Mr. Bolton's last and learned work of the four last things death, judgement, hell,…Mr. Boltons last and learned worke of the foure last things death, iudgement, hell,…

I mean not top of honour, or height of Place: this (without religion) serves only to make the downfall more desperate and remarkable. They are raised on hie, saith the very Poet, that their ruin may be more irrecoverable. But what do I meddle with the Poet? the Prophet is plain and peremptory against the pride of ambition: Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart: O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: Though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the Eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord, Jer. 49. 16.

I meane not top of honour, or height of Place: this (without religion) serves onely to make the downfall more desperate and remarkable. They are rais'd on hie, saith the very Poet, that their ruine may be more irrecoverable. But what do I meddle with the Poet? the Prophet is plaine and peremptory against the pride of ambition: Thy terriblenesse hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart: O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocke, that holdest the height of the hill: Though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the Eagle, I will bring thee downe from thence, saith the Lord, Ier. 49. 16.

I mean not the arm of flesh, or Princely favours. Assuredly, that man which gratifies great Ones to the wounding of his conscience by the ⟨p. 8⟩formal slavery of baseness and insinuation, or any ill offices of ambitious servitude in feats of irreligious policy, in justice, cruelty, turning Turk and traitor to those that trusted him, &c. shall at last receive no other recompense of such abhorred villainy, when divine vengeance begins to take him in hand, than that which justly fell upon Judas (in the extremity of his anguish and sorrow) from the chief Priests and Elders, Matth. 27. 4. If ever great men, or earthly Potentates did take their flattering slaves out of the hands of GOD, at that highest Tribunal, or were able to free a guilty soul from eternal flames; it were something to grow rich, and rise by vile accommodations, and serving their turn in the mean time. But such a man sall certainly (in the day of his last and greatest need) be cast with horrible confusion of spirit, and […] grief of heart, upon Wolsey's rueful complaint, and cry out when it is too late: Had I been as careful […] serve the GOD of heaven, as my great Master on earth; he had never left me in my grey hairs. Favours of greatness may follow a man in fair weather, and shine upon his face with goodly hopes and expectation of great things, but in shipwrecks even of worldly things, where all sinks, but the sorrow to save them; or especially upon the very first tempest of spiritual distress, they steer away before the Sea and Wind, leaving him to sink or swim; without all possibility of help or rescue, even to the rage of a wounded conscience, and gulf many times of that desperate madness, which the Prophet describes