My cosen told me that about some 24 yeares since the Prince of Aurange, being driven to some necessity, sent for reliefe to hir Majesty, with protestation that yf shee fayled to supply their wants he must turne pirate; and soe receyving but a cold aunswere, all they of Flushing and other parts adjoining instantly of merchants became good men of warr, and tooke our merchants fleete and forced them to lend 50,000l., which was never repayd. Yet when they had served their turnes for that extremity, and after divers complaints made by our merchants to our Queen against their piracys, had receyved message from hir Majesty to desist from those courses, they presently retyred themselves on a sudden, every one to his former trade. Of soe apt a nature is that nation for any purpose.
There was a company of yong gallants sometyme in Amsterdame which called themselves the Damned Crue.[169] They would meete togither on nights, and vowe amongst themselves to kill the next man they mett whosoever; soe divers murthers committed, but not one punished. Such impunity of murder is frequent in that country. (My cosen narr.)
fo. 107.
1 March, 1602.My cosen repeated memoriter almost the first Booke of Virgils Æneids.
And this day he rehersed without booke verry neere the whole second Booke of the Æneids, viz. 630 verses, without missing one word. A singular memory in a man of his age, 62.
You shall never see a deares scutt cover his haunche, nor a fooles tongue his frendes secrett.
fo. 107b.Notes of a sermon upon the xv. ch. to the Corinth, verse 22.
"As in Adam all dye, soe in Christ shall all men be made alive." The judgement of the first disobedience was death. And in truth, God could doe noe lesse, unlesse he would be unjust, for as in wisdome he had ordayned that man should dye when he tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree, soe in justice he was to execute what in wisdom he had decreed.
Christ was like Adam in his preheminence, in being the cheife and having goverment over all creature. But yet unlike in this that Adam was the cause of death, but Christ is the cause of lyfe unto all that beleeve in him. There is a tyme for all to dye: and this act of dying is done by us, and upon us. It is a sentence which comprehendeth all, though all apprehend not it. Adam was one before all, one ouer all, and all in one, by whose synn all taynted; soe Christ, by whom all saved. 1 Tim. ii. 4. Man is the principall cause in the course of generacion, but woman was in the fall of Adam. 1 Tim. ii. 14. Those which are sicke of the wantonnes make many answereles, endles, needeles questions, about the fall of Adam.
There be synnes personall, and synnes naturall; these wee derive ofttymes from our parents, as a synne in us, and punishment of them. Soe adultery and drunkennes of father, is ofttymes punished in an adulterous and cupshott[170] childe.
fo. 108.