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A65800
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Religion and reason mutually corresponding and assisting each other first essay : a reply to the vindicative answer lately publisht against a letter, in which the sence of a bull and council concerning the duration of purgatory was discust / by Thomas White, Gent.
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White, Thomas, 1593-1676.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing W1840; ESTC R13640
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86,576
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220
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say so and that onely you pretended to make the Doctrin pass for an Article of faith the contrary of which all the world knew to be maintain'd by me Secondly I must remember you that you do indeed and inexcusably wrong me when you say I deny that such Souls are receiv'd presently into Heaven if you mean by the word such Souls purg'd after separation 't is no better then a cunning calumny and would represent me as holding directly contrary to the Bull and Council Whereas our dispute is whether Souls may be so purg'd out of their bodies before the day of Judgment not if they be so purg'd whether they go to Heaven before that Day this I agree to and is of faith that I deny is but an Opinion Thirdly you do not well justify your Friends for changing the Title from Concerning the Vision of God the Beatitude and Damnation of Souls to this shorter but more generall one Concerning the State of departed Souls while your answer signifies onely that they are severall expressions for the same thing which to a wary considerer will easily appear an artifice Is it all one to contend about white and black and about colours in generall No more is it all one to define concerning Beatitude and Damnation and to define concerning a State which is neither of them both Fourthly you often up and down your Book brand me with faithless Theology What do you mean do not your Doctors generally agree that somthing in Religion is demonstrable are they all therefore presently to be condemn'd as faithless cannot your self demonstrate there 's a God and will you think your self an Infidel for it Or dare you tell the Ladyes that for your part you are not so silly as to believe there 's a God you know it and that as for belief of such things it belongs to the simple unlearned not to Scolars I hope in your next work you will proceed with more candor and manliness Your thirty seventh Section being spent in petty quarrels though some lines in it be both false and malicious yet I will let all pass and go on to the thirty eighth Section where you rip up again the question whether the matter of the Decree be that perfect charity carries separated Souls immediately to Heaven In which you tell us your Publisher is indifferent and may yet chuse whether he will say that good Souls at their decease be wholly purg'd from all irrationall affections or no in the first Instant And this may peradventure be true But if I am not deceiv'd he will not say they are purg'd For I am sure you would censure it deeply in me if I should say that after this life there is any more disposing it self or meriting towards life eternal But I must not be over confident you may have two censures in your brest for the same saying in the mouths of different Persons You ask if Charity brings a Soul immediately to Bliss What then does your Adversary think of Lumen Gloriae It is to me a hard question what he will think of it for I see your great Divines cannot agree what to think of it But I guess he may think either Charity it self when perfect in a pure Spirit is the Light of Glory or causes it as well as the Beatificall Vision You press farther the perfection of Charity in this life doth not give the Beatificall Vision therefore neither in abstracted Souls But if I should ask you how you knew the Antecedent you would be at a stop I can hear it defended that St. Benedict had the clear sight of God And I was at a Sermon in Alcala made to the whole University in which the Preacher asserted our Lady had Beatifical Vision in the first Instant of her Conception and prov'd it out of his Text which was Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis Fundamenta ejus her conception in montibus Sanctis in the heighths or tops of Sanctity Therefore believing Divines must take heed of denying as well as of saying Besides I have read in St. Thomas and others both more Ancient and more Modern that there is a certain pitch of Charity to which when men arrive God takes them out of this World But however that stand I think there is a large difference betwixt the Charity of pure Spirits and of men So that the consequence may be true of one and not of the other Farther on you mention some reasons of mine against corporall punishing of Spirits but you knock them all on the head with a Canon of the Council of Trent To understand the state of the question it is not amiss to consider that a Sin specially a notorious one hath three effects or parts One in the rational Soul where it is a Judgment or resolution or affection that such an Action is to be done A second in the Appetite or Body where it makes certain motions and their causes which bring a likelihood of falling into the same sin The third part is in the external action where it brings in some disorder which is subject to propagate it self farther into other subjects The disorderly Judgment and affection is that which our School-men when they speak formally call the Sin and account the sin remitted when that is duly blotted out whatever that signifies But it is supposed to be done by Contrition and Absolution And although they admit this to be sufficient to go to Heaven if one dyes yet in a living man they with reason require that the other two parts or effects of sin should also be taken away which is to be done by Satisfaction So may the Reader understand what Satisfaction is required for Now let us see what you urge out of the Council First you object the Council teaches that it is against the word of God to say that the fault is never remitted but that all the punishment is also forgiven And so you see by the discourse above made that we say also Secondly the Council sayes that it becomes the Divine clemency that sins should not be parâ—on'd without any Satisfaction So we say also by the fore-made discourse Thirdly the Council charges Priests to impose Satisfaction so that it be not onely as to the guard of a new life but also as in revenge and chastisement of their past sins which is clearly necessary for the mending of the outward excesses brought in by the sin and so we say directly the same You press farther that the Council sayes in Baptism the whole pains are remitted And if you speak in opposition to sins remitted in Penance the cause is clear For the sins committed before Baptism belong not to the Churches Court But if you speak in regard of God Almighty I fear it will require I should ask your Judgment of a Case Your Divines tell us that he who receives Baptisme cum fictionâ— receives Baptism truly yet if he dye immediately I suspect whether you will send him immediately
fault is that I say the opinion of Souls being deliver'd before the day of Judgment proceeded from the not following a Doctrin of St. Thomas That in abstracted Spirits there is no discourse or any manner of composition of knowledg Whence I infer there can be no falsity in them This is my position of which you tell us that it importeth not to consider whether the knowledg of Angels be by true discourse or onely by virtuall to which say you suffices a priority of causality But if a man should tell you that the causality you imagin cannot be without true time then peradventure it would be necessary to dispute whether there be a true discourse in Angels and this is the very case For take away succession and all corporeall causes which depend on time are taken away There remain then nothing but the spirituall qualities of the Angels to be causes which neither are distinguished from one the other nor from their subject and so all notion of Cause and Effect as they are proper to the Efficient are quite taken away and so there will not remain any discourse at all but a pure cleer sight fram'd on them by their Creatour in which I beleeve you will not say there is any Errour or can be So that the whole question resteth upon this whether there be true discourse or no Now how do you prove what you say is to the purpose to wit that it doth not follow out of this Doctrin of St. Thomas that there is no Errour in Angels Your proof is because St. Thomas notwitstanding this Doctrin acknowledges Errours in Devils Good Sir as long as you have been a Divine did you ever hear that it was a gross injury to St. Thomas to say some opinion of his was not true or not consequent to another Truly I desire not to do an injury to any much less to my Reverenc'd Master to whom after God I acknowledg it if I know any thing either in Philosophy or Divinity Yet I have no fear not to follow all his opinions much less not to make good all his consequences And so Sir I hope I am rid of your objections out of St. Thomas Onely because you often repeat that to say every thing hath a cause to make it before it be is an Epicurean Lucretian Pagan principle c. I must intreat you again to look to the sence of your words and not to beat so carelesly the Ayre If at anytime you happen to dispute of Liberty I will endeavour to shew you your Ignorance but for vapouring words let others judge how far they become you You go on in the same strain to except against the comparison of an Embryoes designing the Child to be born and mans life framing the Soul deliver'd into the next World But what you dislike I cannot tell you say it has no connexion with the immutability of the future state The answer is it was not brought to that purpose but to open the Readers understanding to aym at of what disposition the Soul is at her going out But if the Antecedent reach home you say 't is a position destructive of all Christianity But you say not to what it should reach but fain something as if you imagin'd I would have the body of a Child never grow in strength or good parts When I shall know what you aym at I may know what to answer So we may leave you to conclude your Chapter with a high conceit of the Victories you have obtain'd FOURTH DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the thirty fifth to Section the fortieth The Vindicators forgetfulness that Eternall Happiness was any Good at all That Prayers for the dead in the Authours Doctrin manifoldly profit the Souls in Purgatory and relieve them even there Charity asserted to be the immediate Disposition to Bliss The Authours Doctrin consonant to the Council of Trent in the points of Remission and Satisfaction Diverse Squibs and Insincerities of the Vindicatour toucht at THere followâ—â—our five and thirtieth Section in â—â—ich you have after so long a digression remember'd again the question of Purgatory And intend to shew that prayers for the dead are of no profit if Souls go not to Heaven before the day of Judgment An objection of every Gentlewoman but I hope seeing you have come into the lifts as their Champion you will set it high And so you do for scorning the lower waies of others who press this difficulty That the day of Judgment will come of it self at the time appointed and Then every one shal receive according to his deserts whether any prayers have been said for them or no you fly so high as to tell us that though the prayers made for the dead impetrate eternal bliss for those in Purgatory yet they are of no profit Is not this a gallant attempt What may be your Arms fit for so great an Atchievment Why say you the duration of separated Souls is according to me above time and comprehensive of it therefore it is but a moment whether bliss ever come or never therefore there is no profit in the prayers though they bring bliss and this is the full import of your discourse Could a man have expected such an Argument from 〈◊〉 Logick Master not to distinguish betwixt substance and an Accident yet undoubtedly according to his ordinary phrase All Christianity is ruin'd unless this consequence be good You were assuredly in a great Metaphysicall rapture when in the same short discourse you took two such hyper-Metaphysicall propositions as that it was indifferent to have or not to have the greatest good God hath created for a Person and that there could actually be an infinite Quantity or Time I must confess they are both very fit for your sort of Learning to bolt out words without looking into what they signify But because this is onely your private errour and the World is to be contented too which doth not apprehend any great benefit in hastning of Christ's coming I must a little shew the good that the prayers of the faithfull do for the dead Let us then consider that our chief Good is Heaven and the perfect sight of God at which we aym in all our actions and progresses from the first basis of our inclination to the End of nature even to the highest step of Charity from whence we immediately reach it This depends on two created causes The perfection of the World and The perfection of the private Person which is to attain it For God hath made the work of the World in so exact a method that it shall happen to be wound up all in a day St. Paul hath told us he would not have the foregoers be perfected before the rest the Apocalyps expresses the same Therfore Christ taught us in his own Prayer to say to his and our Father Thy Kingdom come Therefore he bad us when we saw signs of the approaching Judgment to lift up our Heads with hope because