tyed to exercise themselves either in the reading of Scriptures or in the learning of Psalmes And long before their time it was the observation which Saint Chrysostome made of both these Ilands that although thou didst goe unto the Ocean and those Brittish Isles although thou didst sayle to the Euxine Sea although thou didst goe unto the Southerne quarters thou shouldst heare ALL men every where discoursing matters out of the SCRIPTVRE with another voice indeede but not with another faith and with a different tongue but with an according judgement Which is in effect the same with that which venerable Bede pronounceth of the Island of Brittaine in his owne dayes that in the language of five Nations it did search and confesse one and the same knowledge of the highest truth and of the true sublimity to wit of the English the Britons the Scots the Picts and the Latins which last although hee affirmeth by the meditation of the Scriptures to have become common to all the rest yet the community of that one among the learned did not take away the property of the other foure among the vulgar but that such as understood not the Latin might yet in their own mother tongue have those Scriptures wherein they might search the knowledge of the highest truth and of the true sublimity even as at this day in the reformed Churches the same Latin tongue is common to all the learned in the meditation and exposition of the Scriptures and yet the common people for all that doe in their owne vulgar tongues search the Scriptures because in them they thinke to have eternall life For as by us now so by our forefathers then the continuall meditation of the Scriptures was held to give speciall vigour and vegetation to the soule as wee reade in the booke attributed unto St. Patrick of the abuses of the world and the holy documents delivered therein were esteemed by Christians as their chiefe riches according to that of Columbanus Sint tibi divitiae divinae dogmata legis In which heavenly riches our ancient Scottish and Irish did thrive so well that many worthy personages in forraine parts were content to undergoe a voluntarie exile from their owne Country that they might more freely trafficke here for so excellent a commodity And by this meanes Altfrid King of Northumberland purchased the reputation of a man most learned in the Scriptures Scottorum qui tum versatus incola terris Coelestem intento spirabat corde sophiam Nam patriae fines dulcia liquerat arva Sedulus ut Domini mysteria disceret exul as Bede writeth of him in his Poëme of the life of our Countryman St. Cuthbert So when wee reade in the same Bede of Furseus and in another ancient Author of Kilianus that from the time of their very childhood they had a care to learne the holy Scriptures it may easily bee collected that in those dayes it was not thought a thing unfit that even children should give themselves unto the studie of the Bible Wherein how greatly some of them did profit in those tender yeeres may appeare by that which Boniface the first Archbishop of Mentz relateth of Livinus who was trained up in his youth by Benignus in the singing of Davids Psalmes and the reading of the holy Gospels and other divine exercises and Ionas of Columbanus in whose breast the treasures of the holy Scriptures were so layd up that within the compasse of his youthfull yeeres hee set forth an elegant exposition of the booke of the Psalmes by whose industry likewise afterward the studie of Gods Word was so propagated that in the Monasteries which were founded according to his rule beyond the Seas not the men only but the religious women also did carefully attend the same that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures they might have hope See for this the practice of the Virgin Bitihildis lying upon her death bed reported by the same Ionas or whosoever else was the Author of the life of Burgundofora As for the edition of the Scriptures used in these parts at those times the Latin translation was so received into common use among the learned that the principall authority was still reserved to the originall fountaines Therefore doth Sedulius in the Old Testament commend unto us the Hebrew verity for so with S. Hierome doth he style it and in the New correct oftentimes the vulgar Latin according to the truth of the Greek copies For example in 1 Cor. 7 34. he readeth as wee doe There is difference betweene a wife and a virgin and not as the Rhemists have translated it out of the Latin Rom. 12. 19. hee readeth Non vosmetipsos vindicantes not avenging your selves where the vulgar Latin hath corruptly Non vosmetipsos defendentes not defending your selves Rom. 3. 4. where the Rhemists translate according to the Latin God is true hee sheweth that in the Greeke copies it is found Let God be true or let God be made true Rom. 15. 17. hee noteth that the Latin bookes have put glory for gloriation Galat. 1. 16. where the Rhemists have according to the Latin I condescended not to flesh bloud he saith that in Graeco meliùs habet for so must his words bee here corrected out of St. Hierome whom hee followeth the Greek hath it better I conferred not Rom. 8. 3. where the Rhemists say of God according to the Latin translation that of sinne hee damned sinne in the flesh Sedulius affirmeth that veriùs habetur apud Graecos it is more truly expressed in the Greeke bookes that for sinne he damned sinne in the flesh Lastly where the Rhemists translate after their Latin copie Gal. 5. 9. A little leaven corrupteth the whole paste hee saith it should be leaveneth as we have it and not corrupteth as it is ill read in the Latin bookes So where they translate by the same authority Galat. 6. 1. Instruct such an one in the spirit of lenitie Claudius following St. Hierome affirmeth that it is better in the Greeke Restore or Perfect him and where they make St. Peter say Mat. 16. 22. Lord bee it farre from thee he noteth that it is better in the Greeke Lord favour thy selfe In the old Testament I observe that our Writers doe more usually follow the translation taken out of the Septuagint than the Vulgar Latine which is now received in the Church of Rome So for example where the Vulgar Latin hath Esay 32. 4. The tongue of the stammerers or mafflers as the Doway Translation would have it englished shall speak readily and plainely in the Confession of St. Patricke wee finde it layd downe more agreeably to the Greeke lection The stammering tongues shall swiftly learne to speak peace and in his Epistle to Coroticus or Cereticus Malach. 4. 2. You shall dance as calves loosed out of bands where our common Latin hath You
of Furseus and Bonifacius of Livinus and Theodorus Campidonensis or whosoever else wrote that booke of Gallus Magnoaldus and the rest of the followers of Columbanus that they got their living by the labour of their owne hands And the Apostles rule is generally laid downe for all Monkes in the life of Furseus They which live in Monasteries should worke with silence and eate their owne bread But now there is start up a new generation of men that refuse to eate their own bread and count it a high point of sanctity to live by begging of other mens bread if yet the course they take may rightly bee termed begging For as Richard Fitz-Ralphe that famous Archbishop of Armagh objected to their faces before the Pope himselfe and his Cardinals in his time and the matter is little amended I wisse in ours scarce could any great or meane man of the Clergie or the Laitie eate his meate but such kinde of beggers would be at his elbowe not like other poore folkes humbly craving almes at the gate or the doore as Francis did cammand and teach them in his Testament by begging but without shame intruding themselves into courts or houses and lodging there where without any inviting at all they eate and drinke what they doe finde among them and not with that content carry away with them eyther wheate or meale or bread or flesh or cheeses although there were but two in an house in a kinde of an extorting manner there being none that can deny them unlesse he would cast away naturall shame This did that renowned Primate whose anniversary memory is still celebrated in Dundalke where hee was borne and buried by the name of Saint Richard publickly deliver in the yeere 1357. at the Consistory of Avinion where he stoutly maintained against the whole rabble of the Friars what hee had preached the yeere before at Pauls Crosse unto the people namely that our Lord Iesus Christ although in his humane conversation hee was alwayes poore yet did hee never voluntarily begge himselfe nor taught others so to doe but taught the plaine contrary and that no man could prudently holily take upon himself the perpetuall observation of voluntary beggary forasmuch as such kinde of begging as well by Christ as by his Apostles and Disciples by the Church and by the holy Scriptures was both disswaded and also reproved His Countryman Henry Crumpe a Monke of the Cistercian order in Baltinglas not long after treading in his steps was accused for delivering in his Determinations at Oxford that the Friars of the foure Mendicant orders are not nor ever were instituted by Gods inspiration but that contrary to the generall Councell of Lateran held under Innocent the third which prohibited the bringing in of any more new religious orders into the Church and by feigned and false dreames Pope Honorius being perswaded by the Friars did confirme them and that all the Doctors which did determine for the Friars side were eyther affraid to speak the truth lest their books should be condemned by the Friars that had gotten to be Inquisitors or said As it seemeth or proceeded onely by way of dâ—sputation and not of determination because if they had spoken the truth plainly in the behalfe of the Church the Friars would have persecuted them as they dâ—d persecute the holy Doctor Armachanus Which Crumpe himselfe found afterwards to be too true by his owne experience for hee was forced to deny and abjure these assertions in the house of the Carmelite Friars at Stanford before William Courtney Archbishop of Canterbury and then silenced that hee should not exercise publickly any act in the Schooles either by reading preaching disputing or determining untill hee should have a speciall licence from the said Archbishop so to doe But to leave the begging Friars being a kinde of creatures unknowne to the Church for twelve hundred yeers after Christ and to return to the labouring Monkes wee finde it related of our Brendan that he governed three thousand such Monkes who by their owne labours and handy-worke did earne their living which agreeth well with that saying ascribed to him by the writer of his life A Monke ought to bee fed and clothed by the labour of his owne hands Neither was there any other order observed in that famous Monasterie of Bangor among the Britons wherein there is said to have beene so great a number of Monkes that the Monastery being divided into seven portions together with the Rectors appointed over them none of all those portions had lesse than three hundred persons in them all which saith Bede were wâ—nt to live by the labour of their owne hands From the destruction of which Monastery unto the erection of Tuy Gwyn or White-house which is said to have beene about the yeere 1146. the setter forth of the Welsh Chronicle observeth that there were no Abbeyes among the Britons Here in Ireland Bishop Colman founded the Monastery of Magio in the county of Limrick for the entertainment of the English where they did live according to the example of the reverend Fathers as Bede writeth under a rule and a canonicall Abbot in great continency and sincerity with the labour of their owne hands Like whereunto was the monastery of Mailros also planted by Bishop Aidan and his followers in Northumberland where St. Cuthbert had his education who affirmed that the life of such Monkes was justly to bee admired which were in all things subject to the commands of their Abbot and ordered all the times of their watching praying fasting and working according to his direction Excubiasque famemque preces manuumque laborem Ad votum gaudent proni fraenare regentis As for their fasting for of their watching and praying there is no question made and of their working wee have already spoken sufficiently by the rule of Columbanus they were every day to fast and every day to eate that by this meanes the enabling of them for their spirituall proficiency might bee retained together with the abstinence that did macerate the flesh Hee would therefore have them every day to eate because they were every day to profit and because abstinence if it did exceed measure would prove a vice and not a vertue and he would have them to fast everie day too that is not to eate any meate at all for other fasts were not knowne in those dayes untill evening Let the food of Monkes saith he be meane and taken at evening flying satiety and excesse of drink that it may both sustaine them and not hurt them This was the daily fasting and feeding of them that lived according to Columbanus his rule although the strictnesse of the fast seemeth to have beene kept on Wednesdayes and Fridayes onely which were the dayes of the weeke wherein the ancient Irish agreeable to the custome of the Grecian rather than
the Roman Church were wont to observe abstinence both from meate and from the marriage bed Whence in the booke before alledged of the Daily Penances of Monkes we finde this order set downe by the same Columbanus that if any one unlesse he were weake did upon the Wednesday or Friday eate before the ninth houre that is to say before three of the clocke in the afternoone according unto our account hee should be punished with fasting two dayes in bread and water and in Bedes Ecclesiasticall Historie that such as followed the information of Aidan did upon the same dayes observe their fast untill the same houre in which history we also reade of Bishop Cedd who was brought up at Lindisfarne with our Aidan and Finan that keeping a strict fast upon a speciall occasion in the time of Lent hee did every day except the Lords day continue his fast as the manner was untill the evening and then also did eate nothing but a small pittance of bread and one egge with a little milke mingled with water Where by the way you may note that in those daies egges were eaten in Lent and the Sundayes excepted from fasting even then when the abstinence was precisely and in more than an ordinarie manner observed But generally for this point of the difference of meats it is well noted by Claudius out of S. Augustin that the children of wisedome doe understand that neither in abstaining nor in eating is there any vertue but in contentednesse of bearing the want and temperance of not corrupting a mans selfe by abundance and of opportunely taking or not taking those things of which not the use but the concupiscence is to be blamed and in the life of Furseus the hypocrisie of them is justly taxed that being assaulted with spirituall vices doe yet omit the care of them and afflict their body with abstinence who abstaining from meates which God hath created to be received with thankesgiving fall to wicked things as if they were lawfull namely to pride covetousnesse envy false witnessing backbiting Of whom Gildas giveth this good censure in one of his Epistles which now are lost These men while they doe feed on bread by measure for this same very thing doe glory without measure while they use water they are withall drenched with the cup of hatred while they feed on dry meates they use detractions while they spend themselves in watchings they disprayse others that are oppressed with sleepe preferring fasting before charitie watching before justice their owne invention before concord severitie before humilitie and lastly man before God Such mens fasting unlesse it be proceeded unto by some vertues profiteth nothing at all but such as accomplish charitie doe say with the harpe of the holy Ghost All our righteousnesses are as the cloth of a menstruous woman Thus Gildas who upon this ground layeth downe this sound conclusion wherewith wee will shut up this whole matter Abstinence from corporall meats is unprofitable without charitie They are therefore the better men who doe not fast much nor abstaine from the creature of God beyond measure but carefully keepe their heart within pure before God from whence they know commeth the issue of life than they who eate no flesh nor take delight in secular dinners nor ride with coaches or horses thinking themselves hereby to bee as it were superiour to others upon whom death hath entred through the windows of haughtinesse CHAP. VII Of the Church and various state thereof especially in the dayes of Antichrist of Miracles also and of the Head of the Church COncerning the Catholike Church our Doctors taught with S. Gregory that God hath a vineyard to wit the universall Church which from just Abel untill the last of the elect that shall be borne in the end of the world as many Saints as it hath brought forth so many branches as it were hath it budded that the congregation of the just is called the kingdome of heaven which is the Church of the just that the sonnes of the Church bee all such as from the beginning of mankinde untill now have attained to be just and holy that what is said of the body may bee said also of the members and that in this respect as well the Apostles and all beleevers as the Church it selfe have the title of a pillar given them in the Scriptures that the Church may be considered two manner of wayes both that which neyther hath spot nor wrinkle and is truely the body of Christ and that which is gathered in the name of Christ without full and perfect vertues which notwithstanding by the warrant of the Apostle may have the name of the Church given unto it although it be depraved with errour that the Church is said not to have spot or wrinkle in respect of the life to come that when the Apostle saith In a great house there are not only vessels of gold c. but some to honour and some to dishonour 2 Tim. 2. 20. by this great house he doth not understand the Church as some have thought which hath not spot nor wrinkle but the world in which the tares are mingled with the wheate that yet in the holy Church also the evill are mingled with the good and the reprobate with the elect and that in this respect it is resembled unto the wise and foolish virgins as also to the Kings marriage by which this present Church is designed wherein the good and the bad doe meet together So that in this Church neyther the bad can bee without the good nor the good without the bad whom the holy Church notwithstanding doth both now receive indifferently and separate afterwards at their going from hence The number of the good Gildas complaineth to have beene so exceeding short in his time among the Britons in comparison of the other that their mother the Church in a manner did not see them lying in her own lap albeit they were the onely true sonnes which she had And for externall pressures our Doctors have delivered that the Church sometimes is not only afflicted but also defiled with such oppressions of the Gentiles that if it were possible her redeemer might seeme for a time utterly to have forsaken her and that in the raging times of Antichrist the Church shall not appeare by reason that the wicked persecutors shall then exercise their cruelty beyond all measure that in those times of Antichrist not onely more often and more bitter torments shall be put upon the faithfull than before were wont to be but which is more grievous the working of miracles also shall accompany those that inflict the torments as the Apostle witnesseth saying Whose comming is after the working of Satan with all seduction signes and lying wonders namely juggling ones as it was foretold before They shall shew such signes that if it were possible the
having received the order of Priest-hood should have another sonne by the same woman the former son should enjoy his fathers whole estate without being bound to divide the same with his other brother Yet these marriages for all that were so held out that the fathers not content their sonnes should succeed them in their temporall estate alone prevailed so far that they continued them in the succession of their spirituall promotions also Which abuse Giraldus Cambrensis complaineth to have been continuedin Wales unto his time out of Hilâ—ebertus Cenomanensis sheweth to have prevailed in little Brittaine also whence he inferreth that this vice was of old common to the whole Brittish nation aswell on this side as on the other side of the sea Whereunto for Ireland also wee may adde the letters written by Pope Innocent the third unto Iohannes Salernitanus the Cardinall his legate for abolishing the custome there whereby sonnes and grand-children did use to succeede their fathers and grand-fathers in their Ecclesiastical benefices CHAP. VI. Of the discipline of our ancient Monkes and abstinence from meats WHat hath beene said of the married Clergie concerneth the Seculars and not the Regulars whereof there was a very great number in Ireland because here almost all the Prelates were wont to bee chosen into the Clergie out of monasteries For our monasteries in ancient time were the seminaries of the ministerie being as it were so many Colledges of learned divines whereunto the people did usually resort for instruction and from whence the Church was wont continually to bee supplied with able ministers The benefit whereof was not onely contained within the limits of this Iland but did extend it selfe to forraine countries likewise For this was it that drew Egbert and Ceaddae for example into Ireland that they might there leade a monasticall life in prayers and continencie and meditation of the holy Scriptures and hence were those famous monasteries planted in England by Aidan Finan Colman and others unto which the people flockt apace on the Lords day not for the feeding of their body but for the learning of the word of God as Beda witnesseth Yea this was the principall meanes whereby the knowledge both of the Scriptures and of all other good learning was preserved in that inundation of barbarisme wherewith the whole West was in a manner overwhelmed Hitherto saith Curio it might seeme that the studies of wisedome should quite have perished unlesse God had reserved a seed in some corner of the world Among the Scottish and the Irish something as yet remained of the doctrine of the knowledge of God and of civill honesty because there was no terrour of armes in those utmost ends of the world And we may there behold and adore the great goodnesse of God that among the Scots and in those places where no man would have thought it so many great companies should bee gathered together under a most strict discipline How strict their discipline was may appeare partly by the Rule and partly by the Daily penances of Monkes which are yet extant of Columbanus his writing In the later of these for the disobedience of Monkes these penances are prescribed If any brother bee disobedient hee shall fast two dayes with one bisket and water If any say I will not do it three dayes with one bisket and water If any murmure two dayes with one bisket and water If any doe not aske leave or tell an excuse two dayes with one bisket and water and so in other particulars In his Rule these good lessons doth hee give unto his Monkes among many others That it profited them little if they were virgins in body and were not virgins in minde that they should daily profit as they did daily pray and daily reade that the good things of the Pharisee being vainly praised were lost and the sinnes of the Publican being accused vanished away and therefore that a great word should not come out of the mouth of a Monke lest his great labour should perish They were not taught to vaunt of their state of perfection and workes of supererogation or to argue from thence as Celestius the Pelagian Monke sometime did that by the nature of their free will they had such a possibility of not sinning that they were able also to doe more than was commanded because they did observe perpetuall virginity which is not commanded whereas for not sinning it is sufficient to fulfill the precepts It was one of the points which Gallus the scholler of Columbanus delivered in his sermon preached at Constance that our Saviour did so perswade the Apostles their followers to lay hold upon the good of virginity that yet they should know it was not of humane industry but of divine gift and it is a good observation which wee reade in Claudius that not only in the splendour of bodily things but also in mournfull abasing of ones selfe there may bee boasting and that so much the more dangerous as it deceiveth under the name of the service of God Our Monkes were religious in deede and not in name only farre from the hypocrisie pride idlenesse and uncleannesse of those evill beasts and slothfull bellies that afterward succeeded in their roome Under colour of forsaking all they did not hooke all unto themselves nor under semblance of devotion did they devoure widowes houses they held begging to bee no point of perfection but remembred the words of our Lord Iesus how he said It is a more blessed thing to give rather than to take When king Sigebert made large offers unto Columbanus and his companions to keep them within his dominions in France hee received such another answer from them as Thaddaeus in the Ecclesiasticall history is said to have given unto Abgarus the governour of Edessa Wee who have forsaken our owne that according to the commandement of the Gospel we might follow the Lord ought not to embrace other mens riches lest peradventure we should prove transgressors of the divine commandement How then did these men live will you say Walafridus Strabus telleth us that some of them wrought in the garden others dressed the orchard Gallus made nets and tooke fish wherewith hee not only relieved his owne company but was helpfull also unto strangers So Bede reporteth of Cuthbert that when hee retired himselfe unto an anchoreticall life he first indeed received a little bread from his brethren to feede upon and dranke out of his owne well but afterwards hee thought it more fit to live by the worke of his owne hands after the example of the Fathers and therefore intreated that instruments might bee brought him wherewith he might till the earth and corne that hee might sowe Quique suis cupiens victum conquirere palmis Incultam pertentat humum proscindere ferro Et sator edomitis anni spem credere glebis The like doth hee relate