Page:Wonderful progidies (sic) of judgment and mercy.pdf/50

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
50
The miſerable Ends of

they ſaw, as it ſeemed to them, a marvellous goodly vine, and upon the ſame ſo many bunches of ripe grapes, extraordinary fair, as there were men ſitting at the table, who being inflamed with ſuch rare dainties, and very dry with much drinking, every man takes his knife in his hand, looking when Fauſtus would give the word, and bid them cut the cluſter; but he having held them a while in ſuſpence about this vain piece of witchcraft, behold all the vine and the bunches of grapes were in the turn of a hand quite vaniſhed away; and every one of theſe drunken companions, thinking he had a cluſter of grapes in his hand, ready to lop off, was ſeen to hold his own noſe with one hand, and the ſharp knife with the other, ready to cut it off; ſo that if any of them had forgot the conjurer's leſſon, and had been never ſo little too forward, inſtead of cutting a bunch of grapes, he had whipt off his own noſe; this wicked wretch is reported to have led about with him an evil ſpirit, in the likeneſs of a dog; and being at Wittenburg, an order was ſent from the emperor to ſeize him, but by his magical deluſions, he made his eſcape, and afterward being at dinner at Noremburg, he was ſecretly ſenſible by an extraordinary ſweat which came upon him, that he was beſet; whereupon he ſuddenly paid his reckoning, and went away, but was hardly out of the city walls ere the ſerjeants and other officers came to apprehend him; yet divine vengeance followed him, for coming into an inn, in a village of the dukedom of Wittenburg, he ſate very ſad, and his hoſt demanding the cauſe thereof, he anſwered, That he would not have him affrighted, if he heard great noiſe and ſhaking of the houſe that night, which happened according to his own prediction; for in the morning he was found dead by his bedſide, with his neck wrung