his sins. There be so many general pardons for
ages to come, forty thousand years to come, so many
jubilees, so frequent gaol-deliveries out of purgatory
for all souls, now living, or after dissolution of
the body, so many particular masses daily said in
several churches, so many altars consecrated to this
purpose, that if a man have either money or friends,
or will take any pains to come to such an altar, hear
a mass, say so many paternosters, undergo such and
such penance, he cannot do amiss, it is impossible
his mind should be troubled, or he have any scruple
to molest him. Besides that
Taxa Camerae Apostolicae,
which was first published to get money in the days
of Leo Decimus, that sharking pope, and since divulged
to the same ends, sets down such easy rates and dispensations
for all offences, for perjury, murder, incest, adultery,
&c., for so many grosses or dollars (able to invite
any man to sin, and provoke him to offend, methinks,
that otherwise would not) such comfortable remission,
so gentle and parable a pardon, so ready at hand,
with so small cost and suit obtained, that I cannot
see how he that hath any friends amongst them (as
I say) or money in his purse, or will at least to
ease himself, can any way miscarry or be misaffected,
how he should be desperate, in danger of damnation,
or troubled in mind. Their ghostly fathers can
so readily apply remedies, so cunningly string and
unstring, wind and unwind their devotions, play upon
their consciences with plausible speeches and terrible
threats, for their best advantage settle and remove,
erect with such facility and deject, let in and out,
that I cannot perceive how any man amongst them should
much or often labour of this disease, or finally miscarry.
The causes above named must more frequently therefore
take hold in others.
SUBSECT. IV.—Symptoms of Despair,
Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience,
Fearful Dreams and Visions.
As shoemakers do when they bring home shoes, still
cry leather is dearer and dearer, may I justly say
of those melancholy symptoms: these of despair
are most violent, tragical, and grievous, far beyond
the rest, not to be expressed but negatively, as it
is privation of all happiness, not to be endured;
“for a wounded spirit who can bear it?”
Prov. xviii. 19. What, therefore, [6736]Timanthes
did in his picture of Iphigenia, now ready to be sacrificed,
when he had painted Chalcas mourning, Ulysses sad,
but most sorrowful Menelaus; and showed all his art
in expressing a variety of affections, he covered
the maid’s father Agamemnon’s head with
a veil, and left it to every spectator to conceive
what he would himself; for that true passion and sorrow
in summo gradu, such as his was, could not by
any art be deciphered. What he did in his picture,
I will do in describing the symptoms of despair; imagine
what thou canst, fear, sorrow, furies, grief, pain,
terror, anger, dismal, ghastly, tedious, irksome, &c.