[6364]author) _Satanae hactenus possessio,--et quod
maxime mirandum et dolendum_, and which is to be admired and pitied; if any
of them be baptised, which the kings of Sweden much labour, they die within
seven or nine days after, and for that cause they will hardly be brought to
Christianity, but worship still the devil, who daily appears to them. In
their idolatrous courses, _Gandentibus diis patriis, quos religiose
colunt_, &c. Yet are they very superstitious, like our wild Irish: though
they of the better note, the kings of Denmark and Sweden themselves, that
govern them, be Lutherans; the remnant are Calvinists, Lutherans, in
Germany equally mixed. And yet the emperor himself, dukes of Lorraine,
Bavaria, and the princes, electors, are most part professed papists. And
though some part of France and Ireland, Great Britain, half the cantons in
Switzerland, and the Low Countries, be Calvinists, more defecate than the
rest, yet at odds amongst themselves, not free from superstition. And which
[6365]Brochard, the monk, in his description of the Holy Land, after he had
censured the Greek church, and showed their errors, concluded at last,
_Faxit Deus ne Latinis multa irrepserint stultifies_, I say God grant there
be no fopperies in our church. As a dam of water stopped in one place
breaks out into another, so doth superstition. I say nothing of
Anabaptists, Socinians, Brownists, Familists, &c. There is superstition in
our prayers, often in our hearing of sermons, bitter contentions,
invectives, persecutions, strange conceits, besides diversity of opinions,
schisms, factions, &c. But as the Lord (Job xlii. cap. 7. v.) said to
Eliphaz, the Temanite, and his two friends, "his wrath was kindled against
them, for they had not spoken of him things that were right:" we may justly
of these schismatics and heretics, how wise soever in their own conceits,
_non recte loquuntur de Deo_, they speak not, they think not, they write
not well of God, and as they ought. And therefore, _Quid quaeso mi Dorpi_,
as Erasmus concludes to Dorpius, _hisce Theologis faciamus, aut quid
preceris, nisi forte fidelem medicum, qui cerebro medeatur_? What shall we
wish them, but _sanam mentem_, and a good physician? But more of their
differences, paradoxes, opinions, mad pranks, in the symptoms: I now hasten
to the causes.

SUBSECT. II.--_Causes of Religious melancholy. From the Devil by miracles,
apparitions, oracles. His instruments or factors, politici