They do so insult over, and restrain them, never Hobby so dared a Larke, that they will not offend the least tradition, tread, or scarce look awry: Deus bone (Lavater exclaimes) quot hoc commentum de purgatorio miserè afflixit! good God, how many men have been miserably afflicted by this fiction of purgatory!

To these advantages of Hope and Fear, ignorance and simplicity, he hath severall engines, traps, devices, to batter and enthrall, omitting no opportunities, according to mens severall inclinations, abilities, to circumvent and humour them, to maintain his superstition; sometimes to stupifie, besot them; sometimes again by oppositions, factions, to set all at oddes and in an uproar; sometimes he infects one man, and makes him a principall agent; sometimes whole Cities, Countries.

If of meaner sort, by stupidity, canonicall obedience, blinde zeal, &c. If of better note, by pride, ambition, popularity, vain glory. If of the Clergie and more eminent, of better parts than the rest, more learned, eloquent, he puffes them up with a vain conceit of their own worth, scientia inflati, they begin to swell and scorn all the world in respect of themselves, and thereupon turn heretickes, schismatickes, broach new doctrines, frame new crotchets and the like;

or else out of too much learning become mad, or out of curiosity they will search into Gods secrets, and eat of the forbidden fruit; or out of presumption of their holiness and good gifts, inspirations, become prophets, Enthusiasts, and what not?

Or else if they be displeased, discontent, and have not (as they suppose) preferment to their worth, have some disgrace, repulse, neglected, or not esteemed as they fondly value themselves, or out of emulation, they begin presently to rage and rave, cœlum terræ miscent, they become so impatient in an instant, that a whole kingdom cannot contain them; they will set all in a combustion, all at variance, to be revenged of their adversaries.

Donatus when he saw Cecilianus preferred before him in the bishoprick of Carthage, turned hereticke, and so did Arian, because Alexander was advanced: we have examples at home, and too many experiments of such persons. If they be lay men of better note, the same engines of pride, ambition, emulation and jealousie take place, they will be gods themselves: Alexander in India after his victories, became so insolent, he would be adored for a god:

and those Romane Emperors came to that heighth of madness they must have Temples built to them, sacrifices to their deities, Divus Augustus, D. Claudius, D. Adrianus: Heliogabalus put out that Vestall fire at Rome, expelled the Virgins, and banished all other Religions all over the world, and would be the sole God himself.

Our Turks, China Kings, great Chams, and Mogors do little less, assuming divine and bumbast titles to themselves; the meaner sort are too credulous, and led with blinde zeal, blinde obedience, to prosecute and maintain whatsoever their sottish leaders shall propose, what they in pride and singularity, revenge, vain glory, ambition, spleen, for gain, shall rashly maintain and broach,

their disciples make a matter of conscience, of hell and damnation, if they do it not, and will rather forsake wives, children, house and home, lands, goods, fortunes, life it self, than omit or abjure the least tittle of it, and to advance the common cause, undergo any miseries, turn traitors, assassinates, pseudo-martyrs, with full assurance and hope of reward in that other world, that they shall certainly merit by it, win heaven, be canonized for Saints.

Now when they are truly possessed with blinde zeal, and nusled with superstition, he hath many other baits to inveagle and infatuate them farther yet, to make them quite mortified and mad, and that under colour of perfection, to merit by penance, going wolward, whipping, alms, fastings, &c. An.1320. there was a Sect of whippers in Germany, that to the astonishment of the beholders, lashed, and cruelly tortured themselves. I could give many other instances of each particular.

But these works so done are meritorious, ex opere operato, ex condigno, for themselves and others, to make them macerate and consume their bodies, specie virtutis & umbra, those Evangelicall counsels are propounded, as our pseudocatholicks call them, canonicall obedience, wilfull poverty, vows of chastity, monkery, and a solitary life, which extend almost to all religions and superstitions, to Turks, China’s, Gentiles, Abyssines, Greeks, Latines, and all Countries.

Amongst the rest, fasting, contemplation, solitariness, are as it were certain rams by which the divell doth batter and work upon the strongest constitutions. Nonnulli (saith Peter Forestus) ob longas inedias, studia & meditationes cœlestes, de rebus sacris & religione semper agitant, by fasting over much, and divine meditations, are overcome.

Not that fasting is a thing of it self to be discommended, for it is an excellent means to keep the body in subjection, a preparative to devotion, the physick of the soul, by which chast thoughts are ingendred, true zeal, a divine spirit, whence wholesome counsels do proceed, concupiscence is restrained, vicious and predominant lusts and humours are expelled. The Fathers are very much in commendation of it, and as Calvin notes, sometimes immoderate.

The mother of health, key of heaven, a spirituall wing to ereare us, the chariot of the holy Ghost, banner of faith, &c. And ’tis true they say of it, if it be moderately and seasonably used, by such parties as Moses, Elias, Daniel, CHRIST, and as his Apostles made use of it; but when by this means they will supererogate, and as Erasmus well taxeth, Cœlum non sufficere putant suis meritis, Heaven is too small a reward for it;

They make choice of times and meats, buy and sell their merits, attribute more to them than to the ten Commandments, and count it a greater sin to eat meat in Lent, than to kill a man, and as one saith, Plus respiciunt assum piscem, quam Christum crucifixum, plus salmonem quam Solomonem, quibus in ore Christus, Epicurus in corde, when some counterfeit, and some attribute more to such works of theirs than to Christs death and passion; the divell sets in a foot, strangely deludes them, and by that means makes them to overthrow the temperature of their bodies, and hazard their souls.

Never any strange illusions of divels amongst Hermites, Anachorites, never any visions, phantasmes, apparitions, Enthusiasmes, Prophets, any revelations, but immoderate fasting, bad diet, sickness, melancholy, solitariness, or some such things were the precedent causes, the forerunners or concomitants of them. The best opportunity and sole occasion the Divell takes to delude them. Marcilius Cognatus lib.1.cont.cap.7. hath many stories to this purpose, of such as after long fasting have been seduced by divels:

and ’tis a miraculous thing to relate (as Cardan writes) what strange accidents proceed from fasting; dreams, superstition, contempt of torments, desire of death, prophesies, paradoxes, madness; fasting naturally prepares men to these things. Monkes, Anachorites, and the like, after much emptiness become melancholy, vertiginous, they think they hear strange noises, confer with Hobgoblins, Divels, rivell up their bodies, & dum hostem insequimur, saith Gregory, civem quem diligimus trucidamus, they become bare Skeletons, skin and bones: Carnibus abstinentes proprias carnes devorant, ut nil præter cutem & ossa sit reliquum.

Hilarion, as Hierome reports in his life, and Athanasius of Antonius, was so bare with fasting, that the skin did scarce stick to the bones; for want of vapours he could not sleep, and for want of sleep became idle headed, heard every night infants cry, oxen low, wolves howl, lions roar (as he thought) clattering of chains, strange voices, and the like illusions of divels.

Such symptomes are common to those that fast long, are solitary, given to contemplation, over much solitariness and meditation. Not that these things (as I said of fasting) are to be discommended of themselves, but very behovefull in some cases and good: sobriety and contemplation joyn our souls to God, as that heathen Porphyrie can tell us. Extasis is a taste of future happiness, by which we are united unto God, a divine melancholy, a spirituall wing Bonaventure terms it, to lift us up to heaven: But as it is abused, a meer dotage, madness, a cause and symptome of Religious Melancholy.