They so domineer over and restrain them—no hobby ever so terrified a lark—that they will not violate the least tradition, step out of line, or scarcely look the wrong way. “Good God,” Lavater exclaims, “how many people this invention of purgatory has miserably tormented!” Good God, how many people have been miserably afflicted by this fiction of purgatory!

Along with these advantages of Hope and Fear, ignorance and simplicity, he has various engines, traps and devices with which to batter and enslave people. He misses no opportunity, according to their different inclinations and abilities, to ensnare and humour them and maintain his superstition: sometimes to stupefy and befool them; sometimes, through opposition and faction, to set everyone at odds and in an uproar. Sometimes he infects one man and makes him a chief agent; sometimes whole cities and countries.

If they are of lower station, he works through stupidity, obedience to religious authority, blind zeal, and so on. If they are more distinguished, through pride, ambition, the desire for popularity and vainglory. If they are eminent clergy, more gifted than the rest, more learned and eloquent, he inflates them with a vain opinion of their own worth. “Puffed up with knowledge,” they begin to swell with pride and despise the whole world in comparison with themselves. Then they turn heretic or schismatic, put forward new doctrines, devise new fancies, and the like;

or else too much learning drives them mad, or curiosity makes them pry into God’s secrets and eat the forbidden fruit; or, presuming on their holiness, spiritual gifts and inspirations, they become prophets, enthusiasts, and what not?

Or if they are displeased and discontented, and have not—as they suppose—received advancement equal to their worth; if they suffer some disgrace or rejection, are neglected, or are not esteemed as highly as they foolishly value themselves; or out of envious rivalry, they immediately begin to rage and rave, “mixing heaven with earth.” They become so intolerant of their lot in an instant that a whole kingdom cannot contain them. They will set everything ablaze, set everyone at odds, to revenge themselves on their adversaries.

When Donatus saw Caecilianus preferred to him for the bishopric of Carthage, he turned heretic; so did Arius, because Alexander was promoted. We have examples at home, and all too much experience of such people. If they are distinguished laymen, the same engines of pride, ambition, rivalry and jealousy operate: they will be gods themselves. After his victories in India, Alexander became so arrogant that he demanded worship as a god.

And those Roman emperors reached such a height of madness that they had to have temples built to them and sacrifices offered to their divinities: “the deified Augustus,” “the deified Claudius,” “the deified Hadrian.” Heliogabalus put out the Vestal fire at Rome, expelled the virgins, banished all other religions throughout the world, and wanted to be the sole god himself.

Our Turks, Chinese kings, great khans and Mughal rulers do little less, assuming divine and bombastic titles. The lower sort are too credulous, led by blind zeal and blind obedience to pursue and defend whatever their foolish leaders propose: whatever those leaders, through pride and a desire to stand apart, revenge, vainglory, ambition, malice or greed, rashly uphold and put forward,

their disciples make a matter of conscience, believing that failure to comply means hell and damnation. They would sooner abandon wives, children, house and home, lands, goods, fortunes and life itself than neglect or renounce the slightest part of it. To advance the common cause they endure any misery, become traitors, assassins and false martyrs, fully assured of and hoping for a reward in the other world: that they will certainly earn merit by it, gain heaven, and be canonized as saints.

Now, when they are thoroughly possessed by blind zeal and nurtured in superstition, he has many other baits to entice and delude them further, to make them utterly mortified and mad, all under the pretence of perfection: to earn merit through penance, wearing wool against the skin, whipping, alms, fasts and so on. In 1320 there was a sect of flagellants in Germany who, to the astonishment of onlookers, lashed and cruelly tortured themselves. I could give many other examples of each practice.

But works performed in this way are held to earn merit, “by the work performed,” “by strict desert,” for themselves and others. To make them wear down and consume their bodies, “under virtue’s appearance and shadow,” those evangelical counsels, as our false Catholics call them, are proposed: canonical obedience, voluntary poverty, vows of chastity, monkish practices and a solitary life. These extend to almost every religion and superstition—to Turks, Chinese, pagans, Ethiopians, Greeks, Latins and every country.

Among these, fasting, contemplation and solitude are like battering rams with which the Devil assaults and works upon even the strongest constitutions. “Some,” says Pieter van Foreest, “through prolonged fasting, study and heavenly meditations, continually occupy themselves with sacred matters and religion”: they are overcome by excessive fasting and meditation on divine things.

Not that fasting is blameworthy in itself: it is an excellent means of keeping the body in subjection, a preparation for devotion, medicine for the soul. It produces chaste thoughts, true zeal and a divine spirit; from it sound counsels proceed, desire is restrained, and vicious, overpowering lusts and humours are expelled. The Fathers praise it highly and, as Calvin observes, sometimes excessively.

The mother of health, the key to heaven, a spiritual wing to lift us up, the chariot of the Holy Spirit, the banner of faith, and so on. What they say is true, if fasting is practised moderately and at the proper time, as by Moses, Elijah, Daniel and CHRIST, and as his apostles used it. But when they use it to perform works beyond what duty requires, and, as Erasmus aptly rebukes them, “think heaven insufficient for their merits”—heaven is too small a reward for it—