all would not serve to shake the foundation of his Faith which was builded upon a Rocke hee was condemned and executed to death For being first scourged with whips then hanged up by the feet after having hot scalding water poured upon him at last hee was cast unto wilde beasts With all which torments being not terrified nor yet dispatched finally had his head cut off But behold the Judge called Antiochus that pronounced the sentence fell downe from his Throne before the face of the world even whilst the young man was in the mid'st of his torments and by his example made knowne to all men how odious such cruell persecutors are in the sight of Him that judgeth the Earth and controlleth the mightie Princes and Potentates of the same In the Empire of Iulian the Apostate the Lord sene such horrible earthquakes upon the world that what for the fall of houses and raptures of fields neither citie nor countrey was safe to abide in besides such an extreame drouth dryed up the moisture of the earth that victualls were very geason and deare These plagues Theodoret avoucheth to have fallen upon the world for the impietie of Iulian and the miserable persecution of Christians The Emperour Gallus had good successe in his affaires whil'st he abstained from shedding the bloud of the Christians but as soone as hee gave himselfe over unto that villany his prosperitie Kingdome and life diminished and decreased at once for within two yeares he and his sonne Vâ—lusianus in the warre against Aemylian were both slaine through the defection of his souldiers who in the point of necessitie forsooke him Beside the Lord in his time sent upon the Provinces of Rome a generall and contagious pestilence which lasted whole ten yeares without intermission to make satisfaction for the much innocens blood which was spilled amongst them Arnolphus the fourescor th Emperour raged like a Tyrant against all men but especially against those that professed the Religion and name of Christ Jesus for which cause the Lord stirred up a woman the wife of Guidâ— to minister unto him the dregs of his wrath in a poysoned cup by means whereof such a rottennesse possessed all his members that lice and wormes issuing out continually he dyed most miserably in Orâ—nge a city of Bavary the twelfth yeare of his raigne Bajazet the Turke to what a miserable and ludibrious end came he for his outragious hatred against all Christendome but especially against Constantinople which he had brought to so low an ebbe that they could scarce have resisted him any longer had not Tamberlaine the Tartarian revoked him from the siege and bidden him leave to assayle others and looke unto his owne And indeed he welcommed him so kindly that he soone tooke him prisoner and binding him with chaines of gold carried him up and downe in a cage for a spectacle using his backe for a foot-stoole to get upon his horse And thus God plagueth one Tyrant by another and all for the comfort of his chosen Gensericus King of the Vandales exercised cruell tyranny against the professors of the truth So did Honoricus the second also but both of them reaped their just deserts for Gensericus dyed being possessed with a Spirit and Honoricus being so rotten and putrified that one member dropped off after another Some say that he gnawned off his owne flesh with his teeth Authar is the twelfth King of Lombardy forbad children to be baptised or instructed in the Christian Faith seeking by that means to abolish and pluck downe the Kingdome of Christ but he raigned not long for ere six yeares were compleat he dyed with poyson at Pavia And so he that thought to undermine Christ Jesus was undermined himselfe most deservedly in the yeare of our Lord 593. When Arcadius the Emperonr through the perswasion of certain envious fellowes and his wife Eudoxia had banished Iohn Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople into Bosphorus the next night there arose such a terrible earth-quake that the Empresse and the whole citie was sore affrighted therewith so that the next morrow messengers after messengers were sent without ceasing till they had brought him backe againe out of exile and his accusers were all punished for their wrongfull accusation Thus it pleased God to testifie the innocency of his servant by terrifying his enemies Smaragdus an Exarch of Italy was transported by a Devill for tyrannizing over Christians in the first yeare of the Empire of Mauritius Maâ—â—uâ—ha a Sarasen being equall to Pharoah in persecuting the Church of God God made him equall to him also in the manner of his destruction for as hee returned from the spoyle of the Monastery of Caâ—â—ime and Mossana and the Daughter of many Christians the Lord caused the sea to swallow up his whole army even an hundred ships so that few or none escaped Another time even the yeare 719 they were miraculously consumed with famine sword pestilence water and captivitie and all for their infestuous rancour and tyranny towards Christians for whom the famine spared the sword devonred whom both these touched not the pestilence ate up and they that escaped all three yet perished in the waters and ten ships that escaped the waters were taken by the Romans and the Syrians surely an egregious signe of Gods heavie wrath and displeasure To conclude there was never any that set themselves against the Church of God but God set himselfe against them by some notable judgement so that some were murthered by their subjects as Bluso King of the Vandales others by their enmies as Vdo Prince of Sclavonia others by their wives as Cruco another Sclavonian Prince others discomfited in warre as Abbas the King of Hungaria some destroyed by their owne horses as Lucius the Emperour who first cast his owne daughter because she was a Christian amongst the same horses And generally few persecutors escaped without some evident and markable destruction CHAP. XI Of the Iewes that persecuted Christ. BY how much the offence of the Iews was more hainous not onely in despising and rejecting the Lord of glory whom God had sent amongst them for their salvation but also in being so wicked as to put him to death by so much the more hath God bestowed his fearfull indignation upon them as at many other times so especially by that great calamity and desolation which they abid at their last destruction begun by Vespasian and perfected by Titus which was so great and lamentable as the like was never heard of untill this day for if the sacking and overthrow of Ierusalem then when Ieremy the Prophet made his booke of Lamentations over it was reputed more grievous than the subversion of Sodome which perished suddainly how much more then is this last destruction without all comparison by reason of those horrible and strange miseries which were there both suddainly in continuance of time committed Neither truly is there any History which
the world are Idolaters and full of superstition worship Images stockes and stones and pray to creatures in stead of the Creator God forbiddeth us to sweare by his name in vaine and yet what is more rise than that so that a man can heare nothing else but oaths and blasphemies Many for the least trifle in the world sticke not to sweare and forsweare themselves God forbiddeth theft murther adultery and false witnesse bearing and yet nothing so common as backbitings slanders forgeries false reports whoredomes cousenings robberies extortions and all manner of envies enmities God hath commanded that we love our neighbours as our selves but we in stead of love hate despise and seeke to procure the hurt and damage of one another not regarding any thing but our owne peculiar profit and advantage Is not this a manifest and profest disobedience and intolerable rebellion against our Maker What childe is there that is not bound to honour and reverence his father What servant that is not bound to obey his master and to doe all that he shall will him What subject that is not tied in subjection to his Prince and Soveraigne Yet there is not one which will not confesse yea and sweare too with his mouth That God is his Lord and Father Which if it be true what is then the cause that in stead of serving and pleasing him they doe nothing else but displease and offend his Majesty Is not this the way to provoke his wrath and stirre up his indignation against them Is it any marvell if he be incensed with anger if hee be armed with revenge and send abroad his cruell scourges upon the earth to strike and whip it withall Is it any wonder if hee pile up the wicked ones on heaps and shoot out his revengefull arrowes against them and make them drunken with their owne bloud and make his sword of justice as sharp as a rasor to punish those Rebels that have rebelled against him For vengeance is mine saith he and belongeth only unto me Whosoever therefore he be that followeth the desires and concupiscence of his owne flesh and this wicked world and shall lead a life contrary to the instruction and ordinance of the law of God yea although he never heard thereof yet is hee guilty thereof and worthy to be accursed for so much as his owne conscience ought to serve for a law unto himselfe by the which he is condemned in those evill actions which hee committeth even as Paul saith All that have sinned without the Law shall likewise perish without the Law CHAP. VI. How the greatest Monarchs in the World ought to be subject to the Law of God and consequently the Lawes of Man and Nature EVery man confesseth this to be true That by how much the more benefits and dignity he hath received from another by so much he is the more bounden and beholden to him now it is so that Kings and Princes are those upon whom God hath bestowed more plentifully his gifts and graces than upon any other whom hee hath made as it were his Lievtenants in the world for hee hath extolled and placed them above others and bedecked them with honour giving them power and authority to rule and raigne by putting people in subjection to them and therefore so much the more are they bound to re-acknowledge him againe to the end to doe him all honour and homage which is required at their hands Therefore David exhorteth them to serve the Lord even with reverence This then their high and superintendent estate is no priviledge to exempt them from the subjection and obedience which they owe unto God whom they ought to reverence above all things Yee Princes and high Lords saith the Prophet give you unto the Lord eternall glory and strength give unto him glory due unto his name and cast your selves before him to do him reverence If they owe so much honour unto God as to their Soveraigne then surely it must follow that they ought to obey his voice and feare to offend him and so much the rather because hee is a great deale more strong and terrible than they able to cause his horrible thunderbolts to tumble upon their heads they being not able once to withstand his puissance but constrained very often to tremble thereat In all that prescription and ordinance ordained and set down by God concerning the office of Kings there is no mention made of any liberty he giveth them to live after their owne lusts and to doe every thing that seemeth good in their own eyes but hee enjoyneth them expresly to have alwaies with them the booke of his Law delighteth to reade and meditate therein and thereby to learne to feare and reverence his name by observing all the precepts that are contained in that booke As for civill and naturall Lawes insomuch as they are founded upon equity and right for otherwise they were no Lawes therein they are agreeable to and as it were dependents on the Law of God as is well declared by Cicero in the first and second booke of his Lawes for even they also condemne theeves adulterers murtherers parricides and such like If then Princes be subject to the Law of God as I am about to shew there is no doubt but that they are likewise subject to those civill Lawes by reason of the equity and justice which therein is commended unto us And if as Plato saith the Lawes ought to be above the Prince not the Prince above the Lawes it is then most manifest that the Prince is tyed unto the Lawes even in such sort that without the same the government which hee swayeth can never be lawfull and commendable And if it be true that the Magistrate is or ought to be a speaking Law as it is said and ought to maintaine the authority and credit thereof by the due and upright administration of Iustice for if hee did not this he were a dumbe Law and without life how is it possible that he should make it of authority and force with others if hee despiseth and transgresseth it himselfe David did never assume so much to himselfe as to desire to have liberty to doe what hee listed in his Kingdome but willingly submitted himselfe to that which his office and duty required making even then when he was installed and established King over the whole Land a Covenant of peace with the Princes and Deputies of the people and we know that in every covenant and bargaine both parties are bound to each other by a mutuall bond to performe the conditions which they are agreed upon The like is used at the coronation of Christian Kings whereas the people is bound and sworne to doe their alleagance to their Kings so the Kings are also solemnely sworne to maintaine and defend true Religion the estate of Iustice the peace and tranquillity of their subjects and the right and priviledges which are nothing but the Lawes of the Realme
justice and equity in all causes neither did it grieve them so to doe being perswaded that whilest they obeyed their lawes nothing could betide them but good The Lacedemonian Kings were in such bondage to the lawes of their countrey that the Ephori which were set up to none other end but to be a bridle to hold them backe from doing what they listed had absolute authority to correct them when they had committed any fault which subjection nothing displeased King Theopompus as it is apparent by the answer he made his wise that reproved him once in anger saying By his cowardise he would leave a lesse kingdome to his children than he had received of his Ancestors Nay saith he a greater forsomuch as more durable and permanent Plutarch praising the uprightnesse of King Alcamenes who for feare to breake the law refused divers presents that were sent him bursteth into this speech O heart worthy of a King that hath preferred the authority of the law before his owne profit Where are those fellowes now that cry Kings pleasures ought to be observed for Lawes and that a Prince may make a law but is not subject to it himselfe And this is that which Plutarch saith as concerning that matter who lived under Trajan the Emperor Cornelius Tacitus discovering the beginning and originall of the Romane Civill Law saith That Servius the third King of Rome after Romulus and Numa was the only man that most established those lawes whereunto Kings themselves ought to yeeld and be obedient And admit that the Emperours swayed with great power and authority almost all the world yet for all their fiercenesse and haughtinesse of minde Pliny durst tell Trajan That an Emperour ought to use to carry himselfe with such good government in his Empire as if he were sure to give up an account of all his actions Thou must not saith hee desire more liberty to follow thine owne lust than any one of us doe a Prince is not set over the law but the law placed in authority above the Prince This was the admonition of that heathen man Likewise Antonius and Severus two mighty Emperours although by reason of an opinion of their owne greatnesse and haughtinesse wherewith they flattered themselves bragged that they were not subject to any law yet they added this clause withall That notwithstanding they would live according to the direction of the law This saith Theodosius and Valentinion two no lesse mighty Emperours is a voice becomming the Royall Majesty and greatnesse of a King To confesse himselfe to live under a law and in truth it is a thing of greater importance than the imperiall dignity it selfe to put soveraignty under the authority of law Amongst many other good lessons and exhortations which Lewis that good King gave unto his sonne on his death-bed this was one worthy the remembring how he commanded him to love and feare God with all his strength and to take heed of doing any thing that should be contrary to his law whatsoever should befall him and to provide that the good lawes and statutes of his kingdome might be observed and the priviledges of his subjects maintained to forbid Iudges to favour him more than any others when any cause of his owne came in tryall Thereby giving us thus much to understand That every good King ought to submit himselfe in obedience under the hand of God and under the rule of justice and equity Wherefore there is neither King nor Keisar that can or ought to exempt himselfe from the observance of sacred and upright lawes which if they resist or disanull doubtlesse they are culpable of a most hainous crime and especially of Rebellion against the King of Kings CHAP. VII Of the punishment that seised upon Pharaoh King of Aegypt for resisting God and transgressing the first commandement of the Law WEe have sufficiently declared in the premisses that the mightiest potentates of this world are bound to range themselves under the obedience of Gods law it remaineth now that we produce examples of those punishments that have fallen upon the heads of the transgressours of the same according to the manner of their transgression of what sort soever which that we may the better describe it behooveth us to follow the order of the Commandements as the examples wee bring may be fitly referred to any of them And first we are to understand that when God said Thou shalt have none other Gods before me hee condemneth under these words the vanity of men that have forged to themselves a multitude of gods hee forbiddeth all false Religion and declareth That hee would be acknowledged to be the sole and true God and that we should serve worship love feare and obey him in and above all things and whosoever it be that doth otherwise either by hindring his worship or afflicting those that worship him the same man provoketh his heavy wrath to bee throwne upon him to his utter ruine and destruction This is the indignation that lighted upon Pharaoh King of Aegypt as wee read in the booke of God who being one of the most puissant Kings of the earth in his age God chose him for an object to shew his wonderfull power by the means of horrible plagues and scourges which hee cast upon him and by destroying him with all his armies at the length as his rebellion well deserved For he like a cruell Tyrant continuing to oppresse the children of Israel without giving them any release or breathing time from their misery or liberty to serve God although by Moses in the name and authority of God who made himselfe well enough knowne unto him without the help of any written law hee was many times instantly urged and requested thereunto so many judgements and punishments assayled him one in the necke of another in such sort that at length he was overtaken and ensnared therewith First of all the very waters of Aegypt being converted into bloud proclaimed warre against him then the frogges which covered the face of the earth climbed up even to his chamber and bed and filling every corner of his land sounded him an alarme next a muster of lice and gnats and such other troublesome and stinking creatures summoned him to combate an handfull of embers seattered in the aire by Moses were unto him as the strokes of a stone or a shaft which did wonderfully disfigure their bodies with boyles and most noysome scabbes afterward the grashoppers were put in battell array against him together with the hailestones horrible thunders and lightenings wasting and spoyling and running up and downe grievously through his whole land After all these bitter blowes the Tyrant being cut short and being so besieged on every side with hideous and palpable darknesse that he could not tell which wayes to turne himselfe yet would hee not be brought to any reason but continued obstinate and hardened against God though all the elements with heaven and earth had taken armour together
hand flew him even then when he thought he should live A little while after Goliah a gyant of the Philistims who as well through the hugenesse of his stature and strength of body as through the horrible cruelty which appeared in him seemed in mans eyes invincible proudly and presumptuously defied the army of the living God offering and daring any one man of Israel to enter combate with him This proud fellow was notwithstanding all his brags by young and unarmed David save a little sticke and a few stones which he had in his hands vanquished and trod under foot for he gave this great beast such a knocke with one of his stones on the forehead that at the first blow he tumbled him groveling on the earth and quickly leaping upon him caught hold of his huge sword and therwithall cut off his monstrous head which the Philistims perceiving turned their backes and fled and were pursued and slaine by the Israelites CHAP. VIII More Examples like unto the former IN the time of Achab Benhadad King of Syria accompanied with two and thirty Kings came very proudly against Israel as it were in despight of God to bid him battell but it turned to his owne shame and confusion being first dishonourably put to flight by 230 servants of the Princes of Israel a small handfull to encounter so mighty an army and secondly returning to seeke revenge found the losse of 100000 footmen at one clap besides 27000 which escaping by flight were crushed in pieces by the ruine of a wall in the city Aphec And so this brave gallant that erst bragged that the gold and silver of Israel yea their wives and children were his was now glad to fly for his life amongst the rest and in his returne to hide himselfe all dismaied in a little chamber and from thence being advised thereto by his servants to send to intreat Achab for his owne life which a little before thought him sure of the lives of all Israel Yet for all this ere long hee enterprised a new practise against the Prophet Elizeus and besieged also the city of Samaria so long that certaine women constrained by extreme famine devoured their children but in the end he was compelled through fearfull terror which God sent into his army by the noise of infinite Chariots and Horses which sounded in their eares as if some puissant host of men of warre had been marching towards them to forsake the siege and flee with all his forces leaving behinde them their tents horses carriages victuals and munitions to be a prey for them that pursued them not And lastly falling ficke Hazael one of his owne servants that succeeded him in the kingdome to the end hee might dispatch him quickly and without tumult early in the morning tooke a thick cloth dipt in water and spreading it over his face stifled him to death When the Moabites and Ammonites rose up in arms against Iehosaphat King of Iuda as soone as this good King humbled himselfe together with all his people before the face of God by fasting and prayer forthwith God sent such a giddinesse of spirit amongst his enemies that they killed one another and the men of Iuda without being troubled with fighting gathered the spoile which they had scattered and enriched themselves with their reliques Aman promoted in honour and credit above all the Princes of the Court of King Assuerus conceived so beastly an hatred against the poore dispersed Iewes being at that time the only Church of God that malitiously he conspired in one day to destroy and put to death the whole nation to the very women and infants and in accomplishing this his purpose he mightily abused the authority of the King whom he falsly informed That this nation would not be subject to his ordinances and lawes which his other people were subject unto and that therefore hee ought not to permit and suffer them any longer But God that carrieth alwayes a watchfull eye over his Church and knoweth how to breake and dash all the enterprises of his enemies brought all this wretches purposes to nought by preserving miraculously those whom he would have destroyed and making him doe reverence to Mordecheus whom hee specially sought to bring to infamy and for whom he had of purpose provided a gibbet to hang him on but was hanged thereon himselfe with ten of his sons beside all those which had conspired with him against the Iewes were upon the same day which they had set downe for their massacre by the kings commandement slaine by the hands of them whom they had appointed to the slaughter Balthasar King of Babylon as he was feasting among his Princes commanded amidst his cups the golden and silver Vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the Temple of Ierusalem to be brought that both he and his princes and his wives and concubines might drinke therein exalting himselfe thus against the Lord of Heaven and boasting in his idols of earth therefore God being stirred up to wrath against him appointed his destruction even whilest he thus dranke and made merry in the midst of his jollity and caused a strange and fearefull signe to appeare before his eyes a bodilesse hand writing upon the wall over against the candlesticke the words of which writing portended the destruction of his kingdome which presently ensued for the very same night hee was murthered and the Scepter seised upon by Darius King of the Medes Antiochus by sirname Epiphanes or Excellent though by truer report of people contemptuously entituled the Furious King of Asia being venomously enraged against the Iewes began at the first marvellously to oppresse them to rob and spoile their Temple and to slaughter the people About ten yeares after deceiving the poore people with faire and smooth words covers of most vile and wretched treason whilest they imagined no mischiefe hee set upon them in such cruell sort that the losse and desolation which they endured at that time was inestimable for besides the destruction of Ierusalem their City the slaughter of infinite multitudes of their people and the captivity of women and infants as if all these were not enough there was yet another misery to make up the full summe worse than all the rest which was this The cursed tyrant seeing his purpose not to take the full effect commanded every where That all his subjects I meane the Iewes should forsake and abjure the Law of God and be united into one Religion with the Infidels By means of which Edict the Religion of God was defaced the books of his Law rent and burned and those with whom any such books were found rigorously put to death Which fearefull cruelty when the Iewes perceived it caused many of them to wax faint hearted and to give themselves over to wallow in the dirty fashions of the uncircumcised Idolaters and in their madnesse to subscribe to the unjust lawes of the vile monster Now after he had
committed all these outrages he was repulsed with dishonour from the city of Elymais in Persia which he went about to spoile and rob and forced to fly to Babylon where after tidings of the overthrow of his two armies in Iudea with griefe and despight he ended his dayes Antiochus the sonne of this wretched father succeeding him as in his kingdome so in wickednesse perjury and disloyalty when to the end to consult about his owne affaires he concluded a peace with the Iewes and by solemne oath as well of himselfe as his princes confirmed the free exercise of their Religion behold suddenly he falsied his plighted and sworne faith and undid all that ever he had done but it was not long ere hee also was overtaken by the army of Demetrius and together with Lysias his Governour put to death A while after reigned Alexander his brother who whilest he was encombred with the troubles of Cilicla that revolted from him the King of Aegypt his father in law came traiterously to forestall him of his kingdome tooke his wife and gave her to hiâ— deadliest enemy and afterward gave him battell discomfited his forces and drove him to fly into Arabia for safety where in stead of helpe he found an hatchet to chop off his head which was sent for a Present to gratifie the King of Aegypt withall Not long after Antiochus his sonne recovered the Scepter of his Father but alas his raigne endured but a small space for being yet but a young childe hee was slaine by Tryphon in the way as he led him to warre against the Iewes And thus perished the cursed race of Antiochus which felt Gods wrath upon it even in the third generation Antiochus the sonne of Demetrius of whom mention was made but a little before after hee had chased Tryphon from the kingdome of Asia which he usurped and broken the league which he had made with the Iewes gave himselfe wholly to worke them mischiefe Therefore comming against Ierusalem he tooke it by force commanding his souldiers to put all to death that were within the same so that within three days there was such a massacre of young and old men women and children that the number of the slaine arose to foure score thousand carkasses After this having executed many more villanies against this people in so much as to make them renounce the law of God putting them cruelly to death that did not obey his commandement it came to passe that this cruell tyrant was first of all put to flight by the inhabitants of Persepolis a city of Persia for going aboue to rob their temple of their treasures next endamaged by an overthrow of his army in Iudaea which hee no sooner understood but he tooke counsell in his fury how to be revenged of Ierusalem and belched forth bitter threats against it But in the meane time the Lord stroke him with a sudden and incurable plague and surprised him with a horrible torment of his entrails Howbeit for all this he ceased not his malicious enterprise but hasted forward his journey towards the Iewes with such cagernesse that in the way he fell out of his chariot and bruised so his body that it became putrified and so full of corruption that very vermine scrawled out thereof and the rotten flesh dropping piecemeale away no man no not himselfe being able to endure the stinch thereof Then was he constrained in the midst of his torments to confesse that it was meet that he should submit himself unto God that he which is mortall ought not to exalt himselfe so high as to compare with the immortall God and in this estate this reprobate ended his wicked dayes by a strange and most miserable kind of death CHAP. IX Of those that persecuted the Sonne of God and his Church IF they who in the law injured and persecuted the Church of God were punished according to their deserts as we have already heard is it any marvell then if the enemies and persecuters of our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which labour by all means to discountenance and frustrate his Religion and to oppresse his Church doe feele the heavy and fearefull vengeance of God upon them for their very wickednesse and unbelieâ—e No verily for he that honoureth not the Sonne honoureth not the Father which sent him and is guilty therefore before God of impiety and prophanenesse From this hainous crime King Herod in no wise can be exempted that caused all the Infants of Bethlehem of two yeares old and under to be cruelly murthered in hope thereby to put the true Messias and Saviour of the world to death For which deed accompained with many other strange cruelties as by killing the ordinary Iudges of the house of David and his owne wife and children this Caitise was tormented with sundry intolerable griefes and at last devoured by an horrible and most fearefull death For as Iosephus reporteth his body was boyled and his bowels gnawne in two by a soft and slow fire fretting inwardly without any outward appearance of heate besides the ravenous and insatiable desire of eating which so possessed him that without chewing his meat in whole lumps descended into his body devouring it so fast as it could be throwne into his mouth and never ceasing to farse his greedy throat with continuall sustenance moreover his feet were so swolne and pust up with such a flegme that a man might see through them his privy parts so rotten and full of vermine and his breath so stinking that few or none durst approach neer unto him yea his owne servants for sooke him Now lying in this wretched plight when this wicked man saw no remedy could be found to asswage his griefe hee went about to kill himselfe and being not able to performe it he was constrained to endure all the pangs of a most horrible lingring and languishing death and at last mad and miserable bestraught of sense and reason to end his dayes As for Herod the Tetrarch sirnamed Antipas who to please Herodias had caused Iohn Baptist to be beheaded when hee had likewise prepared snares for our Saviours feet and being sent to him by Pilate to quit himself and gratifie him withall had jeasted and mocked at him his belly full behold his reproaches and mockes was he never so subtle turned into his owne bosome for first after that his army had been discomfited by the souldiers of King Aretas whose daughter in regard of Herodias his brother Philips wife he had repudiated a further shame and dishonour befell him even to be deprived of his Royall dignity and not only to be brought into a low and base estate but also being robbed of his goods to be banished into a farre countrey and there to make an end of the rest of his life As touching Pilate the governour of Iudea he did so excell in wickednesse and injustice that notwithstanding the restraint of his owne conscience the law of civill equity
and sufficiently he was confuted and that he was reputed an accursed and confounded wretch for his labour in terrible despaire and anguish of soule he died Iulian the Emperour sirnamed the Apostate cast himselfe headlong into the same gulfe for having been brought up and instructed from his childehood in the Christian faith and afterward a while a profest reader thereof to others in the Church as soone as he had obtained the Empire malitiously revolted from his profession and resisted with all his power the Faith and Church of Christ endeavouring by all means possible either by force to ruinate and destroy it or by fine sleights and subtilties to undermine it And because his purpose was to doe what hurt hee could to Christians therefore he studied by all he could to please content and uphold the contrary party I meane the Painims he caused their temples first to be opened which Constantine his predecessor had caused to be shut up he tooke from the Christian Churches and their Ministers those priviledges liberties and commodities which the said Constantine had bestowed upon them and not content with this he confiscated the Church revenues and imposed great taxes and tributes upon all that professed the name of Christians and forbad them to have any schooles of learning for their children And yet more to vexe and grieve them he translated many orders of the Church discipline and policy into Paganisme After he had thus by all means striven to beat down the Scepter of Christs kingdome it turned quite contrary to his expectation for in stead thereof the scepter of his owne kingdome was broken and brought to nought at that time when making warre upon the Persians he was wounded with an arrow which pierced his armour and dived so deep into his side that he died thereof When he undertooke this voyage he was furnished with such bravery both of apparell and all things else as it might seeme it appertained to him and none else to overwhelme and oversway the world still belching out threats against poore Christians whom he hed determined at his returne from Persia utterly to destroy and leave none alive as was afterwards reported by one of his Councell The number of his souldiers was so innumerable and his strength so impregnable that he made no other reckoning but to be lord of Persia in a very short space But loe how the Lord overturneth the attempts of his enemies This great army as S. Chrysostome reporteth against the Heathen in which he put so much confidence seemed ere long to be rather a vaste and weak multitude of women and infants than an host of Warriours for by evill and foolish conduct and government there rose so great a famine amongst them that their horses which were provided for the battell served for their bellies yea and for want of that too many hundreds died for hunger and thirst Even when he skirmished his owne side came to the worse doing more scath to themselves than to their enemies and lastly leading them so undiscreetly they could not by any means escape out were constrained after he was slaine to intreat the Persians to suffer them to retyre and so as many as could escaped and fled away to save their lives And thus this brave army was thus miserably dismembred and discomfited to the everlasting shame of that wicked Apostate One of the Treasurers of this wicked Emperour who to please his Master forsooke also the Religion of Christ being on a time mocking and deriding the ministry of the holy Word died miserably on a sudden vomiting his owne bloud out of his mouth and as Chrysostome saith his privy parts being rotten and purrified and consumed with lice for all that ever he could doe to remedy the same It is recorded of Trebellius the first King of the Bulgarians that being converted with his people to the faith of Christ to the end to give himselfe more quiet to the meditation and exercise of Religion resigned over his kingdome to his eldest sonne whom when hee perceived to renounce the Faith and to follow strange gods he not only deprived of all his Royall dignity but also caused his eyes to be put out for a punishment of his Apostacie and bestowed the kingdome upon his other sonne shewing thereby that he that abandoneth the true light of salvation is not worthy to enjoy the comfortable light of the world During the heptarchy of the Saxons here in England there raigned in Northumberland two Kings one called Ostrich who was King of the Deirians and the other Eaufride King of the Bernirians for into those two Provinces was that countrey antiently divided These two Kings before they came to their Crownes were by the preaching of Paulinus converted to the Faith of Christ and baptised into the same Faith but as soone as God advanced them to their Kingly dignities presently they expelled the King of Glory out of their hearts and renouncing Christ betooke themselves againe to their filthy Idols But they joyed not long in this their Apostacie for within one yeare they were both slaine by Cedwalla King of the Britaines the one in battell the other comming to sue for peace And so they forsaking Christ in their prosperity were forsaken by him in their adversity and given over to be a prey into the hands of their enemies This yeare wherein these two Kings thus revolted and were slaine hath upon it the marke of vengeance to this day for by the common consent of all Chronicles that the memory of these Apostates might be utterly defaced and blotted out it was reckoned in the account of the next Kings raigne to wit Oswold a holy and religious man and so both the name of the Kings and the time of their raigne is in detestation of the Apostacie utterly left out of our English stories as if they were unworthy to have a place among men much more among Kings that forsooke Christ of their owne accord without any constraint or compulsion thereunto A Divine at Louvaine one Iames Laâ—onus who was well instructed at the first in the knowledge of the Truth afterwards renouncing the same endeavoured with all his power to oppugne and oppresse it This man being on a time mounted into a pulpit to preach before the Emperour Charles the fifth was at the very instant so amased and astonished that no man could perceive what he said and so made himselfe a laughing stocke to all that audience Seeing himselfe thus disgraced he returned from Brussels to Louvaine where he fell into such griefe and sorrow of minde for the dishonour which he had gotten that it turned at length into despaire and in his dayly Lectures these or like words oftentimes escaped after that goodly Sermon That he had impugned the truth of God which when divers of his owne Coat heard they caused him to be shut up fast in a house where in desperation he died telling every man he was damned and that he could
the Bishop of Eureux his house which was accordingly executed This happened in the yeare 1453. In the raigne of the same King 1457 there was a certaine Curate of a village neere to Soissons who to revenge himselfe of a Farmer that retained from him the tenths which were appointed to the Knights of the Rhodes went to a Witch of whom he received in gift a fat toad in an earthen pot which she had a long while fed and brought up which she commanded him to baptise as he also did and called it by the name of Iohn albeit I tremble to recite so monstrous and vile a fact yet that every man might see how deadly besotted those sort of people are that give themselves over to Satan and with what power of errour he overwhelmeth them and beside how full of malice this uncleane spirit is that as it were in despight of God would prophane the holy Sacrament of Baptisme This good holy Curate after he had consecrated the holy host gave it also to the toade to eat and afterward restored it to the Witch again who killing the toade and cutting it in pieces with other such like sorceries caused a young wench to carry it secretly into the Farmers house and to put it under the table as they were at dinner whereupon immediately the Farmer and his children that were at the table fell suddenly sicke and three dayes after died the Witch her selfe being detected was burned but the Curate suffered onely a little imprisonment in the Bishop of Paris house and that not long for what with friendship and money he was soone delivered Froissard who was Treasurer and Canon of Chymay reporteth of another Curate in the countrey of Beare under Charles the seventh that had a familiar spirit which hee called Orthon whose helpe hee used to the disturbance of the Lord of Corosse by causing a terrible noise to bee heard every night by him and his servants in his castle because the said Lord withheld his tythes from him and converted them to his owne use In the yiare 1530 at Nuremburg a certaine Priest studied Art Magick and being very covetous of gold and silver the Devill whom hee served shed him through a Chrystall certaine treasures hidden in the city he by and by greedy of this rich prey went to that part of the city where hee supposed it to have lien buried and being arrived at the place with a companion whom he brought to this pretty pastime fell a searching and digging up a hollow pit untill he perceived a coffer that lay in the bottome of the hole with a great blacke dog lying by it whither he was no sooner entred but the earth fell downe and filled up the hole and smothered and crushed him to death So this poore Priest was entrapped and rewarded by his master no otherwise than he deserved but otherwise than he expected or looked for Howbeit they are not onely simple Priests and Friers that deale with these cursed Arts but even Popes themselves Silvester the second as Platina and others report was first a conjuring Frier and gave himselfe to the Devill upon condition he might be Pope as he was indeed and having obtained his purpose as it seemed he began earnestly to desire to know the day wherein he should die which also his Schoolmaster the Devill revealed unto him but under such doubtfull tearmes that he dreamed in his foolish conceit of immortality and that he should never die It chanced on a time as he was singing Masse at Rome in a Temple called Ierusalem which was the place assigned him to die in and not Ierusalem in Palestina as he made himselfe falsly to beleeve he heard a great noise of Devils that came to fetch him away note that this was done in Masse while whereat he being terrified and tormented and seeing himselfe not able any way to escape hee desired his people to rend his body in pieces after his death and lay it upon a charriot and let horses draw it whither they would which was accordingly performed for as soone as he was dead the pieces of his carkasse were carried out of the Church of Laterane by the wicked spirit who as he ruled him in life so he was the chiefe in his death and funerals By like means came Benedict the ninth to the Popedome for he was a detestable Magitian and in the ten yeares wherein he was Pope having committed infinite villanies and mischiefs was at last by his familiar friend the Devill strangled to death in a forrest whither he went to apply himselfe the more quieter to his conjurings Gregory the sixth scholler to Silvester as great a conjurer as his master wrought much misery in his time but was at last banished Rome and ended his life in misery in Germany Iohn the two and twentieth being of no better disposition than these we have spoken of but following judiciall astrology sed himselfe with a vain hope of long life whereof he vaunted himselfe among his familiars one day above the rest at Viterbum in a chamber which he had lately builded saying that he should live a great while he was assured of it presently the floore brake suddenly in pieces and he was found seven daies after crushed to pieces under the ruines thereof All this notwithstanding yet other Popes ceased not to suffer themselves to be infected with this execrable poison as Hildebrand who was called Gregory the seventh and Alexander the sixth of which kinde we shall see a whole legend in the next booke Doe but marke these holy Fathers how abhominable they were to be in such sort given over to Satan Cornelius Agrippa a great Student in this cursed Art and a man famous both by his owne works and others report for his Necromancy went alwaies accompanied with an evill spirit in the similitude of a blacke dogge but when his time of death drew neer and he was urged to repentance hee tooke off the inchanted collar from the dogs neck and sent him away with these termes Get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast utterly destroyed mee Neither was the dog ever after seen some say he lept into Araris and never came out againe Agrippa himselfe died at Lyons in a base and beggarly Inne Zeroastres King of Bactria is notified to have bin the inventer of Astrology and Magicke But the Devill whose ministry he used when he was too importunate with him burned him to death Charles the seventh of France put Egedius de Raxaâ— Marshall of his Kingdome to a cruell and filthy death because he practised this Art and in the same had murthered an hundred and twenty teeming women and yong infants he caused him to be hanged upon a forke by a hot fire and roasted to death Bladud the sonne of Lud King of Britaine now called England in the yeare of the World 3100 hee that builded the city of Bath as our late Histories witnesse and also
made therein the Bathes addicted himselfe so much to the Devillish art of Necromancy that hee wrought wonders thereby insomuch that he made himselfe wings and attempted to flee like Dedalus but the Devill as ever like a false knave forsooke him in his journey so that hee fell downe and brake his necke In the yeare of our Lord 1578 one â—â—mon Penbrooke dwelling in Saint Georges parish in London being a figure setter â—nd vehemently suspected to be a Conjurer by the commandement of the Iudge appeared in the parish Church of Saint Saviour at Court holden there where whilest he was busie in eutertaining a Proctor and leaned his head upon a pew a good space the Proctor began to lift up his head to see what he ayled and found him departing out of this life and straightwayes he fell downe ratling in the throat without speaking any one word This strange judgement happened before many witnesses who searching him found about him five devillish books of conjuration and most abhominable practises with a picture in tin of a man having three dice in his hand with this writing Chance dice fortunately and much other trash so that every one consessed it to be a just judgement against Sorcery and a great example to cause others to feare the just judgement of God Now let every one learne by these examples to feare God and to stand firme and stedfast to his holy Word without turning from it on any side so shall he be safe from such like miserable ends as these wicked varlets come unto CHAP XXII Of those that through pride and vaine-glory strove to usurpe the honour due unto God AForgetfull and unthankfull minde for the benefits which God bestoweth upon us is a branch of this first Commandement as well as those which went before And this is when we ascribe not unto God the glory of his benefits to give him thanks for them but through a foolish pride extoll our selves higher than we ought presuming above measure and reason in our owne power desire to place our selves in a higher degree than is meet With this sond and foolish affection I know not how our first fathers were tickled and tainted from the beginning to think to impaire the glory of God and they also were puffed up with the blast of ambition that I know not with what fond foolish rash and proud conceit went about after the floud to build a city and tower of exceeding height by that means to win same and reputation amongst men In stead whereof they ought rather to have praysed God by remembring his gracious goodnesse in their miraculous deliverance in their fathers persons from that generall deluge and shipwracke of the world but forasmuch as with a proud and high stomacke they lifted up themselves against God to whom all glory onely appertaineth therefore God also set himselfe against them and against their over bold practises interrupting all their determined presumptuous purposes by such a confusion and alteration of tongues which he sent among them that one could not understand another so that with shame they were constrained to leave their begun worke And besides in stead of that strong and sure habitation which they dreamed on to maintain and defend themselves by against all enemies and 〈◊〉 fortresse and castle wherby they went about to keep other in subjeâ—â—â—on to them they were forced to forsake the place by the just judgement of God who scattered and dispersed them hither and thither that he might bring them to that estate and condition which they most of all feared and strove to shun And thus God resisteth the proud and favoureth the humble loe here the punishment wherewith God punished their sin remaining still upon them this day for a chastisement of their proud spirits With the staine of this sinne most commonly the mightiest Potentates of this world are defiled who although both by word and writing avouch and confesse their power to be by the grace of God yet for the most part they are very unthankfull for the same and so proud and high minded that they shew themselves most obstinate and ungratefull of all men for oftentimes they rob him of the honour and glory which is peculiar unto himselfe and attribute it to themselves in setting forth their brave and sumptuous shewes and triumphs this is the sinne whereof Nabuchadnezzar King of Babell was reproved for God having bestowed upon him a kingdome with such pompe and renowne that he made whole nations to tremble before his face and putting many people in subjection under him he in stead of giving thanks for these great benefits exalted himselfe suffering his heart to swell and his understanding to waxe hard with pride not regarding the Lord who extolled him so high and yet notwithstanding he was constrained to confesse and acknowledge him for the true God to have an everlasting Kingdome and an infinite power as well by the forewarning of dreames which Daniel interpreted as by the miraculous deliverance of three young men out of the burning furnace therefore as he walked one day in his royall palace at Babylon and vaunted of his greatnesse and magnificence saying to himselfe Is not this great Babell which I have built for the house of the Kingdome by the might of my power and for the honour of my Majesty Now whilest the word was yet in his mouth a voyce was heard from heaven saying O King to thee it is spoken Thy Kingdome shall depart from thee and according to the tenour of the voyce hee was immediately deposed from his royall seat spoiled of all his glory driven from the society of men deprived of sense and made a companion for the bruit beasts and wilde asses eating grasse like oxen even so long untill his haire was growne stiffe like Eagles feathers and his nailes like the clawes of birds In which estate he continued the space of seven yeares even he that a little before was so proud and arrogant and he that had conquered so many kingdomes and nations that triumphed over Ierusalem with the Kings thereof This is a most excellent looking glasse for Kings to behold the ficklenesse and instability of all their power and pomp when it pleaseth God to humble and bring them under there is neither Scepter Crowne stay or strength of man that is able to hinder and turne aside the hand of the Almighty the King of Kings from abasing and weakning the most high and strong of this world let them be never so brave and jolly and bringing them into a low contemptible and brutish estate Besides this which we have already touched there is another kinde of pride and presumption most damnable and detestable of all and it is when a man doth so much forget himselfe as to seise and take upon him that honour which onely appertaineth to God ascribing to himselfe a certaine deity One would hardly thinke that there were any such in the world so proud as to commit this
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
enemy declareth that therein he feareth him but feareth not God and careth for him but contemneth God It was therefore not without good reason that all antiquity ever marked them with the coat of infamy that forswore themselves And thereupon it is that Homer so often taunteth the Trojans by reason of their so usuall Perjuries The Egyptians had them in detestation as prophane persons and reputed it so Capitall a crime that whosoever was convinced thereof was punished by death The ancient Romanes reverenced nothing more then faith in publike affaires for which cause they had in their Citie a Temple dedicated to it wherein for a more strait bond they used solemnely to promise and sweare to all the conditions of Peace Truces and Bargaines which they made and to curse those which went about first to breake them for greater solemnity and confirmation hereof they were accustomed at those times to offer sacrifices to the image of faith for more reverence sake Hence it was that Attilius Regulus chiefe Captaine of the Romane Army against the Carthaginians was so highly commended of all men because when he was overcome and taken prisoner and sent to Rome he onely for his oathes sake which he had sworne returned againe to the enemy albeit hee knew what grievous torments were provided for him at his returne Others also that came with him though they were intreated and by their Parents Wives and Allies instantly urged not to returne to Hannibals Campe could in no wise be moved thereunto but because they had sworne to the enemie if the Romans did not accord to those conditions which were offered to come againe they preferred the bond and reverence of their promised faith though accompanied with perpetuall captivity before their private commodities and neerest linke of affection But two of these ten for so many were they falsified their oath and whatsoever mist they might cast to darken and disguise their Perjury with yet were they condemned of all men for cowards and faint-hearted Traytors insomuch that the Censors also nored them with infamy for the fact whereat they tooke such griefe and inward sorrow that being weary of their lives they slew themselves Now what can they pretend that professe themselves Christians and Catholickes to excuse their Perjuries seeing that the very Heathen cry out so loud and cleere That an oath and faith is so sacredly to be kept towards our enemies This is one of the greatest vertues and commendations which the Psalmist attributeth to the faithfull man him that feareth God and whom God avoucheth for his owne Not to falsifie his oath that he sweareth though it be to his dammage The Gibeonites although they were so execrable a people that for their great and horrible wickednesses and ahominations they might be well esteemed for Hereticks yet the Princes of Israel after they had sworne and given their faith unto them would in no wise retract or goe against their oath albeit therein they were deceived by them for feare of incurring the wrath of God that suffereth not a Perjurer to goe unpunished Vpon what ground or example of holy Scripture then may that Doctrine of the Councell of Constance be founded the purport whereof is That a man ought not to keepe his faith with Hereticks I omit to speake how these good Fathers by Hereticks meant those men who fearing God relyed themselves upon his Word and rejected the foolish and superstitious inventions of men And under what colour can the Popes usurpe this Authority to quit and discharge subjects of their oath wherewith they are bound to their Superiors yet this was the impious audacity of Pope Zacharia Pope Boniface the 8 and Pope Benedict de la Lune who freed the Frenchmen from their duty and obedience which they ought unto their Kings In like manner disgorged Gregory the 7 his choler and spight against the Emperour Henry by forbidding his Subjects to be his Subjects and to yeeld that obedience unto him which Subjects were bound to doe How be it if an oath be made either against God or to the damage and hurt of our neighbour it being for that cause unlawfull it behoveth us to know that we ought to revoke it lest wee fall into the sinne of Saul and Herod Now what punishments God hath laid upon Perjuries these Examples that follow shall make known unto us Osee the last King of Israel being made by Gods just judgement for his sinnes subject and tributary to Salmanazar King of Ashur without regard to the bond wherewith he was bound and to his faith which he had plighted conspired and entered league with the King of Aegypt against him but he discovering their seditious and privie conspiracies assembled his forces spoyled his countrey and bad them warre on all sides laying fiege to the chiefe Citie of his Kingdome after three yeeres tooke it together with the forsworne King whom he put in close prison and kept very straightly leading him and his whole Nation captive into Syria to end their dayes in misery of which evill as of all others that happened in that warre the disloyalty and Treason of Osee was the next and chiefest cause Among the bed-roll of sinnes which Zedechias the last King of Iuda is noted withall in holy Scripture Perjury is one of the count for notwithstanding he received his Kingdome of Nabuchadnezzar and had sworne fealty to him as to his Soveraigne yet brake he his oath in rebelling against him which was the very cause of his destruction for Nebuchadnezzar to be revenged on his disloyalty sent a puissant Armie against Ierusalem which took spoyled and burnt it and overtooke the Perjurer in his flight and first made him a beholder of the slaughter of his owne children and then had his owne eyes bored out and was carried in chaines to Babylon serving for a spectacle to all posteritie of Gods wondrous judgements upon Perjurers And thus both the Kingdomes of Israel and Iuda were for breach and falsifying their Oath quite extinguished and rased out The great deceiver and most treacherous person one of them that ever Greece saw was Lisander the Lacedemonian a busie-body full of cunning subtilty and craft and one that performed the most of his acts of Warre more by fraud and stratagems than by any other meanes this was he that said That when the Lions skinne meaning Fortitude would not serve it was needfull then to sow unto it the Foxes case meaning subtilty he made so little reckoning of forswearing himselfe that he would often say That children were to be cousened with trifles as Dice and Cockles and old men with Oathes but with deceitfull tricks he was occasion of much evill and divers murders but at last this Foxe making warre against the Thebans for that they had taken part with the Athenians against him and given them succour and meanes for recovering their liberty was taken in the trap and slaine at the foot of their walls
him to prison but the two unknowne witnesses who were indeed two fiends of hell began to say you shall not need for we are sent to punish his wickednesse and so saying they hoisted him up into the ayre where he vanished with them and was never after found In the yeare of our Lord 1055 Goodwine Earle of Kent sitting at the table with King Edward of England it happened that one of the cupbearers stumbled and yet fell not whereat Goodwine laughing said That if one brother had not holpen another meaning his legs all the wine had been spilt with which words the King calling to mind his brothers death which was slaine by Goodwine answered So should my brother Alphred have holpen me had not Goodwine been then Goodwine fearing the Kings new kindled displeasure excused himselfe with many words and at last eating a morsell of bread wished it might choke him if he were not guiltlesse of Alphreds bloud But he swore falsly as the judgement of God declared for he was forthwith choaked in the presence of the King ere he removed one foot from that place though there be some say he recovered life againe Long time after this in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth there was in the city of London one Anne Averies widow who forswore her selfe for a little money that she should have paid for six pounds of tow at a shop in Woodstreet for which cause being suddenly surprised with the justice of God shee fell downe speechlesse forthwith and cast up at her mouth in great abundance and with horrible stinke that matter which by natures course should have been voided downewards and so died to the terrour of all perjured and forsworne wretches There are in histories many more examples to be found of this hurtfull and pernitious sin exercised by one nation towards another and one man towards another in most prophane and villanous sort neither shaming to be accounted forsworne nor consequently fearing to displease God and his majesty But forasmuch as when we come to speak of murtherers in the next book we shall have occasion to speake of them more or of such like I will referre the handling thereof unto that place onely this let every man learne by that which hath been spoken to be sound and fraudlesse and to keep his faith and promise towards all men if for no other cause yet for feare of God who leaveth not this sin unpunished nor holdeth them guiltlesse that thus taketh his name in vaine CHAP. XXIX Of Blasphemers AS touching Blasphemy it was a most grievous and enormous sin and contrary to this third Commanmandement when a man is so wretched and miseble as to pronounce presumptuous speeches against God whereby his name is slandered and evill spoken of which sinne cannot chuse but be sharply and severely punished for if so be that God holdeth not him guiltles that doth but take his name in vain must he not needs abhor him that blasphemeth his Name See how meritoriously that wicked and perverse wretch that blasphemed and murdered as it were the name of God among the people of Israel in the desart was punished he was taken put in prison and condemned and speedily stoned to death by the whole multitude and upon that occasion as evill manners evermore begat good lawes the Lord instituted a perpetuall law and decree that every one that should blaspheme and curse God of what estate or degree soever should be stoned to death in token of detestation which sentence if it might now adaies stand in force there would not raign so many miserable blasphemers and deniers of God as the world is now filled and infected with It was also ordained by a new law of Iustinian That blasphemies should be severely punished by the judges and magistrates of Commonweales but such is the corruption and misery of this age that those men that ought to correct others for such speeches are oftentimes worst themselves and there are that thinke that they cannot be sufficiently feared and awed of men except by horrible bannings and swearings they despight and maugre God nay it is further come to that passe that in some places to swearc and ban be the markes and ensignes of a Catholike and they are best welcome that can blaspheme most How much then is that good King Saint Lewis of France to be commended who especially discharged all his subjects from swearing and blaspheming within his realm insomuch that when he heard a nobleman blaspheme God most cruelly he caused him to be laid hold on and his lips to bee slit with an hot yron saying hee must be content to endure that punishment seeing he purposed to banish oathes out of his kingdome Now wee call blasphemy according to the Scripture phrase every word that derogateth either from the bounty mercy justice eternity and soveraigne power of God Of this sort was that blasphemous speech of one of King Iorams Princes who at the time of the great famine in Samaria when it was besieged by the Syrians hearing Elizeus the Prophet say that the next morrow there should be plenty of victuals and good cheap rejected this promise of God made by his Prophet saying that it was impossible as if God were either a lyar or not able to performe what he would for this cause this unbeleeving blasphemer received the same day a deserved punishment for his blasphemy for he was troden to death in the gate of the city under the feet of the multitude that went out into the Syrians campe forsaken and left desolate by them through a feare which the Lord sent among them Senaccherib King of Assyria after he had obtained many victories and â—â—odued much people under him and also layd siege to Ierusalem became â—â—proud and arrogant as by his servants mouth to revile and blaspheme the living God speaking no otherwise of him than of some strange idoll and one that had no power to help and deliver those that trusted in him for which blasphemies he soone after felt a just vengeance of God upon himselfe and his people for although in mans eyes he seemed to be without the reach of danger seeing he was not assayled but did assayle and was guarded with so mighty an army that assured him to make him lord of Ierusalem in short space yet the Lord overthrew his power and destroyed of his men in one night by the hand of his Angell 185 thousand men so that he was faine to raise his siege and returne into his owne kingdome where finally he was slaine by his owne sons as he was worshipping on his knees in the temple of his god In the time of the Machabees those men that were in the strong hold called Gazara fighting against the Iewes trusting to the strength of the place wherein they were uttered forth most infamous speeches against God but ere long their blasphemous mouths were encountred by a condigne punishment for the first day of
Christ Iesus When he was demanded at any time how he did he answered most usually That he was fastened of God and that it was not in man but in Gods mercy for him to be released Iohn Peter sonne in law to Alexander that cruel Keeper of Newgate being a most horrible swearer and blasphemer used commonly to say If it be not true I pray God I may rot ere I die and not in vaine for he rotted away indeed and so dyed in misery Hither we may adde a notable example of a certaine yong gallant that was a monstrous swearer who riding in the company of divers gentlemen began to sweare and most horribly blaspheme the name of God unto whom one in the company with gentle words said he should one day answer for that the Yonker taking snuffe thereat Why said he takest thou thought for me Take thought for thy winding sheet Well quoth the other amend for death giveth no warning as soone commeth a lambes skin to the market as an old sheeps Gods wounds said he care not thou for me raging still on this manner worse and worse till at length passing on their journey they came riding over a great bridge upon which this gentleman swearer spurred his horse in such sort that he sprang cleane over with the man on his backe who as hee was going cried Horse and man and all to the Divell This terrible story Bishop Ridley preached and uttered at Pauls crosse and one Haines a Minister of Cornwall the reprehender of this man was the reporter of it to Master Fox out of whom I have drawne it Let us refraine then wretches that we are our divelish tongues and leave off to provoke the wrath of God any longer against us let us forbeare all wicked and cursed speeches and acquaint our selves as well in word as in deed to praise and glorisie God CHAP. XXXII Punishments for the contempt of the Word and Sacraments and abuse of holy things NOw it is another kind of taking the Name of God in vaine to despise his Word and Sacraments for like as among earthly princes it is accounted a crime no lesse than treason either to abuse their pictures to counterfeit or deprave their seales to rent pollute or corrupt their letters patents or to use unreverently their messengers or any thing that commeth from them So with the Prince of heaven it is a fin of high degree either to abuse his Word prophanely which is the letters patents of our salvation or handle the Sacraments unreverently which are the seales of his mercy or to despise his Ministers which are his messengers untous And this he maketh knowne unto us not only by Edicts and Commandments but also by examples of his vengeance on the heads of the offendors in this case For the former look what Paul saith That for the unworthy receiving of the Sacraments many were weake and sicke among the Corinthians and many slept How much more then for the abusing and contemning the Sacraments And the Prophet David That for casting the Word of God behinde them they should have nothing to do with his Covenant How much more then for prophaning and deriding his Word And Moses when the people murmured against him and Aaron saith That their murmurings were not against them which were but Ministers but against the Lord. How much more then is the Lord enraged when they are scoffed at derided and set at naught Hence it is that the Lord denounceth a Wo to him that addeth or taketh away from the Word and calleth them dogs that abuse such precious pearles But let us come to the examples wherein the grievousnesse of this sinne willly more open than by any words can be expressed First to begin with the house of Israel which were the sole select people of the Lord whom he had chosen out of all other nations of the world to be his owne peculiar flocke and his chiefe treasure above all other people of the earth and a kingdome of Priests and a holy Nation when as they contemned and despised his Word spoken unto them by his prophets and cast his law behinde their backe he gave them over into the hands of their enemies and of Ammi made them Loammi that is of his people made them not his people and of Ruhama Loruhama that is of such as had found mercy and favour at Gods hand a nation that should obtain no mercy nor favour as the Prophet Hosea speaketh This we see plainly verified first in the ten tribes which under Ieroboam fell away from the Scepter of Iuda for after that the Lord had sundry times scourged them by many particular punishments as the famin sword and pestilence for their idolatry and rebellion to his law at the last in the ninth yere of the raign of Hoshea King of Israel he brought upon them a finall and generall destruction and delivered them into the hands of the King of Ashur who carried them away captive into Assyria and placed them in Hala and in Habor by the river of Gosan and in the cities of the Medes and in stead of them seated the men of Babel of Cuthah Ava Hamath and Sepharvaim in the cities of Samaria Thus were they utterly rooted up and spued out of the land of their inheritance and their portion given unto strangers as was threatned to them by the mouth of Moses the servant of the Lord and the cause of all this is set down by the holy Ghost 2 Kin. 17. 13. to be for that though the Lord had testified to them by al his prophets seers saying Turn from your evill wayes and keepe my commandements and my statutes according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers neverthelesse they would not obey but hardned their necks then it followeth in the 18 ver Therfore the Lord was exceeding wroth with Israel and put them out of his sight and none was left but the Tribe of Iuda onely Now though the kingdome of Iuda continued in good estate long after the desolation of the ten tribes for this hapned in the raigne of Ahaz King of Iuda yet afterward in the raigne of Zedekiah the great and famous citie Ierusalem was taken by Nabuchadnezzar the King of Babel and utterly ruined and defaced the glorious and stately temple of the Lord built by Salomon the wonder of the world was burnt down to ashes together with all the houses of Ierusalem and all other great houses in the land all the rich vessels and furniture of the temple of gold silver and brasse were carried to Babel by Nabuzaradan the chiefe steward The king himselfe was bound in chaines and after he had seen his owne sons slaine before his eyes had his owne eyes put out that he might never more take comfort of the light The priests and all the greatest and richest of the people were carried away in captivity and only the poore were left behind to dresse the vines
the Duke that they had stolne into the Emperours tents by night and viewed his power which they found to exceed his by three parts and therefore counselled him not to try the hazard of the battell but to save his souldiers lives by flight which if they tarried they were sure to loose Wherewithall the Duke mistrusting no fraud sore affrighted tooke the next occasion of flight and returned home with dishonour Now when these three traitors came to the Emperour for their compacted rewards he caused them to bee payed in counterfeit money not equivaling the summe of their bargaine by the twentieth part which although at first they discerned not yet afterwards finding how they were cousened they returned to require their due and complaine of their wrong But the Emperor looking sternely upon them answered That counterfeit money was good enough for their counterfeit service and that if they tarried long they should have a due reward of their treason Ladislaus Lerezin Governour of Alba Iulia in Hungary under Maximilian the Emperour in the yeare 1566 the City being besieged and in some danger of losing albeit hee was advertised That within two dayes he should receive some reliefe yet yeelded the City traiterously into the hands of the Turkes upon composition The cruell Turks forgetting their faith and all humanity massacred all the souldiers within the City and sent Ladislaus the traitour bound hand and foot to Selym the great Turke where he was accused for his cruell slaying of some Turkish prisoners and delivered to his accusers to be used at their pleasure who a just reward of his former treason put him into a great Pipe stickt full of long nailes and then rolled him downe from a high mountaine so as the nailes ran through him and ended his life in horrible torment Besides his sonne that was also partaker of this treason died miserably without meanes and abandoned of all men in great poverty and extremity When as the City of Rhodes was besieged by the Turke there was in it a certaine traiterous Nobleman who upon promise to have one of Solymans daughters given him in marriage did many services to the Turke in secret to the prejudice of the City The Island and towne being woon he presented himselfe to Solyman expecting the performance of his promise but hee in recompence of his treason caused him to be flayed alive saying That it was not lawfull for a Christian to marry a Turkish wife except he put off his old skinne being thus flayed they layed him upon a bed all covered with salt and so poudered him that in short space he died in unspeakable tormenes CHAP. III. More examples of the same subject WHen Manuel the Emperour of Constantinople lay about Antioch with an army prepared against the Turke one of his chiefest officers namely his Chancellour put in practise this notable piece of treason against him he waged three desperate young men with an infinite summe of money to kill him on a day appointed and then with a band of souldiers determined to possesse himselfe of the Crowne and of the City and to slay all that any way crossed his purpose But the treason being discoured secretly to the Empresse she acquainted her Lord with it who tooke the three traitours and put them all to cruell deaths and as for the Chancellour he first bored out his eyes and plucking his tongue through his throat tormented him to death with a rigorous and most miserable punishment When the Turke besieged Alba Graeca certaine souldiers conspired to betray the City into his hands for he had promised them large rewards so to doe howbe it it succeeded not with them for they were detected and apprehended by Paulus Kynifius Governour of Hungary who constrained them to eat one anothers flesh seething every dayone to feed the other withall but he that was last was faine to devour his owne body Scribonianus a captaine of the Romans in Dalmatia rebelled against the Emperor Claudius and named himselfe emperor in the army but his rebellion was miraculously punished for though the whole army favored him very much yet they could not by any meanes spread their banners or remove their standers out of their places as long as he was called by the name of Emperor with which miracle being moved they turned their loves into hatred and their liking into loathing so that whom lately they saluted as Emperor him now they murthered as a traitor To rehearse all the English traitors that have conspired against their Kings from the Conquest unto this day it is a thing unnecessary and almost impossible Howbeit that their destructions may appeare more evidently and the curse of God upon traitors be made more manifest I will briefely reckon up a catalogue of the chiefest of them In the yere 1295 Lewline Prince of Wales rebelled against King Edward the first and after much adoe was taken by Sir Roger Mortimer and his head set upon the Tower of London In like sort was David Lewline's brother served Râ—â—s and Madok escaped no better measure in stirring the Welchmen up to rebellion No more did the Scots who having of their owne accord committed the government of their kingdome to king Edward after the death of Alexander who broke his neck by a fall from an horse and lest no issue male and sworne fealty unto him yet dispensed with their oath by the Popes commission and Frenchmens incitement and rebelled divers times against King Edward for he overcame them sundry times and made slaughter of their men slaying at one time 32000 and taking divers of their Nobles prisoners In like manner they rebelled against King Edward the third who made three voyages into that land in the space of foure yeares and at every time overcame and discomfited them insomuch that well neere all the nobility of Scotland with infinite number of the common people were slaine Thus they rebelled in Henry the sixths time and also Henry the eights and divers other kings reignes ever when our English forces were busied about forraine wars invading the land on the other side most traiterously In the reigne of King Henry the fourth there rebelled at one time against him Sir Iohn Holland D. of Excester with the Dukes of Aumarle Surrey Salisbury and Gloucester and at another time Sir Thomas Percy Earle of Worcester and Henry Percy son to the Earle of Northumberland at another Sir Richard Scroope Archbishop of Yorke and divers others of the house of the Lord Moubray at another time Sir Henry Percy the father Earle of Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph and lastly Ryce ap Dee and Owen Glendour two Welchmen all which were either slaine as Sir Henry Percy the younger or beheaded as the rest of these noble Rebels or starved to death as Owen Glendour was in the mountaines of Wales after he had devoured his owne flesh In the reigne of Henry the fifth Sir Richard Earle of Cambridge Sir Richard Scroope
kind of treason and another ranke of traitors as pernitious as any of the former and as odious before God and man Such are they which either upon private quarrels or received injuries or hope of gaine or any other silly respect forsake their countries and take part with the enemies to fight against it or they that in time of necessity refuse to fight or dare not fight in defence of it the former sort are called fugitives the latter cowards As touching the first they havebeen alwayes in detestation in well governed Policies and also evermore severely punished The Aeginates punished them with the losse of their right hand thumbs to the end they might no more handle a speare or a sword but an oare the Mitylenians with losse of their lives the inhabitants of Samos marked them in the face with the picture of an Owle and the Romans punished them after divers fashions Fabius Maximus caused all those that had fled from the Roman succours to the enemy to lose their hands Africanus the former though gentle and mild by nature yet in this respect he borrowed from forreine cruelty for having conquered Carthage and got into his power all those Romane Rebels that tooke part against his countrey he hung the Romans as traitors to their countrey and mitigated the punishment of the Latines as but perfidious confederates Africanus the later when hee had subdued the Punicke Nation he threw all fugitives amongst wilde beasts to be devoured Lucius Paulus aftor the conquest of the King of Persia committed these fellowes to the mercy of Elephants Generally there is no Nation under the Sunne which holdeth them not in execration and therefore our English fugitives who under cloke of Religion not onely abandon their countrey their kindred and their Prince but also conspire the undoing and sweare the destruction of them are they not worthy to be handled like traitours and to have their quarters spectacles of perfidy The bridge and gates of London beare witnesse of the wofull ends that these runnagates come unto As touching cowards I meane such as preferring their lives or liberty or any other by-respects before their countries welfare and either dare not or will not stand stoutly in defence of it in time of warre and danger they deserve no lesse punishment than the former seeing that as they are open oppugners so these are close underminers of the good thereof And therefore the Romanes did sharpely chasten them in their government as may appeare by diverse examples of the same as first they were noted with this ignominy never to eat their meat but standing and hereunto they were sworne Nay they were in such hatefull account amongst them that when Annibal offered the Senate 8000 captives to be redeemed they refused his offer saying That they were not worthy to be redeemed that had rather be taken basely than die honestly and valiantly The same Senate dealt more favourably with the captives which King Pyrrhus tooke for they redeemed them but with this disgrace degrading them from their honours and places untill by a double spoile they had woon their reputation againe L. Calpurnius Piso handled Titius the captaine of his horsemen in Sicilia one who being overcharged with enemies delivered his weapons unto them on this manner he caused him to goe bare footed before the army wearing a garment without seames he forbad him society with any save such as were noted with the same fault and from a Generall over horsemen he debased him to a common souldier How did the same Senate correct the cowardise of Caius Vatienus who to the end to priviledge himselfe from the Italicke warre cut off all the fingers of his left hand even they proscribed his goods and cast him into perpetuall prison that that life which hee refused to hazard in defence of his countrey he might consume in bondage and fetters Fulgosius saith That among the Germanes it was so unhonourable a part to lose but a shield in the warre that whosover had happened to doe so was suspended both from the place of common councell and from the temples of Religion insomuch that many as he reporteth killed themselves to avoid the shame The people called Daci punished cowards on this sort they suffered them not to sleepe but with their heads to the beds feet-ward and besides by the law they made them slaves and subjects to their owne wives What viler disgrace could there be than this And yet the Lacedemonians plagued them more shamefully for with them it was a discredit to marry in the stocke of a coward any man might strike them lawfully and in their attire they went with their clothes rent and their beards halfe shaven Thus are all kind of traitors continually punished of the Lord by one meanes or other and therefore let us learne to shun treason as one of the vilest and detestablest things in the world CHAP. IIII. Of such as have murthered their Rulers or Princes ZImri Captaine of halfe the chariots of Elah King of Israel conspired against his Lord as he was in Tirza drinking till he was drunke in the house of Arze his Steward and came upon him suddenly and smote him till hee died and possessed the Kingdome in his roome Howbeit herein he was the Lords rod to punish the house of Baasha yet when the punishment was past the Lord threw the rod into the fire for he enjoyed the Crowne but seven dayes for all Israel detesting his fact made Omri King over them who besieged him in Tirza and drove him into that extremity that hee went into the palace of the Kings house and burnt himselfe and the house with fire Iozachar the sonne of Shimeah and Ieozabed the sonne of Shomer came to no better end for murthering Iehoash King of Iuda for Amaziah his sonne after the kingdome was confirmed unto him caused them both to be put to death but their children he slew not according to that which is written in the Booke of the law The fathers shall not be put to death for the children nor the children for the fathers but every man shall beare this owne sin Neither did Shallum that slew Zacharia King of Israel prosper any better for he reigned but one month in Samaria when Menahim the sonne of Gadi rebelled against him and slew him as he had done his master Amon the sonne of Manasseh was slaine by his owne servants but the Lord stirred up the people of the Land to revenge his death and to kill all them that had conspired against their King But to let passe the holy histories of the sacred Scripture wherein ever after any treason the Holy Ghost presently setteth downe the punishment of traitours as it were of purpose to signifie how the Lord hateth all such Rebels that rose up against his owne ordinance let us consider a little the consequents of these in prophane yet credible authors and apply them unto our purpose Archelaus
King of Macedonia had a minion called Cratenas whom hee loved most entirely but he againe requited him not with love but with hatred and stretched all his wits to install himselfe in his kingdome by deposing and murthering him which though he accomplished yet his deserts were cut short by the vengeance of God for he continued not many dayes in his royalty but he was served with the same sauce that he had made Archelaus before him to taste of even betraied and murthered as he well deserved Lodovicus Sfortia to the end to invest himselfe with the Dukedome of Millain spared not to shed the innocent bloud of his two Nephewes the sonnes of Galenchus together with their tutors and one Francis Calaber a worthy and excellent man but the Lord so disposed of his purposes that he in stead of obtaining the kingdome was taken prisoner by the King of France so that neither he nor any of his off spring injoyed that which he so much affected When Numerianus was to succeed â—arus his father in the Empire Arrius Axer his father in law to the end to translate the Empire unto himselfe entered a conspiracy and slew his sonne in law that nothing mistrusted his disloyalty but the Pretorian army understanding the matter discharged Arrius and elected Dioclesian in his roome who laying hold upon his competitour laied an action of treason to his charge and put him to death in the sight of the multitude Theodoricke and Fredericke conspired against their owne brother Thurismund King of the Visigothes to the intent to succeed him in his Kingdome And albeit that nature reclaymed them from the act yet they slew him without all compassion But after thirteene yeres reigne the same Theodericke was requited by his other brethren with the same measure that he before meted to his brother Thurismund And so though vengeance slept a while yet at length it wakened Aelias Antonius Gordianus Emperour of Rome though so excellent a young Prince that he deserved to be called the Love and Iewell of the World yet was he slaine by one promoted by himselfe to high honour called Philip Arabs when he was but two and twenty yeres old after whose decease this Philip got himselfe elected Emperour by the Band and confirmed by the Senate All which notwithstanding after five yeres Decius rebelled and his owne souldiers conspired against him so that both he at Verona and his sonne at Rome were slaine by them about one time After the death of Constantine the Great his three sonnes dividing the Empire betwixt them succeeded their father Constantine the eldest had for his share Spaine France the Alpes and England Constance the second held Italy Africa Graecia and Illyricum Constantine the younger was King and Emperour of the East But ambition suffered them not to enjoy quietly these their possessions for when the eldest being more proud and seditious than the other not content with his alotted portion made warre upon his brother Constance his Provinces and strove to enter Italy he was slaine in a battell by Aquileia when he was but five and twenty yeares old by which meanes all the provinces which were his fell to Constance and therewithall such a drowsinesse and Epicurisme for want of a stirrer up after his brothers death that he fell into the gout and neglected the governement of the Empire Wherefore in Aâ—sourge and in Rhetia they created a new Emperour one Magnentius whose life before time Constance had saved from the souldiers and therefore his treachery was the greater This Magnentius deprived and slew Constance but was overcome by Constantine the third brother in Illyricum yet in such sort that the conqueror could not greatly brag for he lost an infinit company of his men and yet missed of his chiefe purpose the taking of Magnentius for he escaped to Lyons and there massacring all that he mistrusted at last growing I suppose in suspition with his owne heart slew himselfe also and so his traiterous ingratefull and ambitious murther was revenged with his owne hands Victericus betrayed Lnyba king of Spaine and succeeded in his place seven yeares after another traitour slew him and succeeded also in his place Mauritius the Emperor was murthered by Phocas together with his wife and five of his children he seating himselfe Emperour in his roome Howbeit traitors and murtherers can never come to happy ends for as he had slaine Mauritius so Priscus Heraclianus and Phorius three of his chiefest captaines conspiring against him with three severall armies gave him such an alarme at once at his owne doores that they soone quailed his courage and after much mangling of his body cut him shorter by the head and the kingdome at one blow In the time of Edward the second and Edward the third in England one Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much bloud and at last King Edward himselfe lying at Barkley castle to the end that he might as it was supposed enjoy Isabel his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity After this he unjustly accused Edmund Earle of Kent of treason and caused him to bee put to death therefore and lastly he conspired against King Edward the third as it was suspected for which cause he was worthily and deservedly beheaded Among this ranke of murtherers of Kings we may fitly place also Richard the third usurper of the Crowne of England and divers others which he used as instruments to bring his detestable purpose to effect as namely Sir Iames Tirrèl Knight a man for natures gifts worthy to have served a much better Prince than this Richard if he had well served God and beene endued with as much truth and honesty as he had strength and wit also Miles Forest and Iohn Dighton two villaines fleshed in murthers But to come to the fact it was on this sort When Richard the usurper had enjoyned Robert Brackenbury to this piece of service of murthering the young King Edward the fifth his Nephew in the Tower with his brother the Duke of Yorke and saw it refused by him he committed the charge of the murther to Sir Iames Tirrel who hasting to the Tower by the Kings Commission received the keyes into his owne hands and by the helpe of those two butchers Dighton and Forest smothered the two Princes in their bed and buried them at the staires feet which being done Sir Iames rode back to king Richard who gave him great thankes and as some say made him knight for his labour All which things on every part well pondered it appeareth that God never gave the world a notabler example both of the unconstancy of worldly wâ—ale and also of the wretched end which ensueth such despightfull cruelty for first to begin with the ministers Miles Forest rotted away peecemeale at Saint Martins Sir Iames Tirrel died at the Tower hill beheaded for treason King Kichard himselfe as it is declared elsewhere was slaine
whereof much losse and inconvenience grew unto him as well by sea as by land After the first overthrow where one of his sisters was taken prisoner when he saw himselfe in so desperate a case that no hope of helpe was left he slew two other of his sisters with two of his wives having before this warre given his foruth sister who also was his wife a dram of poyson to make up the tragedy Afterward being vanquished in the night by Pompey the Roman and put to flight with onely three of his company as he went about to gather a new supply of forces behold tydings was brought him of the revolt of many of his Provinces and countries and of the delivering up of the rest of his daughters into Pompeyes hand and of the treason of his yong sonne Pharnax the gallantest of his sonnes and whom he purposed to make his successor who had joyned himselfe to his enemy which troubled and astonished him more than all the rest so that his courage being quite dashed and all hope of bettering his estate extinguished his other two daughters he poysoned with his owne hands and sought to practise the same experiment upon himselfe but that his body was too strong for the poison and killed the operation thereof by strength of nature but that which poyson could not effect his owne sword performed Though Pompey the great was never any of the most notorious offenders in Rome yet did this staine of cruelty ambition and desire of rule cleave unto him for first he joyning himselfe to Silla dealt most cruelly and unnaturally with Carbo whom after familiar conference in shew of friendship he caused suddenly to be slain without shew of mercy And with Quintius Valerius a wise and well lettered man with whom walking but two or three turnes he committed to a cruell and unexpected slaughter He executed severe punishment upon the enemies of Sylla especially those that were most of note and reputation and unmercifully put Brutus to death that had rendered himselfe unto his mercy It was he that devised that new combat of prisoners and wilde beasts to make the people sport withall a most inhumane and bloudy pastime to see humane and manly bodies torne and dismembred by brute and senselesse creatures which if we will beleeve Plutarch was the onely cause of his destruction Now after so many brave and gallant victories so many magnificent triumphs as the taking of King Hiarbas the overthrow of Domitius the conquest of Africa the pacifying of Spaine and the overwelding of the commotions that were therein the clearing of the sea coasts from Pirates the victory over Methridates the subduing of the Arabians the reducing of Syria into a Province the conquest of Iudea Pontus Armenia Cappadocia and Paphlagonia I say after all these worthy deeds of armes and mighty victories he was shamefully overcome by Iulius Caesar in that civill warre wherein it was generally thought that he had undertaken the better cause in maintaining the authority of the Senat and defending the liberty of the people as he pretended to doe being thus put to flight and making towards Aegypt in hope the King for that before time he had beene his tutor would protect and furnish him that he might recover himselfe againe he found himselfe so farre deceived of his expectation that in stead thereof the Kings people cut him short of his purpose and of his head both at once sending it for a token to Caesar to gratifie him withall Neverthelesse for all this his murtherers and betrayers as the yong King and all others that were causers of his death were justly punished for their cruelty by the hands of him whom they thought to gratifie for as Cleopatra the Kings sister thrâ—w her selfe downe at Caesars feet to entreat her portion of the kingdome and he being willing also to shew her that favour was by that means gotten into the kings palace forthwith the murtherers of Pompey beset the palace and went about to bring him into the same snare that they had caught Pompey in But Caesar after that he had sustained their greatest brunt frustrated their purposes and recovered his forces into his hands assayled them with such valour and prowesse on all sides that in short space he overcame this wicked and traiterous nation Amongst the slaine the dead body of this young and evill advised King was found overborne with dirt Theodotus the kings schoolemaster by whose instigation and advice both Pompey was slaine and this warre undertaken being escaped and fled towards Asia for his safety found even there sufficient instruments both to abridge his journey and shorten his life As for the rest of that murthering fellowship they ended their lives some here some there in that mercilesse element the sea and by that boisterous element the wind which though senselesse yet could not suffer them to escape unpunished Although that Iulius Caesar concerning whom more occasion of speech will be given hereafter did tyrannously usurp the key of the Roman Common-wealth and intruded himselfe into the Empire against the lawes customes and authority of the people and Senate yet was it accounted a most traiterous and cruell part to massacre and kill him in the Senate as he sat in his seat misdoubting no mishap as the sequell of their severall ends which were actors in this tragedy did declare for the vengeance of God was so manifestly displayed upon them that not one of the conspirators escaped but was pursued by sea and land so eagerly till there was nor one left of that wicked crue whom revenge had not overtaken Cassius being discomfited in the battell of Philippos supposing that Brutus had beene also in the same case used the same sword against himselfe a marvellous thing wherewith before he had smitten Caesar. Brutus also a few dayes after when a fearefull vision had appeared twice unto him by night understanding thereby that his time of life was but short though he had the better of his enemies the day before yet threw himselfe desperately into the greatest danger of the battell for his speedier dispatch but he was reserved to a more shamefull end for seeing his men slaine before him he retired hastily apart from view of men and setting his sword to his breast threw himselfe upon it piercing him through the body and so ended his life And thus was Caesars death revenged by Octavius and Anthony who remained conquerors after all that bloudy crew was brought to nought betwixt whom also ere long burst out a most cruell division which grew unto a furious and cruell battell by sea wherein Anthony was overcome and sent flying into Aegypt and there taught his owne hands to be his murtherers And such was the end of his life who had beene an actor in that pernicious office of the Triumvirship and a causer of the deaths of many men And forasmuch as Cleopatra was the first motive and fetter on of Anthony to this warre
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
grace of Gods spirit saw his Sorbonicall errors and renounced them betaking himselfe to the profession of the purer religion and the company and acquaintance of godly men amongst whom was Bucer that excellent man who sent him also to Nurnburge to oversee the printing of a booke which he was to publish Whilest Diazius lived at this Nurnburge a city scituat upon the river Dimow his brother a lawyer and judge laterall to the Inquisition by name Alphonsus came thither and by all meanes possible endevoured to dissuade him from his religion and to reduce him againe to Popery But the good man persisted in the truth notwithstanding all his perswasions and threats wherefore the subtill fox took another course and faining himselfe to be converted also to his religion exhorted him to goe with him into Italy where he might do much good or at the least to Angust but by the counsell of Bucer and his friends he was kept back otherwise willing to follow his brother Wherefore Alphonsus departed and exhorted him to constancy and perseverance giving him also fourteene crowns to defray his charges Now the wolfe had not been three dayes absent when he hired a rakehell and common butcher and with him flew again to Nurnburge in post hast and comming to his brothers lodging delivered him a letter which whilest he read the villain his confederat cleft his head in pieces with an axe leaving him dead upon the floore and so fled with all expedition Howbeit they were apprehended yet quit by the Popes justice so holy and sacred are the fruits of his Holinesse though not by the justice of God for within a while after hee hung himselfe upon his mules necke at Trent Duke Abrogastes slew Valentinian the Emperour of the West and advanced Eugenius to the crowne of the Empire but a while after the same sword which had slain his lord and master was by his owne hands turned into his owne bowels Mempricius the sonne of Madan the fourth King of England then called Britaine after Brute had a brother called Manlius betwixt whom was great strife for the soveraigne dominion but to rid himselfe of all his trouble at once he slew his brother Manlius by treason and after continued his raigne in tyranny and all unlawfull lusts the space of twenty yeeres but although vengeance all this while winked yet it slept not for at the end of this space as he was hunting he was devoured of wilde beasts In the yeare of our Lord God 745 one Sigebert was authorised king of the Saxons in Britaine a cruell and tyrannous Prince towards his subjects and one that changed the ancient Lawes and customes of his Realme after his owne pleasure and because a certaine Nobleman somewhat sharpely advertised him of his evill conditions hee maliciously caused him to bee put to death But see how the Lord revenged this murder hee caused his Nobles to deprive him of his kingly authority and at last as a desolate and forlorne person wandring alone in a wood to be slaine of a swineheard whose master he being king had wrongfully put to death About the yeare of our Lord 793 Ethelbert king of the East Angles a learned and right godly Prince came to the court of Offa the king of Mercia perswaded by the counsell of his nobles to sue for the marriage of his daughter well accompanied like a prince with a great traine of men about him whereupon Offa's Queene conceiving a false suspition of that which was never minded That Ethelbert under the pretence of this marriage was come to worke some violence against her husband and the kingdome of Mercia so perswaded with king Offa and certaine of his Councell that night that the next day following Offa caused him to be trained into his palace alone from his company by one called Guymbertus who tooke him and bound him and after strooke off his head which forthwith he presented to the king and Queene Thus was the innocent King wrongfully murdered but not without a just revenge on Gods hand for the aforesaid Queene worker of this villany lived not three moneths after and in her death was so tormented that she bit and rent her tongue in pieces with her teeth which was the instrument to set abroach that murtherous practise Offa himselfe understanding at length the innocency of the king and the hainous cruelty of his fact gave the tenth part of his goods to the Church bestowed upon the Church of Hereford in remembrance of this Ethelbert great lands builded the Abbey of S. Albons with certaine other Monasteries beside and afterward went to Rome for his penance where hee gave to the Church of S. Peter a peny through every house in his dominion which was commonly called Romeshot or Peterpence and there at length was transformed from a king to a monke Thus God punished not only him and his wife but the whole land for this vile murder One principall cause of the conquest of this land by the Normans was a vile and horrible murder committed by one Goodwin an Earle in England upon certaine Mormans that came overwith Alfred and Edward to visit their mother Emma that had beene married to King Canutus This matter thus fell out When these two came from Normandy to England to visit their mother as I have said Earle Goodwin having a daughter called Godith whom hee thought to marry to Edward and advance him to the kingdome to bring his purpose to passe used this practise that is to perswade King Hardeknout and the Lords not to suffer those Normans to bee within the Realme for jeopardy but rather to punish them for example by which meanes hee got authority to order the matter himselfe Wherefore hee met them on Guild downe and there wretchedly murdered or rather martyred the most part of the Normans killing nine and leaving the tenth alive throughout the whole company and then tything againe the said tyth he slew every tenth knight and that by cruell torment as winding their guts out of their body after a most savage manner among the rest he put out the eyes of the elder of the two brethren Alfred and sent him to an Abbey at Elie where being fed with bread and water hee ere long ended his life Now albeit hee obtained his purpose hereby and married his daughter to Edward who was after King called Edward the Confessor yet did not Gods justice sleepe to punish this horrible murder for he himselfe died not long after suddenly having forsworne himselfe and the Normanes with William their Duke ere long came into this Iland to revenge this murder as also to claime a right of inheritance bequeathed unto him by Edward his Nephew and how hee succeeded and what misery he brought this whole Nation unto who knoweth not But heere is the justice of God As the Normans comming with a naturall English Prince were most cruelly and barbarously murdered of Englishmen so afterwards the Englishmen were slaine and
of money and sets up a shop at Roane Now this Merchant being expected at Luca a whole yeare together whither he had sent word he would shortly repaire when he came not a messenger was dispatched to seeke him out and after much enquiry at London and Roan and elsewhere he learnt at last in an Inne that a Lucquois Merchant about sixe moneths before had lodged there and was gone to Paris where also not hearing any tydings of him he suspected that he was murthered made his complaint to the Court of Parliament at Roan Which imbracing this businesse being directed by Gods providence made enquiry up and downe the Towne Whether there were any that within seven or eight moneths had set up a new shop and finding one caused him to be arrested for a supposed and a pretended debt but in the end examined him upon this murther and laid it to his charge herewith the prisoner solicited partly bythe remorse of his conscience partly by hope of freeing himselfe by a bribe confessed the fact in private to the Justice but as soone as he perceived that he went about to call in witnesses to his confession hee denyed it againe in briefe the new Merchant is committed to prison and he sueth the Justice for forgerie and false imprisonment the Justice can by no meanes cleare himselfe but onely by the assurance that all men had of his honesty The matter hangs thus in suspence till at length the dead carkasse of the Lucquois was â—eard of and the blind man also came to light who heard the noyse of the murther to make short this blind man was brought to confront the prisoner and twenty men were caused to speake one after another and still the blinde man was demaunded whether hee knew their voices and said That that was the man that answered him on the mountaine This course being ofttimes re-iterated the blind man hit alwayes on the right and never missed Whereupon the Court condemned him to death and before he dyed he confessed the fact to the great glory of Gods Justice and the great amazement and strange astonishment of all men At Paris in the yeare of our Lord 1551 a certaine young woman was brained by a man with a hammer neere unto Saint Opportunes Church as she was going to midnight Masse and all her rings and jewels taken from her This hammer was stolne from a poore Smith there by the same evening who therefore being suspected of the murder was cruelly handled and put to extraordinary torture by reason of the vehement presumptions made against him in such sort that hee was quite lamed and deprived of the meanes to get his living whereby being reduced into extreame poverty he ended his life in great misery All this while the murderer remained unknowne almost for the space of twenty yeares and the memory of the murder seemed to be buried with the poore woman in her grave now marke the justice of God who hath promised that nothing shall be so hid but shall be brought to light It hapned that one Iohn Flaming Sergeant of the Subsidies at Paris being upon occasion of businesse at S. Leups a Village by Montmorency chanced among other talke at Supper to say how he had left his wife at home sicke and no body with her but a little boy there was an old man then present named Monstier and a sonne in law of his who immediatly upon this speech went away that night with each of them a basket of cherries and a greene goose and came about ten of the clock the next morning to Flamings house where they intended to murder both the woman and the boy and to possesse themselves of all the goods that they could conveniently carrie away but the Lord prevented them of their purpose for being let in at the dores by the boy pretending that they came from the husband with thâ—se remembrances to his wife they presently slew the boy thinking also to surprise the woman but she hearing the cry of the boy lockt fast her chamber dore and cried for helpe out at her window whereupon the neighbors running to the house tooke these two villaines one hidden in the funnell of the Chimney and the other in a Well in the Cellar with nothing but his nose above water Now these two wretches being thus apprehended arraigned and condemned being on the seaffold at the place of execution the old man desired to speake with the Smithes widow whose husband was suspected for the first murder of whom when she came hee asked forgivenesse saying that it was he which had killed the young woman by S. Opportunes Church Thus the Lord discovered both the innocency of the Smith and the guiltinesse of this vile murderer and that twenty yeeres after the fact was committed Not long since the like discovery of a murderer was made here in England in Leicestershire not farre from Lutterworth almost twenty yeeres after the fact committed The murder was committed by a Miller upon one in his Mill whom he buried in the ground hard by This Miller removed unto another countrey and there dwelt a long space untill at last guided by Gods Almighty providence to the manifestation of his justice he returned unto that place to visit some of his friends Now in the meane time whilest he was there the Miller that now possessed the former Mill had occasion to dig deepe into the ground where he found the carkasse of a dead man presently it was suspected that some had beene murdered and was there buried whereupon the Lord put it into their hearts to remember how about twenty yeares before a certaine neighbour of theirs was suddenly missed and could never be heard of insomuch that all supposed him to have beene dead in some strange countrey this carkasse they suspected to be his and bethinking themselves who was then Miller of that Mill behold he was there ready in the towne not having been there for many yeares before This man was suspected nd thereupon examined and without much adoe confessed the fact and received deserved punishment Who seeth not here manifest traces and footsteps of Gods providence First in reducing the murderer to that place at that time Secondly in stirring up the Miller to digge at the same time also thirdly in putting into the hearts of the people the missing of such a man whose memory was almost forgotten and lastly in causing the murderer to confesse his deed when as no proofe nor witnesse could be brought against him but here is the justice of God against all such Vengeance will not suffer the murderer to live Henry Ranzovius Lieutenant for the King of Denmarke in the Duchie of Holsace makes relation in a letter of his of an ordinary meanes of finding out Murderers practised in the kingdome of Denmark by King Christiernus the second and permitted over all his Kingdome the occasion whereof he saith was this Certaine Gentlemen being on an evening together in a
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
Arabians to make warre against him who forraged his countrey sacked and spoiled his cities and tooke prisoners his wives and children the youngest onely excepted who afterwards also was murdered when he had raigned King but a small space And lastly as in doing to death his own brethren he committed cruelty against his owne bowels so the Lord stroke him with such an incurable disease in his bowels and so perpetuall for it continued two yeares that his very entrails issued out with torment and so he dyed in horrible misery Albeit that in the former booke we have already touched the pride and arrogancy of King Alexander the Great yet we cannot pretermit to speake of him in this place his example serving to fit for the present subject for although as touching the rest of his life he was very well governed in his private actions as a Monarch of his reputation might be yet in his declining age I meane not in yeares but to deathward he grew exceeding cruell not onely towards strangers as the Cosseis whom he destroyed to the sucking babe but also to his houshold and familiar friends Insomuch that being become odious to most fewest loved him and divers wrought all meanes possible to make him away but one especially whose sonne in law and other neere friends he had put to death never ceased untill he both ministred a deadly draught unto himselfe whereby he deprived him of his wicked life and a fatall stroke to his wives and children after his death to the accomplishment of his full revenge Phalaris the Tyran of Agrigentum made himselfe famous to posterity by no other meanes than horrible cruelties exercised upon his subjects inventing every day new kinds of tortures to scourge and afflict the poore soules withall In his dominion there was one Perillus artificer of his craft one expert in his occupation who to flatter and curry favour with him devised a new torment a brasen bull of such a strange workmanship that the voyce of those that were roasted therein resembled rather the roaring of a Bull then the cry of men The Tyran was well pleased with the Invention but he would needs have the Inventor make first triall of his owne worke as he well deserved before any other should take taste thereof But what was the end of this Tyran The people not able any longer to endure his monstrous and unnaturall cruelties ran upon him with one consent with such violence that they soone brought him to destruction and as some say put him into the brasen Bull which hee provided to roast others to bee roasted therein himselfe deserving it as well for approoving the devise as Perillus did for devising it Edward the second of that name King of England at the request and desire of Hugh Spencer his darling made warre upon his subjects and put to death divers of the Peeres and Lords of the Realme without either right or form of the law insomuch that queen Isabel his wife fled to France with her yong son for fear of his unbrideled fury after a while finding opportunity and means to return again garded with certain small forces which she had in those countreyes gathered together she found the whole people discontented with the Kings demeanours and ready to assist her against him so she besieged him with their succour and tooke him prisoner and put him into the Tower of London to be kept till order might be taken for his deposition so that shortly after by the Estates being assembled together he was generally and joyntly reputed and pronounced unworthy to be King for his exceeding cruelties sake which he had committed upon many of his worthy Subjects and so deposing him they crowned his young sonne Edward the third of his name King in his roome he yet living and beholding the same Iohn Maria Duke of Millan may be put into this ranke of Murtherers for his custome was divers times when any Citizen offended thim yea and somtimes without offence too to throw them amongst cruell Mastives to be torne in pieces and devoured But as he continued and delighted in this unnaturall kinde of murther the people one day incensed and stirred up against him ranne upon him with such rage and violence that they quickly deprived him of life And he was so well beloved that no man ever would or durst bestow a Sepulchre upon his dead bones but suffered his body to lie in the open streets uncovered save that a certaine harlot threw a few Roses upon his wounds and so covered him Alphonsus the second King of Naples Ferdinands sonne was in tyranny towards his subjects nothing inferiour to his father for whether of them imprisoned and put to death more of the Nobility and Barons of the Realme it is hard to say but sure it is that both were too outragious in all manner of cruelty for which so soone as Charles the eight King of France departing from Rome made towards Naples the hatred which the people bore him secretly with the odious remembrance of his fathers cruelty began openly to shew it selfe by the fruits for they did not nor could not dissemble the great desire that every one had of the approach of the Frenchmen which when Alphonsus perceived and seeing his affaires and estate brought unto so narrow a pinch he also cowardly cast away all courage to resist and hope to recover so huge a tempest and he that for a long time had made warre his trade and profession and had yet all his forces and armies complete and in readinesse making himselfe banquerupt of all that honour and reputation which by long experience and deeds of armes he had gotten resolved to abandon his kingdome and to resigne the title and authority thereof to his sonne Ferdinand thinking by that meanes to asswage the heat of their hatred and that so young and innocent a King who in his owne person had never offended them might be accepted and beloved of them and so their affection toward the French rebated and cooled But this devise seemed to no more purpose than a salve applyed to a sore out of season when it was growne incureable or a prop set to a house that is already falne Therefore he tormented with the sting of his owne conscience and finding in his minde no repose by day nor rest by night but a continuall summons and advertisement by fearefull dreames that the Noblemen which hee had put to death cryed to the people for revenge against him was surprised with so terrible terrour that forthwith without making acquainted with his departure either his brother or his owne sonne he fled to Sicilie supposing in his journey that the Frenchmen were still at his backe and starting at every little noyse as if he feared all the Elements had conspired his destruction Philip Comineus that was an eye-witnesse of this journey reporteth That every night he would cry that he heard the Frenchmen and that the very trees
and stones echoed France into his eares And on this manner was his flight to Sicilie King Charles in the meane while having by force and bloodshed to terrifie the rest taken two passages that were before him the whole Realme without any great resistance yeelded it selfe unto his mercy albeit that the young King had done what he could to withstand him But at length seeing the Neapolitanes ready to rebell and himselfe in danger to be taken prisoner he fled from the Castle of Naples and with a small company got certaine Brigandines wherein he sayled to the Island Ischia thirty miles from Naples saying at his departure this verse out of the Psalmes How vaine are the watchmen and gards of that City which is not garded and watched by the Lord which he often repeated and so long as Naples was in his view And thus was cruelty punished both in Ferdinand the father and Alphonso the sonne Artaxerxes Ochus the eight King of the Persians began his raigne with thus many murders he slew two of his owne brethren first secondly Euagoras King of Cyprus his partner and associate in the kingdome thirdly he tooke Gidon traiterously and was the cause of forty thousand mens deaths that were slaine and burned therein beside many other private murders and outrages which he committed for which cause the Lord in his justice rained downe vengeance upon his head for Bagoas one of his Princes ministred such a fatall cup to his stomacke that it mortified his senses and deprived him of his unmercifull soule and life and not onely upon his head but upon his Kingdome and his sonne Arsame also for he was also poysoned by the same Bagoas and his Kingdome was translated to Darius Prince of Armenia whom when the same Bagoas went about to make taste of the same cup which his predecessors did he was taken in his owne snare for Darius understanding his pretence made him drinke up his owne poyson which he provided for him and thus murder was revenged with murder and poyson with poyson according to the Decree of the Almighty who saith Eye for eye tooth for tooth c. In the yeare of the World 3659. Morindus a most cruell and bloody minded Prince raigned here in England who for his cruelties sake came to an unhappy and bloody end for out of the Irish seas came forth a Monster which destroyed much people whereof he hearing would of his valiant courage needs fight with it and was devoured of it so that it may truly here be said that one Monster devoured another There was as Aelianus reporteth a cruell and pernicious Tyran who to the end to prevent all practises of conspiracy and treason as Tyrans are ever naturally and upon desert timerous that might be devised against him enacted this Law among his subjects That no man should conferre with another either privately or publikely upon paine of death and so indeed he abrogated all civill society For speech as it was the beginning and birth of fellowship so it is the very joynt and glue thereof but what cared he for society that respected nothing but his owne safety hee was so farre from regarding the common good that when his subjects not daring to speake signified their mindes by signes he prohibited that also and that which is yet more when not daring to speake or yet make signes they fell to weeping and lamenting their misery he came with a band of men even to restraine their teares too but the multitudes rage being justly incensed they gave him such a desperat welcome that neither he nor his followers returned one of them alive And thus his abominable cruelty came to an end together with his life and that by those meanes which is to be observed by which he thought to preserve and maintaine them both Childericus who in the yeare 697 succeeded in the Kingdome of France Theodoricke that for his negligence and sluggish government was deposed and made of a King a Frier exercised barbarous and inhumane cruelty upon his subjects for he spared neither noble or ignoble but mixtly sent them to their graves without respect of cause or justice One of the noble sort he caused to be fastened to a stake and beaten with clubbes not to death but to chastisement which monstrous cruelty so incensed the peoples mind against him that there wanted no hands to take part with this club-beaten man against the Tyran his enemie Wherefore they layed wait for him as he came one day from hunting and murdered him together with his wife great with childe no man either willing or daring to defend him Tymocrates the King or rather Tyran of the Cyrenians will give place to none in this commendation of cruelty For he afflicted his subjects with many and monstrous calamities insomuch that he spared not the priests of his gods which commonly were in reverent regard among the Heathen As the bloody death of Menalippus Apollo's priest did witnesse whom to the end to marry his faire and beautifull wife Aretaphila he cruelly put to death how beit it prospered not with him as he desired for the good woman not contented with this sacrilegious contract sought rather meanes to revenge her first husbands death than to please this new letchers humour Wherefore she assayed by poyson to effect her wish and when that prevailed not she gave a yong daughter she had to Leander the Tyrans brother to wife who loved her exceedingly but with this condition that he should by some practise or other worke the death and destruction of his brother which indeed he performed for he so bribed one of the groomes of the Tyrans chamber that by his helpe he soone rid wicked Tymocrates out of the way by a speedy and deserved death But to abridge these long discourses let us looke into all times and ages and to the histories of all Countries and Nations and we shall finde that Tyrans have ever come to one destruction or other Diomedes the Thracian King fed his horses with mans flesh as with provender but was made at last provender for his owne horses himselfe by Hercules Calippus the Athenian that slew Dion his familiar friend and deposed Dionisius the Tyran and committed many other murders amongst the people was first banished Rheginum and then living in extreame necessity slaine by Leptines and Polysperchon Clephes the second King of the Lumbards for his savage cruelty towards his subjects was slaughtered by one of his friends Damasippus that massacred so many Citizens of Rome was cut off by Scylla Ecelinus that played the Tyran at Taurisium guelding Boyes deflowring Maydes mayming Matrons of their Dugs cutting children out of their mothers bellies and killing 1200 Patavians at once that were his friends was cut short in a battell In a Word if we read and consult Histories of all Countries and times we shall find seldome or never any notorious Tyran and oppressor of his subjects that came to
dreaming of nothing lesse whereat they being at the instant amazed quickly gathered their spirits together and putting themselves in defence fought it out with such courage and eagernesse that the traitors Army was wholly discomfited and he himselfe with one of his sonnes slain The Gothes having gotten this victory broke off their voyage to France and turned their course backe again to Italie with purpose to destroy and spoil and so they did for they laid waste all the Countrey of Piemont and Lumbardy and elsewhere and besieged Rome it selfe so that from that time Italie never ceased to be scourged and tormented with the Gothes for the space of eighteen yeers Moreover whosoever else have been found to follow the steps of these truce peace and promise-breakers void of truth and regard of reputation alwayes underwent worthy punishment for their unworthy acts and fell headlong into confusion and ignominy making themselves subjects worthy to be curst and detested of all men CHAP. XVI Of Queenes that were Murtherers IF these and such like cruelties as we have spoken before be strange and monstrous for men what shall we then say of wicked and bloudy women who contrary to the nature of their sex addict themselves to all violence and bloudshedding as cursed Iezabel Queen of Israel did of whom sufficient hath been spoken before Athaliah Ahabs daughter and wife to Ioram King of Judah was a bird of the same feather for she was possessed with such a spirit of fury and rage that after the death of her son Ochosias that died without issue she put to death all the bloud royall to wit the posterity of Nathan Solomons brother to whom by right of succession the inheritance of the Crown appertained to the end that she might install her selfe into the kingly diadem after this cruell butchery of all the royall male children except Ioas who by Gods providence was preserved alive she usurped the Crowne and Scepter of Juda full seven yeeres at the end of which date Ioas was exalted to the Crowne and she not onely deposed but slain by the hands of her Guard that attended upon her Semiramis the Queen of Assyria was a woman of an ambitious spirit who through her thirst of reigning counterfeited her sex and attired her selfe like a man to get more authority and reverence to her selfe She was the destruction of many thousand people by the unjust war which she stirred up besides that she was a notorious strumpet and withall a murderer of those that satisfied her lust for still as they came from her bed some lay privily in watch to kill them lest they should bewray her villany it is reported that she was so shamelesse that she solicited her owne son to commit incest with her who in detestation of her filthinesse and cruelty raised a power against her and conquering her in one great battell caused her most deservedly to be put to death Brunchild whom Histories call Brunhault a Queen of France by marriage but a Spaniard by birth was a woman that bred much mischiefe in her age and that wrought many horrible and death-deserving crimes for partly with her subtle devices and partly with her owne hands she murdered ten Kings of France one after another she caused her husband to slay his owne brother she procured the death of her nephew Meroveus whom against all equity and honesty she had secondly espoused for her husband for he being hated of his father for that vile incest and perceiving himselfe in danger of taking made one of servants thrust him through After she had committed these and many other foul facts she went aboutalso to defraud Clotairius the son of Chilpericke of the right of the Crowne which pertained unto him and to thrust in another in his room whereupon arose great war in the which as she dealt more boldly and manfully than the condition of her sexe would bear so she received the due wages of her brave and vertuous deeds for she was taken prisoner with three of her nephewes whose throats she saw cut before her face and after her selfe was set upon a Camell and led through the hoste three dayes together every man reviling mocking reproaching and despighting her and at last by the award and judgement of the Princes and Captaines of the Army she was adjudged to be tied by the hair of her head one arme and one foot to the tail of a wilde and unâ—â—med horse and so to be left to his mercy to be drawne miserably to her destruction which was no sooner executed but her miserable carkase the instrument of so many mischiefes was with mens feet spurned bruised trampled and wounded after a most strange fashion and this was the wofull end of miserable Brunchild Edilburga the daughter of Offa King of Mercia in England who was married to Brigthricus King of the West Saxons was a woman so passing all the bounds of humanity and so given to cruelty and other beastly conditions that she first poysoned divers of the Nobles of the Kingdom and then having practised this wickednesse upon them she at length poysoned also the King her husband for which cause flying over into France unto Charles the Great for fear of punishment among her owne people when by reason of her beautie it was offered unto her that she should marry either with the King himselfe or with his son because she chose the son before the father married neither the one nor yet the other but was thrust into a Monastery where she not forgetting her old trade playing the harlot with a Monke was expulsed from thence and ended her life in great penury and misery About the same time that this Edilburga was thus working her feats in England Irene another most idolatrous and cruell minded woman being Emperesse of the Greekes was as busie for her part at Constantinople This wicked woman through the meanes of Pope Adrian took up the body of Constantine Emperour of Constantinople her owne husbands father and when she had burned the same she caused the ashes to be cast into the sea because he disannulled images Afterward reigning with her son Constantine the sixth son to Leo the fourth and being at dissention with him for disallowing the worshipping of images caused him to be taken and laid in prison who afterward through power of friends being restored to his Empire again at last she caused the same her owne son to be cast in prison and his eyes to be put out so cruelly that within short space he died After this the said Emperesse as it were triumphing in her cruelty and idolatry caused a Councell to be held at Nice where it was decreed That images should again be restored to the Church but this Councell was after repealed by another Councell holden at Frankford by Charles the Great and at length this wicked woman was deposed by Nicephorus who reigned after and was expulsed the Empire and after the example of Edilburga
whose father hight Virginius would needs make her his servant to the end to abuse her the more freely and whilest he endeavoured with all his power and policy to accomplish his immoderate lust her father slew her with his owne hands more willing to prostitute her to death than to so soul an opprobry and disgrace but every man stirred up with the wofulnesse of the event with one consent pursued apprehended and imprisoned the foul lecher who fearing the award of a most shamefull death killed himselfe to prevent a further mischief In the year of our Lord 1271. under the Raigne of the Emperour Rodolph the Sicilians netled and enraged with the horrible whoredomes adulteries and Rapes which the Garrisons that had the government over them committed not able any longer to endure their insolent and outragious demeanour entered a secret and common conspiracy upon a time appointed for the purpose which was on Easter Sunday at the shutting in of the evening to set upon them with one accord and to murder so many as they could as they did for at that instant they massacred so many throughout the whole Island that of all the great multitude there survived not one to bear tidings or bewail the dead At Naples it chanced in the Kings Palace as young King Fredericke Ferdinands son entered the Privy Chamber of the Queen his mother to salute her and the other Ladies of the Court that the Prince of Bissenio waiting in the outward chamber for his returne was slain by one of his owne servants that suddenly gave him with his sword three deadly strokes in the presence of many beholders which deed he confessed he had watched three yeares to performe in regard of an injury done unto his sister and in her to him whom he ravished against her will The Spaniards that first took the Isle Hispaniola were for their whoredomes and Rapes which they committed upon the wives and virgines all murdered by the inhabitants The inhabitants of the Province Cumana when they saw the beastly outrage of the Spanish Nation that lay along their Coasts to fish for Pearle in forcing and ravishing without difference their women young and old set upon them upon a Sunday morning with all their force and slew all that ever they found by the Sea-coasts Westward till there remained not one alive and the fury of the rude uncivill people was so great that they spared not the Monkes in their Cloysters but cut their throats as they were mumbling their Masses burnt up the Spanish houses both religious and private burst in pieces their bels drew about their Images hurld downe their Crucifixes and cast them in disgrace and contempt overthwart their streets to be troden upon nay they destroyed whatsoever belonged unto them to their very dogs and hennes and their owne countrymen that served them in any service whether religious or other they spared not they beat the earth and cursed it with bitter curses because it had upholden such wicked and wretched Caitises Now the report of this massacre was so fearfull and terrible that the Spaniards which were in Cubagna doubted much of their lives also and truly not without great cause for if the Indians of the Continent had been furnished and provided with sufficient store of barkes they had passed even into that Island and had served them with the same sauce which their fellowes were served with for they wanted not will but ability to do it And these are the goodly fruits of their Adulteries and Rapes which the Spanish Nation hath reaped in their new-found land The great calamity and overthrow which the Lacedemonians indured at Lectria wherein their chiefest strength and powers were weakened and consumed was a manifest punishment of their inordinate lust committed upon two virgins whom after they had ravished in that very place they cut in pieces and threw them into a pit and when their father came to complain him of the villany they made so light account of his words that in stead of redresse he found nothing but reproach and derision so that with grief he slew himselfe upon his daughters sepulchre but how grievously the Lord revenged this injury Histories do sufficiently testifie and that Leuctrian calamity doth bear witnesse Brias a Grecian Captain being received into a Citizens house as a guest forced his wife by violence to his lust but when he was asleep to revenge her wrong she put out both his eyes and afterward complained to the Citizens also who deprived him of his Office and cast him out of their City Macrinus the Emperour punished two Souldiers that ravished their Hostesse on this manner he shut them up in an Oxes bowels with their heads out and so partly with famishment and partly with wormes and rottennesse they consumed to death Rodericus King of the Gothes in Spain forced an Earles daughter to his lust for which cause her father brought against him an Army of Sarasens and Moores and not onely slew him with his son but also quite extinguished the Gothicke kingdom in Spain in this war and upon this occasion seven hundred thousand men perished as Histories record and so a kingdom came to ruine by the perverse lust of one lecher Anno 714. At the sacking and destruction of Thebes by King Alexander a Thracian Captain which was in the Macedonian Army took a noble Matron prisoner called Timoclea whom when by no perswasion of promises he could intice to his lust he constrained by force to yeeld unto it but this noble minded woman invented a most witty and subtle shift both to rid her selfe out of his hands and to revenge his injury she told him that she knew where a rich treasure lay hid in a deep pit whither when with greedinesse of the gold he hastened and standing upon the brinke pried and peered into the bottome of it she thrust him with both her hands into the hole and tumbled stones after him that he might never finde meanes to come forth for which fact she was brought before Alexander to have justice who demanding her what she was she answered that Theagenes who led the Thebane Army against the Macedonians was her brother Alexander perceiving the marvellous constancy of the woman and knowing the cause of her accusation to be unjust manumitted and set her free with her whole Family When Câ— Manlius having conquered the Gallo-Grecians pitched his Army against the Tectosages people of Narbonia towards the Pyrene monntaines amongst other prisoners a very fair woman wife to Orgiagous Regulus was in the custody of a Centurion that was both lustfull and covetous this lecher tempted her first with fair perswasions and seeing her unwilling compelled her with violence to yeeld her body as slave to fortune so to infamy and dishonour after which act somewhat to mitigate the wrong he gave her promise of release and freedom upon condition of a certain sum of money and to that purpose sent
unmeasurable and unsupportable impositions As for that which the Prophet Samuel in the Name of God giveth notice to the Israelites of touching the right of a King wherein he seemeth to allow him the disposition of the goods and persons of his subjects I answer first That God being an immoveable Truth cannot contradict himselfe by commanding and forbidding the same thing and secondly that the word of the Text in the Originall signifieth nothing else but a custome or fashion as it appeareth by the 1 Sam. 11. 13. besides the speech that the Prophet useth importeth not a commandment but an advertisement of the subjection whereunto the people were about to thrust themselves by desiring a King after the manner of other Nations whose customes amongst them was to exercise authority and dominion as well over their goods as their persons for which cause God would have them forewarned that they might know how vile a yoak they put their owneneckes under and what grievous and troublesome servitude they undertook from the which they could no wayes be delivered no though they deâ—â—â—ed it with teares Furthermore that a King in Israel had no power in right and eqâ—ity to take away the possessions of any of his subjects and appropriate it to himselfe it appeareth by Naboaths refusall no King Achab to give him his vineyard though he requested it as it may seem upon very reasonable conditions either for his money or for exchange so that a man would thinke he ought not to have denied him howbeit his desire being thus crossed he could not mend himselfe by his authority but fell to vexe and grieve himselfe and to champe upon his owne bit untill by the wicked and detestable complot of Iezable poor Naboath was falsely accused unjustly condemned and cruelly murdered and then he put in possession of his vineyard which murder doubtlesse she would never have attempted nor yet Naboath ever have refused to yeeld his vineyard if by any pretence of Law they could have laid claim unto it but Naboath knowing that it was contrary to Gods Ordinance for him to part with his patrimony which he ought most carefully to preserve would not consent to sell over his vineyard neither for love nor money nor other recompence and herein he did but his duty approved by the holy Scripture Now how odious a thing before God the oppression of poor people is it is manifest by his owne words in the Prophesie of Ezechiel where he saith Let it suffice O Princes of Israel learn off cruelty and oppression and execute judgement and justice take away your exactions from my people and cease to thrust them from their goods and heritages Now concerning the law of man which all men agree unto because it is grounded upon reason and equity we finde no permission given to Kings to use the goods of other men at their pleasures for that was far from equity neither was there any such liberty bestowed upon them by those that first in the beginning exalted them to that degree of dignity but rather as divers worthy Authours avouch their owne vertues and good behaviour which woon them credit amongst the better sort installed them first unto that honour And truely there is nothing more rightfull and justin mans society than that every one should possesse and enjoy that which is his owne in peace and quietnesse without disturbance or violence in which respect also rules of justice are established called lawes which no good Kings will ever seek to stand against They are indeed Lords of the earth aâ— some say and truly but so that their Lordships stretch no further than right and passe not the rule of equity and notwithstanding the propriety of goods and possessions remaineth untouched To Kings saith Soâ—â—ca pertaineth the soveraignty over all things but to private men the propriety Tiberius Caesar being solicited by the Governours of the Provinces to lay heavier tributes and levy larger subsidies from his people made though a Painim this notable answer That a good shepherd ought to shear his sheep not to flea them Saint Lewis that good King amongst all his other wife and vertuous exhortations which he gave to his son before his death this was none of the least nor last That he should never crave any taxe or subsidie of his subjects but upon urgent necessity and very just cause and that if he did otherwise he should not be reputed for a King but for a tyran CHAP. XXXIX Of those that have used too much cruelty to wards their subjects in Taxes and Exactions IT is clear then by these foresaid assumptions that a King may not impose upon his Subjects unmeasurable taxes and subsidies least he make himselfe guilty of extortion the root and fountain many times of many great mischiefes and inconveniences and in very deed from whence oftner changes seditions and ruines of Common-wealths have proceeded than from any other cause beside What hapned to Roboam King of Israel for shewing himselfe too rigorous on this behalfe to his subjects but the defection of the greater part of his Kingdom from him for being come to the Crowne after the death of his father Solomon when the people came and made a supplication to him to be eased from his fathers burdens he despising the counsell of his sage and antient Counsellours and following the giddy advice of his young companions gave them a most sharpe and sowre reply saying That if his father had laid an heavy yoak upon them he would encrease it and if he had chastised them with rods he would correct them with scourges which when they of Israel heard they revolted from him all save the two Tribes of Iuda and Benjamin and stoned to death his Collectours and chose them another King to rule over them Thus Roboam was deprived often parts of his Kingdom thorow his owne unadvised tyranny and fled all amazed unto Jerusalem where he lived all his dayes without recovery of the same Achaeus King of Lydia was hanged up against a hill and his head throwne into a River running by because of the great subsidies which he exacted of his people Dionysius the first of that name a notorious and renowned Tyran not onely in regard of his exceeding cruelty but also of his unjust rackings and exactions was so violent in that practise of doing wrong that alboit he well knew the griefes and vexations of the people that ceased not to complain and lament their case continually yet he diminished not their burdens but multiplied them more and more and sucked and gnew out all that ever he could untill he left them naked empty and despoiled To conclude this grand theefe that durst not trust his wife nor owne daughters after he had been discomfited by the Carthaginians was slain by his servants Of the Roman Emperours that most vexed the Commonalty with tribures and taxes these three were chief Caligula Nero and Caracalla of whom this latter
of Aquitain then did King Edwards part begin to incline and the successe of war which the space of fourty yeares never forsook him now frowned upon him so that he quickly lost all those lands which by composition of peace were granted unto him CHAP. XLI Of such as by force of armes have either taken away or would have taken away the goods and lands of other men NOw if they that oppresse their Subjects and devour them in this manner be found guilty then must they needs be much more that are carried with the wings of their owne hungry ambitious desire to invade their lands and Seigniories attended on with an infinite retinue of pillages sackings ruines of Cities and people which are alwayes necessary companions of furious unmercifull war There are no flouds so broad nor mountaines so steep nor rokces so rough and dangerous nor sea so long and furious that can restrain the rash and headstrong desire of such greedy minded Sacres so that if their body might be proportioned to the square and greatnesse of their mindes with the one hand they would reach the East and with the other hand the West as it is said of Alexander howbeit hereof they boast and glory no lesse than they that took delight to be sirnamed City-spoilers others burners of Cities some conquerours and many Eagles and Faulcons seeking as it were fame by infamy and by vice eternity But to these men it often commeth to passe that even then when they thinke to advance their Dominion and to stretch their bounds and frontiers furthest they are driven to recoil for fear of being dispossessed themselves of their owne lands and inheritances and even as they dealt with others rigorously and by strength of weapons so shall they be themselves rehandled and dealt withall after the same measure according to the Word of the Prophet denounced against such as they Cursed be thâ—â— that spoilest and dealest unfaithfully when thou hast made an end of spoiling others thâ—â— thâ— selfe shalt be spoiled and when thou hast done dealing traiterously then treason shall begin to be practised against thee And this curse most commonly never faileth to seise upon these great Theeves and Robbers or at least upon their children and successours as by particular examples we shall see after we have first spoken of Adonias who not content with his owne estate of being a Kings son which God had allotted him went about to 〈◊〉 the Crowne and Kingdome from his brother Solomon to whom by right it appertained for God had manifested the same by the mouth of his father David but both he and his assistants for their overbold and rash enterprise were iustly by Solomon punished with death Crassus King of Lydia was the first that made war against Ephesus and that subdued the Greekes of Asia to wit the Phrygians Mysians Chalybeans Paphlagonians Thracians Bythinians Ionians Dorians Aeolians and Pamphilians and made them all tributeries unto him by meanes whereof he being growne exceeding rich and puissant by the detriment and undoing of so many people vanted and gloried in his greatnesse and power and even then thought himselfe the happiest man in the world when most misery and adversity grief and distresse of his estate and wholehouse approuched nearest for first and formost one of his sonnes that was dear unto him was by oversight slain at the chase of a wilde Bore next himselfe having commenced war with Cyrus was overcome in battell and besieged in Sardis the chief City of his Kingdom and at last taken and carried captive to Cyrus despoiled of all his late glory and dominion And thus Crassus as saith Plutarch after Herodotus bore the punishment of the offence of his great Grandfather Gigas who being but one of King Caâ—daules attendants slew his master and usurped the Crowne at the provokement of the Queen his mistresse whom he also took to be his wife And thus this Kingdom decayed by the same meanes by which it first encreased Polycratâ—s the Tyran was one that by violence and tyrannous meanes grew from a base condition to an high estate for being but one of the vulgar sort in the City Samos he with the assistance of fifteen armed men seised upon the whole City and made himselfe Lord of it which dividing into three parts he bestowed two of them upon his two brethren but not for perpetuity for ere long the third part of his usurpation cost the elder of them the best part of his life and the younger his liberty for he chased him away that he might be sole possessour of the whole Island After this he invaded many other Islands besides many Cities in the same Land he raised the Lacedemonians from the fiege of Samos which they had begirt and when he saw that all things fell out so well to his owne wish that nothing could be more fearing so great prosperity could not but carry in the â—ail some terrible sting of adversity and mischance attempted by voluntary losse of something of value to prevent the mischief which he feared to ensue and this by the advice of his dear friend and allie the King of Aegypt therefore he threw a ring which he had of great price into the sea to the end to delude Fortune as he thought thereby â—ut the ring was after found in a fishes belly and offered as a present unto him and this was an evident presage of some inevitable this for tune that waited for him neither did it prove vain and frivolous for he was hanged upon a gibbet of Sardis by the commandment of Orates the Governour of the City who under pretence of friendship and colour of rendring his treasure into his hands and bestowing upon him a great part thereof promising also to passe the rest of his dayes under his wing for fear of the rage of Cambyses drew him to come privately to speak with him and so easily wrought his will upon him Aristodemus got into his hands the government of Câ—ma after he had made away the principall of the City and to keep it the better being obtâ—ined he first worme the vulgars hearts by presents then banished out of the City their children whom he had put to death and entertained the rest of the youth with such variety of pleasures and delights that by those devices he kept himselfe in his tyrannous estate many yeares but as soon as the children of those slain Citizens were growne to ripe yeares of strength and discretion being desirous to revenge their fathers deaths they set upon him in the night so at unawares that they put him and all his family to the slaughter Timophanes usurped a principality power and rule in Corinth a free City and became so odious thereby to the whole people yea and to his owne brother Tymoleon also that laying aside all respect of nature he slew him with his owne hands preferring the liberty of his Countrey before any unity or bond of
bloud When the Cities of Greece saith Orosius would needs through too greedy a desire and ambition of reigne get every one the mastery and soveraignty of the rest they all together made shipwracke of their owne liberties by encroaching upon others as for instance the Lacedemonians how hurtfull and incommodious the desire of bringing their neighbour adjoyning Cities under their dominion was unto them the sundry discomfitures and distresses within the time of that war undertaken upon that onely cause befell them bear sufficient record Servius Tullus the son to a bondman addicted himselfe so much to the exploits of war that by prowesse he got so great credit and reputation among the Romans that he was thought â—it to be son in law of King Tarquinius by marrying one of his daughters after whose death he usurped the Crowne under colour of the Protectorship of the Kings â—oo young sonnes who when they came to age and bignesse married the daughters of their brother in law Tullus by whose exhortation and continuall provokement the elder of them which was called Tarquinius conspired against his father in law and practised to make himselfe King and to recover his rightfull inheritance and that by this meanes he watched his opportunity when the greatest part of the people were out of the City about gathering their fruit in the fields and then placing his companions in readinesse to serve his turne if need should be he marched to the palace in the royall robes garded with a company of his comederates and having called a Senate as he began to complain him of the treachery and impudency of Tullus behold Tullus himselfe came in and would have run violently upon him but Tarquinius catching him about the middle threw him headlong downe the staires and presently sent certaine of his guard to make an end of the murder which he had begun But herein the cruelty of Tullia was most monstrous that not onely first moved her husband to this bloudy practice but also made her coach to be driven over the body of her father which lay bleeding in the midst of the street scarce dead Manlius after hee had maintained the fortresse of Rome against the Gaules glorying in that action and envying the good hap and prosperity of Camillus went about to make himselfe King under pretence of restoring the people to their antient entire libertie but his practise being discovered hee was accused found guilty and by the consent of the multitude adjudged to be throwne headlong downe from the top of the same fortresse to the end that the same place which gave him great glorie might be a witnesse and a memoriall of his shame and last confusion for all his valiant deeds before done were not of so much force with the people to excuse his fault or save his life as this one crime was of weight to bring him to his death In former times there lived in Carthage one Hanno who because he had more riches than all the Common-wealth beside began to aspire to the domination of the Citie which the better to accomplish hee devised to make shew of marrying his onely daughter to the end that at the marriage feast hee might poison the chiefest men of credit and power of the City whom he knew could or would not any wayes withstand or countermand his purpose but when this devise tooke no effect by reason of the discovery thereof by certaine of his servants hee sought another meanes to effect his will Hee got together a huge number of bondslaves and servants which should at a sudden put him in possession of the city but being prevented herein also by the Citizens he seised upon a castle with a thousand men of base regard even servants for the most part whither thinking to draw the Africans and King of the Moores to his succour he was taken and first whipped next had his eyes thrust out and then his armes and legs broken in pieces and so was executed to death before all the people his carkasse being thus mangled with blowes was hanged upon a gallowes and all his kindred and children put to death that there might not one remaine of his straine either to enterprise the like deed or to revenge his death That great and fearefull warrior Iulius Caesar one of the most hardie and valiant pieces of flesh that ever was after hee had performed so many notable exploits overcome all his enemies and brought all high and haughtie purposes to their desired effect being prickt forward with the spurre of ambition and a high minde through the meanes and assistance of the mighty forces of the common-wealth which contrary to the constitution of the Senat were left in his hands hee set footing into the State and making himselfe master and Lord of the whole Romane Empire usurped a soveraigntie over them but as he attained to his dignitie by force and violence so he enjoyed it not long neither gained any great benefit by it except the losse of his life may be counted a benefit which shortly after in the open Senat was bereft him for the conspirers thereof as soone as hee was set downe in his seat compassing him about so vehemently overcharged him on all sides that notwithstanding all the resistance hee could make for his defence tossing amongst them and shifting himselfe up and downe he was overthrowne on the earth and abode for dead through the number of blowes that were given him even three and twenty wounds The Monarchie of Assyria was at one instant extinguished in Sardana palus and of Babylon in Balthasar Arbaces being the worker of the first and Darius King of Persia of the later both of them receiving the wages not of their wickednesse but also of their predecessors and great grandfathers cruelty and oppressions by whom many people and nations had been destroyed Moreover as the Babylonian Empire was overthrowne by Darius of Persia so was his Persian Kingdome in Darius the last King of that countrey his time this mans successor overturned by Alexander Again the great dominion of Alexander who survived not long after was not continued to any of his by inheritance but divided like a prey amongst his greatest captaines and from them the most part of it in short time descended to the Romanes who spreading their wings and stretching their greedie tallons farre and neere for a while ravened and preyed over all the world and enriched and bedecked themselves with the spoyles of many nations and therefore it was necessary that they also should be made a prey and that the farre fetcht Goths and Vandales should come upon them as upon the bodie of a great Whale that suffers shipwreck upon the sea shore since which time the Romane Empire went to decay and grew every day weaker than other yea and many Princes setting themselves against and above it have robbed it of the realmes and provinces which it robbed others of before And thus wee may see how all
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
been a professor of the Gospell a foretime when William Woolsey Martyr whom the said Denton had first converted from the Truth sent him certaine money out of prison at Ely with his commendations That hee marvelled he tarried so long behinde him seeing he was the first that delivered him the booke of Scripture into his hand and told him that it was the truth his answer was this I confesse it is true but alas I cannot burn But he that could not burne in the cause of Christ was afterward burned against his will for in the year 1564 his house was set on fire and whilest he went to save his goods he lost his life There was also one Burton Bailiffe of Crowland in Lincoln-shire who pretending an earnest friendship to the Gospell in King Edwards time after the Kings death began lustily to set up the Popish Masse againe and would have beaten the poore Curate if he had not setled himselfe thereto but see how the Lords judgement overtook him as hee came riding from Fennebanke one day a Crow flying over his head let fall her excrements upon his face so that it ranne from the top of his nose downe to his beard the poysoned sent and savour whereof so annoyed his stomack that he never ceased vomiting untill he came home and after falling deadly sicke would never receive any meat but vomited still and complaining of that stinke cursing the Crow that had poysoned him to be short within few daies he died desperately without any token of repentance of his former life Hither may we adde the examples of one Henry Smith a Lawyer of the middle Temple and Arnoldus Bomelius a Student of Lovaine both which having professed the Truth a while and after being seduced by evill company the one of Gilford the other of Master Tileman Smith afterward hanged himselfe in his chamber in the Temple in the yeare of our Lord 1569. Bomelius murthered himselfe with his owne dagger And thus these two Apostata's felt the heavy scourge of Gods wrath for revolting from the Truth which they once professed CHAP. XVI Of those that have willingly fallen away THese kinde of Apostata's which we are now to speake of are such as without any outward compulsion threats or likelyhood of danger forsake freely Gods true Religion and give themselves over to all Idolatry Against whom there is a Decree ordained in the thirteenth of Deutronomy by the Law-giver of Heaven which is this If the inhabitants of any city have turned from the Lord to follow after strange gods let them be destroyed with the edge of their sword and their city consumed with fire that they may be utterly rased out and brought to nothing This was the sinne of Solomon King of Israel a brave and mighty kingdome in his time a man subject to none for power nor fearing any for authority yet for all this so filthily recoyling from the Truth which hee knew and had professed that in stead of serving the true God he became a setter up of false Idols and that of his owne freo will and pleasure he that had been so well brought up and instructed from his childehood in true Religion by his School master the Prophet Nathan into whose charge hee was committed and so often and earnestly admonished by his father David to observe diligently the law of God to direct his wayes thereby and whom God vouchsafed this honour to appeare twice unto and to enrich and adorne with such excellent wisedome that the Queene of Saba hearing his report came to Ierusalem to be his auditor even this Solomon in his old age when he should have been most stedfast and constant suffered himselfe to be seduced by the enticements of his strange wives and concubines to offer service unto strange gods and to forsake the God of Heaven to worship the Idols of the Gentiles And as his renowne was great and famous before for building that sumptuous and beautifull Temple at Ierusalem so was his obloquy and reproach the greater for erecting Altars and Chappels for the Idols of his wives and concubines even for every one of their Idols to the intent to flatter and please their humors it was therfore just and equall that the Lord his wrath being provoked against him raised up two strong enemies that wrought him and his people much scath Yea moreover Ieroboam one of his owne servants whilest hee yet lived was by the ordinance of God designed King over ten Tribes and so God punished him for his Idolatry and Backsliding leaving him but a small portion of the kingdome to continue to his successors which had it not been for his father Davids sake had been also taken away It is true That we read not that he ever hindred the service of the Temple or compelled or perswaded any man to worship an Idoll yet he did enough to make him culpable before God of a grievous sinne in that he being the head and Soveraigne Magistrate of the people committed such wickednes and such Apostasie in Israel beside it is a marvellous strengthning that in all his History there is not so much as any token mentioned or to be gathered of his true repentance alter this notable fall And hee that well weigheth the nature and quality of this sinne shall perceive that it somewhat resembleth that which is spoken of Heb. 6. ver 4 5 6 for Solomon was not so ignorant and destitute of the knowledge of God but rather had the treasure of wisedome in fulnesse and abundance and was endowed with the gifts and graces of Gods Spirit that he was able to instruct others and to discharge a Doctors place in the Church as he also did both by word and writing And although that the Sonne of God was nos as then yet manifested in the flesh yet the power and efficacy of his death being everlasting and from the beginning whereof the Law with the ceremonies and sacrifices thereof was as it were a Schoolemaster could not be hidden from him Therefore so soone as he addicted himselfe to his Idolatry he forthwith abandoned the holy ordinances and sacrifices of Gods Law and quitted himselfe of the promise of salvation therein contained disanulling and making of none effect as concerning himselfe the grace of the Mediator ordained from the beginning so that his downfall was terrible and perillous Yet there be that thinke that after all this he wrote the booke of Ecclesiastes as a declaration of his repentance whose opinion I purpose not to contradict Roboam his sonne succeeded him as well in the likenesse of his sinne as of his kingdome for after that the Priests and Levites forsaking the part of Ieroboam because of his Idols and leaving their houses and possessions to strangers had made repaire to him for feare of God and love of his holy service and that he had disposed and put in order his publique affaires for the ratifying and confirming of his kingdome presently he and
all his people forsooke the law of God and gave themselves over to Idolatry and other grievous sinnes wherefore the Lord also forsooke and gave them over to the hands of Caesac King of Aegypt that raised up a mighty power of men even a thousand and two hundred chariots threescore thousand horsemen with an infinite multitude of footmen to make warre against him so that all the strong cities and fortresses of Iudah no nor Ierusalem it selfe was strong enough to repulse him from sacking and taking them and robbing the Temple of their treasures and despoyling the Kings palaces of his riches and carrying backe into Aegypt a rich prey of the best and beautifullest things that were therein And this was the first shake that ever this kingdome received since it was a kingdome whereby it began to waine and decline Notwithstanding all this yet the Lord had compassion and pitty of him and all his people and would not suffer his dignity to be troden under foot and quite suppressed but restored him once againe into an honourable estate because when he was reproved by Semeia the Prophet he humbled himselfe before the Lord and his Princes also which is a mafest signe that his sinne was not an universall Apostasie whereby hee was wholly turned aside from God and all hope of grace but it was a particular revolt such as was that of his forefathers the children of Israel when they imagined that God would be present with them in the idolatrous golden Calfe and in that figure to worship him so grosse and sencelesse were they although yet Roboams sin seemeth to exceed theirs in greatnesse and guiltinesse The Iewes that in the time of Ptolomey Philopater abode in Aegypt and willingly renounced the law and service of God in hope thereby better to provide for their worldly commodities enjoyed not long their ease and prosperity for the other Iewes which had couragiously stucke to their profession and had been miraculously delivered from their enemies being grieved and chased at their recoyle made their supplications to the King whose heart God inclined to favour their suit that he would permit them to revenge Gods quarrell upon those Apostates as they had deserved alledging that it was hard for them to be true subjects to the King who for their bellies sake had rebelled against the commandement of God The King seeing their request reasonable and their reasons which they alledged likely not onely commended them but gave authority to destroy all those that could be found in any place of his dominion without any further enquiry of the cause or intelligence of the Kings authority insomuch that they put to death all those that they knew to have defiled themselves with filthy Idols doing them before all the shame they could devise So that at that time there were dispatched above three hundred persons which when they had accomplished they rejoyced greatly CHAP XVII Of the third and worst sort of Apostates those that through malice forsake the Truth IF so be that they of whom we have spoken in the two former Chapters are in their revoltings inexcusable as indeed they are then much more worthy condemnation are they who not only in a villanous contempt cast away the grace of Gods Spirit and his holy worship but also of a purposed malice set themselves against the same yea and endeavour with all their power utterly to race and root it out and in stead thereof to plant the lies errors and illusions of Satan by all means possible Against this kinde of Monsters sentence is pronounced in the thirteenth of Deutronomy to wit That justice should be executed upon them with all extremity and no mercy and compassion shewed upon him be he Prophet or what else that goeth about to seduce others from the service of the Almighty to follow false gods This is the pitfall wherein Ieroboam the first King of Israel slipped by the perversenesse of his owne conscience who as he had by his rebellion against Rehoboam and the house of David upreared a new kingdome so by rebellion against God and his House in hope by that means to retaine his usurped state and people in subjection upreared also a new Religion for distrusting the promises of God which were made him by the Prophet Ahias as touching the Realme of Israel which he was already in possession of and despising the good counsell of God in respect of his owne inventions he was so besotted and bleared with them that just after the patterne of his idolatrous forefathers who by their Aegyptian tricks had provoked the wrath of God against themselves he set up golden calves and caused the people to worship them keeping them so from going to Ierusalem to worship God nor yet content with this hee also erected high places to set his Idols in and having restrained the Priests and Levites from the exercise of their charge hee ordained a new order of Priests to sacrifice and minister unto his gods and proclaimed a newer feast than that was in Iuda even the seventh day of the eighth moneth wherein he not onely exiled the pure service of God but also perverted and turned upside downe the Ecclesiasticall discipline and policy of Gods Church which by the Law had been instituted And that which is yet more as he was offering incense on the Altar at Bethel when the Prophet cryed out against the Altar and exclaimed against that filthy Idolatry by denouncing the vengeance of God against it and the maintainers thereof he was so desperate and sencelesse as to offer violence to him and to command that he should be attached but the power of Gods displeasure was upon him by and by for that hand which he had stretched out against the Prophet dried up so that he could not draw it backe againe and at the very instant for a manifest declaration of the wrath of God the Altar rent in pieces and the ashes that were within were dispersed abroad And although at the prayer of that holy man his hand was restored to his former strength and soundnesse yet returned not he from his unjust and disloyall dealing but obstinately continued therein till his dying day Wherefore also the fierce wrath of God hunted and pursued him continually for first of all he was robbed of his sonne Abia dying through sicknesse then he was set upon by Abia King of Iuda with an army of foure hundred thousand men of warre and though his power was double in strength and number arising to eight hundred thousand persons yet was he and his vaste army quite discomfited for he lost at that field five hundred thousand of his men beside certain cities which were yeelded to Abia in the pursuit of his victory his courage was so abated and impoverished ever after this that he could uever recover strength to resist the King of Iudah any more And so God revenged at once the Apostasie both of the King and people of Israel and last