Wise. Some fourteen or sixteen years, even untill (though she also brought somthing with her) they had sinned all away, and parted as poor as Howlets. {156d} And, in reason, how could it be otherwise? he would have his way, and she would have hers; he among his companions, and she among hers; he with his Whores, and she with her Rogues; and so they brought their Noble to Nine-pence.
Atten. Pray of what disease did Mr. Badman die, for now I perceive we are come up to his death?
Wise. I cannot so properly say that he died of one disease, {157a} for there were many that had consented, and laid their heads together to bring him to his end. He was dropsical, he was consumptive, he was surfeited, was gouty, and, as some say, he had a tang of the Pox in his bowels. Yet the Captain of all these men of death that came against him to take him away, was the Consumption, for ’twas that that brought him down to the grave.
Atten. Although I will not say, but the best men may die of a consumption, a dropsie, or a surfeit; yea, that these may meet upon a man to end him: yet I will say again, that many times these diseases come through mans inordinate use of things. Much drinking brings dropsies, consumptions, surfeits, and many other diseases; and I doubt, that Mr. Badman’s death did come by his abuse of himself in the use of lawfull and unlawfull things. I ground this my sentence upon that report of his life that you at large have given me.
Wise. I think verily that you need not call back your sentence; for ’tis thought by many, that by his Cups and his Queans he brought himself to this his destruction: he was not an old man when he dyed, nor was he naturally very feeble, but strong, and of a healthy complexion: Yet, as I said, he moultered away, and went, when he set a going, rotten to his Grave. And that which made him stink when he was dead, I mean, that made him stink in his Name and Fame, was, that he died with a spice of the foul disease upon him: A man whose life was full of sin, and whose death was without repentance.
Atten. These were blemishes sufficient to make him stink indeed.
Wise. They were so, and they did do it. No man could speak well of him when he was gone. {157b} His Name rotted above ground, as his Carkass rotted under. And this is according to the saying of the wise man: The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot. {157c}
This Text, in both the parts of it, was fulfilled upon him and the woman that he married first. For her Name still did flourish, though she had been dead almost seventeen years; but his began to stink and rot, before he had been buried seventeen dayes.
Atten. That man that dieth with a life full of sin, and with an heart void of repentance, although he should die of the most Golden disease (if there were any that might be so called) I will warrant him his Name shall stink, and that in Heaven and Earth.
Wise. You say true; and therefore doth the name of Cain, Pharaoh, Saul, Judas, and the Pharisees, though dead thousands of years agoe, stink as fresh in the nostrils of the world as if they were but newly dead.
Atten. I do fully acquiesce with you in this. But, Sir, since you have charged him with dying impenitent, pray let me see how you will prove it: {158a} not that I altogether doubt it, because you have affirmed it, but yet I love to have proof for what men say in such weighty matters.
Wise. When I said, he died without repentance, I meant, so far as those that knew him, could judge, when they compared his Life, the Word, and his Death together.
Atten. Well said, they went the right way to find out whether he had, that is, did manifest that he had repentance or no. Now then shew me how they did prove he had none?
Wise. So I will: And first, {158b} this was urged to prove it. He had not in all the time of his sickness, a sight and sence of his sins, but was as secure, and as much at quiet, as if he had never sinned in all his life.
Atten. I must needs confess that this is a sign he had none. For how can a man repent of that of which he hath neither sight nor sence? But ’tis strange that he had neither sight nor sence of sin now, when he had such a sight and sence of his evil before: I mean when he was sick before.