Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	lord_n	name_n	write_v	5,698	5	5.8489	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36877	The monk's hood pull'd off, or, The Capvcin fryar described in two parts / translated out of French.; Capucin. English	Du Moulin, Pierre, 1568-1658.; Basile, de Rouen, d. 1648?	1671 (1671)	Wing D2592; ESTC R17147	60,217	212

to those that are destitute of the fear of God CHAP. XXIV Of the vow of Poverty and of idle begging Also of works and satisfactions of supererogation THere are two sorts of Poverty one which God sends and another to which men do voluntarily devote themselves without Gods sending it unto them The former is an affliction the other is a direct profession which some chuse as supposing it of great merit and a work of supererogation There be some poor whom God hath reduced to a low estate wherein they get a slender livelihood by the labour of their hands who if they be contented with their conditions and by serving God with a pure Consciscience do aspire to better riches viz the Heavenly they are happy and beloved of God and truly rich There be others whom God bereaves of their estates for the profession of the Gospel who although they have not purposely drawn poverty on themselves yet if they bear this yoke patiently and joyfully esteeming it an honour to bear the Cross of Christ their Poverty may be said to be voluntary because they voluntarily follow the call of God Of these Jesus Christ speaks in the ninth Chapter of Saint Matthew who have left Father Mother Wife and Children or Lands for his sake God having reduced them to such a necessity that they cannot keep their estates without forsaking the profession of the Gospel In this case we must lay down our very lives to save our Souls and must be prodigal of our estate to be nigardly of our salvation But there is an affected poverty which some embrace by vow and without any necessity or God's obliging of them thereunto who may keep their estates with a good conscience but yet had rather leave them to live by other men's estates and had rather beg than work This poverty is a yoke which God imposeth not on them but they impose it on themselves They bear not Christ's Cross but their own They leave the exercise of charity upon pretence of humility and patience It may be said that they they are like the fowls of the Air for they sow not neither do they reap and yet their Father the Pope feeds them plentifully for we see that those who have vowed Poverty are fat and plump and though they are poor in particular yet are they rich in common They get more by begging then the common people do by working Many turn Monks in spight or to shake off the yoke of their parents or in a Melancholy and desperate humour or to defraud their creditors who press hard upon them or because they will not take pains to work or have not wherewith to subsist at home They turn beggers that they may not be poor They are poor by vow for fear of being so by necessity Wherefore Bellarmine speaks very gracefully when he saith That to these begging Monks belongs that saying of Jesus Christ in the Nineteenth Chapter of Saint Matthew Centuplum accipiet c. That is He shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit eternal life But when our adversaries call begging a work of supererogation they do thereby acknowledge that God commands it not The Prophets and the Apostles never vowed poverty neither were they beggars Those of them who were poor were not so by vow but by necessity which God imposed on them The Apostles had their Fishing Vessels after our Lords Resurrection And St. John had his house St. Paul received with thankfulness the relief which the Philippians sent him Being at Corinth he got his living by making of Tents chusing rather to work then to beg For he well knew that begging is a shameful thing and that it makes men both idle and impudent He that leaves his own estate to eat another mans bread hath no reason to say to God Give us this day our daily bread For God might answer him I gave thee wherewith to buy bread but thou hast despised it And now by thy begging thou takest from them that are really poor those Alms which are due to them And so far is begging from being a work of supererogation and better then what God commands in his Law that on the contrary God will have us prevent it as much as we can saying in Deut. Chap. 15. verse 4. To the end that there may be no poor among you The Hebrew word signifies a Beggar and the Vulgar Translation so renders it Not that it is a sin to beg when a man hath no other way of subsistence But God commands the rich so to relieve the poor that they may not be constrained to beg The Scripture often speaks of begging as an evil and a punishment yea a curse In the 37. Psalm David saith I have been young and now am old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread And in 109 Psalm he makes this imprecation Let his Children be Vagabonds and beg He speaks indeed of involuntary poverty but there is no likelihood that that which is a curse to some can be a blessing to others and that which to one is a grievous affliction can be to another a holy Profession As for examples we have already seen the description which Lucian and Apuleius give of the Priests of the Syrian goddess who did whip themselves and beg To which we shall adde the Massalian Hereticks of whom Fpiphanius saith they went about begging as not having wherewith to subsist neither possessing any thing Examine Antiquity and try if you can find so much as one example of Monks that made begging a Profession There was no no such thing as a Profession of beggary for above twelve hundred years after the Nativity of our Lord. Camus Bishop of Bellay who is yet living hath written a great book of the labours of Monks in the Preface whereof you shall find these words The ulcer of idleness is crept into Monasteries under the name of holy and meritorious beggary His whole book is employed to prove that Monks should be obliged to labour with their hands especially those that do not Preach nor have any other painful employment in the Church so far is he from placing beggary amongst those pieces of perfection whereby God is made a debtor to man And this Prelate's book bears in its front the Approbation of the Doctors of the faculty of Theologie at Paris St. Augustine hath written a book De opere Monachorum wherein he obligeth them to labour Epiphanius teacheth the same in the Heresie of the Massalians where he saith that in all the Monasteries of Egypt the Monks did labour with their hands even as Bees do labour to make honey and wax In those days the Monks were poor Hermits living in deserts labouring with their hands to get their living and carrying their workmanship to the neighbouring Towns to sell bought bread with the money They did not beg the approbation of their Rule from the Bishop of Rome for they were

the nature of their vow is to do works of Supererogation but the Angels do no such works for they content themselves with obeying the commands of God Those who say the Capucins are called Angels because they imitate the Angels in that they marry not nor receive money do great wrong to the Order of these Monks for by the same reason they may be said to imitate the Devils because they neither marry nor possess wealth any more than the Angels It is a mockery to say that they are called Angels and Seraphins because they take the Angels and Seraphins for their Patrons and Protectors For by the same reason a married woman who hath taken the Virgin Mary for her Patroness may be called the Virgin Mary And he who takes God for his Protector may be called God But sith the Capucins have St. Francis for their Protector who is as they say of the Order of the Seraphins and exalted above the eight Orders of Angels what need have they to take the Angels for their Patrons Besides they who chuse Angels or Saints for their Patrons chuse one certain Angel or Saint for their Patron and not the Angels and Saints in general CHAP. XI The form of making their Vow WHen a Capucin will enter into Order after the year of probation he is admitted to make the vow which is done in the presence of the Superior and his brethren in these terms I A. B. do Vow and Promise to God the Father Almighty and to the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul to the Blessed St. Francis my Patron and to you my Father to observe the Rule of the Fryars Minors living in Poverty Obedience and Chastity He that receives this Vow Answers And I if thou observe it do promise thee in the name of God life eternal CHAP. XII Some Obervations upon this Vow DIvers things are remarkable in this vow which being rightly understood we shall find that many abuses yea impieties are therein covered with the cloak of Religion In the first place this vow is made to God the Father to the Virgin Mary to Saints and to the Superior of the Convent without making any mention at all of Jesus Christ In the second place he who makes this vow to Saints departed pre-supposeth that those Saints do see him and that they know the intention of his heart This is contrary to the Holy Scripture ●●●ch saith that the dead have no more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun Ec. 9. 6. And that God only knows the hearts of the Children of Men 2 Chr. 6. 30. This vow is repugnant to all the examples contained in the Holy Scriptures wherein there is no vow made to creatures but to God only as God himself commands in Psal 50. 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most High Here Sacrifices and vows are linked together as things equally due unto God But the Church of Rome holds that we must offer Sacrifices to God only Ergo. But that in the holy Scripture not one example is to be found of vows made to Saints Bellarmine freely confesseth in his Book De cultu Sanctorum Chapter 9. in these words When the Holy Scriptures were written the custom of making vows to Saints was not begun The same Jesuit in the same Chapter saith that a vow is an action of Religion due to God only even as swearing and sacrificing are as appears by the Holy Scriptures These are his own words Thomas Aquinas the Prince of School-men saith the same A vow saith he is to be made to God only but a promise may be made to a man And in the same place A Vow is an action of Religion or Divine Worship Wherefore Cardinal Cajetan in his notes upon this place of Thomas to defend vows made to Saints saith that the Saints are Gods and that vows are made to them ut sunt Diiper participationem as they are Gods by participation The same saith Bellarmine in the afore-mentioned Chapter A vow belongs not to the Saints but only as they are Gods by participation But we are certain that the Saints who raign with Christ are such Ergo c. According to what Pope Gregory 2. saith in his Epistle to the Emperour Leo viz. that all the Kingdoms of the West own St Peter for a God upon Earth But these Doctors consider not that if a vow be a worship of Latria and due to God only and that if we make vows to Saints because they are Gods by participation it follows that we give to Saints the worship of Latria by participation Also they consider not that by the same reason it may be said that the Superiour or Guardian who receives this vow is God too by participation For when the Fryar Minor hath said I vow unto God and to the Virgin and to the Saints he adds and to you my Father vowing to the Guardian in the same terms in which he vows to the Saints and to God This needs not seem strange for in the Church of Rome the Priests are called Gods and Creators of their Creator having a Divine power yea a power over Jesus Christ Mr. Beste a famous Preacher in his book of the Priestly-Office Chap. 3. saith The Priest-hood and the Deity have I know not what of common and are almost of an equal Grandeur for they have the same power Item Seeing that the Priest-hood is equal to the Deity and that all Priests are are Gods therefore it far exceeds the Kingly Office and Priests are much more than Kings And a little after he saith that God obeys the Priests as often as they pronounce the words of consecration A Sorbonist named Petrus Aurelius hath lately written a book with the approbation and by the authority of the Colledge of Sorbon which refutes a Treatise of the Jesuits entituled Spongia and in the 75 page this Aurelius saith Data est Sacerdotibus potestas Christum hoc est Deum ipsum producendi that is A power is given to Priests to produce Christ that is to say God himself He adds that the power of the Priests hath in it a certain emulation of the eternal operations whereby the Divine persons are produced Gabriel Biel famous among the School-men in his first Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass speaks thus The Priest hath great power over both the bodies of Christ That is over the Church and over the consecration hoste which he calls God And in his fourth Lesson Whoever saw the like He that created me if I may so speak hath given me power to create him And he that created me without my help is created by my means This manner of speech is not new For Anno 1097. Vrban II. called a Council at Rome against the Emperour Henry IV. and all other secular Princes who should claim a right to the investiture of Bishops and Abbots and to the Collations of Benifices and