work it was here in the dayes of our Holy Fathers and I know not whether in some places it may not be so still that upon Saint Nicholas St. Katherine St. Clement and holy Innocent day children were wont to be arayed in Chimers Rochets Surplices to counterfeit Bishops and Preists and to be led with Songs and Dances from house to house blessing the people who stood girning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction Yea that boyes in that holy sport were wont to sing Masses and to climbe into the Pulpit to preach no doubt learnedly and edifyingly to the simple Auditory And this was so really done that in the Cathedral Church of Salsbury unlesse it be lately defaced there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy Bishops who dyed in the time of his yong Pontificality accoutred in his Episcopal Robes still to be seen A fashion that lasted until the latter times of King Henry the eight who in the 33. year of his Reign Anno Domini 1541. by his solemne Proclamation Printed by Thomas Bertler the Kings Printer cum privilegio straitly forbad the practice And that you may not think this sporting foolery peculiarly confined to our Island know that it was taken up in other Countries also The Council of Saltzburgh very bluntly tells you in the year 1274. Lude quidam noxii There are say they certain harmeful sports which the Vulgar calls Eptus puor that is Episcopatus Puerorum used in some Churches so insolently that many times great errors and greivous offences ensue upon them These sports say they severely enough we forbid hereafter to be used in Churches and of Ecclesiastical persons But withal those fathers gravely adde nisi forte and unlesse perhaps they be used by children of sixteen years old or under then belike they might be allowed to play the fooles with good liâ—â—ing Neither had the boyes onely leave to play thus but the men yea even Clerks themselves took leave to be so prodigal of their mirth that they gave themselves liberty to go up and down the Country and make themselves Jesters and Buffons in great mens houses in so much as the second Councell of Saltzburgh thought it requisite to marre their mirth unkindly restraining them by so strict a Law that whosoever should practice that as they pleased to call it ignominious Art for a whole year together should ipso jure remaine under the deepest censure but if a shorter time being thrice admonished he repented not he was to be stripped of all clerical priviledges And as the Clerks were notoriously active in these mirthful disorders so they were no lesse passive in some other When a young Preist was to say his first Masse what a costly height of merry entertainment was he wont to be put to what Meat what Wine what Musick was sufficient for this gratulation And if a Souldier were to be honoured with a Military Girdle how were all the neighbour Parsonages filled with the chargeable entertainment of that jolly and reveling retinue What pleasure through his Holinesses indulgence do his white sonnes of Spain finde in their Juogo de Toros which though it were not long since for the great inconveniences which were found in it loudly bellowed down by a Bull from Rome yet now lately upon some cautious termes is let as loose as the Bull that is hunted and even Clerks and religious persons not inhibited from being spectators What should I speak of our merry Wakes and May-games and Christmas triumphs which you have once seen here and may see still in those under the Romane dition In all which put together you may well say No Greek can be merrier then they Now on the other side in opposition to these jollities what I pray you hath Protestancy to lay in the scales that might weigh down or but sway the Balance to an equilibration yea what is there here but a sad serious sportlesse Devotion All they can say or do is as their preachers inculcate to them for their cold comfort that of St. James If ye be merry sing Psalmes and that of St. Paul In Psalmes and Hymnes and Spiritual Songs singing with a grace in your hearts unto the Lord and to labour for that inward joy of the Holy Ghost which may make them truly and secretly happy as for outward recreations they allow them gladly but onely such forsooth as whereby the body may be better and the soul no worse and higher they will not go Alas we have either no Holidayes or no sport in them no Jubilees no Carnevals no Pageants no musical Vespers no Bishops now as it falls out either Boyes of Men no baiting of Bulls but with Dogs to observe a Statute no Wakes no May-games no Christmas Lords shortly like weake Melancholicks we boast of no pleasure but honest sober modest and such as might not mis-become an Heremite nor shame a Saint CHAP. III. The trinmgh of Holinesse WHiles we professe to lament the impurity of the lives of too many of ours confessing it uncapable of either denial or concealment our Good mother of Rome boasts still of her holinesse and we may believe her Onely it hath been her unhappy lot to meet with unkinde sonnes which have not stuck to blazon her as shamefully foule both in life and doctrine and her mishap hath been yet the harder that the honester men have been still the more clamorous It was but a gentle word of Cassander when he said he denied not but that the Church of Rome had not a little departed from her wonted beauty and splendor But who would believe that so pious a man as John Gerson Chancellor of Paris should so slander his mother as to say The state of the Church is grown altogether brutish and monstrous and should give an Item to the overseers to inquire whether the Cloisters of Nunnes be not become the Stewes of Harlots and the Monasteries of Canons be not grown to be Innes and Market-places and whether their Cathedral Churches be not made the Dennes of Theeves and Robbers And that another no lesse godly then he should say that the Church is grown to that passe that it is not worthy to be governed by any but by Reprobates Who would think that so wise a man as Caesarius Branchedorus could so far over-reach as to say that the lusts of whoredome and gluttony and other shameful enormities had gotten such an head that young men did Pati muliebria and Preists did facere virilia that their Nunnes did as it were openly professe unchastity and at last that who soever was noted to be a shamelesse Adulterer or a wilde Ruffian that had lavisht out all his Patrimony anu pene ventre was sure to betake himself to the Court of Rome as his Sanctuary Yea who would think that such a Saint as Bernard should not stick to say of some places under the Roman obedience that they were not pastures of
Sheep but if he durst say so of Devils and could cry out that in their Bishopricks Justice Right Honesty Religion were utterly lost Who could have lookt for such language to fall from so grave a father as Espencaeus that our Ancestors wisht that Clerks should turne their Wives into their Sisters but now our Age turnes them into Lemmans and Whores and Harlots and consequently their lawful issue into Bastards And again God hath taken away our Sonnes and the Devil hath given us Nephewes Who could imagine that so learned and ingenuous a man as Erasmus would so far wrong his Neighbours as to say turba monasteriorum a number of Monasteries are so degenerated that the Stewes are more chast and sober and modest then they That so honest a man as Nicol de Clemangis should cry out of these sacrilegious profaners of the Church as worse not then Heathens onely but then very Devils And what shall we say to that holy Bishop who told Benedict the 12. then newly elected Pope that he had had a Vision wherein that face of his was clearely represented to him and withal that therein also there was shewn to him a beastly dirty stable with a white Marble coffer in the midst of it very faire but empty adding this Commentary upon his said Vision to his new Holinesse You are that white coffer the Church is that stable it behoâ—es you to purge the Court and See Apostolique which is at this day in a soule and beastly condition All this while these men speak not of those professedly debauched wretches that make a trade of filthinesse whereof yet St. Thomas Aquinas makes a cleanly comparison and in a sort a plea for their toleration That a Whore in the World is as the pumpe in the Ship or a privy in a Palace Take these away and you shall fill them with stench and annoyance Surely by the way upon this account Rome must needs be very sweet when in that City alone in the year 1565. as it said there were reckoned no fewer then 2800. Curtisans wherof if any should be coy and pretend to a repentant modesty some grave Authors of theirs have taught that they may be compelled to their fornication though the shamefaced Casuist Covarruvids blush at the motion but what speak I of Fornication Fornication is but meere chastity in comparison of what their own Casuists confesse to be usually acted in their 〈◊〉 I will favour chast eyes in concealing it It was a strange Devotion in the Heathen Corinthians that they prayed for an increase of their Whores and thought to please their gods with vows of bringing in more supply of Curtisans I never heard that Venice it selfe ever did so much Ywis there is no need of any such Devotion there are store of such cattle everywhere The supplication of Beggars tendered to King Henry the eight assured him that by vertue of the sacred Votaries there were 100000. Whores in this our Nation not all such sure by open profession as what and how many acts make up that trade which some measure onely by scores others by thousands I leave to their Vivaldus and Mosconius to determine but by secret constupration for they instance in mens Wives and Daughters and Maid-servants thus foulely debauched though no doubt many a one of them the while wipt their mouths and made faire weather of it pretending chastity and therein resembling a foule close-stoole with a gilt cover Neither was it otherwise elsewhere whereupon it was that Dr. Staupitius told the Bishop of Magdeburgh that he was the greatest whore-master in Germany for whereas other masters of the trade had but fifty Florens yearely the Bishop had no lesse for his rent of them then 500. l. Did these odious crimes shroud their heads in Brothel-houses onely the shame were lesse Although the very Abassines could teach us to barre these filthes out of our Cities and as our fore fathers were wont to disgrace them with peculiar habits of infamy But that the reproach of such foul guiltinesse should be cast upon holy Orders upon persons professing strict mortification the slander is intolerable Were the fathers of the Council of Mentz well advised when they could say Quidam sacerdotes c. some Preists lie with their own Sisters and beget children of them Was Salmeron sober when he said we must provide what we may that our Preists may not be bad men though many of us cannot be good Was the zealous Preacher Fryar Mènotein in his right wits when in the Pulpit he play'd so boldly upon the Clergy Ye my Masters of the Church do not damne your soules ye have now Birds in a Cage that chirp to you by night ye know my meaning put them away Did he not rave when he told them that all the goods of their Churchmen passe away upon three words of the Ave Marie First Benedicta tu in their great pompes and braveries The second in mulieribus their Gossips and Lemmans The third Fructus ventris in their Banquets and Belly-cheere But was he not stark staring mad when he siad Verily it seemes that our Prelates were sent of God by way of a scourge to us or rather given by the Devil to destroy and ruine the Church and other where they say that the streets of hell are paved with our Preists crownes yea not to mention Dominicus a Soto which confesses the multitude of concubinaries and adulterers in their Clergy Was not out Bromiard worthy of a sharpe censure for that shrewd tale which he tells of a Preist returning from his Lemman somewhat late who hearing a lamentable noise of a ghost not far from him askt what or who he was the ghost replied who art thou that askest A Preist said the man A Preist said the ghost A Preist and being asked why he redoubled the word with such a vehemency answer was made by the ghost that there came daily such store of Preists to hell that he had thought there had been none left alive upon earth And elsewhere Mali Praelati c. Ill Prelates saith he commit soules to the Devils to keep that is to lewde Curates which destroy them more then the Devils themselves for the very Devils would not commit such riotous outrages nor give so many wicked examples as they Not to make any reckoning of our Jeffry Chaucer or their Fryar Mantuan whose tongues shall passe for no slander What shall we say to their own Chronicler Nauclerus who hath presumptuously dared to say Horror est c What foule things were done by twenty eight Popes on a row it is horrible to tell In the meane time it is welll for the fathers of the Society that they are stanche for that their holy founder St. Ignatius Loiota pray'd for them as Alphonsus Vargas tells us that none of that fellowship for an 100. years after the rule received might fall into any deadly sin so as
Immortal Reliques The feather of the Archangel which the Pardoner had it not been purloined would have shewed to the admiring multudes And the red Velvet Buckler now still reserved in a Castle of Normandy which the Archangel Michael made use of when he combated the Dragon Howsoever I do not apprehend so much miracle in the preservation of those Monuments as in their supernatural multiplication that the Cross which once Simon of Cyrene bore on his back should now be able to load a Ship That whereas John Baptist lost but one head now there are two sensibly to be seene one at Amiens in France as our Rhemists affirm the other in St. Sylvesters Abby in Rome besides the scattered parcells of it in several places Now in all these respective circumstances of Veneration well may the Roman Catholick I trow say of all theirs according to that of the Psalmist Such Honour have all his Saints But in the meane time what becomes of the most eminent and best deserving professor of Protestancy What Ywis but this He dies and is tumbled into an hole mortuus est sine lux sine crux sine clango and his memory dyes and lies buried with him without any Epitaph but dead and forgotten yet his obstinacy talkes confidently of a blessed Triumph in Heaven far surpassing all the pompous commemorations upon earth and pleaseth himselfe with that of Solomon in spight of all malice Memoria justi in benedictionibus CHAP. VI The triumph of Ease THere are excellencies which are so hard in atchieving that they scarce requite the cost of purchasing like to some sweet kernel which lies inclosed in so thick a shell that it is hardly worth the cracking Give me those contentments which besides their value and pleasure in their enjoyment are justly commended by the ease of attaining them Such is the Roman profession The dignity whereof is equally matched with the facility Perhaps our holy Mother will give me little thankes for this praise as affecting rather a sterne austerity and deep mortification in the practice of her Religion boasting of the harsh discipline and exact rigour of her Clients showing with much gloriation their stinging Haire-clothes their bloody Whips their knotted Girdles their rough and patched Garments their barefoot Walks their uneasie Lodgings their broken Sleepes their purposely-disguised Habits rejoycing in the ambitious contestation betwixt her St. Francis and her St. Clare whethe rs Coate should be more course and beggerly upbraiding the Hereticks with their apparent Delicacie the nice curation of their Skin the softnesse and cost of their Attire the curiosity of their fastidious Mawes their sinking in their Down-beds the perpetual Frolicks of their Feastings and the pleasures of their continual Disports And surely as to the former of these the plea cannot be denied to be just and uncapable of contradiction What Heremites or Recluses can the Protestant Churches boast of What woolward penanes what weary pilgrimages what bleeding backs Onely they pretend for themselves thus If the body of Piety be yours the soul of Piety is ours If the Roman Catholick have the sowrer face the English Catholick hath the sadder heart if the one professe more mortification of the flesh the other more deep and lively stirrings of the spirit But let not our holy Mother stand too stiffly upon the termes of her outward rigidities Her Opposites will be ready to clap her in the teeth with St. Pauls check That bodily exercise profiteth little and to put her in minde of what her dearest Son St. Francis said once when it was too late That it repented him he had used his Brother Body so hardly and what another that had more wit and no lesse holinesse then he even St. Bernard himselfe said who lamentably complaining of the wrong that he had done to himselfe by his undue austerities whereby he had disabled himselfe to the publick services of his holy Devotions hath left this caveat behind him for all posterity Cavendum est c. Heed must be taken saith he lest whiles we whip too much Salutem perdamus we destroy our health and whiles we seek to subdue an enemy we kill not a Subject Rather notwithstanding the ostentation of these outward penalties let not our holy Mother suffer her selfe to lose the praise of the facility of her Religion For as for these bodily penances whether voluntary or imposed the Opposites make light to be out-done by them and are ready to say that if the sin of the soul could be done away with a little smart of the body they would think it a very easie condition avowing that the inward acts of true mortification which they practice are Scorpions in comparison of those Flea-bitings They can twit her with ill patternes of bodily sufferings not inferiour to hers The Mattarii amongst the Manichees lay as hard as her Votaries The Baalites spared their flesh lesse then her cruellest whip-stocks The Charinzarri can keep as strict a Fast as theirs if but for Arzibur their Sergius his Dog The Turkes can keep a more abstinent Fast till they can see a Star the Mahumetan Dervises the Bonzes of China the Menegreros of Pegu and Bramaa and other the Votaries of the Indian Pagodes put themselves to more paine then the most selfe-afflicting Capuchine yet never the better And can tell her withall that she with all these shall for a cold thanks for their labour heare from the mouth of God Quis requisivit Who required this at your hands Let her therefore if I might be worthy to advise her stand upon those easie taskes of Piety and Religion wherein she goes farre beyond all her Corrivals For whereas the fond Protestant professes with Luther that he findes it a very hard work to pray for as much as the heart being forestalled with worldly thoughts is not easily reduced to a praying condition and the minde of a man is still apt in the holiest action to be volatile and lies exposed to a world of distractions and much strugling there must needs be to work that froward peice in our bosome to a meet apprehension of that infinite Majesty whom we speak unto and to those holy affections and divine ravishments of spirit which are requisite in that man who desires to pour out his soul to God with sensible comfort the more favourable Oracles of Rome teach us that there needs none of all this Vt quid perditio haec It is not necessary saith her acute Suarez in prayer to think of the thing signified by the words neither is it essential to prayer for a man to think of the speech it selfe it is sufficient to think of God to whom he speakes He that wants Devotion saith Jacobus Graphius sins not As the words of a Charmer saith learned Salmeron have their force and efficacy though they be not understood of him that utters them So Divine words spoken with a good and simple intention have
force and vertue to dispel all the power of the Devil To what purpose then should any man rack his thoughts to bring and hold them in a due fixednesse upon the matter of his prayer when the very sound of the words will do the feat without the concurrence of the heart And this Antoninus illustrates by a witty example One propounded this Question to a learned Priest whether the prayer which he understood not were equally effectual with those which he spake with understanding and received this answer As a precious stone saith he is of no lesse worth when it is in the hand of an unskilful man then when in the hand of an expert Jeweller so are good prayers Cardinal Cajetan therefore was foulely overseene when he flatly determined that it would be more to the edification of mens souls that prayers should be made in their own Mother tongue wherein it is some marvel to see him seconded by Fisher the Jesuite in asserting of that which his fellow Ledesma termes no better then a profane recitation What Latinity there is in Opus operatum it matters not I am sure there is much ease Well fare St. Dominick therefore who they say by Revelation brought up that order of the set number of our Paters and Aves which costs us no paines but Lip-labour although it seemes he fell somewhat too short in his reckning allotting but 63. Aves to the Corone of our Lady in remembrance of her so many yeares that she is said to have lived upon earth whereas now more accurate search hath found them to be 73. I am sure there is no fervent prayer raised out of a recollected and well wrought heart which requires not more true labour then an hundred formal Rosaries And whereas the Protestant and all religious Christians in all other Churches think it concernes them highly to meditate in the word of God day and night and to labour earnestly to informe themselves in all points necessary to salvation Our holy Mother bids us save that labour also not onely forbearing to encourage Lay persons as St. Chrisostome did of old to read the Sacred Scriptures but absolutely forbidding the use of them in their native Languages upon no small penalty and if any passage thereof be allowed to be publikely read in the Church it is in Latin no lesse familiar to the poor ignorant Auditories then Greek and Hebrew lest they should understand and trouble their heads about it Indeed what should unlettred Laicks do with Scripture more then children with edge-tooles It is not necessary to salvation saith Cardinal Bellarmine to beleive that there are any divine Scriptures And perhaps it had been better for the Church saith Cardinal Hosius if no Scriptures had been written It is abundantly enough for Lay people to cast their soules upon the trust of the Church which cannot erre and to think themselves safe and rich enough if they be furnished with the Colliers faith without any curious and explicite inquisition into the Articles of beliefe And whereas the heaviest load that can be upon the heart of a Christian is his sin which cannot but breed a perpetual unquietness to the soul as that which according to Luthers determination is attended with great concussion of spirit the gentle Casuists of our holy Mother Rome speak better things and like kinde and cunning Physitians give present ease to the troubled Conscience Contritio una c. One act of contrition though never so little is enough to blot out the greatest sin faith Card. Tollet To the perfection of penitence there is onely required an outward grief of heart if never so small saith Maldonat Nay there needs not a full contrition an attrition is enough saith Franciscus Victoria It is not necessary to sorrow for one sin more then another since a general sorow for all our sins in common is sufficient to Contrition and such a sorrow as this is not more intense for one sin then for another saith the same Author Courage therefore say the comfortable Casuists the most sins are venial these break not the peace betwixt God and the soule As for the mortal at the worst they are blowne away by the breath of Confession Yea which is yet more some sins by custome which our simplicity would have thought had rather aggravated them lose their malignant nature and become no sins For example If a man saith the Casuist Rodriguez have a custome of swearing Let him have once done his penance for it although he afterward swears still not considering what he saith he doth not therein sin because to swear thus is not an humane voluntary act Thus he for which he cites Medina also But if Custome do not abate a sin it is no more but confess and be free And though it prove too true which that great Tell-troth Gerson observes that there is scarce any full and sincere confession now a dayes to be had yet that blame is not to be imputed to the Ordinance but to the man who having swallowed the poyson sticks at the Antidote whereby he might be cured Our Bromiard can tell us of a close sinner of whom the Divel could say confidently Tush let that man alone I have his Tongue fast in my purse who having afterwards unloaded his Conscience by a penitent confession and turned over a new leafe the same Divel being expostulated with concerning him could answer I said indeed that I had his Tongue in my purse and so had but his Confessarie hath pickt my purse and got it out The moral whereof is no other then that of wise Solomon He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but he that confesseth his sin shall finde mercy Though I perceive already the Heretiques are here ready to take me short and to pull me by the sleeve and tell me that I have forgot the principal verbe for Solomon saith He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall finde mercy But it is no matter for that whiles our learned Casuists assure us that not a full and absolute act of the will but a mere velleity to leave a sin is ground enough for a perfect pardon and clear absolution which I hope is an easier way then is proposed by the crabbed opposites who stand peremptorily upon the necessity of an hearty sorrow and deep compunction of the soul with an earnest loathing and detestation of the sin to the obtaining of remission I like not these severe and cruel Task-masters which make the way to Heaven more strait and difficult then it is Give me those plausible and indiligent Doctors that professe by the very act of Sacramental penance to change the eternal punishments of hell into the Temporal of Purgatory and to buy off the temporal torments of Purgatory with the purchase of Indulgences so as now hell is quit Purgatory discharged and Heaven opened and Hey then up go we and is not this a more