L. NAME AND THING.

THERE is a new word coined, within few months, called fanatics, which, by the close stickling thereof, seemeth well cut out and proportioned to signify what is meant thereby, even the sectaries of our age.

Some (most forcedly) will have it Hebrew, derived from the word to see or face one,³⁷³⁷פנה vidit. importing such whose piety consisteth chiefly in visage, looks, and outward shows; others will have it Greek, from φάνομαι, to show and appear; their meteor piety consisting only in short blazing, the forerunner of their extinction. But most certainly the word is Latin, from fanum, a temple; and fanatici were such who, living in or attending thereabouts, were frighted with spectra, or apparitions, which they either saw or fancied themselves to have seen. These 237people, in their fits and wild raptures, pretended to strange predictions:

It will be said we have already (more than a good) many nicknames of parties, which doth but inflame the difference, and make the breach the wider betwixt us. It is confessed; but withal it is promised, that when they withdraw the thing we will subtract the name. Let them leave off their wild fancies, inconsistent with Scripture, antiquity, and reason itself, and then we will endeavour to bury the fanatic, and all other names, in perpetual oblivion.