he Preached to the birds and being once in a Castle called Albian while he was preaching to the people a multitude of Swallows flockt about him which by their singing hindred the people from hearing him Whereupon turning to the Swallows he said Sisters ye have talked enough now it is high time for me to speak At which words the Swallows were silent until the Sermon was ended And pitying a Hare which suffered it self to be taken he said to it Brother Hare why didst thou suffer thy self to be so deceived A live Tench was presented to him on which taking pity he threw it again into the River Hearing a Grashopper sing he said to it Sing sister Grashopper and praise the Creator with rejoycing Being in the Church of St. Mary called Portiuncula some body gave him a sheep to which he gave instructions and the sheep in obedience to him presently fell a bleeting while the Monks were singing in the Choir and this creature did very humbly kneel down when the hoste was held up Whereupon Surius puts in the Margin O that hereticks would learn henceforward to adore the Encharist Travelling through the Marquisate of Ancona he met on his way a Country-fellow carrying two Lambs to Market to sell them which did bleat most pitifully whereupon St. Francis being touched with brotherly compassion said to the Country-fellow Why dost thou torment my Brethren so The Country man answered I carry them to the Market to sell them to some body that will eat them Then the holy man said to him God forbid rather take the cloak which I have on my shoulders So he gave him his cloak and saved the lives of his brethren which he carried away on his shoulders with a brotherly Charity Remembring that it is written in the two and twentieth Psalm I am a worm and no man he would not suffer a worm to be trodden upon One of his Monks having spoken somewhat roughly to a poor man he commanded him to strip himself and to go stark naked before this poor man and to kiss his feet He was very devoutly present at a Christmass mid-night Mass to which according to the Custom of the Church of Rome in those days and used still in some places an Oxe and an Ass were led and hay was carried for them It is observable that Bonaventure saith that Francis had no learning nor knowledge of the Holy Scriptures acquired either by study or instruction from others but that by the irradiation of the eternal splendour he penetrated even to the very bottom of the Holy Scripture Hence it is that in his Rule he alledgeth Scripture so dexterously and pertinently as we shall see anon At last brother Francis dyed having acted a Comedy both before God and man CHAP. XIX The great rewards which St. Francis received for his humility And of his marks A Humility so profound and of so great a merit was not unrewarded St. Antonine in the life of St. Francis reports That the people did run after him and did tear his cloaths in pieces every one striving to carry away a piece believing that these rags were of great vertue and a proper means for salvation so that the people left him half naked Bonaventure saith That a certain holy man had a vision wherein it seemed to him that a golden cross came out of Saint Francis's mouth whose top touched Heaven and its two arms reached unto the ends of the Earth In the seventh Chapter of the Revelation St. John speaks thus I saw another Angel ascending from the East having the seal of the living God St. Bonaventure in the life of St. Francis saith That we must believe that without doubt this Angel is St. Francis these are his words I saw saith John in the Revelation another Angel ascending from the East having the seal of the living God Whence we gather by an infalliable saith that this messenger of God beloved of Christ to be imitated by us and admired by the world is that servant of God Francis The same Bonaventure saith that a certain holy and devout man being once in St. Francis company fell into a trance and saw in Heaven divers seats amongst which he saw one more Magnificently adorned then the rest glittering with pretious stones and very glorious And as this holy man was wondering for whom this seat was prepared a voice came to him from Heaven saying This was the seat of one of the lapsed Angels and is kept for the most humble Francis The Legend saith the same and we have already seen that this was the seat of one of the Apostate Seraphins and that by this exaltation the most humble Francis is placed above the Archangels and above the Cherubins and consequently above all the Saints except the Virgin Mary who is called the Queen of Heaven All that have written the life and actions of Saint Francis say That about two years before his death God intending to recompence the humility and merits of St. Francis sent a Seraphin to him which lying upon him cross-wise imprinted on his hands and feet the marks of the wounds of Jesus Christ After his death there was a great stir and contest about these marks Some laughed at it and said that if St. Francis had really received from God the marks of the wounds of Jesus Christ every one must needs have seen them during the space of those two years seeing he went with his feet naked and wore no gloves but that none ever saw them save one Fryar named Elias who saw them but once and that by chance too They said also that the miracles of Jesus Christ and his Apostles served to some good purpose viz. to cure diseases to give ease and deliverance to the afflicted to raise the dead c. but that the marks of these wounds do no cure at all and are good for nothing That it is not credible that God would imprint these marks on a mortal body which was soon after to putrifie by which putrefaction these marks had been defaced Moreover that although these marks had been really imprinted yet it is a thing which the Devil or men may easily counterfeit That the Apostles who had more worth in them then St. Francis never had these marks But the Pope interposed and in recompence of the services which brother Francis had done him for he was a great defender of the Popes Canonized him and put him in the Catalogue of the the Saints This Canonization was Anno Domini 1228. Moreover Pope Alexander the Fourth Anno Domini 1254. understanding that St. Francis was on Mount Alverno when he received the impression of these wounds took this occasion to augment his Revenue For he declared that all the Ecclesiastical Lands and Goods in that Mountain did belong to the Pope and were directly and immediately subject to the Church of Rome Moreover he did personally cite and adjourn
and Paul but not of St. Philip and St. Luke Moreover here are better and more excellent things proposed then those which God commands in his Law viz. Works of Supererogation which merit a supereminent degree of Glory far above the ordinary sort of Saints who contented themselves with doing what God commands To this Rule are added the Constitutions of the Order whereof I have already spoken which the Capucins observe more exactly and with greater obedience then they do the Law of God and Doctrine of the Gospel CHAP. XXII That the Holy Scripture is falsified and wrested in the Rule of Saint Francis WE have heard before that St. Bonaventure saith That Saint Francis had not any science acquired by study but that he had received the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures by divine inspiration Whether this be true or not will appear by the passages of Scripture which Francis alledgeth in his Rule In the second Chapter he strictly forbids the Minor Fryars to forsake the Order but will have them continue in it as long as they live And that they ought so to do he proves by a passage of St. Luke in his Ninth Chapter Verse 62. where Jesus Christ speaks thus No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdom God The connexion of this passage with the preceding Verses shews that by him who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is meant such a one whom Jesus Christ having sent to Preach the Gospel and having undertaken that charge doth afterwards leave it to serve his wordly occasions Our Lord speaks not of him who hath vowed never to marry and to wear no shirt and to live by begging and to observe humane Rules and Traditions which ensnare men in unclean lusts and which are given to God for better works then those commanded in his Law as if man would make him a debtor In a word to forsake the the service of Jesus Christ and to transgress the Rule of Francis is in his opinion one and the same thing In the Ninth Chapter of the same Rule St. Francis commands the Monks to be brief in their Sermons Quia verbum abbreviatum fecit Dominus super terram that is Because the Lord made his word short upon earth Which is a passage taken from the Tenth Chapter of Isaiah ver 23. and from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans Chap. 9. ver 28. where is no mention at all made of Sermons or words which men pronounce with their mouths but of Gods judgments and punishments which he hasteneth and will speedily bring upon men The divine inspiration given to Saint Francis did not it seems teach him that as well in the Old at New Testament Verbum is very often taken for Res or Negotium as in Exodus Chap. 2. ver 14. and and Chap. 9. Vers 5. 6. and in 1 Sam. Chap. 1. ver 4. and Chap. 2. ver 6. and in St. Luke Chap. 1. ver 37. and Chap. 2. ver 15. and often elsewhere CHAP. XXIII Of Poverty and Riches FRancis made profession to be a great lover of Poverty and commonly called it his Mistress In his Rule he speaks thus to his Monks It is this sublimity of most losty poverty my dear brethren which makes you heirs and Kings of the Kingdom of Heaven and exalts you in vertues who are poor in substance And thereupon he forbids them to possess any thing of all that is under the Sun He himself put this Rule in practice For having a competent estate he left it all yea he left his breeches and the rest of his clothes and went about stark naked As for Poverty in general many take delight in praising it yea those very persons who shun it And to extol it they say that Jesus Christ was poor but that serves rather to shew that poverty is an evil for Jesus Christ came into the World to bear our infirmities and to sustain our sorrows Bellarmine in the 45. Chapter of his Book of the Monks saith that Jesus Chirst was a beggar To the titles of the Son of God the Redeemer the Word the Wisdom of the Father nothing was wanting to compleat his praises but to call him begger But a man cannot properly be said to be a begger for living by the help and assistance of another We may judge of the nature of riches and poverty of this viz. that God is infinitely rich and that the Devil is the poorest of all creatures Jesus Christ saith that it is better to give then to receive intimating thereby that it is better for a man to give what he hath then to ask what he hath not For he that gives imitates God who gives always but receives never Liberality is always better then indigence It is more commendable to give than to receive an Alms. And certainly he that blames riches as evil in their own nature blames God who is the Author of them and distributes them as it pleaseth him God oftentimes exhorts his people of Israel to piety by the promises of temporal good things And Solomon asking of him Wisdom only he gave him riches also without parallel Saint James indeed saith that God hath chosen the poor but he adds that are rich in Faith For the happiness of these Poor consists not in their being poor but in their being rich in Faith Thus must we understand what Jesus Christ saith in the sixth Chapter of St. Luke Blessed be ye poor For that which makes a poor man happy is not his poverty but the manner of supporting his poverty There be rich men that are very vertuous and poor men that are very wicked whom poverty excites to Theft Murther Perjury c. And therefore Agur in the Thirtieth Chapter of the Proverbs desires of God not to send him poverty The Soul of poor Lazarus is carried by Angels into the bosom of rich Abraham So that the poor and rich are put together to teach us that rich as well as poor are received into the Kingdom of God if they fear and serve him according to his word It is true indeed that riches do corrupt many and serve only to puff them up with pride to enflame their lusts and to divert their hearts from trusting in God to trust in their riches And this is the reason why Jesus Christ saith it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God But this evil proceeds not from riches but from those that abuse them into whose lap riches falling are corrupted as a Crown is defiled that falls into a puddle and in whose hands the goods of this world are like a sword in the hands of a mad-man We must not believe that Jesus Christ in the 16th Chapter of St. Luke calls riches unrighteous because there is any unrighteousness in the possession of them or because they are gotten by unrighteous means but because they are either provocations or instruments of unrighteousness
to those that are destitute of the fear of God CHAP. XXIV Of the vow of Poverty and of idle begging Also of works and satisfactions of supererogation THere are two sorts of Poverty one which God sends and another to which men do voluntarily devote themselves without Gods sending it unto them The former is an affliction the other is a direct profession which some chuse as supposing it of great merit and a work of supererogation There be some poor whom God hath reduced to a low estate wherein they get a slender livelihood by the labour of their hands who if they be contented with their conditions and by serving God with a pure Consciscience do aspire to better riches viz the Heavenly they are happy and beloved of God and truly rich There be others whom God bereaves of their estates for the profession of the Gospel who although they have not purposely drawn poverty on themselves yet if they bear this yoke patiently and joyfully esteeming it an honour to bear the Cross of Christ their Poverty may be said to be voluntary because they voluntarily follow the call of God Of these Jesus Christ speaks in the ninth Chapter of Saint Matthew who have left Father Mother Wife and Children or Lands for his sake God having reduced them to such a necessity that they cannot keep their estates without forsaking the profession of the Gospel In this case we must lay down our very lives to save our Souls and must be prodigal of our estate to be nigardly of our salvation But there is an affected poverty which some embrace by vow and without any necessity or God's obliging of them thereunto who may keep their estates with a good conscience but yet had rather leave them to live by other men's estates and had rather beg than work This poverty is a yoke which God imposeth not on them but they impose it on themselves They bear not Christ's Cross but their own They leave the exercise of charity upon pretence of humility and patience It may be said that they they are like the fowls of the Air for they sow not neither do they reap and yet their Father the Pope feeds them plentifully for we see that those who have vowed Poverty are fat and plump and though they are poor in particular yet are they rich in common They get more by begging then the common people do by working Many turn Monks in spight or to shake off the yoke of their parents or in a Melancholy and desperate humour or to defraud their creditors who press hard upon them or because they will not take pains to work or have not wherewith to subsist at home They turn beggers that they may not be poor They are poor by vow for fear of being so by necessity Wherefore Bellarmine speaks very gracefully when he saith That to these begging Monks belongs that saying of Jesus Christ in the Nineteenth Chapter of Saint Matthew Centuplum accipiet c. That is He shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit eternal life But when our adversaries call begging a work of supererogation they do thereby acknowledge that God commands it not The Prophets and the Apostles never vowed poverty neither were they beggars Those of them who were poor were not so by vow but by necessity which God imposed on them The Apostles had their Fishing Vessels after our Lords Resurrection And St. John had his house St. Paul received with thankfulness the relief which the Philippians sent him Being at Corinth he got his living by making of Tents chusing rather to work then to beg For he well knew that begging is a shameful thing and that it makes men both idle and impudent He that leaves his own estate to eat another mans bread hath no reason to say to God Give us this day our daily bread For God might answer him I gave thee wherewith to buy bread but thou hast despised it And now by thy begging thou takest from them that are really poor those Alms which are due to them And so far is begging from being a work of supererogation and better then what God commands in his Law that on the contrary God will have us prevent it as much as we can saying in Deut. Chap. 15. verse 4. To the end that there may be no poor among you The Hebrew word signifies a Beggar and the Vulgar Translation so renders it Not that it is a sin to beg when a man hath no other way of subsistence But God commands the rich so to relieve the poor that they may not be constrained to beg The Scripture often speaks of begging as an evil and a punishment yea a curse In the 37. Psalm David saith I have been young and now am old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread And in 109 Psalm he makes this imprecation Let his Children be Vagabonds and beg He speaks indeed of involuntary poverty but there is no likelihood that that which is a curse to some can be a blessing to others and that which to one is a grievous affliction can be to another a holy Profession As for examples we have already seen the description which Lucian and Apuleius give of the Priests of the Syrian goddess who did whip themselves and beg To which we shall adde the Massalian Hereticks of whom Fpiphanius saith they went about begging as not having wherewith to subsist neither possessing any thing Examine Antiquity and try if you can find so much as one example of Monks that made begging a Profession There was no no such thing as a Profession of beggary for above twelve hundred years after the Nativity of our Lord. Camus Bishop of Bellay who is yet living hath written a great book of the labours of Monks in the Preface whereof you shall find these words The ulcer of idleness is crept into Monasteries under the name of holy and meritorious beggary His whole book is employed to prove that Monks should be obliged to labour with their hands especially those that do not Preach nor have any other painful employment in the Church so far is he from placing beggary amongst those pieces of perfection whereby God is made a debtor to man And this Prelate's book bears in its front the Approbation of the Doctors of the faculty of Theologie at Paris St. Augustine hath written a book De opere Monachorum wherein he obligeth them to labour Epiphanius teacheth the same in the Heresie of the Massalians where he saith that in all the Monasteries of Egypt the Monks did labour with their hands even as Bees do labour to make honey and wax In those days the Monks were poor Hermits living in deserts labouring with their hands to get their living and carrying their workmanship to the neighbouring Towns to sell bought bread with the money They did not beg the approbation of their Rule from the Bishop of Rome for they were
not subject to him In a word they were not at all like the Monks now adays The same Epiphanius in the same book condemns those that live an idle life and making a profession of beging get their bread at rich mens tables But to compleat their wickedness the mendicant Fryars make begging a work of supererogation that is better than what God commands in his Law and consequently better than to love God with all our hearts and our neighbour as our selves God commands us to serve him with all our strength so that the Monks serve God with more than all their strength which is impossible Abraham Isaac Jacob Samuel David c. never did works of supererogation The perfection of the Angels consists in obeying God and not in doing more than he commands Jesus Christ himself came into the world only to do the will of his Father and not to do more then his will Ask the most devout Capucin if he never commits sin and he will tell you that he is a poor linner How do these things agree they do not that which God commands and yet will do more then he commands They fail in necessary things and yet strive to do things unnecessary and which God requires not They do not what they ought and do what they ought not They are more holy than God would have them to be That man is crack-braind who exerciseth liberality when he hath not wherewith to pay his debts If this be so in reference to men how much more in reference to God It is an extream pride to endeavour to give God overplus and more then we owe him In a word I would know whether the Monks when they do works of supererogation do the will of God or their own will If they do the will of God they are obliged thereunto and do what they ought But if by doing better things then those which God commands they do their own will it follows that their will is better than the will of God Out of this same shop of pride come those superabundant satisfactions whereby the Monks would make us believe that they suffer more punishment and do more penance then their sins deserve and that the Pope gathers this overplus into his Treasury and distributes it by his Indulgences as payment for the sins of others The Monks believe that by whiping themselves by fasting and going bare-foot they expiate the sins of others Wherefore Bellarmine saith that the Saints are in some sense our Redeemers The Legends of Saint Antonine say that Saint Dominick a grand emulator of the holiness of St. Francis lasht himself three times a day with an iron chain viz. Once for his own sins which were very small once for the sins of the living and once for the sins of those Souls which are in Purgatory who no doubt received much ease thereby And it is this same Saint that once had mercy on the Devil For the Devil having transformed himself into a Sparrow and Saint Dominick catching him contented himself only with pulling off the feathers from his head whereas it was in his power to have wrung off his neck By these things God is blasphemed For such things are attributed to God which if a man should do he would be accounted either wicked or mad For what Judge would not be accounted unjust or out of his wits who should let a malefactor go because his neighbour hath whipt himself for him But things which are ridiculous in civil society are esteemed good in Religion as if a man must lose common sense to augment piety All this abuse proceeds from this viz. that men utterly destitute of the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures which are to them a book sealed and altogether unknown seek other satisfactions and other payments for sin then the death and passion of Jesus Christ For seeing Jesus Christ hath fully satisfied Gods justice to what purpose are other satisfactions presented to him Is not this to accuse God of injustice to pretend that he takes two payments for one debt when the first is sufficient Is it not to dishonour that most perfect satisfaction which Jesus Christ hath accomplished for us to joyn it with the whipings and austerities of Monks which is just as if a man should mingle coals and diamonds together For Pope Clement the VI. in his Extravagant Vnigenitus saith that the merits of the Virgin Mary and of the other Saints do help to compleat the treasure of the benefits of Jesus Christ giving us to understand that the benefits of Jesus Christ make but bare measure but that the addition of the Saints merits makes heaped measure and is an addition to the merits of Jesus Christ And for this reason the Priest in the Mass prays for salvation not only through the Saints intercession but also through their merits The Lord God take pity on so many poor people involved in so many abuses and discover the deceit of those who being themselves notorious sinners do yet by a proud humility think to expiate the sins of others CHAP. XXV Of the Fraternity of the Cord. An Extract of a Book entituled The Treasure of the Indulgencies of St. Francis's Cord Translated out of Italian into French And of the Canonization of St. Francis and Ignatius de Loyola THE Faaternity of St. Francis's Cord is a Society of superstitiously devout people both Men and Women and as well Clergy-men as Lay-men Into which Fraternity they who enter are obliged to certain Observations and for a Badge of the Fraternity wear a Cord in imitation of the Cord which St. Francis wore and do participate of all the Merits and Satisfactions of those of the said Fraternity They who have the least of merit do for all that as really partake of the merits of the others as if they were their own They lend their merits to each other and he that is asleep or at dinner participates of the merits of him that whips himself or of him that turns over the consecrated Beads of his Chaplet seven times The Fraternity of St. Francis's Cord hath great Priviledges and the Popes have granted it great Indulgences These priviledges have been set down in writing by divers but especially by Antonio Brugneto an Italian Observantin Monk whose very words in the 104. page are these The most glorious Father Francis a little before his death obtained of God the Creator three Priviledges as the defunct Pope Gregory reports them from St. Francis his own mouth viz. The first is That as the number of Monks should increase so should all things necessary be provided for them by the Divine Providence The second That whosoever shall wear the Habit of his Order shall not dye unfortunately The third That whosoever shall persecute the Religion of his Order his days shall be short and his end miserable Moreover the most glorious Father Francis a little before his death revealed to a certain Monk who is worthy of credit that he had