such punishments. Lycurgus, because he cut down the vines in the country,
was by Bacchus driven into madness: so was Pentheus and his mother Agave
for neglecting their sacrifice. [1102]Censor Fulvius ran mad for untiling
Juno's temple, to cover a new one of his own, which he had dedicated to
Fortune, [1103]"and was confounded to death with grief and sorrow of
heart." When Xerxes would have spoiled [1104]Apollo's temple at Delphos of
those infinite riches it possessed, a terrible thunder came from heaven and
struck four thousand men dead, the rest ran mad. [1105]A little after, the
like happened to Brennus, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, upon such a
sacrilegious occasion. If we may believe our pontifical writers, they will
relate unto us many strange and prodigious punishments in this kind,
inflicted by their saints. How [1106]Clodoveus, sometime king of France,
the son of Dagobert, lost his wits for uncovering the body of St. Denis:
and how a [1107]sacrilegious Frenchman, that would have stolen a silver
image of St. John, at Birgburge, became frantic on a sudden, raging, and
tyrannising over his own flesh: of a [1108]Lord of Rhadnor, that coming
from hunting late at night, put his dogs into St. Avan's church, (Llan Avan
they called it) and rising betimes next morning, as hunters use to do,
found all his dogs mad, himself being suddenly strucken blind. Of Tyridates
an [1109]Armenian king, for violating some holy nuns, that was punished in
like sort, with loss of his wits. But poets and papists may go together for
fabulous tales; let them free their own credits: howsoever they feign of
their Nemesis, and of their saints, or by the devil's means may be deluded;
we find it true, that _ultor a tergo Deus_, [1110]"He is God the avenger,"
as David styles him; and that it is our crying sins that pull this and many
other maladies on our own heads. That he can by his angels, which are his
ministers, strike and heal (saith [1111]Dionysius) whom he will; that he
can plague us by his creatures, sun, moon, and stars, which he useth as his
instruments, as a husbandman (saith Zanchius) doth a hatchet: hail, snow,
winds, &c. [1112]_Et conjurati veniunt in classica venti_: as in Joshua's
time, as in Pharaoh's reign in Egypt; they are but as so many executioners
of his justice. He can make the proudest spirits stoop, and cry out with
Julian the Apostate, _Vicisti Galilaee_: or with Apollo's priest in
[1113]Chrysostom, _O coelum! o terra! u