general Destruction of the World which shall not be recalled because the Will of Man is not inclin'd to return to God but rather to be the more estrang'd from him if the Plagues should yet be delayed That therefore the irrevocable Sentence is given to purge the whole World by divers Plagues of War Pestilence and Famine which are framed of the Three Means which have caused Men to abandon God Their Want of True Love to one another their Love of this present Life and their being addicted to their sensual Appetites the Pleasures of the Mouth and Belly She shews that many Signs have appeared in the Heavens fearful Comets menacing great Evils Fire has burnt many Cities many have been swallowed up by Earthquakes That these did affright some at first but so soon as the Devil had leisure to make his Adherents study to find out Reasons shewing that these were Natural things he has made the fear of all these Threatnings of God sent as the Forerunners of his Justice to evanish out of Mens Minds so that no Body is converted to God nor embraces the Spirit of Penitence but they mock at God's Warnings saying These are but Natural things She asks these Ear-flatterers If God ought not to send his Plagues but by Supernatural things and to make Chimera's in the Air He who has created alâ— the Elements must he not make use of them to chastise the Offences which we commit against him Is there not need of Natural things to make our Bodies suffer which are likewise Natural The Deludge was made by a Natural Rain and the last Plagues will be made Pestilence War Famine and Fire all Natural things because the Heaven the Earth and all the Elements ought to rise up against us to avenge the Offence that we do against their Creator and ours c. I have transcrib'd all this because I think the present Age ought to lay these things deeply to Heart It is a most Remarkable Providence that a simple illiterate Maid should give Warning to the World of the Approaching of the last general and dreadful Judgments of God and give such clear Grounds for it from the Word of God and the State of the World and declare that she is commanded by God so to do and that now since her Removal both the Wickedness of Men and the Signs and Judgments of God have been still encreasing There have been such signal and dreadful Earthquakes in many Places swallowing up many Thousands such universal Wars destroying there Hundreds of Thousands the Fire of which seems only to be covered a while to break out into a greater Flame such pestilential Diseases in many Places particularly in France Scotland America sweeping off vast Numbers and now most grievous Dearth and Famine which for One Year scourged France but for these Three last Years has most signally visited Scotland and now this present Year being the Fourth is like to come to so great a heighth as to threaten an utter Desolation Mens Hearts failing them for fear all observe such a general Change of Seasons that the Heavens the Air the Earth and all the Elements do frown upon us and deny their wonted kindly Influences and Means of Life so that this last Plague threatens to visit other Nations likewise yet the rest of Men which are not killed of these Plagues do not repent of the Works of their Hands so that we have just ground to apprehend that these are but the beginnings of Sorrows It is high time for us then to awake out of our Stupidity to repent and do works meet for Repentance that we may not be found among the Scoffers in the last Days who say Where is the promise of his coming For tho' these were not the last Plagues and Judgments yet as A. B. says as if I remember rightly Vincentius of Terrara preached in his time to one City That within a few Years the last Judgment would be and tho' it was not yet many thereby were led to Repentance so tho' these were not the last general Judgments yet they will be the last particular Judgments to many Thousands and it is a good Office to awaken Men thereby to Repentance 14. That the Works of God shall not perish but endure for ever and shall be wholly renew'd and freed from all Corruption is expresly declared in the Holy Scriptures where we are told that the Creature itself also shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Children of Gâ—d And that according to his Promise we look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And it is said I John saw a new Heaven and a new Earth for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away And we are told that the Heavens must receive Jesus Christ until the time â— the Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by he Mouth of all his holy Prophets since the World began See Is 65. 17. 66. 22. 15. That Jesus Christ will come and Reign in Glory with the Saints and Blessed for ever upon Earth appears from many express Testimonies of Holy Scripture Thus David invites all Creatures to rejoice and be glad before the Lord for he comes to judge the Earth the World shall be established that it shall not be removed with Righteousness shall he judge the World and the People with his Truth Thus it is said that the Kingdom and Dominion and the Greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the most High whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and all Dominions shall serve and obey him Thus it is said The Lord my God shall come and all the Saints with him And it shall come to pass in that Day that the Light shall not be clear nor dark But it shall be one Day which shall be known to the Lord not Day nor Night And the Lord shall be King over all the Earth In that day shall there be one Lord and his Name one Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy Blood out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reign on the Earth And The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever And I John saw the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband and I heard a great Voice out of Heaven saying Behold the Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God c. see all that and the next Chapter And there shall be no Night there and they need no Candle neither Light of the Sun for the Lord
not interpos'd and become a Mediator between God and them who being touch'd with a deep fence of the wretched State into which Man had plung'd himself he ardently prays and interceeds with his Heavenly Father that he would have pity on those his wretched rebellious Creatures and his Brethren that he would be pleas'd to pardon them grant them his Grace tho' most unworthy of it and â—llow them yet a Time of Trial becoming Surety for them that they should detest and abhor their Corruption deny themselves and return to the Love of God His Mediation is accepted and upon the account of his Merits and Intercession Man is pardoned Grace is given him of new and a Time of Trial allow'd him in which he must lead a Life of Penitence and thereby mortifie his Corrupt Nature and return to the Love of God 2. The Time of Trial given to Man at first was a State of Pleasure and Delights but since the Fall of Man the Time of Trial assign'd him is a State of Labour and Toil and therefore God thrust Man out of a delightful Paradice and suffered the Malediction and Curse of his Sin to fall upon the Creatures in a great measure that they all might afford him Vexation instead of Pleasure and so he might have occasion of doing Penitence because he had turn'd away his Heart and Affections from God and set them on the Creature 3. The Son of God having undertaken the Recovery of Mankind out of pure Love and Compassion he provides means and remedies according to the different states of their Maladies The First Command he gives Man as a necessary mean of his Recovery is a Life of Penitence and Labour to eat his Meat in the sweat of his Face but Men multiplying their Sins he multiplied his Commands as so many means to turn them from their Sins and gave them variety of Precepts to make them think upon God in all their Actions and Words so that their Hearts might be in a continual Elevation to him But they cleave to the Letter of the Law without comprehending the Sence of it and turn'd away yet more from the Love of God placing their Affections on the Creatures the Riches Pleasures and Honours of this Life pleasing themselves with the outside of their Rites and Ceremonies 4. When all other means prov'd unsuccessful Jesus Christ tries the last Remedy Men were not capable in their Mortal State of being taught by him in his Glorious Body He had obtain'd of his Father to give them in Spirit good Thoughts and Motions yea Divine and Supernatural Light but all this was not capable to convert them or to make them sensible they were in a State of Damnation because of each one 's inveterate habit to follow their brutish Nature There was need of a Mean visible and sensible to their Corruption to move their Hearts otherwise they had all been lost without a sence of their own Misery all perishing without perceiving it by a damnable Imitation of one another thus all running in the Broad Way to Hell Having therefore obtain'd from his Father Mercy and Pardon for them upon their Repentance Jesus Christ resolves to become a Mortal Man He therefore cloaths himself with our Mortality and bringing along with him his Divine Light to enlighten them and his Divine Love to enflame them he becomes in all things like to Corrupt Man yet without Sin he teaches them by his Word and his by Example how they should mortifie their Corrupt Nature do Penitence and recover the Love of God he charges himself with the miseries and frailty that Sin has brought upon Humane Nature taking on himself all their Maledictions and the Punishments due to their Sins which he did bear and suffer as if he had been the greatest of all Sinners living a Life of extream Poverty Labour Contempt and Pain undergoing a shameful painful and accursed Death and so obtaining Pardon for all who should thus follow his Steps 5. God made his Will known to good Men to the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets by the Organ of the Glorious Body of Jesus Christ But since Men were taught by Jesus Christ in his Mortal Body there is no need to see or understand by his Glorious Body They have received the Light of Truth so that they need not bodily Visions to understand the Will of God Jesus Christ speaks now to them in Spirit and in Truth enlightning Souls with his Divine Light inwardly by his Holy Spirit which operates in Souls disengag'd from themselves and from all earthly Affections acting in them sweetly and powerfully when the Soul is in Peace and Tranquility of Mind It hears then as a soft Wind which surrounding it with Joy makes it see what it ought to do and avoid both for its own Conduct and for that of other well-dispos'd People 4. As to the Present State of the World the Summ of her Accessory Sentiments are 1. THAT all Men have corrupted their Ways and that there are no True Christians in the World truly mortified to corrupt Nature and regenerated in the Love of God and the Spirit of Jesus Christ 2. That the present State of Christendom is a perfect Babel our Language being confounded and the Builders do not understand one another 3. That we have glossed away the Laws and Doctrine of Jesus Christ by our Expositions as much as the Scribes and Pharisees did Moses's Law by their Traditions 4. That we live presently in the Reign of Antichrist and that he rules in Spirit through all the Earth by his Three Antichristian Qualities which he sheds into Man's Nature Injustice Malice and Hypocrisie under a cover of Religion in Opposition to the Three Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth which Jesus Christ came to plant in the Hearts and Lives of all his Disciples That Men seduce one another under fair Appearances That Sin is mask'd with Holiness and cover'd with Hypocrisie 5. That the Source of all the Evils in the Church is in the Corruption of the Pastors and Churchmen and that the Abomination of Desolation is in the Sanctuary That all the Degeneracy of Christians comes from the Degeneracy of their Guides 6. That the Wickedness of Man now being Universal and come to a height greater than in the Days of Noah the Sentence of Gods last Judgments is irrevocably past and the Plagues are begun and will continue till that by War Famine Pestilence and other grievous Judgments all the Wicked be consumed from off the Face of the Earth but this shall be done slowly and in a Course of many Years that many may thereby be awakened and brought to Repentance 5. As to the State of Things to come her Sentiments are 1. THAT God will yet once renew his Gospel-Spirit upon Earth and will fill well-disposed Souls with the Spirit that Jesus Christ had while upon Earth and
retained only the outside and the Letter and varnished it over with their Learning and Human Doctrines and so the Blind led the Blind Then instead of the Gospel Simplicity Schools and Universities were multiplied and there was nothing to be seen but Disputes and Controversies Then the Pastors being void of true Charity and of the Spirit of Jesus Christ their preaching could have no Divine Force more than the Motions of Puppets or the Words of Parrots Then they learned to preach the Gospel by Study and Human Learning committing the Idea's of it to their Brain as Men learn other Trades and varnish over their Sermons with the same Words and Expressions that Jesus Christ and his Apostles used without comprehending or conveying to others the Divine Sence of them and what came from the Brain could go no farther than the Brain nothing can rise higher than its Original Then the great Business of Religion is turned upon the Pastor's side into an Art of Preaching where on a Theatre he displays his Learning and Eloquence and on the Peoples side into the work of Hearing and when they have continued daily in those pious Exercises for 20 30 40 or 50 Years they are for the most part no more truly Vertuous than when they began whereas where the Word of the Lord is there is Power Then the Pastors being proud and ambitious and envious and worldly and sensual and selfish they seek their own things under a Cover of seeking the things of Jesus Christ their Actions belie their Words and for their own Credit they so gloss and explain the Doctrine of Jesus Christ as to perswade People they may be good Christians and good Ministers of Jesus Christ and yet gratifie their Appetites and Inclinations Then being void of true Faith and true Charity they place Religion in a System of Opinions and Rites and tho' they agree in the common Principles yet differing in other things of lesser moment they thereupon divide dispute and quarrel form Parties draw all they can to their Side out of a Pretence to the Glory of God inspire them with Hatred and Fury against those that differ from them sooth and flatter the corrupt Inclinations of those of their own Party or the Great and those on whom they depend and stir up Magistrates and Princes to War and Bloodshed to persecute those who differ from them And as they make War against one another by their Disputes so they make Princes and secular Persons to do it by their Swords Thus instead of the Charity Peace and Concord which Jesus Christ left his Disciples they beget Hatred Strife and Envy among them and such is their Influence upon the People that they head their Passions and what they hate and call Heresie so do they Instead of the Self-denial and Mortification to the World which Jesus Christ and the first Pastors practised and taught they teach by their Example how to gratifie Self and love the World and yet seem greatly to honour Jesus Christ and to be Champions for his Religion And if the Salt have lost its savour wherewith shall the Flesh be salted And if they who should be the Light of the World and the Salt of the Earth are thus become Darkness and without Savour how great is that Corruption And how great is that Darkness Those of every Party do plainly discern this Evil in the Guides and Leaders of the opposite Parties but our Self-love blinds and hinders us from considering it in our selves This is not to be understood but that there are Pastors of good Inclinations and right Intentions amongst the several Perswasions and therefore what is said ought not to be applied to them but that this corrupt Spirit of Pride Vain-glory 〈…〉 Avarice the Love of Money 〈…〉 Politicks the pleasing of the 〈…〉 Aversion to the Humility Simplicity 〈…〉 and Cross of Christ prevails 〈…〉 in all Parties under a Cover of 〈…〉 Opinions and so serves still to 〈…〉 the more is a sad Truth that cannot be 〈◊〉 13. That we are in the last Times that the Wickedness of Men is as great and universal as in the Days of Noah that the Abomination of Desolation is in the Holy Place that we are now in the time of the last Judgments of God by which he will sweep the Wicked off the Earth and which shall be more dreadful and terrible than any that ever were A. B. does so sensibly make appear in her Writings particularly in the Light of the World That they are real Enemies to Mens Souls who scoâ—â— at them and divert People from laying them to Heart She makes appear that Iniquity is so great and universal that there is no 〈◊〉 Faith nor Law among Men. People study nothing but to deceive their Neighbours the Father cannot trust his Son nor the Son his Father the Brother 〈◊〉 up against his Brother Friendship is only feigned 〈◊〉 is full of Deceit and Fraud nothing but Pride and Ambition reigning in the Hearts of all Men. Judges are without Equity Priests without Sincerity Cloisters filled with Avarice and the Devout full of Malice which has been at all times in some particular Persons but is at present so multiplied that it possesses almost all 〈◊〉 And Charity is not only wakâ—d cold but altogather frozen and dead in the Hearts of Men. That the Signs of the last Times are all fully accomplish'd particularly those in 2 Tim. 3. 1. c. and Matt. 24. That Mens Lives are the open Book in which these Truths are written and the Holy Scriptures are the equitable Judge which pronounces the Sentence That People scoff at this and no Body will believe it is a most certain Evidence of it For Jesus Christ says that it shall be as in the Days of Noah they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in Marriage and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away c. She makes appear how the Abomination and Desolation is in the Holy Place if Envy were lost it might be recovered in Cloisters if Avarice were dead it would be revived by the Priests Vain-glory and Pride is no where so prevailing as among the Clergy In a word Simonies and all other Sins abound in that Place which ought to be Holy That these are the Stars which fall every Day from Righteousness and Truth for some worldly Interest or humane Respects She makes appear that Men do not now embrace Penitence nor desire Amendment that they rather grow every Day worse and cannot suffer that their Faults should be truly shewn them That at all times there have been wicked Persons but when all in general do forget him it is to be believed that assuredly we are in the last Times and that the Judgment is given out because the Measure is full That God cannot suffer an universal Evil without an universal Chastisement and now Men having generally all of them abandoned their God have in doing this given Sentence of the
Profession of this new Worship and are joined to those Persons and their Opinions Now she establish'd no new Worship nor new Exercises nor Laws nor Rules that savour of a Sect but only by her Life and Writings call'd on People to return to the Love of God and to imitate the Life of Jesus Christ in which State they were not and without which they could not be saved In her Letter to M. Reinboth Superintendant in Holstein I am very far says she from making a new Church as some maliciously slander me for I bring no new thing and Novelties are very displeasing to me I am careful therefore not to introduce any but I labour to advance in a Gospel-Life and to practise it And all my Writings and all I said formerly to well-disposed Persons aimed only at this and I forbear now to speak to them because I found it was unprofitable Your Preachers wrong me greatly when they cry out that I draw their People from them for in the ten Months I have been in Holstein I have not made Acquaintance with so much as one Person not so much as with my Landlady so that I give them no ground to say or think that I strive to draw People to form a new Church or teach a new Doctrine seeing that which Jesus Christ left us is the most perfect and the last that God will send unto Men. No new thing needs be invented but we should labour to perfect our selves in it and to put it truly in Practice instead of Disputing about it for all these Disputes are raised by the Devil to bring Hatred Divisions and Discords amongst Christians whereas the Church of God should be united in Peace and Love in the meek Spirit of Jesus Christ and it is now divided in as many Parties as there are different Sects which is lamentable and disturbs the Peace of Christian Souls and makes that they do not love one another tho' Jesus Christ has so earnestly recommended to them to love one another They are all partial and only love the Party which they have undertaken to stand by or defend This proceeds from an Antichristian Spirit and not from the Spirit of Christ XX. They libell'd her that she despised Sermons Sacraments Pastours Priesthood and all Government which were all most horrid Calumnies This says she in her Letter to Dr. Nieman Superintendant in Holstein is a gross Calumny for I wish with all my Heart that both Church and State may continue in Vigour for otherwise there would be no Knowledge of God in the Land nor Commonwealths maintained Seeing Preachings and Sacraments preserve amongst Men the Memory of sacred things and States keep their People in their Duty by Justice or else there would be nothing but Confusion and the Good would be destroyed by the Wicked if there were no Government and Magistrates to rule and govern them I indeed despise the Abuse of Churches and Sermons and Sacraments but not the Use of them nor the Essence of these which are established by God as is also Government and Magistracy And there is a great Difference between the despising a thing in it self and the Abuse that is made of it For it is one thing to say that every Sect abuses the Holy Scriptures and another to say that the Scripture is of no Worth or to despise it because many abuse it Now it seems Buchardus would make People believe that I despise all these Holy Things when I despise only the Abuse of them as true Christians ought to do who lay to Heart God's Honour They ought to lament when they see Men to degenerate as to the Love of God that they seem to hold meerly to the Bark of the things ordained by God without squaring their Lives by them They say I despise the Sacraments and other Offices of Piety while I believe there is no body that esteems them more than I do For the Quakers accused me by their defamatory Treatise That I had an abominable Doctrine sending Persons to Churches Sermons or Sacraments or other outward Solemnities desiring to infer from this that I had not the Spirit of God since I still esteemed those outward Devotions and also incited others to make use of them as Means to approach unto God Your Preachers may read what I have written in that Advertisement upon this Head so that I need not enlarge my self farther here but will satisfie them as to what they say That in effect I despise the Sacraments and other outward Devotions because I do not go my self to the Church nor to the Sacraments and they will needs reject all that I say in the Praise of Holy Things because I do not observe them my self to give an Example to others and would infer from thence That I speak with Dissimulation in praise of Holy Things and not sincerely as I think in my Heart This convinces me that they no ways know me For if they only knew me outwardly they would sufficiently see that I am sincere and not at all feigned or dissembled so that if I had in my Heart a Contempt for the Sacraments and other outward Devotions I would openly declare it by Word and Writ for I have overcome the World and am not afraid to tell the Truth of what I know I have indeed written against the Abuse of the Sacraments and other outward Solemnities but I never spoke against the things themselves seeing they are good and have often serv'd me as Means of Union with God But if I do not go now to the Church or Sacraments it is not out of Contempt of Holy Things but because I have no longer so great need of outward Means of Union with God as I had formerly when the Conversation of Men and the Diversion of the Cares of temporal Affairs did divert my Attention from God I retired then to Churches and approached the Sacraments that I might be the more recollected and united to God But since God has given me the Grace to find this Recollection in my little Chamber and to entertain my self in Spirit with God in Solitude I have not thought it so necessary to use these outward Ceremonies which sometimes would serve me for a Distraction to my inward Recollection This is partly the Reason why I have left them off but this is not all For if I had the Freedom to go to Church I would go to it on the Days commanded and would receive the Sacrament at the Times appointed Since I am under the Ordinances of the Roman Church Jesus Christ teaches me to obey the Laws both of God and Men as he himself did on Earth obeying Caesar and other Superiours tho' they were sometimes evil but their Ordinances good as I have particularly shewn in the said Advertisement But I cannot go to Church without hazard of my Life and it is not lawful for me to expose my self to so evident Dangers and Necessity has no Law There are Persons in the
founded upon this that there was nothing more just than to bewail the Fault of ceasing to love so Lovely a God Yet she confest that she had run too far to an Extremity in her Mortifications and that so great that she would never tell it but to one and would never advise any to do as she had done but only to yield up themselves to God and suffer themselves to be exercis'd by him and by the Events which he sends them X. Thus she spent whole Nights in Prayer oft repeating Lord what wilt thou have me to do And being one Night in a most profound Penitence she said from the bottom of her Heart O my Lord What must I do to please thee For I have no body to teach me Speak to my Soul and it will hear thee At that Instant she heard as if another had spoke within her Forsake all earthly things Separate thy self from the Love of the Creatures Deny thy self XI She was quite astonish'd not understanding this Language and mus'd long on these Three Points thinking how she could fulfil them She thought she could not live without earthly things nor without loving the Creatures nor without loving her self Yet she said By thy Grace I will do it Lord. But when she would perform her Promise she knew not where to begin finding her self strongly engag'd in the Love of all earthly things which she did not observe before and knew not how to be disengaged Having thought on the Religious in Monasteries that they forsook all earthly things and the Conversation of the Creatures by being shut up in a Cloyster and the Love of themselves by subjecting of their Wills She ask'd leave of her Father to enter into a Cloyster of the discalceated Carmelites but he would not permit it saying He had rather see her laid in her Grave This seem'd to her a great Cruelty for she thought to find in the Cloysters the True Christians she had been seeking but she found afterwards that he knew the Cloysters better than she for after he had forbidden her and told her he would never permit her to be a Religious nor give her any Mony to enter there yet she went to Father Laurens the Director and offered to serve in the Monastery and work hard for her Bread and be content with little if he would receive her At which he smiled and said That cannot be we must have Money to build we take no Maids without Money you must find the way to get it else there is no entry here This astonish'd her greatly and she was thereby undeceiv'd as to the Cloysters resolving to forsake all Company and live alone till it should please God to shew her what she ought to do and whither to go XII The more she entered into her self the more she was enclin'd to abandon all and to retire somewhere without knowing whether her Heart was disengag'd from temporal Goods from worldly Pleasures from all Creatures Yet she did not find her self altogether free nor entirely united unto God for she was apt sometimes to turn again to what she had left She ask'd always earnestly When shall I be perfectly thine O my God And she thought he still answered her When thou shalt no longer possess any thing and shalt die to thy self And where shall I do that Lord He answered her In the Desart This made so strong an Impression on her Soul that she aspired after this but being a Maid of Eighteen Years only she was afraid of unlucky chances and was never us'd to travel and knew no way She laid aside all these Doubts and said Lord thou wilt guide me how and where it shall please thee It is for thee that I do it I will lay aside my Habit of a Maid and will take that of a Hermit that I may pass unknown XIII Having then secretly made ready this Habit while her Parents thought to have married her her Father having promis'd her to a rich French Merchant she prevented the time and on Easter Evening having cut her Hair put on the Habit and slept a little she went out of her Chamber about Four in the Morning taking nothing but One Penny to buy Bread for that Day and it being said to her in the going out Where is thy Faith in a Penny She threw it a way begging pardon of God for her Fault and saying No Lord my Faith is not in a Penny but in thee alone Thus she went away wholly delivered from the heavy Burthen of the Cares and good Things of this World and found her Soul so satisfied that she no longer wish'd for any thing upon Earth resting entirely upon God with this only fear least she should be discovered and be oblig'd to return home for she felt already more Content in this Poverty than she had done for all her Life in all the Delights of the World XIV She knew no way nor whither to go She went out at the Gate that leads to Tournay and came thither about Ten a Clock then past into the Province of Hainault and coming through a Village called Bassec where were arriv'd that Day a Company of Soldiers who were playing in the Market-Place when she had past by them and come to the end of the Village she met a number of Children at their Play who looking on her began to say it was a Maid and crying this so loud to one another the Soldiers ran to know the Fray and then taking Horse they overtook her in the Fields and stopt her asking who she was and whither she went She was surpriz'd but looking before her she saw a Church and hoping there might be some good Pastor there to deliver her she said she was going to the Pastor who would satisfie them The Commander brought her to the next Village Blatton to the old Mayor's House promising to have her to the Pastor's when once his Men were lodged There he thought to have abus'd her by force or enticement but she told him resolutely that he should first kill her or she him and that she believ'd the Earth would open to swallow him up The old Mayor and his Wife defended her and he threatned to burn the House and call'd his Men to Arms about it The Maid of the House got out at a Window and told the Pastor who coming into the Chamber where the Captain was raging like one mad gravely rebuked him and taking her by the Hand he with his Chaplain led her through the Soldiers into his Lodging the Captain sinking into an Astonishment against the Wall without stirring for the Pastor was a grave and vertuous Man of great Age whose Words had struck the Captain and taken away all his Strength and Spirit But when this was over he came with his Men to the Pastour's House to search for her and not finding her and being made believe she was gone they gallop'd toward Mons thinking to overtake her XV. The