Badman

“ He doth so; and sayes moreover, That anger rests in the bosom of fools. [138b] And truly, if it be a sign of a Fool to have anger rest in his bosom, then was Mr. Badman, notwithstanding the conceit that he had of his own abilities, a Fool of no small size.
Atten. Fools are mostly most wise in their own eyes.
Wise. True. But I was a saying, that if it be a sign that a man is a Fool, when Anger rests in his bosom; Then what is it a sign of, think you, when Malice and Envy rests there? For to my knowledge Mr. Badman was as malicious and as envious a man as commonly you can hear of. ”

“ A man then that desires to be as bad as Mr. Badman, (and desires to be so wicked have many in their hearts) though he never attains to that proficiency in wickedness as he, shall yet be Judged for as bad a man as he, because ’twas in his desires to be such a wicked one.
Atten. But this height of wickedness in Mr. Badman, will not yet out of my mind. This hard, desperate, or what shall I call it, diabolicall frame of heart, was in him a foundation, a ground-work, to all acts and deeds that were evil. ”

“ The career of wickedness has often been so pictured, as to encourage and cherish vice and profanity—to excite the unregenerate mind 'to ride post by other men's sins.' [1] Not so the life of Badman. The ugly, wretched, miserable consequences that assuredly follow a vicious career, are here displayed in biting words—alarming the conscience, and awfully warning the sinner of his destiny, unless happily he finds that repentance that needeth not to be repented of. No debauchee ever read the life of Badman to gratify or increase his thirst for sin. ”

“ Badman is gone to hell.
Secondly. My second argument is drawn from that blessed word of Christ. While the strong man armed keeps the house, 'his goods are in peace,' till a stronger than he comes (Luke 11:21) . But the strong man armed kept Mr. Badman's house, that is, his heart, and soul, and body, for he went from a sinful life quietly out of this world. The stronger did not disturb by intercepting with sound repentance betwixt his sinful life and his quiet death. ”

“ It is not only remarkable, but pat to our purpose. This Thief, like Mr. Badman, began his Trade betimes; he began too where Mr. Badman began, even at robbing of Orchards, and other such things, which brought him, as you may perceive, from sin to sin, till at last it brought him to the publick shame of sin, which is the Gallows. ”

“ Badman did: this was a sign of Gods anger; he had a mind to damn him for his sins, and therefore would not let him see nor have an heart to repent for them, lest he should convert, and his damnation, which God had appointed, should be frustrate: lest they should be converted, and I should heal them.
3. The third thing that I take notice of from hence, is, That a sinfull life and a quiet death annexed to it, is the ready, the open, the beaten, the common high-way to Hell: there is no surer sign of Damnation, than for a man to dye quietly after a sinfull life. ”

“ Every example is a picture of some real occurrence, either within the view of the author, or from the narratives of credible witnesses. 'All the things that here I discourse of, have been acted upon the stage of this world, even many times before mine eyes.' Badman is represented as having had the very great advantage of pious parents, and a godly master, but run riot in wickedness from his childhood. Lying and pilfering mark his early days; followed in after life by swearing, cheating, drunkenness, hypocrisy, infidelity and atheism. ”

“ Badman's doings.
ATTEN. No; pray, before you show me anything else of Mr. Badman, show me yet more particularly the evil effects of this sin of pride.
WISE. With all my heart I will answer your request.
1. Then: It is pride that makes poor man so like the devil in hell, that he cannot in it be known to be the image and similitude of God. The angels, when they became devils, it was through their being lifted or puffed up with pride (1 Tim 3:6) . It is pride also that lifteth or puffeth up the heart of the sinner, and so makes him to bear the very image of the devil. ”

“ And this kind of Cursing, Job counted a grievous sin. I have not suffered (says he) my mouth to sin, [35a] by wishing a curse to his soul; or consequently, to Body or Estate. This then is a wicked cursing, to wish that evil might either befall another or our selves: And this kind of cursing young Badman accustomed himself unto.
1. He [35b] would wish that evil might befall others; he would wish their Necks broken, or that their Brains were out, or that the Pox, or Plague was upon them, and the like: All which is a devilish kind of cursing, and is become one of the common sins of our age. ”

“ He that will run the hazard of eternal damnation of his soul, but he will commit this sin, will for it run the hazard of destroying his body. If young Badman feared not the damnation of his soul, do you think that the consideration of impairing of his body would have deterred him therefrom? ”

“ Their sin and base life comes not into their mind to correct them, and bring them to repentance; but presumptuous thoughts, and an hope and faith of the Spiders (the Devils) making, possesseth their soul, to their own eternal undoing. [175a]
Hence wicked mens hope, is said to dye, not before, but with them; they give up the Ghost together. And thus did Mr. Badman. His sins and his hope went with him to the Gate, but there his hope left him, because it dyed there; but his sins went in with him, to be a worm to gnaw him in his conscience for ever and ever. ”

“ Badman, is to wear upon his Hearse the Badges of a dishonourable and wicked life; since his bones are full of the sins of his Youth, which shall lye down, as Job sayes, in the dust with him: nor is it fit that any should be his Attendants, now at his death, but such as with him conspired against their own souls in their life; persons whose transgressions have made them infamous to all that have or shall know what they have done. ”

“ When pride goes before, shame and destruction will follow after. When pride cometh, then cometh shame. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
6. [135d] Persisting in pride makes the condition of a poor man as remediless as is that of the Devils themselves.
And this I fear was Mr. Badmans condition, and that was the reason that he died so as he did; as I shall shew you anon.
But what need I thus talk of the particular actions, or rather prodigious sins of Mr. Badman, when his whole Life and all his actions, went as it were to the making up one massie body of sin? ”

“ It seems a marvellous thing in mine eyes, that since a lye is the Offspring of the devill, and since a lye brings the soul to the very den of Devils, to wit, the dark dungeon of hell; that men should be so desperately wicked as to accustom themselves to so horrible a thing. ”

“ O! but when they see that that is their home, and that they must go in thither, then their peace and quietness flies away for ever: Then they roar like Lions, yell like Dragons, howl like Dogs, and tremble at their Judgment, as do the Devils themselves. Oh! when they see they must shoot the Gulf and Throat of Hell! when they shall see that Hell hath shut her ghastly Jaws upon them! when they shall open their eyes, and find themselves within the belly and bowels of Hell! ”

“ But if, as you say, and that truly, the very Name of Hell, is so dreadful, what is the Place it self, and what are the Punishments that are there inflicted, and that without the least intermission, upon the Souls of damned men, for ever and ever. ”

“ None that go in unto her return again, neither take they hold of the path of life. She hath cast down many wounded; yea many strong men have been slain by her, her house is the way to Hell, going down to the Chambers of Death. ”

“ Arrows, spears, javelins, stones from slings, poured upon the body-guard in almost countless numbers, now and then claiming a true-heart as victim, whereupon the rabble howled afresh in drunken triumph; but where a single man died in the performance of his oath-bound duty, half a score heathen bit the dust and grovelled out his remnant of life yonder where most viciously trampled the feet of his fellow brutes. ”

“ The dense mass of swarthy, powerful men, swaying to and fro, wielding the deadly weapons they had been familiar with from childhood; yelling, cursing, cheering and blaspheming like a horde of demons fresh let loose from pandemonium; the long black hair floating around their fierce, inflamed faces with every movement; the weapons flashing around them, clashing together until tiny showers of sparks gritted from the steel, falling swiftly, to rise again, gleaming a dull red, while the ruby drops of life-blood trickled from the edge or point ”

“ And they came to look upon the body as a deadly enemy, the slave and accomplice of the devil, which could be subdued only by a regimen of pain and terror. And so, when an evil suggestion tempted them, they scourged themselves until the blood ran from their mangled flesh, or they plunged naked into the deep winter snow, or barefooted they trod the flinty soil, or they fasted until the exhausted brain sank into the stupor of delirium. ”

“ Alas, I can do so no longer, for I have become myself that “madman.” Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred times during the course of this wretched life of mine, have I experienced and lived over such moments of existence, outside of my body. Accursed be that hour when this terrible power was first awakened in me! I have not even the consolation left of attributing such glimpses of events at a distance to insanity. Madmen rave and see that which exists not in the realm they belong to. My visions have proved invariably correct. But to my narrative of woe. ”

“ A few minutes later, and the miserable crowd of depraved human beings had been absorbed again into cellar and garret, hovel and rookery, to take up the thread of their evil and sensual lives, and to plot wickedness, and to prey upon and deprave each other—to dwell as to their inner and real lives among infernals, to be in hell as to their spirits, while their bodies yet remained upon the earth. ”

“ And the time for considering the sufferings of a people or for being in anywise tender hearted, is not when a madman or a cohort of madmen are howling about your houses or your city, with knives and torches, blood in their eyes, fiery rum in their veins, demoniac rage in their hearts, and the instincts of hell in their natures. ”

“ I have learned all I care to know, and must disappear. They will think nothing of that—for I am an idiot," and he laughed silently, but gleefully. "They'll think I've wandered away, or been killed by wild beasts. And then—well, they'll see me again, and with me will be a host of 'boys in blue.'
"Why do I tell you this? Because you are in great peril—not of death, but even worse than that—and will need all the courage you can muster. ”

“ And who knows what incessant, compulsory meditation may produce on a guilty mind, reflecting on the crimes committed and the punishment that is to follow? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a horde of bandits, in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice,—or, rather, treason,—which they make him dearly expiate; for, in their savage obduracy, their senseless bravado, they consider every man as a spy on them, who, sad and disconsolate, regretting his fault, does not join in their audacious recklessness, and trembles at their contact. ”

“ The Worst Bad Man, whose courage, for all his deviltry, had its limitations, went and sat down on the tongue of the wagon and tried to think. But scourged with the horror of this most terrible of human travail, he fled up the arroyo out of hearing. On the top of one of the little black volcanic hills, from which eminence he could look down on the wagon, he stood, active, alert, like a mountain sheep on guard, and beckoned to his friends to join him. The Youngest Bad Man obeyed his frantic signals, but The Wounded Bad Man stayed at the wagon. ”

“ Slowly their dread mastered them; their faces grew grey and then green; one man gave back a step, then another; one by one they tore away their eyes from the dormant horror; glared at one another in the agony of utter fear; turned with one accord, and fled—fled as men flee with the fear of death at their backs, and the devils of the lone Night and the waste on their heels. ”

“ The bandit's first impulse was to stop, dismount, and conceal himself and his horse behind an aloe tree, which afforded a temporary shelter. It is extraordinary to see how villains, who care nothing for the life of others, display remarkable instinct of self-preservation, and what tricks they employ to escape an often imaginary danger. When the bandit believed himself in safety, at least for the moment, he began watching most carefully the undulation of the grass, which incessantly drew nearer to him. ”

“ I thought to find some barbarian, arrogant and heavy, always covered with blood or plunged in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they have told us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the battle field, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man knows whence. ”

“ Have you ever heard of a fellow who leads bloodthirsty villains through the woods, himself the greatest wretch of them all, robbing unprotected stations and murdering in cold blood the unoffending inmates, destroying even little children, setting all laws at defiance, both human and divine—violating wives and sisters—marking his track with murder, fire, and devastation?—Have you ever heard of such a being? ”

“ There are some very callous hardened Villains among this murdering Band, who, with a View to establish their Influence and Revenue as well upon Fear as upon Hope, have horridly ventured so far as to incline the Populace to doubt, whether they received their boasted Gift and Power from Heaven or from Hell! ”