Pretences extatick Motions severe Austerities and Macerations of the Body a mortified Look extraordinary Acts of apparent Humility ridiculous Actions which may imply a contempt of the World perpetual canting about Spiritual Matters and delivering them in such a manner as may seem to proceed from the immediate Revelation of God and withal in impenetrable Nonsense Such Pretences and Actions will excite the Admiration of foolish Persons and by amusing their Judgment with specious Shews create in them an extraordinary Veneration for their Enthusiastick Prophet All the Whimsies of his disturbed Phantasy shall then pass for Oracles and his foolish Austerities for so many certain Indications of a real Sanctity When this Opinion is once entertained then the pretence of Miracles may securely be set on foot and the grossest Cheat may pass undiscerned among credulous Spectators who will be deterred by a religious Awe from examining the Truth of the Miracles of their admired Impostor whose own Word shall without Scruple be received for Miracles pretended to be done by him in Secret or at least the single Testimony of one credulous Woman or fanciful Ideot shall be esteemed an undoubted Certainty Whosoever examines the Miracles of the Romish Saints will find them all to have been at first believed upon such slender Motives and afterwards amplified and increased by the Writers of their Lives at least that this was the case of the Miracles pretended to be done by Ignatius Loyola I doubt not to demonstrate Thus the Folly and Credulity of Mankind hath opened the way and facilitated success even to designing Impostors who are conscious of the falsity of their own Pretences and are disquieted with a perpetual fear of Discovery But then the way is more open and success more easy to such Enthusiasts who imagine they really enjoy and receive from God those Illuminations and Impulses which they vent to their deluded Followers Such Persons are inspired with a false Zeal and in proposing the Phrensies of their disturbed Brains imagine themselves to act in Obedience to Heaven and for the benefit of Mankind which renders all their Actions vigorous and themselves unwearied in the Prosecution of them That there have been and are still many such Enthusiasts in the World the History of all times and our own Experience demonstrates beyond all doubt and that there should be such we shall cease to wonder if we consider the nature of things Such Persons are commonly endued with weak Brains and diseased Bodies often suffer irregular motions of the Blood which creates gross and turbulent Spirits and fills the Brain with strong and active Vapours These continuing a violent motion in the Brain will reproduce so strong and lively Images of those things which have been the most frequent Objects of their Meditations and made deepest Impression in them that they will really believe themselves to act those things which they only imagine and to see hear and feel all those Objects which are so lively represented to them This is manifest even in Melancholly and Hypochondriack Persons who are so far deluded by the Action of the undigested Vapours of their Bodies upon their Brain that they frequently believe the reality of those things which their disturbed Imagination representeth to them If the motion of the Spirits be very irregular and their action upon the Brain exceeding strong it will produce various effects upon the Body according to the different Constitution of it or peculiar irregularity of the motion and disorder of the Spirits Sometimes violent and extraordinary motions of the Body shall be effected at other times all the Spirits flowing to the Brain the Nerves will be emptied and thereby all the visible Actions of Life will be suspended and both ways an Extasy will be produced And all this may happen involuntarily without or even against the consent of the Will. All these Effects will be much more sensible and apparent when the Enthusiasm is affected and contracted by a long habit of distempered Imagination This frequently happens in ignorant and melancholy Persons whose Thoughts are not serene and calm but accompanied with vehement Passions and turbulent Motions Such are wont to affix their whole Thoughts to certain Objects and employ all their Spirits in continuing their Ideas of them which being gross and hurried with an irregular Motion create a mighty Fermentation in the Blood whence new Clouds and Vapours are transmitted into the Brain and render the Imagination more intense and strong The Spirits being put into this irregular and rapid Motion various Effects will follow in the Body according to the different Constitution of it or present Disposition of the Spirits Either violent and extraordinary Motions of the whole Body will be produced or all the sensible Actions of Life will be suspended And all the while the Mind amuseth it self with monstrous and extravagant Ideas of things which are often rendred pleasing and delightful by their infinite Variety When once the Art is obtained of exciting the Passions and disturbing the Spirits of the Body at the Meditation of certain Objects no sooner will the Ideas recur to the Mind but the same Motions will return into the Body and all the aforementioned Effects will naturally be produced Thus a habit of Enthusiasm at last is formed and extasies may be produced as often as the convenience or whimsies of the Enthusiast shall require it In this state the Soul is detained with unaccountable Notions and monstrous Ideas of things which enables even the most ignorant Persons to talk boldly and fluently of those things whose imagination then disturbs the mind which are commonly Divine Matters but withal in an incoherent and unintelligible manner However the Enthusiast himself believes all this to proceed from a Divine influence and mistakes the phrensies of his Brain for the dictates of the Holy Ghost and the credulous Multitude which ever refers those things to a Divine original whose causes it cannot comprehend proclaimeth his Dreams to be Inspirations ascribeth the extatick motions of his Body to the operation of the Spirit acting in him and admireth his high-flown Nonsense as Divine Sublimity These Enthusiasts as they are commonly Persons of weak understandings and narrow capacities are easily led away with false appearances of Religion and grosly mistake the nature and genius of Christianity They imagine Religion to consist in a rigorous and severe exercise of those external actions which in the Countrey they live in are generally esteemed the indications of Piety and Christian Vertue and fancy that the farther they carry these practices the more nearly they approach to the utmost degree of perfection Thus in the Church of Rome the profession of Evangelical poverty a beggarly habit a severe mortification of the Body continual telling over of Beads going in pilgrimage and other childish actions are at least by the common people esteemed the best characters of a refined and exalted Vertue Hence Enthusiasts of that Communion corrupted with these prejudices while they
Spain through Valentia into Italy he happened on Iohn de Castro a Religious Hermit to whom he made known his Intention of going into the Holy Land. Castro spends all the Night following in Prayer comes out of his Cell next Morning in a transport of joy and tells Ignatius that he was commissioned by Heaven to let him know that his Design should succeed and turn to the good of all Christendom and for a sign that he did not speak at random offered himself to be his Companion and Disciple Ignatius received this Testimony of Castro as an Oracle of the Holy Ghost but would not suffer him to accompany him Whence Bouhours concludeth that Persons inspired from Heaven in behalf of others are not always so for themselves He might more reasonably have concluded that the whole Inspiration was fictitious and a meer whimsie of the Hermites Brain with which both Parties were not unwillingly deluded For Ignatius his Design did not succeed He never went after that to Palestine as he intended and consequently his Design was not in the least beneficial to the Cause of Christianity and then Castro equally pretended a Divine Inspiration for his entrance into the same Design as for Ignatius his success in it so that either Castro received no real Inspiration or Ignatius resisted the Holy Ghost But to proceed Ignatius travelling from Venice to Rome he stept alone into a little ruinous Chappel upon the Road following the motion of the Spirit which possest him to recommend his Company to God. Scarce had he begun his Prayer but he was wrapt in spirit environed with a great brightness and saw the Eternal Father who presenting him to the Son who stood before him laden with an heavy Cross recommended him to his protection who receiving him graciously said I will be propitious to you at Rome Removing soon after to Monte Cassino he saw the Soul of Hozez one of his Companions who at that time died at Padua at the very moment of his expiring in a glorious and shining Habit enter into Heaven and thereby had the good fortune to equal St. Benedict who in that very place saw the Soul of his Sister Scholaria in form of a Dove and the Soul of Germanus Bishop of Capua environed with exceeding light ascending into Heaven But now for the Honour of Ignatius whereas St. Benedict had but a transient view of the ascending Souls our Saint had the same Vision more than once For presently after hearing Mass he saw Heaven open and his Companion in the middle of the Saints See the Merits of the Society more resplendent than the rest However it must be remembred in favour of St. Benedict that in his time Enthusiasm was but in its infancy which in latter Ages was advanced to greater perfection St. Ignatius scorned to draw his model from an imperfect Copy but chose rather to imitate St. Francis a more Illustrious Visionary He assured his Companions that he often enjoyed the Corporeal Presence of Jesus Christ who appeared to him in his private Prayers nailed to the Cross and at other times under the form of a Cherub having six wings bearing a Crucifix in his Breast and fluttering before him for a long while in the Air. Not only were Divine Visions of this nature frequently by Heaven granted to them but also liberally communicated to others whensoever their Interest or Advantage required it Thus Ignatius coming to Barcelona to take Ship for the Holy Land a certain Lady called Isabella Rosella saw him at Church and heard a Voice within her crying Call him Call him Hereupon she invites him to her House and desires him to lodge there But he declared that he was called by Heaven to another place and so denied her Request Certainly one of these Calls must have been an Illusion For if the Lady was indeed commanded by God to invite him he ought to have accepted the Invitation if he was sent by God to another Place she ought not to have diverted him But not to be too critical upon the Actions of the Saints since it is the peculiar privilege of the Church of Rome that no Contradictions can prejudice the truth of its Assertions From Barcelona Ignatius travelled to Venice where entring late he takes up his Lodging upon the stones in the Piazza Heaven thought this too mean a Lodging for so great a Saint and therefore Marco Antonio Trevisani a Senator was immediately commanded by a Voice in a Vision to rise and invite him into his House When Rodriguez one of his chief Disciples was tempted by the Devil to leave Ignatius and become an Hermite God to prevent so great a loss sent an Angel from Heaven who taking a Gigantick Body and putting on a terrible Aspect met him going out of Town with a naked Sword in his hand and brandishing his Sword against him forced him to return with all speed altho the Countrey People who admired the precipitate and as they imagined causeless flight of Rodriguez could see neither Sword nor Giant To produce but one Instance more A Recluse near Vicenza slighting Ignatius and esteeming him a Madman God to vindicate the honour of the Saint appeared to him and told him or as Bouhours hath it he understood by a Light from above that Ignatius was a Vessel of Election filled with the Spirit of God. In like manner a Priest of Assisium who despised Saint Francis was assured by a Divine Vision that he was some great and venerable Person Hitherto their Visions are pretty equal but St. Francis had one adventure which Ignatius could never equal Being prostrated one day before a Crucifix he received exceeding consolation of spirit in praying and with his bodily Ears thrice heard a Voice proceeding from the Cross saying Francis go and repair my ruined House This was wonderful indeed but Ignatius never attained to this perfection For as the Devils and Oracles vanished and disappeared at the coming of Christ so the Romish images ceased to speak at the first appearance of the Reformation The last which we can hear of is that of Bern in Switzerland which performed the Miracle few years before the Reformation These Visions and Apparitions are so plainly owing to the whimsies of a disturbed Imagination that no art can palliate the Delusion The Ideas which these Enthusiasts conceived of God Christ and Angels were so gross and corporeal and by long habit attended with such violent motions of the Spirit that every cloud in their Brain was mistaken for that Object whose Idea did then accompany it This is evident in the case of Ignatius who in Mount Cassino remembring the famous Vision of St. Benedict in that place and then hearing the death of Hozez imagined he saw a Vision of the like nature and in visiting the holy Places in Palestine always fancied to see Christ before his eyes in that habit which the remembrance of the Place suggested to his
set it on foot was a little Spanish Visionary Lastly his Book of Exercises was accused of Heresie in Spain by the Learned Melchior Canus who asserted it to be the work of a Brain-sick Enthusiast From this universal contempt of Ignatius in his life-time and frequent suspicions of Heresie Enthusiasm and Sedition entertained of him by the Governours of the Church it may be farther evinced that all the Reports of his Miracles are absolutely false and either not yet invented or generally disbelieved at that time For it is not credible that such contempt should attend him or such suspicions be entertained of him if he had indeed performed so many and so great Miracles It remains that we examine the truth of these Miracles more particularly by some general Observations which may be framed of them It might indeed be sufficient to oppose to them what Eusebius doth to the Miracles of Apollonius that we are not inclined to believe them but because our Adversaries are not ashamed to produce them as undoubted arguments of the truth of their Cause I will oppose some few Considerations to them And first it may be enquired To what purpose should God work so many Miracles in the midst of Christian Countries many Ages after the Faith had been fully setled in them Were those Countries devoid of true Religion This is not pretended Was the Church of Rome at that time grieviously corrupted with Errors and Superstition This our Adversaries will by no means allow Or lastly Did the Evangelical Counsels of Poverty Abstinence Humility and renunciation of the World which were the grand Topicks of Ignatius want the recommendation of Divine Miracles This Ignatius himself would not approve For he was wont to say that if Miracles were to be desired of God they were much rather to be desired in confirmation of the Precepts than of the Counsels of the Gospel It remains therefore that God should perform all these Miracles meerly in testimony of the extraordinary Sanctity of Ignatius to manifest his favour to him and procure to him honour and esteem among all Christians a Design so unworthy of God and contrary to the excellence of his and imperfection of our Nature that the very pretence of it is an unpardonable boldness and a manifest argument of Imposture and immoderate Ambition and that even altho we should allow Ignatius to have been indeed as great a Saint as the Writers of his Life do represent him And therefore the Author of the Opus Imperfectum upon St. Matthew argueth excellently that there is no way now left to find out the true Church or the true Faith but only the Scripture that at the first Institution of the Gospel it was known indeed by Miracles who were true and who false Christians since the latter could either perform no Miracles or none such as the former did For the Miracles of true Christians were perfect and tended rather to the use and Interest of the Church than to procure the admiration of the World whereas the Miracles of false Christians were imperfect and of no use and tended wholly to raise admiration By this means true Christians might formerly be discerned from false But now all working of Miracles is ceased and is found only among false Christians among whom Miracles are yet feigned to be wrought as St. Peter cited by St. Clement assureth us even the Power of working true Miracles shall be given to Antichrist This Passage is so offensive to our Adversaries that it is ordered to be expunged in the Indices Expurgatorii and was accordingly left out in all subsequent Editions till it was restored by Fronto Ducoeus If yet the Church of Rome will pretend her Miracles to be true and real we are content provided she assumeth the title affixed by St. Peter and this Author to the Workers of true Miracles in latter Ages If She refuseth the Title She renounceth her claim to Miracles But the Temptation of lying and feigning Miracles for the Reputation of an Order is in that Church far more perswasive than the evidence of Reason A Catalogue of Miracles is as necessary to a Romish Saint as a list of wonderful Cures is to a Mountebank no Canonization can be obtained without them When Ignatius therefore was to be promoted to the dignity of a Saint his Disciples set their Inventions on the rack to raise a Fund of Miracles every flying Report was taken up and every Old womans Tale advanced into a Miracle and the most Illustrious wonders of his Life then first feigned without any ground This the Honour of the Order required to which all considerations of Truth and Honesty were betrayed that so the Founders of it might be rendred no less Illustrious than those of other more Ancient Orders by an equal number of Miracles and Prodigies Vitelleschi produceth a Catalogue of 140 Miracles wrought by Ignatius in divers parts of the World drawn from the Registers and Process of his Canonization He cured Twenty five Persons of divers Mortal Diseases Ten of Diseases apparently incurable Thirteen of Blindness Nineteen of Collick Head-ach Tooth-ach and Belly-ach Four of the Stone One of the Plurisie c. That the far greatest part of these Miracles were feigned many years after his Death we have just reason to suspect for when Ribadeneira who was his familiar Companion first published his Life in the Year 1572. he made a long Apology in it in defence of Ignatius maintaining that it was no way derogatory to his Sanctity that he had performed no Miracles Afterwards in the Year 1610 publishing a second Edition of his Life he was so far enlightned in this matter that he giveth to us a long Catalogue of the Miracles of Ignatius but withal confesseth That the Reason why he had not inserted them in the first Edition was because they were not then sufficiently certain and uncontested Now it cannot be imagined how the Miracles of Ignatius who died in the Year 1556 should be unknown or at least uncertain Sixteen years after when the Memory of them was yet fresh if any such indeed there were and after Fifty four Years when the greatest part of the Witnesses must be supposed to have been dead should be advanced to undoubted Certainty In like manner Maffeius writing the Life of Ignatius in the Year 1605 when his Canonization was not yet thought on relates very few Miracles performed by him and concludes in these words Beside these many other wonderful actions are related of Ignatius which because they are not sufficiently certain I thought not fit to insert especially since the holiness of famous men consists not so much in Signs and Miracles as in the Love of God and Innocence of Life And after all Bussieres confesseth That many wonderful things related of Ignatius in his Life written by Nierembergius are by no means testified with incontestable Proofs and that we may justly doubt of the Truth of them But
however Ribadeneira and Maffeius knew very few Miracles of Ignatius later Writers had abundant Information of them At the Examination preceding his Canonization in the Year 1609 Bouhours tells us That 660 Bussieres 665 Witnesses juridically interrogated deposed concerning the Holiness of his Life and that 200 Miracles well attested were produced at the same time altho Vitelleschi assures us That 13 Years after at his Canonization no more than 140 Miracles could be heard of when he saith that 175 Witnesses were examined by order of Gregory XV. Two or three years after Vitelleschi comes out the Glory of Ignatius which enlargeth the number of the Miracles to above 200. and the Witnesses to 675. Now even altho we should take the lesser Account it is utterly incredible that so many Witnesses of the Miracles and Holiness of Ignatius should be alive in the year 1622. 66 years after his Death If it be a merit to believe Contradictions in Faith it is none to believe lies in History The Miracles of St. Francis and Apollonius labour with the same difficulties for to mention no more of St. Francis than the Miracle of the Five Wounds of Christ imprinted in his Body which however Bonaventure proposeth it as a thing past all dispute and attested by Infinite Multitudes of Spectators it is certain that presently after his Death Pope Gregory IX would not believe one word of it insomuch as the poor Saint was forced to appear to him in the Night and draw a whole Porringer of Blood out of the Wound in his side to convince him of the Truth of it As for Apollonius Moeragenes who was Contemporary to him and writ his Life immediately after his Decease knew little of his Miracles Philostratus comes a hundred years after and giveth a large Legend of them altho at last he confesseth himself to be so far ignorant of his Actions that he knows not whether he died Eighty Ninety or an hundred years old and by what kind of Death Philostratus himself pretends no more than one Person to have been raised from the Dead by Apollonius and even relates that so doubtfully that he delivers it as his own Opinion that the Person was not really dead An hundred years after him Vopiscus doubted not confidently to assert that Apollonius raised to life many dead Persons But Miracles may so easily be obtruded upon the World after a long distance of time and are so securely received by the credulous Multitude that nothing less than a strict Examination can defeat the hopes of Impostors and confute the Lies of their devoted Historians If all the Miracles of Ignatius in general want a sufficient Attestation much less will those deserve our Belief the Truth of which was never attested by any Spectators but depends upon his own sole Credit and Authority and that not only because it is unreasonable to believe a Person witnessing in his own Cause but chiefly because it is foolish to imagine that God should concur with Ignatius to work Miracles in secret which could tend to no other end than to foment his vain glory by increasing in him an Opinion of his own Merits Yet if we examine his Miracles we shall find many of them attested by his own sole Authority All his Illuminations and Visions were of this Nature of which none could be conscious besides himself When in his Journey to Rome he stept alone into a little ruinous Chappel and there enjoyed that wonderful Vision of the two first Persons of the Trinity Vitelleschi tells us that he was environed with a great brightness This could depend only upon his own Testimony as also the hovering of a flame of Fire over his Head like the Cloven fiery Tongues of the Apostles while he writ the Constitutions of his Order in his private Chamber and indeed Bouhours pretends to no other Testimony of this Miracle but only saith it appears from a Paper-Book writ with his own Hand His driving away Devils from an haunted Chamber and producing a light in his Chamber when he had commanded the Candle to be carried away which we before mentioned are of the same nature Thus St. Francis while he prayed alone in Woods or solitary Places was wont to be raised from the Ground and continue in that pendulous Posture environed with a bright Cloud His five Wounds in the likeness of Christ's he received in secret and would never shew them to any but his own Confidents St. Mary Magdalen Pazzi was yet more careful to prevent any discovery of her Imposture She pretended to have the five Wounds of Christ engraven in her Heart It is more than probable that if her Heart had been opened they would have disappeared and must have been searched for in her disturbed Brain It would be no less irrational blindly to believe those Miracles of Ignatius which are delivered to us upon the Testimony of one single Witness who possessed perhaps with a vast Opinion of his Sanctity fancied somewhat extraordinary to be in all his Actions and mistook every Motion for a Miracle to which himself could not assign a Cause Not to say That in some Persons the Vanity of lying and spreading wonderful Reports surmounts all considerations of Shame and moral Honesty That he was often raised from the Ground in Prayer and continued in that pendulous Posture in the Air is delivered to us upon the sole Authority of Iohn Pascal a poor ignorant Youth his Chamber-fellow at Barcelona who thought sometimes that he saw him elevated from the Ground and surrounded with Light when he arose in the Night to pray The Widow and Children of this Pascall deposed upon Oath that they had heard their Husband and Father say that he had often seen Ignatius in an Extasy environed with Light raised from the Ground five or six Yards high This was admitted as an undoubted Testimony and most certain proof of a prodigious Miracle altho if we remember that Pascall's house was a poor Cottage and that another Author assures us that he always lodged in a low Chamber which could not admit any such Elevation of his Body we shall have great reason to suspect the Miracle However it is irrational to imagine God the Author of so unuseful a Miracle which could tend only to make the foolish Saint believe that God heard him better hanging in the Air than kneeling on the Ground That Miracle was more notorious which Lucian assures us he saw publickly performed in the Temple of Hierapolis of the Image of Apollo hanging for some while and caried about in the Air yet must we ascribe it to any thing else rather than the Divine Omnipotence The same Pascall being reduced to great Necessity after the Death of Ignatius and imploring his Assistance one morning in a Church heard a melodious sound and saw Ignatius appearing attended with a beautiful train of young Clergymen After a while the Canons enter