h

elder of these two daughters, was by him, in ten days, got, conceived, born, christened. I believed; and wondered not. These acts of superstition have an invisible father and midwife besides, that it is not for an elephant to go three years with a mouse. It was told me, in the shop of his Moretus, not without some indignation, that our king, when he had well viewed the book, and read some passages, threw it to the ground, with this censure; "Damnation to him, that made it; and to him, that believes it:" whether a true story, or one of their legends, I enquire not: I am sure, that sentence did not so much discontent them, as it joyed me.

Let me tell you yet, ere I take off my pen, two wonders more, which I saw in that wonder of cities, Antwerp.

One, a solemn mass in a shambles, and that on God's day: while the house was full of meat, of butchers, of buyers, some kneeling, others bargaining, most talking, all busy. It was strange, to see one house sacred to God and the belly; and how those two services agreed. The priest did eat flesh, the butchers sold flesh; in one roof, at one instant. The butcher killed, and sold it by pieces; the priest did sacrifice, and orally devour it whole: whether was the more butcher? The like we might have seen at Malines'.

The other, an Englishman, so madly devout, that he had wilfully mured up himself as an anchorite; the worst of all prisoners there sat he, pent up, for his further merit; half hunger-starved, for the charity of the citizens. It was worth seeing, how manly he could bite-in his secret want; and dissemble his over-late repentance. I cannot commend his mortification, if he wish to be in heaven, yea, in purgatory, to be delivered from thence. I durst not pity him; because his durance was willing, and, as he hoped, meritorious: but, such encouragement as he had from me, such thank shall he have from God; who, instead of an "Euge," which he looks for, shall angrily challenge him, with "Who required this?" I leave him now, in his own fetters; you, to your worthy and honourable employments.

Pardon me this length. Loquacity is the natural fault of Travellers: while I profit any, I may well be forgiven.

h Virgo Hallensis. 1 Mechlinia.

* One Goodwin, a Kentish-man.

EPISTLE VI.

TO SIR DAVID MURRAY.

Concerning the Miracles of our Time.

INDEED, the world abounds with miracles. These, while they fill the mouths of many, sway the faith of some, and make all men wonder. Our nature is greedy of news; which it will rather feign, than want. Certainly, ere long, miracles will be no wonders, for their frequence. I had thought, our age had had too many grey hairs, and with time experience, and with experience, craft, not to have descried a juggler; but, now I see, by the simplicity, it declines to his second childhood. The two Lipsian Ladies, the charms of Bluntstone's boy and Garnet's straw, what a noise have they made! I only wonder, how Faux and Catesby escaped the honour of Saints, and privilege of miracles. Herein you ask my sentence; more seasonably, than you hoped; for, I meant to have wrote a just volume of this subject, and furnished myself accordingly in that region of wonders; but that I feared to surcharge the nice stomach of our time, with too much. Neither would my length have ought availed you; whose thoughts are so taken up with those high and serviceable cares, that they can give no leisure to an over-long discourse. May it please you therefore, to receive, in short, what I have deliberately resolved in myself, and think I can make good to others.

I have noted four ranks of commonly-named Miracles: from which, if you make a just subduction, how few of our wonders shall remain either to belief or admiration! The first, merely reported, not seen to be done; the next, seeming to be done, but counterfeited; the third, truly done, but not true miracles; the last, truly miraculous, but by Satan.

The first of these are bred of lies, and nourished by credulity. The mouth of fame is full of such blasts. For these, if I listed awhile to rake in the Legends, and Book of Conformities, an ingenuous papist could not but blush; an indifferent reader could not but lay his hand on his spleen; and wonder as much, that any man could be so impudent to broach such reports or any so simple to believe them, as the credulous multitude wonders that any should be so powerful to effect them. But, I seek neither their shame, nor others' laughter. I dare say, not the Talmud, not the Alcoran, hath more impossible tales, more ridiculous lies. Yea, to this head, Canus himself, a famous papist, dare refer many of those ancient miracles reported; and, by all likelihood, believed, of Bede and Gregory.

The next are bred of fraud and cozenage, nourished by superstition. Who knows not, how the famous Kentish Idol1 moved his eyes and hands, by those secret gimmers, which now every puppet-play can imitate? how St. Wilfred's needle opened to the penitent, and closed itself to the guilty? how our Lady sheds the tears of a bleeding vine; and doth many of her daily feasts, as Bell did of old eat up his banquet, or as Picens the eremite fasted forty days? But, these two every honest papist will confess, with voluntary shame and grief; and grant that it may grow a disputable question, Whether mountebanks or priests are the greatest cozeners. Vives, beyond his wont, vehemently terms them execrable and satanical impostors.

The third are true works of God, under a false title: God gives them their being; men, their name: unjust, because above their nature. Wherein, the philosopher and the superstitiously ignorant, are contrarily extreme: while the one seeks out natural causes of God's immediate and metaphysical works: the other ascribes ordinary effects to supernatural causes. If the violence of a disease cease, after a vow made to our Lady; if a soldier, armed with his vow, escape gun-shot; a captive, prison; a woman, travailing, death; the vulgar, and I would they alone, cry out, "A miracle!" One loadstone hath more wonder in it, than a thousand such events. Every thing draws a base mind to admiration. Francesco del Campo, one of the archduke's equerries, told us, not without importunate devotion, that in that fatal field of Nieuport, his vow to their Virgin helped him to swim over a large water, when the oars of his arms had never before tried any waves: a dog hath done more, without acknowledgment of any Saint: fear gives sudden instincts of skill, even without precept.

Their own Costerus durst say, that the cure of a disease is no miracle: his reason, because it may be done by the power of nature, albeit in longer time. Yield" this, and what have Lipsius his two Ladies done? wherefore serves all this clamour, from the two hills? I assented not; neither will be herein thus much their enemy: for, as well the manner of doing, as the matter, makes a miracle. If Peter's handkerchief or shadow heal a disease, it is miraculous; though it might have been done by a potion. Many of their recoveries, doubtless, have been wrought through the strength of nature in the patient; not of virtue in the Saint. How many sick men have mended, with their physic in their pocket! though many other

The Rood of Grace at Boxley Abbey.

m "En l'an mil six cents et trois, y fureut comptez cent et trente cinque potences et jambes de bois de personnes boyteuses y apportées, au seul espace de quatre ou cinque mois." Histoire et Miracles. c. xii. p. 34.

also, I doubt not, of those cures have fallen into the fourth head; which indeed is more knotty, and requires a deeper discourse.

Wherein, if I shall evince these two things, I shall, I hope, satisfy my reader, and clear the truth: one, that miracles are wrought by Satan; the other, that those, which the Romish Church boasteth, are of this nature, of this author. I contend not of words: we take miracles in Augustin's large sense; wherein is little difference, betwixt a thing marvellous and miraculous; such as the Spirit of God, in either Instrument, calls Avváμeis, and ". Perhaps it would be more proper to say, that God works these miracles by Satan: for, as in the natural and voluntary motions of wicked men; so, in the supernatural acts of evil spirits (as they are acts,) there is more than a mere permission: Satan, by his tempest, bereaves Job of his children; yet Job, looking higher, saith, The Lord hath taken. No sophistry can elude this proof of Moses; that a prophet or dreamer may give a true sign or wonder, and yet say, Let us go after strange gods; Deut. xiii. 1. nor, that of our Saviour, who foretels of false Christs, false prophets that shall give onpɛîa peyáλa kaì тépaтa; signs and wonders, and those great. There are some too great, I grant, for the hand of all infernal powers; by which, our Saviour invincibly proves the truth of his Deity: these never graced falsehood; neither admit any precedent from our times. As to the rest, so frequent and common, for me, I could not believe the Church of Rome were antichristian, if it had not boasted of these wonders. All the knot lies then, in the application of this to Rome, and our imaginary Lady. How shall it appear, that their miracles are of this kind? Ludovicus Vives gives six notes to distinguish God's miracles, from Satan's; Lipsius, three: both of them too many; as might easily be discovered, by discussing of particulars. It is not so much the greatness of the work, nor the belief of witnesses, nor the quality nor manner of the action, nor truth of essence, that can descry the immediate hand, which worketh in our miracles. That alone is the true and golden rule, which Justin Martyr, if at least that book be his, prescribes in his "Questions and Answers:" "How shall it be known, that our miracles are better than the heathens', although the event countenance both alike?" Resp. Ex fide et cultu veri Dei: "By the faith and worship of the true God." Miracles must be judged by the doctrine, which they confirm; not the doctrine, by the miracles. The dreamer or prophet must be esteemed, not by the event of his wonder; but, by the substance and scope of his teaching. The Romanists argue preposterously, while they would prove the truth of their Church, by miracles;

אות מופת n Or

whereas they should prove their miracles, by the truth. To say nothing of the fashion of their cures, that one is prescribed, to come to our Lady, rather on a Friday, as Henry Loyez°; another, to wash nine days in the water of Mont-aigu, as Leonard Stocqueau; another, to eat a piece of the oak, where the image stood, as Magdalene' the widow of Bruxelles: all which, if they savour not strong of magical receits, let the indifferent judge. Surely, either there is no sorcery, or this is it. All shall be plain, if the doctrine confirmed by their miracles be once discussed: for, if that be divine truth, we do unjustly impugn these works as diabolical; if falsehood, they do blasphemously proclaim them for divine. These works tend all chiefly to this double doctrine: That the blessed Virgin is to be invoked for her mediation; that God and Saints are to be adored in and by images: positions, that would require a volume, and such as are liberally disputed by others: whereof one is against Scripture; the other, which in these cases values no less, besides it: one deifies the Virgin; the other, a stock or stone. It matters not what subtle distinctions their learned doctors make, betwixt mediation of Redemption and Intercession; ovλeía, and Aarpeía; the Saint, and the Image: we know, their common people, whose devotion enriches those shrines, by confession of their own writers, climb the hill of Zichem with this conceit, that Mary is their Savouress; that the stock is their goddess: which unless it be true, how do their wonders teach them lies! and therefore how from God? But, to take the first at best (for, the second is so gross, that were not the second commandment by papists purposely razed out of their primers, children and carters would condemn it) it cannot be denied, that all the substance of prayer is in the heart: the vocal sound is but a compliment, and as an outward case wherein our thoughts are sheathed. That power cannot know the prayer, which knows not the heart: either then the Virgin is God, for that she knows the heart; or, to know the heart is not proper to God; or, to know the heart, and so our prayers, is falsely ascribed to the Virgin: and therefore these wonders, which teach men thus to honour her, are doctors of lies; so, not of God. There cannot be any discourse, wherein it is more easy to be tedious. To end; if prayers were but in words, and saints did meddle with all particularities of earthly things, yet Blessed Mary should be a God, if she could at once attend all her suitors. One solicits her at Halle; another, at Scherpen-hewel; another at Luca; at our Walsingham, another;

Page 7.

P Histoire et Miracles de notre Dame, p. 73. p. 102.

Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Hugenots. "O sauveresse, sauve moy." Manual of French Prayers, printed at Liege, by approbation and authority of Anton Chevart Inquisitor, &c.