The middle sort, some for private gain, hope of Ecclesiastical preferment, (quis expedivit psittaco suum χαῖρε) popularity, base flattery, must and will believe all their paradoxes and absurd tenents, without exception, and as obstinately maintain and put in practice all their traditions and idolatrous ceremonies (for their religion is halfe a Trade) to the death;

they will defend all, the golden Legend it self, with all the lyes and tales in it: as that of S. George, S. Christopher, S. Winifred, S. Denis, &c. It is a wonder to see how Nic. Harpsfield that pharisaicall Impostor amongst the rest, Ecclesiast. hist. cap.22. sæc. prim. sex. puzzles himself to vindicate that ridiculous fable of S. Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, as when they lived, how they came to Cullen, by whom martyred, &c.

though he can say nothing for it, yet he must and will approve it: nobilitavit (inquit) hoc sæculum Ursula cum comitibus, cujus historia utinam tam mihi esset expedita & certa, quam in animo meo certum ac expeditum est, eam esse cum sodalibus beatam in cœlo virginem.

They must and will (I say) either out of blinde zeal believe, vary their compass with the rest, as the latitude of religion varies, apply themselves to the times and seasons, and for fear and flattery are content to subscribe and do all that in them lies to maintain and defend their present government,

and slavish religious Schoolmen, Canonists, Jesuits, Friers, Priests, Orators, Sophisters, who either for that they had nothing else to do, luxuriant wits knew not otherwise how to busie themselves in those idle times, for the Church then had few or no open adversaries, or better to defend their lyes, fictions, miracles, transubstantions, traditions, Popes pardons, Purgatories, Masses, impossibilities, &c.

with glorious shews, fair pretences, big words, and plausible wits have coined a thousand idle questions, nice distinctions, subtleties, Obs and Sols, such tropological, allegorical expositions, to salve all appearances, objections, such quirks and quiddities, Quodlibetaries, as Bale saith of Ferribrigge and Strode, instances, ampliations, decrees, glosses, canons,

that in stead of sound Commentaries, good preachers, are come in a company of mad sophisters, primo secundo secundarii, sectaries, Canonists, Sorbonists, Minorites, with a rabble of idle controversies and questions, an Papa sit Deus, an quasi Deus? An participet utramque Christi naturam?

Whether it be as possible for God to be a Humble bee, or a Gourd as a man? Whether he can produce respect without a foundation or term, make a Whore a Virgine? Fetch Trajans soul from hell, and how? with a rable of questions about hell fire: Whether it be a greater sin to kill a man, or to clout shooes upon a Sunday? Whether God can make another God like unto himself?

Such, saith Kemnitius, are most of your Schoolmen, (meer Alchymists) 200. Commentators on Peter Lombard; (Pitseus catal. scriptorum Anglic. reckons up 180. English Commentators alone, on the matter of the sentences) Scotists, Thomists, Reals, Nominals, &c.

and so perhaps that of Saint Austin may be verefied. Indocti rapiunt cœlum, docti interim descendunt ad infernum. Thus they continued in such errour, blindness, decrees, sophismes, superstitions; idle ceremonies and traditions were the sum of their new coyned holiness and religion, and by these knaveries and stratagems they were able to involve multitudes, to deceive the most sanctified souls, and if it were possible the very elect.

In the mean time the true Church, as wine and water mixt, lay hid and obscure to speak of, till Luthers time, who began upon a sudden to defecate, and as another Sun to drive away those foggy mists of superstition, to restore it to that purity of the Primitive Church. And after him many good and godly men, divine spirits, have done their endeavors, and still do.

And what their ignorance esteem’d so holy, Our wiser ages do accompt as folly.

But see the divel, that will never suffer the Church to be quiet or at rest: no garden so well tilled but some noxious weeds grow up in it, no wheat but it hath some tares; we have a mad giddy company of Precisians, Schismaticks, and some Hereticks even in our own bosoms in another extream, Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt;

That out of too much zeal in opposition to Antichrist, humane traditions, those Romish rites and superstitions, will quite demolish all, they will admit of no ceremonies at all, no fasting dayes, no Cross in Baptism, kneeling at Communion, no Church musick, &c. no Bishops Courts, no Church government, rail at all our Church discipline, will not hold their tongues, and all for the peace of thee O Sion.

No not so much as Degrees some of them will tolerate, or Universities, all humane learning, (tis cloaca diaboli) hoods, habits, cap and surpless, such as are things indifferent in themselves and wholly for ornament, decency, or distinction sake, they abhor, hate, and snuff at, as a stone horse when he meets a Bear: they make matters of conscience of them, and will rather forsake their livings than subscribe to them.

They will admit of no Holidayes, or honest recreations, as of hawking, hunting, &c. no Churches, no bels some of them, because Papists use them: no discipline, no ceremonies but what they invent themselves: no interpretations of Scriptures, no Comments of Fathers, no Councels, but such as their own phantastical spirits dictate, or Recta ratio, as Socinians, by which spirit misled, many times they broach as prodigious paradoxes as Papists themselves.

Some of them turn Prophets, have secret revelations, will be of privy councel with God himself, and know all his secrets, Per capillos spiritum sanctum tenent, & omnia sciunt cum sint asini omnium obstinatissimi,

A company of giddy heads will take upon them to define how many shall be saved, and who damned in a parish, where they shall sit in heaven, interpret Apocalypses, (Commentatores præcipites & vertiginosos, one cals them, as well he might) and those hidden mysteries to private persons, times, places, as their own spirit informs them, private revelations shall suggest, and precisely set down when the world shall come to an end, what year, what moneth, what day.

Some of them again have such strong faith, so presumptuous, they will go into infected houses, expel divels, and fast forty daies, as Christ himself did; some call God and his attributes into question, as Vorstius and Socinus; some Princes, civil Magistrates, and their authorities, as Anabaptists, will do all their own private spirit dictates, and nothing else.

Brownists, Barrowists, Familists, and those Amsterdamian sects and sectaries, are led all by so many private spirits. It is a wonder to reveal what passages Sleidan relates in his Commentaries, of Cretink, Knipperdoling, and their associates, those mad men of Munster in Germany; what strange Enthusiasmes, sottish Revelations they had, how absurdly they carried themselves, deluded others;

and as prophane Machiavel in his political disputations holds of Christian religion, in general it doth enervate, debilitate, take away mens spirits and courage from them, simpliciores reddit homines, breeds nothing so couragious souldiers as that Romane: we may say of these peculiar sects, their Religion takes away not spirits onely, but wit and judgement, and deprives them of their understanding:

for some of them are so far gone with their private Enthusiasmes and revelations, that they are quite mad, out of their wits. What greater madness can there be, than for a man to take upon him to be God, as some do? to be the holy Ghost, Elias, and what not? In Poland 1518. in the reign of King Sigismund, one said he was Christ, and got him 12. Apostles, came to judge the world, and strangely deluded the Commons.

One David George an illiterate painter, not many years since, did as much in Holland, took upon him to be the Messias, and had many followers. Benedictus Victorinus Faventinus consil. 15. writes as much of one Honorius, that thought he was not onely inspired as a Prophet, but that he was a God himself, and had familiar conference with God and his Angels.

Lavat. de spect. c.2. part. 8. hath a story of one John Sartorius, that thought he was the Prophet Elias, and cap. 7. of divers others that had conference with Angels, were Saints, Prophets, Wierus lib. 3. de Lamiis c. 7. makes mention of a Prophet of Groning that said he was God the Father; of an Italian and Spanish Prophet that held as much.

We need not rove so far abroad, we have familiar examples at home; Hacket that said he was Christ, Coppinger and Arthington his disciples: Burchet and Hovatus burned at Norwich. We are never likely seven years together without some such new Prophets that have several inspirations, some to convert the Jews, some fast forty dayes, go with Daniel to the Lions den; some foretel strange things, some for one thing, some for another.

Great precisians of mean conditions and very illiterate, most part by a preposterous zeal, fasting, meditation, melancholy, are brought into those gross errors and inconveniences. Of those men I may conclude generally, that howsoever they may seem to be discreet, and men of understanding in other matters, discourse well, læsam habent imaginationem, they are like comets, round in all places but only where they blaze, cætera sani,

they have impregnable wits many of them, and discreet otherwise, but in this their madness and folly breaks out beyond measure, in infinitum erumpit stultitia. They are certainly far gone with melancholy, if not quite mad, and have more need of physick than many a man that keeps his bed; more need of Hellebor than those that are in Bedlam.