in her as well as the Eternal Word was in her Son that the three Persons in the Trinity were the first the second and the third Heavens that the Son was from all Eternity discontented with the Father for not making him equal to him that the Consecrated Hosty had in it the Body of the Mother as well as that of the Son and that the putting the pieces of it together in the Chalice demonstrated the Vnion between the Mother and the Son. These Opinions were all proved against him tho he protests that he never thought of them yet he was forced to abjure them in the year 1668. and was upon that condemned to perpetual Imprisonment he continued in the Prison of the Inquisition till within these five or six years that the Duke d'Estrees being sick procured an Order for having Burrhi to come and treat him and in gratitude to Burrhi who cured him he got his Prison changed to the Castle St. Angelo where he now entertains himself with Chimical Processes It is indeed very probable that he had provoked the Inquisition by speaking severely and reproachfully of them and this was all his Crime unless another Article against him might be his Estate for of his 8000. Crowns a year there is but 3000. left him for the good Fathers have had the Charity to take 5000. to themselves and his 3000. is so eat up by them thro whose hands it comes to him that he has not 1500 Crowns a year payed him and from this you may see what credit you ought to give to the Processes the Articles and the Abjurations that are made before that Court. If instead of that Zeal which animates them against Heresy they would purge their own Church of those Disorders which they themselves acknowledg to be corruptions they would sooner bring themselves again into credit The scandalous Pictures that are in many Churches of Italy are things that might deserve their care if they would turn it to that hand Is it not a shameful thing that there has not been a great Master in Painting who has not put that Complement on his Mistress as to paint her for the Virgin so that the most celebrated Madonna 's of Italy are known to have been the Mistresses of the Great Painters The Postures the Looks and the Nakedness of many of the Church-pieces are Monstrous Indecent things The great design of the Cupulo at Florence is such a Representation of Vice that all that can be presented by a defiled Imagination comes short of what is to be seen there and tho the Scripture speaks but of one Apparition of the Holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove one shall find this Dove on the Head at the Ear and the Mouth of I know not how many of their Saints and as one finds in many Pieces that their Masters have resolved to perpetuate their own Amours in them so Amours are every day managed by the same methods for while I was at Rome I discovered an Intrigue between a Fryer and a Nun by two Pictures that were drawn for them the Fryer was drawn as a S. Anthony and the Nun as a S. Katherine of Siena these they were to exchange and so to feed their passion under this disguise of Devotion But to return to Indecent Pictures there is nothing more scandalous than the many various Representations of the Trinity which must needs give to all Iews and Mahometans as well as to us that pass for Hereticks a strange horror to a Religion that suffers those odious Resemblances that give such gross Ideas of the Deity and of the Trinity and that which is yet the most scandalous part of those Pictures is that the Representation of God the Father is often diversified according to the caprice of the Painter and he is to be seen in the Habits of the several Orders of that Church and indeed both Features Hair Habit and Postures have all the diversity in them that is necessary to feed an Idolatry that is as Extravagant as it is gross The Picture of the B. Virgin with the Order of the Capuchins under her Petticoat is not very apt to raise Chast Idea's in those who look upon it In short whereas the Rule of the Antient Architecture of Churches was to below and dark which was thought the most proper for the Recollection of a man's Faculties and by consequence for Devotion is now quite altered and great Cupulos with a vast Illumination are necessary to shew the Beauty of those rich Pieces which would be lost in Churches built as dark as the Antient Ones were I confess those Pictures are charming things if they were any where else than in Churches but the pleasure they give does so possess a man that begins to understand them that it will kindle any thoughts in him sooner than devout ones I will not here let my Pen carry me into a Subject that must needs set all my thoughts on fire and speak of the great Pieces of Painting that are in Italy and of the many Masters that it produced in the last Age who as they were such Extraordinary men so they lived within the Compass of one Age as if the Perfection in that amasing Art had been to dye with them as well as it was born with them this I say would make one think that there are Revolutions and Aspects in the Heavens that are favorable or cross to Arts or Sciences and that then the most favourable Aspect for Painting that ever was produced those astonishing performances For tho the great decay of Learning that is every where may be reasonably enough resolved in this that whereas in the last Age many great Princes were either Learned themselves or at least they made it a Maxim to protect and encourage Learning but this having at last grown to an excess of Rudeness and Pedantry and Princes becoming generally extream Ignorant it came to pass for a piece of breeding to say nothing that was beyond their pitch or that seemed to reproach their Ignorance and those who could not hide their Learning were called Pedants and pedantry was represented so odious that Ignorance being the lasiest as well as the surest way to avoid this all men took that very naturally and when other methods are as effectual to raise men to the highest preferments either of the Barr or of the Pulpit as true Learning or reall Merit few will choose the long and tedious and often the most uncertain way when the End that they propose to themselves may be certainly compassed by a more effectual and easier one Flattery and Submissions are sooner Learned and easier practised by men of low and mean souls than much hard and dry study thus I say the decay of Learning is very easily accounted for in the Age in which we live but as for the Art of Painting it is still in such esteem and great pieces go still at such vast rates that if the Genius and capacity for it were
not lost there is encouragment enough still to set it a going but I leave this subject not without putting some constraint on my self for who can think of such Wonderful men as Correge Michael Angelo Raphael Paulo Veronese Iulio Romano Carrache Palma Titian and Tintoret without feeling a concern at every time that he reflects on the Wonders of their pencils St. Lukes pretended work and even the supposed performances of Angels are sad things set near their pieces One whose thoughts are full of the Wonders of that Art that are to be seen in Florence goes into the Annunciata and sees not without Indignation that adored picture of the Virgin which as the fond people there believe was finished by an Angel while the Painter that was working at it and that could not animate it as he desired fell asleep who as soon as he awaked saw his piece finished This fiction of the painters to raise the credit of his picture is so well believed at Florence that he presents made to enrich the Altar and Chappel where it stands are Invaluable yet after all the Angel's work is still no better than the common painting of that time and that Angel-painter was but a bungler if compared to the great Masters In a word what can be thought of humane nature when in so refined a place as Florence so course an Imposture has been able to draw to it such an Inestimable stock of Wealth All these things are so many digressions from my main subject which was to shew you how much matter the Inquisitors might find if they would use any exactness in redressing those Abuses which they themselves will not defend in common conversation and yet tho the smallest thing that seems even at the greatest distance to go against their Interest is lookt after with a very watchful care yet the grossest of all Impostures that proves profitable to them is much encouraged by them The fable of Loretto is so black and so ridiculous a piece of Imposture that I never saw a man of sense that cared to enter upon that subject I was once in Company where I took the liberty to propose two modest Exceptions to it the one was that about 200 years after the rest of the Angelical Labour in carying about that Cottage is pretended to have fallen out Vincent Ferrrier whom they believe a great Saint not only sayes nothing of its being then in Italy but sayes expresly that it was then in Nazareth that many Miracles were wrought about it Antonin of Florence who is also the most Impudent Writer of Legends that ever was say's not a word of it some Ages after they say that it was at Loretto All the answer that I had to this was that it was no Article of Faith but whether it was true or false the Devotion of the People was still entertained by it and this they said was as much meritorious tho founded on a Fable as the giving of Charity to one who is believed a fit object but yet is indeed a Cheat is acceptable to God and thus he who gives upon a good inward motive will be rewarded according to the Disposition of his Mind and not according to the Truth or Falsehood of the Story that wrought upon him I durst not press this matter too far otherwise I would have replied that how excuseable soever the Superstition of Ignorant People may be yet this does not at all justify the Cheat that the Church puts upon her so easily deluded children The truth is the Romans themselves have not such stiff notions of all the points of Controversy as we are apt to Imagine this makes me remember a conversation that past some years ago between an Abbot one of our Clergymen that was then a Governour to a Person of Quality that in his Travels stayed for some time at Rome The Abbot seeing the Governour was considered as a man of Learning desired to be Informed of him what were the Points in difference between the two Churches so the Governour told him that we had our worship in a known tongue that we gave the Cup in the Sacrament that we had no Images and did not pray to Saints all this did not disturb the Abbot who said that these were only different Rites and Ceremonies which might be well enough born with when the other added that we did not believe Transubstantiation nor Purgatory the Abbot said these were the subtilties of the School so he was very gentle till the Governour told him that we did not acknowledge the Pope then the Abbot was all on fire and could not comprehend how men could be Christians that did not acknowledge Christs Vicar and S. Peter's Successor and it is very plain at Rome at this day that they consider the Conversion of Nations only as it may bring in more profit into the Datary Court and raise the value of the Offices there for when I seemed amased in conversation with some of them to see so little regard had to the Ambassadour of England and to every thing that he proposed they told me plainly that perhaps the Angels in Heaven rejoiced at the conversion of a sinner upon the pure motives of perfect Charity but they at Rome looked at other things They saw no profit like to come from England no Bulls were called for and no Compositions like to be made if those things should once appear then an Ambassadour from thence would be treated like the penitent Prodigal especially if he were a little less governed by the Iesuites who were believed to have managed our Ambassadour a little too absolutely and here it will be no unpleasant digression if I tell you the true reason that retarded the Promotion of the Cardinal d'Esté so long The Pope himself saw what the Vncle of this Cardinal did at Rome in P. Alexander the 7ths time upon the business of the Corsis and the affront that was put on the Duke of Crequy which made so much noise That Cardinal being then the Protector of the French Nation offered first to the D. of Crequy to go with him accompanied with 500 Men that he knew he could raise in Rome to the Palace of Dom Mario Chigi and to fling him out at window but the D. of Crequy thinking that such a revenge went too far the Cardinal himself went accompanied with his 500 Men to the Palace and expostulated the matter with the Pope and demanded Reparation and when the Pope put it by in some general answers he prest him so hard till the Pope threatned to pull his Cap from him but he answered that he would clap a Head-piece on it to defend it and that he would never part with that till he had pulled the Tripple Crown from his head This was vigorous and the Cardinal had a mind to perpetuate the memory of it for he made himself be drawn with a Headpiece by him his hand pointing towards it which I saw at Modena and it
Confession before Communion was not expressed so that by this people seemed to be set at Liberty from that Obligation and it was said that what he advised with relation to a Spiritual Guide lookt rather like the taking some general Directions and Council from ones Priest than the coming alwayes to him as the Minister of the Sacrament of Pennance before every Communion and to support this Imputation it was said that all of that Cabale had set down this for a Rule by which they conducted their Penitents that they might come to the Sacrament when they found themselves out of the state of Mortal sin without going at every time to Confession but I will not inlarge further upon the matters of Doctrine or Devotion in which you may think that I have dwelt too long for a man of my Breeding and Profession and I should think so my self if I were not consining my self exactly to the Memorials and Informations that I received at Rome You will see by the Articles objected to the Quietists and censured by one of the Inquisition which I send you with this Letter what are all the other points that are laid to their charge Only I must advertise you of one thing that their Friends at Rome say that a great many of these Articles are only the Calumnies of their Enemies and that they are disowned by them but that they have fastned these things on them to render them odious and to make them suffer with the less Pitty which is the putting in practice the same Maximes which we object to their Predecessors who condemned the Waldenses and Albigenses of a great many Errors of which they alwayes protested themselves Innocent yet the Accusing them of those horrid Opinions and Practices prevailed upon the Simplicity and Credulity of the Age to animate them with all the Degrees of Rage against a Sect of men that were set forth as Monsters the same Maximes and Politicks are still imputed and perhaps not without reason to that severe Court which if you believe many has as little regard to Justice as it has to Mercy Some have carried their Jealousies so far against the Quietists as to compare their Maxims to those of Socrates his School and his Followers after his death when they saw what his Freedom in speaking openly against the establisht Religion had cost him they resolved to comply with the received Customs in their exteriour and not to communicate their Philosophy to the Vulgar nor even to their Disciples till they had prepared them well to it by training them long in the precepts of Vertue which they called the Purgative State and when men were well tried and exercised in this then they communicated to them their sublimer Secrets the meaning of all which was in short that they would not discover their Opinions in those points that were contrary to the received Religion and to the publick Rites to any but to those of whom they were well assured that they would not betray them and therefore they satisfied themselves with having true and just notions of things but they practised outwardly as the Rabble did They thought it was no great matter what Opinions were entertained by them and that none but men of Noble and elevated Tempers deserved that such sublime Truths should be communicated to them and that the herd of the Vulgar neither were worthy nor capable of Truth which is too pure and too high a thing for such mean and base minds The Affinity of the matter makes me remember a conversation that I once had with one of the wittiest Clergy-men of France who is likewise esteemed one of the Learnedst Men in it He said The World could not bear a Religion calculated only for Philosophers The people did not know what it was to think and to govern themselves by the Impressions that abstracted thoughts made on their minds they must have outward things to strike upon their senses and Imaginations to amuse to terrify and to excite them so legends dreadful stories and a pompous Worship were necessary to make the Impressions of Religion go deep into such course souls for a Lancet said he can open a vein but an Axe must fell down a Tree so he concluded that the Reformation had reduced the Christian Religion to such severe terms that among us it was only a Religion for Philosophers and since few were capable of that strength of thought he concluded that if the Church of Rome had perhaps too much of this exteriour pomp those of the Reformation had stript it too much and had not left enough of garnishing and of the bells and feathers for amusing the rable The speculation seems pretty enough if Religion were to be considered only as a contrivance of ours to be fitted by us to the tempers and humours of People and not as a Body of Divine Truths that are conveyed to us from heaven Thus was Molinos's method censured or approved in Rome according to the different Apprehensions and Interests of those that made Reflections upon it But the Iesuites finding they were not so omnipotent in this Pontificate as they have been formerly resolved to carry their point another way I need not tell you how great an Ascendant F. la Chaise has gained over that Monarch that has been so long the terrour of Europe and how much all the Order is now in the Interests of France The Zeal with which that King has been extirpating Heresy Furnishes them with abundance of matter for high Panegyricks since that which in the opinion of many will pass down to posterity for the lasting reproach of a Reign which in its former parts has seemed to approach even to Augustus's Glory but has received in this a stain which with Indifferent men passes for a blind poor-spirited and furious Bigottry and is represented by Protestants as a complication of as much Treachery and Cruelty as the World ever saw yet among the bigots it is set forth as the brightest side of that Glorious Reign and therefore it has been often cited by them with relation to the cold correspondence that is observed to be between the Courts of Rome and that at Versailles that nothing was more Incongruous than to see the Head of the Church dispute so obstinatly with its Eldest son such a trifle as the matter of the Regale and that with so much eagerness and that he shew'd so little regard to so great a Monarch that seemed to sacrifice all his own Interests to those of his Religion It is believed that the Iesuits at Rome proposed the matter of Molinos to F. la Chaise as a fit reproach to be made to the Pope in that Kings name that while he himself was Imploying all possible means to extirpate Heresy out of his Dominions The Pope was cherishing it in his own Palace and that while the Pope pretended to such an unyielding Zeal for the Rights of the Church he was entertaining a person who was corrupting the doctrine
or at least the devotion of that Body of which he had the honour to be the Head. But here I must add a thing which comes very uneasily from me and yet I cannot keep my word to you of giving you a faithful account of all that I could learn of this matter at Rome without mentioning it I do not pretend to affirm it is true for I only tell you what is believed at Rome and not what I believe my self nor what I would have you to believe for I know you have so high an esteem of Cardinal d'Estrees that you will not easily believe any thing that is to his Disadvantage It is then said that he being commanded by the Orders that were sent him from the Court of France to prosecute Molinos with all possible vigour resolved to sacrifice his old Friend and all that is sacred in Friendship to the Passion he has for His Masters Glory finding then that there was not matter enough for an Accusation against Moliuos he resolved to supply that defect himself so that he who was once as deep as any man alive in the whole Secret of this Affair went and Informed the Inquisition of many particulars for which tho there was no other evidence but his Testimony yet that was sufficient to raise a great Storm against Molinos and upon this delation he and a few others of his friends were put in the Inquisition but this was managed so secretly that all that is pretended to be known concerning it is that upon a new Prosecution both Molinos and Petrucci were brought before the Inquisition in 1684. Petrucci was soon absolved for there was so little objected to him and he answered that with so much Judgement and Temper that he was quickly dismissed and tho Molinos's matter was longer in agitation yet is was generally expected that he should have been acquitted In conclusion a Correspondence held by him all Europe over was objected to him but that could be no Crime unless the matter of that Correspondence was Criminal some suspitions papers were found in his Chamber but as he himself explained them nothing could be made out of them till Cardinal d'Estrees delivered a Letter and a Message from the King of France to the Pope as was formerly mentioned and that the Cardinal added that he himself could prove against Molinos more than was necessary to shew that he was guilty of Heresy The Pope said not a word to this but left the matter to the Inquisitors and the Cardinal went to them and gave other senses of those doubtful Passages that were in Molinos's Books and Papers and pretended that he knew from himself what his true Meaning in them was The Cardinal owned that he had lived with him in the Appearances of Friendship but he said he had early smelled out an ill dedesign in all that matter that he saw of what dangerous consequence it was like to be but yet that he might fully discover what was at the bottom of it he confessed he seemed to assent to several things which he detested and that by this means he saw into their secret and knew all the steps they made he still cautiously observing all that past among them till it should be necessary for him to discover and crush this Cabal I need not tell you how severely this is censured by those who belive it I would rather hope that it is not true how positively soever it may be affirmed at Rome but tho it is hard to reconcile such a way of proceeding with the common rules of human Society and of Vertue yet at Rome a Zeal for the Faith and against Heresie supersedes all the Bonds of Morality or Humainty which are only the common Vertues of Heathens In short what truth soever may be in this particular relating to the Cardinal it is certain that Molinos was clapt up by the Inquisition in May 1685. and so an end was put to all Discourses relating to him and in this silence the business of the Quietists was laid to sleep till the ninth of February 1687. that of a sudden it broke out again in a much more surprising manner The Count Vespiniani and his Lady Don Paulo Rocchi Confessor to the Prince Borghese and some of his family with several others in all 70 persons were clapt up Among whom many were highly esteemed both for their Learning Piety The things laid to the charge of the Churchmen were their neglecting to say their Breviary and for the rest they were accused for their going to Communion without a going at every time first to Confession and in a word it was said that they neglected all the exterior parts of their Religion and gave themselves up wholly to Solitude and inward Prayer The Countesse Vespiniani made a great noise of this matter for she said she had never revealed her Method of Devotion to any Mortal but to her Confessor and so it was not possible that it could come to their knowledge any other way but by his betraying that Secret and she said it was time for people to give over going to Confession if Priests made this use of it to discover those who trusted their secretest Thoughts to them and therefore she said that in all time coming she would make her Confessions only to God. This had got vent and I heard it generally talked up and down Rome so the Inquisitors thought it more fitting to dismiss Her and her Husband than to give any occasion to lessen the credit of Confession they were therefore let out of prison but they were bound to appear whensoever they should be called upon I cannot express to you the Consternation that appeared both in Rome and in many other parts of Italy when in a months time about 200 persons were put in the Inquisition and that all of the sudden a Method of Devotion that had passed up and down Italy for the highest Elevation to which mortals could aspire was found to be Heretical and that the chief promoters of it were shut up in prison But the most surprising part of the whole story was that the Pope himself came to be suspected as a favourer of this new Heresy so that on the 13th of February some were deputed by the Court of the Inquisition to examin him not in the quality of Christs Vicar or St. Peters successor but in the single quality of Benedict Odescalchi what passed in that Audience was too great a Secret for me to be able to penetrate into it but upon this there were many and strange Discourses up and down Rome while we Hereticks were upon that asking where was the Popes Infallibility I remember a very pretty Answer that was made me They said the Popes Infallibility did not flow from any thing that was Personal in him but from the care that Christ had of his Church for a Pope said one may be a Heretick as he is a private man but Christ who said to St. Peter feed my