Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/387

THE SEEAPHIC FUNERAL. 383 of God wotild be undone; but go on. Th. And then, fourthly, He discovered to him that none that lived impiously should long per- severe in that order. Ph. Why, does not he that lives wickedly fall from the order 1 Th. No more than he that lives wickedly denies Christ, altho'ugh in a sense they may be said to deny God who profess Him in words, but in works deny Him. But whosoever has cast off the holy habit, he irreparably falls from the order. Ph. What shall we say, then, of so many monasteries of conventuals who have money, drink, game, whore, and keep concubines publicly, not to mention anything else. Th. St. Francis never wore a garment of that colour I mean a grey, nor a girdle of white linen; and therefore, when they come to knock at heaven's gates, it will be said to them, " I never knew you," for that they have not on the wedding garment.

Ph. Well, what, have you any more 1 Th. You have heard nothing yet to what is behind. In the fifth place, He made known to him that those who were enemies to the seraphic order, such as there are but too many, the more is the pity, should never live half the time God had appointed them without making away with themselves, and that, unless they anticipated their fate, they shoiild suddenly come to a miserable end. Ph. We have, among abundance of other instances, seen that made good in Matthew, Cardinal of Sedunum, who had a very ill opinion, and spoke ill of the half-shod fraternity; for he died, I think, before he was full fifty years of age. Th. You say Very right; then lie had done injury to the cherubic order likewise. For they say it was brought about chiefly by his management that the four Dominicans were burnt at Berne, when otherwise they would have overcome the pope's resentment by money. Ph. But they say they had begun to act a piece of most monstrous impiety. They attempted by false visions and miracles to persuade people that the Virgin Mary was polluted with original sin, and that St. Francis had not the genuine marks of Christ's wounds, and that Catharina Senensis had them more authentically, but had promised the most perfect of them all to the layman they had converted and suborned to act this farce, and had abused the body of the Lord, to carry on the imposture, and afterwards with clubs and poisons. And in the last place, they say that this pro- ject was not carried on by one university only, but by all the heads of the whole order. Th. Let that be as it will, it was not without reason that God said, " Touch not mine anointed."

Ph. I want to hear what is to come. Th. The sixth revelation is behind, in which the Lord sware to him that those that were favourers of the seraphic order, how wickedly soever they lived, should one time or other obtain mercy from the Lord, and end their wicked life with a blessed death. Ph. What if they should be caught and killed in the very act of adultery 1 Th. What God has promised cannot fail of being performed. Ph. But what is it that they inter- pret favour and good-will by 1 Th. Oh, do you doubt of that ? He that gives them presents, that clothes them, furnishes their kitchen, he loves them long ago. Ph. But does he not love those that give them admonitions and instructions 1 Th. They have enough of those things at home; and it is their profession to bestow these benefits on other persons, and not to receive them from them. Ph. Then the Lord has promised more to the disciples of St. Francis than He has to His own.