Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum.

Not there only, but all over Europe, we read of bloody battels, racks and wheels, seditions, factions, oppositions,

—— obvia signis Signa, pares aquilas, & pila minantia pilis,

Invectives and contentions. They had rather shake hands with a Jew, Turk, or as the Spaniards do, suffer Moores to live amongst them, and Jews than Protestants; My name, (saith Luther) is more odious to them then any thief or murderer.

So it is with all hereticks and schismaticks whatsoever: And none so passionate, violent in their tenents, opinions, obstinate, wilful, refractory, peevish, factious, singular and stiffe in defence of them; they do not only persecute and hate, but pity all other Religions, account them damned, blind, as if they alone were the true Church, they are the true heirs, have the Feesimple of heaven by a peculiar donation, ’tis entailed on them and their posterities, their doctrine sound, per funem aureum de cœlo delapsa doctrina, they alone are to be saved.

The Jews at this day are so incomprehensibly proud and churlish, (saith Luther, that soli salvari, soli domini terrarum salutari volunt. And as Buxtorfius adds, so ignorant and self-willed withall, that amongst their most understanding Rabbines you shall find nought but gross dotage, horrible hardness of heart, and stupend obstinacy, in all their actions, opinions, conversations: and yet so zealous withall, that no man living can be more, and vindicate themselves for the elect people of GOD.

’Tis so with all other superstitious sects, Mahometans, Gentiles in China, and Tartary; our ignorant Papists, Anabaptists, Separatists, and peculiar Churches of Amsterdam, they alone, and none but they can be saved. Zealous (as Paul saith, Rom.10.2.) without knowledge, they will endure any misery, any trouble, suffer and do that which the Sun beams will not endure to see, Religionis acti Furiis, all extremities, losses and dangers, take any pains, fast, pray, vow chastity, wilful poverty, forsake all and follow their Idols, dye a thousand deaths,

as some Jews did to Pilats souldiers, in like case, exertos præbentes jugulos, & manifeste præ se ferentes, (as Josephus hath it) chariorem esse vitâ sibi legis patriæ observationem, rather then abjure, or deny the least particle of that Religion which their Fathers profess, and they themselves have been brought up in, be it never so absurd, ridiculous, they will embrace it, and without farther enquiry or examination of the truth, though it be prodigiously false, they will believe it: they will take much more pains to go to hell, then we shall do to heaven.

Single out the most ignorant of them, convince his understanding, shew him his errors, grosness, and absurdities of his sect, Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris, he will not be perswaded. As those Pagans told the Jesuits in Japona, they would do as their fore-fathers have done; and with Ratholde the Frisian Prince, go to hell for company, if most of their friends went thither: they will not be moved, no perswasion, no torture can stir them.

So that Papists cannot brag of their vows, poverty, obedience, orders, merits, martyrdoms, fastings, alms, good works, pilgrimages: much and more then all this, I shall shew you, is, and hath been done by these superstitious Gentiles, Pagans, Idolaters and Jews: their blind zeal and idolatrous superstition in all kinds is much at one; little or no difference, and it is hard to say which is the greatest, which is the grossest.

For if a man shall duly consider those superstitious rites amongst the Ethnicks in Japan, the Bannians in Gusart, the Chinese idolaters, Americans of old, in Mexico especially, Mahometan priests, he shall finde the same government almost, the same orders and ceremonies, or so like, that they may seem all apparently to be derived from some heathen spirit, and the Roman Hierarchy no better then the rest.

In a word, this is common to all superstition, there is nothing so mad and absurd, so ridiculous, impossible, incredible, which they will not believe, observe, and diligently perform as much as in them lies; nothing so monstrous to conceive, or intolerable to put in practice, so cruel to suffer, which they will not willingly undertake. So powerful a thing is superstition. O Ægypt (as Trismegistus exclaims) thy religion is fables, and such as posterity will not believe.

I know that in true Religion it self, many mysteries are so apprehended alone by faith, as that of the Trinity, which Turks especially deride, Christs Incarnation, resurrection of the body at the last day, quod ideo credendum (saith Tertullian) quod incredibile, &c. many miracles not to be controverted or disputed of.

Mirari non rimari sapientia vera est, saith Gerhardus; & in divinis (as a good Father informs us) quædam credenda, quædam admiranda, &c. some things are to be believed, embraced, followed with all submission and obedience; some again admired.

Though Julian the Apostate scoff at Christians in this point, quod captivemus intellectum in obsequium fidei, saying, that the Christian Creed is like the Pythagorean Ipse dixit, we make our will and understanding too slavishly subject to our faith, without farther examination of the truth; yet as Saint Gregory truly answers, our Creed is altioris præstantiæ, and much more divine;

and as Thomas will, piè consideranti semper suppetunt rationes, ostendentes credibilitatem in mysteriis supernaturalibus, we do absolutely believe it, and upon good reasons, for as Gregory well informeth us; Fides non habet meritum, ubi humanâ ratio quærit experimentum; that faith hath no merit, is not worth the name of faith, that will not apprehend without a certain demonstration:

we must and will beleeve Gods word; and if we be mistaken or erre in our generall belief, as Richardus de sancto Victore vows he will say to Christ himself at the day of judgement; Lord, if we be deceived, thou alone hast deceived us: thus we plead.

But for the rest I will not justifie that pontificial consubstantiation, that which Mahometans and Jewes justly except at, as Campanella confesseth, Atheismus triumphat. cap.12. fol.125, difficillimum dogma esse, nec aliud subjectum magis hæreticorum blasphemiis, & stultis irrisionibus politicorum reperiri.

They hold it impossible, Deum in pane manducari; and besides they scoffe at it, vide gentem comedentem Deum suum, inquit quidam Maurus.

Hunc Deum muscæ et vermes irrident, quum ipsum polluunt & devorant, subditus est igni, aquæ, & latrones furantur, pixidem auream humi prosternunt, & se tamen non defendit hic Deus. Qui fieri potest, ut sit integer in singulis hostiæ particulis; idem corpus numero, tam multis locis, cœlo, terra? &c.

But he that shall read the Turkes Alcaron, the Jewes Talmud, and Papists Golden Legend, in the mean time will swear that such gross fictions, fables, vain traditions, prodigious paradoxes and ceremonies, could never proceed from any other spirit, than that of the divell himself, which is the Author of confusion and lies; and wonder withall how such wise men as have been of the Jews, such learned understanding men as Averroes, Avicenna, or those Heathen Philosophers, could ever be perswaded to beleeve, or to subscribe to the least part of them: aut fraudem non detegere: but that as Vanninus answers, ob publicæ potestatis formidinem allatrare philosophi non audebant, they durst not speak for fear of the law. But I will descend to particulars: read their severall Symptomes and then guess.

Of such Symptomes as properly belong to superstition, or that irreligious Religion, I may say as of the rest, some are ridiculous, some again ferall to relate. Of those ridiculous, there can be no better testimony than the multitude of their gods, those absurd names, actions, offices they put upon them, their feasts, holy dayes, sacrifices, adorations, and the like.