nor as many of her Friends did as one deluded by the Devil but I see nothing in her case but what might be a natural effect of an over-heated Imagination in a Person of a very melancholy devout temper especially being before-hand possessed with the Notions of Mystical Divinity And for the approbations given to her Visions I do not wonder at them since there was a Design to Canonize her for a Saint and she was the Foundress of a new Order and that there was something relating to this in the penning of her Visions seems to be not obscurely intimated in the last Page of her Book where she desires him to whom she writ it to make haste to serve his Majesty that he might do her a Favour for it seems by her own relation her Order met with great contradiction at Court And for the approbation of her Books I do no more wonder at that than I do at others that proceed upon the same principles viz. of Mystical Theologie But I do exceedingly admire at those persons who dare to bring the single instance of S. Pauls Rapture to justifie all the pretences to Visions and Raptures of the Melancholy and distempered Women of their Church If we had not so great reason to put such a mighty difference between them as to the Wisdom of the Persons the reasonableness of their Doctrine the Miracles wrought to confirm the testimony of the Apostles it would be as Cardinal Bessarion said of the Canonizations of new Saints that it made men Question the old so these new Raptures and Visions would expose the credit and Authority of undoubtedly Divine Revelations Therefore let Mr. Cressy and O. N. have a care while they are so ready to charge me with blaspheming Gods Saints that by making the case so parallel between the Prophets and Apostles and their new Saints they do not lay in the way of all considering men of their Church one of the greatest temptations to Infidelity § 6. But O. N. hath not yet done for he brings all those phrases of Scripture that relate to the sanctification of mens souls by divine Grace and the comfort of Gods Spirit and the extraordinary Revelations which came by the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and their Disciples to justifie the expressions of Mystical Divinity which are all extreamly impertinent unless he can prove from any of them such an Union with the Divine Essence as excludes the use of ratiocination in the soul wherein the perfection of Contemplative prayer is placed and all the other phrases are to be understood with a respect to this And what though there be two Spirits working within us and there be degrees of spiritual persons and the Spirit assists the souls of men with good motions which ought not to be resisted and what if some have a greater measure of this Assistance than others what if excellent minds may attain to an assurance that they are under the conduct of the Divine Spirit and may have great comfort and satisfaction therein nay what if I should grant that a State of Perfection were attainable in this life yet all this were nothing to his purpose unless he can prove that the supposing the perfection of a Christian to be consistent with laying aside the Use of all ratiocination as it is in the Mystical Union doth not expose men to the greatest Enthusiasm and most Fanatick Delusions imaginable I mean that state which himself expresses by those supernatural elevations wherein are communicated to the soul many times Celestial Secrets and Divine Mysteries and future events by internal words and Revelation all which things are received by it with a great tranquillity and attention and cessation of the natural use of its Faculties Sensitive or Intellectual nor seems it in its own disposal while it hath these touches And this is that he tells us which the Mystick Divines express by the terms of a supernatural or rather superessential life a Deisormity or Deification of a sense or fruition of Gods presence in the fund depth or center or innermost part of the soul or also in the Apex or supream point of it of Passive Unions wherein is to be understood not an exclusion of all acts whatsoever but an exclusion of any discursive and laborious acts and any primary moving of it self to action This explication I accept of and undertake to make it appear that in it is contained the greatest height of Fanaticism For what can be imagined greater than to exempt all pretenders to Enthusiasm and Divine Inspiration from any tryal by humane reason For if no persons are competent Iudges of these supernatural elevations but those which have experience of them as they assert if by virtue of these elevations men come to the knowledge of Divine Mysteries and Future Events by internal words and Revelation what is to be done with any Person who pretends to these elevations Must their Confessors judge of them But why for either they have not experienced these things and then they are no competent Iudges or they have and then they are pretenders to the same things and ought as much to be judged by others but how by the acts of reason and the rules of it how is that possible when they are supposed to be above all acts of Reason and Discourse and to do it without reason will be as little honour to the Iudges as it will be Vindication to the pretenders But the Church is to be Iudge Why so since the Spirit can no more deceive one than a thousand and they have satisfaction in themselves that it is the Spirit of God in them as much as it is possible for any to have that the Spirit of God directs the Church nay much greater for the other is only the certainty of reason and discourse but this is an inward Certainty of Experience above all ratiocination But how again shall the Church judge of this If the Church pretend to the same thing she is lyable to the same accusation if she does not she can have no pretence to judge of things that are to be known only by experience So that if men speak consequently and agreeably to themselves there is no way of tryal left for pretenders to these things And what should hinder every Enthusiast from this pretence or something very like it viz. Divine Inspiration Why should the pretence to the Spirit be more lyable to the tryal of other mens reason or Authority than the pretence to Mystical Unions Cannot they make use of the very same places of Scripture to justifie all the Fanatick pretences to immediate impulses and motions of the Divine Spirit Cannot they tell men as easily that they that are unexperienced are no Iudges in this case and that the sensual man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God Nay these have been the very pleas of all our Enthusiasts and there is scarce one place of Scripture
God is not the Author of confusion but of peace whence it follows that he who holds his peace to give way to another to speak he can either speak or hold his peace at his pleasure but that he who speaks in an Ecstasie i. e. against his will is not at liberty to speak or to be silent And to the same purpose he speaks in other places in which he saith that all the Visions and Revelations which came â—rom God were full of Wisdom and Reason and not like the Extravagancies of Montanus Nay S. Chrysostom goes higher and imputes all Fanatick Ecstasies to the Devil who breaks in upon the Soul and blinds the Understanding and darkens the Reasoning Faculty but the Spirit of God doth not so but suffers the heart to know what it sayes The Devil as an enemy fights against the humane soul but the holy Spirit as taking care of it and ready to do it good communicates his Counsel to those who receive it and reveals unto them divine things with Understanding And elsewhere he makes this the great difference between Divination and divine Revelation that the one was done in Ecstasies and Rapture with violence to the mind the other â—â—dately and composedly and understanding whatever they spake for God did not press them by violence nor darkned their understandings but did advise and teach them leaving them still Masters of themselves whence Jonas fled and Ezekiel put off and Jeremiah excused himself S. Basil utterly denyes that the humane understanding was ever suspended by divine Revelation or that men were by the Spirit of God deprived of the use of Ratiocination For how does it stana with Reason that through the Wisdom of the Spirit a man should become as one besides himself and that the Spirit of knowledge should deliver things incoherent for neither is light the cause of blindness nor does the Spirit Cause obscurity in mens minds but raises the understanding to the contemplation of things intelligible cleansing it from the stains of sin nor is it improbable that through the design of the evil Spirit who layes his Ambushes to ensnare humane Nature the mind is confounded but to say the same is done by the Spirit of God is impious From all which testimonies nothing can be more evident than that the Visions and Revelations the Ecstasies and Raptures which S. C. and O. N. do plead for were condemned by the whole Christian Church and the most eminent Lights of it as the very height of Fanaticism But O. N. would have men believe that the antient Church did very much favour such Ecstasies and Visions to that end he produces the Testimony of Tertullian concerning the Sister that fell into an Ecstasie and had the Vision of the Corporeity of the Soul as though Tertullian were not known to have taken the part of Montanus in this matter and in that very place in the next words to those cited by O N. he pleads for the continâ—ance of Visions and Ecstasies in the Christian Church and in several other places of the same Bâ—ok And I desire O. N. and his Brethren to consiâ—er a little better what they say when they charge me with making all Antiquity Fanatick upon the same grounds that I charge Fanaticism on their Church for it is most evident by this Discourse that I have the best and purest Antiquity and the full consent of the Christian Church in the case of Montanus clearly on my side And I declare freely that I value this consent above all the Writers of the Lives of Saints from S. Antonies downwards and it is the only considerable thing which Diano saith on this subject if we do not allow of Visions and Raptures and Revelations what will become saith he of all the Lives of the Saints and the Legends which are full of them as may be seen in Lippoman Surius Baronius and the Monastick Histories of the Dominicans and Franciscans What will become of the Speculum exemplorum of the Promptuaria the Liber Apum the Legends of the blessed Virgin and a thousand such excellent Books Truly it is the least part of my concernment what becomes of them and I think it had been much more for the honour of Christianity if they had never been writ And if as O. N. saith it be now too late to cry such things down I am very heartily sorry for it and it is a plain discovery that the Spirit of Montanus hath too much possessed that which they call the Catholick Church But O. N. besides Tertullian produces several passages of S. Augustin to justifie these supernatural and extraordinary Graces and caresses received from God for those of S. Gregory and S. Bernard are not of so great weight in this matter to deserve a particular consideration where the consent of the Christian Church is so fully proved already S. Augustin is brought in by him as acknowledging his Conversion from Manichaism to have been from a divine Revelation concerning Gods incorruptibility and immutability but what were this to the purpose if the free use and exercise of his Reason were continued therein yet no such thing doth appear by any thing said by S. Augustin In the dispute with Fortunatus he doth say that he would answer that which God would have him to know that God could suffer no necessity nor have any violence put upon him which Fortunatus saith God had revealed to him and in the conclusion making use of the force of that argument he saith by that he was divinely admonished to leave the Manichean doctrine And what is all this to Mystical Divinity What immediate Revelation or Vision or Rapture was this for a man to acknowledge there was something divine in the force of a particular argument to convince him Do I ever call it Fanaticism for men to acknowledge the Grace of God in the illumination of their minds when some particular arguments may perswade them at some times which at another might not have done it And to let us see that S. Augustin meant no such thing as any particular Revelation in this case in the seventh Book of Confessions he gives an account by what steps and degrees he was brought off from Manichaism and as much by the exercise of Reason and understanding as we shall easily meet with in any person And as to this particular argument as though he had a mind to prevent any such imagination he saith he had it from Nebridius at Carthage But I cannot but wonder at the bringing in the Nesciens unde quomodo and hoc uno ictu in the foregoing Chapter where he speaks expresly of the manner of his forming a Conception of God as a Spiritual Being upon which he saith that although he could not tell whence or how yet he was certain that a corruptible being was more imperfect than an incorruptible and therefore his heart did rise against his imaginations and with
is capable of the nearest approach to the state of glorified Saints the most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven and now he makes a prayer for me that it would please God to give me and all my friends a holy ambition to aspire to the practice of contemplative prayer though by me so much despised But of the good effects he saith it would have upon me I do the most wonder at that which he adds viz. that it would exceedingly better my style I have hitherto thought the choice of clear and proper expressions such as most easily and naturally convey my thoughts to the mind of another to be one of the greatest excellencies of Style but all before Mr. Cressy that have been the greatest Friends to Mystical Divinity have endeavoured to excuse the hard words of it Surely never any Masters of Style before Mr. Cressy thought obscure strained affected unintelligible phrases were any Graces and Ornaments of speaking Would it not add much beauty to ones style to bring in the state of Deiformity the superessential life the union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit and abundance of such phrases which are so very many that Maximilian Sandaeus the Iesuit hath written a large Book only in explication of them and this is the account he gives of the Mystical Style that it is obscure involved lofty abstracted and flatulent that it hath frequent hyperbole's excesses and improprieties And he tells us there were some who not unhappily compared them to Paracelsian Chymists who think to make amends for the meanness of their notions by the obscurity of their terms Carolus Hersentius hath nothing to answer to this but only that the matter cannot be plainer expressed in Mystical Divinity which is so far from being an argument to me that it can improve ones style that it gives me very much ground to suspect the very thing it self For God would never require from men the practice of that as certainly he doth the duty of Prayer and the greatest Love of himself which it is impossible for men to understand when it is proposed to them What obligation can there be to practise no man knows what The Christian Religion is a very plain and intelligible thing and if it had not been so I do not know how men could be obliged to believe it I do not say that men could form a distinct conception in their minds of the manner of some of those things which are revealed in it as how an infinite being could be united to humane nature but this I say that the terms are very intelligible and the putting of those terms into a proposition depends upon Divine Revelation viz. that the Son of God was incarnate so that all the difficulty in this case lyes in the conception of the manner which by reason of the shortness of our conceptions as to what relates to an infinite being ought to be no prejudice to the giving our assent to this Revelation since we acknowledge the union of a spiritual and material being in the frame of mankind and are as well puzzled in the conception of the manner of it But in Mystical Divinity I say the very terms are unintelligible for it is impossible for any man to make sense of that immediate Union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit wherein the Mystical Writers do place the perfection of the Contemplative Life § 3. But because Mr. Cressy referrs the Person of Honour for the understanding those Mystical phrases which I had quarrelled with to the Author of the Roman Churches Devotions vindicated which was purposely writ in answer to me upon this subject I shall therefore consider what light he gives us in this matter for I am very willing to be better informed In the beginning he saith that Prayer is the most Fundamental part of a Christians Duty if this relates to the matter in hand viz. of contemplative prayer it must be implyed that this is a part at least of that fundamental Duty and if it be so I think my self obliged to understand it and it must be a very culpable ignorance not to understand so fundamental a part of a Christians Duty Therefore I shall pass by all his excursions and hold him close to the matter in debate I confess he prepares his way with some artifice which makes me a little jealous for things plain and easie need none He insinuates 1. That those who have not these things cannot well know what they mean and then adds 2. That the means for obtaining them are in his own words much frequent and continued vocal or mental prayer much solitude and mortifications of our flesh and abstraction of our thoughts and affections from any creature much recollection much meditation on selected subjects and the endeavouring a quiescence as much as we can from former discourse these actions of the brain and intellect now hindring the heart and will and the bringing our selves rather to a simple contemplation without any action of the brain or intellect or at least as little as may be to exercise acts of love adhere to sigh after and entertain the object thereof and after this come passive unions which are rather Gods acts in us than our own and are particular Favours to some and those not constant By this explication I am fallen into utter despair of understanding these things for if the acts of the brain and intellect prove such hindrances to the desired union and the quiescence in order to it be that of Discourse viz. of all ratiocination I am utterly at a loss how this should ever be understood by the persons themselves and much more how it should be explained to others And I extreamly wonder at those who go about to explain things which themselves confess are so far from being understood that the acts of the understanding are hindrances to the enjoyment of them But F. Baker speaks more plainly in this matter when he describes this Mystick contemplation by which saith he a soul without discoursings and curious speculations without any perceptible use of the internal senses or sensible Images by a pure simple and reposeful operation of the mind in the obscurity of faith simply regards God as Infinite and Incoâ—prehensible Verity and with the whole bent of the Will rests in him as her Infinite Universal and Incomprehensible Good This is true Contemplation indeed And afterwards he adds that as for the proper exercise of active contemplation it consists not at all in speculation but in blind elevations of the will and ingulâ—ing it more and more profoundly in God with no other sight or knowledge of him but of an obscure Faith only And towards the conclusion of his Book he hath these words We mortifie our passions to the end we may loose them we exercise Discoursive prayer by sensible Images to the end we may loose all use of
Images and Discourse and we actuate immediately by operations of the Will to the end we may arrive to a state of stability in prayer above all direct exercises of any of the souls faculties A state wherein the soul being oft brought to the utmost of her workings is forced to cease all workings to the end that God may operate in her So that till the soul be reduced to a perfect denudation of Spirit a deprivation of all things God doth not enjoy a secure and perfect possession of it Nay he saith elsewhere that all use of meditation must be for a long space passed and relinquished before the soul will be brought to this good state of having a continual flux of holy desires I might produce much more to the same purpose out of him but this is enough to shew that they leave no use of ratiocination or memory in that which they call the perfect state of the Contemplative life and how is it then possible that it should be either understood or explained Nay F. Baker saith that there is a cessation of all Workings of the soul which is a little harder yet But this is that otium mysticum or divine state of quiescency which the Mystical Divines magnifie so much and which it is impossible to give any account of either how the soul being of so active a nature can subsist with a cessation of all her workings or supposing that possible how it can ever give an account of that state wherein there was a cessation of all her workings It is altogether as possible to give an account of the state of Not-being as of such a state wherein there were no operations of the soul or at least no use of ratiocination and memory And of all things methinks it is most improper to call that the State of Contemplation the State of Nothingness is much more agreeable to it But O. N. defends this to be a State of Contemplation for although saith he it be applyed to the will yet its act is not single but accompanied with a simple intelligence or sight of the object performed by the Intellect without any or at least much Discourse thereof but this is not fair dealing for F. Baker expresly excludes all Discourse he saith not any or at least not much but if there be any Baker makes it not the state of pure contemplation however doth O. N. think that which he calls simple intelligence or the understanding things without ratiocination is a thing we are capable of during the conjunction of Soul and Body But O. N. acknowledges That these supernatural communications of the Divine Majesty to some of his choicest servants in prayer are so sublime and high as that they are described by them not without great difficulty and unusual expressions which are not so well understood but by such as have experienced such favours which also happen to very few Why then do they undertake to explain them Why do they write of them and publish them to the World But commend me to Mr. Cressy himself who gives me a very plain reason why I do not understand these things viz. in the words of S. Paul that The sensual man neither does nor can possibly understand them because they are spiritually discerned and therefore no wonder if they be esteemed foolishness by him who has never experienced them What yet more of your Charity Mr. Cressy I pretend to no Mystical Unions and should think it no perfection much less a state of pure contemplation to have all operations of my mind suspended but what then must I be a sensual man for this and uncapable of understanding the things of the Spirit of God This answer I should have expected from a Quaker and it is the common place they run to when any tell them that they talk Non-sense or unintelligible Canting and I dare say they speak nothing more unintelligible than this Mystical Divinity I might have expected this Answer from a follower of Iacob Behmen who talks very sublime things too in his way and very much like Mystical Divinity I might have expected it from a Rosycrucian for I find that he who writ the Epistle Apologetical for the Brethren of that Order produces the very same places of Scriptur◠to justifie them that O. N. and Mr. Cressy do for Mystical Divinity and saith that theirs was a gift of perfection which God did not communicate to all but only to his elect and therefore no wonder if others did not understand it But what it Mr. Cressy doth not after all this understand S. Paul and it is most evident he doth not For S. Paul doth not there speak of any that had embraced the Christian Doctrine and rejected any sublime pretence of devotion as a thing not intelligible or consonant to the Christian Religion which are the reasons of my rejecting Mystical Divinity but he speaks of such who rejected the Doctrine of Christianity it self because it depended upon Divine Revelation And so the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the sensual man as Mr. Cressy out of meer charity to me renders it but the man that supposes such a natural sufficiency in the humane soul in order to its own perfection and happiness as the Philosophers did that there was no necessity either of divine revelation to discover any new doctrine or of divine Grace to conduct us to our happiness This I could easily make appear to be S. Pauls meaning from the consideration of the design of his discourse as well as the importance of the words and the consent of the best Interpreters of S. Paul I mean S. Chrysostome and his Disciples viz. Isidore Pelusiot and the Greek Scholiasts but I forbear for fear Mr. Cressy should think I take another opportunity to empty my voluminous store of Collections But notwithstanding all the endeavours of Mr. Cressy and his Friend N. O. to make the State of Contemplation as described by F. Baker more intelligible it hath yet so much of darkness and shadow in it that the more they pursue it the farther it flyes from them § 4. But that is not all the quarrel I have to this Mystical Divinity that it is unintelligible but that it leads persons into strange illusions of fancy and when they think themselves freest from Images they do then labour most under the power of a strong imagination embracing only the Clouds of their own Fancies instead of such an immediate Union with the Divine Essence in the pure fund of the Spirit And this I take to be a great injury not only to those melancholy souls that are led through this Valley of Shades and Darkness but to the Christian Religion it self as though the way of perfection taught by it were a low mean contemptible thing in comparison of the Mystical flights of this Contemplative way There are these two things therefore I shall endeavour to shew 1. That this Mystical way hath no foundation
the great instance of the strictness and caution of the Roman Church in examining and approving Visions and Revelations consists almost wholly of a very plentiful narration of her Raptures and Visions She began she saith to be awakened about six or seven years old her Mother having made her to say her prayers and be devout to our blessed Lady and some other Saints wherein she very much out-went S. Paul who never so much as once mentions her in all his writings After this she relates her very great sickness so great that she saith it alwayes deprived her almost of her senses and sometimes altogether and after she had read the third A B C a Book of Mystical Divinity she saith she came to quiet prayer and arrived to passive unions before she was twenty years old and herein again she far out-went S. Paul She confesses that she was in so great torment that they were afraid who were about her that she would have gone mad that she was put into such a heat that her sinews began to shrink with such intolerable pains that she could take no rest neither day nor night but was continually oppressed with a most profound Melancholy These are the very words written by her self as they are translated out of Spanish by an English Iesuit after this she saith she fell into a trance so that she remained without sense almost four dayes after which she remained under violent Torments and her head exceedingly distempered and was not perfectly recovered in three years Then she took S. Joseph for her Patron whom she called her Father and Protector and whereas other Saints help us in some one necessity she had experience that this Saint helpeth us in all and that our Lord will give us to understand that as he was subject to him on earth so likewise in Heaven he obtaineth whatsoever he asketh I am very much mistaken if this savour not of other kind of Divinity than ever S. Paul preached And she adds that she had a great zeal to perswade others to be devout to this glorious Saint because he helpeth those souls exceedingly which commend themselves to him especially those that desire a Master to teach them how to pray I suppoâ—e she means this contemplative way After such an account given of her self I do not at all wonder at the frequency of her Visions and Raptures in one she saith she saw Christ more plainly with the eyes of her soul than she could have seen him with the eyes of her body and she looked upon it as a temptation of the Devil that she was ready to think this was nothing but Imagination After this she relates at large how she came to be swallowed up in the depths of Mystical Theologie and talks of Gods suspending the operations of the understanding in which she saith it understandeth more in the space of a Creed without discoursing than we can understand with all our earthly diligences in many years This she calls being wholly ingulfed in God and distinguisheth this State wherein the soul seems to be altogether out of her self from Visions and she describes the third degree of Prayer to be a glorious frenzy an heavenly folly in which she saith she had been as it were frantick and drunken in this love and could never understand how it was and in this State she saith they speak many words in Gods praise without order at least the understanding is nothing worth here for she adds that then she speaketh a thousand follies and she knew one who being no Poet chanced to compose very significant Verses extempore declaring his pain very well not made by his own wit But there is a degree beyond this which she calls the State of not feeling but enjoying without understanding what we enjoy but how this Union is and what it is she cannot give it to be understood but leaves it to the Mystical Theology Afterwards she distinguisheth between Union and Raptures and saith that these exceed Union which he that writes the Glosses in the Margin saith that she means that the soul enjoyeth God more in raptures but she tells us that Union seemeth beginning midst and end but our Lord must declare this i. e. she knew not what she meant herself In some of her raptures she speaks of Gods carrying away her soul and almost ordinarily her head also after her so that she could not detain it and sometimes her whole body lifting it up in these she saith she undergoes great violence and she was quite tyred with them at other times she saith her body was so light in raptures that all the heaviness of it was taken away or rather that the body remaineth as it were dead without doing any thing in which sometimes the senses are wholly lost but ordinarily they are troubled and in the height of raptures she saith they neither hear nor see nor feel in her opinion no power hath the use of it self nor knoweth what passeth in this occasion nor are we capable of understanding it In this state she saith the soul is ingulfed or to say better our Lord is ingulfed in her and keeping her in himself for a little space she remaineth with her will alone and sets forth the body as bound for many hours in it and yet sometime the understanding and memory distracted and after they return to themselves When the rapture is over it happeneth sometimes that our powers are so absorpt and as it were drowned for a day or two or three that it seemeth they are not in themselves There are these circumstances more to be observed concerning her 1. That she was under great bodily weakness all this while 2. That at this time when she had so many of these raptures she confesses her self that she was very backward and in the beginnings of vertues and mortifications 3. That her great friends who had examined and considered her case declared to her that they looked upon all these things as delusions of the Devil upon which she applyed her self to the Jesuits who encouraged her very much and told her it was the Spirit of God and henceforward they were the great men who gave her directions not to resist those impulsions and elevations as she had been advised before and put her upon greater perfection then she fell into her raptures and understood in one of them that hence forward she was not to converse with men but Angels and after this she had such kind of voices very frequent within her which she saith are very formal words but not heard with corporal ears but understood much more plainly than if they were heard and these speeches she saith afterwards were very continual with her and she had visions very frequently in one of which she saw only the hands of Christ and in another his divine
Countenance which seemed wholly to abstract her and afterwards she saw him altogether but not with her corporal eyes she confesses and she satisfied her self it could not be her imagination only although her Confessor told her so because the beauty was so great as to exceed her imagination yet he still encouraged her when as appears by her own confession others about her whom she had a great opinion of endeavoured to convince her it was only her imagination to her great trouble insomuch that she saith the contradiction of the good were sufficient to have put her out of her wits This Vision of the Beauty of Christ continued ordinarily with her for two years and an half in which she had a great desire to see the colour of his eyes and what bigness they were of but never could obtain that favour When the Iesuit-Confessor was out of the way others told her plainly it was the Devil that deluded her and they bid her cross her self when she saw a Vision she held a Cross in her hand to save her self the trouble and Christ took it in his and gave it her again with four Precious Stones which had the five wounds artificially engraven upon them which no body could see but her self After this she had a vision of Angels and clearly discerned the coelestial Hierarchy but she supposed one of those she saw to be one of the Seraphins who pierced her heart with a fiery dart and when he pulled it out again it left her wholly inflamed with great love to God but under excessive pain which yet caused so great pleasure that she could not desire to 〈◊〉 removed in the dayes that this 〈◊〉 she saith she was like a Fool she desired neither to see nor speak but to embrace her pain Not long after she relates how sometimes for three weeks together her imagination would be so tormented with trifles and toyes that she could think of nothing else then she fell into such a fit of dulness and heaviness without any kind of sense or remembrance of her former Visions and Raptures or else no otherwise than as of a dream to afflict and then she was full of doubts and suspicions that all was but imagination and if she conversed with any the Devil put her in such a distasteful spirit of anger that it seemed as if she would eat all not being able to do otherwise Then again she had comfort in an instant sometimes with a word sometimes with Visions which continued for a time more frequent than before then she thought that her bodily sickness was the cause of her former disturbance and that her understanding was so unruly that it seemed like a furious fool whom no body could bind neither was she able to keep it quiet for the space of a Creed At other times again she compares her self to an Ass being in a manner without any feeling and so it falleth out oft-times she saith that one while she laughed at her self and other times she was much afflicted and the inward motion provoked her to put posies and flowers upon Images and such kind of imployments After this the scene of her imagination was quite changed for it represented nothing but Devils to her in which state she tryed one pleasant experiment viz. how much more the Devils are afraid of Holy Water than of the Sign of the Cross from the Cross they fly but so as to return presently but from the Holy Water so as to return no more Methinks then she should have used it but once and it was not more terrible to Devils than she found it comfortable to her soul for she saith that she found a particular and very evident comfort when she took it and such a delight which strengthned her whole soul which she found very often and considered it with great reflection then she relates her being in Spirit in Hell and what she endured there and towards the conclusion her being placed in Heaven in a rapture and seeing what was done there where she saw her Father and Mother c. after which she adds that our Lordshewed her greater secrets What! than what is done in Heaven for it is not possible she saith to see more than was represented unto her the least part of it was sufficient to make her soul remain astonished and found it impossible to declare some little part of it And now we find her at S. Pauls height and need go no farther in the account of her Visions which continues to the end of her Book but let me ask O. N. who hath particularly recommended this life to the consideration of any sober Protestant whether he doth in good earnest think that M. Teresa had the same kind of Raptures that S. Paul had I know he must not say otherwise since the Roman Church hath Canonized her for a Saint but I think they had done her a greater kindness to have appointed her good Physicians in time instead of her Iesuitical Confessors I could hardly have thought that among Christians I should have found S. Pauls Rapture parallel'd by such as these but we have lived to see strange things If S. Paul had discovered in his Writings so many Symptoms of a disturbed fancy such an oppression of Melancholy such rovings of Imagination such an uncertainty of temper could we ever think the world would have believed that Ecstasie which he expresseth with so much Modesty and makes so many Apologies for himself that he was forced to mention it by the false Apostles boasting of their Revelations It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory I will come to Visions and Revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago c. Of such a one will I glory yet of my self I will not glory but in mine infirmities but now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me Although he had many Revelations he mentions but one and that with the greatest modesty that may be under a third person and that above fourteen years ago He tells no long stories of a succession of Visions and Raptures and sights of Angels and Devils mixed with many impertinencies and indications of a disordered Imagination But saith O. N. that could not be in S. Teresa considering the diligence that was used for several years in the tryal of her Spirit and her Visions were confirmed to be from God by a general attestation of them throughout the Christian World even those who suspected and questioned them at first afterwards magnifying them But I desire no other evidence in this case than what she gives her self supposing the matters of fact to be true according to her own relation not that I would condemn her according to Mr. Cressy 's soft language as a hypocritical Visionaire
the ecstatical Visions and Raptures and Revelations which Montanus and his followers pretended to Baronius proves from the testimonies of Philastrius Epiphanius Theodoret and others that Montanus and his companions were good Catholicks and great practisers of fasting and mortifications and were in great esteem in the Church for a more than ordinary degree of sanctity when they wee in this reputation they pretended to have extraordinary Visions and Ecstasies wherein they suffered such violences as Mother Teresa describes and were under such a force upon their minds as they thought divine which deprived them of the present use of ratiocination in which state they said they had many Revelations from God Now here we have the very case of Mystical Unions and we all know that this Spirit of Montanus was rejected in the Christian Church as a Fanatick Enthusiastical Spirit but it will be worth our while to shew that it was upon this very ground because the Montanists pretended to such Ecstasies and Revelations from God which deprived men of the use of their Reason Claudius Apollinaris Bishop of Hierapolis apprehending the dangerous consequences of these Enthusiastical pretences to Ecstasies and Revelations goes to Ancyra in Galatia to give himself full satisfaction as to the nature of them and being returned he writes this account to his friend Marcellus that Montanus was wont to fall into sudden transports and ecstasies in which he became Enthusiastical and uttered strange things and prophesie which saith he is a thing contrary to the constant tradition and practice of the Christian Church the same he saith of the two female Enthusiasts Prisca and Maximilla and all the account he gives of their separation from the communion of the Church was because the Christian Church all over the world refused to give any entertainment to their Enthusiastical Spirit and that the Churches of Asia having met together and examined this Spirit they condemned it as impious whereupon they were cast out of the Church upon which Maximilla cryed out I am driven away as a Wolf from the Sheep but I am no Wolf but the Word and the Spirit and the Power Miltiades as appears by Eusebius writ a Book against the Montanists on this subject that God did not communicate Revelations in Ecstasies wherein he shewed that Montanus was wont to fall into his Ecstasies which ended in an involuntary Madness and then proves that none of the Prophets either of the Old or New Testament ever prophesied in Ecstasies or when they had no use of their Reason But no one speaks more punctually to this business than Epiphanius who layes down this as a general Rule that whatever Prophets spake they delivered with the clear use of their Reason and Understanding and afterwards saith that the Montanists were very much deceived in pretending to such Visions and Revelations because God had sealed up his Church and put an end to those extraordinary Gifts While there was any need of Prophets holy men of God were sent by him with a true Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great steadiness of mind and a clear understanding and afterwards makes this the characteristical difference of a true and false Prophet that a true Prophet speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a great consistency of ratiocination and consequence Thus Moses thus Isaiah saith he thus all the Prophets Do not you see saith he that these are the words of men that understood themselves and not of men that were ecstatical but these pretenders to Visions and Revelations speak dark and perplexed and obscure things viz. much like to Mystical Divinity which neither they understood themselves nor those that hear them As any one may see in him by the fragments he hath preserved both of Montanus and Maximilla But they pleaded Scripture too for their Ecstasies and Raptures viz. Genâ— 2. 21. Gods sending upon Adam a deep sleep which was rendered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which Epiphanius answers that that was only a binding of his senses by natural rest and not any force upon the mind but they had another place too as impertinent as this but as impertinent as it is it is the very same phrase that my Adversaries produce Ego dixi in â—xcessu meo which Epiphanius proves cannot be understood of any such Ecstasie as the Montanists pleaded for and in Truth he needed not take much pains to do it But they could not follow the Montanists exactly unless they abused Scripture too to justifie their Visions and Ecstasies So one Ferdinandus de Diano a Venetian Divine writing a Book purposely in Vindication of these things on the occasion of the Ecstasies and Visions of a Certain Nun which were sent to Paul the fifth and which were taken by her Confessor for fourteen years together makes use of the very same phrases of Scripture as the Montanists did but exceeds them in impertinency for to prove Raptures he produces all the places where the word raptus is used raptus est nè malitia mutaret intellectum ejus Sap. 4. Mens illius ad diversa rapitur Job 26. rapiemur cum illis in nubibus 1 Thess. 4. but above all commend me to Holofernes his Rapture to prove the Raptures of the Popish Saints Holophernis oculi à sandalibus Iudith rapti sunt ejus cor sensus cum illis rapta sunt Jud. 16. Can any man be so hard hearted to withstand such manifest proofs as these are But to return to Epiphanius we are not to understand saith he any Rapture or Ecstasie of the Prophets so as to suppose them to be deprived of the use of their reason and them So he shews that S. Peter in his Ecstasie had still the free exercise of his Reason which he absolutely affirms of every Prophet both of the Old and New Testament What would Epiphanius have thought then of the glorious frenzies and heavenly follies of M. Teresa in which she spake she knew not what What of the Mystical Unions wherein the operations of the understanding are suspended What of all the holy Violences she underwent wherein both understanding and memory were distracted No doubt he would have declared them all to be downright Montanism and condemned by the whole Christian Church Neither were these the only Persons who delivered the sense of the Church in this matter but S. Hierom saith the same thing The Prophet saith he speaks not in an Ecstasie as Montanus and Prisca and Maximilla fondly imagine but what he prophesies is the Book of the Vision of one who understands all he sayes So of the Prophet Habakkuk he understands what he sees contrary to the perverse doctrine of Montanus and speaks not as a fool nor gives as distracted women do a sound without any signification Whence it comes that the Apostle commands that if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by the first should hold his peace for saith he presently after
this one stroke he endeavours to expell all the flock of phantasms from his conception of God Was not this O. N. very hard put to it to bring these passages to prove Mystical Divinity To as little purpose doth he produce that ejaculation Age Domine fac excita revoca nos accende ac rape c. for may not men pray for the exciting assisting and comforting Grace of God without supposing Ecstasies and Raptures and immediate Revelations But he was yet farther of when he brought that place to prove these extraordinary favours from God Lux es tu permanens quam de omnibus consulebam c. which if he had looked on the beginning of the Chapter he would have found to be an Address to Truth Ubi non mecum ambulasti veritas docens quid caveam quid appetam c. And doth O. N. think that there is such a Mystical Union between the Soul and Truth as to deprive men of the use of their Reason and Understanding but I am tired with these impertinencies yet we must have more of them For because S. Austin in describing the depth of his meditation concerning God and himself doth mention that by the eye of his mind he saw an immutable light very far above it and by this reflection he became as certain of what he only understood as if he had heard it in his heart therefore this place serves to prove no less than the fund of the soul and Gods internal speech to the soul and what not I expect next that De's Cartes his Method and Metaphysical Meditations should be brought to justifie Mystical Divinity â—or they altogether serve as well for it And cannot S. Austin express the profound meditation which he and his Mother Monica had concerning the blessed state of souls in Heaven and the ardent desire they had of being there and the Ioy they found in the thoughts of it without falling into the unintelligible Canting of the Mystical Divines God forbid that I should ever call the Discourses or Desires or joyful thoughts of the happiness of Heaven by the name of Canting that were indeed to be impious and prophane but what is all this to a perfect and immediate union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit in this present state a Union which supposes a cessation of Reason and Discourse No such thing was in the least thought of by S. Austin who was too great a Philosopher to suppose Contemplation in this life without any act of Reasoning or Discourse In his Book de quantitate animae he describes the several steps of the soul and the highest of all he places in the contemplation of God as the Supream Truth and declares that he could not express the Ioyes which did attend the fruition of the true and chief Good But great and â—â—â—nparable minds have expressed these â—â—ings as far as they thought them fit to be expressed which we believe to have seen and still to see those things By which it is plain he speaks of the Ioys â—f another World and not of any Mystical and passive Unions in this and afterwards he speaks of the imperfection of this contemplation here and that therefore death will be desirable because those things will then be taken away which now hinder the whole Soul from fixing upon whole Truth In his Book de Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae he speaks of the Egyptian Hermites spending their life in contemplation without mentioning any Raptures and Ecstasies they had and although he doth plead for their life supposing the usefulness of their prayers to others yet he doth not dissemble that their manner of living was displeasing to some and afterwards saith himself that the Vertue of those who conversed with mankind deserved greater admiration and praise such as the Bishops Priests and Deacons of the Christian Church But although S. Austin doth not yet O. N. saith that Cassian doth mention the frequent raptures and ecstasies of these Egyptian Hermits but of all sorts of persons those who lead an Eremitical life are least fit to be produced because all those who have written on this subject in the Roman Church do say that the illusions of the Devil may be so like divine Raptures that there is a necessity of a great deal of Judgement and Skill to be able to put a difference between them and that none ought to be allowed but such as have been approved by discreet Persons but in the case of these Hermites we may have just reason upon their own Rules to suspect them having been never brought under a sufficient Rule of tryal If Persons may be deceived themselves in judging natural distempers and Satanical illusions for divine raptures and visions then we have no reason to rely on the single Testimonies of such Eremitical Persons who have no witnesses of their actions What know we what sort of Persons Abbot Iohn and Abbot Isaac were in the Deserts of Aegypt we have only their single Testimonies in Cassian and his single word that they said such things to him § 9. But to take off the force of these and such like Instances I shall consider the Rules laid down by their own Writers concerning these things and from thence shew what grounds we have not to rely on the Instances produced by them concerning Visions and Raptures and Ecstasies and Revelations 1. They consess that the natural force and power of Imagination will in some tempers produce all the same symptoms and appearances both to themselves and others which there are in supernatural elevations So Cardinal Bona who very lately and with the best Judgement hath collected the Rules of their Writers upon this subject freely acknowledgeth not only that Ecstasies may be caused by natural diseases of which Galen gives an instance in a Schoolfellow of his and Fernelius and Sennertus many others but by the meer force of Imagination by which the animal spirits flowing in greater quantities to the brain do thereby hinder the external operations of the senses so that the person under it continues without sense or motion and in that condition fancies an extraordinary presence of that object which the imagination was fixed upon And the more intense this imagination is the greater flux of Spirits is made to the brain and so the Ecstasie continues so much the longer especially where the Spirits are more thick and melancholy and consequently not so easily dissipated So Paulus Zacchias saith that we are not to conclude an ecstasie to be supernatural because it ariseth from the contemplation of supernatural things for the Imagination being fixed upon divine things will have the same effects that it would have upon other things Thence saith he such persons do really think as much as men do in dreams that they are present at that time with Angels or Saints and have conferences with them or that they see and enjoy God or imagine themselves to be
would lye upon those who had tryed them by those Rules 4. If Revelations made to two several Persons do contradict each other that there is great Reason to suspect both For although saith Cardinal Bona it be possible that one may be true and the other false and the Devil may endeavour to take away the Authority of the True by the false yet for the most part they are both suspected and doubtful And before he saith that it is reasonable to believe those Women Saints were deceived in supposing their own Fancies to be divine Revelations who have published Revelations contradicting each other Which it is plain he intended for the famous case of the Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Katharin which contradicted each other expresly about the immaculate conception and which I had produced as a plain instance of a false pretence to Inspiration in the Roman Church it being impossible God should contradict himself Mr. Cressy in answer to this first confesses that the publick Office of their Church testifies that each of them were favoured with Divine Revelations and then produces the Testimony of S. Antonin that those things may be supposed by the Persons themselves to be divine Revelations which are but humane dreams Thirdly He cites Cardinal Baronius who seems to reject the Revelations on both sides And yet he by no means will allow the honour of their Church to be concerned herein which hath approved them both as Persons truly Inspired when Mr. Cressy confesses they did not testifie their Revelations by Miracles and that without it Divine Revelation cannot be known I would not desire a greater advantage from an Adversary than Mr. Cressy here gives me against himself For by his own confession then their Church approves those to have had divine Revelations which never gave the proper evidence of it viz. Miracles and such whose Revelations are questioned by the Wisest men among them And what is all this but to give Countenance for all that the Church can know to a meer pretence to Inspiration which is the highest Fanaticism in the World And if as he saith notwithstanding the Councils approbation there is scarce a Catholick alive that thinks he hath an obligation to believe either of them this makes as much to my purpose as I desire for if they have no obligation to believe them they may without sin believe them not to be divine Revelations and since they are given out to be such and approved by their Church all such Persons may without sin charge them with the highest Fanaticism in a false pretence to Divine Revelation And why then should I be so much blamed for doing that which Persons in their own Church may do without sin But I see Mr. Cressy is not acquainted with the common Doctrine of their own Divines about the obligation that lyes upon Persons to believe Private Revelations For they agree 1. That those Persons to whom those Revelations are made are bound to believe them before any approbation of the Church For say they the primary Reason of assenting to a Divine Revelation is from the Divine Veracity to which it is wholly accidental whether it be publick or private and the Churches proposition is only the common external condition of applying the object of Faith to us but there may be as great an obligation to believe a private Revelation supposing only sufficient motives to the mind of the Person that this Revelation comes from God This is the opinion of Vega Catharinus Suarez Lugo Ysambertus and as they tell us of most of their modern Divines Indeed they mention Cajetan Sotus Canus and some others as of another opinion but Suarez saith they seem to differ only in words because they will not have that assent called Catholick Faith which the other are willing to yield to them and call it Theological Faith but do make it as certain and infallible as the other Which they prove not only from the obligation to faith in the private Revelations mentioned in Scripture but from invincible Reason because the ground of the assent of faith is not the publickness of the Revelation but the Divine Authority and Veracity which being supposed must equally oblige whether the Revelation be private or publick And if there be sufficient motives to believe a private Revelation to deny an obligation to believe it is a contempt of Divine Authority and to suppose there cannot be sufficient motives is to say that God cannot do as much by himself as he can by the Church The force of which Reason I do not see how it is possible for those to avoid who assert that God doth still communicate private Revelations to mens Minds 2. That supposing these Revelations to be proposed by the Church all others are bound to believe them to be divine Revelations For then they have the same reason which they have to believe any Revelation All the difficulty now is to understand what a sufficient proposal by the Church in this case is Suarez saith that although private Revelations be chiefly intended for the persons to whom they are made yet a sufficient proposal of them being made to others there doth arise from thence an obligation to believe them For which saith he The general Rule is the approbation of the Church as appears by the Lateran Council under Leo 10. which forbad the Preaching private Revelations without the examination and approbation of the Church and then saith Suarez the believing them becomes a part of Catholick Faith Now I desire to know how it is possible for their Church to shew greater care in the examination and approbation of any private Revevelations than it did in those of S. Brigitt they being frequently examined by the publick Authority of their Church and after such examination declared by the Pope to have come from the spirit of God and at last approved say their own writers at the General Council of Basil. How could they possibly express greater approbation of any controverted Book in the Bible But if after all this these Revelations may pass among them for Dreams and Fancies and no men are obliged to believe them let them clear their Church from Fanaticism if they can For either those Revelations were from God or not if not then they were Fanatical illusions approved by their Church if they were then since they were approved by those whom they are bound to believe with what face can Mr. Cressy say that there is scarce a Catholick alive that thinks he has an obligation to believe them which I do the more wonder at since they believe things as absurd already and with as little reason as any thing in S. Brigitts Revelations And therefore the Person of Honour had great Reason to say that Mr. Cressy hath in truth not answered the Weight of my Instance from the Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Catharine 5. They confess that some persons are very
Abbots to govern as Fathers and not to Tyrannize as Lords But there is yet farther incongruity in it for as the Person of Honour observes S. Benedict brings this in to prove that the Abbot supplies the Room of Christ in the Monastery Christienim agere vices in Monasterio creditur quando ipsius vocatur praenomine whereas there is no such thing in the Text Christ is not called there by the name Abba but God the Father for after they are said by the spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father it is said And if Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ. So that Christ here is not represented under the notion of Abba but rather as a Son and heir to him that is called Abba therefore he that sustains the Person of Christ can only be the eldest Son i. e. the Prior and not the Abbot so that it is impossible to clear S. Bennet from an impertinent allegation of this place of Scripture But this is far from being the only place so impertinently produced by him for in the preface of his Rule we have a whole Cluster of them wherein he puts together many places of Scripture expressing the earnestness and sincerity of Gods calling men to repentance and sincere obedience to the Monastick life and observing the Rules of it As though it were impossible for men to repent and to do Gods will unless they did presently renounce their estates and submit to the Monastick Rules This if he speaks to the purpose he must account awakening out of sleep not hardening our hearts at Gods call hearing what the spirit saith unto the Churches running while we have light entering into Gods Tabernacle and what not As though all Religion were confined within the walls of Monasteries and the strait gate were no other than that which gives men admission into them This indeed was the great and fundamental cheat of the Monastick Orders in the Roman Church they would be called the Religious Orders and would have men believe that all piety and devotion was kept warm only under a Monks Cowle and that if there were any such thing in the world as they called all out of their own precincts it grew very cold by taking too much aire abroad But although they durst not openly defend this for fear of giving too great offence both to Clergy and Laity yet their insinuations tended this way for they only were the Religious and the rest were but the World Which was a horrible abuse of mankind as well as of the Christian Religion which doth never suppose men to be a jot nearer to Heaven for their nastiness and lying in their cloaths for abstaining certain days from flesh for eating and drinking upon a common stock for having their garments of such a shape and colour or whatever other observances were peculiar to the Monastick state The Christian Religion requires sincere humility and not a Monkish affectation of it inward purity and a chastity within the bounds which God hath set us and not binding our selves by perpetual vows to abstain from what he hath allowed us heavenly mindedness and a mighty regard to the rewards of another life and not a needless renouncing what the bounty of Heaven and the care of our Ancestors have provided for us as to the conveniences of this life The Obedience necessary to salvation is that to the commands of Christ and not of an Abbot But this they would fain make people believe that doing only what their Superiours command them is the self-denyal and renouncing their own wills which the Gospel makes so necessary to salvation which is a notorious misapplication of our Saviours commands but these things are common to other Monastick Rules S. Benedict hath other faults of this kind peculiar to his own Rule as when he brings these places for the Monks confessing their sins to the Abbot Revela Domino viam tuam spera in illo It is great pitty the word Abba was not there for Dominus for then it had been a plain case but as it stands it is somewhat hard to conceive how the Abbot comes to be concerned in our making known if that were the meaning of our ways to the Lord and to as little purpose are the other places that follow confitemini Domino and several others that speak of confessing our sins to God but not one word of the Abbot no nor of Priest in them yet this is not all for in the same chapter he brings something for Scripture which was never there as when he makes the Publican to say Domine non sum dignus ego peccator levare oculos meos ad coelum which makes Menardus cry out miror sanè quia nunquam in toto Evangelio repereris haec verba dicta à publicano he justly wond ed at this quotation there being no such words to be found in the whole Gospel as spoken by the Publican but the fairest excuse he hath to bring him off is by saying that he quâ—ted the words without Book by the help of his memory which if it be allowed will be certainly an argument to them that he was not infallibly assisted by the Hâ—ly Ghost But besides these we have other arguments sufficient of humane weakness in this Rule if I should undertake to rifle and examine the several constitutions of this Rule particularly that when the Abbot requires impossibilities not meerly moral as they would now soften it but things utterly impossible or unlawful to be done as when the Senior in Cassian required Iohn the Egyptian Monk to remove a stone which multitudes of men could not stir and another commanded Mucius to take his Son and throw him into the river which they thought themselves obliged by vertue of Monastick obedience to perform and in the case of such impossibilities S. Bennet bids them if the Abbot persist in them to trust to Gods help and obey But the reason given for this is that they must look on the commands of their Superiours as if they were the commands of God himself which is a most senseless and unreasonable thing but it seems by this they give the Abbot the Title belonging to God not meerly for name sake but in case a man were required as Mucius was to destroy his own Child they must say they are bound as much to obey as Abraham was upon Gods command to sacrifice his Son Nay we read in Cassian that God revealed to the Abbot that Mucius had performâ—d the obedience of Abraham and so they say of another who threw his Child into a fiery furnace upon the Abbots command in imitation of Abraham But to justifie this blind obedience to the commands of Superiours S. Benedict brings other very impertinent places of Scripture such as obauditu auris obedivit mihi â—on veni facere voluntatem meam sed ejus qui misit me c. But I am sick of such idle and impertinent stuff
give them an account of what he had done but the King sent them word that he appealed to Rome and so the business fell Thus we see how much he advanced the Popes power by yielding to a Legatine Power here to hear causes and suffering himself to be called to an account before it by which example Appeals grew very frequent and troublesome in his time as our Historians sadly complain and the Bishops and Monks went commonly over to Rome upon Appeals nay Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury went to the Pope then in Frarce expresly against the Kings command and the Pope suspended the rest that did not come and William Archbishop of York was deposed by the Pope meerly because nominated by the King and another put into his Room without the Kings consent or approbation the right of Investitures was condemned in a Council held at Westminster and the infringers of Ecclesiastical Liberty punished with Excommunication not to be taken off but by the Pope himself and after the reconciliation between Stephen and Henry 2. the effect of it saith Radulphus de Diceto was that the Churches Dominion was exalted by it § 9. This was the state of things here when Henry the second came to the possession of the Crown all the Customs of his Ancestors which they accounted Rights of the Crown were lost during the Usurpation of Stephen and strange insolencies and villanies were committed under the pretence of Ecclesiastical Liberty or the unaccountabless of Ecclesiastical Persons for their actions to Civil Justice which made the Judges complain to the King of the thefts rapines and murders frequently committed by Clergy-men over whom they had then no jurisdiction and as Gulielmus Newburgensis saith the Bishops were more concerned to defend their priviledges than to punish offendors and thought they did God and the Church service in protecting them from the hands of Iustice. By which means things were come to that height between the Civil Ecclesiastical Power that one or the other must yeild the Ecclesiastical Power being in the hands of Thomas Becket a man after the Popes own heart and in whom the very soul of Gregory the seventh seemed to have come into the World again and the Civil Power in the management of Henry the second a Prince of a high Spirit and great courage and that could not easily bear the least diminution of his Power And where there was so much matter prepared and such heat on both sides it was no great difficulty to fore-tell a storm when the Clouds that hovered in the air should clap together or fall upon each other This was foreseen by the more discerning men of that time when they found the King bent upon making him Archbishop after the death of Theobald For however Becket himself boasted of the freedom of his election and the consent of the Clergie and Kingdom in it yet in the Epistle sent to him by the Bishops and Clergie of the whole Province they plainly tell him the Kings Mother disswaded him from it the whole Kingdom was against it and the Clergie sighed and groaned as much as they durst but the King would have it so For the King being then in Normandy sent over his great Minister Richard de Lucy on purpose to let the Suffragan Bishops and the Monks of Canterbury understand his pleasure that he would have Becket chosen Archbishop Which the Bishop of London in his excellent Epistle to Becket which gives a more true account of the Intrigues of the whole quarrel than any thing yet extant and which Baronius could not but see in the Codex Vaticanus although he takes no notice at all of it tells him was a greater invasion of the Churches Liberties than any of those things he made such ado about You saith he now tell us that we ought to obey God rather than men would to God we had done so then but because we had not the courage to do it then therefore we now suffer shame and confusion for it and the tears run down our cheeks for the calamities that are come upon us By which we may judge of the truth of the Quadripartite History written by Thomas his own Disciples as Baronius confesseth for therein Herebertus and Iob. Sarisburiensis tell of Thomas his protesting against his being Archbishop to the King and his being hardly perswaded to it by the Popes Legat whereas the Bishop of London proves to Becket himself that during Theobalds Life he had his eye upon it and made all the interest he could to obtain it upon his death that he gave several thousand Marks to the King to be Chancellour hoping by that means to come the easier into the See of Canterbury that being in Normandy at Theobalds death he posted over and the Kings Favourite brought his command for his election And it is likewise confessed by Fitz Stephen in the MS. History of Beckets Life that the whole Clergie knew it was the Kings pleasure he should be made Archbishop and that Gilbert then only Bishop of Hereford afterwards of London disswaded all that he could from his election and after said that the King had done a strange thing viz. he had made a Souldier Archbishop of Canterbury for but a little before he had been in arms with the King at Tholouse And this opposition of his he calls not only God to witness was not out of any ambitious desire to have been in his Room as Thomas and the Monks charge him but Becket himself for no man could attempt any such thing but he must know it his Favour being so great with the King then But it seems the wiser men among the Bishops thought that by reason of his insolent rash and inflexible temper which even his Friends complained of in him he would bring all things into confusion When he was summoned at Northampton to appear before the King he would needs carry the Cross with his own hands into the Court upon which the Bishop of London told him he behaved himself as if he had a mind to disturb the whole Kingdom You carry the Cross saith he and what if the King should take his Sword but said he to one that stood by He alwayes was a Fool and ever will be one These things I only mention to let men see what apprehensions the more prudent men of that time had of the likelihood of great disturbances coming to the Church by his ill management although by the rashness of others added to his he hath had the fortune to be accounted a Saint and a Martyr § 10. But my business is not to write a particular account of all the passages between the King and him after the difference between them which hath been so largely done by Baronius and our own Historians but I shall shew that the Controversie between them was about Gregory the sevenths principles and if he dyed a Martyr for any thing it
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