NOTES.

This Saint, who is the great Patron of France, is suppo­sed to be the same that is mentioned in the Acts, under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, though there is great reason to believe the contrary,Severus l. 2 Hist. Sacr. cap. 46. if we give any credit to Sulpitius Severus, who tells us, that under the Reign of Aurelius the Son of Antoninus, tum primùm inter Gallias martyria visa; the first Martyrdomes in France were under his persecution; long before which the Areopagite must have been dead; which testimony of Severus is so strong, that even their own men have defended it, and pleaded for a distinction betwixt the Parisian Dionysius, and the Areopagite; (see Joh. Lannoy his 3 Dissertations.) But if they were right as to the per­son, yet the Breviaries have made a fabulous story of him, which it would be too tedious to recite in all its circumstan­ces, but I'le give a tast, out of the Breviary of Sarum. He is said to be sent into France, by Pope Clemens, to preach the Gospel, accompanied with Rusticus and Eleutherius; and preaching with great zeal at Paris, in the time of Do­mitian's persecution, they were laid hold of by the Roman Governour Sisinnius, (the later Breviaries call him Fescen­ninus) who inflicted various torments on them, and cast them into prison; where S. Denys consecrated the Eucharist, and at the time when the Holy Bread was broken, so great a [Page 70] Light shone upon him, that all greatly wondered. In this light Jesus Christ himself came, and took the Bread, and gave it to him, saying. Take this, my dear Denys, (chare me­us) and incouraged him with the promise of great rewards to him and his hearers in God's Kingdom. After this, he and his two Companions refusing to sacrifice to the Heathen Gods, they were all beheaded in one and the same moment, whose Tongues, after their Heads were cut off, did still con­fess the Lord. And to declare the merits of the Martyr De­nys, after he was beheaded, he stood upon his Feet, and ta­king up his own Head in his Arms, he carried it to the place where it now lies buried. Thus France glories in the Re­liques of this Saint; yet Baronius tells us, that Ratisbonne in Germany has long contested with them about it,Baron. ad an. 1052. and show his Body there; and Pope Leo IX. set out a Declaration, determining that the true Body of S. Denys was entire at Ratisbonne, wanting only the little Finger of his right hand, yet they of Paris cease not their pretences to it; so that here are two Bodies venerated of the same individual Saint^*: and both of them are mistaken, if they of Prague have not been cheat­ed;Bolland. Act. Sanct. in Append. ad Januar. 2. among whose numerous Reliques I find the Arm of S. Denis, the Apostle of Paris, reckoned. A following Antiphona tells us, that a Multitude of the Heavenly Host accompany'd the dead Bo­dy of S. Denis, who carried his own Head, praising God, and saying, Glory be to thee, O Lord. The Roman Missal also in Folio (Paris. 1520) tells the very same story in a long Prosa (where there is mention of Sisinnius) of which take a few Verses towards the end.

[Page 72]The present Breviary also retains this ridi­culous passage concerning his carrying of his Head,Lesson 6. and determines his walk more expresly to have been two miles. Ribadeneira in his Life, adds, that he delivered his Head into the hands of a Woman called Catula.

And now it may not be amiss to make a few farther Re­flexions upon some pieces of his Legend; and I shall begin with that of Christ's miraculous appearing in the Admini­stration of the Eucharist. Now though I think no body need be much concerned in relations of this kind, that are made by those who tell us that People can speak when their Tongues are out of their HeadsSee the 2d. Lesson of Longinus., or can carry their Heads in their hands; yet I find Mr. Cressy is very fond of such passages; and I doubt he might take it ill, if I should pass over a story he tells to the same purpose, and lays a great deal of stress upon it, for the establishing his Catholick Faith. It is con­cerning S. Odo, Ch. Hist. l. 31. cap. 20. who celebrating the Mass, in the presence of certain of the Clergy of Canterbury (who maintained that the Bread and Wine, af­ter Consecration do remain in their former substance, and are not Christ's true Body and Blood, but a Figure of it) ‘When he was come to confraction, presently the fragments of the Body of Christ, which he held in his hands, began to pour forth Blood into the Chalice; whereupon he shed (Good Man!) tears of joy, and beck'ning to them that wavered in their faith, to come near and see the wonder­ful work of God, as soon as they beheld it, they cryed out, O holy Prelate, to whom the Son of God has been pleased to reveal himself visibly in the Flesh, pray for us, that the Blood we see here present to our eyes, may again be changed, lest for our unbelief the Divine vengeance fall upon us; He prayed accordingly; after which looking into the Chalice, he saw the Species of Bread and Wine, where he had left Blood.’ [To which may be added a story in the Festivale, which may make a good Com­ment [Page 73] upon this of Mr. Cressy concerning these Mi­raculous Changes of the Elements in the Sacra­ment.Fol. 52. ‘A Jew once went with a Cristen man into a Church and heard Mass; when the Mass was done, the Jew said to him. If I had eaten as much as thou hast, I would not be a hungred, as I trow, in three days. Forsooth said the Christian, I eat no manner of Meat this day. Then said the Jew, I saw thee eat a Child, the which the Priest held up at the Altar: Then came there a fair man, that had ma­ny children in his Lap, and he gave each Christen man a child, such as the Priest eat.’ The same also we are told of S. Wittekindus, that in the Administration of the Eucha­rist,Bolland. in vitae ejus, ad Jan. 7. p. 384. he saw a child enter into every ones mouth, playing and smiling when some received him, and with an abhorring countenance, when he went into the mouths of others, that is, Christ showed this Saint in his countenance, who were worthy, and who unworthy receivers.] To let pass that which Baronius tells us (which Mr. Cr. durst not mention, lest it should spoil the Saints credit) concerning S. Odo, that when a Thief was brought before him,Baron. ad an. 936. num. 13. who had stollen a Horse in the Night^* (though his Monk Godofred, who saw him do it, while he was reciting his Canonical Hours, durst not cry out to take him, lest he should break his Rule of Silence) S. Odo commanded, in stead of punishing him, Five shillings to be given the Thief, in consideration that he had watched all Night, taken a great deal of pains, and endured much hard­ship; [Page 74] which argues S. Odo not over-fit to decide a greater controversie without a miracle. Waving this, I say, I can­not be moved by this miracle, or twenty other fine stories that are told me about this time, though it was a time migh­ty fruitful of Monkish wonders. For I consider (as I inti­mated before in the case of Reliques) that this Century was remarkable above all others for Ignorance^*, Sottishness and Superstition; wherein by reason of the Barbarism and illi­terateness of the Age, Lies and Fables must needs meet with a good Market to put them off.

And the truth is, if my Faith were staggering upon the hearing Mr. Cr.'s story, yet the very next Page to it, would settle it again; where he informs us, that S. Dunstan saw the H. Ghost descending from Heaven in the likeness of a Dove: and the Sarisbury Breviary edifies me still farther, telling me, that he saw the Holy Spirit in this shape twice,Less. 6. Of S. Dunstan. and heard the Angels chanting Kyrie Eleison in the praise of the Trinity; and that his Harp that hung at the Wall, was by Angels hands made to sound that Antiphona, Gaudent in Coelis animae sanctorum, which he on­ly understood. And Lesson 5, I hear more such wonders, which me-thinks sound as well as Mr. Cressy's. How, when a mighty Beam from the Top of the Church, threatned the destruction of many by its fall, S. Dunstan with his right hand, making the sign of the Cross, lifts it up again^*; and that as this Saint was praying one Night, the Devil assailes him in the shape of a Bear, and endeavoured with his Teeth, [Page 75] to snatch the Staff out of his hands, upon which the Man of God leaned; he unaffrighted lifts up his Staff, and followed the horrid Monster beating him, and singing these words; Let God arise, and let his Enemies be scattered, and the ugly Phantasme vanished. And no doubt from this Age of S. Odo's Miracle (for it could not so well be from any other) came that Tradition to us from Father to Son, in Mr. Ser­geant's sure way, how S. Dunstan held the Devil by the nose with a pair of Tongs. Mr. Cressy's miracle then shown in S. Dunstan's days, is like to do feats to establish the Churches Faith concerning the Eucharist, to convince and confound all Opposers, especially when S. Odo has to do in it, that known Miracle-worker, who as Mr. Cr. records it, when the Roof of his Church was to be repaired, suspended all Rain for the space of three Years,Ch. Hist. lib. 32. cap. 5. that it should not hinder the Work. And now I have be­gun with Mr. Cr. about this Argument, I will call him a little farther to account, for some of the many wonders he relates.

NOTES.

I Need not meddle with the Controversie, whether S. George were an Imaginary Saint, or an Arrian Here­tick, concerning which you may see enough both of the O­pinions of Protestants and Papists, in Dr. Heylin's History of S. George. But these things concerning the Dragon, and the King's Daughter mentioned in the Prayer, are plainly taken out of the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine Who is called by Melch. Canus, homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis, animi certe parum severi & prudentis. Loc. Theol. l. 11. p. 337., as Ba­ronius himself acknowledges in his Annotations on the Roman Marty­rologie, April 23. and (which is ob­servable) the Breviary of Sarum, though it abound with so many fa­bulous Legends, yet does not men­tion any thing in the Lessons for S. George, about the killing of the Dragon; but tells a dull story in comparison concern­ing him, as a Martyr of Cappadocia; And Baronius inclines rather to make him a Symbolical Saint. And yet you see in the Prayer, that this Fable of the Dragon is made the ground of that which follows, that by the Intercession of this Dragon-killer (ejusdem intercessione) they may prevail over their enemies visible and invisible; for they then thought, that no other Saint or Martyr could do their work so well as heMaxime bellorum Rector, quem nostra juventus Pro Mavorte colit. Mantuan. Fast. lib. 4., especi­ally since their Great Enemy is so formida­ble, and is represented as an old Dragon. Ribadeneira tells us, in his life, that Ge­nerals and Kings when they go to the Wars, take him for their singular Patron; and that the Roman Church invokes S. George, S. Sebastian, and S. Maurice, as the most power­ful Captains and Defenders, against the enemies of the Chri­stian Faith. But a more special honour was done to him here, when a Constitution was made by Henry Arch-Bishop of [Page 96] Canterbury, Tom. 12. Concil. Labbe. p. 295. an. 1415. that a great Festival should be kept to his Memory (Sub officio du­plici, Et ad modum majoris duplicis festi, are the words) as to the special Patron and Protector of the English Nation (and it was just at the time when Henry V. begun his Warr in France) undoubtedly believing,Hujus namque, ut indubitanter credimus, interventu, nedum gentis Angligenae armata militia, contra incursus hostiles bellorum tempore regitur, sed & Cleri pugna militaris in sacrae pacis otio, sub tanti patroni suffra­gio celebriter reboratur. Ibid. that by his intercession the Arms of the Nation would fare the better in time of War, and the Cler­gy, its spiritual Militia, in times of Peace. To this confi­dence in S. George, the Legends at that time, and the Relati­ons of Visions betrayed them. But long before this, even very anciently, we find that his story had been corrupted with Fables, insomuch that Pope Gelasius, in the first Roman Council reckons the Passion of George, among Apocryphal Writings.Tom. 4. Concil. Labbe. p. 1265. And the 4th. Canon of Nicephorus the Confessor, requires the 2 Martyrdomes of George not to be admitted, but rejected. But though all be in the dark,Tom. 7. Concil. Lab. p. 1297. and uncertain as to the Acts of this Saint (and therefore the reformed Breviaries have no special Lessons for him, nor any mention is made of his Acts, because as Ribadeneira well observes,Ribadeneira in vit. Georgii. p. 170. there is no truth appears in those that are extant) though his feats of Arms prove all fabu­lous; yet however, Armes his Body had; and if they wrought no Miracles while he lived, they cannot fail to effect wonders now he is dead: one of them they have got at Paris in the Church of S. Vincent, and the other they keep at Colen, Ribaden. Ibid. where (says the Writer) many and great Miracles are wrought by it (as good a place for it to do feats in, as any it could have been lodg'd at) His Head is shown in Rome at a Church called after his Name; and it's great pitty that they have not told us of [Page 97] some place, where we might have seen too, at least a part of the Dragon's Tayl. For my part, till I see some better ac­count of the History of this Saint's Life, I shall content my self with the mysteries and Moral Lecture, the Legend has given us upon his Name▪ (which is another Passion of George and Martyrdom of Greek) ‘Geor­gius comes from Geos, Legend. aurea de S. Georg. which signi­fies the Earth, and Orge to Till, as if you should say, one that tilleth the Earth, that is, his Flesh. S. Augustine says, that good ground is in the Altitude of Mountains, in the temperament of Hills, in the Level-ground of the Fields: The first is good for green Herbs, the second for Vines, the third for Fruits. Even so S. George was high by despi­sing inferiour things, and therefore he had the greenness of purity. He was Temperate by discretion, and there­fore he had the Wine of inward jucundity. He was plain by humility, and therefore brought forth the Fruits of good Works. Or thus, Georgius comes from Gerar, that is Holy, and Gion, that is Sand, as if you should say, Holy Sand: for he was Sand, because ponderous, by the gravi­ty of his manners, and small by humility, and dry (by ab­stinence) from carnal pleasure. Or else thus, Georgius comes from Gerar, i. e. Holy, and Gion, which signifies striving; as much as to say, Holy Combatant, because he combated with the Dragon, and the Executioner. Or, (Lastly,) Georgius is derived from Gero, that is, a Stran­ger, and Gir, i. e. precious, and Ʋs a Counsellour. For he was a stranger in his contempt of the World, pretious in his Crown of Martyrdom, and a Counsellour in the Preaching of the Kingdom.’ Thus far the Golden Le­gend, Printed at Argentine, an. 1502. which has a Hundred more such pleasant accounts of Names^*, which because they [Page 98] were very edifying, they were brought after this into Ser­mons; and the People were told that Vaspatian Festivale, fol. 99. was na­med from hence, because he had a malady in his Nosthrils, and there dropped out of his Nose Wormes like Waspes. And the Sermon on the Day of Pentecost begins thus.Ibid. fol. 43. Good Men and Women, this Day is cal­led Whitsunday, because the Holy Ghost brought Wit and Wisdome into Christ's Disciples, and so by their Preaching after into all Christendome. But enough of this.

NOTES.

To show the Reader, what great care the Heads of this Church had in those Days of Mens Souls, how well they in­structed them, and by what fine stories their Devotions were then conducted; I cannot but translate the History of these 7 Sleepers, as I find it in the Salisbury Breviary in the forecited place: which if it had been designed to enter­tain Youth, as the History of the Seven Champions, it might have deserved a less severe censure; but this was read in the Church to the People, as Chapters are out of the Bible, and divided into so many Lessons, which take in English just as I find it.

NOTES.

This Prayer is plainly grounded upon the story of S. Da­vid's Life; a short account of which we have in the Salis­bury Breviary: which we shall comment upon out of Mr. Cressy, and Capgrave, who has given it more largely, with a great many Wonders, which the Breviary pretermits. The Summe of the Lessons in the Breviary is as follows.

NOTES.

IT was no doubt a very comfortable time in the Roman Church, when the Inventions of the Monks could never run on so fast, in wonderous stories; but the Faith and De­votion of the People could keep pace with them, nay ra­ther run before them: but the Later Ages have unluckily been given to examine matters more than before, and by scrupling implicite faith, and bogling at contradictions, have put the Writers of that Church to a great deal of trouble­some work; in defending impossible stories, and in setting a good Gloss upon Fables, and countenancing long practi­sed Devotions, which in civility to their Fore-fathers, they must not acknowledg to be either absurd or impious, though they are really so. We have found it so in many foregoing instances; and this of the Eleven Thousand Virgins is a ve­ry remarkable one. For if you call them to an account a­bout this matter, you'l find little agreement among their Authors, which way to make it look like a probable story; though all of them would fain hold the Conclusion, and have it believed to be true. ‘Harpsfield complains sadly, That the injury of Men and Times,Harpsfi ld. Hist. Eccl. Anglic. p. 35. has deprived us of the accurate and exact knowledg of this matter, as well as of many other things, instead of which, certain idle People, abusing their leasure shamefully, and the too forward cre­dulity [Page 114] of the Age they lived in (an excellent character of the former Monks) have obtruded meer Fables, and those too perfectly disagreeing one from another; and have forced us that live so many Ages after, to follow not un­doubted truth, but slender conjectures.’ And yet (see the power of a strong faith above reason!) the same Author there breaks out into this expression. ‘Would to God that the History of Ʋrsula were so certain and free from difficul­ties, as I easily and certainly perswade my self, that she and her Companions are blessed Martyrs in Heaven.’ If the History of them be not certain, then there is nothing left, but Tradition to ground his certainty of Perswasion upon, that they were at all in being, or that they were Mar­tyrs; and if he is forced to rely upon Tradition for this which is the main thing, why not for the rest too, without taking the needless pains of conjecturing uncertainly about them? he was bound to it in civility, unless the story that Tradition tells, prove impossible; and his not following it throughout, argues that he thought it so: but any one in­stance of that nature does our work; for a witness loses his credit in the whole, when he would obtrude an absurd or impossible thing upon our faith. Whether the Oral Tra­dition concerning these Virgins does not so, I shall examine afterwards: First beginning with the Historical account out of Authors, because this way of proof must needs be more satisfying to any inquisitive Person.

Baronius tells us, that he took a great deal of pains to find out the truth of their story,Baron. not. in Rom. Martyrol. 21 Octob. turning o­ver the Books of the Vatican; and yet that whole Library did not afford him a better Author to pitch upon, than our trusty Geof­frey of Monmouth: for which he makes this Apology in his Annals; Baron. Annal. ad an. 383. ‘That though this Author has ma­ny fabulous stories, so that he must be read with great care, yet being forced to sit as an Arbitrator, among the refuse of Apocryphal Writers, he thought fit to chuse the most probable story, and there­fore [Page 115] readily imbraced the Relation of Geoffrey, because it was supported by the most likely conjectures: but, says he, the other Acts of these Virgins that are publisht, must appear to any prudent Man to be stuft with abundance of Fables.’ Baronius his account then out of Geoffrey, is this in short.

When Maximus the Tyrant in his Invasion of Gaul, had expelled the Inhabitants of Armorica, he invites a Colony over thither of Brittish Souldiers, and settles them there, and thence it was called Little-Brittany: And now the next care was, to get Wives for them in their own Country. Ʋrsula the Daughter of Dionotus Prince of Cornwall, is designed for Conanus their Chief Leader, and she and her 11000 Virgin-Companions were shipt at London, though unwillingly, upon this design to go for Armorica: but a cruel Tempest drove them to the German shore; where fal­ling into a Navy of Pyrates, under the command of Melga a Pirate of the Picts, and Gaunus of the Hunns, they con­sulted to offer violence to their Chastity; but by the per­swasion of Ʋrsula, they chose all with a Christian constancy to dye, rather than be deflowred, and so were all barba­rously slain together; and he fixes the time of this cruelty, An. Dom. 383.

This account Mr. Cressy can by no means allow, and gives these Reasons: (or his Friend Alford for him.) Because Maximus his short Reign,Ch. Hist. l. 9. cap. 20. after his passing into Gaul, and his continual imployments in Warre, could not permit him to settle Colonies in Ar­morica, whither himself never went. Besides the French Historians refer the erecting of a Principality of Brittains in Armorica to a much Later Date, when Meroveus was King of the Francks, which was An. 448. As also because Dionotus the Father of Ʋrsula, is acknowledged by our best Historians, to have lived long after the Emperor Gratianus his time, who was slain by Maximus; so that Ʋrsula could not be alive, much less marriageable in those days: neither lastly, is there any mention among Historians, of Hunns so [Page 116] early infesting Germany, or exercising Piracy on the River Rhene, or the Western Ocean. Indeed these Objections a­gainst Baronius, seem very hard to be answered; and so we are fairly quit of him without more ado. Let us now see what Mr. Cr. gives us in the room of it. He agrees with Baronius in the main substance of the History; only differs from him in the following particulars. He has placed their slaughter in the Year 453. when Attila King of the Hunns wasted Italy, and the Western Regions: he makes it to happen in the days of Maximus the Tyrant, but not of him who slew the Emperor Gratianus, but of that Maxi­mus who invaded the Empire, and succeeded Valentinian, and appointed Avitus to oppose those Barbarous People. He has joyned together two occasions, why this numerous Company of Virgins departed out of their Countrey: the one was, the fore-named design of Marrying their own Country-men in Armorica, (or Little Brittany) the other occasion was, the Cruelty exercised upon the Brittans by the Saxons, who were first called in by Vortigern to assist the Brittans against the Picts, but after making Peace with them, turned their Arms against their Benefactors, and exercised all manner of cruelties upon them, and made many fly the Land, among whom he supposes these 11000 Vir­gins. A very pretty conjecture! but yet not strong e­nough to plead for the truth of their story, nor to justifie the Devotions of the Church to them. For as to the pre­tended cause of their Voyage, from their intended Marri­age in Armorica; their own Harpsfield has plainly and ho­nestly confessed, ‘That he should easily acquiesce in this Narration, but that they who are of this Opinion, bring no certain and approved Author that te­stifies about this Marriage;Harpsf. Hist Angl. Eccles. p. 35. and, says he, though I my self have laboured never so, I could never yet light upon any, that has any testimony of Antiquity and fidelity; only I have seen an Anonymous Brittan, translated by Geoffrey into Latine, that says some such thing; but he is a man, who as in many other things, [Page 117] so in this Narration concerning the affairs of Maximus, is guilty of more than one lye.’ [From whence, by the way, one may conclude that the Testimony cited by some out of Sigebert, Surius, and the old Rom. Breviary. concerning that intended Mar­riage, was not looked upon by him as an Authentick Authority, but as an Interpo­lation^*, especially since I find him, more than once upon other occasions, citing Sigebert's Chronicon.] But Harps­field (in the same place) has hit upon another worse Ob­jection, against the Marriage story, when he adds; Neque sanè adhuc video justam Martyrii in superiore narratione causam. He does not see in the foregoing narration any just cause of Martyrdome: (and yet you know, the thing that Church celebrates them for, is for their being Martyrs.) He was so wise, as not to think that a Massacre meerly made a Martyrdome, for then he knew that Hereticks (in his sence) might boast of numbers beyond Eleven Thousand, and that one in his time at Paris, would then have out-vied Colen: and all the account that the story he opposes gave farther, was only, that these slaughtered Persons were Virgins; but that could not make them Martyrs neither, because it will not alone make any one a Christian; and in this case, their Virginity was the less considerable also, because they inten­ded no longer to be fam'd for that sort of Chastity, than till they could get good Husbands, which they were now in [Page 118] Quest after. But Mr. Cr. seems to rely more upon the story of the Saxons barbarous usage, which first gave occa­sion for the flight of these Virgins, and after to the slaugh­ter of them by the Hunns. But, whatsoever he may ima­gine in his performance, I think he has no ways assoyled the Objections that lye against this account too. For is it credible, that what is pretended to be acted in the middle of an Age, should not so much as be mentioned by one who li­ved in that very Age, and wrote about this very matter, con­cerning the destruction of the Brittans by the Saxons, at the end of it? I mean by Gildas? no nor afterwards taken no­tice of by Beda in his History? I see indeed Mr. Cr. endea­vours to apologize for this omission, but so pittiful are the excuses he makes, that I wonder he had the confidence to in­sert them. As for Gildas, he says, ‘his design being to bewail the general destruction of the Brittish state,Gh. Hist l. 9. cap. 22. and to declare the horrible crimes that provoked Almighty God, to give them up to the fury of a barbarous People; no wonder if he did not in so short a narration, involve occurrents happening a­broad.’ Not every occurrent, I grant, that happened a­broad; but such as were remarkably destructive, one would think he might; especially such a one as this was, being a story, such as no Age, I think, can parallel, either for the number of Virgins slain (Eleven Thousand in one Day and Place) or for the barbarous fury of those that slew them (which he confesses was one part of Gildas his design Tra­gically to express) nor any particular occurrent that gave such a deadly blow to the Brittish state; and he must sure be in great hast, and affect strange Brevity, that could not af­ford the place of one Line in his Book for such a story, which though acted abroad, yet not at that distance, but that the report of it would quickly arrive, and ring aloud in the ears of those, that were so much concerned in it at home. But Mr. Cr. would perswade us, that Gildas has general ex­pressions that seem to point at their story,Ch. Hist. l. 9. c. 20. and he pretends to give you their express words that [Page 119] speak thus. ‘Very many passed over Sea into Foreign Countreys, with grievous howlings and lamentation, and in their Voyage by Sea, they joyntly with mournful voi­ces, repeated those sad words of the Psalmist, Thou hast, O Lord, given us up as Sheep to be devoured, and hast dis­persed us among the Nations. This, says Mr. Cr. seems to be a description most proper to the condition of the weaker Sex (he thought that it could not be so proper for Men to run away and cry) which no doubt by the provi­dent care of their Parents and Friends, was in the first place secured from the violence of their Barbarous Enemies; and those words, Thou hast dispersed us among the Nati­ons, do most fitly suit to these Virgin-Martyrs, whose sa­cred Reliques have been dispersed among all the Nations of Christendome.’

Excellently guessed! and well translated, by him that pre­tends to give us his express words! as any one will see, when I give you Gildas his words in his own Language, with a little more, which goes before that which he has cited. Thus then Gildas. ‘Itaque nonnulli miserarum reliquia­rum^* in montibus deprehensi (quò nimirum fugerant) acer­vatim jugulabantur: alii fame confecti accedentes manus hostibus dabant, in aeternum servituri; si tamen continuò non trucidarentur, quod altissimae gratiae stabat loco: alii transmarinas petebant regiones, cum ululatu magno; ceu ce­leusmatis vice, hoc modo sub velorum sinibus cantantes; Dedisti nos tanquam oves escarum, & in gentibus disper­sisti nos: alii montanis collibus, minacibus praeruptis, valla­tis densissimis saltibus, marinisque rupibus, vitam suspectâ semper mente credentes, in patria licet trepidi perstabant.’ These words of Gildas, follow after the sad story he had [Page 120] told, concerning the destruction which the Saxons made, depopulating Cities and Fields, destroying Priest and People with Fire and Sword, whose Bodies lay mangled and unbu­ried, a prey for Beasts and Birds. ‘Then, says he, of the miserable remnant (mark that) some being caught in the Mountains (whither they fled) were slain on heaps, others went into Foreign Regions, &c.’ I never thought before, that when one is dividing a remnant of People, and descri­bing the several miseries of them so divided, that Nonnulli or alii, could be translated very many; rather of the two it might be Englisht some few: but the other translation was necessary for his purpose, of Eleven Thousand Virgins go­ing away at once in one company. It was well guessed too, to ascribe their voyage to the provident care of their Parents and Friends to secure them in the first place, from the violence of their Barbarous Enemies, by this sending them away: when Gildas rather, describes a company of People, scat­tered, a [...]d at their wits end, not knowing which way to shift for their own Lives. Besides, I observe another passage in Gildas, which, if you could suppose a Body of so many Thousand Virgins gathered together, and by reason of the feebleness of their Sex fit to be made a Sacrifice, yet im­plyes, that it was scarce possible to find so many, fit to make Martyrs of at that time: For when he there tells us, of the Bodies of abundance of People, lying mangled and unburi­ed; he presently adds his doubt, that there were but a few pious Souls among them fit to go to Heaven: (there was at that time such a horrid corruption of manners among the Brittans, even worse than that of their Enemies that butch­er'd them.) ‘Si [...]tamen multae inventae sunt (sc. sanctae animae) quae ad ardua coeli, id temporis, à sanctis Angelis veheren­tur, &c. If there could be found any number of holy Souls at that time, that were fit to be carried up to Hea­ven by holy Angels: For, says he, Ita degeneraverat tunc vinea illa olim bona, in amaritudinem; ut rarò, secundùm prophetam, videretur quasi post tergum vindemiatorum aut messorum, racemus aut spica. i. e. The Vineyard that was [Page 121] once good, was then so degenerate, that as the Prophet speaks, after the Grape-gatherer or Mower, could scarce be found a Cluster, or an Ear of Corn.’ But Eleven Thousand, would have been a pretty Cluster of Virgins. Wherefore I conclude that Gildas in his story, never dreamt of any thing like such a number of Virgin-Mar­tyrs. I hope Mr. Cr. does not think there lyes any strength in those words he added, that when they mourn­fully cryed out, ‘Thou hast dispersed us among the Nati­ons, this most fitly suits these Martyrs, whose Reliques have been dispersed all over Christendome.’ For why should he perswade us, that they differ'd so much from other Saints, and sorrowfully pronounced that, which S. Francis so much triumph'd in? Who being cast into Prison by the Perusians, he was so full of joy,Jac. de Vorag. Legend. de S. Franc. that his Fellow-prisoners were offended at it; to whom he gave this account, Ideo me exul­tare noveritis, quia adhuc Sanctus per totum seculum adora­bor: He leapt for joy, because after all this he should be wor­shipped for a Saint all over the World ^*; Why should we not believe that they had the spirit of S. Francis in them while they lived, and rejoyced in the thoughts of that which they prophetically foretold? especially when their stories tell us, that they are so hugely pleased to have their Re­liques dispersed and venerated now they are dead? Two of their Bodies that were digged up at Colen, Caesarii Dialog. dist. 8. c. 85. in Biblioth. patrum Cisterc. edit. an. 1662. and translated to an Abby in Thuringia, removed themselves back again to Colen, because their [Page 122] Reliques were in the other place neglected. And when a Sister had a mind to some of their Reliques, and pressed with her Knee upon a great Stone that lay upon one of their Graves,Id. Ibid. c. 87. the Stone, that six Men could scarce stir, gave way and opened the Grave to let her put in her hand to take out the Bones, and then laid it self down again in the place it was in before. Nay, when one of the Monks, having got some of these Virgins Heads to his Monastery, washed them in Wine, and kissed them in Devotion;Id. Ibid. c. 88. one of them appeared that Night to him in his sleep, and embracing him, said, Yesterday when you washed my Head, you friendly kissed it, and now I come to repay your kindness, and saluted him; though when she offered it, he considering his profession, to avoid the Maids kiss, drew back his Head. Who can be of another mind, but that they now have just the same pas­sions and affections they had when they were alive, when he reads how that a Comb being found together with one of the Bodies mentioned before,Ibid. cap. 85. which Comb was secretly conveighed away by one Frederin­dis, who came by, as the Body was digging up; the Night before the Body was to be removed by an Abbot, the Vir­gin appeared to him in a dream, and refused to have her Body removed; and when he humbly asked her the reason, she told him, because she had lost her Comb which her Mother gave her, when she went out of her Countrey. There is one doubt remains, which Mr. Cressy is concerned in, who talks so much of the dispersing of their Reliques over all Christen­dome, viz. What security we can have that false Bodies and Bones, have not been scattered up and down for theirs: I know that Caesarius of Heisterbach has told us a fine story,Caesarius. Ibid. cap. 89. how that when certain Monks were washing many of their Bodies and drying them, there arose suddenly an intolerable stink; whereupon the Abbot Goswin suspecting it to be a trick of the Devils, to extinguish the Friers devotion towards their Reliques, ad­jured the Devil to discover if he had any hand in the stink; [Page 123] and immediately a great Horse-bone leaping from the midst of the Reliques, was thrown out of the place, as if it had been driven with a Whirl-wind. But I am a great deal more afraid of the Monks tricks to abuse Men into their Devotion, than of the Devils to extinguish it; and I doubt that when they design to cheat, the Bones will neither stir nor stink, to inable us that way to discover it. But I have too long considered Mr. Cressy's foolish pretences out of Gildas. I shall be shorter in answering what he says for the silence of Bede, who makes no mention of them neither in his History. ‘It is no wonder, says he,Ch. Hist. ut supra. if Beda's History, intended only to relate the affairs of the Saxons, does not recount such particular oc­currents of the Brittans.’ Well reasoned again! What? when the Saxon affairs at this time were Acts of Barbarous Cruelty, and the Brittans were the subjects of it, is it no wonder if one pretend to give an account of the one, and should leave out the other? This would be, just as if a Car­thaginian Historian had designed to give an account of the affairs of his own Countrey, and should have said little or nothing of Hannibal and his Army in Italy, or have passed over in silence that most famous Battle at Cannae, never so much as naming the Roman General there, or the number of those that were slain. Well, but says Mr. Cr. ‘Beda in other Treatises, twice expresly mentions the Celebration of Eleven Thousand Virgin-Martyrs, suffering for their Faith and Chastity at Colen, to wit, in his Martyrologie, and in his Ephemeris.’ It's true indeed, if you look into Beda's Works, you will find in his Martyrologie 12 Cal. No­vemb. these words, In Colonia sanctarum virginum undecim millium: and in his Ephemeris these, In Colonia sanctarum Virginum; but all this will not do Mr. Cressy's work: For the Authority of these Books is very slender, and the Inter­polation and abuse of them certain and evident^*: If I had [Page 124] no other way to know that there are Names of Saints in those Books, which Bede never put in, I might be sufficiently assured of it, only by examining the Persons there inserted for Saints and Martyrs. To give Mr. Cr. an Instance or two, very near the place where the 11000 Virgins stand. In his Martyrologie, 7 Idus Novemb. Depositio Vuilli­brordi Episcopi, de gente Anglorum, viri sanctissimi & mi­raculorum gratiâ admodum insignis; qui à Sergio Papa Ro­mae ordinatus est, & in Germaniam ad praedicandum destinatus, ibidemque requievit. In his Ephemeris, 8 Idus. Willibrordi Episcopi. I suppose that Saints were not put into the Calen­dar before they dyed; and it would be pretty if any one could believe that Bede should put into his Martyrologie the death of a Saint who out-lived him. But according to Mr. Cressy Ch Hist. l. 22. c. 25. and lib. 23. c. 6., Bede's death is placed, an. 731. (Calvisius Chronol. says 734.) and he has placed S. Willibrords, an. 736. To add another: Bedae Martyrol. 16 Cal. Decemb. Depositio beati Othmari Abbatis (in his Ephemeris 16 Cal. Dec. Otmari con­fessoris) who dyed (as both Surius and Calvisius agree) an. 761. that is, according to Mr. Cr.'s account, 30 Years after Beda. But, what talk I of Thirty Years? if you look into his Martyrology, 17 Calend. Januar. there you find, Viennae, Bellarm. de Scriptor. Ec [...]les. Beati Adonis Episcopi: and yet this Ado Vienrensis lived after Bede, above an Hundred and Thirty Years. If all this will not yet satisfie Mr. Cr. but that he still thinks no such tricks have been plaid with the 11000 Virgins, I then must far­ther tell him, that in the most correct Martyrologie of Bede (Printed in Bollandus his second Vol. of March, and which was set forth after comparing a great many Antient Manu­scripts) I say in his Genuine Text, Printed in a larger cha­racter, there is nothing to be found of these 11000 Virgins; but it's put in a smaller character afterwards, to show that that passage was inserted by others since; and I must con­clude too, that it was inserted a good while after his time; since Ʋsuardus in his Martyrologie makes no mention of [Page 125] these Virgins; nor Ado Viennensis in his, no nor in his Chronicon neither, though he there takes notice of the suf­ferings of many other Martyrs, and had a fair occasion to mention them; Adon. Chronic. i [...] Biblioth. Patr. Tom. 7. pag. 353, 356. for he speaks of Maxi­mus his drawing almost all the armed Youth of Brittany into France; and if Baronius his conjecture had been true, there sure he would have mentioned them, if he had known any thing concerning them: and afterwards he takes notice of the Saxons destroying Brittany from the East, to the West side of the Island with Fire and Sword (which is Mr. Cressy's time of placing their flight and Martyrdome) and yet not a syllable of them here neither. And if the Marty­rologie of Bede does not say any thing about it, his Epheme­ris which is collected out of it in short, it it say more, may deservedly be suspected: But he might as well (in this case) cite the Almanack for the Year when he wrote his Book; for there he might find the name of S. Ʋrsula against the 21 of October, but no such name in Bede's Ephemeris.

Thus we have seen the lame account and groundless con­jectures, which they that would make a formal History of these Virgins, go upon. Now, in the next place, let's con­sider whether they that build their faith upon Oral Traditi­on, and the current story that passes at Colen, where they are said to have been Interred, have mended the matter.

Here first, it is worth observing, that the Late Romish Writers are much more inclinable, I perceive, to follow the Traditional account, than the other: (only excepting the Jesuite Alford, who writing a History thought it not so proper to mention Revelations; and living, as he says, among Heterodox Persons (being then in England) he thought that telling sto­ries of Miracles,Alford. Annal. Eccl. Brit. ad an. 453. p. 586. and p. 598. unless they were vouch­ed by Classick Authors, would not be a means to convince them; for the Age he lived in was no ways favourable to them.) Therefore though Ribadeneira, when he first put forth the Lives of the Saints in Spanish, [Page 126] followed Baronius and our Geoffrey; yet when his Book was Printed at Colen in Latine, an. 1630. they put out that Life of his, and inserted another, after the Traditional way: For so the Reader, before that life, is admonished; that in­stead of that,Ribud. Flor. Sanct. 21. Octob. p. 501. ‘They thought good rather to adjoyn another Narration, far more certain, which was composed with great labour and diligence, out of several Monuments of the Ancients, out of the ancient Tradition of the Church of Colen, and out of the very footsteps of places that are to be seen both at Colen, and elsewhere on the Rhene, by a Father of the Jesuites Colledge in Colen.’ This Father was Philippus Bebius, as Alford informs us; between whom there had some Letters passed touching this matter:Alford. Ibid. p. 590. in Bebius his Letter to Alford Alf. ad. an. 237. p. 228. 230. he says, that he began to write the Life of S. Ʋrsula, and her companions in the Latine and German Tongue by the command of his Superiours; and not living perfectly to fi­nish it, Hermannus Crombachius succeeded him in his work, and opinion, (being for Tradition and Revelations) in a large Volume, entitled Ʋrsula vindicata. This way therefore, having the greater countenance of the Church, is now to be set down; and there is scarce any thing more needful, (it looking all along so like a Romance) to con­fute it. We are told then, that in the Year One Thousand One Hundred Fifty Six, See Bish. Ʋsher de Britan. Eccl. primord. p. 619. there were found at Colen certain Inscriptions or Titles on Grave-stones (Tituli Se­pulchrales they are called) bearing the Names of divers of the Ʋrsulan Virgins, and of the Men that did accompany them: Gerlacus the Abbot of Tuitium, who was present when the Tombs were opened, made an Index of their Names, which is still kept there. This gave occasion the same Year to the Revelations of Elizabeth of Schonaw con­cerning Ʋrsula, Elizab. Vision. lib. 4. c. 2. and her Army of Virgins, as she her self says. Who speaking, how in seve­ral [Page 127] Graves there were found Stones having Titles upon them, signifying to whom those Bodies did belong; ‘The Chief and most remarkable of them, says she, the Abbot Gerlacus sent to me, hoping that something might be re­vealed to me, by the grace of God, concerning them: for he had a suspicion of the finders of those holy Bodies, lest for gain sake they might have craftily caused them to be written.’ S. Elizabeth then understood, God revealing it to her by S. Ʋrsula, and S. Verena, by whom and when these Titles were written and put into their Graves. She says,Vid. Bebii vit. Ʋrsul. inter Flor. Sanctor. Ribaden. p. 504. that at that time when the H. Virgins came from Rome to Colen, there was in their company, one James Bishop of An­tioch, who being divinely inspired, did inquire into the names and state of the chief Persons of that Company, and diligently noted them. This James, when the H. Virgins were slain, he hid himself in a certain Cave that was in a Hill of that Field; but by the Providence of God, the Enemies after the slaughter withdrew themselves, and the People of Colen going out of the City to bury the Sacred Bodies, this Bishop came forth to them, and showed them the Names of the chief Persons, to the end that being cut in certain Stones, they might be placed together with their Bodies in their Graves; who himself was slain by the same returning Enemies, on the third Day after the common slaughter of the Virgins; just as he was giving order for his own Name to be ingraved; from whence it came to pass, that in Gerlacus his Catalogue of Names, there ap­pears nothing for Him, but the bare Name of James. A pretty story, and well hanging together I assure you! well may the Jesuite that relates this, boast of the truth and cer­tainty of these Colen Reliques, when such stones as these lye at the foundation to support their faith; only I could have wished that these stones had been somewhat bigger than I perceive they were: by the great noise of these Tituli Se­pulchrales, I was ready before to fancy, that they were stones laid over their Graves; but the revelation has spoiled that [Page 128] conceipt, by telling us that they were put into their Graves; for now they might be such, for ought I know, as might be put in ones Pocket, and I am not wholly freed from Gerla­cus his jealousie of the Diggers cheat. But I must not forget that besides these Revelations of S. Elizabeth after her death,A. Bish. Ʋsher, Ibid. pag. 631. one Richardus Praemonstratensis had new Visions concerning these Virgins, wherein by the admonition of the Bl. Vir­gin, and of Ʋrsula her self, many defects of the former re­velations were supplied; these happened An. Dom: 1183. and these are they that make up the life of Ʋrsula, and the 11000 Virgins in Capgrave; so that when I shall hereafter cite him for any part of their story, you must remember that in time past, that went in the Roman Church for Vision and Revelation; and indeed the whole story of Ʋrsula in the Colen way of Tradition, and that which we have in the old Breviaries, is wholly beholden to them, being borrowed from them. Nay, we are told out of Winheim, that the very Church of S. Ʋrsula in Colen, Winheim. Sacrar. Agrippin. was vul­garly called the Church of the Revelations, S. Elizabeth's Visions having given such great credit to her story. Let us now see, what it is they say; and I think the best way will be, to make the Lessons of the Breviary our Text, and the other will serve to ex­plain them.

NOTES.

ONE that reads this Formal story of a Saint, whose life is placed about the Year 300 after Christ, might well expect that some of the ancient Writers should have given us a fair account of a History so famous, and whose circum­stances, if they were true, are highly remarkable. But alas! Baronius has spoiled all this expectation,Baron. ad an. 307. sec. 33. where he complains that they were pretermitted by Eusebius; and, which is worse, that her Acts were written largely by an uncertain Author, but less faith­fully than was meet; and gravely adds, Melius consulitur Ecclesiasticae veritati, &c. ‘They provide better for the truth of Ecclesiastical History, who pass over in silence things that are uncertain, than such as tell any lye, though never so specious, and mixed with some truths: for the mind rests satisfied in those few truths, and by probable conjectures, leaning upon truth, can conceive and medi­tate, and contemplate the rest: But in the other case, the mind of the Reader being once offended with a lye (though but a little one) becomes doubtful and wavering, and knows not where to fix a sure footing, but having once stumbled upon a lye, suspects even truths themselves.’

A very observable Memorandum this is for Protestants, who may therefore the better be excused, having met so often in the lives of their Saints, not little but loud untruths, if they be very cautious what they assent to, (and much more when it comes to be a ground of their Prayers,) especially when the late Author of Sure-footing, has so horribly mis­carried in his Attempt to establish them by Tradition. I think this of S. Catherine of Alexandria, is as remarkable [Page 162] an Instance as any; which may well be looked upon, from the beginning to the end, as a Fiction.

We need not go much farther than to their own Cassander to prove it;Cassandri opera p. 278. who shews, that the very Name of Catherine was not known to the Latines above 300 Years since at most; nor known to the Greeks (from whom the Latines derived the venera­tion of her) much sooner. Eusebius that writ diligently the affairs of Alexandria, and lived about the same time that her Acts are recorded, says nothing of her, nor Nice­phorus who lived after that, nor any of the Greek or Latin Ecclesiastical Historians. All the Martyrologies, Kalen­daries, Ecclesiastical Offices of any Antiquity, are wholly si­lent in this matter. Even Aldelm the Bishop of Sarisbury in the Books he writ on set purpose in praise of the famous Virgins of both Sexes, has passed her over; which he could not have done, if her fame had either been so great as now, or her Name known: neither is she to be met with in S. Jerome's Kalendar, or in Bede's Martyrologie.

Besides, the truth of History contradicts what is told of her: especially when she is said to be put to death by Max­entius at Alexandria, whereas he passed the time of his whole Reign, or Tyranny, at Rome. She is said to be a Kings Daughter, whereas Alexandria, and all Egypt, from the time of Augustus his Victory at Actium, was reduced into a Province.

The story of her Father Costus, how he was born at Con­stance, a City of Germany, and warred under the King of A­lexandria, and afterwards when the King dyed, was chosen to be King in his room; that he was called Costus, because he came from Constance, which in the German Tongue is called Costnitz; these (says he) are all so absurd, that they deserve no Confutation. See farther what Cassander adds concerning the deriving of her Name and Worship to the Latines, out of a certain Book, De ortu S. Catharinae; and that S. Catherine was first put into the Martyrologie, by Pope John the XXII. who lived about the Year 1316.

[Page 163]As for the pretences of Baronius, for the countenancing of her from Eusebius, Baron. ad Rom. Martyrol. Nov. 25. and his Aecatharina which he findes in the Greek Menologies, they have been all so shamefully baffled by our Joh. Reinold. l. 1. de Rom. Eccles. Idolola. c. 5. Reinoldus, and so poorly defended bySerar. in Litaneut. 2. Serarius; that it had been wiselyer ordered a great deal, to have put her with S. George and S. Christopher, among the Symbo­lical Saints, (as Reynolds advised) for then indeed it would have run well. S. Catherine would then (as he says) have represented the Church, the Daugh­ter of the King of Heaven, living in Earth, as in Egypt, op­posed by the powerful and wise Men of the World, but con­quering them, though passing through many afflictions, and at length conveighed by Angels to Heaven after death.

Now let us farther observe, what work they have made since the Council of Trent, in Reforming the Roman Brevi­ary, as to this Legend of S. Katherine; from whence we may better conjecture, how rarely Popes are wont to re­form things amiss. In the Breviary of Pius the V. Print­ed at Antwerp, 1580. the old Prayer (Deus qui dedisti le­gem, &c.) is still retained, and all the substance of the Le­gend, though not made so large; only the name of King Costus is left out, the Queen is now named Faustina, Kathe­rines prodigious Learning is determined to be at 18 Years of Age; one Wheel is said to be prepared for her torments instead of four; the 4000 slain by the Angel, the Milk and Oyl flowing after her Death, and the voice from Heaven, are left out: And as in other Lives, the Names of the Au­thors are set down usually, at the beginning, out of which they are taken; so here is prefixed, Eusebius, lib. 7. c. 26. That which has been done since that time by succeeding Popes, is this; That in the present Breviaries, the quotation of Eusebius, which was both false, and nothing to the pur­pose, is omitted; (which, by the way, I observe is now ge­nerally practised in most of the Lives of the Saints; the Authors are not quoted out of which they are taken, and it [Page 164] has this cunning in it, that now the falsities cannot so easily be discovered) now also, after the diligence and observati­ons of Baronius upon the Martyrologie, in every place, in­stead of Maxentius, is put, the Emperour Maximinus; the Name of Faustina is omitted; the number of Philosophers not determined to be 50 as before; but instead of it is put many Philosophers: and yet all the circumstances of the sto­ry, as it is in the old Breviary, have the same Authority of Tradition, and long usage in the Church; which, in the judg­ment of Mr. Sergeant, and his Brethren of the Scientifical way, is a hundred times more Infallible than any Pope. And for my part, I look upon the Milk and Oyl as the most pre­tious part of the story; nor can I altogether excuse the Pope from rashness, in taking away three of the Wheels, for who knows what mystery may be in them? However, this good use may be made of these two great Examples, the Pope and Baronius, to believe as much of any Legend, as every Man thinks fit.

Now though these alterations signifie not much, yet in one particular, these Popes may shame Mr. Cressy, if he be capable of it: viz. In their leaving out the miraculous at­testation of her chastity, the Milk when her Head was cut off streaming from her Body instead of Blood.

If Mr. Cr. had been of the Council, he would by no means, I dare say, have consented to this omission: for he has, in his Church-History, commended some for living like Virgins, and others for preserving even their Virginity, in a state of Marriage. ‘Thus Ethelfleda, he says, was of such chastity,Ch. Hist. l. 30. cap. 8. that even in Marriage she lived as a single Woman, abstaining from the use of it. For having at the beginning of her Marri­age, had experience of the pains and incommodities of Child-bearing, she ever after abstained from her Husbands embraces, protesting that it was unbecoming the Daughter of a King, to admit a sensual pleasure, attended not long after with so great incommodities.Ibid. cap. 14. And again, Ethelfleda for the space of 40 Years after the [Page 165] Birth of Alwina her only Child, always refused the em­braces of her Husband.’

Such another story, Surius affords us, concerning S. Ma­trona of Perga, who after her Marriage, and the having had one onely Child, resolved, for her greater freedome in serving God,Surius Tom. 6. ad Nov. 8. ex Meta­phraste. to forsake her Husband; being encouraged to it by this Vision: A certain Man seemed to run after her, and she to fly away from him, and hardly escaped, being saved by certain Monks: which she interpreted in this sence, that she must take upon her the habit of a Monk, to escape her Husband: This she did by feigning her self to be an Eu­nuch, and changing her Name to Babyla: She had like to have been discovered by a Monk, who observed her Ears to have been bored through, where Jewels had heretofore hung. But the holy Abbot Bassianus, had it revealed to him by a Vision, that she was a Woman in Mans habit, and charged her with it: he proposed also a hard Question to her, how she could satisfie her self, to have offered her mouth securely, to receive theThis refers to the cu­stome of giving the kiss of peace mutually; which Po­lydore Virgil explains, De inventor. rerum, lib. 5. cap. 11. Finito canone, dicitur pax Domini; hîc osculum pacis datur inter sacerdotes mutuò, quod Innocentii pri­mi inventum est. salutation of peace from the Fri­ers. Her answer was, that she look­ed upon those to whom she offered her self, to be as uncapable of any bad impressions as the Angels. (and I suppose if one of them had em­braced her, she would have inter­preted it according to the Gloss, that the Frier did this, hereby toSi ergo Clericus am­plectitur muli [...]rem, interpre­tabitur quod causa benedi­cendi tam hoc faciat. Causa 11. qu. 3. ca. Absit. in glossâ. give her his Benediction.) And against the Objection, why she did not in prosecution of her design go into a Nunnery rather among Women; she defended her self by her Vision, and that in this Habit she might the better be concealed from her Husband; and so she still remained there. I'le add but one passage more, to show how finely they make [Page 166] these foolish perswasions, about Religion, work. When S. Matrona's Husband after this pursued her, having learnt how she had concealed her self; she fled again from him, and hid her self in an Idols Temple at Beritus, chusing rather to fall among Devils, or wild Beasts, than to be taken by her Husband: and an excellent Reason is given of it. For if they should light upon her, they would only hurt her Body; But if her Husband should take her, he would be more per­nicious to her than Devils, or wild Beasts, as one that could hurt her Soul^* together with her Body, drawing her again to the World, and challenging her for his Wife.

But a more famous Instance of this abstinence, countenan­ced even by Miracles, is given us by Mr. Cr. in Ethelreda (or Saint Audrey) who in obedience to her Parents consented to marry Prince Tombert, Lib. 16. c. 4. though she before had fixed all her affections on Christ a­lone, and her desire was to confine her self to a Cloyster. And now her next design (and a worthy one it was) is to ob­tain of her Husband a permission to preserve the integrity of her Body; and to that end spared no Prayers nor Praises of Virginal Purity; and her Husband admiring her Ange­lical chastity, he gave her hope of a compliance with her desires: But not long after, reason being overcome with the violence ofAn excellent comment this is, upon [...]. Heb. 13.4. corrupt nature, he yielded to his own desires, and required of her that right which the Laws of Marriage allowed him. [and which, if S. Paul's discourse be not foolish with these men, she could not without inju­stice, deny him, 1 Cor. 7. Where speaking of the [...], he says, [...], &c.] But when he came to extort her consent to his impatient desires (now [Page 167] [...], to save the Virgin) God prevented him, for he found the holy Virgin encompassed with a wonderful Light, and a Celestial Flame, which dazeled his Eyes, and consumed the Fire of Lust burning in his bosome; and so he continued for Seven, or Eight Years without touching her, till he dyed. And now, as if all this were too little to ce­lebrate the fame of this Virgin, Mr. Cr. brings a second Scene of her upon the Stage.

For, after Prince Tombert's death, Egfrid the Heir of the Northumbrian Kingdome, invited by the fame of her sancti­ty and perfections, [and if this, that has been related, was part of her holy fame, it was indeed a great temptation to court her for a Wife] demanded her in Marriage, and by the pressing importunity of her Parents, and the Nobles of the East-angles, her resistance was conquered: so that once more for the common good, [and you may well imagine what great good to the publick, was to be expected from her mar­riage] she was compelled to submit her self to a new ser­vitude. And now she uses her former Arts with this Prince Egfrid also, that there might be a conjunction of minds on­ly, with a separation of Bodies; and so successful they were, that they lived together Twelve Years without any preju­dice of S. Etheldred's Virginity, and conversed together, as if they had been divested of their Bodies. After which, all attempts proving in vain to change his Wives purpose, he gave her Liberty to enter into a Monastery: But after­wards, repenting of his indulgence, he came by force to take her out thence: who upon notice of it, fled with two Vir­gins up a high Hill, whither he pursued her: but Almighty God, to preserve his Servants, had encompassed the Hill with deep Waters from the Sea, which the King could not pass; and there Tradition informs us, that they were sustain­ed by God Seven Days on the Mountain, without any cor­poral food; and travelling from thence, on a Night, laying her self down in a commodious shade to sleep; she found when she awaked, that her^* Staff, which she had fastned in [Page 168] the ground at her head, had taken Root, and began to flou­rish with Leaves, and in succeeding times it became a very large and tall Tree, and continues to this day (says the Hist. Eliens.) called Etheldred-stow, or Etheldred's rest. When she was dead, (says Bede) the flesh of this Saint, a longThe Roman Martyrolo­gie, Jun. 23. says, the body of Ediltrudis (so she is there called) was found uncorrupt undecim post annis: The Breviary of S [...]rum sayes, Sexdecim annis. time after she was buried, could not be corrupted, which was a sign (says he) that whilest she was a­live, she remained uncorrupted by humane touches. But what is this number of Years to the Body of such a Virgin? Mr. Cressy has found Vouchers, that almost 500 Years after this, (in the Year 1106, and her Life is placed in the Year 660) She and her Sister Withburga, being both taken up to be buried more magnificently, the Miracle of her In­corruption was publickly manifested.Ch Hist. l. 16. cap. 6. And concerning Withburga, Capgrave comes in with his Spring of pure Water (which he scarce ever fails to tell us of) that issued from the place where she had been first buried, and cured many Diseases. And for a fare­well, Capgrave adds, That one of the Monks adventuring to touch her Body, a lively blush coloured her Cheeks, as if she still had breath in her: To which Mr. Cr. subjoyns in a different Character, Her dead Body expressing the same shamefastness, which her self would have done when alive. And indeed I can almost believe that the dead Body of this Virgin, might blush as soon as the tellers of this story. Mr. Cr. is too old now, to have any of this colour in his Face; and the other Miracle-monger, I believe, never had so much grace in all his life, as to feel the very motus primo-primos to any such thing. However I have done my part to make Mr. Cr. ashamed, by showing him the Example of several Popes, who all have consented to blot out the foolish story of S. Katherine's Milk, and if they had been so good natur'd, might have done the same to the translation of her Body from Mount Sinai, and the rest; for all depends upon their [Page 169] pleasure, and Antiquity countenances one no more than the other. They were ashamed of the unlikely change of blood into milk, though it was to attest the snow-white chastity of a Virgin (in signum nivei pudoris, was the phrase in the old Breviary.) But here we must be ingaged to believe, I know not how many Miracles one after another, while she was a­live, and when she was dead, only to testifie to the World, that S. Audrey was true to a wicked and superstitious reso­lution, against the sense, not of the sensual (as he phrases it) but of all sober Man-kind,To the present sensual Age, this may seem in­credible. Cr [...]s. ubi supra. and against the Faith and Covenants of Marriage, though no less with him than a Sacra­ment. I would ask him, if either of her Husbands should have taken that Counsel, which they falsly Father upon Luther, Si non vult uxor, veniat ancilla; or when Egfrid upon her going into the Monastery, took (as Mr. Cr. says) Ermenburga to Wife, whether the guilt of such supposed Fornication, or of this Adultery, did not in great measure lye at her Door, for withholding the de­bitum conjugale, notwithstanding all her superstitious vene­ration of Virginity? and whether she did not better deserve to be served as that Man was, who for leaving his Wives Bed, and withholding this debitum, Capgrave in vit. S. Henrici. though it was onely in the time of Lent, yet was severe­ly chid for it by S. Henry the Hermit, and as a punishment of his presumption, found himself one Night when he awaked, laid naked in a stinking Stable, under the Horses feet? The truth is, I wonder that when so many Mi­racles are pretended to save her Virginity, that no body, to free her from this blame, would coine one such wonder for her Husband, as they report concerning S. Thomas of A­quin; Rom. Breviar. 7 Martii. lec. 4. who in his Youth praying with bended Knees before the sign of the Cross, and there falling asleep, he seemed in his sleep to feel his Loines fast bound by Angels ^*, from which time forward, [Page 170] Omni libidinis sensu caruit, He never had any lustful inclina­tions more; or such a one as they tell of Father Elias, who being vexed with fleshly temptations, upon his fasting and prayer, three Angels appeared to him in a Dream, one held his Hands, another held his Feet, and the third seemed with a Rasor to geld him,Dauroutii Flores Exem­plor. Tom. 2. pag. 214. Capgrave. fol. 38. and from that time, Nec pristinae tentationis scintil­lam sensit, He never felt any spark of the old temptation: but the case was quite otherwise (as you heard) with Egfrid.

Let the Roman Church therefore praise such examples of the Saints, as that of Alexius; who the first Night of his Marriage,Rom. Brev. 17 July. Les. 3. Alexius propter eximium Jesu Christi amorem, primâ nocte nuptiarum, relin­quens intactam sponsam &c. for his singular love to Christ, left his Spouse untouched, and undertook a Pilgrimage to visit the famous Churches of the World. Let Mr. Cr. boast as much as he pleases, of the Examples of Prin­ces, that have vowed abstinence after Marriage. Let him vent his Gall against the Reformation,Ch. Hist. l. 10. c. 1. as indulging the Flesh (who I am sure in their Principles allow no more in this particular, than the Scriptures do, nor condemn any thing which that does not) I shall not at all stick to assert, that it is a true Reformation of foolish and impious Opinions in the Church of God, to forbid living in such hatred of the Flesh (I use his own phrase) as this Virgin in her circumstances unlawfully practised, and he as foolishly applauds. It may be he is much taken with that, which Pope Siricius urged upon the Clergy, as worthy, chast and honest,Epist. 3. inter Concil. Labbe. Tom. 2. p. 1029. that the Priests and Le­vites should not company with their Wives, because of their daily necessary imployment in Divine Ministrations; and because that they that are in the Flesh, cannot please God, but ye (says he) are not now in the Flesh, but in the Spirit. Indeed an admirable application of Scripture, and worthy of a Pope! which may be matched with a sutable story of the Monks inventing, [Page 171] how a married Priest, having Bedded with his Wife over Night,Capgrave vit. S. Cuthbert. f. 76. the next day when he came to receive the Sacred Mysteries, he saw the Particle of the Body of Christ, which he had put in the Cup, changed into a horrid form, of the colour of Pitch ra­ther than of Bread and Wine, and the tast as bitter as Gall, which made him confess his fault to the Bishop, and resolve to live more chastly and religiously afterward: (that is, I suppose, to forsake his Wife and fornicate.) For the course which they tell us,Martyrol. Francisc. ad 25 Aug. p. 367. S. Lewis took before he companied with his Queen, to pray three Days and three Nights together; even this would not have sufficed, to sanctifie the Marriage-Bed to a Priest. As for Mr. Cressy's flurt against Luther's Marriage,Ch. Hist. l. 10. c. 1. in fine. (at the end of the Chapter) it only tempts me to question, whether possibly he may not be of Cardinal Campegius his mind, who, as Sleiden Sleidan. Comment. lib. 4. Quòd sacerdot [...]s fiant ma­riti, multo esse gravius pec­catum, quàm si plurimat domi miretrices alant, &c. informs us, declared that it was a greater sin for Priests to marry, than to keep many Whores. But as sen­sual as he would insinuate the Re­formation to be, I would fain have him tell us of any one in it, that ever appeared to justifie that which Johannes à Casa, the Pope's Legat and Arch-Bishop of Beneventum, did; (and one who gloried too, no doubt, that he was never married, as Luther was) who wrote a Book in defence of that sin,Sleidan. Comment. lib. 21. pag. 652. for which God destroy­ed Sodom. Let him show among us any such Legal exemption for the encouraging of Fornication, as that in their Canon Law. He that has no Wife, Decreti distinct. 34. ca. 4. Is qui non habet, uxorem; & pro uxore concubinam habet, à communione non repellatur. but a Con­cubine instead of a wife, let him not be driven from the Communion. Let him show any such impure Doctrine among us, as that [Page 172] Gloss on the Canon Law.Decreti distinc. 34. ca. 16. Vidua est: where the Gloss says. Meretrix est, quae admiserit plures, quàm viginti tria homi­num millia. She is a Wh [...]re, that has had to do with more than Three and Twenty Thousand Men. I desire Mr. Cr. also, to parallel in the impure Reformation, the story that is related by Matthew Paris; how when Pope Innocent IV. was taking his leave of Lyons in France, Cardinal Hugo made a fare­well Sermon;Matth. Paris ad an. 1251. p. 819. Amici, magnam fecimus, postquam in hanc urbem venimus, utilitatem & eleemosynam; quan­do enim primùm huc venimus, tria vol quatuor prostibula invenimus; sed nunc recedentes, unum solum relinquimus, ve­rùm ipsum durat continuatim, ab Orien­tali porta civitatis, usque ad Occideutalem. wherein, after he had saluted the Town in the Name of the Pope and his whole Court, he added this Speech. ‘Friends, we have brought much profit, and done an act of great Charity to this City; for when we first came hither, we found three or four Whore-houses; but now, at our departure, we leave only one; but that one ex­tends it self all along from the Eastern to the Western Gate of the City.’

Luther is a carnal Man for marrying a Wife; but here are your spiritual Men, the Pope and his Attendants; who by this Cardinal's confession in a publick Sermon, had de­bauched a whole City, and turn'd it into a Stews; and yet, I doubt not, but after all this, modest Mr. Cressy will wipe his mouth, and in his next Book, rail against the carnal Pro­testants, with as good a grace as ever. If any one suspect this Sermon of the Cardinals at Lyons, as a light Frolique, or expressing only the corrupt practices of that Church at that time; he may do well to consult the Decretals ^*, and there he will find, but a few Years before, an Epistle of Pope [Page 173] Innocent III. to an Arch-Bishop of Lyons, and his Legate, where he may be satisfied, that the Opinion also of that Church, was more favourable to the Whoredome than to the Marriage of Clergy-men. ‘Thou desirest to be in­structed, whether Priests keeping many Concubines, are to be reckoned among the Bigames; [i.e. those that had been twice married, who were thereupon uncapable of Orders:] to which we have thought fit to answer, that since these have not incurred the irregularity of Bigamy, thou mayst dispense with them, as to the exercise of the Priestly Of­fice, as with those that are noted only with the crime of simple Fornication.’ Where you see that second Marriage of Priests; is by this Pope accounted a more heinous crime than the having many Whores. Nay even Adultery, as well as Fornication, passed among them for lesser sins, as appears by the Decretal, where we find that Pope Alex­ander III. orders,Decretal. l. 2. Tit. 1. ca. 4. that Clergy-men that were convicted of a crime before a Secular Judge, are not thereupon to be condemned by the Bishop, but must be again convicted before him, and pun­ished by him (without sending him back to the secular Judg) or deposed, unless he dispense with him; and then he adds, De adulteriis verò & aliis criminibus quae sunt minora, potest Episcopus cum celericis post peractam poenitentiam dispensare. i.e. ‘But for Adulteries and other Crimes which are les­ser, the Bishop may dispense with Clergy-men, after they have undergone their Penance.’ The story of Cardinal Joh. Cremensis is sufficiently known from our Historians; who came into England in Henry the First's time, to divorce the Clergy from their Wives, and made a Canon in a Coun­cil at London, that Clergy-men should have no society with their Wives or Concubines, or any other Women, save those that could not be suspected; but after he had made a fierce declamation, to this purpose, in the Synod; the very Night following, the Cardinal was found in Bed with a Whore. Baronius indeed would fain deny this story, by supposing that Roger Hoveden and Matth. Westmonaster. had [Page 174] it from Hen. Huntingdon, Baron. ad an. 1125. p. 164. the first Writer of it, and that he was a favourer of the married Clergy; And, what then? perhaps one rea­son why he was so, was by seeing the baseness and wicked­ness of the contrary Zealots. But Matth. Paris has told the same thing of him,Matth. Paris ad an. 1125. p. 70. and says, that Res no­tissima negari non potuit: i. e. It was so known a thing, it could not be denyed: and after so many witnesses that assert it, I think the best way to have brought him off, would have been, to have told us that he tryed S. Colman's Girdle,Colganus de S. Colmano. 3 Febr. p. 246. and it met about him exactly; whose ver­tue is known to be such, that he that preserves his Virginity, though he be never so corpulent, it will upon tryal compass his body; but he that has vio­lated his Chastity, though he be never so slender and lean; can never gird himself with it. I shall only add this, that the Romish Writers, do not upon any argument want a con­venient confidence, but in this Controversie about Marriage and Virginity, they are impudent even to admiration.

I Might also here subjoyn another of their Saints, who is placed in the Roman Kalendar, upon the 13 of August; to wit, Hippolytus, (the Souldier, not the Presbyter) who may well be ranked among the Fabulous ones. The Legend con­cerning his suffering under Decius the Emperour, who con­demned him to be tyed to wild Horses, and so drawn to death, seems to be taken from the Fables of the Poets, con­cerning Hippolytus ^* (one of the same name) the Son of The­seus, who lost his Life in the same manner. The Acts of S. Laurence, out of which his story is taken, by the confession [Page 175] of Baronius Baron. ad Roman. Martyrolog. 10 August. contain in them many things Apocryphal, & contrary to truth. In the Old Breviaries, the Lessons make Decius the Emperour, after the death of S. Laurence, to hear his cause as a Judge, and to deliver him to Valerian the Pre­fect, to inflict the aforesaid punishment on him; whereas S. Laurence himself suffered under Valerian, seven or eight Years after Decius his death, as Baronius, in the forenamed place, confesses. The inquisitive Reader may more fully satisfie himself, by consulting herein Joh. Raynolds de Rom. Eccles. Idololat. L. 1. cap. 5. sec. 23. to whom I refer him, without adding any more about him, only this; that though his Body might have been torn into Forty Pieces while he was dragged along with the wild Horses; yet, we are told by Surius, that Colen has got the Body of Hippolytus, (and I do not read that it wants there any one part) and it lies in the Church of S. Ʋr­sula: Surius vit. S. Lauren­tii. 10 August. in fine. a very convenient place, where it is joyned to very sutable company; and where, if it had been as much for their interest, we might have met with the Body of the Son of Theseus also.

AND now after I have given this account of so many of their Fabulous Saints, and the many Fabulous rea­sons of worshiping the true ones; I cannot but give them joy, before I part with this Subject, of that mighty comfort and satisfaction, which such Devotions are able to afford them, and of the vast advantages they have of us in this regard.

Oh how joyful, and how becoming the Devotions of Christians it is, to sing a Hymn in praise of a Virgins beard; and to celebrate the fame of a man, that walked two Miles with his Head off? How pleasingly, in a devout fancy, does the Saviour of the World, sit mounted upon the back of a tall Gyant, while he carries him safely over a dangerous River? And who can entertain a doubt against the Resur­rection, [Page 176] who contemplates in his mind the seven Sleepers in their Cave, taking a comfortable nap of above three hun­dred Years long, and then waking as young and fresh, as when they lay down; and thinking, that only one common Night of time had passed over their Heads? What man dares open his mouth to plead for Idolatry, after Longinus his glo­rious confutation of it? —Who then, without all doubt, Spake to good purpose, when his tongue was out.

See 2d. Lesson of Longinus.Alas! what would have become of our Christianity, if these Traditions and Re­velations did not back and support it? How dully would Religion have been conducted, as the Courtships of those Lovers are, that eat and drink as other Men do, which now by vertue of these Spiritual Romances, may live almost in perpetual rapture and extasie; be maintained I know not how long, by a sweet glance from one of these Saints in a Vision; be carried almost up to Heaven, by a sight of one of the Feathers that fell out of the Wing of Michael the Arch-Angel, and kiss it with a greater transport, than ever Romantick Lover did the fallen Glove of his Mistress? need no other Physick in sickness, though one lay gasping, as if he was taking his last breath, save onely that of S. Gilbert S. Gylbert on a time was near dead of the Quency, and when his throat was so great, that he might not take breath, our Lady came to him and said: Gilbert my Servant, it were evil do, that thy throat should suffer penance, that hath so often times gladded me with joyes; and anon she took her fair pappe, and milked on his throat, and went her way, and anon there­with he was whole, and thanked our Lady ever after. Festivale f. 95., a little breast-milk from the fair pap of the Blessed Virgin; and one that is troubled with imaginations of being deserted by Je­sus, may with that wise Nun seek him up and down the House,Casarius in Dialog. distinc. 6. cap. 31, 32. and find him in a hole of the Wall; or as another weeping sadly in a like distress, having lost her wooden Crucifix, heard Christ's voice, saying to her, Weep not, Daughter, for I lye in a Bag under thy Bed-straw; and [Page 177] no Body, without such a voice, would have lookt for him there. We poor Protestants thought we were well provi­ded for by the mercy of God, after we had offended him by our sins, when we heard how pleasing to God the Sa­crifice of his dear Son was, when he dyed upon the Cross, and that we should have this compassionate Saviour to be our Judge. But alas! these Men have discovered another spring of comfort and way of pardon, that we never thought of, nor God ever told the former World of, till these bles­sed Revelations came in vogue. We hear now of a Queen as well as of a King of Heaven, and of a Mother, as well as a Father of mercy; and what may we not now expect from this Patroness? If Prayers to Christ himself be not speedily answered, here is a new course may be taken, even that which the tempted Monk took, who said to him. ‘Truly Lord, Caesar. Dialog. distinc. 6. c. 30. if thou dost not deliver me from this temptation, I'le complain of thee to thy Mother:’ This we should judge to be into­lerable pride and sawciness; but, says the Relator, ‘Our Lord the Teacher of humility, and lover of simplicity, as if he feared to be accused before his Mother, prevented his complaint, by mitigating his temptation.’ The name of a Judge, that carries terror in the face of it; but oh! the sweetness of these Mothers breasts. Is it not pitty, that any should call that Blasphemy, which Carolus Scribanius In Amphithe­atro honoris., being heated not so much with Poetick rapture, as with Devotion to the Bl. Virgin, sang in her praises, in the words that follow; though they seem indeed to prefer her before our Saviour?

There is also another advantage, which they of the Church of Rome clearly have of us; that, as they have ordered the matter, their way of Devotion, may be as well exercised, and as comfortably, when a Man is asleep, as when he is a­wake; nay, what if I say better, and more to a Man's con­tent? For there is a certain scurvy troublesome thing cal­led Reason, which is wont uncivilly at other times, to disturb the pleasing Visitations of those Imaginary and Chimerical Saints, and to blaspheme the raised and rapturous fancies of the true ones: but in Dreams of the Night, when reason is laid asleep, then is the season to entertain sweet commu­nion with them. And now the Soul may take an easie flight, and advance as high as the Mountain, to whose top S. Katherine was conveighed by Angels: That grace which before was as hard to be discerned as an invisible Hair, may now as plainly be perceived, as the downy^* Beard [Page 179] that covered so gracefully the Lip and Chin of S. Wilgefortis. And those cross-grain'd and knotty Vices, that had before blunted the edge of all the keenest Sermons of Religion, may in one Night, without feeling any pain at all, be quickly hewen down and destroyed, by the powerful Arm and Axe of the Blessed Carpenter Joseph. It was no doubt, at one of these happy seasons of Revelation, ‘That the Woman that was defouled in Lechery (to give you the words of the Festivale) after fell into despair,Festiv. fol. 69. thinking of Christ's doom, and the horrible pains of Hell; but she bethought her, how that Children, be they never so wroth, and shew never so great vengeance, how lightly they will cease and forgive; wherefore this Wo­man cryed to Christ, praying him for his Childhood to have mercy upon her, and anon she heard a voice on high in the Aire, which said, Thy Trespass is forgiven Thee.’ And I would fain known, what Protestant ever had the wit, to make use of so melting a Topick, to move the great God to forgiveness? Alas! how weak and feeble would our Mo­ral Arguments be, to prevail with a sinner inflamed with unchast desires, to sleight that temptation, which offers them present satisfaction? but in this Church we hear of a lasci­vious Nun, Caesarius Dialog. dist. 7. cap. 33. & Gononi Chronicon, p. 214. going upon such an appointed meeting out of her Convent, that was stopt at every Door she try'd to go out at, by a Crucifix that opposed her pas­sage; who thereupon falling down before the Image of the Bl. Virgin to beg her pardon, the Image struck her a good Box on the Ear, saying; Whither, fool, would you go? get you into your lodging: and the effect was quick and power­ful; she was preserved from the sin, and never tempted any more: Here is sudden dispatch; One Box o'th' Ear, doing that which a long course of Prayer and Fasting and Mortification, perhaps would scarce have effected. Nei­ther does this compassionate Lady always deal with so much severity, or testifie so much displeasure, as this Example seems to express. Sometimes she has sweetly courted sin­ners, [Page 180] and done the same in a more loving way. That Man found it so,Caesar. ibid. cap. 32. who having very bad inclinations to­wards his Master's Wife; the Bl. Virgin appear­ed to him, as he was going on Horseback from a Church, where he had been paying her some Devotions; she laid hold on his Bridle, and asked him, whether he li­ked her Countenance? he answered that he never saw any one fairer: Then replyed she, would it suffice thee, if thou couldest have me for thy Wife? Any King, quoth he, might be judged happy in so fair a Comfort. The Bl. Virgin made Answer; then I will be thy Wife, come near and kiss me: And she compelled him, and said: This is an earnest of our Nuptials, which shall be consummated such a Day in the pre­sence of my Son: by which expression he knew that she was the Mother of our Lord; and from that Hour he was per­fectly delivered from the aforesaid temptation. Here is a comfortable way, by a chast Kiss of the Bl. Virgin, to be rid for ever of unchast thoughts.

This gives me also farther occasion, to congratulate those great sinners, who finding no comfort in our sullen way, where, after Men have sinned, serious thoughts and hearty sorrow, and unfained repentance are indispensably required, before we can promise them the forgiveness of their sins, have fled into the bosome of Holy Church. Those Men had a blessed time of it, you'l say, who once found it as easie to be made good,Vita S. Bernardi, (inter ejus opera) lib. 1. cap. 11. as to drink; as those Souldiers did, who upon drinking S. Ber­nard's Ale, which he called the Potion of Souls, were immediately converted; such powerful Liquor I think the Church does not now pretend to have; but however, if it be now as kind and good na­tur'd as heretofore, the same Revelations that have created Saints out of nothing, may also bid fair to make such sin­ners happy after Death, whose good actions were next door to nothing while they lived. For are not these three (to name no more) comfortable stories, that heretofore were preached to the People?

[Page 181] ‘A Woman of evil living dyed,Festivale, fol. 81. who had never done a good deed in her Life, but only found a Candle to burn before our Lady: when she was dead, Fiendes came to her, and took her Soul; and when they were going, there came two Angels and rebuked the Fiends, why they were so bold to take the Soul without doom; then said they, there needeth none, she did never a good deed. Then said they, take and bring the Soul before our Lady, and so they did. But when it was found that she did never a good deed, she must needs go to Hell: Then said our Lady, she found a Candle brennyng before me, and was ever her will while she lived, and therefore I will be kind to her, as she was to me, and bad an Angel take a great Serge (Torch) and light it, and set it before her in Hell; and our Lady charged and commanded, that there should no Fiend come there-nye, but let it stand brennyng for evermore, to comfort all that been in Hell: Then said the Fiends, they had lever leve the Soul, than do so: Then bad our Lady take the Soul, and bear it to the Body again, and so they did: and when she was alive, she bethought her on her streight doom there as she was, and went and shrove her to a Priest, and lived long after, and she amended her life, and was ever after a good Wo­man, and an holy.’

Neither is this second, any whit short of the former, which the same Book gives us.Festiv. fol. 131. ‘A wicked Emperour dying, a Legion of Fiends went to fetch his Soul, and coming by a Hermits Cell, made a great noise; who opening a Window, asked one of them that came behind, in the name of God, what they were: He said, Fiends that were sent to the Emperour that was dead, to look if they might have him for their reward: Then the Hermit commanded him to come again to him, to know how he sped; and he did so, and said; his sins were laid in the Balance, and he was nye overcomen; then came the brennynge Deken Laurence, and laid a great Pot in the Balance, and it drew up all together: This Pot was [Page 182] a great Chalice, that the Emperour made to worship S. Laurence withall.’ [The Reader may see a story just like this, of one good work of a Priest, laid in the Balance against a Multitude of his sins,Capgr. fol. 78. and weighing them all down, in the Life of S. Henry the Hermit, in Capgrave.] Is not that also very comfortable, which the same pious Book in another place gives us?

Festival. fol. 92. ‘S. Brandon, as he sailed on the Sea, saw Judas sit upon a Stone, and a Cloth hang­ing before him that lay in the Water, and often bette him in the face, and he asked him in God's Name what he was. He answered, I am Judas, God's Traytor, that have this place of God's great grace and courtesie; for it refresh­eth me of the great heat I suffer within me, and for no merit that ever I did deserve. Then said S. Brandon, why hast thou that Stone under thee, and wherefore doth that beat thee on the face? Then said he, I laid this Stone in an High-way, thereas the common People should go, and they were eased thereby, and this is the cause that I am eased thereby now: This Cloth was not mine own that doth me this refreshing now; but and if it had been mine own, it should have refreshed me much the more, for I gave it unto a poor Man: Then said Brandon, how long hast thou this ease and refreshing: Then said he, every Saturday from Even-song till Even-song on the Mor­row be done, and from Christmas day till the Twelfth-day; & from Easter-day till Whit-Sunday; and on our Ladies As­sumption and Candlemass-day. Then Brandon thanked God, that he is so merciful and gracious in all things.’ And is it not a consideration full of comfort, that the Charity even of Judas, in giving a poor Man what was not his own, should meet with such a reward? That his reward would have been much greater, had it been his own, is an Argument to Men to be just, as well as charitable; but that he was rewarded however, seems to me, to be a good gracious encouragement to filching and stealing, in order to Charity.

But now, to be just on all sides, I cannot but observe one [Page 183] thing farther, wherein apparently they have the disadvantage (I do not say of our Church, but) of our Enthusiasts. For the Devotions and Belief of our Men are agreeable, and all of a piece, that is, raised and improved non-sence and folly: But alas! among them, the Mantle of those Elijah's that made the Lessons on their Saints, never fell into the hands of the Makers of their Prayers, nor any jot of their Spirit seems to be upon them. For it's plain, there can be nothing more luscious food, than what is presented to us in the Le­gend, but the Prayers that should spiritually improve them, are generally very dull and insipid. For, to instance in S. Katherine; was there ever a more dull descant upon such a Subject, as her being carried by Angels to be buried on the top of Mount Sinai, than to pray, that we, by her Merits and Intercession, may come to the Mount, which is Christ? And could the Romance of S. Denys, raise their requests to no higher a strain, than such general desires, that we may imitate him, by despising prosperity, and not fearing adversity? Or that, of Hippolytus his being drawn to death by wild Horses, than, that his venerable solemnity may increase both Devotion and Salvation? If our Men had been in their place, and had felt their Devotions flagging and sinking in this manner; we should have heard, to be sure, of their keeping Days, to humble themselves for the loss of such pretious opportunities, and for not thriving under such fat­ning dispensations, bewailing their unthankfulness for Kathe­rine mercies, and Christopher mercies, and bemoaning their barrenness under them.

NOTES.

THE Breviary of Sarum, in the First Lesson on the Translation of Thomas, says, ‘That Pope Honorius III. granted such Indulgences, to those that came Yearly to [Page 186] solemnize his Translation, as we never remember any Popes in former times to have afforded.’ Which seems to me to give great suspicion, that Thomas was more the Pope's Martyr than Christ's: for else, he might have found fitter occasions for these liberal grants, from those many fa­mous Sufferers for Christ, who made a more glorious con­fession of him, than ever Thomas did.

But to make the evidence of this undoubted, and to show in this instance, not only the Absurdity, but Impiety of the foregoing Devotions, it will be requisite to give as short an Account of his story as I can; by presenting the Reader (out of their own Authors, especially Baronius) with the first occasion of the Quarrel betwixt him and his Prince; to what height the Contest was afterward carried; the ma­ny Mediations for agreement, and the cause of their being unsuccessful; and the Conclusion of all in the death of this Prelate, whom (as the Prayer told us) they would make a glorious Martyr. And when all this is done, we shall find, I believe, more of a Rebel in him than a Saint, and see the most extravagant abuse in the Pope, of a pretended power to Canonize,1. The occasion of the Quarrel. that ever was. For the first: 1. The occasion of the Quarrel between him and King Henry the Second; Neubrigensis, who lived at this very time, tells us expresly, that the Con­test between them arose Super praerogativa Ordinis Clericalis, Neubrig. de reb. Angl. l. 2. cap. 16. about the Prerogatives of Clergy-men. For the King being busied about the Affairs of the Realm, and commanding Malefa­ctors, without any difference, to be extirpated, it was inti­mated to him by the Judges, that many Thefts, Rapines, Homicides, against the publick Discipline, were committed by the Clergy, whom the vigour of Common Laws was not permitted to reach. Baronius acknowledges, that a Priest that had committed Murder,Baron. Annal. ad An. 1163. p. 482. was thrust in­to a Monastery, after he was degraded, but Thomas would not deliver him to the Secu­lar Courts. But Neubrigensis says, that it was declared to [Page 187] the King, that more than a Hundred Murders were commit­ted by the Clergy of England. Neubrig. Ibid. Thus also the rise of the Quarrel is represented by the Bi­shops and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury, in their Letters to the Pope. Baron. ad an. 1167. p. 546. ‘That the King finding the Peace of his Kingdom much molested, by the outragious excesses of some insolent Clerks, he referred their Crimes to the Bishops, the Judges of the Church, that one Sword might assist another; but the Bishops persisted in this judgment, that Murder, and any other like Crime, should only be punisht in the Clergy by Degradation; the King on the other side be­ing of Opinion, that this punishment did not condignly answer the Offence; neither was it sufficient provision for maintaining Peace, if a Reader, or Acoluthus, killing a Man famous for Religion or Dignity, should escape only with the loss of his Order.’ Now I dare appeal to any honest Turk or Heathen, whether in this first occasion of contending, the King had not apparently more of the zeal of a Saint in him, than the Arch-Bishop. For did ever any Saint before this, put in for an exemption of any Men from Death in the case of Murder? Can there be any pretence that their punishment should be less than that of others, who committing the same enormous Crimes, yet deserve less fa­vour, because they must needs sin with greater malice, and by the example of their Vices do greater mischief? If I have spoken evil, says our Saviour himself, bear witness of the evil. He was only concerned,Joh. 18.23. that he might not be smitten when he was innocent; but if any plain proof, either of his saying, or doing wickedly, could have been brought against him, no doubt he would have made no exception against any Legal Court that had tryed him, though it had been any other than that of Caiaphas. I once read indeed of an Apostle of his that appealed to Caesar, but of none in any case that ever appealed from him. And I dare say, no true Martyr among the Primitive Bi­shops, would have desired for any Priest under him, that had [Page 188] been a Thief, or a Murderer, that he might have had the be­nefit of his Clergie. Neubrigensis in this case, speaks not so much like a Politician (as Stapleton would traduce him) as like a good Man that was sensible of the mis­chief of such exemptions,Qui homo magis Politicus fuit, quam monachum, aut clericum, aut bonum Chri­stianum decuit. Stapleton de 3 Thomis. p. 26. when he expresses himself thus. ‘The Bi­shops whilst they are watchful ra­ther to defend the Liberties and Dignities of the Clergy, than to correct and cut off their Vices, think they do God and the Church good service, when they defend the wick­ed Clergy against the publick Discipline, whom accord­ing to the Duty of their Office,Neubrig. loc. citat. they have either no mind or neglect to restrain with the vigour of Canonical censure; whence it comes to pass, that Clergy-men, who being called into the Lord's Lot, ought in Life and Doctrine to shine upon Earth, as Stars placed in the Firmament of Heaven, taking Licence and Liberty, through impunity, to do whatsoever they please, reverence neither God, whose Judgment seems to linger, nor Men that are in Authority; when the Episco­pal care about them languishes, and the Prerogative of their Holy Order shall exempt them from Secular Ju­risdiction.’

2. To what height the Quarrel was carried.2. Proceed we to show, to what height the Contest was carried, after this begin­ning. The King being vexed at these Reports, demands of the Arch-Bishop, that such of the wicked Clergy,Baron. Ibid. p. 482. after the inflicting Canonical Penance, might be delivered to the Secular Court; which he refused to grant: where­upon the King, being very angry, asked him, and the rest of the Prelates, whether they would observe his Regal Cu­stomes, observed by Arch-Bishops and Bishops, private and priviledged Persons, in his Grand-father's time: to which Thomas answered, that he would, Salvo ordine suo, saving his Order; only Hilary Bishop of Chichester said, he would [Page 189] observe them, bona fide, without that reservation. The King told Thomas that his Answer was captious, and required him to promise absolutely without any addition, which he re­fused. The Pope, being advertized of all these proceedings by Thomas, wrote Letters to the Bishops, that by vertue of their Canonical obedience to the See of Rome, they should not attempt any thing against the Ecclesiastical Liberty, nor engage themselves in any Promise or Oath, save that which Bishops use to make to their Kings; and that if they had promised any thing of that kind to him, they should not observe but revoke it, and reconcile themselves to God and the Church.

After this was a Meeting at Clarendon of the King, Bishops, and Lords of the Realm,Baron. ad an. 1164. where the Ancient Customes were produced, and Thomas having made a promise at Oxford, to change the words that offended the King, was then challenged with his promise, which at first he refused to perform; but after by the ve­hement urging of some Bishops and Nobles, that he would not too stifly oppose the King, declaring the danger of it, he was perswaded to give his consent, Bona fide, to observe the Regal Customes, and swore to it as the rest did; but yet refused to set his Seal to it. This Oath very much trou­bled him after the taking of it, being sensible how the Ec­clesiastical Liberties were invaded by it, and he resolves, as his Penance, to desist from the Exercise of his Priestly Of­fice. But the Pope quickly absolves him from his Oath, requiring Him not to forbear Celebrating Mass upon this account.

But the King,Bar. Ib. p. 488. upon his Refusal to Seal the Wri­ting, was more incensed, sought by his Messengers to the Pope to hinder him from being his Legat, which usu­ally was bestowed upon the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and to confer it on the Arch-Bishop of York, and to per­swade the Pope to confirm the Customes of Clarendon. The Pope grants his request as to the Arch-Bishop of York, but refuses to confirm the other: and writes to Thomas to be­have [Page 190] himself prudently, and discreetly, and yieldingly to the King, and to do all to sweeten him, and regain his favour, that was consistent with the honesty of his Ecclesiastical Or­der. But the next news we hear of him is, that he is endeavouring to fly into France with­out his leave,pag. 490. though driven back at Sea by cross Winds. He is summoned to a Parliament at Northampton, by the King: There in the Morning before the Meeting, he caused the Mass to begin with the words proper to S. Ste­ven's Day, (though it was not his day) Princes sate, and spake against me, &c. [a good beginning to sweeten the King.] When he was called to give his answer to the char­ges against him, he declined the judgment of the Court, appealed to the Pope, and so departed; who as he with­drew, was followed with the cries of those that called him Traytor. The Bishop of Chichester told him plainly, You were sometimes our Arch-Bishop, whom we were bound to obey; but, because you have sworn Fidelity to our Lord the King, and to keep the Customes which he requires, and you en­deavour to destroy them, though tending to his Worldly Dignity and Honour; we therefore pronounce you guilty of Perjury, and we are not bound any longer to obey a Perjured Arch-Bishop.

Thomas, after this, presently hies over into Flanders, and the King seizes on his Revenues, and made severe Laws against all Persons that should hold any correspondence with him, or receive any Letters of Interdict from him; all which the Pope by his contrary Letters did abrogate: As he did also most of those Customes established at Clarendon, which when Thomas appeared at Rome, were produced and read before the Pope in the Consistory: They were 16.p. 499. in Number, some of which he tolerated, but said none of them were good: those which he condemned, were these that follow; (which I think no body besides the Pope can find fault with: but no wonder that he did, when they plainly checkt his growing Usurpations o­ver the Rights of our Princes.)

[Page 191]1. Controversies concerning the advowson and presenta­tion of Churches, shall be heard and determined in the King's Court.

2. Clerks cited and accused upon any Cause, being sum­moned to the King's Court, shall appear and answer before the said Court; so as the Kings Bench shall send into the Court of H. Church, to see upon what ground the cause shall be there handled, and if the Clerk be convicted, or do confess, the Church ought not any longer to defend him.

3. Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and other Persons of the King­dome, shall not depart the Realm without the King's leave; and if they will depart, they shall give security, if the King demands it, that neither in their going, staying, or coming back, they will seek the hurt or Damage of the King or his Kingdomes.

4. No Man that holds of the King in capite, nor any of his Houshold-servants shall be excommunicated, or their Lands interdicted, unless the King or his Chief Justice be made acquainted with it, that he may determine right con­cerning him; whereby such things as belong to the King's Court, may there be determined; and what belongs to the Ecclesiastical Court, may be returned thither, and there ended.

5. Touching Appeals, Men ought to proceed from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop, from the Bishop to the Arch-Bishop, and from him, if he fail to execute Justice, to the King in the last place, that by his commandment the Contro­versie may be determined in the Arch-Bishops Court; so as they shall not proceed any farther, without the King's assent.

6. Any Person of City, Castle, Burrough, or the King's Demesne Mannor, being cited by the Arch-Deacon or Bishop for any crime wherein he is bound to answer him, and will not satisfie him upon the citations, it shall be lawful to sub­ject him to interdiction, but not to excommunicate him, be­fore the King's Chief Officer of the Place be acquainted with it, that he may adjudge the Offender to make satisfa­ction, [Page 192] wherein if the King's Officer be defaulty, he shall fall into the King's mercy, and then the Bishop may after punish the accused with Ecclesiastical censures.

7. When an Arch-Bishoprick, Bishoprick, Abbacy, or Pri­ory of the King's Dominions shall fall void, it ought to be in his Majesties hand, and he shall receive all those Rents and Revenues, as those of his own Royal Demeans; and when the time cometh to take care to fill the Church, the King ought to Summon the Chief Persons of the Church, and the Election ought to be made in his Chappel by his Royal as­sent, and by the Counsel of such Persons belonging to His Majesty, whom he shall call about that affair; and there the Person Elected, shall do his homage and fealty to our Lord the King, as his Liege Lord, of Life member and earthly honor, saving his Order, before he be consecrated.

8. Pleas about Debts, which are grounded upon Oath, as well as those which are without Oath, shall be handled in the King's Court.

These are the most material Articles he condemned, to omit the rest.

The next Day Thomas resigned up his Arch-Bishoprick to the Pope, acknowledging his entrance into it not to have been Canonical, but by intrusion, and the Pope restored him again to it.

Ibid. pag. 502.The King also publishes new Constitutions in Normandy, the summ of them was: To pu­nish them as Traytors, who carried into England the Pope's or the Arch-Bishop's Mandate, containing the Interdict of Christianity. To imprison those Clerks that passed the Seas, or returned into England without the King's, or his Justices Letters. That none should appeal to the Pope, or Arch-Bishop. That no Plea be held by their command, nor their Mandates be received in England, nor any Mandate of Clerk or Layman be carried to them, upon pain of Im­prisonment. That if any defended their Sentences of Inter­diction, they and their whole Kindred should be banished, and their Chattels confiscated. That Clerks that had Rents [Page 193] in England, and did not return into England to their Rents within three Moneths time, their Rents should be seized in­to the King's hand. That Peter's Pence should not be paid to the See of Rome, but be gathered and disbursed at the King's commandment, &c.

Thus we see matters carried very high, but the heats were still increased, when the Pope, the better to raise Thomas a­bove his adversaries, and humble them, made him Legat o­ver all England, Baron. ad an. 1167. p. 536, &c. excepting only the Province of York, and required by his Mandate de­livered to the Bishop of London, that those who had received by the King's Commandment the Reve­nues of the Church of Canterbury, should within 2 Moneths make restitution, or be anathematized; and that Peter's Pence should be gathered, and delivered to such as he should appoint.

And here it may not be amiss, before I proceed farther, to observe, how much Pride and strange Insolence Thomas ex­pressed in this quarrel; (much of which was the effect of his own temper, but more increased by the Popes forward backing of him, and animating him against his Prince) which appears by his own Letters, and the account others give of him.

In his Letter to the King,Baron. ad an. 1166. p. 524. he speaks with such sawciness, as is unbecoming a Subject, and such silly reasoning, as is unworthy a Divine. ‘Expecting I have expected, that the Lord would look up­on you, and that being converted, you would do Penance, departing from your perverse ways (a humble style for a subject) — Bishops, whatsoever they are, though as Men they do amiss, yet if they fall not from the Faith, they nei­ther can, nor ought to be censured by the secular power. —Who maketh question, but that Christ's Priests are the Masters and Fathers of Kings and Princes, and all the faithful; that it is a point of madness for a Son, or Scho­lar to endeavour to subject his Father or Master to him, and with unjust obligations to reduce him under his rule, [Page 194] by whom he ought to believe that he may be bound and loosed^(*), not only on Earth, but in Heaven also: (a lear­ned argument! as if Alexander had nothing to do to order Aristotle, if he had been a Traytor, because he was his Ma­ster) — "Yield therefore speedily with all humility, and all manner of satisfaction. It is written^(**) that none ought to judge the Priests but the Church, nor doth it belong to Temporal Laws to sentence them. Christian Princes were wont to obey the Orders of the Church, not to advance their power before them, to humble their Heads to the Bishops, not to judge them, &c.’

Ibid. p. 537.And in his Letters to the Bishops of his Pro­vince, he begins thus. ‘Most Beloved Bre­thren, Why rise ye not with me against the Malignants? Why stand ye not with me against the Workers of Ini­quity? — He tells them, that he had enough, and too much forborn the King of England; — That having indeavoured to recall him from his perverse purpose, it was now dangerous and intolerable to leave his, and his Officers great excesses against the Church of God and Ec­clesiastical Persons^(a) unpunished; after Invocation [Page 195] therefore of the Holy Ghost, he condemns and declares void the Customes of Clarendon, and excommunicates all Observers, Counsellors, Assistants, and Defenders of the same, and absolves the Bishops from the promise they had made to observe them, and excommunicates several Per­sons by name, and writes Letters to the Pope, to certifie him what he had done, wherein he complains of the King, that he grew worse and worse, and threatens that he would shortly pronounce against him the sentence of excommu­nication; telling the Pope, We have not yet pronounced our sentence against the King's Person, but are likely to do it, unless he repent, and by what we have done embra­ceth Discipline.’

In his Letters to William Cardinal of Papia, Baron. ad an. 1168. p. 562. (who with Oddo were sent as Legats to com­pose matters) he tells him, ‘That all Mens eyes were upon them, expecting the conclusion of this ne­gotiation, according to which, the insolency of Princes will exalt its horns, or (as it deserves) be suppressed, and would to God, by your coming, it may rather sustain loss than re­cover strength.’

In another to the Pope, he complains of the Bishops, Ibid. pag. 572. that they gave Horns to the sin­ner, meaning the King.

All which expressions do tell us, that Thomas was a Man after the Pope's own heart, the fittest Instrument he could e­ver meet with by his pride and stubbornness, to carry on his design of bringing the power of the Empire, and the King­domes about him under the slavery of the Papacy. And therefore we need not marvel, that when upon his resigna­tion of his Arch-Bishoprick to the Pope, some of the Cardi­nals were of opinion,Baron. ad an. 1664. pag. 501. that by the Election of ano­ther Bishop the King might be appeased, and Tho­mas otherwise provided for; the Pope rather chose to follow their Counsels, who told him, that if Thomas his cause were maintained, he would be a pattern to others in like case for resisting Princes (a fine design for [Page 196] the pretended Vicar of Christ to drive on) but if he were suf­fered to fall, all other Bishops would fall after him, and none for the future dare to resist the power of wilful Princes, whereby the state of the Catholick Church would stagger, and the Pope's Authority perish.

And now he having given us such an abundant discovery of his own temper, we may the better credit the reports of others concerning him, which I shall now produce.

The Bishops that came on an Embassy to Rome, accuse Thomas before the Pope of immoderation and imprudence,Baron. Ibid. p. 498. and adhering too much to his own Counsels, his disturbing the Tranquillity of the Church, and devotion towards the King.

The Bishops and Clergy of his own Province in their Let­ters, both to him and the Pope, make the like complaints. In those to him they tell him, That they had great hopes,Ibid. p. 541. when they heard that he gave himself to Reading, Prayers and Fasting, &c. That things would tend to a peaceable reconciliation; but their hopes were dashed, when they heard he had sent a commi­nation, wherein, passing by all salutation, he rigorously me­naced Interdiction or Excommunication to be pronounced against him.— ‘They desire him, that setting threatnings aside, he would imbrace patience and humility, that he would commend his cause to the Divine clemency, and himself to the grace and mercy of his Soveraign. They put him in mind of the favours the King had conferred on him; the troubles the Church now groaned under; the possibi­lity, that by his bitter provocations the King might revolt from the Pope; They tell him, they will not say, the King has never offended, but confidently pronounce that he is ready to give satisfaction to his Holiness.’ In their Let­ters to the Pope, they excuse the King, that not out of any Ambitious ends, or designs to oppress the Churches Liberties,Ibid. p. 547. but for making a firm peace, he had searched and produced the Cu­stomes and Dignities of his Kingdom, ‘which had been [Page 197] anciently observed, and quietly submitted to, by Persons Ecclesiastical in the Reigns of former Kings. — If there were any thing contained in them dangerous to his Soul, or ignominious to the Church, he has sacredly promised to Reform the same by the Advice and Counsel of the Church of his Kingdome. That these Contentions had been long since quieted, had it not been for the bitter pro­vocations of the Arch Bishop, who had threatned the King with terrible Letters, unbecoming the Devotion of a Fa­ther, and not savouring at all of the meekness of a Bishop; who had excommunicated some of his Majesties Liege­men and Intimates, the Chief Peers of the Realm, by whom the Counsels and Affairs of the Kingdome were managed, and this without citing them, or hearing their Defence; they instance in the Bishop of Salisbury, whom absent and unconvicted, he had suspended from his Office, which they call a preposterous and disorderly way of proceed­ing, &c.’

3. Let us now see the 3d. thing I mentioned, viz. Mediations for agreement, and what made them un­successful. The many Medi­ations for agreement, and the cause why they were unsuccessful.

In the Year 1165.Baron. ad an. 1165. there went several Messen­gers betwixt the King and the Pope, and they had agreed a Meeting, but Thomas perswaded the Pope not to do it, unless he were present, insinuating to the Pope the King's cunning and subtilty, which he was best acquain­ted with; but the King (knowing the fury of his Spirit) would not consent to a Parlee in his presence, and so the ap­pointment came to nothing.

I mentioned before two Cardinals, William and Oddo, who were sent by the Pope to compose matters betwixt the King and Arch-Bishop.Baron. ad an. 1168. It may be worth the while to take notice of the report they made to the Pope, after they had examined matters. They tell him, that they found the Controversie betwixt theIbid. p. 568. King and Thomas aggravated to a greater height [Page 198] than they could have wished. That the King, and better part of his Followers affirmed, they had evident demonstra­tions, that Thomas had incensed the King of France against him, and induced his Cosin, the Earl of Flanders, to fall out with him, and raise the most powerful War he could against him. That the King offered, that if any Customes were added in his time, contrary to the Ecclesiastical Laws, he would submit them to his Holiness, at his pleasure to be cancelled.

That they had appointed a Conference, and he somewhile put it off, and at last would meet in no place, but where him­self appointed. That when he came at last to a Conference, and they exhorted him to behave himself humbly to the King, who had been his singular Benefactor, he answered, that he had sufficiently humbled himself to the King, saving his honour to God, the Liberty of the Church, the reputa­tion of his own Person, the possessions of the Churches, and saving the justice due to him and his.— We demanded wh [...]ther he would submit himself to our judgment, as the King and Bishops had before promised they would do; to which he replyed, that he had received no command from you to that purpose, but if he and his might first be restored, he would then proceed herein, according as he should be commanded by the Apostolick Sea; and so (say they) the Conference ended, since his words neither tended to judg­ment nor agreement, neither would he by any means enter into the matter; and we by your Authority absolutely for­bad the Arch-Bishop (in regard he was restrained by your Letters, and because they solemnly appealed) that he should not attempt any thing to the grievance of the Kingdome, Persons or Churches of the Realm.

But we have a far better account from Oddo, concerning the King, Ibid. pag. 579. of his inclinations to peace, and conde­scentions in order to it. For when this Cardinal before he departed, seriously dealt with the King, that he would be reconciled to the Arch-Bishop; The King answered him, That for the love he bore to the Pope and [Page 199] Cardinals, he would permit the Arch-Bishop to return to his See in peace, and dispose of his Church, and what belonged to it: and because there had been long contests about the Customes, he said that he and his Children would be content­ed with those, which it should be made apparent his Ance­stors enjoyed, by the Oaths of 100 English-men, a 100 Nor­mans, and 100 Persons of Anjou, and other Places belong­ing to him: That if this condition displeased the Arch-Bishop, he said he was ready to stand to the Arbitration both of the Bishops of England, and those Beyond-Sea, viz. of Roan, Bayon, and Cenoman. And if this did not suffice, he would submit to the judgment of the Pope, with this reser­vation, that he would not impeach his Childrens right, for during his own life he was contented, the Pope should abro­gate what he pleased. That he being farther asked what restitution he would make to the Arch-Bishop and his Adhe­rents, which was due and required of him; his answer was (swearing with many and exquisite Oaths) that what he had received, he had bestowed it onely on the Churches, and the Poor.

The same Year the King of France interposed as a Media­tor,Ibid. pag. 585. and procures a conference betwixt the King and Thomas in his Presence. Where Thomas fell down at the King's Feet, saying, I commit the whole cause, whence the difference has risen between us, to your discretion, saving the honour of God: Which last words the King was offended with, and said to the King of France, ‘Mark, my Lord, this Man, whatsoever shall dis­please him, he will say it is contrary to the honor of God, whereby he will challenge not only his own, but what be­longs to me; but that it may appear that I oppose neither God's honour, nor his, I make this offer. There have been many Kings of England before me, of greater or lesser Authority than my self; and there have been before him, many great and holy men Arch-Bishops of Canter­bury; whatsoever the more eminent and vertuous of his Predecessors, have done to the least of my Predecessors, [Page 200] let him do to me, and I shall rest satisfied.’ Whereupon fol­lowed an acclamation on all sides; The King has sufficient­ly humbled himself. The King of France added; My Lord Arch-Bishop, will you be greater than holy men, Will you be better than Peter? What Question make you? (for he remained a while silent) Lo peace is even at the Door. The Peers of both Kingdomes were so little satisfied with the return he made, that they were all against him; and im­puted the want of peace to his arrogance; one Earl openly protesting, that since the Arch-Bishop resisted the Counsel and determination of both Kingdomes, he was not worthy hereafter of the assistance of either; so both Kings took Horse without saluting the Arch-Bishop; and the Courtiers that were Mediators for peace, at their departure charged him to his face, that he was ever proud, high-minded, wise in his own eyes, a follower of his own will and opinion; adding, that it was a great mischief & damage to the Church, that he was ever made a Governor of it.

Baron. al an. 1169.The next Year the Pope sent two other Nuncio's, Gratian and Vivian, upon the same pretences of making peace and agreement. (That is, to try a­gain whether the King would be brought to condescend to part with his ancient Rights, for if you observe it, there is no dispute all along whether they had been his Rights or no, but the Pope and Thomas would either perswade or threaten him out of them, and on their part offer nothing at all to­wards peace upon any other termes.) These two had an ample Commission to exercise Ecclesiastical severity on the King himself, or Kingdome, or any part of the Realm, as should be expedient for the Church. They had a conference with the King, from which he went very angry, griev­ously complaining of the Pope, p. 591. that he would not yield to him in any thing, and swore that he would take another course. To whom Gratian replied; Threaten not, my Lord, for we fear no threats, for we belong to such a Court, which hath been accustomed to rule over Emperours and Kings. Many Conferences they had, but all came to [Page 201] nothing, for the Nuncio's would not admit this clause, (which he would have inserted in the agreement) saving the dignity of his Kingdome, and the King would not agree without it. And now the Pope begins to thunder and light­en.p. 598. For this Year he denounces the Sentence of Excommunication against all such as received In­vestitures, or any Ecclesiastical Benefices from the hands of Laymen, unless within 40 Days they resigned such Benefices and the Profits of them, into their hands to whom they did appertain: And by two other Nuncio's, Simon Prior of Gods-Mount, and Bernard de Corilo, he sends his Commina­tory Letters, telling him that he resolves no longer to tole­rate the hardness of his heart against justice, and the Pope's safety, nor to shut up any longer the mouth of the A. Bishop, but freely permit him to execute his Office, and with the Sword of Ecclesiastical Severity, to revenge the injuries of­fered himself and his Church. This Embassy came also to nothing, because Thomas still used the old reservations of The Honour of God, and Saving his Order, and the King stood upon it, to have him observe, what his Predecessors had paid to former Kings.

The next Year was the last of the Pope's Treating about Thomas with the King; Baron. ad an. 1170. p. 606. if I may call it Treat­ing, and not rather sending commands to him, by the Arch-Bishop of Roan, the Bishop of Nivers, and the Bishop of Senon, his three Legats. The demands they were to make were such as these. That Tho­mas should return to his Church, and receive back all the Possessions taken away from it; that those that had been exiled for his sake, should be restored to their own; that the King should grant Thomas a full peace in a holy Kiss; and should abolish the wicked Customes, contrary to the Churches Liberty, &c. which things were to be performed in Forty Days time, and if within that time matters were not agreed, they should presently interdict the Province on this side the Seas, where the King then remained.

But while these things were transacting, another angry [Page 202] difference arose. For the King declaring that he would have his Son crowned in his life-time, and that it should be perfor­med in Thomas his absence by the Arch-Bishop of York; the Pope sent Letters to that Arch-Bishop, and to the rest of the Bishops, requiring them, upon the peril of losing their Office and Order, not to Crown or Anoint him, while Tho­mas was in Exile; because that Office only belonged to the See of Canterbury. Thomas also writ over his Letters for­bidding the same. Upon which the King was so moved, that he caused the Bishops to take an Oath, not to obey the Con­stitutions of the Pope and Arch-Bishop, forbidding the same. Thus the young King was crowned by the Arch-Bishop of York, other Bishops assisting him; and presently after, the said Arch-Bishop and the rest, were by the Pope suspended from the execution of their Episcopal Function; and the Pope sent threatning Letters to the King to tell him, that if the Peace betwixt him and Thomas was not concluded in the prefixed time,Baron. ibid. p. 614. he must then ex­pect the same sentence, which he had pronoun­ced against Frederick the Emperour: which so startled him, that he promised his Legate to perform what the Pope com­manded. But before the Treaty began with the Legats, Thomas rarely prepared them how to proceed with the King. Baron. ib. p. 615. He tells them, ‘that they could not ea­sily discover the manifold deceipts of that pro­digy, and therefore whatsoever the King says, whatsoever shape he puts on, they ought to suspect all as full of deceipt, unless approved by his deeds: for if he perceive that he can corrupt you with promises, or terri­fie you with threats, he will scorn and contemn you; but if he see that he cannot bend you from your purpose, he will counterfeit fury; first he will swear, then forswear, and change shapes as Proteus did, and at last come to him­self; and then unless it be your fault, thenceforward you shall always be a God to Pharaoh.’

And now the Conference begins with the Legats, who brought Thomas along with them; and after many debates, [Page 203] the King with a pleasing Countenance granted Thomas his peace, patiently heard his reproofs, not insisting upon the Customes. And Thomas himself says, that when he alighted from his Horse to humble himself at the King's feet, he catching the Stirrup^(*) of Thomas his Horse, inforced him to get up again. He also wrote into England to the young King concerning the peace, and required him to restore Tho­mas, and those that belonged to him to all their Possessions.

And now before I come to the last par­ticular,A short account of the Progress of the Pope's power. concerning the Death of Thomas, I shall a little stop the Reader so long, till I make a short reflexion upon the Insolency of this pretended Head of the Church; so I may well call this Pope, because such a power over Kings and Emperours as he challenged and exercised, was in it self plainly an Usur­pation, having not the least countenance from Christ's ex­ample (whose Vicar he pretends to be) who always refused worldly Rule when it was offered him, but never once re­sisted the Rulers of the World; nor from any grant of his to S. Peter, or any of his Successors, establishing any Tem­poral Monarchy in the Church. But besides this, I add far­ther, that this Rowland (call'd Alexander III.) who was the abetter of Thomas in resisting his lawful Soveraign, was himself an Ʋsurper of the Popedome, and that Octavian (call'd Victor) was the right Pope. For it was decreed by the Roman Council under Adrian I.Decret. part. 1. distinc. 63. cap. Hadrianus. An. Do. 774. that Charles should have pow­er to choose the Pope, and order the A­postolick See, and that Arch-Bishops and Bishops should re­ceive investiture from him.Decret. Ibid. ca. 23. in Synodo. Which thing was also, after Adrian's example, afterwards con­firmed to the Emperour Otho, and to his Suc­cessors [Page 204] for ever, in another Roman Synod by Pope Leo VIII. Now according to this Rule of their own Canon Law, the Emperour, together with a Council held at Papia (an. 1160) did declare Victor to be Pope, against Alexander, who pre­tended to it. Yet this Intruder is he, who claims a Juris­diction over our King,Baron. ad an. 1160. and exempts the Clergy from his known Laws and Customes of his Realm, and whose Legat (as you heard) told him, that they belonged to such a Court, as was accustomed to rule over Emperours and Kings. But a Legat of his Prede­cessor, (if it was not Rowland himself, for he was one of the Legates) had like to have lost his Life for asking this saucy Question, From whom had Frederick the Empire, if not from our Lord the Pope? Baron. Annal. ad an. 1157. For Count Otto had dis­patcht him with his Sword for this insolence, if the Emperour had not interposed; and when the Pope himself had told him of the benefits bestowed on him, having conferred on him the fulness of Dignity and Honour, and the Imperial Crown; Frederick in his Letters answers, that the Empire was his from God alone, by the Ele­ction of Princes, and it was a lye, to say that his Crown was a Benefit or Donation from the Pope. The Pope's return was very sneaking,Baron. ad an. 1158. p. 408. and not like one accustomed to rule over Emperours, for he tells him, that by Beneficium, he meant not feudum but bonum fa­ctum, and that the word contulimus (which he had used con­cerning his Crown) signified no more than imposuimus; plainly granting that he could not challenge the right of ma­king him Emperour, nor that he held the Empire in Fee of him: When the same Pope also a while after, quarrelled with him,Baron. ad an. 1159. p. 412. for not giving due reverence to S. Peter, and the holy Church of Rome, because, for­sooth, the Emperour in his Letters had set his own Name before the Pope's, which he interpreted as a piece of insolence, if not arrogance: The Emperour defends him­self, and asks him, ‘Whether Pope Silvester in Constan­tine's time, was noted for having any Regalities? "Indeed, [Page 205] says he, by his pious grants, Liberty and Peace was resto­red to the Church: but whatsoever your Papacy has, it obtained it by the Donation of Princes.’ And indeed we may know by the Language of the Popes of old, that the Emperours, not they, were the Rulers. If your piety will vouchsafe to yield to our suggestion and supplication, was the style of Pope Leo I. to Theodosius. Leo I. Epist. 9. inter Labbei Concil. Tom. 3. p. 1304. an. do. 449. Nei­ther did Gregory the Great hector Mau­ritius, though he had made a Law which he did not like, (against receiving Soul­diers into Monasteries,Gregor. 1. Epist. 62. Lib. 2. in Tom. 5. Con­cil. Labbe. p. 1133. till they were dis­charged from the Wars) and command­ed the Pope to publish it; his Letter runs thus. As for me who speak these things to my Lords, what am I but dust and a worm — He is guilty before Al­mighty God, who is not pure in all that he says or does to the Most Serene Lords, (i.e. the Emperours) he calls himself, the unworthy Servant of his Piety; after this, he tells him that he did not look upon this Law as agreeable to the will of Almighty God, yet, says he, I being subject to command, have conveyed it through several parts of the Earth; both ways therefore I have done my duty, having both yielded obe­dience to the Emperour, and also on Gods behalf I have decla­red my opinion. The style of Pope Adrian I. also is far from commanding,Epistola insertae Concil. Nicen 2. Act. 2. vid. Con­cil. Labbe. Tom. 7. p. 115. when in his Letters to Constantine and Irene, he pleads for the restoring of Images. I offer to Your Serene Majesties the Testimonies of the Scriptures and Fathers with all humility. Beseeching your clemency with a great fervour of mind, as present upon my bended Knees, [...]. and rolling my self at your footsteps, I intreat you, &c. [Whence, by the way, I suppose we may safely conclude that the Ceremony of kissing the Pope's feet by Kings and Emperours, was not yet come into fashion; a practice derived from that Monster of Men Caligula, who, as Seneca tells us, when he gave Pompeius Pennus his Life, [Page 206] stretched out to him his left foot to kiss; against which that Philosopher so severely declames, for changing thus the man­ners of a free City, into a Persian slavery.Senec. de benefic. l. 2. c. 12. Invenit aliquid infra genu [...] quo libertatem detruderet, non hoc est civitatem cal­care? But our Thomas his Ma­ster, Alexander III. was not at all shy to receive the honour, nor a­fraid of the Blasphemy that once attended it: For Baronius relates, that when he came to Mompelier, a Prince of the Saracens coming before him, kissed his feet; and kneeling down and bowing his head,Baron. ad an. 1162. p. 465. adored the Pope, as the Holy and Pious God of the Christians; they that stood by and saw this, wondered greatly, and they re­peated among themselves that of the Prophet, All the Kings of the Earth shall worship him, and all Nations shall serve him.] My last instance shall be in Pope Agatho, who being required by the Emperour to send three choice Persons to the Synod of Constantinople: Concil. Constantinop. 3. Act. 4. Epist. 1. Concil. Labbe. Tom. 6. p. 634, 635. The Pope answers thus, According to the most pious Command of your A deo protegendae mansuetudinis vestrae. Man­suetude to be protected of God, accor­ding to the obedience we owe, with hum­ble devotion of heart, we have taken care, &c. Afterwards in the same Epistle, This, your The Latine I am for­ced to put in the Margin, that every one may tran­slate it better for himself. Hoc Imperialis vestra benig­ [...]tas, clementer jubens hor­tata est, & nostra pufillitas quod jussum est obsequenter implevit. Imperial be­nignity has exhorted me to by your mild command, and our smalness has obediently fulfilled your command. Alas poor Men! they little dream'd, while they spoke thus humbly, of any such Superiority over the Mo­narchs of the Earth, as their Suc­cessors have since claimed; they talk'd, as if they borrowed all their power; and therefore often desire Emperours to command a Council to be called in such a place, or to do such kindnesses for them: this lowly courting of their fa­vour plainly argues, that if the comparison of the two [Page 207] Luminaries had been made in their days, they could have been contented with the place of the Moon in the Firma­ment, and not with Innocent the III.Decret. l. 1. tit. 33. c. 6., have asserted them­selves to be the Greater Light of the two. How undeservedly alas! did Gregory and Leo (the first of each Name) bear the Title of Great: Let it rather be given to our Alexander; who bravely trod upon the Neck of Frederick at Venice (what­soever Baronius pleads to the contraryBaron. ad an. 1177. p. 704., when so many good Authors attest it) adding those words of the Psalm, Super aspidem & basiliscum, &c. Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder, the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou trample under Feet: Ps. 91.13. Give it to Coelestine I who sitting in his Pontifical Chair, and holding the Impe­rial Crown between his Feet,Baron. ad an. 1191. p. 810. the Emperour bending down his Head, received the Crown from the Feet of this Pope; who immediately kicked it off with his Foot, and cast it to the ground; here­by giving him to understand, (as Baronius adds) that the Pope could at his pleasure give, keep, preserve, or take a­way the Empire, if he saw cause: and if the gloss upon the Canon speak his sence,Gloss. in Decret. distinc. 40. cap. 6. si papa. a small cause will serve the turn to lay him aside: For asking this Question: For what fault may an Emperour be deposed? The answer is, For any, if he be incorrigible, and therefore he may be deposed, if he be less pro­fitable. The World you see is finely mended with these Men; and such poor Kings as ours, must not take it ill, if now they be called the Pope's Vassals and SlavesM. Paris ad an. 1253. p. 872. None Rex Anglo­rum noster est Vassallus, & ut plus dicam mancipium?, and be used so; be whipt and beaten for their faults, as we shall see our K. Henry was. If any of them should be so hardy, as not to tremble at his terrible sentence of Excommu­nication, he has other ways to humble them; (unknown to the former Popes I mentioned) for every King ought to [Page 208] think it honourable to be his Executioner; and though his own Ambition do not tempt him, nor any injuries against himself provoke him, to invade the Dominions of his neigh­bour Prince; yet the Pope can oblige him to it, as Innocent the III. did Philip of France, to expell K. John out of his Kingdome, by bidding him, In remissionem suorum peccami­num hunc laborem assumere, as M. Paris tells us, Ʋndertake it for the remission of his sins. M. Paris ad an. 1212. pag. 232. [A pretty way, by committing new sins, to get pardon for his old ones] And we need not wonder at any of these things; for Erasmus tells us in his days, these were Moot Paints, and disputed Pro & Con in the Schools; ‘Whether the Pope could abrogate that,Eras. Annot. N. Test. in 1 Tim. 1. v. 6. which was decreed by the Apostles wri­tings, or determine that which was con­trary to the Evangelical Doctrine, or make a new Article in the Creed. Whether he has greater power than S. Pe­ter, or only equal. Whether he can command Angels. Whether he can wholly take away Purgatory. Whether he be a meer Man, or as God, participates both Natures with Christ: Whether he be not more merciful than Christ was, since we do not read that he ever recalled any from the pains of Purgatory, &c.’ He spake this sence very plainly, who called the Pope the Worlds wonder Cited in the gloss upon the Proemium of the Clementines.; and added, ‘Nec Deus es nec homo, sed Neuter es inter utrumque,’

That is,

It may be some may look upon much of this I have now said, as the flattering expressions only of foolish Parasites; who always fawn upon those that have got Power into [Page 209] their hands; like that profane interpretation a Jesuite gives of our Saviour's words,Silvester Petra Sancta adv. Molinei Epist. cap. 8. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, &c. The Church, says he, has studiously preserved God's Kingdom, and it has fallen out happily, that she has found that Oracle verified, Seek ye first, &c. and all these things shall be added unto you. For God has also bestowed upon her the Kingdomes of the World. But, believe it, the Popes have given sufficient occasion for them, if we consider either what they challenge to themselves, when they show the greatest respect to Princes; or the Ce­remonies of state and honour, which by setled practice is u­sed towards themselves. One of the greatest respects they show to Princes, is the presenting them with a consecrated Sword: which when it is done, by Pope Sixtus the IV. th's order, these words are said: This pontifical Sword denotes the highest temporal power, Sacrar. Ceremoniar. lib. 1. sec. 7. f. 36. conferred by Christ upon the Pope his Vicar on Earth; according to that, All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth; and in another place, He shall reign from Sea to Sea, and from the River to the ends of the Earth. The Ceremonies also of the Popes state, are such as plainly speak the same. ‘When the Pope makes a Feast, if a King be present,Sacr. Ceremon. lib. 1. f. 19. he sits at the Table below the First Cardinal Bishop. The Emperour or King bring in Water to wash the Pope's hands.Ibid. f. 20. The most noble Prince carries the first Dish, whether he be the Emperour, or a King.f. 22. When the Emperour comes to Rome to be crowned, as soon as he comes in sight of the Pope, uncovering his Head, he venerates him, his Knee touching the ground; when he approaches farther to the steps of his Seat, he bends the Knee; and after this he comes to the Pope's feet, and devoutly kisses them in re­verence to our Saviour: the Pope chearfully looking up­on the Emperour, receives Him to kiss his Hand and Mouth. Then the Emperour again bending the Knee of­fers [Page 210] a Summe of Gold, at the Pope's Feet. An Empress is admitted to kiss his Feet and Hand; a King to kiss his Hand and Mouth; all other Prelates and Nobles belong­ing to the Emperour to kiss his Foot only.’ (Quite con­trary to what was practised of old, for when Charles was crowned by Leo III. Baronius acknowledges that the Pope met him at Numentum, and there received him with great veneration: but several other Historians tell us, that Leo crowned and adored Charles the Great. Ʋspergensis, Trithemius, &c. ad an. 801.) ‘The Pope gives reverence to no Mortal Man, by manifest rising up from his Seat, or by bowing his Head, or uncovering it: indeed, after he has received the Roman Emperour to the kiss of his Foot and Hand sitting,Sacr. Cerem. l. 3. sec. 1. cap. 2. he rises a little, receiving him graciously to the kiss of his Mouth, with a mutual embrace of charity: and he does sometimes the same to great Kings; but all other Princes and Prelates, he receives them to kiss his Mouth, not rising up, but sitting.’

‘When the Pope is going to be crowned, the Lay-person that is the most Noble,Sacr. Cerem. l. 1. sec. 2. f. 12. though it be the Emperour, or a King, carries up the train of his Garment. (Pluvialis) After this, when he goes the Procession, and gets on Horseback, the Chief Prince that is present,Ibid. fol. 17. though he be King or Emperour, holds the Stirrup of the Pope's Horse, and leads his Horse by the Bridle a little way. If there be two Kings present, the greater holds the Bridle on the right side, the Lesser on the left. But if the Pope does not go on Horseback, but in a Chair, four of the chiefest Princes, although the Emperour be among them, ought to carry the Chair, with the Pope in it, a little way, in honour of our Saviour Jesus Christ.’ This stale pretence of the Honour of Christ (which our Thomas wore thread-bare) is extreamly absurd here, and it had been more agreeable to have said, in contempt of him: For the Ceremonial tells us a little before, that in this Pro­cession, [Page 211] the Sacrament is carried up­on a white Horse,Ibid. f. 16. Ducitur per familiarem Sacristae equtu albus, mansuetus, ornatus, portans Sacramentum, ha­bens ad collum tintinnabu­lum benè tinniens. having at his Neck a well founding Bell, which Horse is led by a Servant of the Sacrist. If this be done in honor of our Saviour, Why does not the Emperour or King rather lead that Horse by the Bridle, upon which (according to their opini­on) our Saviour himself sits? A Servant of the Pope's Ser­vant leads this Horse, and Emperours must lead the Popes; nay, upon the shoulders of Kings he must be carried, when Christ can have only a Beast to carry him: This is well contrived for the Honour of Christ, and is just such honour as was done him by their S. Lewes the French King; Vid. Mart [...]rolog. Franciscan. ad 25 Aug. p. 372. who was contented to leave the Eu­charist (that is, his Saviour) with the Sultan for a pledge, till he redeemed it, by paying his ransome; according to those Verses of the Epigram.

That is,

And as ridiculously altogether does that humility look, which the Pope affects, in all the state of his Coronation. For when the Pope comes to the Lateran Church, he is led to the Marble Seat,Ibid. fol. 17. before the Principal Gate on the left hand, which Seat is called Stercoraria ^*, [Page 212] there they make the Pope sit down, or rather he sits in a ly­ing posture; then the Cardinals approaching honourably, raise him up, saying, He raiseth the poor out of the Dust, and the needy from the Dunghill, that he may sit with Princes, &c. The Pope also takes a handful of Money (it must be all brass Coine, by reason of what follows) and he throws it among the People, saying, Silver and Gold have I none, but such as I have give I to thee. Which last, is the most profane and lewd personating an Apostle imaginable, by him that has much Money as every one knows, but can work no Miracles, as he did that spoke those words.

Thus I have represented the slavish Homage, usurped Power, and insolent State, the Later Popes have challenged, which Thomas did so stifly maintain, and our King Henry for a time resist, though not with that success the cause deserved. I will only, for a Conclusion of this Digression, show, that what the King contested in the case of Appeals, Homage, Investitures, Collation of Benefices, and the like, was but the same that other Kings before and after him did, who had due care to secure their own and their Subjects good, by oppo­sing the unjust Oppressions of the Roman See.

Gregory the VII. was the first great troubler of the Chri­stian World, by a new sort of Excommunications, in which he pretended to deprive Henry IV. of all Imperial admini­stration, and to absolve his Subjects from that Oath, Qu [...] fidem veris regibus praestare consueverunt, Vid. Platinam in vit. Greg. 7. (as Platina speaks) whereby they used to assure their fidelity and allegiance to true Kings: As if when he had pronounced his words of Excommunica­tion, all Kingship miraculously vanished, just as the Elements do, after the words of Consecration; well might he that thus practised upon Kings, say (what M. Paris tells us he confessed to his Cardinals when he came to dye) that he had grievously sinned in his Pa­storal Charge,M. Paris ad an. 1086. p. 13. and by the instigation of the Devil, had raised the anger and hatred of God against Man­kind. This Pope demanded Fealty of William the Conque­rour, [Page 213] and the Moneys that were used to be paid to the Pope. K. William granted the Moneys, but the Homage he perem­prorily denyed. Fidelitatem facere nolui nec volo. Fealty he neither had nor would grant him,Inter Epistolas Lanfranc. in Biblioth. Cotton. because, says he, ‘I neither promised it my self, nor do I find that my Predecessors have done that to your Predecessors;’ The mo­ney he speaks of, is no doubt, that which was called Peter's pence, and was a voluntary gift, not any sign of Homage, and therefore Hoveden sayes ex­presly,Denatius hic Eleemosyna Regis est. Hoveden. Annal. part. 2 in Hen. 2. pag. 343. This Penny is the King's Almes. And M. Paris tells us that KOffa gave it, to maintain a School of English-men that flourished at Rome M. Paris, in vit. Offae 2. p. 29., and to encourage those that came thither. In the Contro­versie, after this, betwixt Anselme and K. Rufus, about appeals to the Pope, the King was angry at the mention of the Pope's name, and told him that no Arch-Bishop or Bishop of his King­dom was subject to the Roman Court or Pope. Matth. Paris ad an. 1094. p. 19. And urged this, that he had all the Liber­ties in his Kingdom, which the Em­perour challenged in the Empire, Quòd ipse omnes libertates haberet in regno suo, quas Imperator vendicabat in imperio. Ibid. and mentions it as a known case, that the Emperour had power to nominate whom he pleased to be Pope; and therefore Anselme was accused by him as a Traytor for seek­ing to appeal to him, to which, says Paris, most of the Bi­shops agreed. He that has a mind to see this Contro­versie about Homage, menaged betwixt the Pope and the French, may consult Marca de Concord. Sacerdotii & Impe­rii, lib. 6. cap. 33. Especially the Contentions betwixt Boni­face the VIII. and Philip the Fair. But that which he (I suppose) durst not mention concerning that King, but is told us by many others, shows with what scorn the Propositions of owning the Pope's Soveraignty were entertained by him. For when Boniface told him in his Letter, that he was sub­ject [Page 214] to him in Spirituals and Temporals, that the Collation of Benefices and Prebends did not belong to him nor their pro­fits in their vacancy, and that whosoever thought otherwise he reputed them Fools, &c. The King's answer to this was very smart,Sciat tua Maxima Ea­tuitas, in temporalibus nos alicui non subesse. Apud Nich. Gillium in Philip. Pulchr. citat. à plurimis scriptor. v. Catalog. T [...]st. verit. p. 1687. which begins thus. Let your Great Foolishness (instead of Holiness) know, that in Temporal matters we are subject to none: and goes on to tell him, that the Colla­tion of Benefices, and their profits in their vacancy did belong to him, and those that were of another mind he accounted Fatuos & Dementes, Fools and Madmen.

It would be too long, to discourse farther about Collation of Benefices, and Reservations of Prebends, which the Pope used to bestow upon strangers. How France complained of them to Lewes IX. and how thereupon he restored to the Bishops their Canonical Right, and prohibited the exacti­ons herein of the Roman Court, the Reader may consult the Learned Marca, de Concord. Sac. & Imp. l. 4. cap. 9. who adds, ‘To this most glorious King is owing the first resti­tution of Liberty^*, which by his Edict after the change of Discipline in the Collation of Benefices, he procured in the Year 1268. under which one head were contained al­most all the Contentions between the Bishops and the Ro­man Court.’ In this Author you may see the Constitu­tion of Charles VII. and other Kings, against all strangers, having any Benefices in France. See also Lib. 4. Cap. 12. Sec. 5, 6.

As for England, I refer the Reader to that remarkable Epistle of Rob. Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, in Math. Paris, ad An. 1253. pag. 870. where you find him vehemently op­posing the Pope in his Claim of Conferring Benefices.

I'le only add, that this Bishop (as the same Author informs [Page 215] us) made up an exact and punctual Ac­compt of the profits that strangers carri­ed away by these grants of the Pope, Math. Paris ad an. 1152. p. 859. and it was found that the Summ came to above 70 Thousand Marks, and that the meer Revenue of the King by compu­tation did not arise to the Third part of it.

But it is more than time to come to the Fourth and Last Head.

4. Concerning Thomas his Death.4. The Death of Thomas. We left all things in appearance fairly agreed betwixt the King and Him, and promising peace: but all was quickly disturbed by new Quarrels; For the Pope upon the desire of Thomas, sends Letters to suspend the Arch-Bishop of York, and to excommunicate the rest that had a hand in the Young King's Coronation, as also such as de­taining the possessions of the Church, would not restore them, unless within Fifteen Days they made full satisfaction; which Letters he sent over before him.

And now Thomas went over into England, Baron. Ibid. p. 623. and when he came to Canterbury, the King's Officers came and demanded in his Name to take off from the Bishops their excommunication (for it's altogether an unlikely story which Thomas told them, that what he did, was done Ipsius Regis consilio & voluntate, by his counsel and will,Ibid. p. 621. when he had employed them to Crown his Son.) This Thomas refused to do, unless they would take an Oath to obey the Commandments of the Pope; which they would not submit to, saying that such an Oath was not to be taken without the King's consent, because it was contrary to the Princes Dignity, and the Customes of the Kingdom.

Thus they parted, and the Bishops went over Sea to the King to acquaint him herewith. [These are Saint-like qua­lities indeed, for one that had suffered 7 Years banishment, to have learnt no better to temper his passions by his af­flictions, but immediately to seek his private revenge, after his peaceable restitution to his Church; for M. Paris tells [Page 216] us,M. Paris ad an. 1171. p. 124. that even upon Christmas day, after he had preached to the People, he solemnly ex­communicated one Robert Broc, who had cut off the Tayl of one of his Horses that carried his provisi­ons.] The King, upon hearing these complaints, was so incensed, that he broke out into passionate words, expressing his wonder, that none did revenge him of one Priest, who so disturbed his Person and Kingdom, and sought to deprive and disinherit him of his dignities: Which speeches be­ing heard by Four Knights (Will. Tracy, Hugh Morvill, Richard Breton, and Reginald Fitz-Ʋrse) they interpret­ing his words in the worst sence, presently posted over into England, and slew Thomas in his own Church, whose dying words were these: I commend to God, our Bl. Lady, with the Saints Patrons of this Church and S. Denis, my self and the Cause of the Church. Though the King seemed to give occasion to his Murder by his speeches, yet he protested, as Almighty God should judg his Soul, that it was neither acted by his will or consent, nor wrought by any devising of his, and humbly submitted to any penance the Church should enjoyn him. The condition of the King's Absolu­tion was, the granting away all that he contended for all this while,Baron. ad an. 1172. p. 636. and giving the Pope more power in England than he had before: For these were the termes. To maintain 200 Knights in the Holy Land, for a whole Year, giving each Knight 300 Crowns. To abolish the Statutes of Clarendon. To restore to the Church of Canterbury, and to all Thomas his friends, all their possessions. And if the Pope required it, to go in­to Spain to free that Land from the Pagans; to all which he agreed, and both he and his Son swore to the Legates. But besides all this, he crossed into England, and underwent such a penance at Thomas his Tomb,Baron. ad an. 1174. p. 652. after his Canonization, as became no King to undergo, nor any thing, but the insolency of Monks to inflict. For as soon as he came within sight of the Cathe­dral, where he was buried, stripping himself naked, save on­ly [Page 217] that he had one sorry Coat on, he went his pilgrimage bare-foot in the sight of all the people, through the dirty ways and streets; and continued all that Day, and the Night following watching and fasting at Thomas's Tomb: Then the Convent being called the next Day together, he received more than double the stripes that S. Paul did from the Jews; for he received upon his naked Body Eighty Three Lashes from the Monks, and beside was Five times slasht by the Bishops that were present^*:Quinquies ab Episcopis caesus. and returned bare-foot the Day following, without receiving any sustenance.

Thus we have given an account of this Canonized Prelate; the summ of whose Merits living and dying was this, That he zealously asserted the Liberties of the Church; But if you ask farther what those Liberties were; we shall find them to be much of the same nature with those Liberties that the Pope challenges for himself in the Decretal. Decret. 1 Part. distinc. 40. c. 6. Si papa sua. If the Pope be negligent of his own or others salvation—though he lead innumerable peo­ple by droves with him to hell, yet no mortal man presumes to reprehend his faults; because he is the Judg of all men, and to be judged of none, unless he be found to de­viate from the Faith. These are Liberties, which no old Saints I am sure ever contended for; but you see the Pope has enlarged the Charter to the Saints of his own making; and one of his greatest Champions has made all sure, when he tells us;Bellarm. l. 4. de Rom. pontif. cap. 5. in fine. If the Pope should erre by enjoyning the practice of Vices, or prohi­biting Vertues, the Church is bound to believe [Page 218] those Vices to be good, and Vertues evil, unless she will sin a­gainst conscience. In this way (and none else that I know of) Thomas may be a Saint, but we must put out our eyes, before we can believe it.

And if we have no evidence of his Saintship, we are then at a loss to understand how he comes to be a Martyr: his being murdered in his own Church will not do it, without the other; for how many greater Persons than he have come to untimely ends, that yet were never put into any Martyrologie? We have no concern to excuse or defend the murdering zeal of private persons, but desire that such practices, as these upon him, may be for ever detested, though designed to never so good an end. But we know there have been Popes, that have excused such practices up­on excommunicated persons (who yet many of them had far more to show for their being Saints, than excommunicating Thomas) witness Pope Ʋrban the II. who in an Epistle,Decret. part. 2. caus. 23. qu. 5. c. 47. says. Non enim eos homici­das arbitramur, &c. We do not think those to be homicides, who burning with zeal towards their Catho­lick Mother, against the Excommunicate, have happened to kill some of them. Let them have the brand of barbarous murderers that killed him, but still I can see nothing of a Martyr in him: The words he used at his death, have more in them, that looks like a confession of his Faith, than hither­to I remember to have met with in his story; but this com­mending of himself to the Patron Saints of Canterbury Church, to the Virgin Mary, and S. Denis, tell us how he was abused by superstition, more than that he had a true un­derstanding of Religion. I think, considering his former behaviour to his Prince, such a confession would have bet­ter fitted his Mouth, as Radolphus made when he was a dy­ing, who lifting up his wounded hand, spake thus to those about him.^(*) With this hand I swore to my Lord Henry [Page 219] (the Emperour) that I would not hurt him, Helmoldus Chron. Sclavon. nor lay trains against his honour, but the Popes commands brought me to this, that violating my Oath, I usurped undue honours to my self; and so presently dyed. If Thomas had expressed more of such like peni­tence, and less confidence, he would have looked more Mar­tyr-like, unless he had suffered in a better cause; but all things considered, I think it would not be more profane or ridiculous, for a Man to pray, that he might ride to Heaven upon Father Garnet's fabulous straw, than to pray, to be able to ascend thither by Thomas's blood, which was, as you heard, a piece of their Devotions to him. It is very ob­servable, what Caesarius the Monk, who lived a few Years after his death, has told us,Caesarii Dialog. distinc. 8. c. 69. that after he was slain, there were presently hot disputations concerning him; some saying he was damned, as being a betrayer of the Kingdom; others that he dyed a Martyr, for defending the Church. This question was can­vased, says he, among the Masters at Paris: ‘Master Ro­gerus swore, that he was worthy of death, but not of such a death; judging the constancy of the blessed Man to be contumacy; but Peter Cautor swore on the contrary, that he was a Martyr worthy of God, having been killed for the defence of the Churches Liberty; but, says Caesarius, Christ solved all the doubt, when he glorified him with many and great signs; that is, after his Death, for he says before, that he shone with no Miracles in his persecuti­ons.’ Thus we are referred to Miracles, the last refuge, and surest defence of any desperate cause in this Church; and now let the probabilities be never so great to the con­trary, let the Saintship of a Person, with never so good rea­son be questioned, if the Pope once think fit to make him a subject of peoples veneration, I'le warrant the Monks will fit him with all sorts of wonders to countenance both his canonization, and the peoples devotion. And they were not wanting here in Thomas his case, which come now, for a Conclusion, to be considered.

[Page 220] Concerning the Miracles ascribed to Thomas.A while after his death the World begins to ring with the noise of his Miracles; so that Petrus Blesensis writes,Baron. ad an. 1173. p. 642. that England need not envy the Indies; they had their Thomas the Apostle; we have Thomas the Martyr; he shall suffice me, who has the name of an Apostle, and does imitate him in Miracles, or over­come him. Now we are told, that by his merits God raised the dead, Idem Ibid. p. 644. gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and feet to the lame, cleansed Lepers, healed the infirm, and freed those that were possed with De­vils: but these are common Themes, and it's a hard thing to find any Saint almost in this Church, of whom the same has not been said, when they came to be canonized. I'le present therefore the Reader with some rare and extraordi­nary particulars, which I find are related concerning him, both in his life-time, and after his death, by which he may judge concerning this proof of his Saintship.

Gononi Chronicon SS. Dei parae, p. 177. Thomas, we are told, from his Youth had vowed his chastity to the Bl. Virgin; and being, on a time, among some of his Companions, (before he was Arch-Bishop) he heard them boasting of their Mistresses, and the special presents they had received from them. Thomas told them, that they va­poured foolishly, for he had a Mistress that far excelled all theirs; who had bestowed such a present on him, that they never saw anything like it. All this he intended in a spiri­tual sence; but, they urging vehemently that he would show them what he talked of; he ran to the Church, and prayed the Bl. Virgin to pardon the presumptuous word he had spoken of her. To whom she appeared in a Vision, and incouragingly told him, that he did well to cry up the ex­cellency of his Mistress; and she gave him a very fine and very little Box; which his Companions snatcht out of his hand, and opening, saw something of a purple colour, and taking it out, beheld a wonderfully fine Casula. (a Garment which the Priests wear.) This story came to the Ears of the [Page 221] Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, who sent for Thomas and learnt of him the truth of it, whereupon he secretly determined in his mind to make him his Successor. But this favour of the Virgins in the present of a new Garment, was not so wonderful, as another we are told of, that concerned an old one. For when he was Arch-Bishop, Gonon. Ibid. p. 176. & Wickman's Sabbatismus Marianus. p. 73. he used to wear a Hair-shirt next his skin on Saturdays, (a Day dedicated to the Bl. Virgin) which being rent, Wick­man tells us that the Bl. Virgin held his shirt, whilst he stitched it; but Gononus reports it thus. There was an English Priest, that daily said the Mass of the Bl. Virgin, because he had not skill to say any other; who being accu­sed, was suspended by Thomas from his Office, for his want of skill: Thomas on a time had hidden his Hair-shirt under his Bed, that at a convenient season he might secretly sow it: the Bl. Virgin appeared to the aforesaid Priest, and commanded him to go to Thomas, and tell him, that the Mo­ther of God had granted leave to the Priest, that daily ce­lebrated her Mass, and was suspended, to officiate again; by this token, that she, for whose Love he said Mass, had sowed his Hair-shirt that lay in such a place, and had left the red Hair with which she sowed it. Thomas hearing this, was amazed, and found it so as the Priest related, and gave him power hereupon again to officiate.

Besides, the English Legend in his Life relates, that when he was at Rome, upon a Fasting-day, a Fowl being provided for his Dinner, because no Fish could be bought, the Capon was miraculously turned into a Carp. (rather than the holy Man should break the Orders of the Church.) It may be perhaps a farther strengthning to our Faith in this matter, to observe that the Irish Saints have been very notable at these Conversions. S. Riocc entertained S. Aedus the Bishop, and set a great Supper of Flesh before him:Colganus ad 6 Febr. in vit. S. Riochi. p. 268. But the Bishop would not eat Flesh, but blessing the Meat, it was tur­ned into Bread, and Fish, and Honey. And in the Life of S. [Page 222] Moedoc, we are told, that when S. Molua had killed a fat Calf for to receive him,Colganus, Act. Sanct. Hi­born. ad Jan. 31. p. 221. hearing that S. Moedoc did not eat flesh, he blessed 8 Pieces of Flesh, and they became 8 Fishes; but the Bishop knowing by inspiration how they were made Fishes, he blessed them again, and they were turned again into 8 pieces of flesh: which S. Molua seeing was displeased, for he had no other Fishes in his Monastery; and therefore before them all he blessed them again, and they became 8 Fishes the 2d. time: and here this pretty contest ceased, and for the Honour of S. Molua, he was con­tented to feed upon them, though I warrant you he could have held play with him longer in these changes. But to return to our Thomas. Polydore Virgil has told us a re­markable story how God miraculously vin­dicated Thomas against his Enemies in his life-time.Polyd. Virgil Angl. Histor. lib. 13. ‘For, says he, Thomas being accounted the King's enemy, began to be so contemned, and hated by the common people, that coming to a Town called Strode, the Inhabitants of that place minding to put an affront upon this good despised Father, presumed to cut off his Horses Tayl which he rode upon: but hereby they brought a perpetual reproach upon themselves, for after­wards it so fell out, by the pleasure of God, that all the race of those Men, that committed this fact, were born with Tayles, like brute Beasts. (whence the Proverb comes of Kentish Longtailes.) But this note of infamy is long since worn off, together with that generation of Men that so sinned; (which was cunningly put in, to save the credit of a lewd Fable.)’

These you will say are pretty fair attestations of his Saint­ship, in the way of Miracle, while he lived; but are nothing, to what we are told of the wonders that proclaimed his fame after his death. The first sort, I shall mention, are those that were shown upon his Murderers.

Hoveden. Histor. p. 299. Hoveden tells us that all men shunned their company, and none would eat or [Page 223] drink with them; they cast the fragments of their Meat to the Dogs, and when they had tasted them, they would eat no more of them: so manifest was God's vengeance, that they who contemned the Lord's anointed, were contemned even by Dogs.

S. Antoninus says,Antoninus Hist. Tom. 2. p. 706. that of those who kil­led him, some with their Teeth gnawed off their own Fingers by pieces, others had their Bodies flowing with corrupt matter, others were dissolved by the Palsie, and others miserably dyed of madness: (though any body else, besides this Canoniz'd Historian, would wonder, how these Four sorts of Judgments could destroy above one a piece, when there were but four Men to be destroyed by them.)

As for Thomas himself, if Visions and Revelations, and ly­ing Miracles can do him any kindness, there are good store prest in his service; A little before he returned out of ba­nishment, it was revealed to him,Antoninus Ibid. that a few days after his return he should go to Heaven, by dying a Martyr; and we are told, that while he was pray­ing at the Monastery of Pontinia [...], Harpsfield Hist. Ecel. Angl. p. 334. he heard a voice from Heaven, saying, O Thomas, Thomas, my Church shall be glorified in thy blood. A certain young Man being under an infirmity, his Soul went out of his Body and returned again; and he said that he had been rapt into Heaven, and saw an empty Seat mightily adorned, placed among the Apostles; and when he asked for whom that magnificent Seat was prepared; an Angel answered, it was reserved for a certain great Priest of the English Nation; which was understood of S. Thomas. Heraclius also, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, coming into England, related this Vision.Capgrave in the Life of Thomas, f. 292. ‘A certain Frier was sick to death in a Monastery of the Holy Land, the Abbot desired him to certifie him of his state after death, which he pro­mised, and dyed. A few days after he appeared to the Abbot, and told him that he enjoyed the Vision of God, [Page 224] and that you may not doubt of my happiness, know, sayes he, that when I was carried by Angels into Heaven, there came a great Man with an unspeakably admirable proces­sion following him, of Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles, &c. This Man stood before the Lord as a Mar­tyr, all his Head being torn, and the blood seeming to di­still from the clefts of his wounds. To whom the Lord said: O Thomas, thus it becometh thee to enter into the Court of thy Lord; and added, I will give no less glory to thee, than that I have bestowed on Peter: and the Lord took a mighty Golden Crown and put it upon his wound­ed Head. The Frier added, know for certain, that Tho­mas of Canterbury is slain about this time, mark my words and observe the time: and so he vanished. This the Ab­bot told to the Patriarch, who related it in England.’ As soon as Thomas was slain,Lord Herbert Henry 8. p. 438. the Monks shut their Gates, and perswaded the people that the Bells rung of themselves. Before he was buried, as he lay in the Quire upon the Bier, in the Morning lifting up his right hand,Hoveden Hist. p. 299. he gave his Benediction to the Monks. They made a great stir a­bout the Water of an adjoyning Well, which they said appeared bloody by Miracle:Lord Herbert Ibid. which I suppose is that which the Sarisbury Breviary refers to in their Rithmes,

That is,

[Page 225]As for the Reliques of Thomas, they have done mighty feats; for a Monastery of S. Martin in Arthoise, having got his Rochet, and part of his Hair-shirt, (with his blood sprinkled upon them, so as never to be washed out) his Ring, and some other things; they have upon Record a Catalogue of 67 Miracles wrought by them; nay, some that had visited his famed Reliques at Canterbury, Stapleton de 3 Tho­mis, p. 108, 109. and found no benefit by them, had relief here at this Monastery.

The worst is, that there is some reason, one would think, to question those wonderful relations, (of Miracles wrought by his Reliques) as forgeries▪ since there was so plain a cheat about his Reliques; for the most sacred of them was so ap­parently. A piece of his Crown that was pared off by his Murderers, was pretended to be kept as a Relique in the Church of Canterbury in one place, and Erasmus says that the whole face of Thomas being set in Gold,Colloq. Peregrin. religionis ergo. was kept in a Chappel behind the high Al­tar, and they told him that the rest of his bo­dy lay in his shrine; but when Henry VIII. caused his shrine to be defaced, they found an intire body compleat within the same, says Lambert, Lambert peramb. of Kent. p. 248. as some alive then pre­sent can testifie. But be that how it will, we are come to this fine pass at last, that Caesarius has pleaded, that even the pretended, but false Re­liques of this Saint can work Miracles.Caesarius Dialog. dist. 8. c. 70. ‘For, says he, a certain Souldier, a great lo­ver of Thomas, was inquiring every where how he might get any of his Reliques; which a crafty Priest hearing, at whose house he sojourned, said to him; I have by me a Bridle which S. Thomas long used; which the Souldier hearing, gave him the Money he asked for it, and received the Bridle with much devotion. And God, to whom nothing is impossible, willing to reward the faith of the Souldier, vouchsafed to work many Miracles by that Bridle in honour of his Martyr; which the Soul­dier considering, built a Church in honour of Thomas, [Page 226] and instead of Reliques, put therein this Bridle of the cheating Priest.’

And now who is there, after all this, but will expect that mighty wonders should be told us were wrought for the re­lief of those, who in their distresses did invoke him? Of this kind two or three Instances will serve for a Conclusion of my Discourse about him.

‘There was a Bird, says the Festivale, that was taught to speak, and could say S. Thomas; Festiv. fol. 80. & Antoninus loc. citat. p. 707. it hap­pened that this Bird sitting out of his Cage, a Spar-hauke seized on it, and was ready to kill it; but the Bird crying, St. Thomas help, the Spar-hauke fell down dead; His inference is very strong, that if he heard the Bird of his grete grace, moch more will he here a christen Man or Woman, that cry to him for help and succor.’ King Lewis of France, you'l say,Lambert's peramb. of Kent. p. 143. was extraordinarily heard, who coming over, to offer at his Tomb at Can­terbury, and praying for a safe passage, he obtained (I suppose by some voice that assured him) that nei­ther he, nor any other from thenceforth, that crossed the Seas between Dover and Withsand, should suffer any loss or shipwrack. (Credat Judaeus apella.)

But the finest contrivance, methinks, is that wonder for a special Friend of Thomas, Antoninus ibid. who being under an infirmity, came to the Tomb of the Saint, to pray for the recovery of his health, which, says the sto­ry, he received to the full. But being returned home, he thought within himself, that perhaps that infirmity was in­flicted on him for his salvation, and was for the greater pro­fit of his Soul, than health was; and therefore returning to the Sepulchre of the Saint, he prayed, that what should most conduce to his salvation, whether sickness or health, that Thomas would obtain it for him of the Lord. Whereupon his infirmity returned again upon him. And it was very friendly done of him, to impute the return of his distem­per, to the Saints foresight of the danger of his continuing [Page 227] in perfect health. Some there were also, whom S. Thomas would not cure, in civility to other Saints, (though you may be sure he could have done it himself.) So Capgrave tells us, that a Clerk,Capgr. vit. S. Cuth­bert. fol. 78. having been troubled with vomiting, and a Bloody Flux, and a pain in his Eyes, that he was almost blind; this Man Fifteen Days together had implored the Martyrs help at Canterbury: To whom Thomas at last appeared; and bid him rise quickly, and go to Durham to S. Cuthbert, and by his merits he should obtain mercy and health. For (said he) I will have my languishing Patients and Servants go to him for Cure, and his come to me; and the first day he came thither he was cured. It's very observable, that this Clerk had served Thomas before his exile, and so could less take it ill, to be sent on his errand so long a journey. But the most shameful fiction is that which is told us in the History of the Monk of Canterbury, De miraculis Thomae; concern­ing one Eilwardus, who, in his Drink,V. Fox Martyr. T [...]m. 1. p. 293. broke into a Man's House, and stole some of his Goods, who laid such an action of Felony a­gainst him, that he was condemned to have his Eyes put out, and his Privities to be cut off, which sentence was executed upon him; and he being in danger of Death by bleeding, was counselled to pray to S. Thomas; in the Night he had a Vision of one in white Apparel, who bid him watch and pray, and put his trust in God, and our Lady and holy S. Tho­mas; The next Day the Man rubbing his Eyes, (to be sure he did his forehead that wrote it) they were restored; and a little after rubbing the other place, his Pendenda (as he calls them) were also restored, Principio quidem valde par­va, sed in majus proficientia, very small at the first, but growing still greater, which he permitted every one to feel that would.

This very story, no doubt, is that which the Verses at the beginning refer to, Membris donat castratos, &c. And which the old Roman Breviary points at, when it says thus. ‘Tho­mas [Page 228] stretched out his powerful hand to un­usual and unheard-of wonders;Brev. Roman. antiqu. Lect. 9. for even they that were deprived of their Eyes, and of those parts by which Man-kind is propagatedMembris geni­talibus privati., by his merits had the favour to receive new ones.’ I dare trust this miracle with any Reader to believe it if he can: But me-thinks it had been better contrived, if the circumstances of the last story of Thomas his Friend, had been reserved for this wonder: it had been enough to declare the power of the Saint, to have received a full recovery of these parts; but it might, and ought to have been referred to his discretion, whether it would not be more for the health and profit of the Patients Soul, to return presently into his castrated estate, wherein this fomes peccati would be extinguished, and his after cha­stity better secured; and more perhaps for the good of the World, it should be so; since it might be hazardous, what kind of Race might spring up from a drunken Thief, thus mi­raculously inabled to propagate a-new.

The Reader has seen a pleasant part the Monks of Canter­bury have played, in setting up Thomas for a Saint and Mar­tyr: and they did it so successfully, that we are told of a Hundred Thousand People,W. Sumner. Antiq. of Canterb. p. 249. that in some Years have come to pay their Devotions to his Shrine: nay more, that their zeal to­wards him was so hot, as sometimes they seemed to have but little consideration of the Bl. Virgin her self, and none at all of Christ. For there being three Altars in the Church of Canterbury, one dedicated to Christ, another to the Virgin Mary, Cited by Foulis, Hist. of Popish Trea­sons, &c. pag. 17. and a third to Thomas; we are told out of an old Leger-book of that Church, that one Year the Offerings at the Shrine of Thomas amounted to 954l. 6s. 3d. when those to the Bl. Virgin came only to 4l. 1 s. 8l. and to Christ nothing at all.

I wonder not that these things were countenanced and promoted by the Pope, whose Slave he was, as well as his [Page 229] Saint; but it's strange methinks, that all Christian Kings should not be concerned to vindicate the abuse to them all, in the most vile usage of our K. Henry, such as no example in any Age can parallel; by obtaining at least, that such a Rebel to his Prince should be blotted out of the Kalendar of Saints, and no longer publickly venerated as a Martyr.