or at our late Pharsalian fields, in the time of Henry the sixt, betwixt the houses of Lancaster and York, an hundred thousand men slain, one writes, another, ten thousand families were rooted out, that no man can but marvel, saith Comineus, at that barbarous immanitie, ferall madnesse, committed betwixt men of the same nation, language and religion. Quis furor O cives? Why do the Gentiles so furiously rage, saith the Prophet David, Psal. 2. 1. But we may ask, why do the Christians so furiously rage? Arma volunt, quare poscunt, rapiuntque juventus?

Unfit for Gentiles, much lesse for us so to tyranize, as the Spaniards in the West Indies, that killed up in 42 years (if we may believe Bartholomæus à Casa their own bishop) 12 millions of men, with stupend & exquisite torments; neither should I ly (said he) if I said 50 millions. I omit those French Massacres, Sicilian Evensongs, the Duke of Alvas tyrannies, our gunpowder machinations, and that fourth fury, as one cals it, the Spanish inquisition, which quite obscures those ten persecutions, ——sævit toto Mars impius orbe,

Is not this Mundus furiosus, a mad world, as he terms it, insanum bellum? are not these mad men, as Scaliger concludes, qui in prælio acerbâ morte, insaniæ suæ memoriam pro perpetuo teste relinquunt posteritati; which leave so frequent battels, as perpetual memorials of their madnesse to all succeeding ages? Would this, think you, have enforced our Democritus to laughter, or rather made him turn his tune, alter his tone, and weep with Heraclitus, or rather howl, roar, and tear his hair in commiseration, stand amazed; or as the Poets faign, that Niobe was for grief quite stupified, and turned to a stone?

I have not yet said the worst, that which is more absurd and mad, In their tumults, seditions, civil & unjust wars, quod stultè suscipitur, impiè geritur, miserè finitur, such wars I mean, for all are not to be condemned, as those phantastical Anabaptists vainly conceive. Our Christian Tacticks are all out as necessary as the Roman Acies, or Grecian Phalanx; to be a souldier is a most noble and honorable profession (as the world is) not to be spared, they are our best wals and bulwarks,

and I do therefore acknowledg that of Tully to be most true. All our civil affairs, all our studies, all our pleading, industrie and commendation lies under the protection of warlike vertues, and whensoever there is any suspition of tumult, all our arts cease; wars are most behovefull & bellatores agricolis civitati sunt utiliores, as Tyrius defends: and valor is much to be commended in a wise man, but they mistake most part, auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus virtutem vocant, &c. (’Twas Galgacus observation in Tacitus) they term theft, murder, and rapine, vertue, by a wrong name, rapes, slaughters, massacres, &c. jocus & ludus, are pretty pastimes, as Ludovicus Vives notes.

They commonly call the most hair-brain blood-suckers, strongest theeves, the most desperate villains, trecherous rogues, inhumane murderers, rash, cruel and dissolute caitiffs, couragious and generous spirits, heroical and worthy Captains, brave men at arms, valiant and renowned souldiers, possessed with a brute perswasion of false honour, as Pontus Huter in his Burgundian historie complains.

By means of which it comes to passe that daily so many voluntaries offer themselves, leaving their sweet wives, children, friends, for six pence (if they can get it) a day, prostitute their lives and limbs, desire to enter upon breaches, ly sentinel, perdue, give the first onset, stand in the fore-front of the battell, marching bravely on, with a cheerful noise of drums and trumpets, such vigor and alacrity, so many banners streaming in the ayr, glittering armours, motions of plumes, woods of pikes, and swords, variety of colours, cost and magnificence, as if they went in triumph, now victors to the Capitol, and with such pomp, as when Darius army marched to meet Alexander at Issus.

Void of all fear they run into eminent dangers, Canons mouth, &c. ut vulneribus suis ferrum hostium hebetent, saith Barletius, to get a name of valour, honour and applause, which lasts not neither, for it is but a meer flash this fame, and like a rose, intra diem unum extinguitur, tis gone in an instant. Of 15000 proletaries slain in a battel, scarce fifteen are recorded in history, or one alone, the General perhaps, and after a while his and their names are likewise blotted out, the whole battel itself is forgotten.

Those Grecian Orators, summa vi ingenii & eloquentiæ, set out the renowned overthrows at Thermopylæ, Salamina, Marathro, Micale, Mantinea, Cheronæa, Platæa: The Romans record their battel at Cannas, and Pharsalian fields, but they do but record, and we scarce hear of them. And yet this supposed honor, popular applause, desire of immortality by this means, pride and vain-glory spurs them on many times rashly and unadvisedly, to make away themselves and multitudes of others.