Symptomes generall, love to their own sect, hate of all other Religions, obstinacie, peevishness, ready to undergo any danger or crosse for it; Martyrs, blinde zeal, blinde obedience, fastings, vowes, belief of incredibilities, impossibilities: Particular of Gentiles, Mahometans, Jews, Christians; and in them, Heretickes old and new, Schismaticks, Schoolmen, Prophets, Enthusiasts, &c.

Fleat Heraclitus, an rideat Democritus? in attempting to speak of these Symptomes, shall I laugh with Democritus, or weep with Heraclitus? they are so ridiculous and absurd on the one side, so lamentable and tragical on the other; a mixt Scene offers it self, so full of errours, and a promiscuous variety of objects, that I know not in what strain to represent it.

When I think of that Turkish paradise, those Jewish fables, and pontifical rites, those Pagan superstitions, their sacrifices and ceremonies, as to make images of all matter, and adore them when they have done; to see them kiss the pyx, creep to the cross, &c. I cannot choose but laugh with Democritus: but when I see them whip and torture themselves, grind their souls for toyes and trifles, desperate, and now ready to die, I cannot choose but weep with Heraclitus.

When I see a Priest say masse, with all those apish gestures, murmurings, &c. read the customes of the Jews Synagogue, or Mahometa Meschites, I must needs laugh at their folly, risum teneatis amici? but when I see them make matters of conscience of such toyes and trifles, to adore the Divel, to endanger their souls, to offer their children to their Idols, &c. I must needs condole their misery.

When I see two superstitious Orders contend pro aris & focis, with such have and hold, de lana caprina, some write such great Volumes to no purpose, take so much pains to so small effect, their Satyrs, invectives, apologies, dull and gross fictions; when I see grave learned men rail and scold like butter-women, methinks ’tis pretty sport, and fit for Calphurnius and Democritus to laugh at. But when I see so much bloud spilt, so many murders and massacres, so many cruel battels fought, &c. ’tis a fitter subject for Heraclitus to lament.

As Merlin when he sate by the lake side with Vortiger, and had seen the white and red dragon fight, before he began to interpret or to speak, in fletum prorupit, fell a weeping, and then proceeded to declare to the King what it meant. I should first pity and bewaile this misery of humane kind with some passionate preface, wishing mine eyes a fountain of tears, as Jeremy did, and then to my task.

For it is that great torture, that infernal plague of mortal men, omnium pestium pestilentissima superstitio, and able of it self alone to stand in opposition to all other plagues, miseries and calamities whatsoever; far more cruel, more pestiferous, more grievous, more general, more violent, of a greater extent.

Other fears and sorrows, grievances of body and mind, are troublesome for the time; but this is for ever, eternal damnation, hell it self, a plague, a fire: an inundation hurts one Province alone, and the loss may be recovered; but this superstition involves all the world almost, and can never be remedied.

Sickness and sorrows come and go, but a superstitious soul hath no rest; superstitione imbutus animus nunquam quietus esse potest, no peace, no quietness. True Religion and Superstition are quite opposite, longe diversa carnificina & pietas, as Lactantius describes, the one ereares, the other dejects; illorum pietas, mera impietas;

the one is an easie yoak, the other an intolerable burden, an absolute tyranny; the one a sure anchor, an haven; the other a tempestuous Ocean; the one makes, the other marrs; the one is wisdome, the other is folly, madness, indiscretion; the one unfained, the other a counterfeit; the one a diligent observer, the other an ape; one leads to heaven, the other to hell. But these differences will more evidently appear by their particular symptomes.

What Religion is, and of what parts it doth consist, every Catechism will tell you, what Symptomes it hath, and what effects it produceth: but for their superstitions, no tongue can tell them, no pen express, they are so many, so diverse, so uncertain, so unconstant, and so different from themselves. Tot mundi superstitiones, quot cœlo stellæ, one saith, there be as many superstitions in the world, as there be stars in heaven, or divels themselves that are the first founders of them:

with such ridiculous, absurd symptomes and signs, so many several rites, ceremonies, torments and vexations accompanying, as may well expresse and beseem the divel to be the author and maintainer of them. I will only point at some of them, ex ungue leonem, guesse at the rest, and those of the chief kinds of superstition, which beside us Christians now domineer and crucifie the world, Gentiles, Mahometans, Jews, &c.

Of these symptomes some be general, some particular to each private sect: general to all, are, an extraordinary love and affection they bear and shew to such as are of their own sect, and more then Vatinian hate to such as are opposite in Religion, as they call it, or disagree from them in their superstitious rites, blind zeal, (which is as much a symptome as a cause,) vain fears, blind obedience, needless works, incredibilities, impossibilities, monstrous rites and ceremonies, wilfulness, blindness, obstinacy, &c.

For the first, which is love and hate, as Montanus saith, nulla firmior amicitia quàm quæ contrahitur hinc; nulla discordia major, quàm quæ à religione fit; no greater concord, no greater discord then that which proceeds from Religion.

It is incredible to relate, did not our dayly experience evince it, what factions, quam teterrimæ factiones, (as Rich. Dinoth writes) have been of late for matters of Religion in France, and what hurly burlies all over Europe for these many years. Nihil est quod tam impotenter rapiat homines, quam suscepta de salute opinio; siquidem pro ea omnes gentes corpora & animas devovere solent, & arctissimo necessitudinis vinculo se invicem colligare.

We are all brethren in Christ, servants of one Lord, members of one body, and therefore are or should be at least dearly beloved, inseparably allied in the greatest bond of love and familiarity, united partakers not only of the same cross, but coadjutors, comforters, helpers, at all times, upon all occasions: as they did in the primitive Church, Acts the 5. they sold their patrimonies, and laid them at the Apostles feet, and many such memorable examples of mutual love we have had under the ten general persecutions, many since. Examples on the other side of discord none like, as our Saviour saith, he came therefore into the world to set father against son, &c.

In imitation of whom the Devil belike (nam superstitio irrepsit veræ religionis imitatrix, superstition is still Religions ape, as in all other things, so in this) doth so combine and glew together his superstitious followers in love and affection, that they will live and die together: and what an innate hatred hath he still inspired to any other superstition opposite? How those old Romans were affected, those ten persecutions may be a witness, and that cruel executioner in Eusebius, aut lita aut morere, sacrifice or dye. No greater hate, more continuate, bitter faction, wars, persecution in all ages, then for matters of Religion, no such feral opposition, father against son, mother against daughter, husband against wife, City against City, Kingdome against Kingdome: as of old at Tentira and Combos:

Immortale odium, & nunquam sanabile vulnus, Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus, quum solos credit habendos Esse deos quos ipse colat. —

Immortal hate it breeds, a wound past cure, And fury to the commons still to endure: Because one City t’others gods as vain Deride, and his alone as good maintain.

The Turks at this day count no better of us then of dogs, so they commonly call us Gaures, infidels, miscreants, make that their main quarrel and cause of Christian persecution. If he will turn Turk, he shall be entertained as a brother, and had in good esteem, a Muselman or a believer, which is a greater tye to them then any affinity or consanguinity.

The Jews stick together like so many burrs, but as for the rest whom they call Gentiles, they do hate and abhor, they cannot endure their Messias should be a common Saviour to us all, and rather as Luther writes, then they that now scoff at them, curse them, persecute and revile them, shall be coheirs and brethren with them, or have any part of fellowship with their Messias, they would crucifie their Messias ten times over, and God himself, his Angels, and all his creatures, if it were possible, though they endure a thousand hels for it: Such is their malice towards us.

Now for Papists, what in a common cause for the advancement of their Religion they will endure, our Traitors and Pseudocatholicks will declare unto us; and how bitter on the other side to their adversaries, how violently bent, let those Marian times record, as those miserable slaughters at Merindol and Cabriers, the Spanish inquisition, the Duke of Alva’s tyranny in the Low-countries, the French Massacres and Civil Wars.