rsake wives, children, house and home, lands, goods, fortunes, life
itself, than omit or abjure the least tittle of it, and to advance the
common cause, undergo any miseries, turn traitors, assassins,
pseudomartyrs, with full assurance and hope of reward in that other world,
that they shall certainly merit by it, win heaven, be canonised for saints.

Now when they are truly possessed with blind zeal, and misled with
superstition, he hath many other baits to inveigle and infatuate them
farther yet, to make them quite mortified and mad, and that under colour of
perfection, to merit by penance, going woolward, whipping, alms, fastings,
&c. An. 1320. there was a sect of [6452]whippers in Germany, that, to the
astonishment of the beholders, lashed, and cruelly tortured themselves. I
could give many other instances of each particular. But these works so done
are meritorious, _ex opere operato, ex condigno_, for themselves and
others, to make them macerate and consume their bodies, _specie virtutis et
umbra_, those evangelical counsels are propounded, as our pseudo-Catholics
call them, canonical obedience, wilful poverty, [6453]vows of chastity,
monkery, and a solitary life, which extend almost to all religions and
superstitions, to Turks, Chinese, Gentiles, Abyssinians, Greeks, Latins,
and all countries. Amongst the rest, fasting, contemplation, solitariness,
are as it were certain rams by which the devil doth batter and work upon
the strongest constitutions. _Nonnulli_ (saith Peter Forestus) _ob longas
inedias, studia et meditationes coelestes, de rebus sacris et religione
semper agitant_, by fasting overmuch, and divine meditations, are overcome.
Not that fasting is a thing of itself to be discommended, for it is an
excellent means to keep the body in subjection, a preparative to devotion,
the physic of the soul, by which chaste thoughts are engendered, true zeal,
a divine spirit, whence wholesome counsels do proceed, concupiscence is
restrained, vicious and predominant lusts and humours are expelled. The
fathers are very much in commendation of it, and, as Calvin notes,
"sometimes immoderate. [6454]The mother of health, key of heaven, a
spiritual wing to arear us, the chariot of the Holy Ghost, banner of
faith," &c. And 'tis true they say of it, if it be moderately and
seasonably used, by such parties as Moses, Elias, Daniel, Christ, and his
[6455]apostles made use of it; but when by this means they will
supererogate, and as