it as a cockatrice But when these persuasions will not serve let them turne their eyes to these examples following wherein they shall see the manifest indignation of God upon it In the Bishopricke of Collen a notable famous Usurer lying upon his death-bed ready to die moved up and downe his chaps and his lips as if he had bin eating something in his mouth and beeing demanded what hee eat hee answered his money and that the divell thrust it in his mouth perforce so that hee could neither will nor chuse but devour it in which miserable temptation he died without any shew of repentance The same author telleth of another Usurer that a little before his death called for his bags of gold and silver and offered them all to his soule upon condition it would not forsake
him But if he would have given all the world it could not ransome him from death wherefore when he saw there was no remedie but hee must needs die hee commended his soule to the Divell to be carried into everlasting torments which words when hee had uttered hee gave up the ghost Another Usurer being ready to die made this his last Will and Testament My soule quoth he I bequeath to the divell who is owner of it my wife likewise to the divell who induced me to this ungodly trade of life and my deacon to the divell for soothing me up and not reproving me for my faults and in this desperate persuasion he died incontinently Usury consisteth not only in lending and borowing but buying and selling also and all unjust and crafty bargaining yea and it is a kinde of usurie to detain through too much covetousnesse those commodities from the people which concerne the publike good and to hoord them up for their private gain til some scarcitie orwant arise and this also hath evermore beene most sharpely punished as by these examples may appeare About the yeare 1543. at what time a great famine and dearth of bread afflicted the world there was in Saxonie a countrey peasant that having carried his corne to the market and sold it cheaper than he looked for as he returned homewards he fell into most heavy dumpes and dolours of minde with griefe that the price of graine was abated and when his servants sang merrily for joy of that blessed cheapnesse he rebuked them most sharpely and cruelly yea and was so much the more tormented and troubled in minde by how much he more he saw any poore soule thankfull unto God for it but marke how God gave him over to a reprobate and desperate sence Whilest his servants rode before hee hung himselfe at the cart taile being past recoverie of life ere any man looked backe or perceived him A notable example for our English cormorants who joyne barne to barne and heape to heape and will not sell nor give a handful of their superfluitie to the poore when it beareth a low price but preserve it till scarcity and want come and then they sell it at their owne rate let them feare by this lest the Lord deale so or worse with them Another covetous wretch when he could not sel his cornesodear as hee desired said the mise should eat it rather than he would lessen one jot of the price thereof Which words were no sooner spoken but vengeance tooke them for all the mise in the countrey flocked to his barnes and fieldes so that they left him neither standing nor lying corne but devoured all This story was written to Martin Luther upon occasion whereof he inveying mightily against this cruell usurie of husbandmen told of three misers that in one yeare hung themselves because graine bore a lower price than they looked for adding moreover that all such cruell and muddy extortioners deserved no better a doome for their unimercifull oppression Another rich farmer whose barnes were full of graine and his stacks untouched was so covetous withall that in hope of some dearth and deerenesse of corne he would not diminish one heape but hoorded up dayly more and more and wished for a scarcity upon the earth to the end hee might enrich his coffers by other mens necessities This cruell churle rejoyced so much in his aboundance that everie day he would go into his barnes and feed his eyes with his superfluitie Now it fell out as the Lord would that having supped and drunke very largely upon a night as hee went according to his custome to view his riches with a candle in his hand behold the wine or rather the justice of God overcame his sences so that he fell downe suddenly into the mow and by his fall set on fire the corne being dry and easie to be incensed in such sort that in a moment all that which he had scraped together and preserved so charily and delighted in so unreasonably was consumed and brought to ashes and scarce he himselfe escaped with his life Another in Misnia in the yeare 1559 having great store of corne hoordedup refused to succor the necessitie of his poore halfe famished neighbours for which cause the Lord punished him with a strange and unusuall judgement for the corne which he so much cherished assumed life and became feathered fowles flying out of his barnes in such abundance that the world was astonished thereat and his barnes left emptie of all provision in most wonderfull and miraculous manner No lesse strange was that which happened in a towne of France called Stenchansen to the Governour of the towne who being requested by one of his poore subjects to sell him some corne for his money when there was none to be gotten elsewhere answered hee could spare none by reason he had scarce enough for his owne hogs which hoggish disposition the Lord requited in it owne kinde for his wife at the next litter brought forth seven pigs at one birth to increase the number of his hogs that as he had preferred filthie and ougly creatures before his poore brethren in whom the image of God in some sort shined forth so he might have of his owne getting more of that kinde to make much of since hee loved them so well Equall to all the former both in cruelty touching the person and miracle touching the judgement was that which is reported by the same authour to have happened to a rich couetous woman in Marchia who in an extreame dearth of victuals denyed not onely to relieve a poore man whose children were ready to starve with famine but also to sell him but one bushell of corne when he wanted but a penny of her price for the poore wretch making great shift to borrow that penny returned to her againe and desired her he might have the corn but as he payed her the mony the penny fell upon the ground by the providence of God which as she stretched out obeisance and vaile bonnet to the hat and in every respect shew themselves as dutifull unto it as to his owne person imagining that his greatest enemies could not endure nor finde in their hearts to do it and therefore upon this occasion he might apprehend them and discover all their close practises and conspiracies which they might brew against him now there was one a stout hearted man that passing everie day up and downe that wayes could in no wise be brought to reverence the dignitie of the worthy hat so unreasonable a thing it seemed in his eyes whereupon being taken the tyran commanded him for punishment of his open contempt to shoot at an apple laid upon the crowne of the head of his dearest childe and if he mist the apple to be put to death the poore man after many excuses and allegations and entreaties that he might not hazard his childes life in that sort was notwithstanding