Perfection did consist in possessing nothing at all in the World he undertook to live the poorest of all men This resolution and all his outward practices of Poverty drew to him in a short time Admirers and at last Followers and Companions of whom he made himself the Head prescribing them the following Rule which consists of twelve Articles only A Summary of the Rule of St. Francis Chap. i. He saith that the Rule and Life of the Brothers Minors so he would have those of his Order called is to observe the Gospel under obedience possessing nothing as their own and in Charity Brother Francis promiseth obedience to Pope Honorius and his Lawful Successors and to the Romish Church and commands the other Religious to obey himself and his Successors Chap. ii He prescribes the manner of receiving Novices after a year of Noviciate after which 't is not allowed to them to leave the Order He sets down the Habits both of Novices and Professed Fryars permitting only to the later to wear a Hood or Capuchon Chap. iii. He will have his Fryars to make use of the Roman Breviary and the Convers or Lay-Brothers to recite every day for their Office seventy six Pater Nosters He orders them besides Lent to fast from All Saints to Christmas and to begin Lent at Twelf-tide He forbids them to ride on Horseback without an urgent necessity and will have them in their Journeys to eat of whatsoever is set before them Chap. iv He forbids very strictly to receive any mony directly or indirectly Chap. v. They ought to get their Livelihood by the Labour of their Hands receiving for it any thing but mony Chap. vi They ought to possess nothing of their own and when their Labour is not sufficient to maintain them they must go a begging and with the Alms they collect help mutually one another Chap. vii They ought to confess to their Provincial Ministers those sins the absolution of which is reserved to them that they may receive from them charitable Corrections Chap. viii The Election of their General Minister and of their Guardians or Superiors ought to be made in a General Chapter or Assembly which is to be held every third year about Whitsunday Chap. ix They ought not to Preach without leave of the Ordinaries of each Diocese and of their Superiors Chap. x. He prescribes the manner of admonition and correction Chap. xi They ought not to enter the Monasteries of Nuns nor to be God-Fathers of any Child Chap. xii They shall not undertake to go into foreign Countries to convert the Infidels without leave of their Provincial Ministers He bids them to ask of the Pope a Cardinal for Governor Protector and Corrector of the whole Order St. Francis his Will and Testament HE orders that the Fryars following his Example do honour the Churches the Priests and the Divines That those who enter his Order give before their reception all their Estates and Goods to the Poor that they apply themselves to work with their Hands that they ought not to purchase recommendatory Letters at the Court of Rome that where-ever they find any Fryar who hath left their Order or is become an Heretick they ought immediately to apprehend him and bound in Chains to drag him before their Cardinal Corrector that they ought continually to carry his Rule about them and make neither addition or diminution to it Lastly he gives his Blessing to them all This is the Rule and the last Will which Francis left to his Disciples Which far from being an observance of the Holy Gospel is rather in several points a manifest transgression of it and a Snare of the Devil to catch Souls as the learned Hospinian proves in his History of Monks This Francis saith he does not promise obedience to God or to Jesus Christ but to the Pope who is Antichrist and the other Fryars do promise it to Francis the grand Author of Superstition Francis instituted three different Orders the first of the Minors in the year 1206 whom he obliged to three Vows and who are divided now into Conventuals Observantines and Capucins and are again subdivided into other branches The second of Nuns in the year 1212 who are likewise divided into Conventuals Observantines and Capucines c. The third in the year 1221 which was common to both Sexes and did not oblige to any confinement permitting every one to live at home in his own Hermitage From this third Order was derived afterwards another Religion which to its Rules joined Confinement in a Cloister as the Conventuals A large Book would scarcely be enough to relate all the Reformations Separations Unions suits at Law Disputes changes of Habits and of Rules that have hapned in this great Order and one might also write another Book of the Frauds Lies pretended Visions and false Miracles which Francis and his Disciples have contrived for the advancement of their Order I shall set down only some few here for the satisfaction of my Reader Frauds and Impostures made use of for the Propagation of this Order FRancis carried by an ardent desire of enlarging an Order whereof he was the Founder sent into all the parts of the world some of his Religious to establish it every where These cunning Fellows seeing the necessity they laid under to get readily the favour and good-will of the People because having neither Mony nor Foundations for their Maintenance in case of delay they would have been in great danger of Starving they betook themselves to the shortest and most efficacious way which was to publish a great number of Miracles which they said their holy Founder had done and did yet daily in favour of those who were liberal to them of their Alms. They shewed long Lists of blind People to whom this Saint had restored their Sight of Deaf restored to their Hearing of Lame made to Walk in a word of all Sicknesses healed by him In another List there was to be seen all that were possessed with Devils whom he had delivered all the Captives Miraculously set at Liberty Lastly all the Dead rising to Life again Like in this to the Mountebanks who to get more mony in the places where they intend to stay a-while shew the Golden Chains Medals Priviledges Certificates and also whole Lists of People Healed they say by them in foreign Countries whither 't is not so easie to go for information of the Truth The Disciples of Francis had then a very fair play nor were they wanting to value much the impression of the Sacred Wounds imprinted on the Body of their holy Founder Thus runs the History or rather the Fable of it as it is related in the Book of the Conformities of this Order which is held by the Church of Rome for such a truth whereof one cannot doubt without becoming an Heretick as it is declared by several Bulls of the Popes Gregory the IX Alexander the V. Nicholas the III. and Benet the
Imprimatur Feb. 3. 1692. Ra. Barker Advertisement Two Books published by the same Author THE Frauds of the Monks and Priests set forth in Eight Letters lately written by a Gentleman in his Journey to Italy the third Edition in Octavo Observations on a Journy to Naples wherein the Frauds of Romish Monks and Priests are farther discovered by the same Author Bedae Venerabilis Opera quaedam Theologica nunc primum edita nec non Historica anteà semel edita accesserunt Egberti Archiepiscopi Eboracensis Dialogus de Ecclesiastica Institutione Adhelmi Sireburnensis Liber de Virginitate ex Codice Antiquissimo Emendatus in Quarto L. Annei Flori Rerum Romanarum Epitome Interpretatione Notis Illustravit Anna Tanaquilli Fabri Filia Jussu Christianissimi Regis in usum Serenissimi Delphini in Octavo A SHORT HISTORY OF Monastical Orders In which the Primitive Institution OF MONKS THEIR Tempers Habits Rules AND The Condition they are in at Present are Treated of By Gabriel d' Emillianne LONDON Printed by S. Roycroft for W. Bentley in Russel-street Covent-Garden 1693. TO The Most Reverend the ARCHBISHOPS The Right Reverend the BISHOPS And to the rest of the Reverend Clergy OF THE Church of England This Book is humbly Presented by Gabriel d' Emillianne THE PREFACE I Must desire my Reader to observe here three things concerning this Book First What were the Motives which induced me to write it Secondly The Methods which I observed in it and Thirdly The Reasons I have to dedicate it to the English Clergy I. Several of the Order of Gray and Black Fryars having had the confidence in the late King James's Reign not only to flock by Troops from beyond Seas into England but also to appear publickly in their Monkish Habits and a great many others of different Colours preparing to follow The People here was not in a little amazement to see these new Faces while the Papists were very busie in combing the Fox's Tail to make it appear finer and magnified every where the pretended Holiness both of these Monks and of their Habits The good Protestants did only laugh at them but the wiser sort inquired who they were and in what Book one might have a sufficient notice of them There were indeed some Latin Books which treated of Monks and also some French and Italian but besides that all these were written in Foreign Tongues unknown to the most part of the vulgar sort of People they were almost all of them written in a Popish way and by Monks who had not forgot to be kind to themselves There wanted then an English Book to give a sufficient and true information about this matter A learned Doctor in Divinity undertook at that time to do it whose Pen would have without doubt far out-done mine had he perfected the Work which he had begun But these mimical Faces of Monks having disappeared in the late happy Revolution and the Doctor 's applications being required another way he thought fit to leave off and I was desired to try what I could do on this Subject both with shortness and impartiality II. These Two Parts I have endeavoured to make good having briefly related the times of the Institution of each Religious Order their Founders their Tempers their Habits and given a short Abstract of their Rules I have made use both of Protestant and Popish Authors amongst whom I have endeavoured to retrieve the Truth After each Rule I have treated of those Monks who do profess the same according to the times of their respective Foundations excepting only some few who are under the pretended Rules of St. Austin and have taken the Name of Regular Clerks whom because they are so newly hatched I have placed after the Mendicant Fryars After these you shall find a little Treatise of Nuns and another of Military Regular Orders All these Treatises might have been more enlarged each of them affording very plentiful matter but I have chosen to he short and to relate only what might give a sufficient notice of them I am further now to inform my Reader of some Reasons I had to dedicate this small Performance to the Venerable Clergy of the Church of England III. First As I cannot sufficiently praise God for his great Mercy in calling me to be a Member of this Holy Church so I I thought I could not honour enough those who are the Pillars and the chief Ornaments of it Secondly Having many particular Obligations to several of the Clergy I hoped they might perceive in this Dedication of my Book to them though in General the earnest desire which I have to be thankful But what inclined me yet very powerfully to do it was that being not altogether ignorant of the great disturbances which the Monks in all Ages almost from their first Establishment in this Country Caused amongst the English Clergy nay of the violent Usurpations Slanders Tyrannies Persecutions and Oppressions wherewith they so devilishly attempted the total Destruction both of Churches and Church men I thought it would well suit with the Honour of the Reformation if I should bring in these Monks as vanquished Slaves and lay them at the Feet of the Protestant Clergy who at last by God's Grace and Mercy have so gloriously triumphed over them The Church History is full of the bold and malitious attempts of the Monks against the English Secular Clergy and it will not be methinks amiss to relate here some few instances among so many to verifie what I have said before One of the first who declared against the Clerical State was Dunstan The Monks who always reverenced him as their great Support Patron and Favourer ceased not to extol him to the Skies and went so far as to assert that he had been sanctified in his Mothers Womb and they made so much noise with Lyes and pretended Miracles that he was easily made a Saint in the Church of Rome However several good Authors speak otherwise of him that he had been a very debauched Youth excessively inclined to Women and a great lover of Magical Arts wherewith he bewitched to that degree Alfgina Princess of the Royal Blood that she could not live separate from him Therefore that she might enjoy continually his Company she caused a House to be built near the Church of St. Mary at Glascow where the Hypocrite Dunstan to deceive the World had built a little Cell for himself When she died she left to him the whole disposal of her Estate to be given to Pious Uses thinking thereby to attone for her great sins before God Dunstan builded with the Mony five Monasteries and richly endowed them making himself Abbot of the best of them Which which was also they say the first that was built in England Nevertheless he did not build them out of any love for Solitude for during the Reigns of seven Kings under whom he lived he almost never stirred from great Lords Houses or from the
give themselves to Prayer and Reading and likewise to Manual Work and particularly to Transcribing of Books 9. They ought to keep almost a continual silence 10. They must recite the smaller Prayers of the Canonical Office privately in their Cells at the ringing of the Bell. 11. Morning and Evening Songs together with the Masses ought to be performed at Church those days when they do eat in common 12. 'T is not permitted to them to say Mass every day 13. None of them is permitted to go out of the Monastery under any pretence whatsoever except the Prior and the Proxy for business 14. They ought to be satisfied with a very little space of ground about their Cells after which let the whole World be offered to them they ought not to desire a foot more 15. Such a number of Cattle is permitted to them which they ought not to exceed 16. There ought to be in a Charter-house twelve Monks only one Prior eighteen Convert Brethren and some few Servants 17. The entrance of their Cloisters and of their Churches also is forbidden to Women 18. They never admit to Penitence those that leave once their Order 19. They are all Cloathed in White except their pleated Cloak which is Black These practices were put in Writing not by Bruno but by those of his Order and confirmed afterwards by Alexander the III. in the year 1174. This Order is almost the only one of the old ones in the Church of Rome that continued without a Reformation pretending that they never went so much astray as the others though it fails very much in living up to the strictness of their first institution St. Bernard complained in his time of the Magnificency of their Buildings and now a-days notwithstanding their Vow of Poverty they may contend in Riches with the most powerful Princes in the World They have got the name of being very good Husbands and what hath yet more contributed to the conservation of their Riches was that the Superiors of this Order never took upon themselves the Title of Abbots but were always called Priors So that when the Abbies by an agreement with the Popes were put in Commands the Charter-houses which were not called by that name were not comprehended amongst them and consequently nothing of their Revenues was taken away from them Furthermore these Monks being seldom seen at the Courts of Princes were more free from Envy and less thought on The cruel and inhumane prohibition of eating Flesh even with the loss of their Lives is yet now a-days observed amongst them with this little but malignant restriction that Flesh ought to be presented to those who are thought to draw near their end If they do accept of it and recover from Sickness they are deprived for ever of any active or passive Vote they can never come to any degree of Superiority and are lookt upon as infamous men who have preferred a morsel of Meat to a precious Death before God See here the excess of Superstition and diabolical Illusion to which these poor Christians are now arrived As for what concerns Fish which they should never eat but when presented to them they do not only buy those of the best sort but spare neither cost nor trouble to fetch it from the remotest parts in revenge as it seems of the prohibition they are under of eating Flesh This Order hath spread it self not only in France where it had its original but also in Italy Germany Spain and in all other Countries subject to the Papacy where stately Charter-houses are to be seen all endowed with vast Revenues They passed into England in the year 1180 where they became in a short time extreamly rich One may see in many Charter-houses in France Pictures representing the pretended martyrdom of their Monks here in the beginning of the Reformation They adore them as Saints and these excepted they have but very few others in their Order and it is even observed that they work no Miracles because they say their Saints in Heaven are still so great lovers of that silence and retirement which they professed on Earth that lest they should give an occasion to the great concourse of People who would go on their account and trouble the solitude of their Brethren they chose rather to do no Miracles Of the Cistercian Order called otherwise Bernardins RObert Abbot of Molesme weary with the abominable and wicked Life of the Monks of the Monastery withdrew himself with one and twenty of his Religious as from a Sodom into the Solitudes of Citeaux five leagues distant from the City of Dijon in Burgundy where he founded a Monastery which was afterwards by Oto the I. Duke of Burgundy indowed with considerable Revenues There the Monastical Discipline seemed to take its first vigour again and by the Pattern of these Religious many others undertook to reform themselves acknowledging the Abbot of Citeaux for Chief of their Religion which under the Name of the Place where it had its beginning spread it self afterwards into all Europe They follow St. Benet's Rule with some Constitutions which Stephen the III Abbot of this Order wrote with the consent of his Brethren and were called Charitatis Chartae and Confirmed in the year 1107 by Pope Urban the II. They bound themselves to so rigid an observance that many at first could not bear with it and deserted quite the Monastical Habit. But their Hypocrisie had so good success under the Pontificate of Innocent the II that their Monasteries became extreamly rich by the great Donations bestowed on them They are also called Bernardins because St. Bernard native of Burgundy fifteen year after the foundation of the Monastery of Citeaux went there with thirty of his Companions and behaved himself so well to their own humour that he was some time after elected Abbot of Clairvaux which Monastery was founded by Robert of Molesme in the Diocese of Langres where the same observance was professed This Bernard founded himself afterwards above 160 Monasteries of his Order and because he was so great a Propagator of it his Monks were called from his Name Bernardines They had no Possessions at first and lived only of Alms and by the Labour of their hands but a very little while after they became as well as the other Monks Idolaters of Riches and applied themselves wholly to get possessions Their Riches entailed on them all sorts of Vices and although this Order was already a Reformation of that of St. Benet it self was afterwards several times reformed Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that it hath produced formerly great men who by the advantage of their retirement applied themselves to Letters and were raised to Bishopricks and Ecclesiastical Dignities in the Church of Rome but at present Luxury and Laziness the Mother of all Vices have so much got the upperhand that their more serious application is to the taking of their pleasures Nevertheless one sees to this day almost in all
others fetch it as far as from the time of the Apostles But these two Opinions want Proofs Of the Order of Dominican Fryars DOminick the Institutor of this Order was born at Calahorta a City of Arragon in the year 1170. His Mother dreamed when she was with Child of him that she bore in her Belly a Dog some say a Woolf which carried in his Mouth a lighted Torch whereby the whole World was put in a general conflagration This was a fatal presage of the barbarous and cruel Humour of this Dominick and of the bloody Massacres which he and his Disciples as hellish Furies should be Authors of through all the World Dominick was an indifferent Scholar and being made Canon of the Church of Osimo went to Rome to offer his Service to Pope Innocent the III. for the extirpation of the Albigenses From Rome he passed into Languedock where he laid the foundations of his Order and was made Inquisitor against Hereticks The Albigenses whom some do pretend to have been the Vaudois were a People who would not worship the Beast nor bend their Knees to Belial though charged by the Papists to render them the more odious with several impious Doctrins which they never held 'T was chiefly against them that Dominick vented his rage and he had so good success in his wicked design by his Preachments that he stirred up almost all the Popish Princes to arm in a Croisade against these poor Albigenses and to work more charitably their Conversion they at his Persuasion murdered in a short time above a hundred thousand of them Dominick proud of the success of his Expedition found it no hard matter to establish his Order which took so readily and suited so well the Genius of the Church of Rome It was then approved by Innocent the III. and afterwards confirmed by Honorius the III. in the year 1216. He submitted it to the Rule of St. Austin but Dominick added to it some particular Constitutions He made three Divisions of his Order The first was of those who made it their business to apply themselves with him to Preaching and the Conversion of Hereticks for which he would have them to be called Preaching Fryars The second was of the Nuns who lived inclosed in Monasteris The third was a Troop of merciless Fellows whom he maintained to cut the Throats of Hereticks when he was a Preaching he called them the Militia of Jesus Christ and prescribed them a manner of living different from that of the Laity These having at last routed the Hereticks out of their own Country several persons of both Sexes joined with them and were called afterwards Brothers and Sisters of the Penitence of St. Dominick Pope Innocent the VI. approved their Rule about the year 1360. They do not tye themselves so strictly to Poverty and Obedience as the Preachers do The Principal Statutes of the Preaching Fryars are that they ought to possess nothing of their own nor any Estate in common being obliged to live only by Alms. Their General Chapter is to be kept every year They ought to fast almost seven months in the year to eat no Flesh unless in Sickness to wear no Linnen and to shun all conversation and familiarity with Women to keep silence in some places and at certain hours Their Buildings ought not to be Stately but becoming a Monastical State Their chief employ is that of Preaching The General of their Order is called Magister Ordinis Master of the Order The Dominicans were called formerly Brothers of the Virgin Mary by reason of the superstitious Worship they paid to her of the Confraternities of the Rosary which they established in Honour of her and of the Saturdays which they wholly Consecrated to Her What gave much credit to this Order was that Dominick having perswaded Pope Honorius the III. to establish the Office of the Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome to whom only was committed the interpretation of the Holy Scripture and the Censure of Books he was the first who filled this place which was asterwards conferred successively upon a Religious of the same Order Oh! the fine Interpreters of Holy Scripture whom Papists are bound to believe not having the power themselves to read it The Inquisition wherewith they were intrusted rendred them extreamly formidable But what served yet more to abuse the simplicity of credulous People and brought them to favour this New Order was the Cheats Impostures Frauds and lies of this Dominick who left no stone unturned for the advancement of it Hospinian in his Book of the Original of Monks hath set them forth in two whole Chapters to which I refer my Reader I shall only relate here a Vision of this great Saint by which he may judge of the rest He was once saith he ravished as St. Paul to the third Heaven where he saw Jesus Christ and his Mother the Virgin Mary surrounded by great numbers of Monks and Religious of all Orders his own excepted Which sight made him extreamly ashamed and troubled Jesus Christ seeing him so much concerned bid him to come nearer to himself and asked him the reason of it Dominick told him his anxious thoughts very freely Then Jesus asked him if he was desirous to see the Children of his Order with all my heart said Dominick Jesus immediately commanded his Mother to open her long Royal Robe and Dominick spyed an innumerable number of his Religious whom she cherished under it as her dear Children far above the others Are not these very fine Visions These Pestiferous Dominicans spread themselves all over the World and about the year 1494 were already reckoned above 4143 Convents of this Order From that time they continued to increase more and more building every day new Monasteries They have inherited from their Founder a Spirit of Cruelty and the Popes to whom they were always very useful have mightily favoured them They have afforded to the Church of Rome several Popes great numbers of Cardinals Archbishops and Bishops and the Inquisition against Hereticks does still continue in their Hands As for the observance of their Rule it is now quite down They possess every thing in common and have besides that every one their own mony They observe no Fasts eat Flesh every day lie in good Feather-beds wear Linnen and keep constant company with lewd Women The most part of their Convents are so many stately Palaces c. Father John Michaelis applied himself to reform this deformed Order at the beginning of this Age and some few of their Convents did embrace the Reformation but the loosest sort amongst them by the great power they have at the Court of Rome have put a stop to it The Reformed Fryars as well as those who are not so are governed by one and the same General and wear the same Habit except that the former have it made with a courser Cloath and cut narrower It consisteth in a white Casock and a
at establishing the Authority of and Subordination to other Superiors Some are for the direction of their Studies and Colleges others for the Government of their Novitiates and Profest-houses Others again are for their Diet and their Habits T is not possible to express the great care they ought to take of their Health The Means they use to that purpose are admirable They have in every Convent a Prefect or Overseer of Health whose care and Application is continually to Study the way of promoting the same A part of his Office is to examin if the Meat which is prepared for the Fathers Jesuits is good and well drest He is to look that they be not prejudiced in their Health by bad Air by too much Heat Cold immoderate Labour or by too great Application of Mind and ought to give notice of it to the Superior that he may remedy it One cannot but see in all these Rules the extrordinary great love which the Jesuits have for their own Bodies and one would think they do not believe another Life hereafter There is moreover amongst these Rules a great Catalogue to be seen of the Masses which their Priests ought say and of the Rosaries or Beads which those who are not Priests ought to recite every Month and every Week for their Benefactors as well living as deceased to get more of them if possible may be Every Jesuit Priest is also obliged to say one Mass every Month and those who are not Priests one Row of Beads or the third part of a Rosary for the Reduction of Hereticks especially those of the Northen Countries They do not say for their Conversion but for their Reduction being all one to them whether this be effected by way of Persuasion or by Fire and Sword They do declare in many places of their Rule that to teach Youth to preach the Doctrins of the Romish Church to execute Missions to assist sick Persons on their Death-Beds to hear Confessions and to extend as much as lies in them the Popes Spiritual Domination ought to be the chiefest employments of the Society They give directions for that purpose and make an express Vow of the last which they call a Vow of Obedience to the Pope or of Mission The Subjects who do compose this Company are considered five different ways either as Professed of four Vows or as Spiritual Coadjutors who are Priests or as Temporal Coadjutors who are Brothers or as Masters and Students or lastly as Novices They have particular Rules for all these Degrees and Conditions The General is above all these Orders and they give to him the Glorious Titles of God's Legate Vicar of God's Republick which is the Order of the Jesuits His Generalship is perpetual and he is only subject to the Pope His chiefest business besides the Government of his Order is to find out all sorts of means of rooting out the Hereticks Enemies of the See of Rome and to take away the Lives or Dominions of those Princes or Kings who are not under its obedience Of the Encrease and Power of the Jesuits THIS Society favoured by the Popes as wholly devoted to them did so much multiply and so fast that Father Ribadeneira a Jesuit having made a Catalogue of their Provinces Colleges and Religious Houses in the year 1608. to wit seventy years after the Foundation of their Order reckons 31 Provinces 21 Profest Houses 293 Colleges 33 Novitiates other Residential Houses 96. But since that time they are so much increased that there is no Religious Order so much dilated so abundantly favoured with Priviledges so Rich and so Powerful as theirs A Book in Folio would not be enough to give to the Publick the History of it I shall only say in general that they are spread all over the World and in those Countries where they have not the liberty to appear in their Jesuitical Habit they keep themselves there Incognito in great numbers and leave no stone unturned to compass their intreagues and ill designs All their Houses and Colleges are very stately and curiously built Pope Gregory the XIII gave them in Rome against the Orders of the Senate a whole Island or quarter of the Town where they pulled down all the Houses turned out all the Owners the Widows and the Orphans to build there a College The same Pope gave them 25 Tuns of Gold towards the raising of it They maintain there 500 Jesuits of all the parts of the World who are the chief Emissaries of the General and as so many Mastiff-dogs ready to be let loose at his pleasure upon those whom they call Hereticks King Louis the XIV was no less liberal towards this Order in his Kingdom where he caused to be built every where stately Palaces for them while Spain Germany Poland Italy and the other Popish Countries have suffered these Vulturs to gnaw their Entrails and become fat upon them Rodolphus Hospinianus a very grave and faithful Author hath left us four Books of the Jesuitical History He treats in the First of the Origin Name Habit and Rules of the Jesuits he handleth in the Second the Increase and Power of this Order in the Third he exposes to publick view the wicked Acts Frauds Impostures and Bloody Counsels of the Jesuits both in Portugal and in France the Conspiracies Troubles Seditions Parricides horrid and enormous Crimes which they have committed in England Scotland Bohemia Hungary Moscovy Poland c. Lastly His Fourth Book does very plainly represent their Doctrin of Killing and Deposing Kings and Princes their Equivocations and Contradictions I shall not spend time to relate them to my Reader here in a Country where their Artifices and Devilish Enterprises are so well known I will only set down a curious Piece related by the same Author in his Fourth Book which is their form of Consecrating and Blessing those Murtherers whom they have persuaded to lay Violent and Sacrilegious Hands on Kings Here is word for word the order of it Ceremonies of the Consecration Blessing and Sanctification of Regicides by the Jesuits extracted out of a Process Printed at Delphes by John Andrew HE who is so unhappy as to be persuaded by the Jesuits to assassinate either a King or a Prince is brought by them into a secret Chappel where they have prepared upon an Altar a great Dagger wrapped up in linnen Cloath together with an Agnus Dei. Drawing it out of the Sheath they besprinkle it with Holy Water and fasten to the Hilt several Consecrated Beads of Coral pronouncing this Indulgence That as many Blows as the Murtherer shall give with it to the Prince he shall deliver so many Souls from Purgatory After this Ceremony they put the Dagger into the Parricides Hand and recommend it to him in this sort Thou chosen Son of God take the Sword of Jephte the Sword of Sampson the Sword of David wherewith he did cut off the Head of Goliath the Sword of Gideon
poor Cottages and he could never bear that Monks should build stately Habitations Being gone one day to visit the Monastery of Muscet he told the Abbot severely Thou hast raised thee a Palace with an expense that might be sufficient to give a maintenance to a great many poor One might now justly make use of the same reproach to all the Abbies of this Order because there is never a one but is very stately built and that of Valombrosa it self is more like to a Royal Palace than to an Humble House for Monks So does this Order receive their condemnation from the Mouth of their own Founder These Monks were formerly cloathed as those of Camalduli and differed only in the Blew Colour which they wore They changed it afterwards into a Dark Violet and enlarged their Habits after the manner of the Monks of Cassin They are now very loose Livers and possess several Monasteries in Italy Of the Sylvestrin Order THE Congregation of Sylvestrins began to be established in the year 1269 at Montefano near Fabriano in Italy by Sylvester Gozolini Gentleman of Osimo in the Marsh of Ancona and Canon of the Cathedral Church of that Town who having been present by chance at the opening of a Sepulcher where he saw the frightful and stinking dead Body of one of his best Friends buried there some days ago he conceived so great a slight against this present Life that forsaking all worldly things he retired into a Solitude to apply all his thoughts to God Many persons did follow his example to whom he gave the Rule of St. Benet His Congregation was approved by the See of Rome while he was yet living After his Death which hapned in the year 1280 it was confirmed by several Popes and a great while after Sixtus the V. reformed many abuses that crept amongst them They are Cloathed like the old Monks of Valombrosa whose Rule they follow also They differ only in the Yellowish and Peach Colour which they wear This made me to insert them in this place Of the Order of Granmont THIS Order had its beginning from one Stephen born in the Province of Auvergne in France in the year 1076. This Gentleman was brought up by Milon Archbishop of Benevent after whose Death seeing he had lost his Fortune he resolved to lead a solitary Life and having visited many Hermitages that he might learn the Eremetical Trade he fixed at last his abode on the Mountain of Muret near Limoges which was all covered with Woods being then thirty years old He wrote there a Rule or rather a Rapsody consisting of several things got together from the Rule of St. Benet from that of Regular Canons and of what he could find most superstitious in the Hermits manner of Life which he proposed to his Disciples as an infallible way to Heaven It was confirmed by several Popes and afterwards by reason of its too great austerity moderated by Innocent the IV in the year 1247 and again by Clement the V. in the year 1309. So that what some Popes did approve as most holy some others did condemn as very rash and indiscreet This Stephen wore an Iron Cuirass on his Naked Body slept in a Wooden Coffin laid some feet deep into the ground without any Bed or Straw in the bottom of it He bent so often his Knees that the skin of them became hardned as that of a Camel and so often he kissed the Ground that it turned up his Nose After his Death the Monks which he left at Muret were chased thence by those of the Order of St. Austin and one Peter native of Limoges Disciple and Successor of Stephen having asked a Sign from Heaven to know where they should fix their abode they heard a Voice in the Air which said thrice at Granmont Granmont Granmont which is high a Mountain near to Muret. The Papists say it was the Voice of an Angel but it is more likely to be that of the Devil who is always very busie in establishing Superstition They made then their application to Henry the I. King of England who ordered a Church to be built for them there which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and from this Mountain called Grandmont the whole Order took its name They are only spread in France They wear a harsh and pricking Tunick and over it a long Gown of thick Cloath Of the Order of the Carthusians THE Carthusian Order was instituted in the year 1080 according to some Authors and in the Opinion of some others in 1086. on the occasion as 't is said of a very strange accident A Professor of the University of Paris very commendable not only for his Doctrin but also for the apparent integrity of a Good Life died and as he was burying he sat upright on the Bier and cried with a lamentable Voice I am accused by the just Judgment of God Which putting all the Spectators into a strange fright the Enterment was deferred till the next day when the Dead cried again I am judged by the just judgment of God for which Cause they put off the Burial yet one day longer At last the third day being come in the presence of a great multitude of people who were assembled together the Dead again cried with a terrible Voice by the just Judgment of God am I Condemned One Bruno being present at this sight and taking occasion from this adventure to make a fine Discourse to the Assembly he concluded that it was impossible for them to be saved unless they renounced the World and retired themselves into the Deserts which he executed immediately with six of his Companions going into a frightful place called Chartreuse amongst the Mountains in the Diocese of Grenoble where he was assisted with all things by the Bishop of that place named Hugues who afterwards became one of his Disciples They built in that horrid Desert only habited by wild Beasts little Cells at some distance each from another where they lived in silence leading a very rigid Life They proposed to follow the Rule of St. Benet adding thereto several other great Austerities Hospinian hath related all their ancient Observances in nineteen Articles which are these following 1. To wear continually a Hair-Cloath on their naked Skin 2. Never to eat any Flesh-meat no not in case of a desperate Disease 3. Never to buy any Fish and to eat none except it be given to them 4. To eat only Bread made of Bran and to drink only Water mingled with a little Wine 5. To eat nothing on Sundays and Thursdays but Cheese and Eggs Tuesdays and Saturdays Pulse and only Bread and Water the other days of the Week 6. They ought themselves to prepare their own Victuals and to take their refection alone 7. The Christmas Week Easter and Whitsunday Holy-days with some few others are excepted from this observance in which they eat twice a day in common 8. They ought to remain in their Cells