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A44758
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A trance, or, Newes from Hell brought fresh to towne by Mercurius Acheronticus.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing H3120; ESTC R15285
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11,561
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20
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together which entangled into it most of the neighbouring States We have thrust divers Princes out of their ancient Inheritances among others the Duke of Lorain and the Palsgrave of the Rhin We brought two Grand Turks to be strangled which never happened before We have often puzzled Italy we have made the Kings of Spaine and France though Brothers to bandy so fierce one against the other as if the one had been an Infidell the other a Jew But Sir the most advantagious and signall services we have done to your infernall Majestie have been in the Iles of great Britaine and Ireland For whereas we divided our selves before and went singly among other people we went jointly thither all three because we might be sure to bring our ends home to our aime The Nation fittest for us to work first upon was the Scot who have been so obedient to their Kings that of above a hundred they brag of scarce two parts of three dyed in their beds We did suscitate them first against their native King and to appeare in a daring hostile manner before him upon the borders At which time it cost us a great deale of labour so to besot the English to abase their courage and entangle them with Factions having sure confidents among them to that end that they durst not present them battell and this Sir was an important peece of service for had they fought then or had they been sensible afterwards of the Nationall dishonor they received at that time their King being in the field and consequently had they stucke to him afterwards to have vindicated it all those Wars we have fomented since might have been prevented We shortly after transmitted the same Spirit of Insurrection into Ireland who being encouraged by the good successes the Scot had for he had what he list yet could he not sit quiet and the Irish Commissioners being but harshly entertained by this English Parlement who intended to send over a Deputy that should pinch them more than they were before in their consciences besides in that they revoked that leave which the King had granted under hand and seale to the Spanish Ambassadors to have some part of Straffords Army in Ireland which were our prime instruments for the Rebellion to go for Spaine with other incentives we stird the Irish also to rise in bloud which they did to some purpose Then came we to worke upon the English whom we found as fit to receive our impression as Flax is to take fire in regard of their long surfet of peace and plenty We broke up one Parlement because most of the Members thereof were not for our turn The first thing we did in this Parlement was to indue them with a faculty to create feares and jealousies whereof we have made excellent use and although all those feares and jealousies appeare since to the common people and City of London more plain than their nose on their faces to be but forgeries yet we have so infatuated their intellectualls that we make them still adore the Iuventors of them And to give your Stygian Majestie among divers others one more pregnant and undeniable demonstration what footing you have got you in that Island we have within these few yeares raised more Pythonesses which the vulgar call witches there than ever were in that Island since your Majesty tempted Eve And we enabled our Pythonesses to send their Imps abroad in pursuit of your service We stood at the Kings elbo when he passed that happy Act of continuance and and a Scot was our cheifest engine to work that The City of London stood us also in excellent stead to bring our designes about We made the riff-raff of that City as V. with his Myrmydons and B. with his bandogs for so they called the rakells they had raised to rabble the King out of Town We brought also into London the silly Swaines of the Countrey in whole swarmes upon they knew not what VVe were in KInton field and made the youthfull Generall of the Kings Cavalry de gayeté de coeur to pursue the Parlements Cavalry so far as the day was lost by it whereas if he had stuck Glose to the Infantry the businesse had been dispatch'd then on the Kings side and so your Majesties service since had been frustrated VVe were at Marston Moore and made the same Generall so impatient that he could not forbeare fighting till the next day else he had taken all the Roundhead Army in a pound VVe took great paines at Leycester that the King should not march Northward but fortifie the place and go backe to Naseby where we had our Imps that bestird themselves notably VVe so manag'd the businesse afterwards that we made the King because he is a profest enemy to your Majesty to go disguis'd in a Servingmans habit to his Countrey-men the Scots and we prevail'd so far with them that they delivered him over as a Sacrifice and betraid him like Iudas to the English who have crucified ever since like Iewes by tossing and tumbling him up and down and by compulsory meanes to work upon His conscience and stretching it upon the tenter VVe made Pembrock Castle and Colchester with other single or rather simple Counties to rise of purpose to betray themselves In summe we have reduced that Kingdom to a new conformity with this of your Majesties to a sweet Chaos of all confusion we have brought the sway solely into the common peoples hands And never did common people more truly act the part and discover the genious of a common people more lively whose nature is still thursting after novelties and Utopian reformations though they foole themselves thereby into a baser kind of slavery finding when 't is too late those sprecious idaeas and confused formes of Government they apprehended before and hugg'd in their own conceits to be meet absurdities when they come to the application and practice of them And Sir the most advantagious instruments we have used to bring all this about have been the Pulpit and the Presse by these we diffus'd those surmises and suppositious feares formerly spoken of to intoxicate the braines of the people In stead of Lights we put Firebrands into their Churches who as we did dictate unto them did bawle out nothing but Sedition and Bloud we have made some of them to bring divers to have as good an opinion of the Alchoran as of their Liturgie we have made secular Ordinances to batter down all ancient Ecclesiastick Canons we have made them to unsaint all those whom they call Apostles in heaven and to rob their Churches on earth we have made them put division twixt the Trinity it self we have made their Pulpiteers to preach the Law and your Kingdome in the Church but the Gospell and Heaven in the Chamber we have brought them to keep their Fast day more solemnly then the Sabboth upon which we have made them not only to sit in Counsell but to put in execution all
were no Athiests in Hell at all they were so on earth before they came hither and here they sensibly find and acknowledge there is a God by his Iustice and Iudgement For there is here paena sensus and paena damni the outward torments you behold is not so grievous as the inferiour regrets and agonies the soules have to have lost Heaven whereof they were once capable and to be eternally forsaken by their Creator adde hereunto that they know these torments to be endlesse easelesse and remedilesse Besides these qualities that are incident to the damned soules they have neither patience towards themselves in their owne suffrances nor pitty towards others but their nature is so accursed that they wish their neighbors torments to be greater then their own Besides their torments never lessen either by tract of time or degree of sence but they persever alwaies the same they are still fresh and the soule able to beare them I saw that everlasting Villaine who committed the first Sacrilege we read of by burning Dianas Temple and his torments were as fresh and violent upon him as they were the first day he was thrown in thither Iudas was in the same degree and strength of torture as the first moment he fell thither Iack Cade Wat Tyler Iack Straw Kit the Tanner did fry there as fresh as they did that instant they were cast thither Amongst whom it made my heart to melt within me to see some of their new-com'd Countreymen amongst them whereof I knew divers And though Society useth to be some solace to men in misery yet they conceived no comfort at all by these fresh companions It is high time for us now said my good guiding Angell to be gone to the other world so we directed our course towards the Ferry upon Styx Lord what varities of lurid and ugly squalid countenances did I behold as I passed There was one sort of torment I had not seene before there were divers that hung by their tongues upon posts up and down I asked what they were answer was made that they were English Divines and Lawyers who against their Knowledge as well as their Consciences did seduce the ignorant people of England in the late Civill Warre A little further I might see abundance of Committee-men and others slopping up drops of moulten lead in lieu of French-barley broath with a rabble of Apprentices sweeping the gutters of Hell with brooms tufted with Addars and Snakes because they resorting to the Wars had thereby broke their Indentures with their Masters and their Oaths of Supremacy to their Prince Passing then along towards the Ferry a world of hideous shapes presented themselves unto me there I saw Corroding cares panick feares pining grief lethargy sleep ugly rebellion revengefull malice snakie discord and spirituall pride the sin that first peopled Hell Couches of Toads Adders and Scorpions in a corner hard by I ask'd for whom they were prepared I was answered for some English Evangelizing Anabaptisticall and Legislative Ladies which make writing of Notes at Sermons and Religion a meere vaile to cover their hypocrisie So having me thought by a miraculous providence charm'd Cerberus by pointing at him with the signe of the Crosse upon the fingers we passed quietly by him and being come to the Ferry I found true what Pluto had said before that there was a new English Tarpaulin entertained by Charon but he was in a most cruell torture for his body was covered thicke all over with Pitch and Tarre which burnt and flam'd round about him And here the Trance left me Having thus come out of this sad swound I began by a serious recollection of my self to recall to my thoughts those dismall and dreadfull objects that had appeared unto me for though I was in Hell I did not taste of Lethe all the while so that I did not forget any thing that I had seen all things seem'd to appeare unto me so really that if I had been of that opinion wherof many have been that Devills are nothing else but the ill affections the exorbitant passions and perturbances of the mind it had been able to have convinced me The Reader may easily imagine what apprehensions of horror these apparitions left in my braine For as a River being by an inundation swell'd out of her wonted Channell leaves along the neighbouring Medowes seggs and sands and much riff-raff stuffe behind her upon her return to her former bed So did this Extasis with that deluge of objects wherewith it overwhelm'd my braine leave behind it blacke sudds and gastly thoughts with in me which have done me no hurt I thank God for it it being a true rule that Malum cognitum facilius evitatur And I wish they may produce the same effects in the Reader as they did in the Author VVe find in the Sacred Oracles that Dives in his discourse from Hell with Abraham wish'd that some body might be sent from the dead to informe and reclaime his Brothers upon earth because the words of a dead man would gaine more credit with them then any others Let the Readers of this Trance make account that the Author was such a one for he hath been buried many years and so let it work within him accordingly FINIS