taken the Almanack into the number of the Saints and canonized it under the name of St. Almachius solemnizeth its memory on the first day of January and giveth to it an illustrious Character in the Martyrology This probably proceeded from the mistake of some ignorant Monk about the seventh or eighth Age who finding the word S. Almanacum Sanctum Almanacum written in the front of the Calendar and not knowing what to make of that barbarous term with which he was before unacquainted imagined it to be some ancient obscure Saint who took up the first place in the Calendar Being possessed with this Error it was no hard matter to make S. Almachius of S. Almanacum written in the old way of Abbreviation Having thus framed the Saint out of good manners he placed him after the Circumcision of our Lord the memory of which is celebrated upon the same day but yet to keep the former Order as much as possible immediately after it as it now continueth in the Roman Martyrology This unhappy mistake was thence transcribed into many other Copies and so encreased the Rabble of the Romish Saints with the addition of St. Almanack Afterwards a goodly Story was framed of him that he suffered Martyrdom at Rome under the Presecture of Alipius where reprehending the Gladiators in the Amphitheater for their bloody sports he was killed by them That my Conjecture is just manifestly appears from the constant silence of all ancient Writers concerning any such Martyr None makes mention of him before Alcuinus and he doth it in such a manner as sheweth that he knew not what to make of him For as for the Martyrologies of Beda Usuardus and Ado they have received so many Interpolations from latter hands that no Arguments can be drawn from them Baronius is grievously perplexed about this S. Almachius One while he makes him to have suffered under Honorius another while under Theodosius and supposeth him to have been the same with the Martyr Telemachus of whom Theodoret makes mention But so prodigious a change of Telemachus into Almachius is somewhat incredible and that Telemachus was stoned whereas Almachius is said to have been stabbed Add to this universal silence of the Ancients that S. Almachius is placed exactly in the beginning of the Calendar on the first of January immediately after the Circumcision of Christ and the matter will be rendred highly probable The only Objection which with any shew of reason can be opposed is that the word Almanacum seems not to have been so ancient as the time of Alcuinus as being received from the Arabians But this is no other than a vulgar Error For Porphyry used the word 1400. years since where speaking of the many different Horoscopes he saith of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose names are contained in the Almanacks which may also give a probable reason how the letter h crept into Almachius For as anciently in spelling words derived from the Greek they kept much more closely to the Greek Orthography than we now do it is not unlikely that when this word was first adopted by the Latins it was writ Almanachum These Arguments will at least create a probability of my Assertion that this fictitious Saint arose from the unhappy mistake of some ignorant Writer If our Adversaries of the Church of Rome shall yet persist to defend the honour and truth of their Calendar it will concern them to produce better Arguments for the existence of St. Almachius than I have now proposed against it But to return from St. Almanack to St. Ignatius it cannot be pretended by our Adversaries that the Character of Enthusiasm or Falsity which I have affixed to him and the Miracles attributed to him may equally be fastned on the Actions and Miracles of Christ and his Apostles altho both Ignatius and St. Francis in acting their Extravagances flattered themselves with the thoughts of a perfect imitation of Christ. As for the reception of the Faith by extraordinary Illumination and in many cases acting by Divine Impulse that in the first propagation of Christianity when it was both necessary and convenient was no argument or character of Enthusiasm but only in subsequent times after the Faith had been once published and an ordinary Rule whether Scripture or Tradition was fixed which by natural means might divulge the knowledge of it Nothing childish or ridiculous can be discovered in the Actions of Christ and his Apostles none of those frantick Motions or irrational Extravagances which are so eminently conspicuous in the whole Conduct of Ignatius At least none of their Miracles are subject to those Objections which intirely ruine the credit of those ascribed to Ignatius They were all well attested performed before whole multitudes of Enemies as well as Friends delivered to us by Eye-witnesses and that without any fluctuation or mutual repugnance of their Testimony were not destructive of the Laws of Corporeal Beings nor included any contradiction contained nothing monstrous or indecent in them and were in all respects intirely conformable to the Majesty of that God who wrought them and the gravity of that Religion which was confirmed by them It will perhaps be pretended with greater shew of reason that the actions and Histories of many famous Monks and Anchorets of the Ancient Church give no small countenance to the Conduct of Ignatius and by the authority of their Examples rescue it from the force of our Objections that consequently the Ancient Church is no less subject to the Charge of Enthusiasm than the Church of Rome and both equally concerned in it Altho the deformity of Enthusiasm cannot be palliated by any Authority whatsoever yet the regard which I have to Truth and the great reverence which the Church of England not unjustly beareth to the more pure and ancient times of Christianity obligeth me to remove this prejudice and preclude the force of any such Objection before I dismiss the Reader First then however it cannot be denied that many Persons who obtained to themselves an extraordinary repute of sanctity in the Ancient Church committed many gross irregularities in the conduct of their Devotion practised immoderate Austerities and were sometimes guilty of ridiculous Actions yet the Ancient Vniversal Church is not in the least concerned in all this nor receiveth any prejudice from the indiscreet Zeal of these private Bigots She gave no countenance to their Extravagances never recommended them to the practise or imitation of her Children much less approved them by any solemn and publick Act. Whereas the Church of Rome hath in the highest and most solemn manner espoused the Follies and Whimsies of her Enthusiastick Saints by canonizing them celebrating their Memories with Festivals and pompous Ceremonies invoking them in her publick Offices and recommending their Examples to the World as the best and greatest Patterns of Christian Perfection This alone might suffice to overthrow all pretence of Antiquity in this case Yet to clear the matter somewhat
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-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
When St. Francis one Night earnestly desired to hear some Musick a Concert of Angels appeared to him and played most melodiously While Ignatius writ his Constitutions He often heard not only in his Imagination but with his outward Ears most sweet Lessons of the heavenly Musick And when his Body was exposed after Death divers Stars were seen upon his Sepulchre and a very harmonious Concert of Musick was heard about it for two whole days together But St. Dunstan was more modest in procuring to himself this miraculous Musick He scorned to put the Angels to any trouble and therefore his Harp usually played of its own accord as it hung upon the Wall. Such are the Miracles which in former Ages advanced the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and at this day continue to be none of the least Arguments of their truth to credulous and injudicious Persons Upon these is founded the honour of their Saints and upon their truth depends one of the most glorious Notes of their Church From the Miracles of Saint Francis alone Surius pretends that whatsoever Hereticks may prate it is abundantly proved that the departed Saints know our Concerns on Earth and hear our Petitions Thus the Controversie of the Invocation of Saints is decided Add to this the Visions of Ignatius and devotion of Saint Francis's Lamb and Transubstantiation will be irrefragably demonstrated and so in all other Articles peculiar to the Church of Rome Miracles will not be wanting to demonstrate their truth And indeed Miracles are now become the only refuge to which our Adversaries can recur when Reason and Learning runs so low among them and their Arguments have been so often baffled But by an unhappy incredulity we are no more inclined to believe their Miracles than Doctrines the latter we imagine to be false but the former both false and foolish It remains therefore that we receive a conviction of the truth of the Romish Religion as Ignatius did by supernatural Illumination and extraordinary Impulse which may be hoped for when God shall lose his Attribute of Immutability and Christianity cease to be Rational But to pass by that From what hath been hitherto said it appears that the Church of Rome is in the highest degree guilty of Enthusiasm and that Ignatius and whom he imitated Saint Francis were the greatest and most foolish Enthusiasts of any Age Persons so far unworthy the Glories of Heaven and Society of Angels that they deserved rather to be excluded from the number of rational Beings and upon that account be placed one degree beneath Fools and Madmen Yet to these are publick Prayers addressed in the Church of Rome Festivals celebrated Churches dedicated and Vows directed and as if all this were not sufficient God must be desired to save us through their Merits Thus Bonaventure concludes the Life of Saint Francis in these words May Iesus Christ bring us unto Heaven by the Merits of his Servant Francis and the Golden Legend thus Let us pray to Saint Francis that he would aid and assist us that by his Merits we may come to everlasting life And that somewhat more than humane may be conceived of them we are told of Ignatius that only by his Name writ in a piece of Paper he did more Miracles than Moses and not fewer than the Apostles that the Founders indeed of other Religious Orders were formerly sent by God for the benefit of the Church but that after all in these last days God hath spoken to us by his Son Ignatius whom he hath made Heir of all things and to whom nothing else was wanting to the utmost perfection but the following Attribute By whom also he made the World. This was spoken of Ignatius before he was yet Canonized I know not whether his Canonization qualified him to receive that Attribute but I am sure it excused not his Memory from the just imputation of Folly and Enthusiasm nor the Church of Rome from the Charge of a most deplorable Fanaticism in celebrating his Memory and applauding his Folly. FINIS ERRATA PAge 1. l. 9. for convinceth r. convince p. 14. l. 11. for any r. an p. 39. l. 21. in marg for Vite r. Vita p. 24. l. 9. for first r. last p. 39. l. ult for Swound r. Swoon p. 79. l. 22. for Cap. grave r. Capgrave p. 105. l. 21. for do r. doth Books Printed for Richard Chiswell Dr. CAve's Lives of the Primitive Fathers in 2. Vol. Folio Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time. fol. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity fol. Sir. Iâ—hn Buâ—lâ—ce's History of the Irish Rebellion fol. The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuits Seminary Priests Recusants the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance explained by divers Judgments and Resolutions of the Iudges with other Observations thereupon By Willian Cawley Esq. fol. Dr. Towerson's Explication on the Creed the Commandments and Lords Prayer in 3 Vol. fol. Bishop Nicholson on the Church-Catechism Mr. Iohn Cave's seven occasional Sermons 4 to Bishop Wilkins Natural Religion 8 o. His Fifteen Sermons 8 o. Mr. Tanners Primordia Or the Rise and Growth of the first Church of God described 8 o. Spaniards Conspiracy against the State of Venice 8 o. Dr. Caves Primitive Christianity in three parts 8 o. Certain genuine Remains of the Lord Bacon in Arguments Civil Moral Natural c. with a large account of all his Works By Dr. Tho. Tenison 8 o. Dr. Henry Bagshaws Discourses on select Texts 8 o. Mr. Sâ—liers State of the Church in the three first Centuries Dr. Burnets Account of the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester 8 o. History of the Rights of Princes in the disposing of Ecclesiastical Benefices Church-lands 8 o. Relation of the present state of the difference between the French King and the Court of Rome to which is added the Popes Brief to the Assembly of the Clergy and their Protestation published by Dr. Burnet 8 o. Dr. Combers Companion to the Altar 8 o. Dr. Sherâ—ocks Practical Discourse of Religious Assemblies 8 o. Defence of Dr. Stillingfleets Unreasonabless of Separation 8 o. A Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet in answer to Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lob about Catholick Communion 8 o. Sir Rob. Filmers Patriarcha or natural Power of Kings 8 o. Bishop Wettenhalls method and order for private devotion 24 o. Valentines private devotions 4 o. Dr. Spencer de Legibus Hebrâ—orum Ritualibus earum Rationibus fol. Dr. Iohn Lightfoots Works in English in 2 Vol fol. Sir Tho. Browns Vulgar Errors with all the rest of his Works fol. Patris Simoniâ— Dâ—squisitiones Criticae de Variis per diversa Loca Tempora Bibliorum Editionibus Accedunt Castig Opusc. IJ. Vossii de Sybil. Orac. 4 o. The Case of Lay-Communion with the Church of England considered 4 o. Two Letters betwixt Mr. R Smith and Dr. Hen. Hammond about Christs descent into Hell 8 o. Dean Stratfords Disswasive from Revenge 8 o. Dr. Hez Burtons first Volume
assent The infinite desires of our Will and visible imperfections of our Understanding sufficiently convinceth mankind of the necessity of such Revelations The desire of happiness is natural to all and impossibility of attaining it in this life is no less evident The nature and immateriality of our Soul demonstrates that we were created for greater and more noble ends than the mean and inconsiderable enjoyments of this life that we cannot but exist for ever and are capable of Eternal Happiness and then our Will naturally prompts us to desire that this future Happiness may be commensurate to the infinite duration of our existence and not inferior to the capacity of our Nature Yet these ardent desires and possibility of obtaining them would but enhance our misery and augment our wishes unless the means of attaining them were assured to us This Divine Revelation alone can do since God alone can confer that happiness upon mankind and that he will do it can no otherwise appear than by some external Revelation The sense and evidence of these undoubted Truths have excited mankind in all Ages to enquire after such Revelation and obliged them to found all their hopes of future Happiness upon it Their Hopes and Desires induced them to attend to the proposal of it and then their Reason commanded them to acquiesce in it The assurance of the Divine Infallibility excluded all doubts and scruples and the sense of their Interest engaged in it banished even all desire of doubting Thus Divine Revelations easily gained belief and obedience in the World and if at any time they were rejected or disbelieved by men it was because their Judgment and Assent was prepossessed with some either real or feigned Revelation But then it could not be avoided but this natural reverence for Divine Revelations and proneness of believing them would produce some ill effects prejudicial to the Reason and Interest of mankind A fatal credulity would creep into the World and possess the minds of more ignorant Persons and induce them blindly to believe every bold Pretender to Revelation After a laborious and fruitless search of future Happiness men were apt to embrace any System of Religion presented to them if it flattered their hopes of future felicity they were loth to discover the error and illusion of any pleasing Revelation they wished it might be true and what at first they wished they at last believed But not only did the desires and hopes of mankind create this credulity the natural reverence of God and all divine Oracles when not rationally directed advanc'd and increas'd it Many feared they should be injurious to the Divine Majesty and incur the guilt of Atheism if they should scrupulously examine what pretended to carry the stamp of his Authority and to have been revealed by him To entertain scruples in this case was thought no less than Sacrilege and every doubt was esteemed an affront to God. To which may be added that most imagined they should contract no small merit and even lay an obligation upon God if they immediately resigned up their judgment to his supposed Revelation and blindly received it without any doubt or hesitation This in all Ages opened a wide gate and prepared the way for Error and Superstition while the whimsies of every foolish Enthusiast and fables of every bold Impostor were proposed under the venerable name of Divine Oracles and securely believed by the credulous multitude Hence all the follies and absurdities of Pagan Religion found belief and entertainment in the World and the most extravagant Impostors never wanted Proselytes Hence the most pernicious Errors of Hereticks found admission into the Church and the pretence of new Revelations in every Age seduced some part of the Christian World. All the present corruptions of the Faith are owing to it on which side soever any Errors at this day are entertained a scrupulous examination would discover them to be entertained chiefly for the precedent reasons and all modern additions to genuine Christianity will be found either to flatter the hopes or raise the admiration of the common People To this fatal credulity and danger of illusion arising from it God and Nature have assigned an excellent remedy the use of our Reason which may examine the grounds and testimonies of all pretended Revelations inquire into their truth and after a scrupulous trial pass sentence on them This the interest of Truth and the honour of our Nature requires us to perform that we may neither prostitute the former nor depreciate the latter by submitting our Understandings to the Pretensions of every bold Impostor Without this precedent enquiry our belief would be irrational and far from being meritorious would become unlawful For to violate the rules of conduct prescribed to our understanding were to overthrow all the Laws of Nature to debase the dignity of mankind and efface the Image of God imprinted in us These Rules assure us that God cannot reveal any thing foolish or ridiculous much less contrary to the testimony of our Senses or repugnant to the first principles of Reason No greater injury can be offered to the Deity than to believe him the Author of any Religion which prescribes or encourageth foolish and superstitious Practices or opposeth Sense and Reason All such Revelations would imply repugnant Attributes to be in God which if it did not destroy his existence would at least oblige us to form dishonourable Ideas of him And therefore Seneca truly saith Superstition is a most senseless Error which affronts that Object it pretends to worship For what doth it matter whether you deny or dishonour God Justly also doth Plutarch wonder why Atheism should be rather accused of Impiety than Superstition since few of are moved by any defect in the Order or Government of the World to call in question the Existence of God but the Tricks and Cheats of superstitious Persons their Enthusiastick Motions Ridiculous Actions Exorcisms Lustrations and such like give them occasion to believe it better and more rational there should be no God than such a God as the Author of such a Superstitious Religion must necessarily be So that wise Heathen If Christianity in the first and purer Ages of it had laboured with these difficulties or been obnoxious to these Objections it could never have convinced the World of its Truth or surmounted the resistance of Heathen Philosophy It would have been highly irrational and unworthy the learning of those Ages to have deserted one Superstition to embrace another so much more absurd than the former by how much the one was repugnant to Reason alone the other both to Sense and Reason It is the unhappiness of latter Ages to lye open to the force of this Objection which after so many Superstitious Practices and Opinions introduced into a great part of the Christian Church is thereby become unanswerable For whosoever considers the Fictions of Transubstantiation Purgatory and Infallibility the Impertinence of Prayers in an unknown Tongue the
Rome imagine might reasonably recommend him not only to the Mercy but even the Favour of God. Yet notwithstanding all these Advantages he fell into a most horrible Despair which Bouhours thus describeth Soon after his penitential Austerities performed at Manreze he began to be afflicted with Scruples and want his former interior Consolations and he finds himself precipitated into a state of desolation and darkness His Scruples and Despair increase He doubteth whether he had confessed all his Sins and with all their circumstances altho his Confession had lasted three whole days To dissipate these Doubts he hath recourse to Prayer but the more he prays the more his Doubts and Fears increase upon him Every step he made he thought he stumbled and offended God imagining there to be sin where there was not the least shadow of it and always disputing with himself about the state of his Conscience not being able to decide what is sin and what not In these conflicts of mind he groans he sighs he crieth out he throws himself upon the ground like a man tormented with pain but for the most part keeps a mournful silence Being wont to communicate every Sunday it now happened to him more than once that being ready to communicate his troubles of mind so redoubled upon him that he retired from the Holy Table full of confusion and desolation After many unprofitable debates wherein his Understanding was lost it entred into his thoughts That obedience only could cure him and that his pains would cease if his Confessor should command him entirely to forget all things past He doth so but his Scruples continue He redoubleth his Exercises of Piety but finding no relief either from Earth or Heaven he believeth that God had forsaken him and that his Damnation was most certain The Dominicans out of pity take him into their House but can give him no comfort He falls into a dark melancholly and being one day in his Cell he had the thought of throwing himself out of the Window to end his misery But Heaven by force restrained him against his will. Then remembring the precedent of an old Hermit he set himself to fasting and resolved to eat nothing till God should hear him Accordingly he fasted seven whole days without eating or drinking but without success His Confessor at last commanded him to break his fast He doth so and is on the sudden for ever freed from all his Scruples Certainly if all irregular conducts of the Will be Sins and an irrational Despair the greatest of all Sins this of Ignatius was such a complicated Sin as few examples can equal But it seems Heresie alters the nature of Vertue and Vice. Such a Despair in a Protestant would have deserved damnation whereas in a Romish Saint it was so far meritorious that if we may believe Bouhours God in reward of it bestowed upon him the gift of curing Scrupulous Consciences Upon occasion of this ready obedience paid by Ignatius to the Commands of his Confessor I will take farther notice of the same blind submission observed by him through the whole course of his Life Whether the Principles of the Church of Rome do not naturally lead to such a blind obedience to the dictates of every private Confessor and thereby resolve the Faith of all particular Christians into the private opinion of an ignorant and perhaps Heretical Priest I will not now enquire but certainly Ignatius practised this blind submission in the utmost extravagance insomuch as if he had adhered to his own Principles or we may judge from his other Actions he must have renounced Christianity and even natural Religion if his Confessor had so commanded him His notion of a perfect obedience which we before mentioned sheweth this and his Actions put it beyond all doubt He declared upon all occasions his resolution blindly to obey his Ecclesiastical Judge and when he preached at Venice he proposed this as a first principle to all That true Christians ought to submit themselves to the decision of the Church with the simplicity of an Infant Being tried before the Inquisitors for no less than a capital Crime he refused to answer till his Ecclesiastical Superiors should command him Apollonius in a like case had refused to move his Tongue after a Vow of five years silence when he was falsly accused of an horrid Crime and in great danger of being executed However if it be a venial Sin for a Man to sacrifice his Life to his Folly it is no less than a mortal one deliberately to commit an action which he is perswaded in his own Conscience to be unlawful Ignatius in his Voyage to Ierusalem thought it utterly unlawful and contrary to Evangelical Poverty to carry any Provisions along with him Yet being resolved by his Confessor to the contrary he boldly did that out of obedience which he durst not do of himself and made provision for his Voyage This Folly at last proceeded so far that renouncing the liberty of his Will and use of his Reason he would not venture upon any indifferent Action without consulting his Confessor as if with St. Francis he wanted a Guardian who might in all things direct his Actions and command his Will. When an unskilful Physician in his sickness administred to him hurtful remedies and proceeded contrary to the nature of his Distemper and Ignatius fully knew all this he would not once open his mouth against it because he esteemed it meritorious and a point of Religion to obey in all things When he was unanimously elected General of his Order by a method of Election which himself prescribed he refused to accept the Office unless he should be commanded by his Confessor So the Iew refused to go on Shipboard on the Sabbath-day till he was beaten thither by the Janizary whom he had hired to do it If then an irrational despair of the Mercy of God and an intire Renunciation of the use of Reason may be accounted Sins we have abundantly demonstrated the Pope to have been widely mistaken in celebrating the Sanctity of Ignatius If we should carry our Enquiries yet farther we might perhaps discover other no less Infirmities which would ruin the supposed Sanctity of Ignatius and the Truth of the Papal Assertion of it at the same time We might suspect him to have been guilty of many other Vices after his Conversion For before it all Writers allowed him to have been abandoned to the utmost degree of Debauchery and Immorality His mean and unworthy thoughts of the Nature and Excellency of God appear from many Actions before related and may be farther manifested from his frequent imagining to see God and the Holy Trinity before his Eyes in a corporeal Representation from his endeavouring to bribe him in favour of his Order by offering up to him three thousand Masses and from his seeking to acquire the favour of God by the practice of foolish Superstitions We cannot but