to be look'd upon as Rules given by Basil to Monks only but as the Law of God and Jesus Christ his only Son given to all of whatsoever condition they be I shall likewise omit certain common Duties of Society which do generally belong to all well-ruled Houses and Families as the 16th Chapter commanding that he who is the head of them ought to consider himself as Gods Minister the 59th bidding the Steward to be trusty and honest for why should these and other such be called Basil's Rules which are common dictates of Reason or obligations binding even those who by a very improper distinction are called Seculars and men of the World Thus have I ordered the matter and reduced that great Rule which goes commonly under the name of St. Basil to 25 Chapters that seem to relate more to a Monastick Life The Monastick Rule of St. Basil contained in 25 Chapters THE First commandeth the Monks to live together for the sake of Mutual Help Comfort Instruction Exercise of Virtue Efficacy of Prayer and Security from Danger The 2d That none without trial be admitted into their Fraternity The 3d. That they should dispose of their Wealth to the Poor and Needy The 4th That Children with the consent of their Parents in presence of Witnesses may be admitted The 5th That stinted Measures be set down for their Eating and Drinking The 6th That their Apparel be plain and decent and that they wear a Girdle The 7th That next to God they be obedidient to their Superior The 8th Declares the good qualities which their Superiors ought to have The 9th That the Superior of the Monastry first reprove the Offenders with meekness and gentleness but if they prove obstinate and will not be reclaimed then he is to account them as Heathens and Publicans The 10th That he suffer not the least Offence to pass unreproved The 11th That they confess their Faults to those who are the Dispensers of Holy Mysteries The 12th That they should possess all things in common The 13th That men of Estates render to their Kindred what is their due and the remainder to the Poor The 14th That none that are entred return to their Parents Houses unless to give them instructions and that to be done by the permission of their Superiors The 15th That whosoever Defames or patiently hears his Brother Defamed be Excommunicated The 16th That no man do his own will in the Monastery or the least thing without the Superior's leave The 17th That they debar no man from entring into the Convent upon trial nor give them any offence The 18th That the measure of Eating and Fasting be set by the Superior The 19th That he who scorns to receive a Garment when presented him ought not to receive it when he afterwards asks for it The 20th That those who by their own Fault do not come to Dinner at the fixed time ought not to eat till the next day at the same hour The 21st That none ought to give the least thing to the Poor but by the hands of those which are ordered for that Office The 22d That they should be careful of the Utensils appertaining to the Monastery no less than if they were the Holy Vessels belonging to the Altar The 23d That they must apply themselves to Handy-works that so they may be helpful to others The 24th That in token of humility they wear Sackcloath and speak with moderation The 25th That the Monks are not to discourse alone with Women Besides these twentyfive Chapters there is another wholly Monastick but which is only proper to him who is the Director of the Nuns That when he confesses a Nun or Recluse he ought to do it with decency in the presence of the Abbess These are Basil's Monastical Institutions His Order flourished particularly in the East where almost all those who lived in Monasteries or Cells followed his Rule It increased to admiration afterwards but since these Countries are fallen into the hands of Infidels the most part of those Monasteries have been destroyed Nevertheless it is to be seen with some splendor in Greece where it hath still continued since the separation of that Church from the Romish These Monks wear Black Cloaths plain and without any Ornament consisting in a long Casock and a great Gown with large Sleeves They wear on their Heads a Hood which reacheth to the Shoulders They wear no Linnen sleep without Sheets upon the Straw eat no Flesh fast very often and Till the ground with their own hands There are also some Monasteries of the Order of St. Basil in Sicily and Calabria of which that of St. Saviour of Messina is the Chief and was founded in the year 1057. by Robert Guiscard of Normandy It hath the pre-eminency over all the others They use in their Office the Greek Tongue though some in Spain make use of the Romish Breviary being also somewhat different from the Greeks in their Habits There are also some Monasteries of St. Basil in Italy whereof the Principal founded by Nilus near Tivoli or Tusculum is called Crypta Ferrata But at present those as well as the other Italian Monks are very much corrupted We see likewise Monks of St. Basil in Germany who differ also from the others in the Colour and Fashion of their Habits They wear a long Casock a Patience or Scapulary a Frock with large Sleeves a Hood or Caputium and over it a broad flat Cap. They are much esteemed amongst the Germans and pass amongst them for very Religious Persons All these Monks besides the Rule of St. Basil who is very copious in his Precepts and prescribed almost nothing else but the Duties of Christian Life have also their particular Constitutions which have been established refined and changed from time to time by their Superiors or General Chapters So that if we compare them now with the ancient Rule attributed to St. Basil we shall see a strange difference which demonstrates the Corruptions and Novelties of the Greek and Latin Churches Of the Order of the Acaemetes or Studites THIS Religious Congregation was established in the year 459 at Constaminople under Gennadius's Episcopacy They were called Acoemetes no Sleepers or such as lived without sleep because they were day and night imployed at Church to sing praises to God It seems they had undertaken to follow St. John Chrysostom his advice which he gives even to all Lay-men to pray to God during the Night having established amongst them a continual Prayer and succeeding one another by turns in the Office of singing Psalms They were likewise called Studites from one Studius who founded for them at Constantinople the Monastery of St. John the Baptist 'T is unquestionable that the Abbot Alexander was their Founder notwithstanding what Nicephorus saith that it was Marcellus who in truth was only the Restorer of this Order The Acoemetes opposed stoutly Acacius Patriarch of Constantinople whom Pride had made to revolt against the Church
This happened in the year 484. But in the following Age they did not prove so true to the Church They went after Novelties and under pretence of defending the Orthodox Faith were engaged in the Opinions of Nestorius and therefore were condemned at Constantinople by order of the Emperor Justinian and at last expelled their Monastery by Constantin Copronimus They hoped to meet with more kindness at Rome and sent thither two of their Monks Cyrus and Elogius Pope John the 11th assembled in the year 532. a Council where they were condemned it having been then decided that it should be said that one of the Persons of the Trinity had suffered in the Flesh The Acoemetes maintained the contrary and their Opinion was a modish one cunningly brought in by the Nestorians to conceal the better their Errors They had at that time several Monasteries in the Eastern Countries which were destroyed by the Saracins And nothing remains now of that Ancient Order but the Name CHAP. VI. Of the pretended Monastical Rules of St. Augustin THE New Orders of the Roman Church to get themselves Reputation and Credit have not been wanting to make their greatest efforts to perswade the Ignorant People that the most Famous Men who anciently flourished in the Church have been the Institutors of their Rules and Orders After this manner the Regular Canons and the Hermits called Augustinians pretend that this great Doctor of the Church writ and professed the same Rules they do imitating in that the Heronimitains who have violently forced St. Hierom on their side The truth is that St. Augustin having been made Bishop of Hippo in Africa lived in common with his Canons in a separate Cloister near the Cathedral according to the almost general and worthy costom of the Bishops of those times and which continued some considerable time after But nevertheless they were not Monks by this manner of living being obliged neither to confinement nor to Monastick Vows and Practices So St. Augustin lived with his Canons whom he brought up as in a Seminary where they were instructed in the practice of Piety and in the studies of Philosophy and Divinity to render them capable to take upon them the administration of the Churches whereto they might be called either as Pastors or Bishops 'T is then in vain that the Religious Congregations of St. Augustin who continue still in the Church of Rome and who have other very different Constitutions pretend that this was the Original of their Orders Furthermore St. Augustin wrote no Statutes or Rules and at most we find but some Precepts which he wrote perhaps for some pious Women who lived in society with his Sister Notwithstanding as the three Rules which falsly bear the name of St. Augustin serve at present as a foundation to several Religious Orders of the Roman Church I will therefore here briefly relate the substance of them The First Rule under the Name of St. Augustin 1 Chap. THAT the Monks ought to possess nothing in particular nor call any thing their own 2. That the Wealthy who become Monks ought to sell what they have and give the mony to the Poor 3. That those who sue for the Religious Habits ought to pass under tryal before being admitted 4. That the Monks ought to substract nothing from the Monastery nor receive any thing whatsoever without the permission of their Superior 5. That the Monks ought to communicate to their Superior those points of Doctrin which they have heard discoursed of out of the Monastery 6. That if any one is stubborn towards his Superior after the first and second correction in secret shall be denounced publickly as a Rebel 7. If it happens that in time of persecution the Monks are forced to retire they ought immediately to betake themselves to that place where their Superior is withdrawn 8. If for the same reason any Monk hath saved something belonging to the Monastery he shall give it up as soon as possible into the hands of his Superior 9. That the whole Fraternity shall oblige themselves under their hands to observe this Rule The Second Rule under the Name of St. Augustin Chap. 1. 'T IS there commanded to love God and our Neighbour and in what order the Monks ought to recite the Psalms and the rest of their Office 2. They ought to imploy the first part of the Morning in Manual Works and the rest in Reading In the Afternoon they return again to their Work till the Evening They ought to possess nothing of their own not to murmure but be obedient in all things to their Superiour to keep silence in eating The Saturday is appointed to provide them with necessary things and it is lawful for them to drink Wine on Sundays 3. When they go abroad they must always go two together they are never to eat out of the Monastery They ought to be consciencious in what they sell and faithful in what they buy 4. They ought not to utter idle Words but work with silence 5. Whosoever is negligent in the practice of these Precepts ought to be corrected and beaten and those who are true observers of them must rejoyce and be confident of their Salvation The Third Rule under the Name of St. Augustin IN the Prologue the Monks are ordered to love God and their Neighbour and in the Chapters to observe the following things 1. They ought to possess nothing but in common 2. The Superior ought to distribute every thing in the Monastery with proportion to every ones necessity 3. Those who bring with them any thing into the Monastery ought immediately to render it common to all 4. They must not incline their hearts to temporal Fortunes and Honours 5. Those who bring Estates with them into the Monastery ought not therefore to be more puffed up with Pride than the others 6. They ought to honour God in one another as being become his holy Temples 7. They must attend to Prayer at Canonical hours 8. The only business at Church is to pray and if any have a mind to do it out of the time of Canonical Hours he ought not to be hindred 9. They must perform their Prayers with attention singing only what is appointed to be sung 10. They ought to apply themselves to Fasting and Abstinence with discretion 11. If any one of them is not able to fast he ought not therefore to eat between Meals unless he be sick 12. They must mind what is read to them while they are at their Meals 13. None ought to be envious to see the Sick better treated than the others are 14. None ought to find fault if somewhat more delicate be given to those who are of a weaker constitution 15. Those who are upon recovery ought to make use of comfortable things 16. When recovered they ought to return to the common observance 17. They ought to be grave and modest in their Habits 18. Whether walking or standing still they ought never to be far
mereatur possidere quia illis datis rebus suis mercati sunt Regnum Coelorum in hac itaque promissione ego N. N. valde compunctus trado c. A Fifth Reason was the Dreams Visions and apparitions of Spirits Signs and pretended Miracles God himself say they to shew that nothing was more acceptable to him than that life which men professed in Monasteries permitted the Devils to torment those who after their entring into the Monasteries would be so unwise as to go out again Upon which a Grave and Learned Author makes this short and ingenious reflection Voluit enim Diabolus cultum Monasticum observari non deseri That the Devil was too much concerned in Monkery not to make it his business to promote it with his utmost power So then all these Visions and Miracles were nothing but deceits and Diabolical illusions Lastly Great numbers of other persons were moved by their own silly Fancies and capricious thoughts to found Monasteries as may be seen in several Charters of the old Foundations I will relate here one or two Examples to this purpose Agnes Wife to Leopold Marquess of Austria being very importunate with her Husband for the foundation of a Monastery the Veil which she had on her head was carried away by the wind into a neighbouring Forest and Leopold going a hunting some years after in that very place in the Wood where he found it built a Monastery The great and powerful Monastery of the Vines in the Diocese of Constance was founded by a Caprice yet more curious in the year 800. A Countess called Irmentrude being informed that a poor Woman was delivered of three Children at a Birth reproached her with Adultery saying that it could not be otherwise and that she deserved the severity of the Law This same Lady was delivered the year following of twelve Children all alive in the absence of the Count her Husband who was gone into the Country Fearing then lest the rash Judgment which she had passed upon the poor Woman might justly fall upon her self she ordered being willing to conceal the thing from her Husband that only one of these little Children should be kept and the rest drowned in the River The Woman who was intrusted with that cruel Office was by chance met by the Count on his return from the Country who asked what she carried in her Apron She answered It was little Puppies which she went to drown The Earl was very importunate to see them and the Woman being so very much prest discoverd the whole mystery to him He seeing these eleven little Children all living gave order that they should be brought up in a Country House without giving notice of it to the Lady Countess who remained still in the belief that her Orders had been executed Six years after the Earl made these eleven young Lords richly cloathed to come before their Mother who asked her smiling whether she knew them The Countess finding her self guilty in her Conscience and not questioning but these were the eleven Children whom she had sent to be drowned fell at her Husbands Feet asked pardon for her Fault which was immediately granted her And for an acknowledgment of so great and special Providence of God towards these Children as well as to attone for the Crime of their Mother he converted his Palace of Altorf into a Monastery that was afterwards endowed and enriched by the liberalities of several other Princes CHAP. XII Of the Reformations and Congregations of the Order of St. Benet and first of that of Cluny THE great riches of this Order having introduced Luxury into it the noble ardour of Learning which during some time caused all the glory and splendor thereof did insensibly decay and Good Manners the almost inseparable companions of Studies had no better Fate So that towards the end of the ninth Age this Order was fallen into an abominable remissness and it was in the year 912 that Oden Abbot of Cluny in Burgondy in the Diocese of Macon a man learned indeed but a great Hypocrite and a Counterfeiter of Miracles undertook to repair or rather to give a new Life to the ancient observances of the Order He begun with his own Monastery of Cluny where he established the Reformation which was imitated by above two thousand Monasteries and rendred Cluny so famous that from time to time Monks were elected thence to govern the Church of Rome Alfrede Queen of England was very diligent to translate this Reformation of Cluny into her Kingdom for by her means it was established there the same year that it begun in Cluny This Vermin extended it self under pretence of Piety into all the Kingdoms of Europe but it was in effect the work of the Devil who hath always mightily endeavoured to establish Monasteries and rather than to suffer them intirely to perish seeing how much they have already profited him in introducing new Doctrins and damnable Maxims into the Church he would bear with a reformation It was manifest that God had no hand in this since a while afterwards these new Reformists fell into a relapse worse than the former of which Peter Abbot of Cluny mightily complains in these terms Our Brethren saith he despise God and having past all shame eat Flesh now all the days of the week except Fryday not only in secret but in publick also boasting of their sin like those of Sodom They run here and there and as Kites and Vultures flie with great swiftness where the most smoak of the Kitchin is or where they smell the best Roast and Boil'd Those that will not do as the rest them they mock and treat as Hypocrites and Profane Beans Cheese Eggs and even Fish it self can no more please their nice Palates they only relish the Flesh-pots of Egypt Pieces of boiled and roasted Pork good fat Veal Otters and Hares the best Geese and Pullets and in a word all sorts of Flesh and Fowl do now cover the Tables of our holy Monks But what do I talk Those things are grown now too common they are cloy'd with them They must have something more delicate They would have got for them Kids Harts Boars and wild Bears One must for them beat the Bushes with a great number of Hunters and by the help of Birds of Prey must one chase the Pheasants and Partridges and Ringdoves for fear the Servants of God who are our good Monks should perish with hunger This Order is to this day very powerful and to the Monks one may apply word for word what Peter of Cluny said of those of his time of whom I spoke just now The Abby of Cluny is the Head and the Abbot the General of the whole Order There was a great dispute heretofore betwixt the Abbot of Mont Cassin and that of Cluny about the Title of Abbot of Abbots the which this last pretended to have but this was ended in the Council which Pascal the XI held at Rome
taking from them the Cord which is not given to them again unless they be humble and submissive Dying without the Cord there is no Mercy no Heaven open for them They do promise in their Profession to promote with the utmost of their power the honour and advantage of the Minimes Order Thus these Good Men so are called the Fathers Minimes have found the way with folded Arms to get Glory and Wealth and to exercise their Empire not only in the Monasteries of their Order but in secular Houses also and wherever their Cord can reach The Order of Minime Fryars is very much dilated particularly in France in Italy and in Spain where they are called the Fathers of the Victory by reason of a great Victory which one of their Kings got as he thought by the intercession of Francis of Paula Though their name of Minimes should make them remember what they ought to be to wit the least of all Nevertheless they go to Law very often with the Capucins and other Religious for the Precedency when they march in the Processions They have likewise found the way how two sweeten their Quadragesimal Life for which they make a solemn Vow by going by turns three or four Months in the Year to Eat Meat in the Apartment appointed for the Sick not having any other Sickness but because this Quadragesimal Life does not well agree they say with their Stomacks In such manner all these grand projects of an ill grounded Sanctity do ordinarily vanish in Smoak CHAP. XVIII Of some Orders of Regular Clarks First Of the Fathers of Common Life I Was willing to make an end of the Mendicant Orders now I come to some Congregations of Regular Clarks some of which I left behind though they be more ancient than the last whereof I have spoken amongst those are the Fathers of Common Life One Gerard Legrand having finished his Studies in the Sorbonne at Paris returned to Deventer a Town of the Low Countries where he had his Birth He contented himself with the degree of a Deacon not willing to be raised to the Dignity of a Priest Besides the frequent Sermons which he made he instituted a Congregation of several Clarks or Church-men who instructed Youth both in Learning and good Manners And forasmuch as every one of them got his Substance by his own Labour and especially from Copying of Books Florentius who partly had the care of this Society said one day to Gerard How much better would it be for us to make all one Common Purse and to live together in Common This proposal pleased Gerard and meeting with no opposition the Congregation of the Clarks or Brothers of Common Life had its beginning first in the Town of Deventer and was established afterwards all over Low Germany It was confirmed by several Popes Gerard died in the year 1384 and Florentius in 1400. These Clarks are Seculars and make no Vows Their Cloaths are very like to those of the Black Monks of the Order of S. Benet only their Hood and Sleeves are something narrower Of the Order of Divine Love or Theatins UNder the Pontificate of Clement the VII some superstitious Men having withdrawn themselves into Gardens to apply their Minds better as they thought to the Exercise of Prayer and other Practices of Devotion they were by ignorant and deluded People called the Company of Divine Love One Peter Caraffa joyned with them and shewed so much of outward Humility that not only he refused the Bishoprick of Brundusium offered to him by the Emperour Charles the V. but left that of Chieti or Theate which Pope Julius the II. had given him Having then lived some while amongst them He and four others more one of whom were called Cajetan undertook to give new Life to the Order of Regular Clarks which was already very much degenerated To that purpose having brought all their Estates into a Common Purse they applied themselves wholly to sing at Church to Meditation and Prayer therefore they were called Regular Priests And because Peter Caraffa had left his Bishoprick of Theate to embrace this sort of Life they were called Theatins and also by reason of their Habit being so like to that of the Jesuits they had in some Countries the name of Theatin Jesuits Bobadilla the Jesuit relates that under the Generalship of Lainez they desired to make but one Body with the Jesuits but that finding them too remiss and proud they would not grant their request Pope Paul the III. offered the Dignity of a Cardinal to John Peter Caraffa and that great despiser of Bishopricks thought it was too good a Bit to refuse it He accepted of it then very willingly and being returned to Rome he took again the Bishoprick of Theate which happened to be vacant and of which he had formerly divested himself by Humility He accepted also of several Employments of State and the Papacy at last He took the name of Paul the IV. in remembrance of Paul the III. who gave him the Cardinals Cap. He was justly reproached for having like a cunning Fox refused the lesser Honours to advance himself to the greatest of all which is the Papal Chair the Character which Hospinian hath given us of him isthis In Pontisicatis summo egregius hic Divini Amoris socius mundi contemptor splendoris antiqui Clericorum Ordinis Restaurator tantùm pecuniis accumulandis studuit totusque belli quà m pacis amantior Arma Caedes Incendia meditatus est per omnem Europam in Christi Ecclesiam This holy Monk of Divine Love this great despiser of the World and restorer of the ancient splendour of the Clerical Order set his Heart so much on heaping up Riches and more desirous of War than Peace he carried Fire and Sword thro' all Europe against the Church of Christ His Order of Theatins subsists yet to this day in Italy where they enjoy the great Priviledges which their Founder granted to them They wear a Black Habit as the Priests and go sometimes with a Cloak and other times with a Black Chamber Gown and a square Cap on their Heads Of the Order of Somasks ABout the year 1531. another Congregation of Regular Clarks had its begining Hierom Emilian a Noble Venetian was the Institutor of it and the Town of Somasks between Milan and Bergamo where the first Foundation of this Religion was laid gave to it its name In the year 1546. the Cardinal Caraffa united it to the Order of Theatins whereof he was the Founder but in the year 1555. being Pope he separated them The following Popes took care of this new Congregation and Pius the V. gave to them the Monastery of S. Majol of Pavia and put them under the Rule of S. Austin in the year 1568. Sometime since the Fathers of the Christian Doctrin established by Caesar Bus in Avignon petition'd to be united to the Somasks which was granted them by Paul the V. in the year
Court He at first refused a Bishoprick that was offered him rather out of Pride or some other End as may be supposed than out of Humility because some while after he accepted two of them to wit that of Worcester and that of London both which he possessed at once without the least scruple of Conscience He was made at last Archbishop of Canterbury and got so far into King Edward's favour that nothing was done either in the Kingdom or in the Church without his consent or rather without his Order He made use at first of the great power he had at Court to advance to Bishopricks some of his own Relations who to please him were become Monks Amongst those were Oswald and Ethelwald the first of whom was promoted to the Bishoprick of Worcester and the other to that of Winchester In which having succeeded he undertook to promote the Affairs of the Monks to the great prejudice of those of the Clergy Thus Dunstan being a very lustful man hated as such usually do Lawful Marriage and seeing that the Clergy-men in that time were permitted to Marry he undertook to force them to forsake their Wives and Children and to turn Monks Oswald and Ethelwald joined with him in the same design and all of them having unanimously forged several false Accusations and Calumnies against those of the Clergy who refused to take the Monastical Habit they turned them out of their Churches Prebendaries and Colleges The offended Party carried immediately their Complaints to the King who appointed Commissioners to examine their Cause in the Chapter of the Church of Winchester of which the Monks had already possessed themselves in the year 963. The Judges being fully convinced by the just Reasons of the Clergy were upon the point to pronounce in favour of their re-establishment when the Monks thinking they had no time to lose made use of this crafty Device They hid one of their Gang upon the Roof of the Hall where the Assembly was kept who cryed out with all his strength through a hole not being seen Non bene sentiunt qui Presbyteris favent Those who speak in favour of the Priests are not in the Right Then the Monks clapping their Hands called out this was the voice of an Angel and that they needed no other Judgment but what Heaven it self had pronounced The Commissioners were so much terrified at it that against all Justice and Reason the Clergy men were cast and lost the right of their Cause After this Dunstan and his Agents observed no longer any moderation towards the Secular Clergy but used them with all sort of violence The King himself at their sollicitation persecuted them utterly and commanded them to be chased out of all Cathedral Churches and Colleges In a Letter which he wrote to Dunstan to Oswald and to Ethelwald he expresseth himself in these words I have the Sword of Constantine in my hand and you that of St. Peter let us join them together and drive the Lepers out of the Camp viz. the Church-men who lived in the state of a Lawful and Honest Marriage So let us cleanse the Sanctuary of the Lord and henceforward receive none to the Ministry of the Altars but the Children of Levi who said to his Father and Mother I know you not and to his Brethren I know not who you are c. Understanding in this last Clause the Monks who had renounced their Relations and Families to live with more ease and less care in the Cloisters The three Bishops had no sooner received this Letter but like Ravenous Wolves they fell upon that Flock which as good Pastors they should have protected and unmercifully oppressed it They builded with their Spoils during the Reign of that King XLVIII Monasteries and richly endowed them The affairs of the Monks having suffered some decay under the Reign of the following King Dunstan took upon himself to restore them under King Edward in the year 975. He assembled for this purpose a National Council in the East of England But having had no success in it he assembled another in Wilceria or Calne where he refused to dispute against Beornelmus a Scotch Bishop and a very learned man and one well versed in Scripture who offered to prove by it the lawfulness of the Marriage of Priests And indeed the Assembly begun already to be persuaded by the strength of his Reasons when a fatal and deplorable accident carried the Cause in favour of Dunstan The House in which this great Assembly was met sunk and there were buried in its ruins almost all the Chiefest both of the Clergy and Nobility of England The Monks alone had the good luck to escape who published immediately that Heaven had espoused their Cause had wrought a Miracle for their preservation and avenged them of their Adversaries But several Authors of great sense do accuse not without Reason this Dunstan and his Monks of a Plot no less Treacherous and Abominable than was that of the Gunpowder Treason to have undermined this Building and made it ready to fall upon this Assembly in case their Affairs did not take that turn which they desired in which case it was an easie thing for the Monks to make their escape For as Bishop Parker wisely observed How is it possible to believe that God would have wrought Miracles to maintain the cause of those who had refused to be tried by the Authority of his Holy Word Nevertheless so sad an accident gave the Victory to the Monks over the Secular Married Clergy whose places they continued to usurp almost during six hundred years until King Henry the VIII exterminated them in a lesser time and with more facility than Dunstan had for establishing of them I come now to give you some instances of the Pride and Sauciness of Monks in oppressing the English Unmarried Clergy Lanfrank a Benedictine Monk and Abbot of St. Stephen of Caen in Normandy having been raised to the Dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1070 he immediately introduced his Brethren the Monks into the Cathedral Church who in process of time by the great power they had at Court were admitted to give their Votes in the Election of the Archbishops together with the Suffragan Bishops Chief Prelates and Great Canons of that Diocese But being afterwards grown Insolent by the Possession of the Relicks of Thomas Becket they pretended to have alone the power of Electing the Archbishop with exclusion of the subordinate Bishops and Clergy and not only so but they had the brazen Face to send Commands peremptorily to the Archbishops obliging them to do or undo what they listed We have a famous example of both in the Life Balduinus Archbishop of Canterbury related by Parker in his Britannick Antiquities First concerning his Election 't is said that the Suffragan Bishops and the chiefest of the Clergy of that Province being assembled to join with the Monks in the Election of a Successour to Richard Archbishop
then deceased the Monks refused to admit them The Bishops had recourse to the Royal Authority but the Monks having only laught at it they were obliged to address themselves to the Pope who seeing the justice of their cause sent immediately his Letters to confirm them in their right of electing together with the Monks The Day for the Election being agreed upon on both sides the Prior of the Monks out of a fantanstical Humour absented himself from the Assembly and the Bishops with the others elected unanimously Balduinus for their Archbishop This Balduinus was a Cistercian Monk a pious and learned man of a sweet and moderate temper and very acceptable to King Henry the II. Notwithstanding this the Monks protested against this Election as having been made by the Bishops and the King's Council and prepared themselves already to cut out much work for the King at the Court of Rome This Prince very unwilling to have any thing more to do with the Popes saw himself obliged to use some means or other of accommodation to pacifie the Monks He desired the Clergy to be so kind for his sake and for the love of Peace as to consent that the Monks should likewise Elect the Archbishop provided they would promise to chuse the same person who was already chosen by the Bishops viz. Balduinus They assented to it and the Monks shewed themselves so much the more willing to comply herewith because he who was proposed to them was a Monk hoping he would be always very favourable to them But this Baldwin who was a very honest man either out of gratitude towards the Bishops who elected him first or because he could not see without horror the injustice of the Monks in oppressing the Secular Clergy shewed himself quite otherwise affected than they did expect He declared himself a Protector of the Episcopal Authority and to re-establish it more effectually he undertook with the help of the King and with the Pope's permission to build a Church at Hackington in honour of Thomas Becket and to establish there some Secular Clerks and Prebends with a design to meet there very often with the Bishops He was at the same time willing to introduce Secular Priests into the Church of St. Stephen usurped formerly by the Monks But these made so great cries and complaints of it to the Pope as also of the New Church which the Archbishop caused to be built that this Pope at last granted them their request sending a reiterated Order to Balduinus to re-establish the Monks in St. Stephen and moreover to pull down the New Church at Hackington the sight of which the Monks could not bear It was then demolished to the ground and the Materials of it were transported to Lambeth which Balduinus had bought of the Monks and where he gave beginning to a Palace and to a Church for the Archbishops there Nevertheless he could not bring them to perfection being hindred by the badness of the Times and the continual opposition of the Monks Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury undertook to make an end of both about the year 1194. For this purpose he deputed several Abbots to the Monks of Canterbury to intreat them at the King's desire and his own to permit that he might go on with the building of the Church as a Work purely intended for the Glory of God and of his Saints They no sooner heard of it but they fell in a rage and conceived a mortal envy against Hubert They raised a thousand Calumnies at the Court of Rome against him and succeeded so well in their devilish designs that an express Order of the Pope came to the Archbishop for demolishing wholly the Church of Lambeth whose building was continued at his own charges and suspending from any Clerical Office all those Clergy-men who should be so bold as to celebrate therein the Divine Service The Chappel was then pulled down and the Archbishop having undertook to build another at Maidstone the Monks opposed likewise and hindred him herein However at last for what fansie I know not being come a little off from their ill humour they were pleased at the King's Request and of the Lords of the Kingdom to permit the building of a Church at Lambeth provided they might prescribe these Conditions viz. that the Revenue of that Church should not exceed the sum of an hundred pounds sterling per annum nor the number of Canons that of twenty That neither Orders should be Conferred nor Bishops Consecrated nor Abbots blessed in it That the Archbishop should not have power to make there Holy Chrism or Holy Oyl nor to officiate in it Pontifically These are part of the unworthy Conditions which Archbishop Hubert was obliged to submit to and which shew plainly the insolence of Monks against the Secular Clergy I shall give here one instance more of the same Hubert Archbishop of Canturbury was no sooner fallen a sleep but the Monks fearing lest the King should meddle with the Election assembled themseves at Midnight in their Chapter and elected without the Royal Assent Reginald their Subprior for Archbishop obliging him to take an Oath that he would immediately depart for Rome and declare to none his Election until his arrival there But Reginald had no sooner crossed the Sea but he divulged what his Brethren had done in his favour The Monks having had notice of it were very much offended at it and for a revenge had recourse to the King asking his leave to proceed to another Election This Prince giving them good words desired they would elect John Gray Bishop of Norwich which the Monks enraged against their Subprior whom they called a Traytor did very willingly and he took possession of the Archiepiscopal See with the usual Ceremonies But as soon as the news of this double Election was brought to Rome Pope Innocent took occasion from that inconstancy of the Monks to make use of his Authority in annulling them both and obliged the Monks of the two Factions who were at Rome for the support of their Partics to Elect Cardinal Stephen Langton a very pious and learned English man but whom he supposed to be very much in the Interest of France where he had his first Education and as Cardinal more yet in the Interests of Rome against those of his own Country which he had left being very young These Monks who the most of them had sworn to the King with Sacred and Inviolable Oaths as they termed them that they would never yield to any thing prejudicial to John Gray made no difficulty at all to break them to please the Pope In the mean while the Bishops used all their endeavours at Rome to obtain the restauration of their lawful right of Electing their Metropolitan but the Pope rejected them shamefully and confirmed again in spight of the King and of their Remonstrances the Monks in their Usurpation I might relate several other Instances of the Fradulent and Violent Usurpations
year 1313. Some are of opinion that Peter Damianus established this Religion a long time before Pope Celestin about the year 1078 and that the Habit of those Monks was of a Blue or Celestial Colour whence they were called Celestins They wear now a White Casock with a Patience a Scapulary a Hood and a Cowl all black They possess now in France about twenty Monasteries 'T is an usual expression in that Country for a great Coxcomb to call one a pleasant Celestin. Of the Order of the Olivetans JOhn Ptolomaeus Gentleman of Siena in Italy a Learned Lawyer desirous to give himself wholly to devotion retired to a ground of his own called Accona distant fifteen miles from the Town having drawn along with him two other persons who followed him in his retreat in the year 1313. Their Congregation increased in a little while and because they professed no written Rule and made no Vows guided only by the zeal they had for Jesus Christ they were accused before Pope John the XXII who held his Seat at Avignon as Innovators Enemies to Monastical Vows This Pope referred their Cause to the Bishop of Aresse who commanded them to follow the Rule of St. Benet This hapned in the year 1319. and to go Cloathed all in White viz. to wear a Casock a Scapulary and a long broad Cowl with large Sleeves He ordered besides this that their Congregation should be called by the name of St. Mary of Mount Olivet and that the Church of their Chief Monastery of Accona should bear the same name About that time John Ptolomaeus having proposed to himself St. Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux for a Pattern would be called of his name Bernardus He died of the Plague in the year 1348 and 't is unknown where his Body was laid His Religious are called yet to this day Olivetans They live in a Congregation and have perpetual Regular Abbots though their abode is but triennial in the same Monastery They have divided their Abbies into six Provinces which do elect by turns the General of the Order These Monks are so much disordered that several Popes to remove so great a Scandal had a mind to abolish them intirely as 't was done to the above-mentioned Humilies but their Protectors have been so powerful and so well paid that they have ever till now averted this Storm from their Heads Of some other Orders of St. Benet and Chiefly of the famous Congregation of St. Maur in France TO put an end to the Orders which follow the Rule of St. Benet I say that some are to be seen yet in the East as in the Valley of Josaphat and in the Indies who differ only in Cloaths The first wear a Hood and a Cowl of a readish Colour and after the use of Eastern Countries a long Beard The others to wit the Indians have a black short Casock with a white Scapulary and a white Cloak over it that reacheth to their Heels There are also many Reformations of the Order of St. Benet in Germany in Lorrain and in France but among others that of St. Maurus in France is very remarkable It was erected by Pope Gregory the XV. in the year 1621 upon the motion of Louis the XIII King of France Father Desiderius De la Cour native of Lorrain was the first who went about it very earnestly and the first Monastery where this Reform took place was that of the White Cloaks or Blanc Manteaux at Paris Pope Urban the VIII confirmed this Congregation in the year 1627. It increased so much in so short a time that one may reckon now two hundred Monasteries in France belonging to it They are divided into six Monastical Provinces each of which is governed by a Visitor They have a General besides who keeps two Assistants or Helpers and lives in the Abby of St. Germain des Prez at Paris The Abbots and Superiors of the whole Congregation meet together with their Deputies in a General Chapter every third year and there they make their Regulations which are joined with the Declarations upon their Rule and ought very strictly to be observed This Congregation would have spread its Branches yet farther if King Louis the XIV by a piece of Policy unwilling to see any Private Body to grow so strong had not put a stop to it He would not permit them to reform many other Monasteries which are yet very loose and corrupted and had rather to see them Secularized as 't was done lately to the Abbies of Enee and Savigni near Lions than to have them incorporated with these Reformed Monks They are extreamly Rich being very good Husbands and partly because they want Monks to fill their Monasteries The French Nobility being now a days Enemies to a lazy Life the meanest sort of people only sue for to be received amongst them This Congregation hath however produced some great men in this Age famous by their learned Works to wit D. Hugues Menard Lucas d' Achery John Mabillon Gabriel Gerberon but scarcely could they produce as many others of this kind amongst them The length of their Office at Church taking up the best part of their time is perhaps the cause of their ignorance The Jesuits are very troublesom to them because by the great power they have at Court they get to themselves several of their Abbies and Priories This is the reason why in some points one sees St. Ignatius of Loiola cutting with long Shears St. Benet's Purse I shall say no more of the Monastical Orders that follow the Rule of St. Benet only this That several other Monasteries of Benedictine Monks are to be seen here and there dispersed who are not reformed and do not live in a body of a Congregation but all of them lead so corrupted and wicked lives that they may be considered where-ever they are as the plague of all honesty and good manners CHAP. XIII Of the Orders of St. Hierom. 'T IS very certain that St. Hierom governed a long while the famous Monastery built at Bethlem by the devout Paula but it was by the good example of his life only not leaving any thing in Writing that might be serviceable after his death to the Monastical Government So that the Orders which bear in our days St. Hierom's Name are not to be called so for their following his Rule but because they have chosen this great Doctor for their Patron and Protector 'T is very true also that some time before he entred the Monastery of Paula he had retired himself to the most desert places of Syria to get more freedom from Worldly Affairs and to apply himself the better to Study and the Contemplation of Holy Things But then and afterwards he did it with a perfect liberty of Spirit without determination to any Place Exercise or Practâ—ce of Vertue by any Vow nor distinguished himself from others by the singularity of his Habit. Prosper Stellarius an Augustinian Monk who hath collected the Rules of the Founders
follows him closely and pretends the Monks have neither right nor title to it since there is no People where lesser signs of true Repentance and Conversion to God are to be found than amongst these wretched Monks notwithstanding all their Shavings and Benedictions I shall conclude this matter with saying that the Monks of the Church of Rome do attribute so much Holiness to their Shaving and Habits that they think they may with folded Arms go to Heaven and therefore do neglect the true practices of Justice and Piety which are approved by God and commanded in the Gospel TREATISE OF NUNS CHAP. I. Of their Original Vail Shaving and Grates IT is an easie thing to observe that there hath been formerly two sorts of Nuns or Virgins Consecrated to God The First and most Ancient begun almost in the times of the Apostles and as Prudent Virgins endeavoured by the Grace of God and with all Humility and Freedom followed St. Paul's advice in keeping their Virginity not reckoning it an extraordinary merit in themselves nor being bound to it by a solemn Vow and without condemning Marriage which they often embraced after several years of Virginity as not being accounted infamous for so doing Such were the Virgins of the Purest Times As for the Second Sort of Nuns who make Vows they ought to acknowledge their Original from Eustatius an Heretick who put into their Heads as foolish Virgins that there was no Salvation to be hoped for in a Married State and bound them by Vow to keep their Virginity This hapned about the year of our Lord 330. And it was likewise about the same time that some Virgins and devout Women of the First Order viz. of those who made no Vows in imitation of the Hermits and Monks of Thebais in Egypt joined together and inclosed themselves in Monasteries This Eastern Novelty passed also some years after into the West Some Priests of Alexandria in Egypt flying from the Arian persecution retired to Rome and informed the Noble Widow Marcella with this kind of Life which pleased her so much that having gathered together several Roman Ladies she persuaded them to live in common and took upon her self their conduct After the example of so great Ladies what appeared at first very ignominious for its Novelty became more Tolerable and even Honourable and in several places were built Monasteries for Widows and Virgins Consecrated to God The Vail which was in use for all the Women in the Primitive Church and wherewith St. Paul saith they ought to be covered at Church in reverence to the Angels was appropriated to those who did retire into Monasteries as an Habit that was to be particular to them and their distinction from those who lived in the World Some time since the Councils which were held and particularly that of Valence held in France in the year 378 made very rigorous Statutes against the Vailed Virgins who should go out of their Monasteries to Marry ordering not to receive them so easily to Penitence Nevertheless there was yet a Door open for them But Pope Innocent the I. by a very indiscreet Zeal and contrary to that Meekness of the merciful Jesus who is ready to receive Sinners at the first moment of their Conversion ordered in the year 407 that after such a fault as this they should not be received to Penitence before the death of the Husband whom they had taken and if they died first they still lay under the sentence of Excommunication This Law was confirmed since by several Synods and every thing going still worse and worse in the Church the Marriages of Nuns were quite dissolved and those who contracted them both Man and Woman were burnt alive By such means the Nuns were at last forced to keep their Virginity against their Wills In the mean time St. Benet having given as it were a new Life to Monkery in the West Scholastica his Sister Founded a great many Monasteries for Women whereof she made her self Abbess and gave them the same Rule which her Brother had written for Men. The following Ages as more abundant in Superstition did also abound more in Monks and Nuns who made solemn Vows and the shaving of Women that was in use only in some Egyptian Monasteries which had borrowed it from Pagan Virgins was brought also into the West St. Hierom in his Letter to the Virgin Eustochium calls it the Devil's Work St. Paul at least saith That it is a shameful thing for a woman to go shaved However the Nuns a great deal wiser than this holy Apostle did in progress of time attribute to their cutting off their Hair to their Vails and mimical Hababits a holy Virtue and more than a baptismal Grace But this notwithstanding their Habits remaining always whatever really they were to wit pieces of Cloath without that imaginary sanctifying Virtue these Nuns remained still exposed to Temptations so much the more violent and shameful as their enterprises were rash and unwise Some bad circumstances which hapned very often shewed enough that they were only Virgins by force taking all occasions to converse with Men. Therefore the Bishops thought necessary to raise up their Walls higher and to order that they should speak to no body but through Iron Grates being kept as close as the Prisoners in Newgate Oh shame Now Pagans and Infidels must know that Christian Virgins that they may secure honesty of Life ought to be kept in Irons And let the Papists be thanked for the confusion which reflects from their infamous practices upon the whole Body of Christendom As for the Government of Nuns some of them are under the Direction of the Bishops in whose Diocese they are and others under the Obedience of the Generals of the Orders of Men who profess the same Rule as they do The former have Secular Priests for their Confessors and the later Fathers of their Order CHAP. II. Of the Orders of Nuns in General WOmen being at least as much inclined to Superstition as Men they no sooner saw a Monkish Order to spring up but they undertook to appropriate it to their Sex building for themselves Monasteries thereby to imitate as far as they were able the extravagancies of Men nay outwitting them in forgeries of Revelations Apparitions and Miracles to get â—ame in the World which they say they had left As they do profess to follow the same Rules of the Monks leaving only out what is not agreeable to their Sex and do acknowledge the same Founders of Orders for their own wear the same Names and Habits of the same Colour it would be superfluous to labour methinks to set down at length one by one all the Orders of Nuns Therefore I shall only give you here a short Catalogue of their Names and Times of their respective Foundations reserving only at the end to relate more at large some few of the said Orders more worthy the Observation of my Reader A Catalogue of
preserve us from all evils through Jesus Christ our Lord. Chap. v. Christ does order the hours in which Silence is to be kept viz. from the beginning of the Night till the Mass of his Blessed Mother be ended the next Morning Chap. vi Christ forbids the Men to enter the Monastery of his Nuns Chap. vii Christ sets down which days the Seculars may come to Discourse and Converse with the Nuns at the Grate viz. on Sun-days and Holy-days Chap. viii Christ prescribes the Fasts of the year and will have them to fast with Bread and Water on certain days especially on the Eves before the Holy-days of the Virgin Mary And those days which are not Fasts they shall Eat Flesh-meat only at Dinner and at Supper Fish Eggs Milk and other such things Chap. ix x. Christ gives Rules for the reception of Novices and sets down very exactly all the Ceremonies to be performed by the Bishop in their Consecration and all the Prayers which he ought to read in giving them the Religigious Habit and Vail Chap. xi Christ will not have above sixty Sisters in each Monastery and in those of Men thirteen Priests only in the Honour of the thirteen Apostles the thirteenth whereof is St. Paul besides them there shall be four Evangelists or Preachers to represent the four Doctors of the Church St. Ambrose St. Austin St. Gregory and St. Hierom. There shall be moreover eight Convers Brothers to serve the Priests So that saith Christ reckoning the sixty Nuns the thirteen Priests four Evangelists and eight Convers Brothers all these together make up the number of the thirteen Apostles and seventy two Disciples Chap. xii Christ declares here what Habits the Priests the Evangelists and Convers Brothers are to wear They must be all of a gray Colour but the Priests shall have on their Cloak a piece of red Cloath cut like a little round Wafer or Host as a memorial that they are to sacrifice every day my Body in the Mass As for the Evangelists they shall wear on their Cloaks little pieces of red Cloath cut in form of Tongues because the Holy Ghost hath filled them with Wisdom and Understanding And the Convers Brothes shall have on theirs a white Cross with five little pieces of red Cloath in honour of my five Wounds Chap. xiii The Abbess saith Christ shall be elected from amongst the Sisters and be their Mistress because the Virgin Mary my Mother in whose honour this Order is Instituted after my Ascension into Heaven was the Head and Queen of my Apostles and Disciples Chap. xiv The thirteen Priests shall wholly apply themselves to Divine Service and Prayer Chap. xv The Nuns the Priests and the Convers Brothers ought to confess their Sins at least three times in the year Chap. xvi They shall receive the Holy Sacrament every Holy and Solemn Day and the most Devout every Saturday Chap. xvii Christ orders Penances and Fasts for delinquent Sisters Chap. xviii He orders a special Punishment for those who dying shall be found to have something of their own Chap. xix Christ will not have them to receive any Present from their Friends or Relations Chap. xx All the Regular Places of a Monastery ought to be built before the Nuns and Monks come to live in it Christ regulates the Foundations and Revenues of each Convent and how the Oblations made to them ought to be employed Chap. xxi Christ orders Thirteen Altars in every Church a Chalice for each Altar and two for the great Altar with a precious Box to put his Body in The Relicks of Saints must be shut up in Golden and Silver Boxes He goes on with the other Ornaments of the Church Chap. xxii Christ forbids to receive the Nuns to Profession before eighteen years of Age and the Men before twenty five Chap. xxiii My Mother saith Christ having divided her time into three parts one for praising God with her Mouth the other to serve him with her Hands and the third for her Corporal Necessities so likewise ought the Sisters to divide theirs viz. in praising God attending to work and supplying the wants of their Bodies Chap. xxiv Christ does not allow to his Nuns any difference in Eating and Drinking being to be served all alike Chap. xxv Christ orders Iron-Grates a Turning-Box to slip every thing necessary into the Monastery The Priests shall not enter the Apartment of the Nuns unless it be to carry the Sacrament to the Sick or to bury them when they are dead Chap. xxvi The Bishop of the Place shall have Jurisdiction and Right of Visitation in the Monasteries both of Men and Women No Monastery of this Order ought to be built without the Pope's Consent When this Rule hath been confirmed by the Pope saith Christ some Benedictines or Bernardine Monks must be desired to take the trouble to settle and appoint the Chastisements for the Transgression of this Rule The Ceremonies for Burials what the Bishop ought to observe in his Visitation and in what case he is permitted to enter the Monastery and what is wanting to this Rule must be supplied by St. Benet's and Bernard's Rules Chap. xxvii Christ Commands a Coffin shall be placed at the Church-gate to the end that the Sisters looking on it may be continually mindful of Death Chap. xxviii Christ promises all kind of Helps to this Order and abundance of Graces and Blessings to those who shall maintain the observance of it Chap. xxix The most part of this last Chapter is employed by Christ in giving directions to Briget how she shall make the Pope and all the World believe that this Rule comes immediately from himself He saith that the Pope shall sufficiently know by the Wisdom of these Rules that they proceed from him and in case he should question the truth of it she ought to produce three Witnesses viz. a certain Bishop whom she knows a Monk and a Priest of her own Country who will serve fully to convince him Christ promiseth to be very liberal of his Blessings towards those Cities Provinces and Kingdoms who shall be so happy as 〈◊〉 contain Monasteries of this Order He saith that if one does ask him why he did not give this Rule nor had it Confirmed before the Creation of the World The Reason is because he was not pleased to do it Observe how a foolish Woman makes Christ the Eternal Wisdom to speak as if God's Omnipotency could reach to give a Rule to Monks and Nuns and have it confirmed by a Pope before the Creation o◠the World Lastly He concludes this Fine Chapter with these Words worthy of Observation Thou Briget to whom this Rule is given shal◠take care to bring it to the Pope I am he who when I commanded my Disciples to go to a Town and thence to fetch me an Ass could have made it come to me without their help by my Almighty Power And I could cause now in a moment that this Rule should be brought
from their Companion 19. They ought to express modesty and stayediness in their outward behaviour 20. They ought not to cast a lustful Eye upon Women nor wish to be seen by them 21. They ought not being at Church to harbour any thoughts of Women 22. When it is known that a Fryar courts any Woman after having been forwarned several times he ought to be corrected and if he will not submit to correction he must be turned out of the Monastery 23. All Correction must be inflicted with Charity 24. They ought not to receive Letters nor Presents in secret 25. There must be in the Monastery a Vestry or common place to lay up their Habits in and they must be contented with those Habits that are given to them 26. All their Works ought to be rendred common 27. If some of their Relations send them Cloaths it shall be in the power of the Superior to give them to whom he pleaseth 28. That he who concealeth any thing as his own be proceeded against as guilty of Robbery 29. They ought to wash their own Cloaths or have them washed by others with license of their Superior 30. The Bathes and all sorts of Medicines ought to be allowed to the Sick as the Superior and the Physician shall think sit and those Fryers who complain of inward sicknesses must be believed upon their words 31. They ought not to go to the Bathes unless in company of two or three appointed by their Superior 32. The Sick shall be committed to an Attendant whose care must be to demand from the Steward all necessary things for him 33. Those who are in any Office ought to serve their Brethren without grudging 34. There ought to be every day an hour set to take Books out of the Library and 't is not permitted at any other time to take any from thence 35. Those who have the care of Cloaths and Shoos ought to give them without delay to those that want them 36. The Monks ought to shun all Law-suits and Contentions 37. Those who have done any injury or given offence to any of their Brethren ought to ask them forgiveness and spare for nothing to be reconciled 38. If one have given ill language to another he ought immediately to remedy it with sofâ—â—â— words 39. If the Superior hath made use of too haâ—◠〈◊〉 in giving Correction he is nâ—◠〈…〉 beg excuse for fear of diminishing 〈…〉 40. That they ought to obey him who is Head over them but especially the Elder or Priest who hath the care of the whole Monastery 41. The Superiour ought in his Corrections when his Authority is not sufficient to have recourse to that of the Elder or Priest 42. That the Superior ought not to pride himself of his Dignity but ought to have all the Qualities of a good Father towards his Inferiors 43. That the Monks ought to observe these Rules out of love and not out of slavish fear 44. That this Rule ought to be read once a Week in presence of the Monks A Reflection upon these Three Rules attributed to St. Augustin THEY were all of them written in Latin but the stile of the two first is so different from that of the third that it is an easie thing to judge that they never came from the hand of the same Author Erasmus and Hospinian find these two first so silly and unworthy of St. Augustin that they fear not to say that to attribute them to him is to do him an injury For the third they don't deny indeed but St. Augustin might be the Author of it but they say that it is probable that he never wrote it for his Clergy or for Monks but perhaps for some pious Women who lived in common under the conduct of his Sister and that it is certain as they give sufficient proofs to believe it that either the Regular Canons or the Augustinians willing to attribute them to themselves have changed all the Terms and Exercises therein contained which were proper to Women putting into their place expressions proper to Men. I refer my Reader to that learned Dissertation which Hospinian has made of it and I have quoted in the Margen Where he shall see also the opinion of Erasmus about St. Augustin as to his having been a Monk and of the Sermons which they pretend he wrote to the Hermit Brothers He makes it appear as clear as the day by the menness of his Stile by the false Concords and faults of Syntax and by the absurdities which are therein contained And he proves by invincible reasons that although St. Augustin after the example of St. Basil St. Hierom and other eminent men retired sometime into solitude to study he was nevertheless neither Monk nor Hermit Notwithstanding speaking of the aforesaid Rules of St. Augustin I shall not omit to treat of the Religious Orders which follow them and bear the name of this Holy Doctor To this end I shall speak first of the Regular Canons and afterwards of the Hermits of St. Augustin CHAP. VII Of the Order and Congregations of Regular Canons of St. Augustin and first of the Congregation of Lateran in Italy THE Church of St. John Lateran hath had for some Ages Regular Canons to officiate in it Those of the Congregation which is erected under his name falsly maintain that they were established there from the very time that it was built by Constantine and that Gelasius afterwards brought from Africa Disciples of St. Augustin who had been used to live in Common in the Church of Hippo But the truth is that the Regular Canons of Lateran such as they are at present were not introduced till the year 1061 by Pope Alexander the Second who having found that the Canons had left the Canonical Observances sent thither Regular Canons from St. Frigdian of Luca who there established the novelty of their Institution and this Congregation was then called St. Frigdians Pope Boniface the Eighth in the year 1295 seeing that the Regular Canons led an abominable life drove them from St. John of Lateran and sent them back to Luca from whence they came and put in their places Secular Canons They lived thus in the Secular State till the year 1446 when Eugenius the Fourth a great lover of Monks made thirty of them with a Prior come again from St. Frigdian and reestablished them in the possession of the Church of Lateran ordering that the Congregation should be henceforwards called by the name of St. John of Lateran but Pope Sixtus the First drove them away again from thence and reestablished the Regular Canons where they are continued to this very day To quiet these poor Monks so shamefully expelled the Church of our Lady of the Peace in Rome was given to them Notwithstanding this hard blow they lived still in a Body called the Congregation of St. John of Lateran and they possess yet to this day in Italy a great number of Monasteries Their
Habit is a White Woollen Casock which reacheth to their Heels and over it they have a kind of a Surplice which they call a Rochet made of Linnen having the form of a Shirt for which they are now commonly called in Italy Shirted Fathers or Fathers of the Shirt They gravely pretend to have their origin from the Apostle St. James the Greater and from St. Mark the Evangelist or at least from St. Augustin But indeed the Canons of those times which they would have for their Fathers were very different in their practices from what these are They frequently applied themselves to the study of the Holy Bible were Helps and Suffragans to the Bishops preached and taught in publick and were not bound to their Profession by Monastical Vows whereas the Regular Canons of Lateran and other like Congregations of whom we are to speak hereafter are no more than a lazy sort of Fellows who spend idlely their lives thinking to have performed all the Canonical and Apostolical Duties when they have sung in their Quire at some stated hours a certain number of Psalms and Prayers who make a Vow of Obedience and will have into the bargain that their Superior shall command nothing but what they list a Vow of Poverty being well assured before of a good provision which is already made for them And lastly a Vow of Chastity till they find an opportunity to satisfie their Lustful Inclinations Their Scandalous Lives were the reasons of their being so often chased from St. John of Lateran and yet they continue still the same in those many Monasteries which this Congregation is in possession of at this present time in Italy Of the Congregation of Regular Canons of St. Saviour in Italy IT begun under the Pontificate of Gregory XII in the year 1408. This Pope of his own accord gave permission to some Hermits of the Order of St. Augustin who lived in the Monastery of St. Saviour situated near Siena to pass into the Order of the Regular Canons and to wear the Rochet or Shirt upon a Grey Coat with a Cloak of the same colour made after the manner of that of the Carthusians They retired afterwards to a place called Eugube where they founded a Monastery in an Hermitage consecrated to St. Ambrose Francis Gislerius Prior of St. Saviour's Monastery at Bologna to whom that of St. Mary of Rheno with its whole Congregation was united called them into his Convent to restore in it the Regular Discipline They obtained afterwards from Pope Martin V. to establish themselves in all the other Monasteries who would receive them and to form them into a Congregation But it hapned after some debates with Gislerius particularly about their Habits that they agreed all together at last both the Ancient and the New Monks to wear the same Habit to wit a White Casock and upon a Linnen Rochet a White Woollen Scapulary This Congregation from that time increased very much in Italy where they have now above forty three Monasteries and amongst the others that of St. Peter ad vincula at Rome They are called also Scopetini from Scopeto near Siena which was the place of their Original They lead now a very loose life and with much reason may be applied to them what Albertus Crantzius said of the Canons of his time Monstrum sine Exemplo Regularem sine Regula Canonicum sine Canone They are become extreamly wanton in their Habits and wear fine Points of Venice and Flanders Laces at the Bottom and Sleeves of their Rochets Surplices or Shirts Of the Regular Congregations of St. George's in Alga at Venice and of St. George's in Sicily THIS Congregation had its beginning in Alega or Alga two miles from Venice being instituted by Angelo Corraro and Gabriel Gondelmaro who were both made Popes afterwards the First under the name of Gregory XII and the Second under that of Eugeny IV. These two Gentlemen being moved by a desire of a more perfect Life retired into the Monastery of St. George in Alga and there they followed the Rule of having all things in common but did not bind themselves by any Vows Laurence Justinian was not slow to join himself to this Society and was afterwards made General of it This Order increased so much under his Government that many Collegiate Churches desired some of its Canons to come and teach them the Observances practised in St. Georges in Alga to which Monastery Gregory XII who passed from thence to the Pontifical Chair and had made it already the Chief of a Congregation had given Statutes extracted from the Constitutions which by Pope Benet XII were formed for Regular Canons Insomuch that several Collegiate Churches to the number of thirteen amongst which was that of St. Saviour of Lauro at Rome joined this Congregation It spread it self also into Portugal Pope Pius V. in the year 1569. obliged those of this Order to conform themselves to the other Regular Canons by making the Vows of Poverty Chastity and Obedience Their Habit is a long Casock under with Buttons and over that a blew Frock with large Sleeves a broad Scarf on the Shoulder and a Cap all of the same colour There are also some Monasteries of this Order in Sicily only they have undertaken to outdo the others in austerity of Life Their Garments though of the same colour are yet a great deal shorter and very like to an Hermetical Habit they go besides with a big Pilgrims Staff in their Hands and long Beads with Sandals on their Feet and a Cap on their Head Of the Order of the Regular Canons of the Holy Sepulcher THIS Order of Regular Canons did anciently possess in the Holy Land several Churches and after the Revolutions which hapned there passed from thence into Italy where they fixed their abode in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily There is to be seen yet at this day the rich Monastery of St. Andrews near to the Town of Piazza They follow the Rule of St. Augustin 'T is said that Godefroy of Bullen having conquered Jerusalem in the year 1099 instituted the first Religious of this Order He committed to their charge the keeping of the Holy Sepulcher from whence they had and have yet their Name Their ancient Habit was a black Casock a white Rochet over it with a black Cloak upon which wear on the left side five black Crosses They wear also a long Beard and a Cap after the Eastern fashion There are also now some Monasteries of this Order in the Low and Northern Countries as in Polonia Silesia Moravia Bohemia and Russia but with some difference in their Habits Of the Congregation of the Regular Canons of St. Genevieve of Paris THIS Congregation had its Original about the year 1615 in the Abby of St. Vincent of Senlis under the protection of the Cardinal La Rochefoucault Bishop of the same City who being nominated by Louis XIII to the Abby of St. Genevieve of Paris
called thither from St. Vincent of Senlis Father Charles Faure with eleven of his Religious to bring thither the Reformation They established it there with so great success that it passed thence into several other Monasteries and this Congregation is at this time composed of above a hundred Monasteries under one Superior General who is Abbot of St. Genevieve There is a good number of fat Priories and Livings which depend on it and which serve as a back Door to those of these Monks who are weary of their Confinement being drawn from thence to officiate in them and where they are no longer obliged to the Monastical Duties 'T is also chiefly for one of these good Morsels or to be advanced in the preferments of their Order that the Regular Canons of the Abby of St. Genevieve of Paris who are continually exposed to the Eyes of their General play the Hypocrites so well At Paris they call them the Fathers Dormans or Sleeping Fathers because they continually keep their Eyes shut as if they were asleep Several suffer themselves to fall as they go to the Quire not minding where they set their Feet and this too great affectation without doubt diminisheth much of that esteem which one might have for their modesty Their Habit is a white Casock a Surplice a long Fur with a square Cap and in Winter time to keep themselves warmer they wear over their Rochet a great black Cowl with a Hood instead of the Fur and the square Bonnet Of the Congregation of the Regular Canons of St. Victor at Paris THE Abby of St. Victor had its rise from a little Chappel built without the Walls of Paris whither William of Champeaux Archdeacon of the Church of our Lady retired himself about the year 1110 with some of his Disciples Louis le Gros who esteemed much his Virtue and Merit seeing him resolved to embrace the Order of the Regular Canons caused them whom he had lately founded at Puiseaux near Pluviers in Gatinois to come join themselves to William of Champeaux and his Companions under the same Rule and Habit. There are to be seen in France about thirty four Monasteries which form the body of the Congregation of which the Abby of St. Victor is the Chief All the difference that there is between the Regular Canons of St. Genevieve and these is that the former carry their Furs on their Arms and these on their Shoulders Of the Congregation of St. Rufe in Dauphine THE Congregation of St. Rufe was also formerly but a little Chappel without the City of Avignon where four Canons of the Cathedral Church of the same City retired themselves there to live in the exercises of a Regular Life and this House of St. Rufe became afterwards the Chief of a powerful Congregation composed of a great number of Monasteries But this Abby having been ruined the Religious transferred themselves to a place near Valence and afterwards were placed in the Town it self where they are to this day They wear a white Robe and on the top of it a linnen Scarf for a sign of their Profession The Congregation of our Saviour in Lorrain IT had for its Institutor Father Fourrier of Matincourt and was confirmed by Urban VIII in the year 1628. These Canons wear a linnen Scarf over a black Robe and have many Monasteries in Lorrain Of the Congregation of the Regular Canons of Windesem in the Low Countries THE Regular Canons of the Chapter of Windesem who having spread themselves in Flanders Holland and Low Germany drew their Original from a Society of Clerks gathered together by one Gerard Groot at Deventer in the Diocese of Utrecht towards the end of the 14th Age. They applied themselves to and got their livelihood by transcribing Books This Gerard Groot on his Death-bed ordered his Disciples to render their Society more fixt that they should put themselves under a Religious Rule and make solemn Vows After several consultations upon this affair they resolved at last to take the Rule of the Regular Canons rather than that of any other Order as being more agreeable to that Clerical-state which they professed They began then to build a Monastery near the Town of Zwol in a place called Vindeseut with the consent of William Duc of Gueldres and of the Bishop of Utrecht in the year 1386. They sent in the mean while six of their Body into a House of Regular Canons to be informed of their Rules and Practices and in the year following they all took the Religious Habit of that Order Their Fame being spread in all the Neighbouring Countries many new Monasteries were founded for them and several old ones desired to be Reformed by them so that in a very short time they had 83 Convents the greatest part whereof have been since abolished by the true Reformation of Religion which by Gods blessing hapned in Holland and in Germany They founded also in the Low Countries about fourteen Monasteries of Nuns and were the Directors of them This Congregation hath yet several famous Houses They wear a black Camail over their Rochet and in the Summer at Church the Surplice and the Fur on their Shoulders as those of St. Victor at Paris Of the Congregation of Regular Canons of of St. Croix of Conimbria in Portugal THE Monastery of the Holy Cross near Conimbria in Portugal Chief of this Congregation was founded in a place where the Royal Bathes were by one Tellon Archdeacon and Canon in the Cathedral Church of the same Town He sent two of his Disciples to France there to be instructed in the Rules and Practices of the Regular Canons and he afterwards by their means established the same observance in his Monastery of the Holy Cross and in all the others who joined with this to the number of nineteen These Regular Canons were founded in the year 1527 and reduced to a strict Observance of the Cloister and Silence They wear a Surplice without Sleeves which they turn up upon their hands and a Fur upon their Shoulders Of other Houses of Regular Canons THERE are yet other Congregations and Houses of Regular Canons as that of St. Mark at Mantua which was founded in the year 1205. It hath but two Monasteries one at Mantua and the other at Nesco near Padua The Congregation of the Valley of Scholars which was founded by four Doctors and several of their Scholars in a Valley incompassed with Woods in the Diocese of Langres It stretched is self very much into France and the Low Countries and in Germany but in France it hath been incorporated into that of St. Genevieve We see yet several Abbies of Regular Canons who have divers Priories depending upon them and wear different Habits as those of St. Maurice of Angoun in Suitzerland They wear a read Camail over their Rochets Those of Chausterneubourg in Austria who wear Furr'd Caps on their Heads Those of Mont St. Eligius near Arras who are drest in a
Violet Colour The Cathedral of Pampelune is officiated by Regular Canons and in the same Diocese there is the famous Priory of Ronceaux where the Emperor Charlemain placed a College of Regular Canons to take charge of an Hospital which he founded to receive the Pilgrims that should pass by those remote places as well those of France who should go to St. James as those of Spain who travelled to Rome They are drest in Black and wear a little white Scapulary very strait which comes down to their middle they wear also a kind of a Cross of a green Stuff made in the form of an F. to signifie that they are of an Order belonging to Hospitals Of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustin THE Fathers of this Order do boldly derive their Original from St. Augustin They pretend that this Saint being at Milan retired there into a Monastery and that passing afterwards into Africa he brought thither along with him 12 Fryers whom he established not long after near his Episcopal Church of Hippo living together with them But to speak truly this is no better than a story contrived by these honest Monks who have vanity enough to attribute to themselves an antiquity to which they have no title I need give no other warrant for what I say than Possidonius who wrote the Life of St. Augustin and makes no mention of them 'T is also acknowledged by the Learned that those seventy six Sermons written to the Hermits Ad Fratres in Eremo commemorantes and supposed by the Augustinian Fathers to be the Works of this holy Doctor are only the productions of some Impostor Having weighed every thing very impartially one shall find that the Order of these Augustinians was in the beginning formed of several Heremitical Congregations which were spread in several places under different names and especially of the Williamites and Zambonites Pope Innocent IV. did form the design of this Union but Death having prevented him this Work was reserved to Alexander IV. Nor was the great St. Augustin though dead many Ages before wanting to promote it with his utmost power He appeared say they to this Pope in a Dream under a dreadful Figure having his Head as big as a Tun and the rest of his Body as small as a Reed This made Alexander IV. understand that he ought to put in execution the project of his Predecessor He gave them the pretended Rules of St. Augustin joined them in a Body under one General ordering them to wear the same Habit to wit a long Gown with broad Sleeves a fine cloath Hood and under these black Garments other white ones and that they should tyâ— about their Middle a leathern Girdle fastned with an Ivory Bone This Order being confirmed by the following Popes so prodigiously increased that a very little while after they had above 2000 Convents of Men and 300 of Women Being afterwards fallen from their Observances which is the common fate of all the Religious Orders of the Church of Rome Father Thomas of Jesus of the House of Andrada laid the first Foundations of a Reformation in Portugal about the year 1574 Louis of Leon established it in Spain Father Andreas Dies in Italy and Father Francis Ameâ— carried it into France and it was confirmed by Clement VIII in the year 1600. The following Popes consented that the three Congregations of France Italy and Spain should have each a Vicar General who should depend on the General of the Augustinians They are one of the four Orders which are now called Mandians or Beggars from their begging Alms from Door to Door though indeed it is a shame that they are suffered so to do having all of them some few Religious of St. Francis excepted more than sufficient yearly incomes for their maintenance The Reformed Augustinians wear Sandals and are called Unshod for distinction sake from those who have not received the Reform and go under the name of great Augustinians These last passed from Italy into England in the year 1252. and at their arrival a raging Sickness broke out in London and spread into the whole Kingdom as a presage of the great evils which these Monks should cause one day in England There is a great number of other Congregations that follow the Rule of St. Augustin of whom I shall speak in another place Now having said that the Augustinians drew their Original from the Williamites and Zambonites I shall only treat here in few words of these two ancient Orders of Hermits Of the Orders and Rules of Cassianus Caesarius and Isidorus JOhn Cassian was born at Athens and lived in the Fifth Age. He passed the first years of his Youth in the Monasteries of Palestina where he had great familiarity with the Abbot Germanus and they went together into Egypt where they lived seven years After he became a Disciple to St. John Chrysostom by whom he was ordained a Deacon and after the death of this holy Prelate he went to Rome from whence in the year 410. when this City was taken by Alaricus he took his way to Marseilles and was there ordained a Priest by Bishop Venetius He afterward founded there two Monasteries one for Men and the other for Women professing himself amongst them a Monastick Life He wrote there his Books of Collations or Conferences of the Fathers of the Desert viz. of those Hermits whom he had seen in the Wilderness of Palestina which he dedicated to several eminent men He had already written the Institutions and manner of life of the Egyptian Monks and it is very probable that he proposed them for a pattern to his own Monasteries having left no other written Rule besides This Cassianus died in the year 448. and is now look'd upon very strangely by the Papists some of them chiefly at Marseilles and in Provence worshipping him as a Saint and others holding him for an Heretick who followed the errors of the Semipelagiens Caesarius Archbishop of Arles lived in the Sixth Age and was brought up in his Youth in the famous Monastery of the Lerins which was at that time the most renowned School for Learning where he made a considerable progress in his Studies We have of his Works forty six Homilies some Letters an exhortation to Charity a Treatise of the Ten Virgins some Rules for Nuns which he wrote in favour of Caesaria his own Sister who lived in a Monastery founded by him and are to be found in the VIII Tome of Bibliotheca Patrum 'T is said that Tetradius his Nephew wrote by his direction another Rule for Monks which is also to be seen there As for the first which is attributed to Caesarius it is so like to some spiritual instructions which St. Austin wrote for some devout Women who lived together with his Sister that some few words only being changed it seems to be the same Muta quaedam Verba Caesaris habes totam Regulam
in the year 1117. For the Chancellor John having asked whether those of Mont Cassin received the Rule of St. Benet from those of Cluny or those of Cluny from Mont Cassin it was answered that not only the Bores of Cluny but also all the Monks of the Latin Church had received it from the Monastery of Cassin This was it which carried it in favour of the Abbot of Cassin and truly 't was a pretty dispute amongst the Monks which discovered very much the depth of their humility For what relates to the Habit of the Monks 't is a great Frock with a black Hood over a white Garment Of the Congregation of Mont Cassin formerly called of St. Justina THE Monastery of St. Justina at Padoua in the Venetian Territory being much fallen from its first Splendor they had resolved at Rome to introduce in it the Olivetan Monks But the Republick of Venice did so much with their Remonstrances in the year 1408. that Pope Gregory XII did approve that Louis Garbo a Noble Venetian then Prior of St. Georges in Alga should pass from the Canonical to the Monastical Order He was made Abbot of St. Justina and applied himself so successfully to the Reformation according to the Rule of St. Benet that many Monasteries of Italy had recourse to him and asked for some of his Disciples to come and instruct them in the same Discipline So that in a short time the Congregation of St. Justina of Padoua was Mistress of a great number of very rich Monasteries That of Mont Cassin was also united to it in the year 1504. and Pope Julius II ordered for the glory of both the Names that the whole Order should be henceforwards called the Congregation of Mont Cassin alias of St. Justina I have put it here before some other Congregations though more ancient because Garbo its Founder had his instructions of Reformation from the Order of Cluny Their Habit is a fine large Casock with a Scapulary a long Gown or Frock curiously folded on the top with a large Hood and Sleeves they wear also a Clerical Cap. From their Habit which is all black they are commonly called in Italy Black Monks They have great need now of another Reformation being very much disordered They have very few learned men amongst them being only possest with the imaginary greatness of their Order Of the Order of Camaldoni THE Second Reformer of the Order of St. Benet was Romuald born at Ravenna of Noble Parents Being twenty years old he became a Monk in a neighbouring Monastery where seeing the remissness of his Companions in the observance of their Rule he undertook to reform them and made his Institute to be received in several Monasteries of Tuscany Venice and other places of Italy Being one day in conversation with an Earl called Maldoli he told him of a Vision which he had in a Dream in the Night I saw said he a Ladder that reached from your Field on the Mount Apenine to Heaven it self and men cloathed in White as we are to go up to God The good man believed the Dream and willing to make it good gave his Possession to Romuald who built there in the year 1009. about twenty Cells for Hermits which place is called to this day the Sacred Desert and some miles lower a Monastery where the Monks lead an easier life and furnish the Hermits on the top with all necessaries I have given to the publick a description of these two places and laid open the Frauds of these Monks in the third of my Letters pag. 119. One ought nevertheless to confess that these Hermits of the Sacred Desert and the others of the same Habit who have all set their Hermitages in places frightful to Nature are the Religious of Italy who live with more austerity and retirement from conversing with the World But their illusion is yet the greater that they believe themselves to be in those dismal solitudes as in well secured Havens of Salvation and as Pharisees are fully conceited with their own holiness and merits preferring in such manner the foolish imaginations of their hearts to all the good works which one may practise in the World with less vanity and more edification of his Neighbour As for those Monks of Camaldoli who make a body of a Congregation by themselves they are now in the same depth of Corruption as the other Italian Monks Romuald their Founder lived 120 years and died in the Monastery of Val di Castro in the Marsh of Ancona in the year 1027. They wear white Cloaths to wit a Casock a long Scapulary and a Hood and a stately Gown with large Sleeves But the Hermits wear only short Cloaths viz. a Casock a Scapulary and a Hood There is yet in Italy another Congregation of Hermits of St. Romuald called otherwise of the Mount of the Crown Paul Justinian a Noble Venetian begun their establishment in the year 1520 founding a Monastery ten miles from Perugia in the midst of the Apennin on the Mountain of the Crown and dedicated the Church of it to the Saviour of the World in the year 1555. They differ but little from those of Camalduli and in the year 1523 there was a kind of union amongst them Their Habit is a short Casock a Scapulary and a Cloak on their Shoulders which falls a little lower than their Knees the whole being of a white Wooll It was superfluous indeed to found an Order so like to that of Camalduli had not this Paul Justinian had the vanity so common to those Founders of Orders to make himself the Head of a Party Of the Order of Valombrosa JOhn Gualbert who is the Founder of it having taken the Religious Habit in the Monastery of St. Miniat against the Will of his Father continued some time there in the exercises of a Monastical Life but he did so much abhor Simony wherewith almost all Italy was infected at that time that seeing how the Abbot of St. Miniat made a Trade of it he left his Monastery and went to Florence where he declared with a loud Voice in all the publick places of the Town that the Bishop of that place and his Abbot were both great Simoniacks After which fearing the vengeance of these two Prelates he fled secretly to Camaldoli from whence after having lived there some while with the Hermits he retired himself into another Solitude of the Apennin called Valombrosa from the shadow which the high Firtrees cause there He was received there by two Hermits and many others having joined him he became the head of them he laid under the Rule of St. Benet in the year 1040 the foundations of an Order which took its name from that place He built several Monasteries in Italy and reformed many others His death hapned in the year 1073 in the Monastery of Passignan The Popes Alexander the II and Gregory the VII confirmed this Order and himself was made a Saint His Monasteries were only
others fetch it as far as from the time of the Apostles But these two Opinions want Proofs Of the Order of Dominican Fryars DOminick the Institutor of this Order was born at Calahorta a City of Arragon in the year 1170. His Mother dreamed when she was with Child of him that she bore in her Belly a Dog some say a Woolf which carried in his Mouth a lighted Torch whereby the whole World was put in a general conflagration This was a fatal presage of the barbarous and cruel Humour of this Dominick and of the bloody Massacres which he and his Disciples as hellish Furies should be Authors of through all the World Dominick was an indifferent Scholar and being made Canon of the Church of Osimo went to Rome to offer his Service to Pope Innocent the III. for the extirpation of the Albigenses From Rome he passed into Languedock where he laid the foundations of his Order and was made Inquisitor against Hereticks The Albigenses whom some do pretend to have been the Vaudois were a People who would not worship the Beast nor bend their Knees to Belial though charged by the Papists to render them the more odious with several impious Doctrins which they never held 'T was chiefly against them that Dominick vented his rage and he had so good success in his wicked design by his Preachments that he stirred up almost all the Popish Princes to arm in a Croisade against these poor Albigenses and to work more charitably their Conversion they at his Persuasion murdered in a short time above a hundred thousand of them Dominick proud of the success of his Expedition found it no hard matter to establish his Order which took so readily and suited so well the Genius of the Church of Rome It was then approved by Innocent the III. and afterwards confirmed by Honorius the III. in the year 1216. He submitted it to the Rule of St. Austin but Dominick added to it some particular Constitutions He made three Divisions of his Order The first was of those who made it their business to apply themselves with him to Preaching and the Conversion of Hereticks for which he would have them to be called Preaching Fryars The second was of the Nuns who lived inclosed in Monasteris The third was a Troop of merciless Fellows whom he maintained to cut the Throats of Hereticks when he was a Preaching he called them the Militia of Jesus Christ and prescribed them a manner of living different from that of the Laity These having at last routed the Hereticks out of their own Country several persons of both Sexes joined with them and were called afterwards Brothers and Sisters of the Penitence of St. Dominick Pope Innocent the VI. approved their Rule about the year 1360. They do not tye themselves so strictly to Poverty and Obedience as the Preachers do The Principal Statutes of the Preaching Fryars are that they ought to possess nothing of their own nor any Estate in common being obliged to live only by Alms. Their General Chapter is to be kept every year They ought to fast almost seven months in the year to eat no Flesh unless in Sickness to wear no Linnen and to shun all conversation and familiarity with Women to keep silence in some places and at certain hours Their Buildings ought not to be Stately but becoming a Monastical State Their chief employ is that of Preaching The General of their Order is called Magister Ordinis Master of the Order The Dominicans were called formerly Brothers of the Virgin Mary by reason of the superstitious Worship they paid to her of the Confraternities of the Rosary which they established in Honour of her and of the Saturdays which they wholly Consecrated to Her What gave much credit to this Order was that Dominick having perswaded Pope Honorius the III. to establish the Office of the Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome to whom only was committed the interpretation of the Holy Scripture and the Censure of Books he was the first who filled this place which was asterwards conferred successively upon a Religious of the same Order Oh! the fine Interpreters of Holy Scripture whom Papists are bound to believe not having the power themselves to read it The Inquisition wherewith they were intrusted rendred them extreamly formidable But what served yet more to abuse the simplicity of credulous People and brought them to favour this New Order was the Cheats Impostures Frauds and lies of this Dominick who left no stone unturned for the advancement of it Hospinian in his Book of the Original of Monks hath set them forth in two whole Chapters to which I refer my Reader I shall only relate here a Vision of this great Saint by which he may judge of the rest He was once saith he ravished as St. Paul to the third Heaven where he saw Jesus Christ and his Mother the Virgin Mary surrounded by great numbers of Monks and Religious of all Orders his own excepted Which sight made him extreamly ashamed and troubled Jesus Christ seeing him so much concerned bid him to come nearer to himself and asked him the reason of it Dominick told him his anxious thoughts very freely Then Jesus asked him if he was desirous to see the Children of his Order with all my heart said Dominick Jesus immediately commanded his Mother to open her long Royal Robe and Dominick spyed an innumerable number of his Religious whom she cherished under it as her dear Children far above the others Are not these very fine Visions These Pestiferous Dominicans spread themselves all over the World and about the year 1494 were already reckoned above 4143 Convents of this Order From that time they continued to increase more and more building every day new Monasteries They have inherited from their Founder a Spirit of Cruelty and the Popes to whom they were always very useful have mightily favoured them They have afforded to the Church of Rome several Popes great numbers of Cardinals Archbishops and Bishops and the Inquisition against Hereticks does still continue in their Hands As for the observance of their Rule it is now quite down They possess every thing in common and have besides that every one their own mony They observe no Fasts eat Flesh every day lie in good Feather-beds wear Linnen and keep constant company with lewd Women The most part of their Convents are so many stately Palaces c. Father John Michaelis applied himself to reform this deformed Order at the beginning of this Age and some few of their Convents did embrace the Reformation but the loosest sort amongst them by the great power they have at the Court of Rome have put a stop to it The Reformed Fryars as well as those who are not so are governed by one and the same General and wear the same Habit except that the former have it made with a courser Cloath and cut narrower It consisteth in a white Casock and a
Patience and over this Patience they wear a Hood all of the same Colour but when they go abroad they put over their white Cloaths a black plited Cloak with a black Hood This is one of the four Mendicants or begging Orders of Fryars who to satisfie their infamous Lusts and to fill their Guts are the devourers of the substance of the Poor CHAP. XV. Of the Order of Carmelites THE Fryars of this Order who were anciently called Hermits of Mount Carmel say that the Prophet Elias was the first Carmelite and the Founder of their Congregation though he never left them any written Rule But this Title of Antiquity to which they pretend is denied to them by the Papists themselves The true time of their Foundation was in the year 1122 by Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem He gathered together some Hermits who lived dispersed here and there upon Mount Carmel and in Syria and gave them a Rule which is nothing else but a collection out of that which is attributed to St. Basil He caused a Monastery to be built for them near a Spring of Water called the Fountain of Ely and a Church which he dedicated to the Virgin Mary He gave them one Brochard for their Superior In the disorders of Palestina the Saricins having chased thence the Christian Princes this Order which was already much multiplied passed into Europe with its Rules and Statutes Pope Honorius the IV. having made some alteration in their Habit ordered that they should be called Brothers of the Virgin Mary and gave them the same Priviledges of the other Mendicant Fryars Pope Innocent the IV. having taken them under his Protection mitigated their Rule tied them to Monastical Vows which they never made before and commanded them to blot out of their Rule this important Clause Ut de solo Servators salutem sperarent that they ought to hope for Salvation from Christ alone Which having done he granted them any thing that they listed to leave their Solitudes and come to live in the Towns to hear the Confessions to make the God of Bread and to worship Idols c. Pope John the XXIII exempted them from Episcopal Jurisdictions and from Purgatory He pretended for this that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him before he was made Pope promising to raise him to that High Degree of Honour upon condition that he should confirm to her Brothers the Carmelites the changes which Innocent the IV. had made in their Rule and that he would exempt them from Purgatory Insuper me Filio meo jubentibus privilegium hoc dabis ut quicunque Ordinem meum intraverit à culpa poena liberatus in aeternum salvus fiat By express command of me and of my Son thou shalt grant this priviledge that whosoever enters this my Order of Carmelites shall be free from guilt and punishment of their sins and eternally saved Urban the IV. gave three years of Indulgence to those who should call the Carmelites Brothers of Mary though they never were related to her Eugenius the VI. mitigated their Rule again giving them permission to eat Flesh as a reward for having burnt alive one Thomas Brother of their own Order for saying that the abominations of the Church of Rome were grown to such a hight of corruption that it needed a Reformation Th◠Franciscans having obtained great Indulgences every year at the Feast of their St. Francis which brought them a world of Oblations and Alms the Carmelites yet more cunning Fellows obtained an Indulgence and full remission of all Sins for those who should go and visit their Churches or hear one of the Sermons which they make in Honour of the Virgin Mary every Saturday The number of their Convents is extreamly multiplied They were already so much sallen from their observances about 50 years after their Instituon which was in the year 1270. That one Nicolaus of Narbona who was the seventh General of their Order having publickly reproved them for their Hypocrisie Incest Sodomy in a word for all the most enormous Crimes and seeing he was not able to recall them to an honest Life he forsook them at last as desperate pestilent men and retired into a Solitude after having governed five years their Order If they were so abominable while they were yet but a Green Wood what may one think they are now when they are a Dry Stick and in this wretched Age in which we live These are the beloved Brothers of the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel the Holy Children of the Prophet Ely They wear a Casock a Scapulary a Patience and a Hood of a Brown Colour a white plited Cloak and a black Hat Of the Order of the Vnshod Carmelites HERE a Woman called Theresa gave Laws to Men. She was born at Avila a Town of Spain from noble Parents in the year 1515. Being twenty years of Age she entred a Monastery of Carmelite Nuns and a good while after formed in Avila a little Convent under the Name of St. Joseph where she began the Reformation of her Order with so great success that besides seventeen other Monasteries of Nuns which she built and governed several Convents of Men took her for their Mother and Mistress and obeyed her Statutes Pius the IV. confirmed and approved her Rule in the year 1562. She died in the year 1582 and was made a Saint by Gregory the XV. in the year 1622. Father John of the Cross was the Instrument she made use of for the Reformation of the Convents of Men. These Fryars wear the same Habit as the fore-mentioned Carmelites but of a very course Cloath and go barefooted from whence they are called Unshod Carmelites When they sing at Church they pinch their Noses to mortifie by that the Pleasure which might arise from an harmonious Song This Order is very much multiplied in Spain and in France to the great sorrow of the Brothers of the Virgin Mary whom this Reformation does not please for fear they should be one day compelled to embrace it By which means they would lose the Poltron Title which they have long deserved of Carmes en Cuisine or Kitchin Fryars Lastly This Theresa who reformed them was a great Hypocondriack Fanatick and pretender to Revelations She composed her self a large Book full of Phancies of a deluded mind which serves at this day for a Guide and Direction to Spiritual and Devout Papists and which they believe more than the Gospel CHAP. XVI Of the Order of St. Francis FRancis was born at Assisy in Umbria He was a debauched Youth and having robbed his Father was disinherited but he seemed not to be very much troubled at it and even stripped himself of all his Cloaths saying he would follow Christ naked and have him alone for a Father He retired himself in the year 1206 to a little Chappel near Assisy called our Lady of the Angels There having entertained a strong Fancy that Christian
Perfection did consist in possessing nothing at all in the World he undertook to live the poorest of all men This resolution and all his outward practices of Poverty drew to him in a short time Admirers and at last Followers and Companions of whom he made himself the Head prescribing them the following Rule which consists of twelve Articles only A Summary of the Rule of St. Francis Chap. i. He saith that the Rule and Life of the Brothers Minors so he would have those of his Order called is to observe the Gospel under obedience possessing nothing as their own and in Charity Brother Francis promiseth obedience to Pope Honorius and his Lawful Successors and to the Romish Church and commands the other Religious to obey himself and his Successors Chap. ii He prescribes the manner of receiving Novices after a year of Noviciate after which 't is not allowed to them to leave the Order He sets down the Habits both of Novices and Professed Fryars permitting only to the later to wear a Hood or Capuchon Chap. iii. He will have his Fryars to make use of the Roman Breviary and the Convers or Lay-Brothers to recite every day for their Office seventy six Pater Nosters He orders them besides Lent to fast from All Saints to Christmas and to begin Lent at Twelf-tide He forbids them to ride on Horseback without an urgent necessity and will have them in their Journeys to eat of whatsoever is set before them Chap. iv He forbids very strictly to receive any mony directly or indirectly Chap. v. They ought to get their Livelihood by the Labour of their Hands receiving for it any thing but mony Chap. vi They ought to possess nothing of their own and when their Labour is not sufficient to maintain them they must go a begging and with the Alms they collect help mutually one another Chap. vii They ought to confess to their Provincial Ministers those sins the absolution of which is reserved to them that they may receive from them charitable Corrections Chap. viii The Election of their General Minister and of their Guardians or Superiors ought to be made in a General Chapter or Assembly which is to be held every third year about Whitsunday Chap. ix They ought not to Preach without leave of the Ordinaries of each Diocese and of their Superiors Chap. x. He prescribes the manner of admonition and correction Chap. xi They ought not to enter the Monasteries of Nuns nor to be God-Fathers of any Child Chap. xii They shall not undertake to go into foreign Countries to convert the Infidels without leave of their Provincial Ministers He bids them to ask of the Pope a Cardinal for Governor Protector and Corrector of the whole Order St. Francis his Will and Testament HE orders that the Fryars following his Example do honour the Churches the Priests and the Divines That those who enter his Order give before their reception all their Estates and Goods to the Poor that they apply themselves to work with their Hands that they ought not to purchase recommendatory Letters at the Court of Rome that where-ever they find any Fryar who hath left their Order or is become an Heretick they ought immediately to apprehend him and bound in Chains to drag him before their Cardinal Corrector that they ought continually to carry his Rule about them and make neither addition or diminution to it Lastly he gives his Blessing to them all This is the Rule and the last Will which Francis left to his Disciples Which far from being an observance of the Holy Gospel is rather in several points a manifest transgression of it and a Snare of the Devil to catch Souls as the learned Hospinian proves in his History of Monks This Francis saith he does not promise obedience to God or to Jesus Christ but to the Pope who is Antichrist and the other Fryars do promise it to Francis the grand Author of Superstition Francis instituted three different Orders the first of the Minors in the year 1206 whom he obliged to three Vows and who are divided now into Conventuals Observantines and Capucins and are again subdivided into other branches The second of Nuns in the year 1212 who are likewise divided into Conventuals Observantines and Capucines c. The third in the year 1221 which was common to both Sexes and did not oblige to any confinement permitting every one to live at home in his own Hermitage From this third Order was derived afterwards another Religion which to its Rules joined Confinement in a Cloister as the Conventuals A large Book would scarcely be enough to relate all the Reformations Separations Unions suits at Law Disputes changes of Habits and of Rules that have hapned in this great Order and one might also write another Book of the Frauds Lies pretended Visions and false Miracles which Francis and his Disciples have contrived for the advancement of their Order I shall set down only some few here for the satisfaction of my Reader Frauds and Impostures made use of for the Propagation of this Order FRancis carried by an ardent desire of enlarging an Order whereof he was the Founder sent into all the parts of the world some of his Religious to establish it every where These cunning Fellows seeing the necessity they laid under to get readily the favour and good-will of the People because having neither Mony nor Foundations for their Maintenance in case of delay they would have been in great danger of Starving they betook themselves to the shortest and most efficacious way which was to publish a great number of Miracles which they said their holy Founder had done and did yet daily in favour of those who were liberal to them of their Alms. They shewed long Lists of blind People to whom this Saint had restored their Sight of Deaf restored to their Hearing of Lame made to Walk in a word of all Sicknesses healed by him In another List there was to be seen all that were possessed with Devils whom he had delivered all the Captives Miraculously set at Liberty Lastly all the Dead rising to Life again Like in this to the Mountebanks who to get more mony in the places where they intend to stay a-while shew the Golden Chains Medals Priviledges Certificates and also whole Lists of People Healed they say by them in foreign Countries whither 't is not so easie to go for information of the Truth The Disciples of Francis had then a very fair play nor were they wanting to value much the impression of the Sacred Wounds imprinted on the Body of their holy Founder Thus runs the History or rather the Fable of it as it is related in the Book of the Conformities of this Order which is held by the Church of Rome for such a truth whereof one cannot doubt without becoming an Heretick as it is declared by several Bulls of the Popes Gregory the IX Alexander the V. Nicholas the III. and Benet the
to Secular Houses with the richest Foundations of the Monasteries of the Order of St. Benet nay not with the Purse of the Jesuits Of the Order of St. John of Penitency THIS Order flourished in the Kingdom of Navar near Pampelona and depended a great while on the Bishop of that Town But the Prior being come to Rome bestirred himself so effectually that Gregory the XIII having taken it from the subjection to the Bishop and granted to it some Constitutions 't is now subject to a Provincial These Fryars go barefooted and are Cloathed with a short Casock of a thick reddish Cloath and a Scapulary and a Cloak of the same Colour with a leathern Girdle bearing in their Hands a big Wooden Cross CHAP. XVII Of the Order of the Minimes THIS Order was instituted by one Francis of Paula a Town of Calabria in Italy where he was born in the 1416. His Father John Martolilla and his Mother Vienna obtained him they say from God by the intercession of St. Francis and for this reason would have him to bear his Name About the year 1428 being but twelve years old he took the Religious Habit of St. Francis in the Town of St. Mark But a year after he fled into a Wilderness and there gave himself wholly to a Solitary Life during six years after which he returned to Paula his own Country and having gathered there several persons he framed a Rule for them which was confirmed in the year 1473 by Sixtus the IV. and other Popes and would have his Religious to be called Minimes that is the least of all Louis the XI King of France having heard of his holy Life sent for him into France in hopes by that means his Life should be prolonged This King being a Superstitious Bigot received him very kindly and because he was a very simple and ignorant man he used to call him the Good Man which Nickname passed to his Disciples who were called Good Men. He commanded a Convent to be built for them at the end of Plessis-Park near Towers where Francis of Paula died in the year 1507 aged Ninety one Leo the X. made him a Saint in the year 1519 and King Francis the I. was at the charges of his Canonization there being no Saint to be had at the Court of Rome without mony They wear an Habit of a tawny Colour a Capuchion and a Patience round at the bottom and leathern Girdle The Rule which Francis of Paula wrote for his Disciples is comprehended in Ten Chapters the substance whereof is as follows The Rule of St. Francis of Paula Chap. i. THE Minime Brothers ought to observe the Ten Commandments of God and those of the Church They make a Vow to obey the Pope Francis of Paula and his Successors and besides the Vows of Poverty and Chastity they make another of a Continual Lent Chap. ii It is prohibited to receive into his Order young Persons under eighteen years of Age and none is admitted to profess but after one year of Noviciate Chap. iii. He orders both the Habits and the Tonsure or Shaving of his Fryars and will not suffer them to ride on any thing but an Ass Chap. iv He sets down what they call the Divine Office which ought to be conform to the Roman Breviary They must recite it aloud at Church not Singing or with Notes but as if they were counting Numbers The Convert Brothers shall recite for their Office seventy seven times the Lord's Prayer and as many Ave Maria's and the Oblat Brothers fifty two These Oblats have no Votes in the Chapter and are only the Servants of the others They promise fidelity to the Order make the four Vows but notwithstanding this can touch and carry Monies about them and go alone abroad with the permission of their Corrector or Superior The Religious ought to confess their Sins and receive the Communion at least once a Week and every Holy-day in the year Chap. v. They ought to bear great respect to their Superior called by him Corrector never go abroad without his leave and a Companion who ought to be to them as an Under-Corrector They must not enter the Convents of Nuns and no Woman must be permitted to enter their own Convents unless they be of the Royal Blood or Founders of some of their Monasteries They ought not to touch or carry about them any Mony nor go to Law for any Temporal Concern Chap. vi He forbids them to eat Flesh Eggs Butter Cheese and any thing else coming from Milk except in case of Sickness in a separate place where no body shall come in without leave of the Superior Chap. vii Besides the Fast of Lent he orders another from All Saints to Christmas and every Wednesday and Friday of the year unless they be in a Journey or Sick and they ought not to eat out of their Convent without leave They ought to entertain Strangers kindly but no Meat must be served to them but Lent-Fare Chap. viii They ought to give themselves to Prayer keep silence in the Church in the Cloisters in the Dorter in the Refectory and from the beginning of the Night till the next day after Sun risen A particular reception and better entertainment must be made to the Prelates of their Order Chap. ix He orders the manner of chusing the Superiors both General and Particular the Seniors or Ancients the Confessors the Preachers and other Officers of their Monasteries Chap. x. He will have the Superiors of his Order to be called Correctors à Corrigendo because it belongs to them to give Correction He will not have them to go abroad during the time of their Correctoriate without a very urgent necessity He prescribes the time for holding their General Chapters to wit every third year He forbids the making any addition or change in his Rule promiseth eternal Life to those who shall observe it Lastly He will have his Order to be put under the Protection of a Cardinal Of the other Rules of Francis of Paula and of the increase of his Order FRancis of Paula did not only write this Rule for Men but in imitation of Francis of Assisy he composed two others one for the Nuns which comprehends as many Chapters as the first and in substance is the same changing only some points relating to Men and placing in their room some others fit for Women The other is common to both Sexes and does not oblige to confinement in a Cloister They may live in the World at their Relations or in their own Houses promising only obedience to the Reverend Fathers Minimes The greatest part of this last Rule is made up of Superstitious Practices in a heap of Prayers and Ave Marias which they must recite every day They ought every one of them to wear a Girdle or Cord with two Knots This is their chiefest mark of distinction and when they are disobedient to their Fathers Minimes they chastise them by
the Sword of Judith the Sword of the Maccabees the Sword of Pope Julius the II. wherewith he cut off the Lives of several Princes his Enemies filling whole Cities with Slaughter and Blood Go and let Prudence go along with thy Courage let God give new strength to thy Arm. After which they all fall down on their Knees and the Superior of the Jesuits pronounces the following Exorcism Come ye Cherubins ye Seraphims Thrones and Powers come ye holy Angels and fill up this Blessed Vessel the execrable Parricide with an immortal Glory do ye present him every day with the Crowns of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Holy Patriarchs and Martyrs We do not look upon him now as one of ours but as one belonging to you And thou O God who art terrible and invincible and hast inspired him in Prayer and Meditation to kill the Tyrant and Heretick for to give his Crown to a Catholick King comfort we beseech thee the Heart of him whom we have Consecrated for this Office strengthen his Arm that he may execute his Enterprise cloath him with the Armour of thy Divine Power that having performed his Design he may escape the Hands of those who shall go in pursuit of him give him Wings that his holy Members may flie away from the power of the impious Hereticks replenish his Soul with Joy Comfort and Light by which his Body having banished all fear may be upheld and animated in the midst of Dangers and Torments This Exorcism being ended they bring the Parricide before another Altar where hangs the Image of James Clement Dominican Fryar who with a venemous Knife killed King Henry the III. This Image is surrounded with Angels who protect him and bring him to Heaven The Jesuits shew it to him and put afterwards a Crown on his Head saying Lord regard here thy Arm and the Executer of thy Justice let all the Saints arise bow and yield to him the most honourable place amongst them After every thing so performed he is permitted to speak to none but to four Jesuits who are deputed to keep him company These Fellows are not wanting in their Discourses to tell him very often that they perceive a Divine Light that surrounds him and is the cause why they bow to him kiss his Hands and Feet and consider him no more as a Man but as a Saint Nay they make a shew as if they did envy the great Honour and Glory which does attend him and say sighing Oh that God had been pleased to make choice of us instead you and given us so much Grace that as you we might be translated into Heaven without going into Purgatory Here 's the end of the Ceremony and of the Order of these Fathers who call themselves the Company of Jesus Of the Order of the Fathers of the Oratory THIS Congregation of Regular Priests was Founded at Rome by Philip Neri a Florentine Secular Priest in Italy He gathered a Company of Ecclesiasticks who applied themselves to the exercises of Clerical Life and got a great Name in the World They begun their practices in the year 1550 but their Order was not confirmed till twenty five years after by Gregory the III. who gave to Philip Neri the Parochial Church of St. Mary in Valicella called now La Chiesa Nuova He built there a Convent where he passed almost his whole Life not going out but to visit the Seven Churches In imitation of him Peter of Berulle instituted at Paris the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus He was peculiarly encouraged to it by Cardinal Gondi Bishop of Paris Pope Paul the V. approved this Congregation in the year 1613 and since it hath spread it self very much in France and in the Low Countries These Priests have this for the end of their Institution to honour as much as lies in them the Infancy Life and Death of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Virgin Mary to whom they render an Idolatrous Worship They have several times a Week meetings to which they invite Seculars also to make them meditate in their Churches called by them Oratories from whence they have got the Name of Fathers of the Oratory on what the Virgin Mary hath done while she was yet a Child with what Diligence she went to School with what Modesty she plaid with the young Girls of her Age on the great Respect she had towards the Priests bowing to them in the Streets and running in such manner over all the Actions of her Life till her Death with particulars which were never known by Scripture or ancient Tradition they believe they have performed great exercises of Piety by Preaching to the Seculars three or four hours at each meeting upon these and such like matters They make it also their business to teach Youth in their Colleges to Preach and to go on Missions They make no Vows and can very easily go out from their Society to possess some good Living offered to them They are generally much beloved by all sorts of people for their Honesty and Affability but mortally hated by the Jesuits who have persecuted them extreamly in these last Times accusing them of favouring the Opinions of Jansenius but indeed it is because they are their Rivals and they fear lest the Papists weary at last of their tyranny and impieties should one day give their Houses and Colleges to the Fathers of the Oratory They are Cloathed like secular Priests viz. with a long black Casock a Girdle and a long Cloak of the same Colour This Order hath produced several both learned and honest men according to their Principles Of the Order of the Fathers of Well Dying THIS Religion is instituted to serve the Sick and comfort them in their Dying-Hour Those who do compose it are Regular Clerks Camillus of Lelis was the Author thereof He was born in the Land of Abruâ—so in the Diocese of Chiety in Italy called Buccianico and having past the first years of his Life in being a Soldier he resolved to employ the last in serving the Poor in the Hospitals and comforting Dying People Four of his Friends joined with him in the same design and their new Religion was approved by Pope Sixtus the V. in the year 1584. but upon condition that they should follow some Ancient Rule These good Fathers being not very well pleased with it as desirous to have the Honour of being the Founders of a distinct Order continued still their former practices In the mean while Sixtus the V. passed to another Life and Gregory the XIV who succeeded him confirmed this Congregation in the year 1591 making it free and independent 'T is called the Congregation of Regular Clerks serving the Sick Their Habit is Clerical with a Cross on their Breast and another upon their Cloak on the Right Side of Tawny Colour with a great flopping Hat upon their Heads They have several Convents in Italy Of the Order of Clerks Minors THE Regular
Clerks Minors owe their establishment to Austin Adorne a Gen-man of Genoa He set up their first Congregation at Naples in the year 1558 with two other Gentlemen of the family of Caracciola Austin and Francis The Constitutions of their Order were approved by Paul the V. in the year 1605. They have a Convent at Rome at St. Laurence in Lucia where their general abode is and a College at St. Agnes of Piazza Navona They are Cloathed as Secular Priests only with a courser Cloath Of the Order of Barnabites or Regular Clerks of St. Paul THIS Congregation was approved at Bologna by Pope Clement the VII in the year 1533. and by Paul the III. in 1535. James Anthony Morigias Bartholomew Ferrara of Milan and Francis Mary Zaccaria of Cremona began to establish it by a Famous Preacher called Seraphim who persuaded them to read diligently the Epistles of St. Paul for which cause they took the name of Clerks of St. Paul They are called likewise Barnabites either for their great devotion towards that Saint Barnabâ— who founded the Church of Milan or because they made their first Exercises in a Church of Regular Canons Dedicated to this Saint This Congregation is much increased since and hath produced great men They have several Colleges in Italy and some in France Savoy and other part Of the Order of the Holy Ghost in Saxia at Rome IN the year of our Lord 1198 Pope Innocent the III. caused to be built at Rome the staely and famous Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Saxia or Saxony which place was so called because formerly the Saxons a people of Germany had their Quarter there and endowed it very richly for the relief of the Poor Sick and other Indigents He ordered a Rule for all the Brothers and Sisters who would enter that Order In this year 1564 Father Bernardinus Cirilli General of the same Reformed it This Rule commands all the Brothers and Sisters to live in Obedience and Chastity possessing nothing as their own and above all to be careful of the Sick They make their Promise and Vow in such manner I such one give and offer my self to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Holy Ghost and to my Lords the Poor Sick to be their humble Servant as long as I live I promise to keep Chastity by the grace of God and to live without possessing any thing as my own and to you my General Master and all your Sccessors to pay you all Obedience and to take a faithful care of the Incomes for the Poor Then the Superior gives him this Answer For the Vow which thou hast made to God to the Virgin and to our Lords the Poor Sick we receive thee and the Souls of thy Father and Mother to participate of the Masses Fasts Prayers Alms and other good Works which are and shall be done in the House of the Holy Ghost God make thee partaker of them as we all hope Know also that the House of the Holy Ghost promises to give thee Bread and Water and an Humble Robe This said the Superior takes a Cloak on which is a Cross and putting it on his Shoulders saith to him In virtue of this Sign of the Cross all evil Spirits be expelled from thee and Christ Jesus bring thee to his everlasting Kingdom This Congregation hath several Hospitals in divers parts of Christendom of which that of Rome is the Chief The General Chapters are kept there and each Hospital is obliged to render an account there by the Duputies of its Administration Supposing a Religious of this Order be found in possession of any thing as his own when he dies he is not to be buried in Holy Ground but he is lookt upon as one excommunicated They wear a Black Sacerdotal Habit with a White Cross on their Breast and another upon their Cloak on the left Side Of the Congregation of the Hermits of Madam Gonzague FRancis of Gonzague fourth Marquess of Mantoua going to one his Country Houses and passing near an Old Wall on which was painted an Image of the Virgin Mary his Horse was so much frighted at it that in curvetting it threw his Master on the ground A Gentleman of his Retinue called Hierom Regnini seeing the Marquess all bruised with his fall fell immediately on his Knees and made a Vow to the Virgin that if his Master did recover he would in that very place lead an Hermetical Life Which thing having succeeded as he desired he went about to perform his Vow and the Marquesses Lady caused a Monastery to be built for him where several other Gentlemen joined together and established a Rule amongst them which was confirmed by Pope Alexander the VI. They make no profession and none of their Observances does bind upon pain of Mortal Sin They have a General and about threescore and ten Monasteries the Chief whereof is that of Gonzaga in which are twelve Hermits This Congregation began under Pope Innocent the VIII and the Empire Maximilian the First Of the Fathers of Christian Doctrin THIS Religious Congregation was founded by Caesar de Bus born at Cavailon a Town of Provence in France The end of this Institution was to Catechise the People in imitation as they say of the Apostles teaching them the Mysteries of our Faith and together the gross Errors of Popery Pope Clement the VIII approved this Congregation and Paul the V. did the same in the year 1616. He obliged these Teachers or Doctrinaries â—o make Monastical Vows and united their Coâ—pany to that of the Regular Clerks of Somask to make together with them one Body under the same General Since that time by a Bull of Pope Innocent the X. granted in the year 1647. the Priests of the Christian Doctrin were disunited from the others and had a French General for themselves Thuy possess several Convents and Colleges in France There is likewise in Italy another Order of the Fathers of the Christian Doctrin who do acknowledge for their Founder Cardinal Charles Borromeo who instituted them at Milan in the year 1568. CHAP. XIX Of some Religious Orders which have been suppressed or united to others or of which the Authors the time of their Institution or Habits are not well know First Of the Order of the White Men. IN the year 1399 under the Pontificate of Boniface the IX a certain Priest came down from the Alpes into Italy followed with a great multitude of People He was Cloathed all in White had very modest Looks and by his Speech one might have taken him for a Saint He deplored with loud and very sensible Expressions the miserable Condition of Mankind and Preached Repentance for Sin He was going directly to Rome with hopes to remedy the evil first in the place where he thought Religion suffered the most In his way by Lucca the Apennine and Tuscany great crouds both of Men and Women of all Ages and Conditions followed him and took White
the VI. and of the Cardinals who in hope of getting a great sum of Mony from the Princess shewed themselves very unwilling to grant it Upon which Father Gilbert a subtil cunning Man was obliged to go to Rome where he plaid them a trick of Cordeliers Craft He having bribed with Mony the Cardinal John Baptist Ferrier Datary and great friend to the Pope This Man went in a Morning to frighten the Pope and his Brethren the Cardinals telling them that the glorious Martyr S. Laurence and S. Francis had appeared to him and strictly charged him to get under pain of their heavy Displeasure the Rule and Order of thâ— ten Virtues or Delights of the Virgin Mary confirmed The Pope and the Cardinals yielded immedately to it and this Confirmation was made the 14 of February in the year 1501. Leo the X. confirmed it again in 1517. This Order hath been increased very much since in France Flanders and other parts They wear a gray Habit with a red Scapulary and a white Cloak and have for a Girdle a Cord with ten Knots in remembrance of the ten Delights of the Virgin Mary Of another Order of the Annunciade called Celestes THIS was founded at Genoa in Italy by a Lady of Quality in the year 1600 and was called of the Annunciade as making profession of honouring particularly the Mystery of the Incarnation There Statutes are like enough to those of France but they differ in colour of Habits the Nuns of Italy having them white with a Scapulary and a Cloak of a blew colour from whence they are called Celestes They receive indifferently into their Convents Widows and Maids and do possess many Convents in Italy where the Genteelness of their Habits is an inticing Charm to young Ladies Of the Order of Clarisses THE Institutrice of this Order was one Clara. She was born at Assisy in Italy and became a very Superstitious Maid She went a Pilgrimaging to Jerusalem to Rome and to St. Michel of Mount Gargan and after much rambling came acquainted with Francis of Assisy and entred into great familiarity with him He persuaded her to leave her Father and Mother and to come under his Discipline She followed the advice and fled from her House one night to Portiuncule where this Francis was with his Fryars who received her with lighted Torches and great Devotion There having cut the Hairs off her Head she shewed herself in this condition the next day to her Relations who came to look for her and by the Vow she said she had made took from them all hopes of bringing her home again She withdrew herself afterwards by Francis's advice to the Church of St. Damian and there gave beginning to the poor Maids called from her name Clarisses in the year 1225. So the Brothers Minors of the Order of St. Francis acquired to their great satisfaction a Female Order for themselves but Gregory the IX seemed for a while to take delight in crossing of them commanding they should not visit the Nuns But the Holy Clara did remedy it and by her Prayers and Intercessions prevailed so much with this Pontiff that she made him to recall his Decree She applied herself to the practice of extraordinary Penances that spoiled her Constitution and rendred her very Sickly bearing also in this World the just Pain of her indiscretions She obtained the Title of the greatest poverty for her Order from Innocent the III. and the Opinion of her Sanctity being spread very far there were seen both in the Country and in the Cities great numbers of Monasteries built for the reception of Women who would imitate her Hipocrisy and Superstitions From that time this Order as well as the others hath encreased more and more in the Countries Subject to Popish Tyranny Of the Order of St. Katherin of Siena THIS Katherin was born at Siena a City of Tuscany in Italy She saw in a Dream being yet very young according to the Relation she hath made herself of it the Founders of several Religious Orders and amongst the others St. Dominick holding a Lilly in his Hand as he is usually painted All these Saints exhorted her to chuse a Religion in which she might render a greater Service to God and Katherin ran rightly to St. Dominicus preferring him before all the others and begged of him the Religious Habit of his third Order which he held in his Hand and it was granted her She was so strangly affected by this Vision that she afterwards entred that Order against the Will of her Father and Mother She was extreamly forward in the outward practices of Penance Disciplining her self every day even to drawing Blood with Iron Chains for the Souls in Purgatory Christ Jesus saith the Legend of her Life came very often into her Chamber to visit her He brought sometimes along with him the Blessed Virgin Mary his Mother sometimes St. Dominic St. Mary Magdalen St. John the Evangelist the Apostle St. Paul and other Saints who came by turns to Chatter with her And one day Jesus Christ appeared to her and at the request of the Virgin Mary who was there present took Katherin visibly for his Wife giving her a very fine golden Ring with four precious Stones and a very rich Diamond in the midst The Witnesses of this Marriage were St. John the Evangelist St. Paul and St. Dominic who all the while the Ceremony lasted sung very Melodiously the Psalms of David All this blessed company being returned to Heaven Katherin was left alone with the Ring on her Finger a sign that there was nothing of a strong imagination in the whole matter and she wore it all her Life long This holy Virgin being once in Prayer desired Christ Jesus her Husband to take from her her own Heart and to give her a new own pleasing to him The Divine Bridegoom not willing to deny her any thing came near and making an Incision into her left Side pluckt out her Heart So that Katherin remained for some while without any Heart until being another day at Prayer in the Chappel of the Sisters of the Penitence in the Church of the Dominican Fryars of Siena a Celestial light surrounded her in a moment and our Lord Jesus was seen holding in his hand a red shining Heart and coming near to Katherin put it in the Incision which he had made before in her Side saying My Dear I have taken from thee thy heart according to thy desire here I give thee mine by which thou shalt live Which having performed he closed up again the Wound and disappeared but the Scar remained visibly in it lest any body might question the truth of this wonderful Operation Another time Christ Jesus appeared to her and Bathed her whole Body with his own precious Blood that sprung out of his Wounds And another time again he Cloathed his dear Spouse with a Robe which he drew out of his Sacred Side all died with his Blood
to the Pope and be Confirmed by him but it is Just that for greater Spiritual Labours the Soul should receive a more ample Reward Thus does this Rule end dedicated to Saint Bridget by Christ himself I have extracted it from Hospinian and even for fear of being too long I have left out several things which would seem very ridiculous One may sufficiently see by what I have here related how blind the â—gnorance of those Times was This Order notwithstanding the fair Promises which Christ if we will believe Popish Lies made of heaping Blessings upon the Kingdoms Provinces Cities and Persons who should Found such Monasteries did not increase in that measure which this Bridget did hope for some few only were seen to start up here and there in Sweedland and some few others were built in England the first whereof was at Richmond in the year 1414. Of the Order of Guastalla THAT my Reader may understand better in what excess of misery these Monkish Orders composed both of Men and Women do end at last I have reserved for this place the Order of Guastalla It was Instituted in the year 1537 at Mantoua in Italy by a Countess called Guastalla at the instigation of Brother Baptista of Cremona a Dominican Fryar and was made up of Monks and Nuns who to overcome Fleshly Lusts did lay together a Monk with a Nun in one and the same Bed putting a big Wooden Cross between both which as they gave out had the Virtue to quench Rebellious Concupiscence But this Cross being but a very low Wall of Partition and several scandalous disorders and works of Darkness arising from this foolish Institution this infamous Order came to an end at last being destroyed all over Italy A TREATISE OF Military Orders Regular HAVING treated of Monastical Orders I thought I could not well forbear from saying something of those Military Orders who are under Religious Rules and Vows setting aside the others which for distinction from these are called Secular as is the Noble Order of the Garter in England that of St. Michael in France of the Annunciade in Savoy of the Golden Fleece in Spain and others who do not properly belong to Monastical History The most Ancient and also the most Famous of the Military Orders Regular is that of St. John of Jerusalem which went likewise formerly under the name of Rhodes and now under that of Malta Of the Order of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem alias of Rhodes now of Malta THIS Order was a very small thing in its beginning Some Merchants of the City of Melphi in the Kingdom of Naples in Italy who Traded into the East got permission from the Calif of Egypt to build for them and for those of their Nation who came in Pilgrimage into Palestina a House at Jerusalem paying for it a yearly Tribute Some while after they built also two Churches that of the Virgin Mary and that of St. Mary Magdalen the first for the Men and the other for the Women who went thither a Pilgrimaging This design encouraged some others to do the like who Founded likewise a Church and an Hospital in which care was taken of the Sick and of those who went to visit the Holy Places In the year of our Lord 1099 the Christians under the conduct of brave Godfrey of Bullen made themselves Masters of Jerusalem and the Hospitalers Brothers of St. John did not a little help towards it For observing that the Turks began to lose ground and to yield to the vigorous attack of the Besiegers they fell unawares on their Reer and with the help of all the other Christians of the Town they forced the Guards and opened the Gates of the City to the Besiegers One Gerard Tune was then their Director or Grand Master who having also signalized himself in the great fight at Ascalon King Godfrey gave for a Reward to the Hospitalers great Estates and Possessions to put them thereby in a condition to exercise Hospitality and resist the Barbarians that should osfer any injury to Pilgrims on the Highways King Baldwin Successor to Godfrey loved and favoured them mightily and it was under his Reign in the year 1104 that they took the Religious Habit to wit a black Casock and over it on the left Side a white Cross with eight Spikes obliging themselves by Vow to receive treat and defend Pilgrims and also to maintain with force of Arms the Christian Religion in their Country They followed St. Austin's Rule except in the Cononical Office being obliged instead of it to recite every day a certain number of Pater Nosters Gerard Tune added to it likewise some particular Constitutions About the year 1118 the Ruin of the Christian Affairs in the East forced the Hospitalers to leave Jerusalem and after the surrender of this City they retired themselves to Margat and thence to Aeri which they defended with great valour and followed John of Lusignan who gave them in his Kingdom of Cyprus Limisson where they staid till the year 1310. And in that very year they â—ook Rhodes under the Command of their Great Master Fâ—ulques of Villaret and the following year they defended it against an Army of Saracins with the assistance of Ame the IV. Earl of Savoy The Hospitalers took from hence the name of Knights of Rhodes but were chased since from thence by Solyman who took it from them in the year 1522 aâ—ter a brave Defence Rome offered iâ—s Bosom for their retreat and Pope Adrian the VI. gave to that Order the City of Viterbo and six years after the Emperor invited them to take possession of the Island of Malta in the Adriatick Sea to cover his Kingdom of Sicily from an Invasion They defended valiantly this lâ—ttle Island against the Turks under the Command of their Grand Master John de la Valette Parison These Infidels after the loss of four Months time of 78000 Cannon Shots of 15000 Soldiers and 8000 Seamen retired with great Confusion Both the Town and the Island have been since very strongly fortified The Order was composed of eight different Nations but since the separation of the English from the Church of home there are only seven The first is that of Provence the Head of which is Great Commander of that Religion The second is that of Auvergne and its Chief is Mareschal of the Order France is the third whose Chief is the Grand Hospitaler The fourth is Italy the Head of which is Admiral The fifth of Arragon hath the Charge of Great Conservator Germany is the sixth and hath that of Great Bayliff of the Order The seventh is Castiglia the Head whereof iâ— Great Chancellor England was formerlv the sixth and the Chief of it was Great Turcopolier of the Religion that is Colonel of the Horse Whosoever desires to be received into that Order ought to prove his Nobility for four Generations as well by his Mothers side as his Fathers to be twenty years old
Jerusalem Pilgrims were received there in Houses founded purposely for them and were to be conducted on the Highways and defended by them against the Mahometans The Popes granted great Priviledges to it and Princes great Possessions Louis the VII King of France gave them in the year 1154 the Territory of Boigny near Orleans where these Knights fixed the Seat of their Order when the Christians were driven from Palestine Nevertheless as they were become unprofitable they were also slighted insomuch that the Knights of Malta obtained very easily from Pope Innocent the VIII the suppression of this Order and its union with theirs But those of France having carryed their Complaints to the Parliament iâ— was ordered there that this Order should subsist independent and by it self throughout all the French Dominions Pope Pius the IV. willing that his Family should make an advantage of the Wrack of these Knights conferred the Mastership of it in Italy to Janot of Castillon his Relation and after his Death Pope Gregory the XIII gave it entirely to Duke Emmanuel Philebert of Savoy and to all his Successors uniting it with the Order of St. Mauricius But this having no place in France Aimar of Chartres Knight of Malta undertook to bring iâ— again to a flourishing Condition Philibert of Nerestan Captain of the Life-Guards succeeded him in the same design and employed so successfully his Power at the French Court that King Henry the IV. made him Grand Master of it in the year 1608 and obtained from the Pope a very advantagious Bull for this Order by which they have power to Marry and to hold Pensions arising from Consistorial Benefices So that this Order is not now what it was in its first Institution and serves only for to have a Wife and a golden Cross hanging on their Necks Of the Order of Calatrava in Spain IT was Instituted under Sanches the III. King of Castilla This Prince having Conquered the strong Castle of Calatrava from the Moors of Andalousia gave it to the Knights Templars who wanting Courage to defend it returned it to him again Dom Raimond born of Bureva in Navarra Abbot of the Monastery of Hytero of the Order of Cisteaux accompanied with several Gentlemen offered themselves to defend this place which was granted to them and the Order was established in the year 1158. It increased so much under the Reign of Alphonsus the Noble King of Castilla that the Knights demanded to have Grand Masters They went on very successfully till the year 1489 in which time Ferdinandus and Isabella annexed the Great Mastership of Calatrava to the Crown of Castilla Pope Alexander the III. approved this Order in the year 1164 and Innocent the III. confirmed it in 1198. They have yet in Spain eighty Commanderships At the beginning the Knights wore the Habit of Cisteaux but Pope Benet the XIII dispensed with it and Paul the III. gave them permission once to Marry So that they are not neither what they were formerly the Popes having been themselves the chief Promoters of their Remissness Their Arms are Gold with a Flowree-Cross of Gules sided with two Azur Hand Fetters The Knights wear also a red Cross on their Breasts Of the Order of Knights of Alcantara ALcantara a Town of Estramadura on the River Tagus was taken from the Moors in the year 1212 by Alphonsus the IX King of Castilla who committed it to the care of the Knights of Calatrava and two years after it was given to the Knights of the Pear-tree whose Order was Instituted in the year 1170 by Gomez Fernandus and approved by Pope Alexander the III. in the year 1177 under the Rule of St. â—enet They took since the name of that Town and the green Cross or Sinople beset with Flowers de-lis Some Scandalous disorders that happened amongst these Knights obliged them to ask Permission to Marry which was granted them in the year 1540. Nevertheless the Mastership of this Order as well as that of Calatrava was united to the Crown of Castilla under the Reign of Ferdinandus and Isabella Of the Order of Knights of St. Jame's THIS is also called the Order of the Sword Some Regular Canons having observed that the Pilgrims who went to visit the Relicks of St. James of Compostella were ill used by the Moors built several Hospitals for their reception and 13 Gentlemen offered their Swords to defend them This was properly the beginning of that Order which was approved by Pope Alexander the III in the year 1175 and by Innocent the III. in 1198 The Knights observed the Rules of S. Austin and Monastical Vows but since they were permitted to Marry The ancient Arms of this Order were Gold with a Sword of Gules and a Shell of the same with this Motto Rubet ensis sanguine Arabum but now they are a Cross made in the form of a Sword with a Heart for the Pommel and the Hilt made in the figure of a Flower-de-lis This was established in Castilla and Portugal The King of Spain is the Grand Master of it since the Reign of Ferdinandus and Sabella who obtained it from Pope Alexander the VI. Of the Order of Teutonick Knights Marrianes or Sword-bearers THIS Order was established after the Conquest of the Holy Land by the Christians of the West It was founded at Jerusalem by some Germans who built there an Hospital for the Pilgrims of their Nation and a Church in honour of the Virgin Mary from whence they were called Marianes They took the Title of Teutonicks the Rule of St. Austin and a white Cloak with a Cross of Sable and in the midst another little Silver Cross Pope Celestin the III. approved this establishment 1195 and several other Popes granted to it great Priviledges Henry of Valpot was the first Master of the Order After the loss of the Holy Land these Knights retired themselves into Germany They Conquered afterwards all Prussia whereof they took the name and for above Two hundred years made themselves formidable to their Neighbours until Albertus of Brandenburg who was their Grand Master embraced the Protestant Religion and became a Secular Prince of Prussia in the year 1525. Then the Knights returned into Germany where they had already great Possessions and elected for their chief or Grand Master Albertus of Volfang Since that time the Eldest Sons of German Princes and Lords do possess the Estates of that Order in Quality of Teutonick Knights but observe the ancient Constitutions of the same Of the Order of Christ's Militia for the extirpation of the Albigenses DOminick Institutor of the Order of Preachers or Dominican Fryars having unâ—ertaken to reduce to the Roman Church the Albigenses who with much reason had sepaparated from it Instituted the Order of these Soldiers who were to extirpate with the Material Sword those of the Albigenses Hereticks as he called them who would not submit to the Spiritual Sword of God which was manifested he
were Monks and Nuns because both Men and Women by Gods Special command were all the while of the Flood separated one from another Oh the neat interpretation of Scripture Let them go on with Elias and the Sons of the Prophets Monks they were because Elias wandered from one Desert to another till he came to Mount Oreb and the Sons of the Prophets had removed their Habitations to the River Jordan but do we not know the cause of Elias flying into the Desert It was by a Special Command of God and for a while only that he should not fall into the Hands of King Ahaz and Queen Jezabel who would have put him to Death and he was some time after ordered by God to return into the Cities to teach and to discharge there the office of a Prophet As for the Sons of the Prophets some of them indeed left their former Habitations because they were too narrow for them and builded others near Jordan of a bigger compass not to live there as the Monks of our days in Leaziness by themselves and to themselves but to be instructed by the Prophets in all Piety and Learning and sent afterwards to Preach unto the biggest Cities as Rhama Hierico Ramoth Galaad Bethel c. where they came to fix their Abode In all this there is nothing of an Heremetical or Monastical Institution I pass to St. John the Baptist of whom 't is written that he lived in the Desert until the day of his manifestation in Israel By this Desert saith the Learned Hospinian we must not understand a Solitary place far from the Towns and from human Conversation but his Father Zacharia's House where John the Baptist lived with his Relations which House was built in that Country which is called in Scripture Desert because it was â—illy and pretty full of Woods and not so much Habited as the others yet there were in that Country six Towns one of which was Juda where Zacharias had his House and John the Baptist lived there with him till the appointed time that he was called by God to perform his Office both of Preaching and Baptizing I have already spoken here above of our Blessed Saviours Retirement into Solitude and of what instruction it does afford to us Now it will not be a hard matter to vindicate the Holy Apostles from their having been Monks They whos 's Mission was to all over the World to Preach the Gospel to all Nations and who did converse both with the Jews and the Gentiles were very far from being Solitaries Nor can the Romanists say that the Apostles were Monks by their condemning Marriage as the Monks do since all of them according to St. Ambrosius St. John the Evangelist only excepted were Married and had Wives But saith the Popish Monk they lived some while together and did possess every thing in common as we do therefore they were Monks as we are If this be to be a Monk then Pythagoras and his Disciples who possessed likewise every thing in common were Monks then all the Primitive Christians who did the same were so Nay all Married People who maintain big Families of one and the same Stock and live together are Monks We see then what poor and silly Arguments these well-wishers to Monastick Antiquity do bring to make their Ridiculous Imaginations go down with the Ignorant People and to make it appear that the Apostles were Monks and Founders of the Monastick Order of Lateran called Regular Canons So does Pope Pius the IV. speak of them Canonici Regulares fuerunt sunt de illis Clericis à St. Augustino quinimò à sanctis Apostolis institutis The Regular Canons have been and are of those Clarks instituted by St. Austin nay by the Apostles themselves With the same facility one may answer what the Papists say of some particular Religious Orders pretended to have been Founded by St. Barnabas in Italy by St. Mark Evangelist at Alexandria by St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus by St. Paul at Iconium by Lazarus Martha and Maria Magdalen at Marseilles in France by Ignatius at Anticch by Clemens Thelesphâ—rus Dionisius Cletus Narcissius Frontonius Beatus and many others in several places in the two first Ages The mistake of the Romanists in this Point proceeds from three heads First from their living in common which for several good reasons was established amongst the Christians of the Primitive Churches to which they give the name of Monastical Life Secondly From the retreat of the first Christians to Solitary places during the Storms of Persecution And thirdly From the voluntary Retirement of some eminent men into Solitude who betook themselves thither for a while the better to apply themselves to their Studies As to the first I say that their Life in common established amongst the Christians of the former times was so far from having been a Monastical Life or the pattern of it that it was quite contrary to it For what is more opposite to a Solitary state than to live many together in order to be continually applied to Charitable Offices in the World as to take care of the Orphans and Widows to visit the Sick to comfort the Afflicted and to relieve the Poor which to do more effectually these first and truly Charitable Christians sold their Estates and brought the Mony laying it at the feet of the Apostles not indeed as the bony Fryars of the Romish Church do who pretending to despise the World retire with what they have or what they can scrape from their Families into rich and well endowed Houses there to enjoy their Prey in company of Cheats and lazy Fellows bidding farewel to all the good Works practised in the World For the second head mistake it hath not better Foundation than the former God be praised for these Blessed times in which we enjoy here in England the liberty of our Religion but if he was pleased to let a time of Persecution come and we were obliged to hide our selves in Deserts Grottos and Caves in the days of Wrath and Indignation should we be called Monks and Fryars for doing so As for the third head of mistake it is methinks of so weak and so slight constitution that unless one hath a great mind to be mistaken it cannot stand by it self Every one knows that Retirement and Solitude are a great help to Studies and extraordinary Application of Mind and therefore the ancient Fathers of the Primitive Churches when not only the Jews and the Gentiles endeavoured with human Wisdom and Philosophy to overthrow the Principles of Christianity but many Hereticks and false Christians made it their business also to corrupt deprave and undermine the soundness of Christian Doctrin and Piety then I say the Holy Fathers and Doctors of those Times did not think fit amiss to retire now and then into Solitude there the better to apply their Minds to untie and dissolve the Sophistical and deceitful Arguments of their
Adversaries and to explain in their learned Writings the eminent Truths contained in the Gospel Their Solitude became then by the good use they made of it a Blessing to themselves and to the World but was not lookt upon as an holy State by it self and most pleasing to God till in the third Age when this Error together with Monastical Discipline begun first to creep into the Church as it is generally agreed upon by all good and impartial Writers Neverthelâ—ss some Popish Authors have not only taken the boldness to pretend these to be the times for the Institution of Monks but even the confidence to assert that it is so true that Monkery was hatched as soon as Christianity it self that Christ could not well dispense with it nor frame a perfect Church here on Earth without Monks The two reasons which they bring to prove the two parts of their Assertion are these viz. that Christ being come into the World not to break but to fulfil the Law of Moses his Office was to substitute the Reality to every Shadow or Figure represented in it but there was they say a Shadow of Monastical Life in the Pharisees Saducees Esseans c. Therefore Christ could not dispense with the Institution of true and perfect Monks such as they pretend to have in the Popish Church The second Argument runs thus Christ would not have been able to Frame a perfect Church if he had left out the most Holy and perfect State of human Life but such a State is that of the Monks therefore without them he could not have Framed a perfect Church Amongst several silly proofs which they make use of to back this last Minor Proposition I find this viz. That the most part of the World hath been so fully perswaded that Monastical Life is the most pefect State here on Earth that even the Pagans themselves the Indians the Turks and the most barbarous Nations have their Monks and the ancient Romans had some likewise and consecrated Virgins whom they called Vestals and they conclude upon the whole that Christ could not exclude that State from his Church and that it would be a great shame for Christians if they were alone deprived of Holy Fryars and Monks I do not think it worth my while â—o make here a long Discourse to discover the foulness of these rotten Arguments I say only as to the first that though Christ was to substitute Reality to every Figure of the Old Testament yet every Institution or Observance of the Old Testament was not a Figure but might come to an end with the Law As for Example the exacting Eye for Eye Tooth for Tooth was an Observance of the Law which we see hath been quite and clean abolished by Christ so we know likewise that amongst the Jews were some kinds of Monks viz. the Nazareens the Recabites Saducees Pharisees and Esseans But besides that they were most of them dangerous Hereticks we do not see that Christ hath ever commended their Institutions or Persons in the Gospel on the contrary we read how often he forwarned his Disciples and first Believers to beware of them in the presence of the Pharisees who were at that time the chiefest and most esteemed Monks amongst the Jews and how many Woes he pronounced against their Singular and Hypocritical Practices as contrary to Communion or common Union and Charity Now to Answer the Second Point T is true indeed that the Pagans and Infidels had and have still amongst them several sorts of Monks perhaps not very unlike those of the Church of Rome There were of old the Brothers of the Goddess of Siria who like the Popish Mendicant Fryars went from one place to another with the Statue of their Goddess offering their Cloathes to Kiss selling their Prayers and cheating the poor Country People of their Goods and Monies The Druides among the Gauls were famous heathenish Monks who lived in the Woods making their continual Sacrifices to their Gods they were in great repute and veneration enjoyed great Priviledges and Immunities and served not their Gods for nothing There were likewise other Monks of the Grand-Mother of the Gods called the Brothers of Cibele Curetes Corybantes or Dactyli Idaei who lived upon the Mountains of Phrygia The Romans had a College or Monastery for the Brothers called Arvalos whose office was to Sacrifice to Ceres and Bacchus They had besides their Nuns or Virgins called Vestals who were intrusted with the care and preservation of the sacred Fire and were to pray for the Prosperity of the Roman Empire But what need we to remount so far in the ancient Times to look for Monks do we not see now-a-days several sorts of them amongst the Turks Some go Stript naked Winter and Summer and make many Cuts and Incisions on their Bodies Some others do profess so strict an Abstinence and Fasting that they pass many days without Eating and Drinking Others affect to be so great Lovers of Poverty that they do possess nothing in the World and will not provide Victuals even for the next day Others again are so silent that it is not possible to draw one word from their Mouths either by fair means or ill usage These are called Czamutlar or Dumbs Others pretend to Revelations Extasies Prophecies and Miracles and go under the name of Dermshler who are most esteemed amongst the Turks Some of them live in their Monasteries in Towns and others in the Country and Solitary places or in Tombs amongst the Dead The Czofilar are another sort of Monks amongst the Turks who are much given to Contemplation and Prayer are strict holders of the Traditions of their Fore-Fathers rely entirely upon their own Merits without the Grace of God rise in the Night to sing praise to God and are in great honour with the Nobility and Gentry who are of the same Opinions as they But generally all these Turkish Monks do profess Chastity and condemn Marriage There was formerly another Order in Turky called Dervis but for their Impieties and bad Lives they were by the Emperour Bajazette quite Extinguished In the Province of Ciandu belonging to the Tartars there is a Monastery wherein above Two thousand Monks live together who are continually employed in the Service of the Idols They profess Chastity exercise great austerities on their Bodies and are distinguished in their Cloathes from the Seculars very like in their Superstitious Practices and Ceromonies to Popish Monks In some Relations of Japan we are cold of the Japonian Monks whom they call Bâ—ntii They have there a great many Monasteries and are both very Superstitious and very wicked Men. The Indians likewise have their Talapoi who make as great pretense of Holiness as the Romish Fryars do But what then must we conclude that because the Heathens and Idolaters have Monks there must be some also in the Church of the living God Ought we not rather to conclude the contrary that because they have some
XII Francis tired both by his Travels and Preachings withdrew himself two years before his Death to Mount Alverne one of the highest of the Apennine in Italy to give himself there wholly to contemplation He fasted there at his arrival forty days in honour of St. Michael and having applied his mind to search what might be more peculiarly pleasing to God he thought this could not be better done than in suffering in his Body the same pains which Jesus Christ had suffered on the Cross Christ was so much pleased with this thought of Francis that he came down from Heaven and appeared to him in form of a Seraphim nailed to a Cross and made the same prints on the Side Feet and Hands of Francis which he had upon his own Body 'T is said in the same Book of the Conformities that not only St. Francis's Hands and Feet were pierced but the Nails appeared visibly in them Secondly That the Heads of these Nails though they should have been like in Colour to the Sinews and Flesh of which they were formed yet were all Black Thirdly The Heads of the Nails were longish and beaten down as if they had been forged with a Hammer Fourthly The Stigmata's or Marks were printed in the most Brawny and Cartilaginous parts Fifthly The Nails though composed of sinews were hard and solid as Iron Sixthly The Points of the Nails went quite through a considerable length on the other side Seventhly Though these Nails of Flesh went through both Feet and Hands these Members were not for this deformed or shrunk Eighthly The Nails were separated from all the Flesh round about insomuch that pieces were put between to suck up the Blood which came out from the Wounds Ninthly The Nails did move and yet could not be pluck'd out of the Feet and Hands of Francis Tenthly These Wounds during the two years which he lived after did not throw out any corrupt matter Eleventhly The Wound on the side of Francis was perfectly like to that of Jesus Christ Lastly It was a continual Miracle that notwithstanding the great quantity of Blood which issued from all these Wounds he could live so long afterwards This is indeed a very wonderful Story in proof of which in the same Book of Conformities the Devil comes in as an Evidence who thus answered a Priest who had adjured him That there were only two in Heaven thus marked Christ and Francis Another Witness of it is Pope Gregory the IX who being in some doubt of this History was visited by St. Francis who appeared to him in a Dream and reproached his incredulity The same hapned to an unbelieving Fryar of the Order of St. Francis whom he bid to feel his Wounds as another Thomas A Noble Roman Lady seeing an Image of St. Francis in which the Limner had forgot to express the Sacred Stigmata was so much troubled at it that immediately by the Ministry of Angels who would humour the Piety of this Lady the Image appeared with all its Wounds A Canon whose name was Roger refusing to believe the Stigmatization of St. Francis was by a Divine Vengeance Stigmatized himself and felt intolerable pains in his Hands Feet and Side until he had acknowledged and confessed his Fault A Dominican Fryar lodging in a Convent of Franciscans where he saw the Image of Saint Francis with the Stigmata was so much incensed at it that he rose in the Night and blackned it all over but in the Morning the Image by a Miracle appeared handsomer than the day before The Dominican still more vexed went the following Night with a Knife to scrape out the Marks but by God's permission there sprang out from the Prints so much Blood that it was not possible to stanch it till such time as he had made satisfaction to the Franciscan Fryars who full of tender Compassion obtained by their prayers his pardon from St. Francis It was not only upon the account of the Stigmata that these cunning Fryars glorified their holy Founder but they published moreover that the Virgin Mary had brought very often her Child Jesus from Heaven throwing him into his Arms to kiss They dared also blasphemously to publish that their St. Francis was greater than John the Baptist and all the Apostles for reasons which they alledged Brother Lion who had been Companion of St. Francis was no less busie than the others to bring Grist to the Mill. He did protest if we will believe him that he had seen several times his Holy Father raised up on high in the Air while he was at Prayer A rich Merchant saw in a Dream St. Francis to go out of the Sacred Side of our Lord Jesus Christ holding the Standard of the Cross in his Hand and followed by an innumerable multitude of Fryars He was so much moved by this Vision that he gave his whole estate to the Franciscans who began already to be weary of their poverty and became one of their Order I cannot forbear relating here one of these sorts of Miracles that hapned here in England Though the recital of it may seem long yet I hope not tedious The Fryars Minors of St. Francis having passed into England and taking their way towards Oxford were compelled by the Rains and ill Weather to take shelter in an Abby of the Order of St. Benet situated in a Wood. A young Monk espying them and taking them by their ridiculous Habit to be some Juglers ran immediately to give notice of it to the Abbot who in hope of having some good sport with his Monks bid them come in But they having made them understand they were poor Fryars who came to implore their Charity the Abbot and the Monks commanded they should be thrust out of Doors There was only a young Monk who taking pity on them conveyed them secretly into a Hay loft and there gave them Bread and Beer recommending himself to their Prayers After which he went to Bed and in his Sleep he saw Jesus Christ sitting upon a bright Throne who with an angry Look and a terrible Voice said Go and bring before me all the Monks of this Monastery Which being performed accordingly he saw on the other side a poor Beggar coming in the Habit of the Brothers Minors it was St. Francis himself This man made his bitter complaints to Jesus Christ saying Just Judge the blood of my poor Brethren which these wretched Monks have spilt this Night as much as in them lay by denying them Bread and Shelter in so great extremity the blood I say of my poor Brethren who have left all for thy sake and are come hither to seek the Souls which thou hast redeemed by thy Precious Death demands vengeance for so great a cruelty They have denied thy Servants what they were ready to grant to Morris-dancers as they took them at first to be Then Jesus Christ in fierce Anger said to the Abbot What Order art