«58 
FLA CELL ANTES. 
done, in the insolence of their mirth, they resolved on a dance, and 
told their protestant host that he must be one of their company ; but 
as he would not be of their religion, he must dance quite barefoot ; 
and thus barefoot they drove him about the room, treading on the 
sharp points of the broken glasses. When he was no longer able to 
stand, they laid him on a bed, and in a short time stripped him stark 
naked, and rolled him from one end of the room to another, till every 
part of his body was full of the fragments of glass. After this they 
dragged him to his bed, and having sent for a surgeon, obliged him 
to cut out the pieces of glass with his instruments, thereby putting 
him to the most exquisite and horrible pains that can possibly be 
conceived. , 
“These, fellow Protestants, were the methods used by the most Chris- 
tian king’s apostolic dragoons to convert his heretical subjects to the 
Roman Catholic faith. These, and many other of the like nature, 
were the torments to which Lewis XIV. delivered them over, to bring 
them to his own church ; and as popery is unchangeably the same, 
these are the tortures prepared for you, if ever that religion should be 
permitted to become settled amongst you ; the consideration of which 
made Luther say of it, what every man who knows any thing of 
Christianity must agree with him in, “If you had no other reason, 
to go out of the Roman church, this alone would suffice, that you see 
and hear how, contrary to the law of God, they shed innocent blood. 
This single circumstance shall, God willing, ever separate me from 
the papacy ; and if I was now subject to it, and could blame nothing 
in any of their doctrines, yet for this crime of cruelty I would fly 
fi'om her communion as from a den of thieves and murderers.” 
Flagellantes. 
These were a sect of wild fanatics, who chastised and disciplined 
themselves with wdiips in public. This sect arose in Italy in 1260 : its 
author was one Rainer a hermit ; and it was propagated through 
almost all the countries of Europe. It was probably no more than, 
the effect of an indiscreet zeal, founded on erroneous ideas of the 
Deity. A great number of persons of all ages and sexes made pro- 
cessions, walking two by two with their shoulders bare, which they 
whipped till the blood ran down, to obtain mercy from God, and 
appease his indignation against the wickedness of the age. They 
were then called the Devout ; and having established a superior, he 
was called the general of the Devotion. Though the primitive Fla- 
gellantes were exemplary in point of morals, yet they were soon joined 
by a turbulent rabble, who were infected with the most ridiculous and 
impious opinions, so that the superiors and pontiffs thought proper 
to put an end to this religious frenzy, by declaring all devout whip- 
ping contrary to the divine law, and prejudicial to the soul’s eternal 
interest. However, this sect revived in Germany towards the middle 
of the fourteenth century, and, rambling through many provinces, 
occasioned great disturbances. 
They held, among other things, that flagellation w'as of equal virtue 
with the sacraments ; that the forgiveness of all sins was to be obtained by 
