Again, When wicked men are at the highest, then are they nearest their fall ; as you may see in that 37th Psalm, and that 73d Psalm, and in those great instances of Pharaoh, Adoni-bezek, Benhadad, Ahab, Sennacherib, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Herod, &c.' Look, as the ship is soonest cast away when she is top and top-gallant, so when wicked men are top and top-gallant, when they are at the height of all their pomp, bravery, and worldly glory, then God usually tumbles them down into the very gulf of misery. The gi-eat ones of the world have suddenly fallen from their highest honours and dignities, and have been sorely and sadly exercised with the greatest scorns and calamities. Let me give you this in a few remarkable instances.
Valerian, the Roman emperor, fell from being an emperor to be a footstool to Sapor, the king of Persia, as often as he took horse.*
' Deut. xxviii. 15-68 ; Lev. xxvi. 14-39 ; Prov. iii. :<3 ; Mai. ii. 2.
• Vide Cicero Tusc. Quasi. [Cf. Index under Damocles for former references. — G.]
s Exod.xiv. ; Judges i. 6,7 ; 1 Kings xx. and xxii.; 2 Kings xix. ; Esther vi. 4 ; Dan. v.
* Amm. Marcel, xxiii. 5; Trehell. Polh. Frag. Vit. Valerian; Aurel. Vict.de Goes, xxxii. £pit. xxxii. ; Eutrop. ix. 6. — G.
Lam. III. 24.] an ark for all god's noahs. 45
Valeris the emperor, a furious Arian, being wounded in a fight with the Goths, in his flight he betook himself to a poor cottage, wherein he was burnt by the Goths.^
Aurelianus, the Roman emperor, brought Tetricus^ his opposite, and the noble queen Zenobia of Palmerina,' in triumph to Rome in golden chains.
Bajazet, a proud emperor of the Turks, being taken prisoner by Tam- berlain,* a Tartarian emperor, he bound him in chains of gold, and used him for a footstool when he took horse ; and when he ate meat, he made him gather crumbs under his table and eat them for his food.
Caesar, having bathed his sword in the blood of the senate and his own countrymen, is, after a while, miserably murdered in the senate by his own friends, Cassius and Brutus, to shew that they are but the scourges and rods of the Almighty, which he will cast into the fire as soon as he hath done with them.
The victorious emperor, Henry the Fourth, who in sixty-two pitched battles for the most part became victorious, fell to that poverty and misery before he died, that he was forced to petition to be a prebend in the church of Spire to maintain him in his old age, which the bishop of that place denied him ; whereupon he brake forth into that speech of Job, ' Have pity upon me, O my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me,' Job xix. 21. He died of grief and want.
And Procopius reports of king Guidimer, who was sometimes a potent king of the Vandals, that he was brought so low as to entreat his friend to send him a sponge, a loaf of bread, and an harp : a sponge to dry up his tears, a loaf of bread to maintain his life, and an harp to solace him- self in his misery.
Dionysius, king of Sicily, was such a cruel tyrant that his people banished him. After his banishment he went to Corinth, where he lived a base and contemptible life. At last he became a schoolmaster, that so, when he could no longer tyrannize over men, he might over boys.
Great Pompey, that used to boast that he could raise all Italy in arms with a stamp of his foot, had not so much as room to be buried in.
And William the Conqueror's corpse lay three days unburied, his in- terment being hindered by one that claimed the ground to be his.
And Pythias pined to death for want of bread, who once was able to entertain and maintain Xerxes's mighty army.^
And Philip de Comines reports of a Duke of Exeter, who though he had married Edward the Fourth's sister, yet he saw him in the low countries begging barefoot.®
And so Belisarius, a most famous general, and the only man living in his time for glorious victories, riches, and renown, yet in his old age he had his eyes put out by the empress Theodora; and being led at last in a string, he was forced to cry out. Date panem Belisario, &c., Give
' Tacitus Hist. i. 7, 52, 67, 61, 66, et alibi ; Plutarch. Otho, c. 6.— G.
* See Dissertation by Do Boze in Memoires de rAcademie de Sciences et Belles Lettres Vol. xxvi. p. 504 — G.
3 Palmyra. See Treliell. Polis, ^ri^. Tyrann.; Zonarxii, 27.— G. * Tamerlane. G
s Turk. Hist. fol. 220, &c. [KnoUes — G.]
* In the celebrated ' Memoirs,' sub Exeter. — Q.
46 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD's NOAHS. [LaM. III. 21-.
a crust to old blind Belisarius, whom virtue advanced, but envy hath brought into this great misery. By all these royal instances, you see the truth of that which once a royal slave hinted to Sesostris. The story runs thus : —
Sesostris having taken many of his neighbour kings prisoners, he made them to draw his chariot by turns. Now, it so happened that one of these royal slaves, as he was drawing in the chariot, had his eye almost continually fixed on the wheels, which Sesostris observing, asked him why he looked so seriously upon the wheels. He answered, that the faUing of that spoke lowest which was even now highest, put him in mind of the instability of fortune. Sesostris, duly weighing the parable, would never after be drawn by his royal slaves any more.
By what hath been said, it is more evident that when wicked men are highest they are nearest their fall; and that none fall so certainly and so suddenly, and under such dreadful calamities and miseries, as those that have been the most highly advanced in all worldly dignities and glories. And why, then, should any fret or vex at their outward prosperity or worldly felicity ?