it was good reason that she should partake some of that punishment which they both deserved as she did for being surprised by her enemies to the intent she might not be carried in triumph to Rome she caused an aspe to bite her to death Marke here the pittifull Tragedies that following one another in the necke were so linkt together that drawing and holding each other they drew with them a world of miseries to a most wofull end a most transparent and cleere glasse wherein the visages of Gods heavy judgements upon all murtherers are apparently deciphered CHAP. VI. Other examples like unto the former AFter that the Empire of Rome declining after the death of Theodosius was almost at the last cast ready to yeeld up the ghost and that Theodorick king of the Goths had usurped the dominion of Italy under the Emperor Zeno he put to death two great personages Senators and chiefe citizens of Rome to wit Simmachus and â—oetiâ—â— only for secret surmise which he had without probability that they two should weave some she web for his destruction After which cruell deed as he was one day at supper a fishes head of great bignesse beeing served into the table purposing to be very merry suddenly the vengeance of God assailed amased oppressed and pursued him so freshly that without intermission or breathing it sent his body a senselesse trunk into the grave in a most strange and marvellous manner for he was conceited as himselfe reported that the fishes head was the head of Simmachus whom he had but lately slaine which grinned upon him and seemed to face him with an overthwart threatning and angry eye wherewith hee was so scarred that he forthwith rose from the table and was possessed with such an exceeding trembling and icle ehilnesse that ran through all his joynts that he was constrained to take his chamber and goe to bed where soone after with griefe and fretting and displeasure hee died He committed also another most cruell and traiterous part upon Odoacer whom inviting to a banquet he deceitfully welcommed with a messe of swords in stead of other victuals to kill him withall that he might sway the Empire alone both of the Gothes and Romanes without checke It was not without cause that Attila was called the scourge of God for with an army of five hundred thousand men he wasted and spoiled all fields cities and villages that he passed by putting all to fire and sword without shewing mercy to any on this manner he went spoiling through France and there at one time gave battell to the united forces of the Romans Vicegothes Frenchmen Sarmatians Burgundians Saxons and Almaignes after that he entered Italy tooke by way of force Aquilea sacked and destroyed Millan with many other cities and in a word spoiled all the countrey in fine being returned beyond Almaigne having married a wife of excellent beauty though he was well wived before he died on his marriage night suddenly in his bed for having well carowsed the day before he fell into so dead a sleepe that lying upon his backe without respect the bloud which was often woont to issue at his nostrils finding those conduits stopped by his upright lying descended into his throat and stopped his winde And so that bloudy tyrant that had shed the bloud of so many people was himselfe by the effusion of his owne bloud murthered and stifled to death Ithilbald king of Gothia at the instigation of his wife put to death very unadvisedly one of the chiefe peeres of his realme after which murther as he sate banquetting one day with his princes environed with his gard and other attendants having his hand in the dish and the meat between his fingers one suddenly reached him such a blow with a sword that it cut off his head so that it almost tumbled upon the table to the great astonishment of all that were present Sigismund king of Burgundy suffered himselfe to be carried away with such an extreame passion of choler provoked by a false and malicious accusation of his second wife that he caused one of his sonnes which he had by his former wife to be strangled in his bed because he was induced to think that he went about to make himselfe king which deed being blowne abroad Clodomire sonne to Clodovee and Clotild king France and cousin german to Sigismund came with an army for to revenge this cruell and unnaturall part his mother setting forward and inciting him thereunto in regard of the injury which Sigismunds father had done to her father and mother one of whom he slew and drowned the other As they were ready to joyne battell Sigismunds souldiers forsooke him so that hee was taken and presently put to death and his sonnes which he had by his second wife were taken also and carried captive to Orleance and there drowned in a Well Thus was the execrable murther of Sigismund and his wife punished in their owne children As for Clodomire though he went conqueror from this battell yet was he encountered with another disastrous misfortune for as hee marched forward with his forces to fight with Sigismunds brother he was by him overcome and slaine and for a further disgrace his dismembred head fastened on the top of a pike was carried about to the enterview of all men Hee left behinde him three young sonnes whom his owne brethren and their uncles Clotaire and Childebert notwithstanding their young and tender yeres tooke from their grandmother Clotildes custody that brought them up as if they would install them into some part of their fathers kingdome but most wickedly and cruelly to the end to possesse their goods lands and seigniories bereft them all of their lives save one that saved himselfe in a Monastery In this strange and monstrous act Clotaire shewed himselfe more than barbarous when he would not take pity upon the youngest of the two being but seven yeares old who hearing his brother of the age of tenne yeres crying pittifully at his slaughter threw himselfe at his uncle Childeberts feet with teares desiring him to save his life wherewith Childebert being greatly affected entreated his brother with weeping eies to have pity upon him and spare the life of this poore infant but all his warnings and entreaties could not hinder the savage beast from performing this cruell murther upon this poore childe as he had don upon the other The Emperour Phocas attained by this bloudy means the imperiall dignity even by the slaughter of his lord and master Mauricius whom as he fled in disguised attire for feare of a treason pretended against him he being beforetime the Lievtenant Generall of his army pursued so maliciously and hotly that he overtooke him in his flight and for his further griefe first put all his children severally to death before his face that every one of them might be a severall death unto him before he died and then slew him also This murtherer was he that first exalted to
then is the murdering of Parents especially detestable when a man is so possessed with the Devill or transported with a hellish fury that he lifteth up his hand against his own father or mother to put them to death this is so monstrous and inormous an impiety that the greatest Barbarians ever have had it in detestation wherefore it is also expresly commanded in the Law of God That whosoever smiteth his father or mother in what sort so ever though not to death yet he shall die the death If the disobedience unreverence and contempt of children towards their Parents are by the just judgements of God most rigorously punished as hath beene declared before in the first commandement of the second Table how much more then when violence is offered and above all when murder is committed Thus the Aegyptians punished this sinne they put the committants upon a stacke of thornes and burnt them alive having beaten their bodies beforehand with sharpe reeds made of purpose Solon being demanded why he appointed no punishment in his Lawes for Paricides answered that there was no necessity thinking that the wide world could not afford so wicked a wretch It is said that Romulus for the same cause ordained no punishment in his Common wealth for that crime but called every murderer a Paricide the one being in his opinion a thing execrable and the other impossible And in truth there was not for 600 yeeres space according to Plutarchs report found in Rome any one that had committed this execrable fact The first Paricide that Rome saw was Lucius Ostius after the first Punicke warre although other Writers affirme that M. Malliolus was the first and Lucius the second how soever it was they both underwent the punishment of the Law Pompeia which enacted That such offenders should be thrust into a sacke of Leather and an Ape a Cocke a Viper and a Dog put in to accompany them and then to be throwne into the water to the end that these beasts being enraged and animated one against another might wreke their teene upon them and so deprive them of life after a strange fashion being debarred of the use of the aire water and earth as unworthy to participate the very Elements with their deaths much lesse with their lives which kinde of punishment was after practised and confirmed by the constitution of Constantine the Great And albeit the regard of the punishment seemed terrible and the offence it selfe much more monstrous yet since that time there have beene many so perverse and exceeding wicked as to throw themselves headlong into that desperate gulfe As Cleodoricke sonne of Sigebert King of Austria who being tickled with an unsatiable lust of raigne through the deceivable perswasions of Cleodovius King of France slew his father Sigebert as he lay asleepe in his Tent in a forrest at noone time of the day who being weary with walking laid himselfe downe there to take his rest but for all that the wicked wretch was so farre from attaining his purpose that it fell out cleane contrary to his expectation for after his fathers death as he was viewing his treasures and ransacking his coffers one of Cleodovius factors strooke him suddenly and murdered him and so Cleodovius seised both upon the Crowne and Treasures After the death of Hircanus Aristobulus succeeded in the government of Judea which whilest he strove to reduce into a kingdome and to weare a crown contrary to the custome of his predecessors his mother other brethren contending with him about the same he cast in prison took Antigonus his next brother to be his associate but ere long a good gratefull son he famished her to death with hunger that had fed him to life with her teares even his naturall mother And after perswaded with false accusations caused his late best beloved Antigonus to be slaine by an ambush that lay by Strato's tower because in the time of his sicknesse he entred the Temple with pompe But the Lord called for quittance for the two bloodsheds immediately after the execution of them for his brothers blood was scarce washed off the ground ere in the extreamity of his sicknesse he was carried into the same place and there vomiting up blood at his mouth and nosthrils to be mingled with his brothers he fell downe starke dead not without horrible tokens of trembling and despaire Nero that unnaturall Tyran surpassed all that lived as in all other vices so in this for he attempted thrice by poyson to make away his mother Agrippina and when that could not prevaile by reason of her usuall Antidotes and preservatives hee assayed divers other meanes as first a devise whereby she should be crushed to death as she slept a loosened beame that should fall upon her and secondly by shipwracke both which when she escaped the one by discovery and the other by swimming he sent Anicâ—tus the Centurion to slaughter her with the sword who with his companions breaking up the gate of the City where she lay rushed into her Chamber and there murdered her It is written of her that when she saw there was no remedy but death she presented her belly unto the murderer and desired him to kill her in that part which had most deserved it by bringing into the world so vile a monster and of him that he came to view the dead carkasse of his mother and handled the members thereof commending this and discommending that as his fancy led him and in the meane time being thirsty to call for drinke so farre was he from all humanity and touch of Nature but he that spared not to embrue his hands in her blood that bred him was constrained ere long to offer violence to his own life which was most deere unto him Henry the son of Nicolotus Duke of Herulia had two wicked cruell and unkind sonnes by the yonger of whom with the consent of the elder he was traiterously murdered because he had married a third wife for which cause Nicolotus their cousin-german pursued them both with a just revenge for he deprived them of their kingdome and drove them into exile where they soon after perished Selymus the tenth Emperour of Turkes was so unnaturall a childe that he feared not to dispossesse his father Bajazet of the crown by treason and next to bereave him of his life by poyson And not satisfied therewith even to murder his two brethren and to destroy the whole stock of his own blood But when hee had raigned eight yeares vengeance found him out and being at his backe so corrupted and putrified his reins that the contagion spread it selfe over all his body so that he dyed a beast-like and irksome death and that in the same place where he had before oppressed his father Bajazet with an army to wit at Chiurle a city of Thracia in the year of our Lord 1520. in the moneth of September Charles the younger by surname called Crassus
son to Lodouick the third was possessed tormented with a divell in the presence of his father the Peeres of the Realme which he openly confessed to have justly happened unto him because he had pretended in his mind to have conspired his fathers death and deposition what then are they to expect that doe not pretend but performe this monstrous enterprise A certaine degenerate and cruell son longing and gaping after the inheritance of his father which nothing but his life kept him from wrought this means to accomplish his desire he accused his father of a most filthy unnameable crime even of committing filtâ—inesse with a Cow knowing that if he were convicted therof the law would cut off his life herein he wroght a double villany in going about not only to take away his life which by the law of nature he ought to have preserved but also his good name without respecting that the stain of a father redoundeth to his posterity and that children commoÌ„ly do not only inherit the possessions but also imitate the conditions of their parents but all these supposes laid aside together with all feare of God he indicted him before the Magistrate of incest and that upon his own knowledge insomuch that they brought the poore innocent man to the rack to the end to make him confesse the crime which albeit amidst his tortures he did as soon as he was out he denyed again howbeit his extorted confession stood for evidence and he was condemned to be burned with fire as was speedily executed and constantly endured by him exclaiming still upon the false accusation of his son and his own unspotted innocency as by the issue that followed most cleerely appeared for his son not long after fell into a reprobate mind and hanged himselfe and the Judge that condemned him with the witnesses that bare record of his forced confession within one moneth died all after a most wretched and miserable sort And thus it pleased God both to revenge his death and also to quit his reputation and innocency from ignominy and discredit in this world Manfred Prince of Tarentum bastard son to Frederick the second smothered his father to death with a pillow because as some say he would not bestow the kingdome of Naples upon him and not content herewith he poisoned also the heirs of Frederick to the end he might attain unto the crown as Conrade his elder brother and his nephew the son of Henry the heir which Henry died in prison and now onely Conradinus remained betwixt him and the kingdome whom though he assayed to send after his father yet was his intention frustrate for the Pope thundered out his curses against him and instigated Charles Duke of Angiers to make war against him wherein bastard and unnaturall Manfred was discomfited and slaine and cut short of his purpose for which he had committed so many tragedies Martin Luther was wont to report of his own experience this wonderfull history of a Locksmith a yong man riotous and vicious who to find fuel for his luxury was so bewitched that he feared not to slay his own father mother with a hammer to the end to gain their mony and possessions after which cruell deed he presently went to a shoomaker and bought him new shooes leaving his old behind him by the providence of God to be his accusers for after an houre or two the slain bodies being found by the Magistrate and inquisition made for the murderer no manner of suspition being had of him he seeming to take such griefe therat But the Lord that knoweth the secrets of the heart discovered his hypocrisie and made his owne shooes which hee had left with the Shoomaker rise up to beare witnesse against him for the blood which ran from his fathers wounds besprinckled them so that thereof grew the suspition and from thence the examination and very soon the confession and last of all his worthy and lawfull execution From hence we may learne for a generall trueth that murder never so secret will ever by one means or other be discovered the Lord will not suffer it to goe unpunished so abominable it is in his sight Another son at Basil in the yeare of our Lord God 1560 bought a quantity of poyson of an Apothecary and ministred it to none but to his own father accounting him worthiest of so great a benefit which when it had effected his wish upon him the crime being detected in stead of possessing his goods which he aimed at he possessed a vile and shamefull death for he was drawne through the streets burnt with hot Irons and tormented nine houres in a wheele till his life forsooke him As it is repugnant to nature for children to deale thus cruelly with their parents so it is more against nature for parents to murder their children insomuch as naturall affection is of greater force in the descent than in the ascent the love that parents bear their children is greater than that which children redound to their Parents because the childe proceedeth from the father and not the father from the childe as part of his fathers essence and not the father of his Can a man then hate his own flesh or be a rooter out of that which himselfe planted It is rare yet sometimes it commeth to passe Howbeit as the offence is in an high degree so it is alwayes punished by some high judgement as by these examples that follow shall appeare The ancient Ammonites had an Idoll called Moloch to the which they offered their children in sacrifice this Idoll as the Jewes write was of a great stature and hollow within having seven chambers in his hollownesse whereof one was to receive meat another turtle Doves the third a sheep the fourth a ram the fifth a calfe the sixth an oxe and the seventh a childe his hands were alwayes extended to receive gifts and when a childe was offered they were made fire hot to burne it to death none must offer the childe but the father and to drowne the cries of it the Chemarims for so were the Priests of that Idoll called made a noise with bels cymbals and horns thus is it written that king Ahab offered his son yea and many of the children of Israel beside as the Prophet David affirmeth They offered saith he their sons and daughters to Divels and shed innocent blood c. this is the horrible crime Now marke the judgement concerning the Canaanites the landspued them out for their abominations Achab with his posterity was accur sed himselfe being slaine by his enemies and the crowne taken from his posterity not one being left of his off-spring to pis against the wall according to the saying of Elias as for the Jewes the Prophet David in the same place declareth their punishment when he saith That the wrath of the Lord was kindled and he abhorred his inheritance and gave them into the hands of the
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
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
things run as it were in a circle and how great the uncertainetie of this world is seeing that the mightiest are subject to so many and great changes for if there be any thing under the Sun that may carry any shew of stability or continuance surely it is a Monarchie or Common-wealth grounded upon the unitie and consent of all people maintained by the authoritie of the greatest and most mightie and underpropped with the shores of much strength and wealth as the Romane Empire was and yet for all that there was never any though never so well reared and furnished and deepe rooted which at the length hath not bin demolished ransacked and pulled up by some notable and strange calamitie And this is that which the spirit of God would give us to knowe by the vision of that great image represented to Nabuchadnezzar in a dreame according to Daniels interpretation thereof to wit that the foure great and puissant Monarchies of the world should at last be ruined and dispersed like the chaffe before the winde till they were consumed and brought to nothing albeit they were glorious and excellent as gold and silver or strong and mightie as brasse and iron How much more foolish and evill advised are they then that for a certaine apparant splendour and shew of worldly honour which is as fraile as any rose as variable as the winde as light and vaine as a shadow or smoke as unassured as a rotten planke have the eyes of their minde so dazeled and their wits so bewitched and all their affections so transported as to mingle heaven and earth together to dash the East against the West to stirre up discord and dissention betwixt man and man and to shed so many thousand mens bloud and all for a paltrie desire of reigne though to their owne finall ruine and destruction And thus it came to passe in the time of the emperor Otho to a Duke of Venice called Peter Caudian who not content with his Dukedome went about to usurpe a tyrannicall rule over the whole Seigniorie and that by pride and threats desiring rather to make himselfe terrible to the people by those bad meanes than amiable and beloved by any meanes whatsoever and thus daily hee grew as in age so in insolencie he placed a garrison of men about his palace and so fortifying himselfe presently he shewed himselfe in his colours namely a cruell Tyran which when the multitude perceived and remembred withall their libertie which they were like to lose they tooke up armes forthwith in purpose to beat downe his haughtie minde therefore they first set on fire his house and caused him to forsake his fortresse and to betake himselfe to his shifts but when by reason of the stopping of the passages he could not escape they tooke him and his young sonne also which was with him and put them to a most cruell and sudden death and cast their carkasses to be devoured of dogs In the Empire of Maximilian Lewis Sforce a Prince of an inconstant and turbulent spirit ambitious and one that made no account of his promises nor faith tooke upon him the governement of Milan after the death of his brother Galeaz Duke of Milan who was traiterously slaine in which action the first wrong which hee did was to his brothers widow whom hee deposed the second to his young nephew his brother Galeaz son whom he so brought up as if he never meant he should come to honour or goodnesse for he suffered him not to be trained up either in learning or armes but let him runne into all possible occasions that might corrupt and spoyle his tender age Thus hee enjoyed the principalitie thirteene yeares all the while under his nephewes reigne to whom when Alphonsus King of Naples had given in mariage one of his daughters and perceived what small reckoning his uncle made of restoring him his Dukedome after he had often and instantly intreated him without prevailing at length he fell to threaten him with warre he fearing to have the worse and to lose so great a dignitie wrought so by his owne shifts and devices together with the helping hand of Pope Alexander that hee put in the head of Charles the eighth of France to go and conquer Naples for the hatred which his heart possessed against Alphonsus supposing by this meanes the better to accomplish his affaires to his owne desire The King of France was no sooner entred Italie but Lewis Sforce ministred an Italian posset to his young nephew Iohn Galeaz that hee immediatly died upon it and then he proclamed himselfe Prince of the Duchie by the aid of the principall of the Councell whom he had woon to referre that honour unto him by deposing the young sonne of Iohn Galeaz beeing then but five yeares old but he declared presently his inconstant and perfidious nature in breaking promise with the King of France whome he had induced with so many faire speeches to undertake that voyage and entering a new league with the Venetians both against him and the Pope although ere long he served them with the same measure but Lewis the twelfth succeeding in the Crowne of France could not brooke this injurie done to his predecessor but pretending a title to the Duchie of Milan he dispatched an armie thitherward that bestirred it selfe so well that in short space they brought under their subjection all the Cities and Townes neere adjoyning which the citizens perceiving began to rebell against their Duke and killed his Treasurer whereupon he being not able to make his part good with the French abroad nor daring to put any confidence in his owne at home left his castle to the charge and custodie of a captaine and fled himselfe with his children to Almaine towards the Emperour Maximilians court hoping to finde succour at his hand as indeed he did for he returned to Milan with five hundred Burgundians and eight thousand Switzers and was received againe into the Citie Being thus refortified with these and other more troupes that came unto him he encamped before Navarre and by composition got the City into his hands from the Frenchmen The French King in the meane while sent a new supplie of men into the Duchie amongst whom were many Switzers who so dealt with their countrimen that were on the Dukes side that they brought them also to favour the King of France and to forsake the Duke which when he understood hee presently departed the citie and posting to the campe hardened his souldiers desiring them to play the men and not to shrinke for he meant to give battell without delay but the captains made answer that they might not fight against their owne nation without especiall leave from their Lords Now in the meane while whilest these things were in doing they tooke order that the Frenchmen should approach to Navarre and intercept all the passages that the Duke might not escape He therefore laid aside his horse and marched on foot in
whereas David was by the Prophet Nathan reproved for the adultery and murder which he had committed he neither used any excuse nor alledged any priviledge whereby he was exempted from the rigour of the law to justifie his fact but freely confessed without any cloake that he had sinned Whereby it appeareth of how small strength and authority their opinion and words be which thinke or affirme that a Prince may dispense with the lawes at his pleasure by this opinion was the mother in law of Antonius Caracalla seduced who having by her lascivious and filthy allurements enticed her sonne in law to lust and love her and to desire her for his wife perswaded him that he might bring his purpose to passe and that it was lawfull enough for him if hee would though for other it was unlawfull seeing that hee was Emperour and that it belongeth not to him to receive but to give lawes by which perswasion that brave marriage was concluded and made up contrary to the law of nature and nations and to all honesty and vertue So it was reported how Cambyses tooke his owne sister to wife whom notwithstanding a little after hee put to death which thing being not usuall then among the Persians not daring to enterprise it although hee was a most wicked man without the advice of the Magistrates and Counsellors of his Realme he called them together and demanded whether it was lawfull for him to make such a marriage or no to whom they answered freely That there was no prescript law which did allow of it yet that they might sooth him up fearing to incurre his displeasure they said further that though there was no law to command it yet such a mighty King as hee might doe what he pleased In like manner the trencher Philosopher Anaxarchus after that he had told Alexander the Great with a loud voice that hee ought not to feare the penalty of any law nor the reproach nor blame of any man because it belonged onely to his office to create lawes for all other to live by and to prescribe the limits of lawfull and lawlesse things and that it became him being a conquerour to rule like a lord and a master and not to obey any vaine conceit of law whatsoever and that what thing soever the King did the same was sacred just and lawful without exception And by this means made his proceedings farre more dissolute and outragious in many things than ever they were before Dion in the Epitome of Xiphiline reporteth how the Emperours were wont to usurpe this priviledge to be exempted from all law that they might not be tyed to any necessity of doing or leaving undone any thing and how in no case they would endure to be subject to any written ordinances the which thing is manifest even in the behaviour of the chiefest of them as well in regard of their life and manners as of the government that they used in their Common-wealths For first of all Augustus Caesar having kept in his owne hand the office of the Triumvir ten yeares as Suetonius testifieth hee also usurped the Tribunes office and authority and that till his dying day and likewise tooke upon him the Censorship namely the office of correcting and governing manners and lawes if need required whose successors a man may truly say for the most part trampled under their feet all sincere and sacred lawes by their notorious intemperance dissolutenesse and cruelties And yet for all this there wanted not a parasiticall Lawyer who to please the Emperor his lord and master the better and to underprop and as it were seele over with a faire shew that tyrannicall government used by other Emperours foisted in this as a law amongst the rest Princeps legibus solutus est That the Prince was exempted from all law As for that which they alleadge out of Aristotles Politiques it maketh nothing to set a colour upon this counterfeit for saith Aristotle If there be any man that excelleth so in vertue above all others that none is able to compare with him that man is to be accounted as a God amongst men to whom no law may be prescribed because he is a law unto himselfe all which I grant to be true if that which was presupposed could take place for where no transgression is found there no law is necessary according as Saint Paul said The law was not given for the just but for the unjust and offendors but where is it possible to find such a Prince so excellent and so vertuous that standeth not in need of some law to be ruled by Of the like force and strength is that which is written in the first booke of Institutions tit 2. the words are these The Princes pleasure serveth for a law because the whole body of the people hath translated all their authority power and jurisdiction unto him This is spoken of the Romane Emperours but upon the ground of so slender and silly reason that upon so weake a foundation it can never stand for if it be demanded whether this action of the people of giving over their right and prerogative to their Prince be willing or constrained what answer will they make If it be by constraint and feare as it is indeed who will not judge this usurping of their liberty utterly unjust and tyrannicall when one man shall arrogate that to himselfe which pertaineth to many yea to the whole body of the people And admit that this reason was effectuall yet the glosse upon the place saith very notably That the Princes pleasure may be held for a law so farre forth as that which pleaseth him be just and honest giving us to know thus much thereby That every will and pleasure of a Prince may not indifferently be allowed for a law if it be an unjust and dishonest action and contrary to the rule of good manners Moreover it appeareth by the Customes of many antient people and Realmes That Princes had never this license given them to doe what they listed for let them be never so mighty yea as mighty as Darius under whose raigne the Persian Monarchy was abolished yet hee must be content acording to the law of the Medes and Persians not to be able to infringe that law which was by the advice of his Peers and Privy Councell enacted and by his owne consent and authority established no though for Daniels deliverance sake whom he loved he greatly desired and tooke paines either to disannull or at least to give a favourable interpretation of it Such in old time was the custome of the Kings of Aegypt not to follow their owne affections in any actions they went about but to be directed by the advice of their lawes for they had not so much authority as to judge betwixt man and man or to levy subsidies and such like by their owne powers neither to punish any man through choler or any overweening conceit but were alwayes tyed to observe
his companions where threats were blowne out on every side against the Faithful swore before them all That before he died he would â—ide up to his spurs in the bloud of the Lutherans But it hapned in the same night that the hand of God so stroke him that he was strangled and choaked with his own bloud and so he rode not but bathed himselfe not up to the spurs but up to the throat not in the bloud of Lutherans but in his owne bloud before he died In the raign of Francis de Valois of late memory the first King of France of that name those men that shewed themselves frowardest sharpest and most cruell in burning and murthering the holy Martyrs were also forwardest examples of the vengeance of God prepared for all such as they are For proofe whereof the miserable end of Iohn Roma a Monke of the Order of the White Friers may serve who although in regard of his hood and habit ought not to be placed in the number of men of note yet by reason of the notable example of Gods vengeance upon him wee may rightly place him in this ranke This man therefore at that time when the Christians of Cabrier and Merindol began to suffer persecution having obtained a Commission from the Bishop of Provence and the Embassadour Avignion to make inquisition after and seise upon the bodies of all them that were called Lutherans ceased not to afflict them with the cruellest torments he could devise Amongst many of his tortures this was one To cause their boots to be filled with boiling grease and then fastning them overthwartwise over a bench their legs hanging over a gentle fire to seeth them to death The French King advertised of this cruelty sent out his Letters Patents from the Parliament of Provence charging That the said Iohn de Roma should be apprehended imprisoned and by processe of law condemned Which news when the Caitife heard he fled backe as fast as he could trot to Avignion there purposing to recreate and delight himselfe with the excrements of his oppression and robbery which hee had wrung out of the purses of poor people but see how contrary to his hope it fell out for first he was robbed of his evill gotten goods by his owne servants and presently upon the same hee fell sicke of so horrible and strange a disease that no salve or medicine could be found to asswage his paine and beside it was withall so loathsome that a man could not endure his company for the stinke and corruption which issued from him For which cause the white Fryers his Cloysterers conveyed him out of their Covent into the hospitall where increasing in ulcers and vermine and being become now odious not onely to others but to himselfe also hee would often cry either to be delivered from his noysomnesse or to bee slaine being desirous but not able to performe the deed upon himselfe And thus in horrible torments and most fearfull despaire he most miserably died Now being dead there was none found that would give Sepulture to his rotten carkasse had not a Monke of the same Order dragged the carrion into a ditch which he provided for the purpose The Lord of Revest who a while supplied the place of the chiefe President in the Parliament of Provence by whose meanes many of the Faithfull were put to death after hee was put beside his office and returned home unto his owne house was attached with so grievous a sicknesse and such furious and mad fits withall that his wise and neerest allyance not daring to come near him he like a frantick bedlam enraged and solitarily ended his life A Counsellor of the same Court called Bellemont was so hot and zealous in proceeding against the poor prisoners for the Word of Gods sake that to the end to pack them soon to the fire he usually departed not from the Judgement Hall from morning to evening but caused his meat and drinke to bee brought for his meales returning not home but onely at night to take his rest But whilest hee thus strongly and endeavourously imployed himselfe about these affaires there began a little sore to rise upon his foot which at the first being no bigger than if a waspe had stung the place grew quickly so red and full of paine and so increased the first day by ranckling over all his foot and inflaming the same that by the judgement of Physicians and Chirurgions through the contagious fire that spread it selfe over his whole body it seemed incurable except by cutting off his foot the other members of the body might be preserved which hee in no case willing to yield unto for all the medicines that were applied unto it sound the second day his whole leg infected and the third his whole thigh and the fourth day his whole body insomuch that he died the sameday his deadbody being all partched as if it had been rosted by a fire And thus he that was so hot in burning poore Christians was himselfe by a secret flame of Gods wrath as by slow and soft fire burned and consumed to death Lewes du Vaine brother in law to Meniâ—r the President of the said Parliament of Provence with the brother and son of Peter â—urand chiefe butcher of the city Ajax the evening before the horrible cruelty was executed at Merindoll fell at debate amongst themselves and the morrow as instruments of Gods judgements slew one another The Judge of the City Aix one of that wretched crew drowned himselfe in his returne as he passed over the river Durance As for the chiefe Judge that was principall in that murtherous action touching the condemnation of those poore soules of Merindoll and Cabrieres he likewise suddainly died before he saw the execution of that decree which himselfe had set downe Iohn Mesnier Lord of Oppede another chiefe Officer of the aforesaid Parliament that got the leading of the murthering Army against the poore Christians aforesaid committing such excesse of cruelty that the most barbarous heathen in the world would have yearned to doe For which cause hee was also summoned to appeare personally at the Parliament of Paris there to answer those extortions robberies and oppressions which were layd to his charge and being convinced and found guilty theieof was neverthelesse released and set at liberty and that which is more restored to his former estate Howbeit though hee escaped the hands of men yet was hee overtaken by the hand of God who knew well enough the way how to entrap and abate his proud intents for even then when hee was in the height of worldly prosperity and busier than ever in persecuting Christians even then was hee pulled downe by a flux of bloud which provoking his privy parts engendred such a carnositie and thicknesse of flesh therein and withall a restraint of urine that with horrible outeries and raving speeches hee died feeling a burning fire broyling his entrailes from his navill upwards
up for their deliverance some grievous punishment befell them for then being without law or government every man did that which seemed good in his owne eyes and so turned aside from the right way Now albeit these examples may seeme to have some affinity with Apostasie yet because the ignorance and rudenesse of the people was rather the cause of their falling away from God than any wilfull affection that raigned in them therefore we place them in this ranke as well as they have bin alwaies brought up and nuzled in Idolatry One of this câ—â—w was Ochosias King of Iuda sonne of Ioram who having before him an evill president of his wicked father and a worse instruction and bringing up of his mother Athaliah who together with the house of Achab pricked him forward to evill joyned himselfe to them and to their Idols and for that cause was wrapped in the same punishment and destruction with Ioram the King of Israel whom Iehu slew together with the Princes of Iuda and many of his neere kinsmen And to be short Idolatry hath been the decay and ruine of the kingdome of Iuda as at all other times so especially under Ioachas sonne of Iosias that raigned not above three moneths in Ierusalem before he was taken and led captive into Aegypt by the King thereof and there died from which time the whole land became tributary to the King of Aegypt And not long after it was utterly destroyed by the forces of Nabuchadnezzar King of Babel that came against Ierusalem and tooke it and carried King Ioachim with his mother his Princes his servants and the treasurers of the Temple and his owne house into Babylon and finally tooke Zedechias that fled away and before his eyes caused his sonnes to be slaine which as soone as he had beheld commanded them also to be pulled out and so binding him in chaines of yron carried him prisoner to Babylon putting all the Princes of Iudah to the sword consuming with fire the Temple with the Kings Palace and all the goodly buildings of Ierusalem And thus the whole kingdome though by an especiall prerogative consecrated and ordained of God himselfe ceased to be a kingdome and came to such an end that it was never re-established by God it is no marvell then if the like hapned to the kingdome of Israel which was after a sort begun and confirmed by the filthy idolatry of Ieroboams calves which as his successors maintained or favoured more or lesse so were they exposed to more or lesse plagues and incumbrances Nadab Ieroboams sonne being nuzled and nurtured up in Idoll worship after the example of his father received a condigne punishment for his iniquity for Baasa the sonne of Ahijah put both him and all the off spring of Ieroboams house to the sword and raigned in his stead who also being no whit better than those whom he had slaine was punished in the person of Ela his sonne whom Zambri also his servant slew And this againe usurping the crowne enjoyed it but seven dayes at the end whereof seeing himselfe in danger in the city of Tirza taken by Amri whom the people had chosen for their King went into the palace of the Kings house and burned himselfe As for Achab he multiplied Idolatry in Israel and committed more wickednesse than all his predecessors wherefore the wrath of God was stretched out against him and his for he himselfe was wounded to death in battell by the Syrians his son Ioram slain by Iehu and threescore and ten of his children put to death in Samaria by their governors and chiefe of the city sending their heads in baskets to Iehu Above all a most notable and manifest example of Gods judgement was seene in the death of Iezabel his wife that had been his spurre and provoker to all mischiefe when by her Eunuchs and most trusty servants at the commandement of Iehu she was throwne downe out of a window and trampled under the horse feet and last of all devoured of dogs Moreover the greatest number of the kings of Israel that succeeded him were murthered one after another so that the kingdome fell to such a low decline that it became first tributary to the King of Assyria and afterward invaded and subverted by him and the inhabitants transported into his land whence they never returned but remained scattered here and there like vagabonds and all for their abhominable Idolatry Which ought to be a lesson to all people Princes and Kings that seeing that God spared not these two Realmes of Iuda and Israel but destroyed and rooted them out from the earth much lesse will he spare any other kingdome and Monarchy which continue by their Images and Idol-worship to stirre up his indignation against them CHAP. XXV Of many evils that have come upon Christendome for Idolatry IF we consider and search out the cause of the ruine of the East Empire and of so many famous and flourishing Churches as were before time in the greatest part of Europe and namely in Greece we shall finde that Idolatry hath been the cause of all for even as it got footing and increase in their dominions so equally did the power of Saracens and Turkish tyranny take root and foundation among them and prospered so well that the rest of the world trembled at the report thereof God having raised and fortified them as before time he had done the Assyrians and Babylonians as whips and scourges to chasten the people and Nations of the world that wickedly had abused his holy Gospel and bearing the name of Christians had become Idolaters for no other name than this can be given them that in devotion doe any manner of homage to Images and pictures whatsoever may superficially be alleadged to the contrary For be it the Image either of Prophet Apostle or Christ Iesus himselfe yet it is necessary that the law of God stand whole and sound which saith Thou shalt make thy selfe no graven Image nor any likenesse of things either in heaven above or in earth beneath thou shalt not how downe to them nor worship them c. Wherefore he performed the part of a good Bishop that finding a vaile spread in the entrance of a Church dore wherein the Image of Christ or of some other Saint was pictured rent it in pieces with these words That it was against the authority of the sacred Scriptures to have any Image of Christ set up in the Church After the same manner Serenus Bishop of Marscilla beat downe and banished all Images out of his Churches as occasions of Idolatry and to shun them the more it was ordained in the Elibertine Councell that no Image nor picture should be set up in any Church for which cause also the Emperour Leo the third by an open Edict commanded his subjects to cast out of their Temples all pictures and statues of Saints Angels and whatsoever else to the intent that all occasions of Idolatry might be
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
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
after heard of This history is recorded in the Annales of the aforenamed city and avouched to be most true being a notable and fearefull admonition to all parents to set their children to learning and instruction and to withdraw them from all such vaine and foolish pastimes CHAP. II. Of those that rebell against their Superiors NOw as it is a thing required by law and reason that children beare that honour and reverence to their naturall parents which is commanded so it is necessary by the same respect that all subjects performe that duty of honour and obedience to their Lords Princes and Kings which is not derogatory to the glory of God the rather because they are as it were their fathers in supplying that duty towards their subjects which fathers owe their children as namely in maintaining their peace and tranquility in earthly things and keeping them under the discipline of Gods Church to which two ends they were ordained For this cause the Scripture biddeth every man to be subject to the higher powers not so much to avoid the punishment which might befall the contrary as because it is agreeable to the will of God And in another place To honour the King and To give unto Caesar that which is Caesars as unto God that which is Gods So also in Moses law wee are forbidden to detract from or speake evill of the Magistrate or to curse the Ruler of the people Yet for all this the children of Israel were not afraid many times to commit this sin but then especially when they charged Moses with conspiring the murther of those Rebels that under Corah Dathan and Abiram Captaines of that enterprise set themselves against him and Aaron whom not he but God for their pride and stubburnnesse had rooted out and destroyed and thus they backbited and slandered Moses and mutined against him being their soveraigne Magistrate and Conductor that so meekly and justly had brought them out of Egypt even by the speciall commission of Almighty God But the fury of Gods displeasure was so stirred up against them for this their fact that they were scourged with a grievous plague whereof dyed about foure thousand and seven hundred persons In the time of King Davids flight from Absalom who pursued him to bereave him of his kingdome there was one Semei a Ieminite that in his wicked and perverse humour in stead of service done unto his Soveraigne especially in that extremity not only presented not himselfe unto him as a subject but as a railer cursed him with most reproachfull tearmes as of murtherer and wicked man and also threw stones at him and his followers in most despightfull manner for which his malitious and rebellious act though whilest David lived he was not once called in question yet was he not exempted from punishment therefore for in the end his wickednesse fell upon his owne head and destruction overtooke him by desert of another fault at the commandement of Solomon The punishment of Shiba the sonne of Bichri tarried not all so long who having also with a proud and audacious heart stirred up the greatest part of Israel to rebell against David then when he thought to have been most at quiet enjoyed not long his disloyall enterprise for being speedily pursued by Davids servants and besieged in the city Abel his head was cut off by the citizens and throwne over the wall as a just reward for his rebellious act But let us passe over these sacred histories and come to prophane yet probable and more neere examples When Camillus besieged the Phalischi a people in Hetruria neere to mount Floscon a Schoolemaster of the city who had the rule over the chiefe mens sons both touching instruction and governance led them out of the city gates one day in shew to walke but indeed to betray them into Camillus hands which unfaithfull dealing Camillus did not onely mislike but detest and refuse thinking it an unhonest part by such finister meanes to bring even his enemies in subjection and therefore reproving the trustlesse Schoolmaster and binding his hands behind his back he gave every one of his schollers a rod with commandement to whip him backe unto the parents whom hee had pretended so to deceive A most noble act in Camillus would wee could finde the like among Christians and a most deserved punishment of the Schoolmaster would no traitor might be served better Neither might that worthy Romane repent his deed for the Phalischi in admiration and love of this notable justice freely yeelded themselves and their city to him which otherwise in long time and without great effusion of bloud he could not have atchieved Did Tarpeia the daughter of Sp. Tarpeius speed any better when shâ—t betrayed the tower whereof her father was the overseer to Tatius King of the Sabines who at that season besieged Rome upon condition of a summe of gold or as other writers say of all that the souldiers wore on their left hands No verily for the Sabines as soon as they had obtained their purpose overwhelmed her with her left hand gifts to wit their shields and not their rings and bracelets which she hoped to the end to leave an example to the posterity how no promise nor oath ought to be of force to traitors to keep them from punishment Neither did these noble young men of Rome amongst whom were the Consull Brutus sonnes come to any better issue when they conspired to receive King Tarquinius into the city by night who by the vertue and valour of their father was worthily expulsed for their secret and wicked counsell being bewrayed to the Consuls Iunius and Pub. Valerius by Vindicio a bondslave they were apprehended having letters about them written to Tarquinius to the same effect and being condemned were first shamefully scourged with rods and after executed to death Pausanias King of Sparta having conspired with the Persians against his own countrey and as it were offered violence to his owne bowels fled into the Sanctuary of Pallas for reliefe when he saw the Ephori to go about to call him in question for his treason Now whereas it was irrelegious to take him from thence by violence they agreed to shut him up there continually and so to pine him to death Which when his mother understood she was the first person that brought a stone to stop up the doores to hinder him from getting forth and therein shewed a notable example of godly cruelty to her childe and cruell pitty to her countrey approving that saying of Aristippus who being demanded why hee neglected his sonne being borne of his body answered Doe wee not cast from us lice and flegme which are also bred of our bodies Insinuating That they which have nothing to commend them to their parents but generation are not to be esteemed as children much lesse they that degenerate When Brennus Captaine of the Gaules brother to Belinus and sonne to
despightfull manner for the Daulphin escaping their hands by night and safegard in his castle after that he heard of the seisure of the citie found meanes to assemble certuine forces and marched to Montereaufautyon with 20000 men of purpose to be revenged on the Duke for all his brave and riotous demeanors hither under colour of parling and devising new means to pacifie these old civill troubles he enticed the Duke and being come at his very first arrivall as he was bowing his knee in reverence to him he caused him to be slaine And on this manner was the Duke of Orleance death quitted and the evill and cruelty shewed towards him returned upon the murderers owne necke for as he slew him trecherously and cowardly so was he also trecherously and cowardly slaine and justly requited with the same measure that he before had measured to another notwithstanding herein the Daulphin was not free from a grievous crime of disloyaltie and truth-breach in working his death without shame of either faith-breach or perjury and that in his owne presence whom hee had so often with protestation of assurance and safetie requested to come to him Neither did he escape unpunished for it for after his fathers decease he was in danger of losing the Crowne and all for this cause for Philip Duke of Burgundie taking his fathers revenge into his hands by his cunning devices wrought meanes to displace him from the succession of the kingdome by according a marriage betwixt the King of England and his sister to whom he in favor agreed to give his kingdome in reversion after his owne decease Now assoone as the King of England was seised upon the governement of France the Daulphin was presently summoned to the marble Table to give answere for the death of the old Duke whither when he made none appearance they presently banished him the realme and pronounced him to be unworthy to be succeeder to the noble Crowne which truely was a very grievous chastisement and such an one as brought with it a heape of many mischiefes and discomfitures which happened in the warre betwixt England and him for the recovery of his kingdome Peter sonne to Alphonsus King of Castile was a most bloudy and cruell Tyran for first he put to death his owne wife the daughter of Peter Duke of Burbon and sister to the Queene of France next hee slew the mother of his bastard brother Henrie together with many Lords and Barons of the realme for which he was hated not onely of all his subjects but also of his neighbor and adjoyning countries which hatred moved the foresaid Henrie to aspire unto the Crowne which what with the Popes avouch who legitimated him and the helpe of certaine French forces and the support of the Nobility of Castile he soone atchieved Peter thus abandoned put his safest gard in his heeles and fled to Bordeaux towards the Prince of Wales of whom he received such good entertainment that with his aid he sonne re-entred his lost dominions and by maine battell chased his bastard brother out of the confines thereof but being re-installed whilest his cruelties ceased not to multiply on every side behold Henrie with a new supply out of France began to assayle him afresh and put him once again to his shifts but all that he could doe could not shift him out of Henries hands who pursued him so hotly that with his owne hands hee soone rid him out of all troubles and afterwards peaceably enjoyed the kingdome of Castille But above all the horrible murders and massacres that ever were heard or read of in this last age of the World that bloudy massacre in France under the reigne of Charles the ninth is most famous or rather infamous wherein the noble Admirall with many of the nobility and gentrie which were Protestants were most traiterously and cruelly murdered in their chambers and beds in Paris the foure and twentieth of August in the night in this massacre were butchered in Paris that very night ten thousand Protestants and in all France for other cities followed the example of Paris thirty or as some say forty thousand I will not stand to relate the particular circumstances and manner thereof it being at large described by divers writers both in French and English only to our purpose let us consider the judgements and vengeance of Almightie God upon the chiefe practisers and plotters thereof which were these Charles the ninth then King by whose commission and commandement this massacre was undertaken his brother and successour the Duke of Aniou the Queene mother his bastard brother and the Duke of Guise yea the whole towne of Paris and generally all France was guilty thereof Now observe Gods just revenge Charles himselfe had the thred of his life cut off by the immediat hand of God by a long and lingring sickenesse and that before he was come to the full age of 24 yeres in his sicknesse bloud issued in great abundance out of many places of his body insomuch that sometimes he fell and wallowed in his owne bloud that as he had delight to shed the bloud of so many innocents so he might now at the latter end of his dayes be glutted with bloud And surely by this meanes the Lord did put him in minde of his former bloudy murders to draw him to repentance if it were possible The Duke of Anjou who succeeded this Charles in the Crowne of France and was called Henrie the third was murdered by a young Iacobine Monke called Frier Iaques Clement at the instigation of the duke de Maine and others of the league and that wherein appeareth manifestly the hand of God in the selfe same chamber at S. Cloves wherein the Councell for the great massacre had beene taken and plotted as it is constantly affirmed The Duke of Guise in the yeare 1588 the 23 of December was murdered by the kings owne appointment being sent for into the kings chamber out of the councell chamber where attended him 45 with rapiers and poniards ready prepared to receive him The Queene mother soone after the slaughter of the Duke of Guise tooke the matter so to heart that shee went to bed and dyed the first of Ianuarie after Touching all the rest that were chiefe actors in the tragidie few or none escaped the apparant vengeance of God and as for Paris and the whole realme of France they also felt the severe scourge of Gods justice partly by civile wars and bloudshed and partly by famine and other plagues so that the Lord hath plainly made knowne to the world how precious in the sight of his most Holy Majestie is the death of innocents and how impossible it is for cruell murderers to escape unpunished CHAP. X. Of divers other Murderers and their severall punishments MAximinus from a shepheard in Thracia grew to be an Emperor in Rome by these degrees his exceeding stength and swiftnesse in running commended him so to Severus then Emperour that he made
got a band of souldiers to defend himselfe yet hee was surprised by the Earles sonnes who tormenting him as became a traitor to bee tormented at last rent his body into foure quarters and so his murder and treason was condignely punished Above all the execution of Gods vengeance is most notably manifested in the punishment and detection of one Parthenius an homicide treasurer to Theodobert king of France who having traiterously slaine an especiall friend of his called Ausanius with his wife â—apianilla when no man suspected or accused him thereof he detected and accused himselfe after this strange manner As hee slept in his bed suddenly hee roared out most pittifully crying for helpe or else hee perished and being demanded what he ailed he halfe asleepe answered That his friend Ausanius and his wife whome hee had slaine long agoe summoned him to judgement before God upon which confession hee was apprehended and after due examination stoned to death Thus though all witnesses faile yet a murderers own conscience will betray him Pepin and Martellus his sonne kings of France enjoying prosperity and ease fell into divers monstrous sinnes as to forsake their wives and follow whores which filthynesse when the Bishop of Tungâ—ia reproved Dodo the harlors brother murdered him for his labor but hee was presently taken with the vengeance of God even a lousie and most filthie disease with the griefe and stinke whereof being moved hee threw himselfe into the river of Mosa and there was drowned How manifest and evident was the vengeance of God upon the murderers of Theodorick Bishop of Treverse â— Conrade the author of it dyed suddenly the souldier that helped to throw him downe from the rocke was choaked as he was at supper two other servants that layd to their hands to this murder slew themselves most desperatly About the yeare of our Lord 700. Geâ—lian the wife of Gosbere prince of Wurtiburg being reproved by Kilianus for incest for shee married her husbands brother wrought such meanes that both hee and his brethren were deprived of their lives but the Lord gave her up to Satan in vengeance so that shee was presently possessed with him and so continued till her dying day A certaine woman of Millaine in Italie hung a young boy and after devoured him instead of meat when as she wanted none other victuals and when she was examined about the crime she confessed that a spirit perswaded her to doe it telling her that after it she should attaine unto whatsoever she desired for which murder shee was to râ—â—â—nted to death by a lingring and grievous punishment This Arlunus reporteth to have happened in his time And surely how soever openly the Divell sheweth not himselfe yet he is the mover and perswader of all murders and commonly the doctor For hee delighteth in mens blouds and their destruction as in nothing more A gentleman of Chaleur in Fossignie being in the Duke of Savoyes army in September the yeare of our Lord 1589 and grieving to behold the cruelties which were exercised upon the poore inhabitants of that countrey resolved to depart from the said army now because there was no safer nor neerer waie for him than to crosse the lake to Bonne he entreated one of his acquaintance named Iohn Villaine to procure him meanes of safe passage over the lake who for that purpose procured two watermen to transport him with his horse apparell and other things being upon the lake the watermen whereof the chiefest was called Martin Bourrie fell upon him and cut his throat Iohn Villaine understanding hereof complained to the magistrates but they being forestalled with a present from the murderer of the gentlemans horse which was of great value made no inquisition into the matter but said that hee was an enemy which was dispatched and so the murderers were justified but God would not leave it so unpunished for about the fifteenth of Iuly 1591 this Bourrie going with divers others to shoot for a wager as hee was charging the harquebuse which hee had robbed the gentleman of when hee murdered him it suddenly discharged of it selfe and shot the murderer through the heart so that hee fell downe starke dead and never stirred nor spake word In the first troubles of France a gentleman of the troups which besieged Moulins in Bourbonnois was taken with sickenesse in such sort that hee could not follow his company when they dislodged and lying at a Bakers house which professed much friendship and kindnesse to him hee put such confidence in him that hee shewed him all the money that he had but so farre was this wretch from either conscience or common honestie that assoone as it was night hee most wickedly murdered him Now marke how God revenged it it happened not long after that the murderer being in sentinell one of his owne fellowes unawares shot him through the arme with a harquebuse whereof he languished the space of three moneths and then died starke mad The town of Bourges being yeelded by Monsieur D'yvoy during the first troubles in France the inhabitants were inhibited from talking together either within or without the towne or from being above two together at a time under colour of which decree many were most cruelly murdered And a principall actor herein was one Garget captaine of the Bourbonne quarter who made a common practise of killing innocent men under that pretence But shortly after the Lord that heareth the crie of innocent bloud met with him for hee was stricken with a burning fever and ranne up and downe blaspheming the Name of God calling upon the Divell and crying out if any would goe along with him to hell hee would pay his charges and so died in desperate and franticke manner Peter Martin one of the Queries of the King of France his stable and Post-master at a place called Lynge in the way towards Poyctou upon a sleight accusation without all just forme of lawfull processe was condemned by a Lord to bee drowned The Lord commanded one of his Faulkners to execute this sentence upon him upon paine to bee drowned himselfe whereupon he performed his masters command But God deferred not the revenge thereof long for within three daies after this Faulkner and a Lackey falling out about the dead mans apparell went into the field and slew one another Thus he that was but the instrument of that murder was justly punished how much more is it likely that the author escaped not scot free except the Lord gave him a heart truely to repent It hath beene observed in the history of France since the yeare of our Lord 1560 that of a thousand murders which remained unpunished in regard of men not tenne of them escaped the hands of God but came to most wretched ends In the yeare of our Lord 1546 Iohn Diazius a Spaniard by birth living a student and Professor in Paris came first to Geneva and then to Strasbrough and there by the
together in single fight one of Cinna's army the other of the contrary and the one having slaine the other after that the Conquerour perceived that it was his brother whom hee had slaine hee slew himselfe also to make satisfaction for his brothers blood and so they were both buried in one grave Norbanus a Consull of Rome flying from Scylla slew himselfe at Rhodes rather than he would fall into his enemies hands and so did likewise Marius the sonne at Praeneste Of the murderers of Iulius Caesar almost all became also the murderer of themselves Cassius stabb'd himselfe with the same dagger wherewith he had stabb'd Caesar Brutus the night before his overthrow at Philippi saw in his chamber a vision of a great fearefull man and he demanding who he was and what he would he answered I am O Brutus thy evill spirit and to morrow thou shalt see me at Philippi To whom Brutus with a bold courage answered I will therefore see thee there The next day Brutus being conquered by Augustus and Anthony at Philippi fell upon his own sword and slew himselfe Methridates that bloody and mighty King of Pontus being overcome of Lucullus and Pompey and set upon by his owne sonne went about to make away himselfe by poyson which when it tooke not effect by reason of his daily taking of Antidotes he forced a French souldier of his to lay violent hands upon him and so hee became a wilfull spiller of his owne blood that had caused the blood of so many thousands to be spilt His two wives Monica and Veronica hearing of the miserable end of the king made likewise themselves away for the one hanged her selfe but when the weight of her body broke the cord shee committed her selfe to Bochis the Eunuch to bee slaine the other received poyson which when it wrought not so speedily as shee desired Bochis also was made an instrument to dispatch her Most famous and notorious is the story of Lucretia who being ravished by Tarquinius the yonger and impatient of that injury and disgrace slew her selfe openly and gave cause by her death of the change of the Roman State from the government of Kings to Consuls Sophronia another Roman woman but a Christian when as she could by no meanes escape the lust of Decius the Emperour daily assaulting her chastity tooke a sword and by her husbands consent slew her selfe and so to prevent one sin she committed another farre worse than that she feared Portia the daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus hearing of the death of her husband at Philippi sought for a knife to kill her selfe which being denyed her she eat burning coales and so ended her life by a strange kinde of death Wee read of many wanton and lewd Poets that have thus made an end of themselves who as for the most they are Epicures and Atheists so seldome come to a good end Labienus the railing Poet who for that cause was called Rabienus understanding that his bookes were adjudged to bee burned by a publike Decree would not survive his own writings and therefore killed himselfe Lucretius the Atheist taking a love potion to incite his lust was by the force therof deprived of his sences and so deprived himselfe also of life in his rage Empedocles the vainglorious Poet affecting the name of a god and of immortality threw himselfe headlong into mount Aetna and so perished Silvius Italicus being taken with an incurable disease chose rather to be his owne murderer than to endure the torment of his sicknesse Cornelius Gallus an amatorius Poet having robbed the City Thebes over which he was set to be governour by Augustus Caesar and fearing to be called to account prevented the punishment of humane justice by executing the justice of God upon himselfe with his owne hands Of those that persecuted the Church of Christ very many were given over by God to be persecutors of themselves and spoylers of their owne lives as Nero for example the first Emperour that tooke in hand to persecute Christians he seeing himselfe in danger to be murdered by one appointed for that purpose to prevent the malice of the murderer murdered himselfe Magnentius another tyrant and enemy to Christs Church being overcome by Constantius brother to Constans whom he had slaine fled to Lions and there became his owne Butcher whose death as soone as his brother Decentius understood he also hanged himselfe Galerius the Emperour after he had tormented the Christians by all cruell means and left no way unattempted whereby he might root them out of his Kingdome fell into a grievous disease through the torment whereof not being able to endure any longer he thrust a sword into his own bowels and so miserably ended his dayes And to come neerer to our owne age in King Edward the sixths dayes one Clerke an open enemy to the Gospel hanged himselfe in the Tower so did Pavier Towne-clerke of London so did the sonne of one Levar a husbandman that mocked and scorned at the holy Martyr master Latymer so likewise did Henry Smith a Lawyer another open adversary to Gods truth Richard Long another enemy to Gods truth drowned himselfe at Calice in King Henry the eights dayes Iohn Plankney a Fellow of New Colledge in Oxford did the like Anno 1566. and likewise one Hanington a Fellow of the same Colledge in a well at Padua or as some thinke at Rome Of these you may reade more in the first booke Hither I might adde many examples of moderne experience as namely of a covetous wretch in the Isle of Elie who being cast in a suit of Law through impatience of griefe came home and hanged himselfe of another that had beene a great dealer in worldly matters and an undoer of a Family or two of good credit and revenue by usury and taking forfeiture of bonds and that by his owne flattering perswasion being himselfe arrested at Huntington for debt rather then he would satisfie it though he was able enough cut his owne throat after a most fearefull and horrible manner another being a man of note and good possessions threw himselfe downe headlong from the top of a Church Many such like examples I could adjoyne with their names and places of abode but I forbeare least by reporting Gods judgements upon the dead I should offend some that are alive These therefore already proposed may be a sufficient taste of this kinde of judgement inflicted by God upon wicked persons and also may serve for a caveat and warning to all men to take heed how they offer violence to their owne lives seeing it is not onely a punishment of sinne past but a fearfull sinne it selfe and a forerunner and causer of punishment to come even of eternall punishment except the Lord extraordinarily and miraculously shew mercy which none ought to presume of CHAP. XIII Of Paricides or Parent Murderers IF all effusion of humane blood be both horrible to behold and repugnant to nature
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
be whereof all they are guilty that either make up such Marriages or give their good will or consent to them or do not hinder the cause and proceedings of them if any manner of way they can Now that this confusion and mixture of Religion in Marriages is unpleasant and noysom to God it manifestly appeareth Gen. 6. where it is said that because the sonnes of God to wit those whom God had separated for himselfe from the beginning of the world to be his peculiar ones were so evill advised as to be allured with the beauties of the daughters of men to wit of those which were not chosen of God to be his people and to marry with them corrupting themselves by this contagious acquaintance of prophane people with whom they should have had nothing to do that therefore God was incensed against them and resolved simply to revenge the wickednesse of each party without respect Beside the monstrous fruits of those prophane Marriages do sufficiently declare their odiousnesse in Gods sight for from them arose gyants of strength and stature exceeding the proportion of men who by their hugenesse did much wrong and violence in the world and gained fearfull and terrible names to themselves but God provoked by their oppressions drowned their tyrannies in the Floud and made an end of the world for their sakes In the time of the Judges in Israel the Israelites were chastised by the hand of God for this same fault for they tooke to wives the daughters of the uncircumcised and gave them their daughters also In like sort framed they themselves by this meanes to their corrupt manners and superstitions and to the service of their Idolatrous gods but the Lord of heaven raigned downe anger upon their heads and made them subject to a stranger the King of Mesopotamia whom they served the space of eight yeares Looke what hapned to King Solomon for giving his heart to strange women that were not of the houshold of Gods people he that before was replenished with such admirable wisdome that he was the wonder of the world was in his olde age deprived thereof and besotted with a kinde of dulnesse of understanding and led aside from the true knowledge of God to serve Idols and to build them Altars and Chappels for their worship and all this to please forsooth his wives humours whose acquaintance was the chiefe cause of his misery and Apostasie CHAP. XXIV Touching incestuous Marriages NOw as it is unlawfull to contract marriages with parties of contrary religion so it is as unlawfull to marry those that are neare unto us by any degree of kindred or affinity as it is inhibited not only by the law of God but also by civill and politique constitutions whereunto all nations have ever by the sole instinct of nature agreed and accorded except the Aegyptians and Persians whose abhominations were so great as to take their owne sisters and mothers to be their wives Cambyses King of Media and Persia married his owne sister but it was not long ere he put her to death a just proofe of an unjust and accursed marriage Many others there were in protract of time that in their insatiable lusts shewed themselves no lesse unstaied and unbriedled in their lawlesse affections then he One of which was Antigonus King of Judea son of Herodes sirnamed Great who blushed not to marry his sister the late wife of his deceased brother Alexander by whom she had borne two children but for this and divers other his good deeds he lost not only his goods which were confiscated but was himselfe also banished out of his countrey into a forraine place from Judea to Vienna in France Herod also the Tetrarch was so impudent and shamelesse that he tooke from his brother Philip his wife Herodias and espoused her unto himselfe which shamelesse and incestuous deed Iohn Baptist reproving in him told him plainly how unlawfull it was for him to possesse his brothers wise but the punishment which befell him for this and many other his sins we have heard in the former booke and need not here to be repeated Anton. Caracalla tooke to wife his mother in law allured thereunto by her faire enticements whose wretched and miserable end hath already been touched in the former booke The Emperour Heraclius after the decease of his first wife married his owne neece the daughter of his brother which turned mightily to his undoing for besides that that under his raigne and as it were by his occasion the Saracens entred the borders of Christendome and spoiled and destroyed his dominions under his nose to his foule and utter disgrace he was over and above smitten corporally with so grievous and irksome a disease of dropsie that he dyed thereof Thus many men run ryot by assuming to themselves too much liberty and breake the bounds of civill honesty required in all Contracts and too audaciously set themselves against the commandement of God which ought to be of such authority with all men that none be they never so great should dare to derogate one jot from them unlesse they meant wholly to oppose themselves as profest enemies to God himselfe and to turne all the good order of things into confusion All which notwithstanding some of the Romish Popes have presumed to encroach upon Gods right and to disanull by their foolish decrees the lawes of the Almighty As Alexander the sixth did who by his Bull approved the incestuous marriage of Ferdinand King of Naples with his owne Aunt his father Alphonsus sister by the fathers side which otherwise saith Cardinall Bembus had been against all law and equity and in no case to be tollerated and borne withall Henry the seventh King of England after the death of his eldest son Arthur caused by the speciall dispensation of Pope Iulius his next son named Henry to take to wife his brothers widdow called Katherine daughter to Ferdinando King of Spaine for the desire he had to have this Spanish affinity continued who succeeding his father in the Crowne after continuance of time began to advise himselfe and to consult whether this marriage with his brothers wife were lawfull or no and found it by conference both of holy and prophane lawes utterly unlawfull whereupon he sent certaine Bishops to the Queene to give her to know That the Popes dispensation was altogether unjust and of none effect to priviledge such an act to whom she answered That it was too late to call in question the Popes Bull which so long time they had allowed of The two Cardinals that were in Commission from the Pope to decide the controversie and to award judgement upon the matter were once upon point to conclude the decree which the King desired had not the Pope impeached their determination in regard of the Emperour Charles nephew to the said Queene whom he was loath to displease wherefore the King seeing himselfe frustrate of his purpose in this behalfe sent into divers
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
prisoners to Affrica amongst the which was Eudoxia the Empresse with her two daughters Eudocia and Placidia who was the cause of all this calamity but her trechery saved not her self nor them from thraldome And thus was Rome sacked and destroyed more than ever it was before insomuch that the Romane Empire could never after recover it selfe but decayed every day and grew worse and worse These were the calamities which the adultery of Valeutinian brought upon himselfe and many others to his owne destruction and the utter ruine of the whole Empire Childericke King of France son to Merouce for laying siege to the chastity of many great Ladies of his Realme the Princes and Barons conspired against him and drove him to flie for his life Eleonor the wife to King Lewis of France he that first cut through the sea surrowes towards Jerusalem against the Turkes and Saracens would needs couragiously follow her husband in that long and dangerous voyage but how Marrie whilest he travailed night and day in perill of his life she lay at Antioch bathing her selfe in all delights and that more licentiously than the reputation or duty of a married woman required wherefore being had in suspition and evill reported of for her lewd behaviour it was thought meet that she should be divorced from the King under pretence of consanguinity to the end she should not altogether be defamed The faire daughters of Philip the faire King of France escaped not at so good a rate for the King as soone as he smelt out the haunt of their unchastity caused them to be apprehended and imprisoned presently howbeit one of them namely the Countesse of Poictiers her innocency being knowne was set at liberty and the other two to wit the Queen of Navarre and the wife of Iohn de le March being found guilty by proofe were adjudged to perpetuall imprisonment and the Adulterers two brethren of the countrey of Anjou with whom these Ladies had often lyen were first cruelly flaine and after hanged Charles son of the aforesaid Philip the faire had to wife the daughter of the Earle of Artois that also offended in the like case and in recompence received this dishonour and ignominie to be divorced and put in prison and to see him married to another before her face In the reigne of Charles the sixth there befell a notable and memorable accident which was this one Iaques le Gris of the Countrey of Alanson being enamoured with a Lady no lesse faire than honourable the wife of the Lord of Carouge came upon a day when he knew her husband to bee from home to her house and faining as if he had some secret message to unfold unto her on her husbands behalfe for their familiarity was so great entred with her all alone into a most secret chamber where as soone as he had gotten her he locked the doore and throwing himselfe upon her forced her unto his lust and afterward saved himselfe by speedy flight Her husband at his returne understanding the injury and wrong which was done him by this vile miscreant sought first to revenge himselfe by justice and therefore put his cause to be heard by the Parliament of Paris where being debated it could not well be decided because he wanted witnesses to convince the crime except his owne wives words which could not be accepted so that the Court to the end that there might some end be made of their quarrell ordained a combate betwixt them which was forthwith performed for the two duellists entering the lists fell presently to strokes and that so eagerly that in short space the quarrell was decided the Lord of Carouge husband of the wronged Lady remained conquerour after he had slaine his enemy that had wronged him so wickedly and disloyally the vanquished was forthwith delivered to the hangman of Paris who dragged him to mount Falcon and there hanged him Now albeit this forme and custome of deciding controversies hath no ground nor warrant either from humane or divine Law God having ordained only an Oath to end doubts where proofes and witnesses faile yet doubtlesse the Lord used this as an instrument to bring the treacherous and cruell Adulterer to the deserved punishment and shame which by deniall he thought to escape A certaine Seneschall of Normandy perceiving the vicious and suspitious behaviour of his wife with the Steward of his house watched them so narrowly that he tooke them in bed together he slew the Adulterer first and after his wife for not all her pittifull cryings for mercy with innumerable teares for this one fault and holding up in her armes the children which she had borne unto him no nor her house and parentage being sister to Lewis the eleventh then King could not withhold him from killing her with her companion Howbeit King Lewis never made shew of anger or offence for her death Mâ—sselâ—na the wife of Claudius the Emperour was a woman of so notable incontinency that the would contend with the common harlots in filthy pleasure at last she fell in love with a faire young Gentleman called Silius and to obtaine more commodiously her desire she caused his wife Sillana to be divorced and notwithstanding she was wife to the Emperour then living yet she openly married him for which cause after great complaint made to the Emperour by the Nobles she was worthily put to death Abusahed King of Fez was with six of his children murdered at once by his Secretary for his wives sake whom he had abused And it is not long sithence the two Cities Dalmendine and Delmedine were taken from the King of Fez and brought uâ—der the Portugals dominion only for the ravishment of a woman whom the Governour violently took from her husband to abuse and was slain for his labour CHAP. XXIX Other examples like unto the former MArie of Arragon wife to Otho the third was so unchast and lascious a woman and withall barren for they commonly goe together that she could never satisfie her unsatiable lust she carried about with her continually a young lecher in womans clothes to attend upon her person with whom she daily committed filthinesse who being suspected was in the presence of many untyred and found to be a man for which villany hee was burnt to death Howbeit the Empresse though pardoned for her fault returned to her old vomit and continued her wanton traffique with more than either desired or loved her company at last she fell in love with the County of Mutina a gallant man in personage and too honest to be allured with her stale though he was often solicited by her wherefore like a Tvgre she accused him to the Emperour for extreame love converts to extreame hatred if it be crossed of offering to ravish her against her will for which cause the Emperour Otho caused him to lose his head but his wife being privy to the innocency of her husband traversed his cause
that all the servants of the house being awaked ran thitherward and finding this gallant in the snare took him and for all his bauld crowne stripped him naked and cut off cleane his privy and adulterous parts and thus was this lecherous Priest served Pope Iohn the thirteenth a man as of wicked conversation in all things so especially abominable in whoredomes and adultery which good conditions whilest he pursued he was one day taken tardy in the plain fields whither he went to disport himselfe for he was found in the act of adultery and slaine forthwith and these are the godly fruits of those single life-lovers to whom the use of marriage is counted unlawfull and therefore forbidden but Adultery not once prohibited nor disallowed CHAP. XXXI Of such as are divorced without cause BY these and such like judgements it pleaseth God to make knowne unto men how much he desireth to have the estate of marriage maintained and preserved in the integrity and how much every one ought to take heed how to deprave or corrupt the same now then to proceed If it be a sin to take away ravish or intice to folly another mans wife shall we not thinke it an equall sin for a husband to forsake his wife and cast her off to take another she having not disanulled and cancelled the bond of marriage by adultery Yes verily for as concerning the permission of divorce to the Israelites under the law our Saviour himselfe expoundeth the meaning and intent thereof in the Gospell to be nothing else but a toleration for the hardnesse and stubbornnesse of their hearts and not a constitution from the beginning upon which occasion speaking of marriage and declaring the right and strength of the same he saith That whosoever putteth away his wife except it be for adultery and marrieth another committeth adultery and he that marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery also All which notwithstanding the great men of this world let loose themselves to this sin too licentiously as it appeareth by many examples as of Antiochus Theos son of Antiochus Soter King of Syria who to the end to goe with Ptolomie Philadelphus King of Aegypt and marrie his daughter Bernice cast off his wife Laodicea that had borne him children and tooke Bernice to be his wife but ere long he rejected her also and betrayed her to her enemies namely his son Callinicus who slew her with one of her sons and all that belonged unto her and then he tooke againe his old wife for which cause Ptolemie Euergetes son to Philadelphus renewed war upon him Herod the Tetrarch was so bewitched with the love of Herodias his brother Philips wife that to the end he might enjoy her he disclaimed his lawfull wife and sent her home to her father King Aretas who being touched and netled with this indignity and disgrace sought to revenge himselfe by armes and indeed made so hot war upon him and charged his army so furiously that it was discomfited by him after which shamefull losse he was by the Emperour Caligula's commandement banished to Lions there to end the residue of his daies Among the Romanes Marcus Antonius was noted for the most dissolute and impudent in this case of divorce for albeit that in the beginning of his triumvirship he forsooke his first wife to marry Octavius his sister yet hee proceeded further not content herewith but must needs forsake her also to be with Cleopatra the Queen of Aegypt from whence sprung out many great evils which at length fell upon his owne head to his finall ruine and destruction for when he saw himselfe in such straits that no meanes could be found to resist Octavius be sheathed with his owne hands his sword into his bowels when all his servants being requested refused to performe the same and being thus wounded he fell upon a little bed intreating those that were present to make an end of his daies but they all fled and left him in the chamber crying and tormenting himselfe untill such time that he was conveighed to the monument wherein Cleopatra was inclosed that he might die there Cleopatra seeing this pittifull spectacle all amased let downe chaines and cords from the high window and with the help of her two maids drew him up into the monument uniting their forces and doing what they could to get his poore carkasse though by a shamefull and undecent manner for the gate was locked and might not be opened and it was a lamentable sight to see his poore body all besmeared with blood and breathing now his last blast for he dyed as soone as he came to the top to be drawne up on that cruell fashion As for Cleopatra who by her flattering allurements ravished the heart of this miserable man and was cause of his second divorce shee played her true part also in this wofull tragedy and as she partaked of the sin so she did of the punishment For after she saw her selfe past hope of help and her sweet-heart dead she beat her owne breasts and tormented her selfe so much with sorrow that her bosome was bruised and halfe murdered with her blowes and her body in many places exulcerate with inflamations she pulled off her haire rent her face with her nailes and altogether infrensied with griefe melancholie and distresse was found fresh dead with her two maids lying at her fâ—â—t and this was the miserable end of those two who for enjoying of a few foolish and cursed pleasures together received in exchange infinite torments and vexations and at length unhappy deaths together in one and the same place verifying the olde proverbe For one pleasure a thousand dolours Charles the eighth King of France after he had been long time married to the daughter of the King of the Romanes sister to the Archduke of Austria was so evill advised as to returne her home againe upon no other occasion but to marrie the Dutchesse of Britaine the sole heire to her fathers Dukedome wherein he doubly injured his father in law the Romane King for he did not only reject his daughter but also deprived him of his wife the Dutchesse of Britaine whom by his substitute according to the manner of great Princes he had first espoused Bembus in his Venetian history handling this story somewhat mollifieth the fault when he saith that the Romane Kings daughter was never touched by King Charles in the way of marriage all the while she was there by reason of her unripe and overyoung yeares After a while after this new married King had given a hot alarme to all Italy and conquered the Realme of Naples as the Venetians were deliberating to take the matter in hand of themselves and to resist him Maximilian the Romane King solicited them in the same and thrust them forward as well that he might confederate himselfe with the Duke of Milan as that he might revenge the injury touching his repelled daughter so that by this meanes the
French K. was fore troubled at his returne having to withstand him all the Venetian forces with the most part of the Potentates of Italie notwithstanding he broke through them all after he had put the Venetians to the worst but being returned after this victorious and triumphant voyage it happened that one day as he led the Queen to the Castle of Amboise to see some some sport at Tenise he stroke his forehead against the upper door-poste of the gallery as he went in that he fell presently to the ground speechlesse and died incontinently in the place from whence though the filthiest and sluttishest place about the Castle they removed not his body but laid it on a bed of straw to the view of the world from two of the clocke in the afternoon till eleven at midnight and this good successe followed at last his so much desired divorce CHAP. XXVII Of those that either cause or authorise unlawfull Divorcements ALthough the Commandment of our Saviour Christ be very plain and manifest That man should not separate those whom God hath joyned together yet there are some so void of understanding and judgement that they make no conscience to dissolve those that by the bond of marriage are united Of which number was Sampsons father in Law who took his daughter first given in marriage to Sampson and gave her to another without any other reason save that he suspected that Sampson loved her not But what got he by it Marry this the Philistims provoked against him consumed him and his daughter with fire because that by the meanes of his injury Sampson had burned their corne their vineyards and their olive-trees After the same sort dealt Saul with David when he gave him his daughter Michol to Wife and afterward in despight and hatred of him took her away again and bestowed her upon another wherein as in many other things he shewed himselfe a wicked and prophane man and was worthily punished therefore as hath been before declared Hugh Spencer one of King Edward of Englands chiefest favourites insomuch that his ear and heart was at his pleasure was he that first persuaded the King to forsake and repudiate the Queen his Wife daughter to Philip the Faire King of France upon no other occasion but onely to satisfie his owne appetite and the better to follow his delights And thus by this meanes she was chased out of England and driven to retire to King Charles her brother where hoping to finde rest and refuge she was deceived for what by the crafts and practises of the English and what by the Popes authority who thrust himselfe into this action as his custom is she was constrained to dislodge her selfe and to change her countrey very speedily wherefore from thence she went to crave succour of the County of Henault who furnished her with certain forces and sent her towards England where being arrived and finding the people generally at her command and ready to do her service she set upon her enemy Hugh Spencer took him prisoner and put him to a shamefull death as he well deserved for he was also the causer of the deaths of many of the Nobles of the Realme therefore he was drawne through the streets of Hereford upon an hurdle and after his privie members his heart and head were cut off his four quarters were exalted in four severall places to the view of the world Now if these be found guilty that either directly make or indirectly procure divorcements shall we accuse them that allow and authorize the same without lawfull and just occasion No verily no though they be Popes that take it upon them as we reade Pope Alexander the sixth did who for the advancement of his haughty desires to gratifie and flatter Lewis the twelfth King of France sent him by his son a dispensation to put away his Wife daughter to King Lewis the eleventh because she was barren and counterfeit and to recontract Anne of Bretaigne the widow of Charles the eighth lately deceased But herein though barrennesse of the former was pretended yet the Duchie of the later was aimed at which before this time he could never attain unto But of what force and vertue this dispensation by right was or at least ought to be it is easie to perceive seeing it is not onely contrary to the words of the Gospel Matth. 19. but also to their owne decrees secund part quest 7. Hi qui matrimonium where in is imported that marriage ought not to be infringed for any default or imperfection no not of nature But Popes may maim and clip both the Word of God and all other writings and do what soever themselves liketh be it good or bad CHAP. XXXIII Of Incestuous persons ALthough Incest be a wicked and abominable sin and forbidden both by the Law of God and man in so much that the very heathen held it in detestation yet are there some so inordinately vicious and dissolute that they blush not once to pollute themselves with this filthinesse Reuben the Patriarch was one of this vile crue that shamed not to defile himselfe with Bilha his fathers concubine but he was cursed for his labour for whereas by right of eldership and birth he ought to have had a certain prerogative and authority over his brethren his excellency shed it selfe like water and he was surpassed by his brethren both in encrease of progeny and renowne Ammon one of King Davids sonnes was so strongly enchanted with the love of his sister Thamar that to the end to fulfill his lust he traiterously forced her to his will but Absalom her naturall brother hunting for opportunity of revenge for this indignity towards his sister invited him two yeares after to a banquet with his other brethren and after the same caused his men to murder him for a farewell The same Absalom that slew Amnon for Incest with his sister committed himselfe incest with his fathers concubines moved thereto by the wicked counsell of Achitophel that advised him to that infamous deed of defiling his fathers bed but it was the forerunner of his overthrow as we have already heard Divers of the Roman Empetours were so villanous and wretched as to make no bones of this sin with their owne sisters as Caligula Antonius and Commodus and some with their mothers as Nero so much was he given over and transported to all licentiousnesse Plutarch telleth us of one Cyanippus that being overcome with wine defloured his owne daughter Cyane but he was slain of her for his labour Neither do I thinke it so unnaturall a part for her to kill her father as in him to commit incest with his owne daughter for the Oracle lessened or rather approved her fault when it abhorred and chastened his crime for when Syracusa was grievously infected with the pestilence it was pronounced by the Oracle That the plague should continue till the wicked person was
were eye witnesses of this wofull spectacle as for him by law he was judged to a most severe and cruell punishment and all these pitifull events arose from that cursed root of Dice-play We ought therefore to learne by all these things that have beene already spoken to abstaine not onely from this cursed pastime but also from extortion robberies deceit guile and other such naughty practices that tend to the hurt and detriment of one another and in place thereof to procure the good and welfare of each one in all kindenesse and equity following the Apostles counsell where he sayeth Let them that stole steale no more but rather travell by labouring with his hands in that which is good that he may have wherewith to succor the necessitie of others For it is not enough not to do evill to our neighbor but we are tyed to do him good or at least to endeavour to do it CHAP. XLIV Of such as have beene notorious in all kinde of sinne BY these fore placed examples we have seene how heavie the judgements of God have beene upon those that through the untamednesse of their owne lusts and affections would not submit themselves under the holy and mighty will of God but have countermanded his commandements and withstood his precepts some after one sort and some after another now because there have bin some so wicked and wretched that being wholy corrupted and depraved they have over flowed with all manner of sinne and iniquity and as it were maugred God with the multitude and hainousnesse of their offences we must therefore spend sometime also in setting forth their lives and ends as of the most vile and monstrous kinde of people that ever were In this ranke we may place the antient Inhabitants of the land of Canaan an irreligious people void of all feare and dread of God and consequently given over to all abhominabl wickednesse as to conjurings witchcrafts and unnameable adulteries for which causes the Lord abhorring and hating them did also bring them to a most strange destruction for first and formost Jericho the frontier citie of their countrey being assaulted by the Israelites for hindering their progresse into the country were all discomfited not so much by Iosuah his sword as by the huge stones which dropped from heaven upon their heads and lest the night overtaking them should breake off the finall and full destruction of this cursed people the day was miraculously prolonged and the Sunne made to rest himselfe in the middest of heaven for the space of a whole day and so these five Kings hiding themselves in a cave were brought out and their neckes made a footstoole to the captains of Israell and were hanged on five trees The tyran Pertander usurped the government over Corinth after hee had slaine the principall of the city he put to death his owne wife to the end to content and please his concubine nay and was so execrable as to lye with his owne mother he banished his naturall sonne and caused many children of his subjects to be gelded finally fearing some miserable and monstrous end and want of sepulchre in conscience of his misdeeds he gave in charge to two strong and hardy souldiers that they should gaâ—d a certain appointed place and not faile to kill the first that came in their way and to bury his body being slaine now the first that met them was himselfe who offered himselfe unto them without speaking any word and was soone dispatched and buried according to his commandement but these two were encountered with foure other whom he also had appointed to do the same to them which they had done to them In this ranke deservably we may place the second Dionysius his sonne that for his cruelties and extortions was slaine by his owne subjects who though at the first made shew of a better and milder nature than his father was of yet after he was installed in his Kingdom and growne strong his wicked nature shewd forth it selfe for first he rid out of the way his owne brethren then his neerest kindred and lastly all other that but any way displeased him using his sword not to the cutting downe of vice as it ought but to the cutting the throats of his innocent and guiltlesse subjects with which tyrannie the people being incensed began to mutinie and from mutinies fell to open rebellion persecuting him so that he was compelled to flie and take harbour in Greece where notwithstanding hee ceased not his accustomed manners but continued still freshly committing robberies and doing all manner of injuries and outrages in wronging men and forcing both women and maids to his filthie lusts untill hee was brought to so low and so base an ebbe of estate that of a King being become a beggar and a vagabond hee was glad to teach children at Corinth to get his poore living and so died in miserie Clearchus another tyran after hee had put to death the most part of the Nobles and chiefe men of account in the citie of Heraclea usurped a tyrannous authoritie over the rest amongst many of whose monstrous enormities this was one that hee constrained the widowes of those whom hee had slaine against their wils to marry those of his followers whom hee allotted them to insomuch that many of them with griefe and anger slew themselves now there were two men of stouter courage than the rest who pittying the miserable condition of the whole citie undertooke to deliver the same out of his cruell hands comming therefore accompanied with fiftie other of the same minde and resolution as though they would debate a privat quarrell before his presence as soone as convenience served they diverted their swords from themselves into the tyrans bosome and hewed him in pieces in the very midst of his guard Agathocles King or rather tyran of Sicilie from a porters sonne growing to be a man of warre tooke upon him the government of the countrey and usurped the crowne contrary to the consent of his people hee was one given to all manner of filthie and uncleane pollutions in whom treacherie crueltie and generally all kinde of vice reigned and therefore was worthily plagued by God first by a murder of his youngest sonne committed by his eldest sonnes son that aspired unto the crowne and thought that he might be an obstacle in his way for obtaining his purpose and lastly having sent his wife and children into Aegypt for safety by his owne miserable and languishing death which shortly after ensued Romulus the first King of Rome was as Florus testifieth transported by a devill out of this earth into some habitation of his owne for the monstrous superstitions conjurings thefts ravishments and murders which during his pompe hee committed and moreover he saith that Plutarch the most credible and learned Writer amongst Historiographers both Greek and Latin that ever writ avoucheth the same for true That hee was carried away one day by a
spirit in a mighty tempest of thunder and lightening before the view of the whole multitude to their great astonishment insomuch that they fled at the sight thereof What shall wee say of Silla that monster in cruelty that most odious and execrable Tyran that ever was by whom all civile order and humane policie was utterly defaced and all vice and confusion in stead thereof set up did hee not procure the death of six thousand men at one clap at the discomfiture of Marius And having promised to save the lives of three thousand that appealed unto his mercy did he not cause them to be assembled within a Parke and there to have their throats cut whilest hee made an oration to the Senate It was hee that filled the channels of the streets of Rome and other cities in Italie with bloud and slaughters innumerable and that neither spared Altar Temple or other priviledged place or house whatsoever from the pollution and distainment of innocent bloud husbands were staine in their wives armes infants in their mothers bosomes and infinite multitudes of men murdered for their riches for if any were either rich or owners of faire houses or pleasant gardens they were sure to die besides if there were any private quarrell or grudge betwixt any citizen and some of his crew he suffered his side to revenge themselves after their owne lusts so that for private mislike and enmity many hundreds lost their lives he that saved an outlaw or proscribed person in his house of which there were too many of the best sort in his time or gave him entertainment under his roofe whether he were his brother sonne or parent whatsoever was himselfe for recompence of his curtesie and humanitie proscribed and sould and condemned to death and he that killed one of them that was proscribed had for reward two talents the wages of his murder amounting in value to twelve hundred crownes whether it was a bondslave that slew his master or a sonne that murdered his father comming to Preneste hee began to proceed in a kinde of justiciall forme amongst the citizens and as it were by law and equitie to practise wrong and injurie but ere long either being weary of such slow proceedings or not at leisure to prosecure the same any further he caused to meet together in one assemblie two thousand of them whom hee committed all to the massacre without any manner of compassion As hee was sitting one day in the middest of his pallace in Rome a souldier to whom he had granted the proscription of his dead brother as if he had beene alive whom he himselfe before the civile warre had slaine presented him in lieu of thanks for the great good turne the head of one Marcus Marius of the adverse faction before the whole citie with his hands all imbrued in bloud which hee also washed in the holy water staâ—ke 〈◊〉 Apolloes temple being near unto that place and all this being commended and countenanced by Silla hee decreed a generall disanulment and abrogation of all titles and rights that were passed before his time to the end to have the more liberty both to put to death whom he pleased and to confiscate mens goods and also to unpeople and repeople cities sack pulldowne and build and to depose make Kings at his pleasure the goods which he had thus seised he shamed not to sell with his owne hands sitting in his tribunall sear giving oftentimes a faire woman a whole countrey or the revenues of a citie for her beauty and to Players Jesters Juglers Minstrâ—â—s and other wicked effranchised slaves great and unnecessary rewards yea and to divers married women also whom pleasing his eye he deprived their husbands of perforce and espoused them to himselfe maugre their wils being desirous to ally himselfe with Pompey hee commanded him to cast off his lawfull wife and taking from Magnus Gâ—abriâ— his wife Aemilia made him marry her though already great with childe by her former husband but she died in travell in his house In seasts and banketâ—ings he was too immoderate for it was his continuall and daily practise the wine that hee dranke usually was fortie yeares old and the company that hee delighted to keepe was compact of ministriss tumblers players singers and such like rascals and with these he would spend whole dayes in drinking carousing dauncing and all dissolutenesse Now this disinordinate life of his did so augment a disease which was growne in his body to wit an imposthume that in time it corrupted his flesh and turned it into lice in such sort that though hee had those that continually followed him to sweepe them off and to louze him night and day yet the encrease was still so plentifull that all would not serve to cleare him for a moment insomuch that not his apparell though never so new and changeable nor his linnen though never so fresh nor his bath nor his laver no nor his meat and drinke could be kept unpolluted from the fluxe of this filthy vermine it issued in such abundance oftentimes in a day hee would wash himselfe in a bath but to no great purpose for his shame increased the more The day before he dyed he sent for one Granius who attending his death delayed to pay that which hee ought to the Common-wealth and being come in his presence hee commanded him to be strangled to death before his face but with straining himselfe in crying after his execution his imposthume burst and vomited out such streames of bloud that his strength failed him withall and passing that night in great distresse the next day made up his wicked and miserable end After that Caligula began to addict himselfe to impiety and contempt of God presently being not curbed with any feare nor shame he became most dissolute in all kinde of wickednesse for at one time he caused to be slaine a great number of people for calling him young Augustus as if it had beene an injury to his person to be so intituled and to say briefly of all his murders there were so many of his kindred friends senators and citizens made away by his meanes that it would be too long and tedious here to recite wherefore seeing that hee was generally hated of the people for his misdeeds hee wished that they all had but one head to the end as it might seeme that at one blow hee might dispatch them all In sumptuousnesse and costlinesse of dishes and banquets he neither found nor left his equall for he would sup up most pretious stones melted by art and swallow down treasures into his belly his banquets were often served with golden loaves and golden meats in giving rewards hee was sometime too too prodigall for he would cast great summes of money amongst the people certain dayes together untill his bags were drawne drie and then new strange shifts must be practised to fill them up againe his subjects he over charged with many new-found
escape unpunished for his perfidie and impietie For first his warre-like affaires in the East prospered not then a little before the end of his life he grievously complained that he had innovated the faith in his kingdome At last in those sighings and complaints he parted this life with a grievous and violent disease The Unkle of Iulian the Apostata called also Iulianus at Antioch in the temple prophaned the holy table with pissing upon it And when Eusoius the Bishop rebuked him for it he stroke him with his fist Not long after he was taken with a grievous disease of his bowels putrifying and miserably died his excrements comming from him not by their ordinary passages but by his wicked mouth Under the Emperour Valence a wonderfull haile the stones being as big as a man could hold in his hand was sent upon Constantinople and slew many both men and beasts for that the Emperour had banished many famous men that would not communicate with Eudoxius the Arrian and for the same reason a great part of Germa a Citie of Hellespont was throwne downe by an earthquake and in Phrygia such a famine succeeded that the Inhabitants were faine to change their habitation and to â—lee to other places After the martyrdome of Gregory the Bishop of Spoleta Flacchus the Governour who was author thereof was strucke with an Angel and vomited out his entrailes at his mouth and died Under the Empire of Alexander Mammea Agrippitus fifteene yeares old because he would not sacrifice to their Idols was apprehended at Praeneste whipt with scourges and hanged up by the heeles and at last slaine with the sword in the middest of whose torments the Governour of the Citie fell from the Tribunall seat dead Bajazet a most cruell enemy of the Christians was taken by Tamerlane the Tartarian King and bound in golden chaines and carried about by him in an iron cage latised and shewne unto all being used for a stirrop unto Tamerlane when he got upon his horse Gensericus the King of the Vandales exercising grievous cruelty against the Orthodox Christians he himselfe being an Arrian was possessed of the Devill and died a miserable death in the yeare 477. Honoricus the second King of the Vandales having used inexplicable cruelty against the Orthodox Christians hanging up honest matrons and virgins naked burning their bodies with torches cutting off their dugges and armes because they would not subscribe to the Arrian heresie was surprised himselfe with the vengeance of God for his land was turned into barrennesse through an exceeding drought so that numbers of men women and beasts died with famine the pestilence also seised upon them and he himselfe was stricken with such a disease of his body that his members rotted off one after another Anastatius Dicorus a grievous persecutor of the Church of Christ being admonished in a dreame that he should perish with thunder built him an house wherein he might defend himselfe from that judgement but in vaine for in a great thunder he fled from chamber to chamber and at last was found dead blasted with lightning to the great horror of the beholders Chasroes the King of Persia a grievous enemy to Christ and Christians committed horrible outrages against them for first he slew at Jerusalem ninety thousand men with Zachariâ— the Patriarch of Jerusalem and also raged in like manner in Aegypt Lybia Aethiopia and would grant them no condition of peace unlesse they would forsake Christ and worship the Sunne he also put to death with most cruell torments Anastatius a godly Monke because he constantly confessed the faith of Christ. But God met with him to the full for his eldest sonne Syroes tooke him prisoner and handled him in most vile manner he hanged an iron weight upon his neck and imprisoned him in an high tower which he had built to keepe his treasure denying him food and bidding him eat the gold which he had gathered together then he slew all his children before his face and exposed him to the scoffes and railings of the people and lastly caused him to be shot to death and so that great terror of the world and shedder of Christian bloud breathed out his soule after a miserable manner Regnerus the King of Denmarke abrogating Christian Religion and setting up Idolatrie in his Kingdome anew the divine vengeance overtooke him for Helles whom he had cast out of the Kingdome returned upon him with an army of the Gaules and overcomming him in battell tooke him prisoner and shut him up in a filthie prison full of serpents which setting upon him with their venomous bitings and stings brought him to a most horrible end Lysius the Emperour gave Heriâ—a his daughter a virgin because she was a Christian to be trampled under foot of horses but he himselfe was sâ—ain by the byting of one of the same horses A Popish Magistrate having condemned a poore Protestant to death before his execution caused his tongue to be cut out because he should not confesse the truth in requitall whereof the next childe that was borne unto him was borne without a tongue CHAP. II. Of Perjurie Pâ—ilip King of Macedon who was a great contemner of all oathes and held the Religion thereof as a vain thing for this cause as all Writers affirme the vengeance of God followed him and his posteritie for when he had lived scarce forty and sixe yeares he himselfe was slain and all his whole house in short time in short time after utterly extinguished 〈◊〉 one of his sonnes was slaine by Olympias his wife Also another sonne which he had by Cleopatra the 〈◊〉 of Aâ—â—alus â—he tormented to death in a brazen vessell compassed about with fire The â—est of his sonnes periffied in like manner and at last the famous Alexander his sonne after great conquest atchieved by him in the middle course of his victories periffied miserably some thinke by poyson In the Countrey of Arbernum there was a certaine wicked man that used ordinarily to for sweare himselfe but at one time after he had thus sinned his tongue was tyed up that he could not speake but began to low like an oâ—e yet repenting and grieving for his sinne he found the bond of his tongue loosed and a readinesse of speech given unto him againe whereby we see both the Iustice of God in punishing them that sinne in this kinde and his mercy in pardoning when they truly repent At this day we have an example fresh and famous of a certaine maid that had stolne and pilfered many things away out of her mistresses house of which being examined she forswore them and wisht that she might rot if she ever touched them or knew of them but notwithstanding she was carried to prison and there presently began so to rot stink that they were forced to thrust her out of prison and to convey her to the Hospitall where she lies in lamentable miserie
his three and thirtieth Sermon Ad fratres in eremo relateth this strange example of one Cyril a Cittizen of Hippo a man well esteemed and beloved in the Citie He having one onely sonne did so cocker him forbearing either to checke him or correct him but loving him as that holy Father saith not onely above all things but even above God himselfe that by his too much liberty and indulgence his sonne grew wonderfull debaushed and gave himselfe to filthy drunkennesse Upon a time being vilely overtaken with drinke he came home and tumbled over his mother being great with childe would have ravished his sister slew his father and wounded to death two of his other sisters O fearefull effect of drunkennesse thus God punished the father for his too much love and indulgence of his sonne and the sonne for his vile impiety Not unlike to this I finde in Philip Lonicerus Page 486. A certain man saith he that gave himselfe to the studie of Godlinesse was daily assaulted with the temptation of the Divell who perswaded him if hee would bee quiet to choose one of these three sinnes either to make himselfe drunke or to commit adulterie with his neighbours wife or to kill his neighbour himselfe The poore man thinking drunkennesse the least sinne chose that but being enraged with wine he was easily drawn to the committall of the other sinnes for being with wine enflamed with lust he feared not to vitiate his neighbours wife nor yet to kill her husband comming in the meane while seeking to be revenged of him so giving himselfe to drunkennesse hee wraps himselfe in all other wickednesse On the eighteenth of August 1629 one Thomas Wilson labourer a knowne and common blasphemer of Gods name by oathes and curses and given much to drinking to excesse upon a slight occasion moved to displeasure against his wife and not daring to doe much violence unto her turned it upon himselfe and with his knife stabbed himselfe many of his friends and neighbours being present and so he died On the 10 day of May 1629 one Iohn Bone of Ely coachman unto one Master â—aluâ—â—â— of Beenham a fellow very vitious and exceeding in those two evils of prophane swearing and drunkennesse on the Sabbath day in the Sermon-time dranke himselfe drunke so that when he was to sit in the coach-box to drive the coach he fell out thereof under the horses feet where he was trodden to death or so hurt at least that he died shortly On the six and twentieth of November 1621 one Richard Borne servant to Iaspâ—r Bâ—rch Gardiner of Ely accustomed to travell upon the Lords day and making no reckoning of the Sabbath seldome or never comming to Church on that day but went onwards to Saint Iâ—es market and so spent the day and being drunke was at length overtaken by the just judgement of God and going up the streame in his boate which he had loaden with marketable wares he fell into the river and was so drowned On the third day of August 1618 one Thomas Alred of Godmanchester in the Countie of Huntington Butcher an accustomed Drunkard being entreated by a neighbour to unpitch a load of hay and being at that very time in drinke letting his pitch-forke slip out of his hand and stooping to take it up againe slipped from the cart with his head down-wards his fork standing 〈◊〉 with the tines he fell directly upon them which it once ran into his breast and stroke his heart so that he died suddenly On the sixteenth day of July 1628 one Iohn Vintner of 〈…〉 Gardiner a knowne drunkard and one that would prophanely especially in his 〈◊〉 scoffe at religion and abuse good men fell from the top of a 〈…〉 the ground and brake his necke and so died These â—ive lust examples were reported unto me and written with his owne hand by a worthy Minister Master Goorge Nelson Preacher of the Word of God in Godmanchester CHAP. IX Of rebellious and disobedient Children to their Parents AGathias in his Booke of the Persian manners reporteth this storie That certaine Philosophers going into Aegypt and finding there a promiscuous commixture of fathers and mothers with their daughters and sonnes and a miserable neglect of children towards their parents returned speedily into Greece and in a certaine Citie there finding the dead body of a man wanting buriall they in compassion committed the same into the earth the next day comming the same way againe they found the same body digged out of the earth which whilest they went about to bury the second time a fearefull spectrum appeared unto them and forbad them to doe it saying That he was a man unworthy to be buried because he had committed incest with his mother and despised and contemned his father This narration sheweth that the very earth doth execrate and abhorre such unnaturall lust and disobedience Laâ—terbius in his Booke of the discipline of children reports a storie of a certaine young man who had a father very old that had bestowed upon him all his substance This old man being by the fault of age unmannerly at the table of his sonne his sonne caused a woodden trough to be made for his father to eate his meate in like a hogge which when his sonnes young childe perceived he asked his father for what use it should serve his father answered That it was for his Grandfather to eate his meate in and what saith the childe must I provide the like for you when you are old Whereat his father being astonished threw away the trough and ever after entertained his old father with greater reverence and obedient respect CHAP. X. Of Murtherers ROmulus having marked out with a plough the compasse of the walls of the Citie of Rome which he was a building and had forbidden that no man should leape over the same his brother Rhâ—mus in scorne leaped over the wall which Romulus taking in evill part slew his brother and reigned alone but at length being hated of the people for his insolencie he himselfe was slaine by the fathers of the Senate at Caprea Constantine the Great after he had overcome Licinius his partner in the Empire and obtained the sole Monarchie grew both insolent and cruell for he first put to death his owne sisters next his owne sonne Crispâ—â— which he had by Minervea then he slew his owne wife Fausta in the bathes and lastly a number more of his friends For which cruelty though hee was a man endued with excellent vertues yet God strucke him with a filthy Leprosie which continued upon him untill such time that he was converted to the faith of Christ and baptised by Pope Silvester after which he proved a most famous protector of the Church of Christ. Perillus that devised the brasen Bull for the Tyrant Phalaris wherein men being inclosed and scorched with the heat that was under the Bull did imâ—tate the lowing of an Oxe to the end that there should be no compassion shewed unto them by