notwithstanding it is still in his power by his former Doctrine that it is not impossible the Council may err and promulgate an error to evacuate all the Canons of all the Councils at his pleasures for however the Authority of the Council now stands ingaged in the definition of any Doctrine however the Decree is now published to the whole world however the Church accept of the Decree however all Catholiques submit to the Decree yet it remains still in his power to say It never passed into an established Doctrine of the Church whilest he or his cleer-sighted Scholars intend to shake it And how far this his reserve of an establisht Doctrine delivered by Fathers and preached by Christ extends will sufficiently appear in his very attempt of the Faith of the Church in our Question of Purgatory For I have reason to beleeve he had a special regard to his beloved Purgatory when he renounced thus the Authority of Councils The consciences of all the illiterate Catholiques bear witness that the delivery of Souls from Purgatory is now their received Faith from their present Pastors and Teachers no Divine but knows that for Three hundred years and upwards ever since the promulgation of Pope Benedict his Bull no Orthodox Writer but submits to his Decree as unquestionable Master White himself tells us That St. Gregory the great was the first Founder of that Faith we now fight for a thousand years ago pursued and sustained by the numberless number of incomparably eminent Doctors and Saints In sum if there be any Article of our Faith witnessed any establisht it is this not any one carrying after it a more ample continued practise not any one testified by so many Foundations Prayers Masses Almes c. as this And yet this is no establisht Doctrine of the Church It is not a Truth delivered by Fathers as preacht by Christ And therefore he being overwhelmed with the consent of the whole Church for a thousand years appeals with the Protestants to the Primitive Ages immediate to Christ their plea and his being just the same differing onely in this that they say the substance of Purgatory is not the establisht Doctrine of the Church as delivered by Fathers preacht by Christ He that the delivery of Souls from thence is not even yet established Sect. 18. This Doctrine then is not the way as our ingenious Scholar says to keep fools from straying but the way to make fools stray and supposes a high folly in him who accepts it who leaves the received Doctrine of the holy Church to gadd after new models of a modern Divine But the way to keep both fools and wise men from straying is that which all the wise men in the world have hitherto followed to acquiesce to submit to the Church the Pillar of Truth without further dispute or reserve without further examination of her Decrees by what we have seen and heard We know assuredly that he shall never have God his Father in Heaven who hath not the Church his Mother on Earth And how injurious would he shew himself sayes the pious Emperour Marcianus to the most Reverend Synod who should attempt to question anew and publickly dispute and controvert such points as are once judged and rightly determined For who will grant says Pegna more authority to the Opinions of single persons disputing of Faith according to their own Fancy then to the definitions of Councils lawfully called and congregated where the Fathers hearts are governed by the Holy Ghosts dictamen T is already excellently well decreed for many Reasons That things once defined should be no more called in question For if such Doctrines as are thus constituted and decreed should be again brought under doubt and disputation surely no Iudgment or Sanction would remain firm and strong against any Errours what soever every establisht Truth and Definition of the Church being troubled afresh with the same Furies Thus Gelasius the First related by Gratian By which my Reader will observe how far a different road that ancient piety of Christians walkt in to Heaven then what is now chalked out to us by this School armed against the Authority of Popes and Councils Sect. 19. But before I leave this Point I will mind my Reader That if it were as he supposes it lawfull for every man to call the Decrees of Popes and Councils to a new trial by this Touchstone of Tradition by asking his very Question What we have seen and heard my Adversary hath lost his cause For to this Question being proposed in our present controversie of Purgatory what can we with truth answer but that we have seen innumerable Masses Dirges Alms c and that we have constantly heard that souls are delivered out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the Day of Iudgment And what can we with truth answer but that we have hitherto beleeved this and if we are still our selves and are not so inconstant as to be carried away wiâ—h the wind of a new Doctrine we do beleeve it and shall continue to believe it And for the proof of this Assertion I appeal safely even to the Consciences of those few Proselytes this new Master Master White hath gained Whether till of late this new Systeme of Purgatory came to light they ever entertained the least doubt of it Whether it were not their full perswasion A Doctrine which they beleeved to have been delivered with as firm and constant an Authority as any other whatsoever Whether ever they divided this from the rest of their Faith and allowed it a less degree of assurance onely as of Opinion Nor will it avail my Adversary to say That it was indeed his full perswasion buâ— not his beleef he never understood it though delivered to him from his present Pastors as the Faith of the Church but onely as the generally received Opinion of Divines and that in truth he never ranked it among the Articles of his Creed but in a lower form of I know not what consent of Schoolmen For the Experience of all Mankind will refute this falshood And confident I am if a long perswasion of his now received Doctrine hath not effaced the memory of his past disposition of soul his own conscience bears witness against him For as to the whole Universality of Catholiques they still assert and sustain this Faith they hear not of this novelty without horrour And for that handfull of persons who are thanks be to God not one in a million who have of late embraced the contrary let them for it highly concerns them duely examine their consciences Whether the private esteem of their Master Master White the Authour of this Doctrine the comfortable new apprehensions he introduces in lieu of that great terrour and fear they before were in of the sufferings of that state the easing their Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their departed friendâ— for all this is immediately wrought by an acceptance of this Position
regard the end of the World when time shall be no more but these circulations of the heavens shall receive their last end and Period he tells us that this Oath of the Angel and this devouring of the Book by S. Iohn belong to the preparation of the ensuing ruine of the World and consummation of all things And the Book though sweet to the tast and hearing yet was bitter in his stomack And could not be contained but forced him to preach the Doctrine of it to others Thus he But it is a good divertisement to see how after this sublime conception had fallen into his head how he huggs it and pleases himself with the fancied happiness of that state of the Church which thus shall be steered by evidence by his demonstrations and how far he prefers it before All whatsoever we have hitherto been acquainted with in Christianity and even Prophesies of our future happiness by it a All Phylosophy shall be new molded All Theology shall be refined by his and his Knights Demonstrations b Never were School-boyes so handled by an Imperious Master as He besides the correction bestowed on all the Fathers for a thousand years whips all the School-Doctours none excepted and with most exquisite contempt persecutes all their Learning And of the Church he foretels in this third age there shall be no persecution no Heresies but she shall flourish by his demonstrative Religion in perfect tranquillity She shall now be furnished with persons of most sublime and eminent sanctity and though there shall be no occasion of Martyrdom yet the supream Saints the first fruits to God and the Lamb shall adorn this mans estate or midday of the Church Persons of most sublime contemplation And further as to the Civil Governments of Magistrates and happiness under them he Prophesies Instit. Sac. lib. 3. lec 2. Since this sayes he is the supream state of humane nature it will also bring with it the bettering of the manners of men the Governments and commands of Soveraigns and supream Magistrates shall be more mild and moderate few warrs among Christians the commodities of life far greater All excellent arts cultivated and brought to the highest perfection And since the supream Governours shall find Forraign Warrs necessary for domestick security they shall disburden the turbulent and ambitious spirits among Christians in Wars upon Barbarous Nations and Infidels the enemies of this demonstrative Religion Whom since now they excell in Arts they will easily conquer by Arms and contain them in their duty by an even handed equal Government And shall convert them to Christianity and so Christ shall raign in the whole Globe of the Earth Nor is it to be doubted but that this state being the very Flower and vigour of humane Nature shall be of a most long continuance Thus he rapt in an extasie Prophesies such golden ages melancholy men in love with their own long setled apprehensions fancy and dream of And his Scholars will easily believe that He now having establisht an eternal Peace in our Nations by that admirable Doctrin in his Book of Government and Obedience ground 16. That a dispossest Magistrate is worse then an Infidel if he doe not renounce all his title and claim And that All his subjects are obliged to resist his attempts their Masters demonstrations marcht of late to the confines with the two great Ministers of State and have now concluded a Peace between France and Spain But this were tollerable if this were All Why should not every man enjoy his own thoughts Why should not this great Master be as happy as his own Imaginations and the Applause of his Scholars can make him But thus to betray Christian Religion to Atheists to Disbeleevers To display his Banner of Evidence to open his School of Demonstration to reduce all those stupendious Mysteries of Religion to the natural force of our too too weak understandings and as I now exemplified in the Aeternal Generation of the Son of God a Mystery naturally unknown to Men and Angels for even those Celestial Spirits in their now state of Fruition veil their faces with reverence when they cry Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus to the adorable and ineffable Trinity to tell us even in these sublime Mysteries we shall be furnisht with evident Demonstrations And after this the Production is a discourse so frivolous so unconcluding Assuming not onely what is false but what is erroneous and inferring quite another thing in the Conclusion then was in the Premisses so that no Phylosopher of two years course but sees the emptiness of it no Divine of one years standing but has learnt the Errour of it is to render our holy Faith ridiculous vain and contemptible to Naturalists to Disbeleevers Sect. 25. Why should we then wonder if we have a new Purgatory Alas Sir we have a new Systeme of a whole intire new Religion We have a Doctour who with long melancholy thoughts having fansied a world in the Moon perswades himself that all the Faith Christ taught us shall be evacuated all other Schools shall cease and he forsooth for the future be the sole Pole-star of the World It is not unworthy of our observation by what wary sters this new Divinity which fitted to the Genius of our times I never read but think I am in a Romance walkt into the world The first attempt was upon Scripture where by a long Catalogue of its uncertainties by the Transcribers Translators Printers mistakes or the wilfull corruptions of Iews Hereticks half-witted and bold Readers it would puzzle any mans Arithmetick to count how many to one it is there is not one true word of Scripture in Scripture Upon the sole score of the Transcribers mistakes in that supposition that there were Two thousand Copies writ of the Bible in a hundred years he concludes it sixteen to one against any determinate word that it is not the true word of Scripture this onely saved that the same errour might be in several Copies After this succeeded the infallibility of the Pope of which I have given my Reader his sense already Then followed that he should attaque the Authority of the Councils Which in truth with a better grace and a complement of a Non est impossibile he sent packing out of his School And yet all this while he bore us in hand that he would save All by manly sustaining Tradition the uninterrupted Doctrine handed down and delivered by the succession of Fathers to Children from Christ and his Apostles to any determinate Age But because this Tradition could not with any appearance be sustained but that it carried or supposed the Infallibility of Councils Since there is nothing more universally and constantly beleeved nor can we imagine any more Authentique proof of any Doctrine that it is delivered by Tradition then the Decree of a Council And yet he being resolved by the ruine of that Authority to make way for his Demonstrative Religion
Tradition faded and dwindled into this mysterious expression That the Errour of a Council though promulgated should not pass into an established Doctrine of the Church as delivered by Fathers and preached by Christ by which he brought all into his own power again And when he had thus as he thought cut all the sinews of Christian-Beleef the mystery of all the design is discovered We must be governed by Faith no longer Christ with his Doctrine hath possessed the Chair long enough Master White with his Demonstrations must now take place And least my Adversary should tell me I do him wrong in asserting That after the rest he hath now laid Tradition aside I desire him and his solid cleer-sighted Friends to give me a Catalogue of all those Doctrines he admits into his new Theology or prooves in his Institutiones sacrae which are to be our Scriptures Fathers Councils School-men for the future by Tradition or on the score of Authority Nor let him complain I impose a heavy task upon him Those who are acquainted with every Ressort of his Doctrine will quickly answer it The Catalogue will proove so slender so short it will cost him no considerable Pains I could comprehend them All in this one Word Nothing For in truth there is none at all So safe a truth it is that in lieu of Faith and Christian Religion we have nothing in this School but under the title of Peripatetick and Sacred Institutions an Epicurean Lucretian Phylosophy or rather a medley of both theirs and Aristotles Phylosophy and Pretended Demonstrations not of our Faith as Catholiques have hitherto understood it but as now changing quite the Notions of the Mysteries he is pleased to understand it Of which we shall see more hereafter Sect. 26. Why then should we wonder at the Issues of this Brain What should we wonder at these Productions which out of an absolutely erroneous Method were hatched and brought to light It is no marvel if a most Exotick Phylosophy being presupposed an equally or more Exotick Divinity is built upon it A little Errour in the beginning prooves a great one in the last end The attempt to square Theology to I know nor what pretended Demonstrations hath wrought this destruction Nor need we the help of Divinity Our own Experience and Reason sufficiently evince and discover this method to be ruinous There is no man who hath made even a moderate progress in Sciences but is sufficiently convinced how weak how feeble our Understandings are They are but Novices in Sciences who are puft into a vanity as if they were even now become Masters The better Proficients they grow the more daily and howrly do they cleerly discover their own Ignorance Let 's consider it in particular there is no knowledg so certain so connatural to our undexrstandings as that of Quantity the Object of Mathematiques and yet all the wit of men that ever yet have been in the world come so far short of the discovery that millions of Problemes might yet be proposed which no man can solve And now as to our knowledge of Natural Bodies it is far inferior to the former for of these we scarce understand any thing at all Who ever comprehended the Composition the Properties or even the Essential notion of a Fly What Physitian ever understood fully the Nature the operations the effects of any one Herb any one Simple Who ever knew how Rubarb works on the innumerable parts of our bodies how it purges how it refines how it abates how it heightens the several humours of it St. Basill understood our weakness much better who in his 168 Epist. to Eunom prosecuting this subject proposes above twenty questions to which twenty and twenty more may be added of a contemptible Emmet In none of which the wit of man can satisfie his curiosity And if we are thus short in those things we daily converse with which we touch and tast what will our knowledge amount to in Separated Substances in Souls in Angels in God himself The true ground of this our ignorance being this That our understandings in our present state of mortality being onely naturally moveable from our Phansies which depend wholly on the weak reports drawn from our Senses we have not in this state without Revelation any other notions but such as are abstracted from sensible Objects so that the peculiar properties of abstract Substances since we are not now possest of the peculiar essential notions of them can not now by us naturally be known And hence it is that finding our selves so feeble in things the most obvious even to our senses all the Wise men of the World have ever been struck dumb and ravisht in the consideration of that Omnipotent hand which built both us to honour and love him and them for our use to that end so that where his Authority is ingaged as certainly it is in all things that apperrain to Faith we abase our prying proud curiosity and square our weak apprehensions to them and not these stupendious supernatural Mysteries to our creeping groveling apprehensions of Nature It was then upon this mistake that this new Purgatory came to light it is one and but one of a thousand of those unheard of productions this new Phylosophical Theology is stuft with I could give my Reader many instances of Doctrines he never yet not indeed the world was acquainted with but I will conclude with that very Doctrin because it offers it self as neer allyed to this our present Subject with which he concluds his Demonstrative Divinity It is concerning the Damned Souls for we have not onely a Poetical Purgatory he hath also furnisht us with a most Romancical Hell and who can but smile to think of those ridiculous mimick postures he fancyes of Horse-coursers Dancers Fencers Bowlers and all other Brutals attempting now in Hell in all their several postures those very pleasures in which they constituted their final end in this life Thus then of those Souls he concludes Their misery sayes he depends on their present perverseness so that if they themselves would they might even yet be happy Out of the force and series of Nature of which they are parts nothing better to wit then to be damned could happpen to them neither to All of them in general nor to Any one of them in particular And least Nature or God should escape this Fatall Doctrin he adds And even Nature and God himself should have been worse if they had been otherwise dealt with Pagan Fatality Out of the force and Series of Nature nothing better could happen to Iudas then to be damn'd and if he had not been so God had ceased to be God as so forsooth Wisdom is justified against her children Thus he concludes his Prodigious Theology Sect. 27. And now I hope my Reader hath some light of the Method and Genius of this our great Master and his new School It will give him an introduction into the further discovery of
2. 22. Tab. Suff. tab. 21. And having thus rid his hands of the Pope he proceeds against the infallibility of the Councils in his Tab. Suff. tab. 22. This being his signal Doctrine Non est impossibile c. It is not impossible that the Pope or Council should attempt to establish that as now of Faith which was some time before not of Faith and by that very attempt fall into an error and even promulgate that error c. And further he tells us As to a certain prophetick inspiration immediately and miraculously enlightning the Council or Pope if constantly and by the ordinary Law of God it be asserted to be required it is altogether fabulous and asserted without any solid ground Thus he Upon these grounds I say did this good proficient in this his Masters School endeavour to sustain your otherwaies ruinous Fabrick of Purgatory for in truth there is no other means left to support it but by the destruction of all the Authority of both Popes and Councils to deliver us our holy Faith And now I desire my Reader to consider for his just and full satisfaction of the design of this School that if these grounds be once admitted Christian Faith which they now combat is a meer mockery For if after all the Canons of Councils all the Anathmaes pronounced against any Opinion the very Anathema it self carrying with it and being an exercise of that power invested in the Church to oblige us to submission and beleef it still remains to be showen that the Pope or Council determined conformably to Tradition or else Master Whites styling the doctrine and profession new will not savour the least of Heresie or that it is not impossible a Council may err and promulgate an errour we are at an irrecoverable loss For no Catholick claims any other assurance of his Faith then upon this firm foundation that our holy Mother the Church is his infallible Directress That the Councils her mouth are the unerring Deliveres of Truth Which if it stand no firm absolutely but upon a supposition of a due application it being impossible we should have any higher or more authentique proof of this supposition then the Council it self there is no security no assurance left of any thing delivered by them Not so says he We may easily know when Councils and Consistories apply themselves aright by examining tradition of what we have seen and heard And shall I a private an illiterate Christian not yet acquainted with these solid and cleer-sighted Persons recall all the decrees of Councils to a new examine is there still a higher Court to which I may and ought to appeal from their sentence as to a superiour Iudg and Umpire over them shall I take this liberty upon me to censure their Proceeds to admit to reject their definitions as my weakness shall find them consonant to or dissonant from what I have seen and heard and if they were to receive their approbation from this Court How can I unless a senseless pride blind me hope that my industry in the search my ability to find shall not only equallize but even exceed that of five hundred perhaps a thousand Bishops and Prelates and the scrutiny of numberless Divines assisting them in this Inquest And even to ease us of this sollicitude you see what exact care is taken in these proceeds Pope Benedict here tells you of the holy Church that she teaches nothing rashly brings in nothing unwarily introduces nothing in faith unadvisedly And hence it is that all such sacred decisions are still ushered in with some such expressions as these After an humble invocation of the holy Ghost After a careful examination of the matter After a diligeâ—â— deliberation with our brethren c. But if all this sollicitude in truth signifie nothing if we must not acquiesce here but re-examine all in a higher tribunal iâ— not this the utter Extermination of all that authority we hitherto have believed the Church is furnished with to deliver us our holy Faith Is not this to resolve finally en dernier resort our Creed into our own brests to make every idle head competent Judge of Popes Councils Consistories All And them Judges of just nothing wherein do those loose bands of disagreeing Protestants all disagree from us and all agree against us but in this that we acquiesce and submit to the holy Church as the faithful keeper and dispenser of our Faith and Tradition and so submit that from her sentence we admit no Appeal against her decrees we admit no Contradiction whilst they by a supereminent pride assume to themselves a power to judg this Pillar of Truth and resolve All into their own capriccioes private reason spirit fancies pride and nothing And yet I pray you consider whether by this appealing from the Church to Tradition what we have seen and heard we are not sunk into a deeper sink of Errour of Independancy then they for they appeal to Scripture which though irrationally they accept as Canonical they admit their Translations as authentick and contest the sense onely with the Church whilst this Doctrine affoords us a far more full and ample reserve to evacuate all Faith at our pleasures since it is still in our power and we competent Judges what is Tradition what not where the Council proceeded with due Application upon the depositum of Faith where upon the uncertain wavering opinions of Schoolmen or pretended assistance of the Holy Ghost which extends to Creeds Catechismes Definitions yea the very Canon of Scriptures and indeed All that any way belongs to Christian Religion Nor will it avail if this Gentleman should tell me that I do him wrong to rank his Doctrine with that of the Protestants or indeed hold it worse then theirs for the Protestants down right tell us the Church hath erred de factâ— in these these Points in particular He and Master White more modestly and shily mince the matter and teach us that possibly onely or not impossibly the Council may err and promulgate an errour And perhaps he will say that these inconveniencies are saved by this his succeeding Doctrine in the same place Tab. 22. For there having delivered this his Doctrine against the infallibility of Councils he presently adds But it is impossible that such an errour thus promulg'd by the Council should pass into an establisht Doctrine of the Church and be accepted as a Doctrine delivered by the Fathers and preached by Christ For as to the first it will presently appear even in this our question that if their new model of Purgatory be subsistent not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto the Florentin Council and Church hath erred in this particular And since to say even not impossibly the Council may err the foundation of all assurance is now pulled up I know not but this Doctrine is as high and higher Independancy then theirs And as to those words of Master Whites I answer that they
his 16 dimens De med. Stat. And I answer That it is not altogether unhappy in an ill Cause to be able to say any thing without blushing I have seen Criminals deride the Court scorn the Iudge but I never yet heard any of that eminent Confidence that he durst Vaunt the Court had pronounced in his favour when he stood condemned by the Sentence But because you have learnt to say so too after your Master an ordinary Reader will judge That you verily beleeve you have no Credit to lose when you will venture your rest at this disadvantage The Pope defines Souls being purged even before the re-assumption of their bodies and before the general Iudgment were are and shall be in Heaven The Council defines Souls being now purged uncloathed of their Bodies are Presently received into Heaven I sustain this Faith That Souls may be purged uncloathed of their bodies and that such are received presently into Heaven before the re-assumption of their bodies and general Iudgment You maintain the contradictory of this Position and yet you have the confidence to tell your Reader and even hope he beleeves you That the Sentence is pronounced in your favour and that I stand condemned by it Fourthly You quarrel pag. 10. at the Title of their Book which is Concerning the state of departed Souls You fancy a Mystery which they never meant and tell us this is a false Title the true one is A definition of certain Articles concerning the blessed vision of God and the beatitude and damnation of Souls Which yet is the very self-same with the other in this onely differing that what they comprehended in the word state is here declared by this division Of beatitude and damnution Sect. 37. Fifthly You tell us pag. 11. the word Verbatim made you smile Surely Sir you do not smile without some special grace since you mind us so often of it And presently you triumph about the gender of Synodus which you insinuate the Publisher was ignorant of he having added to it an Adjective in the Masculine gender and you pursue your sport amain and tell us The Printer must take the fault upon him or else the publisher will be suspected to be better skilled in transcribinâ— Three hundred lines of Latin then making three and yet you safely pass this censure upon him since the Printer was exact enough in all the Popes and Councils Latin And further you read us a Grammar Lesson that some words in us are of the Feminine some in a of the Masculine gender Now Sir we will suppose that you were very carefull to examine the Print and yet for all your care Sacrâ—sanctum Ecclesiam escaped your eye For since you came so lately from Grammar I do not suspect you have forgot that Ecclesiaâ— and Musa are of the Feminine gender though Poeta indeed is as you tell us of the Masculine But these are meer seven-years-old-School-boys imployments unworthy your reflections now you write Man and would be tampering in Divinity But it unbeseems your Youth thus to attaque a person of Merit and Learning who long before your new minted Purgatory appeared in the world both read and sustained Orthodox Divinity in a famous University and I hope I may say it without vanity with Dignity and Honour to that Chair which was not every ones good fortune even after their Conclusions had passed the Press as I am informed out of Portugal Sixthly You laugh pag. 18. at your Adversaries as if they were afraid to produce their Reasons against Master White and therefore you must guess at their whispering Objections by their stalking in great Letters And elsewhere you tell us We can not weild Reason and therefore our weapons are Authority What Goliath is this that exprobrates the Hoast of the Living God The Church Sir is both armed with Authority against Novelties and is not unfurnished with Reason to sustain her Faith against all the Pagan Phylosophy of the world If my indeavours receive your approbation I shall proceed to further discoveries in this your faithless pretended Theology And as to your complaint That some words in their little Book stalkt in great Letters 't is grounded on your little conversation with Books where Capital Letters are frequent especially in citing Authorities For there where the force of the proof lies in two or three words they are pointed out thus to the Readers eye and observation You may if you please print in Capital Letters Monachi subditi Episcopis and Notent Monachi and then you will onely publish a little yet undigested Choler in a Controversie again and again decided by that Tribunal from which there is no appeal Seventhly You tell us pag. 14. Master Whites opposers acknowledge that this Question of Purgatory was not handled in Pope Benedict his dayes since they accuse Master White for the first starter of this doubt Your Adversary the Publisher of the Bull hath nothing at all of this If his other Opposers accuse him of it I know not how they can justifie the Accusation New Opinions are raked out of hell every day by the Heterodox party of which we yet finde obscure footsteps in Antiquity Many opinions were choaked by the authority of the Church even in their birth and broached again Your self acknowledge Pope Benedict and many Doctors of the Latin Church were of opinion That Purgation might be perfected before Reunion pag. 19. and it will not be improbable if it was onely their Opinion as you pretend that others with Master White held the contrary But how can you parallel pag. 17. Master White according to your Adversary with him who brake a Law before it was made if Master White now breaks one three hundred years after it was made unless you will suppose that no one Article of our Faith was establisht till some one or other impugned it for otherwise his now Crime or erroneous Doctrin might stand condemned long agoe Sect. 38. Eightly You would perswade your Reader pag. 34 35. that not You but We stand condemn'd by this Bull and Council because the sole design of the Pope was to secure this sacred verity That perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven And since your Adversary holds That every soul immediately upon her separation converts her self perfectly to God and yet he detains her still in Purgatory to suffer a dry and arbitrary punishment which doth not redress the already rectified affections of the soul It follows He contradicts the Popes design and stands condemned by this his Sentence I answer first That I have already charged you with imposing on the Pope and if it were true that the Pope doth here define That perfect Charity brings an immediate Heaven which when you shew we shall be thankful for the miracle yet does not your argument against us at all conclude for where does your Adversary tell you That immediately upon separation all the affections of the soul are rectified and she in perfect Charity much less
himself when I find it so brought down to our capacities that it is pretended The examples of Logick and Natural Phylosophy equalize this Mystery when I am taught That the Father and Son in Divinis are Metaphors I have a great apprehension that this Doctrin and my hitherto received Faith agree but in words not in the things signified by them I do believe That God most freely and of his own goodness built this Vniverse I believe He is not necessarily tyed to the order or course of Nature And when I am now taught That God must contradict himself if he Act any thing against Nature That Out of the force and series of Nature nothing could happen better to Iudas then to be damned In fine God should cease to be God if this Flye should not now be in nature I fear though we agree in this word God our apprehensions jump not at all Christians apprehend and adore the liberal free hand of their Maker but a God tyed to any thing besides himself is not a Christian God but a Pagan Iupiter I do believe upon Christs words That if I keep the Commandments I shall enter into life and this is the foundation of my Doctrin of manners And when I am now taught That God neither commands nor forbids any thing However we agree in these words Thou shalt not Steal Thou shalt not commit Adultery my whole Doctrin of Morality is banished by this assertion It will hereafter appear your Master hath furnished us with a faâ— other Morality then ever Escobar thought of What do you think of this Position of your Master in his book of Government and Obedience ground 6. speaking of himself An other man says he is no otherwise to me then a peece of Cloath or Wood which I cut and shape after my own will fittingly for my use Even though I do him harme or seek his ruine It follows not I wrong him How well doth this agree with that Principle of Nature That we ought so to do to others as we would have them do to us In summ where I see a pretender to Demonstrate all the Mysteries of our holy Faith and that Faith shall cease and Evidence take place I justly fear though the words are still retained this is but to supplant Christ and his Doctrin our notions and significations of words must be changed or else these stupendious Mysteries can not be levelled to our weak capacities But though these be my apprehensions yet I wish I were mistaken I wish these new Doctrines may receive such Explications that they may appear no less Catholick then those I profess and shall be as happy to receive satisfaction as you to give it me but withal I must frankly promise you that I shall require your satisfaction both in these and many other Doctrines I do acknowledge with thankfulness that one may be instructed by Master White whose excellent Wit and Pen if duly applyed is admirable but if I mistake not he hath flown beyond the bounds fixed by an unerring hand and therefore desire you to accept of this serious Protestation That I have an intire respect for his Person and if any harsh word hath escaped my Pen it is the Doctrine not He that is concerned in the Epithete the same I speake and intend to your self Though if you consider the case aright where not only whatsoever is sacred to Catholicks but what the Heterodox-Party agree with them in is thus attaqued Where the foundations of Christianity and of all Religion the Liberty of God and Contingency of Creatures is thus attempted by a Lucretian Galamawfry Phylosophy to make way for a new Demonstrative Religion such an exotick design deserves not a more mild censure then what I have fixed upon it and yet I hope you will nor find your too too frequent Calumniating Adversaries or any thing like it in my whole booke If you think there is any animosity in my Discourse I heartily beg your pardon we daily say Sicut nos dimittimus where these heats are easily allayed and for our present Controversie of Purgatory let us patiently expect the determination of our undoubted Superior the Present soveraign Pastor who as the Florentin Council here tell us holds the Primacy over the whole World Who is the Successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ and the Head of the whole Church and the Father and Teacher of all Christians And who finally had full power delivered unto him by our Lord Iesus Christ in St. Peter to Feed to Rule and to Govern the Vniversal Church To whom we will Candidly Fairly and Religiously and not by any false suggestions or surprising friends as you most strangely suspect pag. 40. and thereby at once condemn both that Supream Court of Weakness if not of Corruption and your adversaries of Dishonesty remit the whole Controversie and humbly submit to his Judgment both in this Particular and in all other Disputable Points whatsoever FINIS THe Publisher desires my Adversary to take notice That if there be any thing in this Discourse which depends on matter of Fact in which he desires to be satisfied he is ready to give him intire satisfaction before any Person of Honour by undoubted Witnesses A THE BULL OF Pope BENEDICT the Eleventh Otherwise called the Twelfth Promulgated in the Year 1336. Concerning the State of Departed SOULS Faithfully Translated as it is in the Roman Bullary Printed at Rome Anno Dom. 1638. Benedict Bishop the Servant of Gods Servants To the perpetual memory of Posterity BLessed be God in his Gifts and Holy in all his works who through his mercy forsakes not the Sacred Roman Catholique and Apostolical Church which his right hand hath planted as his Vineyard and which he hath raised up as chief and Conqueress to be the head of all Churches our Lord saying to Peter Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church but by his blessed Apostles especially Peter and Paul the singular Defenders of the same Church keeps her through his compassionate Benignity and continual Piety that she being governed by these Rulers may remain stable in her self as founded upon the firm Rock and that all the believers of the Christian Faith may obey her may yield to her may intend to her may live under her authority may be under her discipline and correction That in her nothing may be taught rashly nothing brought in unwarily nothing in Faith unadvisedly introduced and that so men may decline from evil and do good that they may walk in the right paths and make progress to better things by their holy desires that they may hopefully expect the neer approaching rewards of the eternal life of just men and fearfully dread the not far off calamities of Hell appointed for the wicked For it is written Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to render unto every one according to his works But if it shall
be otherwise attempted by any one that she forthwith by her authority adding also punishments thereunto as she shall judge it expedient totally root it out For which Church to the end that she subsisting in her self might inform others our Saviour Christ Jesus prayed to his Father in the time of his Passion saying Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may fift you as Wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail and when thou art converted strengthen thy Brethren 1. There arose indeed a matter of question not long since in the time of Iohn the 22 our Predecessor of happy memory between some Doctors of Divinity concerning the Vision of the Souls of just men after their death in which there was nothing to be purged when they departed out of this world or if there were it was now totally purged Whether they see the Divine Essence before the assumption of their Bodies and the generall Judgement and also concerning other matters some of them holding the negative some the affirmative others according to their own imaginations endeavouring to shew divers things and in divers manners concerning the Vision of the Divine Essence by the Souls aforesaid as it is known apparently by their words and writings and by their rejected Disputations which we here omit for brevities sake because they so differed amongst themselves from our determinations And whereas our aforesaid Predecessor to whom the determination of the above-mentioned Questions did belong had prepared himself in his publick Consistory as well before his Brethren the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church of whose members we our selves then were as before the Prelates and Doctors in Divinity many of them being present strictly charging and commanding them that each one should deliberately deliver his opinion concerning the matter of the aforesaid Vision when he should require it from them But being prevented by Death as it pleased God he could not effect it 2. We therefore after the death of our aforesaid Predecessor being assumed to sit in the Apostolical Seat more seriously considering how great dangers of Souls might be incurr'd and how many scandals might arise if the aforesaid contentions were left unresolved to the end that the diversity of opinions may perish and the solidity of truth may plainly appear having first made use of a careful examination of the matters aforesaid and having diligently deliberated with our Brethren the Cardinals of the said Roman Church Do with the advice of those our Brethren by the Apostolicall authoritie Define by this constitution to be valid for ever 3. That according to the common ordination of God The Souls of all the Saints which departed out of this world before the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ as also the Souls of the holy Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and of the other faithfull departed after they had received Christs sacred Baptism in whom there was nothiâ—g to be purged when they departed nor also shxall be when heâ—eafter they shall depart this life or if there then be or shall be any thing to be purged in them when after Death they shall be purged And That the Souls of Infants regenerated with the said Christian Baptism and to be baptized when being baptized they shall depart this life before they have the use of their free will PRESENTLY after their departure and after the aforesaid Purgation in such as stood in need thereof EVEN BEFORE THE RESUMPTION OF THEIR BODIES AND BEFORE THE GENERAL JUDGEMENT since the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus into Heaven WERE ARE AND SHALL BE IN HEAVEN in the heavenly Kingdome in the celestial Paradise with Christ aggregated to the fellowship of the holy Angels and since the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ they have seen and do see the Divine Essence by an intuitive vision and even face to face without the mediation of any creature interposing it self by way of a visible object but the Divine Essence shewing it self immediately unto them nakedly clearly and openly And That they thus seeing the Divine Essence do enjoy the same Moreover That by such a vision and fruition the Souls of them who are already departed out of this life are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest and so shall their Souls be which shall hereafter depart this life when they shall see the same Divine Essence and enjoy it before the general Judgment And That this Vision and Fruition of the Divine Essence doth evacuate in them and cause to cease the Acts of Faith and Hope as Faith and Hope are properly Theological Vertues And That after such an intuitive and facial Vision and Fruition shall be begun in them the same Vision and Fruition without any interruption evacuation or cessation hath remained continued and shall be continued even to the final Judgment and afterwards even to all Eternity 4. Moreover We Define That according to Gods common ordination the souls of such as die in actual deadly sin descend PRESENTLY into Hell after their death where they are tormented with infernal punishments and That nevertheless in the Day of Judgment all men shall appear before the Tribunal of Christ with their bodies to render an account of their own actions that every one may bear the proper things of his body according to what he hath done whether good or evil 5. Decreeing That our Definitions or Determinations aforesaid and every of them be held by all faithfull people And that whosoever shall hereafter presume wittingly and pertinaciously to hold affirm preach teach and defend by Word or by Writing contrary to these our aforesaid Definitions or Determinations and every of them It be proceeded against him in due manner as AGAINST AN HERETICK 6. Let it not therefore be lawfull for any man to violate this Page of our Constitution or by a rash boldness to do against the same But if any one shall presume to attempt it let him know that he shall incur the wrath of the Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul his Apopostles Given at Avinion on the Fourth of the Calends of February in the Second Year of Our Popedome In like manner it was decreed in the Eighth General Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth as appears in the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Church In these terms Out of the Eighth Geneneral Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth In the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Churches The Sacred Council aprooving We Define Artic. 3. IF truly penitent Souls shall depart this Life before they have satisfied for their Commissions and Omissions by the worthy Fruits of Penance That their Souls are purged by the punishment of Purgatory after their Bodies Death And that to relieve them from such their punishments the Suffrages of the faithfull yet living do profit them to wit Sacrifices of the Mass Prayers Alms-deeds and other offices of piety