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four quarters in four several high-ways, and brought her bowels to the marriage-feast, and threw them upon the table before the mayor of the town, saying, Behold those dishes of meat belong to thee, whom the like destruction waiteth for, if thou dost not amend thy wicked life.

Atten. Though God forbears to deal thus with all men that thus rend and tear his name, and that immediate judgments do not overtake them; yet he makes their lives by other judgments bitter to them, does he not?

Wise. Yes, yes; and for proof, I need go no further than to this Badman and his wife; for their railing, and cursing, and swearing, ended not in words: They would fight and fly at each other, and that like cats and dogs. But it must be looked upon as the hand and judgment of God upon him for his villainy: He had an honest woman before, but she would not serve his turn, and therefore God took her away, and gave him one as bad as himself. Thus that measure that he meted to his wife, this last did mete to him again. And this is a punishment wherewith sometimes God will punish wicked men. So said Amos to Amaziah: "Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city." With this last wife Mr Badman lived a pretty while; but as I told you before, in a most sad and hellish manner. And now he would bewail his first wife's death; not of love that he had to her godliness, for that he could

never abide, but for that she used always to keep at home, whereas this would go abroad; his first wife was also honest, and true to that relation; but this last was a whore of her body: The first woman loved to keep things together, but this last would whirl them about as well as he: The first would be silent when he chid, and would take it patiently when he abused her, but this would give him word for word, blow for blow, curse for curse; so that now Mr Badman had met with his match: God had a mind to make him see the baseness of his own life, in the wickedness of his wife's. But all would not do with Mr Badman; he would be Mr Badman still: This judgment did not work any reformation upon him, no, not to God nor

man.

Atten. I warrant you, that Mr Badman thought when his wife was dead, that next time he would match far better.

Wise. What he thought I cannot tell; but he could not hope for it in this match. For here he knew himself to be catched; he knew that he was by this woman intangled, and would therefore have gone back again, but could not. He knew her, I say, to be a whore before, and therefore could not promise himself a happy life with her; for he or she that will not be true to their own soul, will neither be true to husband nor wife. And he knew that she was not true to her own soul, and therefore couldnot expect she should

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be true to him. But Solomon says, whore is a deep pit ;" and Mr Badman found it true: For when she had caught him in her pit, she would never leave him till she had got him to promise her marriage; and when she had taken him so far, she forced him to marry indeed: And after that, they lived that life that I have told you.

Atten. But did not the neighbours take notice of this alteration that Mr Badman had made?

Wise. Yes; and many of his neighbours, yea, many of those that were carnal, said, It is a righteous judgment of God upon him, for his abusive carriage and language to his other wife. For they were all convinced that she was a virtuous woman, and that he, vile wretch, had killed her, I will not say with, but with the want of kindness.

Atten. And how long, I pray, did they live together?

Wise. Some fourteen or sixteen years; even until (though she also brought something with her) they had sinned all away, and parted as poor as howlets. 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, 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 foul distemper in his bowels. Yet the captain of all these men of death that came against him to take him away was the consumption, for it was that that brought him down to the grave.

Atten. Although I will not say but the best men may die of a consumption, a dropsy, 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 man's 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 lawful and unlawful 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 it is thought by his cups and his queens, he brought himself to this his destruction. He was not an old man when he died, nor was he naturally very feeble, but strong and of a healthy complexion: Yet, as I said, he mouldered away, and went; when 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. His name rotted above ground, as his carcase rotted under. And this is according to the saying of the wise man : memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot."

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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 days.

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 ago, 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

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