Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	devotion_n	exercise_n	great_a	63	3	2.0767	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30476	Dr. Burnet's travels, or Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany, &c written by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing B5934; ESTC R9984	167,242	250

there are about a hundred Convents in Naples so every one of these if it were in another place would be thought well worth seeing tho the riches of the greater Convents here make many of them to be less visited Every year there is a new Governour of the Annunciata who perhaps puts in his own Pocket twenty thousand Crowns and to make some compensation when he goeth out of Office he giveth a vast piece of Plate to the House a Statue for a Saint in Silver or some Coloss of a Candlestick for several of those Pieces of Plate are said to be worth ten thousand Crowns and thus all the Silver of Naples becomes dead and useless The Jesuits are great Merchants here their Wine Cellar is a vast Vault and holds above a thousand Hogsheads and the best Wine of Naples is sold by them yet they do not retail it out so scandalously as the Minims who live on the great Square before the Viceroys Palace and sell out their Wine by retail They pay no duty and have extraordinary good Wine and are in the best place of the Town for this retail It is true the Neapolitans are no great Drinkers so the profits of this Tavern are not so great as they would be in colder Countries for here men go only in for a draught in the mornings or when they are a thirst Yet the House groweth extream rich and hath one of the finest Chappels that is in all Naples but the Trade seems very unbecoming men of that Profession and of so strict an Order The Convents have a very particular Priviledge in this Town for they may buy all the Houses that lye on either side till the first street that discontinueth the Houses and there being scarce a street in Naples in which there is not a Convent by this means they may come to buy in the whole Town And the progress that the wealth of the Clergy makes in this Kingdom is so visible that if there is not some stop put to it within an Age they will make themselves Masters of the whole Kingdom It is an amazing thing to see so profound an ignorance as Reigns among the Clergy prevail so effectually for tho all the Secular Persons here speak of them with all possible scorn yet they are the Masters of the Spirits of the people The Women are infinitely superstitious and give their Husbands no rest but as they draw from them great presents to the Church It is true there are Societies of men at Naples of freer thoughts than can be found in any other place of Italy The Greek learning begins to flourish there and the new Philosophy is much Studied and there is an Assembly that is held in D. Joseph Valleta's Library where there is a vast Collection of well chosen Books composed by men that have a right taste of true learning and good sense They are ill looked on by the C●ergy and represented as a set of Ath●ists and as the spawn of Pomponatius's School But I found no such thing ●m●ng them for I had the Honour to meet twice or thrice with a considerable number of them during th● short stay that I made among them There is a l●●rned Lawyer Francisco Andria that is c●nside e● as one of the most inquisitive men of the Ass●m●ly There is also a Grand-child of the Great Alciat who is very curious as well as learned Few Churchmen come in to this att●mpt for the reviving of Learning among them On the contrary it is plain that th●y dread it above all things O●ly one Eminent Preacher Rinaldi that is Arch-deacon of Capua Associates himself with them He was once of the Jesuites Order but left it and as that alone served to give a good character of him to me so upon a long conversation with him I found a great many other things that possessed me with a high value for him Some Physitians in Naples are brought under the scandal of Atheism and it is certain that in Italy men of searching understandings who have no other Idea of the Christian Religion but that which they see received among them are very naturally tempted to disbelieve it quite for they believing it all alike in gross without distinction and finding such notorious cheats as appear in many parts of their Religion are upon that induced to disbelieve the whole The Preachings of the Monks in Naples are terrible things I saw a Jesuite go in a sort of a Procession with a great company about him and calling upon all that he saw to follow him to a place where a Mounte-bank was selling his Medicines near whom he took his Room and entertained the people with a sort of a Farce till the Mountebank got him to give over fearing least his action should grow tedious and disperse the comp●ny that was brought together There are no famous Preachers nor men of any reputation nor learning among the Jesuites I was told they had not men capable to teach their Schools and that they were forced to hire Strangers The Order of the Oratory hath not that reputation in Italy that it hath gain●d in France and the little Learning that is among the Clergy in Naples is among some few Secular Priests The new method of Molinos doth so much prevail in Naples that it is believed he hath above twenty thousand followers in this City And since this hath made some noise in the World and yet is generally but little understood I will give you some account of him He is a Spanish Priest that seems to be but an ordinary Divine and is certainly a very ill Reasoner when he undertakes to prove his opinions He hath writ a Book which is intituled Il Guida Spirituale which is a short abstract of the Mystical Divinity the substance of the whole is reduced to this that in our Prayers and other Devotions the best methods are to retire the mind from all gross Images and so to form an act of Faith and thereby to present our selves before God and then to sink into a silence and cessation of new acts and to let God act upon us and so to follow his conduct This way he prefers to the multiplication of many new acts and different forms of Devotion and he makes small account of corporal austerities and reduces all the exercises of Religion to this simplicity of mind He ●hinks this is not only to be proposed to such as live ●n Religious Houses but even to secular persons and by this he hath proposed a great Reformation of mens minds and manners He hath many Priests in Italy but chiefly in Naples that dispose those who confess ●hemselves to them to follow his methods The Jesuits have set themselves much against this conduct as foreseeing that it may much weaken the Empire that Superstition hath over the minds of people that it may make Religion become a more plain and simple thing and may also open a door to Enthusiasms They also pretend that his

the first b●gins at Five a Clock in the m●rning For at Geneva and all Switzerland over there are daily Sermons which were substituted up●n the Reformation to the Mass But the Sermons are generally too long and the Preachers have departed from the fi●st d●sign of these Sermons which were intended to be an explication of a whole Chapter and an exhortation upon it and if this were so contrived that it were in all not above a quarter of an hour long as it would be heard by the people with less Weariness and more Profit so it would be a vast advantage to the Preachers For as it would oblige them to study the Scriptures much so having once made themselves Masters of the practical parts of the Scripture such short and simple discourses would cost them less pains than those more lab●ured Sermons do which consume the greatest part of their time and too often to very little purpose Among the Archives of the Dean and Chapter there is a vast collection of Letters written either to Bullinger or by him they are bound up and make a great many Volumes in Folio and out of these no doubt but one might discover a great many particulars relating to the History of the Reform●tion For as Bullinger lived long so he was much esteemed He procured a very kind reception to be given to some of our English Exiles in Queen Maries Reign in particular to Sands afterwards Arch-bishop of York to Horn afterwards Bishop of Winchester and to Jewel Bishop of Salisbu●y He gave them Lodgings in the Close and used them with all possible kindness and as they presented some Silver Cups to the Colledge with an Inscription acknowledging the kind reception they had found there which I savv so they continued to keep a constant Correspondence with Bullinger after the happy re-establishment of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth Of which I read almost a whole Volume while I was there Most of them contain only the general News but some were more importan● and relate to the Disputes then on foot concerning the Habits of the Clergy which gave the first beginnings to our unhappy divisions and by the Letters of which I read the Originals it appears that the Bishops preserved the ancient Habits rather in compliance with the Queens inclinations then out of any liking they had to them so far they were from liking them that they plainly exprest their dislike of them Jewel in a Letter bearing date the Eighth of Februury 1566. wishes that the Vestments together with all the other remnants of Popery might be thrown both out of their Churches and out of the minds of the Peo●le and laments the Queens fixedness to them so that she would suffer no change to be made And in January the same year Sands writes to the same purpose Contenditur de vestibus Papisticis utendis vel non utendis dabit Deus his quoque finem Disputes are now on foot concerning the Popish Vestments whether th●y should be used or not but God will put an end to those things Horn Bishop of Winchester went farther for in a Letter dated the Sixteenth of July 1565. he writes of the Act concerning tha Habits with great regret and expresses some hopes that it might be repealed next Session of Parliament if the Popish Party did not hinder it and he seems to stand in doubt whether he should conform himself to it or not upon which he desires Bullinger's Advice And in many Letters writ on that Subject it is asserted That both Cranmer and Ridley intended to procure an Act for abolishing the Habits and that they only defended their Lawfulness but not their Fitness and therefore they blamed private Persons that refused to obey the Laws Grindal in a Letter dated the Twenty seventh of August 1566. writes That all the Bishops who had been beyond Sea had at their Return dealt with the Queen to let the matter of the Habits fall but she was so prepossessed that tho' they had all endeavoured to divert her from prosecuting that matter she continued still inflexible This had made them resolve to submit to the Laws and to wait for a fit opportunity to reverse them He laments the ill effects of the opposition that some had made to them which extreamly irritated the Queens Spirit so than she was now much more heated in those matters than formerly He also thanks Bullinger for the Letter that he had writ justifying the lawful use of the Habits which he says had done great Service Cox Bishop of Ely in one of his Letters laments the Aversion that they found in the Parliament to all the Propositions that were made for the reformation of Abuses Jewel in a Letter dated the Two and Twentieth of May 1559 writes That the Queen refused to be called Head of the Church and adds That that Title could not be justly given to any Mortal it being due only to Christ and that such Titles had been so much abused by Antichrist that they ought not to be any longer continued On all these Passages I will make no Reflections here for I set them down only to shew what was the sense of our chief Church-men at that time concerning those matters which have since engaged us into such warm and angry Disputes and this may be no inconsiderable Instruction to one that intends to write the History of that time The last particular with which I intend to end this Letter might seem a little too learned if I were writing to a less knowing Man than your self I have taken some pains in my Travels to examine all the Ancient Manuscripts of the New Testament concerning that doubted Passage of St. John's Epistle There are three that bear Witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one Bullinger doubted much of it because he found it not in an ancient Latin Manuscript at Zurich which seems to be about eight hundred years old for it is written in that hand that began to be used in harles the Great 's time I turned the Manuscript and found the Passage was not there but this was certainly the error or omission of the Copier for before the General Epistles in that Manuscript the Preface of St Jerom's is to be found in which he says that he was the more exact in that T●anslation that so he might discover the Fraud of the Arrians who had struck out that Passage concerning the Trinity This Preface is printed in Lira's Bible but how it came to be left out by Erasmus in his Edition of that Father's Works is that of which I can give no Account for as on the one hand Erasmus's Sincerity ought not to be too rashly censured so on the other hand that Preface being in all the Manuscripts ancient or modern of those Bibles that have the other Prefaces in them that I ever yet saw it is not easie to imagine what made Erasmus not to publish it and it is in the

conduct ●s factious and seditious that this may breed a Schism ●n the Church And because he saith in some places of his Book That the mind may rise up to such a simplicity in its acts that it may rise in some of its Devotions to God immediately without contemplating the Humanity of Christ they have accused him as intending to lay a side the Doctrine of Christ's Humanity tho it is plain that he speaks only of the purity of some single acts Upon all those heads they have set themselves much against Molinos and they have also pretended that some of his Disciples have infused it into their Penitents that they may go and Communicate as they find themselves disposed without going first to Confession which they thought weakned much the Yoke by which the Priests subdue the Consciences of the people to their Conduct Yet he was much supported both in the Kingdom of Naples and in Sicily He had also many friends and followers at Rome So the Jesuites as a Provincial of the Order assured me finding they could not ruine him by their own force got a great King that is now extreamly in the Interests of their Order to interpose and to represent to the Pope the danger of such innovations It is certain the Pope understands the matter very little and that he is possessed with a great opinion of Molino's sanctity yet upon the complaints of some Cardinals that seconded the zeal of that King he and some of his followers were clapt in the Inquisition where they have been now for some months but they are still well used which is believed to flow from the good opinion that the Pope hath of him who saith still that tho he may have erred yet he is certainly a good man Upon this imprisonment Pasquin said a pleasant thing in one week one man had been condemned to the Gallies for somewhat he had said another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ and Molinos was clapt in Prison whose Doctrine consisted chiefly in this that men ought to bring their minds to a State of inward quietness from which the name of Quietisis was given to all his followers The Pasquinade upon all this was Si parliamo in Galere si scrivemmo Impiccati si stiamo in quiete all' Saint ' Officio e che bisogna fare If we speak we are sent to the Gallies if we write we are hanged if we stand quiet we are clapt up in the Inquisition what must we do then Yet his Followers at Naples are not daun●ed but they believe he will come out of this Trial victorious The City of Naples as it is the best scituated and in the best climate so it is one of the Noblest Cities of Europe and if it is not above half as big as Paris or London yet it hath much more beauty then either of them the Streets are large and broad the pavement is great and Noble the Stones being generally above a foot square and it is full of Palaces and great Buildings The Town is well supplied by daily Markets so that provisions are ever fresh and in great plenty the Wine is the best of Europe and both the Fish and Flesh is extream good it is scarce ever cold in Winter and there is a fresh Air comes both from the Sea and the Mountains in Summer The Viceroys Palace is no extraordinary Building only the Stair-case is great But it is now very richly furnished within in Pictures and Statues there are in it some Statues of the Aegyptian Deities of Touchstone that are of great value There are no great Antiquities here only there is an ancient Roman Portico that is very Noble before St. Pauls Church But without the City near the Church and Hospital of St. Gennaro that is without the Gates are the Noble Catacombs which because they were beyond any thing I saw in Italy and to which the Catacombs of Rome are not to be compared and since I do nor find any account of them in all the Books that I have yet seen concerning Naples I shall describe them more particularly They are vast and long Galleries cut out of the Rock there are three Stories of them one above another I was in two of them but the Rock is fallen in the lowest so that one cannot go in to it but I saw the passage to it These Galleries are generally about twenty foot broad and about fifteen foot high so that they are Noble and spacious places and not little and narrow as the Catacombs at Rome which are only three or four foot broad and five or six foot high I was made be●ieve that these Catacombs of Naples went into the Rock nine mile long but for that I have it only by report yet if that be true they may perhaps run towards Puzzolo and so they may have been the burial places of the Towns on that Bay but of this I have no certainty I walked indeed a great way and found Galleries going off in all hands without end and whereas in the Roman Catacombs there are not above three or four rows of niches that are cut out in the Rock one over another into which the dead bodies were laid Here there are generally six or seven rows of those niches and they are both larger and higher some niches are for Childrens bodies and in many places there are in the Floors as it were great Chests hewn out of the Rock to lay the bones of the dead as they dried in them but I could see no marks either of a cover for th●se holes that looked like the bellies of Chests or of a facing to shut up the niches when a dead body was laid in them so that it seems they were monstrous unwholesome and stinking places where some thousands of bodies lay rotting without any thing to shut in so loathsome a sight and so odious a smell For the niches shew plainly that the Bodies were laid in them only wrapt in the dead cloaths they being too low for Coffins In some places of the Rock there is as it were a little Chappel hewen out in the Rock that goes off from the common Gallery and there are niches all round about but I saw no marks of any Wall that shut in such places tho I am apt to think these might be burying places appropriated to particular families There is in some places on the Walls and Arch Old Mosaick work and some Painting the Colours are fresh and the manner and Characters are Gothick which made me conclude that this might have been done by the Normans about six hundred years ago after they drove out the Saracens In some places there are Palm-trees painted and Vines in other places The freshness of the Colours shews these could not have been done while this place was imployed for burying for the steams and rottenness of the Air occasioned by so much corruption must have dissolved both Plaister and Colours In one place there is a man Painted with