FRANCIS COSTER.
The subject of this memoir was born at Malines in the year 1531; he was one of the first to join the new Society of Jesus, and at the age of twenty-one was received into it by the illustrious founder himself.
St. Ignatius soon discovered the remarkable talents and the deep spirituality of the young man, and he stationed him at Cologne, placing him in the van of the army of the Church, and in the thick of the fight then waging between Catholics and Protestants. He was admirably adapted for his position, and fully justified the confidence placed in him by Loyola. The Lutherans and Calvinists found in him an enemy of no ordinary power, and quite invulnerable to their blows. His knowledge of Scripture was as thorough as, and was sounder than, their own. Their arguments were dissected, and the fallacies exposed, by Coster, in a manner so clear and so conclusive that he stung them to madness.
Volume after volume passed through the press from his pen, many of them composed in the vernacular, so as to be read by the vulgar. He is said to have brought back multitudes to the Church who had fallen away at the first blush of Protestantism, and to have strengthened numerous souls which wavered in doubt.
He taught astronomy and lectured on the Holy Scriptures in Cologne. He was afterwards Rector of several Colleges, thrice Provincial, and present at three General Congregations of the Order.
After a life of controversy, yet with a soul full of peace and goodwill to men, Francis Coster entered into his rest in 1619, aged eighty-eight years; of which he had spent sixty-seven in the Society of Jesus. He died at Brussels.
His works are too numerous for me to give a list of them here. A complete catalogue will be found in the Bibliothèque des Écrivains de la Compagnée de Jésus, par Aug. et Alois Backer, vol. i. pp. 218-224. I mention the sermons alone.
R. P. Costeri Conciones in Evangelia Dominicalia a Dom. Adventus usque ad initium Quadr.; Coloniæ, Ant. Hierat. 1608, 4to. Conciones ab initio Quadr. usque ad Domin. SS. Trinitates; ibid. id., 1608, 4to. Conciones a Domin. post Fest. SS. Trinit. usque ad Adventum; ibid. id., 1608, 4to.
R. P. Fr. Costeri Conciones in Evangelia; ibid. id., 1613, 4to.; 1626, 8vo., 3 part., 4 vol. This last the best edition.