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book_n	age_n	church_n	time_n	1,732	5	3.5963	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59251	A vindication of the doctrine contained in Pope Benedict XII, his bull and in the General Council of Florence, under Eugenius the III concerning the state of departed souls : in answer to a certain letter, printed and published against it, by an unknown author, under this title, A letter in answer to the late dispensers of Pope Benedict XII, his bull, &c., wherein the progress of Master Whites lately minted Purgatory is laid open and its grounds examined ... / by S.W.	Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.	1659 (1659)	Wing S2599; ESTC R12974	85,834	208

be Inthroned Let Peter Paul and Iohn nay let our Master who came from heaven to teach us give way Let all other Doctors whatsoever attend upo● his Triumph Let the astonisht captivated world shutting henceforth their ears to all others hear him Alone Why should we trouble our heads any more with the Gospels with Paul We find no Satiety of our understanding in their bare naked Assertions In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word What if ten thousand miracles were wrought in confirmation of this Doctrine my Soul ha●h not its full content I still thirst after light after evidence which here is not to be found Let us then shutting our ears to these drily proposed Doctrines hear great Trinobant and Satiate and glut our understandings with this his evident cleer Demonstration For thus what St. Iohn obscurely had told us he makes apparent That there is Vnity and Plurality in God without Repugnance Since that God knows himself and the thing defined being put the definition is also to be put in him but to know is to be another thing as another thing and to be known is to be an other thing as an other thing the business is plainly ended that God is in God as an other in an other and by consequence Aliety is truly and really and as a predicat of God found in God and not onely as a manner of predicating or as it is in our Vnderstanding Here is light here is evidence able to ravish a soul nay Satiate and Surfet her in the height of all her Thirst and longing after Truth Sect. 24. In truth Sir a sober Reader though he were in a melancholy mood would be tempted to smile at this Demonstration as you did pag. 11. at the word verbatim And yet that Passion would justly give way to his indignation against this Presumption No Christian but hath heard That the Faith our B. Saviour taught Mankind was to continue in his holy Spouse the Church on earth till the consummation of the world and his second coming to Judge And can we cease to wonder or indeed to conceive a just indignation now to find a Thomas the English-man who after Forty or Fifty years study should tell us That in truth we have all been mistaken there is no such matter But that in the Infancy and Child-hood of the Church She was to walk indeed by Faith but now in the third Age or Mans estate she is no more to be governed by Faith but by Science by Demonstration In this very Third Age or Mans estate of the Church in which now we live to begin undoubtedly from himself since he admits of no one Demonstration in any one former Schoolman and himself promises thousands And all this made out of the most prodigious explication of the Apocalypse that ever saw light as if it were a meer Poem and a Stage-play And peculiarly of that passage That there were two wings of a great Eagle given to the Woman that she might fly into the desart He understanding this Woman to be the Church these two Wings to be Faith and Science Faith which our B. Saviour gave her in his Oeconomy on Earth by which she was to steer her course in her Nonage But now She being come to Mans estate He himself gives her the other Wing of Knowledg for henceforth she is onely to be directed by his Demonstrations And with this new Wing he now gives her fairly she may walk if she please unless she be able to fly as she hath hitherto done for Sixteen hundred years with one Wing alone since this Wing quite destroys the other Evidence and Science being perfectly destructive of Obscurity and Faith But it is worth my Readers pains to see this admirable conception of his fancied demonstrative Third Age of the Church described at large in the same Book Sect. 9. and elsewhere In the tenth Chapter sayes he begins and is perfected the Enarration of the Third Age of the Church which because it is to be prosperous and blessed and subject to few evils therefore it is described onely in general c. The Reason of this is for since Grace prefects Nature and since in rational nature there are three degrees or species of knowledg by which successively the soul receives increase to wit Faith which governs Children Opinion which steers young men as yet unexperienced and unskilful And lastly Science which directs men now perfect It is necessary that in the Church Nature ascend by the self same degrees Till Constantins time the first Christian Emperour Faith alone took place From Constantin till our age Hereticks were combated by Rhetorical and Logical dissertations which because by little and little is fitted to conduct men to Evidence the immediat succeeding Age of the Church is to be expected in which Evidence succeeding there will be no place for Heresies but the Church shall flourish in most perfect Peace and Prosperity And having thus adorned the scene he brings himself down from Heaven with these happy demonstrations in this manner As in this Chapter sayes he S. John teaches describing unto us A strong Angel as fitting for mans estate Descending from Heaven from whence all good things are derived to us Cloathed with a Clowd That is with a celestial garment as who brings heavenly things to us not keeping himself aloof from us but even approaching and coming neer unto us ●nd the Rainbow which is the symbol of Divine Peace hung over his Head And his Face was like the Sun To wit as he who came to communicate perfect light to humane kind And his Leggs in strength and firmness as Pillars And in activity as Fire And he had in his Hand an open Book that is to be read and understood by All And in which there was no obscurity or involution And He put his right Foot on the sea that is he subjected turbulent spirits by force and Power And His left Foot on the Land that is confirming and strengthening the humble and meeek And he cried out with a lowd voice even like the roaring of a Lyon Which apertains to the latitude of the Church which is signified to be extended as farr as his voice might be heard c. And the effect of his voice was that the seven Thunders might speak their Uoices that is have their effects which the Apostle is forbidden to write for the reasons above delivered nevertheless he is commanded to seal them in his memory perhaps to be told to pious men in privat not publickly to be promulgated to the Church But least this could not be so happily adapted to himself and his long lasting third age of the Church steered by his Demonstrative Religion since presently the Text introduces this same Angel swearing That time should be no more and S. Iohn is presently described to have devoured this open Book which the Angel brought from heaven Which might seem to

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

that our affections to acquaintance and friends and the rest we cultivated in this life shall remain in the future And more fully in the same place num 2. The affections shall remain and that in the same proportion they were during life Out of which he concludes there num 3. Those who have given themselves up wholly to corporal pleasures will be affected with a vast grief through the impossibility of those pleasures there that is because corporal pleasures cannot now be injoyed by the soul in her state of separation This is the essence the substance of his Purgatory this is his whole chain or deduction of it this is the grief he admits in separated souls for accusing them of ignorance who conceive fire or any other material or external agent hath power to afflict them in that state he conceives them sufferers from these remaining affections to corporal pleasures which therefore torment the souls because they now are in a state where these pleasures are impossible to be injoyed Sect. 7. Now as to the measure or duraration of separated souls and the continuation of that state till the day of judgment the foundations are laid in the same Book less 3. num 5. Again sayes he it is plain that a separated soul in an other manner excels place and time then in the body since in that it only abstracts from them but out of that it comprehends them For this universal and actual knowledg places all place and all time within the soul so that it can act in every place at once and together as far as concerns this respect and provide for all time wherefore it is in a manner a maker and governour of time and place out of which he deduces fully of the middle state acc. 12. in spiritual acts whether they bring happiness or misery there is no proportion to time so as to make pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner to be less for those are the properties of corporal things c. Every act of a pure spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time is not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c. And in the next Sect. more fully If to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing which coexists to a shorter part of time nothing be thereby diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases c. So that whatsoever grief of a separated soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same let its Co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less less intense nothing being gained o● lost by the perpetuating or shortning of the motions of the Sun or other caelestial bodies c. And from this ground in the same book account 22. he concludes Whatsoever time intervenes betwixt it that is the prayer now powred out for a departed soul or death and the restauration of the world that is the day of general judgment is to departed souls but as one moment Sect. 8. And further as to the Immutability of that state of separation and the unchangeableness of the acts of Souls now severed from their Bodies his grounds are laid down in the afore-cited Perepatetick Institutions book 5. less 4. num 6 7 8. Moreover says he out of what hath been said 't is deduced That in the state of separation no variety can happen to Souls from any body or the change of Bodies for since 〈◊〉 change passes not from any body into the soul but through the Identification of the soul with its own body and this Identification ceaseth by the state of separation it follows that no action nor mutation can be derived from any Body to the Soul Nor has the Soul of it self a principle of change in it self not from hence only because an indivisible cannot act on it self but also because since a mutation of the Soul cannot be any other then either according to the Vnderstanding or according to the Will But the Vnderstanding is supposed to know all things together and for ever whence by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science And the Will is either not distinct from the Vnderstanding or at least is adequately governed in the state of separation it follows that naturally no mutation can happen to a separated soul from within or caused by it self Nor yet from any other Spirit without the Interposition of the Body for since all Spirits are indivisible their operations too will be such but an indivisible effect supposing all the causes of necessity exists in the same instant wherefore if any thing be to be done between Spirits t is all in one instant so done and perfected that afterwards an other action cannot be begun for if it begin either the causes were before adequately put or not if they were the effect was put if they were not some of the causes is changed that it may now begin to act and not this b●● the former is the first mutation whereof it is to be urged Whether the causes were put before These are the eternal truths as they would perswade us the unshakable foundations of Phylosophy on which this whole new Fabrick of Purgatory stands and I have been the more careful to deliver them fully to my reader even in this beginning of my discourse that he may with one cast of his eye see on what firm foundations this new school hath abandoned the hitherto received faith of our holy mother the Church and now dares pronounce That what she hath hitherto taught us proceeded but out of ignorance of the nature of separated substances Of the Mid. State Acc. 17. Sect. 9. But because Master White the Author of this new Purgatory and our faithless demonstrative Religion was sufficiently conscious to himself that these novelties would call upon the vigilancy and care of the Shepheards of Christs flock he stood ready prepared to receive their incounter And no sooner had the late Bishop of Calcedon his then superior admonished him of this and other his new Doctrines in this new pretended Demonstrative Theology but in defence of his new molded Purgatory issued out his premeditated as it seems book Of the Middle State of Souls directed to the same Bishop which book if it had remained in the Authors obscure and mysterious Dialect which he above all modern Writers seems to affect and reason enough he hath to come Mascaradoed into the world and to involve himself had layed deservedly neglected But it having been by the indiscreet care of some one of his Proselytes put into an English dress and exposed to the weak capacities even of Vulgar Readers lest this new erroneous Doctrine contained in it might spread among those whose infirmity betrayed them to be

hear what Pegna writes of him Eymericus sayes he A famous learned and holy man who was appointed the general Inquisitor of the Kingdome of Aragon in the year 1358. which is only 22. years after the Promulgation of this Bull from whence he was called to Avignon by Pope Gregory 11. and there being his Chaplain composed his excellent Directory gathers ten Heresies condemned by this Extravagant and most truly admonishes that so many Catholick verities contrary to those Heresies are thereby prooved and established The place at length out of this so Authentick a Writer I give my Reader at the end of my discourse Letter B. not to interrupt the continued threed of it for by it my Reader will easily observe with what strong confidence the youthful Scholars of this modern School appear in print And if you had been pleased to peruse the continuation of Baronius his Ecclesiastical Annals by Spondanus you would have rested satisfied in this our point for at the year 1333. he thus delivers the opinion of Pope Iohn the 22. then disputed which occasioned this Bull of Benedict his successour For sayes he in that year 1333. as Villanius Rebdorfius the continuator of Nangius and others witness Iohn the 22. then Pope began publickly to treat of what before he had conceived concerning the beatifical vision of Souls what not a few of the ancient both Greek and Latine Fathers Iustinus Ireneus c. did seem to hold That souls now severed from their bodies and duely purged from all stain of sin either in this present mortal life or in the next in Purgatory do not enjoy perfectly the beatifical vision of the divine essence before the last day of Iudgment but do expect the Resurrection of their bodies that together with them they may attain perfect beatitude and to this opinion not as yet altogether reproved or condemned by the holy Church this Pope John himself seemed to incline c. For which reason he gained himself very many Adversaries both among the Cardinals and Prelates and also of other Doctors of Divinity every where and Religious men of all orders And at the year 1334 the same Sp●ndanus delivers that this Pope John the day before he died published a constitution in which he condemned that opinion of which he stood suspected Now Sir when you have perused and weighed these things which I am confident you never dreamt of before for in truth you rested satisfied with what your Solid and cleer-sighted friends had told you of their new devised question of Charity as then disputed you will perhaps observe your error you will see it is not a little heat of youth which presses men of your years to appear in print or a little tickling vein which eggs young men forward to catch their Adversary with an O or an A and pass a witty jest upon him till age and experience hath ripened their discretion which can warrant a Book in the publick view of discreet persons You will be convinced that you were mistaken by your great good affection and esteem of your solid cleer-sighted friends and that in truth you have ingaged your credit a little too farr upon their authority Sect. 14. But this is not all I have to say to you The first fault of negligence and boldness even in this kind is perhaps pardonable in young men But I beseech you Sir how could those solid cleer-sighted persons give you the confidence to impose so grosly upon us to state us here a question of which the Bull delivers not one word of which Cherubinus to whom you appeal makes not the least mention and yet you confidently add All Learned Writers agree pag. 14. Where if you had not named Writers I should have judged you appeal'd to your solid clear-sighted Friends for in truth I cannot find any one Learned Writer who states this your new question as then disputed or defined And I cannot pardon this your so confident imposing on your Reader You tell us our present controversie concerning the delivery of souls out of Purgatory stands not here defined because the Word Purgatory is not in the Bull however it is sufficiently in the Council and the Pope decrees of soul● now purged And you require pag. 26. the Popes or Councils positive is or is not and unless I can shew this Position in terms Souls are purged before the day of judgment I run a hazard to contradict both the Pope and Council Which how to excuse from nonsence if compared with what you are pleased ou● of your kindness to allow p. 27. that the Pope was of the opinion that Purgatory might be finished before the last day which could not be contradictory to his faith is past my skill You know what it is to bring rods to whip himself And can you have the confidence Sir to tell us pag. 29. and elsewhere the onely and sole controversie was Whether perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven and all that the Pope intended to secure● by this present Bull Whilst the Word Charity is not in the Bull whilst there is not the least mention of it in the question even now related in Spondanus which occasioned this definition whilst neither in the Preface to the Decree nor in the Decree it self nor any thing that follows it the Pope pronounces of Charity I or no much less doth he declare either the affirmative or negative of this your new Question to secure it nor is there the least hint in Cherurbinus of it I gave my Reader his whole Compendium that he might see how far you were transported with the high esteem of your solid clear-sighted Friends when you appeal to him who thus agreeing with the Pope pronounces against you All Nor do your Arguments drawn from holy desires pag. 15. 16. or the future rewards and punishments which the Pope so earnestly inculcates in his Preface to this definition at all avail you Alas Sir the whole systeme of Christian Religion every part and parcell of it is directed to plant to kindle holy desires in our Souls and yet I think you will not easily avow there is nothing else defined or recommended to us in this whole fabrick but purely and precisely that perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven nor will it be any plea for you that this was then the question because the Pope ushers his Definition with this Exhortation to holy desires which might very well and properly introduce any Position of Christian Religion whatsoever and peculiarly this because by progress in vertue and holy desires our endeavours are rendred more effectual for souls in that distressed condition as very neer allyed to his Decrees concerning the state of departed souls For how neer a tye soever the one hath to the other though it were by an immediate necessary evident consequence yet it is highly unlawful to change the state of the present question and impose upon us that not it but some other thus allyed to it stands