Imagination born in the Grotto at Bethlehem crucified in Mount Calvary and ascending in Mount Olivet This was solely to be ascribed to the delusion of a violent and strong Imagination wherewith all the precedent Actions and Arguments demonstrate Ignatius to have been endued To which may be added this following Circumstance When Ignatius first set himself to learn Grammar at Barcelona he found his Spirits by long habit so stongly enclined to these Enthusiastick Imaginations that he could not divert them any other way Whence instead of conjugating the Verb Amo he did nothing but form Acts of Love. I love thee my God said he thou lovest me he could think of nothing else for many months However if this Illusion had stopt in his own Breast it had been no great loss but when it imposeth upon multitudes of credulous Believers and draws them into pernicious mistakes when after a juridical Inquiry the reality of such Apparitions is allowed and attested by the publick suffrage of a large Christian Church in the Canonization of the Visionary we cannot but deplore the Credulity of Mankind and Corruption of that Church If the truth of all Christian Religion depended upon the attestation of such a Church as is pretended well might all sober Heathens suspect the Miracles of Jesus Christ or even deny the existence of such a God who chooseth the greatest Fools for his highest Favourites and obsequiously attendeth the Motions of every petty Visionary More rationally did Philostratus proceed in writing the Legend of Apollonius Tyaneus to whom he ascribes no more than two Visions and both of them undertaken for the improvement of Knowledge the first an Apparition of Achilles's Ghost to him for the resolution of divers Critical Questions the other of himself after death to a company of Friends to assure them of the Immortality of the Soul. If the external Visions of Ignatius were rare and wonderful the internal Illuminations of his Understanding were more extraordinary From these he pretended to have received a more perfect knowledge of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion than could have been drawn from the ordinary Rule of Faith to have learned all the Secrets of the Trinity and seen the very Essence of God. The pretence of this Infused Knowledge is the chief and most essential Character of Enthusiasm others may be properties or effects of it but this constitutes the very nature of it Thus Apollonius pretended to know all things by Divine Inspiration to act by a particular Illumination to know the state and adventures of his own Soul before it was united to his Body according to his notion of Transmigration and to discern the Souls of Ancient Heroes imprisoned in the Bodies of Beasts By this Divine Illumination he knew Domitian had laid snares for him and if we may believe Hierocles performed all his Miracles not by Enchantments or Spells as was commonly believed but by an hidden and preternatural knowledge of Divine Matters Saint Francis understood many secret things by the Spirit knew all the Mysteries of Scripture not by the help of Learning but by Divine Revelation unfolded many things to his Disciples by the assistance of Divine Visions which transcended Humane Capacity preached always Sermons to the People not composed by his own Industry but ex tempore suggested by the Spirit and lest you should suspect these Discourses to have been highly impertinent Bonaventure assures you they were not empty or ridiculous but full of the vertue of the Spirit piercing the very marrow of the Heart and ravishing all his Hearers with mighty admiration But to raise your Opinion yet somewhat higher of the wonderful Illuminations of this Saint Christ corporally appearing to him revealed to him many things which it was unlawful for him while he lived to publish and the great and wonderful Mystery of the Cross wherein all the gifts of Graces and treasures of Wisdom lay hid concealed from the Wise and Learned Men of the World were at once fully revealed to St. Francis. Yet all this is inconsiderable when compared to the infused Knowledge of Ignatius Iohn de Avila a famous Spanish Doctor declared that he knew no man more interiour nor filled with more supernatural Wisdom than Ignatius and Oviedo one of his Disciples out of a long experience of him gave his Opinion when Ignatius desired to be eased of the Office of General that he ought not to be opposed since being a Saint he had Lights which ordinary Christians had not Soon after his Conversion at Manreze he began to receive Visions and Illuminations He was hitherto meanly instructed in the Mysteries of the Faith but now he is elevated in the Spirit and hath all particularly the Trinity so clearly represented and revealed to him by an internal Light that he can speak of nothing but the Trinity and that with so much unction and light in such proper and sublime Expressions that the most Learned admired him and the most Ignorant were instructed by him The Illustrations which were communicated to him upon this Subject cannot be expressed how often our Lady and the three Persons of the Holy Trinity appeared to him and taught him what was their will touching this Article how many internal Consolations he received and how great Secrets were revealed to him In one of his Visions he saw the Blessed Trinity as plainly as we do one another under a corporeal representation The very notions of his Institute were obtained by Illumination and all the rules of his Order composed by the assistance of an internal Light. Immediately after his Conversion in time of Mass at the elevation he had an intuitive knowledge that the Body and Blood of Christ were truly contained under the Elements and in what manner they were there nay He saw with his bodily Eyes Iesus Christ and his Blessed Mother which kindled in his Soul new desires of following the Cross. One day he had a profound knowledge of all the Mysteries of Religion together and at another time praying before the Cross all which he had formerly learnt were set before his eyes in so full a light that the verities of Faith seemed to him to have nothing obscure in them and he remained so enlightned and convinced of them that he hath been heard to say that had they never been recorded in Scripture he should still have believed them and that had the Scriptures been lost no part of his Faith had been diminished But none raiseth the Merits of Ignatius in this respect so high as the Anonymous Author of his Glory who relateth his Divine Illuminations in these words Before he had yet learned any thing he was so fully instructed in a sublime manner by an intellectual Vision of the unity of the Essence and Persons of the Trinity that being but an Idiot he was enabled to write a Book concerning the Trinity in the beginning of his
in all emergent Difficulties The supposed experience of frequent Supernatural Illuminations makes the Enthusiast believe that God is ever ready to engage in his quarrel and for his sake to violate the Laws of Nature no less than the established Rules of Christianity that as he informs his Soul with Supernatural Inspirations so he will protect his Body and provide it necessaries by continual Miracles Thus St. Francis offered to the Soldan of Babylon to throw his Body into the fire in proof of Christianity and decide the Controversy by the operation of the flames upon it St. Dominick was more cunning when preaching against the Albigenses in France he would not trust his Body to the fire but drawing up his Faith and Arguments in a Schedule used to cast it into the fire together with the like Schedule of the Albigenses The Legend tells you that the first was always untoucht the latter always burnt Thus Apollonius when brought before Domitian to be tried for his life scorned the Threats and braved all the Power of that Tyrant telling him that God would certainly interpose in his behalf and not permit him to touch his Body Ignatius indeed was never guilty of so great Courage yet the belief of his endearment to God made him often presume upon the Favour of Heaven Undertaking his Pilgrimage into the Holy Land he would take no Companion along with him no Money nor provision of necessaries for the Iourney that he might have no comfort but from God and no dependance but on Providence Yet with all this Self-resignation the cunning Saint dared not to come near Barcelona because it was infected with the Plague Being accused of Sorcery Sedition and Heresy to the Inquisition of Alcala and some Ladies offering to him an Advocate to plead for him he refused their kindness thinking that he ought to leave himself to Providence and not distrust God so far as to make use of any Humane means for his preservation In his Voyage to Ierusalem he would give no Money for his Passage for that he thought utterly unlawful Free Passage he could obtain no otherwise than upon condition of providing necessaries for himself This he scrupled at and esteemed it a kind of diffidence of Providence and deviation from Evangelical Poverty to carry any thing along with him in the Ship. Touching in the way at Venice some endeavoured to discourage him from the Journey by representing to him the dangers of it and impossibility of getting any farther passage at that season of the Year he told them that if he could not get a Ship he would pass the Sea upon a Plank with the succour of Heaven I suppose he had read how Iosefes the Son of Ioseph of Arimathea sailed from France to Britain with 150 Companions upon his Shirt Not in these respects only doth Enthusiasm betray the Judgment to false notions of Piety and Perfection but in all other Christian Vertues infuseth the same Error especially if it may tend to ostentation and procure to the Enthusiast the admiration and reverence of the deluded Vulgar In that case it will be accounted an improvement of Vertue to run into extremes and the most extravagant Superstition shall be esteemed an exalted degree of Piety Thus if Christ hath commanded us not to set our heart upon Riches but to be ready to forsake all Worldly Possessions when they stand in competition with the profession of true Religion the Enthusiast will believe all propriety of Goods to be unlawful and account Evangelical Poverty a Christian Perfection If a temperate diet and sometimes fasting be recommended to us the Enthusiast will fall in love with immoderate Austerities and Mortifications and imagine the Merits of his Abstinence to be then infinite when the practice of it exceeds all bounds If we be admonished not to be deterred from our Duty by the contempt of the World or scoffs of men the Enthusiast will by all means court this contempt and perform a thousand ridiculous actions to obtain the laughter of Mankind and then applieth to himself all the Beatitudes of the Gospel as rewards of his Folly. Evangelical Poverty is one of the most specious pretences that can be made use of by Fanatick Visionaries to raise an opinion of extraordinary merit either in themselves or others This was ever the grand Engine of the Monastick Orders of the Church of Rome altho the World knows what vast Treasures and Possessions they have appropriated to their Monasteries and Colledges Certainly Reason doth not teach us that it is any great perfection to put on rags and beg from door to door and if Christ had taught so Mankind would have had sufficient reason to reject his Religion as irrational and absurd But he proposeth no such thing These are only the Whimsies of Brainsick Enthusiasts who have abandoned themselves to the conduct of a depraved Imagination When Apollonius boasted to Phraates King of Media of his own voluntary Poverty for he had distributed all his Inheritance and Possessions to his Kindred and the Poor and that of other Greek Philosophers Phraates truly answered him that they were bigotted Enthusiasts contumelious and seditious unfaithful and rebellious asserters of Fables and monstrous Stories who made an ostentation of Poverty not out of any sense of modesty or frugality but that they might have the better pretence to steal and cheat How far this Character may agree to St. Francis Ignatius or their Followers I will not now determine I will only shew that they far exceeded these Greek Philosophers in the pretence and extravagant practice of voluntary Poverty St. Francis immediately after his conversion changed his fine Cloaths with the Rags of a Beggar whom he met and soon after hearing that Gospel read wherein our Saviour sending forth his Disciples to preach commands them to take neither Staff nor Scrip put off his Shoes laid aside his Staff threw away his Money girded on a Rope and fell a begging which practice he continued all his life with such superstition that he thought it unlawful to possess any thing in particular and himself to be defiled with the sole touching of money If he were invited to dinner by any great Men he would first beg pieces of Bread from door to door and then sitting down to dinner draw out his Pouch and feed upon the fragments of it which he called the Bread of Angels refusing to tast of any other Dish Ignatius in his first Pilgrimage to Montferrat meeting a ragged Beggar stript himself to his Shirt and changed Habits with him Having performed his Vigils in conformity to the Laws of Knight-Errantry he puts on his Pilgrims Weeds that is a rugged and course Canvas Coat reaching down to his Feet wicker Shoes a knotty Rope for a Girdle with a bottle of Water hanging at his Girdle a Crabtree Staff in his Hand his Head bare and his left Leg naked and in this Habit marched
Miracle by Vitelleschi who relates that after thirty days sickness being now at the point of death he was miraculously in a moment restored to perfect health In opposition to this Bouhours and Bussieres maintain that he hardly recovered his health after fifty three days sickness and pains Ribadeneira relates many Miracles performed by the Reliques of his Garments which Vitelleschi saith that the People with great reverence and devotion divided among them Maffeius and Bouhours on the contrary assure us that the Fathers of the Society would not suffer the least part of his Garments nor any other Relique to be carried from his dead Body To name no more the Case of Ignatius his Horse which carried him from Paris to Spain is much to be lamented the poor Beast having suffered great loss of reputation from this disagreement of Historians For however one relates that being left by Ignatius to an Hospital the People looked on him with so much reverence that no man dared to use him afterwards but that as a sacred Horse he was preserved in ease and good pasture all his life another degradeth him to the everlasting drudgery of carrying Wood for the poor People of the Hospital of Aspeitia Those Miracles which I have hitherto mentioned may be justly rejected as wanting that due attestation and authority which are necessarily required to create a rational belief of them But there are others which the greatest Authority upon Earth even the united testimony of the whole World cannot render credible I mean such as include contradictions in them and are destructive of those evident Ideas of created beings which are common to all Mankind Such Miracles while we act rationally we cannot believe even altho ten thousand other Miracles should be wrought in confirmation of them If Philostratus tells us that Apollonius standing before the Tribunal of Domitian rendred himself invisible disappeared and in a moment removed himself to Puteoli if the Legend relates how the Soul of St. Benedict was seen ascending into Heaven by the Bishop of Brixia and a Priest of Tibur at the same moment If Baccius pretends that St. Philip Neri was frequently present in distant Plaâ—â—â— at the same time or if Bonaventure writeth that St. Francis was bodily present at Assisium in Italy and at Arles in France in the same moment that he could turn himself into the shape of a Cross and be present at several Chapters of his Order at the same time and that his Soul was seen flying into Heaven in Mount Garganus and Terra di Lovoro at the very same point of time and other Miracles of this nature be obtruded on us it is sufficient to oppose to them their absolute impossibility and not descend into a particular examination of the Authority which attests them Thus the Soul of Ignatius is reported at the very same instant in which it was separated from the Body at Rome to have appeared to a devout Widow called Margaret Gigli at Bologna A Soul can no otherwise appear than by moving matter whereby it may strike the Senses of living Persons Now that a Soul should move matter in two distant Places at the same time is no less impossible than that a Body should be in two places at the same time That the Soul should in a moment remove its Operation from Rome to Bologna is no less inconceiveable not to say that it is contrary to the Philosophy of the Schools which Ignatius who received his Philosophy from Divine Illumination so far embraced and admired that he accounted the least opposition of it no less than Heresie and threatned that if he lived a thousand years he would never give over crying down all novelties in Divinity in Philosophy and even in Grammar I know not what Philosophy taught these Historians that the Devil knows future Contingencies but surely no Divinity will allow it Yet are we told a goodly Story how the Devil after Ignatius his death but before his Canonization cryed out of the Body of a Doemoniack that Ignatius his greatest Enemy now led a blessed life in Heaven and should shortly be Canonized on Earth But to compleat the absurdity of Ignatius his Miracles and advance their contradiction to the Laws of Nature beyond all comparison the Writers of his Life pretend him to have been bodily present in two places more than nine hundred miles distant at one and the same time and produce this one Example of it Leonard Kesel a Jesuit of Colen passionately desired to see Ignatius while yet alive and therefore writing to him earnestly desired him to give him leave to come to Rome The Saint forbid him to come assuring him that if his sight was necessary God would provide a way for it without putting him to the trouble of undergoing so long a Journey This Answer seemed enigmatical to Kesel yet he contented himself and expected the event Upon a day then when he least thought of it Ignatius entred into his Chamber at Colen and having talked with him for some while disappeared leaving him wonderfully comforted with this prodigious visit It seems Romantick Negromancers our Modern Witches and Romish Saints are all alike famous for making themselves invisible and flying in the Air. Saint Francis frequently rid through the Air in a fiery Chariot and Saint Dunstan while yet a Boy flew down from the top of Glastenbury Church but Abaris the Disciple of Pythagoras and Priest of Apollo among the Scythians outdid them all who taking an Arrow out of Apollo's Temple rid upon it in the Air over all the World past Seas Rivers and Deserts performed Miracles and did such Wonders as no Romish Saint-Errant did ever equal Miracles including such contradictions as that one individual Body can exist in two distant places at the same time ought in no case to be believed but there are others which however implying no contradiction include somewhat monstrous in them and carry such an air of incredibility that nothing less than the utmost evidence of sense can induce the mind to assent to them The Miracles of Christ and the Apostles were indeed beyond the ordinary power of Nature but yet were not so extravagantly stupendious as might affright no less than perswade Mankind But the Legendary Writers of the Church of Rome while they calculated their Miracles not for the benefit of the Church or information of the World but the honour and admiration of their Saint scorned to stoop at ordinary Prodigies or take measures from the more sober Miracles of the first Founders of Christianity It was not sufficient for Saint Francis to turn Water into Wine to draw Water from the Rock and feed great multitudes with a little Bread in emulation of Christ whose Miracles the Romish Legends have so far transcribed that not even those have been omitted which argued a Divine Nature to be in Christ. Thus St.
Pretences extatick Motions severe Austerities and Macerations of the Body a mortified Look extraordinary Acts of apparent Humility ridiculous Actions which may imply a contempt of the World perpetual canting about Spiritual Matters and delivering them in such a manner as may seem to proceed from the immediate Revelation of God and withal in impenetrable Nonsense Such Pretences and Actions will excite the Admiration of foolish Persons and by amusing their Judgment with specious Shews create in them an extraordinary Veneration for their Enthusiastick Prophet All the Whimsies of his disturbed Phantasy shall then pass for Oracles and his foolish Austerities for so many certain Indications of a real Sanctity When this Opinion is once entertained then the pretence of Miracles may securely be set on foot and the grossest Cheat may pass undiscerned among credulous Spectators who will be deterred by a religious Awe from examining the Truth of the Miracles of their admired Impostor whose own Word shall without Scruple be received for Miracles pretended to be done by him in Secret or at least the single Testimony of one credulous Woman or fanciful Ideot shall be esteemed an undoubted Certainty Whosoever examines the Miracles of the Romish Saints will find them all to have been at first believed upon such slender Motives and afterwards amplified and increased by the Writers of their Lives at least that this was the case of the Miracles pretended to be done by Ignatius Loyola I doubt not to demonstrate Thus the Folly and Credulity of Mankind hath opened the way and facilitated success even to designing Impostors who are conscious of the falsity of their own Pretences and are disquieted with a perpetual fear of Discovery But then the way is more open and success more easy to such Enthusiasts who imagine they really enjoy and receive from God those Illuminations and Impulses which they vent to their deluded Followers Such Persons are inspired with a false Zeal and in proposing the Phrensies of their disturbed Brains imagine themselves to act in Obedience to Heaven and for the benefit of Mankind which renders all their Actions vigorous and themselves unwearied in the Prosecution of them That there have been and are still many such Enthusiasts in the World the History of all times and our own Experience demonstrates beyond all doubt and that there should be such we shall cease to wonder if we consider the nature of things Such Persons are commonly endued with weak Brains and diseased Bodies often suffer irregular motions of the Blood which creates gross and turbulent Spirits and fills the Brain with strong and active Vapours These continuing a violent motion in the Brain will reproduce so strong and lively Images of those things which have been the most frequent Objects of their Meditations and made deepest Impression in them that they will really believe themselves to act those things which they only imagine and to see hear and feel all those Objects which are so lively represented to them This is manifest even in Melancholly and Hypochondriack Persons who are so far deluded by the Action of the undigested Vapours of their Bodies upon their Brain that they frequently believe the reality of those things which their disturbed Imagination representeth to them If the motion of the Spirits be very irregular and their action upon the Brain exceeding strong it will produce various effects upon the Body according to the different Constitution of it or peculiar irregularity of the motion and disorder of the Spirits Sometimes violent and extraordinary motions of the Body shall be effected at other times all the Spirits flowing to the Brain the Nerves will be emptied and thereby all the visible Actions of Life will be suspended and both ways an Extasy will be produced And all this may happen involuntarily without or even against the consent of the Will. All these Effects will be much more sensible and apparent when the Enthusiasm is affected and contracted by a long habit of distempered Imagination This frequently happens in ignorant and melancholy Persons whose Thoughts are not serene and calm but accompanied with vehement Passions and turbulent Motions Such are wont to affix their whole Thoughts to certain Objects and employ all their Spirits in continuing their Ideas of them which being gross and hurried with an irregular Motion create a mighty Fermentation in the Blood whence new Clouds and Vapours are transmitted into the Brain and render the Imagination more intense and strong The Spirits being put into this irregular and rapid Motion various Effects will follow in the Body according to the different Constitution of it or present Disposition of the Spirits Either violent and extraordinary Motions of the whole Body will be produced or all the sensible Actions of Life will be suspended And all the while the Mind amuseth it self with monstrous and extravagant Ideas of things which are often rendred pleasing and delightful by their infinite Variety When once the Art is obtained of exciting the Passions and disturbing the Spirits of the Body at the Meditation of certain Objects no sooner will the Ideas recur to the Mind but the same Motions will return into the Body and all the aforementioned Effects will naturally be produced Thus a habit of Enthusiasm at last is formed and extasies may be produced as often as the convenience or whimsies of the Enthusiast shall require it In this state the Soul is detained with unaccountable Notions and monstrous Ideas of things which enables even the most ignorant Persons to talk boldly and fluently of those things whose imagination then disturbs the mind which are commonly Divine Matters but withal in an incoherent and unintelligible manner However the Enthusiast himself believes all this to proceed from a Divine influence and mistakes the phrensies of his Brain for the dictates of the Holy Ghost and the credulous Multitude which ever refers those things to a Divine original whose causes it cannot comprehend proclaimeth his Dreams to be Inspirations ascribeth the extatick motions of his Body to the operation of the Spirit acting in him and admireth his high-flown Nonsense as Divine Sublimity These Enthusiasts as they are commonly Persons of weak understandings and narrow capacities are easily led away with false appearances of Religion and grosly mistake the nature and genius of Christianity They imagine Religion to consist in a rigorous and severe exercise of those external actions which in the Countrey they live in are generally esteemed the indications of Piety and Christian Vertue and fancy that the farther they carry these practices the more nearly they approach to the utmost degree of perfection Thus in the Church of Rome the profession of Evangelical poverty a beggarly habit a severe mortification of the Body continual telling over of Beads going in pilgrimage and other childish actions are at least by the common people esteemed the best characters of a refined and exalted Vertue Hence Enthusiasts of that Communion corrupted with these prejudices while they