Sometimes by the devil’s help as magicians, [866]witches:  sometimes by impostures, mixtures, poisons, stratagems, single combats, wars, we hack and hew, as if we were ad internecionem nati, like Cadmus’ soldiers born to consume one another.  ’Tis an ordinary thing to read of a hundred and two hundred thousand men slain in a battle.  Besides all manner of tortures, brazen bulls, racks, wheels, strappadoes, guns, engines, &c. [867]_Ad unum corpus humanum supplicia plura, quam membra_:  We have invented more torturing instruments, than there be several members in a man’s body, as Cyprian well observes.  To come nearer yet, our own parents by their offences, indiscretion and intemperance, are our mortal enemies. [868]"The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”  They cause our grief many times, and put upon us hereditary diseases, inevitable infirmities:  they torment us, and we are ready to injure our posterity;

[869]   ------“mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem.”

       “And yet with crimes to us unknown,
        Our sons shall mark the coming age their own;”

and the latter end of the world, as [870]Paul foretold, is still like to be the worst.  We are thus bad by nature, bad by kind, but far worse by art, every man the greatest enemy unto himself.  We study many times to undo ourselves, abusing those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon us, health, wealth, strength, wit, learning, art, memory to our own destruction, [871]_Perditio tua ex te_.  As [872]Judas Maccabeus killed Apollonius with his own weapons, we arm ourselves to our own overthrows; and use reason, art, judgment, all that should help us, as so many instruments to undo us.  Hector gave Ajax a sword, which so long as he fought against enemies, served for his help and defence; but after he began to hurt harmless creatures with it, turned to his own hurtless bowels.  Those excellent means God hath bestowed on us, well employed, cannot but much avail us; but if otherwise perverted, they ruin and confound us:  and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness they commonly do, we have too many instances.  This St. Austin acknowledgeth of himself in his humble confessions, “promptness of wit, memory, eloquence, they were God’s good gifts, but he did not use them to his glory.”  If you will particularly know how, and by what means, consult physicians, and they will tell you, that it is in offending in some of those six non-natural things, of which I shall [873]dilate more at large; they are the causes of our infirmities, our surfeiting, and drunkenness, our immoderate insatiable lust, and prodigious riot. Plures crapula, quam gladius, is a true saying, the board consumes more than the sword.  Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens [874]old age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death.  And last of all, that which crucifies us most, is our own folly, madness (quos Jupiter