Dionysius Halicarnassaeus, Thucydides, Pausanius, Philostratus,
[6379]Polybius, before the battle of Cannae, prodigiis signis,
ostentis, templa cuncta, privates etiam aedes scatebant. Oeneus reigned
in Aetolia, and because he did not sacrifice to Diana with his other
gods (see more in Labanius his Diana), she sent a wild boar, insolitae
magnitudinis, qui terras et homines misere depascebatur, to spoil both
men and country, which was afterwards killed by Meleager. So Plutarch
in the Life of Lucullus relates, how Mithridates, king of Pontus, at
the siege of Cizicum, with all his navy, was overthrown by Proserpina,
for neglecting of her holy day. She appeared in a vision to Aristagoras
in the night, Cras inquit tybicinem Lybicum cum tybicine pontico
committam (tomorrow I will cause a contest between a Libyan and a
Pontic minstrel), and the day following this enigma was understood; for
with a great south wind which came from Libya, she quite overwhelmed
Mithridates' army. What prodigies and miracles, dreams, visions,
predictions, apparitions, oracles, have been of old at Delphos, Dodona,
Trophonius' den, at Thebes, and Lebaudia, of Jupiter Ammon in Egypt,
Amphiaraus in Attica, &c.; what strange cures performed by Apollo and
Aesculapius? Juno's image and that of [6380]Fortune spake, [6381]Castor
and Pollux fought in person for the Romans against Hannibal's army, as
Pallas, Mars, Juno, Venus, for Greeks and Trojans, &c. Amongst our
pseudo-Catholics nothing so familiar as such miracles; how many cures
done by our lady of Loretto, at Sichem! of old at our St. Thomas's
shrine, &c. [6382]St. Sabine was seen to fight for Arnulphus, duke of
Spoleto. [6383]St. George fought in person for John the Bastard of
Portugal, against the Castilians; St. James for the Spaniards in
America. In the battle of Bannockburn, where Edward the Second, our
English king, was foiled by the Scots, St. Philanus' arm was seen to
fight (if [6384]Hector Boethius doth not impose), that was before shut
up in a silver cap-case; another time, in the same author, St. Magnus
fought for them. Now for visions, revelations, miracles, not only out
of the legend, out of purgatory, but everyday comes news from the
Indies, and at home read the Jesuits' Letters, Ribadineira,
Thurselinus, Acosta, Lippomanus, Xaverius, Ignatius' Lives, &c., and
tell me what difference?
His ordinary instruments or factors which he useth, as God himself, did
good kings, lawful magistrates, patriarchs, prophets, to the
establishing of his church, [6385]are politicians, statesmen, priests,
heretics, blind guides, impostors, pseudoprophets, to propagate his
superstition. And first to begin of politicians, it hath ever been a
principal axiom with them to maintain religion or superstition, which
they determine of, alter and vary upon all occasions, as to them seems
best, they make religion mere policy, a cloak, a human invention, nihil
aeque valet ad regendos vulgi animos ac superstitio, as [6386]Tacitus
and [6387]Tully hold. Austin, l. 4. de civitat. Dei. c. 9. censures
Scaevola saying and acknowledging expedire civitates religione falli,
that it was a fit thing cities should be deceived by religion,
according to the diverb, Si mundus vult decipi, decipiatur, if the
world will be gulled, let it be gulled, 'tis good howsoever to keep it
in subjection. 'Tis that [6388]Aristotle and [6389]Plato inculcate in
their politics, Religion neglected, brings plague to the city, opens a
gap to all naughtiness. 'Tis that which all our late politicians
ingeminate. Cromerus, l. 2. pol. hist. Boterus, l. 3. de incrementis
urbium. Clapmarius, l. 2. c. 9. de Arcanis rerump. cap. 4. lib. 2.
polit. Captain Machiavel will have a prince by all means to counterfeit
religion, to be superstitious in show at least, to seem to be devout,
frequent holy exercises, honour divines, love the church, affect
priests, as Numa, Lycurgus, and such lawmakers were and did, non ut his
fidem habeant, sed ut subditos religionis metu facilius in officio
contineant, to keep people in obedience. [6390]Nam naturaliter (as
Cardan writes) lex Christiana lex est pietatis, justitiae, fidei,
simplicitatis, &c. But this error of his, Innocentius Jentilettus, a
French lawyer, theorem. 9. comment. 1. de Relig, and Thomas Bozius in
his book de ruinis gentium et Regnorum have copiously confuted. Many
politicians, I dare not deny, maintain religion as a true means, and
sincerely speak of it without hypocrisy, are truly zealous and
religious themselves. Justice and religion are the two chief props and
supporters of a well-governed commonwealth: but most of them are but
Machiavellians, counterfeits only for political ends; for solus rex
(which Campanella, cap. 18. atheismi triumphali observes), as amongst
our modern Turks, reipub. Finis, as knowing [6391]magnus ejus in animos
imperium; and that, as [6392]Sabellicus delivers, A man without
religion, is like a horse without a bridle. No way better to curb than
superstition, to terrify men's consciences, and to keep them in awe:
they make new laws, statutes, invent new religions, ceremonies, as so
many stalking horses, to their ends. [6393]Haec enim (religio) si falsa
sit, dummodo vera credatur, animorum ferociam domat, libidines coercet,
subditos principi obsequentes efficit. [6394]Therefore (saith
[6395]Polybius of Lycurgus), did he maintain ceremonies, not that he
was superstitious himself, but that he had perceived mortal men more
apt to embrace paradoxes than aught else, and durst attempt no evil
things for fear of the gods. This was Zamolcus's stratagem amongst the
Thracians, Numa's plot, when he said he had conference with the nymph
Aegeria, and that of Sertorius with a hart; to get more credit to their
decrees, by deriving them from the gods; or else they did all by divine
instinct, which Nicholas Damascen well observes of Lycurgus, Solon, and
Minos, they had their laws dictated, monte sacro, by Jupiter himself.
So Mahomet referred his new laws to the [6396]angel Gabriel, by whose
direction he gave out they were made. Caligula in Dion feigned himself
to be familiar with Castor and Pollux, and many such, which kept those
Romans under (who, as Machiavel proves, lib. 1. disput. cap. 11. et 12.
were Religione maxime moti, most superstitious): and did curb the
people more by this means, than by force of arms, or severity of human
laws. Sola plebecula eam agnoscebat (saith Vaninus, dial. 1. lib. 4. de
admirandis naturae arcanis) speaking of religion, que facile decipitur,
magnates vero et philosophi nequaquam, your grandees and philosophers
had no such conceit, sed ad imperii conformationem et amplificationem
quam sine praetextu religionis tueri non poterant; and many thousands
in all ages have ever held as much, Philosophers especially,
animadvertebant hi semper haec esse fabellas, attamen ob metum publicae
potestatis silere cogebantur they were still silent for fear of laws,
&c. To this end that Syrian Phyresides, Pythagoras his master, broached
in the East amongst the heathens, first the immortality of the soul, as
Trismegistus did in Egypt, with a many of feigned gods. Those French
and Briton Druids in the West first taught, saith [6397]Caesar, non
interire animas (that souls did not die), but after death to go from
one to another, that so they might encourage them to virtue. 'Twas for
a politic end, and to this purpose the old [6398]poets feigned those
elysian fields, their Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, their infernal
judges, and those Stygian lakes, fiery Phlegethons, Pluto's kingdom,
and variety of torments after death. Those that had done well, went to
the elysian fields, but evil doers to Cocytus, and to that burning lake
of [6399]hell with fire, and brimstone for ever to be tormented. 'Tis
this which [6400]Plato labours for in his Phaedon, et 9. de rep. The
Turks in their Alcoran, when they set down rewards, and several
punishments for every particular virtue and vice, [6401]when they
persuade men, that they that die in battle shall go directly to heaven,
but wicked livers to eternal torment, and all of all sorts (much like
our papistical purgatory), for a set time shall be tortured in their
graves, as appears by that tract which John Baptista Alfaqui, that
Mauritanian priest, now turned Christian, hath written in his
confutation of the Alcoran. After a man's death two black angels,
Nunquir and Nequir (so they call them) come to him to his grave and
punish him for his precedent sins; if he lived well, they torture him
the less; if ill, per indesinentes cruciatus ad diem fudicii, they
incessantly punish him to the day of judgment, Nemo viventium qui ad
horum mentionem non totus horret et contremiscit, the thought of this
crucifies them all their lives long, and makes them spend their days in
fasting and prayer, ne mala haec contingant, &c. A Tartar prince, saith
Marcus Polus, lib. 1. cap. 23. called Senex de Montibus, the better to
establish his government amongst his subjects, and to keep them in awe,
found a convenient place in a pleasant valley, environed with hills, in
[6402]which he made a delicious park full of odoriferous flowers and
fruits, and a palace of all worldly contents, that could possibly be
devised, music, pictures, variety of meats, &c., and chose out a
certain young man, whom with a [6403]soporiferous potion he so
benumbed, that he perceived nothing: and so fast asleep as he was,
caused him to be conveyed into this fair garden: where after he had
lived awhile in all such pleasures a sensual man could desire, [6404]He
cast him into a sleep again, and brought him forth, that when he awaked
he might tell others he had been in Paradise. The like he did for hell,
and by this means brought his people to subjection. Because heaven and
hell are mentioned in the scriptures, and to be believed necessary by
Christians: so cunningly can the devil and his ministers, in imitation
of true religion, counterfeit and forge the like, to circumvent and
delude his superstitious followers. Many such tricks and impostures are
acted by politicians, in China especially, but with what effect I will
discourse in the symptoms.
Next to politicians, if I may distinguish them, are some of our priests
(who make religion policy), if not far beyond them, for they domineer
over princes and statesmen themselves. Carnificinam exercent, one saith
they tyrannise over men's consciences more than any other tormentors
whatsoever, partly for their commodity and gain; Religionem enim omnium
abusus (as [6405]Postellus holds), quaestus scilicet sacrificum in
causa est: for sovereignty, credit, to maintain their state and
reputation, out of ambition and avarice, which are their chief
supporters: what have they not made the common people believe?
Impossibilities in nature, incredible things; what devices, traditions,
ceremonies, have they not invented in all ages to keep men in
obedience, to enrich themselves? Quibus quaestui sunt capti
superstitione animi, as [6406]Livy saith. Those Egyptian priests of old
got all the sovereignty into their hands, and knowing, as [6407]Curtius
insinuates, nulla res efficacius multitudinem regit quam superstitio;
melius vatibus quam ducibus parent, vana religione capti, etiam
impotentes faeminae; the common people will sooner obey priests than
captains, and nothing so forcible as superstition, or better than blind
zeal to rule a multitude; have so terrified and gulled them, that it is
incredible to relate. All nations almost have been besotted in this
kind; amongst our Britons and old Gauls the Druids; magi in Persia;
philosophers in Greece; Chaldeans amongst the Oriental; Brachmanni in
India; Gymnosophists in Ethiopia; the Turditanes in Spain; Augurs in
Rome, have insulted; Apollo's priests in Greece, Phaebades and
Pythonissae, by their oracles and phantasms; Amphiaraus and his
companions; now Mahometan and pagan priests, what can they not effect?
How do they not infatuate the world? Adeo ubique (as [6408]Scaliger
writes of the Mahometan priests), tum gentium tum locorum, gens ista
sacrorum ministra, vulgi secat spes, ad ea quae ipsi fingunt somnia, so
cunningly can they gull the commons in all places and countries. But
above all others, that high priest of Rome, the dam of that monstrous
and superstitious brood, the bull-bellowing pope, which now rageth in
the West, that three-headed Cerberus hath played his part. [6409] Whose
religion at this day is mere policy, a state wholly composed of
superstition and wit, and needs nothing but wit and superstition to
maintain it, that useth colleges and religious houses to as good
purpose as forts and castles, and doth more at this day by a company of
scribbling parasites, fiery-spirited friars, zealous anchorites,
hypocritical confessors, and those praetorian soldiers, his Janissary
Jesuits, and that dissociable society, as [6410]Languis terms it,
postremus diaboli conatus et saeculi excrementum, that now stand in the
fore front of the battle, will have a monopoly of, and engross all
other learning, but domineer in divinity, [6411]Excipiunt soli totius
vulnera belli, and fight alone almost (for the rest are but his
dromedaries and asses), than ever he could have done by garrisons and
armies. What power of prince, or penal law, be it never so strict,
could enforce men to do that which for conscience' sake they will
voluntarily undergo? And as to fast from all flesh, abstain from
marriage, rise to their prayers at midnight, whip themselves, with
stupendous fasting and penance, abandon the world, wilful poverty,
perform canonical and blind obedience, to prostrate their goods,
fortunes, bodies, lives, and offer up themselves at their superior's
feet, at his command? What so powerful an engine as superstition? which
they right well perceiving, are of no religion at all themselves:
Primum enim (as Calvin rightly suspects, the tenor and practice of
their life proves), arcanae illius theologiae, quod apud eos regnat,
caput est, nullum esse deum, they hold there is no God, as Leo X. did,
Hildebrand the magician, Alexander VI., Julius II., mere atheists, and
which the common proverb amongst them approves, [6412]The worst
Christians of Italy are the Romans, of the Romans the priests are
wildest, the lewdest priests are preferred to be cardinals, and the
baddest men amongst the cardinals is chosen to be pope, that is an
epicure, as most part the popes are, infidels and Lucianists, for so
they think and believe; and what is said of Christ to be fables and
impostures, of heaven and hell, day of judgment, paradise, immortality
of the soul, are all,
[6413]Rumores vacui, verbaque inania,
Et par sollicito fabula somnio.
Dreams, toys, and old wives' tales. Yet as so many [6414]whetstones to
make other tools cut, but cut not themselves, though they be of no
religion at all, they will make others most devout and superstitious,
by promises and threats, compel, enforce from, and lead them by the
nose like so many bears in a line; when as their end is not to
propagate the church, advance God's kingdom, seek His glory or common
good, but to enrich themselves, to enlarge their territories, to
domineer and compel them to stand in awe, to live in subjection to the
See of Rome. For what otherwise care they? Si mundus vult decipi,
decipiatur, since the world wishes to be gulled, let it be gulled, 'tis
fit it should be so. And for which [6415]Austin cites Varro to maintain
his Roman religion, we may better apply to them: multa vera, quae
vulgus scire non est utile; pleraque falsa, quae tamen uliter
existimare populum expedit; some things are true, some false, which for
their own ends they will not have the gullish commonalty take notice
of. As well may witness their intolerable covetousness, strange
forgeries, fopperies, fooleries, unrighteous subtleties, impostures,
illusions, new doctrines, paradoxes, traditions, false miracles, which
they have still forged, to enthral, circumvent and subjugate them, to
maintain their own estates. [6416]One while by bulls, pardons,
indulgencies, and their doctrines of good works, that they be
meritorious, hope of heaven, by that means they have so fleeced the
commonalty, and spurred on this free superstitious horse, that he runs
himself blind, and is an ass to carry burdens. They have so amplified
Peter's patrimony, that from a poor bishop, he is become Rex Regum,
Dominus dominantium, a demigod, as his canonists make him (Felinus and
the rest), above God himself. And for his wealth and [6417]
temporalities, is not inferior to many kings: [6418]his cardinals,
princes' companions; and in every kingdom almost, abbots, priors,
monks, friars, &c., and his clergy, have engrossed a [6419]third part,
half, in some places all, into their hands. Three princes, electors in
Germany, bishops; besides Magdeburg, Spire, Saltsburg, Breme, Bamberg,
&c. In France, as Bodine lib. de repub. gives us to understand, their
revenues are 12,300,000 livres; and of twelve parts of the revenues in
France, the church possesseth seven. The Jesuits, a new sect, begun in
this age, have, as [6420]Middendorpius and [6421]Pelargus reckon up,
three or four hundred colleges in Europe, and more revenues than many
princes. In France, as Arnoldus proves, in thirty years they have got
bis centum librarum millia annua, 200,000_l_. I say nothing of the rest
of their orders. We have had in England, as Armachanus demonstrates,
above 30,000 friars at once, and as [6422]Speed collects out of Leland
and others, almost 600 religious houses, and near 200,000_l._ in
revenues of the old rent belonging to them, besides images of gold,
silver, plate, furniture, goods and ornaments, as [6423]Weever
calculates, and esteems them at the dissolution of abbeys, worth a
million of gold. How many towns in every kingdom hath superstition
enriched? What a deal of money by musty relics, images, idolatry, have
their mass-priests engrossed, and what sums have they scraped by their
other tricks! Loretto in Italy, Walsingham in England, in those days.
Ubi omnia auro nitent, where everything shines with gold, saith
Erasmus, St. Thomas's shrine, &c., may witness. [6424]Delphos so
renowned of old in Greece for Apollo's oracle, Delos commune
conciliabulum et emporium sola religions manitum; Dodona, whose fame
and wealth were sustained by religion, were not so rich, so famous. If
they can get but a relic of some saint, the Virgin Mary's picture,
idols or the like, that city is for ever made, it needs no other
maintenance. Now if any of these their impostures or juggling tricks be
controverted, or called in question: if a magnanimous or zealous
Luther, an heroical Luther, as [6425]Dithmarus Calls him, dare touch
the monks' bellies, all is in a combustion, all is in an uproar:
Demetrius and his associates are ready to pull him in pieces, to keep
up their trades, [6426] Great is Diana of the Ephesians: with a mighty
shout of two hours long they will roar and not be pacified.
Now for their authority, what by auricular confession, satisfaction,
penance, Peter's keys, thunderings, excommunications, &c., roaring
bulls, this high priest of Rome, shaking his Gorgon's head, hath so
terrified the soul of many a silly man, insulted over majesty itself,
and swaggered generally over all Europe for many ages, and still doth
to some, holding them as yet in slavish subjection, as never
tyrannising Spaniards did by their poor Negroes, or Turks by their
galley-slaves. [6427]The bishop of Rome (saith Stapleton, a parasite of
his, de mag. Eccles. lib. 2. cap. 1.) hath done that without arms,
which those Roman emperors could never achieve with forty legions of
soldiers, deposed kings, and crowned them again with his foot, made
friends, and corrected at his pleasure, &c. [6428] 'Tis a wonder, saith
Machiavel, Florentinae, his. lib. 1. what slavery King Henry II.
endured for the death of Thomas a Beckett, what things he was enjoined
by the Pope, and how he submitted himself to do that which in our times
a private man would not endure, and all through superstition.
[6429]Henry IV. disposed of his empire, stood barefooted with his wife
at the gates of Canossus. [6430]Frederic the Emperor was trodden on by
Alexander III., another held Adrian's stirrup, King John kissed the
knees of Pandulphos the Pope's legate, See. What made so many thousand
Christians travel from France, Britain, &c., into the Holy Land, spend
such huge sums of money, go a pilgrimage so familiarly to Jerusalem, to
creep and crouch, but slavish superstition? What makes them so freely
venture their lives, to leave their native countries, to go seek
martyrdom in the Indies, but superstition? to be assassins, to meet
death, murder kings, but a false persuasion of merit, of canonical or
blind obedience which they instil into them, and animate them by
strange illusions, hope of being martyrs and saints: such pretty feats
can the devil work by priests, and so well for their own advantage can
they play their parts. And if it were not yet enough, by priests and
politicians to delude mankind, and crucify the souls of men, he hath
more actors in his tragedy, more irons in the fire, another scene of
heretics, factious, ambitious wits, insolent spirits, schismatics,
impostors, false prophets, blind guides, that out of pride,
singularity, vainglory, blind zeal, cause much more madness yet, set
all in an uproar by their new doctrines, paradoxes, figments,
crotchets, make new divisions, subdivisions, new sects, oppose one
superstition to another, one kingdom to another, commit prince and
subjects, brother against brother, father against son, to the ruin and
destruction of a commonwealth, to the disturbance of peace, and to make
a general confusion of all estates. How did those Arians rage of old?
how many did they circumvent? Those Pelagians, Manichees, &c., their
names alone would make a just volume. How many silly souls have
impostors still deluded, drawn away, and quite alienated from Christ!
Lucian's Alexander Simon Magus, whose statue was to be seen and adored
in Rome, saith Justin Martyr, Simoni deo sancto, &c., after his
decease. [6431]Apollonius Tianaeus, Cynops, Eumo, who by counterfeiting
some new ceremonies and juggling tricks of that Dea Syria, by spitting
fire, and the like, got an army together of 40,000 men, and did much
harm: with Eudo de stellis, of whom Nubrigensis speaks, lib. 1. cap.
19. that in King Stephen's days imitated most of Christ's miracles, fed
I know not how many people in the wilderness, and built castles in the
air, &c., to the seducing of multitudes of poor souls. In Franconia,
1476, a base illiterate fellow took upon him to be a prophet, and
preach, John Beheim by name, a neatherd at Nicholhausen, he seduced
30,000 persons, and was taken by the commonalty to be a most holy man,
come from heaven. [6432] Tradesmen left their shops, women their
distaffs, servants ran from their masters, children from their parents,
scholars left their tutors, all to hear him, some for novelty, some for
zeal. He was burnt at last by the Bishop of Wartzburg, and so he and
his heresy vanished together. How many such impostors, false prophets,
have lived in every king's reign? what chronicles will not afford such
examples? that as so many ignes fatui, have led men out of the way,
terrified some, deluded others, that are apt to be carried about by the
blast of every wind, a rude inconstant multitude, a silly company of
poor souls, that follow all, and are cluttered together like so many
pebbles in a tide. What prodigious follies, madness, vexations,
persecutions, absurdities, impossibilities, these impostors, heretics,
&c., have thrust upon the world, what strange effects shall be shown in
the symptoms.
Now the means by which, or advantages the devil and his infernal
ministers take, so to delude and disquiet the world with such idle
ceremonies, false doctrines, superstitious fopperies, are from
themselves, innate fear, ignorance, simplicity, hope and fear, those
two battering cannons and principal engines, with their objects, reward
and punishment, purgatory, Limbus Patrum, &c. which now more than ever
tyrannise; [6433]for what province is free from atheism, superstition,
idolatry, schism, heresy, impiety, their factors and followers? thence
they proceed, and from that same decayed image of God, which is yet
remaining in us.
[6434]Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit.———
Our own conscience doth dictate so much unto us, we know there is a God
and nature doth inform us; Nulla gens tam barbara (saith Tully) cui non
insideat haec persuasio Deum esse; sed nec Scytha, nec Groecus, nec
Persa, nec Hyperboreus dissentiet (as Maximus Tyrius the Platonist ser.
1. farther adds) nec continentis nec insularum habitator, let him dwell
where he will, in what coast soever, there is no nation so barbarous
that is not persuaded there is a God. It is a wonder to read of that
infinite superstition amongst the Indians in this kind, of their tenets
in America, pro suo quisque libitu varias res venerabantur
superstitiose, plantas, animalia, montes, &c. omne quod amabant aut
horrebant (some few places excepted as he grants, that had no God at
all). So the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
declares his handy work, Psalm xix. Every creature will evince it;
Praesentemque refert quaelibet herba deum. Nolentes sciunt, fatentur
inviti, as the said Tyrius proceeds, will or nill, they must
acknowledge it. The philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus,
Pythagoras, Trismegistus, Seneca, Epictetus, those Magi, Druids, &c.
went as far as they could by the light of nature; [6435]multa
praeclara, de natura Dei seripta reliquerunt, writ many things well of
the nature of God, but they had but a confused light, a glimpse,
[6436]Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
Est iter in sylvis,———