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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

It followes The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule By which he shewes that Vers 7. the knowledge we gather from creatures is imperfect and blurred with spots because the perfections of earthly things are alwayes mingled with imperfections and are much imperfect compar'd with heavenly And therefore the knowledge of God by creatures did not convert the soules of the old Philosophers because they still wanting the sight of the perfections figured brought all to the rule of sense and would not give a necessary step from what they saw to the better things which could not be seene But the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule It is the memorable saying of Saint Austin that Socrates a morall Philosopher long before Christ had some S. Just Apolog 1. respect to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in part knowne of him And doubtlesse he points at his knowledge of God in creatures but it was in part he knew him by halfes and therefore the knowledge of halfe God could not save all Socrates and if not all Socrates no part of Socrates It is my part so to contemplate the creature that I doe not stick in it nor stumble at the imperfection of it but ascend from the creature towards or to the Creatour Towards the Creatour as thus I behold a worme crawling upon the ground what sayes he I may say nothing He sayes as much as I can say He sayes I am a little long thing without any difference or beauty of parts I creep all the day long I eate dirt and that is all my cheere I beare no Image of God but only a small print of his foot-step and therefore I know I was not made for him but for men that follow him in his foot-steps and they looke another way and tread upon me and there I dye and cease to be Gods living creature O man use me as thou pleasest I am thine but let me I pray thee be an occasion to thee of doing God some little service Blesse him at least for my creation and for thy owne more perfect and thanke him heartily that he would give the little worme to creep Had I a tongue as thou hast let me tell thee I would blesse him both for thee and me Had I been made looking upwards how happy should I have beene both here and hereafter To God as thus when I looke upon the Sunne I will comment upon it after this manner The Sunne is one God is one The Sunne enlightens all the World God fils all the Word and all inward light is either of Nature Faith or Grace and this is a threefold excellencie comming onely from the blessed Trinity The Sunne warmes powerfully God comforts efficaciously The Sunne melts the Snow hardens the earth the one is pure the other uncleane God workes diversly upon the just and unjust melting the one and in a good sense hardning the other The Sunne shines equally upon all creatures but some creatures being more clear receive his beams more perfectly God excepts no creature from his protection and ordinary providence but some being apt and disposed to receive more beauties and helps from him The Sunne is not defaced by spreading his beames upon the mire God is not debased by stooping to his work in these inferiour things The Sun is hindered from shining upon us by mists and clouds which rise from the earth The clouds of our sinnes rising from our earthly corruptions keepe off the beames of Gods grace from us The Sunne sets but rises againe God hides himselfe a while but he will not be long absent Heavinesse Ps 30. 5. may endure for a night but joy commeth in the morning And would I require a more exact visible Image of God He that cannot reade can reade in Gods great booke of creatures if he has eyes where the hand is faire and every letter a great one Away with these brazen stony and woodden Images of God Be they silver ones away with them The Sunne is an Image of God of Gods owne making and a more compleat Image of God then the wit or Art of man can frame set in a high place over all the World and to be seene by all almost every day imitating God also in the spreading and distribution of his goodnesse and yet no kinde of law will give us leave to worship and adore the Sunne O but God never appeared in that likenesse Shall I worship a Dove or the Image of a Dove because the holy Ghost appeared in the likenesse of a Dove It exceedingly behoves me to looke about me above me under me before me behinde me on each side of me within me O that I could beate it into my heart Every where I shall finde the wonderfull workes of God wonderfull because not knowne not knowne either in themselves or in that they signifie It is proper to God to ordaine not onely that words may signifie things but also that one thing may signifie another a thing in the World a thing in Heaven or elsewhere a thing present a thing to come The best of us hath but one life to live and that being once ended he shall never see Gods creatures in this order and after this fashion againe Is this a World wherein to be idle and to complaine so often we know not how to spend our time I am amaz'd at my selfe at all people If God should say to me Goe to the end of the World till you can finde no more land or sea that you may be sav'd and goe bare foote and goe upon thornes would I not goe And yet I now stand idle when his creatures come home to me and are with me wheresoever I am Lord teach my hands and my heart to work Consideration 9. WE are sent hither by the way of Father and Mother being neither wholly intellectuall as Angels nor altogether sensible as beasts but a mixt and compounded thing under the name of reasonable creatures By Reason we perceive with a searching eye what we commonly see heare or otherwise conceive and in some hard things not plaine to the first view of reason we step from confuse to cleare a minus noto ad magis notum from a lesse perfect to a more exact knowledge by discourse The Angels have lesse occasion of discourse then we because their naturall knowledge is in it selfe so marvellously plaine and moreover is illustrated with such variety of supernaturall lights whereof some are constant to them some come when they are sent that it representeth many things to them in a faire character and in the lumpe which we are forced to bring together and home to our knowledge by discourse The beasts have no ground fuell or instrument of discourse For their knowledge is darke and besides that it is alone can passe no way but by the common doores of the senses And thus for the defect of sound knowledge not knowing the true depth of any thing

he Greg. Naz. orat 3. in Julian drowned himselfe And this weake light or dawning of the day was truely most sutable and more then most agreeable with beginners CHAP. VIII SInne being now more strong more witty and more various and Nature being sufficiently informed of her owne weaknesse God sent the world letters from Heaven De illa civitate unde peregrinamur S. Aug. con 2. in Psal 90. saith Saint Austin hae literae nobis venerunt these letters came from the great Imperiall City from which we travell And Moses the Messenger that brought these letters of so great importance frō God to the world delivered his message with caution and with respect to the Jewes hardnesse as it is cleerely gathered out of the words in which Christ arguing with the Pharisees concerning the permissive Law of Divorcement saith Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your Mat. 19. 8. wives but from the beginning it was not so And so he corrected the Law in conformity to a more perfect condition And therefore the Greeke Church with us doth onely breake Matrimony in the case of Adultery in which point Eugenius the fourth laboured to reconcile her with the Church of Rome at Florence but he could not And even in the old dayes of the old Law God altered the phrase of his proceedings with correspondence to the person with whom he dealt and with whom he was to deale For the old Law being a Law of feare a Law of bondage and a maine difference betwixt the old Law and Aug. l. c●toginta trium quaest tom 4. the new being as Saint Austin giveth it Timor Amor Feare and Love conversing now with the Synagogue a servant a bond-woman he stiles himselfe God the Lord Jehovah Mighty Terrible Yet meditating upon the new Law being a Law of Grace and liberty and turning to the sweete Spouse in the Canticles to which Law she did indeed most properly belong he doth as it were cover his greatnesse hide his beames and draw a great vaile over his Majesty For he cals himselfe a Bridegroome a friend a lover And in the whole book of Canticles we cannot finde with both our eyes one proper name of God not one of the tenne great names of God which are so easie to be found in the old Testament and which Saint Hierome doth briefely explicate in his learned Epistle to Marcella God will not be knowne to S. Hier. Ep. ad Marcel his bashfull and tender Spouse by the names which move terrour and affrightment For he would not as a man may say for all the world trouble or fright his pretty maiden Spouse And uses onely the titles which kindle and cherish love CHAP. IX ALl this while there occurred as well in the booke of Creatures as in the love-letters from the Creatour many faire and solid emblems of a Divine providence goodnesse wisedome mercie justice and so forth And before this man might already learne sufficiently that there was one God even in the Manuscript of Creatures by turning before his lesson from cause to cause till he came to the first cause from motion to motion till he came to the first Mover But the capacity of the childish young world was yet too meane too shallow to receive in plaine language the mysterious doctrine of a Trinity the heart of man being as it were not yet altogether unfolded not perfectly open'd into a Triangle Nor did ever any spirituall Traveller to this day meete with the perfect likenesse of the blessed Trinity in Creatures For there is no principle in naturall knowledge no foot-step of God in Creatures by the direction of which any created understanding either Humane or Angelicall may reasonably close with the assent or opinion or even suspition of the blessed Trinity or which can give us any true notice that it is possible For although the Understanding Will and Memory of man in which as in the most during part Gods image consisteth are three faculties and one soule yet they fall under being one and three after the manner as God is three and one nor is there such a difference in the faculties as distinction in the Persons And if you distinguish the faculties really with the Thomists the Persons will not be so really distinguished and yet they will be truely distinguished one from another besides that every one will be the same in Essence and the whole Essence If the learned urge that the soundest part of the heathen writers speake honourably of the blessed Trinity as Mercurius therefore called though some thinke otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orpheus and that Plato speaks high things of the word divine love and other Platonists out of whose books S. Austin reporteth that he gathered these jewels this golden chaine of holy Scripture In principio erat verbum verbum S. Aug. l. 7 confess c. 9. Io. 1. ● erat apud Deum Deus erat verbum In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God As if the Eagle had not taken it in a high flight from the holy Ghost but stooped to them for it I answer these Philosophers sucked the sweets of knowledge they had in this kind out of the Scripture And Clemens Alexandrinus Clem. Alex l. 1 Stromatum maketh mention of a certaine old Greeke edition of the old Testament before that of the Septuagint which came to the hands of Plato and of other Philosophers And also these Philosophers as it is abundantly manifest in Saint Justine S. Just paraenesi sive cohort ad Gracos travelled all into Egypt to better their knowledge where the Jewes in their servitude had left many visible footsteps of heavenly learning Yet where they speake of the word and so plainely of the blessed Trinity they received their knowledge in the same strange manner as the Sibyls and they spoke as Plato said of the Sibyls many brave matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Plat. apud Just ●n paraenesi reaching to the deepe and genuine sense of any word they said and the spirit failing not being able to recover the least representation of what they had said And truely Theodor. lib. 2. apud Graecos Theodoret gives a most exquisite reason why God was not willing to deliver the knowledge of the blessed Trinity in a plaine letter to the Jewes but in characters in a close and covered manner because they first came from Egypt where a multitude of Gods was adored and were afterwards seated in Canaan where the like adoration was performed And if God had talked to them in a familiar way in a worne and beaten phrase of three Persons they moreover being an idolatrous generation their corrupt natures might have easily corrupted the Text and beleeved as many Gods as Persons especially when they were of themselves such waxen creatures so prone and pliant to Idolatry that the onely

I will throw them off one here and one there and only serve God who is my true end It is remarkable that the Papists turn our lenity and gentlenesse towards them into an argument against us inferring that wee have no zeale no religion O consider the flocks and multitudes of ignorant people that came to me when I lodged in London crying for satisfaction in matters of beliefe Every one of them being divided betwixt a Protestant and a Papist not knowing where to finde rest for their souls And some came under my hands whom the papists by their continual perswasions had wrought into a distraction some into madnes This others know with mee God will require an account of these souls O that it were granted to mee but first to the glory of God that while I have leave to behold this good light both of the Sun and of the Gospell I might speake in the light as our Saviour commands us what I have heard in darknesse and that I might be always at hand to binde up the gaping wounds of afflicted spirits even where they are most wounded because there are most Enemies Neither do men saith Mat. 5. 15. our Saviour light a candle and put it under a bushell but on a candlestick and it giveth light to all that are in the House The Candlestick is the place of the candle be it small or great Shall the zeale of the true Church be overcome in religious forwardnesse by a false one It is not all my purpose to labour in the prevention of Popery Part of it is to teach plainly and truly the Faith professed in England and the piety of a Christian life even to the perfection of it as will appeare to the Reader It is our Saviours Rule commended to Saint Peter When thou art converted Luk. 22. 32. strengthen thy Brethren God hath abundantly performed his part towards mee the performance of my part remaineth towards him and my Brethren And no zeale is like to zelus animarum the zeal of souls It somewhat suits which the Bridegroom said to the Spouse My Cant. 2. 10 11 12 13. beloved spake and said unto mee Rise up my love my faire one and come away For loe the winter is past the rain is over and gone The flowers appeare on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell Arise my love my faire one and come away When God calls who loves because he will love and therefore says first My Love and then my faire one and he first loves because we are not faire but by his love And he seems to love without reason and to do what hee does as women doe because he will doe it but it is the greatest of all reasons that his will should be done And this is confessed by the Schoolmen in the resolution of other great difficulties and when hee cals so movingly and so prettily it is high time to goe But before I go I beg of all the zealous and noble spirits included in my Dedication that they will so farre listen after me and remember Gods worke in me as to take notice and observe what becomes of me And so God that in his good time hath remembred you and us remember both you and us all in the end and world without end Which humbly prays Your humble servant Richard Carpenter EXPERIENCE HISTORY and DIVINITY The first Booke CHAP. 1. THe Divines authorized by Let not my Reader reject many easie things being joined with a few that are not so easie because in the best book the Elephant swimmeth and the Lambe wadeth Saint John in the beginning of his Gospell whom therfore Gregory the Great calls Evangelistarum Aquilam the Eagle of the Evangelists beginning their discourses of Christ with his eternall Generation stile him the word The Reason is reason Because as verbum mentis the word of the Mind even after it cometh of the minde doth still notwithstanding remaine in it the word of the Tongue perishing with the sound So the Son of God comming of his Father by a most ineffable yet most true Generation receiveth a personall distinction and yet remaineth with and in his Father by a most unseperable Unity of Essence This blessed word I call to witnesse before whom wee shall answere for every idle word that my words heere in the matters of Experience and History are so farre agreeable to the Divine word that they are true which is the first excellencie of words as they are words The matters of Divinity will stand by themselves I have read in the Schoolmen that Omne verum est à Spiritu Sancto Every Tru●h comes from the Holy Ghost I will bee sure to tell truth and upon this ground truth being told every man may be sure from whom it comes fix upon it in the deduction of the Conclusions it virtually containeth as upon the firm Principles of a Science I am not ignorant that sometimes it is a sin to speak truth because there may be a falshood committed though not spoken as a false breach of true Charity which many times obligeth to secrecie And these times the speaking of truth is indeed a lie because such a sin and against God who is Truth even as he is Truth But I know it for a Maxime Against a publique enemie of the Church of God we may lawfully and religiously speak all Truths It is a rule amongst Casuists Certa pro certis habenda dubia ut dubia sunt proponenda in a Relation certain things are to be proposed as things certain and doubtfull as doubtfull Let no man doubt but I will certainly dresse every thing in cloathes according to its degree Hence followes a lesson and it falles within my lesson God was in all eternity till the beginning of the World and but one word came from him and that a good one as good as himselfe and not spoken but as it were onely conceived Words are not to bee thought rashly and if not to bee thought not to he spoken because we think not in the sight of our neighbours but we speak in the hearing of our neighbours and if not to be spoken not to be written because we write with more deliberation and more expence of precious Time and words are more lasting when they are written I will heare what Christ says to his Church in the Canticles Thy lipps are like a thread of Scarlet and thy speech is comely Saint Can. 4. 3. Hierome translates it Sicut vitta thy lipps are like a Fillet or Haire-lace They are compared to a thread of Scarlet for the comlinesse of the colour and therefore it followes And thy speech is comely Thomas Aquinas his lips are like Scarlet and his speech is very comely in the Exposition of this place He sais that

as ordinarily women vse a Ribon or fillet in the gathering up of Thom. Aquin in Cant. 4. their haire an extravagancie of Nature So ought we to bind up our lips keep under knot the looseness of vain and idle words that loose thoughts may not gad abroade into words and lose themselves and the Speaker and then our speech will be comly CHAP. 2. GOds great last end in all his actions is himself and his own Glory For the end of the best must be the best of Ends and the best of Ends must be the best of things Our ends if conformable to his end do borrow more or lesse light perfection frō it in bending more or lesse neer to it Our chief end that is our end which all our other ends must observe and wait upon ought to be the same with his end in the World because it is the same with his in Heaven the sight and fruition of him A good end will not sanctifie a bad Action Howsoever we are call'd wee are not Religious if we set on fire the Hearts of Princes and stir them to arms that by the burning of Cities the depopulation of Countries the murdering of men women and children and by unjust intrusion upon the right of others the holy Church may encrease and multiply We are not of the society of Gods people if we devise and labour to blow up the joy and flower of a Kingdome with a powder-mine moved by a pious intention to promote the good of the Catholike Cause These pious intentions and pious frauds have play'd the very devils in the world and they are the more dangerous because they goe drest like Angels of light and are beleeved to come from Heaven The Divines teach good Doctrine when they say Bonum ex integra causa malum ex quocunque defectu Good must be compleat in it's kind and furnished with all requisites one of which being wanting the action is not compleat in morality and therefore not so good as it should be The matter of the Action must be good the manner of the performance good and the End good Which though it be extrinsecall to the Action is intrinsecall to the goodnesse of it I suppose if the matter and manner be indifferent they are good in some degree but the End crowns the goodnesse of the work for it is the most eminent of all that stirre in it Non est faciendum malum vel minimu ut eveniat bonum vel maximum The least evill is not to be done that the greatest good may follow the doing of it And it stands with good reason For the smallest evill of sinne as being laesio infinitae Majestatis the traiterous wounding of an infinite Majestie would be greater than the good which could follow And moreover committed in that kinde would cast a most foule aspersion upon God to wit that hee were either not able or not willing to bring about in it's appointed time the good he would have done but by evill performances It appeareth here that the performance of good is hard of evill easie My end is good and more then good superlatively good For it is God's end God and his Glory in the first place and in the second the good and godlinesse of my neighbours that some may cease to doe evill learne to do well others stand fast En su ser y 1 Es 16 17 puesto as the Spaniard speaks in the being position of wel-being in which God hath placed them and that all may love God and praise him and when they see or heare of this little Book may looke up to the great one above sing to him a love-song the song of the Angels that best know how to sing Glory be to God in the highest And 2 Luk. 14. as my end is good my action is not evill either in the matter or manner or circumstances because the milde relation of one truth which may be lawfully related and the zealous defence of another which may be lawfully defended and all this in a good and acceptable time CHAP. 3. BUt all is not required on my part The Reader likewise hath his task It was an old custome in the Grecian Church in a time when the current of zeale and religion ranne more pure because more nigh to the fountaine Christ Jesus that in the beginning of divine Service the Deacon appeared in the full view of the Congregation and cried aloud Sacra sacris holy things to holy things holy soules to holy services S. Chrysost Basil in Liturgiis The Reader is now upon a high service and his soule must be all Angelicall There is a certaine kinde of shell that lyeth alwayes open towards Heaven as it were looking upward and begging one fruitfull drop of dewe which being fallen it apprehends the greatnes of the purchase shuts presently and keepes the dore against all outward things till it hath made a pearle of it Every man desireth naturally in the first motion of his desire the conservation of himselfe in the second the bettering of his owne estate It is in the reading of pious Books as in the hearing of Sermons If we open our shells our soules the Heavens will drop their dewe into them the fruitfull dewe of Grace to be imployed worthily in making pearles of good works and solid vertue Here is matter of Meditation and matter of Action and they are both entirely conformable to the mixt life which is the most perfect It is the life of the Angels Abram requiring a signe of God by which he might know that hee should inherit the land of Canaan received this answer Take me an Heifer of three yeares old and a shee Goat of three yeares old and a Ram Gen. 15. 9 of three yeares old and a Turtle Dove and a young Pigeon His Sacrifice must consist of creatures that flye and creatures that onely goe upon the ground The Goers must all be of three yeares old in their full strength and vigour of Nature The Flyers were only the Turtle Dove and the young Pigeon whereof the first is a mourner the second a most harmlesse and quiet Liver As our Bookes so our lifes must be divided betwixt action and contemplation and the action must be the Action of youth and strength and our thoughts that are all upon the wing and the Ministers of Contemplation must first be mourners and then white harmelesse and heavenly and this will be to us a sure signe that we shall inherit the land of Canaan And because the devill is an old Thiefe that cares not from whom he stealos wee must learne of Abram of whom it followes And when Verse 11. the fowles came downe upon the carcasses Abram drove them away The devils temptations cannot be hindered from making towards the sacrifice or from setling upon it but we may drive them off before they fall too they must not carry a bill-full away Quodemit saith

And where the Papists have great meanes they are very free to Ministers in their entertainments and send their Coaches for them and their wifes But when they have beene merry and are gone their good name which they left behind them hath not as good entertainment as they For the Papists say and I have heard them These Ministers are the veriest Epicures meere belly-gods if we fill their bellies we shall be sure to have them our friends when the bag is full the Pipe will goe to our tune a long time after Modo ferveat olla if the pot seeth and there be warme meat providing for dinner what care they whether there bee a God or no If wee licker them throughly with strong Beere and good sparkling Canary and call them to ride and hunt with us they will talke familiarly with our Priests and heare them jest at their Religion and at the Professours and Defenders of it and as freely jest as they and yet will honestly keepe counsell they are not Christians but Atheists And thence the Papists fetch as they think a strong argument against our Religion And whilest these Ministers frequent their houses with a pretence of converting them for so they tell ignorant people that groane under the scandall they subvert them utterly Truly a Minister and a daily Guest of the Papists enquired when this Book which I intended for the service of God and the detestation of Popery came into the light that said he I may sit by the fire-side and laugh at it and I beleeve he will if he can spare so much time from drinking The Lord forgive him and teach him to be practicall in the practicable things in which this Book is doctrinall But why should I be opposed in my reasonable proceedings against the Adulteresse of Rome by my own Mothers owne children and so often by so many of them or why should entertainments or private ends be more deare to them then Gods truth Let every man observe what great Christmasses they keepe and how they abound in dancing and revelling striving thereby to make the hearts of the Country people which are soone taken with such baits their owne lest they should at any time either accuse them or beare witnesse against them And in their houses many if not the greater part of their servants were lately Protestants O Lord whither doe they pull us one by one I know where having one of a Family they made the number up five presently and the Father had bin but a while before a Church-warden and these are all Attendants upon a rich Papist I would their devotion did not blaze so much and so often like an Ignis Fatuus lead poore Travellers out of their way It is my opinion grounded upon experience In every day of the year O pitty Some and more then we dreame of in this little corner of the world are drawne with queint devices with smooth tearms of Art with trim speaking and eloquent behaviour from us from our owne body by them to them O weak people to be thus drawne weake in life or understanding or at least weak in resolution selling Christ for a messe of pottage or for thirty pence at most If the Papists goe on there will be quickly I say not few but fewer sound hearts in England Take notice of this all good people Existimemus If we have no zeale we have no religion no Church and zeal is like fire if it be it burnes Wee carry our selves perinde quasi nihil accideret grave saith St. Chrysostome S. Chrysost hom 1 adversus Iudaeos cùm membra nostra putrescunt as if no harm did happen to us when our own limbs drop away in corruption from our bodies But I turne to the matter in hand CHAP. 18. THe Teachers of the Arian Heresie by which Christ was throwne downe from Heaven to the degree of a meere creature were the most affable and most insiunating people that lived in those dayes How subtill were they both in the propagation of their faith and the carriage of their manners they shewed the poore plaine people three corners of their handkerchers saying Here are three and these three are not one how then can three persons be one God And they did not juggle onely with the simple sort For they deluded six hundred Bishops by a cunning Ruff lib. 10 Eccl. hist cap. 21. proposall whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who because they were not skill'd in the Greek language answered they would worship Christ and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little thinking they denied Christ to be consubstantiall with his Father And how cunningly did they scrue themselves into the favour of great-ones moving one by another as Constantine by his ●●ster Constantia What did they not attempt against holy Athanasius they suborned a false woman to accuse him of rape they brought in the arme of a dead man with an intention to soyle him with murther and sorcerie they would have pulled him limb from limb in the midst of an honourable Assembly In very truth no people were ever so like these heretikes in their practises as the Popish Priests and Jesuits of these days I have heard from themselves that one Jesuit sat singing in a Coblers shop with his apron before him to hide himselfe from the Officers that pursued him another councerfeited himselfe to be drunk and acted it rarely that he might put a trick upon a Constable and that a third dancing with a Lady heard her Confession sin after sin as he met her because he wanted better opportunity These are but pranks yet the good Fishermen would not have done so What black sin will they not fix upon him that is their enemy though a friend to Christ But here I cannot stay Yet note God hath layd a curse upon dissemblers that if you neerly follow their lifes and actions with your eyes you shall clearely perceive them often tripping and plainely discovering the foule disorder of their hearts in crooked proceedings that doe not favour of Evangelicall doctrine or Apostolicall gravity It is the prophecie of Esay The waters of Nimrim shall be dried up Some Esay 15. 6. English it the Panthers waters shall be dried up The Panther say the best writers of naturall History being exceedingly spotted doth seek out secret fountains wherein to wash and rub it selfe thinking by this meanes to put off the foule badge and corse livery of nature and the colour of its coat which it likes not But the Panthers waters shall one day be dryed up No figge-leaves good sonne of Adam no painted veyle of sincerity no long cloak of dissembled holinesse If you are found naked you must appeare so before a great Assembly made great by all the great Assemblies that ever were I am a plaine man and I must speak plainly because I do not judge rashly the judgement of experience is certain The good Bishop of Rome who lived when

had opened my heart to some Protestants of note concerning my good will to the Church of England which blew up all their hopes For some passages of the Countrey where I lived which had passed in my time had much bowed my heart to a cōsideratiō of what I had formerly known The passages in part were these To confirme the doctrine of worship due to Images it was spread amongst the Papists that the night before a certaine holy Priest was apprehended by a Pursevant all the pictures in his chamber were seen to sweat And to bolster up the doctrine of praying to the Virgin Mary and other Saints it was given out for a fixt truth that a devout person being frighted in his bed with the strange likenesse of a Ghost and calling upon Christ by the holy name of Jesus no helpe appeared but at length turning his speech to the Virgin Mary the Ghost with all possible haste vanished In these parts a great Priest great in body being most talkative in his owne praises perswaded the weaker sort of his faction that he had already cast foure hundred Devils out of a poore needy woman by the vaine exorcizing of whom set out with bold action and a loud voice he raiseth to himselfe a great part of his maintenance For he carrieth her from house to house as poore men doe Apes to shew tricks with her And he had tooke much paines to release her in the house where I lived It is easie to delude fooles but that wise persons should goe astray after a delusion would be a contradiction in wisdome and prove that wisedome were not so well united in it selfe I was present one time when the play was acted For the fat Priest had gathered together the refuse of Papists being the poore silly sheep of people I dare say not one of them knew the biggest letter in the Alphabet into a house standing alone He sate in a Chaire habited with his Priests ornaments The woman kneeled at his frete and turned her mouth and face into strange figures He spoke to the Devill with a commanding voice the Devill answered by the woman He asked the Devill how many Devils had possession of the body The Devill answered all were gone of so many hundreds but onely two Hee commanded the Devill to come up to the top of her longest finger He did so and the finger was held out Having got him there he asked him his name The Devill answered in a grave tone Dildo He commanded the other to the same place and likewise asked his name This Divell also answered Dildo But there the womans wit fell short for she should have given the other Devill another name And here was all that is notable which I saw in the best part of a night who notwithstanding was very curious in seeing And in the word of an honest man I saw nothing but what might easily be and what reason tels me was counterfeit And all the while the poore ignorant people were all on their knees praying upon their Beads knocking their brests groaning as loud as the Patient crying Our blessed Lady help thee The root of the deceit is They say the Devill first entred into her when she entred into one of our Churches to see the childe of a Papist buried to which shee had beene Nurse And still the wonders pluck at our doctrine as here people are frighted from entring into our Churches for feare of being possessed with Devils The plaine simple truth is which I made good by enquiry The woman was alwayes a very idle and lazie person and the childe failing grew poore and discontented and so either fell to her tricks or was easily wrought into them I am a saver here as in other places Onely this I present to the consideration of all wise people If one small part of a County in the small time of a yeere gave plenty of these most ridiculous passages what prankes doe they play every houre in England what in the world I kenw the Jesuite that came to the dore of a great house in England leading an Ape and professing to make sport with him The secret was he desired to win a kinswoman of his abiding in the house To whom afterwards comming as she walked in the fields in hay-time and not being able to bend her to him he drew his knife upon her and had shee not beene relieved by an out-cry she might have beene spoyled by him of her life though not of her religion These and the like strange carriages of heavenly matters scanned in my thoughts moved me at first to separate my selfe a little from the Papists In which time they wrote a very persuasive letter to me Which having perused I sent a letter to a person of quality amongst them wherein for I promised in the beginning of my book to speak the truth in all things I signified to him that my heart failed me and I feared to goe on in my new resolution And in so great a change as the change of Religion after the practice of thirteene yeeres amongst the Papists and all the yeeres of my knowledge it would have beene a miracle if the heart should not have imitated the Seamans Needle turning to the North-pole and have shaked before it had fixt Yet this hapned before I had actually tooke the the habit of a Minister Let them shew mee that I gave them any solid shew I was of their minde since I first made open shew of the profession I now sticke to and they will shew more then they can shew CHAP. XV. I Beganne soone after to compare the two Religions in these words The Protestants have one great Power upon whom onely they depend and to whom alone they flie by prayer in all their necessities observing that of Saint Peter Cast all 1 Pet. 5. 7. your care upon him for he careth for you The Papists have as many hearers and helpers as they have Saints and Angels And yet devotion being divided is lesse warme and the expectation of a benefit from a heavenly power under God doth engage us to performe the highest acts at least of outward reverence to a creature as to prostrate our selves before him and to call upon him in all places as if he were every where The Protestants leane wholly upon the merits of Christ Jesus desiring to suit with that of Saint Paul For by Grace yee are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it 2 Ephes 89 is the gift of God Not of workes lest any man should boast Amongst the Papists their good men all merit and to make the matter sure one meriteth for another And yet as no man can direct an intention to an end but hee must also intend the meanes requisite to the end So no man can truly merit salvation unlesse he likewise merit the meanes necessary to salvation the thing necessary to salvation was the death of Christ therefore S. Aug. Serm. 8 de

imperfections whether naturall or morall Judge no man neither say or thinke that such a man is proud envious malicious that he hath an ill looke of his owne and so forth Judge not of things which are not plaine and open to thee either for the present secrecie or for the future uncertainty although the person is now blacke it is not farre to the fountain he may be quickly whiter then Snow And he hath the same Creator Redeemer Sanctifier Benefactour and Preserver with thee whom he calleth Father and to whom he prayeth every day who will also bee his Judge and thine Rule 13. VVHen you are afflicted with losse of health or wealth or good-name or with misery meete it with open armes and accept it willingly as a small punishment for your sins saying How good is God to be thus easily put off with a temporall punishment an eternall punishment being due I have deserved more and more and yet more and Christ hath suffered infinitely more in my occasions I see now there is good reason why the blessed are called Blessed of his Father but not the cursed cursed of his Father He blesseth of himselfe and never curseth but exceedingly urged And he did not prepare Hell for man but for the Devill And Christ died rather for men then Angels because it was a more eminent worke of charity to fasten the weakenesse and to relieve the wants of men then of Angels God is said to harden the heart because upon a refusall and contempt of his grace and of him standing at the doore of the heart with his lookes all moistned with the dewe of the morning he justly withdraweth his helpes which he is not bound to continue after which followeth hardnesse of heart And we see that men of high calling and good life if they fall fall to the bottome because they have neglected the more forcible moving and urgent helpes of God Rule 14. MAke a weekely Bill of Gods benefits and thy sinnes and alwayes when the Lords day commeth to which come thou prepared by prayer and humiliation blesse God more plentifully for those and for all his other benefits and crave pardon more seriously for these and for all thy other sinnes And this day principally fold thy selfe within thy selfe and looke backe upon God as hee was before the world Be present with him in the Creation as Wisedome was which saith I was with him making all things Stand by and observe the strangenesse of the workmanship Consider that which thou canst not conceive the nothing that was before the world the thought of darknesse will come the nighest to it Listen and heare God say Let there be light Marke with what quicknesse Light followes Admire it and crie out Lord there was Light before there was light for thou art Light and in thee there is no darknesse at all Consider the different state of the Church from Abel through the Law of Nature the written Law and the Law of Grace to this houre Mark how strangely the providence of God hath carried the publike affaires of the world and the particular businesse of every creature in the world At length come home to thy selfe examine thy memory and discover the different tracts of Gods working with thee from thy child-hood his daily discourse to thy heart and the strange inventions by which he hath called thee to him and thy unkindnesse On the other side labour to lay open the plots of the Devill whether beaten and ordinary or strange and extraordinary endeavouring to know and fortifie thy weakenesse In thy prayers imagine thy selfe to lye prostrate before God amongst the worms amongst the sculs and bones of the dead or at the foot of his Crosse upon Mount Calvarie Mark what God inwardly saith to thee in thy prayers and thence raise good purposes Let thy demeanour in Gods house be seasoned with all possible reverence and with a decent composition of body and face and especially with a watchfull carriage of thy eyes And lastly note as to the devotion of our morning prayer the successe of the day doth commonly answer so from our behaviour on the Lords day every day of the weeke doth commonly take his direction THE FOVRTH BOOKE CHAP. I. THe provinciall of the English Jesuits being my Kinsman and the onely Papist of all my Kindred who died soone after sent me to the English Colledge in Rome And in my journey when I came to Marselles a Port-towne in the remote parts of France I was strongly conceited that by the prayers of Saint Mary Magdalene whose shrine and chiefe reliques were not farre off I should gaine the benefit of a good winde and be conveyed as I was informed I might have beene in foure and twenty houres to Rome And therefore I prayed earnestly to her but shee did not heare me and my conceit was very weake though it was very strong For sixe long weekes passed before I could recover Rome It is worthy to be knowne that in Marselles when I passed through it to it Rome there were but foure or five Jesuits and those in a house in the best roome of which they could scarce all together turn themselves round but two yeares after when I returned their number was exceedingly encreased and they were seated in three faire houses One a casa professa as they call it for their old men another a Colledge for their Students and the third a house for the tutoring of their novices And it is not unworthy to be knowne that there is not a Papist of any worth in England whose worth in the matter of his estate the Iesuits doe not exactly know and have not set downe in writing and that the Jesuits doe every where professe and publish themselves to be in debt that they may be thought poore and lie the more openly open to the Charity of people When I came within halfe a dayes journey of Rome and beheld part of Saint Peters Church I was taken presently and I have often wondred at it with a strange rising of Spirit against the City and Church of Rome By which I did as it were presage what I should afterwards know The Church of this Colledge is all painted in the inward And the pictures counterfeit men and women that were hang'd or beheaded in England as they speake either in the profession of faith or the defence of vertue And the painter played the counterfeit too For he hath cunningly mingled old stories with these of late dayes the more to deceive the beholder and to passe them all under the same cause Truely if my power had beene pound-waight with my will the Schollers should have complained to the Pope of the foule abuses which have besmeared the Government of this Colledge It was significant that F. Fitz-Herbert wrote a booke against Matchiavell for why said one of our Schollers at Rome that he might not seeme to be what he was a Matchiavellian because our craft is void if we are knowne to be

crafty In this Towne the tricke of counterfeiting is in great request For many vile Caitifes are permitted to counterfeit themselves possessed with Devils and openly in the Churches to make strange signes and motions with the eyes mouth tongue hands and with the whole frame and building of the body to impresse a beliefe into the soft and ignorant Congregation that the Devill is more stirred and they more tormented with the sight of such and such reliques of these and these Images and the like the learned part of people knowing and confessing they are foule dissemblers Here I heard it confessed that the Jesuits were openly convinced in Rome by the Dominicans to have corrupted Saint Austin And that of Saint Brigit and Saint Catherine the one had a revelation from God that the Virgin Mary was not conceived in originall sinne and the other that she was I heard it likewise avouched by themselves that in the Inquisition when they combate with a person whom they cannot crook and bowe to their owne purposes some young Ruffian appeareth to him by night in the most horrid shape of a Devill who telleth him with a voice like a Devill that all of his opinion are damned in Hell and that a very deepe place is there provided for him which must needs work upon a man used to darknesse and affliction and to solitary thoughts But the truth of God is all-sufficient and doth not call deceit to helpe her My reader must thinke in reason that I could not but step aside into a corner and say privately Have I forsook all my noble friends and good fortunes to spot my selfe with deceit and hypocrisie Nothing is more certaine then that the Inquisition is a Den of horrour and deceit The English Jesuits and Monkes have a great account to give for a man who was a Monke in Paris and one of the most able Schollers in the Christian world This Monke wrote a learned booke against equivocation And had formed another booke but it never saw light the subject of which was that the Pope is Antichrist Him they carried having by cunning meanes bended the higher powers to them into the Low-Countries and laid up fast in a Castle neere Brissels and for more terrour they barred him up in a comfortlesse chamber hanging over a Water-mill and had they but stirred a certaine device made for the purpose the whole frame of the boards had turned under him he lost his footing fell downe and been ground into a thousand peeces But they reserved him to bee a more publike example And the like precipice they have at Rome in the Castle of S. Angelo receiving the miserable creature that is throwne downe in every part of his body with most sharpe pikes This Monke they conveyed to the Inquisition at Rome where they so terrified him with the blacke thoughes of being burned that they drove him into madnesse And he was then carried to the Bedlam of Rome and there bound in the necke with an iron collar and secured with an iron chaine to the post of a bed where he spoke the Fathers both Greeke and Latine to the great admiration of all Schollers that were present They are as cruell as we mercifull The Colledges both of Rome and Spaine are seldome without a mad-man In both places I saw examples And the mad man in the Colledge at Rome had beene a fugitive from the Church of England And his words to them continually were vos me fascinastis yee have bewitched me But he was the daily jeere of them all O that the Schollers in our Universities were all as wise as they are learned CHAP. II. THere is a holy place in a Church in Rome called the Sanctum Sanctorum where they receive as they say that part of skin which was cut from Christ in his Circumcision and one of the Popes a great while agoe attempting to looke upon it a mighty storme comming in thunder and lightning and a fierce winde indangered the whole Citie and frighted away his purpose It was an old objection that in Rome when they set a fresh Maid to saile in the Stewes they hang a Flagge a knowne signe out of a window One of our Jesuits in Spaine to blot out this objection said the hanging was exposed in honour of the Sacrament But I being in Rome although some hangings are exposed to glorifie the Sacrament found the objection to be true and sound And it is not agreeable to the decencie of Religion that those eminent Princes the Cardinals should behave themselves with such open curtesie towards noted women noted onely for their publike profession of wickednesse or cover one nakednesse with another the naked wals of their Palaces with pictures moving to lust and venery The deepe Monke at Doway recreated ms with a sweete historicall relation and affirmed the matter to have beene done within a few yeares Their Agent at Rome having recourse to a Cardinall as his occasions wav'd him the Cardinall frowned upon him and urged that the Priests in England as he heard were much given to women The Agent being a subtill head and knowing the inclination of the Cardinall replyed that indeed the English women were a powerfull temptation and that young comely Maids brought the Priests every night to their chambers The Cardinall gave an Italian action with his shoulders and answered Friend if it be so you say truth the temptation is very powerfull and so the quarrell ended and the Cardinall began to be graciously kinde Two chiefe things I much wonder at in the Cardinals First that many of those high persons are men of meane low and inferiour learning Secondly that a young stripling in a thred-bare coate his Uncle being chosen Pope is the next day a most eminent Prince and little differing from a King A notable thing passed in Rome a small time before my arrivall thither It was that the Pope picked a quarrell with the Bishop of Spalato whom he had received into Rome with great pompe comming from us under a colourable pretext that he inclined to the Grecian Schisme For hee would not suffer so great a scandall to goe unpunished lest it should draw others into its owne example and he could not punish it without a colour And therefore he was lodged in the Castle where he quickly dyed of griefe and his body was burned in campo Fiori a place in Rome like Smithfield in London I humbly desire all religious people when they talke of this pamper'd man not to think of me He was not a native of this Countrey and in many things he behaved himselfe like an Atheist and an Epicure he was cut out into a Dissembler when he was young for he had beene a Jesuit I never was but abhorre the name In Ligorne a Towne lying by the Mediterranean Sea and subject to the Duke of Florence I saw the man upon whom part of a wall fell and held him to the ground while he was tooke in the act of