opians, is by his profession a Christian, but so
different from us, with such new absurdities and ceremonies, such liberty,
such a mixture of idolatry and paganism, [6359]that they keep little more
than a bare title of Christianity. They suffer polygamy, circumcision,
stupend fastings, divorce as they will themselves, &c., and as the papists
call on the Virgin Mary, so do they on Thomas Didymus before Christ.
[6360]The Greek or Eastern Church is rent from this of the West, and as
they have four chief patriarchs, so have they four subdivisions, besides
those Nestorians, Jacobins, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, &c., scattered
over Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, &c., Greece, Walachia, Circassia, Bulgaria,
Bosnia, Albania, Illyricum, Sclavonia, Croatia, Thrace, Servia, Rascia, and
a sprinkling amongst the Tartars, the Russians, Muscovites, and most of
that great duke's (czar's) subjects, are part of the Greek Church, and
still Christians: but as [6361]one saith, _temporis successu multas illi
addiderunt superstitiones._ In process of time they have added so many
superstitions, they be rather semi-Christians than otherwise. That which
remains is the Western Church with us in Europe, but so eclipsed with
several schisms, heresies and superstitions, that one knows not where to
find it. The papists have Italy, Spain, Savoy, part of Germany, France,
Poland, and a sprinkling in the rest of Europe. In America, they hold all
that which Spaniards inhabit, Hispania Nova, Castella Aurea, Peru, &c. In
the East Indies, the Philippines, some small holds about Goa, Malacca,
Zelan, Ormus, &c., which the Portuguese got not long since, and those
land-leaping Jesuits have essayed in China, Japan, as appears by their
yearly letters; in Africa they have Melinda, Quiloa, Mombaze, &c., and some
few towns, they drive out one superstition with another. Poland is a
receptacle of all religions, where Samosetans, Socinians, Photinians (now
protected in Transylvania and Poland), Arians, Anabaptists are to be found,
as well as in some German cities. Scandia is Christian, but [6362]Damianus
A-Goes, the Portugal knight, complains, so mixed with magic, pagan rites
and ceremonies, they may be as well counted idolaters: what Tacitus
formerly said of a like nation, is verified in them, [6363]"A people
subject to superstition, contrary to religion." And some of them as about
Lapland and the Pilapians, the devil's possession to this day, _Misera haec
gens_ (saith mine