nd; Vaticanus against Calvin in a
large Treatise in behalf of Servetus, vindicates; Castilio, &c., Martin
Ballius and his companions, maintained this opinion not long since in
France, whose error is confuted by Beza in a just volume. The medium is
best, and that which Paul prescribes, Gal. i. "If any man shall fall by
occasion, to restore such a one with the spirit of meekness, by all fair
means, gentle admonitions;" but if that will not take place, _Post unam et
alteram admonitionem haereticum devita_, he must be excommunicate, as Paul
did by Hymenaeus, delivered over to Satan. _Immedicabile vulnus ense
recidendum est._ As Hippocrates said in physic, I may well say in divinity,
_Quae ferro non curantur, ignis curat._ For the vulgar, restrain them by
laws, mulcts, burn their books, forbid their conventicles; for when the
cause is taken away, the effect will soon cease. Now for prophets,
dreamers, and such rude silly fellows, that through fasting, too much
meditation, preciseness, or by melancholy, are distempered: the best means
to reduce them _ad sanam mentem_, is to alter their course of life, and
with conference, threats, promises, persuasions, to intermix physic.
Hercules de Saxonia, had such a prophet committed to his charge in Venice,
that thought he was Elias, and would fast as he did; he dressed a fellow in
angel's attire, that said he came from heaven to bring him divine food, and
by that means stayed his fast, administered his physic; so by the
meditation of this forged angel he was cured. [6616]Rhasis an Arabian,
_cont. lib. 1. cap. 9_, speaks of a fellow that in like case complained to
him, and desired his help: "I asked him" (saith he) "what the matter was;
he replied, I am continually meditating of heaven and hell, and methinks I
see and talk with fiery spirits, and smell brimstone, &c., and am so
carried away with these conceits, that I can neither eat, nor sleep, nor go
about my business: I cured him" (saith Rhasis) "partly by persuasion,
partly by physic, and so have I done by many others." We have frequently
such prophets and dreamers amongst us, whom we persecute with fire and
faggot: I think the most compendious cure, for some of them at least, had
been in Bedlam. _Sed de his satis._

MEMB. II.

SUBSECT. I.--_Religious Melancholy in defect; parties affected, Epicures,
Atheists, Hypocrites, worldly secure, Carnalists; all impious persons,
impenitent sinners, &c._

In that other extreme or defect o