maintained the truth should be banished suddenly he was stroken with an inward and invisible plague which took away his life and forestalled his wicked and cruell determination from comming to the desired effect In all which examples we may see how God doth not onely punish heretiques themselves but also their favorers and supporters yea the very places and cities wherein they lived and broached their blasphemies as by the destruction of Antioch is seene which being a very sinke of hereticks was partly consumed with fire from Heaven above in the seventh yeare of Iustinus the Emperour and partly overthrowne with earth-quakes below wherein Euphrasius the Bishop and many other were destroyed Moreover besides those there were under Pope Innocent the third certaine heretickes called Albigenses or Albiani which being possessed with the same spirit of fury that the Maniches were affirmed that there were two Gods the one good and another evill they denied the Resurrection despised the Sacraments and said that the soules of men after their separation passed either into hogs oxen serpents or men according to their merits they would not spare to pollute the Temples appointed for the service of God with their excrements and other filthy actions and to defile the holy Bibles with ruine in despight and contumely This heresie like an evill weed so grew and increased that the branches thereof spread over almost all Europe a thousand cities were polluted therewith so that it was high time to cut it short by violence and the sword as it was for they were oppressed with so huge a slaughter that an hundred thousand of them were slaine partly by war partly by fire at one time Gregory of Tours hath recorded the life and death of an hereticall Monk of Bordeaux that by the help of Magicke wrought miracles and tooke upon him the name and title of Christ saying hee could cure diseases and restore those that were past help by physick unto their healths hee went attired with garments made of goats haire and an hood professing an austerity of life abroad whereas he plaid the glutton at home but at length his cousenage was discovered and he was banished the city as a man unfit for civill society In the yeare of our Lord God 1204 in the Empire of Otto the fourth there was one Almaricus also that denied the presence of Christ in the Sacrament and said that God spake as well in prophane Ovid as holy Augustine he scoffed at the doctrine of the Resurrection and esteemed heaven and hell but as an old wives fable Hee being dead his disciples were brought forth into a large field neere Paris and there in the presence of the French King degraded and burnt the dead carkasse of Almaricus being taken out of the Sepulchre and burnt amongst them it fell out that whilest they were in burning there arose so huge a tempest that heaven and earth seemed to move out of their places wherein doubtlesse the soules of these wicked men felt by experience that hell was no fable but a thing and such a thing as waited for all such Rebels against God as they were Anastasius Emperour of Constantinople being corrupted with the heresie of Eutiches published an Edict wherein all men were commanded to worship God not under three persons as a Trinity but as a Quaternity containing it in foure persons and could not by any counsell be brought from that devillish error but repelled from him divers Bishops with great reproach which came to perswade him to the contrary for which cause not long after a flash of lightning from Heaven suddenly seised upon him and so hee perished when he had raigned twenty eight yeares Iustinus the second also who after the death of Iustinian obtained the Imperiall Crowne was a man of exceeding pride and cruelty contemning poverty and murthering the Nobility for the most part In avarice his desire was so insatiate that he caused iron chests to be prepared wherein he might locke up that treasure which by unjust exactions he had extorted from the people Notwithstanding all this he prospered well enough untill he fell into the heresie of Pelagius soone after which the Lord bereft him of his wits and shortly aster of his life also when hee had raigned eleven yeares Mahomet by birth an Arabian and by profession one of the most monstrous hereticks that ever lived began his heresie in the yeare 625. His off-spring was out of a base stocke for being fatherlesse one Abdemonoples a man of the house of Ismael bought him for his slave and loved him greatly for his favour and wit for which cause he made him ruler over his merchandise and other businesse Now in the meane while one Sergius a Monk flying for heresie into Arabia instructed him in the heresie of Nestorius a while after his Master died without children and left behinde him much riches and his wife a widow of fifty yeares of age whom Mahomet married and when she died was made heire of all her riches So that now what for his wealth and cunning in Magick he was had in high honour among the people Wherefore by the counsell of Sergius hee called himselfe the great Prophet of God And shortly after when his fame was published he devised a Law and kinde of Religion called Alcaron wherein hee borrowed something almost of all the heresies that were before his time with the Sabellians he denied the Trinity with the Maniches he said there was but two persons in the Deity he denied the equality of the Father with the Sonne with Eunomius and said with Macedone that the Holy Ghost was a creature and approved the community of women with the Nicholaits he borrowed of the Jewes circumcision and of the Gentiles much superstition and somewhat he tooke of the Christian verity besides many devillish fantasies invented of his owne braine those that obeyed his Law he called Sarazins Now after he had lived in these monstrous abuses forty yeares the Lord cut him off by the falling sicknesse which he had dissembled a long time saying when he was taken therewith that the Angell Gabriel appeared unto him whose brightnesse hee could not behold but the Lord made that his destruction which be imagined would be for his honour and setting forth his Sect. Infinite be the examples of the destruction and judgement of private Heretiques in all ages and therefore we will content our selves with them that be most famous In the yeare of our Lord 1561 and the third yeare of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth there was in London one William Geffery that constantly avouched a companion of his called Iohn Moore to bee Christ our Saviour and could not bee reclaimed from this mad perswasion untill hee was whipped from Southwarke to Bedlam where the said Moore meeting him was whipped also untill they both confessed Christ to bee in Heaven and themselves to bee sinfull and wicked men But most strange it is how divers sensible and wise men
and then afterwards making shew before Constantine the Emperour with a solemne oath to recant his old errours and approve the profession of Faith which the Councell of Nice had set forth concernning Christs divinity whereunto also he subscribed his name but all that he did was in hypocrisie to the end to renew and republish the more boldly his false and pernitious doctrine But when he thought himselfe neerest to the attainment of his purpose and braved it most with his supporters and companions even then the Lord stroke him with a sudden fear in the open street and with such horrible pangs in his guts and vehement desire of disburthening nature that he was faine to come unto the publick houses appointed for that purpose taking them which were next at hand for a shift but he never shifted from them again for his breath went out of his mouth and his guts ran out of his fundament and there lay he dead upon his owne excrements As the Emperour Constantius was a great favourer and supporter of this sect and maintained it against and in despight of true Christans and by that meanes stirred up schismes and dissentions throughout all Christendome so the Lord to requite him stirred up Iulian whom he himselfe had promoted to honour to rebell against him whose practices as he went about to suppresse and was even ready to encounter a grievous Apoplexy sudenly surcharged him so sore that he died of it before he could bring his purpose to passe The Emperour Valens was infected also with this poyson wherewith likewise he infected the Gothes who by his means were become the greater part Arrians and not Christians but neither went he unpunished for when he marched forth to represse the rage of the furious Gothes who were spread over all Thracia and had given them battell he lost the day and being shamefully put to flight was pursued so fiercely that hee was faine to hide himselfe in a little house which being set on fire by the Gothes he was burnt therein As for Nestorius which would maintaine by his foolish and dangerous opinions that the divinity of Christ was divided from his humanity making as it were two Christs of one and two persons of one and so turned upside downe that whole ground-worke of our salvation escaped no more the just vengeance of God than all other Hereticks did for first he was banished into a far country and their tormented with a strange disease the very wormes did gnaw in pieces his blasphemous tongue and at length the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed him up Concerning the Anabaptists which rose up about five hundred yeares since it is evidently known how divers wayes God scourged and plagued many of them some of them were destroyed by troops and by thousands others miserably executed and put to death in divers places as well for their monstrous and damnable heresies as for many mischiefes and outrages which they committed By all which things God doth exhibit and set before our eyes how deere and precious in his sight the purenesse of his holy Word and the unity of his Church is and how carefull and zealous every one of us ought to be in maintaining and upholding the â—ame when as he revengeth himselfe so sharply upon all those that go about to pervert and corrupt the sincerity thereof or which be breeders of new sects and divisions among his people Olympus by office Bishop of Carthage but by profession a â—avourer and maintainer of the Arriah heresie being upon a time in the Bath 〈◊〉 himselfe he uttered with an impious mouth blasphemous words against the holy Trinity but a threefold thunderbolt came from above and stroke him dead in the same place teaching him by his paine and all other by experience what it is to blaspheme the Lord of Heaven or with polluted lips to mention his sacred Majesty This hapned in the yeare of our Lord God five hundred and ten Cyril hath recorded unto us of his owne knowledge a more wonderfull and admirable wonder of God upon an Heretique than all the rest and such an one indeed as the like I dare say was never heard of The history is this After the decease of Saint Hierome there stood up one Sabinianus a perverse and blasphemous fellow that denied the distinction of persons in the Trinity and affirmed the Father the Sonne and the Holy-Ghost to be but one distinct person and to give credit to his heresie he wrot a booke of such blasphemies tending to the confirmation of the same and fathered it upon Saint Hierome as being the Author of it But Silvanus the Bishop of Nazaren mightily withstood and reproved him for depraving so worthy a man now dead and offering his life for the truth made this bargain with Sabinianus That if Saint Hierome the next day did not by some miracle testifie the falsenesse of his cause he would offer his throat to the hangman and abide death but if he did that then he should die This was agreed upon by each party and the day following both of them accompanied with great expectation of the people resorted unto the Temple of Jerusalem to decide the controversie Now the day was past and no miracle appeared so that Silvanus was commanded to yeeld his neck to that punishment which himselfe was Author of which as he most willingly and confidently did behold an Image like to Saint Hierome in shew appeared and stayed the hangmans hand which was now ready to strike and vanishing forthwith another miracle succeeded Sabinianus head fell from his shoulders no man striking at it and his carkasse remained upon the ground dead and sencelesse Whereat the people amased praising God clave unto Silvanus and abjured Sabinianus heresie Whence wee may observe the wonderfull wisedome of God both in punishing his enemies and trying his children whither they will stand to his Truth or no and learne thereby neither rashly to measure and limit the purposes of God nor yet timorously to despaire of help in a good cause though we see no meanes nor likelihood thereof Grimoald King of Lombardy was infected with the Arrian heresie for which cause the Lord punished him with untimely death for having been let bloud the eleventh day after as he strove to draw a bow he opened the veine anew and so bled to death â—abades King of Persia when he saw his sonne Phorsuasa addicted to the Maniches he assembled as many as he could of that sect into one place and there setting his Souldiers on them slew them till there was not one left Photinuâ— a Gallograecian for renuing the heresie of Hebion and affirming Christ to be but an excellent man borne naturally by Mary after the manner of other men excelling in justice and morall vertues was by the Emperour Valentinianus justly banished The Emperor Iustinian favouring the heresie of the Apthardocites when as he gave out one Edict whereby Anastasius the Bishop and all other that
sinne did not experience by certaine examples teach us the contrary As first of all the King of Tyre whose heart was so exalted with the multitude of riches and the renowne and greatnesse of his house that he doubted not to esteeme himselfe a god and to desire majesty and power correspondent thereunto For which presumption God by the Prophet Ezechiel reproved him and threatned his destruction which afterward came upon him when by the power of a strange and terrible nation his goodly godhead was overcome and murthered feeling indeed that he was no god as hee supposed but a man subject to death and misery King Herod sirnamed Agrippa which put Iames the brother of Iohn to death and imprisoned Peter with purpose to make him taste of the same cup was puffed up with no lesse sacrilegious pride for being upon a time seated in his throne of judgement and arrayed in his royall robes shewing forth his greatnesse and magnificence in the presence of the Embassadors of Tyre and Sidon that desired to continue in peace with him as he spake unto them the people shouted and cryed That it was the voice of God and not of man which titles of honour he disclaimed not and therefore the Angell of the Lord smote him suddenly because he gave not the glory to God so that he was eaten with wormes and gave up the ghost Iosephus reporteth the same story more at large on this manner Vpon the second day of the solemnization of the playes which Herod caused to be celebrated for the Emperours health there being a great number of Gentlemen and Lords present that came from all quarters to his feast he came betime in the morning to the Theatre clad in a garment all woven with silver of a marvellous workmanship upon which as the Sun rising cast his beames there glittered out such an excellent brightnesse that thereby his pernitious flatterers tooke occasion to call him with a loud voice by the name of God for the which sacrilegious speech he not reproving nor forbidding them was presently taken with most grievous and horrible dolours and gripes in his bowels so that looking upon the people he uttered these words Behold here your goodly god whom you but now so highly honored ready to die with extreame paine And so he died indeed most miserably even when he was in the top of his honour and jollity and as it were in the midst of his earthly Paradise being beaten downe and swallowed up with confusion and ignominy not stricken with the edge of sword or speare for that had been far more honourable but gnawne in pieces with lice and vermine Simon Magus otherwise called Simon the Samaritane borne in a village called Gitton after he was cursed of Peter the Apostle for offering to buy the gifts of the Spirit of God with money went to Rome and there putting in practise his magicall arts and working miracles by the Devill was reputed a god and had an image erected in his honour with this inscription To Simon the holy god Besides all the Samaritanes and divers also of other nations accounted him no lesse as appeared by the reverence and honour which they did unto him insomuch as they called his companion or rather his whore Helena for that was her profession in Tyre a city of Phenicia the first mover that distilled out of Simons bosome Now he to foster this foolish and ridiculous opinion of theirs and to eternize his name boasted that he would at a certaine time fly up into heaven which as he attempted to doe by the help of the Devill Peter the Apostle commanded the unclean spirit to cast him down again so that he fell upon the earth and was bruised to death and proved himselfe thereby to be no more than a mortall wicked and detestable wretch Moreover elsewhere we read of Alexander the Great whose courage and magnanimity was so exceeding great that he enterprised to goe out of Greece and set upon all Asia onely with an army of two and thirty thousand footmen five hundred horse and an hundred and foure score ships and in this appointment passing the seas he conquered in short space the greatest part of the world for which cause he was represented to the Prophet Daniel in a vision by the figure of a Leopard with wings on his backe to notifie the great diligence and speedy expedition which he used in compassing so many sudden and great victories with pride he was so soone infected that he would brooke no equall nor companion in his Empire but as heaven had but one Sunne so he thought the earth ought to have but one Monarch which was himselfe which mind of his he made known by his answer to King Darius demanding peace and offering him the one halfe of his Kingdome to be quiet when he refused to accord thereunto saying He scorned to be a partner in the halfe and hoped to be full possessor of the whole After his first victory had of Darius and his entrance into Aegypt which he tooke without blowes as also he did Rhodes and Cilicia he practised and suborned the Priests that ministred at the Oracle of Hammon to make him be pronounced and entituled by the Oracle The sonne of Iupiter which kinde of jugling and deceit was common at that time Having obtained this honour forthwith he caused himselfe to be worshipped as a god according to the custome of the Kings of Persia neither wanted he flatterers about him that egged him forward and soothed him up in this proud humor albeit that many of the better sort endeavoured tooth and nayle to turne him from it It hapned as he warred in India he received so sore a wound that with paine thereof he was constrained to say Though he was the renowned sonne of Iupiter yet he ceased not to feele the infirmities of a weake and diseased body finally being returned to Babylon where many Embassadors of divers farre countries as of Carthage and other cities in Africa Spaine France Sicily Sardinia and certaine cities of Italy were arrived to congratulate his good successe for the great renowne which by his worthy deeds he had gotten as he lay there taking his rest many dayes and bathing himselfe in all kinde of pleasure one day after a great feast that lasted a whole day and a night in a banquet after supper being ready to returne home he was poysoned when before hee had drunke his whole draught he gave a deep sigh suddenly as if hee had been thrust through with a dart and was carried away in a swoone vexed with such horrible torment that had he not been restrained he would have killed himselfe And on this manner he that could not content himselfe with the condition of a man but would needs climbe above the clouds to goe in equipage with God drunke up his owne death leaving as suddenly all his worldly pompe as hee had suddenly gotten it which vanished like smoake none
the siege Machabeus put fire to the towne and consumed the place with the blasphemers in it to ashes Holofernes when Achior advanced the glory of the God of Israel replyed on this fashion Since thou hast prophesied unto us that Israel shall be defended by their God thou shalt prove that there is no God but Nabuchadnezzar when the sword of mine army shall passe through thy sides and thou shalt fall among their slaine but for this blasphemy the Lord cut him short and prevented his cruell purpose by sudden death und that by the hand of a woman to his further shame Nay this sinne is so odious in the sight of God that he punisheth even them that give occasion thereof unto others yea though they be his dearest children as it appeareth by the words of the Prophet Nathan unto King David Because of this deed saith he of murthering Vriah and defiling Bathshabe thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the childe that is borne unto thee shall surely die In the Empire of Iulian the Apostata there were divers great men that for the Emperours sake sake forsooke Christ and his religion amongst whom was one Iulian uncle to the Emperour and Governour of the East another Foelix the Emperours Treasurer the first of which two after hee had spoyled all Christian Churches and Temples pissed against the table whereon the holy Sacraments were used to be administred in contempt and strucke Euzoius on the care for reproving him for it the other beholding the holy vessels that belonged to the Church said See what pretious vessels Maries sonne is served withall After which blasphemy the Lord plagued them most strangely for Iulian fell into so strange a disease that his intrailes being rotten he voided his excrements at his mouth because when they passed naturally he abused them to the dishonour of God Foelix vomited bloud so excessively night and day at his blasphemous mouth that he died forthwith About the same time there lived a famous sophister and Epicure called Libanius who being at Antioch demanded blasphemously of a learned and godly schoolemaster What the Carpenters sonne did and how he occupied himselfe Marry quoth the schoolemaster full of the spirit of God the Creator of this world whom thou disdainfully callest the carpenters sonne is making a coffin for thee to carry thee to thy grave whereat the sophister jeasting departed and within few daies dying was buried in a coffin according to the prophesie of that holy man The Emperour Heraclius sending Embassadors to Cosroë the King of Persia to intreat of peace returned with this answer That he would never cease to trouble them with warre till he had constrained them to forsake their crucified Christ and to worship the Sunne But ere long he bore the punishment of his blasphemy for what with a domesticall calamity and a forrein overthrow by the hand of Heraclius he came to a most wofull destruction Michael that blasphemous Rabbine that was accounted of the Iewes as their Prince and Messias as he was on a time banquetting with his companions amongst other things this was chiefest sauce for their meat to blasphme Christ and his mother Mary insomuch as he boasted of a victory already gotten over the Christians God But marke the issue as he descended down the stayres his foot slipping he tumbled headlong and broke his neck wherein his late victory proved a discomfiture and overthrow to his eternall shame and confusion Three souldiers amongst the Tyrigetes a people of Sarmatia passing through a Wood there arose a tempest of thunder and lightening which though commonly it maketh the greatest Atheists to tremble yet one of them to shew his contempt of God and his judgements burst forth into blasphemy and despightings of God But the Lord soone tamed his rebellious tongue for he caused the winde to blow up by the root a huge tree that fell upon him and crushed him to pieces the other escaping to testifie to the World of his destruction At a village called Benavides in Spain two young men being together in a field there arose of a sudden a terrible tempest with such violence of weather and winde and withall so impetuous a whirlwinde that it amased those that beheld it The two young men seeing the fury thereof comming amaine towards them to avoid the danger ran away as fast as they possibly might but make what haste they could it overtooke them who fearing lest the same should swing them up into the ayre fell flatlong down upon the earth where the whirlwinde whisking about them a pretty while and then passing forth the one of them arose so altered and in such an agony that he was scarcely able to stand on his feet the other lying still and not stirring some others afarre off that stood under a hedge went to see how hee did and found him to be starke dead not without markes upon him of wonderfull admiration for all his bones were so crushed that the pipes and joynts of his legges and armes were as easie to be turned the one way as the other as though his whole body had been made of mosse and besides his tongue was pulled out by the roots which could not by any meanes be found though they sought for it most diligently And this was the miserable end of this wretched man who was noted to be a great outragious swearer blasphemer of Gods holy name the Lord therfore chose him out to make him an example to the world of his justice No lesse notable is the example of a young girle named Denis Benesield of twelve yeares of age who going to schoole amongst other girles when they fell to reason among themselves after their childish discretion about God one among the rest said that he was a good old father What hee said the foresaid Denis he is an old doting foole which being told to her mistresse she purposed to correct her the next day for it but it chanced that the next day her mother sent her to London to the market the wench greatly intreating her mother that she might not goe so that she escaped her mistresses correction But the Lord in vengeance met with her for as she returned homeward suddenly she was stricken dead all the one side of her being black and buried at Hackney the same night A terrible example no doubt both to old and young what it is for children to blaspheme the Lord and God and what it is for parents to suffer their young ones to grow up in blindnesse without nurtering them in the feare of God and reverence of his Majesty and therefore worthy to be remembred of all In the yeare 510 an Arrian Bishop called Olympius being at Carthage in the bathes reproached and blasphemed the holy and sacred Trinity and that openly but lighting fell downe from heaven upon him three times and he was burnt and consumed therewith There was also in the time
repenting as they say of her foule sinne The Lord be mercifull unto her CHAP. III. Of Epicures and Atheists BArgesâ— otherwise called Elimaâ— a sore of implety and a horrible Magitian and Atheist oftenly resisting the Apostles Paul and Barnabas before Sergius Paulus the Deputy was presently stroke with blindnesse by the hand of God This man Saint Luke speaketh of Acts 13. Iustin Martyr that lived not long after the Apostles times a famous Christian writeth thus to 〈◊〉 the Emperour viz. after the ascention of Christ into Heaven certaine men stirred up by the Devill called themselves gods of which number was Simon the Samaritane borne in a Village called Gitton This man in the time of Claudius Caesar by the power of the Devill exercising Magicall Arts and working great wonders was esteemed for a god and a Statue erected unto him with this inscription Simonâ— deo sancto To Simon the holy god The Samaritans also with many of other Nations worshipped him as a god but this Atheist meeting with Saint Peter at Rome had great contentions with him and boasting that he would ascend into Heaven in the sight of all was 〈◊〉 up into the aire by Devils but Peter commanded the Devils in the name of Christ to let him goe and so he fell downe upon the 〈…〉 a pieces Caius Caligula Emperour of Rome raging against both 〈…〉 Jewes caused himselfe to be worshipped and his Images 〈…〉 places He also dedicated the Temple of Jerusalem to 〈…〉 commanding it to be called the Temple of famous Iupiter 〈◊〉 â—o hee styled himselfe but to shew that he was but a wretched simple man he reigned but three years and three moneths and was stain by Pherius a Tribut Herod Agrippa when he suffered himselfe to be saluted and honoured as a god was presently smitten with horrible plagues in his bowels when detesting the voice of his flatterers said I that was called but lately a god 〈◊〉 in the bonds of death Daphida a biting and contentious Sophister and hating all Religion both Heathenish and Christian came to Delphos and in a scoffe asked the Oracle of Apollo Whether he might finde his horse or no when hee had none to finde the Oracle answered That he should finde a â—orse but it should be his destruction At his returne from the Oracle King Aâ—talus his enemy ceased upon him and set him upon a rocke the name whereof was a horse causing him to be throwne downe headlong to learne what it is to mocke the gods CHAP. IV. Of Idolatrie THe wonderfull Idolatrie of the Heathens was so abhominable that their madnesse would astonish any reasonable man not to speake of their Iupiter Mars Mercurie Apollo and the rest Hesiod doth report that they had thirty thousand gods upon the earth and some most strange ones Troglodites worshipped Snayles the Syrians Pigions the Romans Geese because by their squâ—aking the Capitoll was saved from the Gaules the Aâ—bâ—acians a Liònesse because a Lionesse had killed a Tyrant of theirs The Delphians a Wolfe the Samians a Sheepe the Tenedians a Cow with Calfe the Albanians a Dragon the Aegyptians Rats and Mise and Cats and a Calfe wherein the Jewes are said to imitate them in the Wildernesse But the Idolatrie of the Romans was beyond all for they worshipped not onely the higher gods as they called but the basest things that could be named in the World as the Ague and the Gout the Privie yea and Priapus that filthie Idoll of the Gardens Now who seeth not but the vengeance of God hath beene poured downe upon all these Nations for their impious Idolatrie having beene delivered up into the hands of the Gothes and Vandals Turks and Tartarians and make a prey unto them Neither doe the Papists come short of these Heathens in their Idolatrie for they turne the blessed Saints into Idols and worship them in stead of God Every countrey and every citie and every house hath his protecting Saint which they daily invocate yea they ascribe a certaine god to every member and for their severall Cattell beside their abhominable Idolatrie in worshipping their breaden god but as God hath taken already in part vengeance upon that Idolatrous Whore of Babylon so I doubt not but he will fulfill the full measure of his wrath upon them in his due time except they repent CHAP. V. Of Blasphemie A Certaine holy man passing by a Wine-Taverne went to prayer wherein certaine young men having passed the whole night in drinking and playing and blaspheming the name of God he met with a poore man horribly wounded in his body and asked him of whom he had received those wounds the poore man answered that hee had received them of those young men that were in that Taverne whereupon the good man returned backe and enquired of them why they had so wounded the poore man The young men astonished answered that there were none in the Taverne with them all that night but themselves and presently went out to see the poore man thus wounded but he was not to be found whereupon being more amazed they judged that it was Christ whom they had thus wounded with their blasphemies Anno 1551. in the coasts of Magnapolis certaine men abusing the feast of Pentecost with much drinking a certaine woman in their company blasphemed God strangely and called upon the Devils who presently snatched her away and carried her aloft into the aire from whence the â—ell downe dead the whole company beholding of her At the coasts of Bohemia Anno 1551. five drâ—nken men quaffing together with horrible blasphemies prophaned the name of God and the picture of the Devill being painted upon the wall they caroused healths unto him to which the Devill answered immediately for the next-morning all five were found dead their necks being broken and quashed to places aâ— though a wheele had gone over them bloud running out of their moâ—â—hes nostrils and eares to the great astonishment of the beholders Not many years since two men contended together which of them should poure forth most blasphemies against God but whilest they were exercising this devilish contention one of them was stricken with madnesse and so continued till his lives end In like manner at Rome certaine young men agreed together that hee should have the victory that could sweare most which wicked strife as soone as they entred into one of them was deprived of the use of his tongue another of his reason and understanding and the rest remained as dead men God reserving them alive for repentance At Eslinga in Germany upon Saint Katharines day a certaine Nobleman having lost much money at play with horrible execrations and blaphemies commanded his man to bring him his horse that hee might ride home in a very darke night but his servant dissuaded him from his journey affirming how dangerous the way was by reason of the waters and the fennes that lay in the middest whereat hee began to rage