THE SECOND PART OF THE THEATRE OF GOD'S JUDGEMENTS. Collected out of the writings of sundry Ancient and Modern Authors,  
By the late Reverend Divine Dr THOMAS TAYLOR, sometime Pastor of Aldermanburic in London.  
LONDON, Printed by Richard Herne. An. Dom. 1642.   

THE SECOND PART OF THE THEATRE OF GOD'S JUDGEMENTS.  
CHAP. I. Gods Remarkable Judgements against Pride.  
AS in the two former learned Tractates, bearing Title of The Theatre of God's judgements inflicted upon the several breaches of the Ten Commandments; so now, to these we add a third Tract, Of his most remarkable punishments of the seven deadly sins; and these illustrated by sundry notable Examples, aswell Domestic as Foreign. And because Pride was the first, which began in the Angels, and hath since infected all mankind, from our Protoplasti (our first Parents) Adam and Eve, and hath continued through all generations hitherto; and shall in their posterity, even to the last dissolution: I derive my first Discourse from that.  
There be four sorts of Pride, by which every insolent and arrogant man 
Four Species of Pride.  discovereth himself: For instance, when those good parts (if he have any) of which he is possessed, he apprehendeth merely to spring from himself; or when those which he acknowledgeth to be conferred from above, he attributeth to his own merit; or when he boasteth to have, what indeed he hath not; or when despising others, he covets to be singular in himself. This sin was borne in Heaven, but so suddenly precipitated thence, that it could never since find the way back again thither: all other vices are only at war with these particular virtues, by which they are overcome; as Inchastity, Chastity; Bounty, Avarice; Wrath, Patience; and so of the rest: Pride is not with that contented, as to oppose Humility and Obedience, but it rageth against all the virtues of the mind, and like a general pestiferous disease, striveth to putrify and infect them all: For Pride in riches makes men the more covetous: In idleness, scorning labour; in wrath, more outrageous; in gluttony, more intemperate; in envy, more malicious: neither is there any mortiferous sin, in which Pride is not a supreme agent; The signs thereof are boldness in language; sullenness in silence; arrogance in mirth; murmuring in melancholy; and despising all others, doting upon himself.  
Aesop being asked by Chian, What he thought jupiter was at that time doing? made answer, He is now dejecting the proud, and exalting the humble. And the famous Philosopher Aristotle, spying a rich young man (but altogether unlearned) strutting along the streets, with a proud affected gate; and his eyes so elevated towards Heaven, as if he despised the earth, whereon he trod; came to him, and said, friend, Such as thou thinkest thyself to be, I wish I were; but to be such as thou art, I wish only to mine enemy. This also Socrates with great modesty reproved in Alcibiades, who finding himself suddenly puffed up with his extraordinary abundance in riches, and much to glory in his many spoils and victories, he drew him into a private Gallery; and showing him a Cosmographical Table of the World, bid him look in what part of the Map he could spy all his great Trophies and Triumphs? And when he answered him, They were not there to be seen; Socrates replied, Cur igitur ob illa superbis, quae circa nullam terrae partem existunt? that is, Why then art thou so proud of these things which are not visible in any part of the earth?  
Neither was the Church itself free from this sin in the days of learned Saint Bernard, who in one of his Sermons thus complains. Thou shalt see many in the Church, who from obscure parentage being ennobled, and from poverty made rich with pride, so suddenly tumored and tympanized, that forgetting from whence they came, have contemned their parents, and blushed at their own births: Thou shalt see also some pernicious persons aspire unto Ecclesiastical honours, and then pretend to themselves a seeming sanctity, by changing of their vestures, not their vices; and their manner of habit, not their minds; esteeming themselves to deserve that dignity which they have insidiated by deceit, and which (I scarce dare say) have attributed that to their merit, which they have bought with their money.  
But as the smoke, which of its own nature is black and obscure, yet covets to ascend from a light and bright flame; but in the midst of its violent reluctation, resolves itself into air; and so vanishing, loseth both nature and name: So the proud and ambitious, howsoever coarsely and obscurely parted, yet will elevate and advance himself above others; yet in his striving to stand high, is often precipitated, and loseth both his place and memory; Behold (saith the Prophet) He that lifteth up himself, 
Habbak. 2. 4.  his mind is not upright; but the Justice shall live by his faith. Yea, indeed, The proud man is as he that transgresseth by Wine, therefore shall he not endure, because he hath enlarged his desire as the Hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied; but gathereth unto him all Nations, and heapeth unto him all people: shall not all these take up a Parable against him? and a taunting Proverb, and say, Ho, he that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and be that ladeth himself with thick clay? Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee? and awake that shall stir thee? and thou shalt be their prey; Because etc.  
How Pride hath been severely punished by the Almighty, we find frequent examples in the holy Text: It was punished in our first Parents by their Exile out of Paradise. In the Builders of Babel, (who said, Come let us build us a City and a Tower, whose top may reach up to the Heaven, that we may get us a name, etc.) In their scattering over the face of the earth, and the confusion of their Languages: In Sodom and Gomorrah, by raining down fire and brimstone upon their Cities and people: In Miriam the sister of Moses, by Leprosy: In Korah, Dathan, and Abir●m, for their pride, and rebellion against Moses; the ground clavae asunder that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, with their families; and all the men that were with Korah, and all their goods; so they and all that they had went down alive unto the pit, and the earth covered them, and they perished from amongst the Congregation: In Goliath the Philistime, slain by the hands of David: In Sheba the son of Bicri, who lift up his hand against the King; by having his head cut off, and cast over the walls to joah, Captain of the host: In Absalon, who took such pride in his hair, that it after became his halter: In destroying of David's people, for his pride in numbering them: In Adoniah, who for demanding Abishag the Shunamite to wife, (who had lain in his father's bosom) was slain at the commandment of Solomon, by the hand of Benaiah the son of jehojadah: In Benhadad King of Aram, Rabsakeh and Zenacharib: In Olofernes the great Captain of the Assyrian host, slain by judith at the siege of Bethulia: In Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, whom the great King Ahashuerosh exalted, and set his seat above all the Princes that were under him; whose pride growing up with his promotion, at length advanced him to a Gibbet fifty foot high, upon which in the glory of his ambition he was strangled: In Nabuchadnezar, and Balthassar King of the Chaldeans: In the great King Antiochus, who went up towards judea and Jerusalem, with a mighty people, and entered proudly into the Sanctuary, and took away the golden Altar, and the Candlestick for the light, and all the instruments belonging thereto; and the Table of the Shewbread, and the pouring vessels, and the Bowls, and the golden Basins, and the Veil, and the Crowns, and the golden apparel which was before the Temple, and broke all in pieces: He broke also the Silver and Gold, and the precious Jewels, with the secret treasures that he found, and then departed away into his own Land. But the same proud Prince coming after with great dishonour from Persia, the God Almighty stroke him with an invisible and an incurable plague, by a pain in his bowels, which was remediless, and which grievously tormented him in the inner parts; for so he had tormented other men's bowels with divers cruel and strange torments; yet would not he cease from his arrogance, but swollen the more with pride, against Gods own people to destroy them; and commanded to haste his journey for that purpose: but so it was, that he fell down from the Chariot that ran swiftly, and all the parts and members of his body were bruised. Thus he who but a day before thought he might command the Floods, (such was his Luciferian pride, beyond the condition of man) and to weigh the high mountains in the balance, was cast on the earth and carried in an horselitter; declaring unto all the world the manifest power of God: so that the worms came out of his body in abundance, and his flesh dropped from his bones with pain and torment, and all his Army was grieved at his smell: No man could now endure him because of his stink, who but a little before, thought with his hands he might reach the stars of Heaven: And then (though too late) he began to abate his haughty and peremptory insolence; when being plagued, he came to the knowledge of himself by the just scourge ' of God; and by his inward torments which every moment increased upon him: and when he himself could not abide his own favour, he said, It is meet for man to be subject to God, and that he who is but mortal should not oppose himself against his Maker.  
The like punishment we read of in the person of Nicanor, who came 
Nicanor.  unto Mount Zion, whom the Priests and the Elders of the people went forth of the Sanctuary to salute peaceably, and to show him the daily burnt offerings for the King; but he laughed at them and derided their devotion, accounting them merely profane, and spoke proudly, and swore in his wrath, If judas and his Host be not delivered into mine hands; If ever I shall return in safety, I will burn up this house, etc. and so departed thence in great fury: but observe the event of his so great ostentation and insolence. judas after some few days (though against infinite odds) having slain Nicanor in battle, and routed his whole Army, he caused his head to be struck off, and that arm and hand which he had so proudly lifted up against the Temple of the God of Israel, and brought them to Jerusalem, and there caused them to be hanged up, as a remarkable judgement.  
But not to dwell on those, frequent in the holy Text: I come now to the like examples gathered from Ethnic and Moral remembrancers, and out of them give you only a taste to prevent surfeit, till I fall upon those more familiar and modern. Alexander the Great, in his height of potency, and 
Alexander the Great.  supereminent fortune, contemning the remembrance of his father Philip, would be called God, and commanded himself to be styled the son of jupiter Hamon; who notwithstanding in the sufferance of many heats and colds, his subjection to humours and passions, his enduring of smarts and wounds, and all other infirmities belonging to man, would not be sensible of his mortality; till in the very Apex of his sublimity he was treacherously poisoned, and so most miserably expired.  
And Nero, the Arch-tyrant since Adam, after he had filled the Earth 
Nero Caesar.  with many insolences, and Rome (the then World's Metropolis) with infinite Rapes, Murders, and Massacres, not sparing his near Kinsman Germanicum, his corrival in the Empire, nor his great grave and learned Tutor and Master Seneca; to make himself unparallelled in all kind of parricidy, He caused the womb of his own natural mother Agrippina to be ripped up before his face, only in an ambition to discover the place of his first conception; notwithstanding which inhumanities', he was so inflamed with an ardent desire of future memory, that by a public Edict he proclaimed that the month April should lose its ancient name, and be called after his own appellation, Nero; and the City of Rome, Neropolis: Yet this proud man in the end, being quite abandoned and forsaken of all his Sycophants and oily flatterers, was glad to fly from his Royal Court to seek refuge in a rustic Cottage; and with greater terror to his own conscience, then before he had used tyranny upon the carcases of others; he was compelled to fall upon his sword, his body being after, most contemptibly dragged through the streets of the City, with more bitter execrations and curses, then before he had lived hours or minutes.  
Another, called Varus Pergaus, was so infected with the adulatory assentations of his Flatterers, Buffoons, and Trencher-flyes; That he was 
Varus Pergaus.  brought to persuade himself to be of all fair men, the most beautiful; of all able men, the most sinnowie and strong; of all understanding men; the most prudent and wise; and that in all kinds of music and melody, he could out-play and outsing even the Muses themselves: But this poor effascinated wretched creature, when he had long fooled and spent the prime and best of his age, in this vain and idle false conceit; he grew towards his end to be strangely disfigured and deformed in visage, feebled and disabled in his vigour and strength; idioted and besotted in his understanding and sense; and so far from song or Harmony, that his unlamented death was accompanied with his own shrieking, and howling.  
We further read of one Menecrates, a rare Physician, who in his practice 
Menecrates the Physician.  had done many extraordinary cures upon several Patients, insomuch that he was held in a general admiration; especially amongst those to whom he was best known: who having gathered to himself a competent estate, or rather a surplusage of means, that he presumed no casualty or adverse fortune was any way able to decline him to necessity or want; he then in a proud and insolent ostentation, puffed up with the vanity of his own fancy, admitted all sickly and diseased persons to have free access unto him: for whose cures he demanded no other satisfaction or reward, but that they should acknowledge him their new Creator, not contented to be called by the name of Apollo, or Aesculapius, the two Imaginary gods of Physic, and Chirurgery, but his ambition was to be called jupiter himself: yet soon after being quite abandoned by his own Art, and forsaken by his fellow Physicians, he suddenly died of an incurable Impostume.  
Neither have Emperors, Kings, and Princes, with other Sages and 
Pride in all states, conditions, and sexes.  seeming wise men, been only tainted with this superarrogant haughtiness and ambition; but this miscellane sin, which hath intruded itself into all delinquencies and malefactions whatsoever, claimeth a predominance over all estates, qualities, functions, manufactures, sexes, and ages; whether in Court, City, Camp, or Country: from the scarlet to the russet, from the Sceptre to the sheephook, the Tetrarch to the Tradesman. For instance, The rural Girl being a little flattered, shall be easily persuaded to be a rare courtly Gentlewoman: nay, even kitchen-maides have held competitorship with Court Madams; no less proud, though perhaps less painted; and the very course Coridon will scarce give precedence to the complemental Courtier, thinking himself as well accommodated in his rustic russet, as the other in his richest raiment. In the like manner I could go thorough all qualities, and A minimo ad maximum, from the least to the greatest, which for brevity's sake I omit; desiring rather to satisfy the judicious Reader with matter then manner; the substance, and not shadow of discourse.  
And yet to look a little further into the nature of this deadly sin, 
The nature of Pride.  which hath all the other, its concomitants and attendants. Plato saith, he that knoweth himself best, esteemeth himself least; and husbandmen better value those ears of grain which bow down their heads from the stalk, and wax crooked, than those that erect themselves and stand upright; because they presume to find more corn in the first than in the last. Pride (saith Saint Augastine) is the mother of Envy, and he that knoweth how to suppress the mother, may easily find the way to bridle the daughter. Lewis the eleventh King of France, was wont to say, That whensoever Pride sat in the saddle, mischief and shame rid upon the cropper: One compareth 
S. Augustine.  it to a ship without a pilot, still tossed up and down upon the Seas by the winds and tempests; another to a vapour, which striveth to ascend high, 
Plutarch.  and then vanisheth into smoke first, and after returns to nothing. In brief, Pride eateth gold and drinketh blood, and climbeth so high by other men's heads, that in the end it breaketh its own neck. I cannot stand to divide it into several branches or heads, but proceed directly on to History.  
Let all such, prided in their own self-conceited knowledge and wisdom, be attentive to a story extracted from a learned and grave Spanish 
An excellent Spanish History against pride in knowledge.  Chronologer; by him to this purpose related. Alphonsus' King of Spain, being a very wise, learned, and discreet Prince, was wont to devise many dark and difficult problems, proposing them to his Lords and Peers; to show his own excellent wisdom, and to task their ignorance, who had spent their time in more loose and idle studies: amongst others there was a Knight in the Court called Don Pedro, one who was very confident in his own wisdom, and would undertake to make solution of what difficulty soever the King at any time propounded; of which he so insolently boasted, that coming to the King's ear, he was much incensed thereat; and to let him know what distance his weakness had from essential wisdom, he caused him to be sent for; and when he, according to his summons made appearance before him, the King at the first, to humour his self-conceit, began much to applaud his witty and ready answers, which not a little pleased him, but at the length concluded somewhat more sharply, telling him that he would propose three Problems; of the interpretations of which, if he could not within one and twenty days give him a true and plenall account, both his life and goods were immediately forfeit to the crown; and this sentence notwithstanding any means or mediation, no way to be altered. The three Questions were these, which he delivered unto him in writing:  
The first,  

What hath man's labour most increased, 
The 3. Questions propounded.   
Yet of itself desires it least.   
The second,  

What hath to man most honour gained,  
And yet with least lust is maintained.   
The third,  

What thing is it men soon rue,  
Yet they with greatest charge pursue.   
These he no sooner received, but the King with a contracted brow departed, and so left him; by which he might easily conjecture in what a dangerous straight he was now environed: and returning very sad home, and having long ruminated upon these riddles, but wanting an Oedipus to unfold them, he grew into a deep melancholy, insomuch that he abstained both from meat and sleep: which observed by his daughter Petronella, a fair and beautiful virgin, of some sixteen years of age, or thereabout, she so far insinuated into her father's discontents, and to know the cause thereof; that at length upon her great importunity he unfolded the whole matter unto her: who after some pause, began greatly to comfort him, and told him she would interpose herself betwixt him and all danger; who though he had little hope to be relieved by her, yet out of his indulgence towards her, not willing to cross her, especially in so desperate a case, he told her he would be swayed according to her direction; which was, that upon the day prefixed she might go with him to appear before the King, and that to her he would commit the solution of these questions; which was agreed upon betwixt them.  
Imagine the day come, and the King attended by his Lords and Peers, seated in his Throne, to expect Don Pedroes' answer; who presenting himself before his Majesty, attended with his daughter; (who was very sumptuously attired) besought his Majesty, that whilst he himself was silent, he would vouchsafe to hear what his daughter could say concerning these problems before propounded.  
The King much taken on the sudden with her beauty and modest behaviour, and in a great expectation whether she were able to deliver herself in language answerable to the former, gave her free liberty of speech; when bowing her face to the earth, and after settling herself upon her knees, she began as followeth: Wonder you may my Royal Liege, that so grave and experienced a Knight as my father here present, should lay all his fortunes both of life and livelihood, upon so weak and infirm an apprehension, which cannot be better expected from my tender years, and immature knowledge; yet since his confidence is so far built on me, and your high Majesty so gracious to accept of me, I make bold thus further to proceed.  
Touching the first Question,  

What hath man's labour most increased,  
Yet of itself desires it least.   
In my weak understanding, I take it to be the Earth, the mother of all 
The Earth.  creatures, rational or irrational, sensitive or vegetative; which though men daily dig and delve, plough or furrow, mine and undermine, trenching her sides and wounding her entrails, not suffering her to have the least cessation of rest in any of the four seasons; yet she in her own fertility and annual vicissitude without these injuries, is able of herself to yield herbs and flowers, grass and hay, plants and trees, with food and sustenance in abundance to all creatures bred upon her (still teeming) womb; who, as she delivers them into the world, not only fosters and cherisheth them, but when their Date is run, and their time expired, receiveth them again into her own breast, from whence they had their first being.  
Touching the second, I take it to be Humility; which teacheth a man 
Humility.  how to rule his affections, and to keep a mediocrity in all his actions. The high Creator dwelleth in Heaven, and if we arrogantly lift up ourselves unto him, he will fly from us; but if we humbly bow ourselves before him, he will descend down upon us. Humilitas animi, sublimitas Christiani; In Humility is a Christian man's minds sublimity: It stirs up affection, augmenteth good will, supports equity, and preserves a common weal in safety; It is apt to repentance, hungering after righteousness, and conversant in deeds of mercy: It hath brought these good things to pass, which no other reason or virtue could effect: And whosoever shall desire to ascend where the Father is, much first put on that humility which the Son teacheth; and most happy is the man whose calling is high, and his spirit humble; of which virtue I may truly conclude with your Question,  

Man hath by that most honour gained,  
And yet with least loss is maintained.   
The third the most basely vile, and yet the highest valued; the most cursed to manage, yet the most costly to maintain; in my ignorant conceptions I hold to be Pride: which being first hatched in heaven, in an instant, precipitated 
Pride.  Lucifer and his Angels headlong into hell: which perceiving Humility to be honourable, desireth often to be covered with the cloak thereof; lest appearing always in its own likeness, it might thereby be the less regarded. I shall not need much to amplify the vice, nor to aggravate the sin; a spice whereof (may I speak it with pardon) hath been discovered even in this my best beloved parent: and to avoid prolixity,  

It is that thing men soon rue,  
And yet with greatest charge pursue.   
With which answer so modestly delivered, and in a kind of matron-like gravity, (rarely to be found in one of her tender and young years) the King was so highly raptured, that he not only received her father into former grace, but spoke openly, (being then a Bachelor) that had she been borne of noble blood, he would have made her his Queen and Royal Consort; and taking her from the earth, caused her to stand before him: when instantly news was brought him that an Earldom was then fallen unto the Crown, which he presently for her sake conferred upon Don Pedro her father: of which she taking advantage, fell down again upon her knees, 
Advantage well taken.  to give the King thanks for so great an honour bestowed upon him; for which she prostrated unto him in all humble manner her life and service, adding withal some words to this purpose: My Royal Liege, excuse my overboldness, if I challenge your Majesty of your Kingly word and promise passed unto me before all this presence; who demanding of her wherein he was any way engaged? she made reply, But late great Sir, you said that were I noble, you would accept of my unworthy self as your royal Bride and Spouse: Then pardon my presumption if I thus far prompt your memory, to put your Highness in mind that I am now not only (by your Grace) ennobled, but an Earl's daughter; at which word covering her face with her hand, she concluded in a bashful and modest blush: All which so highly pleased the King, that making good his Princely word, he gave order for the present celebration of their nuptial. 
Their marriage.   
This History though it have a comical conclusion, yet is pertinent to the discourse now in agitation; for Don Pedroes' pride of knowledge was senteneed with death, and his life, (howsoever redeemed by his fair and virtuous daughter) was immediately forfeit by the doom of the King; and therefore the judgement in Justice, howsoever not in execution, remarkable.  
We read in the French Chronicle of one jordaine of Lisle, by Nation a Gascon, and Nephew to Pope john the two and twentieth of that name, a man of a most high and insolent spirit, daring any thing though never so facinorous, cruel, inhuman, or bloody, building all his heinous and horrid acts upon the greatness of his Uncle; who after he had been pardoned for eighteen capital crimes, still grew more impious and shameless, (former mercy making him still the more presumptuous) at the last being apprehended and brought to Paris, he was arraigned, convicted, and condemned by Charles the fourth, (surnamed the Fair) King of France; where notwithstanding his great allies, he suffered like a common fellow and murderer on the Gallows.  
It is credibly reported also of a proud Italian Gentleman, borne in Genoa, who in a single duel having the better of his Antagonist in the field, insomuch that he disarmed him of his weapon; and the other now standing at his mercy, he fell to parley with him upon these terms, that there was no way for him to escape immediate death, but by abjuring his Christianity and renouncing his Saviour, to which the other through base timorousness assented; of which the Victor taking devilish advantage, even in the midst of his most impious Apostasy, he stabbed him to the heart and slew him, uttering these (more than heathenish) words: before I had been only revenged upon thy body, but now I have sent both thy body and soul to the Devil, and that's a revenge which deserves a chronicle: But what became of this firebrand of Hell, and limb of the Devil? being apprehended for the murder, and his diabolical proceedings in the act being related to the Judges; as a terror to others he was first committed to the rack, and after many other insufferable tortures, despairing of all mercy from God, having showed no compassion towards man, he most miserably ended his life.  
One Herebert, Earl of Vermendoys in France, was of that haughty and insolent spirit, that he durst lay hands upon his Sovereign, Charles, King of France (surnamed the Simple) who caused him to be imprisoned, and under whose custody he shortly after died at Peroune; which seemed for a time to be smothered, and he still subsisted in his former eminency: but where man seemeth most to forget, God doth remarkably remember; nor doth he suffer deeds of such horrid nature to pass unpunished in this world, what vengeance soever he (without true repentance) reserveth for them in the world to come; as it is observable in this present History: for Lewis the fourth, the thirty third King of France, by lineal descent, coming to the Crown, (being the son to the beforenamed Charles the simple) and loath that so gross a treason committed against his father, should be smothered without some notable revenge; (being very ingenious) he bethought himself how with the least danger or effusion of blood, in regard of the others greatness and alliance, how to bring it about; and therefore he devised this plot following. He caused a letter to be writ, which he himself did dictate, and hired an Englishman who came disguised like a Post to bring it unto him as from the King his Master, at such a time when many of his Peers were present; and amongst the rest this Herebert was amongst them: this suborned Post delivereth the letter to the King's hands, he gives it to his principal Secretary, who read it privately unto him; who presently smiling, said openly, Most sure the Englishmen are not so wise as I esteemed them to be: for our Brother of England hath signified unto me by these letters, that in his Country a labouring-man having invited his Lord and Master to dine with him at his house, and he vouchsafing to grace his Cottage with his presence; in the base requital of so noble a courtesy, he caused him to be most treacherously slain: and now my Brother of England desireth my counsel, to know what punishment this fellow hath deserved? In which I desire to be instructed by you my Lords, that hearing your censures, I may return him the more satisfactory answer.  
The King having ended his Speech, the Lords were at first silent, till at length Theobant Earl of Bloyes was the first that spoke, and said, that he was worthy first to be tortured, and after to be hanged on a Gibbet; which 
A just censure.  sentence all the Lords there present confirmed: and some of them amongst the rest, much aggravating the punishment, which also Herebert Earl of Vermendoys did approve and allow of: whereupon the King's Officers, who by his Majesty's appointment then waited in a withdrawing room of purpose, seized upon him with an armed guard: at which sudden surprise he being much amazed, the King raising himself from his seat, said, Thou Hebert art that wicked and treacherous labourer, who didst most traitorously 
His own tongue condemned him.  insidiate the life of my father, thy Lord and Master; of which felonious act thine own sentence hath condemned thee, and die thou shalt, as thou hast well deserved: whereupon he was hanged on a Gibbet on the top of a Mountain called Lodan, which since his execution is called Mount Hebert to this day.  
Bajazet the great Emperor of the Turks, who in his mighty pride thought with his numerous Army to drink rivers dry, and to weight the mountains in a balance; who had made spoil of many Nations, and with tyranny persecuted the Christians, dispersed through his vast dominions: who compared the world to a Ship, and himself to the Pilot: who commanded the sails, and secured the helm: yet afterwards being met in battle by Scythian Tamburlaine, and his Army being quite routed, his person also taken prisoner in the field, the Conqueror put this untamed beast into an iron cage, and caused him to be fed from the very fragments and scraps from his table; and carried along with him whither soever he marched, and only then released him from his imprisonment, when he was forced to stoop and humble his body as a block to tread upon, whilst Tamburlaine mounted upon his steed: but here ended not God's visible Judgements against this Usurper, Persecutor, and Tyrant; who in despair railing upon his Prophet Mahomet, in whom he had in vain trusted, against the Iron grate in which he was enclosed, beat out his own brains, and wretchedly expired. Infinite are the examples to the like purpose, but I will leave those Foreign to come to our Domestic, extracted out of our own Chronologers, and first of King Bladud.  
Who was the son of Lud Hurdribras, and after the death of his father, 
Histories out of our own Chronicles, in which the sin of pride hath been most severely punished.  was called from Rome, where he had studied dark and hidden Arts, and was made Governor in this Isle of Britain, in the year of the world four thousand three hundred and eighteen, (For so testifieth Gualfride Polichronicon, and other ancient remembrancers. This Bladud was altogether devoted to the study of Magic and Necromancy, and very expert in Judicial Astrology, by which he is said to make the hot Baths in the Town then called Caerbadon, but now Bath; which City he is said to have erected. This King caused the Art of Magic to be taught through his Realm, and ordained Schools and School masters to that purpose, in which he took such pride and presumption, as that he thought by it all things were possible to be done: so much the Devil, the first master and founder of that Art had deluded him so far, that at the length having called a great confluence of his people about him, he made an attempt to fly in the are, but fell upon the Temple of his god Apollo, where he broke his neck, his body being torn and bruised after he had reigned twenty years; leaving a son called Leire to succeed him, and continue his posterity.  
Goodwin, Earl of west Saxon, in the time of Edward the son of Egelredus, was of that insufferable ambition, by reason of his great revenues, and numerous issue, (for he had five sons and one daughter) that he swayed the whole Kingdom, and almost compulsively compelled the King his Sovereign, to take his daughter Edith to wife: After rebelling against the King, and forced with his sons to depart the Land, yet after he made such means, that he mediated his peace, and was reconciled to him 〈◊〉 but amongst all his other insolences he was accessary to the death of the King's brother, or at least much suspected to be so, which was the first breach betwixt his Sovereign and him: But so it happened in the thirteenth year of the reign of this King Edward, Earl Goodwin upon an Easter Monday sitting with divers other Lords and Peers of the Kingdom, at the King's table in the Castle of Windsor, it happened one of the King's Cup ●ea●●●s to stumble, and yet well to recover himself without falling; and not spilling any of the wine: which Earl Goodwin observing, laughed aloud and said, There one brother helped the other, (thereby intimating that the one leg or foot had well supported the other from falling.) To which words the King instantly replied, and so might my brother Alphred have been still living to have helped and supported me, had not Earl Goodwin supplanted him by death: At which words being startled as conceiving that the King suspected him of his brother's murder, thinking to excuse himself of that horrible act; he said to the King, Sir, I perceive by your speeches late uttered, that some who are no wellwishers of mine, but rather seek to poison my reputation with your Majesty, have possessed you that I have been accessary to the death of your brother; and proceeded further (having then a piece of bread in his hand, ready to put into his mouth) but so may I safely swallow this morsel, as I am altogether innocent and guiltless of the act: which straining to eat, he was therewith immediately choked at the table; which the King seeing, and observing the strange Judgement inflicted upon his perjury, he commanded his body to be dragged from thence, & conveyed to Winchester, & there buried.  
But Marianus and some others write, that he was not choked with bread, but upon his former false protestation, dining with the King upon an Easter Monday at Winchester, he was suddenly struck with a dead palsy, and died the third day after. Neither did Gods Judgements upon him end here, but after his death all his Lands in Kent (which were very spacious and great, were eaten up and swallowed by the Sea, and turned into dangerous quick sands, on which many a goodly vessel hath since been shipwrackt, and they bear the name of goodwin's sands even to this day.  
Harold the second son of Earl Goodwin, after the death of his elder brother Swanus, aswell heir to his father's insolent and aspiring spirit, as to his Earldom and Lands: in the twentieth year of the reign of the beforenamed Edward the Confessor, he sailed into Normandy to visit some of his friends; but by adverse winds, and a sudden tempest at Sea, he was driven upon the Province of Pountiffe, where he was taken prisoner, and sent to Duke William of Normandy, who enforced him to swear, that he should marry with his daughter when she came to mature age; and farther, that after the death of King Edward, he should keep the Crown of England to his behoof, according to the will of the Confessor: to both which Articles having solemnly sworn, he was dismissed from the bastard Duke, and with great and rich gifts sent back to England.  
But after the death of Edward, in the year of the Incarnation, one thousand threescore and six, Harold forgetting his former oath and promise made to Duke William, he caused himself to be crowned King of the Land; who was no sooner warm in his Throne, but Harold Harfoot son to Canutus, with a puissant host of Danes invaded the Realm, whom Harold of England met in a set battle, slew him hand to hand, and discomfited his whole Army; for he was of an invincible hardiness and valour: which victory was no sooner obtained, but news was brought him that William of Normandy was landed with a potent Army, to claim his right and interest he had in the Crown of England, by the last Testament of Edward the Confessor; with these tidings being thoroughly heated, he marched with all speed from the North, scarce suffering his Army to rest by the way, to give the Normans battle, betwixt whom was a dreadful and bloody conflict: But when the victory rather hovered over the English then the other, Harold after many deep and dangerous wounds, was shot into the eye with an arrow and slain. In whose death may be observed Gods heavy Judgements against price and perjury.  
Of my first sin, namely Pride, none hath ever been by our English Chronologers more justly taxed then that French Gerson, Pierre Gavestone, the great misleader and seducer of Edward the second; whom though his Royal Father King Edward the first, surnamed Longshanks, upon his deathbed caused to be banished; yet the son was no sooner inaugurated and admitted to the government of the Realm, but contrary to the wills of all his Lords and Peers, he caused his Exile to be repealed, sent for him over, and advanced him to great honour: in which he demeaned himself like a proud upstart, or as our English Proverb goes, Like a beggar set on horseback, who is ready to ride post to the Devil: for whose sake the King committed William Lancton Bishop of Chester (in the second year of his reign) to the Tower, because he had persuaded the King against his Minion, for which the Barons of the Realm, and especially Sir Henry Lacie, Sir Guy, and Sir Aymery de Valence, Earl of Lincoln, of Warwick and Pembroke, to whom the late King had given charge for his exile upon his deathbed, wrought so far by their power, that contrary to the Kings will, he was avoided the Land, and banished into Ireland for that year, whither his Majesty sent many secret messengers with rich gifts to comfort him, and made him chief Ruler of that Country.  
But in the third year of his reign, divers grudges and discontents began to arise betwixt the King and his Nobles, insomuch, that for quietness sake, and in hope of his amendment, he was again repealed, but more and more increased in his insufferable insolence, insomuch, that having charge of all the King's Jewels and Treasure, he went to Westminster, and out of the King's Jewell-house took a Table and a pair of trestles all of pure gold, and conveyed them (with other precious gems) out of the Land, to the great exhausting and impoverishing of the same: by whose wanton effoeminacies, and loose conditions, he drew the King to many vicious courses, as adulteries, and the like: which mischiefs the Lords seeing daily to increase, they took counsel again at Lincoln, and notwithstanding the King's main opposer, he was a second time confined into Flanders, but in his fifth year was again sent for over, when not able to contain himself from his immoderate luxury, as he demeaned himself far more arrogantly than before, insomuch that he disdained and had in contempt all the Peers of the Land, giving them much opprobrious and despiteful language, wherefore seeing there was no hope of his amendment, with an unanimous consent they vowed to rid the Land of such a Caterpillar, and soon after besieged him in the Castle of Scarborrow, and taking the Fort they surprised him, and brought him to Gaversed besides Warwick, and the nine and twentieth day of ●une smote off his head. Thus was Gods just doom against his pride, luxury, and avarice.  
But there succeeded him both in ambition and the King's favour, of our own Natives, the two Spencers, the father and the son, his great minions and favourites, who both in wealth, power, and pride, overtopped all the Nobles of the Land, commanding their Sovereign, and confounding the Subjects, of whom you may read in the Records of the Tower, that in the fourteenth year of this Edward the second, Hugh Spencer the elder, for his riots and extortions being condemned by the Commonalty, and expelled the Land, an Inventory of his estate being taken, it was found by inquisition that the said Spencer had in sundry Shires fifty nine Manors, and in his possession of his own goods and chattels, twenty eight thousand sheep, one thousand oxen and steers, twelve hundred beefs with their calves, forty mares with their colts, one hundred and threescore drawing horses for the team, two thousand hogs, three hundred bullocks, in his cellar forty tons of wine, he had moreover six hundred bacons, and fourscore carcases of Martinmasse beefs, six hundred muttons in larder, ten tons of cider, besides his provision of ale, (for beer in these days was not known) thirty six sacks of wool, with a fair library of books, and other rich and costly utensils; his armour, plate, jewels, and ready money, amounting to more than an hundred thousand pounds; but what in the end became of all this magazine? This Spencer being after called home by the King, and restored to all his former estate, maugre the Queen and the chief Peers of the Realm, she with an Army pursued the King, with these his proud favourites; the father she surprised in Bristol, (which Town the King had fortified and left unto his charge) himself for his better safeguard flying with his son into Wales, whither she pursued them, and sensed upon them both, bringing Sir Hugh the elder, and Sir Hugh the younger to Hereford, where upon the morrow following the Feast of Simon and jude, at Bristol Sir Hugh Spencer the father upon a public scaffold lost his head, and his body was after buried at Winchester; and upon Saint Hugh's day following being the eighteenth of November was Sir Hugh his son drawn, hanged, and quartered at Hereford and his head sent to London, and was set upon a pole amongst other Traitors, of whom a Poet of those times made this short Epitaph.  

Funis cum lignis à te miser ensis & ignis,  
Hugo securis equus, abstulit omne decus.   
And thus paraphrased or interpreted in old English, suiting these times.  

With ropes wert thou bound, and on the gallows hung,  
And from thy body thine head with sword was kit,  
Thy bowels in the fire were thrown, and burned long,  
Thy body in four parts eke with axe was slit,  
With horse before drawn, few men pitying it,  
Thus with these torments for thy sin's sake,  
From thee wretched Hugh, all worldly wealth was take.   
And these were remarkable judgements of such as being raised from humble and mean fortunes to high and eminent posture through pride and vainglory, attributed that to their own merit which is only due to their Maker.  
I come next to Sir Roger Mortimer, who being highly puffed up with the favour that he had from Queen Isabel, who in the minority of her young son Edward swayed all, during the imprisonment of her husband Edward the second, whether by the Queen's consent or no, I dare not say, but of most assured truth it is, that this Roger caused the King to be removed from Kenelworth Castle to the Castle of Barkley, where by his direction and command he was most bloodily and inhumanely murdered. After which Edward his son (the third of that name) at the age of fifteen years was crowned King, but for a time kept in a kind of pupillage under the Queen and Mortimer, betwixt whom there was suspected to have been too much familiarity, in whose power was all the management of State, and many things passed by them to the great dishonour of the Kingdom. This Mortimer was by the King made Earl of March, who imitated King Arthur by keeping so many Knights of the Round Table, to whom he allowed both meat and means, and bore himself in that high strain, that he had in contempt the greatest Peers in the Land, but in process of time he was surprised in Votengham Castle, and from thence sent prisoner to the Tower of London, when a Parliament being called in the fourth year of the King, He was convicted of five Articles: first, of the murder of the King; next, that he had dealt perfidiously betwixt our Nation and the Scots; thirdly, that he received certain sums of money from Sir Thomas Douglas, and caused to be delivered unto them the Church called Rugium, to their great advantage and England's prejudice; fourthly, that he had got unlawfully into his possession much of the King's treasure, and wastefully misspent it; and lastly, that he was more private with the Queen than was to God's pleasure or the King's honour: of all which being convicted by the said Parliament; upon Saint Andrews day, next following he was drawn upon an hurdle to the common place of execution (since called Tyburn) and there like a Felon and Traitor upon the Gallows hanged, such is the end of greatness when it abandons goodness and honour, and opposeth itself against humility.  
Great also were the arrogancies and insolences of Sir William Scroop Earl of Wiltshire, and Treasurer of England, Sir john Bushey, Sir Henry Green, and others, in the time of Richard the second, who by him greatly animated and encouraged, greatly vexed and oppressed the people, men advanced from the cottage to the Court, and from baseness to honour, who through their great pride forgetting from whence they came; in their surplus of wealth, and height of ambition, were surprised in Bristol by Henry Duke of Lancaster (as cankers and caterpillars of the Commonwealth) the son of john of Gaunt, who then laid claim to the Crown, and by him caused to be executed on a public scaffold. Infinite are Gods threatening judgements to this purpose, of which there be infinite examples, but being loath to tyre the Reader with too much prolixity, I will conclude this Tract against pride with one notable precedent as much (if not more remarkable) than any of the former.  
In the time of King Henry the eighth, Thomas Wolsey Archbishop of York and Cardinal, had in his hall daily three Tables or Board's, managed by three principal Officers; a Steward, who was always a Priest; a Treasurer, no less degreed than a Knight; and a Controller, who was by Place an Esquire; he had also a Cofferer, who was a Doctor of Divinity; three Marshals, three Yeomen Ushers in the Hall, besides two Grooms, and Almners: in his Kitchen belonging to the Hall, two Clerks of the Kitchen, a Clerk Controller, a Surveyour of the Dresser, a Clerk of the Spicery, (and these kept a continual mess in the Hall) two master-cookes, and of other Cook's Labourers and Children of the Kitchen twelve persons, four Yeomen of the ordinary Scullery, four Yeomen of the silver Scullery, two Yeomen of the Pastry, with two or three Pastulers under the Yeomen.  
In his Privy Kitchen he had a Master-cook who wore always Satin and Velvet with a great chain of gold about his neck, with two other Yeomen and a Groom, in the Scalding-house a Yeoman and two Grooms, in the Pantry two Yeomen; in the Buttery two Yeomen, two Grooms, and two Pages; in the Chandry, two Yeomen; in the Wafery, two Yeomen; in the Wardrobe of Beds, the Master of the Wardrobe, and ten other persons attending; in the Laundry, a Yeoman, and a Groom, thirty Pages, two Yeomen-purveyours, and one Groom; in the Bakehouse, a Yeoman and two Grooms; in the Woodyard, a yeoman and a Groom; in the Barn one; in the Garden, a Yeoman and two Grooms; a Yeoman of his Barge, a Master of his Horse, a Clerk of the Stable, and a Yeoman, a Saddler, a Farrier, a Yeoman of his Chariot, a Sumptur-man, a Yeoman of his Stirrup, a Muleteer, and sixteen Grooms of his Stable, every one keeping four Geldings; Porters at his Gate, two Yeomen and two Grooms; in the Almnery, a Yeoman and a Groom.  
In his Chapel he had a Dean, who was a great Divine, and a man of excellent learning; a Subdean, a Repeater of the Quire, a gospeler, an Epistoler, ten singing Priests, a Master of the Children-quiristers, twelve Seculars being singing men of the Chapel, ten singing boys with a servant to attend upon them; in the Revestry, a Yeoman and two Grooms, besides divers retainers who repaired to his Palace at principal feasts.  
The rich Furniture of his Chapel almost exceeded apprehension, for jewels and sumptuous ornaments continually there used, where have been seen in a Procession about the Hall four and forty rich Copes all of one suit, with Crosses, and Candlesticks, and other furniture of great value; he had moreover two Crosse-bearers, and two Pillar-bearers in his Great-chamber; and in his Privy-chamber, a Chamberlain and a Vice-chamberlain, twelve Gentlemen-ushers, besides one continually in his Privy-chamber, and six Gentlemen-waiters, he had ten Lords to attend him, and every one had two Gentlemen to attend upon them, only the Earl of Derby had five allowed him; he had of Gentlemen, Cupbearers, Carvers, Sewers, and the like, to the number of forty persons, six Yeomenushers, eight Grooms, and Yeomen that daily waited in his Chamber forty five.  
Sixteen Doctors and Chaplains besides those of his Chapel continually waited at his Trencher, with the Clerk of the Closet, two Secretaries, two Clerks of the Signet, and four Counselors learned in the Laws, and for as much as it was necessary, for divers Officers of the Chancery to attend him; namely, the Clerk of the Crown, a riding Clerk, a Clerk of the Hamper, a Clerk of the Wax, and a Clerk of Check; he gave means and allowance to them all; he had also four Footmen clothed in rich Coats with his Arms embroidered upon them; an Herald at Arms, a Sergeant at Arms, a Physician, an Apothecary, four chief Musicians with their Consort, a Keeper of his Tents, an Armourer, an Instructor of his Wards, two Yeomen of his Wardrobe of Robes, and a Keeper of his Chamber continually in the Court; he had moreover in his House the Surveyour of York, a Clerk of the Green-cloath, and all these were with him uprising and downlying, and dieted at his charge; he kept in his Great-chamber a continual Table for the Chamberers and Gentlemen-Officers, with a Mess of young Lords, and another of young Gentlemen; nor was there any Officers Gentlemen or other persons of account, but were allowed some one, some two, some three servants to attend them, which no question grew to a mighty number, besides Officers extraordinary, retainers and suitors who might come freely and dine in the Hall without any to contradict them: and thus far out of his Check role, whereby we see his exceeding greatness, but of which grew such pride, that he blushed not to prefer himself before his Sovereign, in these words, Ego & Rex meus, I and my King. But to conclude with him, this potent prelate falling after into a praemunire, forfeited his whole estate to the Crown, and then (though late) confessing, That if he had sought so much to honour God as he had strived to honour his King, he might still have continued in his revenue eminently: and being deprived of all his power and pomp, riches and substance, and brought almost to the extremest indigence and penury, being sent for from York to London, (as some have supposed to answer for his life) he fell sick by the way, and in a poor Friary ended his wretched days not without suspicion of poison; and such have been God's judgements from the beginning against this first and capital of the seven mortal sins called Pride, of which I cease to write further, and proceed to the second.   

CHAP. II. Of God's just Judgements inflicted upon envious persons.  
ENvy is defined to be a grievance and sorrow for the thriving and prosperity of others, who in his heart would kill the happiness of his Neighbour, and before God is held no better than an Homicide, the Hebrews call it Kineah and Kanno, which is Emulation or Envy, in which we are said four ways to offend; first, when we grieve at the good estate or fortune of another man, as fearing because of his ability, he may be also willing to endamage us or others. Secondly, when we repine at another man's felicity, because we have not what he hath, nor abound with the like abundance and riches, and this the Philosopher cales Zelus, and the first may be in some kind held laudable, If we emulate a man for his virtues and goodness seeking by imitating to exceed them, but if it be for temporal goods it may be brought within the compass of sin. The third is, when we malign another man, because he enjoys these temporal blessings which he doth not deserve, and such vexation, because it is concerning riches and honour, which happen both to the worthy and unworthy alike, by the Philosopher it is called Nemesis, which though Aristotle approves, yet our Christian Religion will not allow. The fourth is, when we are sad and troubled at our neighbour's increase in wealth and substance, because he exceedeth us, and we are not so rich nor so well possessed as he; and this is plain Envy in her own natural and absolute colours, and is always evil, and is a mortiferous sin, because we grieve at that at which we ought to rejoice; namely, the prosperity of our neighbour, and this the Schoolmen distinguish into three branches, mortal, venial, capital.  
That is called mortal, when it is hatched and premeditated, nay prosecuted by the consent of reason, because it directly opposeth the Charity due from us to our neighbour. That which is called venial, is an emulation bred merely in sensuality or wantonness, when there was no preceding of the consent of reason: and as they are the first motions, so they are held to be idle and imperfect. The third is called capital, because from it ariseth susurratio, that is, a muttering or murmuring behind one's back, striving to darken or eclipse the reputation or good name of another in secret. Next Detraction, when openly we scandal or revile any man to lessen his worth, or darken his glory. Then Exultation, when we triumph or rejoice in the disaster or distress of our neighbour. Next Affliction, when we are grieved and discontented at his prosperity. And lastly, Od●um, or hate, by which we are not only sadded and molested at his happiness, but withal we insidiate his estate, or malevolently desire his ruin.  
Frequent are the Texts in the holy Scripture, against this sin of Envy, and sundry examples to show it hath been even from the beginning, and so continued through all succeeding Ages: it was betwixt the two first Brothers, for we read Genesis 4. 5. Because God accepted Abel's offering, and despised that of Cain, He was exceeding wroth, and his countenance fell down: (among strangers) Because Isaac had flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and a mighty household, Therefore the Philistims had envy at him, insomuch that they stopped and filled up with earth all the wells which his father's servants digged in his father Abraham's time, etc. Betwixt Sisters, When Raechel saw that she bore jaacob no children, she envied her Sister, and said unto her husband, Give me children or I die. In Joseph's brethren, who when they saw that their father jacob loved him more than them, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him; and when he dreamt a dream and told it his brethren, the Text saith, they hated him the more: Against which you shall read, Levit. 19 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, but thou shalt plainly rebuke thy neighbour, and suffer him not to sin. Thou shalt not avenge, nor be mindful of wrong against the children of thy people, but shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.  
We find in the twelfth of Numbers, that when Aaron and Miriam murmured against Moses, because he had married a woman of Ethiopia, the Lord was therefore angry with them, and immediately Miriam was struck with a Leprosy white as snow. Saul envied David, because the Virgins in their songs and dances, gave to him but the honour of killing thousands, and to David ten thousands. In Eliab the brother of David, who when he spoke unto the men that stood with him, and said, What shall be done to him that killeth this Philistime, (meaning Goliath) and taketh away the shame from Israel, etc. Eliab this hearing was very angry with David, and said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom whom hast thou left those few sheep in the Wilderness? I know the pride and the malice of thine heart, that thou art come down to see the battle: in Sanballat and Tobias, who envied and hindered the building of the Temple, as you may read in Nehemiah. In the Princes and Officers of Darius, Dan. 6. 4. who sought an occasion against him concerning the Kingdom, but they could find no fault; for he was so faithful, that no blame could be found in him.  
Come to the New Testament, or Gospel: In the Pharisees, Mat 9 11. 
Examples in the Gospel.  who said to the Disciples of Jesus, Why eateth your Master with Publicans and Sinners? Again, Luke 19 39 Then some of the Pharisees said unto him, Master, rebuke thy Disciples. In the Disciples of john, Mat. 9 14. Then came the Disciples of john to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but thy Disciples fast not? In the chief Priests and Scribes, Matth. 21. 15. Who when they saw the marvels that he did, and the children crying in the Temple, Hosanna to the son of David, they disdained. In the Jews; who when they were gathered together, and Pilate said unto them, Whether will you that I let loose unto you, Barrabas, or jesus which is called Christ? They said Barrabas. In the brother of the Prodigal, Luke 15. 25. Now the elder brother was in the field, and when he came near unto the house and heard music and dancing, he called to one of his servants and asked what these things meant? and he said unto him, thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fat Calf, because he hath received him safe and sound: then he was angry and would not go in; therefore came his father out and entreated him, etc. In the High Priests and Pharisees, john 11. 47. who gathered a Counsel and said, What shall we do, for this man doth many miracles? if we let him thus alone, all men will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and the Nation. Then Caiphas the High Priest stood up and said, Ye perceive nothing at all; nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man die for the people, and the rest perish not. In the Rulers, Elders, and Scribes, Acts 5. 17. Then the chief Priest rose up, and all that were with him (which was the sect of the Sadduces) and were full of indignation, and laid hands on the Apostles, and put them in the common prison, etc. And thus you see how envy hath been in all ages: and most fitting it is that I first show you the nature and condition of the sin, before I come to the judgements inflicted upon it.  
This Envy shooteth at others, and woundeth herself: Lions are known by their claws, Ravens by their feathers, Cocks by their spurs, and envious Men by their manners; who (like Syrian dogs) bark at the stars, and spurn at what they cannot reach; and is like lightning, which in the duskiest mist, or darkest fog, will plainliest appear. Envy is the daughter of pride, the mother of slaughter and strage, the innovator of sedition, and the perpetual tormentor of virtue: She is moreover the slime and imposthume of the soul, a daily corrasive to him in whom she abideth; a venom, a poison, a Mercury or quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh, and dries up the bones: and of vices it is said, Envy to be the most general, Pride the greatest, and Lust the foulest. The envied man doth many times forget, but the envious man doth never spare to prosecute; and as grief or pain is a disease of the body, so malice is the malady of the soul. It is a mere slave to its own affections, and is found always to wait at Virtue's elbow.  
Alanus de Plancta naturae with great elegancy saith thus: To the envious man another's prosperity is his adversity, their adversity his prosperity: At their mirth they are sad, and in their sorrow they rejoice: They imagine their own riches to subsist in other men's poverty, and their poverty to be in other men's riches. The serenity of their neighbour's fame they endeavour either by detraction to eclipse, or by silence to conceal. Inglorious Envy striveth to deface the glory of wisdom; than which, no monster more monstrous, no damage more dammageous, no torment more torturous, no sin more contagious; of blindness it is the abyss, the spur to contention, the sting of corruption, the motions whereof are adversaries to humane tranquillity, of mundane temptations the instigators and inciters; of a labouring mind the vigilant enemies, and of common peace and amity the combustuous disturbers.  
We read Proverb. 17. A seditious person seeketh only evil, and a cruel messenger shall be sent against him. He that rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. The froward heart findeth no good, and he that hath a naughty tongue falleth into evil. And Prov. 28. A man with a wicked or envious eye hasteth to riches, and knoweth not that poverty shall come upon him Wisdom. 1. 9 Inquisition shall be made for the thoughts of the ungodly, and the sound of the words shall come unto God for the correction of his iniquities: Therefore beware of murmuring which profiteth nothing, and refrain thy tongue from slander; for there is no word so secret that shall go for nought, and the mouth that speaketh lies slayeth the soul. It is the counsel of the Wise man: Eat not the bread of him that is envious, or hath an evil eye, neither desire his d 〈…〉 meats; for (as though he thought it in his heart) be will say, Eat and drink, but his heart is not with thee: thou sh〈…〉 t vomit the ●arsel● that thou hast 〈◊〉, and thou shalt lose thy sweet words, etc. The book of Wisdom 〈◊〉 us that through Envy of the Devil came death into the world, and they that hold of his side prove it: therefore let us be advised by Saint Peter, who in the second chapter of his first Epistle saith, Wherefore laying aside all maliciousness, and all guile, and dissimulation, and envy; and evil speaking as new borne babes, desire that sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby etc. But from the discovery of the foulness of the sin, I come now to show what several judgements have been inflicted upon it.  
And first to search foreign Histories before we come to fearful and tragical Examples, modern and domestic of our own, (that the one may the better illustrate and set off the other. I begin with that incestuous brood of Thebes, the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices, whose father Oedipus, ignorant of his own natural parents, and having first most unfortunately slain his own father, and after retiring himself to Thebes, by the solution of Sphinxes' riddle, married with his own mother jocasta (neither of them knowing their proximity in blood) and by that match swayed the Kingdom: together with those two beforenamed sons, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene, which he had by her. But at length having knowledge of that incestuous match made with his mother, he in grief thereof with his nails pulled out his own eyes, and she in despair strangled herself: after which the Kingdom falling to the two brothers; They first agreed to reign monthly, and then yearly by turns; but soon after there grew such malicious envy betwixt them, that whatsoever the one did in his regency, the other when the power came into his hands, utterly abrogated and disannulled, making new laws, to the former quite contrary; which also lasted but a month: for then the succeeder paid the resigner in his own coin. Upon this grew faction, and divers partisans on either side; some favouring the one, and some affecting the other; in the end from threatenings and braves, it came to battle and blows; in which the two brothers encountering hand to hand, in a single duel they interchangeably slew one another; whose envy in life was so irreconcilable and invererate, that it appeared after their deaths: for their two bodies being brought to be burnt in one funeral pile, the very flame was seen to divide itself, and burn in two parts, suiting to their opposite souls and contrary conditions.  
Another Example of God's Judgements against Envy, Greece affordeth us. Perseus' the son of Philip, King of Macedon: (but not that Philip who was father to Alexander the Great) he had an elder brother whose name was Demetrius, a man of most approved honesty, and imitable condition; whose known virtues his younger brother, of a malevolent and cumbered spirit much envying, framed a most scandalous and detracting indictment against him; pretending that he had privately insidiated his father's life and Kingdom, and sold them both unto his enemies the Romans; of which by suborned witnesses, he had made such proof, (and bribing to that purpose) prevailed so far, that he was convented, convicted, and condemned, and most innocently suffered the rigout of the Law, by having his head struck off: But the King having had notice of these barbarous and injust proceedings, surprised with excess of grief, died not long after; and this malicious fratricide succeeded in the Kingdom: who now having all things answerable to his own desires, thinking Macedonia too narrow a limit for his unbounded ambition; he in great presumption not only opposed, but invaded the Roman Empire, whose envy and detraction against his brother God thus punished: He drew him with all his puissant Army near unto the river of Danubius; where being encountered by the Roman Consul Aemilius, he and his whole host were cut to pieces, and utterly ruined; insomuch, that the power of the Macedonians being utterly confounded, it became after subject and tributary to the Roman Empire: and thus his defamatory destruction conspired against another, fell upon his own head; and is still registered to his perpetual shame and inflamy.  
It is reported of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who was a man of infinite vices, that he never spared man in his rage, not woman in his lust, to whom sisters and strangers were alike; he was so infected with this vice of envy, that in contempt of the most noble families in Rome, from the Torquati he took the honour of wearing golden chains; from the Cin●innats, (so called for their crisped and curled looks) he took their hair, and caused them to be shorn to the skull; and so of others: besides, from 〈◊〉 Pompe●●s he caused the denomination of Great to be taken away; and Aesius Proculeus a very beautiful young man, because he was for feature and favour preferred before him, he caused to be murdered: for which and other like vices he was deposed from the Imperial purple, and put to a most base, wretched, and ignoble death.  
Antoninus and Geta were the two sons of the Emperor Severus, betwixt whom he divided the Empire after his death. To Antoninus was all Europe allotted, and whole Asia was the possession and patrimony of Geta. Byzantium kept a great Garrison of Soldiers for Antoninus, and Caloedon a City of Bythinia was the place of strength, to which Geta trusted; besides, the two great Cities of Antioch and Alexandria were the Royal and Kingly feats for Geta, and Mauritania and Numidia for Antoninus; who was of a dangerous and devilish nature; but Geta of a very courteous and affable temperature: for which he was the more envied by the Elder, and his attrocities and inhumanities' as much disaffected by the younger. By which mutual enmity those glorious victories which Sever●s achieved, and after by concord and peace enjoyed, to the great advancement of the Empire; were now almost wholly ruined.  
The Empress their mother foreseeing some great and eminent disaster, gave them often very matron and pious admonitions, exhorting them to unity and concord; but her indulgent and wholesome counsel nothing prevailed with them, for daily their discord, hatred, and bloody practices increased, and the one was so jealous of the other, that they durst not eat nor drink together for fear of poison. In this mutual fear they continued, till at the length Antoninus grew so sick of his brothers general love and welfare, that his ambition is now to be the sole possessor of the whole Empire; and therefore in the dead of night, with other of his assasinates, 
One brother murdereth the other.  he violently broke open his brother's chamber, and basely murdered him, even in the sight and presence of their mother; not thinking he was throughly dead, till he had cut the head from the body: This done, he excused the fact to the Soldiers, and with large donatives so insinuated into their favours, that never was found who so much as repined at what was done; nor was he sooner well seated in the Throne Imperiall, but he caused all the friends, wellwishers, and acquaintance of Geta to be most cruelly put to death, sparing neither degree, age, nor sex, so that not one remained alive in the Commonweal of Rome: most of the rich Senators he caused to be slain, and their forfeited wealth he distributed amongst his Soldiers, who supported him in all his villainies; he slew his own wife the daughter of Plantianus, and the son of Pertinax: and such was his hatred to Geta being dead, that he destroyed all the Praefects, Proconsul's, Governors, and Officers throughout Asia, who had by him been promoted to honour. But after all his rapes, incests, and riots, murders and massacres, as possessed with all the horrid and abominable vices that have any name: As his life was detestable, so was his death remarkable; being in the midst of his sins, without any repertance was most wretchedly slain by his Soldiers, at the instigation of Macrinus after Emperor.  
Supplantation is one of the branches of Envy, concerning which I have read an History to this purpose. A Roman Emperor in those days, before 
The History of a Roman Prince.  any Christianity was professed amongst them, living in peace and tranquillity, and no sedition or insurrection being made in any of his dominions, so that the practice of Arms was quite left off, and almost forgot: This Emperor had a noble Prince to his son, naturally inclined to prowess and manhood, and wholly addicted to martial exercises. But finding no employment at home, he had a great desire to know what military exercises were abroad: wherefore making choice of one Gentleman to be his friend and companion, whom he valued as a second self, furnished with gold and treasure sufficient, unknown to any, betook themselves to sea; and after much perilous navigation they landed in Persia, at such time as the Sultan had wars with the Caliph of Egypt. The Prince with his companion (concealing his birth and Country) put himself under the Sultan's service, in which he so bravely demeaned himself, that he grew remarkable through the Army, and none in all the host was able to compare with him in daring or doing, he so far transcended them all: insomuch, that by his valour the Sultan had many brave victories; and having but one only daughter, a Lady of incomparable beauty, he had a secret purpose to take an advantage to bestow her upon him, with all the Royalties of Sceptre, Sword, Crown, and Dominion after his decease. In process it so happened, that in a dreadful battle fought betwixt the Persians and Egyptians, the Sultan was mortally wounded in the eye with an arrow; yet his body he yet living, was safely brought to his Tent by this Roman Prince, who before his death drew out a ring of great value, and gave it unto him, saying, my only daughter upon my paternal benediction hath vowed and sworn, that whosoever shall deliver this ring from me to her, she will without any scruple or evasion, accept him for her husband: and this I 
The Sultan's great love to the Prince.  freely bestow on thee, and with these last words he expired. Whose funeral being performed, and by his death the wars ended, the Prince with this ring retires himself with his companion towards Grand Kayre, and by the way revealed unto his friend all that had passed betwixt him and the Sultan, concerning the Princess, and withal showed him the ring; who most perfidiously watching his opportunity in the night, whilst the Prince was fast sleeping, he stole away the ring: and posting to the Court, presented it to the Lady, who accepting both of it and him, the false Imposter had her to wife, and was crowned King of Persia. For which affront, not able to right himself, his great spirit was so afflicted, that he grew into a dangerous and deadly fever; yet before his death he writ a Letter, and sent it to his Father and the Senate, in which he discovered the whole passage of the business as is before related, and then died: who by Ambassadors informing the Queen and the State of Persia, the truth of all which was confirmed by the dying Princes Letter. The Impostor at length confessed all, but because he had been their King, the State would not put him to death or torture, but delivered him to the Roman Ambassadors to dispose of him at their pleasure: who carrying him to Rome with the body of the dead Prince, he was doomed to be shut alive into the Prince's Sepulchre, where the traitorous wretch most miserably finished his days.  
A second to the like purpose we read in the History of the Popes: which tells us that Pope Nicholas being dead, one Celestine, a man of a sincere and innocuous life and conversation, was by a common suffrage advanced to the Papacy, who bore himself with all humility and piety; whose godly life one of the proud Cardinals envying, and aiming to supplant him, he preferred a young kinsman of his to wait in his chamber; who growing in favour with his Holiness, the Cardinal gave him a long trunk of brass, through which he whispered in the Pope's ear divers times when he was slumbering, that it was Gods will, and for his soul's safety, to resign the Fatherhood over to some others, and himself to lead a private religious life; which being often done, took in him such impression, as in a public Consistory he told them what revelation he had from Heaven: humbly desiring, that with their good love and leave he might resign his great charge, and betake himself to a private and monastic life; which motion this Cardinal seconded, and by bribery and gifts (having many friends) and partisans on his side, by his voluntary resignment was elected Pope in his steed by the name of Boniface.  
Who now attaining to the height of his wishes, and being feised of the triple Diadem, was not ashamed openly to boast how fraudulently he came to that high Ecclesiastical honour, growing therewith more proud, haughty, and insolent, insomuch, that he pick● a quarrel with Lewis King of France; and would have forced his personal appearance to acknowledge him for his supreme Father and Master; which because the King denied, he excommunicated his Clergy, and interdicted his Realm, curfing him and his Subjects with Bell, Book, and Candle: But at length the King, troubled and tired with his so many contumacies, sent a Knight called Sir Guillam de Langaret with a troop of Soldiers, who so well awaited their opportunity, that as the Pope was riding from Avignon to one of his Castles in Provence called Poursorge, he surprised him, and brought him prisoner into France, then put him into a strong Tower, where for want of food he was forced to eat the flesh from his arms, and so diede of whom the story gives this Character, That he estred into the Papacy like a Fox, that he ruled like a Lion, and in the end died like a Dog.  
Nero Caesar who had all the seven deadly sins predominant in him, even in his minority and first coming to the Empire, was in a high measure worthily ashurst and branded with this horrid and abominable vice of Envy; who when Cesar Germanicus, a Prince of great hope and expectation, on whom all the eyes of Rome were fixed, was made competitor with him in the Empite, 〈◊〉 ●ligning his greatness and goodness though his near kinsman: he with his own hands tempered a strong and mo●●●serous poison, and most 〈…〉 ously inviting him to a feast, in the height of all their 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉, he caused that deadly draught to be ministered unto him: which he had no sooner tasted, but immediately he sunk from his seat, and fell down dead at the Table; at which all the guests being startled and amazed; Nero the master of the feast put it off with this sleight saying only, remove the body into some withdrawing room, and let it be buried according to the custom of Romans: but how God revenged this and other his inhumanities', you may read in his wretched and unlamented death, in the former Tractate expressed.  
Macrinus who had murdered Antoninus the brother of Geta, attaining to the Empire, when he had reigned one year, his head was cut off in Chalcedon a City of Bythinia, with his son Diadumenus, whom in his life-time he had made competitor with him in the Empire.  
Bassianus, otherwise called Heliogabalus, the son of Semiamira, succeeded in the Empire; He was first a Priest of the sun, and after by means of his grandmother Mesa (a rich and potent woman) was made Emperor; who though a young man of an extraordinary aspect and feature, able to attract the loves and affections of all men, yet was he inwardly infected with the contagion of all the vices that could be named: Insomuch, that in all his actions he rather appeared a monster then a man, so that he grew not only despised, but hateful to the people. Which the wise Lady Mesa seeing, and fearing his fall, and in his, her own ruin; as far as she could she excused his grossest crimes, laying the fault upon the tenderness of his youth; and wrought so, that by his consent Alexianus who was the son of Mammea, her daughter was admitted companion with him in the Empire, which Alexianus after called Alexander Severus, was a wise and prudent Prince, whose virtue had gained him the general love of the Senate and people; for which Heliogabalus so envied him (for vice and virtue are still in opposition) that he made many attempts to poison him, which by the care of Mesa and Mammea, were prevented. But how was this envy punished? The people seized upon Heliogabalus, with his mother Semiamira, and dragging their bodies through the chief streets of Rome, having after torn them piecemeal; would not afford them the honour of burial, but cast their quarters into the common jakes, that stood upon the river Tiber.  
Neither have women been free from this rankorous sin of Envy, as 
Envy in Women.  appeareth by the story following; and shall be made more apparent hereafter. This Prince Alexander Severus afore-named, all the time that his grandmother Mesa lived, who suffered none but grave and wise men to be about him; (insomuch that no Emperor before or after him could be said to exceed him in all these attributes that belong to an Imperial Monarch) was both beloved and feared: But she being dead, his mother Mammea grew to that height of pride, covetousness, and envy, that his indulgent sufferance of her ambition was a great, and the sole blemish of his government, who coming to maturity, and the Empire now settled in his own hands, he took to wife a daughter of one of the most noblest Senators of Rome, which was also by his mother's consent: but when this Lady came to take upon her the state of an Empress, Mammea, who challenged that title solely to herself, maliciously envying her estate; wrought so, that first the father 
Murder the fruits of Envy.  of the new Empress was put to death: and so terrible was her commandment, and her Majesty so much dreaded, that she banished both from the Court and the bed of the Emperor the innocent Empress, unto the uttermost coasts of Africa. Thus was Alexander out of a mild and gentle nature, swayed and overruled by his mother, which was the occasion of both their ruins: for Maximi●us a Thracian, borne of base parentage, his father being a shepherd, and preferred by Alexander to eminent place in the wars; taking the advantage of the murmuring of the people and soldiers, and the covetousness and envy of the mother, most treacherously conspired against his Lord and Master, the same barbarously and cruelly flew them both, and by their death aspired unto the Imperial purple.  
The French Chronicles speak of one Prince Cranne, the son of Clotharius, who having reigned forty five years at Soissons, now called the Belgic Gant, upon the decease of his elder brother Childebert, who died without issue male, was proclaimed the seventh King of France. This Cranne (on whom that may be truly construed of the Poet, 
Filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos,)  was sick of his father's life, envying and grieving that he kept him so long from the Crown: but wanting means to make him away privately by poison, or the like, because his servants about him were faithful, and not to be corrupted; he therefore opposed him by public hostility, incensing his Uncle Childebert against him, who supported him in all his insolences against his father. But Childebert being dead, and he now wanting his great support, was forced to mediate his peace with his father, who upon his submission took him to grace, and gave him his free pardon: But his former heart burning envy still boiling in his breast, he fell into a second rebellion; yet finding the success of his bad attempts to grow still worse and worse, as his last refuge, he fled to the Prince or Duke of the Britons, (whom some call Conobee, others Canubo,) who undertook to secure him from the pursuit of his father: Whereupon Clotharius with his Army invaded that Country, and joined battle with the Prince and his son, in which the Britons lost the day; their Army was routed, the Prince slain and Cranne taken prisoner, of whom his father having seized, he caused him to be shut up in an house, and with his wife and children to be burnt to death; a just judgement from heaven, but a cruel sentence from a father; who that very day twelvemonth after died, being the one and fiftyeth year of his reign.  
I come now to our Modern Histories. Ferrex and Porrex jointly succeeded their father Gorboduc in the government of this Land of Britain, in the year of the World four thousand seven hundred and eleven; and continued in love and amity for a season: but in the end, Envy the mother of all misorder and mischief so far prevailed with them, that the one began to malign the others estate; insomuch, that they both studied and devised to supplant each other, thereby to gain the entire supremacy, which first broke out in Porrex, who gathering an Army unknown to his brother, thought suddenly to surprise and kill him: of which he having notice, and yet not able for the present to provide for opposition, he was forced to fly into France; where craving aid, he was supplied with a sufficient Host of Galls: with which, landing in England, he gave his brother Porrex battle, defeated his Army, and slew him in the field: Ferrex proud of his victory retired himself to his Tent, whither his mother Midan came by night, with some of her women; and being freely admitted to the place where he lay sleeping, she with the rest most cruelly murdered him, and after cut his body into small pieces, causing them to be scattered in the field: and in these two brothers ended the line of Brute. Thus you see a most dreadful judgement against Envy, as well in the vanquished as the victor; but the greatest in the last: to be so cruelly murdered, rather by a monster then a mother.  
Morindus was the bastard son of Flavius King of Britain, by his Concubine Fanguestela; and was inaugurated in the year of the World one thousand eight hundred fourscore and ten, and made Governor of the Land: The Chronicle reports him to have been of a comely and beautiful personage, of liberal gifts, having an active body, and a most daring spirit, and strength withal above any Peer or Subject in the Land; but as a grievous stain and blemish to all these good parts and endowments, he was of an envious condition, and cruel disposition, for he grew jealous of all such as either were great in wealth, or gracious in the Court for any noble virtue: for the first, he had a way to confiscate their estate; and the latter he so suppressed, that they never came into favour, or grew to preferment: being further so subject to wrath, that whosoever crossed or vexed him, he would suddenly slay with his own hands. Afterward his Land being invaded by a Prince of Mauritania, he met him in battle, and chased him to the Sea, taking many prisoners: whom, to satisfy this cruelty and tyranny, he caused to be put to death in his presence and sight, with several sorts of torments; by heading, kill, hanging, burning, drowning, and other kinds of execution: but at the length (as testifieth Guido de Columna and others) this Morindus whom our English Chronicles call Morwith, walking by the Sea side, and spying a dreadful monster upon the shore, he out of his bold and Kingly prowess, assaying to kill the beast, after a long fight was devoured and swallowed by the monster, when he had eight years governed the Land; which was a most strange and remarkable Judgement.  
Envy and dissension was the first bondaging of this our free and noble Nation, in becoming tributary to the Romans: King Lud of famous memory being dead, during the minority of his two sons, Androgeus and Tenantius; Cassibelan the brother to Lud was made King in the year of the World, five thousand one hundred forty two, who was a Prince, noble, bountiful, just, and valorous: when the young Princes came to years of discretion, he gave to Androgeus the elder the City of London, with the Earldom of Kent; and to Tenantius the younger, the Dukedom of Cornwall. In this season julius Caesar being in the wars of France, and beholding the white cliffs and rocks by Dover, demanded of the Gauls whether it were inhabited or no? or by whom? being satisfied of his demand, he first exhorted the Britons by writing, to pay tribute to the Romans: to whom Cassibelan returned a short and sharp answer; with which Caesar much incensed, makes ready his Navy and people: but when they should have landed, they found long and sharp stakes pitched by the Britons, which put them to great trouble and danger; yet at length gaining the shore, Cassibelan with a strong Army of Britain's gave them battle, and beat them to their ships.  
Notwithstanding, Caesar soon after made a second Invasion, with a greater power, and had the like brave repulse, to his great dishonour. For which double victory Cassibelan having first given great thanks to the gods, assembled his Lords and Peers to feast them; and held sundry triumphs and sports: amongst which, two young Knights, one Nephew to the King, called Herilda; and the other Euelinus, allied to Androgeus; made a challenge for wrestling: in the performing of which exercise they grew to words, and from words to blows, so that parties were made, and in this tumult Herilda was slain; whose death the King took heinously, and sent to his Nephew Androgeus, that Euelinus might be delivered up, to know how he could acquit himself of the murder; which Androgeus denying, the King gave him to understand, that it was in his power to chastise his presumption; which the other fearing, sent to julius Caesar, not only letters, but thirty hostages, (to assure him of his fidelity) that if he would make a third attempt for Britain, he would aid him with a puissant Army: of which Caesar gladly accepting, with a strong host landed, and encamped himself near unto Canterbury; of which when Cassibelan had notice, he marched towards him, and betwixt them was fought a strong and bloody battle, where many were slain on either side, and the day likely to incline to the Britons, when on the sudden Androgeus came in with fresh forces, by which the wearied Soldiers were compelled to forsake the field, and gave place to the Romans, who slew them without mercy; so that Cassibelan, with those few that were left, retired himself to places of safety. Whose valour Caesar admiring, would not prosecute his victory any further for the present, but offered him peace, conditionally that he should pay a yearly tribute of three thousand pounds to the Romans; which conditions Cassibelan accepted, and still continued King; and Androgeus who had so basely betrayed his Country, not daring to trust his own Nation, whom in so high a nature he had injured, abandoned the Realm, and went with Caesar. Now if any shall ask me where were Gods dreadful Judgements in all this? I answer, what greater, then for a free Nation to lose their immunities, and become tributary and vassals to strangers; from which they were not freed many hundred years after.  
Long after this Constantine was made King, and left three sons behind him: Constantine the eldest (because he was of a very mild and gentle temper, and no way addicted to any martial exercise) he put into a religious house, called Saint Swithens Abbey, and made him a Monk: his two other sons were Aurelius Ambrose, and Uter, surnamed Pendragon. But Constantine the father being traitorously murdered, one Vortiger, who then was the most potent Peer in the Land; took Constantine the eldest son out of the Monastery, and made him King only in name, for he himself swayed the government of the Kingdom, with all the power that belonged to a Crown and Sceptre. Yet not with that contented, he envied the state of the innocent King; and though he had all the power, yet he could not content himself without the title; and therefore placed a guard of an hundred Picts and Scots about the King's person, and having engrossed into his hands the greatest part of the King's Treasury, he was so bountiful to those strangers, that they feared not to say openly that be better deserved to be King then Constantine; and waiting their best advantageous opportunity, murdered him: Whose head being presented to Vortiger, then at London, he made much seeming sorrow for his death; and to acquit himself of the act, caused all those hundred Knights to be beheaded: by which the people holding him innocent, crowned him King, when the other had reigned about five years: and this his coronation caused those that had the keeping of the two younger brothers, Aurelius and Uter, to fly with them into little Britain, where they remained long after: but as a just reward of this traitorous supplantation, he was never after in any peace or quietness, his Land being always in combustion and trouble; his Peers suspecting him of the death of the King, made insurrection against him; insomuch that he was forced to solicit aid of the Saxons: who though they helped him for the present; after, of his friends they grew to be his enemies, and were too mighty for him: so that when he had reigned in great molestation and trouble sixteen years, the Britons deprived him of all Kingly dignity, and crowned his eldest son Vor●imerus in his stead. Who when he had in many battles overcome the Saxons, and had almost quite expulsed them the Land, he was poisoned by his stepmother R●waine, when he had gloriously and victoriously seven years governed the Land, and his father Vortimer was again made King, who was after twice taking prisoner by Hengest King of the Saxons, and his Peers and Nobles cruelly butchered in his presence. At length the two younger brothers of Constantine invaded the Land, being aided by the distressed Britain's, and pursued him into Wales, where he and divers of his complices fortified themselves in a strong Castle; which Castle the two brothers with their Army besieged, and after many vain assaults, (it being valiantly defended) with wildfire they burned and consumed the Fort, together with Vortiger, and all his soldiers and servants.  
Worthy it is to observe by how many several kind of Judgements this sin of Envy hath been punished, as in the former examples is made apparent: namely, by the single sword, by battle, by poisoning, strangling, heading, torturing, by murdering and cutting to pieces, by being swallowed up of monsters; the living to be buried with the dead, by famishing in prison, by being torn piecemeal, and the bleeding limbs cast into common privies: some burnt with ordinary fire, others with wildfire; the brother murdering the brother, and the mother the son; the bondage and vassalling of Nations, etc. which sin, though for the commonness and familiarity it hath amongst us, is scarce minded, or thought upon; (because many who are envious may so hide it, that they may appear honest withal;) yet is this hypocrisy no excuse, for you see how hateful it is in the eyes of the Creator, by so many visible punishments thereof. But I proceed.  
After many dreadful battles fought (and not without great effusion of blood) betwixt Edmund, surnamed for his strength and valour Iron-side, the son of Ethelstane, and Canutus the son of Swanus, during this war betwixt those martial Princes, to the great desolation of the Realm, and mortality of the people; It was agreed betwixt the two Generals to conclude the difference in a single duel: The place where this should be performed was in an I'll called Olney, near unto Gloucester, encompassed with the water of the Severne: In which place at the day appointed both the Champions met, without any company or assistance; and both the hosts stood as spectators without the Isle, there awaiting the fortune of the battle: where the Princes first proved one another with sharp spears, and they being broken, with keen cutting swords; where after a long fierce combat, both being almost tired, by giving and receiving of hard and ponderous blows, at length (the first motion coming from Canutus) they began to parley; and lastly to accord, friendly kissing and embracing each other: and soon after, by the advice of both their Counsels, they made an equal partition of the Land betwixt them; and during their natural lives lived together, and loved as brothers. But there was one E●ri●us Duke of Mercia, of whom my Author gives this character: A man of base and low birth, but raised by favour to wealth and honour; subtle of wi●, but false of turning; eloquent of speech, but perfidious both in thought and promise; who in all his actions complied with the Danes, to the damage of his own Country men; and yet with smooth language, protestations, and false oaths, could fashion his excuse at his pleasure. This false Traitor, in whose heart the serpent of envy and base conspiracy ever burned, ●t length breaking out into flame against his own Prince Iron-side, (for what cause is not known) and thinking to get the grace and favour of Canutus, he so awaited his opportunity, that he most treacherously slew his King and Master Iron-side. Which done, thinking thereby to be greatly exalted, he posted in all haste to Canutus, showing him what he had done for his love; and saluted him by the stile of sole King of England: which, when the Prince of Danes had well understood, and pondering what from his own mouth he had confessed, like a just and wise Prince, he answered him after this manner; Since Ed●●c●s thou hast (for the love thou sayest thou bearest unto me) slain thy natural Lord and King, whom I most loved, I shall in requital exalt thy head above all the Lords (thy fellow Peers) of England, and forthwith commanded 
A just Judgement upon an envious Traitor.  him to be taken, and his head to be struck off and pitched upon a spear's head, and set upon the highest gate of London: a just judgement inflicted upon Envy, which hath always been the hatcher of most abominable treason.  
Unparallelled was that piece of Envy in Fostius, one of the sons of Earl Goodwin, and brother to Harold, after King; he in the two and twentieth year of the reign of Edward the Confessor, upon some discontent betwixt him and his brother Harold, came with a company of Ruffians and rude Pellowes, and rid down to Hereford in the marches of Wales, where at that time his brother's servants were very busy to make provision for the entertainment of the King, invited thither by Harold: who, when he was thither come, most cruelly and inhumanely he fell upon the innocent servants, and ●lew them all; and after, cut them into pieces and gobbets, which he put into souse and salt, pickling and powdering their limbs; and afterward sent messengers to the King and his brother, to give them to understand, that if they brought fresh meat along with them, he had provided them of powdered meat, as much as they could desire. Which barbarous act being bruited abroad, it made him so hateful to all men, that his own tenants and people, (men of Northumberland) the Province of which he was then Lord, rose up in Arms against him, seizing all the Lands and Goods of which he was possessed; and chased him into Flanders, with no more than one or two 
Envy pursued by many disasters.  servants to attend him; where he remained with his wife and children, during the King's life. But when his brother Harold (after the decease of K. Edward) had usurped the Crown, Fostius envying his brother's Sovereignty, having purchased to himself a Navy of threescore small ships, sailed about the Isle of Wight, and the coast of Kent, where he rob and taken preys, and from thence went into Lindsee, where he did much harm by fire and sword; but was chased thence by Edwin and Malearus, the Earls of Mercia and Northumberland: Then he sailed into Scotland, where he stayed till the Summer after. And when Harold Harfager the son of Canutus, King of Denmark and Norway, invaded the Realm, Fostius took part with him against his brother Harold, and in a dreadful battle fought near Stemisford Bridge; he with all his complices and adherents were miserably cut to pieces: A just Judgement suiting with his former envy, butchery, and tyranny.  
But leaving many Histories and Examples with strange inflictions imposed upon this sin. I come to the later times, as low as to the reign of Edward the sixth: over whom, by his father's last Will, for the time of his minority, his two Uncles the brother's Seymors being made chief Guardians; it happened that the two great Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk, Dudley and Grace, much murmured and maligned that they should bear such sway in the Kingdom: The one being Lord Protector, the other Lord high Admiral; one having great power by Land, the other by Sea, by which their glories seemed to be much eclipsed: and finding no way how to supplant them by their servants, they took a newer course, and practised it by their wives, to draw their ruins out of their own bosoms; and thus it happened.  
Sir Thomas Seymor the younger brother being Admiral, and having married King Henry's Queen Dowager, (whose good fortune it was of all the rest to survive her husband) she was suggested to contest with her sister in law, for priority in place, to which the other (for both were privately encouraged by the two Dukes) would no way assent: the one claiming precedence as she had been Queen, the other challenging it as she was now the Protectors wife. The wives set their husbands at odds by taking their parts; insomuch, that there grew envy and heartburning betwixt them, so that in the third year of the young King, the Admiral was questioned about his Office; and by the consent of his brother, condemned in Parliament to have his head struck off, the Protector with his own hand signing the Warrant for his death.  
The one brother being thus removed, there was now the less difficulty to supplant the other: for in the same month of February in which his brother lost his head, was the Protector by the Lords of the Counsel committed to the Tower; but about a year after, by intercession of the King, and his submission to the Lords of the Counsel, upon the sixth of February he was released and set at liberty: yet this proved but a lightning before a clap of thunder. For the two Dukes, his great and potent adversaries, still prosecuted their malice; insomuch, that not long after, calling him to a second account, when he had nobly acquitted himself of all Treasons whatsoever, that could be alleged against him; He was in a trial at Guild-Hall (not having a Jewry of his Peers) convicted of Felony; and in the first year of the King, upon the two and twentieth day of january the great Duke of Somerset (the King's Uncle and Lord Protector) was beheaded upon the Tower Hill. But this envy in the two Dukes escaped not without God's heavy Judgements; for after the King's death Northumberland having a large commission from the Lords, signed with the great Seal of England, to raise an Army to suppress the Lady Mary: afterward repenting thereof, sent a countermand after him, and when he thought himself in most security, the Nobility forsaking him, and the Commons abandoning him, he with his sons and some few servants in Cambridge were left alone; where notwithstanding in the open Marketplace he proclaimed the Lady Mary Queen; yet in King's College he was arrested of high Treason, and thence brought to the Tower of London, and on a scaffold upon the Hill, the twelfth day of August next following, lost his head.  
The Duke of Suffolk being likewise proclaimed Traitor, had a servant called Underwood, whom he had raised to a fair estate, and therefore to his trust he committed his person; who for some months concealed him in an hollow tree, and morning and evening brought him his food; with millions of oaths engaged for his truth and fidelity: but being corrupted with a small quantity of gold, and some large promises, he betrayed him, and delivered him up to the noble Earl of Huntingdon, under whose conduct the Duke with a strong guard of spearemen, was conveyed through London to the Tower, and the seaventh day after his surprisal he was arraigned and convicted of Treason in the great Hall at Westminster; and upon the twenty fourth day on the Tower Hill beheaded.  
In this relation it is worthy to be observed in those two great Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland, that though the whole Kingdom could scarce satiate their ambitions, yet now a small piece of earth contents them: for they lie buried together before the Altar in Saint Peter's Church in the Tower betwixt two Queens, the wives of King Henry the eight, Queen Anne and Queen Katherine, they being also both beheaded.   

CHAP. III. Gods dreadful Judgements against Wrath.  
Divers are the divisions and branches of this sin of Wrath, which some reduce to these four heads; Mortal, Venial, Capital, General: It is then called Mortal, when it hath a desire to punish, not to satisfy the Justice of the Law, but its spleen; or when through the vehemence of anger, it divides from the love of God, and our neighbour; or when it seeks a severe and cruel revenge for trifling delinquencies: It is called Venial, when the motion of ire doth prevent the judgement of reason, but the consent followeth not; when we are too spleenful and choleric within: or when the signs of our outward indignation too manifestly appears outwardly. That which is called Capital, ariseth either from the heart, the mouth, or the act; that from the heart is rather called indignation, when him whom we suppose to have injured us, we hold base and unworthy; and upon that we animate and encourage our revenge, or Tumour ment●●, the pride and haughtiness of the mind, by which he that is incensed, is still devising several ways how to be avenged, by which his fancies are molested, and his thoughts much troubled: That which ariseth from the mouth is either clamour, when by confused and inordinate speeches, without a modest restraint of the tongue, we openly express our spleen and envy: or blasphemy, when being vehemently incensed, we break into words which tend to God's dishonour: or contumely, when being angry with our neighbour, we use slanderous and despiteful language against him. In Act, that is called R●xa, which is railing and scolding: In which are understood all the nocuments and damages, which through wrath we can possibly do to our neighbour. Of the fourth called General, there be three species; Acuta, which is that anger which ariseth upon small or no occasion at all; Amara, or bitter, when for an injury done we keep it long in remembrance; and style a fit opportunity for revenge: Gravis or Difficilis, when we never remit an injury, till we satisfy our rage by punishment.  
Against all these there be Texts in the Holy Scripture, Genesis 27. 21. 
Texts in the holy Scripturè by which wrath is condemned.  Therefore Esau hated his brother jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau thought in his mind, the days of mourning will come, and then will I slay my brother jacob. Prov. 22. 29. Make no friendship with an angry man, neither go with the furious man, lest thou learn his ways, and leave destruction to thy soul, 29. 22. An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression. Eccles. 6. 11. Be not thou of an hasty spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Matth. 5. 22. But I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother unadvisedly, shall be culpable of judgement, etc. Ephes. 4. 31. Let all bitterness, and anger, and wrath, crying and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all maliciousness. Coloss. 3. 8. But now put ye away all these things, wrath, anger, maliciousness, cursed speaking, filthy speaking out of your mouths. Tim. 1. 2. 8. I will therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up pure hands without wrath or doubting. Tit. 1. 7. For a Bishop must be unreprovable, as God's steward; not froward, not angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre. We read in the fourth of Luke, that when Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and as his custom was, went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read; at which divine Sermon it is said, Vers. 28. Then all that were in the Synagogue when they heard it, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the City, and led him unto the edge of the hill on which their City was built, to cast him down headlong; but he passed through the midst of them and went his way. Many other Texts are to this purpose, to reprove and condemn wrath and anger; the fruits and effects whereof are for the most part manslaughter, murder, and the like; of which by reason of their consanguinity and alliance, I am tied to speak something, though briefly.  
Of Homicides, these amongst others are named in the Scriptures; Cain, Simeon and Levi, Abimelech, Doeg the Edomite, joab, Baanah and Rechab, 
Noted murderers in the holy Text.  who slew Ishboseth the son of Saul, who looking for a reward, David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron, etc. In King David himself, who wrote thus in his letter, Put you Vriah in the forefront of the strength of the battle, and recoil ye back from him, that he may be smitten and die. Absalon in killing his brother Ammon. Athalias the servants of joash King of judah, who slew him in the house of Millo, with infinite others; who as they were inhuman in their practices, so were their ends miserable and abortive, even all of them who have not truly repent.  
But I come now to Ethnic Histories; and first of them most foreign: In handling of which, I will give you to begin with a Catalogue of such as have been most cruel. Ptolomaeus Pisco one of the Kings of Egypt, caused his own son Memphites (whom he had begot of his wife and sister Cleopatra) to be slain, and then commanded his head, hands, and feet, to be cut off, and to be shut in a curious casket made for the purpose, and sent them unto her as a present on his birthday; and then after, when he perceived that by his barbarous tyranny he was grown odious unto all his subjects, that he might the better oppose the danger, he caused a School (where most of the Nobilities children, with others, were doctrinated) to be beset and round environed with swords and fire, and so suddenly assaulted them; that some by steel, others by the flame, were all destroyed, not one of them escaping: But that which he thought to be his refuge, proved his ruin. For the people were so much incensed with this barbarous and bloody Act, that with an unanimous consent they fell upon him, and tore him in pieces.  
The like (if not greater cruelty) was practised by a woman, one Cycenis the daughter of Diogerides, King of Thrace, who greatly delighted to behold living men cut in the middle, and invite parents to feast with their own murdered children, cooked and dressed several ways; but she was after deposed from her principality, and none of her former subjects relieving her, (so hateful were her inhumanities') she was famished to death, and died of hunger.  
Thus Artaxerxes caused her who was his wife and mother in law, (for his marriage was incestuous) to have her head parted from her shoulders, though nothing worthy death could be alleged against her; nor did his tyranny end there, for after his father had resigned the Kingdom to his charge, like an unnatural parricide, he caused him, with an hundred of his children, Nephews and Kinsmen, to be cruelly murdered: nor did he escape unpunished, for the Kingdom tired with his insolences, and the World weary with his horrible murders, made him in his death remarkable; for as some write, he died by the stroke of lightning.  
Vitoldus, Prince of Lituania, studied divers sorts of tortures and torments for men, upon any sleight cause condemned to death, one of which, was, he would command them to be sewed in Bears skins, and then made it his sport to behold them torn in pieces with fierce Mastiffs: Moreover in all his warlike expeditions, he had always a steel bow ready bent, and what soldier soever but stepped out of his rank, he instantly struck him dead with an arrow, glorying to himself that he was so good a marksman: But after these, and infinite other cruelties, he that delighted to see men die like Bears, was himself in the end torn in pieces with wild Wolves, being paid in the like (though not in the same coin) which he lent to others.  
Suiting to which is that story of Perillus, who hearing that Phalaris the Tyrant over the Agrigentines, was much delighted in the several ways of tormenting men, and presuming that nothing could better comply with his cruelty, then to present him with some rare and unheard of machine to that purpose, he devised and forged by his Art a brazen Bull, to open on the one side, and shut again at pleasure; which being brought to Phalaris, he demanded of him the use for which it was made? who answered him again, he had forged it to punish offenders of high nature; for (saith he) let the naked body be put in at this door, and then an hot fire made under it, the person tormented will not utter the voice of a man, to put a telenting commiseration upon you, but the sound will appear like the bellowing of a Bull, to make it the less terrible; which Phallaris hearing and grieving in his ambitions evil, that any should offer to outdo him in his cruelty: He told the workman that he accepted of his gift, but commanded withal that he should make proof of his own work, which was instantly done; and he most miserably tormented in his own engine: for who more fit to taste of tortures, than they that have the inhumanity to devise them? and they by God's Justice meritedly suffer themselves what they devise for others: of which O●id speaks thus. 
Ipse Perillaeo Phalaris permisit in are,  
Edere mugitus, & bovis ore queri.   
The purpose this.  
All that the Workman by his Art did gain,  
He in his own brass bellowed out his pain.  
Amongst these bloody minded men let me give you a taste of some no less cruel women: Parisatis the mother of Cyrus' junior, not content with inflicting ordinary and common torments upon the bodies of men, devised with herself a new and unheard of way, how to put men to a lingering death, by putting worms unto them being alive, and so to be●d evoured. And Irene the Empress and wife of Leo the fourth, caused her own son Constantinus Sextus, first to be cast in prison, next to have his eyes torn out of his head, and lastly to die in a dungeon. Fulvia the wife of Antony, one of the Triumuirat, after her husband had caused the head of Marcus Cicero to be cut off, he commanded it to be brought home to him, and placed upon his Table; and when he had for a whole day glutted his revengeful eyes with the sight thereof, he sent it to his wife Fulvia; who no sooner saw it, but (as if it had still enjoyed the sense of hearing) railed upon it with many bitter and despiteful words; and having tired herself with maledictions and womanish taunts, she took the head into her lap, and calling for a knife, she with her own cruel hands cut out the tongue, (once the pride and glory of Eloquence) and with the pins from the tire of her head, pricked it full of holes, as if it had still been sensible of pain, till she had fully ●●ted her spleen and cruelty.  
Tomyris Queen of the Scythians, after she had taken Cyrus' King of Persia in battle, when he was brought unto her presence, she first caused a great and large Tomb to be filled with the blood of his slain subjects, and then commanded his head to be cut off and cast there in; which done, she tauntingly said, Now Cyrus drink blood enough in thy death, which in thy life time thou hast so much thirsted after.  
Dirce a Theban woman, when she understood that her husband Lyc●s was enamoured of Antiope the daughter of Nict●●s; in her pestilent jealousy she caused the Virgin to be surprised, and being in her power, she commanded her to be first bound unto the head of a wild Bull, and then made fire to be fastened to his horns; by which he being the more enraged, ran madly through woods, and over rocks, until her body was miserably torn in pieces.  
Alike (if not more bloody minded) was Amos 〈…〉 the wife of 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 jealous of the wife of Masista; precedent over the Ba●●rians, in his absence most cruelly butchered her; causing first both her breasts to be cut off, which she cast to the dogs to be eaten; then her nose, ears, lips, and tongue to be thrown into the fire: and all these torments she endured being yet alive.  
Progne the daughter of Pandion King of Athens, having by her husband Terenus King of Thrace, a sweet young Prince called Itis, because her husband had ravished her sister Philomela, and cut out her tongue because she should not reveal the incestuous Act: of this having notice, she in an unworthy revenge slew her son, whom the King much loved; and having cooked his limbs with sundry sauces, she set them before his father, who eat thereof: and after, because he should be sensible of what he had done, in the last course she served in his head.  
Tullia the wife of Tarquinus, surnamed Superbus, the proud, and daughter to Servius, than King of the Romans, when her father was by her consent slain in the Capitol, and his body thrown in the streets; she riding that way in her Chariot, when the horses stopped their course, and the driver stood amazed, she compelled him to drive over her father's body, with whose blood and brains her coach-wheels were stained: yet was she so far from being daunted, that she was said to rejoice highly in the Act. Yet for this accident, so hateful it showed to all the multitude, that the very street where this was done is called Vicus sceleratus, the impious or wicked street, even to this day.  
Now if any shall tax my promise in the title of this work, and say, True it is, that these were very bloody and cruel women, and their horrid Acts worthy both to be condemned, and hated of all people whatsoever; but where are the Judgements, or what were the punishments inflicted upon them? I answer: It is not to be doubted but all, or most of these, suffered by the heavy hand of God in this life, and that remarkably: howsoever, the ancient Remembrancers and Chronologers of those times forgot to leave the manner and particular circumstances of their ends, in that to give the World a more full satisfaction. But howsoever, of this I am assured, that no greater Judgement can be imposed upon any manslayer or murderer, than to have his, or her name, branded to all posterity. Their actions, as they were prodigious, so their very memories are to be made hateful, and abhorred of all.  
Caligula the Roman Emperor, when his Grandmother Antonia was dead, and her much lamented body being brought to the funeral pile, he would not so much as grace it with his presence; but all the time of the Ceremony, was sporting with his Jesters and Buffoons in a summer Parlour: He slew his brother Tiberius, and used his wife's father with all contempt and contumelies: He stuprated all his sisters; and which is worse, (if worse might be) he after made them prostitutes to his Ruffians and Villains. Ptolomaeus the son of juba, his near Kinsman, and Macro and Euma his Coadjutors in the Empire, for their good and faithful service he caused to be put to death: He commanded a Quaestor in Rome (because his name was given up in a Conjuration) to be stripped naked and openly scourged. Many of worthy birth and condition (for crimes devised, not proved against them) to branded with hot irons, or otherwise marked and maimed: Some he confined to the mending of highways; others, to labour and dig in mines; and others he imprisoned like bruit beasts in Grates and Cages: some he caused to be sawed in pieces in the middle, and that for a small fault, or none. When he punished the sons or the daughters, he usually sent for the parents to be spectators of the torment; and when a father upon a time would have excused himself by the messenger, that he was grievously sick and could not come; he sent a bed to his house, and had him brought thereon. Because a Comic Poet used in his Scene one doubtful versicle, which by a double construction might be wrested to trench upon the Emperor's person; he commanded him to be burnt upon the very stage on which the Drama was acted. When he had sentenced a Roman Knight to be torn by wild beasts, because the condemned person proclaimed his innocence, he first commanded his tongue to be cut out, and then sent him presently to be devoured. Having called a Nobleman from Exile, when after his return he came into his presence, the Emperor demanded of him, What he and the rest did all the time of their banishment? who thinking to flatter with him, and insinuate into his favour; made answer, We continually prayed that your brother Tiberius might die, and your sacred self survive and reign long over us: at which words, a sudden fancy took him, that all these which remained in Exile, desired his death; and therefore he sent in all haste to have them suddenly dispatched out of their lives: Besides his facinorous works, he used words, fierce, hasty, and favouring of all inhumanity; among others this phrase was often in his mouth, All things against all men are to me lawful. When certain Gauls and Grecians were together put to death, he boasted openly, as of a great conquest, saying, He had conquered Gallogracia. Those whom he tortured by degree, still as they fainted he would have them comforted with hot drinks, to make them longer endure their pain; giving always a charge to the tormentors in these words, Have ye a care to make them sensible that they must die. He would also often brag of that sentence of the Tragical Poet, Oderunt dum metuunt; They hate whilst they fear. He often wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck, that at one blow with an axe he might cut it asunder. He would often grieve and complain of those times wherein he lived, because they were not made notorious by some great affliction and dire calamity or other, wishing the slaughter of Armies, famine, pestilence, combustions in the Empire, swallowing of Cities by earthquakes; and whatsoever all good men desired of the gods might not chance, but be removed from them: all these mischiefs and miseries he wished might be inflicted on them, not excepting the security of his own person. Being at Putcoli at a solemn annual dedication made to the Sea, where a multitude of people were assembled; he called and beckoned a great company of men, women, and children, to come to that part of the shore where he was seated; which having done, he commanded the soldiers of his guard to precipitate them into the water; and those who catcht hold of any thing to save themselves from drowning, they with their spears and javelins pushed from all safety, so that they all perished together. At a public banquet, because a servant that waited mistook the taking away of a plate trencher, he presently delivered him to the Hangman to have his hands cut off, and then the plate to be hanged about his neck, and to rest upon his bosom: then a scroll in large letters to be pasted thereon, where was inscribed his fault and cause of punishment; and in that manner to be led as a spectacle to all the Feasters. He contracted a combat with a valiant and strong man, who stooping to his mercy, (as was before agreed betwixt them) he took the advantage, fell upon him and slew him. I am tired with the recicall of his many tyrannies, these being but part of them, on which I have dwelled the longer, because in the subsequent examples, I purpose to be more compendious, and end him with his death and lasting ignominy, who was 〈◊〉 by a Tribune coming from the Theatre, his wife after him, and his daughter crushed to death against a wall.  
Avidius Cassius a barbarous and bloody fellow, the Romans called a second Catiline, because he was so covetous and thirsty after blood, for besides many public slaughters and private murders, striving to imitate Peri●●s, he invented an engine of torture never heard, or I think, scarce heard of before, for he caused a beam or pole (betwixt fourscoure and an hundred foot in length) to be fixed in the earth, to which from the top to the bottom thereof he caused the living Bodies of men to be fastened, and a fire of we●●illets and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and straw to be put under them, till some with the flame consumed, others with the smoke suffocated, all perished to other, with which manner of torture (borrowed from his precedent) in the ten Persecutions was used upon the Christians; but he escaped not a notorious judgement, dying (as some have reported) a strange and remarkable death, for, sitting at dinner when an extrordinary feast was served, whilst his hand was in the dish, and the meat between his fingers, one hired to that purpose, (standing or waiting behind him) with his sword at one blow struck off his head; and thus he perished without any remorse or penitence in himself, or any commiseration or pity from others.  
Though I have spoken of Domitius Nero, and withal the judgement in his death, yet hear but megive ye a brief relation of his inimitable butcheries, and execrable murders, with actions every way as prodigious. He was the son of Domitius Aenobarbus and Agrippina, who slew his mother. He first married Octaviae, and then Sabina Poppaea, first commanding their husbands to be slain, and was the cause of both their deaths after, for after in his implacable fury he had killed Poppaea (being at that time big with child) with a spurn upon her womb, by which she perished with her infant, because Antonia the daughter of Claudius (fearing the like) refused to marry with him, he commanded her to be put to death. He persecuted the Church, and under his Tyranny, Saint Peter and Saint Paul both suffered Martyrdom. Aulus Plancius a beautiful young Roman, after he had violently and against his will stuprated, he put to death 〈◊〉 Crispinus his step son by the marriage of Poppaea, a beardless youth, in rage he made to be drowned. Many freed men when they came to the estate of riches he cut off by the sword. He pulled out the eyes of Cassius Longinus an excellent Lawyer or Orator, and never made known the cause of his offence. To P●li●hagus, by Nation an Egyptian, who was accustomed to eat raw flesh, he gave living men to be devoured: these are but a part of his barbarous inhumanities', who not throughly sated with the blood of men, sought to exercise his hate upon Rome his own City, by setting a great part of it on fire, his excuse being the deformity thereof, which incendiary he beheld from the Mece●●tian Tower, glorying in the flames thereof, being so far from commanding the fire to be extinguished, that he suffered not any man to enter into his own house to save any part of his Goods; and yet how merciful was God in his judgement, to punish this Tyrant with one miserable death, who had indeed deserved more than a thousand.  
Creon a Tyrant of Thebes, besides many other cruelties, in which he expressed a most bestial and unmerciful nature, denied Burial to all the dead Bodies of his Enemies slain in Battle with others of his own Subjects who had any way offended him, whom Theseus after slew in a conflict, and served him with the same sauce, forbidding his dead carcase to be inhumed or sepulcred, but thrown out in the fields, for the brute beasts to feed, and the fowls of the air to pray on.  
Anton●●● Commodus one of the Roman Emperors, had so troubled the Empire with gladiatory slaughters, that the people in contempt gave him the denomination of Gladiator or Fencer. He (as Lampridius witnesseth) when he saw any man weak or unserviceable by reason of some disease in his feet, would shoot him with arrows to death, having a strong steel Bow made for that purpose. The brains of others he used to beat out of their heads with clubs, and boasted that therein he imitated Hercules, to that purpose putting on a Lion's skin. He was also so irriligious and such a contemner of the gods, that offerings and sacrifice at the altars he would mingle with the blood and flesh of men, and if any man showed either a smiling or supercilious brow at what he did, (both were alike) him he commanded to be cast to the Lions and other wild beasts to be devoured. One of his servants being commanded to read unto him the tyrannous Reign of Caligula, with the manner of his death, as it was set down in S●etoniu● Tranquillus, because it displeased him as somewhat reflecting on his person, he commanded to be cast to the Lions. If any man in his own hearing or by the information of other, said he must die, he was precipitated from a rock, or some other high place, and his body crushed to pieces: he delighted to see the bellies of fat men ripped up, and how suddenly their guts and entrails would tumble to the ground. But the people after so great sufferings, now at length tired with his inhumanities', in the very height of his insolences, when he least dreamt of any such disaster, caused him to be slain; which though a violent death, yet in all men's judgements may appear somewhat too mild for his merit, but the great Judge of all, sometime mitigates the punishments of such grand malefactors here, to make their torments more great and perdurable in the world to come.  
The next I present to your view is Caius Marius the Roman, who as he was of great power and potency in Rome, so his pride was boundless and unmeasured, but his inhumanity far exceeding them both, for after his exile, when he had again emptied the City of all those whom he suspected to have but the least finger in his confinement, by the assistance of Cinna Carbo and Sertorius he presently fell upon the slaughters of the Princes and Senators, which was so violent that the channels overflowed with the blood of the slain Nobility. He took away the head from Octavius the Consul, and caused that of Octavius a consular Senator to be brought and set upon his table, taunting and deriding him even after death. Caesar and Fimbria two of the most eminent in the City he commanded to be murdered in their own houses, breaking them violently open in the night, and killing them in their beds: the two Crassis the father and the son he flew one in the sight of the other (the more to aggravate their sorrow in their alternate indulgence.) Bebius and Numitorius he commanded to be dragged through the Forum by the common hangman's clutches, but Catulus Lactutius by swallowing fire ended his life, and escaped his greater cruelty. Archarius and Flamyn Dialis a priest, whose office was sacred and in great reverence amongst the Romans, he commanded to be through pierced with swords. All which examples of Tyranny he committed from the Kalends of January, to the Ides of the same month, but what heavy judgements God laid upon him, you shall next hear in the relation upon Sylla.  
Which Lucius Sylla made a deluge and overflux of blood through Rome and all Italy: four legions of the contrary faction of Marius being surprised and imploring his mercy he commanded instantly to be cut in pieces: the Prestines who had received and entertained Marius junior into their City, after they had yielded themselves unto his mercy, he put them out of the City, commanding Putilius Cethegus to kill them every man without the walls, and their bodies to be left in open fields without burial, in which inhumanity perished at once five thousand men; four thousand and 700 slain by strength of his bloody Edict of proscription, he caused their names to be registered in the public tables, lest the memory of that facinorous act might be buried in oblivion: and not sating himself with the strage of men, his tyranny usurped upon women, not sparing matron or virgin, but he commanded their heads (being cut off) to be brought unto him, that he might thereby the better glut his savage indignation, and implacable fury. Marcus Marius the Praetor he deprived not of his life before his eyes were pulled out of his head, and after caused all the bones in his body to be broken. Marcus Pletori●s because being sent to kill his enemy Caius Marius, he was daunted at his brave aspect and honourable presence, and therefore left the fatal act unperformed, he commanded him instantly to be slain. Nor did his malicious rancour and hate end in the death of Marius, for commanding his body to be burnt, he sprinkled and threw his ashes into the river Anien: after all which and many more his bloody executions he was struck by the hand of God with the lousy disease, so that his living body crawled with vermin, in so much that before his death his household servants were almost stifled with the stench of his carcase: such or the like are the terrible judgements of God, against these proud Nimrods', mighty Giants and great hunters of the earth, to day in their pride and pontificalibus, glorying in their oppressions and persecutions, and to morrow worse than any carrion of beast stinking in the grave, their memories being as hateful to the hearing, as their corrupt putrefaction to the smell.  
I have hitherto spoken of cruel and bloody Tyrants, let me treat a little of Ire or Wrath itself, for they are sinonimas, since all these are but scions growing from that stock. Anger and power meeting in one breast are more violent than any thunderbolt: wrath and revenge take from man the mercy of God, destroying and quenching that Grace which he hath before-time given. Anger consisteth in habit and disposition, but Ire and Wrath indeed and effect. Hasty and froward speeches beget Anger, Anger being kindled, begets Wrath, Wrath seeketh greedily after Revenge, and Revenge is never satisfied without blood, which blood is never shed without just vengeance from Heaven, as may be made apparent by many pregnant examples.  
For instance, Cl●tarius smothering in his breast the seeds of ranker and malice for the space of ten years against Galterus Rhothomanges, when that most holy day called the Parasceve, in which our blessed Saviour suffered death for all mankind, slew him as he was at his devotion upon his knees in an holy Chapel in Paris, (for so the French Chronicles report) who for that horrid act was after fearfully punished in himself and his issue. The like hath often happened in the Temples of Italy, betwixt that imbestuous faction of the Guelves and the Gibbelines, who made no conscience of person or place, but in the time of divine Service have pistolled one another in their pews, as they were kneeling at their prayers, when the Church hath been full of drawn swords, to the disturbing of the whole Congregation, making no more reverence of the place than a slaughter-house or shambles; upon whose but cherries God inflicted such vengeance, that the one party quite destroyed the other, till they were mutually cut off, and utterly extinguished. Such is the irreligious boldness of some, that I heard a Scotishman of note (soon after King james came into the Land) speak in the company of prime Gentlemen after this manner, Such a one killed my brother, and I could not meet him in seven years after, but at length espying him in the Church on a Sabbath-day, my fury could not contain itself, but even where he sat I shot him with my pistol and slew him, and the arrant puritans (saith he) would have excommunicated me for nothing else but for killing him who had before killed my brother. But though men make slight of these atheistical and sacrilegious butcheries, that God who made man after his own Image, and all men of one and the selfsame earth and clay, will not let them escape his fearful and terrible judgements.  
Neither have the holy Fathers the Popes been altogether free of this sin of Ire and implacability, for we read in their own Chronicles, that upon the day when the Sacra Cineritia were celebrated, that was upon Ash-wednesday, in which is used great solemnity, when the great Presbyters and Cardinals according to the custom came to kneel to Pope Boniface, to receive the ashes, he took the ashes and vessel in which they were contained, and in great rage flung them in the face of Prochetus Archbishop of Genoa, with whom he was at odds, and hated him exceedingly, and changing his words of exhortation and benediction, he violently broke out into this language, Remember O thou man that thou art of the faction of the Gebelines, and with those Gibelines thou shalt die; for he was of that party, and enemy to the Guelves, whom the Pope favoured. Stephanus Sextus because Formosus upon his deathbed would not set his hand to his election, (who was Pope before him) when he came to be instated in the Papacy, he commanded him to be plucked out of his sepulchre, and buried in the Churchyard, causing his fingers first to be cut off, and so basely dismembered him being dead, for refusing to subscribe for him being alive. With the like malevolent hatred also did Sergius the third prosecute the same Formosus, who again commanded his body to be taken out of the second Grave, and brought it into the Forum or public Rialto, when the head was cut from the body, and cast into the river Tiber, and this he did to insinuate into the favour of Lotharius King of France, to whom Formosus living was in great opposition. Divers other examples of the like malicious nature I could extract out of their Annals, and those remembrancers who have writ the lives of the Popes, which for brevity sake I omit, but am confident withal, that these evil precedents from the Clergy (whose light should shine to others) have been a great encouragement to the Laity to offend in the like, who for the most part pattern their actions, be they good or evil, by their teachers and instructers.  
Mahomates Otomanus the Grand Signior missing but two Cucumbers out of his Garden in his return home, (after solacing himself abroad) he in his rage slew two of his Catamites with his own hands, being young boys of choice feature and beauty. And Commodus was of that fiery indignation, that when he came into the Bath to wash himself, and found it somewhat more hot than usual, he commanded the Bath-keeper to be thrown into the furnace, and there burnt to ashes. And Quintus Metellus was of such a testy and choleric disposition, that having lived some years as Consul, and Proconsul in Spain, when he heard by the decree of the Senate of Rome, Pompeius whom he much hated was to succeed him in his command and sovereignty, his anger grew so violent that he diminished his army, and made all the Magazine of Grain and provision of victual a spoil and prey to the soldiers, he caused all the Bows and Arrows in the Army to be broken and knapped asunder, forbidding the Horses and Elephants to have their ordinary and customed food and fare, not leaving him at his arrival any one thing of any moment wherewith he might succour or relieve either himself or his Army. Pr●merus a domestic servant of Archelaus King of Macedonia, with such an intestine hatred persecuted Euripides, that one night he watched him when he came late from supper with the King, and in the way let lose fierce Mastiffs upon him, by which he was most miserably torn to pieces. Such also was the grounded and inveterate hare of the unanimous people of Rome to Heliogabolus, that being dead they cast his martyred body into the common jakes of the City with his mother Semile, and after flung them into the river Tiber, making also an Edict, that his statues before erected should be demolished, and his very name to be razed out of all the monuments of the City, willing (if it had been possible) quite to have extirped his memory. They likewise when the Emperor Michael Paleologus was dead, denied unto his body any place for Burial. Marti●s Sabinus much troubled and incensed that Hostilius was by the suffrage of the people preferred unto the Crown and Kingdom, to which he had before aspired, when he saw his malice could not vent itself against his competitor, not able to suppress his implacable indignation, and not knowing any means to imbrue his hands in the blood of his adversary, he could not contain himself but shed his own, and falling upon his sword desperately slew himself.  
Full of cruelty, (and savouring no humanity at all) was that wrath and fury of Septimus Severus, who having overcome Clodius Sabinus in battle, and utterly defeated his Army, himself being taken prisoner, he commanded that he should be transpierced with a sword and slain: but not content with this, he caused his wounded body to be stripped naked, and laid before his Palace as a public spectacle to all men, so that himself might take a full view thereof from the prospect of his window: yet could not all this satisfy his malicious cruelty, but further he commanded a wild and untamed jennet to be brought forth, to trample and tread upon his face, breast, belly, and the other parts of his body, until all his bones were bruised and broken in his skin, and he disfigured all over. Nor ended his fury here, for he would not suffer his body (thus mangled and martyred) to be taken thence, till the stench thereof grew so noisome to the place that it could be endured no longer; and then lastly, as a close to the rest, he gave leave that it should be cast into the river. This and the like prove the old adage to be true, Homo homini lupus, one man is a wolf to another: but I think such fire-hearted and pouder-brained men are worse, for no brute beast will pray upon its like, the Lion will not tyrannize over the Lion, the Bear fall upon the Bear, nor the Wolf on the Wolf, only Man who is sensible and endowed with reason, will not spare his own similitude and likeness.  
I have read in Solinus an approved Author, of a strange fowl or bird bodied like a Gryphin, and equal to it in bigness, only bearing the face of a man; this ravenous Harpy (for no more proper appellation I can bestow upon it) above all other Creatures desires to make his prey upon humane flesh, and when he hath slain any man and glutted himself with his dead carcase, his use is to go to drink at the next river, in which he no sooner spies his own face, but presently a telenting and repentance cometh upon him, sorrowing to have been the death of a Creature of his own aspect and countenance, which taketh in him such a sensible and deep impression, that after that time he will never taste the least food or sustenance, punishing his unnatural act with one the most terriblest deaths that can be invented, Famine. If these roisters, cutters, and swashbucklers, those bloody minded Cannibals (for they are no better in their brutish condition) would but make this Bird their Emblem, and consider with themselves what sorrow and repentance with a remorse of conscience waits at the heels of every slaughter and murder committed, they would not be so forward to give the lie, strike, stab, nor (that which in seeming of all those Fowl ones appears to the outward view the fairest) be so ready to send or entertain challenges, or meetings in single combats and duels, not before considering, that he who falls by the others sword in his rage, (and therefore without charity) there is great doubt of his salvation, and the conqueror must dearly answer for his lost soul. Besides, if he escape the justice of the Law, the worm of conscience shall never leave him, but continue him in perdurable torment.  
And now to such murders arising from wrath, their strange discovery and judgement. In the Reign of Christian the second King of Denmark, when some twelve of his prime Courtiers were making merry in a parlour, and amongst them one who was Postmaster to the King, it happened that dissension falling amongst them, upon the sudden all the lights (in the tumult) were put out, and one amongst them slain with a poniard, but lights at length brought in, and the Body found murdered and breathless, the King desired to have account for his dead subject, the Nobles lay all the guilt upon this Postmaster, but the King with whom he was then gracious, thought it to be done of malice, and persuaded himself that he was innocent of the act: they on the contrary allege that he was the cause of that meeting, that there had been a former grudge and malice betwixt them, and moreover, that when the lights were brought in he was found next to the dead Body, so that they desired the Body to be laid upon a table, and every one singly to lay his hand upon the naked breast of the person murdered, with a deep protestation, that they were innocent of the act, which was done in the King's presence, and they came all by course according to the manner proposed, but in the Body was found no change or alteration at all: at last came the Cursor or Postmaster, and first embracing his feet, and with many tears kissed them, thinking by that means, if it were possible, to pacific his just incensed spirit, and at length coming to lay his hand upon the breast of the dead body, a double flux of blood issued from his wounds and nostrils, and that in great abundance; by which finding himself convicted, he confessed his malicious act, and by the King was committed to the common Executioner. This story the Lord Henricus Ranzovius, Vicar general to the King of Denmark, in all his Dukedoms a man illustrious in Nobility and Learning, relates in his Responsory to the Consulatory of David Chitraus.  
Another suiting to this I find related by Doctor Oath Melander, in his jocoserni; who speaks of a man, who through rancour and hatred had watched his neighbour till he had found means by meeting him in the thickets and woods, (a place convenient for such a mischief) to lay violent hands upon him, and murder him; and after escaped without the least suspicion of the fact: but the body being after brought to the jizehohensian Senate, they gave command that one of the hands should be cut off, and hanged up over the dining-table in the common Jail or Prison. It happened that the malefactor being some ten years after committed upon some delinquency, (of no great matter or moment) that he was brought into the same room, and by accident when he sat down to meat, placed just under the hand, which though it had been withered and dried for so many years, bled freshly, and dropped upon his trencher; at which all being amazed, the Gaoler went strait to inform the Senate, who sent to examine him, and he being convinced in conscience by that divine prodigy, soon acknowledged himself guilty; for which he was committed to the charge of the Executioner, and according to the custom of those Countries, broken upon the wheel.  
In the Diocese of one of the Dukedoms of Saxony, commonly called Gerstenauta, there lived in one Village a Shepherd and a Rustic or Husbandman, who were of that antipathy in condition, that above all measure they hated one another; and though neighbours and friends on both sides had appointed sundry meetings, to mitigate and reconcile this inveterate malice, yet they found it impossible to be done, and so left them to their giddy and hare-brained fury; which gave them now the more scope and liberty to insidiate one another, yet neither of them durst attempt their worst of indignation, as fearing the danger of the Law: Yet they ceased not backbiting, slandering, railing, calumniating openly, besides private whispering and murmuring, (insomuch as in them lay) to take away each others reputation and good fame: and moreover, to devise and seek out by what means they might damage one another in their goods, chattels, or any other part of their estate, which grew to such unsufferable height, that neither of them able to endure their mutual encumbrances and detriments, secretly agreed together to make an end of all in single fight; for which they both prepared themselves against the day appointed: The Husband man provides himself of a good forest bill, with some other shorter weapons, as a poniard or a dagger, to speed his enemy if they should happen to close in the encounter: The other causeth a sheephook to be made of a strong ashen plant, in the bottom a pike of three inches long, sharpened like the point of a needle, and to screw in and out at pleasure: the head thereof (though fashioned like a hook) was of massy steel, yet made with the like screw; and being taken off, there was another pike of six or seven inches long, insomuch that the Smith who had the charge of forging the materials, greatly wondered for what use it was: Before the day of combat came, news was brought to the other of this dreadful weapon, which ●ut him into a great affright, as doubting the success of the conflict; but though his courage failed him, yet the canker of his malice still continued, and fearing open hostility, he began to fly to stratagems, and so devilishly ordered the matter, that in the silence of the night, when the other was fast sleeping, he broke into his Cottage and murdered him in his bed; which done, providing him at home of such things as were necessary, he betook him to his heels, and fled into the Province of Hessia: The body being found, his sudden flight might easily (without contradiction) confirm who was the Homicide, and therefore the Country left off farther inquiry. He now concealeth himself in a private house, unsuspected of any, thinking himself secured both from pursuit and punishment; but God's Judgements are nearest when malefactors (in that heinous kind) think them to be farthest off, as shall appear by the subsequence: for soon tired with the closeness of the house, (as being still used to the fields, and liberty of the fresh air) he one day walking abroad, happened to come within the Toils, where the Illustrious Prince of Hesse, Philip the first of that name, was hunting the wild Boar; and when the beast (who was of an extraordinary magnitude) was in the hottest of the chase, most fiercely pusued by the dogs, he ran directly against this Homicide, and goring him with his tusks, gave him sundry mortiserous and deadly wounds, and so left him as dead in the place: presently the Prince came in, and though not knowing the party, in his great commiseration commanded his body (yet breathing) to be borne to Hirifeldia, the nearest Town, and all means possible to be provided for his cure: but all was in vain, within two days he died. In which time he confessed all the manner of his former murder to those that were his visitants; withal affirming, that he saw not the shape of any Boar, but in him the right figure of the Shepherd, who with his dreadful shoep-hooke gave him these lacerating and tormenting wounds: which misprision of his is worthy your observation, and his History is verified by the forenamed Author, Doctor Oth● Melander.  
You may read in the Turkish History, in the time of Sir Thomas Glover's being there Ambassador, that the same noble Gentleman entertained into his family an Englishman, and made him one of his Domestic servants, who was not one whom he brought over out of England, but found there as a stranger and traveller; whom at his earnest suit, (what for charity, and what for Countrey-sake) he admitted into his house, employing him in sundry affairs, in all which he diligently and carefully demeaned himself: But it so happened, that the Ambassadors servants being abroad recreating themselves, a company of the rude and barbarous Turks gave them some affront; in conclusion, from words they grew to blows, and so unto hurly-burly, in which, by the hurling of an unfortunate stone, one of the Turks being hit under the ear, died of the blow: The Englishmen retire within their privilege, and the Turks threaten to pull down the house, and to make spoil of all that was therein; for blood (they said) asked blood, and therefore they would have no satisfaction till the offender were delivered into their hands: now this servant late entertained was not in the company, nor out of his Lords doors all that day: briefly, because they said they knew the man, he was forced to cause every servant of the house to show themselves; they with an unanimous voice clamour That is he, That is he: who was the man that kept house the day of the tumult. His Lord to acquit his innocence, made pretes●●tion of the same, but all to no purpose; that was the man marked for their vengeance, and none else they would have; and so hurried him away to prison to be executed the next day: but the same night the Lord Ambassadors Chaplain came to comfort him with godly instructions for his soul's health, and the rather because of his known innocence. But to cut off circumstance, the prisoner freely confessed unto him that he had slain a man in England, no● 〈◊〉 his own defence, but maliciously, and fled for the murder; where a 〈…〉 travelling div●re Countries, he at length came into Turkey, where he had ●o●●d to have ●etled himself. Then penetently acknowledging how God in his just Judgement had found him out in that remote place, where he thought to have 〈◊〉 orne his vengeance. The day after he was the subject of the Infid●●● merciless cruelty, who hanged him at the Ambassadors gate.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 anu●, and johannes Budeus report a strange discourse of a malicious servant, whom the Devil had possessed with his own diabolical inhumanity: who taking a virulent spleen from some rough usage by his master, watched his opportunity when he was absent, and shut and barricadoed all the doors about the house; then he broke open a chamber upon his Mistress, and when he had contemptuously and despitefully demeaned himself towards her, he after bound her hand and foot, and so left her grovelling upon the floor: then he took three young children (the eldest not seven years old) and carried them up to the battlements, and when he espied his master coming home, he called to him, and in his sight first precipitated one child, and then another, from the top to the pavement, where their bodies were miserably dashed and shattered to pieces, and hold up the other in his arms to do the like to him; at which the wretched father extremely stupefied, (for who can imagine less) fell upon his knees, and humbly besought the villain to spare the life of the third, and he would pardon him for the deaths of the former: to which the barbarous homicide replied, that there was but one way in the world for him to redeem his life; the indulgent father with tears and entreaties desired to know what that way was? who presently replied, that he should with his knife instantly cut off his nose, for there was no other ransom for him: The passionate father who dear tendered the safety of his child, having now no other left, agrees to the condition, and disfigured and dishonoured his face, according to the covenant made betwixt them; which was no sooner done, but the inhuman butcher framed a loud and scornful laughter; at which, whilst the other stood amazed, the child which he still held in his arms, he ●●ung to the rest, and then most desperately cast himself after, preventing a worse death by torment: and such was the end of this Arch-limbe of his father the Devil, and the fruits of Ire, Anger, Indignation, and Malice.   

CHAP. IU. God's Judgements against Sloath.  
SAlomon saith of Sloth, Proverbs 19 Vers. 15. slothfulness causeth to fall asleep, and a deceitful person shall be affamished. And 28. Vers. 19 He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread, but he that followeth the Idle shall be filled with poverty. Again, Proverb. 6. 6. Go to the Pismire, O sluggard, behold her ways, and be wise, for she having no guide, governor, nor ruler, prepareth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in harvest. How long wilt thou sleep O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding the hands to sleep: Therefore thy poverty cometh as one that traveleth by the way, and thy necessity like an armed man. This being a sin generally rather of omission than commission; Examples and the punishments thereof are not so frequent in the holy Text; nor other Ethnic Authors as those actual and in continual agitation, yet as far as Authentic authority will give me leave, I will strive to delineate and express it to the full; that being (howsoever slighted and unminded) mortiferous and deadly, and therefore subject to judgement and condemnation, it may be the more carefully abandoned and avoided.  
Pride, fullness of bread, and idleness, which is a neglect of that duty which belongs to God, and a cessation of that consociety and converse which is requisite amongst men, were part of those sins which caused God to rain down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, whose laziness and sloth begot incest, adultery, and that most preposterous and abominable sin, since called (from the place) Sodometry. But I desire first to annalyse and distinguish of the vice, before I proceed to further precedent.  
This fourth head of the beast of Hell, called Accidia or Desidia, hath a bad root, and spreadeth into many evil branches; for it keepeth from beginning well, and hindereth from ending well. It hindereth good beginnings by six sundry sins: The first may be called Faintness, which is, when a man's love, which ought to be zealous and servant towards his Creator and Redeemer, is cold, faint, and weak, and therefore made unapt either for Devotion, or Prayer; and this commonly happeneth when he is backward and averse to enterprise any good work of piety or charity. The second may be titled Tenderness, which is the very couch and day-bed on which the Devil resteth and reposeth himself, still prompting to the man or woman; Thou hast been ever tenderly and indulgently brought up, not borne to trouble thyself with any toilsome vocation: thou art moreover of a weak constitution, not able to endure pain or labour, much less fasting, or any needful chastising of thy body; that sighing for thy sins were hurtful for thine health, and weeping for thy transgressions would in time spoil thine eyesight, with the like malevolent suggestions; which aptly comply with a sentence of one of the Fathers, justum est cum Deo, ut moriens obliviscatur sui, qui vivus, oblitus est Dei: Most just it is with God, that such men should forget him in their death, who would not remember him in their lives. The third branch is Idleness, from whence many evils arise, as witnesseth the holy Text: for when the old adversary of mankind findeth a man idle in his duty towards his Maker, he than findeth him employment in his own wicked works: first putting him in mind to think of evil, and then to act it; addicting himself wholly to villainy, ribaldry, luxury; to neglect time and opportunity, wherein he might do much good, and make his way towards Heaven: Where on the contrary, doing much evil, he prepares his passage to Hell and eternal damnation. The fourth bears the title of Dullness or Heaviness, when we solely incline ourselves to drowsiness and sleep; and then are the adversary and his ministers vigilant and waking, to insidiate us in all our senses: and the less apt he finds us to the service of God, the more pliant and flexible he makes us for the works of Satan; and such are they, who for one hours' sleep will neglect coming to divine Service, to hear the word of God preached, or to be present at the administration of the holy Sacraments: The first is Refrectory perverseness, that is, when we lie and snort in sin, and are sensible and apprehensive of the temptations of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, yet we neither lift up our heads nor hearts to God by way of contrition, nor implore unto him devoutly by confession, nor list up our hands unto him, as promising repentance: like that obstinate and wilful prisoner, who had rather lie rotting in a stinking and noisome dungeon, then take the pains to walk up the stairs where the doors stand wide open, to gain himself his franchise and liberty. The sixth may be styled Pusillanimity; that is, when we dare not enterprise any pious act (after a good motion) in a diffidence, that God will not assist us in the performance thereof; and this is a foolish dread that some apprehend from their vain dreams, and may be resembled to such as dare not venture to walk in such a path, because there the snail putteth forth his horns; or young children, that eat their way for the hissing and gagling of Geefe.  
These are the six impediments that hinder to begin well; there are six other quite averse from ending well. The first is Delay: for when God putteth into the heart of man to have an appetite, or purpose to do any good work, or to repent him of his old sins, and prepare himself to newness of life: Then comes the old Tempter and whispers in his ear; What needs this early and too forward beginning? thou art yet in thy prime and strength, take the benefit and pleasures of thy youth: it is yet too soon: Age will come on, and then thou shalt have leisure, for when the delights of youth forsake thee, thou shalt in thy decrepit estate have little else or nothing to do: thus dallying and dandling a wretched soul to its eternal destruction. Most true it is that God saith, At what time soever a sinner repenteth himself of his wickedness, he will blot out all his offences; but he that made that promise, hath not promised to give the sinner a time of repentance. After Delay comes Negligence, for whosoever maketh doubts and demurs to turn to God, it is no wonder if he do it feignedly, superficially, and negligently; and this is a vice general and avoided by few: for alas, how many are to be sound that use care and diligence in performing their bounden duty to God, and executing that charity in which we are obliged towards our neighbour. The third is Oblivion and Forgetfulness, and consequent it is, that whosoever is negligent, must needs be forgetful; and both these hinder us from a devout confession of our sins to God; for by casting a neglect upon our transgressions and offences, they soon slip out of our thoughts; and when we have occasion to acknowledge them, and be sorry for them, they are quite out of our remembrance, by which the soul incurs great danger of Judgement. Then followeth Fear or Dread, which is a faintness of the heart bred by evil custom, which makes us to grow in a distrust of God's mercy, and by that means to incur the fearful sin of Desperation: of which, not only former age's, but even the times present afford too many dreadful examples. And then there is a lazy Supini, which breeds a diminution and abatement of all devotion; and is a disease to the soul, as a Consumption to the body; when in the stead of going on, we rather stand still, or draw back; and this recreance and defiling, if not taken in time, may turn to Infidelity and Apostasy; sins of that attrocity and diabolical nature, scarce amongst Christians to be named. Sixely and lastly, there is a Fond Zeal, or foolish fervour, by which men weaken their bodies, and disable their spirits by superstitious Vigils and Fasts, by which they think to merit Heaven, but in the interim fall into such langor, malady, sickness, and disease, that they make themselves disabled, either for the service of God, or following their own vocation and calling; but of such I presume there be not many.  
Sloth is no better than the pillow or bo●ster of the Devil, the original 
Examples of Sloth out of the Scriptures.  of many dreadful sins, and grievous calamities: of Murmuring, a branch whereof we have example out of the Holy Scriptures, Numb. 11. 4. And a number of people that was amongst them fell a ●u●●ing, and turned away, and the children of Israel also wept, I and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers, and the pepons, and the ●eekes, and the onions, and the garleek; but now our soul is dried away, we can see nothing but this Man. Again, Cap. 21. Vers. 4. After, they departed from the Mount Hor by the way of the red Sea, to compass the land of Edom; and the people were sore grieved because of the way: And they spoke against God, and against Moses, saying, Wherefore have ye brought us out of Egypt to die in the Wilderness? for here is neither Bread nor water, and our soul loatheth this light bread: Wherefore the Lord sent fiery serpents amongst the people, which stung them, so that many of the people of Israel died. We read further in the first of Haggat, Vers. 2. Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, saying, The people say the time is not yet come that the Lords house should be builded: Then came the word of the Lord by the ministry of the Prophet Haggai, saying, Is it time for yourselves to dwell in your seiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Consider your own ways in your hearts; ye have sown much, and bring in little ye eat, but ye have not enough: ye drink, but ye are not filled: ye cloth ye, but you are not warm: and he that earneth wages, putteth the wages into a broken bag, etc. Come to the Gospel, Matthew 25. Verse 26. And his Master answered to him and said, Thou evil servant and floathfull, thou knewest that I reaped where I sowed not, and gathered where I strawed not: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the Exchangers, and then at my coming should I have received mine own with advantage: Take therefore the talon from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents; for unto every one that hath, it shall be given, and he shall have abundance: and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away; Cast therefore that unprofitable servant into utter darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This drowsiness is also blamed by our Saviour Christ in his Apostles, Mark 14. 37. Then he came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldst thou not watch one hour? watch ye and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.  
From Divine, I come to Ethnic Examples: Capitolinus hath left remembered unto us, that Authonius Pius being Emperor, caused the roofs and cover of all such houses to be taken away, as were known to receive any idle people; affirming that nothing was more uncomely or absurd to be suffered, than such idle caterpillars and slow-wormes, to have their food and nourishment from that commonweal; in the maintenance of which there was no supply from their industry and labour. Notorious was the laziness and sloth of Honorius the Emperor, for where, as it is the custom of all Princes whatsoever, not to set their hand or seal to any Brief, Grant, or Warrant, before they had diligently perused the contents, lest perchance they might do something against their honour and dignity; yet he was of that idle condition, that he had neither the patience to peruse himself, or to hear read any thing (of what import soever) he was to subscribe: which his sister Placida observing, and willing as far as she durst, modestly to reprove and tax this strange slothfulness in him; she devised an instrument or writing, in which the Emperor had contracted her his only sister to a most vile, sordid, and contemptible fellow, who used about the Court, and was generally known to all; which done, she caused that paper to be shuffled in amongst many others upon the sealing day, to which the Emperor set his hand and signet: and the next morrow she came and prostrated herself to him, weeping, and complaining to him of her infelicity and strange disastrous fortune; at which the Emperor wondering, demanded the cause of her so great sorrow and heaviness? to whom she showed the writing, and his hand and seal to confirm it: at which being more amazed, he made a great protestation, that he never had any such thought or purpose; of which the wise and discreet Lady taking advantage, she told him the whole circumstance how every thing came about, and that it was her own Act; withal beseeching him (under pardon) to avoid the like or greater inconvenience, which might trench upon the honour and discretion of his sacred Majesty: which was delivered in such passionate and affectionate language, that the Emperor received it from her gratefully, and reform that error in himself for ever after.  
This drowsy and snorting sin, howsoever in outward appearance it seems innocuous and harmless, neither dammaging the party infected therewith, nor others, yet hath many virulent and bitter impendencies, which always hang over it, as may appear by History; tyrannising over the strong, and insulting over the mighty: For example, the invincible Hercules, whom neither Giants, Savage Beasts, Serpents, nor Monsters, could withstand; after all his active and immutable labours, when he gave but the least way to sloth and idleness, it brought him to his utter ruin and destruction; who casting off his Lion's skin, and laying aside his mortiferous club, with his fatal shafts and bow, betook himself unto all effeminacy: insomuch, that changing his masculine habit, he put on the loose garments belonging to women, that he might the more freely insinuate into the good grace and favour of O●phale Queen of the Lydians, of whom he was perditly enamoured: At whose command he fashioned those his stubborn and rude fingers (before employed in quelling Tyrants, and subduing Monsters) to spin, card, and draw a corpse and untoward thread from the distaff; but what was the end of this slothful effeminacy? His chaste wife Dianeyra hearing how strangely he had lost himself, both in his person and reputation of the world; thinking to recall him from this dull and sleepy Lethargy, sent him a shirt for a present, (but ignorant that it was poisoned) which he had no sooner put on, but it instantly putrified and infected his body all over, cleaving so fast to his skin, that in striving to pluck away the linen, he tore the flesh from the bones; so that overcome with the anguish and insufferable torture of the poison, he built a huge pile of wood which he had torn from the trees that grew upon Mount Oeta, to which having put fire, it no sooner grew into a violent flame, but first having cast in his club, and then his Lion's spoils, he afterwards threw himself, where he was burnt to ashes.  
The like we read of the great Assyrian Monarch Sardanapalus, whose brave Predecessors from many descents, employed themselves in warlike expeditions and martial affairs, all of them great undertakers, and some mighty conquerors, insomuch that the Nation was dreaded throughout the world; but this last and worst abandoning all masculine virtue, gave himself only to slothful delicacy, luxury, and base metriculosity, in that abject and sordid manner that laying aside all that sublimity and excellence which belongs to regal Majesty, he forsook his virile habit and ornaments, willing if it had been possible to have altered his noble sex by putting on female habit, and sequestering himself from his martial Nobility, and Counsellors of State, conversed, and had consociety only with Whores, Bawds, Panders, eunuchs, and Catamites, insomuch that he made his Royal Palace worse than any Burdeile, or common Brothel-house: which his Nobles and Peers impatient to endure, when neither humble entreaty, persuasion, counsel, nor menaces could divert him from his sloth and idleness, they made an insurrection against him: And under Arbactes the General, having first seized all the Castles, and places of strength, belonging to the Empire, they besieged him in his Palace, proffering him even then, if he would change his loathed sensuality, they would likewise alter their purpose of deposing him; but this desperate Devil, constant in his ruin, despising their indulgent proffers, and preferring his beastly and abominable lusts before life or honour, whilst they were yet in parley, or before returned them any answer, gathered together all his Gems, Jewels, and Treasure, even his whole Magazine, which amounted to an infinite: Then all his Prostitutes and Concubines, with the whole brood of Brothelry, and setting fire on the whole Seragl●a at once, leapt in himself amongst them; than which incendiary, no more acceptable sacrifice could have been made to the Devil.  
Moreover, what greater Conqueror than julius Caesar, eternised through all Ages for his magnanimity and valour, of whose brave and heroic Acts to give a full expression, would ask a voluminous Chronicle, who more wakeful, provident, active, adventurous, laborious, industrious? and never out of agitation, till he had attained unto that height of supremacy at which he aimed, which was no less than to be the sole Monarch of the world, but after when he came to submit himself to the affect of peace, and ease, and was no longer in action, he fell into many monstrous sins, and horrible and hateful adulteries: for thus Suetoninus reports of him, He vitiated and corrupted many illustrious Matrons; (I say not all, after he came to be perpetual Dictator, which in effect was Emperor) but these are remembered amongst others; He stuprated Posthumia the wife of Servius Sisipitius, Lollia the wife of Aul●s Gabinus, Tertullia the wife of Marcus Crassus and M●●a, of C●eius Pompeius: divorcing himself from his own wife, he was said above all others to be most enamoured of Servilia the mother of Marcus Brutus, whose love he bought with a Jewel valued at six hundred sexterti●, he vitiated also jumia Tertia, the daughter of Servilia, and wife of Marcus Crassus. He was said also to devote himself to the love of divers Queens, as Euria Maura, the wife of King Bogades, and Cleopatra most amorously above the rest, with whom he banqueted and rioted night and day, from the Sun's uprising to his set, and from the twilght to the dawning of the day, and in the same ship and bed accompanied her through Egypt, almost to the Confines of Aethiopia, by whom he had a young son called Caesaria: He is also reckoned amongst the Cinaedi, and to be a Pederastes, that is, one abused against nature; of which, with Mamuria Termanus he is taxed by Catullus: which aspersion Suetonius labours to acquit him of, in these words, Caesar's great familiarity and bed-fellowship, with Nicomedes King of Bythinia, (which was he with whom he was suspected) doth no way hurt or blemish the modesty of Caesar: of whose bloody butchery in the Capitol who hath not heard? Thus you see even in the greatest and most active, when they fall into this Mollicies, and pillowy sluggishness, what effects it works upon them, and what fearful judgements it brings upon them; for doubtless there is scarce a whoredom acted, or adultery committed, no incestuous congression, or pathic preposterous luxury, in which this Socordia, this snaylie and sluggish vice hath not a predominant hand. Of the last, modesty will scarce suffer me to speak, or almost to name, being more than brutish and altogether abominable: And before I enter on the former, give me leave to remember unto you some few of these soft, idle, and effeminate fellows, which merit rather the names of Musk-cats, than men. Augustus Caesar in sundry of his Epistles written to Maecenas, expresseth his tenderness, softness, and delicacy; but especially in that where he delivereth himself to this purpose: Farewell Maecenas, the Honey of Nations, the Ivory of Etruria, the Laser of Aretinum, the Margarite of Tibur, the Smarage of the Gilneans, the Jasper, Berill and Carbuncle, etc. strange Mellite and oily Gnatonicall language, (being seriously intended) to a subject from so great and wise an Emperor: yet the learned and grave Seneca calls him Mecoenatem discimitum mollicima ejus delicias, & portentosum orationem: His dissolute or unguerded Maecenas, his most effeminate delicacy, and portentous speech: who saith farther of him, that he was able to give an excellent example of the Roman Eloquence, if too much felicity and worldly prosperity, mixed with ease and idleness, had not mollified and enerved his spirits. So also Macrobius and Crinitus both report of him. Cai● Duellius after he had triumphed over the Carthaginians, and returned thence a glorious Conqueror, grew unto that voluptuousness and laziness, that he gave himself over to all the intemperances' of lust and riot; for if he went at any time by invitation to banquet or feast abroad, he had a Trumpet or a Coronet to sound him to the place; and when the meeting dissolved, to usher him back to his own house.  
The Mass●●tenses were with this lazy luxury so contaminated and infected, that they imitated women in their habit and vesture, perfuming their hair with precious unguents, and then bound up their locks with laces and ribbons: hence grew a proverb to their lasting disgrace, if any man was seen to spruce up himself too curiously, they would say unto him, E Massi●ia ●enisti, Thou camest but now from Massilla. And of this unmasculined condition, were Abram, Artemon, Clistine, Lysicrates, Argyri●● B 〈…〉 us, N●arus, Aristodamus, Andramites King of Lydia, with infinite others; perpetually and unto all posterity made notorious for their sloth, and branded for their idleness.  
How apt is plenty and fullness of bread to alter even the best natures, and of men to make monsters! Augustus Caesar was a wise, discreet, and well governed Prince, and celebrated for many rare virtues: yet it is related of him by Suetonius, Sextus Aurelius, and others, that he was accustomed to lodge nightly with twelve he Catamites of the one side, and as many she Prostitutes of the other; who rejecting his wife Scribonia, contracted himself to Livia, who was glad to hasten the nuptials, lest her great belly should be discovered: and though he were a bondslave to lust, he used to punish it in others with all severity; (for so the former Author's report of him) at a Feast where was a great assembly of the Patricians, and Senators with their wives; in the middle of the service, betwixt the second and third course, (not able to contain himself any longer) he took by the arm one of the beautifullest Matrons, (whose husband was present as a guest) and led her into a withdrawing room; where after some stay he brought her back to her seat, with her linen ruffled and out of order, and a great flushing in her face, which was palpable to all there present. He is also said to have stuprated Tertullia, Terentilla, Drusilla, Salvia, Citiscenia, and others.  
But more prodigious were the lusts of his Successor Tiberius, who according to Tranquillus, devised a seller or vault, which was as a school of Venery; and where all libidinous acts were practised in his own presence. In the woods also he built venereal Groves, where prostitution was daily practised; with some things fearful to be named. And as there were many prodigious examples of Nero's cruelty, so there are also of his incontinence and luxury; all which add to his hateful and abominable life, to make it the more infamous, who most irreligiously committed a rape upon Rubria, one of the vestal Virgins, to whom it was held worse than sacrilege to offer the least violence. He caused from the beautiful child Sporus; his virile parts to be cut away, endeavouring to have made him a woman, (if Art could have done it;) and then to have married him, and so he did: from whence grew a saying, made common in the mouths of all, Happy had it been for Rome and the Empire, if Nero's mother had been such a wife as Sporus. Many of his actions are too obscene for modesty to utter; He had natural congress and consociety with his natural mother Agrippina; He caused also one Doriph●● a freed man to be cut like Sporus, and married him also. Thus far of him Tranquillus, but much more Cornelius Tacitus.  
Caligula incested his own sisters, and prostituted them to his slaves and vassals, that in the cause of Aemilius they might be condemned as adultresses, or vitiated persons, which otherwise had gone against him. Livia Horestilla the wife of Caius Piso he violently took from him, and made her his Empress, but within two years being tired with his new Peer, he turned her off to grazing; and then he took from Caius Memmius his wife Lolliae Pa●lina, and in a short time repudiated her also; consigning them both from marriage, or to have consociety with any man whatsoever. He was much enamoured of one Cesonia a beautiful Damsel, and his custom was to his private friends oft to show her naked. He was said much to love Marcus Lepidus, and Marcus Nestor the Pantomine, (which is a Buffoon or common Jester) for no other cause, but only for the commerce of mutual and alternate brothelry; of these and many other his brutish ribauldries witnesseth Suctonius.  
The Emperor Commodus in like manner constuperated his own natural sisters, in the sight of his other Paramores and Prostitutes, and then offered them to his friends, such libidinous wretches as himself, to have the like congress with them: being a young man he was a scandal to all those whom he made his companions, and they reciprocally were scandalised by being in his company: These with infinite others of his licentious irregularities are recorded by Lampridius. He had also (as the same Author testates) three hundred Concubines of selected form and feature; chosen out of the families of the Senators and Patritians; and as many choice young men of sweet aspect and undespised proportion, taken out of the best of the Nobility; and with these he did continually riot, drink, and wanton in his Palace, where were used all immodest postures, and uncomely gestures, that the very Genius of lust could devise: so that his Court showed rather a common stews, than the royal dwelling house and mansion of a Prince.  
Gordianus junior, who wore the Imperial purple with his father, absenting himself from all warlike employment, lived in laziness and ease, giving himself solely to voluptuousness and carnal concupiscence, having at once two and twenty Concubines, and by every one of them three or four children at the least; for which by some he was called the Priamus of his age: but by others (in scorn) the Priapus. And Proculus the Emperor in one expedition, (besides many other spoils) took captive an hundred Sarmatian Virgins; all which he boasted not only to have vitiated and deflowered, but to have perpetrated, or more plainly got with child, within fifteen days, for so Flavius Vopiscus reports of him; as also Sabellicus, in Exemplis. Heliogabalus that Monster of nature, gathered together Bawds, Whores, Catamites, Pimps, Panders, Rounsevalls, and Stallions, (the very pest and poison of a Nation or People) even till they grew to a great multitude: to which he added all the long-nosed vagabonds, and sturdy beggars he could find; for these they say have the greatest inclination to libidinou filthiness, and these he kept together and maintained at his great charge, only to satisfy his brutish humour: Therefore Lampridius writing to the Emperor concerning his prodigious Venery, useth these words; Who can endure a Prince who committeth lust in all the hollows of his body, when Rooms, Cages, and Grates, the receptacle and dens of wild beasts cannot amongst them all show a beast like him. He also kept cursors and messengers, who had no other employment, but to ride abroad, and seek out for these Masuti, and to bring them to Court, that he might pollute and defile himself amongst them: But these whose dissolute and floath-infected lives have grown to such an execrable height of impudence, have not escaped Gods terrible Judgements by miserable and tragic ends; as you may read in the premises, where I have had occasion to speak of the same persons, though to other purpose.  
I will prosecute this further by example, wherein the effects of this dull and drowsy vice of idleness and sloth, shall be better illustrated, and in none more proper than that of ●Egistus and Clitemuestra: for Agamemnon King of Mycena, (and brother to Menelaus' King of Sparta, the husband of Helena, ravished thence by Paris, one of the sons of King Priam) being chosen. General of the Grecian Army, in that great expedition against Troy, for the rape of that Spartan Queen: In his absence he left Aegistus to govern his family, and manage his Domestic affairs, who lulled in ease, and loitering in idleness, and she a lusty Lady, and lying in a widowed and forsaken bed, such familiarity grew betwixt them, that at length it came into flat adultery; of whom the Poet thus ingenuously writes:  

Quaeritur Aegistus, quare sit factus adulter?  
In prompts causa est, Desidiosus erat, etc.   

Ask any why Aegistus did  
Fair Clytaemnestra woe,  
'Tis answered: he was idle, and  
Had nothing else to do.   
Now this Aegisthus was before espoused to a young Lady the daughter of Phocas Duke of Creophen, whose bed he repudiated, and sent back to her father. For the love of this Queen of Micena, of whom he begot a daughter called Egiona; and in the absence of his Lord and Master (supported by the Queen) took upon him all regal authority, and was obeyed as King. Now Agamemnon had a young son called Orestes, who was then under the tuition or guardianship of a worthy Knight called Fultibius, who fearing lest the adulterer and the adulteress might insidiate his life, he conveyed him out of the Land, and brought him to Idomeneus King of Crect, a pious and just Prince, who undertook to bring him up, educate, and instruct him like the son of such a father; and protect him against all his enemies whatsoever.  
Imagine now the ten years' wars ended, Troy sacked and spoilt, rak't to the earth, and quite demolished; and Agamemnon at his return the very first night of his lodging in the Palace, cruelly murdered in his bed by Aegisthus and the Queen. By this time Orestes being of the years able to bear Arms, and having intelligence how basely his father was butchered, and by whom, he made a solemn vow to avenge his death upon the Authors thereof, and to that end besought aid of the King Idomeneus his foster father and protector, who first made him Knight, and furnished him with a competent Army. To assist whom came Fultibius his first Guardian, with all the forces he could levy; as also Phocas, whose daughter Aegisthus had before forsaken: These sped themselves so well, that in few days they entered the Land, and after laid siege to the chief City called Micene, where the Queen then lay (for Aegistus was at that time abroad to solicit a●d against invasion, which he much feared) but finding the gates shut, and the walls manned, and all entrance denied, they made a fierce assault; and though it was very courageously and valiantly defended; yet at length the City was taken, and the Queen surprised in the Palace, who being brought unto the presence of her son, all filial duty set apart, and forgetting the name of mother, he saluted her only by the title of Adulteress, and Murderess, and when he had thundered into her ears the horridness and trocity of her crime, having his sword drawn in his hand, he suddenly transpierced her body, and left her dead upon the pavement, as an expla●ion or bloody sacrifice to appease the soul of his dead farther. Some would aggravate the fact, and say, that he caused her breasts to be torn off, (she being yet alive) and cast to the dogs to be eaten, but that had been a cruelty beyond nature, for a son to exercise upon a mother; now whilst these things were in ag●●ation, Aegistus had gathered an Army for the raising of the ●●ege, and reclaiming the City, of which Orestes having intelligence, ambushed him in his way, and had such good success, that having encompassed him in, he set upon his Forces, both before and behind, routed them, and took Aegistus prisoner, whom after he had put to the greatest tortures that humane apprehension could invent or devise, he commanded his body to be hanged in chains upon a gibbet without the City, the place where malefactors were executed; there to remain till it dropped thence limb from limb: all this coming to the ear of the adulterate brood Esyone, (who was said to have been accessary to the death of Agame●nón) she in extreme sorrow for the disaster happened to her father and mother, despairing, strangled herself, and Orestes after he had more considerately pondered his cruelty towards his mother, which (how soever just) had better to have come from any man's hand than his own, and further, that in the mouths of all men he was held no better than a matricide, (a name hateful both to God and man) he upon this grew into a great melancholy, and from melancholy to madness, never being able to recover his senses after. It being worthy observation, what murders, revenges, adulteries, divers selfe-killings, and what not? arise from this (seeming harmless) drowsy, and sleepy sin of ay 〈…〉 enesse; of which I will present you further with a strange and most lamentable story.  
Dom. joannes Gygas postilla suae, parte secunda, pag. 200. A noble and virtuous 
A strange story of a slothful Chambermaid.  Lady who had a lazy and drowsy Chambermaid, and as one bad quality seldom or never goeth without another, she was of a testy disposition, and of a snappish and cursed tongue; it happened that her mistress upon a time chiding her for her neglect and sloth, she began to mander and murmur, and in the end to give her Lady very cross and untoward language, at which being much incensed, she gave her a box on the ear, at which she fell down upon the floor, as if she had been half slain, and multiplying many bitter and despiteful words, told her Lady that blow should never be forgot nor forgiven. Who somewhat sorry, as fearing she had struck her too hard, left her mumbling the devils Pater noster, as we say, and minded her no farther. But the devil would not let slip this occasion, putting her in mind, to accuse her Lady of Adultery, and day nor night she could be in quiet, till she had so done: at length attending a fit opportunity when she found her Lord in private, the subtle shrew interupted him after this manner; Noble Sir, (with pardon craved for my boldness) I have a strange secret to acquaint you with, were I assured of your silence, but I am afraid that my zeal and tender care I have of your honour may be misprised, and that punishment which belongeth to others may redound upon myself to mine own ruin; at which the Crocodile wept, and her Lord longing to know what the matter was, protested secrecy, and bid her say on: when she thus proceeded, I know (Sir) that you are confident of the modesty, purity, and conjugal chastity of your Lady, as wholly devoted to your love, having no other rival or competitor in her affection; but to my great sorrow I speak it, she violates her matrimonial tie, and adulterates your sheets in your absence, not with a Gentleman of any of fashion, or quality, but with one of the Grooms of your stable, which I most humbly beg of your honour that you will keep private to yourself, till I make you eyewitness of what I speak, and bring you to the place where this ungodly congress is frequently used betwixt them. And here she broke off abruptly as if tears constrained by sorrow had stopped her in her further relation.  
At this discourse the Nobleman was stupefied, and though he ever found her indulgent and affectionate towards him, and could never tax her of the least lascivious glance or incontinent gesture, yet he remembered that when his custom was to rise early to hunt, or hawk, or to survey his Parks and grounds, he found her scarce up or ready when he came back to break fast, and then his jealousy began to suggest him that in that interim this wickedness might be committed; and so growing full of thoughts, he left her (the devil's agent) to attend the event, who let slip no occasion to prosecute the mischief that she had begun, but finding him coming early one morning (after his sports) and knowing her Lady was then in bed, ran presently to the stable and called one of the Grooms in haste, and told him he must run suddenly to her Lady in her chamber, for she had a serious business in which to employ him, which she did with such fervency, that the Groom ran to the chamber as if it had been for life and death, (and so indeed it proved) and finding his Lady's door open, entered: in which time she calls her Lord, and hastens him to the place, but before he came thither, the Lady spying the Groom to rush so suddenly into the chamber, called him bold and saucy varlet, and (ignorant of the deceit) flung bed-staves at his head, and not having the patience to hear what he had to say for himself, bade him get him thence with a vengeance, whom his master met just at the door, and with his sword ran him through, so that without speaking he fell dead in the place, and there in the heat of fury, ere she had the leisure to ask what the matter was, he as she lay in her bed and without any question or answer expected transpierced her to the heart, whose chaste soul (no doubt) mounted unto that blessed place of rest to which her piety, devotion, and charity in her life time chiefly aimed; now as he stood leaning upon his sword so lately imbrued in the blood of these two innocents', having a thousand chimaeras in his brain, and her flinty and obdurare heart mean time relenting at the horridness of the strage committed, she could keep her own devilish counsel no longer, but presently burst out into this language; Alas my Lord, what have I done? Never was Lady more chaste or constant to the bed and embraces of her husband than she who here lies weltering in her innocent blood, whatsoever I spoke of her was false and untrue, as merely suggested by the devil, and this I maliciously devised in revenge of a blow she gave meto correct my 〈◊〉 and slo 〈…〉 fullness, which not able in my ill disposition to digest; I, am only I am sole author of their commiserated and much to be lamented deaths, which hath happened more difastrous than I expected. This being so feelingly and passionately delivered, struck such a deep impression into him, that sometimes casting his eye upon his honest and faithful servant, and then upon his virtuous and untainted Wife, being possessed with a world of distractions at once, which swayed him above the strength of nature, he first dispatched her of life, and after fell upon his own sword; making up the fourth in the Tragedy.  
If you expect to hear further judgements inflicted upon this sin, every Sessions and Assizes through the Kingdom can afford precedents sufficient, how many children are brought to the execution place, who complain of their parents for their idle and slothful bringing up; who being neither set to school, nor put to manufacture or trade, whereby to get their livings, have been found to filch, pillage, steal, and break houses, which brings them at length to the Gallows: what fills the Bridewells and Correction-houses with so many rogues and vagabond; but idleness? what makes so many maunders and highway beggars, so many brothers of the broomesta●●e, who not able to compass a sword or pistol, will adventure to set upon men and rob them, with staves, bats, and cudgels? what makes so many pimps, panders, apple-squires, bawds, prostitutes and whores (the very cankers and impostumes of a Common-weal) but sloth and idleness? and what are the fruits of their ribaldries and 〈…〉 rises, but aches, and it ches, ●●rpegues, fluxes, rheums, catarrhs, and a thousand other diseases? who though they escape the rope (which is the presentest and sudde●nest cure for them all yet the best houses they can hope to purchase, are lame spitals; and hospitals. I need not aggravate these any further, as not being things private, rare, or scarce happening in an age, but as common as Noverint universe, for scarce a monthly Sessions passes here in the City, without hanging and carting.  
To prevent which, and to avoid the manifold mischiefs incident, nay impending over this sin of floath and idleness, let every man and woman in the fear of God apply themselves to their several vocations and callings, to supply (as far as in them lies) the necessities belonging to this life, and to become industrious and laborious members of the Church and Common-weal; and for the life to come, to take the counsel of our Saviou 〈…〉, Matth. 24. 22. Watch therefore, for you know not at what hour your Master will come: of this be sure, That if the good man of the house knew at what watch the thief would come, he would surely watch, and not suffer his house to be digged through. This condemneth sleepy floath and ●rowfie negligence; neither is doing good only commanded, but the negligence and omitting of doing good is damnable and subject to everlasting torment, as you may read Matth. 5. 41. Then he shall say to them on the left hand, depart from me ye ●ursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was an hungered and ye gave me no m●●●, I thirsted and ye gave me no drink, I was a stranger and ye took me not in unto ye, I was 〈◊〉 and ye clothed me not, I was in prison and ye visited me not, and these are me sins of omission. Their judgement is not for taking away the bread from the hungry, and drink from the thirsty, but for not supplying them with such necessities when they stood in want thereof (for this is spoken of the poor members of Christ) I conclude with this sin of Idleness thus, most sure we shall Reddere rationem, that is, answer for every idle act, when we shall render an account for every idle word.   

CHAP. V. God's judgements against Covetousness.  
THis Vice is defined to be a dishonest and insatiable desire of having, which is superabundant in desiring, acquiring, and keeping, but altogether deficient in parting with, or giving: this inordinate desire of riches is quite opposite to Liberality, and to Justice, which ought to distribute suum cuique, and may be divided into these four Heads, Mortal, Venial, Capital, and General. It is called mortal, when a man taketh or retains that which belongeth to another man unjustly; and than it is either Theft, Rapine, Usury, or Deceit in buying or selling, or else when we prefer the inordinate love of riches before our love to God and our neighbour. And then called venial, when though we love wealth, we use no indirect course to get it, nor hinder others by our illiberality or grippleness to keep it, and may be called good husbandry. It is capital, and so called, because it is the head of many other sins, and exceedeth either in retaining, from whence ariserh obduration against pity, which is also called inhumanity, or the unquietness of the mind, which begets superfluous solicitude and care: or violence, when we take from others injustly and by force: or fallacy, when we equivocate in our bargains: or perjury, when we use an oath to confirm it: or fraud, when for gain we stick not to deceive: or prodition, and that was the sin of judas, who for a price betrayed his Master. It is called general, because of it there be many species, one specially consists either in the defect of giving, or the excess in the desire of having; of the first in giving, he is called Parcus who giveth little, Tenax who gives nothing, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who parts with that he gives with great difficulty. Excess in acquiring consists in gaining filthily, or injustly; filthily, by illiberal acts, as striving to enrich one's selves by base, vile, and sordid means, in which is included all meretricall gain got by prostitution or panderism, with the like: and amongst these injustly avaricious, are numbered, Usurer's guilty of oppression and extortion, Thiefs who rob either openly or privately, spoilers of the dead, false Executours, etc. and Dicers, who covet to pray on the goods of their friends living.  
And this grand vice with all the several branches thereof is condemned in the holy Scriptures, Gen. 18. 21. Moreover, provide thou amongst all the people, men of courage, fearing God; men dealing truly, hating covetousness, etc. It is the tenth Commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's wife. And Levit. 19 11. Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another, thou shalt not do thy neighbour wrong, nor rob him. Deut. 23. 20. Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to, in the land whether thou goest to possess it. job 20. 15. He hath devoured substance, and he shall vomit it, for God shall draw it out of his belly. And 27. 8. For what hope hath the hypocrite when he hath heaped up riches, if God take away his soul. Psal. 62. 10. Trust not in oppression nor in robbery, be not vain, if riches increase set not thine heart upon them. Prov. 1. 19 Such are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain, he would take away the life of the owners thereof. jer. 8. 10. Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields unto them that shall possess them, for every one from the least unto the greatest is given unto covetousness, and from the Prophet unto the Priest every one dealeth falsely. Ezech. 18. 7. He that hath not oppressed any, but hath restored the pledge to his debtor, he that hath spoiled none by violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment, and hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, but hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, and hath executed true judgement betwixt man and man, and hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgements, to deal truly, he is just, and shall surely live, saith the Lord. Matth. 6. 24. No man can serve two masters, for either he shall hate the one and love the other, or else he shall lean to the one and despise the other, ye cannot serve God and riches. Luke 12. 15. Wherefore he said nnto them, take heed and beware of covetousness, for though a man have abundance, his life standeth not in his riches. john 12. 4. Then said one of his Disciples, even judas Iscariot Simons son which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? now he said this not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the bag, and bare that was given. It is Radix omnium malorum. 1 Tim. 6. 10. For the desire of money is the root of all evil, which whilst some lusted after they erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows, for they that will be rich fall into many temptations and snares, and into many foolish and noisome lusts, which drown men in perdition and destruction. Covetous men are contemners of God's Word, Matth. 13. 22. And he that received the seed amongst thorns is he that heareth the Word, but the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and he is made unfruitful. It is no better than idolatry, Col. 3. 5. Mortify therefore your members which are on earth, fornication, uncleanness, the inordinate affections, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. They are miserable and vain, job 20. 19 He hath undone many, he hath forsaken the poor, and hath spoiled houses which he builded not, surely he shall feel no quietness in his body, neither shall he reserve of that which he desired, there shall none of his meat be left, therefore none shall hope for his goods, when he shall be filled with his abundance, he shall be in pain, and the hand of the wicked shall assail him, he shall be about to fill his belly, but God shall send upon him his fierce wrath, and shall cause to rain upon him, even upon his meat, etc. They are not capable of everlasting life, Col. 6. 10. Nor thiefs, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God. Many more Texts there are to the like purpose, but I come nearer to show you examples of Covetousness, and the punishments thereof out of the sacred Scriptures.  
We read josh. 7. 20. And Achan answered joshua, and said, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus I have done, I saw amongst the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, and I covered them, and behold, they lie hid in the earth, in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. It followeth, Verse 24. Then joshua took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tents, and all that he had, and all Israel with him brought them to the valley of Anchor: and joshua said, in as much as thou hast troubled us, the Lord shall trouble thee this day; and all Israel threw stones at him, and burned them with fire and stoned them with stones, etc. It was also punished in Nabal, 1 Sam 1. 25. who was churlish, gripple, and covetous, and ungrateful to David and his servants, for which the Text saith, Verse 36. And about ten days after the Lord smote Nabal that he died: who not only lost his life, but had his wife Abigail given unto David, whom he before despised. Ahab King of Israel for coveting of Naboths vineyard, and by the means of his wife jezebel putting him to death, that her husband might take possession thereof: hear his terrible judgement that followed, 1 Kings 21. 17. The Word of the Lord came to Eliah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab King of Israel which is in Samaria, lo, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to take possession of it: therefore shalt thou say unto him, thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed, and also gotten possession: and thou shalt speak unto him saying, thus saith the Lord, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick even thy blood also, behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, as well him that is shut up, as him that is left in Israel: and I will make thy house like the house of jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation whereby thou hast provoked and made Israel to sin: and of jezebel spoke the Lord, saying, the dogs shall eat jezebel by the walls of jezreel; the dogs shall eat him of ahab's stock that dieth in the City, and him that dieth in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat, etc. Now what more fearful judgement could have been pronounced against them? all which punctually happened unto them according to the Prophets saying.  
Further, we read Esay 1. 23. Thy Princes are rebellious, and companions of thiefs, every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards, they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the widow's cause come before them, therefore saith the Lord God of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will case me of my adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. jer. 22. 17. Thine eyes and thine heart are but only for thy covetousness, and to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for destruction, even to do this; Therefore thus saith the Lord against jehoiakim the son of josiah King of judah, they shall not lament him, saying, ah my brother, and ah my sister; neither shall they mourn for him saying, ah Lord, or ah his glory, he shall be buried as an ass is buried, and cast forth without the gates of jerusalem. Ezech. 22. 27. Her Princes in the midst thereof are like wolves, ravening the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls for their own covetous lucre. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood, thou hast taken usury, and the increase, and thou hast defrauded thy neighbour by extortion, and hast fogotten me, saith the Lord God, behold therefore I have smitten mine hands upon thy covetousness that thou hast used, and upon the blood which hath been in the midst of thee: I will scatter thee amongst the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, etc. Amos 4. 1. Hear this word ye kine of Baashan, that are in the mountains of Samaria, which oppress the poor, and destroy the needy, etc. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with thorns, and your posterity with fishhooks. Micah 2. 2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away, so they oppress a man and his house, even man and his heritage, therefore thus saith the Lord. Behold, against this family have I devised a plague, whereout ye shall not pluck your necks, and you shall not go so proudly; for this time is evil. Again, 3. 11. The heads thereof judge for rewards, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof prophesy for money, yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord amongst us? no 〈◊〉 can come upon us: therefore shall Zion for your sakes he ploughed as 〈◊〉 field, and jerusalem shall be an hea●, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Hab. 2 9 Ho, he that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, to escape from the power of evil. Thou hast consulted shame to thine own house, by destroying many people, and hast sinned against thine own soul, for the stone shall 〈…〉 out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it, We unto him that buildeth a town with blood, and erecteth a city by iniquity. 2 Mach. 10. 20. Now they that were with Simon being led with covetousness, were entreated for money (through certain of those that were in the castle) and took seventy thousand drac 〈…〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of them escape, but when it was told Machubeus what was done, he called the governor's of the people together, and accused those men, that they had sold their brethren for money, and let their enemies go, so he slew them when they 〈◊〉 convict of treason, and won the two castles. Eccles. 4. 8. There is one alone, and there a not a second, which hath neither son nor brother, yet is there no end of all his travel, neither can his eye be satisfied with riches, neither doth he think, for whom do I travel, and defraud my soul of pleasure? this also is vanity, and this is an evil travel. Again 5. 9 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, and he that loveth riches shall not enjoy the fruits thereof, where goods increase they are increased that eat them, and what goods cometh to the owners but the beholding thereof with their eyes? the sleep of him that traveleth is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the satiety of the rich will not suffer him 〈◊〉 sleep. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the sun, to wit riches reserv●● to the owners thereof for their evil, and their riches vanish by evil travel, 〈◊〉 he begetteth a son and in his hand is nothing. I conclude with that of Zephan. 1. 18. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lords wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make a speedy riddance even of all them that dwell in the land.  
And thus far the Scriptures against this horrid vice of Covetousness. I come to the Fathers: Saint Augustine, De verbo Domins, useth these words, What is this avidity of concupiscence without measure? when even beasts themselves observe a mediocrity; they only pray when they are an hungered, but cease to spoil when they are satisfied, only the avarice of the rich is insatiable, it always rages, and is never sated, it neither feareth God, nor reverenceth man; it spareth not the father, nor acknowledgeth the mother; it regardeth nor brother, nor child, but breaketh covenant with a friend, it oppresseth the widow, invadeth the orphan, distresseth the poor, and is prone to bring false witnesses, and what a madness is it to desire death for life? and in seeking to find gold, to lose Heaven?  
And Saint Ambrose in his Sermons thus: It is all one for him that hath, to take from him that wants, and when thou hast, and canst, to deny relief to the indigent and needy; it is the bread of the hungry that thou deteinest, the clothing of the naked that thou keepest back, the money that thou hidest in the earth is the redemption of the captive, and know, thou robbest so many of those goods as it is in thy power to confer upon the miserable, when thou deniest to succour them: Those fortunes and those riches are not a man's own, which he cannot carry with him, only mercy and charity forsake not a man in his death.  
Saint Hierome saith, To a covetous man that is as much wanting which he hath, as what he hath not, because he rather desires to have what he wants, or is still in fear to lose what he hath; who, whilst in adversity he hopes for prosperity, in prosperity he fears adversity. And in another place. The covetous man burns here with the heat of concupiscence, and shall burn after in the fire of Gehenna. If he see one more potent than himself, he suspects an oppressor: If one inferior, he fears a thief: and such are most unhappy, who really suffer whatsoever they shall but fear to suffer.  
Huge lib. de Clar. useth these words: There be four things in the possessing of goods and riches to be observed; namely, that lawful things we do not acquire injustly; or being injustly acquired, we do not strive to enjoy them unlawfully: that we strive not to possess much, though lawfully; nor things justly got, defend unlawfully; for either evilly to acquire, or badly to use what is acquired, what is lawful makes unlawful: for, to possess much hath some alliance to avarice, and commonly it happens, what is too much loved, is ill defended. I conclude with Gregory in one of his Homilies, Every avaricious man from drink doth multiply thirst; because when he hath once enjoyed what he before coveted, he is not therewith satisfied, but hath the greater inclination to cover more.  
But from the Fathers I come to Ethnic History, and first I will give you the appellation of some rich men: Cacilius Camidius was of that infinite estate, that though he had lost a great part of his riches in the civil wars of Rome, yet at his death he left four thousand domestic servants and retainers; in his stables he had an hundred and threescore horses, three thousand and six hundred oxen, and of other head of cattle two hundred fifty and seven thousand, and pecuniis numeratis, that is in ready coin six hundred thousand pound weight, who also gave to be expended upon his Funeral eleven thousand Sestertii. Marcus Crassus would not allow any man to be called a rich man, who was not able out of his private coffers to maintain a Legion of Soldiers for a year; the annual revenue of his fields and grounds arable and pasture, amounted to fifty hundred thousand crowns of gold: Neither did this suffice him (saith Pliny) but he was ambitious to win and possess all the gold of the Parthians. The greatest part of his wealth he purchased out of the civil garboils, seditions, and combustions, converting the public calamities to his private use and benefit; for when he had left him three hundred Talents only from his father's Inheritance, before he enterprised any expedition against the Parthians, he had gathered together into one Magazine seven thousand and one hundred Talents, though he had before consecrated the Tenths and Tithes of his whole estate to the Temple of Hercules. He moreover made a public Banquet, in which he feasted the whole people of Rome, and gave to every one of his guests three pounds in silver: He kept moreover as his servants that had dependence of him, five hundred Smiths and Carpenters, skilful in Architecture; whom he not only employed in his own sumptuous Buildings and Aedisices; but to any noble Citizen who had a will and desire to build, he not only lent them freely, but paid them at his own charge: yet this man overcome with covetousness of the Parthian gold, was by them taken prisoner in battle, who knowing his great avarice, caused molten gold to be poured down his throat, deriding his insaciety in these terms; For gold thou thirstest in thy life, and now take thy fill of it in thy death.  
And yet Pallas the freed man of Claudius Caesar was held to be twenty times richer than Crassus': Plinius the Praetor speaks of this Pallas, as also of Calistus and Narcissus, possessed of innumerable wealth, during the principality of Claudius, insomuch that the plenty of Narcissus grew to a proverb, for if they had to speak of any man who was possess of superabundant wealth, they would say he was as rich as Narcissus: of this Pallas juvenal speaks in his first Satire, who with Narcissus were the freed men of Claudius; and by the general suffrage of the Senate, had not only mighty Donatives conferred upon them, but they were admitted unto prime Magistrates, and underwent the most honourable offices in the City: More over the Emperor (as Tacitus writes) bestowed upon Pallas the Praetorian Ensigns, with great sums of money, being yearly possessed (besides his domestic wealth) of three thousand Sestertii; but what happiness had he by the enjoying of such abundance? the same Author relates, that Ner● Caesar grieving that he had lived so long, (for he was grown aged) caused him to be poisoned; and by that means confiscated his goods to his own use.  
Antiochus the great King of Syria did so abound in riches, that purposing to make war upon the Romans, he gathered a puissant and numerous Army, who were accommodated in all the bravery that could be possible; their Helmets being richly plumed, and the heads of their Spears and Shields shining with silver and gold; who after with great esteem, showing the glory of his Soldiers, and pride of his Host to Hannibal, he asked him whether he thought that these were not able to conquer the Roman? who after some small pause made him answer: I cannot presume that they are able to vanquish them, but of this I am most assured, they are able to satisfy them, if the Romans be covetous; and so it after proved to his great dishonour.  
Pythius Bythinius a Persian, gave to Dari 〈…〉 a plain tree and a Vine all of gold; he also feasted Xerxes' Army, (in his expedition towards Greece) which consisted of seven hundred fourscore and eight thousand men, and allowed unto them five month's provision of corn, victual, and pay; and only because that of five sons he had, Xerxes would leave one of them at home with him to comfort him image. Herodotus and Pliny both testify of him, that being demanded of the King of what possession 〈◊〉 was? he made answer. That he had in his Coffer ten thousand Talents of silver, and four hundred Mirlads of gold, besides of the coin of the Daricans, which amounted to seven thousand pound weight in gold, all which when he had prostrated to the King's service and free dispose, he wondering at his extraordinary liberality, took to supply his present use the four hundred Miriads of gold, and left him the rest: notwithstanding which, in his return from Greece, whence he was basely beaten and baffled, he caused that young man the son of so bountiful a father, before his face to be cut in pieces. And thus we see there is no trust in riches: for even King David and his son, who had wealth above account, and gold and treasure beyond numbe●, the one 〈◊〉 into Murder and Adultery, the other into Lust and Idolatry.  
From those which were rich, I come to the covetous: Constat, Manasses, Annaltum pag. 94. relates that Chaganus King of the Septentrional Scythians, when he had invaded many of the Roman Forts and Citadels, even those most strongly manned and defenced, in his first violent assaults took in many walled Cities, and all the Region bordering upon Ister, quite depopulutated; insomuch that the whole River was sanguined with the blood of the Natives. And having surprised many Captives, to the number of twelve thousand men, he sent to the Emperor Mauricius to know if he would redeem them being Christians, and his subjects: but neither the extreme rage of the Scythian cruelty, nor the barbarous King's inhumanity, neither the cries and ejaculations of the miserable and distressed prisoners, could move the mind of this obdure and flinty-hearted Emperor, who was wholly given over the base and sordid avarice. Again, Chaganus sent unto him. Ambassadors with more moderate and reasonable conditions, with a great part of the first price deducted; to which the covetous Emperor would not lend any ear at all: which Chaganus hearing, he raged like a Tiger, and caused them all to be hewed to pieces; the whole Region to be covered with their carcases; the fields to be stained with their blood; and their bodies to be piled in an heap almost to the height of a Pinetree: which cruel act of the Emperor my Author thus aggravates. O gold and love of gold, more cruel than a Tyrant! of men the persecutor, the Fort of mischief, the Castle of destruction, the eversion of Towers, the depopulation of Cities, the demolishing of Walls and Gates, the fall of Houses, the ruin of Families: O with what mischiefs dost, thou afflict us mortals! no earthly thing can compare with thee in cruelty: Thou softnest the hard, indurat'st the soft; thou givest speech to the silent, and makest mute the free speaker: In roving, thou makest the swift slow paced, and puttest wings to the feet of the lazy: Thou kickest against Law and Justice, expellest bashfulness and modesty, violat'st Sepulchers, diggest through; there is nothing which thou wilt not sell, nothing which thou wilt not betray.  
Now let us look upon the dreadful Judgement of God, which fell upon this gripple minded Prince, who was so hated amongst the Christians, that upon Christmas day, as he was entering into the Temple, was like to have been stoned to death: After which he grew jealous even of his own brother, and all the best friends about him, lest they should supplant him from the Imperial dignity; of which he grew the more timorous, in regard of divers ominous dreams: for there appeared unto him in his slumbers a blazing-starre like a sword, and a Monk running with a sword drawn to the Emperor's Statue, enraged and crying out aloud, Imperatorem ferr● periturum: (i●) That the Emperor shall perish by steel. He dreamt also, That he was given to be murdered to one Phocas; upon which he sent for one Philippicus out of prison, a man whom he much trusted, and asked him, Qualis sit Phocas? What kind of man is that Phocas? To whom Philippicus answered, Centurio ambitiosus, sed timidus: To whom the Emperor again replied, If he be a coward, he is then a murderer. In conclusion, he grew into such a great contempt of the Army, that they sought to depose him; and the Legions and men of War about Istrus chose Phocas a barbarous and bloody Thracian to be Emperor, who made all the haste possible to Constantinople, where he was crowned in the Suburbs by Cyprian the Patriarch. Mauricius in this interim was with his wife and children at Chalcedon, where through grief and trouble of mind he fell sick: thither Phocas sped him with all expedition, who first caused his two youngest Sons to be slain in his sight, and then his three daughters; and next their mother Constantina, the daughter of Tiberius the second, the next Emperor before Mauricius; who beheld the deaths of his sons and daughters with great patience: but when he saw his wife in the hand of the tormentor, he burst forth into these words, (acknowledging his faults) O Lord God, thou art just, and and thy judgements are right. Lastly, Phocas commanded his head to be cut off, whose body, with his wives and children, were cast upon the shore, to be a public spectacle for all the people; where they lay upon the ground till one of the enemies which had belonged to Mauricius, caused them to be interted.  
Achaeus a King of the Lydians, was much branded with this vice of covetousness, who when he had accumulated much riches, and that too by sinister means, not therewith contented, he proceeded further, and put new and unheard of taxes and exactions upon his subjects; when they knew his Treasury abounded with all fullness and plenty: In hate of whose extreme avarice they conspired together, and made an insurrection against him; and having surprised him in his Palace, they haled him thence, and hanged him on a Gibbet with his heels upward, and his head drowned in the waters of Pactolus; whose streams (as sundry Authors write) are of the colour of gold, and hath name amongst the golden rivers; an Emblem of his avarice. Thus you see this deadly sin seldom or never escapes without Judgement.  
Neither did justinianus the second, the son of Constantinus Barbatus, escape the aspersion of this horrid vice, he was the last of the stock of Heraclius, a man covetous, unquiet, cruel, and unfortunate: He had two Sycophants who furnished his coffers, and for that were graced by him with all Imperial power and authority; the one Theodosuis, a Monk, the other Stephanus the Emperor's Chaplain: who was in such credit with his Master, that he durst beat the old Empress. These two not only exercised extortion and oppression amongst the Subjects, but great cruelty upon the Princes, Dukes, and Captains, keeping one of them called Leontius two years in prison; who after escaping by the help of the Patriarch, was made Emperor, and cut off the nostrils of justinian, and sent him as an Exile to Chersonesus. Which Leontius being after surprised by Tiberius Apsimarus, he cut off his nostrils and sent him into a Monastery. After justinian returned, being aided by the Bulgarians, and suprising both Leontius and Apsimarus, he caused them to be led bound through the Marketplace; and having first trod upon their necks, cut off their heads: then he pulled out the eyes of Callinious the Patriarch, and hanged up Heraclius the brother of Apsimarus. But at what time he sent his Army against Chirson, the Host made Philippicus Bardanes Emperor, who made all speed to Constantinople; and taking justinian and his son Tiberius from the Sanctuary, commanded them most miserably to be slain.  
Nay, even your greatest Prelates, and in the primest places of Episcopal dignity, have not been excluded from this general sin of Avarice. Martinus Papa was of that gripple and penurious condition, that he commanded the ends of wax-candles left after Mass, and the other Service, to be brought him home to his Palace, to save him light in the nights for his household and family. And Pontanus writes of one Agolastus, a Priest and Cardinal, who though he allowed liberally meat for his horses, after repenting him of the charge, would in the night steal privately into the stable, and take the provender out of their mangers; which he used so long, that being watched by the master of his horse, and knowing him, beat him sound, as if he had been a common thief.  
But contrary to these, Alexander the first, Pope, was of that bounty and munificence, that scarce any meriting man but tasted freely of his liberality; who used to say unto his friends in sport, I will tell you all my fortunes: I was a rich Bishop, I was a poor Cardinal, and am at this present a beggarly Pope.  
A great example of this vice of desiring to get and have, was that of Alcmaeon the son of Megaclus, who when he had entertained some of the chief Nobility of Croesus' King of Lydia in their way to Delphos, with great humanity and courtesy, the King loath to remain indebted to him, or at least, not some way to correspond with his bounty, invited him to his Palace, and having abundantly feasted him for some days, when he was ready to depart and take his leave of the King, Nay (saith he) you shall not part thus emptyhanded from me before you have seen my Treasury, and take from thence as much gold as you are able to carry, who being of the craving and having condition, presently provided himself of large garmenrs, and wide clothes, with deep and spacious pockets, and thought not all sufficient, for coming to the Magazine, having taken thence as much as it was possible for him to dispose of in any place about him, he then filled his mouth, and crammed it to the very teeth, and had conveyances in hair, and so swearing under this burden, disguised like a man distracted and quite out of his senses, he appeared before the King, who when he saw him so estranged from himself, burst into a loud laughter, and in contempt of his covetousness, with great scorn and derision let him depart. Thus far Herodotus.  
Neither hath the Feminine sex been altogether free from the same aspersions, but most justly taxed; for when Brennus our Countryman (and brother to Belinus' King of this Land) being then Captain of the Gauls, besieged Ephesus with his Army, a great Lady of the City, called Dominica sent to parley with him, and made a covenant, for a mighty great sum of money to betray it into his hands, which Brennus according to the composition entered, and after sacked and spoiled, and standing at one of the great gates to receive the reward, he willing to keep his promise, and yet in his heart detesting the avarice of the woman, caused so much gold and treasure to be thrown upon her, till under the huge mass she was buried alive.  
Near allied to the former is the story of Tarpeia, one of the vestal virgins in Rome, who having covenanted with Sabine the enemies to the Romans, to betray unto them the Capital for the bracelets they wore on their left arm, which were very rich and costly, they when they were entered and had possession of the place, in stead of their bracelets and carcanets threw upon her their shields and targets worn of their left arms, and so sti●●ed, smothered and pressed her to death: in memory of whose soul and traitorous act grounded on Covetousness the Hill where she was buried is called, The Tarpeian Mountain, even to this day, and this happened in the year of the world 2305.  
Europhites was likewise the wife of Amphi●rus, who for a carcanet of gold given her by P●linyces, betrayed her husband, and discovered him in the place where he had hid himself, because he would not go to the The 〈…〉 wars, because it was told him by the Oracle, that there he should assuredly die, for which he left a strict charge with his son Alema●●, that he should no sooner hear of his death, but he should instantly kill his mother, which Orestes-like he performed, and proved a Matricide to perform the will of his deceased father. Thus you see not one of these three escaped a fearful judgement.  
Of contrary disposition to these was the virgin Placidia daughter to the Emperor Valentintanut and Eudosia, who neglecting all her father's riches and honours, abandoned the vanities of the world, and betook herself to a devout and sequestered life. As the like did Elburga, daughter to Edward King of England, (a Saxon) and had the surname of Signior, or the elder Edward. And if we look no further than to this City London the Metropolis of the Kingdom, how many pious and devout matrons hath it yielded even from antiquity to this present, who have contributed largely to the erecting and repairing of Temples, building of Almshouses and Hospitals, erecting schools for learning, maintaining poor Ministers in preaching, in giving liberally towards Halls, leaving stocks to set up young beginners, and bequeathing legacies for poor maid's marriages, and these not for the present, but to the end of the world. For which God be praised, and daily increase their number: but this is directly averse to the argument now in agitation, which is Covetousness.  
If it be dangerous to be rich even to him that knows how to use his wealth, how much more fearfully perilous then for him that hath abundance of all worldly fortunes, and knows only how to abuse them. Caesar being in Spain, extorted great sums of money most injustly from the Proconsul there, and certain Cities of the Lusitanians, though they neither offended him, nor violated any covenant with them, yet when they friendly set open their gates to receive him as their patton and defender, he spoilt their houses, made seizure of their goods, and even the Temples of the gods he sacrilegiously robbed, it being his custom to rifle Cities, not for any fault committed, but for the certain prey expected. In the first year of his Consulship he stole (for no better attribute my Author giveth it) 〈◊〉 thousand pound weight of gold out of the Capitol; he moreover sold societies, liberties, and immunities, nay even Crowns, Sceptres, and Kingdoms for gold; he also defrauded King P●olomeus of six thousand talents at one time, in his own name and Pompey's, before they were at distance.  
Eutropius writes that Flavius Vespatianas' was wretchedly corrupted with this vice, and evermore gaping after gold, who at his coming to the Empire called in all those debts and impositions which were remitted or forgotten by his predecessor Galba, to which he added new taxes more grievous and burdensome than the former, he increased all the tributes in the Provinces, and in some doubled them, and for the avidity of money would sit upon all trivial and common causes, such with which a private man would have been ashamed to have troubled himself; to the ●anditates 〈◊〉 fold honours, and to the guilty of any notorious act, pardon●; his custom was to raise procurators (such as were the most ●apacious) to great and gainful Offices, for no other cause, but that 〈◊〉 they were ●●ll, he like a sponge might squeeze them, by forfeiting their whole illgotten estate into his own hands, neither was he ashamed to raise money out of urine, (for so saith Suetonius.) Thus we see what a monster money can make of the most mighty and potent men.  
Sergius Galba who was Emperor in the year of our Redemption, 71. Those Cities of Spain and France, who were most constant to the Roman Empire, upon them he imposed the most grievous exactions and tributes; he robbed the stat●e of jupiter of his crown of fifteen pound weight in gold; the soldiers who desired the Roman Eagle and military Ensigns he decimated and tythed, dismissing, nine parts; and (to save charges) reserved the tenth only; the Germane Cohorts, appointed by the Caesars to be the Guard of their bodies, as most entrusted next their persons, he quite dissolved, and sent them empty handed into their Countries without any reward at all; he was moreover of that parsimony, that if at any time he had at his table more fare than ordinary, he would horribly repine at it (forgetting the state of an Emperor) and say, that it was money expended in waste he said openly, for his own part he could content himself with a dish of pulse or pease, as sufficient to content nature.  
Of the like penurious disposition was Didius julianus Emperor, who made a Law called Did 〈…〉 x, to restrain the excess in banqueting, who for his Imperial table would make a pig, or an hare, to serve him for three several suppers, when his dinner was nothing else but a few olives and herbs. Which abstinence had been very commendable, had it been for continence sake, and not the avaricious desire to save money.  
And Aelius Pertinax was of that frugality that he would set before his guests only an half salad, of lettuce and thistles, two sops and a few apples, or if he would exceed at any time in his diet, he would feast them with a leg or a wing of a hen. And these two last Emperors may compare with the former, who notwithstanding all his mass of wealth wrestingly and injuriously purchased, was wretchedly murdered by his soldiers in the sixty third year of his age, after he had reigned only seven months and seven days.  
Many others are for this sin alike branded, as Tiberius Caesar successor to Augustus in the Empire. Candaulus a domestic servant to Mausolus' Queen of Caria. Ochus King of Persia, Cornelius Ruffinus, Valerius Bastius, Aulus Posthumius Albinus, Pygmalion King of Tyre, Polymnestor King of Thrace: neither of this greedy appetite of having, could Cato Vticensis, or Seneca the grave and learned Philosopher acquit themselves.  
Of a quite opposite condition, and merely antipathide to these earthworms were Cimon the Athenian, who all the spoils and treasures gained from the enemy, freely distributed amongst his sellow Citizens, reserving no part or portion for his private use or benefit, who kept open-house, and entertainment for all comers, strangers or others, where they were daily feasted and entertained; and whensoever he saw any indigent and needy persons, who laboured to their utmost power to sustain themselves, and their families, but could not do it, he sent his domestic servants privately to relieve them with meat and money; he caused moreover all the hedges, ditches, and fences, to be taken from his fields, orchyards and gardens, that the people might freely taste the fruits of them without any contradiction. Which extraordinary liberality, (not guilty of the sin of prodigality) Plutarch and Lactantius much commend in him.  
And Scipio surnamed Africanus (who by his warlike prowess first made Africa subjugate to Rome) was never known at any time to depart from the forum, before by his bounty and benevolence, he had added some one or more to the number of his friends, who though he conquered Carthage, and had all the rich spoils thereof, yet at his death, when his coffers were searched, there were found in them but thirty three pounds in money, and two in gold, so great was his munificence.  
And the Emperor Nerva for the relief and sustentation of the needy and decayed Citizens, disbursed at one time sixty hundred thousand pieces of silver, and made choice of divers of the prime and most trusty Senators to buy and purchase such fields as were vendible, and to divide them amongst the poor, according to their present necessities, as with clothes, dishes, and vessels to the furnishing of their houses, and the rest to be given them in money; nay, he made sale of lands and houses of his own to make good to the utmost his charitable purposes, (for so Dion Cassius reports of him) further, what fine, forfeit, or penalty soever came under the name of Tribute he remitted, all the Cities under his Dominions afflicted with plague or famine he relieved, girls and boys borne of poor and needy parents he gave order to be kept and educated at the public charge, and this he caused to be punctually performed through all the Cities of Italy. All this and much more Aurelius Victor testifies of him: and these only amongst many other I have presented to your view, as a beauty and splendour to make the opposite vice show the more deformed and ugly; adding only this, thateven one Nation can afford plenteous precedents of the like bounty and liberality.  
But I come now to show you what dreadful murders have been committed through this grand sin of Covetousness, their strange discovery, and the fearful judgements that have fallen upon the malefactors: in the relating of which, Heu lacrymae, I am not able to vindicate our own Nation, for in the time of Queen Elizabeth (of blessed memory) there dwelled in the lower end of Cheapside in a place called Honey-lane, an old man and woman, the least of them threescore and ten years of age, who lived privately and kept no servant, and because they had some means coming in yearly, and lived sparingly upon it, were imagined by the neighbours to have good store of money, and rather because the furniture of their house was very neat and handsome, and fit to entertain any reasonable guests, (though they seldom invited any) and whether this by prating gossips were talked of at the conduit, and so overheard by some idle rascals, who have no other trade or means to live, but robbing, stealing, burglary, and the like; it is not certain, but most true it is that in the dead of night, their house by a false key (or some other picklock engine) was entered, the two old people fast sleeping, murdered in their beds, their chests broke open, and rifled, and whatsoever was portable, and of any value carried away, and the doors fast shut upon the dead bodies: the next day they were not seen by their neighbours, who wondered they appeared not as they customably were wont, yet suspected little, but the second day when they found their door to continue shut, no noise at in all the house, nor any news of them, they knocked and rapt at the door, but received no answer: in the end they sent for an Officer, who with his assistants, forced open the doors, and found in the first room all things out of order, and walking up the stairs they might see the chests and trunks wide open, but looking further towards the bed, they might easily discover the good man and his wife miserably murdered: upon which, warrants were made for a privy search, and divers taken in suspicion, but no witness or evidence could be brought against them: at length one vagabond-like sellow was laid hold on, who being brought before one of the City Justices, and examined, could give no account of his life, and by reason he had been by some observed to hanker two or three days before thereabout, he was upon that presumption sent to Newgate, and the next Sessions arraigned and by some error or default found in his answer, condemned and hanged, but innocently for that crime (heaven knows;) for the malefactor after the murder done, with his rich prize escaped into the Low-countries, where he set up a trade, made good use of his stock, and proved a very thrifty and thriving man, in so much that he grew into the knowledge and familiarity of the Burghers, and was of good credit and countenance amongst them, and so he might have continued, but after some twelve years' abode there, being grown out of all knowledge and remembrance here in his own Country, he could not rest in his bed, nor sleep quietly, but he must needs see England, and made a voyage hither to that purpose, having no other business but to buy a piece of plate in Cheapside, to carry over back with him into the Low-countries: to a Goldsmith he comes, and in some few shops above the Standard he cheapens a bowl, and whilst he was bargaining about the price, it happened at the same time a Gentleman was arrested just over against Bow-Church, who presently drawing his sword, made an escape from the Sergeants, and ran up towards the Cross, the Sergeants and the people cried, stop him, and all their faces were bend that way; which the murderer hearing and seeing, and not knowing the cause of their noise and tumult, he apprehends that he is discovered, and that this is done in his pursuit, and so begins to take his heels. The people seeing him run, they ran after him, (all not knowing the original of this uproar) they stop him and demand the cause of his flight, who in his great affright and terror of conscience said, He was the man. They asked what man? he answered, the same man that committed such a bloody murder so many years since: upon which he was apprehended and committed to Newgate, arraigned by his own confession, condemned, and hanged first on a gibbet, and after at Mile-end in chains. Thus we see how the devil never leaves his ministers and servants, especially in this horrid case of murder, without shame and judgement.  
Another strange but most true story I shall relate of a young Gentleman of good means and parentage brought up in Cambridge, (whose name for his worshipful kindred's sake, I am desirous to conceal) he being of a bold spirit, and very able body, and much given unto riot and expense, could not contain himself within his exhibition; but being a fellow-commoner, lavished much beyond his allowance: to help which, and to keep his credit in the Town, he kept a good horse in the stable, and oftentimes would fly out and take a purse by the highway; and thus he continued a year, or thereabouts, without the jealousy or suspicion of any: At length his quarterly means not being come up from his father, and he wanting money to supply his ordinary riots, he put himself into a disguise, took horse, and crossing New-market Heath he discovered a purchase, a servingman with a cloak-bag behind him; and spying him to travel singly and alone, he made towards him, and bid him stand and deliver; the other unacquainted with that language, answered him, that he had but little money, and what he had he was loath to part with; Then, said the Gentleman thief, thou must fight for it; Content, saith the other; and withal both alight, and drew, and fell stoutly to their business; in this conflict the honest servingman was infortunately slain: which done, the other but slightly wounded, took away his cloak-bagge, and binding it behind his own horse, up and fled towards the University; and having set up his horse in the Town, and carried the cloak-bagge or Portmantuan to his chamber; he no sooner opened it, but he found a Letter directed to him from his father: the contents whereof were, That he had sent him his quarterly or halfe-yeares allowance by his own man a faithful servant, (commended unto him by a dear friend) whom he had lately entertained; willing his son to use the man kindly for his sake: which Letter when he had read, and found the money told to a penny, and considering he had killed his own father's man, whom he had entreated to be used courteously at his hands, and only to take away his own by force abroad, which he might have had peaceably and quietly brought home to his chamber; he grew to be strangely altered, changing all his former mirth into a deep melancholy. In brief, the robbery and murder were found and known, and the Lord chief Justice Popham then riding that Circuit, (whose near kinsman he was) he was arraigned and condemned at Cambridge Assizes, though great means were made for his pardon, yet none could prevail; the Judge forgetting all alliance, would neither commiserate his youth, nor want of discretion, but caused him (without respect of person) to be hanged up amongst the ordinary and common malefactors.  
Doctor Otho Melander reports this horrible parricide to be committed 
The Parents murder their own natural son for the luere of money.  in the year of Grace 1568. within the Saxon confines. At a place called Albidos, near unto the Lion Tower, which hath been an ancient seat of the Dukes of that Country: There (saith he) lived a father who had two sons, the one he brought up to husbandry, the other in merchandise, both very obedient and dutiful, and given to thrift and good husbandry: the Merchant traded in Lubeck, where in few years he got a very fair estate, and falling sick (even in his prime trading) he made his Will, in which he bequeathed to his brother about the sum of five hundred pounds, and his father ten, and died some few hours after he had settled his estate: But before his death he sent to his brother to come in person and receive those Legacies; the father not knowing how he had disposed of his means, dispatched his other son with all speed possible to Lubeck; more avaricious after what his son the Merchant had left him, then sorrowing for his death, though he were a young man of great expectation, and of a most hopeful fortune. The surviving son who was the younger arriveth at the City, and having first deplored the death of his brother, (as nature bound him, and glad to hear of him so great and good a report, he takes out a copy of the Will, and after receiveth his money to a farthing; and with this new stock (seeing what was passed) he joyfully returns into his own Country, who at his first arrival was as gladly welcomed by his father and mother, who were overjoyed to look upon the bags that he had brought; but when by reading of the Will they saw how partially the money was disposed, in that so little fell to their share, they first began bitterly to curse the dead son; and after, barbarously to rail on the living; outfacing him that he had changed the Will, by altering the old and forging a new: which the innocent youth denying, and excusing himself by telling them that the original was upon record, and by that they might be fully satisfied; yet all would give them no satisfaction, till very weariness made them give over their heavy execrations: then the son offered them whatsoever was his to dispose of at their pleasure, which they very churlishly refused, and bade him take all, and the Devil give him good with it: which drew tears from the son's passionate eyes; who after his blessing craved (but denied) very dolefully left them: and was no sooner departed from them, but to compass this money they began to devise and consult about his death, which they concluded to be performed that night; and when he was sleeping in his bed, they both set violently and tygerly upon him, forcing daggers into his breast; so that enforced with the agony of the wounds, he opened his eyes, and spying both his parents with their hands imbrued in his blood, he with a loud ejaculation clamoured out these words, or to the same sense: 
Quae non Aurum hominem cogis? quae non mala suades?  
In Natos etiam stringere ferra jubes?  That is, O Gold! to what dost thou not compel man? to what evils dost thou not persuade? are not these sufficient, but must thou cause parents to sheathe their weapons in their own bowels their children? which words were uttered with such a loud and shrill shriek, that it was heard by the neighbours; who starting out of their beds, and breaking open the doors, found them in the very act before the body was cold, for which they were apprehended and laid in prison, fettered with heavy chains; and after being condemned, the morning before the execution the father strangled himself, and the mother was carried by the Devil both out of the Tower and Dungeon, and her body found dead in a muddy ditch, with her neck broken asunder.  
Sorry I am that I can parallel this inhumanity (arising from the insatiate desire of Gold) out of our own Country; thus it happened: An Innkeeper in a known City of this Kingdom, whose wife was living, and they having betwixt them lost one only son, and a sole daughter; the son he made means to be put to an East-India Merchant, who employ him to Sea, and to trade and traffic in that Country, where he stayed long, (some ten years or thereabout) insomuch that there was great doubt of his life; and to his parents and friends it was credibly reported that he was dead, and therefore they gave over the care for him dead, to provide for the daughter living; and at convenient age provided her of an husband, and gave her a competent portion, so that the young couple lived well and thriftily together in the Country, some two miles distant from their father's house: In this interim the Climate had much changed the young man's complexion, who being but a beardless stripling when he went his voyage, after ten years was grown hairy and a full man, and might be easily out of knowledge; who returning into England with a good stock, as having the best part of a thousand marks in his purse, after he had dispatched his business here about the Town, he had a great mind to travel down into the Country, to see how the good old folk his father and mother did; and having trust up his money in a port mantuan, he provided himself of a good Nag, and fastening it safe behind him, and being well accommodated for his journey, he set forward, and in few days sped him so well, that he came within some six or seven miles of his fathers; but all the way as he was travelling alone, he was meditating with himself, that his father and his mother were grown aged, and he was now as willing as able to furnish them in any necessities whatsoever; or if his sister were living and unmarried, he had wherewithal to give her a sufficient portion, to see her well bestowed: and these were his true filial and fraternal conceptions, to depart liberally of what he had unto them. He further apprehended, that because every body tells me, that knew me in my minority, I am so altered and grown out of knowledge, I will conceal myself at the first; that when after I shall open and discover myself to them, I shall find the more kind and loving welcome at their hands. By this time coming to the next thoroughfare Town, in the way to the City he alighted, and called for wine, and the host to keep him company; of whom he demanded earnestly if such a man were in health? and how his wife fared? who answered, they were passing well, and able to live in very good and fashionable manner: Then demanded he of their daughter, and what was become of her? who replied, that she was honestly married to a thrifty and careful husband, and that she lived in the next village just in his way to the City; of all which being exceedingly joyful, he took horse again, and found the house where his sister lived; whose husband being from home, after some discourse passed betwixt them, and she ingeniously confessing to him that he was a stranger, and no way known to her, he at length told her what he was, (her brother) whom they supposed to be dead; withal the success of his fortunes 〈…〉 at which, when by circumstance she found true, she was extremely ecstasied, and first would have him to alight and stay till her husband came home, which he would not by any means do; then she would have accompanied him to her fathers: but he would yield to neither, telling her his conceit; how he meant to carry himself to the two old people, entreating her of all loves, to conceal his coming for a day or two, and then to come and ask for him at their fathers, where she should find what welcome he would give her: to which (though unwilling) she assented, and he rid forward, and an hour before sunset, came to his father's Inn, and calling to the ostler, bade him to take off his portmantuan, and after to walk his horse well, and then put him into the stable; and then he called for mine host, who presently appeared like a jovial old lad; he called then for his hostess, and gave her the portmantuan, saying to her, good hostess, lay this up till I call for it, for here is that which I hope will make us all merry: then he desired to have the best chamber in the house, and bespoke supper, telling them he was alone, and desired them both to keep him company; yet all this while they not so much as suspected what he was: and whilst he was gone into the stable to see his horse, the woman feeling what weight the portmantuan had, told her husband, and the Devil presently put it into their minds to murder the stranger for his money: suppertime came, and they accompanied him, much discourse at random passed amongst them, but covetousness and the Devil so blinded their eyes, that all this while they knew him not: After supper they took their leaves, to plot what they before had apprehended: To bed he went, and in the dead of night they both entered his chamber, and murdered him sleeping; then they conveyed his body into a back place and buried it, his horse they took out of the stable, washed the blood out the chamber, and shifted a new bed in the place, so that all things were handsome, as if nothing had been. In the morning when they thought the worst had been past, comes the sister with her husband, she asks for such a stranger, they stiffly deny that any such lodged there; which they did so constantly, that she entreated them not to keep her own brother and their son from her, who was come out of the Indies with such a sum of money, to relieve all their necessities: at first they are both struck silent, but questioning her further, when by all circumstances whatsoever she said, they found it to be true, not able longer to contain themselves, they fell into a loud exclamation, weeping, and wring their hands. Briefly, for this they were both publicly executed, and the strangeness of the accident by all that heard it, admired.  
I have read strange reports concerning the death of grating Usurers, who though by their broking exactions, and corroding oppressions, do not visibly imbrue their hands in the blood of the indigent and needy; yet by their horrible extortions have put them to more linger and torturing deaths, as to starve, famish, and perish, not beggering private persons who are compelled to come within their griping clutches only, but annihilating and undoing of whole families and households at once: I have heard of one of those earthworms, who dying of a sudden appoplex, his Executors with his wife, desired to have his body dissected and opened, that they might know certainly of what disease he died; one giving out one cause, a second another; and to satisfy that doubt, when the Surgeon came to use his Art, and had searched him thoroughly, he found all his entrails in good order, only his heart was wanting, at which all the spectators were amazed, and almost stupefied, as holding it to be prodigious; till at length one of the neighbours (pleasantly conceited) and being well acquainted with his having disposition, you had best (said he) to look for his heart in his great barred chest, for there it was ever in his life, and why not now in his death; which though jestingly spoke, the Executors took in earnest, and causing the chest to be opened, they found it panting upon his treasure. This (whether true or no) yet sure I am that it is a just taxation conferred upon Extortioners and Usurers.  
Doctor Melander puts me in mind of another of the like, (if not worse condition) who being borne towards his grave, was interposed by a devout man, who by reason of his cruel and abominable extortions, denied him the right of Christian burial: which seeing they could not obtain, as of custom and precedent, they (I mean his wife and friends) offered a large sum of money to have him buried, if it were but in any corner of the Churchyard, but the Pastor would be neither moved by prayers or bribes, but alleging that he who lived his whole life-time worse than any Turk, Heathen, or Infidel, ought not in death to have those solemn rights belonging to a Christian; and therefore stopped his ears to whatsoever they could allege in his behalf: at length, after long debating the matter, it was concluded betwixt the two parties, that a Cart and two Oxen should be provided, and the Coffin to be put into the Cart, and to what place soever the Beasts should carry him (without guide) there should his place of burial be: well, the Oxen were put into the Cart, and the body in it, who went their way of their own accord out at the Town's end, and then forward, just to the common execution place, where they made a stand, and could not by any violence been compelled any further, and there his grave was digged and he buried; a place due to all that generation of vipers. 
Sic Deus eventu mirando ostendit in orbe  
Vsurae quantum, sit scelus atque nefass.   
God by the event, thus shows them what to trust,  
What base use is; how perjured and unjust.  
I will only add a third from the beforenamed Author, who (if possible) exceeding the other in his foenatory exactions, fell into an extreme agony of sickness, which grew desperate and mortal; so that there was no help to be expected from Physicians or others, but that needs he must die: which his wife perceiving, came weeping unto him, and humbly besought him to make his Will; and as to provide a place for his soul in Heaven, so withal to settle his estate upon earth: to which he seemed very unwilling; but upon her great importunity he called for pen, ink, and pape, and writ with his own hand as followeth: Imprimis, I bequeath my soul to the Devil, who as in life he ever had it in keeping, so in death it is fit that he, and he only, should take it to his charge: which his wife hearing, she grew greatly astonished, and besought him, that since he had no care of himself, that he would have some respect of her, by knowing what she should trust to after his death: when straightway he writ farther; And thou wife also shalt go with me to Hell, who hast been conscious of all my fraudulencies, crafts, and cozenages, being partly to maintain thy pride and gay clothes, and hast made me rob the Orphan of his coat, and the Widow of her garment, to help thy superfluity. Then she thinking him distracted, and quite out of his senses, sent presently to the Parson of the Parish to give him some ghostly instructions for his soul's health; adding in the conclusion, that he hoped he would not forget him in his Will: at which words he took pen, and writ again as followeth. Item, and thou O Parson shalt bear us company to the infernal torments below; for knowing of all my wicked and injust proceedings, thou wast so far from reproving them, that thou didst rather smooth me up in my sins, and connive at my delinquencies, only to be welcome at my house, and eat fat bits at my table; for such are the just judgements denounced against us. 
His moritur dictis, subito Vir, Pastor, & Vxor  
Abrepti, ardentes ad Phlegetontis aquas.   
Thus Englished.  
This said, the Man, the Parson, Wife, all three  
Died, and were borne to Hell immediately.  
Solomon saith, Prov. 11. 3. The uprightness of the Justice shall guide them, but the frowardness of the Transgressor's shall destroy them. Riches avail not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. And of the hatefulness and contemptible estimation of usury amongst good men, we may read Cato Major in the Proem to his book De re Rustica, thus: Majores nostri sic habuere, & it a in Legibus posuert. Furem dupli condemnari, Faenerat●●em quadrupli: Our Ancestors held this position, and put it amongst their Laws, that the mulct or penalty imposed on a Thief should be double, but of an Usurer four fold. And Cicero Offic. lib. 2. hath these words: When it was demanded of Cato Major, what was most conducent and necessary in a private family? he answered, To feed well: being asked what was the second? he said, To feed well, and enough: being asked what was the third? he replied, To be well clothed: being asked the fourth, he returned answer, To plow and till the earth: lastly, being asked what it was to be an Usurer? he replied, Even so much as to be a Murderer. They that will be further satisfied concerning this Argument, I refer them to Mart. Schipperus in speculo vitae anlicae, ad Tomum Germanicum sextum D. Lutheri, D. Musculum in Psalm. 15. Benedict. Aretius' in Problem. johannes Fulgent. Baptist. in Psalm. 15. And Gorhardus, Lorichius, Hadumarius, in Institutione Catholiea, etc.   

CHAP. VI Gods judgements against Lust.  
THis sin is by some defined to be a lascivious petulancy, an inordinate use of pleasures and delights, or an overdoing prosusenesse, either in curiosity of apparel or superfluity in feasting: others call it a concupiscence of proving unlawful pleasures, a desire of copulation above measure, or against reason; it is also a solution or dissolving into voluptuousness, and by the Law of God is condemned: as Mark 7. 21. For from within, even out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness deceit, uncleanness, a wicked eye, backbiting, pride foolishness, all these evils come from within, and defile a man, etc. Rom. 13. 12. The night is past, and the day is at hand, let us therefore cast away the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light, so that we walk honestly as in the day; not in gluttony and drunkenness, neither in chambering and wantonness, etc. Corinth. 2. 12. 21. I fear least when I come again my God shall abase me amongst you, and I shall bewail many of them which have sinned already, and have not repent them of the uncleanness, and fornication, and wantonness which they have committed. Ephes. 4. 19 Which being past feeling have given themselves unto wantonness, and to work all uncleanness. 2 Peter 2. 18. For in speaking swelling words of vanity, they beguile with wantonness through the lusts of the flesh, them that were clean escaped from those which were wrapped in error; promising them liberty, and are themselves the servants of corruption. And again, 1 Peter, 4. 3. For it is sufficient that we have spent the time passed of our life after the lusts of the Gentiles, walking in wantonness, lust, drunkenness; in gluttony, drinking, and abominable Idolatry: wherein it seemeth to them strange, that you run not with them into the same excess of riot; therefore speak they evil of you, etc.  
There is also Fornicatio, differing in some kind from the former, and this includeth all unlawful copulation, or illicite congression, in any tye of wedlock, consanguinity, affinity, order, religion, or vow: and this is twofould, spiritual and corporal, or carnal; that spiritual is mere Idolatry, so hateful to God, and so often forbid in the holy Text, which is attended by infidelity, and every hurtful superstition: It includes also the lust of the eye, with the consent of the mind, according to that Text, Whosoever shall look upon a woman and lust after her, etc. All unclean pollution is called carnal fornication, and that which is called simplex, or simple, is Soluti, cum soluta, and a most mortal sin, and provoketh the wrath of the Lord: Deut. 22. 23. If a maid be betrothed to an husband, and a man find her in the Town and lie with her, than you shall bring them both out unto the gates of the same City, and shall stone them with stones to death: the maid because she cried not, being in the City; and the man, because he humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you, Eccles. 19 2. Wine and women lead wise men out of the way, and put men of understanding to reproof; and he that accompanieth adulterers shall become impotent: rottenness and worms shall have him to heritage, and he that is bold shall be taken away and be made an example. Jerem. 6. and 7. How should I spare thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods. Though I fed them full, yet they committed adultery, and assembled themselves by companies in the harlot's houses: they rose up in the morning like fed horses, for every one neighed after his neighbour's wife; shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this? Hosea 4. 10. For they shall eat and not have enough, they shall commit adultery and shall not increase, because they have left off to take heed of the Lord: wheredome, and wine, and new wine, take away thine heart. Again, Vers. 14. I will not visit your daughters when they are harlots, nor their spouses when they are whores, for they themselves are separated with harlots, and sacrifice with whores, therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall. 1 Cor. 6. The fornicator shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Hebr. 3. Nor the fornicatours and adulterers.  
Adulterium, or Adultery the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Hebrews Ninph; and it is twofold, Spiritual and Carnal: that which is called spiritual is metaphorical, including every sin committed by a Christian man, because every Christian soul is contracted to Christ the Husband. That which is called carnal, is either simple or single, when but the one party is married; or double, when both are in the matrimonial or conjugal tie: and all of these are condemned in the holy Text, Gen. 20. 3. God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said unto him, Behold, thou art but dead, because of the woman (Sarah) whom thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife. Now then deliver the man his wife again, for he is a Prophet, and he shall pray for thee, that thou mayst live: but if thou deliver her not again, be sure that thou shalt die the death, even thou and all that thou hast. Leu. 20. 10. And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, because he hath committed adultery with another man's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall die the death. Leu. 5. 20. But if thou hast turned from thine husband, and so art defiled, and some man hath lain with thee besides thine husband, than the Priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the Priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee to be accursed and detestable for the oath among the people, and the Lord cause thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. Verse 28. When ye have made her drink the water (if she be defiled, and have transgressed against her husband) then shall the cursedwater (turned into bitterness) enter into her, and her belly shall swell, and herthigh shall rot, and the woman shall be accursed amongst the people. Prov. &. 32. He that committeth adultery with a woman is destitute of understanding, he that doth it destroyeth his own soul, he shall find a wound and dishonour, and his reproach shall never be put away. Again, 30. 18. There be three things hid from me; yea, four that I know not: The way of an Eagle in the air, the way of a Serpent upon a stone, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Such is the way also of an adulterous woman, she eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have not committed iniquity. Eccles. 23. 22. And thus shall it go with every wife that leaveth her husband, and getteth inheritance by another: for first, she hath disobeyed the law of the most High: and secondly, she hath trespassed against her own husband: and thirdly, she hath played the where in adultery, and gotten her children by another man, she shall be brought into the congregation, and examination shall be made of her children, her children shall not take root, and her branches shall bring no fruit, a shameful reproach shall she leave, and her reproach shall not be put out, etc. Wisd. 3. 16. The children of adulterers shall not be partakers of the holy things, and the seed of the wicked shall be rooted out, and though they live long, yet shall they be nothing regarded, and their last age shall be without honour, if they die hastily they have no help, neither comfort in the day of trial; for horrible is the end of the wicked generation. Again 4. 3. The multitude of the ungodly which abound in children, is unprofitable, and the bastard plants shall take no deep roots, nor lay any fast foundation: for though they bud forth in the branches for a time, yet they shall be shaken with the wind, for they stand not fast, and through the vehemency of the wind they shall be rooted out, for the imperfect branches shall be broken, and their fruit shall be unprofitable, and sour to eat, and meet for nothing, for all the children that are borne of the wicked bed shall be witness of the wickedness against the parents when they be asked. And what more terrible judgements than these can be threatened against the Adulterers.  
Let us now hear the Fathers: this is Saint Augustine's counsel, De verbo Dom. tract. 48. If you will marry wives, keep yourselves unto them, and let them find you the same you desire to find them? What is he desirous to marry, and would not be coupled to a chaste wife? Or if a virgin, one that is untouched? Be thou also chaste and untouched. Dost thou desire one to be constant and pure to thee? Be constant and pure to her; for can she prove so to thee, and not thou also to her? Saint Chrisostome, Hom. 3. As that Pilot which suffers his ship to be wracked in a port or harbour is inexcusable, so he that to qualify the lusts of the flesh shall lawfully take a spouse to live withal for better and for worse, and shall after insidiate the bed of his neighbour; neither can that man whose wanton eyes and petulant fancies wander after every loose prostitute or strumpet, either acquit himself to men, or excuse himself towards God, although he shall ten thousand times allege his natural inclination to pleasure: or how can that properly be called pleasure, which is waited on by fear, diffidence, danger, and where there is expectation of so many evils: accusation the seat or the tribunal of justice, and the ire and wrath of the Judge, he stands in dread of all things, shadows, walls, stones, graves, neighbours, adversaries, nay even his dearrest friends. But be it granted, that their guilt be private, and known only to the delinquents, they are not therefore safe, here shall they bear a conscience even reproving, and suggesting bitter and fearful things against them? and the conscience to be always about them. For as no man can fly him, so none can evade or avoid the sentence of that private Court, for this judicatory sense is not with gold to be corrupted, with flattery mitigated, not by friends mediated, in regard it is a thing divine, and by God himself placed and appointed to have residence in our hearts. Saint Ambrose de Patriarchis, in speaking of the Patriarches, Abraham and jacob, and of their multiplicity of wives, he in excuse of them saith, that Abraham was before either the Law or the Gospel, and in his time Big 〈…〉 y was rot forbidden. Now the punishment of a fault grew from the time of the Law, for it was not a crime before it was inhibited and forbid; so 〈◊〉 had four wives, which whilst it was a custom was no crime, who as they married not merely for concupiscence, and to fulfil the lust full desires of the flesh, but rather instigated by providence to the propagation of issue; therefore let no man flatter himself by making them their precedent, for all adultery is damnable, etc.  
joses the son of jehochanan in that Book which the Hebrews stile Capi 〈…〉 vel apothegmata, hath this saying, the time which a man spends in multiplying words with a woman, he loseth to his great damage; for at length with her petulancy she will bring him to perdition. And Rabbi A●●ba saith, Laughter, and the light and unconstant moving of the head, easily convince a man of looseness and effeminacy. And Habbiben Syra saith, For the sake of beautiful women the strongest have fallen, and many have perished; therefore hide thine eyes from the allurements of a fair woman, lest she catch thee in her snare, and thou become her captive, to thy des●●●ction. Dionysius the elder (though otherwise a Tyrant) when he by complaint made had understood his son to whose charge he had committed the government of a Province, to have stuprated the wife of a noble young Gentleman, he sent for him, and being exceeding angry, demanded of him, if he had seen any such precedent in his father. To whom he replied, Many, for he had not a King to his father. Nor thou, said Diony 〈…〉 s, art likely to have a King to thy son, if thou followest these lewd and luxurious courses. The Tyrant holding Adultery a crime worthy to disinherit him from all regal Authority, which is now made no more than a sport and pastime amongst great ones: for Sylla surnamed Faustus, the freed man of Sylla the great competitour against Marius, hearing that his natural filler had entertained two Adulterers into her service at once, which were Fulvius Fullo and Pomponius whose surname was Macula, he put it off with a jest upon their names, Miror (inquit) sororem meam maculam habere cum fullonem habet: that is, I wonder my sister should have a macula, or wear any spot or slain, when she hath a fullo, a fuller, that washeth and taketh out stains still so near her.  
There is also scortation, of Scortum a whore, which the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is Scortari, the Hebrews Zonach. To this capital head of lust likewise belongeth incest, which is a venereal abuse in Affinity and consanguity, which for these reasons may be said justly to be prohibited, because man naturally acknowledgeth an honour to his parents, and so by consequence a more than common respect to those of his near blood and alliance. Secondly, because it is necessitous, that persons arising from one root and stem be mutually conversant. Thirdly, it hindereth the increase of friends, which are lost by not marrying into other stocks and families. Lastly, when a man naturally loveth his sister or cousin-germine, being so near to him in blood, if that venereal ardour which comes from commixtion were added, love would break out into raging lust, which is altogether repugnant to all modesty and chastity. There is also Sodomia, Turpitudo in masculum facta, contranaturam: of which to speak I will be very sparing. Thus you see the sixth of the seven heads as the Beast, dissected and anatomised: But I come now to History and Example.  
Catiline that firebrand of Rome, and pestilent incendiary of all sedition, to add to all his other criminal and capital malefactions, which were indeed beyond precedent, or since his time, by any of the most notorious ruffians, that the later ages have bred, if imitated, yet scarce equalled, and therefore much less exceeded: this Arch yillain (I say) to all his other wicked acts added also these of Adultery and Incest: he was infamous for his many stuprations with a noble virgin of Rome; he raped also one of the Vestals or priests of Vesta; and further, to enjoy the embraces of Aurelia Arestilla, he took away her son by poison, because being grown to maturity and years of discretion, he opposed his mother's second nuptials, which was in those days held to be immodesty amongst the noblest matrons of Rome; and thus Salustius and Valerius report of him. Calius cap. 30. lib. 8. reports that Bagoas the Eunuch was much indeated to Alexander the great, for no other cause but that there was some brutish and unnatural congress betwixt them; therefore when Orsines a noble Persian came to see Alexander, and presented to him, and to them of his choice and intimate friends, many great and rich gifts, but gave to Bagoas not so much as the least honour or respect, being asked the reason thereof, he made answer, I owe unto Alexander and his friends all the duty and reverence that can be expectect from a true loyal and faithful heart, but to a whore or strumpet such as Bagoas is, to him I acknowledge not so much as the least notice to be taken that such a wretched fellow lives.  
Of the lusts and intemperances' of Augustus, julius, Tiberius, Heliogabalus, Caligula, Commodus, Domitian, Proculus, and others, I have sufficiently spoken before: which showed, as the Roman Emperors exceeded in state, power and majesty, so most of them maculated and polluted their high and sacred calling with the most base effeminacies and sordidst luxuries that the heart could conceive, or the fancy of man apprehend. Neither have they alone been guilty of these notorious crimes and vices, but all Nations have been tainted with the like impurities, which hath been the depopulation of famous Cities, the ruins of Kingdoms, the removing of Monarchies, from one people and language to another, when seldom any Conqueror from any Nation brought home their victory without their vices, of which there be frequent examples. The Babylonians were the first that usurped the name of a Monarchy; the Medes and Persians wrested it from them; the Grecians won it from the former; and lastly the Romans from the Grecians, who as they learned of them Graecari, to drink hard, so Mechari, to stuprate and adulterate; and as they used their Dominion, and tyranny, governing them by substitutes, and praefects, and proconsul's, and the like; so with their power they brought in their prodigalities, riots, feast, rapes, adulteries, stuprations, scortations, fornications, even to abominations above nature, too immodest to speak, then by consequent, too devilish to act. But from generalities I come to particulars.  
Gemelius Tribunitius, though he were one of the Patricians family, and a Nobleman of Rome, yet was so degenerate in his condition, that of his own house he made a Brothel or Stews, where amongst others were vitiated Mutia and Fulvia, two illustrious women, and of especial remark in the City, with a noble youth called Saturninus; who was polluted and defiled against nature: but as some report of the master of the family, his house was after accidentally set on fire, and he himself added part of the fuel to the flame. And in this kind of punishment lust may be said, (and not altogether unproperly) to be quenched with fire. Calius reports of Dionysius junior, that coming into the City of Locris, where he had the entertainment belonging to a Prince of his estate and quality, but the Town abounding with fair and beautiful virgins, he could not bridle his exorbitant appetite, but some he courted with fair words, others bribed with rich gifts, and such as he could win to his insatiate desires by neither, he committed violence upon their persons, insomuch that divers of the noblest maidens were by him vitiated and corrupted, which they not having patience to endure) made an insurrection against him, and having first dispatched his Guard, to whom he most trusted, they seized upon his person, and put him so great maceration and torment: for, binding him to a stake, they thrust sharp needles betwixt the nails and flesh of his toes and fingers, and when he had endured as well the taunts of their tongues, as the exquisite tortures of their engines, they put him to death, and after having dried his bones, pouned them to dust in a mortar: and such was the reward of his brutish and beastly luxury: to whom I will add Lusius the nephew to Marius by the sister's side, who for offering a preposterous carriage of lust to Treboninus a young man of an excellent aspect and feature, and withal of a civil and modest carriage, (by profession a Soldier) was slain by him in his tent, notwithstanding the greatness of his alliance and kindred, of which he presumed so far, that even the most abominable evils by them countenanced, might be held lawful. And by the like encouragement, namely the impurity of the times, Sotodes the obscene jambicke writer composed his verses in that strain, as savouring nothing but Pathic and Cinedicke venery; abhorred by all modest and chaste ears and eyes; insomuch that of them grew a proverb, If any man's works tasted of ribaldry or obscenity, it was called Sotadicum poëma: and of him Politianus speaks in his Natricia.  
The Corinthians were extremely taxed with this incontinence, for it is said of them, that they prostituted their wives and daughters for gain, and hence grew a proverb, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum; It is not for every man to go to Corinth, they pay so dear for their pleasure. The Babylonians, Tyrrhenians, and Massagelans were also greatly contaminated with this vice, abusing their bodies in that monstrous sort, that they were said, rather to live like beasts than men. It is a sin which compelleth men neither to have care of their own good names, nor of their posterity which shall come after them; and therefore Draco the famous Lawgiver writ so bitterly against this concupiscence, that he is said, rather than to have drawn them in ink, to have inscribed them in blood: and no wonder if he were so austere and supercilious against it; when it enforceth us to covet above our power, to act beyond our strength, and to die before our time. One defineth it thus, an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrasive to the conscience, a weakner of the wit, a besotter of the sense, and a mortal enemy to the whole body; it sweeteneth with pleasure to the path of perdition, and is the loadstone leading and guiding to ruth and ruin, (so far Pliny.) Demonax terms it, a pleasure bought with pain, a delight hatched with unquiet, a contentment accompanied with fear, and a sin finished with sorrow, by continuance it grows to impudence, and shame, and infamy continually waits at the heels thereof.  
For further instance, one Hostius a Prince who lived in the time of Augustus Caesar, was a man of a most perdit obsceneness, practised in that superlative degree of filthiness, that scarce any age could produce a prodigy to parallel him, modesty will not suffer me to give them name. And Tegillinus (according to Tacitus lib. 17.) was a man of a most corrupted life, who soothed and humoured Nero in all his ribaldries, his surname was Othonius, by whose flattery and calumny many a noble Roman was put to death: and when Otho who succeeded Nero, came to wear the Imperial purple, and to be instated Emperor, he sent (amongst other malefactors) for him, to suffer as a putrified and corrupt member of the State, and when the executioner with other lictors and officers came to surprise him in his house, they found him drinking and rioting amongst his catamites and harlots, where without limiting any time either to settle his estate, or to take leave of any of his friends, he was instantly slain, and his wounded body cast into the open streets. Crassus' the richest of the Roman fathers, after the death of one of his brothers, married his wife, by whom he had many children. And Surinus the wealthiest and most potent of the Parthians next to the King, had in his tents two hundred concubines at one time. And Xerxes King of Persia was so given over to all licentiousness and luxury, that he hired pursuivants, and kept Cursors and messengers in pay to inquire and find out men who could devise new ways of voluptuousness, and to them gave great rewards, for so Valerius Maximus reports of him. And Volateranus remembers us of one Vgutius a Florentine Prince, who was slain of his Citizens and Subjects for stuprating their wives, and vitiating their virgins. Thus seldom we see this vice to go unpunished.  
Nor is it particular to the masculine sex, as the sole provocatours hereof, but women have been equally and alike guilty. We read in Genesis of Potiphars wife, who solicited joseph to her adulterate embraces, who because he refused to commit such villainy, and to offend both God and his master, she accused him to his Lord, that he would have done to her violence, for which he lay two years in prison. But from profane Histories we have many examples. For julia Agrippina the mother of Nero was said to have unlawful congress with Domitian, for so juvenal saith: nay more, after feasting and banqueting, in the heat of her cups, when she with her son were together topped with wine, they commonly used incestuous consociety: the conclusion of which impious lust was, that the son in the end having caused his mother to be slain, commanded her body to be dissected, and ripped open before his face, as longing to see the bed wherein he lay when he was an unborn infant. She was the daughter to Germanicus, sister to Caligula, the wife first of Domitius, after of Clodius whom she poisoned, for no other cause but to make Nero her son Emperor: and you hear how well he requited her. A chicken of the same brood was Messalina the daughter of Messala, and the wife and Empress of Claudius Caesar, a woman of a most insatiate lust, whose custom was to disguise herself like a private Gentlewoman, so that she might not be known, and with her pander ushering her, to walk unto common stews and brothell-houses, and there prostitute herself to all comers whosoever, nay, she was not ashamed to contend with the ablest and strongest Harlot in the City for mastery, whence also she returned rather tired then satisfied; nay more, she selected out of the noblest Wives and Virgins to be eye witnesses and companions in her filthiness, whither men also were not denied access, as spectators, against all womenly shame and modesty: and if any noble Gentleman of whom she seemed to be enamoured, refused or despised her proffered embraces, she would feign and devise some crime or other to be revenged on him, and his whole family. Pliu. lib. 29 tells us, That one Vectius Valius a notable Physician was nobilitated merely for pandthering to her luxuries. Fabia the Wife of Fabrius Fabricanus grew greatly besotted on the love of a fair 
Fabia.  young Gentleman called Petroninus Valentinus, who the more freely to enjoy in her petulant embraces caused her husband to be traitorously murdered. But being (in regard of the high measure of the fault) complained upon by her husband's Kindred and Friends, she was convicted by the julian Law, and suffered according to the penalty thereof. Marshal reckoneth up as notorious Strumpets and Adulteresses, Leviana, Paula, Proculina, Zectoria, Gallia, as Catullus remembreth us of Austelina, and juvenal of Hyppia. Zoe one of the Roman Empresses caused her husband Arginopilus to be slain to adulterate herself with Michael Paleologus: but who shall 
Zoe the Empress.  read of both their ends shall find that they were most wretched and miserable.  
As these for Scortation and Adultery, so others have been notoriously 
Women branded for Incest.  infamous for Incest: Giddica the Wife of Pomminius Laurentinus grew into such an extreme dotage of her son in law Comminius, that not able to compass her unchaste desires, and her Incestuous love being discovered to her husband, she dispairingly strangled herself; of which death also Phoedra alike besotted on her husband's son Hippolytus perished. Papinius the son of Papinius Volucris had a beautiful Sister whose name was Canusia: 
Papinius and Canusia.  These two spending their childhood together, as their years, so their natural affection increased, insomuch that the one thought nothing to deer for the other, their love being mutual and alternate, not guilty of the least Impious thought or immodest apprehension, but when they came to maturity, new thoughts began to grow, and fresh temptations to arise, to which in their minority they were altogether unacquainted, and now they could not solace themselves without sighing, nor frame any mirth, but mixed with melancholy; both were sick and of one disease, but neither had the boldness to discover the nature of their malady, and thus they continued for a season; In the mean time the Father had found out a noble match for his Son, but he put it off with evasions, and could not be won to lend a willing ear to the motion: The Mother also had sought an Husband for her daughter, to which she was quite averse, alleging her youth and unripeness of years, and so both the motions had a cessation for a time without any suspicion, in which interim the incestuous fire burst out into a flame, which in the end consumed them both; for the Sister was found to be great with Child by the Brother, which a length coming to the knowledge of the Father, he grew enraged beyond all patience, neither could his wrath be mitigated or appeased by the tears of the Mother, or mediation of any friend, but his constant resolution was, they both should die: yet not willing to imbrue his own hands in their blood, he devised another course, causing two swords to be made, the own he sent to his son Papinius, the other to his daughter, with no other message than this, you must not live, which the wretched creatures understanding, & knowing the austerity of their Father, and his constancy in his resolutions, he fell upon the one, and she on the other, and so miserably ended their lives.  
julia was the stepmother of Antonius Caracalla Emperor of the Romans, who having cast many wanton glances towards her, and she reciprocally 
Julia the Empress and Antonia Coracalla.  answering them, at length when they were in familiar discourse together, he broke forth into these words, vellem si liceret, I would if it were lawful: whose meaning she soon apprehending suddenly answered again, and without pause, si lubet licet, leges dat Imperator non accipit, if you like it is lawful, Emperors make Laws but are tie to none; with which words being emboldened, he first contracted, and then publicly married her, notwithstanding some few day's beforehe had caused her own son Geta to be put to death, and this is related by Sextus Aurelius, and by Aeli●● Spartanus. Amongst these Incestuous is listed Capronia the vestal Virgin, 
Semiramis.  who for her offence was strangled. Semiramis was the wife of Ninus King of Assyria, who after she had caused her husband's death, and fearing lest so great and warlike a people would not be governed by one of her Sex, she took upon her the masculine shape of her Son, whom she had altogether brought up in delicacy and effeminacy, and in his name she reigned for the space of forty two years, conquering the most part of Asia, and erecting many famous Cities: But Babylon she made her chief place of residence, who also hedged or walled in the vast River Euphrates, turning the channel, and compelling it to run through the great City, yet according to Diodorus, lib. tertio, she grew to be of that venereous and libidinous disposition, she did not only admit but hire and enforce divers of the youngest and ablest Soldiers to her lascivious and incontinent embraces, and further as Trogus Pompeius, lib. 2. hath left remembered, she laboured to have Carnal congression with her son Ninus, (whom she concealed in her Palace,) and whose shape she adulterated: for which setting all Filial respect and obedience aside he slew her with his own hands, and after reigned in her stead.  
A young Spanish Maid having prostituted herself to a Gentleman upon 
A Spanish Maid.  promise of marriage, she being of mean parentage, he married another, which coming to her ear, she vowed his death, and the better to effect it, persuaded him by flattering Letters to come again and see her; which he did, and although at first she received him with tears and cornplaints, yet seeming at last to be satisfied with some reasons he alleged, she permitted him to use the same privity with her as before, and so to bed they went together, but when he was asleep she cruelly murdered him, having first bound him so fast with a Cord that he could not make any resistance; using also divers cruelties against the dead body before the heat of her rage could be extinguished. For the which she also suffered death, having first voluntarily accused herself.  
A Gentleman of Milan a Widower, though of 60 years of age, fell in 
A Gentleman of Milan.  love with a young Wench Daughter to a Farmer his Tenant, whom he bought for ready money of the wretched Father to serve his Lust. This Strumpet growing impudent, after a while fell in love with the eldest son of this Gentleman, being about twenty years old, and in the presence of a Cousin of hers who was her Bawd, she discovers her whole heart to him, seeking by tears and sighs to draw him to commit Incest: But the Gentleman having more grace, sharply reprehended and threatened both her and her Companion. Wherefore to excuse this her shamelessness, as soon as the Father returned she complains to him, saying, That his son had sought three or four times to corrupt her; which he believing, and meeting his son at the stair's head, ran furiously at him with his sword drawn; and the son to shun that danger, leapt backward down the stairs and broke his neck. The Father following, and finding him dead, after cries of fury and despair, in detestation of his former wicked life, fell upon his own sword and so died. The Strumpet hearing by the fearful cries of the servant what had happened, pursued by the just judgement of God, she runs toward a Well near the house, into which she threw herself and was drowned. The she Bawd being apprehended and racked, confesseth the whole plot, and was therefore justly executed, her body and the young Strumpets, being hanged in the open air, as a prey for ravenous Birds.  
Nicholas Prince of Opolia, was so monstrously given to corrupt wives 
The Prince of Opolia.  and maids, that none were safe that came near him: for which God punished him in this manner. Being at Nice in an assembly of the States of Silesia, called by Cassimer Prince of that Country, it happened that one in his presence brought a packet of Letters to Prince Cassimer, which being opened, he delivered to the Bishop of Nice to read: Which Nicholas seeing, and his former beastly wickedness causing him to imagine it was some party made against him to seize upon his life, suddenly drew his Dagger, and desperately runs against Cassimer and the Bishop, whom he wounded, though but lightly, for that being in open Court, many Nobles and Gentlemen defended them. Nicholas failing of his purpose, saves himself in the Sanctuary, from which he was drawn by the Bishop's command, and brought back into the assembly by whom he was justly condemned for this and many other notorious Crimes, and the next day was publicly beheaded, and his naked body as a reproach of his former wickedness, exposed to the view of all men.  
A Burgess of Ulmes, finding his wife wantonly given, did often advise 
A Burgess of Ulmes.  her to carry herself in a more modest and civil sort. But she not regarding his admonitions, and he more and more suspecting her dis-honesty, on a time he made a show to go into the Country, but suddenly slipped back into his house without discovery, and privately hid himself; yet so, that he saw his servants busied in preparing a feast, and the Adulterer and his wife embracing each other: Yet he retained himself till after supper, when seeing them enter the chamber to go to bed together, using filthy speeches, the witnesses of their wickedness, he suddenly stepping out, first killed the Adulterer, and then his wife; and having justified his proceedings before the criminal Judges, he obtained pardon for the same.  
An Advocate of Constance, having had the carnal knowledge of an 
An Advoc 〈…〉 of Consta 〈…〉.  Attorney's wife of the same City; which the Attorney suspecting, pretends a journey into the Country, but returning at night, he heard they were together in a Hothouse in an old woman's house that dwelled by him; whereupon he goes thither with three of his friends, which he left in the street to hinder any that should come to help them; then entering the house with a strong Currycomb in his hand made for the purpose, and so rudely curried the Advocates naked body, that he drew his eyes out, tore off his stones, and almost all the skin of his body. The like he did to his wife, though she were with child. The Advocate died within three days after in great torment. The Attorney transported himself to another place; and his wife with much ado recovering her rubbing, spent the rest of her days there, confounded with shame and infamy.  
A Nobleman of Piedmont, having married a Maid of mean parentage, notwithstanding the honour she received by him, she shamelessly abused 
A Nobleman of Piedmont.  her Lord's bed by continual Adulteries with a Gentleman his neighbour. Which he knowing, and purposing to take them in the act of uncleanness, caused a packet of Letters to be brought him as from his Prince, calling him to Court, with an intent to send him in Embassage to a Foreign State. Having imparted these Letters to his wife, and providing all things necessary for his journey, he departed with all his train; but at night stays at a Castle of his, to the Governor whereof he discovers his misfortune and design; and being followed only by him and a Groom of his chamber, all well armed, in a dark night they came to the Castle, where his Adulterate wife was in bed with her Amorist. The Castellane told the Porter, he had Letters from his Lord which he must presently deliver to his Lady. The Porter opens the Gate, and they suddenly all enter. The Lord forbids the Porter to make any noise, but commanding him to light a Torch, he presently goes to his Lady's chamber, where the Castellane knocking, tolled an old woman her Bawd, that he had Letters from his Lord, which his Lady must answer speedily. This Lady drunk with her Lust, commanded the old woman to open the door, and receive the Letters. Then the Lord with the other two rushed in, and suddenly seized on the two Adulterers naked together: And after some furious words uttered, he commanded his Lady, with the help of her Bawd, to bind her Adulterate friend hand and foot, and afterwards to hang him up upon a great Hooke fastened into a Beam for that purpose: Then he caused the bed to be burnt, commanding all the other moveables to be carried away, he left only a little straw for this Whore and Bawd to lie on, appointing that the dead body should remain there until the stink of it had choked them: So having past some few days in that miserable plight, they wretchedly ended their lives together.  
Plutarch reckons this out of Dosythaus lib. 3. rerum saecularum, Cyanippus 
Cyanip. Syrac.  the Syracusian being foxed with Wine, meeting with his daughter Cyane in a dark corner, by force compressed her; but she not knowing the party by whom she was deflowered, plucked off a Ring from his finger, and gave it to her Nurse to keep, which her Father after missing, and she finding by that, assuredly that he was the man by whom she was vitiated, she found an opportunity to transpierce him with a sword, by which wound he died, and then she herself fell on the same weapon and perished also.  
The like Arisidas Italic. lib. 3. relates of one Armutius, who all the time of his youth lived a very continent and abstemious life, but upon a 
Armuti●s.  time having drunk above measure, he also in the night stuprated his daughter Medullinus, who also knowing the ravisher by his Ring, then taken from his Finger, slew him without any respect of Filial duty.  
Fabinus Fabricanus, the Cousin of Maximus, having subdued Fuxia the chief City of the Samnites; in which interim his Wife Fabia falling into the wanton embraces of her near kinsman Petronius Valentinus, at his home return they conspired to murder him; which having done, they made a match together and were married: But she fearing that her new Husband might insiduate the life of her young Son Fabricianus, who was then but a Child, she conveyed him thence to be liberally educated and instructed abroad: who when he grew to be a man, and understood how treacherously and perfidiously his Father had been murdered, and by whom, he came disguised to Rome, and having waited his opportunity, slew both the Adulterer and the Adulteress; and for that act was acquit by the Senate.  
One Story I cannot forget, remembered by Platine, who writ the lives of the Popes, though it be a mighty shame, and a most ignominious aspersion, not to exceed those in virtue, whom we antecell in place and dignity; yet this nothing moved Pope john the twelfth of that name, but that all honesty set apart, and modesty quite banished, he kept at his own charge a whole Seraglios of Prostitutes and Strumpets, with whom night and day he reveled and rioted, which wickedness escaped not without a most remarkable Judgement: For he was after miserably slain in the very act of Adultery.  
Childebert the second, and seventeenth King of France, anno 692. grew 
Childebert K. of France, and Plectrude.  in an utter detestation of his lawful Wife and Queen Plectrude, who was a Lady of a chaste and untainted life, and divorced her from his Bed and Table; in whose stead he received into his bosom one Alpayde, a Gentlewoman of excellent Beauty and Feature, but of a cruel and bloody condition: For when Lambert Bishop of Vtrecht, a man of a strict life, and austere conversation, undertook boldly to lay his sin before him, and tell him the danger thereof (notwithstanding he had before restored him to his Episcopal See, of which he had been before deprived:) she having notice thereof, could not rest in quiet till she had caused her Brother Dodon to kill this good Bishop, which was done by the King's consent: For which neither of them escaped vengeance; for Dodon died despairing and mad, and the King was struck after the acting of this murder with a disease of Worms, the stench whereof he not being able to endure, threw himself headlong into the River of Mentz. A strange and heavy Judgement, for Worms to eat his living flesh, so that corruption did not altogether follow after death; but contrary to nature he rotten and his body, putrified before death, till the Worm of Conscience attended his soul: a more miserable Death still attending a bad Life.  
Philip the second, surnamed Augustus, upon discontents repudiated 
Philip the second, and Gelberge his Q.  his Queen Gelberge: For which the King of Denmark made complaint to the Pope of this injury done unto his Sister; and the rather, because neither Crime, nor Delinquency, nor the suspicion of any could be proved against her: But this public aspersion being cast upon her (howsoever innocent) must needs call her Honour into question, which cannot be but greatly to her harm and prejudice. These things with other being alleged, a day of hearing was appointed before the Pope's Legate, in the Bishop's Hall at Paris, where the King's Cause was strongly maintained by the ventures and Advocates; but no one appeared in the poor Queen's defence; insomuch that Sentence was ready to be pronounced against her, and speedy order and direction given for a Bill of Divorce to be drawn betwixt them. When on the sudden (as the Court was ready to rise) stepped out of the Press a fair and beautiful young man, of a sweet and amiable aspect, and not known to any in the Company, who after a Congee made, demanded audience; and having delivered the truth in every particular circumstance, pleaded sharply in the Queen's behalf against the King, convincing the opposite party with such irreproveable arguments, that he made the Case clear on her side; and having ended his Speech, Congying to the King and the rest, and returning into the throng, was never more 
A miraculous delivery.  seen after. Which took such an impression in the Court, (but the King especially) that the amazed Judges committed the Cause to the King's Counsel, who judged the Queen guiltless of whatsoever had injustly and injuriously been laid against her. Then King Philip took horse, and road presently to Boys de Vinennes, to which place the Queen was confined; where having lovingly embraced her, and received her into his former true conjugal affection, there was never the least distaste known to be betwixt them after. Nor let this Story seem altogether impertinent to the argument now in agitation, which is to show the Judgements impending in Adultery, and Spouse-breach; 'tis fit also that we should know how God in his great mercy and goodness favoureth and protecteth virtue and Innocents': For his holy Angels are always the Guardians of the just and faithful.  
Common is this sin of Concupiscence; and howsoever damnable in the eyes of God, and detestable in the sight of good men; yet those most 
A needful observation.  conscious of the sin are cunningest to excuse it: The young man will plead for himself and say, I am in my youth and prime, and do but what suits with my youth, and complyes with my condition: The middle aged man will allege, I am now in my strength, my bones are full of marrow, and my breasts of Milk; shall I not take occasion by the foretop, and make use of the opportunity when it offers itself? the time will come when, being old my ability will not answer to my desire, and then it will be too late, etc. The old man will say, I am now grown cold and weak, the fire of youth is quite extinct in me, and will you not allow me a warm bedfellow to help my decayed heat, and cherish those few sparks which lie hid in the cold embers and ashes of mine age? But these are but like his vain excuses, who robbed the Statue of jupiter of his precious Ring, his rich Mantle, and his golden beard; and being apprehended and questioned about the Sacrilege, he began thus to apologise for himself: 'Tis truth (saith he) I took away his Ring that compassed his forefinger, which was stretched forthright, which to my seeming he offered unto me: and what could I do less then to accept of his bounty? which may be rather imputed to his courtesy, than any Felony in me: For his Mantle being of mass●e gold, I considered with myself that it was too ponderous to wear in Summer, and too cold for Winter; and therefore I thought it convenient to ease him of that charge: And for his long golden Beard, I remembered myself that Apollo was imbarbis, ever young, and without a Beard; and that I took away because it was neither comely for his face, nor suiting with his person. These his excuses were heard, but did rather than mitigate aggravate the crime; for Sacrilege could be no other than Sacrilege, and of that he was condemned: So though the young man may plead his youth, the grown man his strength, and the decrepit man his imbicility of age, yet maugre all evasion or excuse, Adultery, Scortation, Fornication, and all kinds of unlawful prostitution, in the day of account, when there must reddere ratione velle rationis suae, they will be found to be the same gross, grievous, capitol and mortal sins: For which those that continue therein, without true and hearty repentance shall dear answer.  
But amongst the vexations, molestations, and encumbrances belonging 
A lamentable History.  to Wedlock, and the Nuptial Tie, I have not yet spoken at all of that Fury which commonly haunteth it, namely jealousy, of which I will deliver unto you a true, but most lamentable example, Historified by D. Otho Melanders.  
A Noble Gentleman lived very conjugally and lovingly with his Lady; she had a Chambermaid of a very sweet aspect and feature, not any way 
Jealousy.  to be taxed for the least wantonness or loose carriage; but if the Lady thought her guilty of the least immodesty, she needed no other Jury, for she was both Jurer and Judge, and condemned her by her own verdict and sentence. It happened that the Nobleman having some occasion to detain himself some few days abroad, in his absence she pretended a quarrel with her maid; the colour was for letting a young child slip out of her Arms; which though it had little or no hurt, yet she made of it as if it were lamed beyond all recovery; upon which her anger grew implacable, and she would commit her to prison: but unto what prison? not into any ordinary light, or tolerable; but into a deep, obscure, and 
A fearful Prison, or Dungeon.  desolate Dungeon in the bottom of the Castle, for many years shut up with an Iron gate, and abounding with Toads, Snakes, Adders, and other Serpents: Into which no Sacrilegious person, Thief, Pirate, Witch, Parricide, Traitor, or the greatest Malefactor whatsoever within the memory of man had been committed; and into this noisome, stinking, and most horrible place she was forced to enter, and the doors fast shut upon her: but from all the corners of the Vault the venomous vextiles came in heaps, with fearful hissing, and seized upon those parts of her body that were in their reach, which with loud ejulation and shrieks, she strived with her hands to beat off, but all in vain: At noon one of the servants, a young man (who it seems had some affection to this maid, but how soever humanity could not have suffered him to do less) hearing those her most pitiful vocifirations, and understanding the cause, came to his Lady, and humbly besought her as she was a Christian to commiserate the wretched estate of her poor afflicted prisoner: but all to no purpose, she was inexorable, reviled him with his boldness and sauciness, and sent him away with blows to boot. But evening came, and still her lamentable clamours continued, able to have sostned flint, or mollified Ma●ble, when the young man, notwithstanding he had before been so evilly entreated, went again to his Lady, and falling upon his knees was more importunate with her then before; the more he strived to pacify her rage, the more she grew incensed 
A cruel Lady.  with fury, and kicked him out of her presence. After supper to bed the household went, and at midnight the young man could not contain himself, but he must go listen at the Dungeon door. But now hearing no no noise, not so much as a sigh or groan, he began to imagine that she was dead, (and so indeed it proved) he then more incivilly than before rapt at his Lady's chamber-door, and wakened her, telling her, that she had now the event of her bloody and cruel desires: for by reason that there was a still silence in the Dungeon, he perceived the poor Virgin had expired her life. At which words being startled, and strangely moved, she rose from her bed, and calling for store of lights, caused the Dungeon door to be opened, where they might behold a most ruthful and samentable 
A fearful sight.  spectacle; the maid thrown upon her back, and four great Snakes wrapped about her, one of an extraordinary bigness wound about her neck, another had twined itself encompassing both her legs, a third like a girdle embraced her waste, or middle, a fourth stuck upon her jaws, stretching its self to its utmost length, which no sooner taken thence, but was found dead, having so ingorged itself with her blood, that it swelled, and burst asunder: At whichsight the Lady struck with the horror thereof, from a sudden melancholy grew into a mere madness, and in a raging fit soon after died.  
Strange were that act abroad, which cannot in some sort be paralleled with us at home. At Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, it happened that a 
The former paralleled with a modern Story.  Gentleman of the Town had occasion to ride up to London about his Term business; and as the custom is in the Country, the night before a man takes his journey his neighbours and friends will send in their meat, and sup with him, and drink to the hope of his safe return: and so they did to him. Now this Gentleman had in his house a young gentlewoman sent thither to be tutored, and withal to learn good huswifrie, and was about the age of fourteen or fifteen years at the most. The next morning before he took horse, when he called for water, this maid brought him the Towel and Basin, and held it till he had washed; only in rubbing of his hands he sprinkled a little water on her face, which his wife observed: after Breakfast the Gentleman road on his journey; and the woman in whom this slight accident, struck a deep impression of devilish Jealousy, soon after called to the maid to deliver her an account of her linen used the night before (which was her charge) she having hid a Napkin or two out of the way of purpose to pick a quarrel with her. The Girl sought in every room and could not find them: then she bid her look in the next Chamber; but she was no sooner up stairs, but after follows the Mistress, like an incensed Virago, and shut the doors fast upon her, then casts her upon the Bed, and threw another Featherbed upon her, and spying a Scotch Pocket-Dagger hanging by the Walls, she took out one of the knives, and casting herself upon the upper bed, turned up the bottom, where she fell most unwoman-like to work with her maid, making her quite uncapable of future marriage; and this was done withinin memory (for to the woman's great ignominy and shame, in the same Town I 
An unwomanly Act.  have heard it reported, and been shown the very house where the deed was done: The horridness of which Act makes me that I cannot conceal her name; she was called Mistress Brig house.) In this interim, a Servingman coming in, and hearing his Mistress was in great displeasure and distemperature gone up with her maid, and knowing her froward and hasty disposition, he went to the door and knocked; but hearing none but one as it were miserably forcing breath for life: he looked in either at some chink, or the keyhole, where he saw his Mistress in the same posture I before described, with a knife in her hand, and one pitifully bleeding under her: He broke open the door, being Wainscot, and casting her off from the Bed to the floor, took up the Maid, nigh stifled, and carried her to a neighbour's house, where Surgeons were sent for, and she in time recovered of life, though she had made her utterly unable of Conception. But what gained she by this her uncivil cruelty? she was after abhorred by all good and modest women, ashamed to look out of her own doors; neither would any of fashion converse with her, but held it a scandal to be but seen in her company.  
But now to return to the Judgements inflicted upon adultery, and to show 
Locring, Estrild, & Sabrina.  what our own country relates, as those perpetrated and committed in this Land. King Locrine, who succeeded his Father Brute in the Kingdom, took to his Bride Guendolina, daughter to Corinaus Duke of Cornwall, who lived in great conjugal love together, having a young Prince to their issue called Madan: but after the King having rest and ease in his age, with which his youth was scarce acquainted with, he was greatly enamoured of a delicate fair Lady whose name was Estrild, the daughter of one Homber a Dane, who with a great power invading the Land, the King gave him battle, and having routed their whole Army, they were forced to take that great River which parteth Lincolnshire and holderness, and runs up to Hull; in which he with his people being drowned, left to the same River his name unto this day. To return to the matter, Locrine had by this Lady Estrild, a daughter called Sabrina; but this close packing could not be long concealed, but by some who thought to insinuate into the favour of the Queen (who was of a haughty and masculine spirit) all was told her; for which being mightily incensed, no mediation could appease her implacability; but she first incensed her Father, and then all her own particular friends, whom by her bounty or favour she had before obliged to make War upon her Husband; and prevailing in her purpose, she gave the King Battle, in which his party was discomfited, and he himself slain in field. This revenge to any of reason might seem sufficient; but here her anger rested not, but she caused the fair Estrild and her Daughter Sabrina to be brought unto her Tent, where having reviled them both, one with the name of Whore, the other of Bastard, she in her heat of blood, and height of rage, commanded them both to be thrown into the River near unto the place where the Battle was late fought, where they were both drowned, the River upon that accident losing the name; and after the Daughter Sabrina hath been called Severne even to this day.  
Brithricus, the first King of the West Saxons, began his Reign in the 
Ethelburge, a notorious Adult 〈…〉.  year of our Lord, seven hundred threescore and eighteen, and the tenth of Charles the Great, than King of France, who took to Wife Ethelburge, one of the Daughters of Off a King of Mercia; he was a valiant Prince, and renowned for many Warlike exploits; but especially for beating the Danes, and compelling them to avoid the Land. But what can Valour or Prowess avail against a wicked and cursed woman, who the more freely to enjoy the moecall embraces of her libidinous companion, plotted divers ways to take away her husband's life, which at length she affected, by poisoning him, and divers of his family; which having done, and fearing to be questioned about the Fact, she trussed up her Jewels, and the best things about her, and fled into France, unto the Court of Charles the Great, with whom she so temporised and qualified her own impious Cause, and being withal a Lady of extraordinary aspect and presence, that she grew highly into his grace and favour.  
But when after he was informed of her unstable condition, he thought to make some trial of her; and being at that time a Widower, one day when he was in some private conference with her at a window. he said openly; Now Lady I put it to your free election, whether you will take me for your wedded Lord and Husband, or this my Son here standing in presence? To which Question, she without the least pause gave this 
An unadvised Woman.  sudden Answer; Then I make choice of the Son, and refuse the Father; which the King taking as an affront, and being therewith somewhat moved, he as suddenly replied; I protest woman, if thou hadst made choice of me, I would have given thee to my Son, if he would have accepted of thee; but for that thou hast slighted and forsaken me; thou shalt now have neither of us; and so presently commanded her as a Recluse to be shut up into a Nunnery. But this place, though never so strict, could not contain her within the bounds of Modesty or Chastity; For by the means of some Libertines, her old companions and acquaintance, she made an escape out of the Cloister; and having quitted that place, she wandered up and down, till having consumed all that she could make, she fell into necessitous poverty, in which she miserably died, none commiserating her in her greatest extremity. In memory of which her misdemeanours, mixed with the murder of her natural Lord and Husband, the Kings of the West Saxons made a Decree, that thenceforward none of their Wives should be called Queens, nor sit by them at any Feast, or in any place of State or Honour: And this was observed amongst them for a long time after.  
Now to show how the Creator of all, who instituted chaste Matrimony in Paradise, as he hates those contaminated with all impurity, so of the contrary, he is a Guardian and Potector to those of clean and undefiled life, as may appear by this subsequent story. In the time of Edward, the son of King Edgar, by his first wife Egelfleda, who began his reign 
The fury of Elphaida.  in the year of Grace nine hundred threescore and nineteen, though he was opposed by his stepmother Elphaida, who got into her confederacy Alphred, Duke of Mercia, a potent man in those days, to have instated her son Egelredus, a child of seven years old in the Regal Dignity: yet she was opposed by Bishop Dunstan with the rest of the Clergy, who were also supported by the Earl of East- Ingland, now called Essex; who against the Queen's mind, and her Confederates, Crowned the said Edw. at Kingstowne; but the forenamed Alphred, who altogether adhered to the proceedings of the Dowager Queen, (being suspected to have too much private familiarity with her) they agreed to put the strict Religious cloisterers out of the College of Winchester, where K. Edgar had before there placed, and put into their rooms so many wanton and lascivious Clerks, every one of them having his Concubine about him: which Controversy had been like to have ended in blood: But there was an assembly of the Bishops and Lords, the Prelates and Peers of both parties, in which Dunstan maintaining Chastity, was much despised by the Adversary; but still he upheld his opinion, being grounded upon Justice and Virtue. Now the place of their meeting was in a fair and large upper ●●om? and in this great division and argument it being doubtful which side would carry it, suddenly the joists of the Loft failed, and the floor tumbled 
A miraculous accident.  down, being a great distance from the ground, in which ruin, the greatest part of those adverse to the Bishop and Clergy, were either slain outright, or very dangerously hurt, even to lameness: but of all those that stood with Dunstan in the defence of chastity, not one perished, neither was any heard to complain of the least hurt felt or found about them: by which miraculous accident, the Bishop compassed his pious and religious ends.  
This King Edward upon a time being hunting in the Forest, and having lost his Train, and finding none of his servants near him, he bethought himself that his Mother-in-law Elphaida, with her Son Egelredus, lived at a place called Corfe-Castle (which is in the West-country) and thought it no better a time then now to give her a visit: but the malicious woman looking out of her window, and knowing him a far off, called to one of her servants (of her own breeding) and told him what he had to do; for she perceived he was alone, and none of his Peers, or Attendants about him. By this time the King was come to the Castle gate, whither she descended, and offered him all the Courtesy of entertainment that any Siren (who only flatters to destruction) could have done: for with courteous words she besought him to alight, and to lodge in the Castle that night; both which he with great affability and gentleness refused, saying he would only taste a Cup of her Beer, and then ride to find out some of his Company: but the Cup being brought, he had no sooner moved it towards his mouth, but this Barbarous Villain, Traitor, and Regicide, 
A bloody Regitide.  struck him with a long Dagger, edged on both sid 〈…〉 which entering behind, the point appeared to have forced way through his breast: at which mortal wound received, he put spurs to his horse, making speed towards the Forest, in hope to have met with some of his servants; but by the extremity of bleeding, fainting by the way he felt from his horse with one foot entangled in the stirrup; then he was dragged cross highways, and a thwart plowde lands, till his horse stayed at a Town called Covisgate, where he was found; but not being known for the King, he was unworthily buried at a Town called Warham, where his body remained for the term of three years after, at which time it was discovered, and the dissembling and murderous woman thinking to clearer herself of the fact to the world, thought at the first to visit him in the way of Pilgrimage; but to make the cause evident against her, the Horse on which she road could not be compelled to come near unto the place by a miles distance, neither by fair usage, nor sore beating, or any course that man could devise: after whose death her son Egelredas' was Crowned King; in the first year of whos● Reign the Land grew barren, and scarce bore any fruit; there happened moreover a Plague, which took away the men, and a Murrain, which destroyed the Beasts and Cat-tail. He proved likewise a great enemy to the Church; being ungracious in the beginning, wretched in the middle of his life, and hateful in the end thereof.  
Neither could some Churchmen clear themselves of those Capital Crimes which they very bitterly reproved in others: For Sigandus made Bishop of Shirburne, about the twelfth year of Edward, surnamed the Confessor, shortly after usurped the Bishopric of Winchester by strength, 
Sigandus Bish. of Sherburne and Winchester.  who was a lewd and unlearned man (as most of the Prelates of England were in those days, and wholly devoted to Avarice, Lust, and Vainglory, who could not contain himself within the Lists of keeping variety of Concubines, which in those days was held but a venial or quotidian sin, but he employed his Panders to corrupt married women to his lustful embraces, thinking no wickedness could be truly committed, till he had ascended the highest branch thereof: and when it was openly spoken, that he was unworthy the name of a Priest, who made such boast of the pomp of the World, the use of Voluptuousness, Gluttony, and Luxury, whilst in the interim there was no care of instructing men's souls in the way towards Heaven. He had learned from some one of his Chaplains (a better Scholar than himself) this poor and slight Answer to evade it; 
Nunc aliud tempus, alii pro tempore mores.  Now the times are changed, and we have learned to suit our Manners and Conditions to the present; (a notorious Church-temporizer in those days.) But though he reigned long in great pomp and prosperity, he was in the time of William the Conqueror deprived of all his Ecclesiastical honours, and confined to Winchester, and there kept prisoner till he died; who in that extreme dejection, when he should only have repent him of his former Avarice, and studied newness of life, would usually swear he was a very poor man, and not worth one penny, and that he was free from all Concupiscence of Lust; both which were proved untrue: For after his death a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 found about his neck, by which in divers places of the earth was discovered much Treasure; and those Women that ministered unto him were no other than Prostitutes and Concubines.  
Henry the second was a potent and most victorious Prince; But after he had fall'n into the libidinous embraces of the Lady Rosamond, Daughter 
Henry the second.  to the Lord Fitzwaters; he was never quiet, but continually afflicted with Wars both foreign and domestic; insomuch, that both his Queen and Sons rebelled against him, and put the whole Realm into great combustion; and for her part she did not escape a due scourge for her offence: for though the King provided all means possible for her security and safety, by building the intricate Labyrinth at Woodstock, and gave her in charge to a most trusty Guardian; yet the Queen at length by her Spies found her out, and with more than a womanish chastisement, which should ever savour of some mercy, tore off those delicate locks with which the King had been so much entangled, and forced her to drink a draught of deadly poison, by which her life was compelled out of her body: and thus Lust ever carrieth her rod at her own girdle.  
To descend unto these latter times, how many strange and bloody murders have been committed through Lust? I will give them but a mere nomination, because most of them have been Staged, Booked, and Balleted, and dispersed abroad through the Kingdom: As Master Arden of 
Mr. Arden of ●eversham.  ●eversham slain by his wife and her adulterous Companion Cosby; the act itself being committed in his own house, by a barbarous and inhuman villain, most commonly known by the name of Black Will, who after the deed done, and his reward received, fled into the Low-Countries, where he thought himself secure: But God's hand reached him even thither; where for some other deed of the same nature, he was burnt on a Stage in Flushing; and she herself, with Cosby and his Sister, together with a Gentleman Master Green, who had carried Letters betwixt the two Adulterers: (though he took it upon his death, he knew not the intents of them) were all publicly executed at the Gallows.  
The like murder was committed on the person of one Master Page of Plymouth, by his young wife; and one Master George Strangwidge, who 
Master Page of Plymouth.  as the common voice went, were privately contracted together before her enforced Marriage: But howsoever as they were convicted of the murder, so for the same they were condemned, and publicly executed.  
And but of late days, those two bloody Ministers of the Devil, most 
Country Tom and Cambury Bess.  commonly known by the names of Country Tom, and Cambury Bess, who made a trade to have her his Whore walk in the evening into the Fields; and where she saw any Gentleman or other likely to have money about him, or good clothes on his back, she would insinuate into his Company, and with her libidinous allurements offer herself to his prostitution; which if he accepted of, that arch-limbe of the Devil (who hid himself privately for that purpose, and stealing upon them with a Bastinado hooped and plated with Iron) beat out his Brains, even in the very act of Lust, neither having pity of body or soul: Then rifled they their Pockets, and stripped them of their clothes, of which they made profitable chaffer, being vendible at the Brokers; for the last of which, being committed upon a young Gentleman of good quality, by his clothes they were discovered and apprehended, he being executed near unto the place where the last Fact was committed: and after being thence removed to a more remote place, his body hangs in chains upon a Gibbet even to this day; and she was hanged in Clerken-well fields, over against Islington.  
If any would have further inspection into the cursed fruits of Lust, let him but inquire after the monthly Sessions at Newgate, where scarce one passeth without those that go for Maidservants, either strangling their Bastard-Issue, or putting them down into privities, not caring to save their small credit in this world, to hazard everlasting perdition in the world to come: yet notwithstanding all their close pack, they are in the end found out, and brought to the Gallows. I am loath to be more tedious in this then the rest; therefore I conclude with this Distich, as a general Caveat unto all libidinously addicted: 
Quid facies, facies, veneris cum veneris ante,  
Non Sedeas, sedeas, ne pereus pereus.  
What wilt thou do, when thou before  
Loose Venus shalt appear,  
Stay not, but take thine heels, lest her  
Allurements cost thee dear.    

CHAP. VII. God's Judgements against the Sin of Gluttony.  
TThis Sin of Gluttony took its original in our great 
The symptoms of Gluttony.  Grandam Eve, as we read Genesis 2. 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, thou shalt eat freely of every Tree of the Garden, but of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die the death. Again 3. 6. So the Woman seeing that the Tree was good for meat, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a Tree to be desired to get Knowledge, took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband 
From the Old Testament.  with her, and he did eat: For which they were most grievously punished, and all mankind for their sakes: For Verse 16. Unto the Woman God said, I will greatly increase thy sorrows and thy conception: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Also to Adam he said, Because thou hast obeyed the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the Treewhereof I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: Cursed is the earth for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: Thorns also and Thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the earth; for out of it wast thou taken, because thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return.  
We read Numb. 11. 32. then the people arose all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and gathered the Quails: he that gathered the least, gathered ten Homer's full; and they spread them abroad for their use round about the Host: whilst the flesh was yet in their teeth, before it was chewed the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with an exceeding great plague: There they buried the people that fell a lusting, Deut. 6. When thou shalt eat and be satisfied, beware diligently that thou forgettest not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, and the house of bondage. Again, 21. 20. The Parents shall say to the Elders of his City, This our Son is stubborn and disobedient, and will not obey our commandment, but is a Rioter and a Drunkard. Then all the men of the City shall stone him with stones unto death, so shalt thou take away evil from amongst you, that all Israel may hear it and fear, Ecclesiasticus 31. 12. If thou sittest at a costly Table, open not thy mouth wide upon it, and say not, behold much meat: Remember that an evil eye is a shame; and what thing created is worse than a wicked eye; for it weepeth for every cause: Stretch not thine hand wheresoever it looketh, and thrust it not with it into the Dish. Eat modestly that which is set before thee; and devour not, lest thou be'st hated. Leave then off first for nurture's sake; and be not insatiable, lest thou offend. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thy hand out first of all: How little is sufficient for a man well taught? and thereby he belcheth not in his Chamber, nor feeleth any pain. A wholesome sleep cometh of a temprate Belly; he riseth up in the morning, and is well at ease with himself; but pain is watching and choler, like diseases and pangs of the belly are insatiable men. If thou be enforced to eat, arise, go forth, and empty thy stomach, and then take thy rest; so shalt thou bring no sickness unto thine house. Show not thy valiantness in Wine, for wine hath destroyed many; the Furnace proveth the edge of the tempering, so doth Wine the hearts of the proud by drunkenness. Wine soberly drunk is profitable for the life of man: what is life that is overcome with Wine? Wine was made from the beginning to make man glad, and not for drunkenness: Wine measurably taken and in time, bringeth gladness, and cheerfulness of the mind; but drink with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings, and scold. Drunkenness increaseth the rage of a Fool, till he offend; it diminisheth his strength, and maketh wounds, etc. Again 37. 28. be not greedy in all delights, and be not too hasty of all meats: for excess of meats bringeth sickness, and gluttony cometh with choleric Diseases. By surfeit have many perished, and he that dyeteth himself prolongeth his life.  
Thus far the old Testament; let us now hear what the Gospel saith 
Texts out of the New Testament.  Luke 6. 24. Woe be to you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation: Woe be to you that are full; for ye shall be hungry: Woe be unto you that now laugh; for ye shall wail and weep. Again 21. 34. Take heed, lest at any time your hearts be oppressed with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, lest that day come upon you unawares: For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore and pray continually, that ye may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and that ye may stand before the Son of Man. Rom. 13. 12. The night is past, and the day is at hand; let us therefore cast away the works of darkness, and let us put on the Armour of light: so that we walk honestly as in the day, not in drunkenness or gluttony, nor in chambering or wantonness, nor in strife or envying: but put ye on the Lord jesus Christ, and take no thought for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it. And Luke 17. In the days of No they eat and drank, they married Wives, and were given in marriage, even until the day that No entered into the Ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.  
Thus far the Scriptures: I come now to the Fathers, St. Ambrose 
The Fathers of Gluttony.  in one of his Sermons saith, That ill Ministers wait upon the Throat, which always covets, but is never satisfied; for what is more insatiable than the belly? to day it receives, to morrow it requires; being full, it commends abstinence; being empty, it cannot endure the name of any such virtue. Hunger is a friend to chastity, an enemy to wantonness: But saturity betrayeth modesty, and corrupts good manners. It is not the meat, but the immoderate appetite that is condemned: For as St. Augustine saith, It was not for a Quail or a Pheasant that Eve longed for, but for an Apple; and thereby brought a curse unto all mankind. It was not for a Kid, or a Lamb of the flock that Esau hungered, but for a mess of Broth; for which he sold his birthright. Elias was fed with flesh; but john the Baptist with Locusts and wild Honey: and David thirsted not for wine, but water; for which he reprehended himself: neither was our Saviour in the Wilderness tempted by the Devil with flesh, but bread: and as Gregory in his Morals saith, It is not the meat, but the lust after it that is in fault; for we ofttimes may eat of dainty Cates without offence, and yet upon course and common fare may sin by surfeit: And in another place, where Gluttony is predominant, all those honours that men win are lost; and whilst the belly is not bridled, all virtues run to havoc; but when that is curbed and kept in moderation, many vices with it are awed and restrained. In vain it is for us to enter into any spiritual Conflict against the Devil, our common adversary and his agents, unless we first suppress the enemy that is within us: which is voracity and lust after eating and drinking, because if those enemies that are so near us be not subdued, in vain we shall strive to have the victory over those remote and afar off: To small purpose it were to fight against the enemies without the Walls, when there is nothing but tumults, mutiny, and sedition within the City: after full feeding, when the stomach is supplied even unto belching, so that it must needs say it hath enough; yet is not the curiosity of the appetite satisfied, for the eye is delighted with the colour, and the palate pleased with the taste, when the poor suffering stomach (best pleased with a mediocrity and temperature) which neither sees the colours, nor relisheth the pleasantness of the Taste, is rather ruined then refreshed, and confounded then comforted. Innocentius lib de Vil. Conduit. Human. useth words to this purpose: Gluttony shut up Paradise, sold the Birthright, hanged the Baker, beheaded the Baptist; Nebuzandan the Prince of Cooleus, burnt the Temple, destroyed Jerusalem; & Baltazer sitting at his great Feast saw the hand-writing upon the Wall, and that night was slain by the Chaldeans.  
Hugo in Claus. saith, That there be some who sit down to a feast with an unquiet agitation of the members, expressing the insatiate intemperance of their minds, they shake their heads, shrug the shoulders, they expand their hands, and not without great uncomeliness, and unseemly gesture, as if they were rowzing and preparing themselves to ingorge and swallow the whole banquet. Other unmannerly postures and carriages at Table they use; for sitting in one place, with their eyes they greedily survey every dish that is served in; their hands ready to reach to the full length of their arms, removing this further off, and pulling that nearer; then they break the Bread, pour wine into the Cups and Glasses, besieging themselves round with the best dishes; then they pant, swell, and breath short, through the vehemence and extremity of feeding, so that you would think them seeking for some wide passage to tumble in their fat bits, to satisfy their craving and crooking bellies, as if the narrowness of their chaps and jaws could not supply their voracious stomach with that superabundance which it expects: Thus sits he like one besieging a City, doubting in what place first to begin his assault, and therefore would make irruption upon all places, and at once; and such is this Gastrimargia, or Cormorantedulitie. They were wont of old to build Temples to the gods, erect Altars, appoint Flammins and Priests to serve, kill beasts for the Sacrifice, burn Incense: and so the carnal and voluptuous men in these days, they make their Kitchen their Temple, their Table their Altar, their Cooks their Priests, their Veals, Lambs, Capons, etc. provided for their Diets; the Beasts for imitation, and the fumes and steam of their sawed Dishes, Censary Incense. Indeed over superstitious is the industry and care they have in setting forth the services and several courses at their great and solemn Feasts and Banquets. Infinite are the varieties and multiplicity of their decoctions, Rostings, Bakings, Frying, Stewing, and the like; with new devised Sauces, composed of several ingredients, now soft, then hard, now cold, then hot; some tempered with Pepper, others with Onions and Garlic, then with Cinnamon, then with Salt; men's guts longing as Women with great Bellies. Then ariseth a disputation amongst these Helnoes, whether such a Dish tastes better boiled or roasted, baked or broiled, carbinadoed, or otherwise: insomuch that after a dozen dishes of solid meat devovred, there is no impediment or let, but that the last course of more curious and dainty Cates, is as soon swallowed: and when the stomach by often belching, and eructations shall say it hath enough; yet are not their boundless and unlimited appetites satisfied: such are they who make their bellies their God: and thus far Hugo.  
Augustus Caesar hearing one Erotes a Procurator of Egypt had bought a Bird which in fight was never conquered, but had the victory of all 
Erotes.  with which she contended, and that he in an humour had wrung her neck asunder, and eat her to breakfast; he caused the man to be sent for, and after the cause was discussed, and he had confessed the act, he commanded his body to be nailed to the Mast of the Ship, judging him to be unworthy life, who for a little voluptuousness and itching desire of the throat, would not spare a poor Bird, who might have given delight to many in her single Duels; and which moreover, by her undaunted Spirit, yielded an happy Omen to Caesar of his perpetual prosperity in his war. This Plutarch reports of him in his Roman Apothegms; The vice of the Belly not only debilitates the body, but shortens the days of man; surfeit of meats devours more than the sword; and the intemperance in wine devours more than the sea.  
The Devil by Wine worketh miracles; but all quite averse and opposite 
The Devil's miracles.  to those which our Saviour did when he was upon the earth; who made the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, the deaf to hear.  
The mere contrary to these he practiseth against Gluttons and Drunkards; for let them with never so constant and steady steps walk to the Tavern, they often return from thence indenturing and reeling this way and that way; their knees being made unserviceable; and their legs so debilitated, that they are scarce able to support them from falling to the earth.  
Let the Drunkard's eyes be never so perfect and clear at his going in, at his coming back he shall find them so waterish, filmy and bleared with the fumes of Wine, that he shall scarcely see to find his way to his own dwelling: Be his speech never so voluble and distinct, he shall find a great change and alteration in his tongue; for it will falter in his mouth, he shall lisp and clip his English, and be scarce able to utter any one intelligible word: And be his hearing never so aggragate & quick, excess and superfluity of Wine shall so dull and stupefy that sense, that he shall seem to be appoplexed all over, that till the charm be over, and the Wine have left working, he shall not have power to awake, or the strength to hold up his head, though a Drum should beat by him, or a Cannon be shot off by his care. Moreover, our Saviour restored the mad and lunatic to their senses; but the devil (by Wine abused) takes from the sober all sense, and from the apprehension all understanding; the moderate spirit it makes mad, and the low-minded Lunatic; and these are the Antimasques with which he fools and deludes his servants, dandling, and cockering them to their utter ruin and destruction. I come now to History.  
One Albidinus, a young man of a most perdit and debauched course of 
Albidinus.  life, when he had consumed all his Lands, Goods and Jewels, and exhausted all his estate even to one house, he with his own hands set that on fire, and despairing of any future fortune, left the City, and betaking himself to the solitude of the woods and groves, he in a short space after hanged himself.  
Lucullus a noble Roman, in his Praetorship governed afric two several 
Lucullus.  times; he moreover overthrew and defeated the whole forces of King Mithrid●t●s, and rescued his Colleague Cotta, who was besieged in Chalcedon, and was very fortunate in all his expeditions; but after his greatness growing an eyesore to the Commonweal, he retired himself from all public Offices or Employments, to his own private Fields, where he builded sumptuously, sparing for no charge to compass any rarity that could be heard of; and had in his house he made a very rich Library, and plentifully furnished with Books of all sorts. And when he had in all things accommodated his house, suiting with his own wishes and desires, forgetting all Martial Discipline before exercised, he wholly betook himself to riotous Commessations, and gluttonous Feasts; having gotten so much spoil and treasure in the Wars, that it was the greatest part of his study how most profusely to spend it in peace.  
It is reported of him, that Pompey and Cicero one night stealing upon him with a self-invitation to supper, he caused on the sudden a Feast to be made ready, the cost whereof amounted to fifty thousand pieces of silver; the state of the place, the plenty of meat, the change and variety of Dishes, the costly sauces, the fineness and neatness of the Services, driving the guests into extraordinary admiration. Briefly, having given himself wholly to a sensual life, his high-feeding, and deep quaffing brought him to such a weakness, that he grew apoplexeded in all his senses; and as one insufficient to govern either himself or his estate, he was committed to the keeping of M. Lucullus his near Kinsman, dying soon after.  
Caesar the son of Pope Alexander, was one of those who much doted 
Caesar the Son of Pope Alexander.  on his belie, and wholly devoted himself to all kind of intemperance, who in daily Breakfasts, Dinners, afternoon sit, Suppers, and new Banquets, spent five hundred Crowns of the same, not reckoning Feasts and extraordinary Invitations. For Parasites, Buffoons, and Jesters, he allowed yearly two thousand suits of clothes from his Wardrobe: He maintained also a continual army of eight thousand soldiers about him; and all this he exhausted from his Father's Coffers.  
And Galentius, the son of john Galentius, the first Duke of Imsubria, 
Galentius.  was ranked amongst these great Rioters, who cared not at what expense he was, so he might see the Tressells of his Tables ready to bend under the weighty and gluttonous dishes that were placed upon them: who at one Feast made at the Celebration of his Daughter's marriage (at which Petrarch the learned Italian Poet was present) spent an hundred thousand Pieces of money, which might be rated to the value of a Spanish Piece of Eight, or a Dutch Ricks Doller. One Peter a Priest, and Cardinal in the time when Syxtus was Pope, in the space of two years was known to lavish and waste three hundred thousand Double-Duckets (rated at twelve shillings English the piece) upon vanities and unnecessary disbursements, the greatest part of which was consumed in his Kitchen and Seller, the rest in sundry kinds of excess and prodigality.  
I read also of one Belflorius by Nation a Sicilian; at first of very mean 
Belflorius a Sicilian.  and low Fortunes, but after by parsimony (being a Banker and an Usurer) attaining to an infinite, and almost incredible estate, he did not take the common course of your avaricious money-masters, to imprison it in strong and Iron-barred Chests, but clean contrary he built him a fair and goodly house, and when it grew up somewhat above the Cellarage and Foundation, in stead of Stone or Brick, his Materials were Plates and pieces of Silver, which amounted to a mighty sum; and having finished this argent Structure, there he spent the rest of his days in all voluptuous feeding: so that one would have thought Epicurus himself to have survived in him: So what he got lewdly, having spent lavishly, he died like to a Fowl which we have in England called a Knott, which never eats in season till it die of Fatness. He began in Poverty, continued in Prodigality ended in surfeit. At first a Chameleon, after a Cormorant, and lastly a Swine or Boar fatted for slaughter.  
Let us therefore bethink ourselves, that whensoever we sitdowne to 
Good admonitions against Gluttony.  eat and drink, we have two guests to entertain, and those are the body and the soul: whatsoever the body receiveth departs away quickly into the draught, and is seen no more; but that on which the foul feeds, lasteth and abideth for ever; For than is the mind most apt to apprehend reason, and ghostly instruction, where the free operations of the ●raine are not dulled and molested by such vapours as the excess of feeding distempers it withal.  
Sallust saith, nothing can appear more abject and misbecoming man, who is the Image of the Creator, then to live as a slave to the mouth and belly. But how hard a matter is it (faith Cato) to preach Abstinence to the Belly which hath no Ears, and yet is importunate, whether the hand have wherewith to supply it or no.  
Socrates inviting certain of his friends to a Scholar's pittance, or a spare Supper, when he was taxed by one of his Guests for too slender provisions, made answer; If these whom I invited be virtuous, they will say here is enough; but if they be otherwise, than I say here is too much: Intemperancy is a root that hath hand in every disease that belongeth unto man's body: and it is a Proverb common amongst us; Much meat, much malady.  
Origen tells us, that Vessels more fully fraught than they are able to carry, are forced to sink; and the stomach and belly surcharged with too much meat and drink causeth bodies to surfeit, which is the readiest means to prepare sickness, and sickness is the immediate pathway to death.  
One Gorgius, a very temperate and abstemious man, being demanded how he came to arrive to the number of an hundred and eight years, and in all that time was not visited with any grievous sickness? made Answer, I never eat but when I was hungry, nor never drunk but when I was thirsty, and then both moderately. And King Cyrus being asked by one of his great Captains, named Artabazus, in a long and heavy March, what he would have provided for his Supper? He answered, Bread; for Drink (saith he) we shall find in every Current or Fountain by the way: To order our lives well and frugally, is to live temperately, and avoid high and voluptuous feeding; for there is a great difference betwixt living well, and living sumptuously: Because the first proceeds from Discipline, Temperance, Frugality, and moderation of the soul, contented with her own Riches: The other of Waste, Excess, Luxurious Riot, and contempt of all order and mediocrity; but in the Catastrophe or Conclusion, the one is attended with shame and dishonour, the other with applause and glory: They be the very words of Plato; Therefore let us suffice nature, but surfeit not, supply the body's necessities, but offend it not: For who so shall endeavour the contrary, let him be forewarned by the subsequent examples.  
Maximinus, a Groom of base and sordid condition, borne of needy 
Maximinus a great Glutton.  Parents, his Father being a poor shepherd; and he being of a strong and able body, betook himself to be a common Soldier, in which practice he showed precedents of unexampled courage; insomuch, that he was promoted by the good Emperor Alexander Severus his Lord and Master, to eminent place and Office, and grew of great remark in the Camp: But such was his ambition, and ingratitude withal, that he conspired the death of his Prince, and caused him with his Mother Mammaea to be slain, leaving not one that was friend or favourite to his virtuous predecessor alive: Which done, he usurped the Imperial Purple; who as he was a Barbarous Thracian by birth, so he was by nature covetous after Bloodshed, removing all without any mercy, whom he either feared or hated; or if neither, so he knew him to be rich, to possess himself of his estate. I will not stand to make a particular Relation of all his Insolences, Rapines, Extortions, Massacres, and Murders, but come unto that which is now in agitation, his Gluttony; which was in such Excess, that every day for his own particular allowance, he had forty pounds of Flesh, and Bread answerable to the quantity of Meat, and five Gallons of Wine for his Drink; and so much he constantly devoured, besides Salads, made Dishes, and other Junkets and Kickshaws that came by the buy; For though his main repast was solid Food, on which he laid his foundation, yet was he liquorish also after any other rarity that was served into his Table: And yet for all this, could not (his God) his Belly save him, but after three years' Usurpation, in whose Imperial Command he had demeaned himself with all brutish Tyranny, returning from the siege of Aquilaea, which he was compelled to leave to his great dishonour, he was at Rome with one Balbitinus miserably cut to pieces amongst his Soldiers.  
The Emperor Bonosus was also such another. Vopiscus reports of him, 
The Emperor Bonosus.  that as he used to eat voraciously, so he drank incessantly; insomuch, that no man was able to contend with him in his great draughts, and Elbow-deep Healths: insomuch, that the Emperor Aurelianus said of him; that fellow was only borne to drink, not to live. Upon a time when the Ambassadors of the Babarians were to appear before him, and to deliver themselves from the King their Master, in stead of hearing their Embassy, he caused great store of Wine to be brought, and pretending their liberal and free welcome and entertainment, he so plied them with healths, that they were not able to express themselves for what cause they were sent thither; but cunningly withal proposed unto them such questions, that in their lavish cups they uttered unto him the very secrets of their hearts, being much more than they would have otherwise revealed: and when he had understood what he would, he tauntingly dismissed them, and would never afford them further audience. So much as he drunk so much he could evacuate at pleasure, so that his body was never surcharged neither in all his day-riots, or night's commessations could it be perceived either by the faltering of his tongue, or failing of his legs, that he was any way distempered, he was of such an able constitution: but all that could not secure his life, or add to his days; for after being overcome by Probus (who succeeded him in his Empire) he caused him to die a most unworthy death, no way beseeming his former State and Dignity, but rather suiting his vicious incontinency; namely to be hanged by the neck in an Hempen Halter, like a common Felon: From whence a Jest grew amongst the Soldiers; 
Amphorum pendere non hominem;  
That it was no man that hung there, but a Tun or Hogshead.   
The same Author Vopiscus speaks of one called Phago, an insatiable Devourer, who had no other pride nor practice; in somuch, that he 
Phago Edax.  grew as famous for that abominable vice, as if he had been possessed with some extraordinary virtue: His name and ●ame spread so far, that it came to the ears of the Emperor Aurelianus; who for novelties sake, willing to see if he were able to do what was reported of him, admitted him to his Table, and for whose diet provision was made accordingly; and divers spectators to behold the Prodigy, there at one supper he devoured an hundred leaves of Bread, a fat Weather, and an Hog of a year old, and drank to them according to the rate of eight Gallons of Wine: insomuch, that all left eating to see him feed; and wondered the rather, because he seemed no way moved or distempered: for which the Emperor at the entreaty of those who brought him thither, dismissed him with a reward. But he shortly after died miserably, choked in the midst of his so gluttonous feeding.  
A certain Noble General being told that one of his Soldiers could at once eat such an huge quantity of provant and victual, that it seemed to him incredible, he sent for him, and finding his other abilities no way exceeding others, he presently commanded him to be hanged, saying, that he and an hundred more such as himself, were in one month's space able to starve him and his whole Army.  
Clodius Albinus, whose Guts were as a sink or common Shore to entertain 
Clodius Albinus.  what trash or garbage, was conveyed into it, yet withal loved to feed with all delicacy, he is said at one Supper to have devoured five hundred Figs, an hundred Persic Apples, ten Melons of Ostea, twenty pound weight of Libican grapes, an hundred Ficedulae, which are Birds that feed upon the Vines, much like a Nightingale, and forty Oysters.  
It is spoke of one called Heterognathus, that through hasty eating, he 
Heterognathus.  devoured the flesh from his own Jaws and Cheeks, and sent it down packing with the rest.  
Heraclides Pictas was such an Helno, that scarce any of his time could parallel him: some he would invite to Breakfast, some others to Dinner, a third company to Supper, and feed heartily with them all, (sit as long as they would) and eat and drink with them without Intermission, or Cessation, and at night see all the Tables clear, that nothing were left for morning.  
King Mithridatus also may truly be called an insatiate eater, who would give rewards to such as would feed highest, and drink deepest, making 
Mithredates K. of Pontus.  it his greatest glory that he was never exceeded in either; yet was desirous to have others companions with him in his Gluttony; setting which aside, he was a man of admirable parts, and had so exquisite a memory, that he was able to speak two and twenty several Languages, and call all the Soldiers in his Army by their names: Besides, for his Valour he was feared of all; yet he was overthrown in Battle first by Syllus, next by Lucullus, and lastly by Pompey quite defeated: He used to eat Poison; and in his last great overthrow would have poisoned himself, but it had not the strength to work upon him. Being in prison, such was the Majesty of his Countenance, that when an Executioner was sent to put him to death, he frighted him with his very look, and loath to have any other deathsman but himself, he was found slain by his own hand, piercing those Bowels that had been the receptacle of so much unnecessary diet. With whom may be numbered Eresicthon, who after he had consumed his whole Revenue, sold his Daughter Metra for money, by p 〈…〉ng her body to every stranger, and having devoured all, he after eat the flesh off from his own Arms, and in the end died of hunger.  
Eusebius reports of one Domitius Affer, who receiving more meat at 
Domitius Affer  Supper, than his stomach could well digest, or his belly contain, died suddenly sitting at the Table.  
Philoxenes was of that nasty and beastly greediness, that being invited to any Table, without respect to the honour of him who made the 
Philoxenes.  Feast, if he perceived any to fall upon that Dish which he had a mind to, he would most unmannerly blow his Nose upon the meat, that they refraining it, he might engross it wholly and solely to himself; He was moreover heard to wish to have the neck of a Crane, that he might take the more delight in the going down of his Meat and Drink.  
The Emperor Galba who succeeded Nero in the Imperial Purple, 
Galba and Vitellius.  reigned seven Months and seven days; and notwithstanding he was threescore and three years of age, yet he had an appetite betimes in the morning, before the rising of the Lark: He was no sooner up, but he called for his Breakfast, which sometimes (if other occasions called him not) he would continue till Noon, and dine never the worse; and so make Dinner and Supper meet even till bed time. Vitellius also, (I would put their deaths together, because the manner of their lives were so alike) He was Emperor, and was so covetous, that he pillaged and robbed the very Churches and Temples, and taking away the golden Vessels and Plates, made those of Brass to serve in their stead. But his gluttony was incomparable, for he had served into one Supper, two thousand several sorts of Fishes, and seven thousand several kinds of Fowls; and more he would have had, if more could have been compassed: Moreover, when he lay near unto the Sea he would suffer no Fish to come to his Table; but when he kept Court far up within the Land, he would feed upon nothing else, because without extraordinary charges it could not be conveyed unto him; esteeming that which was dear only dainty. But to come to their Deaths; These two Charibdes and ingurgitating Quicksands, when they saw that they were ready to be slain by the hands of their own Soldiers; they both (though happening at several times) desired to be made drunk before their executions, which was granted them, so that when the Soldier's Swords pierced their Bowels, the Wine mixed with blood issued out of their wounds; and thus as they were in their Lives monstrous, so they were in their deaths everlastingly miserable.  
I have hitherto spoke of Eaters, I come now to Drinkers; the first only hastening their own ruins, but the latter having been the destruction of themselves and others.  
Concerning this Sin of Bibacity and Vinosity, Infinite are the 
Drunkards amongst the Grecians.  Examples that Antiquity hath left to posterity; of which I remember unto you some few.  
Amongst the Grecians, Proteus the Macedonian had the name of an 
Alexander the Great.  Invincible Tosspot; to whom Alexander the Great having drank a Bowl of twelve Sextaries, which is of our Measure two bottles and a Quart, he quickly played it of●, and after some small pause, caused it the second time to be brimmed, and drank to him again. But Alexander's strength failed in the Pledge, and the Bowl slipped through his Fingers.  
He grew to such intemperance, that after excess of Drinking, he was forced to keep his bed two days and two nights together, without being seen abroad: In his Wine he would cause his best friends to be slain, and then grievously lament them being sober. He was called by his own Soldiers the Cup-Conquerer: and whosoever could pour most Wine down his Throat, they would say of him; yea marry, this is a fellow that may drink with Alexander; who when twenty have been in company together, he hath drunk to every one of them round, and then pledged them again severally; which horrible vice was a mighty Eclipse to all his other Virtues. Calostiphenus the Sophist coming to him into the Symposian, the King offered him a deep Draught, which he refused with this Answer, I desire not, O Alexander, to receive such a Pledge from thee; by taking of which, I must be enforced to inquire for a Physician. But this great Captain and Commander, who was Lord of the whole earth, who made his body no better than a Seller or Stowage for Wine, which he took in voluntarily: At the same passage against his will he received poison, which ended both his life and the hope of all his future Victories. And no wonder when men come to glory in a sin, and make it their pride; for Cares Mitelenus reports of him, that when he came to the Tomb of Calanus, the Indian Philosopher, he celebrated to his honour and memory three prizes; for Music, Wrestling, and Drinking; in which who excelled in the first, had a Talon; in the second, three hundred pieces of silver, in the last ten: and in that thirty Indians contending for mastery, drunk themselves dead in the place, and six more expired some few hours after.  
Antiochus was so besotted with Wine, that scarce a day passed him 
Antiochus the Illustrious.  without dissemper; and yet notwithstanding surnamed the Illustrious: Possedippus speaks of one Antiochus, to whom they gave the the name of Bibax, who fought a great battle against Arbaces in Media; but being slain in the conflict, & his body brought before the Conqueror, he taunted him in these words; Thy Wine and thy boldness hath much deceived thee, O Antiochus, who in thy deep and lavish Cups didst promise to thyself to have drunk up the Empire of Arbaces.  
Polybius speaks of one Agrones, King of the Illirians, who by often 
Agrones.  and immoderate surfeits, died of an extreme pain in the belly. Dionysius junior drunk out his eyes; and Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, stabbed himself with his knife when he was extremely cupshot. Elpenor, having drunk hard, would needs climb a Ladder; but his head having taken the wind, (as his body had received the Wine) his hands and feet both failing, he fell down and broke his neck. The like happened to one Philostratus coming from the Sinuesanian Baths; and Cleomenes King of Sparta, in striving to imitate the Scythian Vinoleuch, grew frantic, and so died. Lacides the Philosopher by too much Compotation fell into the Disease called Paralysus, and died of it▪ Armitus and Cyannippus, both of Syracuse, in their drunkenness ravished their daughter; and in their sobriety were after slain by their own children whom they had vitiated.  
It is further read of Alexander, that he was of a wondrous temperate and abstemious continence, till he had subdued the Persians, who lived the most deliciously of any nation under the Sun: but as he Conquered them, so their vices Captived him, and made him a mere slave to all sensuality and pleasure. So the Romans were a people of civil demeanour, and of a most thrifty and temperate Diet; but having won the Monarchy from the Grecians, as they could teach the other to fight, so they could quickly learn of them to drink and health it after their lavish and riotous manner: Briefly, you shall scarcely read of any brave and victorious Nation, who brought any foreign people under subjection; but though the spoils he took thence were of never so great value, there came with him the greatest part of their vices, were they never so vile. I need not press this much farther, the late Examples from the Roman Emperors and others, may sufficiently illustrate it.  
I come now to the most bitter fruits that grow upon this cursed Tree of 
The bitter fruits of Gormundizing & Gluttony.  Gluttony, and the Parricidal and bloody effects thereof Doctor Selreccerus in Pad. pag. 211. hath this History: In the same City (saith he) where St. Augustine was borne, dwelled a very rich man, both of great power and substance who had one only Son, the sole heir to his means and fortunes, who taking very debauched, and riotous courses, notwithstanding his Father's daily admonishments; yet still he persisted in his former course of life. The Father out of his greater indulgence, as having but one, had allowed him large exhibition; and the mother too of her natural love had still supplied his riotous expenses, both using him with gentle and courteous language, hoping by that fair course to draw him to some regularity: But finding that it nothing prevailed, but that every day he grew worse than other, he began then to change his Copy, his Brow was more austere, and his look more supercilious, and his tongue (before altogether inur'd to advise and gently persuade) grew now to another tone, sharply to reprove and reprehend him: But that which touched the Son nearest, was, he took away all his means from him, leaving him to the wide world, thinking (if any thing) want and necessity might make him look into himself, and in time reduce him to some goodness: but alas his hopes were all in vain; for the young man grew so stupid and besotted in drunkenness, that he grew like one senseless, at least uncapable of any good and wholesome counsel. It happened some months after he had this neglect from his Father, and his scores abroad grew so high, that neither Tavern nor Alehouse (knowing him to be in his Father's displeasure) would give him any further credit: He came home to the house (whence he had been four weeks absent) and being full of Wine, entered at the gate, whom his father meeting, and seeing him in that distemperature, he began to chide him after the old manner; which the other impatient to hear, catcht him by the throat, and having uttered many execrable oaths, called him old Dotard, and said, Money he wanted, and money he would have ere he departed: The Father seeing violence offered, called out for help; at which the Son drew his Dagger, and stabbed him into the Shoulder, most of the Servants were absent abroad; but the mother hearing her husband's 
An unmatchable villain●.  voice, comes down, and seeing him bleed, and her son's Dagger bloody in one hand, and with the other grasping his throat, she fell down upon her knees, and humbly besought him to spare his life; but the devil had got such power over him, that he was deaf to all entreaties, and solely ben● on the most horrid mischief that could be devised: For breaking suddenly from his father, he at an instant whipped out his sword, and ran him clean through the body; and then turning towards his Mother, who filled the place with many a lamentable outcry, he dispatched her of life also; and as he was about to enter the house, purposing to rifle their Coffers, and so to be gone, in came some of the servants, and finding their Master and Mistress weltering in their bloods, they stood confounded and amazed, and not knowing what Murderers were in the House, or how strong they were, they shut fast to the Doors, and Barricadoed them, till they had called in help sufficient: Officers were sent for that opened the doors, and searching the House, found the Parricide with his bloody weapons in his hands, and his Pockets well stuffed with gold, who was presently apprehended, and sent to Prison, and there laden with as many Irons as he was able to bear: There needed no great examination, the fact being so apparent was soon confessed, and he condemned to suffer only one death, who had deserved a thousand.  
I could almost parallel this Story, even here in our Country, with a 
Almost the like done in England.  young Gentleman, that dwelled with his Mother not far from Salisbury, whose Father being dead, his mother continued a grave and religious Matron. This young man seldom coming sober home, she had often dissuaded gently from such debauched courses, but found in him no amendment: One night he staying abroad very late, she resolved not to go to rest till he came in, and if he were any way intoxicated, or overcome with Wine, to chide him sound, which happened according to her fear; for that night he was extraordinarily in drink, which she by his uncertain steps, and justling the walls perceiving, intercepted him in his way to his Chamber, and began to chide and rate him sound, which he not having the patience to endure, the devil so wrought with the Wine, that he drew his Rapier and run her through the body: and this happened within these few years, whose name I conceal as loath to offend his Worshipful friends and kindred yet living, who might think the fact being so horrid, (howsoever themselves be innocent thereof) a blemish to their name and posterity: and in consideration of the premises, I leave to all Parents, who are too cockering and indulgent over their children, in bringing them up, this Counsel from Solomon, Withhold not correction from the child, if thou smite him with the rod he shall not die; thou shalt smite him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.  
Notwithstanding these fearful judgements, how many may we meet in the daytime come either led, or else reeling from the Taverns, but 
The effects of too much wine  especially in the night, where some have been almost stifled by falling into kennels, others found sleeping upon Dunghills, on which stumbling, have not been able to rise, but there have took up their lodging for all night; some that have been conducted home, yet in going up stairs to bed, have fall'n backward and broke their necks. But of all miraculous escapes that I have heard of; I myself known two Gallants come from the Tavern, so strangely overtaken with Wine, that when they came into the street, they were scarce able to stand, or go, or move one foot before another; the night was dark, and loath they were to take the benefit of a light, because their indenturing should not be observed: and because they would both take one fortune, they catcht fast hold one of the other, and on they went; it happened in the way that a Seller door being left open, down they both fell into a Vault: but here is the wonder, one of their Rapiers slipped out of the scabbard, and fell with the pummill 
A miraculous escape.  downwards, and the point upright; these tumbled after it, and it ran one of them through the Breeches at the knee, up to the waste, and thence through the body of the Doublet up to the shoulder, where the point appeared an handful bare at his neck, and yet in the whole passage not so much as once razed any part of his skin. The noise of the fall suddenly commanded a light; but when they saw the Rapier so strangely scabbarded, and by search found that the party had no hurt, they were all amazed, and the two Drunkards with the apprehension thereof made almost sober: This was one of God's miraculous deliverances; but let none presume to make that a precedent for his security: for doubtless, he hath less wit than an Idiot, who being in his best sobriety, would hazard the like danger.  
But it hath not happened so to others; for a Butcher who was observed 
A drunken Bu 〈…〉.  for a common Drunkard, being Potshot, and in his Cups, was got into a Car● to receive some hides, or such like commodity to lad it with, and stooping his body to take something in, his Head was too heavy for his Legs that should have supported him, and down ●ee fell upon a Fork which stood by the Cart side with the pikes upward, he pitched his breast upon it, which pierced him to the heart, so that he died immediately without calling to God for mercy: and this is known not long since to have happened.  
In Norfolk three men coming drunk out of an Ale house, late in the 
A judgement upon three drunkards.  night, amongst many other profane and blaspemous speeches, they began to jest at Hell, and withal to swear, that in the most obscure place of it, it could not be so dark as that night was; at length they were to take leave and part every man to his home; and after a drunken farewell, the one of their ways lying over a Bridge, his feet failing he slipped into the water, and was drowned: The two other were Horsemen, one of which, by the stumbling of his horse, was cast upon the ground, where he was after found dead, with his neck broken; neither did the third escape without a most remarkable Judgement; for his horse was found grazing in one place, and he dead in another, but without any wound; for some conjectured that he perished with the extremity of cold, it being a bitter frosty night, and snow falling withal.  
A Glazier in Chancery lane, not long since so overcharged his stomach 
A Glazier.  with wine, that coming home he fell a vomiting in that extreme and extraordinary fashion, that breaking a vein within him he died within two days after: and a Barber in Drewry-lane coming from the Tavern in the like distemper, his wife with much ado got him to bed, 
A Barber.  where he fell into a sound and dead sleep; for that night being very tempestuous, and a mighty wind stirring, and they lodging in an upper room or Garret, the Chimney was blown down and he killed in his bed, his wife that lay close by his side, having no hurt at all: To reckon up all the known judgements in this kind would make this Tractate voluminous: these therefore for the present I hope may satisfy the indifferent reader, who if he shall but inquire from man to man of the disasters happening in that kind, shall hear from their own motion, Stories too many of all good Christians to be charitably commiserated, and lamentably deplored.  
These have been examples of such as we call downright Drunkards, 
One that drank himself to death.  and like selfe-murderers have been not only accessaries, but the Agents of their own deaths: of which nature one accident of which myself was eyewitness, comes fresh in my remembrance, and happened some seven or eight years since at the most: Five young men coming from Islington upon a Sunday, where they had been drinking good store of Ale, in their way home came to the Nagshead Tavern upon Clerken-well hill, where they called for Wine, (what quaintity they drank I am not certain) but in the midst of their carousing, one of them (being a young man a Barber in Ivy-lane, and lately married) grew to to be drowsy, and at length dropped under the Table; which the rest not minding, put it off with a jest, and said, he did but counterfeit sleep till the reckoning was paid; another said, he had known him do the like before; and thus they passed the time till they were ready to part; when calling for a reckoning, they also called for their drowsy Companion to rise, and to go along with them: but hearing that he made no answer, they pushed him and jogged him, yet all in vain; till at length by the help of the Master of the House, they lifted up his body, and set him on one of the Benches; but his head fell down into his bosom, for there was no life in him: at which they grew all amazed; neither can I blame them, who for every Glass of Wine they enforced him to drink beyond his strength, might as well to have given him a stab in the breast with a Poniard: The next day came his weeping Wife, and some of his sorrowful kindred, and conveyed his body from the Tavern to the Church to be buried.  
I come now to that from which I late deviated, as to those who through excess of Gusling (for manners sake called good fellowship) destroy not themselves with sudden Deaths, but rather Consumptions and lingering Maladies, which also by degrees bringeth on an assured and untimely end, one of the branches thereof is luxurious Prodigality, mixed with intemperate Vinocity, of which I will give you but one Precedent.  
A rich Citizen's son, and well allied amongst the Aldermen, being a personable and proper young man, daring, and valiant, of a wondrous 
A true relation of a Prodigal Citizen.  active body, acute wit, and a seeming solid apprehension; his Father dying, left him (what estate in land I know not) thirty thousand pound in ready Cash, besides Plate, Jewels, and houses furnished with rich hangings, with all utensils suitable to the state of Aldermen. Now this man who was no Gamester to lavish his means that way, yet spent all his whole and entire estate within the space of three years: Would any man believe how this could be possible? Well, I will tell you how; he kept two or three tall fellows in Scarlet Liveries, daubed with gold lace; and for his own particular would shift his clothes twice a day, wearing one suit in the morning, another after dinner: his most frequented Tavern, was the King's Head in new Fish-street, where he usually dined and supped in the long Room, at the long Table, where though he were but himself and his friends, he would have the Board thronged with variety of Dishes, from the top to the bottom; and as his meat was beyond rule, so many times his drink was beyond reason: and though he could not be without flatterers or Sycophants about him, yet could they never fool him out of any bounty: His Table was free for them, but his Pockets shut, keeping always a brace of principal good Geldings; his delight was to ride them off from their legs, and when they were foundered, or past present service, give them to one of his Grooms.  
He had a great longing to please all his five senses at once; nor could he be at peace within himself till he had accomplished it; and allowed to 
A strange and unheard of prodigal.  the delight of every sense a several hundred pound, for which he bespoke a curious fair room, hung with the richest Arras that could be hired, and furnished with all the most exquisite Pictures that might be bought or borrowed, to please the eye.  
He than had all the choicest Music that could be heard of, and how far off soever to be sent for, with all the varieties or rarities that could be raised from any Instrument, to give him content to the ear. Then he had all the Aromaticks, and Odoriferous Perfumes to delight his scent in smelling: Next all the Candy's, Preserves, all the Junkets, even to the stretching of the apothecaries, or Confectionaries Art to palliate his taste: and lastly a beautiful and fair strumpet lodged with him in a 〈…〉 e compassed, to accommo 〈…〉 〈…〉 o'er then ever Sardanapalus did) 〈…〉  
To tell of his mea 〈…〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 these (though they were great in themselves) yet in the relation would appear nothing, and therefore I omit them: Briefly, as he grew in an instant to wealth, so he fell as suddenly to want; and then those who had been his greatest sycophants, would shun the way of him: He drew to all the debauchtnesse that could be named, being a brother of the Broom-staffe, not worth a cloak, though never so threadbare, being forced most shamefully to beg of his acquaintance, and those he had known; he was after pressed for a common soldier, and for running away from his Captain should have been hanged (but for his Worshipful kindred, for whose sake I also forbear to name him) the matter was put off: But now follows the wonder, after all this contempt, misery, and penury, two or three Gentlemen called him up into a Tavern, of purpose to have some discourse with him; and one amongst them desired him to resolve him faithfully of one question he would ask him, who protested unto him that he would unfaignedly do't: He than said to him, you have been a Gentleman well bred, and have spent a very fair Fortune, you are now cast down to the lowest disgrace that can be, as having tasted of all miseries whatsoever; and you know them both, plenty & poverty, in a full measure; now my demand of you is, (the premises considered) if you had all your former estate in your hands entire (knowing what you now know) would you not be a very good Husband? To whom he made answer, and bound it with a great oath; if I had, said he, all the estate I before enjoyed, and ten times a greater, I would spend it all to liveone week like a God, though I were sure to be damned to hell the next day after: which struck the Gentlemen into such astonishment, and anger withal, that instead of giving him money, which was their purpose, they thrust him out of the room as a profane and blasphemous wretch, and would never look upon him after.  
Who that shall look upon all the Prodigals and spendthrifts that have had great fortune, and have wasted them to nothing; or consider how many young Shopkeepers that have had good and sufficient stock to set up with, and through Drinking and Company-keeping, (neglecting their home-affaires) have suddenly proved Trade-fallen; and what hath been the end? but to fill Gaoles, and furnish prisons; or if they escape with Liberty, to fall into dissolute and desperate courses, which bring them into certain disgrace, but most commonly unto untimely end. Besides, how many young heirs in the Country, borne to fair Revenues, and possessed of great estates, who having lived formerly in the Country, and after come to see the fashions of the City, what by Taverns, Ordinaries, Gamehouses, Brothell-houses, and the like, have been so besotted and stupefied, that they have suddenly run themselves out of all their fortunes; and then growing desperate, having spent their own, forced from others, and taking purses by the highway side, have come at length to disgrace their gentry by their infamous deaths at the Gallows. And these and the like are the remarkable judgements continually exercised upon gluttons & drunkards: from which sin of Gurmandizing, as from all the rest, God of his infinite mercy, even for the merits of his Son Christ Jesus deliver us all.  
Amen.  
FINIS.   

A Table of the several Chapters contained in the two first parts of this Book.  

Chapt. 1. TOuching the corruption and perversity of this World, how great it is. Pag. 1  
2. What is the cause of the great overflow of vice in this Age. 3  
3. That great men, which will not abide to be admonished of their faults, cannot escape punishment by the hand of God. 4  
4. How the justice of God is more evidently declared upon the mighty ones of this world, then upon any other, and the cause why. 5  
5. How all men both by the Law of God and Nature are inexcusable in their sins. 7  
6. How the greatest Monarches in the World ought to be subject to the Law of God; and consequently to the Laws of Men and Nature. 9  
7. Of the punishments that seized upon Pharaoh King of Egypt, for resisting God, and transgressing the first Commandment of the Law. 13  
8. More examples like unto the former. 17  
9 Of those that persecuted the Son of God and his Church. 20  
10. More examples like unto the former. 25  
11. Of the jews that persecuted Christ. 29  
12. Of those that in our age have persecuted the Gospel in the person of the faithful. 32  
13. Other examples of the same subject. 36  
14. A Hymn of the persecution of God's Church, and the deliverance of the same. 43  
15. Of Apostatas and Backsliders, that through infirmity and fear have fall'n away. 45  
16. Of those that have willingly fall'n away. 49  
17. Of the third and worst sort of Apostates, those that through Malice forsake the Truth. 51  
18. More examples like unto the former. 55  
19 Of Heretics. 61  
20. Of Hypocrites. 67  
21. Of Conjurers, and Enchanters. 71  
22. Of those that through pride and vain glory, strove to usurp the honour due to God. 79  
23. Of Epicures and Atheists. 87  
24. Touching the Transgressor's of the 2. Commandment by Idolatry. 94  
25. Of many evils that have come upon Christendom for Idolatry. 96  
26. Of those that at any time corrupted and mingled God's Religion with humane Inventions, or went about to change or disquiet the Discipline of the Church. 99  
27. Of Perjurers. 101  
28. More examples of the like subject. 116  
29. Of Blasphemers. 130  
30. Of those that by cursing, and denying God give themselves to the Devil. 134  
31. More examples of God's judgement upon Cursers. 136  
32. Punishments for the contempt of the Word and Sacraments, and abuse of holy things. 140  
33. Those that profane the Sabbath-day. 147   

Judgements in the second Book.  
Chap. 1. Of rebellious and stubborn Children towards their Parents. 151  
2. Of those that rebel against their Superiors. 158  
3. More examples of the same subject. 163  
4. Of such as have murdered their Rulers and Princes. 168  
5. Of such as rebelled against their Superiors, because of Subsidies and ●●●es imposed upon them. 171  
6. Of Mu 〈…〉 〈◊〉 ●74  
7. A suit of examples like unto the former. 177  
8. Other examples like unto the former. 193  
9 Other memorable examples of the like subject. 197  
10. Of divers other Murderers, and their several punishments. 201  
11. Of the admirable discovery of murders. 203  
12. Of such as have murdered themselves. 214  
13. Of Parricides, or Parent murderers. 221  
14. Of Subject-murtherers. 226  
15. Of those that are both cruel and disloyal. 231  
16. Of Queens that were murderers. 234  
17. Of such as without necessity, upon every light occasion move war. 236  
18. Of such as please themselves overmuch in seeing cruelties. 239  
19 Of such as exercise too much rigour and severity. 241  
20. Of Adulteries. 244  
21. Of Rapes. 245  
22. Other Examples of God's judgements upon Adulterers. 251  
23. Showing that Stews ought not to be suffered amongst Christians. 254  
24. Of Whoredoms committed under colour of marriage. 256  
25. Of unlawful marriages and their Issues. 257  
26 Touching incestuous marriages. 259  
27. Of Adultery. 261  
28. Other Examples like unto the former. 264  
29. Other Examples like unto the former. 268  
30. More Examples of the same Argument. 272  
31. Of such as are Divorced without cause. 275  
32. Of those that either cause, or authorise unlawful Divorcements. 277  
33. Of Insestuous persons. 278  
34. Of effeminate persons, Sodomites, 〈…〉 ●onsters. 280  
35. Of the wonderful evil that ariseth from the greediness of Lust. 282  
36. Of unlawful Gestures, Idleness, Gluttony, Drunkenness, ●ancing, and other such like dissoluteness. 283  
37. Of Thiefs and Robbers. 292  
38. Of the excessive burdening of the Commonalty. 297  
39 Of those that have used too much cruelty towards their subjects in taxes and exactions. 299  
40. More examples of the same subject. 302  
41. Of such as by force of Arms have either taken away, or would have taken away the goods, and land● of other men. 304  
42. Of Usurers, and their Theft. 373  
43. Of Dicers, Card-players, and their Theft. 376  
44. Of such as have been notorious in all kind of sin. 379  
45. More examples of the same argument. 385  
46. Of Calumniation and false witness. 393  
47. That Kings and Princes ought to look to the execution of justice, for the punishment of naughty and corrupt manners. 40●  
48 Of such Princes as have made no reckoning of punishing vice, nor regarded the estate of their people. 402  
49. How rare and geason good Princes have been at all times. 40●  
50. That the greatest and mightiest Cities are not exempt from punishment of their iniquities. 408  
51. Of such punishments as are common to all men in regard of their iniquities. 409  
52. That the greatest punishments are reserved and laid up for the wicked in the world to come. 410  
53. How the afflictions of the godly, & punishments of the wicked differ. 411   

A brief Summary of more examples annexed to the form● 〈◊〉 ●●e same Author.  
Chap: 1. Of such as have persecuted the Church of Christ. 414  
2. Of Perjury. 414  
3. Of Epicures and Atheists. ibid.  
4. Of Idolatry. 418  
5. Of Blasphemy. 418  
6. Of Conjurers, Magicians, and Witches. ibid.  
7. Of the profanation of the Sabbath. 419  
8. Of Drunkenness. 420  
9 Of rebellious & disobedient children to parents. 426  
10. Of murderers. ibid.  
11. Of Adultery. 428  
12. Of Thiefs and Robbers. 429  
13. Of 〈◊〉 431  
14. Of the molestation of evil spirits, and their execution of God's judgements upon men. ibid.  
15. The Conclusion, concerning the protection of holy Angels, over such as fear God. 437    

A Table of the most remarkable judgements contained in the last part of this Book, never before imprinted.  

DEvoured by Worms. pag. 3  
Poisoned. 4  
Self-murder. ibid.  
impostume. 5  
A Spanish History against pride in knowledge. 〈◊〉, etc.  
The Pope's Nephew hanged. 8  
An Italian rack● 〈◊〉 death 9  
Herbert Earl of Vermendois. 10  
Bajazet beats out his own brainis. ibid.  
B●adaas neck broke by a fall. ib.  
Earl Goodwin choked at the table. 11  
Earl Harold shot in the eye. 11, 12  
Pierce Gaveston beheaded. 13  
Sir Hugh Spencer beheaded, and his son hanged and quartered. 13  
Earl Mortimer hanged. 14  
Sundry others executed. 15  
A brief relation of the life and death of Cardinal Wolsey. 15, 16  
Envious persons punished sundry ways. 17.  
One Brother murthereth another. 21  
A remarkable history of a Roman Prince 22  
Pope Boniface his miserable death. 23  
The death of Caesar Germanicus. ib.  
Matrinus head cut off. 24  
Bassianus and his mother torn in pieces & thrown into a ●akes. 24  
Alexander Severus miserably slain. ib.  
Prince Cranne, with his Wife and Children burnt to death. 25  
One brother killeth another, and the mother murdereth her own Son. 25, 26  
Prince Morwith devoured by a Sea monster.  
Sundry other remarkable judgements upon envious persons. 27  
The unfortunate deaths of Edw. 6. his two Uncles. 30, 31  
Ptolomeus Pisco torn in pieces. 33  
Cirenes famished to death. ibid.  
One destroyed by Lightning. ibid.  
Of another torn in pieces by Wolves. ibid.  
The story of Philaris brazen Bull. 33, 34  
Sundry relations of bloody women. 34, 35  
Remarkable observations upon the Emperor Caligula, together with his death. 35  
Avidius Cassius his bloody acts and miserable death. 37  
Sundry murders strangely discovered. 42  
Sundry judgements against the sin of sloth 46  
A strange story of a slothful Chambermaid. 55  
Covetousness defined. 58  
The infinite riches of some men. 62  
The monstrous covetousness of Mauritius the Emperor, together with his death. 64  
Sundry judgements against covetousness. 66  
A strange Murder committed in Honey-lane, and as strangely discovered. 69  
A Scholar murdereth his Father's Servant. 70  
Parents murder their own children. 71  
judgements inflicted upon Usurers. 74  
Lust learnedly defined. 76, etc.  
God's judgements against Gluttony. 96, etc.   
FINIS.