opinion which will notnow be far of For the rest of this Chapter he spends in saying his Doctrin is conformable to the Councils of Trent and Florence and to St. Austin all which I confess for they speak but of Purgatory in common and so both our opinions are conformable unto them our difference being onely a particularity of Purgatory and not about the sence of it 11. Here if it please you to cast an eye upon what is passed you will find his first proofs to be out of Scriptures speaking Doctrins common to us both the second out of Fathers who say Christ at his Resurrection deliver'd souls out of Purgatory which we grant His next from Fathers who are known to have fallen into Errours in the points he cites them for that is he cites three Heresies for himself In the fourth place Revelations out of Greg. Turonensis and Metaphrastes insufficient Authours Fifthly some Fathers and Councils who speak no more then what both sides agree of Later Revelations enow but they are such Testimonies as are insufficient I think even in his own judgment to make a Theological proof Two Bulls of Popes whereof the one is grossly mistaken And lastly a false apprehension of the Churches present devotions which he takes not out of publick prayer-Prayer-Books but out of private intentions These are the most substantial passages of his discourse others of less moment I neglect not to make my period too tedious SECOND PART Maintaining the Arguments brought by the Authour from Authority and Reason for the Doctrin of the Middle State FIRST DIVISION Containing preparatory Grounds for the ensuing discourses That God being All-wise and Self-Blessed acts onely for the Good of his Creatures and especially Man what God's Honour signifies and how he governs Man The Nature of Sin and its Effects How God's Justice is satisfy'd Of Merit Impetration and Satisfaction A Breviate of the Adversary's opinion 1. BEfore I begin to look into his Impugnations of my Doctrin I think it expedient to lay down a brief explication of mine own thoughts in this question intreating my Reader 's patience if he thinks I fetch it too far about whereof he will see the necessity hereafter I settle therefore or rather explicate some Principles necessary to the seeing how intimately my Doctrin is connexed with Christian Faith 2. Let the first be that God is Essentially Wise and Wisdom or Truth or true Understanding of his actions and the Government of them For if any man sees what he should do but by passion or rather distraction doth not what he sees should be done we may call him Understanding or Knowing but not Wise. Therefore God whose Essence it is to be Wisdome cannot swerve from what he sees to be done or best to be done â—or it is all one to him who is governed purely by Wisdome to be best to be done and to be to be done because nothing but true Good can move such a Will and betwixt two unequal goods the greater is onely the true Good 3. My second Principle is that God is essentially Bliss and Blessed and that in so high and pure a degree that no Good which is adventitious from either his own action or the action of any other Substance can be wanting to him or desirable by him and because Good signifies desirable that there is no extrinsecal good that can truly challenge the denomination of a Good to God Honour for example is the Good of a Man upon two scores one because when he hears himself commended he hath an act of pleasure which perfects him intrinsecally the other because Honour brings him help to do somewhat which perfects him for example to get Wealth or some Office out of which he can gather contentment So that still the interiour contentment is that which makes the exteriour instruments to have the name of Goods Wherefore seeing Christian Religion teaches us that God gets no new contentments out of the effects his action has it is also necessary to believe the honour that all Saints give him is no Good of his 4. Out of these two follows the Third that whatsoever God does he does it for the Good of his Creatures and that when he says that he acts for his own Honour the meaning is that he works that other men whom the Action toucheth not seeing those he acts upon well governed may be bettered and praise him and conceive a greater apprehension of his wisdome and goodness and by that means the good of his whole Mass of Creatures be perfected So that the Honour he speaks of is nothing but the well ordering of his Creatures in which one principal and main part is that his rational creatures have Faith Hope and Charity which are all parts of praising him So that we are not to look for a farther end of God's works then the perfection which is intrinsecal to the Universal Mass of his Creatures 5. The fourth is consequent to these to wit that seeing the Good of his Creatures is his main end and the Good of a Creature is that which is desirable to that Creature and every Nature desires its own Perfection and that perfects Nature which makes it able to do those actions to which such a nature is instrumental or for which such a Nature is made in perfection It follows that if we consider the whole Mass of Creatures God's action is still that which is most conformable unto it or to the Nature of all Creatures But if we consider a particular Nature upon which God acts God's action is that which is most conformable to such a Nature as being in such a posture of Nature in common or the best to this particular Nature as far as it stands with the greatest good of the general Mass. Whence it is evident that God never did nor will do any thing but conformably to the Nature of Creatures And this you see evidently out of the Attributes of his Wisdome and Self-sufficiency which are main Articles of Christian Faith 6. The fifth Principle is that because Man is the end of all material Creatures and Man is to be governed by his own Understanding it is necessary that some things or actions be so done that the effects be not onely performed but that they may be perswasive to man Further because Mankind is of a short apprehension and subject to follow his senses whereas his Beatitude and chief Good is beyond his reach Therefore it is necessary God should be the Teacher of Mankind and speak immediately to him in words and Doctrin as he did to Adam Moyses and the Apostles and that they should know that the words spoken were from God and therefore some extraordinary actions which are above the power of those natural causes with which we are familiar should be in convenient occasions exhibited out of which it should be known that a higher hand gave Testimony to the words and Doctrins delivered The special conveniences which require such actions God
DEVOTION AND REASON FIRST ESSAY WHEREIN Modern Devotion for the Dead is brought to solid Principles and made Rational In way of Answer to Mr J. M's Remembrance for the Living to pray for the Dead By THOMAS WHITE Gent. In quo quemque invenerit suus novissimus dies in eo eum comprehendet mundi novissimus dies Aug. Epist. 80. ad Hesychium PARIS MCDLXI PREFACE To the Gentleman who sent me Mr. J. M's Book SIR PEradventure you may desire as well my Judgment of Mr. M's Book as the answering of it In Brief then The man I knew many years ago and concieved a good Idea of his honesty and such Learning as could then be expected from him He went after beyond the Seas where as I heard he follow'd other studies and at his return I saw him once but had a good Character of him from a common friend as touching his Honesty For as to his Learning either my friend had not try'd it or we had no occasion to discourse of it With this Character of his Person I undertook the reading of his Book In which I find all the Arts necessary to the dâ—fending of a bad cause with as little shame as is possible He brings known Heresies for his defence of lawfull Authours he stretches their Persons to the heighth their words beyond their extent if he lights upon an Authority of some Church Book you would think it were the Definition of a General Council he so presses the Authority of the Church for it By Interpretations and Translations he makes them say what he lists He imposes upon his Adversaries Erroneous Doctrin sometimes because he hath not taken the pains to understand them and other times because otherwise his cause would be openly gone He specially presses my opposition to Popes Bulls as ayming by confirmation of them to have me censured Of two the one he corrupts the other he understands more like a Banquier then a Divine and yet sets his rest upon them Most of his Arguments are from places common to both sides A great weapon with him is to tax his Adversaries Arguments as employed by Hereticks to prove Errours not knowing that it is a principal Method of gaining Science to use the Arguments of extream Errours to conclude the middle Truth a way much practised by Aristotle and very laudable For as Aristotle teaches there is nâ— famous Errour without some truth in it seeing wiâ—h â—t shew of Truth Nature could not receive it He hath made a Collection of good and bad I think of as much as can be said but seems to make no distinction between those that have some weight and those which have none His Answers are sometimes the admitting of plain Contradiction sometimes admitting of all we say and for the most some difference in words more then in meaning Yet he brags fearfully of his great Exployts and Triumphs When he pleases he explicates my opinions in disguised Language and ordinarily imperfectly I hope his Book will prove the decision if not of the cause at least of the handling of it He hath had two great Advantages against me One by which a witty Spanish Preacher called Padre Mancio overcame his corrival to a Sermon in a Country Parish For putting him to say his Pater noster in Latin before the People to try his learning when his corrival said it right he would correct him according to the false pronunciation of the common People which the People applauding preferred him So your Authour has the Advantage by explicating Spiritual things corporally to have the apprehension of Ordinary both Men and Divines and consequently the applause for him The secend is that he hath commodity of Books which to me being a stranger and unknown and in a Town not extraordinary boâ—kish are hard to find for which reason I am fain to be content with the faults his citations afford without being able to give so ample satisfaction as the seeing of the works themselves might have made me able to exhibit Yet all this doth not cause me to make an evil apprehension of the man I know the nature of the cause and the perswasions he hath been imbued with must needs have this effect that he must help himself by all the means he can and very likely is conceited that he doth Sacrifice to God in making my opinion seem the worst he can His way of Piety his instruction to handle Divinity by the Authorities of Authours whose Votes have no force his Obedience and the Utility of his Friends all drive him to this I on the other side am forced to treat sometimes his opinions rudely sometimes his Arguments because the English Tongue makes our Controversy exposed to such Judgments as are to be told what the nature of proofs or saying are and well it falls out when even after telling it they be able to see it But I do not desire any of my sayings should reflect 〈◊〉 his Person for his Learning beseems well enough the Narrative Divinity that he hath followed which hath no deeper root then whether some Classical Authour under which nation comes many a mean Divine hold such an opinion and if some Number hold it then it is Canonized for good Doctrin But it is not my Theme here to declaim against the weakness of vulgar Divines but to recommend my pains and self to you desiring yours and your friends opinion of them and of Your ever Friend and Servant Thomas White FIRST PART Refuting the Arguments from Authority and Reason against the Doctrin of the Middle State FIRST DIVISION Containing what in the first four Chapters concerns the Authour to answer The Adversaries misrepresentings of the Author's Doctrin and mistakes of the Council of Trent His Arguments to prove that some Saints of the Old Law reassum'd not their Bodies drawn from Authority and their remaining Reliques shown inefficacious and springing from shallowness in Philosophy SIR 1. THE Book you sent me put me in mind of a punishment St. Hierom reports to have been used to some Martyrs whom first the Pagans anointed with hony and then exposed to be tortured with flyes and gnats For so it serves me first it declares my opinion reasonable candidly It testifies that I aim at shewing the Fabrick of the World to be a perfect work of Wisdom and not a wilfull and arbitrary government Thus far is Hony for if I do perform it questionless I play the part of a good Divine if I do not at least he gives me the commendation of intending it Some parts of my opinion he explicates not well but I conceive it is our of mistake One thing he fumbles in which was plain enough Whereas I put in a sin three parts the strong and resolute Affection Reliques in the Soul after the resolution is changed and lastly the outward Action and give to all these for punishment their several proper effects so that the Resolution which is properly the Sin may be forgiven and cancell'd and
this which himself is â—ain to confess and I think against his own opinion who puts if I am not mistaken no stain or blemish in the souls of Purgatory and therefore no purging nor Purgatory and so all the Fathers he repeats anew be plainly against himself 5 In his fifth Number he imposes a new falsity upon me to wit that I say the souls at the day of Judgment pittifully burn in their Bodies but that that fire purgeth nothing that can be called sin I wonder where he found this imagination For my Doctrin is that the fire of Judgment is ministerial to the Angels framing the Bodies to Resurrection and by this precedent service is instrumental cause of what is done in the instant of Reunion and Resurrection in that instant all the Action of fire ceases and is turned into the Purgatum esse which Purgatum esse is the sight of Christ and God in the very first instant of Reunion And this Doctrin may he find in my second tome of Institutiones sacrae pag. 244. and in my book De medio statu by pieces here and there So that all this good mans discourse is built upon a fancy of his own and touches not my Doctrin 6. In his sixth Number he argues from the difference betwixt Baptism and Penance that the one takes away all the punishment due to sin the other leaves some punishment to be expiated by satisfaction And puts the case of an old man who comes to Baptism after a wicked long life with an imperfect sorrow and disposition yet says he all the punishment is remitted to him though there remains many vitious inclinations in him Now if this man dyes soon after with some small Venial sin he shall ly in great torments untill the day of Judgment according to my Doctrin This is his Argument which he repeats now the second time and therefore it requires an answer I tell him therefore that it is very true that Baptism being taken with a fitting disposition to the nature of the Sacrament remits all pains and the Sacrament of Penance does not as is plain seeing Satisfaction is one part of this Sacrament But I would gladly know by what Authority your Divine changeth the Councils Definition and that which the Council speaks of men coming to Baptism with a disposition conformable and proportionable to the nature of the Sacrament he enlarges it to them who come with an imperfect and unproportionable disposition All men know Baptism is a Regeneration in which we are made nova creatura in which our Vetus Homo is buried And therefore the connatural disposition is that a man come with a resolution of a perfect change of life such an one as we see in St. Austin at his conversion which made him feel no more tentations of his former imperfections such as we acknowledge in people perfectly contrite such as is supposed to be in men who relinquish the world to be Carthusians Eremites Anachorites c. in all which we acknowledge that their repentance cancels all pains but likewise we acknowledg it takes away all inclination to former Vices at least out of the spiritual part of men and so leaves no matter for the fire of Purgatory to work upon which burneth onely ill affections 7. In his seventh Number he cryes out against this Principle that the Soul now become a pure Spirit should retain her Affections to Bodily Objects and thinks this misbeseems a Philosopher to say therefore I think my best play is to say I speak as a Divine For I hope so to have the protection of all those who say that in Hell the Souls are unrepentant and obstinate in their sins and sinful desires Nevertheless if he will needs appeal to Philosophy let him consider what Plato 10. de Rep. What Cebes what the Pythagoreans teach and Virgil out of Philosophers Conjux ubi pristinus illi Respondet curis aequatque Sichaeus amorem And again Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But let us see what he objects against this received Doctrine of Divines and Philosophers Is saith he such a Soul purging her self I answer Yes forsooth I pray if you ever looked into the strife betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh either how a man purgeth himself in his whole life or in some great Battail and Pitch'd-Field see whether both are not compounded of vicissitudinary Victories now of the Spirit now of the Flesh. Reflecting now that the eminency of the separated Soul contains in it self at once more then the whole life-time of an incorporated Soul what must or can we think but that all this contradiction of Wills must be at once in an imperfect separated Soul which is in our life in parts and separated in time 8. He says again Philosophy teaches him that no body loves evil clearly apprehended to be evil that no disguise of good can cheat a separated Soul I must confess both these Propositions to be true and therefore I am forced to say that in Purgatory their love is not about evil objects but truly good and conformable to Nature and their fault consists onely in excess of love which makes them apt to follow their objects where and when they should not 9. His third Objection is How we know the Soul will embrace this wilfulness since it is voluntary and therefore in her liberty not to accept of it or chuse it This Objection hath two faults the one that it doth not distinguish betwixt Voluntary and Free their own Philosophy teaching them that the love of our last End or good in common is a voluntary act but not free The like they teach of the accepting of a medium when there is but one to gain the fore-embraced End The other is that he thinks that this wilfulness begins at Death whereas it doth but continue and began in the Body As the very words of remaining and being conserved do signifie 10. His last Objection is that there is in Purgatory an efficacious repentance and therefore no will to do the like again I answer this word repentance doth stick in my stomack for if it means onely an act of a contrary affection I easily accord it to him for in this consists the torment of a Soul that is vitious either in this World or in the next that she has contrary Affections in her self one fighting against the other for the general inclination to her last Good can never be rooted out and no Vice can be but contrary to this inclination But if Repentance be taken for the revoking cancelling or blotting out of the unlawful desire I doubt it would prove an Heresie to put that and that the Soul shall remain in Purgatory for then she would have no blemish in her 11. In his eighth Number he prosecutes the same but against all Divinity and himself For whereas he puts that after this life there is no place for
merit he will here needs make an act of Charity not begun in the Man's life but in the first instant of his great knowledg of the next World enough to make such a weak one as I am worse then an Origenist For I know not why by his Argument any body should be damn'd or rather could be damn'd for questionless every Soul whatsoever it be hath at her separation so clear an understanding of the goodness of God and the variety of all corporal goods that if there were then place of Repentance and making of new an act of Charity she could not chuse but cancel all her idle desires and turn to God For if there be Repentance it may be as well in the choice of her chief good as of the ways to it But whence shall we know the good Thief was violently set upon his evil courses For my good Nature inclined me to think he had been for want or ill company brought into inconvenience But seeing it is fitting for the Divine's Argument let it pass what will follow That if he repented in this life there is place of Repentance in the next for all that have a perfecter knowledg of God's Goodness and their own Folly 12. His ninth Number sheweth a great fear that some in Purgatory may be honoured for Saints But what if they were Are not they God's Friends Are they not truly Saints Why then should the Church erre in declaring them so But that he may not be afraid I would desire him to believe until he gains knowledg that it is the Habits gotten in this life and not the acts which make Saints For the Acts pass but the Habits remain and budd into Affections of their own Nature in the next life So that if his Saints have no evil Habits the obreption of an act will do them no harm besides that the anguishes of Death have vertue in such men to purge sleight sins As for his Stories he will understand that I am more a Lover of good ones then a Creditour of unlikely ones as of that out of St. Peter Damian concerning Saint Severinus for I cannot judge his act to have been irrational as far as you recount it The Story also of Paschasius I beleve is of no better credit then of Baronius who was as I take it the last Correctour of the Roman Martyrologe and gave more credit to the Dialogues called St. Gregories then I do 13. Now are we arrived to the tenth Number in which he puts a Second Principle of mine though you will find in effect it is the same with the former or at least so joyn'd with it that he hath already impugn'd it Yet that is nothing to me so he brings new matter That which most terrifies me is that he threatens after he has done with it here he will make a new Chapter of it So desirous are People of making great Books though it be with the tedious repetition of the same thing ten times over But says he this Point is attended with so long a train of absurdities that one Chapter will not serve and so one must be largely prosecuted in this Chapter The Principle is that what affections the Soul embraces at her separation she persists in the same the whole time of her separation His inconvenience he finds in this Doctrin is that he must find some present asswagement of the pains in Purgatory when the Prayers are made for the Dead And repeats over the Authours he cited before to that purpose whereof the Devil in the Scul and Metaphrastes a Tale-finder are to his purpose All the rest speak but what we will hold as well as he yet must be plain for him Onely I must note that he changes the former Text he cited out of St. Isidore into paying part of the pain I must desire him to look well into his Books and see whether his own Fellows teach the Doctrin which here he presseth to wit that at that very time when a Mass is sayd or an Alms is given there be some relaxation of pain given as his fine Stories relate For I know the ordinary way is of delivering Souls or at least of the shortning the time of the Souls punishments whereas present Refreshments would rather make the pains longer and the delay of Heaven greater which would be worse to the Souls in Purgatory then to be without such relief and so by the greatness of the pain to make the time shorter therefore if there be not a perfect release the comfort should stay until the end may come with or by it Another quaint conceit is that all the above-used Authorities makes relief flow from the pious acts effectively Truly this is to be a great Divine The Authorities all that are esteemable say that good Prayers and Works help the Dead and we agree with this saying But it is necessary for him that it be presently done and immediatly these very words no whit changed signify that it is presently done 14. This is not enough for him but he requires that the Prayers should do them effectively and upon his least beck the words ply themselves to signify an effective causality Is not this strong Divinity to make the words of Councils and Fathers so plyable to his Will that without any change they signify what he pleases What would not Simon Magus have given to have had the Holy Ghost so in a string He objects that the relief of Souls is certain and must not be made depend of the probable opinion that Souls know future things Where should I have learned this Divinity if I had not met with it here I might have read all Suarez and Vasquez over and have found all the Mysteries of our Faith explicated by probable Opinions of which they dissent among themselves without ever understanding that therefore the mysteries depend of those Opinions But hereafter I must be waryer and know that probable Opinions are not to be employed in that kind and therefore I pray let him think I hold it for certain that separated Souls know future things as we have an example of Samuel Moses and of Onias and Hieremias He cites next the Authour of the Supplement at the end of Saint Thomas his Sum which Work hath not the Authority of Saint Thomas no not when the Authour uses the very words of St. Thomas For St. Thomas having in his Sum much change of his Doctrin in his other Works the Sum is the absolute Work which beareth the authority of St. Thomas the other Works as far as they disagree not with the Sum are confirmations of it or consequent to it Which I mark because this Divine freely useth the name of St. Thomas when he cites this Work whereas in truth what is in the Supplement must first be proved to be St. Thomas his Doctrin at least in other Books before it can be father'd upon him For the very name of Supplement shews the credit of the Doctrin to depend
from an Authour of less esteem then St. Thomas though I do not deny that ordinarily the Doctrin of the Book is or was St. Thomas's Doctrin in his younger days 15. And now we are brought on to the twelfth Number in which he advances a difficulty which is truly Theological and deserves to be discussed But whereas it hath two parts that part which is chief and should go fore-most he leaves to be discussed in his 22. Chapter to wit Whether continuance of an indivisible Entity makes it greater or no Wherefore here I must onely treat the second part which is what good Prayers do which do but accelerate the Day of Judgment And to do this I must explicate a Doctrin whereof he should not be ignorant yet I perceive he is I lay forth therefore this Proposition No Prayer is heard by God Almighty for any particular effect but for such as are fore-determin'd by God not onely to be but to be by this Prayer Another I add to this of the same quality to wit that no effect which God hath fore-determin'd to be for such a Prayer can be if the prayer be not These two Propositions as peradventure to the ordinary sort of Faithful may be unknown or rather unreflected on so is it a shame that any Divine should doubt or question them As for the former he that will maintain the contrary must say God fore-saw not what he would after do or fore-would not what he after did which are both notorious Blasphemies And he who opposes the later Proposition must say that some cause which God hath order'd to be the cause of an effect is superfluous and hath no influence into the effect since the effect can be without such a cause which is no less a derogation to God's Wisdom and the perfection of his ways Out of â—hese two â—ropositions it follows evidently that if God hath order'd the Day of Judgment to come by the prayers for the Dead the Day of Judgment would not nor could not come unless those prayers were sayd And if this be evidently true it is an evident want of Divinity to ask what good the prayers for the Dead do if the Dead receive no other profit then the advancement of the Day of Judgment Against this Doctrin Number 17. he objecteth What then shall become of Christ's Promises This is a good Objection for a Catechumen who learns Christian Doctrin but a poor one for a Divine who should know that Christ governs the World not as Aristotle puts in common by moving the first Mobile but as Faith teaches by fore-seeing fore-willing and ordering every particular act of Angels Men and irrational Creatures and as far as the acts have any good in them setting and settling the whole Frame of the Causes inerrantly So that Christ's Promises rely upon this not onely power or fore-sight but as I may so speak a kind of fore-acting in his Providence all the good Creatures shall ever do Therefore it is silly to talk so as if Christ's Promises would fail if this particular man did not say this particular prayer for it proceeds upon the actual ordering of this prayer The like or weaker is the Objection that Christ's Judicative Power will depend of particular prayers First because in some way of speaking it is evidently true as it is that Christ could not damn Judas if Judas were not or had not betrayed him Another way and that in a proper manner of speaking is that it doth not follow that Christ's Judiciary Power dependeth from these prayers but these prayers of it For seeing no body doubts but that Christ hath in his power what acts shall be and what shall not it is clear that what shall be depends of him not He from what shall be So that this which with his great Divinity he deems the worst of shifts is as certain as any Article of our Faith and Blasphemous and Heretical to deny 16. To justifie this proceeding of his he brings another piece of sweet Divinity It is that there be some things which God resolves shall come to pass by certain prayers and some that he resolves to effect quite independently of any such means upon other motives To give you his true meaning in this distinction is hard yet I think his meaning is that the means or causes of some effects are such that though de facto they are causes of the effect yet God would have done the effect if these causes had fail'd and other causes are such that if these causes had fail'd God would not secure the effect that is his meaning is that some causes which are truly causes notwithstanding God's Providence that they should be causes might have fail'd and therefore God had cast if these causes should fail to provide others which should supply that the effect might not fail Quantum capio quantum sapio what is this but to put that God's Providence as far as concerns that this prayer should be or should be cause of this effect is fallible and not certain Are we there great Divine that you tell us God's Providence is errable That neither by his Power nor by his Wisdom he can ascertain that which he orders to be done Or if peradventure you will not venter to deny his Power at least that his act falls short That some good Action is done which he did not will efficaciously should be done Is this Catholick or Christian either Divinity or Metaphysicks to make God's Providences fallible to make the Essential Wisdom doubtful of what he is to do casting about like a man If this day will not do I will take another O pittiful stuff O three half-peny Divinity 17. He objects it were superfluous to pray that St. Francis be not turned out of Heaven because God is resolved not to do it whether any body prays for it or no What ill luck have I to meet with such Counsellours of God Almighty who know upon what motives he doth all his Works and what things must be wanting to break God's intentions I am bred simply to believe that if the least dust or straw in the streets should not fall or be cut when it does fall and is cut it would change the greatest effects of God's Providence So exact be the Rules of God's fore-sight so just and fitting all that he determins To us is revealed what is fitting to promote the saving of our Souls that is as concerning our purpose to pray for those things the solicitude of which stirs us up to pray heartily and willingly and therefore it is revealed to us that we ought to pray for the Dead because it causes in us a fervent and great recourse to God It is not revealed to us to pray that St. Francis should possess his bliss eternally because that motive of prayer would either be of small efficacy or have other inconveniences annexed And yet I do not doubt but this amongst the rest may be an effect even of the