with one another and although there may be many other sorts of Vnity in the Church yet the essential Vnity of the Church they tell us lyes in conjunction of the members under one Head But what becomes then of the Unity of the Roman Church in the great number of Schisms and some of long continuance among them Were they all members united under one Head when there were sometimes two sometimes three several Heads Bellaâ—mine in his Chronologie confesseth twenty six several Schisms in the Church of Rome but Onuphrius a more diligent searchâ—r into these things reckors up thirty whereof some lasted ten years some twenty one fifty years And it seems very strange to any one that hears so many boasts of Unity in the Church of Rome above others to find more Schisms in that Church than in any Patriarchal Church in the World We should think if the Bishop of Rome had been designed Head of the Church and the fountain of Vnity that it was as necessary that Church should be freed from intestine divisions on that account as to be secured from errours in faith if it had the promise of Infallibility for errours are not more contrary to infallibility than divisions are to Vnity and the same Spirit can as easily prevent Schisms as Heresies But as the errours of that Church are the clearest evidence against the pretence of infalâ—ibility so are the Schisms of it against its being the fountain of Vnity for how can that give it to the whole Church which so notoriously wanted it in it self I shall not need to insist on the more ancient Schisms between Cornelius and Novatianus and their parties between Liberius and Felix between Damasus and Vrsicinus between Bonifacius and Eulalius between Symachus and Laurentius between Bonifacius and Dioscorus between Sylverius and Vigiâ—ius and many others I shall only mention those which were of the longest continuance in that Church and do most apparently discover the divisions of it I begin with that which first brake forth in the time of Formosus who was set up A. D. 821. against Sergius whom the faction of the Marquesse of Tuscany would have made Pope but the popular faction then prevailing Sergius was forced to withdraw and Formosus with continual opposition from the other party enjoyed the Papacy four years and six months not without the blood of many of the chief Citizens of Rome slain by Arnulphus in the quarrel of Formosus After his death Boniface 6. intruded saith Baronius into the Papal See but was after fifteen dayes dispossessed by Stephanus 7. who in a Council called for that purpose nulled all the acts of Formosus deprived all those of their orders who had been ordained by him and made them be Re-ordained and not content with this he caused his body to be taken out of the Grave and placed it in the Popes Chair with the Pontifical habits on where after he had sufficiently reviled him that could not revile again he caused the three Fingers to be cut off with which he used to give Benediction and Orders and the body to be thrown into Tiber. This last part Onuphrius would have to be a fable and Andreas Victorellus from him but Baronius saith they are mistaken who say so for not only Luitprandus who lived in that Age expresly affirms it although he attributes it to Sergius upon whose account the Schism begun but the acts of the Roman Council under Iohn 9. extant in Baronius make it evident and Papirius Massonus cites other ancient Historians for it Upon this nulling the Ordinations of Formosus a great dispute was raised in the Church for many of the Bishops would not submit to re-ordination and particularly Leo Bishop of Nola to whom Auxilius writ his Book in defence of the Ordinations of Formosus a short account whereof is published by Baronius from Papyâ—ius Masso but the whole Book is now set forth from ancient Manuscript by Morinus by which we understand the controversie of that time much better than we could before Two things were chiefly objected against Formosus his Ordinations 1. That against the Canons of the Church he was translated from one See to another being Bishop of Porto before he was made Bishop of Rome 2. That having been degraded by Iohn 8. although restored by his successour Marinus and absolved from his Oath he was not capable of conferring Orders Against the first of these Auxilius shews that translation from one See to another cannot null Ordination from the testimony of Pope Anterus the example of Greg. Nazianzen Perigenes Dositheus Reverentius Palladius Alexander Meletius and many others That the Nicene Canon against translations was interpreted by the Council of Chalcedon so as not to extend to all cases and it was so understood by Pope Leo and Gelasius and however that only nulls the translation and not the ordination Against the second he pleads that supposing it not to be lawful to remove from one Episcopal See to another yet the Ordination may be valid for Formosus was not Consecrated again himself but only reconciled by Marinus that the Popes Gregory and Leo had declared against Re-ordination as much as against Re-baptizing that the Canons of the Apostles had forbidden it that the Ordinations by Acacius were allowed by Anastasius that the Bonosiaci though Hereticks had their Orders allowed them that the Cathari were admitted to the Churches Communion by the Council of Nice only with imposition of hands that though Liberius fell to the Arian Heresie yet his Ordinations afterwards were not nulled neither those of Vigilius although he stood excommunicated by Silverius and added Homicide to it that the nulling these Ordinations was to say in effect that for twenty years together they had been without the Christian Religion in Italy that none but Hereticks could assert these things that if any Popes themselves speak or act against the Catholick faith or Religion they are not to be followed in so doing This is the substance of the first Book of Auxilius which things are more largely insisted upon in the second But by that Book it appears most evidently that the Barbarous usage of the body of Formosus was most true it being expresly mentioned therein and justified by him in the Dialogue that pleads for Re-ordination And now saith Baronius began those most unhoppy times of the Roman Church which exceeded the persecutions of Heathens or Hereticks but he out of his constant good will to civil Authority lays the fault altogether upon the power of the Marquesses of Tuscany who had then too great power in Rome but he strangely admires the providence of God in keeping the Heads of the Church from Heresie all that time Alas for them they did not trouble themselves about any matters of faith at all but were wholly given over to all manner of wickedness as himself confesseth of them when Theodora that Mother of the Church of Rome ruled in chief and her
to be to please one God over all and to make him propitious to us by piety and all vertue but if we would have others under God to be pleased with us too we ought to consider that as the shadow follows the body so God being pleased all his friends whether Angels Souls or Spirits will be so too and not only so but are ready to help them and pray to God for them But not the least foundation in his discourse for our invocation of them The Author of the Commentaries under the name of St. Ambrose of the same age with him as appears by several passages in him saith That the Idolaters made use of this miserable excuse for themselves that by those inferiour Deities they worshipped they went to God himself as we go to the King by his Courtiers But saith he is any man so mad or regardless of himself to give the honour due to the King to any of his Courtiers which if a man does he is condemned for treason And yet they think themselves not guilty who give the honour due to Gods name to a creature and forsaking God adore his fellow servants as though any thing greater than that were reserved for God himself But therefore we go to a King by his Officers and Servants because the King is but a man who knows not of himself whom to imploy in his publick affairs without being recommended by others But with God it is otherwise for nothing is hid from him he knows the deserts of every one and therefore we need no one to recommend us to his Favour a devout mind is enough Was this now all the quarrel the Christians had with the Heathens that they worshipped Iupiter and Venus and Vulcan Do they not expresly deny the giving Gods Worship to any Creature and do they not as plainly affirm that men do it when they invocate their fellow servants to be intercessors with God for them and that it is no less a guilt of Idolatry in this case than it is in giving the Honour due to a Prince to any of his Servants St. Austin gives this account of the principles of the Heathen Worship that there were three sorts of beings to be considered purely divine and mortal and a middle sort between them which participated of both and that the entercourse between Gods and men was by the means of those intermediate Beings who carried the prayers of men up to God and brought down the blessings they prayed for to men Against these indeed St. Austin disputes first by shewing that those spirits which they worshipped were evil spirits and that there was no reason to imagine that God had a greater entercourse with them than with penitent sinners but withall he addes that this kind of worship doth proceed upon the supposition that the Gods cannot know the necessities and prayers of men but by the intervention of those Spirits but if our minds can be known without their help there is no need of their mediation And afterwards saith that those who are Christians do believe that we need not many but one Mediatour and that such a one by whose participation we are made happy i. e. the word of God not made but by whom all things were made and he hath shewed that to the attaining blessedness we ought not to seek many Mediators by whom we are to make our degrees of approach to God because God himself by partaking our Nature hath shewn us the shortest way of our partaking his divinity Neither doth he delivering us from mortality and misery carry us so to immortal and blessed Angels that by participating with them we should become blessed and immortal but to that Trinity by whose participation the Angels themselves are blessed And concludes that Book with this saying that immortal and blessed Spirits however they are called which are made and created are no Mediatours to bring miserable mortals to blessedness and immortality And it would be ridiculous here to distinguish mediators of redemption and intercession for all that they attributed to their goods spirits was only Intercession and Christ being made a Mediatour effectual for the end he designed there could be no necessity of any Intercessours besides him And St. Austin there addes that the design of his following book is to prove that those good Spirits which are immortal and blessed which they thought ought to be Worshipped with Sacred Rites and Sacrifices whatsoever they are and howsoever called would not have any one worshipped by such religious worship i.e. by sacred rites as well as Sacrifices but only one God by whom they were created and by whose participation they are made happy § 11. By which the second thing I proposed will appear to be true viz. that they did not only condemn giving this Worship to the Spirits which the Heathen Worshipped but to good Angels too For St. Paul in the general doth condemn the Worship of Angels if he had meant only evil Angels he would have expressed it so especially if St. Austins observation be true that the evil Spirits are by their names in Scripture distinguished from the good if he had meant any particular superstition used in the Worship of Angels he would not have used such terms which condemn all worship of them as superstitious if he had meant only the Worship of Angels so as to exclude Christ he would have intimated that the fault lay in excluding Christ and not in the bare worship of Angels but by the series of his discourse it appears that those who set up other Mediators besides Christ do not hold the head i. e. do not adhere to Christ alone as him whom God hath appointed as our Mediatour only Whether this were practised by Iewes Philosophers or Hereticks is all one to us since the practice is condemned wherever it is found Theodoret saith they were the Iewes who perswaded men to worship Angels because the Law was delivered by Angels which practice he saith continued a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia and therefore the Synod of Laodicea doth forbid praying to Angels and to this day the Oratories of St. Michael are among them they therefore thought it a piece of humility since God could not be seen nor touched nor comprehended by us to obtain the favour of God by the intercession of Angels No wonder Baronius is so much displeased with Theodoret for this interpretation for he very fairly tells us what he condemns and St. Paul too was the practice of their Church and those Oratories were set up by Catholicks and not by hereticks But whether as to the lawfulness of this Worship Baronius or St. Paul whether as to the ancient practice of the Church Baronius or Theodoret deserves more to be believed I leave any one to judge And yet Theodoret is not alone in this for Irenaeus denies any invocations of Angels to be in use among Christians if he had meant only evil
to her Confessors they were strictly examined and after them by the Bishops and Divines of Sweden and approved as divine revelations from them they were sent as such to the Council of Basil from thence they were examined over again at Naples and there allowed and preached in the presence and by command of the Queen and Archbishop before all the people of the City again examined at Rome by Prelats and Cardinals A. D. 1377. by the Popes appointment and there approved and A. D. 1379. they are declared by those Vrban the sixth committed the new examination of them to to be authentick and to come from the Spirit of God and so much is declared by Boniface the ninth in the Bull of her Canonization and at last approved saith Wadding at the General Council of Basil. What could be expected less after this than that they should have been received as Canonical Scriptures they having never taken so much pains in examining and approving any controverted Books of the Bible as they had done about these revelations And no man knows how far their authority might have prevailed if the whole Sect of Dominicans had not been engaged in the opposite opinion For nothing else that I can find hath given any discredit to her revelations but this which makes Cajetan call them old Wives dreams as Wadding confesseth But it falls out very conveniently that S. Catharines revelation was just in the Dominican way in which she had been educated and for all that I can see wants little of the reputation of St. Brigitt For they were both very wonderful persons and had more familiar reyelations than any of the Prophets we read of S. Brigitt in her Childhood if we believe the account given of her in the Bull of Canonization by Bonifacius and her life by Vastavius had Visions as frequently as other Children have Babyes and was as well pleased with them the Virgin Mary was once her Midwife as the Pope very gravely tells us but her revelations after Christ took her for his Spouse have filled a great Volume Wherein a person that hath leisure enough may see strange effects of the power of imagination or a Religious Melancholy and to that Book the Pope in his Bull refers us and if any thing can be more considerable than the Popes authority the whole Roman Church in the prayers upon S. Brigitts day do confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her and in one of the Lessons for that day do magnifie the multitude of her divine revelations But to say truth the Church of Rome allows fair play in the case for it magnifies S. Catharine as much as S. Brigitt for her holy Extasies are mentioned in the Lessons upon her day in one of which were five rayes coming from the five wounds of our Saviour to five parts of her body and she being wonderfull humble prayed our Lord that the wounds might not appear for fear she should have been thought as holy as S. Francis and immediately the colour of the blood was changed into pure light upon her hands and feet and heart And her Confessor Raimund who is alwayes a principal man in these things as Matthias a Suecia was to S. Brigitt without whom she was advised from Heaven to do nothing saw these splendid wounds upon her body but by what instrument did he see the wound in her heart Well though we Hereticks are not apt to be too credulous in these cases the Church of Rome very gravely tells us in the next Lesson that her learning was not acquired but infused by which she answered the most profound Doctors in the most difficult speculations in Divinity but these were nothing to her revelations and the service she did the Church of Rome by them in a time of Schisme But one gift she had above S. Brigitt which was that while she was on earth she could not only see but smell souls too and could not endure the stench of wicked souls as Raynaldus tells us from her Confessor Raimund a gift very few had besides her and Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians for Raynaldus one of his Order tells us from Bacius the Writer of his life that he was sometimes so offended with the smells of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Iakes of their souls Such divine Noses had these two Saints among them A degree of Enthusiasme above the Spirit of discerning any Quakers among us have ever pretended to Pope Pius the second in the Bull of Canonization of S. Catharine not only acknowledgeth a gift of Prophecy to have been in her but that sometimes her Extasies were so great that she was sensible of no kind of pain in them And S. Brigitt was often seen much above ground in her devotions and one saw Rivers and another Fire came out of her mouth but I think not at the same time These are things we rake not the old Kennells of the Golden Legends for but are at this day allowed and approved of in the Roman Church and their dayes kept and they prayed to upon the account of such things as these are § 3. Yet still we are to seek what is to be done when two Revelations contradict each other for the Dominicans are as peremptory for the revelation of S. Catharine as their adversaries are for that of S. Brigitt Two bold Fellows called Henricus de Hassia and Sybillanus knew no other way but to reject both as illusions and fancies but what becomes then of the Popes and Councils infallibility who have approved both Franciscus Picus Mirandula being a Learned and Ingenuous man confesseth himself at a loss both being concerning a thing passed there must be truth on one side and falshood on the other for the case is not the same saith he as to past and future things in which a condition may be understood By which means St. Bernard escaped when he promised great success to an expedition into the Holy Land and they who went in it found the quite contrary But at last gives us leave to conjecture his meaning when he saith That if any thing be false in a prophecy though some prove true we have cause to suspect all especially if it come from women whose judgements are weak and their passions vehement and imaginations easily possessed with what they are most desirous of and least able to distinguish between the strength of imagination and a divine revelation but as to that particular case of S. Catharine and S. Brigitt where both were women he saith The Divines were generally for the former and the Monks for the latter but which was in the truth he thinks cannot be known upon earth Martin Del Rio discoursing of the Revelations of Canonized Saints who were women in the Church of Rome reckons up S. Angela a Carmelitess whose Book of Revelations came out above four hundred years
though that were intended to exclude St. Benedict and other Founders of Religious orders and not rather the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles who came not near them in Visions and Miracles But no one hath handled this profound question with that care and accuracy which Angelus de Nuce hath done in his Notes upon St. Gregories life of St. Benedict he tells us therefore the Question is not concerning the highest sort of abstractive contemplation of any thing short of the Divine essence for that he saith none doubt of but of an intuitive vision by which the divine essence is seen clearly in it self immediately and not in any created image the Negative he grants is held by Aquinas and many of the Schoolmen but yet he saith many Schoolmen of great note are for the affirmative and he deduces many arguments to prove it from St. Gregories words but that which addes most weight to it besides the number of authors quoted by him is that Vrban 8. in a Bull upon the feast of St. Benedict A. D. 1632. doth expresly assert it And Ioh. Bona a present Cardinal at Rome saith that St. Benedict was rapt up into the third Heavens where he heard the Choire of Angels and saw God face to face for which besides Gregory he cites St. Bernard Rupertus Tuitiensis Bonaventure Dionysius Carthusianus Maximilian Sandaeus and others And addes to this as extraordinary a thing as any hath been yet said of him that he and his Sister Scholastica sung very distinctly in their Mothers Wombs a presage saith he of the chearful singing of their Order For which he quotes several Authors of the Benedictines and although he grants it may be suspected because it doth not occurr in the more ancient writers yet he justifies it by many parellel Stories These things are enough for St. Benedicts Enthusiasme St. Romoaldus was as happy as St. Benedict in his ignorance For as Petrus Damiani reports in his life when he first entred himself under the discipline of Marinus the Eremite he could hardly read his Psalter though he had been a Monk three years before and he adds it as a great instance of his patience that when Marinus in teaching him did often beat him with a wand upon the left side of his head for his dulness he desired his Master that he would now change his side for he had by his strokes quite lost his hearing in his left eare and yet he met with a worse companion than Marinus for for five years together he saith the Devil lay upon his feet and his leggs in the night that he could not easily stirr himself He was so possessed with the thoughts of him that a Monk could not knock at his Cell door but he asked the Devil what he did there in the Wilderness and was ready to encounter with the Devil when he found him to be one of his Brethren But the Devil once got him down as he imagined while he was saying his Psalms and wounded him and bruised him sadly but of a sudden he rose up as sound as ever and went on just where he left All the crows and ugly birds he saw in the Wilderness he fancied to be Devils and challenged to fight with them and exceedingly triumphed when at his loud cries they flew away He was converted by a vision of St. Apollinaris as his Father Sergius ran stark mad with a vision of the Holy Ghost he wept so abundantly that he never durst say Mass in publick and bid his Brethren have a care of shedding too many tears because they hurt the sight and the brain Yet by immediate revelation he writ an excellent commentary saith Mugnotius on the Book of Psalms though not very agreeable to Grammar saith Petrus Damiani and being led by the Divine Spirit to the top of a Mountain in his sleep he saw Ladders reaching from thence to Heaven and a great many Monks going up to Heaven upon them A divine vision indeed and he meeting with Maldulus who by great fortune had the same vision they presently agreed about erecting a Monastery there If the order of Carthusians did not begin upon the story of the Doctor of Paris speaking those dreadful words after his death which is delivered say the defenders of it by sixty authors of the Roman Church yet it is agreed on all hands among them that Hugo who joyned with Bruno in laying the foundations of that order had a vision of Gods building a house of seven stars conducting them to the place called la grand Chartreuse from whence the whole order hath taken its name The Carmelites have an especial vision of Simon Stock wherein the B. Virgin upon his devout prayers to her appeared with the habit in her hand which she would have them wear with a promise greater than ever her son made that whosoever dyed in that habit should not perish by everlasting flames § 7. But S. Francis and S. Dominick were the persons whom Innocent the third saw in a Vision supporting the tottering Fabrick of the Lateran Church whereby he understood what Props and Supporters those two Orders would be to the Church of Rome From hence those high Elogiums are given of those two persons by Bonaventure Antoninus Bozius and others that they were the two great lights of Heaven the two Trumpets of Moses the two Cheruâ—ims or rather the two Calves of Dan and â—ethel the two breasts of the Spouse the two Olive branches the two Candlesticks the two Witnesses almost all the noted two's of the Bible but the two Thieves and the two Testaments and these as will appear presently were in no great esteem among them But S. Francis got the start of the other for if a Canonized Saint may be believed upon his Oath Bonaventure did publickly swear at Paris saith Bernardinus a Bustis that Christ did reveal it to him that S. John Apocalyps 7. 2. by the Angel ascending from the East having the seal of the living God meant no other than S. Francis And therefore that is the Motto placed under his Picture and is applyed the same way by Pope Leo the tenth I shall not take the advantage that is sufficiently given us by the Book of Conformities the Alcoran of the Franciscans nor the declared enemies of those Orders to represent S. Francis by but only take the account given of him by persons of greatest reputation in the Roman-Church Cardinal Vitriaco who saith he saw him when he went to Damiata calls him a simple and illiterate man Cardinal Bonaventure is received as the most approved Writer of his life and he describes him as an ignorant Enthusiast being bred a kind of Woollen draper as appears by the selling his Cloth and his Horse at Foligno after he left off trading upon the Vision of building Churches His first conversion to Quakerism was by Dreams and Visions
condemn them And they triumph in nothing more than when they can handsomely revenge themselves on that bitter enemy of theirs called Reason which they never do with greater pleasure than when they pretend it to be upon the account of Religion In the Church of Rome the case hath been thus among them as in all Religions and places in the World there are some persons of a temper naturally disposed more to Religion than others are being melancholy thoughtful tender and easily moved by hopes and fears These do more easily receive the impressions of Religion which they being possessed with if they be not carefully governed are more lyable to fall into the dotages of superstition or to be transported by the heats of Enthusiasme Against both of them there can be no better cure imaginable than the true understanding the nature and reasonableness of the Christian Religion which fills our minds with a true sense of God and goodness and so arms us against superstition and withall acquaints us that the conduct of the Spirit of God is in the use of the greatest reason and prudence and so prevents the follies of Enthusiasme But it being so much the design of that Church to keep the members of it from knowing any thing against her interest so much as the true practice of Christianity is and therefore keeping the Bible out of the hands of the people they must substitute some other wayes in the room of that to gratifie the earthy dulness of a superstitious temper and the airiness and warmth of the Enthusiastical For the former they are abundantly provided by a tedious and ceremonious way of external devotion as dull and as cold as the earth it self to the other they commend abstractedness of life mental prayer passive unions a Deiform fund of the soul a state of introversion divine inspirations which must either end in Enthusiasme or madness And the perfection of this state lying in an intime Vnion with God as they speak whereby the soul is Deified is to be attained only in the way of unknowing for nothing so dangerous as the use of reason and self-annihilation and many other things as impossible to be understood as practised Which makes it difficult to give any account of such unintelligible stuffe for we must only grope in obscurity and profound darkness and draw a Night piece without lights This way came first into request in the Monastick orders by the examples of their founders as will easily appear by our former discourse but the men who most solemnly preached and divulged it were Rusbrochius Suso Harphius c. and he who in these latter ages hath gathered together most that had been said before him and is commended by Balthasar Corderius and others as a most sublime interpreter of mystical Divinity Ludovicus Blosius from these it were not difficult to put together some of their words and phrases as an account of their Divinity but I rather choose to do it chiefly from a late Author published by Mr. Cressy not many years since who after his many turnings and changes of opinions sits down at last as appears by his publishing Mother Iuliana's revelations and the Preface to Sancta Sophia with the deserved Character of a Popish Fanatick Which Book of Sancta Sophia being compiled by Mr. Cressy out of many writings of Father Augustin Baker and set forth A. D. 1657. with large approbations at the beginning and end of it I hope no doctrine contained therein will be thought a scandal to their Church The design of it is as the title tells us To give directions for the Prayer of Contemplation c. I would they had given directions for understanding it in the first place for if we have no other help than what Mr. Cressy gives in his Preface we may as well hope to understand the Quakers Canting as Mr. Cressy's Let the Reader judge by these few passages in his Preface The only proper disposition towards the receiving supernatural irradiations from Gods holy Spirit is an abstraction of life a sequestration from all business that concern others though it be their salvation and an attendance to God alone in the depth of the Spirit and a little after the lights here desired and prayed for are such as do expel all images of creatures and do calm all manner of passions to the end that the soul being in a vacuity may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the pure fund of the Spirit What this pure fund of the Spirit means I had been somewhat to seek for had not Lud. Blosius in the Preface to his spiritual Institution told us that the Deiform fund of the soul is the simple essence of the soul stamped with a divine impress or if this be not plain enough that from whence ariseth a super-essential life but if yet it cannot be understood we may be the less troubled at it since the same Author saith afterward that very few do know that hidden fund of their souls or believe that they have such a thing within them It being it seems like some very cunning drawer in a Cabinet where the main treasure lyes which the owner himself cannot find out till it be broken to pieces for self-annihilation is necessarily required in order to it And this super-essential life as he admirably describes it is a way of knowing without thoughts of seeing in darkness of understanding without reason of unknowing God by perceiving him of being melted and brought to nothing first and then being lost and swallowed up in God by which means all created being is put off and that which is only divine put on being changed into God as iron heated into the nature of fire This being the state of perfection aimed at here in this world we must now consider the directions given in order to it To this end in the first place a contemplative state is commended above an active as more perfect and more easie more simple and more secure from all errours and illusions which may be occasioned by an indiscreet use of Prayer Where by an active and contemplative state we must not understand what we commonly do by those terms but the active-state is the use of reasoning and internal discourse to fix our affections upon God and expressing it self in sensible devotion and outward acts of obedience to Gods will the contemplative in the Authors language is seeking God in the obscurity of faith with a more profound introversion of Spirit and with less activity and motion in sensitive nature and without the use of grosser images and such souls are not of themselves he saith much inclined to external works but they seek rather to purifie themselves and inflame their hearts to the love of God by internal quiet and pure actuations in spirit by a total abstraction from creatures by solitude both external and especially internal so disposing themselves to receive the influxes and inspirations of God
Pope to express her love to him that neither tribulation nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor nakednesâ— nor sword nor death nor life nor principalities c. should be able to separate her from the love of St. Peter in Christ Iesus our Lord whom she meant by St. Peter is very easie to understand according to the constant dialect of this Pope whose Bulls and Anathema's against Princes ran in St. Peters name But we leave Baronius admiring the Providence of God that when Princes and Bishops forsook the Church of Rome he raised up Agnes the Emperours Mother against her own Son and Beatrix and Matilda of near kindred to the Emperour to support the Pope against him and not long after we find him acknowledging that Rodolphus was confirmed by the Pâ—pe and Henry again excommunicated by him in the form of which excommunication extant in Baronius he desires all the World to take notice that it is in the Popes power to take away Empires Kingdomes Principalities Dutchies Marquisates Earldomes and the possessions of all men from them and give them to whom he shall think fit But doth Baronius in the least go about to explain or mitigate this no but instead of it he complains of the prosperity of the wicked because Henry obtained after this a signal victory over Rodolphus in his fourth Battel wherein he was wounded in his right hand and say the German Historians acknowledged therein the just judgement of God being near his death that being the hand wherewith he had sworn fidelity to the Emperour and then told his friends whatever the Pope did swear by St. Peter and St. Paul that the Popes command made him break his Oath and take that honour upon him which did not belong to him and he wished they who had put him upon it would consider how they led men to their eternal damnation by such courses which having said with great grief of mind saith Helmoldus he dyed And the Pope himself did not escape much better for the Emperour marches into Italy with a great Army takes in all the Towns which opposed him deposes Hildebrand by the Bishops of his party as the cause of all the Warr and Bloodshed and sets up Gibert of Ravenna under the name of Clement 3. besieges Rome and the Pope not trusting the Citizens who soon left him secures himself in a Castle from whence escaping to Salerno he not long after there dyes The only good thing we read of him is that which Sigebert and Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew Paris report of him from the testimony of the Bishop of Mentz that he called when he was dying one of his Friends to him and confessed that it was through the instigation of the Devil that he had made so great a disturbance in the Christian world Whether they who applaud and admire him in the Roman Church as particularly Baronius who recommended him as a pattern to Paul 5. and rejoyced to see a man of his spirit to succeed him will believe this or no we matter not since there is so apparent evidence for the truth of the thing But we not only see the whole Empire put into a flame under pretence of this authority of the Pope and Italy laid wast by it to so great a degree saith Sigonius that Mothers devoured their Children for meer hunger but we may find him as busie though not with equal success with other Princes of Christendome He threatens the King of France to deprive him if he did not submit to him and that his Subjects should certainly revolt from him unless they would renounce their Christianity which are the words of his Bull in Baronius but finding no amendment the next year he sends another wherein he tells him that if according to his hard and impenitent heart he did treasure up the wrath of God and St. Peter by the help of God he would excommunicate him and all that should obey him the same year he excommunicates in Italy Robert Duke of Apulia Prince of the Normans and Gilulphus Prince of Saierno and sends an army against them He threatens Alphmsus King of Spain with the Sword of St. Peter he excommunicates Nicephorus Emperour of Constantinople he not only deprived Boleslaus King of Poland of his Kingdom but puts the whole Kingdom under an interdict and forbids the Bishops anointing any for King but whom he should appoint Of all the Princes of Christendome I find none so much in his favour as our William the first of the Norman Race for he coming into a Kingdom where he found no interest but what his Sword made him keeps a fair correspondency with the Pope receives his Decrees refuses to enter into an alliance against him which so pleased him whom all other Princes hated that he sends to him in his distress to come to his assistance to divert the Emperour and calls him the Iewel of Princes and saith that he ought to be the rule of obedience to all other Princes but yet William himself could not escape his threatnings when he forbad the Bishops of his Kingdom to go to Rome and utterly denyed taking any oath of fidelity to the Pope which he pressed upon him by his Legat although Baronius make him to submit to the Pope upon the receipt of his letter whereas the letters of Lanfranc and the King produced by himself expresly contradict it This we are sure of that William all his time practised that right of investiture of Bishop by a staff and a ring which had been the first cause of the quarrel between the Emperour and the Pope and which he had 〈◊〉 severely forbidden in several Councils a Rome thereby to maintain his own authority by taking off the Bishops of several Kingdoms from any aknowledgement of dependence on their own Soveraign Princes which was the truest cause of all the quarrels of Christendome raised and somented by this Hell-brand as the Centuriatours according to their Dialect call him And although Onuphrius in his life confess that this Popes designs if they had taken effect would have quite overthrown the Majesty of the Empire and that he was the first Pope who ever attempted such things yet he having now started so fair a game though he dyed in the pursuit of it his successours retrieved it and followed it with all their might and skill thence we read that Vrban being made Pope by Hildebrands faction in opposition to the Emperour renews the sentence of excommunication against him and in the Council at Piacenza not content barely to excommunicate him in the presence of Agnes or Adelais the Emperours wife he uttered saith Vrspergensis very reproachful speeches against him but he had been no fit successour for Hildebrand who could content himself with bare words especially having declared his resolution to follow the steps of so worthy a predecessour and so he did to