The Theater of Gods Judgments, Book 2 · Chapter 35
CHAP. XXXV. Of the wonderfull evill that ariseth from this greedinesse of lust.
IT is to good reason, that Scripture forbids us to abstain 1 John 2.from the lust of the flesh and the eyes, which is of the world and the corruption of mans own nature; forsomuch as by it we are drawn to evill, it being as it were a corrupt root which sendeth forth most bitter, sowre, and rotten fruit and this hapneth not only when the goods & riches of Iames 1.the world are in quest, but also when a man hunteth after dishonest and unchaste delights: this concupiscence is it that bringeth forth whoredomes, adulteries, and many other such sinnes, whereout spring forth oftentimes flouds of mischiefes, and that divers times by the selfe-will and inordinate desire of private and particular persons: what did the lawlesse lust of Potiphars Wife bring upon Ioseph? Was not his life indangered, and his body Gen. 29.kept in close prison, where he cooled his feet two yeares or more?
We have a most notable example of the miserable end of a certain woman, with the sacking and destruction of a whole City, and all caused by her intemperance and unbridled lust.
About the time that the Emperour Phocas was slain by Priscus, one Gysulphus Sabel.(Governour and Chieftain of a Countrey in Lumbardy) going out in defence of his Countrey against the Bavarians (which were certaine reliques of the Hunnes) gave them battell, and lost the field and his life withall: Now the Conquerours (pursuing their victory) laid siege to the chief City of his Province, where Romilda his Wife made her abode; who viewing one day from the wals the young and fair King, with yellow curled lockes galloping about the City, fell presently so extreamly in love with him, that her minde ran of nothing but satisfying her greedy and new conceived lust: wherefore (burying in oblivion the love of her late husband, with her young infants yet living, and her Countrey, and preferring her owne lust before them all) she sent secretly unto him this message, That if he would promise to marry her, she would deliver up the City into his hands: he, well pleased with this gentle offer (through a desire of obtaining the City, which without great bloudshed and losse of men he could not otherwise compasse) accepted of it, and was received upon this condition, within the wals: and lest he should seeme too perfidious, he performed his promise of marriage, and made her his wife for that one night; but soone after (in scorne and disdaine) he gave her up to twelve of his strongest lechers, to glut her unquenchable fire: and finally nailed her on a gibbet, for a finall reward of her tre…cherous and boundlesse lust. Marke well the misery whereinto this wretched woman threw her selfe, and not only her selfe, but a whole City also, by her boiling concupiscence, which so dazled her understanding, that she could not consider how undecent it was, dishonest, and inconvenient, for a woman to offer her selfe, nay to solicite a man that was an enemie, a stranger, and one that she had never seen before, to her bed, and that to the utter undoing of her selfe and all hers. But even thus, many more (whose hearts are passionate with love) are blindfolded after the same sort (like as poeticall Cupid is fained to be) that not knowing what they take in hand, they fall headlong into destruction ere they be aware. Let us then be here advertised to pray unto God that he would purifie our drossie hearts, and divert our wandring eyes from beholding vanity, to be seduced thereby.