ears 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,