the Duke that they had stolne into the Emperours tents by night and viewed his power which they found to exceed his by three parts and therefore counselled him not to try the hazard of the battell but to save his souldiers lives by flight which if they tarried they were sure to loose Wherewithall the Duke mistrusting no fraud sore affrighted tooke the next occasion of flight and returned home with dishonour Now when these three traitors came to the Emperour for their compacted rewards he caused them to bee payed in counterfeit money not equivaling the summe of their bargaine by the twentieth part which although at first they discerned not yet afterwards finding how they were cousened they returned to require their due and complaine of their wrong But the Emperor looking sternely upon them answered That counterfeit money was good enough for their counterfeit service and that if they tarried long they should have a due reward of their treason Ladislaus Lerezin Governour of Alba Iulia in Hungary under Maximilian the Emperour in the yeare 1566 the City being besieged and in some danger of losing albeit hee was advertised That within two dayes he should receive some reliefe yet yeelded the City traiterously into the hands of the Turkes upon composition The cruell Turks forgetting their faith and all humanity massacred all the souldiers within the City and sent Ladislaus the traitour bound hand and foot to Selym the great Turke where he was accused for his cruell slaying of some Turkish prisoners and delivered to his accusers to be used at their pleasure who a just reward of his former treason put him into a great Pipe stickt full of long nailes and then rolled him downe from a high mountaine so as the nailes ran through him and ended his life in horrible torment Besides his sonne that was also partaker of this treason died miserably without meanes and abandoned of all men in great poverty and extremity When as the City of Rhodes was besieged by the Turke there was in it a certaine traiterous Nobleman who upon promise to have one of Solymans daughters given him in marriage did many services to the Turke in secret to the prejudice of the City The Island and towne being woon he presented himselfe to Solyman expecting the performance of his promise but hee in recompence of his treason caused him to be flayed alive saying That it was not lawfull for a Christian to marry a Turkish wife except he put off his old skinne being thus flayed they layed him upon a bed all covered with salt and so poudered him that in short space he died in unspeakable tormenes CHAP. III. More examples of the same subject WHen Manuel the Emperour of Constantinople lay about Antioch with an army prepared against the Turke one of his chiefest officers namely his Chancellour put in practise this notable piece of treason against him he waged three desperate young men with an infinite summe of money to kill him on a day appointed and then with a band of souldiers determined to possesse himselfe of the Crowne and of the City and to slay all that any way crossed his purpose But the treason being discoured secretly to the Empresse she acquainted her Lord with it who tooke the three traitours and put them all to cruell deaths and as for the Chancellour he first bored out his eyes and plucking his tongue through his throat tormented him to death with a rigorous and most miserable punishment When the Turke besieged Alba Graeca certaine souldiers conspired to betray the City into his hands for he had promised them large rewards so to doe howbe it it succeeded not with them for they were detected and apprehended by Paulus Kynifius Governour of Hungary who constrained them to eat one anothers flesh seething every dayone to feed the other withall but he that was last was faine to devour his owne body Scribonianus a captaine of the Romans in Dalmatia rebelled against the Emperor Claudius and named himselfe emperor in the army but his rebellion was miraculously punished for though the whole army favored him very much yet they could not by any meanes spread their banners or remove their standers out of their places as long as he was called by the name of Emperor with which miracle being moved they turned their loves into hatred and their liking into loathing so that whom lately they saluted as Emperor him now they murthered as a traitor To rehearse all the English traitors that have conspired against their Kings from the Conquest unto this day it is a thing unnecessary and almost impossible Howbeit that their destructions may appeare more evidently and the curse of God upon traitors be made more manifest I will briefely reckon up a catalogue of the chiefest of them In the yere 1295 Lewline Prince of Wales rebelled against King Edward the first and after much adoe was taken by Sir Roger Mortimer and his head set upon the Tower of London In like sort was David Lewline's brother served Râ—â—s and Madok escaped no better measure in stirring the Welchmen up to rebellion No more did the Scots who having of their owne accord committed the government of their kingdome to king Edward after the death of Alexander who broke his neck by a fall from an horse and lest no issue male and sworne fealty unto him yet dispensed with their oath by the Popes commission and Frenchmens incitement and rebelled divers times against King Edward for he overcame them sundry times and made slaughter of their men slaying at one time 32000 and taking divers of their Nobles prisoners In like manner they rebelled against King Edward the third who made three voyages into that land in the space of foure yeares and at every time overcame and discomfited them insomuch that well neere all the nobility of Scotland with infinite number of the common people were slaine Thus they rebelled in Henry the sixths time and also Henry the eights and divers other kings reignes ever when our English forces were busied about forraine wars invading the land on the other side most traiterously In the reigne of King Henry the fourth there rebelled at one time against him Sir Iohn Holland D. of Excester with the Dukes of Aumarle Surrey Salisbury and Gloucester and at another time Sir Thomas Percy Earle of Worcester and Henry Percy son to the Earle of Northumberland at another Sir Richard Scroope Archbishop of Yorke and divers others of the house of the Lord Moubray at another time Sir Henry Percy the father Earle of Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph and lastly Ryce ap Dee and Owen Glendour two Welchmen all which were either slaine as Sir Henry Percy the younger or beheaded as the rest of these noble Rebels or starved to death as Owen Glendour was in the mountaines of Wales after he had devoured his owne flesh In the reigne of Henry the fifth Sir Richard Earle of Cambridge Sir Richard Scroope
but himselfe no man could ever after set eye on The magistrate advertised hereof came to the place where he was taken to be better informed of the truth taking the witnesse of the two women touching that which they had seene Here may wee see the strange and terrible events of Gods just vengeance upon such vile caitifes which doubtlesse are made manifest to strike a feare and terrour into the heart of every swearer and denier of God the world being but too full at this day of such wretches that are so inspired with Satan that they cannot speake but they must name him even him that is both an enemy to God and man and like a roaring lion runneth and roveth too and fro to devoure them not seeking any thing but mans destruction And yet when any paine assaileth them or any trouble disquieteth their minds or any danger threateneth to oppresse their bodies desperately they call upon him for aid when indeed it were more needfull to commend themselves to God and to pray for his grace and assistance having both a commandement so to doe and a promise adjoyned that he will help us in our necessities if we come unto him by true and hearty prayer It is not therefore without just cause that God hath propounded and laid open in this corrupt age a Theatre of his Iudgements that every man might be warned thereby CHAP. XXXI More examples of Gods Iudgements upon Cursers BVt before we goe to the next commandement wee will adjoyne a few more examples of this devillish cursing Martin Luther hath left registred unto us a notable example showne upon a popish priest that was once a professor of the sincere religion and fell away voluntarily unto Papisme whereof Adam Budissina was the reporter This man thundred out most bitter curses against Luther in the pulpit at a town called Ruthnerwald and amongst the rest wished that if Luthers doctrine were true a thunderbolt might strike him to death Now three dayes after there arose a mighty tempest with thunder and lightening whereat the cursed Priest bearing in himselfe a guilty conscience for that hee had untruly and malitiously spoken ranne hastily into the Church and there fell to his prayers before the Altar most devoutly but the vengeance of God found him out and his hypocrisie so that he was stroken dead with the lightening and albeit they recovered life in him againe yet as they led him homewards through the Church-yard another flâ—sh so set upon him that he was burnt from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot as blacke as a shoo so that he died with a manifest marke of Gods vengeance upon him Theodorus Beza reporteth unto us two notable histories of his owne knowledge of the severity of Gods judgment upon a curser and a perjurer the tenor whereof is this I knew said he in France a man of good parts well instructed in Religion and a master of a Familie who in his anger cursing and bidding the Divell take one of his children had presently his wish for the childe was possessed immediatly with a Spirit from which though by the servent and continuall prayers of the Church he was at length released yet ere he had fully recovered his health he died The like we read to have happened to a woman whom her husband in anger devoted with bitter curses to the Divell for Sathan assaulted her persently and robbed her of her wits so that she could never be recovered Another example saith he happened not far hence even in this country upon a perjurer that forswore him selfe to the end to deceive and prejudice another thereby but he had no sooner made an end of his false oath but a grievous Apoplexy assailed him so that without speaking of any one word he dyed within few dayes In the yere of our Lord 1557 the day before good fryday at Forchenum a city in the Bishopricke of Bamburg there was a certaine crooked Priest both in body and minde through age and evill conditions that could not go but upon crutches yet would needs be lifted into the pulpit to make a Sermon his text was out of the 11 chap. of the first Epistle to the Corinthians touching the Lords Supper whereout taking occasion to defend the Papisticall errours and the Masse hee used these or such like blasphemous speeches O Paul Paul if thy doctrine touching the receiving of the Sacrament in both kinds be true and if it be a wicked thing to receive it otherwise then would the divell might take me and turning to the people if the Popes doctrine concerning this point be not true then am I the divels bondslaue neither do I feare to pawne my soule upon it These and many other blasphemous words he used till the Divell came indeed transformed into the shape of a tall man blacke and terrible sending before him such a fearefull noyse and such a wind that the people supposed that the Church would have fallen on their heads but he not able to hurt the rest tooke away the old Priest being his devoted bondslave and carried him so far that he was never heard of The bishop of Rugenstines brother hardly escaped his hands for he came back to fetch him but he defending himself with his sword wounded his owne body and very narrowly escaped with his life Beside after this there were many visions seene about the citie as armies of men ready to enter and surprise them so that well was he that could hide himselfe in a corner At another time after the like noyse was heard in the Church whilst they were baptising an infant and all this for the abhominable cursing and blasphemy of the prophane Priest In the yeare of our Lorld 1556 at S. Gallus in Helvetia a certaine man that earned his living by making cleane rough and soule linnen against the Sun entering a taverne tasted so much the grape that he vomited out terrible curses against himselfe and others amongst the rest he wished if ever he went into the fields to his old occupation that the divell might come and breake his necke but when sleepe had conquered drinke and sobriety restored his sences he went again to his trade remembring indeed his late words but regarding them not howbeit the Divell to shew his double diligence attended on him at his appointed houre in the likenesse of a big swarthy man and asked him if he remembred his promise and vow which he had made the day before and if it were not lawfull for him to breake his necke and withall stroke the poore man trembling with feare over the shoulders that his feet and his hands presently dried up so that he lay there not able to stir till by help of men he was carried home the Lord not giving the Devill so much power over him as he wished himselfe but yet permitting him to plague him on this sort for his amendment and our example Henry Earle of Schwartburg through a corrupt custome used commonly to wish he might be drowned in a privy and as he wished so it hapned unto him for he was so served and murthered at S. Peters Monastery in Erford in the yeare of our Lord 1148.
grace of Gods spirit saw his Sorbonicall errors and renounced them betaking himselfe to the profession of the purer religion and the company and acquaintance of godly men amongst whom was Bucer that excellent man who sent him also to Nurnburge to oversee the printing of a booke which he was to publish Whilest Diazius lived at this Nurnburge a city scituat upon the river Dimow his brother a lawyer and judge laterall to the Inquisition by name Alphonsus came thither and by all meanes possible endevoured to dissuade him from his religion and to reduce him againe to Popery But the good man persisted in the truth notwithstanding all his perswasions and threats wherefore the subtill fox took another course and faining himselfe to be converted also to his religion exhorted him to goe with him into Italy where he might do much good or at the least to Angust but by the counsell of Bucer and his friends he was kept back otherwise willing to follow his brother Wherefore Alphonsus departed and exhorted him to constancy and perseverance giving him also fourteene crowns to defray his charges Now the wolfe had not been three dayes absent when he hired a rakehell and common butcher and with him flew again to Nurnburge in post hast and comming to his brothers lodging delivered him a letter which whilest he read the villain his confederat cleft his head in pieces with an axe leaving him dead upon the floore and so fled with all expedition Howbeit they were apprehended yet quit by the Popes justice so holy and sacred are the fruits of his Holinesse though not by the justice of God for within a while after hee hung himselfe upon his mules necke at Trent Duke Abrogastes slew Valentinian the Emperour of the West and advanced Eugenius to the crowne of the Empire but a while after the same sword which had slain his lord and master was by his owne hands turned into his owne bowels Mempricius the sonne of Madan the fourth King of England then called Britaine after Brute had a brother called Manlius betwixt whom was great strife for the soveraigne dominion but to rid himselfe of all his trouble at once he slew his brother Manlius by treason and after continued his raigne in tyranny and all unlawfull lusts the space of twenty yeeres but although vengeance all this while winked yet it slept not for at the end of this space as he was hunting he was devoured of wilde beasts In the yeare of our Lord God 745 one Sigebert was authorised king of the Saxons in Britaine a cruell and tyrannous Prince towards his subjects and one that changed the ancient Lawes and customes of his Realme after his owne pleasure and because a certaine Nobleman somewhat sharpely advertised him of his evill conditions hee maliciously caused him to bee put to death But see how the Lord revenged this murder hee caused his Nobles to deprive him of his kingly authority and at last as a desolate and forlorne person wandring alone in a wood to be slaine of a swineheard whose master he being king had wrongfully put to death About the yeare of our Lord 793 Ethelbert king of the East Angles a learned and right godly Prince came to the court of Offa the king of Mercia perswaded by the counsell of his nobles to sue for the marriage of his daughter well accompanied like a prince with a great traine of men about him whereupon Offa's Queene conceiving a false suspition of that which was never minded That Ethelbert under the pretence of this marriage was come to worke some violence against her husband and the kingdome of Mercia so perswaded with king Offa and certaine of his Councell that night that the next day following Offa caused him to be trained into his palace alone from his company by one called Guymbertus who tooke him and bound him and after strooke off his head which forthwith he presented to the king and Queene Thus was the innocent King wrongfully murdered but not without a just revenge on Gods hand for the aforesaid Queene worker of this villany lived not three moneths after and in her death was so tormented that she bit and rent her tongue in pieces with her teeth which was the instrument to set abroach that murtherous practise Offa himselfe understanding at length the innocency of the king and the hainous cruelty of his fact gave the tenth part of his goods to the Church bestowed upon the Church of Hereford in remembrance of this Ethelbert great lands builded the Abbey of S. Albons with certaine other Monasteries beside and afterward went to Rome for his penance where hee gave to the Church of S. Peter a peny through every house in his dominion which was commonly called Romeshot or Peterpence and there at length was transformed from a king to a monke Thus God punished not only him and his wife but the whole land for this vile murder One principall cause of the conquest of this land by the Normans was a vile and horrible murder committed by one Goodwin an Earle in England upon certaine Mormans that came overwith Alfred and Edward to visit their mother Emma that had beene married to King Canutus This matter thus fell out When these two came from Normandy to England to visit their mother as I have said Earle Goodwin having a daughter called Godith whom hee thought to marry to Edward and advance him to the kingdome to bring his purpose to passe used this practise that is to perswade King Hardeknout and the Lords not to suffer those Normans to bee within the Realme for jeopardy but rather to punish them for example by which meanes hee got authority to order the matter himselfe Wherefore hee met them on Guild downe and there wretchedly murdered or rather martyred the most part of the Normans killing nine and leaving the tenth alive throughout the whole company and then tything againe the said tyth he slew every tenth knight and that by cruell torment as winding their guts out of their body after a most savage manner among the rest he put out the eyes of the elder of the two brethren Alfred and sent him to an Abbey at Elie where being fed with bread and water hee ere long ended his life Now albeit hee obtained his purpose hereby and married his daughter to Edward who was after King called Edward the Confessor yet did not Gods justice sleepe to punish this horrible murder for he himselfe died not long after suddenly having forsworne himselfe and the Normanes with William their Duke ere long came into this Iland to revenge this murder as also to claime a right of inheritance bequeathed unto him by Edward his Nephew and how hee succeeded and what misery he brought this whole Nation unto who knoweth not But heere is the justice of God As the Normans comming with a naturall English Prince were most cruelly and barbarously murdered of Englishmen so afterwards the Englishmen were slaine and
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
of all so strucke him after that he died Ioram King of Iuda although his father Iosaphat had instructed him from his childehood with holy and wholsome precepts and set before his face the example of his owne zeale in purging the Church of God from all Idolatry and superstition and maintaining the true and pure service of God yet did he so foulely runne astray from his fathers steps that allying himselfe by the marriage of Athalia to the house of Achab he became not only himselfe like unto the Kings of Israel in their filthy idolatry but also drew his people after him causing the inhabitants of Ierusalem and men of Iuda to runne a whoring after his strange gods for which cause Elias the Prophet most sharply reproved him by letters the contents whereof in summe was this That because he rebelled against the Lord God of his Fathers therefore the people that were in his subjection should rebell against him Presently the Arabians and Philistims rose up against him wasted his countrey robbed him of his treasures tooke away his wives and put all his children to the sword except little Ochozias his youngest sonne that was preserved And after all these miseries the Lord smote him with so outragious and uncurable disease in his bowels that after two yeares torment he died thereof his guts being fallen out of his belly with anguish Ioas also King of the same country was one to whom God had bin many wayes beneficiall from his infancy for he was even then miraculously preserved from the bloudy hand of Athalia and after brought up in the house of God under the tuition of that good Priest Iehoiada yet he was no sooner lifted up into his royall dignity but by and by he and his people started aside to the worship of stocks and stones at that time when hee had taken upon him the repaire of the House of God But all this came to passe after the decease of that good Priest his Tutor whose good deeds towards him in saving his life and giving him the Crowne he most unthankfully recompenced by putting to death his sonne Zacharias whom hee caused for reproving and threatning his Idolatry in a publique assembly incited thereto by the Spirit of God to be stoned to death in the porch of the Temple But seeing he did so rebelliously set himselfe against the holy Spirit as if he would have quite oppressed and extinguished the power thereof by the death of this holy Prophet by whom it spake God hissed for an army of Syrians that gave him battell and conquered his souldiers who in outward shew seemed much too strong for them His Princes also that had seduced him were destroyed and himselfe vexed with grievous diseases till at length his owne servants conspired against him for the death of Zacharias and slew him on his bed yea and his memory was so odious that they could not afford him a burying place among the sepulchres of their Kings Amazias the sonne of this wicked father carried himselfe also at the first uprightly towards God in his service but it lasted not long for a while after he was corrupted and turned aside from that good way which he had begun to tread in the by-paths of his father Ioas for after he had conquered the Idumaeans and slaine twenty thousand men of warre and spoyled divers of their cities in stead of rendring due thanks to God who without the ayde of the Israelites had given him that victory he set up the gods of the Edomites which he had robbed them of to be his gods and worshipped and burned incense to them so void of sence and reason was he And being rebuked by the Prophet of his adverse dealing he was so farre from humbling and repenting himself thereof that quite contrary he proudly withstood and rejected the Prophets threatnings menacing him with death if he ceased not Thus by this means having aggravated his sinne and growing more and more obstinate God made him an instrument to hasten his owne destruction for being proud and puffed up with the overthrow which he gave the Edomites he defied the King of Israel and provoked him to battell also but full evill to his ease for he lost the day and was carried prisoner to Ierusalem where before his face for more reproach foure hundred cubits of the wall was broken downe the Temple and Palace ransackt of his Treasures and his children carried for hostages to Samaria And not long after treason was devised against him in Ierusalem so that he fled to Lachish and being pursued thither also was there taken and put to death Likewise King Ahaz for making molten Images for Baalim and walking in the idolatrous wayes of the Kings of Israel and burning his sonnes with fire after the abhomination of the heathen in the valley of Ben-Hinnon was forsaken of the Lord and delivered into the hands of the King of Syria who carried him prisoner to Damascus and not onely so but was also subdued by Pekah King of Israel in that great battell wherein his owne sonne with fourescore thousand men at armes were slaine yea and two hundred thousand of all sorts men women and children were taken prisoners for all these chastisements did he not once reforme his life but rather grew worse and worse To make up the number of his sinnes he would needs sacrifice to the gods of Damascus also thinking to finde succour at their hands so that he utterly defaced the true service of God at Ierusalem broke in pieces the holy Vessels lockt up the Temple dores and placed in their steads his abhominable Idols for the people to worship and erected Altars in every corner of the city to doe sacrifice on But as he rebelled on every side against his God so God raised up enemies on every side to disturbe him the Edomites and Philistims assaulted him on every side beat his people tooke and ransackt his cities on the other side the Assyrians whom he had hired with a great sum for his help turned to his undoing and utter overthrow and confusion Wat shall we thinke of Manasses who re-edified the high places and Altars which the zeale of Ezechâ— as his father had defaced and throwne downe and adored and worshipped the planets of Heaven the Sunne the Moone and the Starres prophaned the porch of Gods Temple with Altars dedicated to strange gods committing thereon all the abhominations of the Gentiles yea and caused his sonnes to passe through the valley of Ben-Hinnon and was an observer of times and seasons and gave himselfe over to witchcraft charming and sorceries and used the help of familiar spirits and Soothsayers and that which is more placed a carved Image in the house of God flat against the second commandement of the Law So that he did not only go astray and erre himselfe in giving over his mind to most wicked and damnable heresies but also seduced the people by his pernitious example and
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
and then afterwards making shew before Constantine the Emperour with a solemne oath to recant his old errours and approve the profession of Faith which the Councell of Nice had set forth concernning Christs divinity whereunto also he subscribed his name but all that he did was in hypocrisie to the end to renew and republish the more boldly his false and pernitious doctrine But when he thought himselfe neerest to the attainment of his purpose and braved it most with his supporters and companions even then the Lord stroke him with a sudden fear in the open street and with such horrible pangs in his guts and vehement desire of disburthening nature that he was faine to come unto the publick houses appointed for that purpose taking them which were next at hand for a shift but he never shifted from them again for his breath went out of his mouth and his guts ran out of his fundament and there lay he dead upon his owne excrements As the Emperour Constantius was a great favourer and supporter of this sect and maintained it against and in despight of true Christans and by that meanes stirred up schismes and dissentions throughout all Christendome so the Lord to requite him stirred up Iulian whom he himselfe had promoted to honour to rebell against him whose practices as he went about to suppresse and was even ready to encounter a grievous Apoplexy sudenly surcharged him so sore that he died of it before he could bring his purpose to passe The Emperour Valens was infected also with this poyson wherewith likewise he infected the Gothes who by his means were become the greater part Arrians and not Christians but neither went he unpunished for when he marched forth to represse the rage of the furious Gothes who were spread over all Thracia and had given them battell he lost the day and being shamefully put to flight was pursued so fiercely that hee was faine to hide himselfe in a little house which being set on fire by the Gothes he was burnt therein As for Nestorius which would maintaine by his foolish and dangerous opinions that the divinity of Christ was divided from his humanity making as it were two Christs of one and two persons of one and so turned upside downe that whole ground-worke of our salvation escaped no more the just vengeance of God than all other Hereticks did for first he was banished into a far country and their tormented with a strange disease the very wormes did gnaw in pieces his blasphemous tongue and at length the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed him up Concerning the Anabaptists which rose up about five hundred yeares since it is evidently known how divers wayes God scourged and plagued many of them some of them were destroyed by troops and by thousands others miserably executed and put to death in divers places as well for their monstrous and damnable heresies as for many mischiefes and outrages which they committed By all which things God doth exhibit and set before our eyes how deere and precious in his sight the purenesse of his holy Word and the unity of his Church is and how carefull and zealous every one of us ought to be in maintaining and upholding the â—ame when as he revengeth himselfe so sharply upon all those that go about to pervert and corrupt the sincerity thereof or which be breeders of new sects and divisions among his people Olympus by office Bishop of Carthage but by profession a â—avourer and maintainer of the Arriah heresie being upon a time in the Bath 〈◊〉 himselfe he uttered with an impious mouth blasphemous words against the holy Trinity but a threefold thunderbolt came from above and stroke him dead in the same place teaching him by his paine and all other by experience what it is to blaspheme the Lord of Heaven or with polluted lips to mention his sacred Majesty This hapned in the yeare of our Lord God five hundred and ten Cyril hath recorded unto us of his owne knowledge a more wonderfull and admirable wonder of God upon an Heretique than all the rest and such an one indeed as the like I dare say was never heard of The history is this After the decease of Saint Hierome there stood up one Sabinianus a perverse and blasphemous fellow that denied the distinction of persons in the Trinity and affirmed the Father the Sonne and the Holy-Ghost to be but one distinct person and to give credit to his heresie he wrot a booke of such blasphemies tending to the confirmation of the same and fathered it upon Saint Hierome as being the Author of it But Silvanus the Bishop of Nazaren mightily withstood and reproved him for depraving so worthy a man now dead and offering his life for the truth made this bargain with Sabinianus That if Saint Hierome the next day did not by some miracle testifie the falsenesse of his cause he would offer his throat to the hangman and abide death but if he did that then he should die This was agreed upon by each party and the day following both of them accompanied with great expectation of the people resorted unto the Temple of Jerusalem to decide the controversie Now the day was past and no miracle appeared so that Silvanus was commanded to yeeld his neck to that punishment which himselfe was Author of which as he most willingly and confidently did behold an Image like to Saint Hierome in shew appeared and stayed the hangmans hand which was now ready to strike and vanishing forthwith another miracle succeeded Sabinianus head fell from his shoulders no man striking at it and his carkasse remained upon the ground dead and sencelesse Whereat the people amased praising God clave unto Silvanus and abjured Sabinianus heresie Whence wee may observe the wonderfull wisedome of God both in punishing his enemies and trying his children whither they will stand to his Truth or no and learne thereby neither rashly to measure and limit the purposes of God nor yet timorously to despaire of help in a good cause though we see no meanes nor likelihood thereof Grimoald King of Lombardy was infected with the Arrian heresie for which cause the Lord punished him with untimely death for having been let bloud the eleventh day after as he strove to draw a bow he opened the veine anew and so bled to death â—abades King of Persia when he saw his sonne Phorsuasa addicted to the Maniches he assembled as many as he could of that sect into one place and there setting his Souldiers on them slew them till there was not one left Photinuâ— a Gallograecian for renuing the heresie of Hebion and affirming Christ to be but an excellent man borne naturally by Mary after the manner of other men excelling in justice and morall vertues was by the Emperour Valentinianus justly banished The Emperor Iustinian favouring the heresie of the Apthardocites when as he gave out one Edict whereby Anastasius the Bishop and all other that
they say that this wretch having given himselfe to the Devill provided store of holy bread as they call it which he alwaies carried about with him thinking thereby to keep himself from his clawes but it served him to small stead as his end declared About the yeare 1437 Charles the seventh being King of France Sir Glyes of Britaine Lord of Rais and high Constable of France was accused by the report of Enguerran de Monstrelet for having murthered many infants and women with childe to the number of eightscore or more with whose bloud he either writ or caused to be written books full of conjurations hoping by that abhominable means to attaine to high matters but it happened cleane crosse and contrary to his expectation and practise for being convinced of those horrible crimes it being Gods will that such grosse and palpable sinnes should not go unpunished he was adjudged to be hanged and burned to death which was also accordingly executed at Nantes by the authority of the Duke of Britaine Iohn Francis Picus of Mirand saith That he conferred divers times with many who being inticed with a vaine hope of knowing things to come were afterwards so grievously tormented by the Devill with whom they had made some bargain that they thought themselves thrise happy if they escaped with their lives He saith moreover That there was in his time a certaine Conjurer that promised a too curious and no great wise Prince to present unto him upon a stage the siege of Troy and Achilles and Hector fighting together as they did when they were alive but he could not performe his promise for another sport and spectacle more hideous and ougly to his person for he was taken away alive by a Devill in such sort that he was never afterward heard of In our owne memory the Earle of Aspremont and his brother Lord of Orne were made famous and in every mans mouth for their strange and prodigious seats wherein they were so unreasonably dissolute and vaine-glorious that sometime they made it their sport and pastime to breake downe all the windowes about the castle Aspremont where they kept which lyeth in Lorraine two miles from Saint Michael and threw them piecemeale into a deep Well to heare them cry plumpe but this vaine excesse presaged a ruine and destruction to come as well upon their house which at this present lyeth desolate and ruinous in many respects as upon themselves that finished their daies in misery one after another as we shall now understand of the one the Lord of Orne as for the Earle how hee died shall more at large be declared elsewhere Now it chanced that as the Lord of Orne was of most wicked and cruell conditions so hee had an evill favoured looke answerable to his inclination and name to be a Conjurer the report that went of his cruelty was this That upon a time he put the Baker one of his servants whose wiâ—e he used secretly to entertaine into a â—un which he caused to be rowled from the top of a hill into the bottome sometimes as high as a pike as the place gave occasion but by the great mercy of God notwithstanding all this this poore man saved his life Furthermore it was a common report that when any Gentlemen or Lords came to see him they were entertained as they thought very honourably being served with all sort of most dainty faire and exquisite dishes as if he had not spared to make them the best cheere that might be but at their departure they that thought themselves well refreshed found their stomacke empty and almost pined for want of food having neither eaten nor drunk any thing save in imagination only and it is to be thought that their horses found no better fare than their masters It happened one day that a certaine Lord being departed from his house one of his men having left something behind returned to the Castle and entring suddenly into the hall where they dined but a little before he espied a Munky beating the master of the house that had feasted them of late very sore And there be others that say that he hath been seen through the chink of a dore lying on a table upon his belly all at length and a Munkey scourging him very strangely to whom he should say Let me alone let me alone wilt thou alwaies torment me thus And thus he continued a long time but at length after he had made away all his substance he was brought to such extremity that being destitute of maintenance and forsaken of all men he was fain for want of a better refuge to betake himselfe to the Hospitall of Paris which was his last Mansion house wherein he died See here to how pittifull and miserable an end this man fell that having been esteemed amongst the Mighties of this world for making no more account of God and for following the illusions of Satan the common enemy of mannkdi became so poore and wretched as to dye in an Hospitall among Cripples and Beggars It is not long since there was in Lorraine a certaine man called Coulen that was over much given to this cursed Art amongst whose tricks this was one to be wondred at that he would suffer harquebuses or pistols to be shot at him and catch their bullets in his hand without receiving any hurt but upon a certain time one of his servants being angry with him hot him such a knock with a pistoll notwithstanding all his great cunning that he killed him therewith Moreover it is worthy to be observed That within these two hundred yeares hitherto more Monks and Priests have been found given over to these abhominations and devillishnesses than of all other degrees of people whatsoever as it is declared in the second volume of Enguerran de Monstralet more at large where he maketh mention of a Monke that used to practise his sorceries in the top of a tower of an Abbey lying neere to Longin upon Marne where the Devils presented themselves to be at his commandement and this was in the raigne of Charles the sixth In the same booke it is recorded That in the raigne of Charles the seventh one Master William Ediline Doctor in Divinity and Prior of Saint Germaine in Lay having been an Augustine Frier gave himselfe to the Devill for his pleasure even to have his will of a certain woman he was upon a time in a place where a Synagogue of people were gathered together where to the end that he might quickly be as he himselfe confessed he took a broom and rode upon it He confessed also that he had don homage to that enemy of God the Devill who appeared unto him in the shape of a sheep and made him kisse his hinder parts as he reported For which causes hee was placed upon a scaffold and openly made to weare a paper containing his owne faults and afterwards plotted to live prisoner all the rest of his life laden with yrons in
dagger into his own head in such sort that notwithstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought he shortly after died thereof the manner of his death being so terrible for he even cursed and blasphemed to his last gaspe and together with his breath an oath flew out of his mouth that it was not onely a manifest signe of Gods judgement but also an horrible and fearefull terrour to all that beheld him But herein did the justice of God most notably appeare in that he compelled his own hand which had written those blasphemies to be the instrument to punish him and that in his braine which had devised the same Another also of our owne nation is not to be overpassed who for an Atheist and an Epicure might compare with any of the former and for the judgement of God upon him doth give place to none It was a gentleman of Barkshire whose name I forbeare to expresse a man of great possessions This man was an open contemner of God and all Religion a profest Atheist and a scorner of the Word of God and Sacraments insomuch as I have heard reported of very credible persons being a witnesse at the baptising of a childe he would needs have it called Beelzebub Besides this he was given over to all sensuality of the flesh keeping in his house continually notorious strumpets and that openly without shame his mouth was so accustomed to swearing that he could scarse speake without an oath This miserable man or rather beast having continued long in this damnable course of life at last Gods heavy vengeance found him out for upon a certain day riding abroad a hunting with another companion as they were discoursing of many vaine matters it pleased Almighty God of a sudden to strike him with sudden death for falling suddenly to the crupper of his horse backward he was taken downe starke dead with his tongue hanging out of his mouth after a fearfull manner and became a terrible example to all wicked Atheists of Gods justice Hither I might adde the examples of others who having been in high places of favour in former times are fallen like Lucifer from their heaven that is their worldly felicity and live like him in chaines of imprisonments These had wont being in their bravery to mocke at all Religion and to make themselves merry with scoffing at the holy Scripture but the Lord hath brought them downe and plucked the feathers of their pride to teach them to know there is a God and that Religion is no matter of policy but Gods owne ordinance to bring men to blessednesse and let them be assured if they repent not the Lord will yet further execute his vengeance upon them and make them more manifest spectacles of his justice Many more moderne and home-bred examples I could adde of some that were hanged some that died desperate some that were deprived of their senses having been notorious Atheists and Epicures in their lives but I hope these already named are sufficient to prove that the Lord of heaven observeth the wayes of men and rewardeth every man according to his works especially such as strive to deny his Essence-or his sonne Christ. I would to God and I pray it from my heart that all Atheists in this Realme and in the world beside would by the remembrance and consideration of these examples either forsake their horrible impiety or that they might in like manner come to destruction and so that abominable sin which so flourisheth amongst men of greatest name might either be quite extinguished and rooted out or at least smothered and kept under that iâ— durst not shew it head any more in the worlds eye CHAP XXII Touching the transgressors of the second Commandement by Idolatry WE have hitherto seene how and in what sort they that either by malice or impiety or Apostasie or heresie or otherwise have transgressed the first Commandement have been punished Let us now consider the judgements that have befallen Idolaters the breakers of the second Commandement But before we proceed wee must know that as it is required of us by the first Commandement to hold God for our true and onely God to repose all our whole trust and confidence in him and call upon him serve and worship him alone so in the second to this the contrary to this is forbidden which is to doe any manner of service honour and reverence by devotion to Idols forasmuch he is a Spirit that is to say of a spirituall nature and Essence which is infinite and incomprehensible so loveth he a spirituall worship and service which is answerable to his nature and not by Images and pictures and such other outward and corruptible means which he hath in no wise commanded wherefore Isaiah the Prophet reproving the folly and vanity of Idolaters saith To whom will you liken God or what similitude will you set up unto him Therefore if it be not Gods will that under pretence and colour of his owne name any Image or picture should be adored being a thing not only inconvenient but also absurd and unseemly much lesse can hee abide to have them worshipped under the name and title of any creature whatsoever And for this cause gave he the second Commandement Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image c. which prohibition the Israelites brake in the desart when they set up a golden calfe and bowed themselves before it after the manner of the Paynims giving it the honour which was onely due to God whereby they incurred the indignation of Almighty God who is strong and jealous of suffeâ—ing any such slander to be done unto his name wherefore he caused thâ—â—e thousand of them to be stroken and wounded to death by the hand of the Levites at the commandement of Moses to make his anger against Idolatry more manifest by causing them to be executioners of his revenge who were ordained for the ministry of his Church and the service of the Altar and Tabernacle Howbeit for all this the same people not long after fell back into the same sin and bowed themselves befere strange gods and through the allurements of the daughters of Moab joyned themselves to Belphegor for which cause the Lord being insenced stroke them with so grievous a plague that there died of them in one day about twenty and foure thousand persons And albeit that after all this being brought by him into the land of promise he had forbidden and threatned them for cleaving to the Idols of the nations whose land they possessed yet were they so prone to Idolatry that notwithstanding all this they fell to serve Baal and Astaroth wherefore the fire of Gods wrath was inflamed against them and he gave them over to be a spoyle and prey unto their enemies on every side so that for many yeares sometimes the Moabites oppressed them otherwhiles the Madianites and ever after the death of any of their Iudges and Rulers which God raised
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
The like befell a young Courtier at Mansfield whose custome was in any earnest asseveration to say The Devill take me if it be not so the Devill indeed tooke him whilest hee slept and threw him out of a high window where albeit by the good providence of God he oâ—ught no great hurt yet he learnt by experience to bridle his tongue from all such cursed speeches this being but a tast of Gods wrath that is to fall upon such wretches as he At Oster a village in the duchy of Megalopole there chanced a most strange and fearefull example upon a woman that gave her selfe to the Devill both body and soule and used most horrible cursings and oathes both against her selfe and others which detestible manner of behaviour as at many other times so especially shee shewed at a marriage in the foresaid village upon S. Iohn Baptists day the whole people exhorting her to leave off that monstrous villany but she nothing bettered continued her course till all the company were set at dinner and very merry Then loe the Devill having got full possession of her came in person and transported her into the aire before them all with most horrible outcries and roarings and in that sort carried her round about the towne that the Inhabitants were ready to die with feare and by ct by tore her in foure pieces leaving in four severall high wayes a quarter that all that came by might be witnesses of her punishment And then returning to the marriage threw her bowels upon the table before the Major of the towne with these words Behold these dishes of meat belong to thee whom the like destruction awaiteth if thou doest not amend thy wicked life The reporters of this history were Iohn Herman the Minister of the said towne with the Major himselfe and the whole Inhabitants being desirous to have it knowne to the world for example sake In Luthers conferences there is mention made of this story following Divers noblemen were striving together at a horse race and in their course cried The Devill take the last Now the last was a horse that broke loose whom the Devill hoisted up into the aire and tooke cleane away Which teacheth us not to call for the Devill for he is ready alwayes about us uncalled and unlooked for yea many legions of them compasse us about even in our best actions to disturbe and pervert us A certaine man not far from Gorlitz provided a sumptuous supper and invited many guests unto it who at the time appointed refused to come he in anger cried Then let all the Devils in hell come Neither was his wish frivolous for a number of those hellish fiends came forthwith whom he not discerning from men came to welcome and entertaine but as he tooke them by the hands and perceiued in stead of fingers clawes all dismaied he ran out of the doores with his wife and left none in the house but a young infant with a foole sitting by the fire whom the Divels had no power to hurt neither any man else save the goodly supper which they made away withall and so departed It is notoriously knowne in Oundle a towne in Northamptonshire amongst all that were acquainted with the partie namely one Hacket of whom more hath spoken before how he used in his earnest talke to curse himselfe on this manner If it be not true then let a visible confusion come upon me Now he wanted not his wish for he came to a visible confusion indeed as hath been declared more at large in the twentieth chapter of this booke At Witeberg before Martin Luther and divers other learned men a woman whose daughter was possessed with a spirit confessed That by her curse that plague was fallen upon her for being angry at a time she bad the Divell take her and she had no sooner spoken the word but he tooke her indeed and possessed her in most strange sort No whit lesse strange and horrible is that which happened at Neoburg in Germanie to a sonne that was cursed of his mother in her anger with this curse she prayed God she might never see him returne aliue for the same day the yong man bathing himselfe in the water was drowned and never returned to his mother alive according to her ungodly wish The like judgement of God we read of to have beene executed upon another sonne that was banned and cursed by his mother in the citie of Astorga The mother in her rage cursed one of her sons with detestable maledictions betaking him to the Diuels of hell and wishing that they would fetch him out of her presence with many other horrible execrations This was about ten a clocke at night the same being very darke and obscure the boy at last through feare went out into a little court behind the house from the which hee was suddenly hoised up into the ayte by men in shew of grim countenance great stature and loathsome and horrible gesture but indeed cruell fiends of hell and that with such swiftnesse as he himselfe after confessed that it was not possible to his seeming for any bird in the world to fly so fast and lighting downe amongst certaine mountaines of bushes and briers was trailed through the thickest of them and so all torne and rent not only in his cloaths but also in his hands and face and almost his whole body At last the boy remembring God and beseeching him of helpe and assistance the cruell fiends brought him backe againe through the aire and put him in at a little window into a chamber in his fathers house where after much search and griefe for him hee was found in this pittifull plight and almost besides himselfe And thus though they had not power to deprive him of his life as they had done the former yet the Lord suffered them to afflict the parents in the sonne for the good of both parents and sonne if they belonged unto the Lord. But above all this is most strange which hapned in a town of Misina in the yeare of our Lord God 1552 the eleventh of September where a cholericke father seeing his sonne flacke about his businesse wished hee might never stirre from that place for it was no sooner said but done his sonne stucke fast in the place neither by any meanes possible could be removed no not so much as to fit or bend his body till by the praiers of the Faithfull his paines were somewhat mitigated though not remitted three yeares he continued standing with a post at his backe for his ease and foure yeares sitting at the end whereof he died nothing weakened in his understanding but professing the faith and not doubting of his salvation in
and til the land Now what was the cause of this lamentable destruction of this holy City of the Temple and Sanctuary of the Lord and of his owne people it is set downe by the holy-Ghost in expresse word 2 Chro. 36. 15 16. That When the Lord sent unto them by his Messengers rising early and sending because he had compassion on them and on his habitation they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets and therefore the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy Behold here the grievous judgement of the Lord upon such as contemned his Word and despised his Prophets Thus was the first city and temple destroyed and did the second fare any better no verily but far worse for as their sinne was greater in that the former Iews contemned only the Word spoken by the Prophets which were but servants these despised the Word spoken by the Sonne himself which is the Lord of life so their punishment was also the greater for as the Apostle saith If they which despised Moses Law died without mercy how much sorer punishment are they worthy of which tread under foot the Sonne of God and count the bloud of the Testament as an unholy thing and neglect so great salvation which first began to be preached by the Lord himselfe and afterward was confirmed by them which heard him Therefore the destruction of the second city and temple by Titus and Vespasian Emperours of Rome was far more lamentable than that of the former yea so terrible and fearefull was the judgement of God upon that nation at this time that never the like calamitie and misery was heard or read of there at the siege of Ierusalem the famin was so great within the walls and the sword so terrible without that within they were constrained to eat not only leather and old shoo 's but horse-dung yea their owne excrements and some to devour their owne children and as many as issued out were crucified by the Romans as they had crucified the Saviour of the world till they had no more wood to naile them on So that it was most true which our Saviour foreprophesied That such should be the tribulation of that time as was not from the beginning of the world nor should be againe to the end At this destruction perished eleven hundred thousand Iewes as Historians report besides them which Vespasian slew in subduing the country of Galilee over and besides them also which were sould and sent into Aegypt and other provinces to vile slavery to the number of seventeene thousand two thousand were brought with Titus in triumph of which part he gave to be devoured of wilde beasts and part otherwise most cruelly were slaine By whose case all nations may take example what it is to reject the visitation of Gods verity being sent unto them and much more to persecute them which be sent of God for their salvation And here is diligently to be observed the great equity of this judgment they refused Christ to be their King and chose rather to be subject unto Caesar now they are by the said their owne Caesar destroyed when as Christs subjects the same time escaped the danger The like example of Gods wrathfull punishment is to be noted no lesse in the Romans also themselves for despising Christ and his Gospel for when Tiberius Nero the Emperor having received by letters from Pontius Pilat a true report of the doings of Christ Iesus of his miracles resurrection and ascention into heaven and how he was received as God of many good men was himselfe mooved with beleefe of the same and did confer thereof with the whole Senat of Rome to have Christ adored as God But they not agreeing thereunto refused him because that contrary to the law of the Romans he was consecrated said they for a God before the Senat of Rome had decreed and approved him Thus the vaine Senat which were contented with the Emperor to raign over them were not contented with the meeke King of glory the Sonne of God to be their King yea they contemned also the preaching of the two blessed Apostles Peter and Paul who were also most cruelly put to death in the later end of Domitius Nero his raigne and the yeare of Christ 69 for the testimony and saith of Christ. And therefore after much like sort to the Iews were they scourged and entrapped by the same way which they did prefer for as they preferred the Emperour and rejected Christ so did God stirre up their owne Emperours against them in such sort that both the Senators themselves were all devoured and the whole city most horribly afflicted the space almost of three hundred yeares together Neither were they only thus scourged by their Emperors but also by civill wars whereof three were sought in two yeares at Rome after Nero's death as likewise by other casualties for in Suetonius is testified five thousand were hurt and slaine by fall of a Theatre How heavy and searefull the judgement of God hath beene towards those seven famous Churches of Asia to the which the holy Ghost writeth his seven Epistles Revel 2 and 3. histories sufficiently testifie and experience sheweth for whereas in the Apostles time and long after in the dayes of persecution no Churches in the world more flourished after when they began to make light account of the word of God and to fall away from the truth to errors from godlinesse to impieties the Lord also made light account of them and removed his Candlesticke that is the ministery of his Gospell from amongst them and made them a prey unto their enemies and so they which before were subjects to Christ are now slaves to Mahomet and there where the true God was worshipped is now a filthy Idol adored and instead of the Gospel of Christ is the Turks Alcoran in stead of the seven stars and seven candlesticks are seven thousand priests of Mahomet and worshippers of him and thus for the contempt of the Gospel of Christ is the Chrurch of Christians made a cage of Divels Venerable Bede in his Ecclesticall history of England reporteth That about the yeare of our Lord 420 after that the Brittons had been long afflicted by the Irish Picts and Scots and that the Lord had given them rest from all their enemies and had blessed them with such great plenty of corn and fruits of the earth as had not been before heard of they fell into all manner of sins and vices and in stead of shewing themselves thankfull to the Lord for his great mercies provoked his indignation more fiercely against them for as he saith together with plenty grew ryot and this was accompanied with a train of many other foule enormities especially the hatred of the truth contempt of the Word and that not only in the Laity and ignorant people but even also in the Clergy and Sheepheards of the
to the hurting and endangering of many sometime one thing sometime another hath fallen out to the great damage and hurt of many that have no conscience of this day yea often to the endangering of their lives and that which is most strange within these late yeares a whole town hath been twice burnt for the breach of the Sabbath by the inhabitants as all men judged The just report thereof I passe over here to set downe untill such time as I shall be better instructed Famous and memorable also is that example which happened at London in the yeare 1583 at Paris garden where upon the Sabbath day were gathered together as accustomably they used great multitudes of prophane people to behold the sport of Beare baiting without respect of the Lords day or any exercise of religion required therein which prophane impiety the Lord that he might chasten in some sort and shew his dislike thereof he caused the scaffolds suddenly to breake and the beholders to tumble headlong downe so that to the number of eight persons men and women were slaine therewith besides many others which were sore hurt and bruised to the shortening of their dayes The like example happened at a towne in Bedford shire called Risley in the yeare 1607 Where the floore of a chamber wherein a number were gathered together to see a play on the Sabbath day fell downe by meanes whereof many were sore hurt and some killed Surely a friendly warning to such as more delight themselves with the cruelty of beasts and vain sports than with the works of mercy and Religion the fruits of a true faith which ought to be the Sabbath dayes exercise And thus much for the examples of the first Table whereof if some seeme to exceed credit by reason of the strangenesse of them yet let us know that nothing is impossible to God and that hee doth often worke miracles to controll the obstinate impiety and rebellion of mortall men against his commandement Besides there is not one example here mentioned but it hath a credible or probable Author for the avoucher of it Let us now out of all this that hath been spoken gather up this wholsome lesson to love God with all our heart and affection to the end we may worship him invocate his holy name and repose all the confidence of our salvation upon him alone through Christ Iesus seeking by pleasing and obeying his will to set forth his glory and render him due thanks for all his benefits FINIS THE SECOND BOOKE CHAP. I. Of rebellious and stubborne children towards their Parents WEe have seene in the former Booke what punishments they have incurred that either malitiously or otherwise have transgressed and broken the commandements of the first Table Now it followeth to discover the chastisements which God hath sent upon the transgressors of the second Table And first concerning the first commandement therof which is Honour thy father and mother that thy dayes may be prolonged in the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee C ham one of old Noah's sonnes was guilty of the breach of this Commandement who in stead of performing that reverence to his father which he ought and that presently after the deluge which being yet fresh in memory might have taught him to walke in the feare of God came so short of his duty that when he saw his nakednesse hee did not hide it but mocked and jeasted at it for which cause hee was cursed both of his father and of God in the person of his youngest sonne Chanaan and made a servant to the servants of his brethren which curse was fulfilled in his posterity the Canaanites who being forsaken of God were rooted up and spued out of their land because of their sinnes and abhominations Marvellous strange was the malice of Absolon to rebell so furiously against his father David as to wage warre against him which he did with all his strongest endeavours without sparing any thing that might further his proceedings insomuch that he grew to that outrage and madnesse through the wicked and pernitious counsell of Achitophel that hee shamed not villanously to commit incest with his fathers concubines and pollute his bloud even before the eyes of the multitude by which means being become altogether odious and abhominable hee shortly after lost the battell wherein though himselfe received no hurt nor wound yet was he not therefore quit but being pursued by Gods just judgement fell unwittingly into the snare which he had deserved for as he rode along the forrest to save himselfe from his fathers army his moyle carrying him under a thicke oake left him hanging by the haire upon a bough betwixt heaven and earth untill being found by Ioab he was wounded to death with many blowes Whereby every man may plainly see that God wanteth no means to punish sinners when it pleaseth him but maketh the dumbe and sencelesse creatures the instruments of his vengeance for hee that had escaped the brunt and danger of the battell and yet not having therefore escaped the hand of God was by a bruit beast brought under a sencelesse tree which God had appointed to catch hold of him as an executioner of his just judgement which if wee consider is as strange and wonderfull an accident as may possible happen and such an one as God himselfe provided to punish this wicked proud and rebellious wretch withall for seeing his outrage and villany was so great as to rebell against his father and so good and kinde a father towards him as he was it was most just that he should endure so vile a punishment Beside herein doubtlesse God would lay open to the eyes of all the world a fearefull spectacle of his judgements against wicked and disobedient children thereby to terrifie the most impudent and malitious wretches that live from this horrible sinne And for the same cause it was his pleasure that that wicked and false Achitophel should fall into extreme ignominy and confusion for forsaking David and setting forward with counsell and presence yong Absolon against his father for which cause with despaire he hung himselfe Now by this example it is easie to perceive how unpleasant this sin is in Gods sight and how much he would have every man to hate and detest it seeing that Nature her selfe teacheth and instructeth us so farre as to yeeld duty and obedience unto those that begat nourished and brought us up Notwithstanding all this yet is the world full of ill advised and ill nurtured youth that are little lesse disobedient unto their parents than Absolon was as Adramalech and Saraser that slew their father Sennacherib as he was worshipping in the Temple of Nisroth his god but whereas they looked for the soveraignty they lost the benefit of subjection and were banished into Armenia their brother Esarhaddon raigning in their stead Gregory of Tours maketh mention of one Crannius the son of Clotarius King of France
clattered downe aboundantly The host of the house being awaked with the noyse cryed out to know what the matter was and running into the chamber where this noyse was with a candle in his hand found the poore young man all alone betwixt dead and alive of whom recovered he learnt out the whole truth as hath been told but he after this terrible accident repented him of his wicked life and was touched with the sence of his grievous sinne so nearly that ever after he led a more circumspect and honest life Thus much we finde written in that Author Henry the fifth inspired with the furies of the Pope of Rome made warre upon his father Henry the fourth vexing him with cruell and often battels and not ceasing till he had spoiled him of his Empire and till the Bishop of Mentz had proudly and insolently taken from him his Imperiall ornaments even in his presence but the Lord in recompence of his unnaturall dealing made him and his army a prey unto his enemies the Saxons and to flie before them stirring up also the Pope of Rome to be as grievous a scourge unto him as he had beene before time to his father Now as the ambition of a Kingdome was the cause of this mans ingratitude so in the example following pride and disdaine ruled and therefore he is so much the more to be condemned by how much a Kingdome is a stronger cord to draw men to vice than a mans owne affection There was saith Manlius an old man crooked with age distressed with poverty and almost pined with hunger that had a sonne rich strong and fat of whom he intreated no gold or silver or possession but food and sustenance for his belly and clothes for his backe but could not obtaine it at his hands for his proud heart exalted with prosperity thought it a shame and discredit to his house to be borne of so poore and base parentage and therefore not onely denied him reliefe but also disclaimed him from being his father and chased him away with bitter and crabbed reproaches The poore old man thus cruelly handled let teares fall as witnesse of his griefe and departed comfortlesse from his Tygre minded sonne But the Lord that gathereth up the tears of the innocent looked down from heaven in justice and sent a fury into the sences and understanding of this monstrous son that as he was void of nature and compassion so he might bevoid of reason and discretion for ever after Another not so cruell and disdainfull as the former yet cruell and disdainfull enough to plucke downe vengeace upon his head would not see his father beg indeed nor yet abjure him as the other did but yet undertaking to keepe him used him more like a slave than a father for what should be too deare for him that gives us life yet every good thing was too deare for this poore father Vpon a time a dainty morsell of meat was upon the boord to be eaten which as soone as he came in he conveied away and foisted in courser victuals in the roome But marke what his dainties turned to when the servant went to fetch it againe he found in stead of meat snakes and of sauce serpents to the great terrour of his conscience but that which is more one of the serpents leaped in his face and catching hold by his lip hung there till his dying day so that hee could never feed himselfe but he must feed the serpent withall And this badge carried he about as a cognisance of an unkinde and ungratefull sonne Moreover this is another judgment of God that commonly as children deale with their parents so doe their children deale with them and this in the law of proportion is most just and in the order of punishing most usuall for the proofe whereof as experience daily teacheth so one example or two I will subjoyne It is reported how a certaine unkind and perverse sonne beat his aged father upon a time and drew him by the haire of his head to the threshold who when hee was old was likewise beaten of his sonne and drawne also by the haire of the head not to the threshold but out of doores into the durt and how hee should say he was rightly served if he had left him at the threshold as he left his father and not dragged him into the streets which hee did not to his Thus did his owne mouth beare record of his impiety and his owne conscience condemne him before God and men Another old man being persuaded by his son that had maried a yong wise with faire and sugred promises of kindnesses and contentments to surrender his goods and lands unto him yeelded to his request and found for a space all things to his desire but when his often coughing annoyd his yong and dainty wise he first removed his lodging from a faire high chamber to a base under roome and after shewed him many other unkinde and unchildly parts and lastly when the old man as ked for cloathes he bought foure elnes of cloath two wherof he bestowed upon him and reserved the other two for himselfe Now his young sonne marking this niggardise of his father towards his grandfather hid the two elles of cloath and being asked why hee hid them whether by ingeniousnesse or instinct of God he answered To the end to reserve them for his father against he was old to be a covering for him Which answer touched his father so neere that ever after hee shewed himselfe more loving and obsequious to his father than he did before Two great faults but soone and happily amended Would it might be an example to all children if not to mitigate them yet at least to learne them to feare how to deale roughly and crookedly with their parents seeing that God punisheth sinne with sinne and sinners in their owne kinde and measureth the same measure to every man which they have measured unto others The like we read of another that provided a trough for his old decrepit unmannerly father to eat his meat in who being demanded of his sonne also to what use that trough should serve answered for his grandfather What quoth the childe and must we have the like for you when you are old Which words so abashed him that he threw it away forthwith At Millan there was an abstinate and ungodly sonne that when he was admonished by his mother of some fault which he had committed made a wry mouth and pointed his fingers at her in scorne and derision Whereat his mother being angry wished that he might make such a mouth upon the gallowes Neither was it a vaine wish for within few daies he was taken with a theft and condemned by law to be hanged and being upon the ladder was perceived to wryth his mouth in griefe after the same fashion which he had done before to his mother in derision Henry the second of that name
King of England sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet and Maud the Empresse after he had raigned twenty yeares was content to admit his young sonne Henry married to Margaret the French Kings daughter into participation of his Crowne but he like an unnaturall son to requite his fathers love sought to dispossesse him of the whole for by inciting the King of France and certaine other Nobles hee tooke armes and raised warre against his owne naturall father betwixt whom divers strong battels being fought as well in England by the Deputies and friends of both parties as also in Normandy Poytou Guian and Britain the victory alwayes inclined to the father so that the rebellious son with his allies were constrained to bend to his fathers will and to desire peace which he gently granted and forgave his offence Howbeit the Lord for his disobedience did not so lightly pardon him but because his hasty mind could not tarry for the Crowne till his fathers death therefore the Lord cut him short of it altogether causing him to die six yeares before his father being yet but young and like to live long Lothair King of Soissons in France committed the rule of the province of Guian to his eldest son Cramiris who when contrary to the mind of his father he oppressed the people with exactions and was reclaimed home he like an ungratious and impious son fled to his uncle Childebert and provoked him towarre upon his owne father wherein he himselfe was by the just vengeance of God taken and burned with his wife and children to death Furthermore it is not doubtlesse but to a very good end enacted in the law of God That he which curseth his father or mother should die the death and that rebellious children and such as be incorrigible should at the instance and pursuit of their owne parents by order of law be stoned to death As children by all these examples ought not onely to learne to feare to displease and revile their parents but also to feare and reverence them lest that by disobedience they kindle the fire of Gods wrath against them so likewise on the other side parents are here advertised to have great care in bringing up and instructing their children in the feare of God and obedience to his will lest for want of instruction and correction on their part they themselves incurre a punishment of their carelesse negligence in the person of their children And this is proved by experience of the men of Bethel of whose children two and forty were torne in pieces by Beares for that they had been so evill taught as to mocke the holy Prophet Elizeus in calling him bald-pate Heli likewise the high priest was culpable of this fault for having two wicked and perverse sonnes whom no feare of God could restraine being discontent with that honourable portion of the sacrifices allotted them by God like famished and unsatiable wretches fell to share out more than was their due and by force to raven all that which by faire meanes they could not get and that which is worse to pollute the holy Tabernacle of God with their filthy whoredomes in such sort that the Religion of God grew in disgrace through their prophane dealings And albeit it may seem that their father did his duty in some sort when he admonished and reproved them yet it is manifest by the reprehension of the man of God that he did no part of that at all or if he did yet it was in so carelesse loose and cold manner using more lenity than hee ought or lesse severity than was necessary that God turned their destructions when they were slaine at the overthrow of Israel by the Philistins to be his punishment for understanding the dolefull newes of his sonnes death and the Arkes taking at once he fell backewards from his stoole and burst his necke being old and heavy even fourescore and eighteene yeares of age not able either to help or stay himselfe David also was not free from this offence for hee so much cockered some of his children that they proved the greatest plagues and scourges unto him especially Absolon and Adonijah for the one openly rebelled against him and almost drove him out of his kingdome the other usurped the title and honour of the kingdome before his fathers death of this it is recorded That David so cockered and pampered him that he would never displease him from his youth But see how he was punished in them for this too great lenity both of them came to an untimely death and proved not onely the workers of their owne destruction but also great crosses to their father Ludovicus Vives saith That in his time a certain woman in Flanders did so much pamper and cocker up two of her sonnes even against her husbands will that she would not suffer them to want money or any thing which might furnish their roiotous life both in drinking banquetting and dicing yea she would stoale from her husband to minister unto them but as soone as her husband was dead she was justly plagued in them both for they fell from royoting to robbing which two vices are commonly linked together and for the same one of them was executed by the sword and the other by the halter she her selfe looking on as a witnesse of their destructions whereof her conscience told her that her indulgence was the chiefest cause Hither may we referre that common and vulgar story and I suppose very true which is almost in every childes mouth of him that going to the gallowes desired to speake with his mother in her care ere he dyed and when she came unto him in stead of speaking bit off her care with his teeth exclaiming upon her as the causer of his death because she did not chastise him in his youth for his faults but by her flatteries established him in vice which brought him to this wofull end and herein she was doubly punished both in her sonnes destruction and her owne infamy whereof she carried about her a continuall maâ—ke This ought to be a warning to all parents to looke better to the education of their children and to root out of them in time all evill and corrupt manners lest of small sprigs they grow to branches and of qualities to habits and so either be hardly done off or at least deprave the whole body and bring it to destruction but above all to keep them from idlenesse and vaine pleasures the discommodity and mischiefe whereof this present example will declare At a towne called Hannuel in Saxony the Devill transforming himselfe into the shape of a man exercised many jugling trickes and pretty pastime to delight young men and maids withall and indeed to draw after him daily great companies one day they followed him out of the city gates unto a hill adjoyning where he played a jugling tricke indeed with them for he carried them all away with him so that they were never
in the field hacked and hewed of his enemies carried on horsebacke dead his haire in despight torne and tugged like a dog besides the inward torments of his guilty conscience were more than all the rest for it is most certainly reported That after this abhominable deed hee never had quiet in his minde when he went abroad his eye whirled about his body was privily fenced his hand ever upon his dagger his countenance and manner like one alwaies ready to strike his sleep short and unquiet full of fearefull dreames insomuch that he would often suddenly start up and leap out of his bed and runne about his chamber his restlesse conscience was so continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression of that abhominable murther CHAP. V. Of such as rebelled against their Superiors because of Subsidies and Taxes imposed upon them AS it is not lawfull for children to rebell against their parents though they be cruell and unnaturall so also it is as unlawfull for subjects to withstand their Princes and Governors though they be somewhat grievous and burthensome unto them which we affirme not to the end that it should be licensed to them to exercise all manner of rigour and unmeasurable oppression upon their subjects as shall be declared hereafter more at large but we entreat onely here of their duties which are in subjection to the power of other men whose authority they ought in no wise to resist unlesse they oppose themselves against the ordinance of God Therefore this position is true by the word of God That no subject ought by force to shake off the yoke of subjection and obedience due unto his Prince or exempt himselfe from any taxe or contribution which by publicke authority is imposed Give saith the Apostle tribute to whom tribute belongeth custome to whom custome pertaineth feare to whom feare is due and honour to whom honour is owing And generally in all actions wherein the commodities of this life though with some oppression and grievance and not the Religion and service of God nor the conscience about the same is called into question we ought with all patience to endure whatsoever burthen or charge is laid upon us without moving any troubles or shewing any discontentments for the same for they that have otherwise behaved themselves these examples following will shew how well they have been appaied for their misdemeanors In the yeare of our Lord 1304 after that Guy Earle of Flanders having rebelled against Philip the Faire his Soveraigne was by strength of armes reduced into subjection and constrained to deliver himselfe and his two sons prisoners into his hands the Flemings made an insurrection against the Kings part because of a certain taxe which he had set upon their ships that arrived at certaine havens and upon this occasion great warre divers battels and sundry overthrowes on each side grew but so that at last the King remained conqueror and the Flemings for a reward of their rebellion lost in the battell six and thirty thousand men that were slaine beside a great number that were taken prisoners Two yeares after this Flemmish stirre there arose a great commotion and hurly burly of the rascall and basest sort of people at Paris because of the alteration of their coines who being not satisfied with the pillage and spoilage of their houses whom they supposed to be either causes of the said alteration or by counsell or other meanes any furtherers thereunto came in great troupes before the Kings Palace at his lodging in the Temple with such an hideous noise and outrage that all the day after neither the King nor any of his officers durst once stir over the threshold nay they grew to that overflow of pride and insolency that the victuals which were provided for the Kings diet and carried to him were by them shamefully throwne under feet in the dirt and trampled upon in despight and disdaine But three or foure daies after this tumult was appeased many of them for their pains were hanged before their own doores and in the city gates to the number of eight and twenty persons In the raigne of Charles the sixth the Parisians by reason of a certaine taxe which he minded to lay upon them banded themselves and conspired together against him they determined once saith Froissard to have beaten downe Loure and S. Vincents castle and all the houses of defence about Paris that they might not be offensive to them But the King though young in yeares handled them so ripe and handsomely that having taken away from them their armor the city gates and chaines of the streets and locked up their weapons in S. Vincents castle hee dealt with them as pleased him And thus their pride being quashed many of them were executed and put to death As also for the like rebellion were at Troyes Orlean Chalon Sens and Rhemes About the same time the Flandrians and especially the inhabitants of Gaunt wrought much trouble against Lewis the Earle of Flanders for divers taxes and tributes which he had layd upon them which they in no respect would yeeld unto The matter came to be decided by blowes and much bloud was shed and many losses endured on both sides as a meanes appointed of God to chastise as well the one as the other The Gaunts being no more in number than five or six thousand men overthrew the Earles army consisting of forty thousand and in pursuit of their victory tooke Bruges whither the Earle was gone for safety and lying in a poore womans house was constrained in the habit of a beggar to fly the City And thus he fared till King Charles the sixth sent an army of men to his succor for he was his subject by whose support he overcame those Rebels in a battell fought at Rose Bec to the number of forty thousand and the body of their chiefetaine Philip Artevil slaine in the throng he caused to be hanged on a tree And this was the end of that cruell Tragedy the countrey being brought againe into the obedience of their old Lord. A while before this whilest King Iohn was held prisoner in England there arose a great commotion of the common people in France against the nobility and gentry of the realme that oppressed them this tumult began but with an hundred men that were gathered together in the countrey of Beauvoisin but that small handfull grew right quickly to an armfull â—â—on to nine thousand that ranged and robbed throughout all Brie along by the river Marne to Laonoise and all about Soissons armed with great bats shod with yron an headlesse crue without Governour fully purposing to bring to ruine the whole nobility In this disorder they wrought much mischiefe broke up many houses and castles murthered many Lords so that divers Ladies and Knights as the Duchesses of Normandy Orleance were fain to fly for safegard to Meaux whither when these Rebels would needs pursue them they
were there overthrown killed and hanged by troups In the yeare of our Lord 1525 there were certain husbandmen of Souabe that began to stand in resistance against the Earle of Lupsfen by reason of certaine burthens which they complained themselves to be overlaid with by him their neighbors seeing this enterprised the like against their Lords And so upon this small beginning by a certaine contagion there grew up a most dangerous and fearefull commotion that spread it selfe almost over all Almaine the sedition thus increasing in all quarters and the swaines being now full forty thousand strong making their owne liberty and the Gospels a cloake to cover their treason and rebellion and a pretence of their undertaking armes to the wonderfull griefe of all that feared God did not onely fight with the Romane Catholickes but with all other without respect as well in Souabe as in Franconia they destroyed the greater part of the Nobility sacked and burnt many castles and fortresses to the number of two hundred and put to death the Earle of Helfest in making him passe through their pikes But at length their strength was broken they discomfited and torn in pieces with a most horrible massacre of more than eighteen thousand of them During this sedition there were slaine on each side fifty thousand men The captaine of the Souabian swaines called Geismer having betaken himselfe to flight got over the mountaines of Padua where by treason he was made away In the yeare of our Lord 1517 in the Marquesdome of the Vandales the like insurrection and rebellion was of the commonalty especially the baser sort against the Nobility Spirituall and Temporall by whom they were oppressed with intolerable exactions their army was numbred of ninety thousand men all clowns and husbandmen that conspired together to redresse and reforme their owne grievances without any respect of civill Magistrate or feare of Almighty God This rascality of swaines raged and tyranized every where burning and beating down the castles and houses of Noblemen and making their ruines even with the ground Nay they handled the Noblemen themselves as many as they could attaine unto not contumeliously only but rigorously and cruelly for they tormented them to death and carried their heads upon speares in token of victory Thus they swayed a while uncontrolled for the Emperour Maximilian winked at their riots as being acquainted with what in juries they had been overcharged but when he perceived that the rude multitude did not limit their fury within reason but let it runne too lavish to the damnifying as well the innocent as the guilty he made out a small troup of mercinary souldiers together with a band of horsemen to suppresse them who comming to a city were presently so environed with such a multitude of these swaines that like locusts overspread the earth that they thought it impossible to escape with their lives wherefore feare and extremity made them to rush out to battell with them But see how the Lord prospereth a good cause for all their weak number in comparison of their enemies yet such a feare possessed their enemies hearts that they fled like troups of sheep and were slaine like dogges before them insomuch that they that escaped the sword were either hanged by flocks on trees or rosted on spits by fires or otherwise tormented to death And this end befell that wicked rebellious rout which wrought such mischiefe in that country with their monstrous villanies that the traces and steppes thereof remaine at this day to bee seene In the yeare of our Lord 1381 Richard the second being King the Commons of England and especially of Kent and Essex by meanes of a taxe that was set upon them suddenly rebelled and assembled together on Blackheath to the number of 60000 or more which rebellious rout had none but base and ignoble fellowes for their captaines as Wat Tiler Iacke Straw Tom Miller but yet they caused much trouble and disquietnesse in the Realme and chiefly about the city of London where they committed much villany in destroying many goodly places as the Savoy and others and being in Smithfield used themselves very proudly and unreverently towards the King but by the manhood and wisedome of William Walworth Major of London who arrested their chiefe captain in the midst of them that rude company was discomfited and the ringleaders of them worthily punished In like manner in the raigne of Henry the seventh a great commotion was stirred up in England by the Commons of the North by reason of a certaine taxe which was levied of the tenth peny of all mens lands and goods within the land in the which the Earle of Northumberland was slain but their rash attempt was soon broken and Chamberlain their captain with divers other hanged at Yorke for the same Howbeit their example feared not the Cornishmen from rebelling upon the like occasion of a tax under the conduct of the Lord Audley untill by woefull experience they felt the same scourge for the King met them upon Blackheath and discomfiting their troups took their captaines and ring leaders and put them to most worthy and sharp death Thus we may see the unhappy issue of all such seditious revoltings and thereby gather how unpleasant they are in the sight of God Let all the people therefore learne by these experiences to submit themselves in the feare of God to the higher powers whether they be Lords Kings Princes or any other that are set over them CHAP. VI. Of Murtherers AS touching Murther which is by the second commandement of the second Table forbidden in these words Thou shalt not kill the Lord denounceth this judgment upon it That he which striketh a man that hee dieth shall die the death And this is correspondent to that Edict which he gave to Noah presently after the universall floud to suppresse that generall cruelty which had taken root from the beginning in Cain and his posterity being carefull for mans life saying That he will require the bloud of man at the hands of either man or beast that killeth him adding moreover That whosoever sheddeth mans bloud by man also his bloud shall be shed seeing that God created him after his owne Image which he would not have to be basely accounted of but deare and precious unto us If then the bruit and unreasonable creatures are not exempted from the sentence of death pronounced in the law if they chance to kill a man how much more punishable then is man endued with will and reason when malitiously and advisedly he taketh away the life of his neighbour But the hainousnesse and greatnesse of this sinne is most lively expressed by that ordinance of God set downe in the 21 of Deutronomy where it is enjoyned That if a man be found slain in the field and it be not knowne who it was that slew him then the Elders and Iudges of the next towne assembling together should offer up an expiatory sacrifice
boldly or rather furiously to the wall and cast himselfe downe headlong after which yet breathing hee got up on a steepe rocke and rending out his bowels with his owne hands threw them amongst the people calling upon the Lord of life that hee would restore them againe unto him The author of that booke commendeth this fact for a valiant and noble deed but surely wee are taught out of the booke of God by Gods spirit that it was a most bloudy barbarous and irreligious act for rather should a man endure all the reproaches and torments of an enemy than embrue his owne hands in his owne bloud and therefore if he were not extraordinarily stirred up hereunto by the spirit of God this must needs bee a just punishment of some former sinne wherein hee lay without repentance and a forerunner of an eternall punishment after this life Let us joyne Iudas and Pilate together the one being the betrayer of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ our Saviour the other the condemner of him and that against his conscience as they both agreed in one malicious practise against the life of Christ so they disagreed not in offering violence to their owne lives for Iudas hanged himselfe and his bowels gushed out and Pilat being banished to Vienna and oppressed with the torment of conscience and feare of punishment for his misdeeds to prevent all killed himselfe and so became a notable spectacle of Gods justice and Christs innocencie The Jewes as they are recorded in Scripture to bee a stiffe-necked and stubborne Nation above all the Nations under the Sunne so none were ever more hardy and daring in this bloudy practise of selfe-murther than they were which may bee thought a portion of Gods just judgement upon them for their sinnes three examples of greatest note I will propound which I thinke can hardly bee matched When the City of Jerusalem was taken by Herod and Sosius there was a certaine Jew that had hidden himselfe in a denne with his wife and seven children to whom Herod offered both life and liberty if hee would come forth but the stiffe-hearted wretch had rather die than bee captive to the Romanes therefore refusing Herods offer hee first threw downe his children headlong from a high rocke and burst their neckes next hee sent his wife after them and lastly tumbled himselfe upon their carkasses to make up the tragedie a horrible and lamentable spectacle of a proud and desperate minde The second example is nothing inferior to the former After the siege and sacking of Jotapata by the Romanes forty Jewes among whom was Iosephus the writer of this story having hid themselves in a cave by mutuall consent killed one another rather than they would fall into the hands of the Romanes Iosephus onely with one other by his persuasion by great art and industry after the other were slain proceeded not in that bloudy enterprise but yeelded themselves to the mercy of the enemies and so escaped with their lives This fearefull obstinacy may well be imputed to the justice of God upon them as for their other sinnes so especially for crucifying the Lord of life whose bloud they imprecated might fall on them and on their children The third example surpasseth both the former both in cruelty and obstinacy Eleazer the Jew after the taking of Jerusalem fled into the tower of Messada with nine hundred followers being besieged there by Sabinus Flavius a Roman Captaine when he saw that the walls were almost beaten downe and that there was no hope of escaping he persuaded his companions by a pithy and vehement Oration and drew them to this resolution that tenne should be chosen by lot which should kill all the rest together with their wives and children and that afterward they themselves should kill each other The former part of this Tragedy being performed the surviving tenne first set on fire the Tower that no prey might come unto the enemy the victuals only preserved to the end it might be knowne that not hunger but desperate valour drew them to this bloudy massacre then according to their appoyntment by mutuall wounds they dispatched one another and of so great a number not one remained besides one woman with her five children who hearing the horriblenesse of their determination hid her selfe in a cave in the ground and so escaped with the life of her selfe and her children and became a reporter of this whole story The like story is recorded by Livie touching the Campagnians who being besieged by the Romanes and constrained to yeeld up their City unto them upon composition Vibius a chiefe nobleman of the City with seven and twenty other Senatours that they might not fall into their enemies hands after they had glutted themselves with wine and good cheere dranke all of them poyson and so bewayling the state of their countrey and embracing each other and taking their last farewell died ere the enemies were received into the city Buthes otherwise called Boges by Herodotus Governor of Thracia being besieged in the city Eion by Cymon the Athenian captaine to the end that the enemy might receive no benefit nor great glory by his victory first caused the city to be fired and then by one consent they all killed themselves So likewise did Ariarathes king of Capadocia when he was besieged by Perdicca Cato Vticensis rather than he would fall into the hands of Iulius Caesar his enemy after his victory over Pompey fell upon his owne sword and slew himselfe having first read Plato's booke of the immortality of the soule So likewise did Marcus Antonius after that he was over come by Augustus And Cleopatra the Aegyptian Queene when as by her allurements she could not intice Augustus to her lust as she had done Anthony but perceived that she was reserved for triumph escaping out of prison and placing her selfe in her sumptuous sepulchre neere to the body of her dead paramour set an Aspe to her left arme by the venome whereof she died as it were in a sleepe Thus the Lord doth infatuate the mindes of wicked and ungodly persons and such as have no true knowledge nor feare of the true God in their hearts making them instruments of his vengeance and executioners of his wrath upon themselves Hannibal the sonne of Amilchar after many victories and much bloodshed of the Romans at last being overcome and doubting of the faith of Prusia the King of Bythinia to whom he was fled for succour poysoned himselfe with poyson which he alwayes carried in a Ring to that purpose At the destruction of Carthage when as Asdrubal the chiefe Captaine submitted himselfe to the mercy of Scipio his wife cursing and railing on him for his base mind threw her children into the midst of a fire and there ended her dayes and Asdrubal himselfe not long after followed her by a voluntary and violent death When Cinna besieged the city of Rome two brothers chanced to encounter
son to Lodouick the third was possessed tormented with a divell in the presence of his father the Peeres of the Realme which he openly confessed to have justly happened unto him because he had pretended in his mind to have conspired his fathers death and deposition what then are they to expect that doe not pretend but performe this monstrous enterprise A certaine degenerate and cruell son longing and gaping after the inheritance of his father which nothing but his life kept him from wrought this means to accomplish his desire he accused his father of a most filthy unnameable crime even of committing filtâ—inesse with a Cow knowing that if he were convicted therof the law would cut off his life herein he wroght a double villany in going about not only to take away his life which by the law of nature he ought to have preserved but also his good name without respecting that the stain of a father redoundeth to his posterity and that children commoÌ„ly do not only inherit the possessions but also imitate the conditions of their parents but all these supposes laid aside together with all feare of God he indicted him before the Magistrate of incest and that upon his own knowledge insomuch that they brought the poore innocent man to the rack to the end to make him confesse the crime which albeit amidst his tortures he did as soon as he was out he denyed again howbeit his extorted confession stood for evidence and he was condemned to be burned with fire as was speedily executed and constantly endured by him exclaiming still upon the false accusation of his son and his own unspotted innocency as by the issue that followed most cleerely appeared for his son not long after fell into a reprobate mind and hanged himselfe and the Judge that condemned him with the witnesses that bare record of his forced confession within one moneth died all after a most wretched and miserable sort And thus it pleased God both to revenge his death and also to quit his reputation and innocency from ignominy and discredit in this world Manfred Prince of Tarentum bastard son to Frederick the second smothered his father to death with a pillow because as some say he would not bestow the kingdome of Naples upon him and not content herewith he poisoned also the heirs of Frederick to the end he might attain unto the crown as Conrade his elder brother and his nephew the son of Henry the heir which Henry died in prison and now onely Conradinus remained betwixt him and the kingdome whom though he assayed to send after his father yet was his intention frustrate for the Pope thundered out his curses against him and instigated Charles Duke of Angiers to make war against him wherein bastard and unnaturall Manfred was discomfited and slaine and cut short of his purpose for which he had committed so many tragedies Martin Luther was wont to report of his own experience this wonderfull history of a Locksmith a yong man riotous and vicious who to find fuel for his luxury was so bewitched that he feared not to slay his own father mother with a hammer to the end to gain their mony and possessions after which cruell deed he presently went to a shoomaker and bought him new shooes leaving his old behind him by the providence of God to be his accusers for after an houre or two the slain bodies being found by the Magistrate and inquisition made for the murderer no manner of suspition being had of him he seeming to take such griefe therat But the Lord that knoweth the secrets of the heart discovered his hypocrisie and made his owne shooes which hee had left with the Shoomaker rise up to beare witnesse against him for the blood which ran from his fathers wounds besprinckled them so that thereof grew the suspition and from thence the examination and very soon the confession and last of all his worthy and lawfull execution From hence we may learne for a generall trueth that murder never so secret will ever by one means or other be discovered the Lord will not suffer it to goe unpunished so abominable it is in his sight Another son at Basil in the yeare of our Lord God 1560 bought a quantity of poyson of an Apothecary and ministred it to none but to his own father accounting him worthiest of so great a benefit which when it had effected his wish upon him the crime being detected in stead of possessing his goods which he aimed at he possessed a vile and shamefull death for he was drawne through the streets burnt with hot Irons and tormented nine houres in a wheele till his life forsooke him As it is repugnant to nature for children to deale thus cruelly with their parents so it is more against nature for parents to murder their children insomuch as naturall affection is of greater force in the descent than in the ascent the love that parents bear their children is greater than that which children redound to their Parents because the childe proceedeth from the father and not the father from the childe as part of his fathers essence and not the father of his Can a man then hate his own flesh or be a rooter out of that which himselfe planted It is rare yet sometimes it commeth to passe Howbeit as the offence is in an high degree so it is alwayes punished by some high judgement as by these examples that follow shall appeare The ancient Ammonites had an Idoll called Moloch to the which they offered their children in sacrifice this Idoll as the Jewes write was of a great stature and hollow within having seven chambers in his hollownesse whereof one was to receive meat another turtle Doves the third a sheep the fourth a ram the fifth a calfe the sixth an oxe and the seventh a childe his hands were alwayes extended to receive gifts and when a childe was offered they were made fire hot to burne it to death none must offer the childe but the father and to drowne the cries of it the Chemarims for so were the Priests of that Idoll called made a noise with bels cymbals and horns thus is it written that king Ahab offered his son yea and many of the children of Israel beside as the Prophet David affirmeth They offered saith he their sons and daughters to Divels and shed innocent blood c. this is the horrible crime Now marke the judgement concerning the Canaanites the landspued them out for their abominations Achab with his posterity was accur sed himselfe being slaine by his enemies and the crowne taken from his posterity not one being left of his off-spring to pis against the wall according to the saying of Elias as for the Jewes the Prophet David in the same place declareth their punishment when he saith That the wrath of the Lord was kindled and he abhorred his inheritance and gave them into the hands of the
heathen that they that hated them were lords over them In the yeare of our Lord 1551 in a town of Hassia called Weidenhasten The twentieth day of November a cruell mother inspired with Satan shut up all her doores and began to murder her four children on this manner shee snatcht up ā sharpe axe and first set upon her eldest son being but eight yeares old searching him out with a candle behinde a hogs-head where he hid himselfe and presently notwithstanding his pitifull praiers and complaints clave his head in two pieces and chopped off both his armes Next shee killed her daughter of five yeares old after the same manner another little boy of three yeares of age seeing his mothers madnesse hid himselfe poore infant behinde the gate whom as soone as the Tygre espied shee drew out by the haire of the head into the floore and there cut off his head the yongest lay crying in the cradle but halfe a yeare old him she without all compassion pluckt out and murdered in like sort These murders being finished the Diuell incarnate for certaine no womanly nature was left in her to take punishment of her selfe for the same cut her owne throat and albeit she survived nine dayes and confessing her fault dyed with teares and repentance yet we see how it pleased God to arme her own hands against her selfe as the fittest executioners of vengeance The like tragicall accident we reade to have happened at Cutzenborff a City in Silesia in the yeare 1536 to a woman and her three children who having slain them all in her husbands absence killed her selfe in like manner also to make up the tragedy Concerning stepmothers it is a world to reade how many horrible murders they have usually practised upon their children in law to the end to bring the inheritance to their own brood or at least to revenge some injury supposed to be done unto them of which one or two examples I will subnect as a taste out of many hundred leaving the residue to the judgment and reading of the Learned Constantius the son of Heraclius having raigned Emperour but one yeere was poysoned by his stepmother Martina to the end to install her own son Heraclon in the Crown but for this cruell part becomming odious to the Senat they so much hated to have her or her son raigne over them that in stead thereof they cut off her tongue and his nose and so banished them the City Fausta the wife of Constantine the great fell in love with Constantine her sonne in Law begotten upon a Concubine whom when shee could not perswade unto her lust she accused unto the Emperour as a solicitor of her chastity for which cause he was condemned to die but after the truth knowne Constantine put her into a hot bath and suffered her not to come forth untill the heat had choaked her revenging upon her head her sonnes death and her owne unchastity CHAP. XIIII Of Subject Murtherers SEeing then they that take away their neighbours lives doe not escape unpunished as by the former examples it appeareth it must needs follow that if they to whom the sword of Justice is committed of God to represse wrongs and chastise vices do give over themselves to cruelties and to kill and slay those whom they ought in duty to protect and defend must receive a greater measure of punishment according to the measure and quality of their offence Such an one was Saul the first king of Israel who albeit he ought to have beene sufficiently instructed out of the law of God in his duty in this behalfe yet was hee so cruell and bloody-minded as contrary to all Justice to put to death Abimelech the high Priest with fourescore and five other Priests of the family of his father onely for receiving David into his house a small or rather no offence And yet not satisfied therewith he vomited out his rage also against the whole city of the Priests and put to the mercilesse sword both man woman and child without sparing any He slew many of the Gibeonites who though they were reliques of the Amorites that first inhabited that land yet because they were received into league of amity by a solemne oath and permitted of long continuance to dwell amongst them should not have beene awarded as enemies nor handled after so cruell a fashion Thus therefore hee tyrannizing and playing the Butcher amongst his own subjects for which cause his house was called the house of slaughter and practising many other foule enormities he was at the last overcome of the Philistims and sore wounded which when he saw fearing to fall alive into his enemies hands and not finding any of his owne men that would lay their hands upon him desperately slew himselfe The same day three of his sons and they that followed him of his owne houshould were all slaine The Philistims the next day finding his dead body dispoyled among the carkasses beheaded it and carried the head in triumph to the temple of their god and hung up the trunke in disgrace in one of their Cities to be seene lookt upon and pointed at And yet for all this was not the fire of Gods wrath quenched for in King Davids time there arose a famine that lasted three yeeres the cause thereof was declared by God to be the murder which Saul committed upon the Gibeonites wherefore David delivered Sauls seven sons into the Gibeonites hands that were left who put them to the most shamefull death that is even to hanging Amongst all the sins of King Achab and Iezabel which were many and great the murder of Naboth standeth in the fore front for though hee had committed no such crime as might any way deserve death yet by the subtill and wicked devise of Iezabel foolish and credulous consent of Achab and false accusation of the two suborned witnesses he was cruelly stoned to death but his innocent blood was punished first in Achab who not long after the Warre which he made with the King of Syria received so deadly a wound that he dyed thereof the dogs licking up his blood in the same place where Naboths blood was licked according to the foretelling of Elias the Prophet And secondly of Iezabel whom her own servants at the commandement of Iehu whom God had made executor of his wrath threw headlong out of an highwindow unto the ground so that the wals were dyed with her blood and the horses trampled her under their feet and dogs devoured her flesh till of all her dainty body there remained nothing saving onely her skull feet and palme of her hands Ioram sonne of Iehosaphat King of Judah being after his fathers death possessed of the Crowne and Scepter of Judah by and by exalted himselfe in tyranny and put to death sixe of his owne brethren all younger than himselfe with many Princes of the Realme for which cause God stirred up the Edomites to rebell the Philistines and
Arabians to make warre against him who forraged his countrey sacked and spoiled his cities and tooke prisoners his wives and children the youngest onely excepted who afterwards also was murdered when he had raigned King but a small space And lastly as in doing to death his own brethren he committed cruelty against his owne bowels so the Lord stroke him with such an incurable disease in his bowels and so perpetuall for it continued two yeares that his very entrails issued out with torment and so he dyed in horrible misery Albeit that in the former booke we have already touched the pride and arrogancy of King Alexander the Great yet we cannot pretermit to speake of him in this place his example serving to fit for the present subject for although as touching the rest of his life he was very well governed in his private actions as a Monarch of his reputation might be yet in his declining age I meane not in yeares but to deathward he grew exceeding cruell not onely towards strangers as the Cosseis whom he destroyed to the sucking babe but also to his houshold and familiar friends Insomuch that being become odious to most fewest loved him and divers wrought all meanes possible to make him away but one especially whose sonne in law and other neere friends he had put to death never ceased untill he both ministred a deadly draught unto himselfe whereby he deprived him of his wicked life and a fatall stroke to his wives and children after his death to the accomplishment of his full revenge Phalaris the Tyran of Agrigentum made himselfe famous to posterity by no other meanes than horrible cruelties exercised upon his subjects inventing every day new kinds of tortures to scourge and afflict the poore soules withall In his dominion there was one Perillus artificer of his craft one expert in his occupation who to flatter and curry favour with him devised a new torment a brasen bull of such a strange workmanship that the voyce of those that were roasted therein resembled rather the roaring of a Bull then the cry of men The Tyran was well pleased with the Invention but he would needs have the Inventor make first triall of his owne worke as he well deserved before any other should take taste thereof But what was the end of this Tyran The people not able any longer to endure his monstrous and unnaturall cruelties ran upon him with one consent with such violence that they soone brought him to destruction and as some say put him into the brasen Bull which hee provided to roast others to bee roasted therein himselfe deserving it as well for approoving the devise as Perillus did for devising it Edward the second of that name King of England at the request and desire of Hugh Spencer his darling made warre upon his subjects and put to death divers of the Peeres and Lords of the Realme without either right or form of the law insomuch that queen Isabel his wife fled to France with her yong son for fear of his unbrideled fury after a while finding opportunity and means to return again garded with certain small forces which she had in those countreyes gathered together she found the whole people discontented with the Kings demeanours and ready to assist her against him so she besieged him with their succour and tooke him prisoner and put him into the Tower of London to be kept till order might be taken for his deposition so that shortly after by the Estates being assembled together he was generally and joyntly reputed and pronounced unworthy to be King for his exceeding cruelties sake which he had committed upon many of his worthy Subjects and so deposing him they crowned his young sonne Edward the third of his name King in his roome he yet living and beholding the same Iohn Maria Duke of Millan may be put into this ranke of Murtherers for his custome was divers times when any Citizen offended thim yea and somtimes without offence too to throw them amongst cruell Mastives to be torne in pieces and devoured But as he continued and delighted in this unnaturall kinde of murther the people one day incensed and stirred up against him ranne upon him with such rage and violence that they quickly deprived him of life And he was so well beloved that no man ever would or durst bestow a Sepulchre upon his dead bones but suffered his body to lie in the open streets uncovered save that a certaine harlot threw a few Roses upon his wounds and so covered him Alphonsus the second King of Naples Ferdinands sonne was in tyranny towards his subjects nothing inferiour to his father for whether of them imprisoned and put to death more of the Nobility and Barons of the Realme it is hard to say but sure it is that both were too outragious in all manner of cruelty for which so soone as Charles the eight King of France departing from Rome made towards Naples the hatred which the people bore him secretly with the odious remembrance of his fathers cruelty began openly to shew it selfe by the fruits for they did not nor could not dissemble the great desire that every one had of the approach of the Frenchmen which when Alphonsus perceived and seeing his affaires and estate brought unto so narrow a pinch he also cowardly cast away all courage to resist and hope to recover so huge a tempest and he that for a long time had made warre his trade and profession and had yet all his forces and armies complete and in readinesse making himselfe banquerupt of all that honour and reputation which by long experience and deeds of armes he had gotten resolved to abandon his kingdome and to resigne the title and authority thereof to his sonne Ferdinand thinking by that meanes to asswage the heat of their hatred and that so young and innocent a King who in his owne person had never offended them might be accepted and beloved of them and so their affection toward the French rebated and cooled But this devise seemed to no more purpose than a salve applyed to a sore out of season when it was growne incureable or a prop set to a house that is already falne Therefore he tormented with the sting of his owne conscience and finding in his minde no repose by day nor rest by night but a continuall summons and advertisement by fearefull dreames that the Noblemen which hee had put to death cryed to the people for revenge against him was surprised with so terrible terrour that forthwith without making acquainted with his departure either his brother or his owne sonne he fled to Sicilie supposing in his journey that the Frenchmen were still at his backe and starting at every little noyse as if he feared all the Elements had conspired his destruction Philip Comineus that was an eye-witnesse of this journey reporteth That every night he would cry that he heard the Frenchmen and that the very trees
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
the threshold which thing turned to a great destruction and overthrow in Israel for the Levite when he arose and found his wife newly dead at the dore of his lodging he cut and dismembred her body into twelve pieces and sent them into all the countries of Israel to every tribe one to give them to understand how vile and monstrous an injurie was done unto him whereupon the whole nation assembling and consulting together when they saw how the Benjamites in whose tribe this monstrous villany was committed make no reckoning of seeing punishment executed upon those execrable wretches they tooke armes against them and made war upon them wherein though at the first conflict they lost to the number of forty thousand men yet afterward they discomfited and overthrew the Benjamites and slew of them 25000. rasing and burning downe the City Gibea where the sinne was committed with all the rest of the Cities of that Tribe in such sort that there remained alive but six hundred persons that saved their lives by flying into the desart and there hid themselves foure moneths untill such time as the Israelites taking pitty of them lest they should utterly be brought to nought gave them to wife to the end to repeople them againe foure hundred virgins of the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead reserved out of that flaughter of those people wherein man woman and childe were put to the sword for not comming forth to take part with their brethren in that late warre And forasmuch as yet there remained two hundred of them unprovided for the Antients of Israel gave them liberty to take by force two hundred of the daughters of their people which could not be but great injury and vexation unto their parents to be thus robbed of their daughters and to see them married at all adventures without their consent or liking These were the mischiefes which issued and sprang from that vile and abominable adultery of the wicked Gibeonites with the Levites wife whose first voluntary sinne was in like manner also most justly punished by this second rape and this is no new practise of our most just God to punish one sinne by another and sinners in the same kinde wherein they have offended When King David after he had overcome the most part of his enemies and made them tributaries unto him and injoyed some rest in his kingdome whilest his men of war pursuing their victory destroyed the Ammonites and were in besieging Rabba their chiefe City he was so enflamed with the beauty of Bathshabe Vriahs wife that he caused her to bee conveyed to him to lye with her to which sinne he combined another more grievous to wit when he saw her with childe by him to the end to cover his adultery he caused her husband to be slaine at the siege by putting him in the Vantgard of the battell at the assault and then thinking himselfe cocksure married Bathshabe But all this while as it was but vaine allurements no solid joy that fed his minde and his sleepe was but of sinne not of safety wherein he slumbred so the Lord awakened him right soone by afflictions and crosses to make him feele the burden of the sinne which he had committed first therefore the childe the fruit of this adultery was striken with sicknesse and dyed next his daughter Thamar Absaloms sister was ravished by Ammon one of his owne sonnes thirdly Ammon for his incest was slaine by Absalom and fourthly Absalom ambitiously aspiring after the kingdome and conspiring against him raised war upon him and defiled his Concubines and came to a wofull destruction All which things being grievous crosses to K. David were inflicted by the just hand of God to chastise and correct him for his good not to destroy him in his wickednesse neither did it want the effect in him for he was so far from swelling and hardening himselfe in his sin that contrariwise he cast downe and humbled himselfe and craved pardon and forgivenesse at the hand of God with all his heart and true repentance not like to such as grow obstinate in their sinnes and wickednesse and make themselves beleeve all things are lawfull for them although they be never so vile and dishonest This therefore that we have spoken concerning David is not to place him among the number of lewd and wicked livers but to shew by his chastisements being a man after Gods owne heart how odious and displeasant this sin of Adultery is to the Lord and what punishment all others are to expect that wallow therein since he spared not him whom he so much loved and favoured CHAP. XXVIII Other examples like unto the former THE history of the ravishment of Helene registred by so many worthy and excellent Authors and the great evils that pursued the same is not to be counted altogether an idle fable or an invention of pleasure seeing that it is sure that upon that occasion great and huge war arose betweene the Graecians and the Trojanes during the which the whole Countrey was havocked many Cities and Townes destroyed much blood shed and thousands of men discomfited among whom the ravisher and adulterer himselfe to wit Paris the chiefe mover of all those miserable tragedies escaped not the edge of the sword no nor that famous city Troy which entertained and maintained the adulterers within her walls went unpunished but at last was taken and destroyed by fire and sword In which sacking olde and gray headed King Priâ—m with all the remnant of his halfe slaine sonnes were together murdered his wife and daughters were taken prisoners and exposed to the mercy of their enemies his whole kingdome was entirely spoiled and his house quite defaced and well nigh all the Trojane Nobility extinguished and as touching the whore Helene her selfe whose disloyalty gave consent to the wicked enterprise of forsaking her husbands house and following a stranger she was not exempt from punishment for as some writers affirm she was slaine at the sacke but according to others she was at that time spared and entertained againe by Menelaus her husband but after his death she was banished in her olde age and constrained for her last refuge being both destitute of reliefe and succour and forsaken of kinsfolkes and friends to flie to Rhodes where at length contrary to her hope she was put to a shamefull death even hanging on a tree which she long time before deserved The injury and dishonour done to Lucrece the wife of Collatinus by Sextus Tarquinius son to Superbus the last King of Rome was cause of much trouble and disquietnesse in the City and elsewhere for first she not able to endure the great injurie and indignity which was done unto her pushed forward with anger and despite slew her selfe in the presence of her husband and kinsfolke notwithstanding all their desires and willingnesse to cleare her from all blame with whose death the Romanes were so stirred and provoked against Sextus
sacrificed which dark speech when no man knew Cyane haled her father by the head to the Altar telling them that he was that wicked person pointed at by the Oracle and there sacrificed him with her owne hands killing her selfe also with the same knife that her innocency might be witnessed even by her bloud Thus it pleased God even among the idolatrous heathen to execute justice and judgement upon the earth though by the meanes of the devill himselfe who is the authour of all such villany Valeria Thusculana was in love with her owne father and under colour of another maid got to lie with him which as soon as he understood he slew himselfe in detestation of his owne ignorant abhomination and wickednesse nay so monstrous and horrible is this sin even in the sight of man that Nausimenes a woman of Athens taking her owne son and daughter together was so amazed and grieved therewith that she never spake word after that time but remained dumbe all the rest of her life time as for the incestors themselves they lived not but became murderers of their owne lives Papyrius a Roman got with childe his owne sister Canusia which when their father understood he sent each of them a sword wherewith they slew themselves But above all the vengeance of God is most apparent in the punishment of Heraclius the Emperour who to his notorious wickednesses heresies persecutions and paganisme he added this villany to defile carnally his owne sister so to his notorious punishments the Sarasins sword dropsie and the ruine of the Empire the Lord added this infamous and cruell judgement that he could not give passage to his urine but it would flie into his face had not a pentise been applied to his belly to beat it downeward And this last plague was proper to his last sin wherein the very member which he had abused sought revenge of him that had abused it for that he had confounded nature and most wickedly sinned against his owne flesh Agathias writing of the manners of the Persians reporteth That certain Philosophers comming out of Aegypt into Greece where they had seen all manner of unnaturall mixtures found the carkase of a man without sepulchre which when in charity they buried the next day it was found unburied again and as they went about to bury it the second time a spirit appeared unto them and forbad them to do it saying that it was unworthy that honour seeing that when it lived he had committed incest with his owne mother A notable story shewing that the very earth abhorreth this monstrous confusion of nature the truth whereof let it lie upon the Authors credit Most abominable was the incest of Artaxerxes King of Persia for first he tooke to himselfe Aspasia his brother Cyrus concubine having overcome him in war and afterward gave the same Aspasia to his owne son Darius to wife from whom after carnall knowledge he tooke her againe committing incest upon incest and that most unnaturally but mark how the Lord punished all this first Darius his eldest son was put to death for treason then Othus succeeding in the inheritance slew Arsame another of his brethren and albeit Artaxerxes himselfe dyed without note of judgement yet his seed after him was punished for his offence for so miserable a calamity pursued them all that in the second generation not one was left to sit upon his throne Now to teach us how execrable and monstrous this kinde of sin is and how much to be abhorred of all men the example of a bruit beast may stand in stead of a lesson for us it being so worthy of remembrance that I thought meet to make rehearsall of it in this place It is reported by Varro a learned and grave Writer whom S. Augustine often commendeth in his booke de Civitate Dei of a certaine horse which by no meanes could bee brought to cover a mare that was his damme untill by hiding her head they beguiled his sences but after when he perceived their guile and knew his damme being uncovered he ran so furiously upon the keeper with his teeth that incontinently he tore him in pieces Truly a miraculous thing and no doubt divinely caused to reprove the enormous and too unruly lusts of men CHAP. XXXIV Of effeminate persons Sodomites and other such like Monsters SArdanapalus King of Assyria was so lascivious and effeminate that to the end to set forth his beauty he shamed not to paint his face with ointments and to attire his body with the habits and Ornaments of women and on that manner to sit and lie continually among whores and with them to commit all manner of filthinesse and villany wherefore being thought unworthy to beare rule over men first Arbaces his lieutenant rebelled then the Medes and Baby lonians revolted and joyntly made war upon him till they vanquished and put him to flight and in his flight hee returned to a tower in his palace which moved with griefe and despaire he set on fire and was consumed therein Such like was the impudent lasciviousnesse of two unworthy Emperors Commodus and Heliogabolus who laying aside all Imperiall gravity shewed themselves oftentimes publikely in womans attire an act as in nature monstrous so very dishonest and ignominious but like as these cursed monsters ran too much out of frame in their unbridled lusts and affections so there wanted not many that hastened and emboldened themselves to conspire their destruction as unworthy in their judgements to enjoy the benefit of this light wherefore to one of them poison was ministred and when that would take no effect strangling came in the roome thereof and brought him to his end the other was slaine in a jakes where he hid himselfe and his body drawne like carrion through the streetes found no better sepulchre then the dunghill Touching those abominable wretches of Sodome and Gomorrah which gave themselves over with all violence and without all shame and measure to their infamous lusts polluting their bodies with unnaturall sins God sent upon them an unnaturall raine not of water but of fire and brimstone to burne and consume them that were so hot and fervent in their cursed vices so that they were quite rooted and raked out of the earth and their Cities and habitations destroyed yea and the very soile that bore them made desolate and fruitlesse and all this by fire whose smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace yea and in signe of a further curse for to be a witnesse and a marke of this terrible judgement the earth and face of that countrey continueth still parched and withered and as Iosephus saith whereas before it was a most plentifull and fertile soile and as it were an earthly paradise bedecked with five gallant Cities now it lyeth desart unhabitable and barren yeelding fruit in shew but such as being touched turneth to cinders In a word the wrath of God is so
worth for he survived not three daies after the vile excesse besides the rest that strove with him in this goodly conflict of carousing one and forty of them dyed to beare him company The same Alexander was himselfe subject to wine and so distempered divers times therewith that he often slew his friends at the table in his drunkennesse whom in sobriety he loved dearest Plutarch telleth us of Armitus and Ciranippus two Syracusians that being drunk with wine committed incest with their owne daughters Cleomenes King of Lacedemonia being disposed to carouse after the manner of the Scythians dranke so much that he became and continued ever after sencelesse Anacreon the Poet a grand consumer of wine and a notable drunkard was choaked with the huske of a grape The monstrous and riotous excesses of divers Romane Emperours as Tiberius by name who was a companion of all drunkards is strange to be heard and almost incredible to be beleeved he loved wine so well that in stead of Tiberius they called him Biberius and in stead of Claudius Caldus and in stead of Nero Mero noting by those nicknames how great a drunkard he was The Earle of Aspremont after he had by infinite excesse exhausted all his substance being upon a day at S. Michael dranke so excessively that he dyed therewith Cyrillus a Citizen of Hippon had an ungracious son who leading a riotous and luxurious life in the middest of his drunkennesse killed his owne mother great with childe and his father that sought to restraine his sury and would have ravished his sister had she not escaped from him with many wounds Bonosus the Emperour is reported to have been such a notorious drunkard that he was said to be borne not to live but to drinke if any Embassadours came unto him he would make them drunke to the end to reveale their secrets he ended his life with misery even by hanging with this Epitaph That a tun not a man was hanged in that place Philostrates being in the bathes at Sinuessa devoured so much wine that he fell downe the staires and almost broke his neck with the fall Zeno the Emperour of the East was so notoriously given to excesse of meates and drinkes that his sences being benummed he would often lie as one that was dead wherefore being become odious to all men by his beastly qualities his wife Ariadne fell also in detestation of him and one day as he lay sencelesse she transported him into a tombe and throwing a great stone upon it pined him to death not suffering any to remove the stone or to yeeld him any succour and this was a just reward of his drunkennesse Pope Paulus the second beside the exceeding pompe of apparell which he used he was also very carefull for his throat for as Platina writeth of him he delighted in all kinde of exquisite dishes and delicate wine and that in superfluity by which immoderate and continuall surfeiting he fell into a grievous Apoplexy which quickly made an end of his life It is reported of him that he eat the day before he dyed two great Melons and that in a very good appetite when as the next night the Lord struck him with his heavy judgement Alexander the son of Basilius and brother of Leo the Emperour did so wallow and drowne himselfe in the gulfe of pleasure and intemperance that one day after he had stuffed himselfe too full of meat as he got upon his horse he burst a veine within his body whereat upwards and downewards issued such abundance of blood that his life and soule issued forth withall The moderne examples of Gods fearefull judgements upon drunkards not only in other countries but even in this Nation of ours are many and terrible all which if I should stand to report it would be matter for a whole booke Our reverend Judges in their severall circuits doe finde by experience that few murthers and manslaughters are committed which are not from this root of drunkennesse for when mens braines are heat with wine and strong drinke then their tongues are let loose to opprobrious speeches and thence proceed both sudden quarrels and deliberate challenges wherewith thousands are brought to their untimely ends Besides the Lord punisheth the Drunkard many waies first in his soule with impenitency and hardnesse of heart which commonly followeth this vice for as Saint Augustine saith As by too much raine the earth is resolved into durt and made unfit for tillage so by excessive drinking our bodies are altogether unfitted for â—he spirituall tillage and so can bring forth no good fruits of holinesse and righteousnesse but rather like biggest and marishes are fit to bâ—â—ed nothing but serpents frogâ— and vershine that is all manner of abominable sins and leathsome wickednesse Secondly in his body with deformednesse of feature filthy diseases and unseasonable death for excessive drinking breedeth crudities Rheumes Imposthumes Gouts Consumptions Apoplexies and such like whereof men perish before they are come to the halfe of their naturall yeares and this is one principall cause why men are now so short lived in respect of that they have â—â—en heretofore Thirdly in his estate for commonly poverty yea penury followeth this vice at the heeles as Solomon teacheth Pâ—ov 21. 27. And lastly with sudden death and destruction even in the middest of their drunken fits as wofull experience doth make manifest every day and almost in every corner of this land Within these few yeares of mine owne knowledge three not far from Huntington being overcome with drinke perished by drowning when being not able to rule their horses they were carried by them into the maine streame from whence they never came out alive againe but left behinde them visible markes of Gods justice for the terrour and example of others and yet what sin is more commonly used and lesse feared than this Concerning Dancing the usuall dependants of feasts and good cheare there is none of sound judgement that know not that they are baits and allurements to uncleanenesse and as it were instruments of bawdrie by reason whereof they were alwaies condemned among men of honour and reputation whether Romanes or Greekes and left for vile and base minded men to use And this may appeare by the reproach that Demosthenes the Orator gave to Philip of Macedony and his Courtiers in an Oration to the Athenians wherein he termed them common dancers and such as shamed not as soone as they had glutted their bellies with meate and their heads with wine to fall scurrilously a dancing As for the honourable Dames of Rome truly we shall never reade that any of them accustomed themselves to dance according to the report of Salust touching Sempronia whom he judged to be too fine a dancer and singer to be honourable withall as if these two could no more agree then fire and water Cicero in his apologie of Muraena rehearseth an objection of Cato against his client wherein
were beaten downe at Hay and shamefully put to flight neither was his anger appeased untill that the offendant being divinely and miraculously descryed was stoned to death and burnt with his children and all his substance But to come unto prophane stories let us begin with Heliodorus Treasurer of Seleuchus King of Asia who by the Kings commandement and suggestion of one Simon Governour of the Temple came to take away the gold and silver which was kept in the Treasury of the Temple and to transport it unto the Kings Treasury whereat the whole City of Jerusalem put on sackeloth and poured out prayers unto the Lord so that when Heliodorus was present in the Temple with his soldiers ready to seise upon the treasure the Lord of all spirits and power shewed so great a vision that he fell suddenly into extreame feare and trembling for there appeared unto him an horse with a terrible man sitting upon him most richly barbed which came fiercely and smote at him with his forefeet moreover there appeared two yong men notable in strength excellent in beauty and comely in apparell which stood by him on either side and scourged him with many stripes so that Heliodorus that came in with so great a company of souldiers and attendants was strucken dumbe and carried out in a litter upon mens shoulders for his strength was so abated that he could not help himselfe but lay destitute of all hope of recovery so heavy was the hand of God upon him untill by the prayers of Onias the high Priest he was restored then loe he confessed that he which dwelt in heaven had his eye on that place and defended it from all those that came to hurt and spoile it Another of this crue was in Crassus the Romane who entering Jerusalem robbed the Temple of two thousand talents of silver and gold beside the rich ornaments which amounted in worth to eight thousand Talents and a beame of beaten gold containing three hundred pound in weight for which sacriledge the vengeance of God so pursued him that within a while after he was overcome by the Parthians and together with his son slain his evill gotten goods being dispersed and the skull of his head being made a ladle to melt gold in that it might be glutted with that being dead which alive it could be never satisfied with Herod following the steps of Hircanus his predecessor that tooke out of the sepulchre of King David three thousand talents of money thinking to finde the like treasure broke up the sepulchre in the night and found no money but rich ornaments of gold which he tooke away with him howbeit to his cost for two of his servants perished in the vault by a divine fire as it is reported and he himselfe had small successe in his worldly affaires ever after Iulian the Apostata robbed the Church of the revenues thereof and took away all benevolences and contributions to schooles of learning to the end the children might not be instructed in the liberall Arts nor in any other good literature He exaggerated also his sacriledge with scornfull jeasts saying That he did further their salvation by making them poore seeing it was written in their owne Bibles Blessed are the poore for theirs is the kingdome of heaven but how this sacrilegious theefe was punished is already declared in the former booke Leo Groponymus took out of the Temple of Constantinople an excellent crowne of gold beset with precious stones which Mauritius had dedicated to the Lord but as soon as he had set it on his head a cruell fever seised upon him that he dyed very shortly The punishment of the sacriledge of Queen Vrraca in Spaine was most wonderfull and speedy for when in her war against her son Alphonsus shee wanted money she robbed the Church dedicated to S. Isidore and tooke with her owne hands the treasures up which her souldiers refused to do but ere she departed out of the Church vengeance overtooke her and strooke her dead in the place Moreover the Lord so hateth this irreligious sin that he permitteth the devill to exercise his cruelty upon the spoilers of prophane and Idolatrous temples as he did upon Dyonisius the Tyran of Syracusa who after many robberies of holy things and spoiling the Churches dyed suddenly with extreame joy as authors report He spoiled the Temple of Proserpina at Locris and shaved off the golden beard of Aesculapius at Epidamnum saying It was an unseemly thing for Apollo to be beardlesse and his son bearded he deprived Iupiter Olympus of his golden raâ—ment and gave him a woollen coat instead thereof saying it was too heavy for him in the Summer and too cold in winter and this was more convenient for both seasons The pretext of all his sacriledge was this That seeing the gods were good why should not he be partaker of their goodnesse Such another was Cambyses King of Persia who sent fifty thousand men to rob and destroy the temple of Iupiter Ammon but in their journey so mighty a tempest arose that they were overwhelmed with the sand not one of them remaining to carry newes of their successe Brennus was constrained to slay himselfe for enterprising to rob the Temple of Apollo at Delphos Philomelus Onomarchus and Phayllus went about the same practise and indeed robbed the Temple of all the treasures therein but one of them was burned another drowned and the third broke his neck to conclude the Athenians put to death a yong childe for taking but a golden plate out of Diana's Temple but first they offered him other jewels and trinkets which when he despised in respect of the plate they rigorously punished him as guilty of sacriledge Cardinall Wolsey being determined to erect two new Colledges one at Oxford and the other at Ipswich obtained licence and authority of Pope Clement the seventh to suppresse about the number of forty monasteries to furnish and set forward the building of his said Colledge which irreligious sacriledge I call it sacriledge both because he was perswaded in conscience that those goods belonged to the Church and so to him it was sacriledge as also for that he did it in pride of his heart was furthered by five persons who were the chiefe instruments of the dissolution of Daintry Monastery because the Prior and Covent would not grant them certaine lands in farme at their owne price But what punishment ensued upon them at Gods hand the world was witnesse of for of these five persons two fell at discord amongst themselves and the one slew the other for the which the survivor was hanged the third drowned himselfe in a well the fourth being then worth two hundred pounds within three yeares became so poore that he begged untill his dying day and the fifth called Doctor Allen was cruelly maimed in Ireland The Cardinall himselfe falling into the Kings displeasure was deposed from his bishoprick and dyed miserably the Colledges which he
house was caught in the same snare which he had laid and destroyed by the same meanes himselfe which he had destinated for another being thus dead the whole City of Rome saith Guicciardine ran out with greedinesse and joy to behold his carkasse not being able to satisfie their eyes with beholding the dead Serpent whose venome of ambition treachery cruelty adultery and avarice had impoysoned the whole world Some say that as he purposed to poyson certain Cardinals he poysoned his own father that being in their company chanced to get a share of his drugs and that he was so abominable to abuse his own sister Lucrece in the way of filthinesse When Zemes the brother of Bajazet the Emperour of the Turkes came and surrendred himselfe into his hands and was admitted into his protection he being hired with two hundred duckets by Bajazet gave poyson to his new Client even to him to whom hee had before sworne and vowed his friendship besides that hee might maintain his tyranny he demanded and obtained aid of the Turke against the King of France which was a most unchristian and antichristian part hee caused the tongue and two hands of Anthony Mancivellus a very learned and wise man to be cut off for an excellent Oration which he made in reproof of his wicked demeanours and dishonest life It is written moreover by some that he was so affectionated to the service of his good lord and master the devil that he never attempted any thing without his counsell and advice who also presented himselfe unto him at his death in the habit of a post according to the agreement which was betwixt them and although this wretched Antichrist strove against him for life alledging that his terme was not yet finished yet he was enforced to dislodge and depart into his proper place where with horrible cries and hideous fearfull groanes he died Thus we see how miserably such wretched and infamous miscreants and such pernitious and cruell tyrants have ended their wicked lives their force and power being execrable and odious and therefore as saith Seneca not able to continue any long time for that government cannot be firme and stable where there is no shame nor fear to do evill nor where equity justice faith and piety with other vertues are contemned and trodden under foot for when cruelty once beginneth to be predominate it is so insatiable that it never ceaseth but groweth every day from worse to worse by striving to maintain and defend old faults by new untill the fear and terrour of the poor afflicted and oppressed people with a continuall source and enterchange of evils which surcharge them converteth it selfe from sorced patience to willing fury and breaketh forth to do vengeance upon the tyrants heads with all violence whence ariseth that saying of the Satyricall Poet to the same sence where he saith Few Tyrans dye the death that nature sends But most are brought by slaughter to their ends CHAP. XLVI Of Calumniation and false witnesse bearing WE have seen heretofore what punishments the Lord hath laid upon those that either vex their neigbours in their persons as in the breakers of the fifth sixth and seventh Commandments or dammage them in their goods as in the eighth now let us look unto those that seek to spoil them of their good names and rob them of their credit by slanderous reproaches and false and forged calumniatious and by that meanes go against the ninth Commandment which saith Thou shalt not bear false witnesse against thy neighbour In which words is condemned generally all slanders all false reports all defamations and all evill speeches else whatsoever whereby the good name and credit of a man is blemished stained or impoverished and this sin was not onely inhibited by the divine Law of the Almighty but also by the lawes of Nature and Nations for there is no Countrey and People so barbarous with whom these pernitious kinde of Creatures are not held in detestation of tame beasts saith Diogenes a flatterer is worst and of wilde beasts a backbiter or a slanderer and not without great reason for as there is no disease so dangerous as that which is secret so there is no enemy so pernitious as he which under the colour of friendship biteth and slandereth us behinde our backs but let us see what judgement the Lord hath shewn upon them to the end the odiousnesse of this vice may more clearly appear And first to begin with Doeg the Edomite who falsly accused Achimelech the High-Priest unto Saul for giving succour unto David in his necessity and flight for though he told nothing but that which was true yet of that truth some he maliciously perverted and some he kept backe and falsehood consisteth not onely in plain lying but also in concealing and misusing the truth for Achimelech indeed asked counsell of the Lord for David and ministred unto him the Shew-bread and the sword of Goliah but not with any intent of malice against King Saul for he supposed and David also made him beleeve that he went about the Kings businesse and that he was in great favour with the King which last clause the wicked accuser left out and by that meanes not onely provoked the wrath of Saul against the High-Priest but also when all other refused became himselfe executioner of his wrath and murdered Achimelech with all the nation of the Priests and smote Nob the City of the Priests with the edge of the sword both man and woman childe and suckling oxe and asse not leaving any alive so beastly was his cruelty save Abiathar onely one of the sons of Achimelech that fled to David and brought him tidings of this bloudy massacre But did this 〈…〉 Spirit of God in the 52. Psalme proclaimeth his judgement Why boastest thou in thy wickednesse thou Tyran Thy 〈…〉 and is like a sharpe rasor that cutteth deceitfully c. but God shall destroy thee for ever he shall take thee and plucke thee out of thy tabernacle and root thee out of the Land of the living Next to this man we may justly place Achab the King of Israel and Iesabel his wife who to the end to get possession of Naboths vineyard which being his inheritance he would not part from suborned by his wives pernitious counsell false accusers wicked men to witnesse against Naboth that he had blasphemed God and the King and by that meanes caused him to be stoned to death but marke the judgement of God denounced against them both by the mouth of Elias for this wicked fact Hast thou killed saith he and taken possession Thus saith the Lord In the place where the dogs licked the bloud of Naboth shall dogs even licke thy bloud also and as for Jesabel dogs shall eat her by the wall of Iesrael thy house shall be like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall c. Neither
was this onely denounced but executed also as we may reade 1 Kin. 22. 38. 2 Kin. 9. 36 37 c. 2 Kin. 10. 7 c. Amaziah the Priest of Bethel under Ieroboam the wicked King of Israel perceiving how the Prophet Amos prophesied against the Idolatry of that place and of the King he falsly accused him to Ieroboam to have conspired against him also he exhorted him to flie from Bethel because it was the Kings Chappell and flie into Judah and prophesie there but what said the Lord unto him by the Prophet Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line and thou shalt die in a polluted land Loe there was the punishment of his false accusation How notable was the judgement that the Lord manifested upon Hamon the Syrian for his false accusing of the Jewes to be disturbers of the Common-wealth and breakers of the lawes of King Ahasuerosh Did not the Lord turne his mischief upon his own head The same day that was appointed for their destruction the Lord turned it to the destruction of their enemies and the same gallowes which he prepared for Mordecai was he himselfe hanged upon The men that falsly accused Daniel to King Darius for breaking the Kings edict which was that none should make any request unto any for thirty dayes space save onely to the King himselfe fared no better for when as they found Daniel praying unto God they presently accused him unto the King urging him with the stability which ought to be in the Decrees of the Kings of Media and Persia that ought not to be altered in such sort that King Darius though against his will commanded Daniel to be throwne amongst the Lions to be devoured of them but when he saw how miraculously the Lord preserved him from the teeth of the Lions and thereby perceived his innocency he caused his envious accusers to be thrown into the Lions den with their wives and children who were devoured by the Lions ere they could fall to the ground Notorious is the example of the two Judges that accused Susanna both how she was delivered and they punished But let us come to prophane â—istories Apelles that famous Painter of Ephesus felt the sting and â—â—tternesse oâ— this venomous viâ—er for he was falsly accused by Antiphilus another Painter an envier of his art and excellent workemanship to have conspired with Theodota against King Ptolomie and to have been the cause of the defection of Pelusium from him which accusation he laid against him to the end that seeing he could not attain to that excellency of art which he had he might by this false pretence worke his disgrace and overthrow as indeed he had effected had not great persuasions been used and manifest proofes alledged of Apelles innocency and integrity wherefore Ptolomie having made triall of the cause and found out the false and wrongfull practise he most justly rewarded Apelles with an hundred talents and Antiphilus the accuser with perpetuall servitude upon which occasion Apelles in remembrance of that danger painted out Calumniation on this manner a Woman gayly attired and dressed with an angry and furious countenance holding in her left hand a torch and with her right a young man by the hair of the head before whom marched an evill favoured sluttish usher quicke-sighted and pale-faced called Envy at her right hand sat a fellow with long eares like King Midas to receive tales and behinde her two waiting maids Ignorance and Suspition And thus the witty Painter to delude his own evill hap expressed the lively Image and nature of that detracting sin This tricke used Maximinus the Tyran to deface the Doctrine and Religion of Christ in his time for when he saw that violence and torments prevailed not but that like the Palme the more it was trodden and oppressed the more it grew he used this subtilty and craft to undermine it he published divers bookes full of Blasphemy of a conference betwixt Christ and Pilate and caused them to be taught to children in stead of their first elements that they might no sooner speak than hate and blaspheme Christ Moreover he constrained certain wicked lewd women to avouch that they were Christians and that vile filthinesse was dayly committed by them in their assemblies which also he published far and near in writing howbeit for all this the Lords truth quailed not but swum as it were against the stream and encreased in despight of Envy and for these false accusers they were punished one after another with notable judgements for one that was a chiefe doer therein became his owne murderer and Maximinus himselfe was consumed with wormes and rottennesse as hath beene shewed in the former Booke It was a law among the Romans that if any man had enforced an accusation against another either wrongfully unlawfully or without probability both his legs should be broken in recompence of his malice which custome as it was laudable and necessary so was it put in execution at divers times as namely under the Emperour Commodus when a prophane wretch accused Apollonius a godly and profest Christian and afterward a constant martyr of Christ Jesus before the Judges of certaine grievous crimes which when he could by no colour or likelyhood of truth convince and prove they adjudged him to that ignominious punishment to have his legs broken because he had accused and defamed a man without cause Eustathius Bishop of Antioch a man famous for eloquence in speech and uprightnesse of life when as hee impugned the heresie of the Arrians was circumvented by them and deposed from his Bishopricke by this meanes they suborned a naughty strumpet to come in with a childe in her armes and in an open Synod of two hundred and fifty Bishops to accuse him of adultery and to sweare that hee had got that childe of her body which though he denied constantly and no just proofe could be brought against him yet the impudent strumpets oath tooke such place that by the Emperours censure hee was banished from his Bishopricke howbeit ere long his innocency was knowne for the said strumpet being deservedly touched with the finger of Gods justice in extreame sicknesse confessed the whole practise how she was suborned by certaine Bishops to slander this holy man and that yet she was not altogether a lyar for one Eustathius a handy-crafts man got the childe as shee had sworne and not Eustathius the Bishop The like slander the same hereticks devised against Athanasius in a Synod convocated by Constantine the Emperour at Tyrus for they suborned a certaine lewd woman to exclaime upon the holy man in the open assembly for ravishing of her that last night against her will which slander he shifted off by this devise he sent Timotheus the Presbyter of Alexandria into the Synod in his place who comming to
under whom licence and liberty is given to every man to do what him listeth forsomuch then as this evill proceedeth from the carelesnesse and slothfulnesse of those that hold the sterne of government in their hands it cannot be but some evill must needs fall upon them for the same the truth of this may appear in the person of Philip of Macedony whom Demosthenes the Orator noteth for a treacherous and false dealing Prince after that he had subdued almost all Greece not so much by open war as by subtilty craft and surprise and that being in the top of his glory he celebrated at one time the marriage of his son Alexander whom he had lately made King of Epire and of one of his daughters with great pompe and magnificence as he was marching with all his train betwixt the two bridegroomes his own son and his son in law to see the sports and pastimes which were prepared for the solemnity of the marriage behold suddenly a young Macedonian Gentleman called Pausanias ran at him and slew him in the midst of the prease for not regarding to do him justice when he complained of an injury done unto him by one of the Peeres of the Realme Tatius the fellow King of Rome with Romulus for not doing justice in punishing certain of his friends and kinsfolkes that had robbed and murdered certain Embassadours which came to Rome and for making their impunity an example for other malefactors by deferring and protracting and disappointing their punishment was so watched by the kindred of the slain that they slew him even as he was sacrificing to his gods because they could not obtain justice at his hands What happened to the Romans for refusing to deliver an Embassadour who contrary to the law of Nations comming unto them played the part of an enemy to his own Countrey even well nigh the totall overthrow of them and their City for having by this meanes brought upon themselves the calamity of war they were at the first discomfited by the Gaules who pursuing their victory entred Rome and slew all that came in their way whether men or women infants or aged persons and after many dayes spent in the pillage and spoiling of the houses at last set fire on all and utterly destroyed the whole City Childericke King of France is notified for an extreme dullard and blockhead and such a one as had no care or regard unto his Realme but that lived idlely and slothfully without intermedling with the affaires of the Common-wealth for he laid all the charge and burden of them upon Pepin his Lieutenant Generall and therefore was by him justly deposed from his royall Dignity and mewed up in a Cloyster of Religion to become a Monke because he was unfit for any good purpose and albeit that this sudden change and mutation was very strange yet there ensued no trouble nor commotion in the Realme thereupon so odious was he become to the whole land for his drousie and idle disposition For the same cause did the Princes Electors depose Venceslaus the Emperour from the Empire and established another in his room King Richard of England among other foul faults which he was guilty of incurred greatest blame for this because he suffered many theeves and robbers to rove up and down the Land unpunished for which cause the Citizens of London commenced a high suit against him and compelled him having reigned two and twenty yeares to lay aside the Crown and resigne it to another in the presence of all the States and died prisoner in the Tower Moreover this is no small defect of justice when men of authority do not onely pardon capitall and detestable crimes but also grace and favour the doers of them and this neither ought nor can be done by a soveraigne Prince without overpassing the bounds of his limited power which can in no wayes dispence with the law of God whereunto even Kings themselves are subject for as touching the willing and considerate murderer Thou shalt plucke him from my Altar saith the Lord that he may die thy eye shall not spare him to the end it may goe well with thee which was put in practise in the death of Ioab who was slaine in the Tabernacle of God holding his hands upon the hornes of the Altar for he is no lesse abhominable before God that justifieth the wicked than he that condemneth the just and hereupon that holy King S. Lewis when he had granted pardon to a malefactor revoked it againe after better consideration of the matter saying That he would give no pardon except the case deserved pardon by the law for it was a worke of charity and pitty to punish an offendor and not to punish crimes was as much as to commit them In the yeare of our Lord 978 Egelrede the sonne of Edgare and Alphred King of England was a man of goodly outward shape and visage but wholly given to idlenesse and abhorring all Princely exercises besides he was a lover of ryot and drunkennesse and used extreame cruelty towards his subjects having his eares open to all unjust complaints in feats of armes of all men most ignorant so that his cruelty made him odious to his subjects and his cowardise encouraged strange enemies to invade his kingdome by meanes whereof England was sore afflicted with warre famine and pestilence In his time as a just plague for his negligence in Governement decayed the noble Kingdome of England and became tributary to the Danes for ever when the Danes oppressed him with warre he would hire them away with summes of money without making any resistance against them insomuch that from ten thousand pounds by the yeare the tribute arose in short space to fifty thousand wherefore he devised a new tricke and sought by treacherie to destroy them sending secret Commissioners to the Magistrates throughout the Land that upon a certaine day and houre assigned the Danes should suddenly and joyntly bee murdered Which massacre being performed turned to be the cause of greater misery for Swaine King of Denmarke hearing of the murder of his countrey-men landed with a strange army in divers parts of this Realme and so cruelly without mercy and pitty spoyled the Countrey and slew the people that the Englishmen were brought to most extreame and unspeakable misery and Egelrede the King driven to flie with his wife and children to Richard Duke of Normandie leaving the whole Kingdome to bee possessed of Swaine Edward the second of that name may well be placed in this ranke for though he was faire and well proportioned of body yet he was crooked and evill favoured in conditions for hee was so disposed to lightnesse and vanity that he refused the company of his Lords and men of honour and haunted amongst villaines and vile persons he delighted in drinking and riot and loved nothing lesse than to keep secret his owne counsailes though never so important so that he let
of injuries reproches and cruelties and as it were sheepe appointed to the slaughter whereof some are massacred some hanged some headed some drowned some burned or put to some other cruell death yet notwithstanding their estate and condition is farre happier than that of the wicked for somuch as all their sufferings and adversities are blessed and sanctified unto them of God who turneth them to their advantage according to the saying of S. Paul That all things worke for the good to them that feare God for whatsoever tribulation befalleth them they cannot be separated from the love of God which he beareth unto them in his welbeloved son Christ Jesus be it then that God visiteth them for their faults for there is none that is clear of sin it is a fatherly chastisement to bring them to amendment be it that hee exerciseth them by many afflictions as hee did Iob it is to prove their faith and patience to the end they may be better purified like gold in the furnace and serve for example to others If it bee for the truth of the Gospell that they suffer then they are blessed because they are conformed to the image of the sonne of God that they might also be partakers of his glory for they that suffer with him are assured to reignâ— with him hence it is that in the midst of their torments and oppressions in the midst of fires and fagots flaming about them being comforted with the consolations of Gods spirit through a sure hope of their happy repose and incorruptible crowne which is prepared for them in the heavens they rejoyce and are so chearefull contrariwise the wicked seeing themselves ensnared in the evils which their owne sinnes brought upon them gnash their teeth fret themselves murmur against God and blaspheme him like wretches to their endlesse perdition There is therefore great difference betwixt the punishments of each of these for the one tendeth to honour and life the other to shame and confusion and even as it is not the greatnesse of torments that maketh the martyr but the goodnesse of the cause so the infliction of punishment unjustly neither maketh the party afflicted guilty nor any whit diminisheth his reputation whereas the wicked that are justly tormented for their sinnes are so marked with infamie and dishonour that the staine thereof can never be wiped out Let every one therefore learne to keepe himselfe from evill and to containe himselfe in a kinde of modesty and integrity of life seeing that by the plagues and scourges wherewith the world is ordinarily afflicted Gods fierce wrath is clearely revealed from heaven upon all impiety and injustice of men to consume all those that rebell against him Thinke upon this you inhabitants of the earth small and great of what qualitie or condition soever you be If you be mighty puissant and fearefull know that the Lord is greater than you for he is almighty all-terrible and all-fearefull in what place soever you are he is alwayes above you ready to hurle you down and overturne you to breake quash and crush you in peeces as pots of earth hee is armed with thunder fire and a bloudy sword to destroy consume and cut you in pieces heaven threatneth from above and the earth which you trample on from below shaking under your feet and being ready to spue you out from her face or swallow you up in her bowels in briefe all the elements and creatures of God looke askew at you in disdaine and set themselves against you in hatred if you feare not your Creator your Lord and Master of whom you have received your Scepters and Crownes and who is able when he please to bring Princes to nothing and make the Rulers of the earth a thing of nought Forsake therefore if you tender the good honour and repose of your selves and yours the evill and corrupt fashions of the world and submit your selves in obedience under the Scepter of Gods Law and Gospell fearing the just retribution of vengeance upon all them that doe the contrary for it is a horrible thing to fall into the hands of the Lord. And you which honour and reverence God already be now more quickned and stirred up to his love and obedience and to a more diligent practising of his will and following his commandements to the end to glorifie him by your lives looking for the happie end of your hope reserved in the heavens for you by Christ Jâ—sus our Lord to whom 〈…〉 everlasting Amen A briefe Summarie of more Examples annexed to the former by the same Author CHAP. I. Of such as have persecuted the Church of Christ. ZAcharias the sonne of Barachias of whom S. Mathew speaketh in the three and twentieth chapter and Saint Augustine in the 242 Sermon de Tempore in these words Zacharie the high-Priest reproving the rebellious people for the neglect of the worship of God and the sacred lawes was slaine of the people and the detestable band of the Jewes dyed the pavement with his bloud in the ninth yeare of the reigne of Ioas King of Judah which cruelty against this good man the whole nation of the Jewes payed deare for for when a yeare was past an armie of the Syrians came up against Ioas and slew all the Princes of the people in Judah and Hierusalem and there being but a small number of the Syrians God delivered into their hands the whole multitude of the Jewes Rabbi Iohosua reporteth that two hundred and eleven thousand were slaine in the field and ninetie foure thousand in the Citie for the expiation of the bloud of Zacharias which bloud boyled out of the earth till that day as it were out of a seething Caldron Egâ—as Patrensis a Prefect of the Emperor in Achaia when he had crucified Saint Andrew was possessed of Sathan and slaine Incommodous Emperour Commodus which was judged by the Senate more cruell than Domitian and more impure than Nero had a tragicall end both for his other vices and principally for persecuting the Church of Christ. In the time of Constantine one Teredates a great man in Armenia grievously persecuted the Church at which time Gregorie the Great famous for miracles suffered many indignities from him and at the last was shut up into a darke and muddie pit for the space of fourteene years But Teredates the Prince of that nation felt the horrible vengeance of God upon himselfe his houshold and his Nobles for they were all transformed into swine and lived like swine together and devoured one another Whether this storie be true or fabulous let the Reader judge But it is reported by Nicephorus lib. 8. cap. 35. In the reigne of Constantius after the Antiochian Synod in the which great Athanasius was condemned the Easterne Cities and especially Antioch were shaken and quashed with wonderfull Earthquakes in revenge of the injuries done to that good man Neither did Constantius the Emperour an assertor and maintainer of the Arrian heresie
Chapter 6. An Angel of the Lord appeared unto Manoa and his wife who was barren promising them a sonne to be called Sampson that should deliver the Israelites out of the hands of the Philistims Iudg. 13. It was an Angell in Davids time which strooke the Israelites with the pestilence whereof died threescore and ten thousand and when David prayed put his sword up into his sheath and saved the rest the second booke of Samuel and twentie fourth Chapter Elias the Prophet was refreshed with meat and drink and in the strength thereof hee travelled fourtie dayes and fourtie nights even to Mount Horeb by the Ministerie of an Angell 1. Kings 19. Many legions of Angels environed the Prophet Elisha which his servant at his prayer his eyes being opened saw and beheld and all to defend him from the Assyrians that besieged Samaria 2. Kings 6. An Angell of the Lord slew in the campe of the Assyrians in one night an hundred fourscoure and five thousand men 2. Kings 19. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego being cast into the fierie Furnace by Nabuchadnezzar for not worshipping his golden Image were preserved alive and kept from hurt by an Angell of the Lord Daniel 3. It was an Angell that stopt the mouthes of the Lyons that they could not hurt Daniel that was cast into their Denne Daniel 10. The Angel Gabriel declared unto Zacharias that his wife should conceive with child and bring forth Iohn the Baptist in her old age Lukâ— 1. It was the same Angell that announced to the Virgine Mary that she should bring forth Iesus Christ our Saviour Luke 1. The same told the shepheards in the field of Christ his Nativitie and witnessed his resurrection and ascention into the heavens Mathew 28 Marke 16. Acts the first An Angell delivered the Apostles out of Prison Acts 5. An Angell freed Peter from his chaines Acts 12. and Paul and Silas Acts 16. An Angell comforted Paul upon the Sea and all those that were with him and delivered them from the Tempest Acts twentie seven All these Examples are out of the holy Scriptures which is of infallible truth and sheweth that to be which is spoken by the Prophet David in the foure and thirtieth Psalme That the Angell of the Lord pitcheth his tents round about them that feare him Now follow examples out of humane Writes and first to begin with a storie in Socrates lib. 6. cap. 6. and Sozomen lib. 8. cap. 4. When Arcadius was Emperour of Rome and Saint Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople there was Gainas an Arrian and a Barbarian by profession who being powerfull and great went about to thrust Arcadius out of his Seat but the Emperour compounding with him sent him unto Constantinople with a troupe of horse and foot under the pay of the Emperour This man desired to have a peculiar Church for them of his owne Sect for the free exercising of their Religion which being denyed by the Emperour at the perswasion of Saint Chrysostome the Tyrant raised his forces in the night to spoyle and havocke the Citie But they were resisted the first and second night by the shew of a great Armie of tall and lustie men and so terrified that they durst doe nothing The third night the Tyrant himselfe thinking this to be but a fable came in his owne person with his whole Armie and found the same resistance wherewith being terrified hee fled into Tracia where hee was slaine most miserably Thus this great Citie was protected by the ministery of Angels as Hierusalem once was from the Tyran Zenacherib In the reigne of Pompilius King of Poland as the Polonian Chronicles doe report in the first booke and twelfth Chapter there came two men oâ— a venerable countenance and habit to the Court gate desiring entrance and entertainment but they were repulsed by the Porter Then they went to one Pyastus a man of excellent holinesse and charity who entertained them into his house very lovingly broached a Vessell of sweet Wine for their drinke and killed a fat Hogge for their meate which hee had prepared against the first tonsure of his sonne according to the custome of that Countrey These men or rather Angels finding this kinde entertainment caused the Vessell of sweet Wine to multiply so that the more they dranke the more still remained behinde and the Hogge also in like manner At last they wrought means that Pompilius the King being dead this good man was chosen King in his stead and then disparished and were never more seen Nicephorus in his seventeenth booke Chapter thirty five reporteth a strange storie of a Jewish childe This boy playing among other Christian children was brought into the Temple by the Priest to care the reliques of the Sacrament as the custome was who tooke it amongst his followes Which as soone as the Jew his father understood he put him into a fierie oven to be tormented to death his mother sought him up and downe the Citie not knowing what was done and at last after three dayes found him alive in the Oven from whence being taken there was no smell of fire about him Thus God protected by his Angell this poore childe Instinian the Emperour after hee knew thereof caused the boy and his mother to be baptized and the father who refused he caused to be crucified to death Under the Emperour Mauritius the Citie of Antioch was shaken with a terrible Earthquake after this manner There was a certaine Citizen so given to bountifulnesse to the Poore that hee would never suppe nor dine unlesse hee had one poore man to be with him at his Table Upon a certaine evening seeking for such a guest and finding none a grave old man met him in the Market-place cloathed in white with two companions with him whom hee entreated to suppe with him But the old man answered him That he had more need to pray against the destruction of the Citie and presently shooke his handkerchiefe against one part of the Citie and then against another and being hardly entreated forbore the rest Which hee had no sooner done but those two parts of the Citie terribly shaken with an Earthquake were throwne to the ground and thousands of men slain Which this good Citizen seeing trembled exceedingly To whom the old man in white answered and sayed By reason of charity to the poore his house and Familie were preserved And presently these three men which no question were Angels vanished out of sight This storie Sigubert in his Chron. reporteth Anne 585. Philip Melancthon reporteth That in a certaine Village neare unto the Citie Sygnea a woman sent her sonne into the wood to fetch home her Kine in the meane while such a snow fell that the boy could not returne home againe his parents the next day taking more care for the boy then for the kine went out to seeke him and within three dayes found him in the middest of the wood sitting in a faire place where no snow had fallen They demanded of him
Treasurer of England and Sir Thomas Gray were beheaded for treason No lesse was the perfidious and ungratefull treachery of Humphry Banister an Englishman towards the Duke of Buckingham his Lord and master whom the said Duke had tenderly brought up and exalted to great promotion For when as the Duke being driven into extremity by reason of the separation of his army which he had mustered together against King Richard the usurper fled to the same Banister as his trustiest friend to be kept in secret untill he could find opportunity to escape this false traitor upon hope of a thousand pounds which was promised to him that could bring forth the Duke betraied him into the hands of Iohn Mitton Shirife of Shropshire who conveied him to the city of Salisbury where King Richard kept his houshold where he was soone after put to death But as for ungratefull Banister the vengeance of God pursued him to his utter ignominy for presently after his eldest sonne became mad and died in a bores stiâ— his eldest daughter was suddenly stricken with a foule lepry his second sonne marvellously deformed of his lims and lame his youngest sonne drowned in a puddle and he himselfe in his old age arraigned and found guilty of a murther and by his Clergy saved And as for his thousand pounds King Richard gave him not a farthing saying That he which would be nutrue to so good a master must needs be false to all other To passe over the time of the residue of the Kings where in many examples of treasons and punishments upon them are extant and to come neerer unto our owne age let us consider the wonderfull providence of God in discovering the notorious treasons which have been so oftenpretended and so many against our late Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth and protecting her so fatherly from the dint of them all First therefore to begin with the chiefest the Earles of Northumberland and Westmerland in the eleventh yeare of her raigne began a rebellion in the North pretending their purpose to be sometimes to defend the Queenes person and government from the invasion of strangers and sometimes for conscience sake to seeke reformation of Religion under colour whereof they got together an army of men to the number of six thousand souldiers against whom marched the Earle of Suffex Lieutenant of the North and the Earle of Warwicke sent by the Queene to his ayde Whose approch strucke such a terrour into their hearts that the two Earles with divers of the arch Rebels fled by night into Scotland leaving the rest of their company a prey unto their enemies whereof threescore and six or thereabout were hanged at Durham As for the Earles one of them to wit of Northumberland was after taken in Scotland and beheaded at York Westmerland fled into another Countrey and left his house and family destroyed and undone by his folly A while after this what befell to Iohn Throgmorton Thomas Brooke George Redman and divers other Gentlemen at Norwich who pretended a rebellion under the color of suppressing strangers were they not discovered by one of their owne conspiracy Thomas Ket and executed at Norwich for their paines The same end came Francis Throgmorton to whose trecheries as they were abhominable and touching the Queens owne person so they were disclosed not without the especiall providence of God But above all that vile and ungratefull traitor William Parry upon whom the Queene had powred plentifully her liberality deserveth to be had in everlasting remembrance to his shame whose treasons being discovered he payed the tribute of his life in recompence thereof What shall I say of the Earle of Arundell and a second Earle of Northumberland Did not the justice of God appeare in both their ends when being attainted for treason the one slew himselfe in prison and the other died by course of nature in prison also Notorious was the conspiracy of those arch traitours Ballard Babington Savadge and Tylney c. yet the Lord brought them downe and made them spectacles to the World of his justice Even so that notorious villaine Doctor Lopez the Queenes Physitian who a long time had not onely beene an intelligencer to the Pope and King of Spaine of our English Counsells but also had poisoned many Noblemen and went about also to poyson the Queene her selfe was he not surprised in his treachery and brought to sudden destruction In summe the Lord preserved her Majesty not only from these but many other secret and privy foes and that most miraculously and contrary to all reason and spread his wings over her evermore to defend her from all her enemies and in despight of them all brought her being full of yeares in peace to her grave All these treasons had their breeding and beginning from that filthy sinke of Romish superstition from whence the poison was conveied into the hearts of these traiterous wretches by the means of those common firebrands of the Christian World the wicked Iesuites whose chiefest art is Treason and whose profession is equivocation and practise to stir up rebellion and therefore as long as they breath in the world let us looke for no better fruits from such trees And hath the reigne of our now Soveraigne King Iames beene free from these Sinons He hath as yet swayed the Scepter of this Kingdome not fully nine yeres and how many treasons have beene complotted and practised against his Majesty and the State and how miraculously hath the Lord preserved him evermore even as the apple of his eye and the signet on his right hand To omit the treason of Raleigh and Cobham and that also of Watson and Clerke that late and last divellish and damnable practise of blowing up the Parliament house with gunpowder together with the King Prince and all the Nobles and chiefe Pillars of the Land is never to be omitted nor forgotten but to be remembred as long as the Sunne and Moone endureth to the shame of their religion and the professours thereof never Nation so barbarous that ever practised the like never any religion so odious that maintained the like but such are the fruits of their so much advanced religion such the clusters of their grapes How be it the Lord prevented their malice and turned it upon their owne pates not only by a Divine and miraculous discovery of their treason the very night before it should have beene effected but also by bringing the chiefe plotters thereof unto confusion some by the ordinary proceeding of justice and some by slaughter in resistance and that which is not to bee overpast some of the principall of them being together in a chamber were so scorched by their owne powder which was in drying that they were driven to confesse the heavy judgement of God to be upon them I pray God such may ever bee the end of all traitours and that the religion which bringeth forth such horrible fruits may not onely be suspected but abhorred of all Moreover there is yet another
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
his companions to a feast together with his Concubine the Divell entered in amongst the guests snatching away the young woman and saying Thou art mine neither could the Priest or any of the companie deliver her out of his hands And thou also sayeth the Divell to the Priest and I meane to fetch thee shortly Martin Luther reporteth this storie out of the mouth of Doctor Gregorius Pontanus how two Noblemen falling out in the Court of the Emperour Maximilian vowed each others death Now the Divell taking occasion out of this malicious vow slew the one of the Noblemen in the night with a sword taken out of the others sheath into the which hee put the same againe all bloudie whereupon this Nobleman was arraigned of this murther and had bin condemned but that it was prooved that he stirred not out of his chamber all that night and therefore they concluded that it was the malicious fact of Sathan And yet the Nobleman because hee intended this murther though hee acted it not was condemned by the Emperour to perpetuall banishment And thus much concerning persons infested by the Divell Now a word or two for places Saint Augustine in his two and twentieth Booke De Civitate Dei chapter the eighth reporteth of a certaine Gentleman that lived not far from him in Affrica who had his house so infested with evill Spirits that both his servants and his Cattell died frequently This man getting unto him the company of the Priests offering up the sacrifice of the body and bloud of Christ in his house with servent prayers unto God against these evill Spirits was thereby freed from any further molestation by them as this holy Father writeth Saint Gregorie telleth us of the Spirit of one Paschasius that haunted the Bathes and was seene by Sermanus the Bishop of Capua by whose meanes and prayers the place was freed from that Ghost or rather the Ghost was freed from that place Greg. lib. 4. Dialog Cap 39. Gregorie Nissen writes also of a certaine Bath which was grievously infested by evill Spirits wherein they tooke away the lives of many men The like whereof is reported by Georgius Presbyter of another house thus molested where the evill Spirits would throw stones upon the table while they were at dinner and filled the house with myce and Serpents so that no man durst dwell therein The like storie reporteth mataphrastes in the life of Saint Pautheneus and Lycas in the life of the Emperor Anastasius Pliny in his seventh Booke the twentie seventh Epistle telleth us that in an house in Athens there appeared continually a tall and leane shape of a man drawing chaines after him which when it was seene to sinke downe and vanish into a certaine place of the ground they digged and found the dead body of a man which being removed the house was freed from the molestation What should I speake of the house of Eubatis in Corinth written by Lucian or of Pausanias the King of the Spartans whose house was haunted by an evil spirit presently after he had slain his wife Cleonice as Plutarch writeth Or of the evil spirits that haunted the grave of that cruel Tyrant Caesar Caligula Suet. Or of Nero that slew his mother Agrippina who was continually after pursued with a spirit in his mothers shape or of Otto that slew his predecessor Galba after which he never ceased to be molestred with fearful and terrible visions Or a number more which I might insert but these shal suffice as a taste of a number more that Tyraeus the Iesuite hath set down in his Book De infestis Locis I adde onely two or three and so an end Alexander of Alexandro dwelling in Rome in an house so infamous for strange sights that no man durst dwell therein reporteth that beside the night tumults and horrible and fearefull noyses there appeared unto him the shape of a map of a filthie looke threatening countenance and blacke and fearfull in bodie from which the house could by no meanes be set free Cardanus Lib. 26. c. 93. De rerum varietate reporteth the like to haye happened to an house of a certaine Nobleman in Parma In which house alwaies before the death of some of the family an old woman of an hundred yeares old appeared sitting in the chimney corner In an Island neere unto the Articke Pole there is an hill out of the which like mount Aetna there bursteth out continually fire and smoake There everie night appeareth a companie of evill Spirits representing perfectly the shape of some friends which they know whom when they go to speake unto they presently vanish out of their sight Olaus magnus But enough enough of this unsaverie subject onely let us learne hereby to beware of this ambitious enemie of mankinde who as Saint Peter sayeth Goeth about somtime like a Lion to devour us Other times like a subtill Serpent to molest us but all with a desire of our destruction I may be thought too prolix in this Argument of Gods Iudgements but considering the fiercenesse of Gods wrath against notorious sinners and the hardnesse of mens hearts to be drawne to repentance nothing I thinke can be judged too much But yet to sweeten these soure pills let me cover them a little with the sugar of Gods mercifull protection of his children by his holy Angels CHAP. XV. The conclusion concerning the protection of holy angels over such as feare God NOtwithstanding all these Judgements upon the wicked yet God is good unto Israel even to those that are of an upright heart Psalme seventie three Verse the first for as he executeth his Judgements upon the one so hee defendeth the other by his mightie providence especially by the protection of Angels Of which I purpose to give you many examples in this place and first out of the holy Scriptures Two Angels came to Lâ—t in Sodome strooke the inhabitants with blindnesse and led Lot by the hand out of Sodom readie to be destroyed by fire and brimstone Genesis the nineteenth When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac an Angell held his hand and forbad him to kill his sonne promising him from God a blessing for his obedience Genesis 22. Iacob in his returne homeward was comforted and strengthened against his brother Esau by the blessed Angels Genesis the two and thirtieth An Angell of the Lord when the children of Israel came out of Aegypt stood betwixt the campe of the Aegyptians and the Israelites in a pillar of clouds by day to protect the Israelites against the Aegyptians Exodus 14. Balaam when being sent for by Balaac King of Moab to curse the Israelites an Angell with a sword drawne in his hand withstood him in the way and commanded him to speake nothing but what the Lord should put into his mouth Numbers 22. An Angel of the Lord apeared unto Gedeon comforted him and appointed him captain over the people to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Madianites Iudges