so gulled and tortured by their superstitions, their own too credulous
simplicity and ignorance, their epicurean popes and hypocritical
cardinals laugh in their sleeves, and are merry in their chambers with
their punks, they do indulgere genio, and make much of themselves. The
middle sort, some for private gain, hope of ecclesiastical preferment,
(quis expedivit psittaco suum χαίρε) popularity, base flattery, must
and will believe all their paradoxes and absurd tenets, without
exception, and as obstinately maintain and put in practice all their
traditions and idolatrous ceremonies (for their religion is half a
trade) to the death; they will defend all, the golden legend itself,
with all the lies and tales in it: as that of St. George, St.
Christopher, St. Winifred, St. Denis, &c. It is a wonder to see how
Nic. Harpsfield, that Pharisaical impostor, amongst the rest,
Ecclesiast. Hist. cap. 22. saec prim, sex., puzzles himself to
vindicate that ridiculous fable of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand
virgins, as when they live,[6580]how they came to Cologne, by whom
martyred, &c., though he can say nothing for it, yet he must and will
approve it: nobilitavit (inquit) hoc saeculum Ursula cum comitibus,
cujus historia utinam tam mihi esset expedita et certa, quam in animo
meo certum ac expeditum est, eam esse cum sodalibus beatam in coelis
virginem. They must and will (I say) either out of blind zeal believe,
vary their compass with the rest, as the latitude of religion varies,
apply themselves to the times, and seasons, and for fear and flattery
are content to subscribe and to do all that in them lies to maintain
and defend their present government and slavish religious schoolmen,
canonists, Jesuits, friars, priests, orators, sophisters, who either
for that they had nothing else to do, luxuriant wits knew not otherwise
how to busy themselves in those idle times, for the Church then had few
or no open adversaries, or better to defend their lies, fictions,
miracles, transubstantiations, traditions, pope's pardons, purgatories,
masses, impossibilities, &c. with glorious shows, fair pretences, big
words, and plausible wits, have coined a thousand idle questions, nice
distinctions, subtleties, Obs and Sols, such tropological, allegorical
expositions, to salve all appearances, objections, such quirks and
quiddities, quodlibetaries, as Bale saith of Ferribrigge and Strode,
instances, ampliations, decrees, glosses, canons, that instead of sound
commentaries, good preachers, are come in a company of mad sophisters,
primo secundo secundarii, sectaries, Canonists, Sorbonists, Minorites,
with a rabble of idle controversies and questions, [6581]an Papa sit
Deus, an quasi Deus? An participet utramque Christi naturam? Whether it
be as possible for God to be a humble bee or a gourd, as a man? Whether
he can produce respect without a foundation or term, make a whore a
virgin? fetch Trajan's soul from hell, and how? with a rabble of
questions about hell-fire: whether it be a greater sin to kill a man,
or to clout shoes upon a Sunday? whether God can make another God like
unto himself? Such, saith Kemnisius, are most of your schoolmen, (mere
alchemists) 200 commentators on Peter Lambard; (Pitsius catal.
scriptorum Anglic. reckons up 180 English commentators alone, on the
matter of the sentences), Scotists, Thomists, Reals, Nominals, &c., and
so perhaps that of St. [6582]Austin may be verified. Indocti rapiunt
coelum, docti interim descendunt ad infernum. Thus they continued in
such error, blindness, decrees, sophisms, superstitions; idle
ceremonies and traditions were the sum of their new-coined holiness and
religion, and by these knaveries and stratagems they were able to
involve multitudes, to deceive the most sanctified souls, and, if it
were possible, the very elect. In the mean time the true Church, as
wine and water mixed, lay hid and obscure to speak of, till Luther's
time, who began upon a sudden to defecate, and as another sun to drive
away those foggy mists of superstition, to restore it to that purity of
the primitive Church. And after him many good and godly men, divine
spirits, have done their endeavours, and still do.
[6583]And what their ignorance esteem'd so holy,
Our wiser ages do account as folly.
But see the devil, that will never suffer the Church to be quiet or at
rest: no garden so well tilled but some noxious weeds grow up in it, no
wheat but it hath some tares: we have a mad giddy company of
precisians, schismatics, and some heretics, even, in our own bosoms in
another extreme. [6584]Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt;
that out of too much zeal in opposition to Antichrist, human
traditions, those Romish rites and superstitions, will quite demolish
all, they will admit of no ceremonies at all, no fasting days, no cross
in baptism, kneeling at communion, no church music, &c., no bishops'
courts, no church government, rail at all our church discipline, will
not hold their tongues, and all for the peace of thee, O Sion! No, not
so much as degrees some of them will tolerate, or universities, all
human learning, ('tis cloaca diaboli) hoods, habits, cap and surplice,
such as are things indifferent in themselves, and wholly for ornament,
decency, or distinction's sake, they abhor, hate, and snuff at, as a
stone-horse when he meets a bear: they make matters of conscience of
them, and will rather forsake their livings than subscribe to them.
They will admit of no holidays, or honest recreations, as of hawking,
hunting, &c., no churches, no bells some of them, because papists use
them; no discipline, no ceremonies but what they invent themselves; no
interpretations of 'scriptures, no comments of fathers, no councils,
but such as their own fantastical spirits dictate, or recta ratio, as
Socinians, by which spirit misled, many times they broach as prodigious
paradoxes as papists themselves. Some of them turn prophets, have
secret revelations, will be of privy council with God himself, and know
all his secrets, [6585] Per capillos spiritum sanctum tenent, et omnia
sciunt cum sint asini omnium obstinatissimi, a company of giddy heads
will take upon them to define how many shall be saved and who damned in
a parish, where they shall sit in heaven, interpret Apocalypses,
(Commentatores praecipites et vertiginosos, one calls them, as well he
might) and those hidden mysteries to private persons, times, places, as
their own spirit informs them, private revelations shall suggest, and
precisely set down when the world shall come to an end, what year, what
month, what day. Some of them again have such strong faith, so
presumptuous, they will go into infected houses, expel devils, and fast
forty days, as Christ himself did; some call God and his attributes
into question, as Vorstius and Socinus; some princes, civil
magistrates, and their authorities, as Anabaptists, will do all their
own private spirit dictates, and nothing else. Brownists, Barrowists,
Familists, and those Amsterdamian sects and sectaries, are led all by
so many private spirits. It is a wonder to reveal what passages Sleidan
relates in his Commentaries, of Cretinck, Knipperdoling, and their
associates, those madmen of Munster in Germany; what strange
enthusiasms, sottish revelations they had, how absurdly they carried
themselves, deluded others; and as profane Machiavel in his political
disputations holds of Christian religion, in general it doth enervate,
debilitate, take away men's spirits and courage from them, simpliciores
reddit homines, breeds nothing so courageous soldiers as that Roman: we
may say of these peculiar sects, their religion takes away not spirits
only, but wit and judgment, and deprives them of their understanding;
for some of them are so far gone with their private enthusiasms and
revelations, that they are quite mad, out of their wits. What greater
madness can there be, than for a man to take upon him to be a God, as
some do? to be the Holy Ghost, Elias, and what not? In [6586]Poland,
1518, in the reign of King Sigismund, one said he was Christ, and got
him twelve apostles, came to judge the world, and strangely deluded the
commons. [6587]One David George, an illiterate painter, not many years
since, did as much in Holland, took upon him to be the Messiah, and had
many followers. Benedictus Victorinus Faventinus, consil. 15, writes as
much of one Honorius, that thought he was not only inspired as a
prophet, but that he was a God himself, and had [6588]familiar
conference with God and his angels. Lavat. de spect. c. 2. part. 8.
hath a story of one John Sartorious, that thought he was the prophet
Elias, and cap. 7. of diverse others that had conference with angels,
were saints, prophets. Wierus, lib. 3. de Lamiis c. 7. makes mention of
a prophet of Groning that said he was God the Father; of an Italian and
Spanish prophet that held as much. We need not rove so far abroad, we
have familiar examples at home: Hackett that said he was Christ;
Coppinger and Arthington his disciples; [6589]Burchet and Hovatus,
burned at Norwich. We are never likely seven years together without
some such new prophets that have several inspirations, some to convert
the Jews, some fast forty days, go with Daniel to the lion's den; some
foretell strange things, some for one thing, some for another. Great
precisians of mean conditions and very illiterate, most part by a
preposterous zeal, fasting, meditation, melancholy, are brought into
those gross errors and inconveniences. Of those men I may conclude
generally, that howsoever they may seem to be discreet, and men of
understanding in other matters, discourse well, laesam habent
imaginationem, they are like comets, round in all places but where they
blaze, caetera sani, they have impregnable wits many of them, and
discreet otherwise, but in this their madness and folly breaks out
beyond measure, in infinitum erumpit stultitia. They are certainly far
gone with melancholy, if not quite mad, and have more need of physic
than many a man that keeps his bed, more need of hellebore than those
that are in Bedlam.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Prognostics of Religious Melancholy_.
You may guess at the prognostics by the symptoms. What can these signs
fore tell otherwise than folly, dotage, madness, gross ignorance,
despair, obstinacy, a reprobate sense, [6590]a bad end? What else can
superstition, heresy produce, but wars, tumults, uproars, torture of
souls, and despair, a desolate land, as Jeremy teacheth, cap. vii. 34.
when they commit idolatry, and walk after their own ways? how should it
be otherwise with them? what can they expect but blasting, famine,
dearth, and all the plagues of Egypt, as Amos denounceth, cap. iv.
vers. 9. 10. to be led into captivity? If our hopes be frustrate, we
sow much and bring in little, eat and have not enough, drink and are
not filled, clothe and be not warm, &c. Haggai i. 6. we look for much
and it comes to little, whence is it? His house was waste, they came to
their own houses, vers. 9. therefore the heaven stayed his dew, the
earth his fruit. Because we are superstitious, irreligious, we do not
serve God as we ought, all these plagues and miseries come upon us;
what can we look for else but mutual wars, slaughters, fearful ends in
this life, and in the life to come eternal damnation? What is it that
hath caused so many feral battles to be fought, so much Christian blood
shed, but superstition! That Spanish inquisition, racks, wheels,
tortures, torments, whence do they proceed? from superstition. Bodine
the Frenchman, in his [6591]method. hist. accounts Englishmen
barbarians, for their civil wars: but let him read those Pharsalian
fields [6592]fought of late in France for their religion, their
massacres, wherein by their own relations in twenty-four years, I know
not how many millions have been consumed, whole families and cities,
and he shall find ours to be but velitations to theirs. But it hath
ever been the custom of heretics and idolaters, when they are plagued
for their sins, and God's just judgments come upon them, not to
acknowledge any fault in themselves, but still impute it unto others.
In Cyprian's time it was much controverted between him and Demetrius an
idolater, who should be the cause of those present calamities.
Demetrius laid all the fault on Christians, (and so they did ever in
the primitive church, as appears by the first book of [6593]Arnobius),
[6594]that there were not such ordinary showers in winter, the ripening
heat in summer, so seasonable springs, fruitful autumns, no marble
mines in the mountains, less gold and silver than of old; that
husbandmen, seamen, soldiers, all were scanted, justice, friendship,
skill in arts, all was decayed, and that through Christians' default,
and all their other miseries from them, quod dii nostri a vobis non
colantur, because they did not worship their gods. But Cyprian retorts
all upon him again, as appears by his tract against him. 'Tis true the
world is miserably tormented and shaken with wars, dearth, famine,
fire, inundations, plagues, and many feral diseases rage amongst us,
sed non ut tu quereris ista accidunt quod dii vestri a nobis non
colantur, sed quod a vobis non colatur Deus, a quibus nec quaeritur,
nec timetur, not as thou complainest, that we do not worship your Gods,
but because you are idolaters, and do not serve the true God, neither
seek him, nor fear him as you ought. Our papists object as much to us,
and account us heretics, we them; the Turks esteem of both as infidels,
and we them as a company of pagans, Jews against all; when indeed there
is a general fault in us all, and something in the very best, which may
justly deserve God's wrath, and pull these miseries upon our heads. I
will say nothing here of those vain cares, torments, needless works,
penance, pilgrimages, pseudomartyrdom, &c. We heap upon ourselves
unnecessary troubles, observations; we punish our bodies, as in Turkey
(saith [6595]Busbequius leg. Turcic. ep. 3.) one did, that was much
affected with music, and to hear boys sing, but very superstitious; an
old sibyl coming to his house, or a holy woman, (as that place yields
many) took him down for it, and told him, that in that other world he
should suffer for it; thereupon he flung his rich and costly
instruments which he had bedecked with jewels, all at once into the
fire. He was served in silver plate, and had goodly household stuff: a
little after, another religious man reprehended him in like sort, and
from thenceforth he was served in earthen vessels, last of all a decree
came forth, because Turks might not drink wine themselves, that neither
Jew nor Christian then living in Constantinople, might drink any wine
at all. In like sort amongst papists, fasting at first was generally
proposed as a good thing; after, from such meats at set times, and then
last of all so rigorously proposed, to bind the consciences upon pain
of damnation. First Friday, saith Erasmus, then Saturday, et nunc
periclitatur dies Mercurii) and Wednesday now is in danger of a fast.
[6596]And for such like toys, some so miserably afflict themselves, to
despair, and death itself, rather than offend, and think themselves
good Christians in it, when as indeed they are superstitious Jews. So
saith Leonardus Fuchsius, a great physician in his time. [6597]We are
tortured in Germany with these popish edicts, our bodies so taken down,
our goods so diminished, that if God had not sent Luther, a worthy man,
in time, to redress these mischiefs, we should have eaten hay with our
horses before this. [6598]As in fasting, so in all other superstitious
edicts, we crucify one another without a cause, barring ourselves of
many good and lawful things, honest disports, pleasures and
recreations; for wherefore did God create them but for our use? Feasts,
mirth, music, hawking, hunting, singing, dancing, &c. non tam
necessitatibus nostris Deus inservit, sed in delicias amamur, as Seneca
notes, God would have it so. And as Plato 2. de legibus gives out, Deos
laboriosam hominum vitam miseratos, the gods in commiseration of human
estate sent Apollo, Bacchus, and the Muses, qui cum voluptate tripudia
et soltationes nobis ducant, to be merry with mortals, to sing and
dance with us. So that he that will not rejoice and enjoy himself,
making good use of such things as are lawfully permitted, non est
temperatus, as he will, sed superstitiosus. There is nothing better for
a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his
soul enjoy good in his labour, Eccles. ii. 24. And as [6599]one said of
hawking and hunting, tot solatia in hac aegri orbis calamitate,
mortalibus taediis deus objecit, I say of all honest recreations, God
hath therefore indulged them to refresh, ease, solace and comfort us.
But we are some of us too stern, too rigid, too precise, too grossly
superstitious, and whilst we make a conscience of every toy, with touch
not, taste not, &c., as those Pythagoreans of old, and some Indians
now, that will eat no flesh, or suffer any living creature to be
killed, the Bannians about Guzzerat; we tyrannise over our brother's
soul, lose the right use of many good gifts; honest [6600]sports, games
and pleasant recreations, [6601]punish ourselves without a cause, lose
our liberties, and sometimes our lives. Anno 1270, at [6602]Magdeburg
in Germany, a Jew fell into a privy upon a Saturday, and without help
could not possibly get out; he called to his fellows for succour, but
they denied it, because it was their Sabbath, non licebat opus manuum
exercere; the bishop hearing of it, the next day forbade him to be
pulled out, because it was our Sunday. In the mean time the wretch died
before Monday. We have myriads of examples in this kind amongst those
rigid Sabbatarians, and therefore not without good cause,
[6603]Intolerabilem pertubationem Seneca calls it, as well he might, an
intolerable perturbation, that causeth such dire events, folly,
madness, sickness, despair, death of body and soul, and hell itself.
SUBSECT. V.—_Cure of Religious Melancholy_.
To purge the world of idolatry and superstition, will require some
monster-taming Hercules, a divine Aesculapius, or Christ himself to
come in his own person, to reign a thousand years on earth before the
end, as the Millenaries will have him. They are generally so
refractory, self-conceited, obstinate, so firmly addicted to that
religion in which they have been bred and brought up, that no
persuasion, no terror, no persecution, can divert them. The
consideration of which, hath induced many commonwealths to suffer them
to enjoy their consciences as they will themselves: a toleration of
Jews is in most provinces of Europe. In Asia they have their
synagogues: Spaniards permit Moors to live amongst them: the
Mogullians, Gentiles: the Turks all religions. In Europe, Poland and
Amsterdam are the common sanctuaries. Some are of opinion, that no man
ought to be compelled for conscience' sake, but let him be of what
religion he will, he may be saved, as Cornelius was formerly accepted,
Jew, Turks, Anabaptists, &c. If he be an honest man, live soberly, and
civilly in his profession, (Volkelius, Crellius, and the rest of the
Socinians, that now nestle themselves about Krakow and Rakow in Poland,
have renewed this opinion) serve his own God, with that fear and
reverence as he ought. Sua cuique civitati (Laeli) religio sit, nostra
nobis, Tully thought fit every city should be free in this behalf,
adore their own Custodes et Topicos Deos, tutelar and local gods, as
Symmachus calls them. Isocrates adviseth Demonicus, when he came to a
strange city, to [6604]worship by all means the gods of the place, et
unumquemque, Topicum deum sic coli oportere, quomodo ipse praeceperit:
which Cecilius in [6605]Minutius labours, and would have every nation
sacrorum ritus gentiles habere et deos colere municipes, keep their own
ceremonies, worship their peculiar gods, which Pomponius Mela reports
of the Africans, Deos suos patrio more venerantur, they worship their
own gods according to their own ordination. For why should any one
nation, as he there pleads, challenge that universality of God, Deum
suum quem nec ostendunt, nec vident, discurrantem silicet et ubique
praesentem, in omnium mores, actus, et occultas, cogitationes
inquirentem, &c., as Christians do: let every province enjoy their
liberty in this behalf, worship one God, or all as they will, and are
informed. The Romans built altars Diis Asiae, Europae, Lybiae, diis
ignotis et peregrinis: others otherwise, &c. Plinius Secundus, as
appears by his Epistle to Trajan, would not have the Christians so
persecuted, and in some time of the reign of Maximinus, as we find it
registered in Eusebius lib. 9. cap. 9. there was a decree made to this
purpose, Nullus cogatur invitus ad hunc vel illum deorum cultum, let no
one be compelled against his will to worship any particular deity, and
by Constantine in the 19th year of his reign as [6606]Baronius
informeth us, Nemo alteri exhibeat molestiam, quod cujusque animus
vult, hoc quisque transigat, new gods, new lawgivers, new priests, will
have new ceremonies, customs and religions, to which every wise man as
a good formalist should accommodate himself.
[6607]Saturnus periit, perierunt et sua jura,
Sub Jove nunc mundus, jussa sequare Jovis.
The said Constantine the emperor, as Eusebius writes, flung down and
demolished all the heathen gods, silver, gold statues, altars, images
and temples, and turned them all to Christian churches, infestus
gentilium monumentis ludibrio exposuit; the Turk now converts them
again to Mahometan mosques. The like edict came forth in the reign of
Arcadius and Honorius. [6608]Symmachus the orator in his days, to
procure a general toleration, used this argument, [6609]Because God is
immense and infinite, and his nature cannot perfectly be known, it is
convenient he should be as diversely worshipped, as every man shall
perceive or understand. It was impossible, he thought, for one religion
to be universal: you see that one small province can hardly be ruled by
one law, civil or spiritual; and how shall so many distinct and vast
empires of the world be united into one? It never was, never will be
Besides, if there be infinite planetary and firmamental worlds, as
[6610]some will, there be infinite genii or commanding spirits
belonging to each of them; and so, per consequens (for they will be all
adored), infinite religions. And therefore let every territory keep
their proper rites and ceremonies, as their dii tutelares will, so
Tyrius calls them, and according to the quarter they hold, their own
institutions, revelations, orders, oracles, which they dictate from
time to time, or teach their own priests or ministers. This tenet was
stiffly maintained in Turkey not long since, as you may read in the
third epistle of Busbequius, [6611]that all those should participate of
eternal happiness, that lived a holy and innocent life, what religion
soever they professed. Rustan Bassa was a great patron of it; though
Mahomet himself was sent virtute gladdi, to enforce all, as he writes
in his Alcoran, to follow him. Some again will approve of this for
Jews, Gentiles, infidels, that are out of the fold, they can be content
to give them all respect and favour, but by no means to such as are
within the precincts of our own church, and called Christians, to no
heretics, schismatics, or the like; let the Spanish inquisition, that
fourth fury, speak of some of them, the civil wars and massacres in
France, our Marian times. [6612]Magillianus the Jesuit will not admit
of conference with a heretic, but severity and rigour to be used, non
illis verba reddere, sed furcas, figere oportet; and Theodosius is
commended in Nicephorus, lib. 12. cap. 15. [6613]That he put all
heretics to silence. Bernard. Epist. 180, will have club law, fire and
sword for heretics, [6614]compel them, stop their mouths not with
disputations, or refute them with reasons, but with fists; and this is
their ordinary practice. Another company are as mild on the other side;
to avoid all heart-burning, and contentious wars and uproars, they
would have a general toleration in every kingdom, no mulct at all, no
man for religion or conscience be put to death, which [6615]Thuanus the
French historian much favours; our late Socinians defend; Vaticanus
against Calvin in a large Treatise in behalf of Servetus, vindicates;
Castilio, &c., Martin Ballius and his companions, maintained this
opinion not long since in France, whose error is confuted by Beza in a
just volume. The medium is best, and that which Paul prescribes, Gal.
i. If any man shall fall by occasion, to restore such a one with the
spirit of meekness, by all fair means, gentle admonitions; but if that
will not take place, Post unam et alteram admonitionem haereticum
devita, he must be excommunicate, as Paul did by Hymenaeus, delivered
over to Satan. Immedicabile vulnus ense recidendum est. As Hippocrates
said in physic, I may well say in divinity, Quae ferro non curantur,
ignis curat. For the vulgar, restrain them by laws, mulcts, burn their
books, forbid their conventicles; for when the cause is taken away, the
effect will soon cease. Now for prophets, dreamers, and such rude silly
fellows, that through fasting, too much meditation, preciseness, or by
melancholy, are distempered: the best means to reduce them ad sanam
mentem, is to alter their course of life, and with conference, threats,
promises, persuasions, to intermix physic. Hercules de Saxonia, had
such a prophet committed to his charge in Venice, that thought he was
Elias, and would fast as he did; he dressed a fellow in angel's attire,
that said he came from heaven to bring him divine food, and by that
means stayed his fast, administered his physic; so by the meditation of
this forged angel he was cured. [6616]Rhasis an Arabian, cont. lib. 1.
cap. 9, speaks of a fellow that in like case complained to him, and
desired his help: I asked him (saith he) what the matter was; he
replied, I am continually meditating of heaven and hell, and methinks I
see and talk with fiery spirits, and smell brimstone, &c., and am so
carried away with these conceits, that I can neither eat, nor sleep,
nor go about my business: I cured him (saith Rhasis) partly by
persuasion, partly by physic, and so have I done by many others. We
have frequently such prophets and dreamers amongst us, whom we
persecute with fire and faggot: I think the most compendious cure, for
some of them at least, had been in Bedlam. Sed de his satis.
MEMB. II.
SUBSECT. I.—_Religious Melancholy in defect; parties affected,
Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, worldly secure, Carnalists; all impious
persons, impenitent sinners, &c._