[3999] “Raro antecedentem scelestum
        Deseruit pede poena claudo.”

       “Yet with sure steps, though lame and slow,
        Vengeance o’ertakes the trembling villain’s speed.”

Thou shalt perceive that verified of Samuel to Agag, 1 Sam. xv. 33.  “Thy sword hath made many women childless, so shall thy mother be childless amongst other women.”  It shall be done to them as they have done to others.  Conradinus, that brave Suevian prince, came with a well-prepared army into the kingdom of Naples, was taken prisoner by king Charles, and put to death in the flower of his youth; a little after (ultionem Conradini mortis, Pandulphus Collinutius Hist.  Neap. lib. 5. calls it), King Charles’s own son, with two hundred nobles, was so taken prisoner, and beheaded in like sort.  Not in this only, but in all other offences, quo quisque peccat in eo punietur, [4000]they shall be punished in the same kind, in the same part, like nature, eye with or in the eye, head with or in the head, persecution with persecution, lust with effects of lust; let them march on with ensigns displayed, let drums beat on, trumpets sound taratantarra, let them sack cities, take the spoil of countries, murder infants, deflower virgins, destroy, burn, persecute, and tyrannise, they shall be fully rewarded at last in the same measure, they and theirs, and that to their desert.

[4001] “Ad generum Cereris sine caede et sanguine pauci
        Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranni.”

       “Few tyrants in their beds do die,
        But stabb’d or maim’d to hell they hie.”

Oftentimes too a base contemptible fellow is the instrument of God’s justice to punish, to torture, and vex them, as an ichneumon doth a crocodile.  They shall be recompensed according to the works of their hands, as Haman was hanged on the gallows he provided for Mordecai; “They shall have sorrow of heart, and be destroyed from under the heaven,” Thre. iii. 64, 65, 66.  Only be thou patient:  [4002]_vincit qui patitur_:  and in the end thou shalt be crowned.  Yea, but ’tis a hard matter to do this, flesh and blood may not abide it; ’tis grave, grave! no (Chrysostom replies) non est grave, o homo! ’tis not so grievous, [4003]"neither had God commanded it, if it had been so difficult.”  But how shall it be done?  “Easily,” as he follows it, “if thou shalt look to heaven, behold the beauty of it, and what God hath promised to such as put up injuries.”  But if thou resist and go about vim vi repellere, as the custom of the world is, to right thyself, or hast given just cause of offence, ’tis no injury then but a condign punishment; thou hast deserved as much:  A te principium, in te recredit crimen quod a te fuit; peccasti, quiesce, as Ambrose expostulates with Cain, lib. 3. de Abel et Cain. [4004]Dionysius of Syracuse, in his exile, was made to stand without door, patienter ferendum, fortasse