First, They are sometimes, when dead, presented to their Friends, by their compleatly wrought Images, as lively as by cunning mens hands they can be; that the remembrance of them may be renewed to their survivors, the remembrance of them and their deeds: And this I have endeavoured to answer in my discourse of Mr. Badman; and therefore I have drawn him forth in his featours and actions from his Childhood to his Gray hairs. Here therefore thou hast him lively set forth as in Cutts; both as to the minority, flower, and seniority of his Age, together with those actions of his life, that he was most capable of doing, in, and under those present circumstances of time, place, strength; and the opportunities that did attend him in these.
Secondly, There is also usual at great mens Funerals, those Badges and Scutcheons of their honour, that they have received from their Ancestors, or have been thought worthy of for the deeds and exploits they have done in their life: And here Mr. Badman has his, but such as vary from all men of worth, but so much the more agreeing with the merit of his doings: They all have descended in state, he only as an abominable branch. His deserts are the deserts of sin, and therefore the Scutcheons of honour that he has, are only that he died without Honour, and at his end became a fool. Thou shalt not be joyned with them in burial.—The seed of evil doers shall never be renowned.
The Funeral pomp therefore of Mr. Badman, is to wear upon his Hearse the Badges of a dishonourable and wicked life; since his bones are full of the sins of his Youth, which shall lye down, as Job sayes, in the dust with him: nor is it fit that any should be his Attendants, now at his death, but such as with him conspired against their own souls in their life; persons whose transgressions have made them infamous to all that have or shall know what they have done.
Some notice therefore I have also here in this little discourse given the Reader, of them who were his Confederates in his life, and Attendants at his death; with a hint, either of some high Villany committed by them, as also of those Judgments that have overtaken and fallen upon them from the just and revenging hand of God. All which are things either fully known by me, as being eye and ear-witness thereto, or that I have received from such hands, whose relation as to this, I am bound to believe. And that the Reader may know them from other things and passages herein contained, I have pointed at them in the Margent, as with a finger thus: [Picture: Graphic of hand with finger printing right]
Thirdly, The Funerals of persons of Quality have been solemnized with some suitable Sermon at the time and place of their Burial; but that I am not come to as yet, having got no further than to Mr. Badmans death: but for as much as he must be buried, after he hath stunk out his time before his beholders, I doubt not but some such that we read are appointed to be at the burial of Gog, will do this work in my stead; such as shall leave him neither skin nor bone above ground, but shall set a sign by it till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog, Ezek. 39.
Fourthly, At Funerals there does use to be Mourning and lamentation, but here also Mr. Badman differs from others; his Familiars cannot lament his departure, for they have not sence of his damnable state; they rather ring him, and sing him to Hell in the sleep of death, in which he goes thither. Good men count him no loss to the world, his place can well be without him, his loss is only his own, and ’tis too late for him to recover that dammage or loss by a Sea of bloody tears, could he shed them. Yea, God has said, he will laugh at his destruction, who then shall lament for him, saying, Ah! my brother. He was but a stinking Weed in his life; nor was he better at all in his death: such may well be thrown over the wall without sorrow, when once God has plucked them up by the roots in his wrath.
Reader, If thou art of the race, linage, stock or fraternity of Mr. Badman, I tell thee before thou readest this Book, thou wilt neither brook the Author nor it, because he hath writ of Mr. Badman as he has. For he that condemneth the wicked that die so, passeth also the sentence upon the wicked that live. I therefore expect neither credit of, nor countenance from thee, for this Narration of thy kinsmans life.