occasions; As children make babies (so saith [6510]Morneus), their
poets make gods, et quos adorant in templis, ludunt in Theatris, as
Lactantius scoffs. Saturn, a man, gelded himself, did eat his own
children, a cruel tyrant driven out of his kingdom by his son Jupiter,
as good a god as himself, a wicked lascivious paltry king of Crete, of
whose rapes, lusts, murders, villainies, a whole volume is too little
to relate. Venus, a notorious strumpet, as common as a barber's chair,
Mars, Adonis, Anchises' whore, is a great she-goddess, as well as the
rest, as much renowned by their poets, with many such; and these gods
so fabulously and foolishly made, ceremoniis, hymnis, et canticis
celebrunt; their errors, luctus et gaudia, amores, iras, nuptias et
liberorum procreationes ([6511]as Eusebius well taxeth), weddings,
mirth and mournings, loves, angers, and quarrelling they did celebrate
in hymns, and sing of in their ordinary songs, as it were publishing
their villainies. But see more of their originals. When Romulus was
made away by the sedition of the senators, to pacify the people,
[6512]Julius Proculus gave out that Romulus was taken up by Jupiter
into heaven, and therefore to be ever after adored for a god amongst
the Romans. Syrophanes of Egypt had one only son, whom he dearly loved;
he erected his statue in his house, which his servants did adorn with
garlands, to pacify their master's wrath when he was angry, so by
little and little he was adored for a god. This did Semiramis for her
husband Belus, and Adrian the emperor by his minion Antinous. Flora was
a rich harlot in Rome, and for that she made the commonwealth her heir,
her birthday was solemnised long after; and to make it a more plausible
holiday, they made her goddess of flowers, and sacrificed to her
amongst the rest. The matrons of Rome, as Dionysius Halicarnassaeus
relates, because at their entreaty Coriolanus desisted from his wars,
consecrated a church Fortunes muliebri; and [6513]Venus Barbata had a
temple erected, for that somewhat was amiss about hair, and so the
rest. The citizens [6514]of Alabanda, a small town in Asia Minor, to
curry favour with the Romans (who then warred in Greece with Perseus of
Macedon, and were formidable to these parts), consecrated a temple to
the City of Rome, and made her a goddess, with annual games and
sacrifices; so a town of houses was deified, with shameful flattery of
the one side to give, and intolerable arrogance on the other to accept,
upon so vile and absurd an occasion. Tully writes to Atticus, that his
daughter Tulliola might be made a goddess, and adored as Juno and
Minerva, and as well she deserved it. Their holy days and adorations
were all out as ridiculous; those Lupercals of Pan, Florales of Flora,
Bona dea, Anna Perenna, Saturnals, &c., as how they were celebrated,
with what lascivious and wanton gestures, bald ceremonies, [6515]by
what bawdy priests, how they hang their noses over the smoke of
sacrifices, saith [6516]Lucian, and lick blood like flies that was
spilled about the altars. Their carved idols, gilt images of wood,
iron, ivory, silver, brass, stone, olim truncus eram, &c., were most
absurd, as being their own workmanship; for as Seneca notes, adorant
ligneos deos, et fabros interim qui fecerunt, contemnunt, they adore
work, contemn the workman; and as Tertullian follows it, Si homines non
essent diis propitii, non essent dii, had it not been for men, they had
never been gods, but blocks, and stupid statues in which mice,
swallows, birds make their nests, spiders their webs, and in their very
mouths laid their excrements. Those images, I say, were all out as
gross as the shapes in which they did represent them: Jupiter with a
ram's head, Mercury a dog's, Pan like a goat, Heccate with three heads,
one with a beard, another without; see more in Carterius and
[6517]Verdurius of their monstrous forms and ugly pictures: and, which
was absurder yet, they told them these images came from heaven, as that
of Minerva in her temple at Athens, quod e coelo cecidisse credebant
accolae, saith Pausanias. They formed some like storks, apes, bulls,
and yet seriously believed: and that which was impious and abominable,
they made their gods notorious whoremasters, incestuous Sodomites (as
commonly they were all, as well as Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Mercury,
Neptune, &c.), thieves, slaves, drudges (for Apollo and Neptune made
tiles in Phrygia), kept sheep, Hercules emptied stables, Vulcan a
blacksmith, unfit to dwell upon the earth for their villainies, much
less in heaven, as [6518]Mornay well saith, and yet they gave them out
to be such; so weak and brutish, some to whine, lament, and roar, as
Isis for her son and Cenocephalus, as also all her weeping priests;
Mars in Homer to be wounded, vexed; Venus ran away crying, and the
like; than which what can be more ridiculous? Nonne ridiculum lugere
quod colas, vel colere quod lugeas? (which [6519]Minutius objects) Si
dii, cur plangitis? si mortui, cur adoratis? that it is no marvel if
[6520]Lucian, that adamantine persecutor of superstition, and Pliny
could so scoff at them and their horrible idolatry as they did; if
Diagoras took Hercules' image, and put it under his pot to seethe his
pottage, which was, as he said, his 13th labour. But see more of their
fopperies in Cypr. 4. tract, de Idol. varietat. Chrysostom advers.
Gentil. Arnobius adv. Gentes. Austin, de civ. dei. Theodoret. de curat.
Graec. affect. Clemens Alexandrinus, Minutius Felix, Eusebius,
Lactantius, Stuckius, &c. Lamentable, tragical, and fearful those
symptoms are, that they should be so far forth affrighted with their
fictitious gods, as to spend the goods, lives, fortunes, precious time,
best days in their honour, to [6521]sacrifice unto them, to their
inestimable loss, such hecatombs, so many thousand sheep, oxen with
gilded horns, goats, as [6522]Croesus, king of Lydia, [6523] Marcus
Julianus, surnamed ob crebras hostias Victimarius, et Tauricremus, and
the rest of the Roman emperors usually did with such labour and cost;
and not emperors only and great ones, pro communi bono, were at this
charge, but private men for their ordinary occasions. Pythagoras
offered a hundred oxen for the invention of a geometrical problem, and
it was an ordinary thing to sacrifice in [6524]Lucian's time, a heifer
for their good health, four oxen for wealth, a hundred for a kingdom,
nine bulls for their safe return from Troja to Pylus, &c. Every god
almost had a peculiar sacrifice—the Sun horses, Vulcan fire, Diana a
white hart, Venus a turtle, Ceres a hog, Proserpine a black lamb,
Neptune a bull (read more in [6525] Stuckius at large), besides sheep,
cocks, corals, frankincense, to their undoings, as if their gods were
affected with blood or smoke. And surely ([6526]saith he) if one should
but repeat the fopperies of mortal men, in their sacrifices, feasts,
worshipping their gods, their rites and ceremonies, what they think of
them, of their diet, houses, orders, &c., what prayers and vows they
make; if one should but observe their absurdity and madness, he would
burst out a laughing, and pity their folly. For what can be more absurd
than their ordinary prayers, petitions, [6527]requests, sacrifices,
oracles, devotions? of which we have a taste in Maximus Tyrius, serm.
1. Plato's Alcibiades Secundus, Persius Sat. 2. Juvenal. Sat. 10. there
likewise exploded, Mactant opimas et pingues hostias deo quasi
esurienti, profundunt vina tanquam sitienti, lumina accendunt velut in
tenebris agenti (Lactantius, lib. 2. cap. 6). As if their gods were
hungry, athirst, in the dark, they light candles, offer meat and drink.
And what so base as to reveal their counsels and give oracles, e
viscerum sterquiliniis, out of the bowels and excremental parts of
beasts? sordidos deos Varro truly calls them therefore, and well he
might. I say nothing of their magnificent and sumptuous temples, those
majestical structures: to the roof of Apollo Didymeus' temple, ad
branchidas, as [6528]Strabo writes, a thousand oaks did not suffice.
Who can relate the glorious splendour, and stupend magnificence, the
sumptuous building of Diana at Ephesus, Jupiter Ammon's temple in
Africa, the Pantheon at Rome, the Capitol, the Sarapium at Alexandria,
Apollo's temple at Daphne in the suburbs of Antioch. The great temple
at Mexico so richly adorned, and so capacious (for 10,000 men might
stand in it at once), that fair Pantheon of Cusco, described by Acosta
in his Indian History, which eclipses both Jews and Christians. There
were in old Jerusalem, as some write, 408 synagogues; but new Cairo
reckons up (if [6529]Radzivilus may be believed) 6800 mosques; Fez 400,
whereof 50 are most magnificent, like St. Paul's in London. Helena
built 300 fair churches in the Holy Land, but one Bassa hath built 400
mosques. The Mahometans have 1000 monks in a monastery; the like saith
Acosta of Americans; Riccius of the Chinese, for men and women, fairly
built; and more richly endowed some of them, than Arras in Artois,
Fulda in Germany, or St. Edmund's-Bury in England with us: who can
describe those curious and costly statues, idols, images, so frequently
mentioned in Pausanias? I conceal their donaries, pendants, other
offerings, presents, to these their fictitious gods daily consecrated.
[6530]Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedonia, sent two
statues of pure gold to Apollo at Delphos. [6531]Croesus, king of Lydia
dedicated a hundred golden tiles in the same place with a golden altar:
no man came empty-handed to their shrines. But these are base offerings
in respect; they offered men themselves alive. The Leucadians, as
Strabo writes, sacrificed every year a man, averruncandae, deorum irae,
causa, to pacify their gods, de montis praecipitio dejecerent, &c. and
they did voluntarily undergo it. The Decii did so sacrifice, Diis
manibus; Curtius did leap into the gulf. Were they not all strangely
deluded to go so far to their oracles, to be so gulled by them, both in
war and peace, as Polybius relates (which their argurs, priests, vestal
virgins can witness), to be so superstitious, that they would rather
lose goods and lives than omit any ceremonies, or offend their heathen
gods? Nicias, that generous and valiant captain of the Greeks,
overthrew the Athenian navy, by reason of his too much superstition,
[6532] because the augurs told him it was ominous to set sail from the
haven of Syracuse whilst the moon was eclipsed; he tarried so long till
his enemies besieged him, he and all his army were overthrown. The
[6533]Parthians of old were so sottish in this kind, they would rather
lose a victory, nay lose their own lives, than fight in the night,
'twas against their religion. The Jews would make no resistance on the
Sabbath, when Pompeius besieged Jerusalem; and some Jewish Christians
in Africa, set upon by the Goths, suffered themselves upon the same
occasion to be utterly vanquished. The superstition of the Dibrenses, a
bordering town in Epirus, besieged by the Turks, is miraculous almost
to report. Because a dead dog was flung into the only fountain which
the city had, they would die of thirst all, rather than drink of that
[6534]unclean water, and yield up the city upon any conditions. Though
the praetor and chief citizens began to drink first, using all good
persuasions, their superstition was such, no saying would serve, they
must all forthwith die or yield up the city. Vix ausum ipse credere
(saith [6535]Barletius) tantam superstitionem, vel affirmare levissimam
hanc causam tantae rei vel magis ridiculam, quum non dubitem risum
potius quum admirationem posteris excitaturam. The story was too
ridiculous, he was ashamed to report it, because he thought nobody
would believe it. It is stupend to relate what strange effects this
idolatry and superstition hath brought forth of the latter years in the
Indies and those bordering parts: [6536]in what feral shapes the
[6537]devil is adored, ne quid mali intentent, as they say; for in the
mountains betwixt Scanderoon and Aleppo, at this day, there are
dwelling a certain kind of people called Coords, coming of the race of
the ancient Parthians, who worship the devil, and allege this reason in
so doing: God is a good man and will do no harm, but the devil is bad
and must be pleased, lest he hurt them. It is wonderful to tell how the
devil deludes them, how he terrifies them, how they offer men and women
sacrifices unto him, a hundred at once, as they did infants in Crete to
Saturn of old, the finest children, like Agamemnon's Iphigenia, &c. At
[6538]Mexico, when the Spaniards first overcame them, they daily
sacrificed viva hominum corda e viventium corporibus extracta, the
hearts of men yet living, 20,000 in a year (Acosta lib. 5. cap. 20) to
their idols made of flour and men's blood, and every year 6000 infants
of both sexes: and as prodigious to relate, [6539]how they bury their
wives with husbands deceased, 'tis fearful to report, and harder to
believe,
[6540]Nam certamen habent laethi quae viva sequatur
Conjugium, pudor, est non licuisse mori,
and burn them alive, best goods, servants, horses, when a grandee dies,
[6541]twelve thousand at once amongst the Tartar's, when a great Cham
departs, or an emperor in America: how they plague themselves, which
abstain from all that hath life, like those old Pythagoreans, with
immoderate fastings, [6542]as the Bannians about Surat, they of China,
that for superstition's sake never eat flesh nor fish all their lives,
never marry, but live in deserts and by-places, and some pray to their
idols twenty-four hours together without any intermission, biting of
their tongues when they have done, for devotion's sake. Some again are
brought to that madness by their superstitious priests (that tell them
such vain stories of immortality, and the joys of heaven in that other
life), [6543] that many thousands voluntarily break their own necks, as
Cleombrotus Amborciatus, auditors of old, precipitate themselves, that
they may participate of that unspeakable happiness in the other world.
One poisons, another strangles himself, and the King of China had done
as much, deluded with the vain hope, had he not been detained by his
servant. But who can sufficiently tell of their several superstitions,
vexations, follies, torments? I may conclude with [6544]Possevinus,
Religifacit asperos mites, homines e feris; superstitio ex hominibus
feras, religion makes wild beasts civil, superstition makes wise men
beasts and fools; and the discreetest that are, if they give way to it,
are no better than dizzards; nay more, if that of Plotinus be true, is
unus religionis scopus, ut ei quem colimus similes fiamus, that is the
drift of religion to make us like him whom we worship: what shall be
the end of idolaters, but to degenerate into stocks and stones? of such
as worship these heathen gods, for dii gentium daemonia, [6545]but to
become devils themselves? 'Tis therefore exitiosus error, et maxime
periculosus, a most perilous and dangerous error of all others, as
[6546]Plutarch holds, turbulenta passio hominem consternans, a
pestilent, a troublesome passion, that utterly undoeth men. Unhappy
superstition, [6547]Pliny calls it, morte non finitur, death takes away
life, but not superstition. Impious and ignorant are far more happy
than they which are superstitious, no torture like to it, none so
continuate, so general, so destructive, so violent.
In this superstitious row, Jews for antiquity may go next to Gentiles:
what of old they have done, what idolatries they have committed in
their groves and high places, what their Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes,
Essei, and such sectaries have maintained, I will not so much as
mention: for the present, I presume no nation under heaven can be more
sottish, ignorant, blind, superstitious, wilful, obstinate, and
peevish, tiring themselves with vain ceremonies to no purpose; he that
shall but read their Rabbins' ridiculous comments, their strange
interpretation of scriptures, their absurd ceremonies, fables, childish
tales, which they steadfastly believe, will think they be scarce
rational creatures; their foolish [6548]customs, when they rise in the
morning, and how they prepare themselves to prayer, to meat, with what
superstitious washings, how to their Sabbath, to their other feasts,
weddings, burials, &c. Last of all, the expectation of their Messiah,
and those figments, miracles, vain pomp that shall attend him, as how
he shall terrify the Gentiles, and overcome them by new diseases; how
Michael the archangel shall sound his trumpet, how he shall gather all
the scattered Jews in the Holy Land, and there make them a great
banquet, [6549] Wherein shall be all the birds, beasts, fishes, that
ever God made, a cup of wine that grew in Paradise, and that hath been
kept in Adam's cellar ever since. At the first course shall be served
in that great ox in Job iv. 10., that every day feeds on a thousand
hills, Psal. 1. 10., that great Leviathan, and a great bird, that laid
an egg so big, [6550]that by chance tumbling out of the nest, it
knocked down three hundred tall cedars, and breaking as it fell,
drowned one hundred and sixty villages: this bird stood up to the knees
in the sea, and the sea was so deep, that a hatchet would not fall to
the bottom in seven years: of their Messiah's [6551]wives and children;
Adam and Eve, &c., and that one stupend fiction amongst the rest: when
a Roman prince asked of rabbi Jehosua ben Hanania, why the Jews' God
was compared to a lion; he made answer, he compared himself to no
ordinary lion, but to one in the wood Ela, which, when he desired to
see, the rabbin prayed to God he might, and forthwith the lion set
forward. [6552] But when he was four hundred miles from Rome he so
roared that all the great-bellied women in Rome made abortions, the
city walls fell down, and when he came a hundred miles nearer, and
roared the second time, their teeth fell out of their heads, the
emperor himself fell down dead, and so the lion went back. With an
infinite number of such lies and forgeries, which they verily believe,
feed themselves with vain hope, and in the mean time will by no
persuasions be diverted, but still crucify their souls with a company
of idle ceremonies, live like slaves and vagabonds, will not be
relieved or reconciled.
Mahometans are a compound of Gentiles, Jews, and Christians, and so
absurd in their ceremonies, as if they had taken that which is most
sottish out of every one of them, full of idle fables in their
superstitious law, their Alcoran itself a gallimaufry of lies, tales,
ceremonies, traditions, precepts, stolen from other sects, and
confusedly heaped up to delude a company of rude and barbarous clowns.
As how birds, beasts, stones, saluted Mahomet when he came from Mecca,
the moon came down from heaven to visit him, [6553]how God sent for
him, spake to him, &c., with a company of stupend figments of the
angels, sun, moon, and stars, &c. Of the day of judgment, and three
sounds to prepare to it, which must last fifty thousand years of
Paradise, which wholly consists in coeundi et comedendi voluptate, and
pecorinis hominibus scriptum, bestialis beatitudo, is so ridiculous,
that Virgil, Dante, Lucian, nor any poet can be more fabulous. Their
rites and ceremonies are most vain and superstitious, wine and swine's
flesh are utterly forbidden by their law, [6554]they must pray five
times a day; and still towards the south, wash before and after all
their bodies over, with many such. For fasting, vows, religious orders,
peregrinations, they go far beyond any papists, [6555]they fast a month
together many times, and must not eat a bit till sun be set. Their
kalendars, dervises, and torlachers, &c. are more [6556]abstemious some
of them, than Carthusians, Franciscans, Anchorites, forsake all, live
solitary, fare hard, go naked, &c. [6557]Their pilgrimages are as far
as to the river [6558]Ganges (which the Gentiles of those tracts
likewise do), to wash themselves, for that river as they hold hath a
sovereign virtue to purge them of all sins, and no man can be saved
that hath not been washed in it. For which reason they come far and
near from the Indies; Maximus gentium omnium confluxus est; and
infinite numbers yearly resort to it. Others go as far as Mecca to
Mahomet's tomb, which journey is both miraculous and meritorious. The
ceremonies of flinging stones to stone the devil, of eating a camel at
Cairo by the way; their fastings, their running till they sweat, their
long prayers, Mahomet's temple, tomb, and building of it, would ask a
whole volume to dilate: and for their pains taken in this holy
pilgrimage, all their sins are forgiven, and they reputed for so many
saints. And diverse of them with hot bricks, when they return, will put
out their eyes, [6559]that they never after see any profane thing, bite
out their tongues, &c. They look for their prophet Mahomet as Jews do
for their Messiah. Read more of their customs, rites, ceremonies, in
Lonicerus Turcic. hist. tom. 1. from the tenth to the twenty-fourth
chapter. Bredenbachius, cap. 4, 5, 6. Leo Afer, lib. 1. Busbequius
Sabellicus, Purchas, lib. 3. cap. 3, et 4, 5. Theodorus Bibliander, &c.
Many foolish ceremonies you shall find in them; and which is most to be
lamented, the people are generally so curious in observing of them,
that if the least circumstance be omitted, they think they shall be
damned, 'tis an irremissible offence, and can hardly be forgiven. I
kept in my house amongst my followers (saith Busbequius, sometime the
Turk's orator in Constantinople) a Turkey boy, that by chance did eat
shellfish, a meat forbidden by their law, but the next day when he knew
what he had done, he was not only sick to cast and vomit, but very much
troubled in mind, would weep and [6560]grieve many days after, torment
himself for his foul offence. Another Turk being to drink a cup of wine
in his cellar, first made a huge noise and filthy faces, [6561]to warn
his soul, as he said, that it should not be guilty of that foul fact
which he was to commit. With such toys as these are men kept in awe,
and so cowed, that they dare not resist, or offend the least
circumstance of their law, for conscience' sake misled by superstition,
which no human edict otherwise, no force of arms, could have enforced.
In the last place are pseudo-Christians, in describing of whose
superstitious symptoms, as a mixture of the rest, I may say that which
St. Benedict once saw in a vision, one devil in the marketplace, but
ten in a monastery, because there was more work; in populous cities
they would swear and forswear, lie, falsify, deceive fast enough of
themselves, one devil could circumvent a thousand; but in their
religious houses a thousand devils could scarce tempt one silly monk.
All the principal devils, I think, busy themselves in subverting
Christians; Jews, Gentiles, and Mahometans, are extra caulem, out of
the fold, and need no such attendance, they make no resistance,
[6562]eos enim pulsare negligit, quos quieto jure possidere se sentit,
they are his own already: but Christians have that shield of faith,
sword of the Spirit to resist, and must have a great deal of battery
before they can be overcome. That the devil is most busy amongst us
that are of the true church, appears by those several oppositions,
heresies, schisms, which in all ages he hath raised to subvert it, and
in that of Rome especially, wherein Antichrist himself now sits and
plays his prize. This mystery of iniquity began to work even in the
Apostles' time, many Antichrists and heretics' were abroad, many sprung
up since, many now present, and will be to the world's end, to
dementate men's minds, to seduce and captivate their souls. Their
symptoms I know not how better to express, than in that twofold
division, of such as lead, and are led. Such as lead are heretics,
schismatics, false prophets, impostors, and their ministers: they have
some common symptoms, some peculiar. Common, as madness, folly, pride,
insolency, arrogancy, singularity, peevishness, obstinacy, impudence,
scorn and contempt of all other sects: Nullius addicti jurare in verba
magistri; [6563]they will approve of nought but what they first invent
themselves, no interpretation good but what their infallible spirit
dictates: none shall be in secundis, no not in tertiis, they are only
wise, only learned in the truth, all damned but they and their
followers, caedem scripturarum faciunt ad materiam suam, saith
Tertullian, they make a slaughter of Scriptures, and turn it as a nose
of wax to their own ends. So irrefragable, in the mean time, that what
they have once said, they must and will maintain, in whole tomes,
duplications, triplications, never yield to death, so self-conceited,
say what you can. As [6564]Bernard (erroneously some say) speaks of P.
Aliardus, omnes patres sic, atque ego sic. Though all the Fathers,
Councils, the whole world contradict it, they care not, they are all
one: and as [6565] Gregory well notes of such as are vertiginous, they
think all turns round and moves, all err: when as the error is wholly
in their own brains. Magallianus, the Jesuit, in his Comment on 1 Tim.
xvi. 20, and Alphonsus de castro lib. 1. adversus haereses, gives two
more eminent notes or probable conjectures to know such men by, (they
might have taken themselves by the noses when they said it) [6566]First
they affect novelties and toys, and prefer falsehood before truth;
[6567]secondly, they care not what they say, that which rashness and
folly hath brought out, pride afterward, peevishness and contumacy
shall maintain to the last gasp. Peculiar symptoms are prodigious
paradoxes, new doctrines, vain phantasms, which are many and diverse as
they themselves. [6568]Nicholaites of old, would have wives in common:
Montanists will not marry at all, nor Tatians, forbidding all flesh,
Severians wine; Adamians go naked, [6569]because Adam did so in
Paradise; and some [6570]barefoot all their lives, because God, Exod.
iii. and Joshua v. bid Moses so to do; and Isaiah xx. was bid put off
his shoes; Manichees hold that Pythagorean transmigration of souls from
men to beasts; [6571]the Circumcellions in Africa, with a mad cruelty
made away themselves, some by fire, water, breaking their necks, and
seduced others to do the like, threatening some if they did not, with a
thousand such; as you may read in [6572]Austin (for there were
fourscore and eleven heresies in his times, besides schisms and smaller
factions) Epiphanius, Alphonsus de Castro, Danaeus, Gab, Prateolus, &c.
Of prophets, enthusiasts and impostors, our Ecclesiastical stories
afford many examples; of Elias and Christs, as our [6573]Eudo de
stellis, a Briton in King Stephen's time, that went invisible,
translated himself from one to another in a moment, fed thousands with
good cheer in the wilderness, and many such; nothing so common as
miracles, visions, revelations, prophecies. Now what these brain-sick
heretics once broach, and impostors set on foot, be it never so absurd,
false, and prodigious, the common people will follow and believe. It
will run along like murrain in cattle, scab in sheep. Nulla scabies, as
[6574]he said, superstitione scabiosior; as he that is bitten with a
mad dog bites others, and all in the end become mad; either out of
affection of novelty, simplicity, blind zeal, hope and fear, the
giddy-headed multitude will embrace it, and without further examination
approve it.
Sed vetera querimur, these are old, haec prius fuere. In our days we
have a new scene of superstitious impostors and heretics. A new company
of actors, of Antichrists, that great Antichrist himself: a rope of
hopes, that by their greatness and authority bear down all before them:
who from that time they proclaimed themselves universal bishops, to
establish their own kingdom, sovereignty, greatness, and to enrich
themselves, brought in such a company of human traditions, purgatory,
Limbus Patrum, Infantum, and all that subterranean geography, mass,
adoration of saints, alms, fastings, bulls, indulgences, orders,
friars, images, shrines, musty relics, excommunications, confessions,
satisfactions, blind obediences, vows, pilgrimages, peregrinations,
with many such curious toys, intricate subtleties, gross errors,
obscure questions, to vindicate the better and set a gloss upon them,
that the light of the Gospel was quite eclipsed, darkness over all, the
Scriptures concealed, legends brought in, religion banished,
hypocritical superstition exalted, and the Church itself [6575]
obscured and persecuted: Christ and his members crucified more, saith
Benzo, by a few necromantical, atheistical popes, than ever it was by
[6576] Julian the Apostate, Porphyrius the Platonist, Celsus the
physician, Libanius the Sophister; by those heathen emperors, Huns,
Goths, and Vandals. What each of them did, by what means, at what
times, quibus auxiliis, superstition climbed to this height, tradition
increased, and Antichrist himself came to his estate, let
Magdeburgenses, Kemnisius, Osiander, Bale, Mornay, Fox, Usher, and many
others relate. In the mean time, he that shall but see their profane
rites and foolish customs, how superstitiously kept, how strictly
observed, their multitude of saints, images, that rabble of Romish
deities, for trades, professions, diseases, persons, offices,
countries, places; St. George for England; St. Denis for France,
Patrick, Ireland; Andrew, Scotland; Jago, Spain; &c. Gregory for
students; Luke for painters; Cosmus and Damian for philosophers;
Crispin, shoemakers; Katherine, spinners; &c. Anthony for pigs; Gallus,
geese; Wenceslaus, sheep; Pelagius, oxen; Sebastian, the plague;
Valentine, falling sickness; Apollonia, toothache; Petronella for
agues; and the Virgin Mary for sea and land, for all parties, offices:
he that shall observe these things, their shrines, images, oblations,
pendants, adorations, pilgrimages they make to them, what creeping to
crosses, our Lady of Loretto's rich [6577]gowns, her donaries, the cost
bestowed on images, and number of suitors; St. Nicholas Burge in
France; our St. Thomas's shrine of old at Canterbury; those relics at
Rome, Jerusalem, Genoa, Lyons, Pratum, St. Denis; and how many
thousands come yearly to offer to them, with what cost, trouble,
anxiety, superstition (for forty several masses are daily said in some
of their [6578]churches, and they rise at all hours of the night to
mass, come barefoot, &c.), how they spend themselves, times, goods,
lives, fortunes, in such ridiculous observations; their tales and
figments, false miracles, buying and selling of pardons, indulgences
for 40,000 years to come, their processions on set days, their strict
fastings, monks, anchorites, friar mendicants, Franciscans,
Carthusians, &c. Their vigils and fasts, their ceremonies at Christmas,
Shrovetide, Candlemas, Palm Sunday, Blaise, St. Martin, St. Nicholas'
day; their adorations, exorcisms, &c., will think all those Grecian,
Pagan, Mahometan superstitions, gods, idols, and ceremonies, the name,
time and place, habit only altered, to have degenerated into
Christians. Whilst they prefer traditions before Scriptures; those
Evangelical Councils, poverty, obedience, vows, alms, fasting,
supererogations, before God's Commandments; their own ordinances
instead of his precepts, and keep them in ignorance, blindness, they
have brought the common people into such a case by their cunning
conveyances, strict discipline, and servile education, that upon pain
of damnation they dare not break the least ceremony, tradition, edict;
hold it a greater sin to eat a bit of meat in Lent, than kill a man:
their consciences are so terrified, that they are ready to despair if a
small ceremony be omitted; and will accuse their own father, mother,
brother, sister, nearest and dearest friends of heresy, if they do not
as they do, will be their chief executioners, and help first to bring a
faggot to burn them. What mulct, what penance soever is enjoined, they
dare not but do it, tumble with St. Francis in the mire amongst hogs,
if they be appointed, go woolward, whip themselves, build hospitals,
abbeys, &c., go to the East or West Indies, kill a king, or run upon a
sword point: they perform all, without any muttering or hesitation,
believe all.
[6579]Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere, et esse homines, et sic isti omnia ficta
Vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse ahenis.
As children think their babies live to be,
Do they these brazen images they see.