THE TRIUMPHS OF ROME OVER DESPISED protestancy:  
SATIS EST prostrasse.  
Vincere praeclarum est, supra modum vincere invidiosum.  
LONDON, Printed Anno Dom. 1655.   

TO THE VICTORIOUS Roman Catholic Knight, That foiled the Vicar, and won the Lady.  
Unknown Sir,  
YOu cannot marvel if the same of your late exploit have drawn a stranger to celebrate your victory with these Triumphs, which he hopes may receive the favour of an acceptation from you, as presuming that the prosperous success of your noble achievement hath not so over-elevated you, as to scorit so mean a present from an obscure hand, which can no otherwise commend itself to you, then by the good int●ndment of the author, the variety of the subject, and the unusual manner of tractation; somewhat inclining to unseriousness, as aiming no less at your delight then satisfaction. If therefore you have not over-laughed yourself at the silly impertinencies of the vicar's wife, be pleased to bestow some gentle smiles upon this well-merited gratulation; the fashion whereof cannot choose but like you, since it is but an imitation of your own pattern; although indeed, I could, in your silence, have learned it of better Masters; from the rule of Solomon, Prov. 26.5. and from the example of Elijah, in the entertainment of his Baalites, 1 Kings 18.27. Ridiculum acri fortius. Farewell, great Sir, and enjoy your happy winnings, without the envy of  
Your truly Catholic well-willer, faithful willbe Vicar of Non-such.   

The Introduction.  
COME Brethren, come; for shame let us at last return into that bosom which we have unkindly forsaken. Is it not our Mother that recalls us? Our Mother sure enough, both as Catholic and as Roman: If any of you have so little grace as to doubt it, tell me I pray you, was it not her Eleutherius 
a Venerunt Eleutherio mittente praedicatores duo in Britanniam viri sanctiff. Phaganus ac Deruvianus Malmesb. vid. H. Spelman. Conc.  that helped our King Lucius and his Britons to their Christendom? Was it not her Gregory that sent the holy monk Austen, with his forty associates to convert our Saxons? What though this 
b Summo tempore Tiberii Caesaris. Gildas' sup. ibid. scil. anno 5 v●l 6 post Christi resurrectionem.  Island had the Gospel planted in her as soon or sooner than Rome itself (within five or six years after our saviour's passion) as Gildas and 
c Niceph. l. 2. c. 40. eandem doctrinam etiam ad occideata●em oceanum, & Insulas B●itannicas perfert Simon zealots.  Nicephorus? What if immediately upon S●ephens death, and the forced dispersion of the Jews, Joseph of 
d Gildas Albanicus histor.. Aurelii Ambrosi●  Arimathea, 
e Gallia in Britan, missum a Philippo Apost. Joseph. & cit. a F●xio & Spel.  with his twelve holy complices, landing here out of France, here preached and here died, as 
e Baron. 1. tom. an. 35  Baronius himself, out of an old Record in the Vatican Library, tells us? What if the first fabric of a Christian Church, that was in all the world, was erected in our Glastenbury thirty one years after our saviour's death; yea, what if St. Paul himself preached the Gospel here ere he could preach it at 
f Homil. 4. de cur. Graec. assect. l. 9 ser. 9 vid. Spelm. ibid.  Rome, as Theodoret and Sophronius? yet we must still believe she is our Mother. What if upon the cruel persecution of Dioclesian and Maximinianus this Nation yielded many noble Christian 
g Clarissimos Lampades sanctorum martyrum nobis accendit, Gild. Alb. s. 8.  Martyrs, Albanus, Julius, Aaron, with others; the first whereof was attended by a thousand 
h Bed. l. 1. c. 7. cit. H. Spelm. cum mille viris sicco ingredients pede.  partakers through the dried channel of the Thames, as 
i Albanum egregium foecunda Britannia profert. ex Fortunato presbyter Beda ibid.  Beda, out of Gildas, tells us? What if this 
k Illico Siccato aliceo, ibid.  Island had three Archbishops and twenty eight Bishops governing this Church in a Christian manner; and one and twenty hundred religious persons devoutly serving God and maintaining themselves with the labour of their hands, living together in a blessed society at Bangor, under the presidency of the famous and learned Dinothus, 
l In quo tantus fertur fuisse numerus monachorum ut cum in septem portiones esset divisum, nulla horum portio minus quam 300 homines haberet qui omnes de labour manum suarum vivere soleant, Bed.  before ever the Monk Augustine set foot upon the Kentish shore, yet we must still believe she is our Mother. What if those honest and pious British Bishops in several Synods stood out and protested against the Roman Authority, pressed by those new Emissaries, and stiffly maintained their due subjection to their own Archbishop, then of St. David's, with defiance of any other, refusing to yield so much as to those three tolerable propositions made to them by the new pretended (but usurping) Archbishop Austen, viz. first, to keep Easter on the same day with the Roman Church; secondly, to receive their ceremonies in Baptism; thirdly, to join with them in preaching to the Anglo-Saxons? What if these British Christians all this while, both before and after Austen's time, keep themselves close to the fashions of the Greek Church, with a peremptory rejection of the Roman? yet we must still believe she is our Mother.  
But was it not a brotherly kindness in those our Roman Godfathers, out of a cruel revenge of the peevish frowardness (as was conceived) of the unyielding Britons, to stir up (as the suspicion runs strong) King Edilbert to a bloody 
m Extinctos in ea pugna ferunt de his qui ad orandum venerunt viros circiter mille ducentos, ibid.  war, and therein to the slaughter of twelve hundred of those religious Christians, who only fought on their knees with the weapons of their prayers.  Tantae stragis erat Romanum temnere morem. 
But why should we be guilty of so much wrong as not to give the devil his due, much more a Saint? why should we be so ingrateful as to smother courtesies? Pope Gregory (whom the world is wont to style the last of the good Bishops and first of the bad) was our good friend and worthy benefactor, and merits an eternal memory for the care and pains that he took towards the conversion of our wild beathenish Saxons, and employing and encouraging his Abbot Augustine and his Monks and Clergy in the hard service of this uncouth Plantation; for the advancing whereof he freely bestirred his brain and his pen, writing to no fewer than fifteen or sixteen several Bishops and Princes for their aid in so holy a work; and affording his grave directions to his new-created Metropolitan of England, who was zealously and studious, I know not whether more to advance the faith of Christ, or the honour, government, and ceremonies of the Roman See. In the mean while the British Bishops still held their own, not lying open to any taxation or blame but their refusal of subjection to the Roman authority, maintaining their constant adherence to their own Archbishop, till after the Norman Conquest; when Henry the first subduing the Principality of Wales, forced them to stoop unto his Canterbury.  
How much than we and our fore fathers are beholden to Rome we see, and shall be to blame if we acknowledge not; And why is not this abundantly enough reason to enslave our faith ever since, to their inerrable judgement, and to pin our souls upon their sleeves for ever? What though they have departed from themselves, yet it is not for us (in way of gratitude) to depart from them. If our mother will mix poison to us belike we must drink it, for we may not disobey.  
But did we stand in no relation at all to the Church of Rome, were we mere strangers to her, yet so transcendent advantages hath she above all other Churches, that he should be very hard-hearted and a backfriend to his own preferment, that would not strive to be first in her lap. Who is so bl●nde as he that will not see these whole dozen of supereminent excellencies for which she is conspicuous to all the World?  
She and her Religion is 1 more gay and glorius; 2ly More pleasant and jovial; 3ly More pure and holy; 4ly More powerful and mighty; 5ly More pious and devout; 6ly More easy and plausible; 7ly more sure and certain; 8ly More free and bountiful; 9ly More gainful and commodious; 10ly More wise and witty; 11ly More merciful; and 12ly More unanimous than any rival under heaven. Can you have the patience to go along with me through all these notorious privileges, I shall promise you a full conviction.  

CHAPTER I. The triumph of glory.  
AND first whiles you see other Churches either naked or like some sorry drudges, either sluttishly or raggedly clad in their homespun russet, and at their best, without welt or guard, behold her like a Queen mounted on her gaudy chopines, curiously dressed, all to be jewelled, be spangled, powdered, painted, perfumed. What talk you of the simplicity of the Gospel, and whisper that the King's Daughter is all glorious within? so let her be: but give me a Church that is all glorious without too; such is she, such is none but she! Other Churches have but one head, (and that is in heaven) but the Church of Rome, and she alone (thanks to the good Emperor Phocas) hath two heads, one in heaven the other on earth; both glorious: If fools talk of monstrosity, let them learn that this point is de fide; and matters of faith must not be scanned by reason: See what an head she hath here below, as much above Kings as Kings are above their Subjects; as much bigger than the Emperors as the Sun is bigger than the Earth: For howsoever the honest Abbot 
a Planum est Apostolis interdicitur dominatus, I ergo tu & tibi usurpare aude aut dominans Apostolatum, aut Apostolicus dominatum, Bern. de Consid. ad Eugen. l. 2. c. 6.  Bernard (good soul) could tell his old friend Pope Eugenius, that he could nor be capable at once of Sovereignty and apostolicism; yet he was quite out upon the matter, and must know and learn from our later Doctors (Antonius 
b Ant. Sanctarellus de Societ. Jesus Tract. de Haeresi & potestate summi Pont. anno 1625. approba a primorib. Jesuitis.  Sanctarellus for one) that the Pope hath full power over all temporals, and as Alvares roundly, in all, through all, above all; that his sublimity is such (as 
c In omnia, per omnia, super omnia. Hujus summi Pontificis tanta est sublimitas tanta immensitas & nullus mortalius comprehendere queat, Cassen. ex Zoderico.  Casseneus) that it cannot be comprehended: who can doubt of this, when Pope 
d Bonifacius 8. non Galliae modo, sed mundi dominum se praedicavit. Popyr. Mass. v. Bonif. 8.  Boniface the eight himself (that could not err) tells us that he is no less than Lord of the World? and not without reason: how can he go less, as Vicar general, to the great King of heaven? by virtue whereof both his Jurisdiction is boundless, as universal 
e Quid tu Christo universalis Ecclesiae capiti in extremo judicio dicturus es examine, &c. Greg. de Epis. Constantinopol. l. 4. Epist. 38.  Bishop of the Church on earth (in spite of Pope Gregory himself, who unwisely cried down that stile as insolent and pompaticall, professing that it had been tendered to himself by the council of 
f Superbi & pompatici, &c. per venerandam Synodum Chalced. Romano Pontifici oblatum est, sed nullus unquam ●orum hoc singularitatis nomen assumpsit, Greg. l. 4. Ep. 32. Mauritio.  Chalcedon, but he had refused it as utterly unlawful, proud, injurious, and precursory to Antichrist himself) and his Dominion also is paramount to all Kingly and Imperial power. Time was indeed when the Popes flew a lower pitch, dating their letters by the reign of their Lords the Emperors; when Pope Gregory the Great could come with his cap in his hand to Emperor Mauritius with 
g Gregor. ubi supra.  Vobis obedientiam praebere desidero, I desire to yield you obedience, and were so far from claiming to have a finger in the Emperor's Crown, that they were content the Emperor should have an hand in their Mitre: so Pope Adrian, anno 796, gave, with all due submission, power to Charles the Great to choose the Popes, his Successors: and Pope Gregory the fourth confirmed the same, anno 830; and Pope Leo the ninth yielded the same to Emperor Otho, anno 961: after whom Pope Alexander the second, being chosen without the Emperor's consent, repenting him of that wrong, was (as he was well served) deposed by busy Pope Hildebrand: At and after which time their 
h Vide in quantum licentiae tum processit Rom. Eccles. ut se intromittere inciperet de Ecclesiis vacantibus solebant aliquando Imperatores de Romana disponere Ecclesia, &c. K●●ntius Metrop. l. 7. c. 45.  Holiness hath been better advised, strongly wrestling with, and giving sound falls to their contesting Caesars; Gregory the seventh to Henry the fourth; Pashcall the second to Henry the fifth; Innocent the third to Philip; Innocent the fourth to Frederick and Conrad; John the two and twentie●h and Benedict the eighth to 
i Ludovic. Bavar. legem tulit ne in posterum Pontifices Romani absentes esse liceret ultra tres menses, nec ultra 20 miliaria ab urbe progredi, Papyr. Mass.  Lewis of Bavaria; although this last gave a Cornish hug to his unequal match, making a Law that the Pope should not be absent above three months in a year, and not above twenty miles from Rome, satis pro 
k Postmedo Jea●. 21. veneno extinctus in Eucharistia, Krant. Metrop. l. 9 c. 6.  Imperio: But the wind stood not long in that door: the case is altered quoth Ployden: Now, of a long time, the Emperor 
l Postea Imperator si praesens est, stupham equi Papalis tenet, et dein ducit equum per fraenum aliquantulum. Lib. Sacr. cerem.  knows his duty, that is, to hold his holiness his stirrup, and to lead his horse by the bridle; the ignorance or forgetfulness of which point of his office had like to have cost 
m 
Frederic ●. il en cuida perdre sa corone pour' n avoir pas tenu bien &c. audit tenu estrien ganctru a Adrian. 4.  
Revis. conc. du Trent.   Frederik the second his Crown, which he might justly have forfeited for taking hold of the wrong side; at least a tedious delay till he had learned better manners: well done brave countryman; this was our English Adrian: Or if his holiness be rather pleased to be carried in his 
n 
Si Pontifex sella vehatu r. 4. majores principes, etiam Imperator in honorem Servatoris sellam ipsam cum Pontifice humeris suis aliquantulum portare debet.  
Lib. Sacr. Cerem.   chair, it shall be the Emperor's office with three other Kings or Princes to put their shoulders to his happy load: Or perhaps upon further favour Caesar's mightiness may be preferred from a Groom or Escuier of the stable, to be his holiness his Chaplain; for though 
o 
Licet Imperator aut alias princeps &c. non habet ordinem; tamen officium subdiaconatus potest Episcopo ministranti exercere.  
Cassen. Nor. mund. 5. part.   Emperors or Kings be not admitted to holy Orders, yet nothing hinders but that they may be allowed when his holiness officiates, to supply the place of his 
p 
Sigismundus Rex in urbe Constantia, Papa primam missam celebrante Diaconi habitu indutus legit Evangelium alta voce, Exiit edictum.  
been. In notis Concilii Constantiensis.   Deacons, or Subdeacons: as King Sigismond in the City of Constantine, when the Pope said his first mass, being formally attired in the habit of a Deacon, did with a a loud voice read the Gospel of the day out of Luke 3. Exiit edictum.  
Yet further, if the Emperor will be a white boy and please his holiness well, he may be advanced to be a Canon in the Church of Lateran; 
q. Imperator recipitur in Canonicum & fratrem Ecclesiae Lateranensis. Lib. Sacr. Cerem.  whiles his great Patron the Pope sits stately in his Pontificalibus to be adored by the Grandees of the Earth with the kiss of his toe: An homage which I confess Lipsius himself spits at as base, and more than servile, 
Turpe ac plus quam servile Lips. not. in Sen. 1.2. De Benef. Elect. l. 2.  and such as if a Caius Caesar or Dioclesian (who affected divine honour) required of their vassals, yet the elder Maximinus abhorred, with a (Dii prohibeant) The gods forbid, 
Dii prohibeant ut quisquam ingenuo rum pedibus meis oscula sigat. Lips. ib.  that any ingenuous man should kiss a foot of mine. How well methinks it becomes the house, that this odious guise which practised by the proudest Heathen, 
Senec. de Benef. l. 2. c. 12.  drew from Seneca the exclamation of O superbias magnae fortunae, Oh the pride of a great fortune, should be taken up by a Christian prelate, the professed successor of an humble fisherman. If a fair Ladies kiss of Pope Leo his hand over erecting him suddenly in a lustful passion (out of a revenge whereof, he is said to have cut off that guilty hand, which yet they say was mercifully restored by the blessed Virgin) were the occasion of this hateful change from the hand to the foot, the World hath reason to beshrew her lips; 
Quid contumeliosum est socculum auro & margaritis distinctum, nullam partem corporis electurus quem purius oscularer. r.  But let that pass, and to say the truth, what so great harm is it to kiss a cleanly and precious Carbunole? Onwards you do in the mean time sufficiently see the incomparable Majesty of that glorious Prelate.  

Maximil. Imp. scribit ad Baronum de Lichtensterne, &c.  Can any man marvel now that Maximilian the Emperor had an ambition of being Pope, and offering so fair for it by Baron Lichtensterne as three hundred thousand ducats, 

Hoc scriptum suit a Maximiano, Anno. 1511. 6. Septembris, ut Waremundus de Erenberg, in verisimil.  
Vide monita Politica. p. 33.  
Luther. serm. Conv. p. 302.   the pawning of four precious chests, with his rich Investural Robe for the purchase of it? and if the bargain could have been driven, would have had a good match of it too. But it is no wonder at all that Pope Julius the second would be Emperor, and in that right challenged both Swords, Temporal and Spiritual; though the Temporal of itself is indeed but lead to the steel of the Spiritual.  
Now than what a saucy word was that of John Gerson Chancellor of Paris, 
Papa est frater noster, alioqui deberet dicere Pater meus vel Pater mi. Jo. Gerson. An liceat in causis fidei a Papa appellare. Papa stupor mundi, non Deus, non homo, sed utrumque. Gloss. in proemio Clem. Moscan De Rom. Pont. l. 1. c. 11.  who durst say. The Pope is our Brother, else he could not say Our Father; when he might know how the old stile came, Nec Deus est nec homo: he is neither God nor man, but neither and betwixt both. Some spiteful detractors will be ready to talk of Luciferian pride, and Worldly pomp; and to say they fear his holiness hath forgot what his Master of Ceremonies said at his Inauguration, 

Cum exicrit P. Capellam St. Gregorii ceremoniarius stuppae ignem mittit, ac genuflexus ait, Sie Pater, &c.  
Lib. Cerem.   when he burned the tow before him at his coming out of St. Gregory's chapel, Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi; Holy father, thus passes the glory of the World; and that of his Petrarch, The life of man is short, of King's shorter, 
Hominum vita brevis, regum brevior, pontificum brevissima Petrarch de Remed. l. 1.  of Pope's shortest of all: as (welfare all good tokens) he might have seen eight Popes in the space of twelve years. These malevolent fools will be apt to put him in mind of what that merry Miller Plautus said of old; 
Qui quaerit alta, i● malum videtur quaerere Plaut. Pseudolo.  Qui quaerit alta, &c. he that looks too high, seeks his own mischief, and can tell him that the highest is not always the best: as for example, the chimney is the highest piece of the house, but the foulest. But it matters not what they say, unless they were wiser; their eyes are bleared with envy at this resplendent glory. Iwis Chrysostom was deceived when he could say, 
Illis qui vehementer excellunt nemo inviderit. Excellentiae quippe cedunt omnia. Chrysost. Homil. 3. in Epist. ad Philip. &c.  No man envies a transcendent excellency; rather contrarily, the higher, the greater invidence; but all is one, his holiness wots well, and better than themselves what belongs to pride; 
Non video quomodo qui altum hunc locum tenet, salvari possit.  and knows right well what one of his Predecessors (Ay meene Marcellus the second) said of old; who after a long silent dump, broke out at the Table into these words; I do not see how he that holds this high place can be saved; but withal he knows what that mouthful of words did cost the speaker, who lived but twenty days after them. It was time to be rid of such an ominous bird; 
In vita Bellarmin.  whether on the same grounds Cardinal Bellarmine had wont to pray to God that he might never be Pope, I leave it to the scanning of deeper judgements; but let that pass; return we to our more pleasing thoughts. Did you but see the state of his holiness at the Feast of his Coronation, 
Primum serculum portavit nobilior princeps sive, Imperator sive Rex. Lib. Sacr. Cerem.  you could not but wonder at that magnificence: To say no more, there should you see him served with Princes, the Emperor (if present) carrying up the first dish to his Table, Kings holding the basin and towel for the washing of his holy hands, as the King of Denmark did to Sixtus the fourth; and so oft as it pleased his holiness to drink, 
Papa cum biberit, omnes flectunt genua praeter Episcopos. Ibid.  you might see all the beholders humbly cast down upon their knees. Surely the majesty of his single holiness, whom you shall behold with his Triple-crown on his head, with his rich Crosier in his hand, with the glorious Robes of his Pontificality on his back, is enough to dazzle your eyes; but when you shall see him in his Conclave, assessed with all his glittering Cardinals about him, you cannot but be transported with a reverential admiration of him, and those his Princely Senators. I tell you one of those red Hats are more worth than all the blue and black Bonnets of their maligners; so as any man might justly wonder at Ferdinand of Toledo, 
Ferdinandus è Toletana familia post triduum remittit Cubicularium Papae bene remuneratum cum pileo quem attulit, indignum se professus tanto munere. Petramell. vita Cardin. pag. 252.  who after three days' entertainment sent back (not unrewarded) his holiness's chamberlain, and that glorious Cap of better maintenance, with a cold compliment, refusing that honour which others bought so dear, For do we not know (what ever they were once) that they are now Princes fellows, yea in some sort their betters? for at the solemnity of his holiness his Coronation, 
Regi sedes nulla paratur in Convivio, quia seder in mensa post primum Cardinalem. Sacr. Cerem.  the greatest King must not take his place before the first Cardinal. And good reason: for they make up one body with the Pope, saith Jacobatius; and by virtue thereof, saith Casseneus, 

Unum corpus cum Papa constituunt. Jacobit. de Concil.   they judge all men, and can be judged of none. If you cast your eyes down lower to the meaner Clergy, 

Cardinals post Papam judicant omnes & à nemine judicantur Cassen, Glor. mund. parte 4. nu. 8.   wherefore do you think their Priests have their crowns shaven, but to show (as the council of Ravenna tells you) that they are of a royal kind? 

Coronam portent condecentem Sacerdotes per quam designantur regalis esse generis. Co●c. Raven. 3. Rubr. 10.   And what marvellous port do we see in the intermediate dignities! I lie (saith St. Bernard) if I have not seen an Abbot ride with threescore horse and men. 

Mentior si non vidi Abbatem 60. equos & eo amplius in suo comicatu ducere. Apol. ad Gulielm. Abbatem.   And how then? Ah poor Bernard; how narrow were thy thoughts, who (though an Abbot, and that a famous one too,) couldst say, Cannot one man serve both to wait at his board, 

An non posset unus minister jumentum ligare, & ad mensam servire, & Lectum praeparare. Idem.   and to make his bed, and to dress his beast? how truly dost thou herein verify the old word, Bernard sees not all things? there is yet more pomp and state than thine eyes ever reached to; 

Videmus hodie equitantes super mulas, secundas Abbatias, secundos Episcopatur: Gallicè deux crosses & deux mitres: & adhuc non sunt contenti. Menot. Feria 6. Sabbat. post dominic. 2. fol. 8.   We see at this day, saith the zealous Menot, two Crosses and two Mitres, two Abbacies and two bishoprics on one Mules back. And it was thought worthy the care of a council to enact that an Archbishop when he visits should be content to take up with forty or fifty horse, 

Archiepiscopi visitantes 40. vel 50. equis sint contenti, &c. been. notis in Concil. Lateranens. ex Matth Paris. Tyrannus sacerdotum vocatus.   a Bishop with twenty or thirty, an Archdeacon with five or six: a poor retinue to our wolsees, or that proud Prelate of Ely, who in the time of his Viceroy deputation was attended with no less than a thousand. O base Protestancy when we behold this superabundant superfluity of State and glory.  
From their persons, cast your eyes upon their Churches, chapels, Oratories: see how sumptuously they are built, how richly furnished, how gorgeously decked; 
Ferdinand, Mendes de pinto Histor. Chines, ubique.  although I am afraid the Chinoese and Indian Temples erected to their hellish Pagodi are yet much fairer and wealthier than they. Look upon their Altars, and see how gaily they are set out. Look to their Images, and see how trimly they are dressed with variety of Robes, lighter and cooler for Summer, warmer and weightier for Winter. If some carping Erasmus will not stick to say that they suit our Lady so unfitly, as that both the fashion and stuff were more proper for the Stews than the Church; and if some of our jeering companions shall scornfully ask what difference there is Effigies inter vestras statuamque Bathulli? and shall tell us that all blocks are alike; they are easily choked with this answer, That if our infidelity cannot distinguish, their faith can.  
Now upon all this, let me make yourselves the Judges, whether poor pelting Protestancy can stand in any comparison with the gaiety of the Roman profession; yea, whether the one be not as mean, as the other glorious! Alas, we have not a Lady to dress, nor a Saint to worship, nor a toe to kiss, nor an Oracle to consult, nor a Vice-God to rule, nor one that can pretend to so much honour as to be thought capable of the suspicion of being Antichrist. My first task than is done; only two rules lie in my way, which if I cannot remove, some stronger hand may. First, I confess my dulness cannot apprehend how these should stand together; that outward splendour should be the mark of the true Church, and an argument of God's special favour; and yet the great merit and proof and praise of Sanctity should consist in wilful poverty: If perfection of holiness be found in bravery, how is not St. Francis a fool? a true Fatuellus indeed, as himself confesses. He whom they make one of the prime Saints in Heaven, goes woolward, barelegged, scrubbing in haircloth, and lousy rags, measuring the greater sanctimony of his minors and minims', by the multitude of their patches, 
Humilis Franciscus debet in sede Luciferi sedere. Lib. conformitate, Franc. Foecundatur.  and is therefore advanced to the void Throne of Lucifer himself, because no rogue upon earth was so poor as he: whilst that man whose Title is holiness itself, challenges to have no peer under Heaven, and rides on the neck of Princes; Aread me this Riddle who can. Secondly, I am much scrupled to find the reason why no Pope since that prime Apostle (whom they claim to succeed) ever chose to call himself by the name of Peter. Yea they all purposely shun it; there have been those who were christened by that name at the Font, but have changed it when they come to the chair, as Petrus de Tarantasia would be Innocent the fourth, Petrus Carafa would be Paul the fifth; and Sergius the third was once a Peter; which howsoever Baronius would seem to impute to their modesty, and great reverence to their first founder, yet that is but a mere shuffle: for had they not as much reason to reverence the name of St. Paul as St. Peter? since both are confessed to be their joynt-founders; and Paul professes that he was not inferior to the chief Apostles; yet we see Carafa cast off Peter and take up Paul. Besides, do we not see it ordinary for men to wear those names without scruple, which are worthy of higher reverence than that of Peter? One calls himself Frater Archangelus, another Raphael, another Michael, another Gabriel, another Thomas de Jesu, another Johannes de Jesu Maria, another de Dieu, and many other the like: No no; I do much fear this proceeds from the conscience of their guiltiness; as justly doubting, lest this name would plainly upbraid them with their palpable dissimilitude to that their first pattern, whiles every one that hears it would be ready to say, How like is this Peter the Pope to Peter the Apostle? were the old Fisherman alive, would he not say, Can this be my successor? Had not Raphael Urbin, the famous Painter, just reason (when he was challengd for laying too much colour on the faces of Peter and Paul) to say that he did it purposely to represent them blushing in heaven to see the Church swayed by such Successors? Successors (to contradict the old gloss) rather to Augustus the Emperor, than Peter the Fisher; And what do we think the head of the Church above, will say of her head below? What my Vicar and thus gay and pompous? was this my garb whiles I was on the earth? What a perfect copy is here of my meekness and humility? was I lackeyed and congied by great Princes? was my toe ever reached out to be kissed by the great Potentates of the earth? Did not I when I stood despicably to be judged by Pilate, say, My Kingdom is not of this World? 
John 18.36.  Did not I say to my Disciples, Vos non sic, It shall not be so with you. Here I confess I stick; but some of the learned society will easily take me off.  
Perhaps some malevolents will be apt to lay in our dish the example of Heraclius the Emperor, 
Adricomius de Terra Sancta.  who having got a piece of our saviour's cross would have carried it in princely state through the High-street of Jerusalem; and being bravely mounted, was entering through the guilded gate with that intention; but being met by the grave Patriarch Zacharias, and admonished how little that pomp would agree to the precedent of his crucified Saviour, who in no less humility than disgrace, walked sadly with his cross on his shoulders, through those streets towards his Calvary; presently alighted, disrobed himself, passed mournfully on foot along that very way which his Saviour had trodden before him; as holding it more meet to imitate the lowly dejectedness of his blessed Redeemer, then to Triumph in the joy of so precious a relic. But, Tush, we live by rules, not by examples; iwis, these men know a better way than so, finding it far sweeter to enjoy the munificence of their Saviour in so lavish a prosperity, then to imitate him in his poverty and suffering; and upon this account, can laugh at the impotent enuiers' of their greatness, and applaud themselves in the glad sense of their outward felicity, as a Church beforehand Triumphant here, whosoever shall prove to be so in heaven.   

CHAP. II. The triumph of Pleasure.  
HOw far more gaysome and glorious the Religion of our Grandmother Rome is then all her emulous corrivals, you have fully seen; see now how far more jolly, more pleasant and jovial; a consideration worthy of your thoughts; for who would care for a profession that hath no life in it? for a gloomy and dull Religion that hath no more Sun in it then Jordanus Bishop of Ravenna out of Strabo reports of our Britain; 
Chronìc. de Origine Gothorum.  which he saith is always overcast with perpetual fogs and thick mists; blessed little less with the light of that glorious Planet by night then by day. A cheerful and sprightly Devotion for my money; although I perceive even the very Turks themselves are so far from a melancholy dumpishness, 
Blunt's relat. of this Travels.  that there is scarce one of them that hath not his fiddle with two or three strings hanging at his girdle to cheer him up: But sure a little mirth is more worth than a great deal of sorrow; and if our mortified Votaries had not thought so, they would never have endured that their Friar iuniper should go away (which I blush and tremble to write) with the title of Joculator Christi. 
Frater Juniperus Joculator Christi: Liber Conform. p. 106.   
What a merry World it is then with those under the Roman obedience, who is so blind that sees not? For first as it was said of Athens long since, that that City alone had more Feasts than all Greece beside; so may we say of Rome and her appurtenants, that she hath, and makes, and keeps more Festivals, than all the rest of Christendom put together; Tertullian could say of old, that only those fifty holidays, betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide (which the ancient Church kept with so cheerful regard, that in that space no man did so much as de geniculis adorare) were more than the superstitious Heathen kept all the whole year through; What would that witty African say if he now lived to see the multitude of play-days which are enacted and solemnly observed by our Roman lawgivers?  
If you know not, they have their double, and half double Festivals; 
Vide Gavantum de Festis Sanctorum. 7.10.  the double both greater and lesser; In the clementine recognition of the breviary distinguished into four ranks, of all which if need were I could give you a perfect calendar, all in red letters. Let it be sufficient to know that the half-double Festivals with the Sundays exceed the numder of 130. as their Gavantus hath punctually reckoned; and that the Double Festivals of Saints, besides those (not a few) of Christ and his blessed Mother in the Roman Calendar are 64. where note by the way, that the lords-days are but half-double Festivals, whereas many Saints days are (Duplicia majora) the greater kind of Double Festivals, and their observations after High mass is accordingly. Good reason that the waiters should be set and served before their Masters, the Saints above their Maker: Now if we put all these together, see what a merry life they lead who live under the Roman obedience above all Geuses and Hugvenois, who are all the while droiling, and snoiling at their labour, whiles these other like Gentlemen (or as the Saxon term was of old, idle men) take their pleasure in ease and disport. Teriullian might have been wiser than to say even in those days when holidays were more thin swoon, 
Tertull. Apologetico.  Dies festi minuendi; Holidays would be abated: The Church is since grown more free and liberal, and hath ordained, that if there be not holidays enough, it may be in the power of the Bishop within his diocese to make more; though indeed curtalled to the half; with this caution too, that he must call the people together beforehand, and know of them, whether such his grant may be for their case; for it may be some narrow-hearted fellows may be apt to take up that snudging complaint which Petrus de Aliaco the Cardinal of Cambray made in his discourse of the Reformation of the Church, 
Dies operabiles vix sufficiunt pauperibus virae necessaria procuranda. Petr. de Aliaco. de Reform. Eccles. jussu Sigismond Imperatoris Scrip.  Dies operabiles, &c. The work-days (saith he) all the year through are scarce sufficient for poor men to get necessaries to keep life and soul together; It is no matter; Let them ply it the harder while they are at it.  
But the having of holidays is not all; all is in the keeping them. And as the Romans of old had their Flamines, 
Macrob. Saturn. l. 1. c. 16.  whose care it was to see that those Festival days were duly observed; so have their Successors, still their Consistorialls with their buss Flies under them, which will be sure to fetch up, and plague those, who shall dare to defile any Holiday with a stitch of work: But now, what manner of keeping is this we talk of? Somewhere they keep some few (though somewhere none) in a poor dull fashion, only in going to Church and doing nothing; as if they were mere Vacunalia and no more; only our frolic Catholics, know how to keep them like themselves, in Feasting, Dancing, revelling, in bear-baitings, and all other sportful Games; in so much, as our froward Countyman Bromiard could say, that the Devil had more and better service done him that day, than all the week beside. Tertullian was too scrupulous when he stood upon Casté agitandi; as if those days were to be soberly spent, and especially devoted to piety. Pope Gregory was yet more indulgent, whiles he allows that the Pagan Feasts should be so turned to Christian, as that there should be some kind of observation of such fashions and pastimes, as might be pleasingly suitable to their former guise; of each whereof every man will take the counsel of Thierrick Vallicolor to Cardinal Antherus.  
Hoc celebri festo solito jucundior esto.  
Upon the day of this celebrios Feast  
More mirthful be then upon all the rest.  
They have their Jovial (which some sour cynic would call licentious) Carneval, wherein every man cries Sciolto, letting himself loose to the maddest of merriments, marching wildly up and down in all forms of disguises; each man striving to outgo other in strange pranks of humorous debauchedness, in which even those of the holy Order are wont to be allowed their share; for howsoever it was by some sullen authority forbidden to Clerks and Votaries of any kind to go masked and misguised in those seemingly abusive Solemnities, 
Bononiae autem ubi ipsimet Laici clerico ad hoc incitant atque invitant, Dicentes (licet falso) larvarum usum maxime propter clericos esse inventum; nullum est scandalum atque ideo non nisi veniale peccatum Alphons. Vivald. Candle. Aur. de Vsu larvarum.  yet more favourable construction hath offered to make them believe that it was chiefly for their sakes for the refreshment of their sadder and more restrained spirits, that this free and lawless Festivity was taken up; In comparison whereof some rigid censurer would say the Roman and Grecian Bacchanals were sober pastime; add to these their pleasant plays, and lively Pageants, wherewith they celebrate the great Festivals of the Nativity, Passion, and Resurrection of our blessed Saviour: There might you see the Gospel upon the Stage: There might you see Christ acted (all but his real dying) to the life; There might your eyes have met with Judas that betrayed him, in all his activity, save only not hanging himself: There also with bold Peter that would have rescued his Master, but without an ear slashed off, there with blind Longinus that pierced him, there you should have seen him bleeding, and expiring; and might perhaps smile at the causeless tears of some passionate women, that deeply feel the tor● and pain of that counterfeit crucifixion: There should you see him gently let down by the honest Arimamat ●ean from the Cross for fear of hurting; shortly, there you might see the sequel of that holy story very finely mocked with a feigned and too-scenical representation.  
Or if you desire to feed your cares no less than your eyes; do but hear the ravishing harmony of their sweet music, both at their Mass and Vespers; I dare say, the spheres of Heaven make none such.  
These delights are Universal; but besides them, there are specialties of pleasure proper to places and persons without number. B●ccius the pleasant monk, when he was asked by Pope Paul the third which was the merriest day at Rome, could answer him, 
Papyr. Masson. Paulo. 3.  that wherein the Pope dies, and that wherein his Successor is chosen; and indeed the former of these is most outrageously lawless, the other most comfortable in their renewed hopes. The old saying is, that a Dog hath his day; but for all his jesting, the life of their holy father affords them many gaudy days: In the beneficial visits of Emperor and Kings, in the Feasts and Munificent entertainments of their Cardinals, and especially that solemn day wherein his Holiness bounseth at St. Peter's Church door. What merry work it was here in the days of our Holy Fathers (and I know not whether in some places it may not be so still) that upon Saint Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and holy Innocent day, children were wont to be arrayed in Chimers, Rochets, Surplices, to counterfeit Bishops and priests, and to be led with Songs and Dances from house to house, blessing the people who stood girning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction: Yea that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing Masses, and to climb into the Pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple Auditory. And this was so really done, that in the Cathedral Church of Salisbury (Unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy Bishops (who died in the time of his young Pontificality) accoutred in his Episcopal Robes, still to be seen; A fashion that lasted until the latter times of King Henry the eight, who in the 33. year of his Reign, Anno Domini 1541. by his solemn Proclamation, Printed by Thomas Bertler the King's Printer, cum privilegio, straightly forbade the practice.  
And that you may not think this sporting foolery peculiarly confined to our Island, know that it was taken up in other Countries also. The Council of Saltzburgh, very bluntly tells you in the year 1274. Lude quidam noxii; There are say they, certain harmful sports, which the Vulgar calls [Eptus puor] that is, Episcopatus Puerorum, used in some Churches so insolently, that many times great errors and grievous offences ensue upon them; 
Hos ludos in Ecclesiis & a person is Ecclisiasticis de caetero fieri prohibemus.  These sports (say they severely enough) we forbid hereafter to be used in Churches, and of Ecclesiastical persons: But withal, 
Nisi forte parvi sedecim annorum et infra fuerint qui hujusmod; Ludos exercent, Concil. Saltezburgh, Anno Domini 12▪ 4 been.  those fathers gravely add (nisi forte) and unless perhaps they be used by children of sixteen years old or under: then belike they might be allowed to play the fools with good li●●ing.  
Neither had the boys only leave to play thus, but the men, yea even Clerks themselves took leave to be so prodigal of their mirth, that they gave themselves liberty to go up and down the Country, and make themselves Jesters and buffoons in great men's houses; in so much, as the second council of Saltzburgh thought it requisite to mar their mirth, unkindly restraining them by so strict a Law, that whosoever should practise that (as they pleased to call it) ignominious Art, 
Clerici quî se Jocula tores seu Galiardos fecere aut buffoons, si per annum exercuerint illam iguominiosam artem, ipso jure, &c. Concil. Saltzburg. 2. Anno 1310.  for a whole year together should ipso jure remain under the deepest censure; but if a shorter time, being thrice admonished, he repented not, he was to be stripped, of all clerical privileges: And as the Clerks were notoriously active in these mirthful disorders, so they were no less passive in some other. When a young priest was to say his first mass, 
Missae novae convivia, Ludi, chor●ae tollantur. Ex. Prov. 2. Gavantus. V. Missae.  what a costly height of merry entertainment was he wont to be put to, what Meat, what Wine what music was sufficient for this gratulation? And if a soldier were to be honoured with a Military Girdle, how were all the neighbour Parsonages filled with the chargeable entertainment of that jolly and revelling retinue?  
What pleasure through his Holinesses indulgence do his white sons of Spain find in their Juogo de Toros, 
In regnis Hispaniae praedictae paenae sunt revocatae (scil taurorum & ferarum agitatoribus) his condicionibus, ne fiant dicbus feslis, & ita ut non possit mors sequi, Iniisdem regnis eadem concessit Clemens 8. adhortans ne hac benignitare abutantur. Anno 1596. Gavant. V. Torneamentum.  which though it were not long since for the great inconveniences (which were found in it) loudly bellowed down by a Bull from Rome; yet now lately upon some cautious terms is let as lose as the Bull that is hunted, and even Clerks and religious Persons not inhibited from being spectators.  
What should I speak of our merry Wakes, and May-games, and Christmas triumphs, which you have once seen here, and may see still in those under the Roman dition; In all which put together, you may well say, No Greek can be merrier than they. Now on the other side, in opposition to these jollities, what I pray you, hath Protestancy to lay in the scales, that might weigh down, or but sway the Balance to an equilibration? yea what is there here but a sad, serious, sportlesse Devotion? All they can say or do, is (as their preachers inculcate to them for their cold comfort) that of St. James, If ye be merry, sing psalms; and that of St. Paul, In psalms and hymns and Spiritual Songs, singing with a grace in your hearts unto the Lord; and to labour for that inward joy of the Holy Ghost, which may make them truly and secretly happy; as for outward recreations, they allow them gladly, but only such forsooth, as whereby the body may be better, and the soul no worse; and higher they will not go. Alas, we have either no holidays, or no sport in them, no Jubilees, no Carnevals, no Pageants, no musical Vespers, no Bishops now (as it falls out) either boys of Men; no baiting of Bulls, but with Dogs to observe a Statute, no Wakes, no May-games, no Christmas Lords; shortly like weak melancholics we boast of no pleasure, but honest, sober, modest, and such as might not misbecome an hermit, nor shame a Saint.   

CHAP. III. The trinmgh of holiness.  
WHiles we profess to lament the impurity of the lives of too many of ours, confessing it uncapable of either denial or concealment, our Good mother of Rome boasts still of her holiness, and we may believe her. Only it hath been her unhappy lot to meet with unkind sons, which have not stuck to blazon her as shamefully foul, both in life and doctrine; and her mishap hath been yet the harder, that the honester men have been still the more clamorous. It was but a gentle word of Cassander when he said, 

Non inficior Romanam Ecclesiam a prisco suo decore & splendore non parum diversam. Cassand, de offic. boni. viri.  
Status insuper Ecclesiae nonne factus est totus quasi brutalis & monstrosus. Gers. Serm. in die Circumcisionis. Inquirite si quae hodie claustra Monialium facta sunt sicut prostibula meretricun; siquae Consecrata Canonicorum Monasteria siant quasi fora & diversoria, etc, Joh. Gers. declaratio defectum.   he denied not but that the Church of Rome had not a little departed from her wonted beauty and splendour: But who would believe that so pious a man as John Gerson, Chancellor of Paris should so slander his mother as to say, The state of the Church is grown altogether brutish and monstrous; and should give an Item to the overseers to inquire whether the Cloisters of nuns be not become the stews of Harlots, and the Monasteries of Canons be not grown to be inns and Market-places; and whether their Cathedral Churches be not made the dens of thieves and Robbers; And that another no less godly than he, should say, that the Church is grown to that pass, that it is not worthy to be governed by any but by Reprobates. 

Libido s●upri, gulae, coeterique indecoris non minor incesserat Adolescentes Pati muliebria, sacerdotes sacere virilia, vestales pudicitiam in propatulo, habere, &c.  
Nam quicunque impudicus adulter & ganeo, anu, pene, ventre bona patria Lancinaverat, Romam velut in Asylum se recipiebat Orat. praemonitoria Caesaris Branchedauriae ad Imper. &c.   Who would think that so wise a man as Caesarius Branchedorus could so far overreach as to say, that the lusts of whoredom and gluttony, and other shameful enormities had gotten such an head, that young men did Pati muliebria, and priests did facere virilia; that their nuns did as it were openly profess unchastity: and at last, that who soever was noted to be a shameless Adulterer, or a wild Ruffian that had lavished out all his Patrimony anu, pene, ventre, was sure to betake himself to the Court of Rome as his Sanctuary; Yea who would think that such a Saint as Bernard should not stick to say of some places under the Roman obedience, 

Si auderem dicere ' daemonum magis quam ovium pascua haec. Bern. Consid. l. 4. c. 2.  
Dico tamen in nostris Episcopatibus, jus, ●as, honestas, religio perierunt. Bern. in persona Episcopi, Treverensis Epist. 177.  
Vertant (aiebant majores) uxores in sorores, ac. haec aeras vertit in scortilla, amiculas & metetriculas, & consequenter liberos legitimos in mamzeres, nothos & spurios.  
Espenc. Appendice Deus abstulit nobis filios, Diabolus dedit nepotes. Alexand. Papa, Idem. citante Espencoeo: ibid.  
Non huc adducam quanta sit turba Monasteriorum, in quibus adeo nulla viget disciplina pletatis ut prae his lup●nacia si●t & magis sobria & magis pudica. Erasm. Epist. Grunnio.  
Deteriores profecto non Gentilibus, verum etiam Daemonibus. Nic. Clemangis de lapsu & repar. Justitiae.  
Albert. Argentinus in Chronic. Revis. de Conc. de Trente.   that they were not pastures of Sheep, but (if he durst say so) of Devils; and could cry out that in their bishoprics, Justice, Right, Honesty, Religion, were utterly lost. Who could have looked for such language to fall from so grave a father as Espencaeus, that our Ancestors wished that Clerks should turn their Wives into their Sisters; but now our Age turns them into lemen and Whores, and Harlots, and consequently their lawful issue into Bastards; And again, God hath taken away our sons, and the Devil hath given us nephews. Who could imagine that so learned and ingenuous a man as Erasmus, would so far wrong his Neighbours as to say, (turba monasteriorum,) a number of Monasteries are so degenerated, that the stews are more chaste, and sober, and modest than they. That so honest a man as Nicol de Clemangis should cry out of these sacrilegious profaners of the Church, as worse, not then Heathens only, but then very Devils. And what shall we say to that holy Bishop who told, Benedict the 12. then newly elected Pope, that he had had a Vision wherein that face of his was clearly represented to him, and withal, that therein, also there was shown to him a beastly dirty stable with a white Marble coffer in the midst of it, very fair but empty, adding this Commentary upon his said Vision to his new holiness: You are that white coffer, the Church is that stable; it beho●es you to purge the Court and See Apostolic which is at this day in a soul and beastly condition All this while these men speak not of those professedly debauched wretches, that make a trade of filthiness, whereof yet St. Thomas Aquinas makes a cleanly comparison, 
Id facit in mundo meretrix qoud sentina in navi, in palatio cloaca. Tolle baec & omnia ●aetore replebis. Thom. de Reg. Princ. l. 4.  and in a sort a plea for their toleration; That a Whore in the World is as the pump in the Ship, or a privy in a Palace; Take these away, and you shall fill them with stench and annoyance: Surely (by the way) upon this account Rome must needs be very sweet, when in that City alone in the year 1565. as it said, there were reckoned no fewer than 2800. 
Rivet. in Petri Sanct.  courtesans; whereof if any should be coy and pretend to a repentant modesty, 
Cogi possunt ad patiendum, se cognosci. Anton. Schappius in Lib. de Jure non scripto. Vivald. Cand. 4. part. c. 3.  some grave Authors of theirs have taught that they may be compelled to their fornication, though the shamefaced Casuist Covarruvids' blush at the motion: but what speak I of Fornication, Fornication is but mere chastity in comparison of what their own Casuists confess to be usually acted in their 〈◊〉; I will favour chaste eyes in concealing it. 
Athenaus & Aelianus.  It was a strange Devotion in the Heathen Corinthians, that they prayed for an increase of their Whores, and thought to please their gods with vows of bringing in more supply of courtesans. I never heard that Venice itself ever did so much: iwis, there is no need of any such Devotion, there are store of such cattle everywhere. 
Supplicat of Beggars. Vid. Fox. Monum. and Acts.  The supplication of Beggars tendered to King Henry the eight, assured him that by virtue of the sacred Votaries, there were 100000. Whores in this our Nation; not all such sure by open profession (as what and how many acts make up that trade) which some measure only by scores, 
Truly they do nothing but apply themselves in all things how they may have every man's Wife, every man's Daughter, & every man's Maid. ubi supra.  others by thousands (I leave to their Vivaldus, and Mosconius to determine) but by secret constupration; for they instance in men's Wives and Daughters, and maidservants thus foully debauched; though no doubt many a one of them the while, wiped their mouths and made fair weather of it, 
Luther. Sermones Gonvivales.  pretending chastity, and therein resembling a foul close-stool with a gilt cover: Neither was it otherwise elsewhere; whereupon it was that Dr. Staupitius told the Bishop of Magdeburgh that he was the greatest whoremaster in Germany; for whereas other masters of the trade had but fifty florins yearly, the Bishop had no less for his rent of them then 500 l. Did these odious crimes shroud their heads in Brothel-houses only, the shame were less; Although the very Abassines could teach us to bar these filthes out of our Cities, and as our fore fathers were wont to disgrace them with peculiar habits of infamy; But that the reproach of such foul guiltiness should be cast upon holy Orders, upon persons professing strict mortification, 

Quidam sacerdotes cum propriis sororibus concum bentes Filios exeis generarunt, omnes ergo foeminae excludantur. Concil. Moguntin. sub Stephano. c. 10. Providendum est quantum possumus ne mali sacerdotes sint; etiamsi boni multi esse non possumus. Salm. Tract. Christum. esse in Euchar. adorand. Domini Eccles. non damnetis animas vestras habetis maintenant filos virgins. Habetís aves cantantes de nocte quae sunt a la cage vos bene intelligitis me; Ponatis eas extra. Menot. Feria a post Dominic. 40. fol. 129.  
Omnia bona Ecclesia sticorum transe●ntper eroismots de I. Ave Marie. Primo benedicta tu, Ce sont les grandes pomps, grandes bragances, &. Menot. Feria. 6. Sab. post Dominic. 40. fol. 8.  
Certe videtur quod praelati sint per modum flagelli missi a Deo, vel potius dati a Diabolo ad destruendum & depopulandum ecclesiam. Idem. Menot. fol. 81. Quidam dicunt que le corones des Prestres seront pavees des cues de enfer. Menot. fol. 63.   the slander is intolerable: Were the fathers of the Council of Mentz well advised when they could say, Quidam sacerdotes, &c. some priests lie with their own Sisters, and beget children of them? Was Salmeron sober when he said, we must provide what we may that our priests may not be bad men, though many of us cannot be good? Was the zealous Preacher friar Mènotein in his right wits when in the Pulpit he played so boldly upon the Clergy; Ye, my Masters of the Church, do not damn your souls; ye have now Birds in a Cage that chirp to you by night; ye know my meaning; put them away. Did he not rave when he told them that all the goods of their Churchmen pass away upon three words of the Ave Marie; First Benedicta tu, in their great pomps and braveries; The second, in mulieribus, their Gossips and lemen; The third Fructus ventris, in their Banquets and belly-cheer? But was he not stark staring mad when he siad, Verily it seems that our Prelates were sent of God by way of a scourge to us, or rather given by the Devil to destroy and ruin the Church; and other where, they say that the streets of hell are paved with our priests crowns; yea, not to mention Dominicus a Soto; which confesses the multitude of concubinaries, and adulterers, in their Clergy; 
Sacerdos quidam rediens a focaria sua, &c. Brom, Sum. predunt V. Luxuria.  Was not out Bromiard worthy of a sharp censure for that shrewd tale which he tells of a priest returning from his leman somewhat late, who hearing a lamentable noise of a ghost not far from him, asked what or who he was? the ghost replied, who art thou that askest? A priest said the man: A priest? said the ghost, A priest? and being asked why he redoubled the word with such a vehemency, answer was made by the ghost, that there came daily such store of priests to hell, 

Mali praelati animas tradunt custodiendas daemonibus 1. malis curatis qui eas plus quam daemons destruunt. Brom. ibid. V. Praelatus.  
Quia daemons non tot committerant luxurias, &c.   that he had thought there had been none left alive upon earth: And elsewhere, Mali Praelati, &c. Ill Prelates saith he, commit souls to the Devils to keep, that is, to lewd Curates which destroy them more than the Devils themselves; for the very Devils would not commit such riotous outrages, nor give so many wicked examples as they: Not to make any reckoning of our Jeffry Chaucer or their friar Mantuan, whose tongues shall pass for no slander. 

Horror enim est audire quam multa perperam per 28. ferme Episcopos sint admissa.  
Naucler. vel 2. generate. 31.   What shall we say to their own Chronicler Nauclerus who hath presumptuously dared to say Horror est, & c? What foul things were done by twenty eight Popes on a row, it is horrible to tell. In the mean time it is well for the fathers of the Society that they are stanche; for that their holy founder St. Ignatius Loiota prayed for them, 
Alphons. Vargas Relat. Stratagem Jesuit.  as Alphonsus Vargas tells us, that none of that fellowship for an 100 years after the rule received might fall into any deadly sin; so as all is cocksure for them, however their Tussonius, and Reihnigius, and Coprevicius are slandered with no small faults; and many false tales are told of them by their Hassenmullerus, and our secular priests, and Robinson, and Waddesworth, with other malevolents. As for the holy Sisterhood, however it have been in times of yore that scarce any one of them could be found that was not furnished with her Devotus Carnalis, as Alvarez Pelagius informs us; yet now there is order taken with them to be chaste enough (except you would stand upon the over-strict terms of the rule of St. Columbanus, 

Quid prodest virgo corpore, si non est mente? Columb. Regal.  
Fenestra qua S. Eucharistiae elevatio prospiciatur altius ne pateat duobus cubitis & unciis 2. ne sacerdos ex altare possit videre moniales Pro. 1. Gavant. V. Monialium Eccles.  
Caminus privatis cellis ne permittatur; & ubi est obstruatur. Pro. 4. Gavant.   Quid prodest, &c. what avails it to be a Virgin in body, if not in mind too?) There were never poor maids hampered with so straight laws as they; not so much as the priest at mass shall be allowed to have but a glint of them: The Bishop himself, when their persons, yet shall not visit their faces. Not to instance in more; Not a chimney shall be suffered to be made in their private Cells, or if any be made, it shall be stopped up, lest some Amorous Jupiter should descend down that way in a golden shower; and all this perhaps little enough; Ask the Sisters at Lisbon else: Poor souls, 
Inclusa quaedam sanctissime urpecat, &c. Brom. sun. V. Confessio.  what will be come of them trow we, if our Bromiard say true, who tells us of an holy Recluse which had been long meured up in her chaste Cell; at last espying a fair handsome stripling through the keyhole, having more than a month's mind to him, and soon after dying, appeared to her Sisters in a woeful posture and told them, that for that one glance of her eye, and that one wanton wish she was damned.  
Thus are those godly governors careful to prevent evils; and when they are discovered, are as ready to punish them, having ordained many sharp laws for the correction of heinous offenders; As for example, the Council of Lateran, Anno 1179. enacted, that if any Clerk were taken in that incontinency which is against nature, he should be excommunicated and cast out of the Clergy; which yet perhaps some Draco-like lawgivers would have punished with death itself. Other severe Penances have they laid upon Adulteries and such other lighter sins, as they call them, which we shall meet with in their due places.  
So as after all these scandalous aspersions cast enviously upon our holy Mother, who sees not that she surmounts in purity of conversation all her competitors; who whiles they tax her, are willing enough to forget their own guiltiness. Just as the Parthians who in fight with the Romans, having slain one Rustius a Roman soldier, 
Such as the cursed Monk Dan Constunter hath written in his Book of Coitu Chaucer merchant's Tale.  and finding in his pocket a ribaldish pamphlet called Mil●sii (as bad belike as the cursed monk Dan. Constantine wrote De coitu) cried out upon the beastly humour of these men which could bring bawdy papers into the field with them, whiles themselves who were thus clamorous had brought along with them no fewer than a thousand Harlots to follow their Camps. Clodius accusat maechos.  
And as for purity of Doctrine, who can make doubt of their sensible advantage? What though they preach up the lawfulness of the public stews, of a delusive equivocation, of the murder of heretical Kings, and determine of the horrid sacrilege of a mouse that eats her maker, the equality of Traditions to the written word of God, the inerrableness of a sinful and wicked man; an equal adoration to the stock and to the Saint, and a thousand such seeming heterodoxies? yet we must know that if the Church have defined them so, they are de fide, and must be believed by us to be no less true than the Gospel. Fond heretics will not know the Latitude of the power of the Church; but they must be taught that what point soever she shall determine, though it be but that Toby had a Dog, and that dog had a tail, it must in that name go currant for fundamental. 
Heu, Fides & Christianitas crescunt hodie sicut Lunaplena, & equus coccus. Brom. V. Fides.  Upon which weighty considerations it was (for one) that our Bromiard could say, that Faith and Christianity increase and thrive amongst them, like a full Moon, or a blind Horse.  
Now on the contrary, if you look to the lives of the Opposites, you shall find their very Leaders foully scandalous, and infamously branded; Martin Luther, if he were begot by an Incubus, yet he was an honest Friar, 
Luther. S●rm. Conviv.  as he could say of himself for 15. years together; then, as the World knows, turned Apostate: What though Erasmus and all other his adversaries confess he was (setting his marriage with Katherine Bora aside, which in a Cloister they looked upon as no less than sacrilege) of an inoffensive conversation; for although the wit of an hyperbolical Balzac can play upon him, and say he vomited as many times as he spoke; yet he should have much ado to find that (though a German) he was once drunk in his life, or guilty of any excess: Yet if a clean life, he had a foul mouth, as both the Pope and King Henry can witness, and which alone blazons him sufficiently, was taught by the Devil to cry down the mass. What if he seriously and plainly confess, that the Devil taking advantage of his former superstition urged upon him those arguments purposely to have driven him to despair for his guiltiness of that Idolatrous service? that is all one, we must believe it was done by that foul spirit in a way of hellish familiarity, and not in any hostile fashion; and though there be never so many proofs of his dying in a composed and Christian manner, yet we must be content to be faced down that he was violently killed by the Devil whom he had served. For John Calvin, it is well enough known that the World rings of him as stigmatised and foully criminous; howsoever Geneva magnifies him for Exemplary and saintlike holiness, and all men admire him for his incredible painfulness in his Station, 
Rivet. in Petr. sanct.  having for 23. years together preached daily; besides his doubled Sunday labours, and his weekly Divinity Lecture in the schools, and all this not perfunctorily performed; howsoever than any wise man might well think how utterly inconsistent such assiduous toil can be with basely-lascivious thoughts and actions [Otia si tollas, is the old and true word] And however the State of Geneva by authentical Testimony under their public seal have fully cleared him from that malicious aspersion; yet it is enough that a Balsec, his professed enemy an infamous Apostate, hath said it; he cannot be innocent whom such a Saint accuseth, though fifteen years after death. As for another of their good Leaders Huldricus Zuinglius, did it not become him well, of a preacher of peace to turn firebrand of war, to change his Gown into a Corselet, and in stead of his quiet bed to die in the field? What, if it appear that he was importunately pressed by those of his charge to yield them his presence amids their troops, not as a soldier, but as a Pastor (though armed for more security) what if he were unhappily slain amongst other his good neighbours (as it was the lot of that incomparable Chamier at Montalban) and after burnt by the Tigurines to ashes? And what if (for a marvellous Testimony of his honest intentions) his heart alone was three days after such his combustion found in that heap of ashes entire and untouched? yet how can it be other than a foul slur to his reputation, that a professed Preacher should be found thus dead, and wrapped not in lead but in iron? Whatever liberty latter times have taken, neither the ancient Councils abroad, nor our Octobone Canons at home, would have endured it; and we know who sending the coat-armour of a consecrated person taken captive to the Pope, could say, Vide an haec sit tunica filii tui; See if this be your son's coat.  
To let pass their guides, if we cast down our eyes upon their followers in general, Cardinal Bellarmine hath passed their doom roundly and soundly. As for the people (saith he) there are indeed in the Catholic Church many bad men, but of the heretics there is not one good; Ipse dixit; and if the Cardinals make up but one body with the Pope, by virtue of that union he can no more err in his sentence then his holiness himself; and so actum est de haereticis; the sum of all is, The Church of Rome after all slanders is holy; the opposite Churches after all Apologies are equally impure as she is holy.   

CHAP. IV. The triumph of Power.  
AS in Glory, Pleasure, and Purity, so much more in Power doth our foresaid Mother of Rome exceed all her Rivals. Lest you doubt it, her power is clearly seen in her mighty jurisdiction, and in her miraculous operations. For first, what is it that her ministerial head wants of omnipotency? 
Supra jus, contra jus, &c. Moscon. de Majest. Eccl. milit. l. 1. De summo. Pont.  Ask Mosconius, and he can assure you that the Pope is above law, against law, without law, and therefore can do all things; he can open and shut Heaven, Hell, 
In omni promissorio juramento Potestas Papae excipitur. Reg. Cas. Jo. Bacon in 4. Dist. 25. q. 14.  and Purgatory; He can dispense with vows and oaths; insomuch as in every promissory oath that a man swears, the Pope's power is tacitly fore-excepted; He can increase the number of the Books of the holy Scripture; He can Canonize Saints, 
Revis. du Concil. de Trente.  Depose and dethrone Kings, Dispose of all earthly Dominions; So as it was acutely distinguished by Jacobus de Terano, that when our Saviour gave charge to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, he meant it for a continuance but only for the present until the time of his crucifixion, telling us that when he shall be lifted up, he will draw all to him; that is (saith he) he will take away all the kingdoms of the Earth from Temporal Princes, and bestow them upon his holy Vicar the Pope, 
Rodrigoez Cas. Conscient.  by virtue whereof he can mould and frame Kings to his own pleasure; For example, he can command a King to take such a wife as he shall recommend to him; he can dethrone and depose the proudest Monarch. Yea what do I speak so narrowly and mincingly of his power? he is Rex Regum, 
Moscon. Ubi supra.  and Dominus Dominantium, the King of Kings, 

Omnis rationalis creatura Papae imperio subjacer. Ibid.  
Papae unum Tribnal cum Deo. Ibid.   and Lord of Lords; every rational creature is subject to his rule and command: and in short he hath one and the same Tribunal with God himself; So as it was but his meet Title, that was in our time given to Pope Paul the fifth; Paulo Quinto Vice-Deo; 
Gul. Sruther. Spec. Princip.  which after some agitation in the consistory, was resolved upon by his holiness to be a style not unfit for himself to own. Genesius Sepulveda would seem to tell us no less, Ponti●●ces pro Deo habemus, we account of the Pope as instead of God himself; 
Quicunque desiderat primatum in terra, inveniet confusionem in coelo. Chrysost. in Matth. hom. 43. Ibid Moscon.  Papae: this height is for wonder, not for emulation. Now, what if a Saint Chrysostom shall say, He that affects a Primacy on Earth, shall find confusion in Heaven; That wind shakes no corn; certainly he were much too blame, that having the keys of Heaven hanging at his girdle, would not let in himself.  
If you think fit to look down to the subordinate Clergy, their power will be found no less than stupendious: As no Prelate but hath power to excommunicate, so their excommunication is dreadfully powerful. The abbey of Fusniack was horribly infested with flies; 
Vita Bernardi.  Excommunico eas, said the holy Abbot of Clarevall; on the next morning those noisome guests are found all dead in the floor: 

A. Roberto Grosthead Ep. Lincoln. Vivaldus, Excom. est jumentum Diaboli.  
Ossa tacta a Rob. Brook excom. per Thomam Becket canes noluerunt comedere. Florileg. Anno 1170.   A white loaf upon the words of excommunication passed turns as black as a coal; absolved, turns to the former hew. Robert Brook being excommunicate, (and by virtue thereof become jumentum Diaboli) the very Dogs refused to take the bones from his hands, which he offered unto them; and as readily snatched away being tendered by others; 
Mr. Clovet in his motives to conversion.  They can give up whom they list to the power of the Devil, and rid whom they please from that evil spirit by their mighty exorcisms. 

Leo African. def●r. Affricaae  
Diabolo possidenti quendam, dicit Franc. Faciam Fratrem juniperum venire contra te, nisi recedas, & Daemon subito recedebat. Lib. Conform. Francisc. Foecundatur fructu. 8.   And if but a piece of a Versicle of Despauterius his grammar be but muttered over the demoniac, Carbasus hic, &c. the foul spirit dares not abide by it: But if it be some stiff Fiend such as the African conjurers of Fez were wont to style airy spirits, let but St. Francis threaten to send friar iuniper to him, he dares not stand the encounter; so as it was a word of unjust disparagement which Chrysostom could cast upon their Exorcists, Nos miseri, 
Nos miseri & calamitofi qui neque culices expellere possumus; nedam Daemones. Chrysost. in illa Qui credit in me majora faciet.  &c. miserable and woeful creatures that we are, we cannot so much as expel fleas, much less Devils. But it is yet a far higher power which every Priest by virtue of his office can and dares challenge to exercise, even no less than to create his maker. Casseneus can tell you, Licet Angelus; 

Licet Angelus possit unum coelum movere. &c.  
Cassen. Glor. Mundi. 4. num. 6.   although (saith he) one Angel can move one heaven, yet he cannot bring down one of those heavens to the earth: But a Priest can speedily and suddenly fetch the true body of Christ from Heaven to the Altar, even in so short a space as the Sun can diffuse his beams of light; Yea herein a Priest saith the Author exceeds the power of the Archangels: 
Imo vero superat potestatem Archangelorum, ubi supra.  And I hope we shall not need to strive to go higher; and let this be the beginning of her miraculous operations, though ordinarily and constantly wrought: There is a world beside of extraordinary and occasional miracles whereby her Religion is not a little honoured and confirmed. Iwis, our Reformers must confess themselves here to seek: Can they boast of a St. Bridget, 

St. Brigida panem datum cani adulanti, quod restituitur in caldario; vita Brigid● Kildurensis a Cogitoso ejus nepote scripta.  
Os infantis nuperrimè nati, &c.   that having given a piece of Bacon to a fawning cur, yet after he had eaten it found it again restored in her kettle? That but signing a newborn Infant with a cross, caused it to disclaim the wrongfully imputed father and to name the true; and was not the child (trow we) as miraculous as the Saint, 

Pater meus on est Episcopus Broen, sed homo ille vila qui in populo ultimus sedet. Jo. Capgrave in vita Brigid●.  
Tangens lignum altaris, in testimonium virginitatis, statim viride factum est, vita Brig. p. 206. Ova fracta pauperculae signo crucis reparavit. ●lorileg. St. Brendanus Paschalem solemnitatem supra monstrosam maris belluam per septennii spatium celebravit.  
Gerald. Camtr. trues de mirac. c. 10.  
Post longos & indefatigabiles labores desideratissima Paradisi terrestris visione, &c. Idem ibid.   that he could know his own father? That for a proof of her Virginity, did but touch the sear-wormeaten wood of the Altar, and turn it fresh and green. Can they brag of a Saint Swithine that by making the sign of the cross made whole the poor woman's eggs that were all unhappily broken in her basket?  
Can they show us a St. Brendais that for seven years together celebrated his Easter upon a Whales back, mistaken at first for an Island; but when it was perceived, St. Machu●es (as happy was) by his prayers fixed that Sea-monster for starting; so as after that, the same Saint traveled so far as to the earthly Paradise, and as good luck was, returned safely home: But whether that Whale lay there lieger for the whole seven years together, or whether it came kindly every Easter to seek and find out St. Brendan, and to offer the service of his back to so holy a purpose (because the earth could not afford room enough for that business) truly I cannot show you.  

Libro de sanctis Hibernicis nuper Latin. edit.  Can they produce us such a Saint as St. Fingare, who sailing from Ireland upon a broad leaf into Cornwall, in the disappointment of her shipping, being martyred by the Tyrant, carried her head in her arms (just as the great French Saint did) up to an hill not far off, with intention to bury it there; but hearing some unquiet Gossips scolding there, brought it down into the valley, and washing it in a Well that sprang up there, purposely in the place quietly buried it and herself? Now in my mind, Dr. Picard●● of Paris the late ill-advised Editor of those uncouth relations of the Irish Saints, with so great gravity and authority, was much too blame to give the heretics such free leave to laugh at those too-admirable Stories, 
Rideant sane si volunt segreges hodierni. Picard. praefat.  which otherwise they might have perhaps passed over without any great change of countenance, or at least with an easy smile; whereas now they cannot but laugh a good at his so prodigal indulgence and prodigious faith.  
Can you brag of a Saint Clare that stood still from holy Thursday in the afternoon till the Saturday Vespers in one place [nihil perpendendo] thinking of nothing? 
St. Clara sterit a die Jovis sancto post vesperam usque ad Sabathi sancti horam tertiam nihil perpendendo. Lib. conform. fol. 105. Lib. de sanctis Hibern. praecitat.  wherein yet she had not so much patience as her Sister-Saint in Ireland, who putting her hand out of her window, had a Thrastle came and laid her eggs in her hand; where the good woman stood stock still till those eggs were hatched, and in all likelihood stirred not till the pretty Birds were fledge, that she might not lose the fruit of so great a mercy. In the mean time we must think the place was no less sweet, 
Wilhelm●s Abbot Willariensis jussit oeconomum bovem suum, &c. Spec. exempt. ex. Tho. Canterprat.  than was the music of that grateful Bird.  
Can they show us such a merciful Saint as the good Abbot of Willar, who to save a poor big-bellied woman's longing, killed his ox, and gave the poor soul a good piece of beef thereof, which yet was the next morning found alive soundly grazing in his pasture? Can they tell us of such a Saint as the holy Bishop Everm●●dus of Raceburgh, 

Everm. Raceburg. Episcopus Chirothecas deposuit; inventae sunt in aere penpentes.  
Lib. de sanct. tribun. Fr. Conradus qui suscitavit quinque mortuos. Lib. Conform. pag. 199.   who thinking to lay his Mittins upon a spirgat on the wall, left them hanging upon the sunbeams; right, so as St. Bridget (alike mistaking) hanged her wet cloak. Can they show us such a Thaumaturgus as friar Conrad; who raised five men from the dead? or such a powerful Orator as friar Antony of Padua; who finding his labour lost in converting the heretics, went to the Sea side and called the Fishes together both small and great, 
Ingens multitudo piscium accessit & caput exerebant extra mare. Confor. Franc. Foecundatur.  which in whole shoals assembled themselves, and lifting up their heads above the water, listened very attentively to his forcible persuasions, and no doubt could not but be turned Catholics, as they plainly testified in their silence: The success whereof could not but stir envy in the peevish heretics, who bidding the holy man to supper, set before him a great ugly Toad, 
Unde Bufonem ingentem &c. ecce corpus caponis calidissimum & olens, &c. Ibid.  urging him with that charge in the Gospel [whatsoever shall be set before you, eat] but he did only make the sign of the cross over it, and it was suddenly turned into a goodly fat Capon, piping hot from the spit, 
Fr. Bened. de Aretio multum devotus Danieli. Prophetae, affectavit ejus sepulchrum, &c. Lib. Conform. fol. 73.  Can they name us such a Favourite as friar Benedict of Aretium, who having been much devoted to the blessed memory of the Prophet Daniel, had a great mind to visit his tomb in Babylon; but being disheartened with the length of the journey, and the fear of the Dragon that keeps it, one day as it happily fell out, an huge great Dragon appeared to him, and enwrapping him in the windings of his long-sweeping tail flew away with him roundly to Babylon (was not his heart at his mouth, think we, the while?) and set him down fair and softly close by the tomb aforesaid; where he viewing that sacred corpse, made so bold out of his deep devotion to borrow a finger of it to keep for a precious relic: When straightways up was he snatched again by that friendly Dragon, and carried gently and safely to his old Cell. 
Dionys Carthusivanus de 4, Novisse. Part. 3. cic. a Kelleto numero in Miscellan.  Can they speak of such a Saint as Christina, who dying in her childhood was kindly welcomed into Heaven, but was withal offered the choice whether of staying still there in happiness, or returning to the Earth again for her greater merits in delivering poor souls out of their Purgatory torments? she like a most charitable Saint chooses the latter: Down therefore she comes to this lower World; where yet she so lives as not abiding the stench of the sins of men, she makes her residence on high, perching on the tops of the tallest Trees, and the loftiest pinnacles, and satisfies her hunger with the milk of her own breasts: And why might not her Virginity afford her milk enough out of her own store? Ask Dionysius the Carthusian else. 
Vexillifer Christi.   


Lib. Conform. l. 1. Fructu. 10. pag. 140. Ovem sibi oblatam sic instruxit ut cum Fratres in Ecclesia cantarent, ipsa ingrederetur, ut sine alicujus informatione genua flecteret, vocem balatus emmittens.  
Lib. Confor. p. 191. Franciscus dicendo missam in calice araneam invenit quam nolens pro●jcere, bibit cum sanguine, &c. fol. 72. Aquam de Petra bibendam dedit oratione suâ cuida cujus asino vectabatur. Conform. 187. Capilli B. Francisci immissi muro fracturam redintegrarunt. Conf. fol. 193.  
Nihil Christus fecit quod Franciscus non fecit, immo plura fecit quam Christus. L. Confor. fol. 1149.  
Fontem aquae mutavit in vinum in Marchia Pag. 147. Christus semel aquam in vinum mutavit, Franciscus●er. Christus semel transfiguratus est, Franc. vigesies.   But not to instance in thousands: Can they sample us with such a pattern of powerful Sanctity as blessed St. Francis Christ's Standard-bearer, as they style him, and Jesus typical; Heaven and Earth are filled with astonishment at his wonders: What should I talk of the petty miracles of the reclaiming of his Brother wolf, and instructing of his Sister Sheep; the obedience and homage done to him by the fowls of the air, Fishes of the Sea, and the Ants of the Earth; or the Spider which he willingly swallowed down his throat at mass, creeping whole out of his thigh; or water fetched out of the Rock to satisfy the thirst of that honest man which had lent him his ass; or a lock of his hair laid in the crack of a riven Wall, making up the breach without mortar, and a world of the like feats; the History of his wonderful Conformities to Christ published lately with great authority by Bartolomaeus de Pesis, doubts not to tell you, that as he was conformed to Christ in his wounds, so he transcended Christ in his miracles: If our blessed Saviour turned some vessels of water into wine, Francis turned a whole fountain so; if our Saviour raised some few from the dead, he and his then-present retinue raised up no less than a thousand: After his death, by his merits he freed 1000 souls out of Purgatory, 

Franciscus & fratres sui supra millenos mortuos ad vitam revocarunt, plus mille Deabolos ejecerunt, Mar●. Luther in proefat. Germanic. libro prefixâ.  
Daemon Baroni cuidam moranti in Alpibus juxta Eugublu narrat mortem Francis. & ●it, da●ae sunt ei animae plusquam mille pro suo comitatu, quas suis meritis liberavit. Lib. Conf. p. 318. Obviam venerunt ei ad coelum ascendenti, Christus, mater ejus, Angeli coetus Apostolorum. Fol. 324.  
In supremo omnium ordinum, 1. Seraphico locata est anima Francisci. Ibid.  
Domus Lauret. ter mota loco ab Angelis, 1. per miliaria 2000 Tursell. in Priaef. hist.   as the Devil told a certain Baron living in the Alp●s; and with that train his soul was seen by Bernardus de Quinta Valle in the form of a bright Star ascending into Heaven, and was triumphantly met in the way by Christ and his blessed Mother, the Angels, the Apostles, Martyrs, and holy Doctors, and placed in a throne of the highest order of Seraphins, the formerly vacant seat of Lucifer. Lastly, for it were easy to be endless; Can they tell us of any holy building that travailed through the air (God knows why, and when, and whence) two thousand miles at once, as our Lady of Lorettoes' chapel did? Have they any such strange and faithful records as the Golden Legend, John Capgrave, Speculum exemplorum, and such other famous Monuments? which perhaps the heretics, and some ill advised friends may slander as lies; calling them Miraculorum monstra, as Melchior Canus did, and stick not to say, that if the Saints in Heaven could know what is written of them, and could be capable of human affections in that Region of impassibility, they would surely blush for shame, to see such prodigious tales feigned concerning them; 
How many lies does this young man tell of me?  and as they say, Socrates when he read Plato's dialogism could say, Quam multa de me mentitur adolescens? so doubtless would they say; How many gross lies do these idle Cloisters raise of us? Yet for all that, honest Catholics do as verily believe that St. Patrick raised not only Fota from the grave after he had lain there ten years; but also the great giant glass, a man of an 120. foot long, 
Jo. Capgrave de vita St. Patricii. Sextus Rex Edward. in mensa sedens Westmonast. risit & dixit septem dormientes in monte Celîo requiescere jam 200. annis in dextro Latere, jam vertisse latus. Anonym. Continuat. Hist. de best. Angl●y.  the Irish King's Hogheard, an hundred years after his burial, and christened him, and freed him from his old torments? And that the seven Sleepers in Mount Celius after two hundred years lying on the right side, did on the sudden for more ease turn them to the left; as fools abroad do believe, that all the posterity of the Persecutors of St. Thomas Becket are at this day borne with long hairy tails dangling down behind them.  
No, no, all other pretended Churches may go whistle for Miracles; whereas Lipsius can tell you of the two Ladies that have done hundreds, and every story can inform you how frequently the retired Cells of holy hermits have been visited by celestial guests: 
Diabolus in forma Christi apparere praesumpsit multoties Ruffino. Lib. confor. Conf. 7.  Only the spite is, the holy Book of conformities itself tells us that the Devil himself hath not seldom appeared to friar Ruffin and others of his Fraternity in the garb and form of Christ, and in such illusions hath so cunningly demeaned himself, that he hath dangerously deceived the beholders; 
2 Cor. 11.14.  and we know who told us that Satan himself is o●ten transformed into an Angel of light: now all the craft is to discern the counterfeit Angel from the real Devil. Luther it seems, would pretend to some such skill; 
Luther. Serm, Convivial.  for when a Neighbour of his, a Maid lying on the bed of her sickness, had represented to her a very glorious apparition, which both she and her friends thought no other then heavenly, they sending for Luther to behold that radiant spectacle, he straight resolved it was an evil spirit; charging the Maid to defy it in that name, and to spit at it; which with much ado she at last yielded unto: whereupon that glittering Angelical apparition suddenly turned itself into an ugly Serpent; and crawling upon the bed of the sick person, bit her by the ear, and having drawn blood of her vanished: Some eyes are more piercing than other; howsoever therefore advantage is hereupon by incredulous men to doubt, whether an ignorant friar can be more likely to discern which is the true Devil, 
Jo. Gerson.  than the wisest man was able to know (in a schism of some fifty years' continuance, when two or three Popes were tugging together by the ears for Peter's chair) which was the true Pope! Yet we must take it for a sure rule, that the Devil may appear in all colours but whi●e, and so long as he hath not a cloven foot, all is safe. In the mean time, the Miracles of Rome remain unshaken by all froward infidelity. The fond heretics are ready to choke us with Vespasians cure of a blind man, and of a lame man too; 
Vespas. Sputo curavit coecum, contactu pedum restituit claudum.  and of the great Cures that were done by Pyrrhus his great Toe, yet neither of these were Saints; and to colour and excuse their impotency, can tell us of John Baptist, who did no miracles; 
Nota quod Multi non sancti faciunt miracula; ant vi verborum, ut consecratio Eucharistiae, aut vi parentelae ut Rex Franciae, vel illi de domo S. Pauli, aut arte magica. Dominic. Felin. in Cap. Venerab. de Test.  and think to stop our mouths with the profession of our Felinus; Multi non sancti &c. Note, saith he, that many who are not Saints, yet do work miracles either by force of the words, as in the consecration of the Eucharist, or by virtue of their place or family, as the French King, and those of the house of Saint Paul, or by Art magic; and are apt to strengthen their conceit with that resolution of our famous Postiller John Ferus; who tells us that new Revelations will indeed stand in need of new Miracles: 
Novae revelationes egent novis Miraculis; Vetus autem doctrina sive de Lege sive de Evangelio non ìndiget novis miraculis, &c. Jo. Ferus in lib. Judicum.  But the old Doctrine whether of the Law or Gospel, needs no new or further Miracles, since it is so sufficiently confirmed already, that if an Angel from Heaven should teach otherwise, and confirm his Doctrine by Miracles, he were justly worthy to be accursed: But let them enjoy their own dull inefficacy, and rest content with their own confessed disability; we see in the mean time how just reason the Church of Rome hath to truimph in the visible power of her unlimited jurisdiction, and of her (if not incredible) yet unparallelable Miracles.   

CHAP. V. The truimph of Piety or Devotion.  
A Professed purity of life without true piety in the heart, is no better than gilded hypocrisy; Sincerity of Devotion is the main ingredient to a Saint: And herein, if it may appear that our said Mother of Rome doth as far exceed all other Churches, as her seven hills (where she sat of old) do overlook the Martian valley (where she now resides) the day and the cause is clearly ours. Now then, what do we account Devotion, but fasting and praying, and all other acts of Religious worship? In all which, who dares offer to compare with the great Metropolis of Christendom? First of all her Fasts, and her Feasts, do as it were divide the year betwixt them; and are not those Fasts as solemnly and severely kept, as if all men from the cradle had taken example of St. Nicholas, who (they say) when he was an Infant, did two days in the week (Wednesdays and Fridays) content himself with sucking but once a day. As for wine and sweet meats, they break no square how plenteously soever poured down; It is flesh that breeds the quarrel. In the great Deluge, the Sea escaped the curse; only the Earth and her store contracted impurity; Let the maw be crammed never so full with the most delicious and proritative fish or viands, and let them swim in the most inflaming liquour, here is no Fast violated: The Lollards are strangely mistaken; it is not abstinence but change of diet that makes an holy Fast; And what a vain brag it is of their great Champion, 

Chamur. Nostrae compotaiones sunt modestiores vestris jejuniis.  
Vinum Theologicum & Tortae Jacobitarum in proverbium abierunt. Jo. Gerson.  
Alex. Alensis. Pleno laudant jejunia ventre.   Nostrae compotationes, &c. Our compotations are more sober than your Fasts; And full unjustly doth John Gerson check our holy Masters with the proverb of the Theological Wine, and the Jacobites Cakes: Neither is he worth his ears that hath not learned to distinguish betwixt Jejunium Jejuni, and Jejunium Jejunantis; and that cannot both commend, and brag of fasting with a full paunch: But to speak ingenuously, it is not a mere not eating that is so pleasing to God; for than Apollonia Schriera who received no food into her body for ten years' space, 
Gulielm. Fabricii Observat Medic. Cent. 5. Domino Brederodio.  should pass for a Saint of greater merit than any History ever before recorded; and Efgenvougen End the maid of Meurs should go beyond her no less in reputation of sanctity, who abstained sixteen years from any bodily sustenance; but therefore only is fasting acceptable to God, for that it gets us a stomach to our Devotion; 
Chrysolog. Serm. 4●  So as Chrysologus had reason to say, Jejunium sine pietate jejunat; A Fast without Piety may fast for any acceptance, Now if you will measure Piety by tale of prayers, what Church under Heaven is not over-matcht by the Roman? Tell me where else ye can find the perpetuity of a forty-hours litany, upon all public occasions of Drought, Raine, Famine, War, Pestilence? where so solemn Processions? where such thraves and lasts of private orisons, which without the well-devised helps of stringed calculation, could never keep even reekoning? where such a world of new-multiplied Rosaries? where such Masses and Dirges, and funeral Obsequies for both alive and dead? Show me elsewhere another Egidius Albornotious, 
Genesius Sepulveda in vita Albornotii Cardinalis.  that by his last Will and Testament took order for fifty thousand Masses to be sung for his soul: show me where so many thousand Torches are flaming at a Cardinal's Funeral, 
Lib. Ceremon. Sacr. Tit de Cardinal.  that the wax amounts usually to no less than six thousand, or eight thousand pounds: And no marvel; for whiles some other Religions rest piously contended with the care of pleasing one Mediator, the Roman abounds with as many Mediators as there are Saints and Angels in Heaven. They have learned better manners then to rush in rudely to the presence, and to press to the chair of State; and to blurt out their bold petitions to the King of glory: 
Nobis non opus est At●ien●bus &c.  They are taught (whatever Chrysostom saith to the contrary) to make their humble addresses to some friendly Courtiers; and speed in their suit thereafter; And for this purpose, how happy are they in the variety of their celestial Patrons; what dolts were the Pagans of old, to adore such mean ill-chosen Deities! 
Xenoph de expedit. Cy●i.  The Thurians, if the North wind do but bluster a little upon the threatning Navy of their enemy Dionystus, clattering the ships one against another, straightways are ready to sacrifice to that propitious deity; and now who but Boreas? And the Romans erected Temples to the Green sickness and Ague, 
Pallori et Febri fana fecerunt August de Consensu Evang. l. 1. c. 17.  for want of wit and better Grace; But these Christian Devotionists know where to meet with their Beautified and canonised Patrons at all seasons, and upon all occurrences; On St. John's day they can implore that Saint especially for a benediction upon their Wine, on St. Stepens day for their Pastures, on St. marks for their Corn, on the Assumption of the blessed Virgin for their herbs, Plants, Roots, and Fruit, &c. As for the Marinary deities, they have plenty, for fear lest some of them should not be at leisure, or otherwise employed in the vast element; St. Andrew, St. Clement, 
Haytoni Passagiun ●crrae sanctae.  St. Barbara, St. Nicholus, and St. Michael the Archangel, whose Grecian Promon●ory Malea, when they pass by, they are glad to ply him with their best devotions, that he would hold still his wings, from resting too hard upon their sails, and how can they miscarry under such Tutelage?  
Add to these the settled course of their Canonical hours, which either no secular occasions may intermit; or (if a necessity intervene) must be as necessarily (redeemed with all speed, lest the suppliant should die in God's debt: yesterday's task therefore may be done to day, this day's to morrow; however the grumbling votary (weary of the burden) is ready to say, Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; In this therefore Luther when he was a Friar approved himself a true paymaster, 
Luther Serm. Conviu.  that on the Saturday still locked up himself close to defray the debt of his omitted devotions all the week long: In the performance whereof, so that the number be kept up, 
Non est de ratione orationis ut cogitet orans de ipsa locutione & Suarez. de Orat. l 3. c. 4.  it matters little what the intention of the thoughts be: So that the beads knack, and keep just reckoning, let the eyes rove, and the ears listen, and the feet walk, and the heart ramble, the work is both done and accepted.  
Now for the better fixing of the thoughts which are apt to wander upon all occasions, and for the heightening of devotion, they have their sacred Images, before which they are lowly Prostrate, adoring not the statue or picture if self as such, which even the heathen Idolaters professed to abhor; but the Saint represented by it. And what if their St. Thomas his determination be that the resemblance is to be entertained with the same act of worship with the Prototype; 
Sacram Imaginem Di Jes. Christi aequo honore cum libro Sanctorum Evangeliorum adorari decernimus council Oecum. Const. 8. Can. 3.  which is more than the Fathers of Constantinople required to be done to the Image of Christ himself (the respect whereunto they only equalised to the Veneration of the Book of the holy Gospel) yet they are under a sufficient guard of distinctions to free them from the imputation of any but a misinterpretative Idolatry; and what though it be confessed that the subtiltyes of those intricate distinctions is such, 
Spalat. part. 3.  that plain unlettred laics, not understanding them, do commonly misbestow divine worship upon those stocks and stones; and though Pope Gregory himself, professedly forbade their adoration; yet we have learned of Gregory de Valentia, that whiles the holy Apostle Peter, tells us of some abominable Idolatries, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  he plainly intimates that there are Idolatries, not abominable, such as these now used under the Gospel in spite of all sacrilegious Iconoolasts, not as laymen's books for history only, but as the sensible helps of pure devotion Furthermore, who can be ignorant of those sweet ditties, and Angelical Hymen's, (far beyond some of Mariana's Canticles) wherewith their devotion is not a little elevated, in the severalties of their hoy Offices; so exactly revised of late, by their only Poetical Pope Vrban the 8th. that there are no fewer than 900 false quantities (if we may credit Gavantus) corrected in them; although the sleering heretics will be apt to wish that his holiness had rather bestowed his pains in correcting the faulty sense of the prose, complaining that in their late corrections, they have (like untrusty Tinkers) pretending to stop one hole, made two: For example; let Pope Innocent himself be heard speak, 

Tertio loco Tua Fraternitas requisivit quare fuerit mutatum &c.  
Innocent. P. de Celebratione Missae Cap. cum Martha; etiam cit. Jo. de Neapoli qu. 41. ad finem.   your Brotherhood (saith he) requires to know, why & how it comes to pass that whereas in the secret service of St. Leo according to the old Copies it was wont to be read, Grant Lord we beseech thee that this our prayer may be available to the soul of thy servant Leo; now in our late missals it runs thus Grant we beseech thee O Lord that by the intercession of St. Leo this prayer may be available to us; which (saith the said Innocent) must be so understood, that our prayer should sue to be available in this regard, that the Saint above may be more and more glorified by the faithful on earth. Thus cunningly is the cat turned in the pan; and instead of our wellwishing to Leo, Leo is become an Intercessor for us; and the improvement of our devotion must be, that the Saints in Heaven may more palpably rob God of his honour. But this is but the heretics gloss of Bordeaux which mars the Text; and so let it pass.  
As for the particular exercises of devotion which consists in the Benediction of things, consecration of places and persons, solemnization of times, canonisation of Saints, hallowing of Bells, Election of Divine Patrons of Cities and Churches, exorcisation of Devils, honouring and transporting of relics, where shall you find them so much as mentioned but in the See Apostolic? where did you hear ever of a sword, or a rose blessed on a Christmas day, or upon the Sunday of laetare Jerusalem, and sent to the great Potentates of the earth by any save Peter's successor as Pius the second to James the second of Scotland, Sixtus the fifth to the Prince of Parma; where of any flag? or Banner, blessed with the sure promises of victory, as in 88? where, of holy keys sent from the bodies of Peter and Paul? Shortly, I would fain see any Religion under Heaven yield such a benediction of holy-water, as his Holiness useth, over that parcel, which serves for the making up of his Agnus Dei: wherein he prays to God Vt ea quae &c. 
Ut ea quae in hoc aquae vasculo praeparata ad nominis tui gloriam infundere decrevimus es Lib. Sacr, Gerem  That thou wouldst be pleased so to bless these things which we have purposed to infuse into this vessel prepared to the glory of thy name, as that by the veneration and honour which is done them, we thy servants may have all our crimes done away, the blots of our sins wiped off, pardon obtained, and graces conferred, that at the last together with thy Saints, and Elect ones, we may merit to attain everlasting life.  
The ignorant Protestant now is ready to ask his holiness for his Quo Warranto; what ground of warrant he hath to make so bold a Petition? when God hath made any promise to grant a request of so high a nature? who might as well quarrel with all the Energetical prayers of the Church; all which hang upon the same string: As those which are used for the exorcisation of Rue, Hypericon, Aristolochia, and other holy Ingredients for a powerful fumigation against Devils, for the blessing of clouts in the way of cure of Diseases, the hallowing of the cornerstone in buildings; of Palls, Vestments and Altar-cloathes, of beads, grains, Bracelets, of Chalices, Bells, and all other holy Utensils, and a world of the like implorations; not considering that the word is Univeral, Quicquid petieritis; and that besides, both the Church and his holiness being freed from the danger of error, may safely say; Quod volumus sanctum est, What we will is holy.  
Now upon all these occasions I cannot but bless myself to see the reverent scrupulosity that is used in meddling with these holy things. That in an holy Procession on Corpus Christi day, 
Non e fenestris inspiciant laici. Gavant. Prov. 4.  no Lay person may so much as look out of their windows: That on that day no relic of any Saint may be carried; That on other days no Image of the blessed Virgin, or any Saint may be carried about, save only those which are pictured in silk or woven work: 

Corporale non debet tangi a Lucis, nec a sacratis faeminis. Act. Mediolan. Eccles. c. Sacrat.  
Post primam Lotionem potest tangi & reparari. Ex. Syl. V. Corporale.  
Unde non placet Sanchez qui eos tangi a faeminis concedit. Can tit. Agnus; neque laici eos tangant, neque forcipe, neque chirothecis, sed clerici in sacris. Enchirid. Epor. Gavant. Tit. Agu.   That the Corporal cloth may not be touched either of any layman, or any of the holiest Sisters, till after the first washing: That the Altar-cloathes must have their peculiar Brushes; That no gloves be worn in a choir; That no gilt chalice may be used; That no Agnus Dei may be touched by a woman; the liberty whereof given by Sanchez the Jesuit is shrewdly checked; and a thousand the like Curiosities which do sufficiently argue the awful respcts which they bear to the very circumstances of their Devotions: But what shall we say to the substance of their highest act of Piety? If some villainous heretical mouse shall have unhappily light upon a consecrated host; let Peter Lombard the great Master of sentences be asked, Quid sumit mus? What doth the mouse eat? He will answer you, Deus novit: God knows, and it is his wisest way to do so: For, if he shall say, A wafer, it is heresy; for consecration is past; the bread is transubstantiate into the body of Christ. If he shall say, The body of Christ; how odious it sounds to seek a Saviour in a mouse's belly? Hold thine own Peter; there is no safety but in silence; neither can we be too chary in the management of such sacred matters: For example, So it was, that in a certain Town wherein the Pestilence raged grievously, a poor hosteler lay infected on a pad of straw in his stable; sends for the Curate of the place to give him the Sacrament; the Priest being (as he had just cause) fearful to come over near to the contagious person, got a long stick, and in the cleft thereof puts the consecrated host, and so offers it to the si●l● man; the cleft being somewhat too wide, the host slips out, and falls upon the ground; there being then (as it fell out) divers Goslings in the room, they straight run and gobble up that sacred morsel; yet so, as that by reason of their likeness to one another, the amazed Curate could not distinguish which of them it was that was guilty of that horrible sacrilege; the distressed man pitifully bewails that woeful, mishap; order is taken (besides his own penance) that the whole gaggle of those Goslings must be burnt to ashes, and those ashes laid up in the Sacrary; so the ill-bestowed deity is sure to be met withal somewhere. The Relation I had from sure hands; which, or the like accident might occasion that Act of the Church of Milan, 

Eucharistia in peste non debet ministrari cum instrumento. Act. Mediol. Eccles. de cura post. c. 15.  
Alii concedunt cum Cochleari argenteo. Vener. in Exam. Epor.   forbidding absolutely in a time of Pestilence to give the Sacrament cum instrumento; whiles yet others allow it to be given in a silver-spoon, where is not the like danger of miscarriage.  
But I must needs take leave to wonder how this care can consist with the relation which I had made to me by Dr. Tilenus, a man both famously learned, and undoubtedly creditable; who told me, that coming through France hitherward, lodging in the City of Roan, there fell out that night á dangerous fire not far from his inn; which being at last happily quenched, moved much matter of talk to the neighbour inhabitants; amongst the rest, the next morning he heard an old woman and a blacksmith discoursing of that business; Had not I (said the woman) obtained of the Curate to cast the body of our Lord into the flame, that fire would not so soon have been quenched; Tush, said the Smith (who perhaps might have some tincture of huguenotism) had not I procured the next houses to be suddenly pulled down, your device & the Curates had not saved the whole Street from burning. Was there ever heard of such a receipt for fire? That a Christian should burn that which he adores? Let that old woman by my consent pass for a Witch, that made no bones of offering this tort to a Saviour whom she had formerly abjured, rather than so foul should be practicable: Yet those Catholics bear a fairer respect to the Sacrament then so; 

Non adhibeatur In valvis ecclesiae contra Grandinem, benedicendo aerem. Prov. 3. Gav. V. Euthar.  
Eorum cera adoleatur ad suffumigationem contra Tempestates.  
Non suspendantur in ramis arborum, &c. Enchyr. Ep. Tit. Agnus.   who were wont to hang it on the Church door for blessing of the air, for preservation against Hailstones; A practice which yet is forbidden by a Provincial Synod, seeming indeed very improperly to encroach upon the Office of the Agnus Dei, whose best and well allowed use is (not to be hanged up on trees to procure fruit, or to be cast into the field to mend the soil) but that the wax of it be burnt for a suffumigation against storms and Tempests: Neither can it be denied that the Prelates of the Church under the Roman●dition are worthy of great commendation for their care in providing for the honour and and safety of the Eucharist; ordaining that every eight day the holy parcels be renewed; and that every careless Curate which shall suffer the holy parcels to putrify in the Pixe, 

Putrefactis hostile (quod absit) in Pixide, custos earum. 30. diebus ponitea●. Ex. Sylvio. Euchar. 2. q. 9  
Ante Eucharistiam semper ardeat lampas. Ex. Prov. 1.   shall pay thirty days severe penance for his neglect: which lest it should fall out for want of light, it is ordered that a Lamp shall hang always burning before the Eucharist; neither is it fit that a Divine power should dwell in darkness. But amongst all their acts of Piety, none is more eminent than those that concern the Saints, whether in their canonisations, or the Adoration of them and their relics. As for the first, I cannot wonder enough why his holiness when he goes about that act of his Apotheosis, should need publicly to protest, 
Papa facit protestationem, &c. Lib. Sacr. Cer.  that he intends not to do any thing that may be prejudicial to the Faith, or to the Catholic Church, or the honour of God; doubtless he were very hard-hearted that should not believe him without any such passionate asseveration: But I perceive there is somewhat in the wind; For besides the many counterfeits that there are in the World, which are ambitious of Saintship (as the holy woman in Bressia, whereof Gerson speaks; who professed to read all men's sins in their foreheads, and that she could every day deliver three souls out of hell; And that other ecstatical Damosel, which pretended an union with God, above all humanity; or Magdalene de la Croix, or the holy maid of Kent, or the military Pucelle of France) It seems (as I learn from the book of Holy Ceremonies) that his Holiness was once compelled to Canonize a Saint against his will; and so, had need to cry, Domine vim patior; But, if that were all, why doth he now, that he is free from all constraint, so oft and earnestly call on the people to pray, 
Saepe in Canonizatione Sanct. monet omnes precentur ne permittat Deus ecclesiam suam errare. Lib. Sacr. Curam.  that God would not suffer his holy Church to err in that act he goes about; Now you may be sure the heretics will not stick to say; If his holiness were conscious of his own indefectibility, in this service, he would save his breath for another purpose.  


Canonizatio et miracula probare est una de majoribus causis quae inter Christianos proponi possunt, et quaestio est de fide, ut ait Glossa in. sedis Vivald. candle part 3 a 13.  
Si unus Sanctus vocatur in dubium, etiam ceteri vocari possunt &c.  
Ibid. Vivaldus ex Ambr. Catharino.   It is true, and they take it from learned Vivaldus (for which he citys the gloss also) that Canonization of Saints, and probation of miracles is one of the greatest and weightiest businesses, that can be proposed among Christians, and is no less than de fide; For, as the same Author out of Ambrose Catharinus truly observes; If one Saint may be doubted of, why not another? and so the heretics should be in the right, whiles they teach it to be a matter of much hazard to call upon the Saints; which were horrible to affirm. When therefore they shall look into the calendar, and shall find some Saints that were not so much as men, and more that were not so much as honest, how can they choose but say as the Psalmist did of the Idols, they that make them are like unto them, and rather incline (as Erasmus professes) to say Sancte Socrates ora pro me.  
But the best is, the World is out of fear of too much over-lashing in this kind; for that it is taken for a fatal rule that the Pope commonly survives not this act of Divine state, 
Pere Matth. instanceth in Clem. 4. and Adrian. 6.  above one year after he hath performed it; which Pere Matthiev instances in some formidable particulars; And I see no reason why his Holiness should be of the mind of his St. Francis, to say, 
Fr●admonitus a medico mortem appropinquare, Bene veniat (inquit) soror mea mors. Lib. Conf. p. 315.  Bene veniat soror mea mors; Welcome good Sister death.  
As for the old and true Saints, the very heretics themselves perhaps are not so destitute of grace, as to deny them any honour, under divine; especially the blessed Virgin; as she well deserves to be high in their books, above others; but they are too straitlaced in standing upon the same terms, with St. Bernard, 

At valde veneranda est mater Dei. Bene moans; sed honor reginae deligit justitiam. Et in super Virgo Regia falso non indiget honoris titulo:  
Bern. ad Canon. Lugdumen. de festo conceptionis St. virg.   the Devout Abbot of Clarevall; who in opposition to the new erection of the feast of her conception when it was suggested, that men could not easily offend in giving too much respect to that blessed one; could answer, honour Reginae diligit justitiam, The Queen's honour loveth Justice.  
But as for the Saints of the new Edition, they carry no more credit with them, than the new Gospel of the Franciscans and Benedictines, which under the name of the Evangelium á●ernum, mentioned in the Revelation, they would have foisted upon the world, for which they are justly branded by our Chaucer.  
Now, if the Saint be a nullity, what is the adoration? I cannot but be sensible of that secret envy, wherewith malignant eyes look upon the honour that is done to these Beatified souls, and much more to the canonised; Their holidays, Vigils, Octaves: their Temples, Altars, Thurifications, their Invocations, Oblations, Nuncupations of vows, their Elections to the public Patronage of Cities and Countries, the Pilgrimages to their shrines, the decantation of their miracles, the Veneration of their relics: And if it have fall'n out that there hath been a discovery of any pious frauds in any of these, as for example, if there have been any frequent resort of Pilgrims to his Golden Lupa within two Miles of Wurtzburgh, 
Luther Serm. conviv. Also Herman nus the founder of the wicked heresy of the Fratritelli was honoured for a Saint twenty years after his death; after his body was taken up, and burned, Prateolus. v. Hermanus.  which after proved to be but a Bitch which a lewd Churchman had interred there, as Luther tells us, what sport do the heretics make with this mistaken piece of Devotion; whereas they might if their lips did not hang in their light, see many notable monuments of both ancient and modern Saints, and many precious relics worth the wiping of their eyes to behold; as St. Joseph's Breeches (and if you will, Lipsius his, offered to our Lady to boot) St. Anne's comb, Judas his lantern, and a thousand such: But amongst all the rest, who would not be eager to see those Immortal relics; The feather of the Archangel, which the Pardoner (had it not been purloined) would have showed to the admiring multudes; 
Mr. Cloves, his Motives.  And the red Velvet Buckler now still reserved in a Castle of Normandy, which the Archangel Michael made use of when he combated the Dragon. Howsoever, I do not apprehend so much miracle in the preservation of those Monuments, as in their supernatural multiplication; that the Cross which once Simon of Cyrene bore on his back, should now be able to load a Ship; That whereas John Baptist lost but one head, now there are two sensibly to be seen; 
Upon Matth. 14.  one at Amiens in France (as our Rhemists affirm) the other in St. Sylvesters abbey in Rome; besides the scattered parcels of it in several places.  
Now in all these respective circumstances of Veneration, well may the Roman Catholic (I trow) say, of all theirs (according to that of the Psalmist) Such Honour have all his Saints: But in the mean time, what becomes of the most eminent and best deserving professor of Protestancy? What, iwis, but this? He dies and is tumbled into an hole, mortuus est sine lux, sine, crux, 
Erasm.  sine clango; and his memory dies, and lies buried with him, without any Epitaph, but dead and forgotten; yet his obstinacy talks confidently of a blessed Triumph in Heaven, far surpassing all the pompous commemorations upon earth; and pleaseth himself with that of Solomon in spite of all malice; Memoria justi in benedictionibus.   

CHAP. VI. The triumph of Ease.  
THere are excellencies which are so hard in achieving, that they scarce requite the cost of purchasing; like to some sweet kernel which lies enclosed in so thick a shell that it is hardly worth the cracking: Give me those contentments which besides their value and pleasure in their enjoyment, are justly commended by the ease of attaining them: Such is the Roman profession; The dignity whereof is equally matched with the facility: Perhaps our holy Mother will give me little thanks for this praise; as affecting rather a stern austerity and deep mortification in the practice of her Religion; boasting of the harsh discipline and exact rigour of her Clients; showing with much gloriation their stinging Haire-clothes, their bloody Whips, their knotted Girdles, their rough and patched Garments, their barefoot Walks, their uneasy Lodgings, their broken sleeps, their purposely-disguised Habits; rejoicing in the ambitious contestation betwixt her St. Francis and her St. Clare, 
And St. Clares was found the courser. Lib. Confor.  whether'rs coat should be more course and beggarly; upbraiding the heretics with their apparent delicacy, the nice curation of their Skin, the softness and cost of their Attire, the curiosity of their fastidious maws, their sinking in their Down-beds, the perpetual Frolicks of their Feastings, and the pleasures of their continual Disports: And surely, as to the former of these, the plea cannot be denied to be just, and uncapable of contradiction. What Heremites, or Recluses can the Protestant Churches boast of? What woolward penanes, what weary pilgrimages, what bleeding backs? Only they pretend for themselves thus; If the body of Piety be yours, the soul of Piety is ours; If the Roman Catholic have the sourer face, the English Catholic hath the sadder heart; if the one profess more mortification of the flesh, the other more deep and lively stirrings of the spirit.  
But let not our holy Mother stand too stiffly upon the terms of her outward rigidities; Her Opposites will be ready to clap her in the teeth with St. Paul's check, That bodily exercise profiteth little; and to put her in mind of what her dearest Son St. Francis said once when it was too late; That it repented him he had used his Brother Body so hardly; and what another that had more wit, and no less holiness than he, even St. Bernard himself said; who lamentably complaining of the wrong that he had done to himself by his undue austerities, whereby he had disabled himself to the public services of his holy Devotions, 
Cavendum est ne dumnimis flagellare cupimus, salutem perdamus; & dum hostem subigere quaerimus, civem occidamus. Bern. de Septem grad. Confess.  hath left this caveat behind him for all posterity, Cavendum est, &c. Heed must be taken saith he, lest whiles we whip too much [Salutem perdamus] we destroy our health, and whiles we seek to subdue an enemy, we kill not a Subject.  
Rather, notwithstanding the ostentation of these outward penalties, let not our holy Mother suffer herself to lose the praise of the facility of her Religion; For as for these bodily penances whether voluntary or imposed, the Opposites make light to be outdone by them; and are ready to say, that if the sin of the soul could be done away with a little smart of the body, they would think it a very easy condition; avowing that the inward acts of true mortification (which they practice) are Scorpions in comparison of those Flea-bitings: They can twit her with ill patterns of bodily sufferings not inferior to hers; The Mattarii amongst the Manichees, lay as hard as her Votaries: 
Mattarii quidam Manichaei qui in mattis dormiunt, &c. August. contra Faustum. L. 5.  The Baalites spared their flesh less than her cruelest whip-stocks; The Charinzarri can keep as strict a Fast as theirs if but for Arzibur their Sergius his Dog: The Turks can keep a more abstinent Fast till they can see a Star; the Mahometan Dervises, the Bonzes of China, the menegreroes of Pegu, and Bramaa, and other the Votaries of the Indian pagode's, 
Vid. Fernand. Mendor. de Pinto.  put themselves to more pain than the most self-afflicting Capuchin, yet never the better; And can tell her withal, that she with all these shall for a cold thanks for their labour, hear from the mouth of God, Quis requisivit? Who required this at your hands? Let her therefore (if I might be worthy to advise her) stand upon those easy tasks of Piety and Religion, wherein she goes far beyond all her Corrivals. For, whereas the fond Protestant professes with Luther, 
Exemplo meo didici difficillimum esse opus, Orare. Luther in Psal. 51.  that he finds it a very hard work to pray; for as much as the heart being forestalled with worldly thoughts, is not easily reduced to a praying condition; and the mind of a man is still apt in the holiest action to be volatile, and lies exposed to a world of distractions, and much struggling there must needs be to work that froward piece in our bosom to a meet apprehension of that infinite Majesty whom we speak unto, and to those holy affections and divine ravishments of spirit which are requisite in that man, who desires to pour out his soul to God with sensible comfort; the more favourable Oracles of Rome teach us, that there needs none of all this; Vt quid perditio haec? It is not necessary saith her acute Suarez, 
Non est de ratione orationis, &c. Supra. cit. Ex. Suraez de Orat.  in prayer to think of the thing signified by the words; neither is it essential to prayer for a man to think of the speech itself; it is sufficient to think of God to whom he speaks; He that wants Devotion (saith Jacobus Graphius) sins not; 

Sufficit de deo cogitare, ibid.  
Sicut Verba incantantis vim habet, &c.   As the words of a Charmer (saith learned Salmeron) have their force and efficacy though they be not understood of him that utters them; So Divine words spoken with a good and simple intention, have force and virtue to dispel all the power of the Devil: To what purpose then should any man rack his thoughts to bring and hold them in a due fixedness upon the matter of his prayer, when the very sound of the words will do the feat without the concurrence of the heart? And this Antoninus illustrates by a witty example; 
Respondit face, Sicut lapis preciosus aeque valet in manu imperiti; sic preces, &c. Autonin. Sum. Part. 3. Tit. 23.  One propounded this Question to a learned Priest, whether the prayer which he understood not were equally effectual with those which he spoke with understanding; and received this answer: As a precious stone saith he, is of no less worth when it is in the hand of an unskilful man, than when in the hand of an expert Jeweller; so are good prayers. 
Magis fore ad aedificationem Eclcesiae ut preces vulgari lingua concipe rentur. Cajet. resp. ad Artic. pacis.  Cardinal Cajetan therefore was foully overseen, when he flatly determined that it would be more to the edification of men's souls that prayers should be made in their own Mother tongue; 
Fishers Confer. with Dr. White.  wherein it is some marvel to see him seconded by Fisher the Jesuit in asserting of that, which his fellow Ledesma terms no better than a profane recitation.  
What Latinity there is in Opus operatum it matters not, I am sure there is much ease; Well fare St. Dominick, therefore who (they say) by Revelation brought up that order of the set number of our Paters and Aves, (which costs us no pains but Lip-labour) although it seems he fell somewhat too short in his reckoning; allotting but 63. Aves to the Corone of our Lady, in remembrance of her so many years, that she is said to have lived upon earth; whereas now more accurate search hath found them to be 73. I am sure there is no fervent prayer raised out of a recollected and well wrought heart which requires not more true labour then an hundred formal Rosaries.  
And whereas the Protestant and all religious Christians in all other Churches think it concerns them highly to meditate in the word of God day and night, and to labour earnestly to inform themselves in all points necessary to salvation; Our holy Mother bids us save that labour also; not only forbearing to encourage Lay persons (as St. Chrisostome did of old) to read the Sacred Scriptures, but absolutely forbidding the use of them in their native Languages, 

Biblia vulgari lingua edita non possunt legi neque retineri  
Clem. 8. in Indice libr. prohib..   upon no small penalty: and if any passage thereof be allowed to be publicly read in the Church it is in Latin, no less familiar to the poor ignorant Auditories then Greek and Hebrew, lest they should understand and trouble their heads about it. Indeed what should unlettred laics do with Scripture, more than children with edge-tools? It is not necessary to salvation (saith Cardinal Bellarmine) to believe that there are any divine Scriptures. 
Dan. Tilen. de verbo non Scripto. l. 4. c. 8.  And perhaps it had been better for the Church saith Cardinal Hosius, if no Scriptures had been written; It is abundantly enough for Lay people to cast their souls upon the trust of the Church, which cannot err; and to think themselves safe and rich enough, if they be furnished with the collier's faith, without any curious and explicit inquisition into the Articles of belief.  
And whereas the heaviest load that can be upon the heart of a Christian is his sin, which cannot but breed a perpetual unquietness to the soul; 
Lutherus non absque magna animi concussione, &c. Roffens art. 10. contra Lutherum.  as that which according to Luther's determination, is attended with great concussion of spirit: the gentle Casuists of our holy Mother Rome speak better things, and like kind and cunning physicians, give present ease to the troubled Conscience. Contritio una &c. 

Contritio una vel remissa potest delere quodcunque peccatum quamvis gravissimum. Tollet. Instruct. Sacr. l. 3.  
Ad perfectionem paenitentiae requiritur tenuis quidam dolour animi internus. Maldon. sum. q 16. art. 1.  
Non est necessarium dolere magis de uno peccato quam de alio.  
Quià sufficit ad contritionem dolour in universali de omnibus peccatis; et talis dolour non est intensior respectu unius peccati quam alterius. Franc. de victoria De Contritione.   One act of contrition though never so little, is enough to blot out the greatest sin, faith Card. Tollet. To the perfection of penitence there is only required an outward grief of heart, if never so small saith Maldonat. Nay there needs not a full contrition, an attrition is enough, saith Franciscus Victoria: It is not necessary to sorrow for one sin more than another since a general sorrow for all our sins in common is sufficient to Contrition, and such a sorrow as this is not more intense for one sin then for another saith the same Author. Courage, therefore, say the comfortable Casuists; the most sins are venial, these break not the peace betwixt God and the soul; As for the mortal, at the worst, they are blown away by the breath of Confession: Yea, which is yet more, some sins by custom (which our simplicity would have thought had rather aggravated them) lose their malignant nature, and become no sins.  
For example. If a man (saith the Casuist Rodriguez) have a custom of swearing, 
Rodriguez Cas. Const.  Let him have once done his penance for it, although he afterward swears still, not considering what he saith, he doth not therein sin; because to swear thus is not an human voluntary act; Thus he, for which he citys Medina also. But if custom do not abate a sin, it is no more but confess and be free: And though it prove too true, which that great telltruth Gerson observes, that there is scarce any full and sincere confession now a days to be had, yet that blame is not to be imputed to the Ordinance, but to the man, who having swallowed the poison, sticks at the Antidote whereby he might be cured: Our Bromiard can tell us of a close sinner, 
Brom. sum. v. Confessio.  of whom the devil could say confidently, Tush, let that man alone, I have his Tongue fast in my purse; who having afterwards unloaded his Conscience, by a penitent confession, and turned over a new leaf; the same devil, being expostulated with concerning him, could answer; I said indeed that I had his Tongue in my purse, and so had, but his Confessarie hath picked my purse, and got it out; The moral whereof is, no other then that of wise Solomon; 
Prov. 28.13.  He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but he that confesseth his sin shall find mercy. Though I perceive already the heretics are here ready to take me short, and to pull me by the sleeve, and tell me, that I have forgot the principal verb; for Solomon saith, He that confesseth [and forsaketh his sin] shall find mercy: But it is no matter for that; whiles our learned Casuists assure us, 
Fr. Victoria ubi supra.  that not a full and absolute act of the will, but a mere velleity to leave a sin, is ground enough for a perfect pardon and clear absolution, which I hope is an easier way, than is proposed by the crabbed opposites, who stand peremptorily upon the necessity of an hearty sorrow and deep compunction of the soul, with an earnest loathing and detestation of the sin, to the obtaining of remission.  
I like not these severe and cruel taskmasters, which make the way to Heaven more straight and difficult than it is. Give me those plausible and indiligent Doctors, that profess by the very act of Sacramental penance to change the eternal punishments of hell, into the Temporal of Purgatory; and to buy off the temporal torments of Purgatory with the purchase of Indulgences; so as now hell is quit, Purgatory discharged, and Heaven opened; and, hay then, up go we; and is not this a more easy and pleasing way to glory, trow we, then striving to resist our sins unto blood, to offer an holy violence to our souls, in mortifying our evil and corrupt affections? to curb and restrain our sensual desires? to labour hard in bringing our rebellious hearts to the obedience of faith, to crucify the old man, and to sail to Heaven in a flood of tears?   

CHAP. VII. The triumph of Assurance.  
Let the way be never so smooth and fair, yet if we be not sure it leads us aright, we walk with diffident steps, and know not whether it were not better to repent us of every pace that we measure in that progression: But when we are assured of the directness of our paths, we pass on cheerfully, though in a more unpleasing ●●ck. It is therefore a further praise of the Roman faith that in all her Tenets of Religion, it is not more easy and plausible to incertain any, then sure to hold; How should it be otherwise, since it is one of the main Principles of her faith, that her head cannot err? and surely, let her undertake for her head, (wherein the Loco-motive faculty lies) I dare for the body: As a man, as a private Doctor, as Innocentius, he may chance to err, but as Pope Innocentius he cannot; now, some blunt undistinguishing German would be ready to ask (as one of them did in the like case) if the man, the Doctor, the Innocentius should go to hell, what would become of the Pope? but these cavils are for want of wit and grace, to know the infallibility feoffed upon St. Peter's chair, whosoever he be that fits in it.  
For did no our Saviour say; to that Prime Apostle, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; which (though the heretics would make us believe, that it respected only the personal faith of Peter, which Satan would speedily endeavour to shake by that tempting cribration) yet (according to the rule of Favores Ampliandi) we must know is to be extended to all that should pretend ever after to be his successors whether right, or wrong? And when he said Literally, Thou art Peter, he said in effect, Thou art Innocentius (for his successor and he are all one) and upon thee will I build my Church; which doubtless is no other than the Church of Rome; though the peremptory Opposites say, Rome was not then thought of for a Church, nor many a fair year after; so as (being then and of a long time after perfectly Pagan) she was somewhat likely for that present to stand out against the Gates of hell; upon these sure grounds, by a miraculous traduction of Grace, whosoever doth but sit down in the chair, wherein St. Peter once sat at Rome (for Antioch is not worth talking of, though there he sat sure enough) is as certainly free from error in faith, as if he were transformed into the blessed Apostle himself; what though he be no good or holy man, (as their Papyrius Massonus truly professes that no man now a days requires any holiness of a Pope; 
Quamquam nemo hodie in Pontificibus sanctitatem requirit; optimi putantur si vel leviter boni sint, vel minus mali quam caeteri mortales esse soleant. Pap. Masson. Initio. 3.  since they are held to be the best Popes that are less ill than other men use to be: Yea let him be an arrant Conjurer, as more than one have been acknowledged to be; Let him be as proud and arrogant as Boniface the eight, who styled himself the Lord of the World; Let him be as perjured an impostor and as shamelessly incestuous as Alexander the sixt: Let him be as violent an intruder as Llamasus the third; Let him be as abominably criminous as John 22 was convinced by a general Council to be; Yea what do I nibbling at particulars? let it be granted that 150. of them were Apotactical, and Apostatical miscreants, as Genebrard himself confesseth, yet they can no more err in the chair, than their flatterers could say true. Their Biographer Massonus notes it for a singular providence that no Pope ever sat in that Chair, which was blind, lame, crook-backed, or otherwise deformed in body, but the heretics are ready to tell him, they could rather have wished he could justly have acquitted them from lewd lives, deformed souls, and crooked conditions; But let them have been devils incarnate elsewhere, yet if they be once set in the holy chair, no error in judgement of faith dare offer to fasten upon them.  
Yet perhaps it may be possible to find some men, whose lives may be impure, yet their Doctrine sound, as on the contrary Bernard could say of Arnoldus of Briria that his conversation was honey, 
Arnoldus, cujus conversatio mel, doctrina venenum●  but his Doctrine poison; it is yet the greater wonder, that let a very boy, or an ignorant body be preferred to the blessed chair once, he is instantly privileged from error; we have no reason to grant that any such uncapable person hath ever been suffered to disparage that sacred se●t. But the Opposites are ready to choke us with a pretty Pope of nine years old; with a Boniface the ninth, a tall stripling which was as high in the school as his grammar, and could hardly write or sing, raised to the Papal dignity: And cast us in the teeth with that irref●agable word of our own Alphonsus de Castro; since it is apparent (saith he) that many Popes have been so utterly unlearned, that they have not attained to so much as the knowledge of the grammar, how shall we think they can be fit men to give us meet Interpretations of Scripture? But the more unlikely the event is, the greater is the miracle; 
Cum consset multos Papas adeo illiteratos esse ut Grammatican penitus ignorent; quomodo fit ut sacras literas inter pretari possinit Alpos Castro l. 1. de Hares.  so as Florilegus need not now to mak● so great a wonder of Joachim, who of a laic unlettred man, was on the sudden become an Altilogu● Theologus, since it appears this is no news at Rome, The example whereof cannot but have had a very wholesome influence upon the subordinate, clergy, for the privilege both of their age, and ignorance.  

Rogerus Eborac. Archiepiscopus titula vitimberbes, et qousdam etiam agentes sub ferula aptos magis aedificare casas et plastella adjungere muris, judere par impar, equitare in arundine longa quam personas, gerere in Concilio magnatum.  So we find, that Roger Archbishop of York admitted beardless boys from under the ferule to Ecclesiastical promotions; yea children more fit to drive a top, then wield a Crosier: grave Espencaeus speaking of nazianzen's censure of some abuses in that holy station; let's fall these bitter terms Quid diceret &c. What would that father say (saith he) if he saw instead of reverend fathers in Christ, boys irreverent against Christ? And as for the ignorant prelacy of Rome, Marforius plays the Jack sufficiently in Pasquil's suit to Eugenius the fourth.  

Pasquillus marmoreus. Optime Pontifex, Galerum Pasquillo huic tribuas roganti. Si imbelle sum atque rude marmor; Complures quoque etiam episcopos ipso me mage saxeos videmus. Paq. Mass. Eugenio  Good Pope be pleased to bestow  
An hat on Pasquil: for although  
A marble rude and base he be,  
Yet many Bishops made we see  
More senseless every way than he.  
But the best is, this business is now upon the mending hand; 
Cum ind●gnum sit beneficia ecclesiastica conferri illiteratis ignotis, insufficientibus ●iet indignis, statu mus, et districtius prohibemus ne parochialis ecclesia de caetero detur sive conferatur nisi tali qui competente sciat legere et cantare er divinum  for I find that in a due care of reforming this abuse of admitting young Novices and unlearned persons to Ecclesiastical Benefices, it is enacted by the Council of Ravenne, that no Parish Church shall be conferred upon any but such a one as can competently read, and sing, and say his service. Neither shall any possess a Canonship in a Cathedral Church but he that can read, and sing, 
Nec Canonicatum misi qui sciat legere, cantar● et competenter construere, et 15. annum attigerit. Concil. Raven 16.  and competently construe also; and one that hath attained to the age of fifteen year; nor a Prebend in a collegiate Church, except he can competently read, and be twelve years old; 

Nec canonicatum vel praebendam in ecclesia Collegiata nisi sciat competenter legere, et duodecimum annum compleverit; nec rurale Beneficium alicui  
prorsus iliterato, sed qui sciat aliqualiter legere. ibid.  
Nullus initiatus 1. a Tonsura ante 14. 'em annum possit obtinere beneficium simplex. Gav. Tit. Beneficium ex Tridentinae Sess. 21. Sufficit annus 14 us inceptus tui. ibid.   nor any rural Benefice, if he be altogether unlettred, and cannot in some sort read; And the Concilium Sabinense to the same purpose, that no Clerk shall be admitted to holy Orders, Nisi litter aliter sciat loqui; neither doth the holy Council of Trent now of late deviate much from the wary steps of their predecessors, having ordered that no simple Benefice shall be bestowed upon any under the age of fourteen years; adding withal that if the 14th year be begun, it is sufficient: So as now there can be no fear but that those great Sees will be learnedly furnished.  
More than all this, what if the man be in no Orders at all, a mere Lajck, what then? Yet if he be elected to the Papacy, he is ipso facto, infallible: For example, 

Constantinus Pap●a accusatus in synod Lateranensi quod nullis sacris initiatus. &c.  
nauclen vel 2. generate. 26.   Pope Constantine the fourth being challenged and accused by the Council of Lateran, that being not initiated into holy Orders, he presumed to hold the See Apostolic, and to do such acts as pertain to that sacred Function (a disorder which is sufficient to make a man perpetually irregular) at the first hearing lowly louted and cried Peccavi, craving pardon for his offence; pleading that the honour was forced upon him by the impetousity of the people: But by that time he had slept upon it, the next morning he was in another tune, and now stood stiffly upon his right; alleging strongly the example of some of his allowed Predecessors in some other Sees; As Sergius Bishop of Ravenna, and Stephen Bishop of Naples. And surely since the virtue is in the place, and not in the man; why should not he challenge an equal privilege of infallibility with the best? And I hope Dame Joan English, whiles she sat upon that Throne, played her part as laudably as the gravest of their learned Doctors; and all because she sat in the same chair of Papal Office, though not in the Marble chair, Tanquam in stercoraria, as all her Successors since that time have ever done. 
Sedet in porphyretica tanquam in stercoraria. Lib. Sacr. cerem.  Indeed I do not hear of any Saint she canonised, nor of any Council she called, neither are those Acts essential to that sacred Function, since the latter have been wont to be done by Emperors: and the former is (not without great pretence of Reason) judged by Marsilius Patavinus to be an act more meet for a General Council, 

Marsilius Patavinus censet authoritatem canonizand soli Concilio Generali commitrendam. L. 10. q. defensor pacis inscribitur parte. a. Hospinianus de Canonizat.  
Multi sunt in consortio sanctorum qui now sunt in catalogue.   who can best judge of the qualification of persons fit for that superlative honour; and if it were not at all done by either of them, it is a true word of Erasmus, Multi sunt, &c. Many are in the company of the Saints which are not in their Catalogue; But for the ordinary transactions of the consistory and Conclave, she left not (for aught I can hear) any blur upon her judgement, though she left some blur upon her honesty, and some monument of her sex in the open Street.  
Now the envious Malignants I confess put us somewhat hard to it, whiles they lay in our dish some sad instance of human frailty in some of St. Peter's Successors: whiles they tell us of Pope Marcellinus, that out of fear yielded to cast some grains of Incense into the Idols fire, as himself minceth the act, for which he underwent a willing penance; Or Liberius the Pope subscribing to the Arian heresy, 
Siffrid l. 2. Epitome suá scribit Joanni quem 18. vocat pe peram quendam Librum scripsit Bint. in notis de Joanne 19 vulgo 21.  as is undeniably contested by Athanasius and Jerome of Pope John 18. (as he is reckoned) who as Siffridus tells us, wrote a wicked and heretical Book which he meant to have published to the World, had he not been happily prevented by the fall of his house on his head. Of Pope Celestine the third, 
Celestinus 3 us erravit de dissolvendo matrimonio conjugum, si alter in haeresin inciderit Licitumque esse parti Catholicae conrahere matrimonium.  who erroneously (though Cathedra) defined the dessolution of the Marriage contracted with an heretic; and the lawfulness of the second marriage of the orthodox person after such dissolution; which though now obliterated for shame of the World, yet Alphonsus de Castro professeth to have seen it recorded in the ancient Decretals: Neither can we deny but they may make our ears glow with shameful examples of this kind; what need we to particularize, 
Multi Pontifices in errores et haereses lapsi esse leguntur, Concil. Basil in Ep. Synodica.  when the Council of Basil speaks with a full mo●th? Many Popes are read to have fall'n into Errors and Heresies; but that wherewith I find myself in greatest peril of confusion, is that horrible testimony of John Picus Earl of Mirandula, who tells us, Sed & alium, 
Sed et alium meminimus Pontificem creditum et ordinatum, quem tamen prástantes viri putarunt nec Ponficem esse nec esse posse, utpote qui nullum deum credens &c. Jo. Pic. Mirand. Theorem. 4. de fide p. 177.  &c. I remember another who was believed to be Pope, and so ordained; whom yet some worthy persons think that he neither was truly a Pope, nor indeed could be; who in believing that there is no God, exceeded the highest pitch of Infidelity; confessing to some of his domestics, that even whiles he held the Papal See, in that very time he believed there was no God at all: And how could this man (think we) err in the Faith, whiles he was in so good a mind?  

Aliumque familiari suo cuidam apperuerat apud sell animarum immortalitatem minime creditam. ibid.  again (saith he) I remember another Pope which told a familiar friend of his that the immortality of the soul was not believed by him; who dying afterwards appeared to that friend lamentably acknowledging that he now found his soul to be immortal, to his infinite loss and perpetual torment: Oh miserable Pastor of soul that denied the very being of that charge which he professed to feed. What then shall we say to this? Perhaps that learned and noble person might be misinformed, by some spiteful slanderer, who affained such dreadful blasphemy upon their holiness; 
O miserum affectatorem for Pontificum qui nihil ex aula praeter inopiam et canitiem horrendam attulerit. Mass. Nical. 50.  Some cast Courtier, who had with Poggius worn out his time in the vain hopes of preferment, and now at last carrying away nothing thence but grey hairs and beggary devised (it may be) those hellish Calumnies to the blemish of his regardless master: Or if the suggestion were true, why do we not rather what those worthy men whom he mentions say? these monsters of infidelity were no more Popes, than Comets are Stars, or devil's Angels of light, because they do but appear in that likeness: And, that had they been true Popes, they had never been suffered to fall into so prodigious and detestable opinions; since by virtue of their station (as hath been sufficiently shown) their faith is inviolable, their decisions infallible.  
Neither is it any small favour of the Almighty that he hath left to his Church such an inerrable Judge of controversies, to whom it may resort upon all occasions for full satisfaction, and therein find rest to the soul; whereas the obstinate Protestant is still to seek in all his doubts, and hath nothing in his mouth but Scripture, Scripture, which he also construes according to his own private spirit; not considering that the true sense of it (which lies not in the skin, but the marrow of it) must be fetch't from the living Oracle of the Church; and that it is the Church alone which gives authority to the Scripture, if not primarily in itself, yet secondarily to us: The misconstruction whereof is that which vainly puffes them up in an high conceit of their own erroneous opinions; although let an indifferent eye look upon them, it will easily find them to be no friends to Rome. Luther tells us of one of the Electors, 
Luther serm. Conviv.  the Archbishop of Men●s, who by chance had light upon a Bible, and for four hours' space read in it very seriously; one of his counsel seeing him, asked his highness what he did with that book? to whom he is said to have answered, I know not what Book it is; but sure I am, that what I find written in it is against us. 
Ibid. Luther.  Much to the like purpose was that conference which we find reported, betwixt Wiliam Duke of Bavaria, and Doctor Eckius; The Duke asked the Dr. Sir, may we not overthrow this new doctrine of the heretics by the Scripture? No said the Doctor, by Scripture we cannot, but by the Fathers we may.  
The Malignants cannot forbear to smile at the decision; and say the Doctor spoke the truth without racking: But though Fathers and Councils be all ours, as Campian triumphantly vaunteth, yet this is not that we build upon: It is the unfailable sentence of Peter's unerring Successor that we do with all confident assurance rely upon in all matters of faith; whose judgement we do with that eloquent Bishop of Bitonto prefer before hundreds of Augustine's, Hieromes', Chrysostom's, and the rest of those learned and godly Fathers; Let the heretics hug their Scriptures in their bosom, as the only guides and grounds of their faith; Let us pitch securely upon that firm rock of the Church whereon the fond refractories will needs wilfully split themselves.   

CHAP. VIII. The Triumph of Bounty.  
AS no Church under Heaven is said to be so rich as our holy Mother the Church of Rome, so none is equally free and bountiful; Thus it is, and should be with all ingenuous natures. The earth sends up vapours, and receives showers back again; Oh the liberality of the holy See: The sons of that Mother have sucked bounty from her breasts; 
Nihil ●uiqam negavit, quandoque duobus idem annuerit. Anno. 1294. been. in notis.  Celestine the fifth (good soul) was so free, that he would deny nothing to any suitor; yea that he would grant the same boon to two or three several petitioners. Alexander the fifth was of the same soft Metal, 
Episcopus dives, pauper, Cardinalis Papa mendicus.  who professed to have been a rich Bishop, a poor Cardinal, but a beggarly Pope: So had he laid about him, that what enriched all others, had impoverished him: And the praise that St. Bernard gives to Gilbert Bishop of London, is, that in a rich bishopric he was yet poor not only in his estimation through humility according to the old Greek verse {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} but in the estimation of others through his liberality; 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}:  So Innocentius 8th. was by Lionel Bishop of Concordia in his funeral oration styled vir ditissimae paupertatis; So John (surnamed the eleemosynary, 
Joan. Eleemosynarius Patr. Heirosot. croper ta rium preciosum vendidit. &c. Brom. v. Eleemos. Sanctus Germanus extra Mediolanum veniens &c. Brom. ibid.  or Almoner sold the rich coverlet that had been given him, and distributed the price among the poor; So Saint German is said to have chid his man, that having three florins in his purse, he had given but two of them to a poor indigent: So the hermit kissed the thieves hand that had stolen his victuals, for helping him so much the sooner into Heaven. But above all those thousands that might be instanced in this kind, St. Francis is worthy to bear away the Bell, who to a poor man that craved his alms gave all his Clothes, 
Lib. Conform.  and stood naked the while till he could be recruited with some other rags; and to a poor woman likewise begging of him, finding by the information of one of his Disciples that they had nothing left but the book of the holy Gospels, out of which they were to read the lessons of divine service, could say, Da huic sorori nostrae librum Evangelii: Give this our Sister the book of the Gospel, so parting with that at last which (as he conceived) had bidden him to give all away. Neither would he admit of any man into the Society of his Order, but such a one as was of his own diet, totaliter expropriatus, willingly stripped of all, in an holy bounty, and contempt of the world; 
Lib. Conform. 2● Fructu. 4. pag. 218.  In so much as when one of his Brotherhood earnestly sued to him that he would allow him to have but a Psalter to read on, and being denied, he renewed his request more vehemently; St. Francis being overcome with his importunity, yielded so far as to refer him to his servant's judgement in the point; but after his second thoughts, meeting with this bookish brother, where was it (said he) that I told you I referred you to your servant's judgement concerning the Psalter desired by you? when the place was showed him, St. Francis falls down there on his knees, before his young brother, and cried (as is used in confession) Mea culpa, frater, mea culpa, It was my fault, brother, it was my fault to yield so far: For whosoever will be a Friar minorite; must not be allowed to have any more than his two coats, his chord, and his breeches; and if necessity urge, 
Conform. l. 2. Fruct. 4. pag. 218.  his shoes. And what a foul penance he enjoined to one of his poor Fraternity for hiding a piece of coin, I shall in good manners forbear to relate.  
How strictly and curiously this rule of his is observed, by his followers, the world can well witness; let Krantzius speak for the rest; who tells us that these men may take up St. Paul's words in a contrary sense, as having nothing yet possessing all things (2 Cor. 3.10.) Meet sons for so bountiful a Mother; of whose munificence there are no bounds: Who can express the numbers and extent of her Indulgences, and gracious concessions of all kinds; which how free they are, the Taxa Camerá Apostolicá can fully testify: As for the pardons of Course granted for sins of ordinary incursion, 
De adulteriis et aliis peccatis quá minora sunt.  put case for Adulteries and other less crimes, as Alexander the third styles them, they are more common than the stones in the street, so numerous, that they cannot come under any account; and those no less free, then frequent; though it is fit and reasonable that they which partake of so great a benefit, should porrigore manus adjutrices; One good turn requires another; and a little ease to the soul, is worth a good lining of the purse.  
But the height of spiritual bounty is in the extraordinary exercises of Papal beneficence, such as are the Grants of his Diplomata confessionalia; 
Dictae sunt Bullae pro peccatis ad huc committendis quibus scilicet data est potestas eligendi confessorem &c. Vid-Chemni● Exam. de Indulgentiis.  Bulls of special Grace, which may have a relation to sins that are to be committed in the future. For example, a well disposed man hath a mind to commit some pleasing sin whether of lust or revenge, and yet save his soul harmless; what now is to be done? Let him purchase one of these powerful Bulls, by virtue whereof he shall be enabled to choose a Confessary for his own tooth: To whom faculty is thereby granted to absolve him, and to gratify him with a plenary Indulgence in what case soever shall be propounded; which was according to the old Doctrine that Tetzel the great Pardon-monger, Luther's good friend taught, and wrote; 
Luth. Serm. Conviv.  that the Pope's Indulgences could remit and pardon those sins which a man intended to commit in time to come: Now if any crafty chapman shall have made such ill use of this wholesome Doctrine, as to drive the bargain with a well-meaning Penitentiary, for pardon of a concealed sin, purposed to be done by him, and shall thereby mean (as the Tale goes) his robbing of the Pardon-monger himself, and easing him of his carriage; for my part I shall hold him worthy of no less punishment, then to be cursed with Bell, Book and Candle.  
Another improvement of the free hand of our holy Mother, much of kind to the former, is the large dispensations, granted by his holiness, upon all weighty occasions; which some quea●y stomachs (such as Gersom and Erasmuses) do not well digest, mistaking the term, and calling them dissipations; Well fare yet the zeal of a learned Spaniard, 
Mart. Alph. Vivaldus candle. Aureo.  Martin Alphonsus Vivaldus who flies fiercely in in the face of one of their greatest Bishops, for making question of the lavish exercise of the Pope's power in this kind, Piis auribus &c. It is offensive to pious ears (saith he) which is spoken by a most reverend Bishop of Spain a Dominican by profession; who handling the question whether the Pope may err; I would to God (saith he) that any doubt could be made of this conclusion; but we see daily come from the Court of Rome such large, yea loose dipensations that the world cannot bear them any longer; whereupon the zealous Doctor beats his Candlestick about the ears of this Censorious Prelate, twitting him with the contrary judgement of their common Mother, the University of Salamanca: Whereas other Catholics take too tamely the heavy censures which pass daily upon his holiness in this behalf: It is a stark shame to see, 
Defence of the Apol. 3. part. p. 371.  That when Bishop Jewel so long ago hath so clamorously laid open such a rabble of gross and intolerable flatteries (as he proclaims them) fall'n from the pens of some Roman Parasites, both Divines, and Canonists, 
Vide citationes authoris apud Juellum loco praedicto.  concerning the prodigiously-exorbitant powers and practice of Papal dispensations (such as any modest man would blush to hear) as that the Pope may dispense (saith one) against Paul's Epistles; against the new Testament, saith another; against both Old and New Testament, saith a third; against the Law of God, saith a fourth; above the Law saith a fifth; of wrong he can make right, of nothing something, saith a sixt: Yea to shut up all) sin only excepted he can [quas● omnia facere, quae Deus potest] do in a sort all that God can do; Yet 
Nec quisquam ex agmine tanto  
Audet a dire virum.  
Not one in all that great and boastful rout  
Dares come to grapple with that Champion stout.   
No one Catholic pen hath ever wagged against him, for either apology, or excuse: Neither yet after so many and bitter complaints made in, and to the Council of Trent concerning the horrible abuse of this practice is the case thought meet to be any whit altered: but, 
Intranti nummo quasi quodam principe summo  
Exiliunt valuae, nihil auditur nisi salve.  
When money enters like some mighty Lord,  
The gates fly open; God save you is the word.   
As Cardinal Cusanus could say in his time, It is no more, but deferunt a●●um et argentum, et reportant chartas, Men bring in Silver and Gold, and carry out papers.  
Yet a third piece of Papal bounty is the granting of extraordinarily high privileges to Princes and States far better than a Golden Rose upon Dominica Laetare (though daubed over with the preciousest balsam, and perfumed with musk, and blessed with holy water) which are feoffed not upon their persons only, but their successors: Yet not so, but upon misdemenour they may be reversed; and upon the necessity or greater avail of the Church, infringed. The rule is Papa nunquam ligat sibi manus, The Pope never ties his own hands; those are still left at liberty, to tie or untie at pleasure. So we have known more than once, that notwithstanding his engaging himself by his free concessions, yet that he makes bold to take the freedom of doing what he lists, as the Gravamina Germaniae would make us believe: And here in England, (when time was) the Parliament, and especially the peers complained to, and of Pope Innocentius, in the first Council of lions, that Martin his legate, had injuriously violated the privilege granted specially to the King of this Realm, by the See Apostolic, That no person should execute the Office of a Legate in this Land, unless he were especially requested thereunto, by his Majesty; which wrong they do so sharply resent, that they speak big words (if not saucy) to his holiness; Non possumus aequanimiter tolerare, nec per dei gratiam amplius tolerabimus; we neither can, nor by God's grace will suffer it to be done any more. 
Binius ex Matthaeo Paris. Anno 1345.  And the bold French Lawyers, the spawn of that refractory Sorbone, have got a distinction by the end of Privilegia remuneratoria; differencing the privileges that are yielded upon considerations, from those that are merely free and voluntary; standing upon it, that if the privilege were granted in way of remuneration and upon a mutual concordate it is not the power of his holiness to reverse or violate it.  
Let them argue the case, whom it concerns. But, certainly, in this last and worst age of the world, the great Kings of the earth grow resty, and headstrong, having learned at last, to know their own strength; and now having got the bit between their teeth, their rider is best to sit sure for fear of a fall.  
In the mean time, hitherto, as some Popes have given out themselves for the Lords of the world (usurping the speech of him that said, All the kingdoms of the earth are mine, and to whomsoever I will, 
Luke 4.6.  I deliver them) so there have not wanted great Princes which have been content to receive the grant, and confirmation of new Kingdoms from their hands (cum privilegio ad possidendum solum) and have nothing to plead for the propriety of their right, in those large territories, snatched from their heathen owners, but a sheep's skin sub Sigillo piscatoris; So as these Beneficiaries cannot but acknowledge our Rome the Mistress of the world, not more great then bountiful.  
As for other Churches, what have they to give? were it not well with them, if they could but hold their own? If (as the world goes) they can maintain but a bare subsistence upon earth, although, in the mean time, they are confident of a large portion in heaven?   

CHAP. ix.. The triumph of Gain.  
BOunty cannot live, and hold out, unless it be fed, and supplied with incomes of profit, It will easily therefore be granted, that the holy Mother, being so beneficent, must needs be recruited with large accession of gainful emoluments: As no Church under Heaven is so free, so none is equally rich; when his holiness enters upon his Apostolical charge, 

Pontifex aceipit de gremio Camerarii sui pecuniam. Ubi nihil tamen est auri vel argenti, spargensque in pop. dicit. Aurum & argentum non habeo; quod autem habeo hoc tibi do. Lib. sacr. Ceremon.  
Thomae Aquinati accedenti ad Innocentium 4. cum magna vis pecuniae numeraretur, vides Thoma Ecclesiam non amplius dicere posse, Aurum & argentum non habeo Cum doctor Angelicus resp. urbane & modeste, Nec modo quod tunc, claudo imperare ut surgat & ambulet Bapt. Gillius. Acad. Flor. Dial. 3.   he only scatters brass among the people, and borrows the words of St. Peter; Silver and Gold have I none; but by that time he is warm in his seat, he is in another tune so as when Thomas Aquinas came to Innocent the fourth (whom he found surrounded with great heaps of Gold) Lo Thomas, said the Pope, the Church cannot now say, as of old, Silver and Gold have I none; No, said the surly Doctor, neither can she say to the lame man, Arise and walk.  
It was a strange thing to see a Pope Celestine 5th. to be still an Anachorite in Peter's chair, and to meet him in the street riding on an ass; or to hear of a Pope Clement 4th. who having two daughters, bestowed a whole three hundred pounds upon one of them for a marriage portion, and gave thirty pound with the other to place her in a Nunnery; and from his nephew (perhaps his son) that had three Prebends, took two away, in his bountiful liberality. Or to hear an Alexander 5th. a beggar in the Episcopal Throne; These may pass for prodigies of a pusillaminous mortification; the kindly successors of Peter bewray other manner of spirits, and keep another kind of estate; whether by the munificent Legacies of Emperors, Kings, Princes, and other Potentates, or by virtue of their invaluably rich offices, and veils. As for those of the first kind, we cannot easily be beaten off from the just maintenance of those two great Donations of Constantine; the one, of the place of Lateran, and City of Rome, the other of the Territories of Rome, Italy, and other the Western Countries therein mentioned; though, Otho Frisingensis, Platina, 
Papyr. Mass. in vita. Confer of Hart and Reynolds.  Krantzius, Cusanus, Laurentius Valla, and Pius himself give up the latter of them as supposititious, and though, for the former, it be apparent, that the Emperor possessed Rome still, for 400. years after the pretended grant.  
But it is needless to inquire thus late, quo jure; we are sure his holiness holds them now fast enough; Besides the addition of other rich Principalities derived since upon the Church by the munificence of pious Benefactors. Oh the inexhaustible bounty of those holy Souls of our Ancestors! What was it that those Religious heroes thought too good to accumulate upon the Church? How happy did they think themselves in making the Church their heir? 
Regna magis quam caenobia vir sanctus posteris reliquit &c. non tam pauperibus hospitium quam clericis & sacerdotibus otium atque luxuriam pariturus, Volateran.  If but to one order of St. Benedict, Tertullus a Patrician of Rome could give his large patrimony, leaving to posterity regna magis quam caenobia, kingdoms rather than Monasteries, as Volateran tells us; what shall we think of the universal endowments of the See Apostolic? Besides these voluntary Donations, the Imposed sums from all Christian nations must needs make up a very large and scarce computable revenue; Take the account, as it is given in from France, by the sure and faithful hand of Nicholaus Clemangis, 
Taxa vacantiarum secundum quod describitur in libris Camerae Apostolica de Ecclesiiis Cathedral. et Abbatiis Galliarum taxatis ascendit ad sexenta nonaginta septem millia septingenta quinquaginta Erancorum sine praelaturis &c. Nic. Clem. de Annatis non solvendes p. 100  who tells us that the tax of the vacancies of cathedral Churches and Abbacies in France, as it is set down in the books of the Chamber Apostolic, arises to six hundred ninety seven thousand seven hundred and fifty Franks, besides Prelacies, and other inferior Dignities and Benefices; which amount to near as much more. To which, he adds that if in other nations the like rate should be received, The sum would arise to no less than six millions, nine hundred seventy seven thousand and five hundred Florence's. And if greater authority be yet required The Archbishop of lions in the council of Basil told the fathers assembled in the year 1436. that in the time of Pope Martin, 

Archiepiscopus Lugduni in Concilio Basil, narravit Anno Dom. 1436. quod tempore Martini Papae ad Curiam Rom. ex sola Francia venerunt novem milliones aurii, computati ab Episcopis & Praelaturis absque illis qui de parvi● clericis sumebanr●. Hen. Tok. Legat. Archiepiscopi Magdeburg &c.  
Nec dubium quin omnibus certis & accidentariis computatis, Papa singuli● annis decem milliones coronatorum undequaque corraserit. ibid. Henr.  
Epist. Anglorum ad Innocentium.  
Italici percipientes in Anglia sexaginta millia Marcarum & co amplius &c.   there came to the Court of Rome out of France above nine millions of Gold, being accounted from the Bishops and prelates, besides those sums which are raised from smaller Benefices: Neither is there any doubt to be made that the Pope by all both set, and accidentary incomes takes up ten millions of crowns yearly into his coffers. And that I may not trifle the reckonings of other nations, hear what our English Parliament in the days of Henry the 3d. complains to, and of Pope Innocent: The Italians (say they) receive out of England six hundred thousand marks and more, every year, besides divers other sums; So as they carry out of the Kingdom more profits, of mere rents, than the King himself (who is the Tutor of the Church, and governor of the Kingdom) receiveth: Thus they: subscribed, magnates et universitas regni Angliae: The Peers and Commons of the Kingdom of England.  
Besides the set and fixed revenues, many casual windfalls of no small value contribute much to the craming of his Holiness coffers.  
The Prelates of that universal See know their heir, beforehand, even Peter's successor: What share soever some secular Bishops are allowed in some Countries, 
Potest Episcopus donare in vita non causa mortis. Ex Barbos. Gav.  to have in disposing their estates, those which are Regulars, cannot look to make any other will of their goods or Lands, 

Episcopus Regularis neque de Patrimonialibus, nec de acquisitis potest testari. Idem.  
In infirmitate non potest quilibet Episcopus immoderatas facere Eleemosyna. Ibid.  
Bona Episcopi titularis acquiruntur Papae. Idem.   whether patrimonial, or acquisite; and the rest towards their end may not be too free of their alms; what should I mention the months reserved, the Annates, advowsons, Expectatives, and other perquisites of Rectories and other lower dignities? And if an archbishopric fall void, there is the price of a Pall, coming flush in; which is no small one; 
Luth serm. Conviv.  The Archbishop of Ments paid belike for his, six and twenty thousand Crowns; and the rest in the like proportion. So as St. Peter's successor needs not fish for unlawful emoluments, such as Symoniacal contracts (to the penalty whereof his Holiness is not liable) or such as Pope Leo is charged withal, who is said to have been bribed with 8000. 
●uth. Conviv. serm.  ducats by the Capuchins to balk their visitation; Perhaps it may have been with him, as was said of Galba, that himself did no injuries to men, but his servants might verify that of the Poet, 
Venalesque manus, ibi fas ubi plurima meroes.  
Sale hands, & that's most right that brings most gain.  himself surely would scorn so sordid a contract, seeing so strong a current of coin flowing in daily into his mint by justifiable ways. O the not more admired, than envied treasures of his Holiness! Even in our time, Pope Sixtus Quintus, (sife-cinque) (as some idle gamesters mis●named him) of an hog-heard, as it is said, becomne an holy Franciscan, 
Post annos 5. habebat in aerario. 5. milliones aureorum, ut testatur Ciracella in ejus vita.  (who by his vow must not meddle with money) in the first year of his popedom added unto the Treasury a whole million of Crowns; and after five years had five millions in stock; 
Nicol. Clemangi● ubi supra.  And not to instance in any more, John the 22d. as Nicholaus Clemangis assures us, had a million, and seven hundred thousand florences of Gold laid up in several places; Whereto also the same author adds that the college of Cardinals, were supposed to have half so much for their share laid up also. It is well yet, that, by his saying, this wealth runs not in one channel; and that his Holiness can abide, that this precious ointment should run down, from his beard, to the skirts of his garment too. How rich therefore do we think the Clergy of his immediate subordination must needs be (Dignum patella opercu'um) when John Gerson can cry out enviously enough I warrant you: Quae utique abominatio &c. 
Quae utique abominatio quod unus tener ducenta, alter trecenta beneficia Ecclesiastica. Gerson Declar. defectuum vir. Eccles.  What an abomination is this (saith he) that one man should hold two hundred, another three hundred Ecclesiastical Benefices in his hand; But above all, what a super-excessively rich Court is that of Rome? wherein his Holiness, and his potent factors, strive who shall more overlay each other with weight of Gold; what Court under heaven doth so swarm with varieties of Officers, both for state, and profit? many whereof are so vendible, that we are acquainted with the price beforehand; To give you a taste; Not to speak of the Master of the Palace, 
The Court of Rome with the Government, Officers, and value of their Offices, published in Italian, and translated by Mr. Henry Cogan, set forth 1654.  the secret Chamberlain, The Secretary of state; the 24 Secretaries of Breives, the Generals both of the Guards, and of the holy Church; places of not more honour, than profit. The Vice-chancelorship is of the value of fifteen or sixteen thousand crowns by the year; The Officers of the Apostolical Chancery; both the Regent and the twelve Prelates, the Abbreviators, so rich that the Regentship is sold for two and twenty thousand crowns; the rest, every Abbreviatorship, for twelve thousand crowns.  
The Cardinal Chamberlain worth twelve or fourteen thousand crowns yearly; The Master of the Brieves worth thirteen thousand; The perfect of the Brieves twelve thousand; The Lord Treasurer general's place worth seventy thousand crowns; The Auditors of the Chamber sold for seventy thousand crowns; The office of the Lead bought for three thousand crowns; Four Officers of the Register, called Ministers of the Register of supplication, sold for four thousand crowns a piece; The Pronotaries participant, whereof thee are twelve Prelates, each place bought for seven thousand crowns.  
I could easily weary you, if I listed to transcribe the Catalogue of the Offices of the Palace, as the writers of the penitentiary, the writers of Brieves, Apostolical Squires, Knight of St. Peter and St. Paul; Knights of the Flowerdeluce Lauretan Knights, and God knows how many more rich places (both of dignity and employment) all which are confessedly so bought and sold, that (as it may fall) both parties may make a good market.  
Now all this magnificence, and wealth, could not hold up, if Rome were not the Ocean, into which all the rivers of the world run to pay their tribute, especially in the case of Dispensation, and of Absolutions from Cases Reserved; these alone (if the world had no quarrels that might draw on Appeals) were enough to make Tiber overflow his banks.  
Upon these occasions, Oh what flocking there is to this Metropolis from all the regions of Christendom? In so much, as the view of this general resort drew from the envious tongue of him whom the world hath long styled Venerable, 
Venerabilis Beda.  the willing misconstruction of those well known Letters S. P. Q. R. as importing, 
Senatus, populusque Romanus.  Stultus populus quaerit Romam; All flock hither, none empty handed; but (as happy is) none go away overloaded, (except it be with grief for what they left behind them, and what they cannot but carry with them) For I perceive it is a stale proverb at Rome, 
Tritum Romae adagium, è Curia tria reportari Inane mar supium conscientiam malam, stomachum malum.  as Massonus himself tells us, that men do ordinarily carry away from the Court of Rome an empty purse, an ill conscience, and a bad stomach.  
Thus invaluably rich is the Roman Church; and why may she not make it an argument of God's special favour to her, as well as some prosperous usurpers in all times have made success the proof of a good cause? Now, what wealth can the Protestant and pretendedly Reformed Church boast of to the World? Surely, they are abounding, but it is with wants; full, but of sorrows and afflictions; loaded, but with heavy pressures, with contempt and disgraces: He is wilfully blind then, that will not see where to pitch his choice: The one saith, 
Babylon. Esay 47.8. Revel. 18.7.  I sit as a Queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow: Of the other God says, Come down O daughter Zion, and sit in the Dust. The one is high mounted, and sits gorgeously arrayed in purple and scarlet, decked with Gold and pearls, and precious stones; with a golden cup in her hand, and a glorious title in her forehead: The other lies grovelling on the earth, arrayed in Sackcloth, covered with ashes, drenched in tears, miserable for the time, and only in hope happy and glorious.   

CHAP. X. The Triumph of Wisdom.  
IF thou be wise, be wise for thyself, 
Prov. 19.12.  is the counsel of the wisest King; which if ever any Church under Heaven have carefully taken, it is the Roman: so cunningly is the frame of her government contrived, that her witty and dear son, that hath written de regimine Principis, could not devise how to mend it: neither is the ministration and management of it any way unanswerable to the platform. For, to begin with matter of caution: Whereas it hath always been found dangerous to let the Vulgar know too much; since knowledge is an edge-tool, which unskilful hands cannot tell how to rule, but are rather apt to wound themselves therewith; and (as the old axiom runs) ignorance is the mother of devotion; it hath therefore been the wisdom of our holy mother to keep the common people blindfold; and to cause them to take up with an implicit faith, without enquiring into the mysteries of faith; and informing themselves of the special points of Religion; as suspecting, that, upon more light of understanding, they would grow scrupulous, censorious, refractory; Indeed, as Luther said, what should a cow do with nutmegs? And because if the Laity should be allowed to read the Scriptures in a language which they understand, it is feared they would easily find (that which the Archbishop of Mentz in a former passage professed to see) that those holy pages are no friends to Rome; 

Biblia vulgari lingua edita non possunt legi; neque Episcopi, neque Inquisitores, neque Regularum superiores dare queunt licentiam. Clem. 8. in Indie. lib. prohibit.  
Neque compendium historiae Bibliorum, Ibid.   therefore our holy father Clement 8. hath found it the wisest way, strictly to forbid both the reading and retaining of any Bible, or any part of it, in the mother tongue of any Nation under heaven, inhibiting also any abridgement of the history thereof under great penalty, restraining the power that any Bishop in former times might have used in giving licence upon good caution to some confiding persons to read the same. And lest some other heretical books should poison the minds of unwary readers to the great prejudice of the Roman faith; what curious remedy, hath that wise Church provided, for both the prevention of that danger where it may happen, and the redress where it is.  
Order is first taken for the prohibiting & suppressing of all books that are apparently contagious; so as they are smothered ere they come to the light of the world; as for others, that amongst much wholesome matter, have some interspersions of suspicious or unsafe passages, they are soundly purged, & corrected, and taught to speak true Roman; yea though it be one of the ancient Fathers, though Augustine himself, 

St. Augustine speaking of eating the flesh, and drinking the blood of Christ; hath, Facinus vel flagitium videtur Jubere; figura ergo est, &c.  
Addit. Inquis. dicet, haereticus, verba Augustini sunt, lib. de doctrina Christianae. l. 5. c. 16.   if his pen have lashed out in the opinion of a solicitous supervisor, he shall be fetched in, with a dicet Haereticus: as for the careful courses that are taken for the safety of all reimpressions, the wit of man can rather admire, than sample them; And lest conference & conversation should infect any sou; le, it is enacted by Pope Gregory 15. Anno 1622. that no heretical person whatsoever, on what ever pretext, 
Cabant. v. Haeresis.  shall hire an house, or dwell within the territories of Italy, and the Jsles adjoining; 
Ibid.  As also that no Italian shall dare to dwell in any region of the heretics where there is not a Catholic Priest to support him; 
Ibid.  that he shall not make use of an heretical Physician, except in the utter want of a Catholic Doctor; 
Ibid.  That no man shall be sent to the places of heretics upon the businefs of Merchandise, 
Ibid.  except he be 25 years old; That it shall not satisfy the Inquisition, that he who hath heretical books, do burn them privately (there may be fraud in that pretence) unless he bring them to the superior. 
Cabant. de Monialibus.   
As for due caution for avoiding of scandal, how singular and exemplary it is: No tall trees may be suffered near to a monastery of holy Sisters: No chimney may be allowed to their private Cells: 
Caminus non admittatur cellis privatis. ibid.  The Regulars may not buy or procure any closes, or gardens near to the nunnery: 
Ibid.  The window which looks into the choir must be but two Cubits, and twelve inches high; the probationers may not go forth to visit their parents; 
Ibid.  None of them may walk forth but by couples; 
Ibid.  Their nearest cousins may not be admitted to visit them, 
Ibid.  when they are sick, no not in the case of death; Their Confessary may not go in to hallow the house on holy Saturday, 
Ibid.  nor may accompany the physicians or workmen; Lastly, they may not have Licence to go abroad, unless it be for alms; and only those, which are forty years old, and not fair; Though for this last clause, I take care how it will be construed, whether in relation to their own opinion or others; If to their own, I doubt they must all keep house perpetually.  

Ibid.  For extreme unction and the sacred viaticum which is to be delivered to dying persons, how wisely is it instituted that these sacramental acts shall not be performed to any one, by him that is the Confessarie of the sick person; lest there may have been unmeet secrecies smothered between them, and each of them be unjustly indulgent to other in the parting.  

Ibid.  For exorcisations, in the practice whereof there hath been of old a just suspicion of juggling, what can be better advised then that they shall be done in the church openly, neither before the sunrising, nor after the Sun setting, and that when very few are allowed to be present.  
The like curiosities of heedfulness may be easily observed in all the comportments of these prudent governors; which some uncharitable censurers will perhaps interpret the wrong way, and be apt to say self-guiltiness is causer of suspicion.  
For my part, I cannot but praise their wit, as in this wariness, so in their winning plausibility, and fine ways to hook in and gratify the great ones: Besides the Golden Roses, and hallowed swords, and Banner, wherewith they please more boys, they can ennoble them with high Titles. France hath, The most Christian King; Spain, the Catholic King; England, the Defender of the Faith; Scotland had, the Defender of the Church; the Helvetian, Defenders of the liberties of the Church.  Sunt & hic Priamo sua praemia laudi: 
Neither is the care to please more than the tender fear to offend the mighty: 
Bulla coenae excommunicate imponentes nova pedagia sive gavellas subditis.  Was it not wisely turned off, when the Bulla caenae had excommunicated a●● that lay new imposts and gavels upon their subjects, (which the learned Casuist shrugs at, as Casus difficilis principibus, periculosus scribentibus) to resolve, That this hard censure is only for those great persons that acknowledge to have superiors over them, 
Mart. Vival. de Bulla coenae.  as Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Barons; but as for those temporal Lords that have no superiors in Temporalities, as the Emperor, King of Spain, and King of France, it concerns not them at all; They may crush their Subjects with what load of Taxes they please.  


Ne dum rex Christianissimus ab aliis excommunicari non potest, immo ipse alios saltem, Laicos saltem, Laicos ex justa causa potest excommunicare. Degrassat. l. 2. Jure 9  
Rex Franciae duos habet bonos Angelos &c.   And what shall we say to that bold plea which is connived at, for the King of France, that the said king cannot be Excommunicated by any man? Yea, so far is it from that, as that the same king hath power to excommunicate others, especially Lay persons, as Degrassalius shames not to profess, adding withal, that the king of France hath two Angels, whereas other men have but one; And though it seem to sound harsh, that where the Lord is declared an heretic, there the Vassals are bound to deny him any obedience, yet the matter is so well qualified with temperate and safe exceptions, that there is no great cause of fear in that scarrecrow.  
For matters of profit, what a wary hand doth his holiness hold over his Subjects; 
Sal exterum in terris Ecclesiae ne ematur. Gregor. 13. Gavat. Bulla. c.  How wisely hath he enacted that no foreign Salt shall be b●●ught within all the Territories pertaining to the Church?  

Piratae excommunicantur (non omnes sed) discurrentes mare nostrum, praecipuae à monte Argentario usque ad Terracinam, & omnes eorum sautores et receptores. Bulla coenae à Clem. 8. anno 1600 Excom. impedientes victualia deferenda ad usum Romoe curiae. ibid.  How prudently hath he provided for the free and safe traffic in his own Harbours, by his Bulla coenae, excommunicating all Pirates that shall presume to infest his own Seas, especially from the mount Argentarius to Terracina, and all the favourers, and receivers of them? as for his neighbour Princes, let them look to themselves, Non omnibus dormit Innocentius; How justly and discreetly doth he excommunicate all those which shall any way hinder the bringing of provision and victuals for the use of the Court of Rome? And if he do on Holy-Thursday pronounce that deadly sentence against all those that withhold the Isle of Sicily, and other Dominions, being the Patrimony of the Church, from the hands of the owner, let the guilty Potentates of the earth look how (whiles this Capitolin Jupiter thunders, and lightens so fearfully) they can shroud their heads under some safe laurel to escape blasting.  
What a laudably thrifty law is that, 
In infirmitate &c. ut supra. Gavant. Tit. Epis.  which ordains that no Bishop towards his end shall be too liberal of his alms, for fear of cheating his holiness of his hopes? That the goods of a Titular Bishop shall come clear in to his Holiness his coffers without diminution. Indeed, whither should they go else? His wife and children lie all in a little compass; being all covered under one purple gown of his holiness: which is given out, as one main reason to enforce a Celibate upon their ecclesiastics, lest this stream should be diverted into other channels.  
Lastly, 
Archiepiscopus sepeliri debet cum pallio in previncia sua circa humeros, extra vero eo plicato sub capite. Gavant. tit. Archiepis.  what advantageous rules of holy frugality do we meet with in their wise constitutions? As, that an Archbishop must be buried with his Pall; either upon his body if he be interred at home; or wrapped up under his head, if buried abroad; that ware is too costly to be either forborn, or to be left to a Successor. It was in the old negligent times that Papyrio tells us, these Prelates were wont to consecrate each other without relation to a Roman Pall; the world is now grown wiser than to lose such a collop.  

Gavant. è Borbos. v. Forum Epicopale.  In matter of Testament, if the heir do neglect to perform the will of the dead within a year, the Bishop shall turn Executor.  
However, under the Law the price of an whore, 
Meretrix non repellenda fundare volens Jus patronatus. Navan. Miser.  no more than of a dog, could be allowed to be brought into the Sanctuary; yet now it is better advised, that if a courtesan out of the cleanly earnings of her honest trade shall be so charitable as to found the patronage of a Church, it shall be accepted. And if a Will prove to be faulty, as vitiated by some corrupt hand, 
Vitiato testamento, non tolluntur Legata ad pios usus. Sylv. v. Legata. Ad pios usus valet Testam. coram duobus Testibus, etiam mulieres sint. Slyv. v. Testam. Ibid. Gavant.  yet the Legacies bequeathed in it to pious uses must hold good.  
That to make good a Testament to pious uses, the witness of two persons only, (though they be women) shall be sufficient.  
That though an Institution made by a dumb man be of no force, yet his gifts to pious purposes shall be always valid.  

Ibid.  That a condemned, malefactor, if he be allowed to retain his goods till his death, may bequeathe them to pious uses.  

Ibid.  That though the church may not take aught from the hands of an impenitent malefactor, yet an excommunicate person may dispose of his goods to pious uses.  
That if a Testator shall say I leave all my goods to the disposing of Titius, 
Ibid.  Titius is bound to distribute them to pious uses.  
That if a chalice be given by Will, 
Ibid.  it is to be supposed to be of silver.  
That in all Legacies to Churches within the diocese the Bishop must have his canonical portion. 
Ibid.   
It were easy to tire the reader with a view of the large list of such wholesome and right Lesinante laws of holy Church, which though looking right forward at piety, yet squint a little aside at profit, if I listed to be tedious; but these are enough, to let him see, that St. Bernard's words were more modest than true, when he said, We are not more wise than our forefathers; It must indeed be confessed, that some no less wise than holy Institutions we received from the hands of our immemorial ancestors, whereof the Church makes singular use at this day; and especially, that of auricular confession, than which nothing could be ever devised more available both to the full knowledge of the state of the Church, in all parts of the Christian world, as also to the retaining of men in their due obedience, and the reformation of their manners; whereof the heretics (though they bite it in) cannot choose but secretly think (according to that of the Comedian) Tum demum &c. Then do we begin to know the worth of our own goods when we have lost them. 
Tum demum nostra intelligimus bona, cum quae in potestate habuimus ea amisimus. Plaut, Captivi.  But there is one main point of wisdom, wherein the present Church far transcends their most prudent predecessors; The fashion was of old, that upon all occasions of weight, counsels were called straight, whether provincial, or ecumenical, there all businesses were agitated, there determined, with so great authority, as that it was the received doctrine of the times that the Session of a general synod was the highest Tribunal, 
Concil. Basil.  from which there was no appeal; and to which, his holiness himself was bound to be subject; But now the world hath learned another Lesson: Both his holiness, and all the crew of his Doctors (the good old Sorbone excepted) have fully and peremptorily determined, that the Pope is above a general council; that he alone can and shall manage all the affairs of the Church, decide all controversies of Religion, 
Papa sententialiter excommunicate appellantes ad Concilium, quia ipse solus potest quamcunque rem etiam determinare & definire. Vivald. in Cass. Bullae. n. 8.  define of all matters of faith; that appeals lie from the most general synod to the papal throne; that the appellants to a general council are liable to excommunication; that the Pope's tribunal (being one & the same with God's) the only lawful appeal is to his Holiness better informed; So as now, the large fist of his Holiness hath so grasped all the affairs of Christendom, that none can fall beside it; and how safe may we well think them in those hands, that are not subject to error.  
Some querulous spirits are apt to complain of the miscarriages of matters of public administration, at the toleration of foul abuses in the Church Catholic; but it is for want of knowledge of these principles, which our holy Mother doth precisely go upon; one whereof most deservedly is, Viderit utilitas; very poorly therefore doth the chancellor of Paris salve up that sore, which was even then complained of; 
Talia tolerantur in Ecclesia in peregrinationibus certis, in cultu imaginum &c. Fateor abnegare non possum multa inter Christianos simplices sub specie religionis introducta esse quorum sanctior esset omissio. Tolerantur tamen quia non possunt funditus erui. Jo. Gers. de ero ribus circa artem magicam.  Talia tolerantur &c. such things (saith he) are tolerated in the Church, in certain pilgrimages, in worshipping of Images, in holy waters, in exorcisms, and the like; which are brought in under a show of religion that were much better to be omitted; but they are therefore tolerated [quia non possunt funditus erui] because they can not be utterly rid, and abandoned.  
Whereas the true reason (if he could have hit on it) is that of Geminianus. Error utilis toleratur, A profitable error is meet to be suffered; This alone is the ground of all those gainful chaffers, that are made at Rome, for a world of Indulgences, and dispensations, and drives the rich trade of that inversed alchemy, of changing Gold into Lead; 
Honorius 3. in literis ad Clerum Anglicanum fatetur. scandalum Romanae curiae, etc: Matth. Westmonast. l. 2. Anno 1226.  this teaches them to make advantages even of complaints; In which kind that or Honorius 3d. is very eminent; who receiving from the Clergy of England sad exclamations, against the avarice and oppressions of the Court of Rome, in his crafty answer, confesses, those complaints to be too just and true, but withal tells them that all this mischief arises from the poverty of their holy Mother; for the remedy whereof, he requires of them the further supply of two prebends in every cathedral, and in every Covent the yearly stipend of one Monk; so the complainants are eased, as plutarch's mule was, which being laded with salt, and finding ease by lying down in the water, by the melting of his burden; was the next time Loaded with wool, which by being drenched doubled the weight.  
Shortly then; whether we regard the marvelous care and vigilancy for the preventing of evils, or the rare and singular artifices of acquiring, preserving, increasing the honours, and profits of the present world, mother Rome is more fit for wonder then emulation:  
As for our silly Reformers, how enviously do they (I warrant you) look upon the unmatchable glory, wealth, policy of this great mistress of the world? All dogs will be still ready to fly upon that cur that runs away with the bone: But where are their cunning contrivances, and subtle devices, to eschew their own dangers or to work mischief to their opposites, to advance their own estate, and suppress their enemies? what sly shifts, and visor-like pretences have they to cozen the world withal? what do they affect but a plain, right-down, honest simplicity? as those that pretend to wit enough, when they are stricken on the one cheek, to turn the other; and to say with him in the satirist, Tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum; and as the Prophet said of their great Lord and Master, Sicut ovis ad occisionem; As a sheep to the slaughter; rather suffering themselves to pocket two wrongs, then to offer one; caring more to be honestly poor, then injuriously rich; in a word, affecting so too much of the Dove, that they have too little of the serpent.   

CHAP. XI. The Triumph of Mercy.  
THere is no one thing wherein the Opposites think to find so much advantage of exception against the Apostolic Sea, as for her unmercifulness, and extreme cruelty; which, as it is an inhuman, and (in that regard) odious, so a much more unChristian disposition; but, 
Est justitia parcena est misericordia puniens. August.  in the mean time they little consider, that, as there is a cruel mercy in sparing, so there is a merciful security in punishing great offenders. And what offence can be greater, than heresy? which alone is of so heinous a nature, 
Haeresis est crimen quod nec confessio celat.  that (according to the old and well known verse) it may not though under the sacred seal of Confession, be concealed; Well then, what though Luther profess, that he believes verily that Rome hath slain an hundred thousand Martyrs; 
Luther. serm. conv.  wherein I hope his meaning is to take in Old heathen Rome into the number! What though Erasmus after his jeering fashion brings in Charon the ferryman of Hell, 
Erasm. Charon queritur sylvas omnes in Elysiis campis ita succisas esse comburendis haereticorum umbris, ut non suppetat lignum cymbae suae resarciendae. Coll. v. Charon.  complaining that his black Barge was now leaky and ready to sink for want of mending; and that there was no wood left in the Elysian grove to repair it, for that it was all spent in the burning of heretics! What though there be much noise of many horrible murders, and massacres of harmless Christians, of the Waldenses in many Regions of Christendom, of Merindol and Cabriere; and tell of that tragical slaughter in France, and the Valtoline! what though the world rings of that bloody butchery of the Inquisition? and the ugly Devils painted on their San-benitos {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  &c. Who can stay the clack of ill tongues? But in the mean time these busy talkers, whiles they exaggerate these pretended immanities', are willing to forget that part of the wallet that hangs behind them; and to pass over those horrid persecutions, which the innocent Roman Catholics have suffered under their tyranny in the time of Qu Elizabeth; whose bloody reign one of our Poets celebrated then, in a sad elegy beginning with Ergone sanctorum nondum saciata cruore? and having compared her with Busiris and Phalaris, shuts up, 

What? not yet sated with the blood of Saints.  
All tyrant's rage yields to Elizabeth.   with Omnis Teddariae cedat furor Elizabethae.  
But belike she speeds thereafter; For father David at Ypre, out of his Pulpit, 
Dr. Merlin reports it, who was testis auritus.  told the people; That he had been a dozen years exorcising a devil, whom (saith he) I never found one day missing till such a day this week; the reason whereof when I demanded of him, answer was given, that he was indeed that day absent, 
Bombinus in vita Campiani.  as being commanded to attend Queen Elizabeth to hell: And since that time many holy Priests, and fathers of the society, have saluted Tyburn in a worse fashion than Father Campian did, when with Father Parsons he passed by that sacred cross. I know their ill-willers will be ready to say, they suffered not for religion, but for treason; and indeed it is true, they might have kept their soul within their teeth long enough, for any violence would have been offered them, if they had only held all the supernumerary articles of the Roman faith, without the acting of those things, which by the Law were declared treasonable (for never any man of them suffered for mere conscience) but if they will be nibbling at allegiance, and wilfully fall upon those practices, which carry in them a forfeiture of life; now the State thinks it may justly say to them, Perditio tua ex te, Thy destruction is from thyself: but let every tub stand on his own bottom: As for our holy mother, grant that she hath been the death of so many heretics, yet this is to be said for her, that she hath killed them in love: love to herself, that she may not be troubled with them; love to the Church, that it may not be embroiled by them; love to the world, that it may not be infected by them; love to their souls, that their sufferings in the other world may be the less, by how much the time of their sinning is shorter. And who then can blame her for her so holy intention? As it is wont to be said, that not the death, but the cause, makes the martyr; so the same rate holds in the inferring of death; the mere killing is not that which deserves either blame or approbation; all is in the cause that merits it, and the mind that inflicts it. Levi lost the blessing by the sword, and by the sword recovered a greater blessing; Phineas his bloody zeal won both forbearance to Israel, favour to his person, and honour to his posterity. In some cases there goes but a pair of shears betwixt justice and rigour: And mercy and severity may well lodge under the roof of one breast.  
For example: St. Francis was a man to whom we may well attribute the title of Moses in his time (mitissimus super terram) the mildest man on the earth, as might be proved by many instances; now this holy man was in hand to preach to a great auditory assembled for that purpose, and offering to lean his back against an oak to that end, he espied a number of Ants or Pismires creeping thereabouts, in compassion of whom, he spoke to the people to give way to his sisters the Ants a while, that they might depart in safety; as he charged them also to do they obeyed, and he straight fell to his work; but whiles he was zealously preaching, there comes a woman with a cymbal in her hand, ringing it so loud that the voice could not but be drowned with the sound, St. Francis being much troubled with that interruption, charged her to hold her hand, & keep silence, she still goes on with her unseasonable music, he charged her the second time to hold still, she still persists, the third time he required her silence; when that would not prevail, he straight says, Tolle Diabole quod tuum est, devil take thy own; Up goes the woman instantly, being suddenly snatched into the air, & for aught we know carried quick to hell; Now you will perhaps think it strange that so much mercy to the Ants should stand together with so much cruelty to the woman, and will be ready to say Tantaene &c. Is there so fierce choler in a Saint? But we must learn to know a difference betwixt the rage of an holy zeal, and a sinful revenge; and believe, that Saints have thoughts, and ways of their own, which we may neither follow nor judge of.  

Diodor. sicul. l. 4. c, 1  But as for any direct acts of Cruelty, such, as those of the Priests of Meroe, who could send to their Kings to murder themselves at pleasure; such as Ravillac and our powder-plotters were, notoriously guilty of, our holy mother abhors them; I dare say, sufficiently, albeit Father Garnet, be upon that account, Beatified: Some passages of cruelty may perhaps be found in some guilty Covents, as Erasmus tells an abominable story from the mouth of Matthew Cardinalis Sedunensis, who (that counsel might be the better kept) related it to a whole Tablefull; of Dominicans burying a man quick in their cloister; and Henry Stephen in his Apology for Herodotus can easily furnish us with such tales, terrible to be told, and the heads and bones of infants found in the walls and ponds of old cloisters speak too much to be denied, or concealed; But these are personal crimes, not therefore justly imputable to a community; although the malevolent will be apt enough to say they may thank our holy mother for her ill-advised laws of enforced celibate.  
But notwithstanding these calumnious imputations, whosoever shall seriously view all the carriages of our holy mother, whether in her Constitutions, or practices; shall find store of mercy in them all.  
It shall not repent us, 

Concil. Toleran. tempore innocentii 6.  
Quod constitutiones praedictae obligent non ad culpam, sed ad poenam tantum.  
Tho. Aquinas asserit Benedictum statuisse profiteri suos monachos regulam non observare. Hospin. in reg. Bened.  
De adulteriis & aliis criminibus quae minora sunt potest Episcopus cum suis clericis dispensare post peractam poenitentiam ut in suis ordinibus deserviant. Alex. 3. Episc. Sabernitan. Venialia peccata ut gratia hominem non privant, ita sine confessione remitti possunt. Greg. va●. l, 1. de missa.  
A veniali potest absolvere quicunque sacerdos simplex in soro Sacramentali, Imo per quemcumque alium secularem extra sacramentalem confessionem cum deprecatione Miseratur rui omnipotens deus posse deleri tangunt omnes infra, & expresse tenet Victoria in summâ sacram.  
Vi vald. de Erasm. Desunctus in loco sacro sepultus (scilicet excommunicatus) non debet exhumari ut Hagelletur, sufficit flagellare sepulchrum. Nava●. c. 23. nu. 32. Steph. Avil. c. 7. dub. 2 Adulteros morie mulctari debere docere, non modo notoriam injustitiam, verum etiam haereticam doctrinam esse. biniva in notis ad Concil. Veneticum.  
Quae dormiendo violata fuit aut dum ebria erat, non amittit virginitatem, nisi tali animo ad dormiendum decubuerit. candle. aureum Vivaldi Pa●●. 2. de electione Abbatissae c 3.  
A fortiori non violat Ecclesiam pollurio quam confessarius invitus patitur audiendo confessionem. Steph. D. Avila de censuris. Tit de violat. Eccles. Respondetur 2. Appellatione carnium lardum non includit, nec contra.  
Cand. Vivald. de quadregisimali jejunio. c. 11.  
Potest Episcopus punire Mendicantes habentes plures campanas, cum debeant esse contenti una. Barbos. allegat, 105. Gavant, Regular jura.   to instance in some particulars, for a taste of the rest.  
And first, what a merciful act was that of the Council of Toledo in the time of Innocent. 6. That those laws and Statutes which are made for the well ordering of ecclesiastic persons shall not bind ad culpam, but ad poenam only; somewhat of Kin to that favourable construction of Aquinas, that the monks are bound only to profess, not to keep the rules of Benedict.  
What a kind law is that of Alexander the 3d. that for adulteries, and such other slighter crimes the Bishop may dispense with his Clerks, that they may still, after their penance is done, serve in their former stations; How favourable is that determination, that as for venial sins, we need not trouble ourselves in confession with them, for that they are wiped off otherwise? How mild is that sentence that English Catholics sin not in conversing ordinarily with the heretics though excommunicate? for that though those be notorious heretics, yet they are not denounced by name. Not to be endless, what beams of mercy shine forth in all these ensuing determinations; That from a venial sin, not only a simple Priest in Confession, but a mere laic out of confession may absolve a man with the prayer of misereatur; Yea the Lord's prayer or a little aspersion of holy water is sufficient; That an excommunicate person if he buried in holy ground shall not be taken up again, and be whipped; it shall suffice that his grave only be whipped; That those clerks which are married men, if they be not bigami may be buried in holy ground in the time of Interdict; That to hold adultery ought to be punished with death, is not only unjust but heretical; That a maid which is vitiated whiles she is a sleep, or dead-drunck doth not hereby lose her virginity, unless she laid herself down to sleep with such an intent: That a Penitentiary suffering an involuntary pollution in some cases of Confession, sinneth not. Jo. Gerson.  
That in some parts it shall be lawful to eat eggs and whit meat on fridays, and the head feet and innards of beasts on Saturday. That Bacon shall accounted no flesh; That beggars which are ready to affamish for want, may in Lent-time eat what they can get.  
That every several Order of Mendicants shall content themselves with one Bell: That a Bishop may dispense with all irregularities incurred by any secret crime (except murder) but this faculty is denied to all those Bishops which live in the countries where the council of Trent is not received.  
That manslaughter (if altogether casual) shall induce no irregularity; and yet so tender is our holy mother of the effusion of blood, 
Clericus in sacris secando venam ad emittendum sanguinem si moriatur aeger, sit irregularis. Gavant. v. Irregularis.  as that she hath ordained that if any Clerk that is in holy orders, shall open a vein, and the patient shall die upon that phlebotomy, the unhappy chirurgeon is thereby made irregular; And which is yet a greater proof of her tender-heartedness, the holy Confraternity of the blood of Christ, which are employed to attend the execution of condemned heretics, may not be suffered to lend light from their Tapers to those Torches wherewith the fire is to be kindled.  
By all which and much more, that might be said, it sufficiently appears, how graciously indulgent our said holy mother is, to all her children, how gently-severe to small offences, how carefully provident for the supply of their necessities, how averse from the shedding of blood.  
As for her opposites, they give her the hearing in all this plea, 
Brom. sum. praedic. v. executor.  but they are ready withal to tell us Bromiards Apologue of the Birds, and the fowler: The fowler in a cold morning caught good store of them, and still nipped them in the head, and put them up; his eyes in the mean time watering with the sharpness of the air; see, said one of the fowls how the man pities us, he weeps to see us taken: Ah, said the other, look not to his eyes, but look to his fingers; there you shall see what pity we find from him. And put us in mind of St. Chrysostom's sure way of discerning a wolf from a sheep; It is possible (saith he) for the wolf to clothe himself with the sheep's skin, so as that cannot descry him; and to imitate the sheep's voice, so as that shall not bewray him; but look to his chaps, and they cannot deceive you. You shall not find either grass in the wolf's mouth, or blood in the sheeps. So then, without more words, let all the world judge betwixt us, at whose door soever lies the most store of blood spilled for mere Religion, Let him pass for wolvishly cruel and unmerciful.  
In the mean time there is one main challenge of unmercifulness which they have got by the end, having learned it, as I suppose from the pious Chancellor of Paris, which I confess I can neither conceal nor answer; that mortified Pilgrim (as his name signifies) would needs be practising; and in those strained numbers hath let fall these lines: 
Arbitrio Papa proprio si clavibus uti  

Jo. Gerson. versu supra materiam Indulgentiarum.  posset, our sinit ut paena pios cruciet?  
Cur non evacuat loca purgandis animabus Tradita.  
If then the Pope can of his own free will  
Dispose the Keys! why doth he suffer still  
poor pious souls in lingering pain to lie?  
And in those direful flames un pitied fry?  
Why doth he not quite void that horrid cell,  
Where souls are purged with fire next that of hell?   
Thus that pitiful Doctor; Answer him who can. I confess this Nut is too hard for me to crack; I leave it to some of the learned Fathers of the Society, which have stronger chaps.   

CHAP. XII. The triumph of Peace and unanimity.  
AS all these foregoing privileges of our holy mother are apparent enough to observing eyes, so this of unanimity is most clearly conspicuous, so as all the rest of the world cannot choose but see and wonder, and envy; whiles other professions, like to drops of water spilled in the dust, lose themselves in their divided singularity; the judgements of her Governour● and Doctors hold together, and bear forward, like a strong torrent, whose force abides no resistance. Look upon the Protestant Churches, you shall find them in their miserable spoliaries, wallowing in dust and blood; 
Jeslerius Scaphusensis de bello Eucharistico.  six several wars have passed between them in the eucharistical quarrels; and with what furious bitterness they fall still upon each other the world sees and smiles; neither can it wish better music then to hear a fierce Lutheran say, 
Prolaeus praefar. F●sc culi &c. From the Calvinian Fraternity good Lord deliver us,  Libera nos Domine: look upon the strange variety of sects which swarm amongst them; whereof, if some be slight, others are prodigious: as, Anabaptists, Libertines, Shakers, Antinomians, Socinians, Antiscripturists, Adamites, Ranters, and a world of such Bedlam-birds as these. These mischiefs of error and division are the unavoidable attendants of their apostasy from their Catholic mother; whose peaceable sons hold close together, like the scales of Leviathan, inseparable, impenetrable.  
It were indeed an hard case, if they had nothing to plead for themselves; I confess they are not to seek for an answer; both of Apology and Recrimination; it were a desperate cause that could find no Advocate; even losers may have leave to talk, though to little purpose.  
And first, for the Division of the Evangelical Churches following their different guides, they would make us believe that neither Luther nor Calvin is any Saint whom they worship: that they hate to say, I am Paul's, and I am Apollo's ●: that they scorn to be called other than Christian for a name, and Catholic for a surname; that they justly respect those Worthies as brethren; but should not, without much indignation hear them called their Fathers or masters.  
That for the divisions of Reuben there are great thoughts of heart; that they can lament those breaches which they cannot make up.  
That their prayers and tears shall not want for the perfect union of all honest and faithful hearts; and we may believe them if we list. But in the mean time, they would face us out, that those quarrels are not deadly in themselves, though over heinously misconstrued; that words are more guilty of this spiritual affray then substance of matter; that none of those litigious points touch upon the foundations of faith; so as they may well hope, notwithstanding those petty differences, to meet with other in heaven, and can say to the most rigid opponents, as Optatus said of the Donatists, 
Collegae eritis si vultis; fratres eritis si non vultis.  Ye may choose whether you will be our Companions, but ye shall be our brethren.  
As for those other wild Sectaries, they profess to hold them as no other than so many mad men broken out of Bedlam; and tell us that the Church of England makes account of no other interest in them, than a man makes of those Vermin which breed out of his excrementitious sweat, or those Ascarides which are apt to grow in his most uncleanly parts; and it were well if they shifted off so. But these frantic whimsies, could be and their crazed authors will not be shaken off with so much ease.  
Besides, they tell us there may be a peace not worthy to be boasted of: faciwt pacen● commercia culpae. Combinations in mischief makes robbers and rebels too firmly unanimous; That there is not more peace at Rome then in Hell itself; even that kingdom of darkness, if it were divided in itself (as our Saviour tells us) could not stand: And on earth the wildest beasts, as bears, lions, tigers, agree well with those of their own kind: And on the contrary there may be good music in discords. The Prince of peace had never professed to come down with a desire to send fire and sword upon the earth, if those were not in some cases both necessary and useful. If in the secret commonwealth of a man's own bosom there be not an intestine war, there can never be a true and firm peace. And the old rule is, Better a just war, than an unjust peace.  
Further, they tell us it is no news to find divisions and quarrels in the Church of God; for when (say they) was it ever otherwise since the two first brethren till this present hour? Y wis there needs no heathenish fancy of Praeadamites, to maintain the broils of the first world; from the same loins was that hostility raised, which so much infested the holy seed. It was a fiction in the Heathen Poet, that Discord took it ill she was not called to the banquet of the Gods: so as only in heaven she is not to be found; but to the banquet of men she will be sure to come unsent for; and to press in so forceably, that it is not truth of Religion that can shut her out: when God had but one visible Church upon earth, thither she crowded in, and would be entertained (malgri) in the unhappy division of the Ten tribes from the two; Immediately before our Saviour, she thrusts into the families of Sammai and Hillel, the two great Masters of Jsrael, and there raised no less than eighteen quarrels, and that not without blood; In the time of Christ's being on the earth, she prevailed so far, as forcing herself upon the Jewish Church, she set five several Sects by the ears amongst them; After our blessed saviour's resurrection she shouldered into the Christian Church, raising therein threescore heresies before ever Constantine blessed it with a general council; although (as happy was) it pleased God so to order it, that by provincial synods, in the mean time, she was thrust out by head and shoulders; And since that time, how overwell she hath sped, the world is too lucualent a witness: Neither was she less busy in the Heathen world; So as Themistius justly pleaded to the Emperor (objecting the differences maintained amongst the Christians) that their number was not considerable in comparison of several sects of Philosophers (the Divines of those Pagans) and their opposite opinions: And wise Seneca could justly say, that the Clocks would sooner agree than the (Philosophers: So as they are not alone in this jarring condition. Nay they are so bold, as to tell us by way of recrimination, that they fear, it will prove that their Roman Censurers are somewhat like to Barbers, which can with ease cut other men's hair, but cannot pol themselves; and to this purpose, they tell us two shrewd tales; but we may choose whether we will believe them; The best of it is, they are no points of faith: The one is, that the Romanists halt on their own sore, being themselves guilty of what they tax in others: The other, that the Courses they take to hold up their pretended agreement are such, as make their hollow concord not worth boasting of.  
For the first, they say (Whereas we twit them with our Quakers and Ranters) That they have been themselves infested with as wild cattle as ever the Protestant Church was; For instance, they tell us of the Fratricelli Frierlings, 
Prateolus Catal. haeres. v. Fratricelli.  or Eratres de paupere vita, as they were called, which had their beginning in the parts of Italy, in the time of Pope Benedict the eleventh; and, Albert the first, Emperor whose doctrine and practice was to allow, and use promiscuous beastliness; The manner whereof was, that they drew together such handsome women whom they had seduced, both widows and virgins into some secret rooms for the purpose; which done, their Priests and Clerks barring the doors, for a fair colour of their villainy, began to sing holy hymns; after which, about midnight, their Priests with a loud voice admonished them to go two and two together, a man and a woman, and invoking the holy spirit to fall into carnal copulation; which was no sooner said than the candles were put out, and every man took that woman which was next him; and if it fell out so, that a woman upon that coupling, conceived; the infant when it was borne, was brought into the room; and so long posted over from one hand to another of their Priests, till it should expire; and he in whose hands it died, was to be accounted their high Priest. These abominable practices were accompanied with no less wicked opinions against propriety of goods, against Christian Magistrates, against the soul's vision of God till the day of judgement, and divers other of the like; Neither were these monsters of men and opinions penned up in a Corner, but (as is confessed by Pope John 22. in his extravagant) were spread far about, both in Italy and the Island of Sicily and other places, [sub habitu novae religionis] as is there confessed; the founder of which odious sect was one Hermannus an Italian, by the same token, 
Prateol. de Haeres. Hermannus.  that having been solemnly buried in Ferrara, and honoured devoutly for a Saint, he was twenty years after, by the command of Boniface the eight taken up and turned (what remained of him) to ashes.  


Gregorii 10. tempore sc. anno 1275. emerserunt ex Italia Flagellantes haeretici incerto authore qui per Germaniam & Galliam vagantes se Flagellarunt.  
Tenebant neminem salvari nisi sanguine prop●io flagellis excusso baptizaretur, &c. Binius ex Sterone: Prateol. Tit. Flagellantis.   They tell us of the sect of the Flagellants, or whippers, which arising in Italy, diffused themselves into France and Germany in the time of Gregory the tenth, Anno 1273. Many whereof (as Carion tells us) about the year 1343. came to Spires, on the day of their public diet, making great ostentation of sanctimony, (much after the Anabaptiss way as Prateolus describes them) who under their red crosses and bloody skins hid black hearts; which appears by their wicked tongues in crying down baptism of water, as utterly annulled and changed into a baptism of blood; In decrying the holy Gospel, as upon the coming in of their sect, useless, and utterly frustrated. Lastly, in admitting of the free licence, and non-obligation of oaths, according to the damnable rule of the Priscillianists, 
Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli.  
Swear and forswear, say and unsay,  
Thy secret never do bewray.   
They tell us of a worse sect then both these, 
Prateol. Haeres. Tit. Templarii.  the Templars; who, as Prateolus tells us out of the history of William Archbishop of Tyre being as few in number, as holy and charitable in profession (as being (under the three vows) in the nature of Canons regular) grew after to be great and numerous; three hundred Knights in that Covent richly endowed in all parts of the Christian world; but being over pampered, with prosperity (as Moses saith of his Jesurun) they waxed fat, and kicked; 
Deut. 32.15.  and forgot God that made them, and slightly esteemed the rock of their salvation. I abhor and tremble to speak or think of those flagitious acts, and those hellish heresies, wherewith they were charged by Pope Clement the fifth, 
There are some authors who think they were unjustly proceeded with in such rigour. But Papa Clemens 5. in Bulla condemnatoria ordinis edicit clausulam. Quanquam de jure non possumus, tamen ex plenitudine potestatis dictum ordinem, reprobamus. Been. ex Thoma Walsingham.  by whose decree, together with the sentence of the General council at Vienna, consisting of 400 Bishops in the year 1311. at the earnest instigation of Philip the fair, King of France, they were condemned to be burnt, and their whole Order, (after it had stood 200 years) utterly extinguished for ever.  
Yet, as if it were possible for aught under heaven to be more vile than the forementioned enormities they tell us they could present us with more dangerous and more pestilent sects than these; namely, the authors and abettors of that everlasting Gospel which was set on foot by the Benedictines and Franciscans, about the year 1255. whereof our Chaucer thus: 
For they through wicked invention, 
Geffr. Caucer in the Rom. of the Rose sol. 163.   
In the year of the Incarnation  
A thousand and two hundred year,  
Five and fifty, further ne near,  
Broughten a book with sorry grace,  
To your ensample in common place,  
That said thus; though it were fable,  
This is the Gospel perdurable  
That from the Holy Ghost was sent;  
Well were it worthy to be brent.   
This Gospel (which was so far from everlasting, that it was now long since buried in silence, for shame of the world) was the damnable doctrine of that cursed Portuguese Abbot, 
Prateolus de Haeres. Tit. Joachim.  Joachim (a monk of the order of Saint Benedict) which Prateolus in favour of the Author (as willing to smother) minces with the name of fables only: but such fables they were, as professed to destroy all Christianity; disparaging the blessed Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and his sacred person no less; some particulars whereof were no other than these following: That the everlasting Gospel excels the doctrine of Christ; That the new Testament is to be annulled. 
The rejoinder of P. sing to Malconi ex Henric. Erphurd. Chronico et Eymeric. Director. Inquisit.  That the Gospel of Christ brings no man to a perfect state; That another Gospel, and another Priesthood was to succeed the gospel and Priesthood of Christ; the whole drift of it being to advance the contemplative, that is the Monkish life instituted by Benedict, above the active set forth by Christ and his Apostles. 

Prateolus. Haeres. Bernard. Luxenbury.  
Concil. Latteran. 2. sub Innocentio. Can. 2. actor.   Not to meddle with the heretical doctrine of this unchristian Abbot concerning the Trinity, in opposition to the Orthodoxy of Peter Lombard; it shall suffice for the shutting up of this odious point, to tell you from Alphonsus à Castro of the three states of men fancied by this Joachim; 
Alphonsus a Castro l. 3. advers. heraes. l. 3.  the first, the state of the flesh, from Adam to Christ; the second, a middle state, betwixt flesh and spirit; from Christ to St. Benedict: the third, which is all spirit, from St. Benedict to the end of the world; and this is that state of perfection which himself with the Monks of that Order set forth to the world; This is too foul you must needs confess; but the opposites will yet tell you the worst part of the tale is still behind; and will needs persuade you that this Atheous and blasphemous whimsy did not content itself to creep into the obscure cells of Monks and friars, but presumed to climb up to St. Peter's chair, and there to find both harbour, and protection; for when the Divines of Paris justly resenting the shame, and peril of those devilish conceits, did seasonably bend their pens against them with a zeal meet for Christians, the provoked monks fly to the refuge of Pope Alexander the fourth, from whom they found such favour, that he in an extravagant of his flies fiercely upon the French Divines, deeply censuring their Book, as pernicious and detestable; defending and praising his well-minded votaries; and yet more, advancing them to the honour of Inquisitors of heretical pravity; damning by his Bull Gulielm. de sancto Amore for his invectives against those holy Orders.  
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. The ravens scape, the Doves must pay for all.  
Moreover they say they could tell us of the Illuminati of Aragon, of Thomas Campanella, of Maria de Valentianos, lastly of Poza, and Antonius Sanctarellus of late (if we may believe Alph. Vargus) strongly abetted, the one by the great ones of Spain, and both by Jesuits in their foul and highly-prejudicial opinions; In all which and more of the like kind, (which they say, if need were they could produce) they doubt not to find a meet parallel to the worst of their Quakers, and Antinomians; And for their more sober disconcordants, whose number and quality is over aggravated (they say) by their adversaries, they think to match them at least, if not to exceed them far, in the score of Roman divisions; for which purpose, they send us to Cornelius Must the famous Bishop of Bitonto; who speaking of the sensible degeneration of their Divines, 
Cornel. Mus. in Rom. 6.  adds Hinc sexcentae, &c. Hereupon (saith he) have risen up six hundred sects, Thomists, Scotists, Occhamists, Albertists, Egidians, Alexandrists, &c. Or if this will seem to be but a phrase of Oratory; they stick not to tell us of three hundred several contradictions of opinions amongst their Divines confessed, and reckoned up, on several occasions, by Cardinal Bellarmine himself in the specialties of the Controversies handled by him; whereof not a few are of very high importance; which may perhaps be one reason why those volumes of his, are not so vendible at Rome, as in Paul's churchyard; Neither is there any one point of difference betwixt us and them, wherein they do not differ amongst themselves: only herein (they say) is the difference; The Romanists have had the care and opportunity to quench that fire in the gleeds, which our neglect or other diversions of authority, hath suffered to grow into a flame. Besides these doctrinal quarrels amongst the members, they tell us of the real quarrels betwixt the pretended heads of the Romish Church; naming (if need be) the several schisms that have fall'n out amongst them (sometimes two, sometimes three Popes at once) contiuning for 40 or 50 years together; So as scarce any man, unless by revelation (as Gerson himself professeth) could say, This is Peter's successor.  
But (say they in the second place) yield we that there is calmer weather, and more visible peace at Rome then in other regions of the world, this argues no whit at all the better state of their cause; since it proceeds only from the unjust prnciples of their Tyranny. For first, to be sure to keep their people from fighting, they keep them always blindfold, not suffering them to have any glimpse of light either from Scriptures, or conferences, or their own authors; 
Luther. serm. Conviv  Andrew Carolostadius was a doctor of eight years standing ere he read the Bible; and what courses are taken to restrain laics from reading of that perilous book, hath been in part intimated already: Under no less penalty are they kept from agitating any controversy of Religion in private discourse, even though they be learned, 
it Edw. Sands his elation.  and able to rule those edge-tools; & upon the same account those Catholic authors, which do but relate the opinions and arguments of Protestants (though with the strongest confutation) are not suffered to be exposed to public sale; on the same ground also it is, that all Translations of the council of Trent into French, and other languages are absolutely forbidden.  

Congregat. Concil. 2 Junii 1629. Gavant. Tit. Conc. Trid.  Secondly, the extreme cruelty of the Inquisition is such as enforces silence amongst all those that live under the Roman subjection; and makes them according to the counsel which Alberto Scipioni an old Roman Courtier gave to Sr. Henry Wotton, to keep Gli pensieri stretti, 
Sir H. Wotton's letter to Anonymus.  which is ingenuously Confessed by the Archbishop of Spalata; telling Suarez, that divers sects of the Romanists would fly out, (nisi illos ignis et securis in officio detinerent) if fire, and the axe did not keep them in compass; It is not therefore out of pure good will, but out of stark fear that Rome is unanimous; since we upon sure intelligence know that there are many thousands both in Spain and in Rome itself, that dare only with Nicodemus come to Christ by night, whose hearts are evangelical whiles their faces are Pontifician.  
Lastly, They would fain bear us down, that if there be lamentable breaches in the Church of God, we may thank them for it: for would ye (say they) have yielded (when there was just complaint of the abuses and errors crept into the Church, and the store of tares sown in God's field while the Husbandmen slept) to have had timely remedies applied, by a free and General council, the whole Christian world had been happily unanimous; whereas now, by your guilty averseness from that sovereign means of cure, out of a stomachful, and proud unwillingness to forget any jot of your ill-acquired usurpation, the several limbs of the Church are miserably torn from each other, and all (if their challenge could be made good) torn from the head; wherein we shall not need to appeal to any other judgement, then that of honest Cassander, whom two Emperors thought a meet arbiter of the differences of the Church, Neque unquam credo &c. Neither had there I verily believe (saith he) been any controversy amongst us, concerning the external unity of the Church, unless the Popes of Rome had abused this authority to a certain kind of domination, and out of their own covetousness, and ambition, had raised it up beyond the bounds prescribed by Christ and his Church; Thus he ingenuously, as being bribed on neither part; so as it plainly appears the rabbits skin had come off clearly, and smoothly, if it had not stuck at the head.  
Thus they plead colourably for themselves, As it is a strange cloth that will take no dye; But when all is done, the successors both of Peter and Mahomet have peace in their territories; 
Cantie. 6.13.  As for the Protestant Church, there is nothing to be said to or for her, but Return O Shulamite, return, return; and, What will ye see in the Shulamite? as it were the company of two armies.  
FINIS.    

REader, it is rare to see Books come forth without Errata, This hath been very unhappy, in the margin especially. These are quickly found, and easily corrected.  
IN the Introduction, marg. Presbyter, read Presbytero. p. 7. marg. et nullus mortalius, read ut nullus mortalium. p. 11. marg. read papa est frater noster, alioqui deberet dicere pater meus, vel pater mi. p. 14. marg. Episcopatur, Episcopatus. p. 16. Conformitate, Conformitatum. p. 24. marg. Clerico, Clericos. p. 30. marg. defectum, defectuum. p. 35. Loyota, Loyola. p. 36. marg. utperat vixerat. p. 37. dan Constanter, Constantine. p. 45, nedam, nedum. p. 49. read Carthusianus de 4. noviss. cit. a Kelleto nostro. p. 62. read ex lib. sacr. Cerem. p. 76. Sacedoes, sacerdos. p. 86. Competente, competenter. p. 87. misi, nisi. p. 94. Cropertarium, coopertarium. p 104. Apostolica, Apostolicae. p. 106. Eleemosyna, Eleemosynas. p. 113. Cabant, Gavantus. p. 117. previncia, provincia. p. 129. Sabernitan, Salerniran.