XXIX.

CONVOCATION.

1. WHEN the king sends his writ for a parliament, he sends for two knights for a shire, and two burgesses for a corporation : but when he sends for two archbishops for a convocation, he commands them to assemble the whole clergy; but they, out of custom amongst themselves, send to the bishops of their provinces, to will them to bring two clerks for a diocese, the dean, one for the chapter, and the archdeacons; but to the king every clergyman is there present.

2. We have nothing so nearly expresses the power of the convocation, in respect of the parliament, as a courtleet, where they have a power to make bye-laws, as they call them; as that a man shall put so many cows or sheep in the common; but they can make nothing that is contrary to the laws of the kingdom.

ΙΟ

XXX.
COUNCIL.

THEY talk (but blasphemously enough) that the Holy Ghost is president of their General Councils; when the truth is, the odd man is still the Holy Ghost.

XXXI.
CREED.

ATHANASIUS's creed is the shortest, take away the preface, and the force, and the conclusion, which are not part of the

1. 6. they, out of custom amongst themselves, &c.] See note on 'Bishops in Parliament,' sec. 7.

20

creed. In the Nicene creed it is els èkkλŋolav, I believe in the church; but now our Common-prayer has it, I believe one catholic and apostolic church. They like not creeds, because they would have no forms of faith, as they have none of prayer, though there be more reason for the one than for the other.

XXXII.

DAMNATION.

I. IF the physician sees you eat any thing that is not good for your body, to keep you from it, he cries 'tis Io poison. If the divine sees you do any thing that is hurtful for your soul, to keep you from it, he cries you are damned.

ΙΟ

2.(To preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man that damns us, and we run after him again to save us. If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint with such an oil (an oil well known), that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he knew the medicine before20 hand an ordinary medicine. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off, and you will die, unless

1. 1. In the Nicene creed it is &c.] In the original Nicene creed the words do not occur. They were introduced in 381 at the Council of Constantinople-πιστεύομεν..... εἰς μίαν ἁγίαν καθολικὴν καὶ ἀποστολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν.

On the distinction, to which Selden refers, between 'I believe in' and 'I believe,' Bishop Pearson shows that 'Credo sanctam Ecclesiam, I believe there is an holy church; or Credo in sanctam Ecclesiam is the same; nor does the particle in added or subtracted make any difference.' See Pearson on the Creed, vol. i. pp. 28, 504, and vol. ii. p. 421.

you do something that I could tell you; what listening there would be to this man! Oh, for the lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will give you any content for your pains.

XXXIII.

SELF-DENIAL.

'Tis much the doctrine of the times, that men should not please themselves, but deny themselves every thing they take delight in ; not look upon beauty, wear no good clothes, eat no good meat, &c. which seems the greatest accusation that can be upon the Maker of all good things. If they be not to be used, why did God make them? The 10 truth is, they that preach against them, cannot make use of them themselves, and then again, they get esteem by seeming to contemn them. But yet, mark it while you live, if they do not please themselves as much as they can ; and we live more by example than precept.

XXXIV.

DEVILS.

I. WHY have we none possessed with devils in England? The old answer is, the protestants the devil has already, and the papists are so holy, he dares not meddle with them. Why then, beyond seas, where a nun is possessed, when 20

1. 20. Why then, beyond seas, &c.] The argument seems to be that the alleged holiness of the papists is no sufficient safe-guard to prevent the devil from daring to meddle with them, and that the hunting of huguenots out of church is a proof of enmity between the devil and his alleged friends or allies.

In the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, there were several outbursts of demoniacal possession. In 1609 the Basque

a huguenot comes into the church, does the devil hunt him out? The priest1 teaches him; you never saw the devil throw up a nun's coats; mark that; the priest will not suffer it, for then the people will spit at him.

2. Casting out devils is mere juggling. They never cast out any but what they first cast in. They do it where, for reverence, no man shall dare to examine it. They do it in a corner, in a mortice-hole, not in the market-place. They do nothing but what may be done by art. They make the 10 devil fly out at a window in the likeness of a bat, or a rat. Why do they not hold him? Why, in the likeness of a bat, or a rat, or some creature that is? Why not in some shape we paint him in, with claws and horns? By this trick they gain much, gain upon men's fancies, and so are

1 The priest, H. 2] the devil, H.

country was the scene, and it was shifted, in the same year, to the Ursuline convent at Aix. In 1613 the nuns of St. Brigitte, at Lille, were tormented a second time by demons. They had suffered in the same way about half a century before. But the most notorious of all these attacks was the possession of the mother superior and some of the nuns at the Ursuline convent at Loudun in 1632-4. The history of this remarkable affair is given at length by Figuier. It appears to have been the combined result of wild nymphomania and conscious fraud on the part of the possessed nuns, probably aided by some suggestive trickery on the part of other persons. It had, as it was intended it should have, a tragical ending for the curé of Loudun, Urbain Grandier, who was burnt alive in 1634, on a maliciously contrived charge that he had introduced the devils into the bodies of the nuns. For the full details of this awful story, see Figuier, Histoire du Merveilleux, vol. i. pp. 81-257, and Bayle, Dictionnaire, under the heading 'Grandier.'

I find no mention anywhere of the possessed nuns hunting a huguenot out of the church. The nearest approach to it is in the account of the possession in 1552 of the nuns of the convent of Kintorp near Strasbourg, in the course of which—'Elles ne gouvernaient plus leur volonté. Une fureur irrésistible les portait à se mordre, à frapper et à mordre leurs compagnes, à se précipiter sur les étrangers pour leur faire du mal.' Introduction to the Histoire du Merveilleux, p. 47.

reverenced. And certainly if the priest can deliver me from him, that is my greatest enemy, I have all the reason in the world to reverence him.

Objection. But if this be juggling, why do they punish impostors?

Answer. For great reason; because they do not play their part well, and for fear others should discover them, and so think all of them to be1 of the same trade.

3. A person of quality came to my chamber in the Temple, and told me he had two devils in his head; [I 10 wondered what he meant] and just at that time, one of them bid him kill me, [with that I begun to be afraid, and thought he was mad] he said he knew I could cure him, and therefore entreated me to give him something, for he was resolved he would go to nobody else. I perceiving what an opinion he had of me, and that 'twas only melancholy that troubled him, took him in hand, warranted him, if he would follow my directions, to cure him in a short time. I desired him to let me be alone for an hour, and then to come again, which he was very willing to. In the mean 20 time I got a card, and lapt it handsomely up in a piece of taffata, and put strings to the taffata, and when he came, gave it him, to hang about his neck; withal charged him, that he should not disorder himself neither with eating or drinking, but eat very little of supper, and say his prayers duly when he went to bed, and I made no question but he would be well in three or four days. Within that time I went to dinner at his house, and asked him how he did. He said he was much better, but not perfectly well, for in truth he had not dealt clearly with me: he had four devils 30 in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. Well, said I, I am glad two of them are gone; I make no doubt but to get away the other two likewise. So I 1 Think all of them to be, H. 2] all of them thought to be, H.