Spain through Valentia into Italy he happened on Iohn de Castro a Religious Hermit to whom he made known his Intention of going into the Holy Land. Castro spends all the Night following in Prayer comes out of his Cell next Morning in a transport of joy and tells Ignatius that he was commissioned by Heaven to let him know that his Design should succeed and turn to the good of all Christendom and for a sign that he did not speak at random offered himself to be his Companion and Disciple Ignatius received this Testimony of Castro as an Oracle of the Holy Ghost but would not suffer him to accompany him Whence Bouhours concludeth that Persons inspired from Heaven in behalf of others are not always so for themselves He might more reasonably have concluded that the whole Inspiration was fictitious and a meer whimsie of the Hermites Brain with which both Parties were not unwillingly deluded For Ignatius his Design did not succeed He never went after that to Palestine as he intended and consequently his Design was not in the least beneficial to the Cause of Christianity and then Castro equally pretended a Divine Inspiration for his entrance into the same Design as for Ignatius his success in it so that either Castro received no real Inspiration or Ignatius resisted the Holy Ghost But to proceed Ignatius travelling from Venice to Rome he stept alone into a little ruinous Chappel upon the Road following the motion of the Spirit which possest him to recommend his Company to God. Scarce had he begun his Prayer but he was wrapt in spirit environed with a great brightness and saw the Eternal Father who presenting him to the Son who stood before him laden with an heavy Cross recommended him to his protection who receiving him graciously said I will be propitious to you at Rome Removing soon after to Monte Cassino he saw the Soul of Hozez one of his Companions who at that time died at Padua at the very moment of his expiring in a glorious and shining Habit enter into Heaven and thereby had the good fortune to equal St. Benedict who in that very place saw the Soul of his Sister Scholaria in form of a Dove and the Soul of Germanus Bishop of Capua environed with exceeding light ascending into Heaven But now for the Honour of Ignatius whereas St. Benedict had but a transient view of the ascending Souls our Saint had the same Vision more than once For presently after hearing Mass he saw Heaven open and his Companion in the middle of the Saints See the Merits of the Society more resplendent than the rest However it must be remembred in favour of St. Benedict that in his time Enthusiasm was but in its infancy which in latter Ages was advanced to greater perfection St. Ignatius scorned to draw his model from an imperfect Copy but chose rather to imitate St. Francis a more Illustrious Visionary He assured his Companions that he often enjoyed the Corporeal Presence of Jesus Christ who appeared to him in his private Prayers nailed to the Cross and at other times under the form of a Cherub having six wings bearing a Crucifix in his Breast and fluttering before him for a long while in the Air. Not only were Divine Visions of this nature frequently by Heaven granted to them but also liberally communicated to others whensoever their Interest or Advantage required it Thus Ignatius coming to Barcelona to take Ship for the Holy Land a certain Lady called Isabella Rosella saw him at Church and heard a Voice within her crying Call him Call him Hereupon she invites him to her House and desires him to lodge there But he declared that he was called by Heaven to another place and so denied her Request Certainly one of these Calls must have been an Illusion For if the Lady was indeed commanded by God to invite him he ought to have accepted the Invitation if he was sent by God to another Place she ought not to have diverted him But not to be too critical upon the Actions of the Saints since it is the peculiar privilege of the Church of Rome that no Contradictions can prejudice the truth of its Assertions From Barcelona Ignatius travelled to Venice where entring late he takes up his Lodging upon the stones in the Piazza Heaven thought this too mean a Lodging for so great a Saint and therefore Marco Antonio Trevisani a Senator was immediately commanded by a Voice in a Vision to rise and invite him into his House When Rodriguez one of his chief Disciples was tempted by the Devil to leave Ignatius and become an Hermite God to prevent so great a loss sent an Angel from Heaven who taking a Gigantick Body and putting on a terrible Aspect met him going out of Town with a naked Sword in his hand and brandishing his Sword against him forced him to return with all speed altho the Countrey People who admired the precipitate and as they imagined causeless flight of Rodriguez could see neither Sword nor Giant To produce but one Instance more A Recluse near Vicenza slighting Ignatius and esteeming him a Madman God to vindicate the honour of the Saint appeared to him and told him or as Bouhours hath it he understood by a Light from above that Ignatius was a Vessel of Election filled with the Spirit of God. In like manner a Priest of Assisium who despised Saint Francis was assured by a Divine Vision that he was some great and venerable Person Hitherto their Visions are pretty equal but St. Francis had one adventure which Ignatius could never equal Being prostrated one day before a Crucifix he received exceeding consolation of spirit in praying and with his bodily Ears thrice heard a Voice proceeding from the Cross saying Francis go and repair my ruined House This was wonderful indeed but Ignatius never attained to this perfection For as the Devils and Oracles vanished and disappeared at the coming of Christ so the Romish images ceased to speak at the first appearance of the Reformation The last which we can hear of is that of Bern in Switzerland which performed the Miracle few years before the Reformation These Visions and Apparitions are so plainly owing to the whimsies of a disturbed Imagination that no art can palliate the Delusion The Ideas which these Enthusiasts conceived of God Christ and Angels were so gross and corporeal and by long habit attended with such violent motions of the Spirit that every cloud in their Brain was mistaken for that Object whose Idea did then accompany it This is evident in the case of Ignatius who in Mount Cassino remembring the famous Vision of St. Benedict in that place and then hearing the death of Hozez imagined he saw a Vision of the like nature and in visiting the holy Places in Palestine always fancied to see Christ before his eyes in that habit which the remembrance of the Place suggested to his
suspect him to have been inclined to Revenge and Cruelty if we remember that all the Ships Passengers and Mariners which refused to carry him gratis going and returning from the Holy Land were cast away that Lopez Mendoza for slightly reviling him was in a few hours burnt to Ashes That when General of his Order he frequently chastised the Novices so severely with his own hands that some of them died of the blows by the Attestation of Hoffoeus a professed Jesuit in his own Colledg and an Eye-witness and that all this is confirmed by the Testimony of Salmanassar a Jesuit of Naples who describes Ignatius to have been of a fierce severe and cruel Disposition His turbulent and unquiet Temper appears from his being condemned in the Colledg at Paris to be whipt publickly for disturbing his Fellow-Students and from his valedictory form wherewith he dismissed all the Fathers of his Society whom he sent in Mission Ite omnia accendite inflammate Go put all in Flames and set the World on Fire Words which I suppose he used in Emulation of St. Dominick whose Mother while yet with Child dreamed She had a Whelp in her Belly carrying a Torch in his Mouth which set the whole World in Flames That Ignatius was addicted to Lying and Equivocation may be suspected from his behaviour to his own Brother who perceiving him fallen into a religious Phrenzy at his first Conversion was resolved by all means to divert it Ignatius not knowing how to leave his Brothers Castle of Loyola handsomely without discovering his Intentions borrows a Horse and a Servant of him assuring him that he went only to visit the Duke of Naiara their Neighbour Being at some distance from the Castle he sends back the Servant and rides away to Montserrat where he enters upon a religious Life After many years returning in triumph to Loyola he takes up his Lodging in an Hospital but at last being overcome by the earnest Importunities of his Brother promiseth to him faithfully to lodg with him in the Castle He goeth thither lodgeth there one Night and next Morning betimes steals back to the Hospital thinking he had now fully satisfied his Promise and refuseth ever after to return Lastly however the Writers of his Life pretend him to have been by a special priviledg freed from all carnal Concupiscence which Philostratus also reports of Apollonius we have no small reason to suspect the contrary For from his Conversion to his Death he never dared to look any Woman on the Face which argues him to have been conscious of his own Infirmity and to have feared the Temptations of their Beauty And even after that Vision of the Blessed Virgin wherein this extraordinary gift of Continence is pretended to have been conferred on him Bouhours confesseth him to have had a secret Inclination for a Lady of Quality St. Francis had the same bashfulness He never durst look upon a Woman and no wonder for the very thoughts of them so terribly tormented him as created to him no small perplexity in proof of which I will crave leave to present the Reader with this following Story The Devil one night putting on a handsom Face peeps into Saint Francis's Cell and calls him out The Man of God presently knew by revelation that it was a trick of the Devil who by that Artifice tempted him to lust yet he could not hinder the effect of it For immediately a grievous temptation of the flesh seizeth on him To shake off this he strips himself naked and begins to whip himself fiercely with his Rope Ha brother Ass saith he I will make you smart for your rebellious lust I have taken from you my Frock because that is sacred and must not be usurped by a lustful Body If you have a mind to go your ways in this naked condition pray go Then being animated with a wonderful fervour of spirit he opens the door runs out and rowls his naked Body in a great heap of Snow Next he makes seven Snowballs and laying them before him he thus bespeaks his outward man. Look you this great Snowball is your Wife those four are two Sons and two Daughters the other two are a Man and a Maid which you must keep to wait on them Make hast and clothe them all for they dye with cold But if you cannot provide for them all then lay aside all thoughts of marriage and serve God alone This was honestly said no expedient of Fornication thought on when Marriage was rejected Now see the merits of rowling naked in the Snow The Tempter being conquered departs and the Saint returns into his Cell with triumph that is in plain English his Courage was cooled and Brother Ass benummed with cold Not only may the Immunity of Ignatius from all mortal sin after his Conversion be denied but even his Sincerity through the whole conduct of his Life may be called in question We before observed him to have been acted with an ambitious Spirit which might prompt him to undertake any Artifices tending to increase his Reputation and if any thing was wanting to render him a compleat Impostor it was only defect of Wit. Yet in many of his Actions we may plainly discover the footsteps of an Impostor who designed to raise his Honour upon the credulity of Mankind Thus it may be observed that for many years after his Conversion he applied himself to infuse his Notions into Women and Young men taking advantage from the weakness of Sex or inexperience of immature Judgment Agnes Pascall Isabella Rosella and some Ladies of Alcala were in a manner his only Disciples before his remove to Paris These were the only Witnesses of his Miracles and Admirers of his Sanctity At Paris he sets upon and after a long canting and earnest sollicitations gains to him Peter Faber a poor Spanish Youth in whom were sentiments of Vain-glory. Xaverius a generous Soul but who was naturally vain and loved ostentation a Young man who filled with an innate tumour of vanity and pride fed himself with Chimeraes after the custom of ambitious Men and framed to himself the obtaining of great advantages upon the least appearances Nicholas Bobadilla a poor Young man whose necessities forced him to cast himself upon Ignatius Rodrigues who had been long possest with the same ambition of preaching in the Holy Land Iames Laynez and Alphonso Salmeron the first 21. the other 18 years old These were the only Disciples he gained at Paris and the first six Companions of his Order To this we may add his resuming his discalceate Habit after a long intermission at his return into Spain which tended only to raise to himself an opinion of extraordinary sanctity among his credulous Countreymen his artifice of framing his Countenance as himself pleased and occasion required his canting upon the greater glory of God which served as a preface to all his Words and Actions his
pretended desire of resigning the Generalty of his Order when he knew that it would not be permitted his flattery of Great Men whom he continually praised but winked at their faults and never blamed them altho their Actions and Behaviour were condemned and decried by the unanimous consent of all men Lastly to produce one Instance of a just suspicion of Imposture in performing Miracles I will represent it in the words of Vitelleschi At his last Voyage into Spain one night the Saint did a great Miracle The People flocking to his Chamber and staying with him late he desired them to withdraw and carry away the Candle with them saying God can enlighten the darkness of the night When they were gone Ignatius fell to praying loud The People after some while return and peeping through the Keyhole see a light in his Chamber He that will not suspect some artifice in this matter may safely believe all the Fables of the Alcoran If Ignatius wanted a light in his Chamber why did he order the People to carry away the Candle with them If he intended to perform a Miracle why did he not suffer the People to stay and be spectators of it But what if after all Ignatius should be found an Heretick He would ill deserve the dignity of a Saint and at the next reformation of the Calendar might be perhaps expunged out of it It seems St. Francis was somewhat inclined to Heresie and no thorough Catholick For his Epistle to the Priests of his Order is prohibited in the Index Romanus and he is known to have laid those Principles of Evangelical Poverty which afterwards founded the Heresies of the Fratricelli and Beguini or Beguardi This Opinion of the perfection and excellence of Evangelical Poverty was common both to Ignatius and St. Francis and was condemned as erroneous and heretical by Pope Iohn XXII But the charge of Heresie falls much more heavy upon Ignatius For he believed Scripture to be the only Rule of Faith a Doctrine which passeth among our Adversaries for a rank Heresie For magnifying the greatness and perspicuity of the Divine Illuminations and Revelations conferred on him and boasting that he received the knowledge of Christianity not from the ordinary Rule of Faith but by extraordinary Illumination he was wont to use these words That if the Articles of Faith had never been recorded in the Scriptures or as another Author expresseth it altho no Monuments or Testimonies of the Christian Religion had remained he should still have believed them and that even had the Scriptures been lost no part of his Faith had been diminished Which manifestly supposeth him to have believed that the knowledge of the Christian Religion must necessarily be received either from the Scripture or from extraordinary Illumination and that there was no medium which might serve the ends of a Rule of Faith. Besides all this Ignatius pretended that in Prayer his Soul acted passively not actively and did nothing but receive the influences of the Spirit and upon the authority of a personal Apparition believed that the Flesh of the Blessed Virgin was contained in the Eucharist in the Flesh of her Son there substantially present Now among the Articles of Molinos condemned last year in the Inquisition at Rome one is that in contemplation the Mind acts purely passively not actively and one of the pretended Opinions of Signior Burrhi condemned of Heresie by the Inquisition and which he was forced to recant in the Year 1668. was That the consecrated Host hath in it the Body of the Mother as well as of the Son. If Ignatius had lived at this time I do not see how he could have escaped being condemned for an Heretick by the Inquisition It will be no small confirmation of the truth of whatsoever I have hitherto observed or advanced concerning Ignatius if it be proved that in his life-time he was esteemed an Enthusiast an Impostor and a Heretick by many sober indifferent and learned Men of the Church of Rome if he was censured as such by the publick Tribunals of the Church and suspicions of this nature often entertained of him by whole multitudes of his Hearers Saint Francis at his first conversion was esteemed to be a Mad-man by his Father who therefore put him in Chains and shut him up in a dark Room to cure his Distemper His Townsmen of Assisium entertained the same opinion of him where the Rabble commonly persecuted him whensoever he appeared in publick with stones and dirt and followed him with loud outcries Civilities which both himself and his Disciples often received in other Cities of Italy when they first began to preach Ignatius fared no better His own Brother far from esteeming his Conversion a work of Heaven told him it was only the effect of a melancholy distemper which betrayed him to extravagant courses The People of Manreze where he vented the first heat of his Devotion in wonderful Austerities thought him a Fool and a Mad-man insomuch as whenever he appeared in the Town the Children pointed at him threw stones at him and followed him in the Streets with shouts and outcries Going into the Holy Land to preach the Gospel the Franciscans far from believing him to have received a Divine Mission charged him to depart on pain of Excommunication At Alcala he was suspected by some of Sorcery by others of Heresie and put into the Inquisition for a Visionary but at last acquitted on condition of deserting his extravagant methods of Religion Soon after he is clapt into the Inquisition a second time for instilling foolish Principles into his Hearers and when he removed to Salamanca both he and his Disciples were put in Chains by the Inquisition there as Hereticks and Seditious Persons and not absolved but upon condition of preaching no more Soon after his arrival at Paris he is accused to the Inquisitors for seducing Young Scholars but by the intercession of Friends dismissed After some time he is sentenced to be whipt publickly in the Hall by the Regents of his Colledge upon the same account and before his departure accused a second time of Heresie to the Inquisitors chiefly for his Book of Exercises which his Enemies called the Mysterious Book At Venice he was decried as an Heretick and a dangerous Impostor and by some accused to have a Familiar which informed him of all things At Rome both himself and his Companions were accused of Heresie by a famous Piemontese Priest and were esteemed by the People to be Hypocrites and false Prophets No body for a while dared to appear in the company of such miserable wretches whom they thought to be destined to the Stake When he first proposed the erection of his Order to the Pope the Cardinals generally disapproved and opposed it After it was approved it met with great opposition in France in his life-time Many decried it as monstrous and said that he who had