Mystical bedlam, or the vvorld of mad-men. By Tho: Adams

2. The Proud

Is the next Mad-man, I would haue you take view of in this Bedlam. The proud man? or rather the proud woman: or rather hac aquila, both he and shee. For if they had no more euident distinction of sexe, then they haue of shape, they would be all man, or rather all woman: for the Amazons beare away the Bell: as one wittily, Hic mulier will shortly bee good latine, if this transmigration hold: For whether on horsebacke, or on foot, there is no great difference: but not discernable out of a Coach. If you prayse their beauty; you rayse their glory: if you commend them, command them. Admiration is a poyson, that swelles them till they burst.

Laudatas extendit auis Iunonia pennas.

Is not this madnesse? De ignorantia tui, venit in te super∣bia. Selfe-ignorance is the originall of pride. Is not hee madde, that knowes not himselfe? Quantò quis humilior, tantò Christo similior. Humility is Christs resemblance, Pride the Deuils Physnomie. Is he not mad, that had rather be like Satan then God? Humilitie is begunne by the information of Christ, wrought by the reformati∣on of the Spirit, manifested in conformation to obedi∣ence. But Pride, sayth Aug. Vbi mentem possederit,

erigendo deijcit, inflammando euacuat, & domum destruit, quam inhabitat. Pride casteth downe by lifting vp, by filling emptieth, and destroyes the house where it in∣habiteth. If superbire be supraregulam ire, then is pride extrauagancy and madnes: a pernicious, perilous sinne, that intraps euen good works.

Doe you thinke, there is no pride, no madnes in the land? Aske the Silke-men, the Mercers, the Tyre∣women, the Complexion-sellers, the Coach-makers, the Apothecaries, the Embroderers, the Featherers, the Perfumers; and aboue all as witnesses beyond ex∣ception, the Taylors. If you cast vp the debt-bookes of the other, and the fearefull billes of the last, you shal finde the totall summe, Pride and madnesse. Powders, liquours, vnguents, tinctures, odors, ornaments de∣riu'd from the liuing, from the dead, palpaple instan∣ces, and demonstratiue indigitations of pride and mad∣nesse. Such translations and borrowing of formes, that a silly countryman walking the City, can scarce say, there goes a man, or there a woman. Woman, as shee was an humane creature, bore the image of God; as shee was woman, the image of man: now she beares the image of man indeed, but in a crosse and mad fashi∣on; almost to the quite defacing of the image of God. Howsoeuer; that sexe will be the finer, the prouder, the madder. For pride and madnesse are of the feminine gen∣der. They haue reason for it. Man was made but of earth; Woman of refined earth; being taken out of man, who was taken out of the earth: therefore shee arrogates the costlier ornaments, as the purer dust. A∣las! how incongruous a connexiō is fine dust, proud clay? the attribute is too good for the subiect.

A certaine man desired to see Constantine the Great: whom intentiuely beholding, hee cryed out: I thought Constantine had beene some greater thing; but now I see, hee is nothing but a man. To whom Constantine answe∣red

with thanks. Tu solus es, qui in me oculos, apertos ha∣buisti. Thou onely hast looked on mee with open and true iudging eyes. O nobiles magis quā foelices pannos; may ma∣ny great men say of their stately robes: nay, O hono∣randa, magis quam honestavestimenta; may proud crea∣tures say of theirs. What is a silken coate to hide a∣ches, feuers, impostumes, swellings; the merited poy∣sons of lust? when wee may say of the body and the dis∣ease, as of man and wife, for their incorporation of one to the other, Duo sunt in carne vna: they are two in one flesh.

There is mortality in that flesh, thou so deckest: & that skinne which is so bepainted with artificial com∣plexion, shall lose the beauty and it selfe. Detrahetur nouissimum velamentum cutis. You that sayle betwixt heauen and earth in your foure-sail'd vessels, as if the ground were not good enough to be the pauement to the soales of your feet: know that the earth shall one day set her foot on your neckes, and the slime of it shall defile your surphul'd beauties: dust shall fill vp the wrinckled furrowes, which age makes, and paint supplies. Your bodies were not made of the substance, whereof the Angells; not of the nature of starres, nor of the water, whereof the fire, ayre, wa∣ter, and inferiour creatures. Remember your Tribe, and your fathers poore house, and the pitte•• where∣out you were hewne: Hanibal is at the gates, death stand at your dores: be not proud, be not madde: you must die.

Notes

• Bern.
• Quod bonis operibus in∣sidiatur. August.