in her as well as the Eternal Word was in her Son that the three Persons in the Trinity were the first the second and the third Heavens that the Son was from all Eternity discontented with the Father for not making him equal to him that the Consecrated Hosty had in it the Body of the Mother as well as that of the Son and that the putting the pieces of it together in the Chalice demonstrated the Vnion between the Mother and the Son. These Opinions were all proved against him tho he protests that he never thought of them yet he was forced to abjure them in the year 1668. and was upon that condemned to perpetual Imprisonment he continued in the Prison of the Inquisition till within these five or six years that the Duke d'Estrees being sick procured an Order for having Burrhi to come and treat him and in gratitude to Burrhi who cured him he got his Prison changed to the Castle St. Angelo where he now entertains himself with Chimical Processes It is indeed very probable that he had provoked the Inquisition by speaking severely and reproachfully of them and this was all his Crime unless another Article against him might be his Estate for of his 8000. Crowns a year there is but 3000. left him for the good Fathers have had the Charity to take 5000. to themselves and his 3000. is so eat up by them thro whose hands it comes to him that he has not 1500 Crowns a year payed him and from this you may see what credit you ought to give to the Processes the Articles and the Abjurations that are made before that Court. If instead of that Zeal which animates them against Heresy they would purge their own Church of those Disorders which they themselves acknowledg to be corruptions they would sooner bring themselves again into credit The scandalous Pictures that are in many Churches of Italy are things that might deserve their care if they would turn it to that hand Is it not a shameful thing that there has not been a great Master in Painting who has not put that Complement on his Mistress as to paint her for the Virgin so that the most celebrated Madonna 's of Italy are known to have been the Mistresses of the Great Painters The Postures the Looks and the Nakedness of many of the Church-pieces are Monstrous Indecent things The great design of the Cupulo at Florence is such a Representation of Vice that all that can be presented by a defiled Imagination comes short of what is to be seen there and tho the Scripture speaks but of one Apparition of the Holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove one shall find this Dove on the Head at the Ear and the Mouth of I know not how many of their Saints and as one finds in many Pieces that their Masters have resolved to perpetuate their own Amours in them so Amours are every day managed by the same methods for while I was at Rome I discovered an Intrigue between a Fryer and a Nun by two Pictures that were drawn for them the Fryer was drawn as a S. Anthony and the Nun as a S. Katherine of Siena these they were to exchange and so to feed their passion under this disguise of Devotion But to return to Indecent Pictures there is nothing more scandalous than the many various Representations of the Trinity which must needs give to all Iews and Mahometans as well as to us that pass for Hereticks a strange horror to a Religion that suffers those odious Resemblances that give such gross Ideas of the Deity and of the Trinity and that which is yet the most scandalous part of those Pictures is that the Representation of God the Father is often diversified according to the caprice of the Painter and he is to be seen in the Habits of the several Orders of that Church and indeed both Features Hair Habit and Postures have all the diversity in them that is necessary to feed an Idolatry that is as Extravagant as it is gross The Picture of the B. Virgin with the Order of the Capuchins under her Petticoat is not very apt to raise Chast Idea's in those who look upon it In short whereas the Rule of the Antient Architecture of Churches was to below and dark which was thought the most proper for the Recollection of a man's Faculties and by consequence for Devotion is now quite altered and great Cupulos with a vast Illumination are necessary to shew the Beauty of those rich Pieces which would be lost in Churches built as dark as the Antient Ones were I confess those Pictures are charming things if they were any where else than in Churches but the pleasure they give does so possess a man that begins to understand them that it will kindle any thoughts in him sooner than devout ones I will not here let my Pen carry me into a Subject that must needs set all my thoughts on fire and speak of the great Pieces of Painting that are in Italy and of the many Masters that it produced in the last Age who as they were such Extraordinary men so they lived within the Compass of one Age as if the Perfection in that amasing Art had been to dye with them as well as it was born with them this I say would make one think that there are Revolutions and Aspects in the Heavens that are favorable or cross to Arts or Sciences and that then the most favourable Aspect for Painting that ever was produced those astonishing performances For tho the great decay of Learning that is every where may be reasonably enough resolved in this that whereas in the last Age many great Princes were either Learned themselves or at least they made it a Maxim to protect and encourage Learning but this having at last grown to an excess of Rudeness and Pedantry and Princes becoming generally extream Ignorant it came to pass for a piece of breeding to say nothing that was beyond their pitch or that seemed to reproach their Ignorance and those who could not hide their Learning were called Pedants and pedantry was represented so odious that Ignorance being the lasiest as well as the surest way to avoid this all men took that very naturally and when other methods are as effectual to raise men to the highest preferments either of the Barr or of the Pulpit as true Learning or reall Merit few will choose the long and tedious and often the most uncertain way when the End that they propose to themselves may be certainly compassed by a more effectual and easier one Flattery and Submissions are sooner Learned and easier practised by men of low and mean souls than much hard and dry study thus I say the decay of Learning is very easily accounted for in the Age in which we live but as for the Art of Painting it is still in such esteem and great pieces go still at such vast rates that if the Genius and capacity for it were
I have rejected thee from the Priesthood I pass over other Arguments from scripture and reason because I am ordered to be short and as for what is said in this Article that the Learned cannot Iudge of Contemplation it shewes plainly that the Ignorance of those spiritualists carries them to this boldness of not being willing to submit to that Correction which they might expect from that Infallible mean of the Judgment of the Learned IV. ERROR There is no Contemplation that is perfect but that which regards God himself the Mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Life and Passion of our Saviour are not the Objects of Contemplation on the contrary they hinder it so that Contemplative persons must avoid them at a great distance and think of them only with Contempt REFUTATION If Contemplation is an affection that is raised in the understanding or the Will by its proper object by the help of the Grace of God and that consists in an Inward Recollection of the mind then the Life of Christ is a proper Object for it since a Christian can present this to his thoughts and raise upon it an Act of Faith and love Besides Christ came by a Commission from his Eternal Father to plant Paradise here on earth according to that of the Prophet Isaias Posui verbum meum in ore tuo ut plantes Coelos fundes terram I have put my word in thy mouth that thou may plant the Heavens and establish the earth or as the Chaldee Paraphrase hath it ut plantes Coelos in terra that thou may plant the Heavens in the Earth as if he had said as S. Ierome understood the words that thou may plant true joy in those minds that were debased by Original sin and how can it be imagined that Contemplative persons can rise above themselves in their Contemplations to tast of Divine Joy's if they must keep at such a distance from Jesus Christ who is the Immediat giver of them and despise him Christ is so far from hindring of Contemplation that he came into the world to distribute all those Perfections and spiritual Joys to which the Contemplative aspire V. ERROR Corporal Penitences and Austerities do not belong to Contemplative Persons on the Contrary it is better to begin ones Conversion by a state of Contemplation than by a State of Purgation or of Pennance and Contemplative Persons ought to avoid and despise all the effects of sensible Devotion such as Tenderness of Heart Tears and Spiritual Consolations all which are contrary to Contemplation REFUTATION Mortifications dispose the Spirit to rise above the motions of sense and therefore it is that all the Saints have begun their course towards Perfection with Fasting and Discipline And therefore if these Contemplatives design Perfection they must practice Pennance since nothing renders a man so fit for Contemplation as to rise above all the Disorders of Sense God in the Sciptures promises to forgive the mourning Sinner but this is not promised to the Contemplative in any place either of the Old or New Testament Therefore it is better to begin ones Conversion with purgative Exercises and Pennances than with Contemplation VI. ERROR True Contemplation must keep it self fixed only to the essence of God without reflecting either on his Persons or his Attributes And an Act of Faith thus conceived is more perfect and meritorious than that which considers God with the Divine Attributes or with the Persons of the Trinity in it REFUTATION The Persons of the Trinity and the Attributes of God are the proper Objects of Faith and love while we recollect all the Powers of our Souls and resign our selves to God for as these are divine Truths that are revealed to us so the Attributes of God are both good in themselves and good to us so that they are proper to raise in us a true Contemplation It is also false that an Act of Faith that has God for its Object without considering his Attributes or the Persons of the Trinity is more perfect than that which regards God in conjunction with them For if to believe that God is one and that he is Just is a perfect and a meritorious Act of Faith and to believe that God is true in his Nature is also a perfect and meritorious Act then the Act by which God is believed to be true just and Three in One is a more perfect and a more meritorious Act than that in which he was considered only as one in Essence Because a man merits more by two Acts of the same vertue than by a single one only for God has communicated supernatural helps to us not only for doing one Act of vertue but that we may make an advance in such Acts. Therefore one Act of Faith that is equivalent to two others is more meritorious and perfect than any one of these two Therefore we may justly conclude against the first branch of this Article that true and perfect Contemplation raised to its highest pitch must not only regard God in his Essence but likewise in his Persons and Attributes VII ERROR The Soul becomes immediatly united to God in Contemplation so that there is no need of Phantasms Images or any sort of Representation REFUTATION Tho it is true that the Soul in some sort unites her self immediately to God in Contemplation that is by a Union of Affections for the Understanding beholds God simply yet some Ideas are necessary for exciting the natural force of the Understanding and to carry it to look at God which Idea is a sort of Object that moves the Understanding VIII ERROR All contemplative persons suffer in the Act of Contemplation such grievous Torments they seem to surpass even the sufferings of the Martyrs themselves REFUTATION If Contemplation consists as the Quietists pretend it does in this that the Soul puts her self in the presence of God by an act of Faith full of Love and after that continues idle this is not the being formally tormented or the enduring more than the Martyrs suffered and tho it is true in some sort that Pains and Miseries come after Contemplation this flows either from the Devil to whom upon that occasion God gives leave to try those persons or from some weakness in Nature that oppresses the Body from Melancholy or an abundance of Blood that raises Headaches or from some other unknown Cause But many others have appeared to be in the very Act of Contemplation as it were environed with Light and have looked with a serene and sometimes with a smiling countenance which Lewis the XI of France observed in Francis a Paula and they have been as it were overflown with Joy when the Contemplation was over having been admitted in it to see their Bridegroom in that simple Act in which there passes as it were a Marriage between God and the Soul. IX ERROR During the Sacrifice of the Mass and on the Festivals of the Saints it is better to
does not suffer himself to be carried away by any sensible Object for by that he would fall from that State and become as Lot's Wife who was stopt short because she looked behind her It is then a rashness to keep our selves in an unactive state and in it to look for the miraculous Influence of the H. 〈◊〉 For all that are in the Prayer of Quietness must not expect to be led into this Passive State since they have not a Condignity suteable to those Gifts Tho sometimes the H. Ghost does penetrate the Souls of those who are in this prayer of inward affection but this is the effect of a particular Grace I add against the first branch of this Article that the Quietists say in the 12th Article that Meditation is of no merit in the sight of God because it does not look at him with the Light of Faith from which I infer that an Act formed by the Power of Faith is meritorious before God and by consequence it is pure and acceptable to him XVII ERROR Those who have arrived at the State of Contemplation and the Prayer of inward Quietness being Religious Persons or being under the Authority of Parents or any other superiours are not bound to observe their Rules or to obey their Superiours while they are in Contemplation lest that Interrupt it REFUTATION Altho Contemplation is an Act of high Perfection yet since it is not commanded by God it may be interrupted without sin and since Obedience to Parents and superiours is commanded by God 〈◊〉 ought to take place and even Contemplation ought to be discontinued in order to it And therefore considering the Order that God has setled that Obedience ought to be preferred to Contemplation tho the latter is as to its objective Perfection much more valuable than the former XVIII ERROR Contemplative persons ought to divest themselves of all affections to all things they ought to reject and despise all Gods gifts and favours and to strip themselves of all Inclinations even for vertue it self and in order to this totall abnegation of all things and that they may live better within themselves they ought even to do that which is contrary to Modesty and decency provided that it be not expresly contrary to some of the ten Commandments REFUTATION When God favours Contemplative Persons so far as to communicate any of his blessings to them these things ought not to be despised but to be considered as Favours that tend both to beautify the Soul and to fortify her in the exercise of Vertue so that tho Contemplative Persons ought not to be lifted up with them yet they ought to value them highly and to make use of them with all Humility of Spirit and since God considers Decency as a sort of Goodness Contemplative persons ought to be decent in all things for God has not by any special Decree exempted them from the Rules of Reason upon which all the Modesty and decency of Life is founded XIX ERROR Contemplative Persons are subject to violent Commotions by which they lose the exercise of the Freedom of their Will. So that tho they may fall into most grievous Sins as to the exteriour Act yet they do not at all sin inwardly And so they are not bound to confess that which they have done All this is proved by the example of Job who tho he not only said things that were very Injurious to his Neighbour but had blasphemed God most Impiously yet he did not sin in all this because all was done by the Violence of the Devill In order to the judging of these Violences neither the Learning of the Schoolmen or of the Casuists is of any use but a supernatural Spirit is necessary which is to be found in very few persons now these are the only Competent Iudges who must not judge of the Internal by the External but on the contrary of the External by the Internal REFUTATION In this Article the Snake does not hide himself in the Grass but shews himself very visibly since by this it is plain that the Quietists will be sensual Libertines under the name of Spiritual and Contemplative Persons The Example that they bring of Iob shews clearly how little they understand the Scripture Iob did not sin outwardly neither against his Neighbour nor against God in what he said cap. 19. ver 6. as Pineda tom 2. in Iob 235 has evidently proved from the literal sense of the words he did not sin against his Neighbour as appears by the Expositions of the Holy Fathers from whom we are to learn the true sense of the Scriptures And to end this matter in a few words that Grace with which God assists us at all times is such that we co-operating with it may overcome all the Temtations of our Enemies And Christ has said to all in the person of S. Paul My Grace is sufficient for thee therefore a Contemplative Person cannot be pushed on by any violence or necessity whatsoever to any External Act of Sin. It is not easie to judge whether these Articles are faithfully drawn out or truly represented for it is probable that Malice has a large share in some of them chiefly in this last which leads to down-right Libertinage tho others have rather suspected that all tended to an Elevated Deism yet it is certain that if there is much Poison in these Articles the Antidote of the Censure is so feeble that it cannot have a strong Operation and it shews how little the Scripture and true Divinity is understood at Rome POSTSCRIPT IN the former Letter I told you all that I could learn of this matter during my stay at Rome but having left in Iuly I prevailed with one to give me an account of the Conclusion of this Affair of which I send you a Copy for tho I know all the Gazettes of Europe will be full of the Decision and end that is believed to be put to the business of Quietism yet you know too well how little one ought to depend on such Relations all the news of this matter will either be that which is writ by the direction of the Inquisition or by the Strangers that are there and pick up such things as they find among the Romans who are ever true to the old Character that Iuvenal gave of that City Sequitur fortunam ut semper odit Damnator Therefore I will give you an account of this business on which you may depend in the words of a Letter writ me from Rome Now this great Affair upon which men have so long lookt with so much expectation is at an end and a party that was believed to be a Million strong is now either quite extinguisht or at least oppressed with a great deal of Infamy and Mr. Molinos who has lived above twenty years in this City in the highest Reputation possible is now as much hated as ever he was admired he is not only considered as
her beloved Image and she was now as gratefull as she had been before devout she told all that came to see her how careful and bountiful that Image was to her and shewed them how well she was supplied by it In short this came to be generally believed for when the least story of this kind gets vent and is well received by the Priests the People run in so headlong to it that it would pass for a Crime capable enough of ruining one in the Spirit of the Inquisitors to seem to doubt of it but much more if one studied to undeceive others therefore things of this nature kindle the minds of a superstitious multitude so quick that in a few days a whole Town will seem as it was out of its Wits which appeared signally on this occasion at Florence for now the whole Town entred into this Fraternity The Great Duke himself came into the number and all were studying what new Honours should be done to an Image that had been so kind to one of its Worshippers But some that were wiser than the rest saw thro the Cheat and Informed P. Innocent the 10th of it who was resolved to put a stop to the current of this Superstition yet he saw it was necessary to do it with some address It fell out to be the year of Iubily 1650. so the Pope writ to Florence that he had heard of the Miracles of that Image to which he desired earnestly to do his own Devotions therfore he intreated them to bring it to Rome that so the Image might have the addresses of all the Pilgrims as well as his own made to it Upon this the more bigotted of the Fraternity would needs accompany the Charitable Image so they carried it in Procession to Rome and did not doubt but that the Pope and Cardinalls with the Clergy of Rome would have come out in Procession to meet them and their Image The surprise was no doubt very great when instead of all this they found a Company of Sbirri staying for them at the Porta dell Populo who took their Image from them and carried it away to the Inquisition and sent them away not a little mortified at the Disgrace that had befallen their Crucifix who has been ever since a Prisoner in the Inquisition I was told of another Prisoner there of a later date but not much unlike this You know the legend of the Plague that was in Rome as I remember in S. Gregory the great 's time that was stopt by an Angel that as was pretended came down and stood over that Castle which was formerly called Moles Hadriani but has carried the name of Castro S. Angelo ever since The Fryers of Ara Coeli had got a Stone upon which there was an Impression like the print of a Foot so they had put this in some part of their Church and gave it out that this print was made by the Foot of that Angel tho one can hardly Imagine how they fancied that an Angel treads so hard This Stone had many Devotions payed it The learned Sig r. Pietro Bellori who is without dispute the best Antiquary in Rome being once in that Chappel at his Devotions observed a great many praying about this Stone and kissing it with great Respect and Affection so he came to look upon it and having examined it carefully he saw clearly it was a fragment of a Statue of the Goddess Isis the Greek Characters were legible and many things concurred to make a man of his Learning and Exactness conclude that the Devotions were mis-applied that were payed it so he went to one of the Fathers of the House and acquainted him with his Observation and wished that they would remove that mistaken Object of Worship lest some of the learned Hereticks that passed thro Rome might discover and reproach the Church with it But the Fathers of the House found their account in this matter so they were so far from following his good Advice that they aspersed him that had given it so as to accuse him of Impiety for diverting the Devotions of the people the Imputation was carried so far that he was brought before the Inquisition to clear himself which he did so fully that he not only got safe out of their hands but which was more he convinced them that he was in the right so the Stone was removed and keeps the Crucifix company in the Inquisition But by these two Storys you will perhaps imagin that I design to beget in you a good Opinion of that Court but I will now tell you another that will soon bring you back to your old thoughts of that Tribunal Burrhi is a man so famous in the World that one that has looked into Natural Philosophy and Chimistry could not be long in Rome without making an acquaintance with him but to tell you truth I neither found him to be so great a Chimist as he fancies himself to be nor so great a Heretick as the Inquisitors have made him I tell you this the more particularly that you may upon it judge how far you are to believe the account that the Inquisitors may give of their proceedings against Molinos since you may conclude from what was done to the one what may be expected in all cases that are brought before them Burrhi's Story is in short this He is a Gentleman of the Millanese who was born to an Estate of 8000. Crowns a year In his youth he had travelled and had got into his head the Notions of the Now Philosophy and of Chimistry so at his return to Milan he began to propogate the new Philosophy and to form a Conference upon those matters the Priests it seems suspected that there might be somewhat under this so he was put in the Inquisition but nothing could be made out against him he was let out after that he went and stayd for some years in Germany and Holland and it is very probable that he might have expressed himself concerning the Courts of Inquisition as a man that had no great opinion either of their Justice or of their Mercy And as he has gone into all the high pretensions of the Chimists so it is probable enough that he has talked of matters of Religion in that Mysterious unintelligible Iargon that is used almost by all the men that are of the highest Elevation of Chimistry but chiefly by Paracelsus and Van Helmont In short some Accusations were given in to the Inquisitors against him who complained of him to the Emperour and had so much credit in his Court that he strained his power to the utmost and seised on him and sent him to Italy where those good Fathers were resolved not to give him a second occasion of boasting that he had got safe out of their hands strange things were objected to him and as is pretended they were proved against him as that the B. Virgin was God equal with the Son and that the H. Ghost was incarnate