own price, sold abbeys to Jews and Falkoners; both Ferdinand his father, and he himself never made conscience of any committed sin; and to conclude, saith he, it was impossible to do worse than they did.  Why was Pausanias the Spartan tyrant, Nero, Otho, Galba, so persecuted with spirits in every house they came, but for their murders which they had committed? [6730]Why doth the devil haunt many men’s houses after their deaths, appear to them living, and take possession of their habitations, as it were, of their palaces, but because of their several villainies?  Why had Richard the Third such fearful dreams, saith Polydore, but for his frequent murders?  Why was Herod so tortured in his mind? because he had made away Mariamne his wife.  Why was Theodoric, the King of the Goths, so suspicious, and so affrighted with a fish head alone, but that he had murdered Symmachus, and Boethius his son-in-law, those worthy Romans?  Caelius, lib. 27. cap. 22. See more in Plutarch, in his tract De his qui sero a Numine puniuntur, and in his book De tranquillitate animi, &c.  Yea, and sometimes GOD himself hath a hand in it, to show his power, humiliate, exercise, and to try their faith, (divine temptation, Perkins calls it, Cas. cons. lib. 1. cap. 8. sect. 1.) to punish them for their sins.  God the avenger, as [6731]David terms him, ultor a tergo Deus, his wrath is apprehended of a guilty, soul, as by Saul and Judas, which the poets expressed by Adrastia, or Nemesis: 

[6732] “Assequitur Nemesique virum vestigia servat,
Ne male quid facias.”------

And she is, as [6733]Ammianus, lib. 14. describes her, “the queen of causes, and moderator of things,” now she pulls down the proud, now she rears and encourageth those that are good; he gives instance in his Eusebius; Nicephorus, lib. 10. cap. 35. eccles. hist. in Maximinus and Julian.  Fearful examples of God’s just judgment, wrath and vengeance, are to be found in all histories, of some that have been eaten to death with rats and mice, as [6734]Popelius, the second King of Poland, ann. 830, his wife and children; the like story is of Hatto, Archbishop of Mentz, ann. 969, so devoured by these vermin, which howsoever Serrarius the Jesuit Mogunt. rerum lib. 4. cap. 5. impugn by twenty-two arguments, Tritemius, [6735]Munster, Magdeburgenses, and many others relate for a truth.  Such another example I find in Geraldus Cambrensis Itin.  Cam. lib. 2. cap. 2. and where not?

And yet for all these terrors of conscience, affrighting punishments which are so frequent, or whatsoever else may cause or aggravate this fearful malady in other religions, I see no reason at all why a papist at any time should despair, or be troubled for his sins; for let him be never so dissolute a caitiff so notorious a villain, so monstrous a sinner, out of that treasure of indulgences and merits of which the pope is dispensator, he may have free pardon and plenary remission of all