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 oâ— 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 bâ—â— 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
let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS Aâ— which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Doctoâ—r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him
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
third part of the Stars or Angels into his Rebellion And if Angels can thus Act on Angels without this interposition of a body why not on separated souls Nor is that Foundation of this his Doctrine at all subsistent For since says he All Spirits are indivisible their Operations must be indivisible And consequently perfected All of them in one moment For this consequence is perfectly null Nor will it ever be rendred evident that an Act of a Spirit may not coexist to a great or less part of time much less will it ever be evinced as is already proved that there is not a true and real succession in their operations So that his Doctrine is absolutely false when he tells us If any thing be to be done among Spirits it is so done and perfected in one moment that afterwards an other action can not be begun And besides when he assumes An indivisible effect the causes being put of necessity exists in the same moment Though he may say true for that one Act but when he infers the same for all succeeding Acts unto Aeternity he errs most grosly Imagining this which is one of the most fundamental Bases of all his Phylosophy and Divinity that all Causes are fixt and set as to All Effects whatsoever from the very beginning unto all future succession By which Doctrine both God himself is necessitated so to do that he can not do otherwise then he doth do and each intelligence so to know by the connexion of existences that it can not know otherwise then it does know which is most pure Pagan Fatality destructive of the Liberty of God and all contingency in all created things whatsoever Sect. 34. Lastly That we may vindicate Christianity and the Church from that ignorance of separated Substances he boldly and injuriously fixes upon Her and the Angelical St. Thomas from a most gross abuse let us take a survey of his 17 Accompt in his Middlè State of Souls He there tells us The delivery of Souls before Reunion proceeded out of the ignorance or not adhering to this Doctrine of the incomparable St. Thomas and his School That in Abstracted Spirits there is neither discourse nor any manner of composition but purely a simple apprehension so that errour and falsity can have no place in them For these sayes he depend on the body so that it is impossible Indivisibles or Spirits should be capable of Succession Now that my Reader may fully understand both the Truth here contained and his most erroneous Consequences drawn from It We must observe that there is a double Composition in Vnderstandong both of the Praedicat to the Subject and of the Conclusion to the Premisses Both which take place in Vs by reason of the weakness of our Vnderstandings in this state of mortality For neither do We at one single glance understand the Praedicat though we cenceive the Subject nor do we attain to the Conclusions included in the Principles but by a long indeavour and succession of reasoning or discourse So that our Uâ—derdandings arrive not to Truth but by compounding or dividing the terms one with the other and the Conclusion with the Premisses But it happens otherwise in Angels For they by a cleer strength of Vnderstanding apprehend both the composition and division of Propositions with one simple sight and the Conclusions in the Principles without this succession of discourse This is St. Thomas his Doctrine 1 Par. quaest. 58. art 3. 4. Now it imports not our present business to consider Whether this knowledge of Spirits is a true discourse since a succession of time is not perhaps requisit to that but onely of causality which is here found But it imports us to consider That out of this Doctrine of St. Thomas it no ways follows That Errour or falsity can have no place in separated Substances For the same St. Thomas disputes this in the very next Article and teaches us That though in such things as are thus naturally known by the apprehensions of the terms or Principles Spirits can not err yet in such things as depend on the supernatural Ordination of God as far forth as they are supernatural Errour may take place in them And this says he happens not to the good Angels because they judge not of those things which supernaturally belong to the Object without due submission to the Divine Ordination but it does in the Devils who by their perverse will withdrawing themselves from the Divine Wisdome judge erroneously of supernatural things But that we may further see how injuriously he would improove the Doctrine of this great Saint and Doctour both against him and the Church we must further observe that his Consequence That Indivisibles or Spirits are not capable of succession is both null and against this holy Doctour every where For in the first Article of this very Question he teaches That Angels are not alwayes in actual consideration of those very things they know naturally He tells us That of those thinge which God reveals to them of which they receive new revelations by the occasions of affairs they are in potentiality or preceding ignorance He tells us in the next Article Those things whose knowledge depend on one onely Species Angels know all together but not those which depend on divers He tells us in fine everywhere That there is a real and true Succession in their Acts which is measured by a real and true Succession of Time And I can not admonish my Reader too of ten of His fatal Necessity and Connexion of Causes which runs through all his Doctrine and grounds these his Positions when he tells us That a separated Soul is all other things by the connexion of existencies and since she knows all things together and for ever by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science Which Doctrine is the Corner-stone of all his Fabrick of Purgatory and is perfectly destructive of all Religion because destructive of all Liberty in God and Creatures And peculiarly destructive of all the mysteries of Grace and Supernaturality for all these depend on the pure freedom and Will of God who is not nor can not be tyed to creatures and therefore the same Angelical Doctor in the precedent 57. Quest Art 3 4 5. concludes That Angels neither know all future contingencies Nor the secrets of our hearts Nor the mysteries of Grace but as far forth as it pleases God to reveal these to them which in their first Creation he did in some measure but more amply and fully afterwards according as it did agree with their Offices and imployments in this Vniverse This Sir is true Christian Theology which reaches much more to souls in Purgatory learnt by revelation from him who neither can be deceived nor deceive us not out of Epicurean Lucretian Pagan Principles of Fatality in things and of Necessity in God in order to his Creatures But if we should suppose all these Vnchristian
principles and consequences to be true that there is no Error no Ignorance no Succession in Separated Substances now in their present state of Separation How inconsequent is it as he there tels us That they are now just that as to their affections which this state of union with their bodies and mortality made them What a frivilous discourse he introduces arguing in the same 17 Acc. As an Embriâ— sayes he or seminal Mushrom delineates a future man so the thoughts and affections of this life design by their impressions the future condition of the Soul So that death produces such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible thus to remain till Resurrection For this hath no Connexion with the precedent Doctrine of the Immutability of Souls in the state of Separation If we should suppose that there is no variety in them no succession in that single state of Separation how will it follow there is no change of affections in these two and those so different States of Separation and Vnion Besides Sir if the Antecedent of this his Argument reach home to his purpose it is a Position destructive of all Christianity if this Embrio or seminal Mushrom delineate the future man if the Soul be such as the quality of the matter exacts and determines it to be as he tells us it is at the first infusion into the body and remains so or else he tels us nothing to his purpose Our liberty is destroyed There remains no hopes that these his Determinations by the matter or body should be changed by education by vertue should be corrected by Grace Since then this his Doctrin is absolutely false and since souls in truth by the assistance of Divine Grace do perfectly overcome even whilst in their Bodies what they contract or are determâ—nod by their Bodies as our holy Faith teaches how excellently is it concluded That Souls now in Separation do not Correct what was in them by the commerce of that unworthy Clay which before inclosed them And how will it not be as well or more effectually concluded that Souls at their Re-union too passing now from Separation to Union as well as before from Union to Separation carry with them their unchangable Affections and so never get out of his Purgatory neither before nor at the day of Iudgment By these short reflections my Reader will easily observe how far these Adamantin unshakeable grounds fall short of that so much boasted Evidence even of Truth some of them being most perfect falshoods the rest groundless uncertain dreaming Assertions and yet they are such as shall serve the levity of some men to abandon the authority of the whole Catholick Church and upon these shall be Errected a new modled Purgatory as upon other the like they have built us a whole new faithless Religion of which they are so fondly inamoured and peremptory that now they boldly pronounce The hither to received Faith of the Church proceeded out of Ignorance of the Nature of Separated Substances Sect. 35. But to conclude my Adversary and our business if this his Position be true That no Souls are delivered out of Purgatory before the day of Iudgment What serve for all our Devotions Prayers Alms Offerings Doth the holy Sacrifice of the Altar which the Church hath defined to be Propitiatory even for the Dead avail those distressed Souls nothing at all No my Adversary dares not as yet venture upon this The Councils are so cleer so home to this Point his credit were ruined if he should attempt to deny it His new Purgatory then must be furnished with some new way by which our endeavours may be beneficial to those poor Souls or else no Catholiques Ears could be open to his new Divinity Is it perhaps the intermitting at some times or abating of the fury of their torments O no this Doctrin finds no admission in his School His indivisible duration admits of no intermission and where the Soul by her now unchangable affections is her own executioner no Allay or Abatement of torment can be hoped for till Reunior What then perhaps shall our Prayers be of force to obtain their Release O no this the least of all It were against all their Demonstrations and therefore is reserved to his new changeable state at the Resurrection What then is the effect of all our tears and prayers What benefit doe Separated Souls receive by them This and onely this That the day of Iudgment is hastned by them And is this all Yes truly this is all our new Systeme of Purgatory can admit of as to the Assisting of the Souls detained in it But what if this accelerating the day of Iudgment prove no advantage no help at all to those distressed souls Would not all Christians be justly charged with an intollerable folly Would nâ—t the Church be unavoidably guilty of a â—upereminent Error in a Doctrin which draws so much practice after it Whilst both the Florentin Council here and that of Trent pronounce and all Christians agree That the Souls detained in Purgatory are assisted delivered by the Prayers and Suffrages of the Faithful yet living And yet certain it is that the hastning of the day of Iudgment is no advantage to them in these their Positions and grounds Let this great Master himself plead the Cause Let him fairly deliver us his sublime sense in his own words Whether our devotions assist those souls or no Whether the hastning of the day of Iudgment be any way beneficial to them and that by his very â—bylosophical grounds the basis and foundation of the duration of souls now detained in his new minted Purgatory In spiritual acts says he 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 these are the properties of corporal things Every act of a pure Spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c If then to a thing or separated soul which co-exists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists with a less part of time nothing be diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases So that whatsoever grief of a separattd soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same grief let its co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less by the force of its essence less Nothing being gained or lost by the perpetuating or contracting of the motions of the Sun or other Celestial bodies So that whatsoever time intervenes between death and the Restauration of the world at the day of Judgment is to separated souls as one moment This doctrin presupposed What can separated
themselves to have God for the last end and sâ—le good having now received this plentitude of knowledg out of that that they more strongly and evidently know this truth do infinitely increase in the affection to see God and since the Will is a reflection of existence upon essence by which the vertue of the entity is exercised and applyed to the desired effect such a Saint not to be any other thing then a man exercised according to the whole vertue and Entity in respect of the Vision of God Since that then as to know himself is to be himself to be so to know God is to be God that is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to be of to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} esse esse but since the vertue of a thing to be is nothing but a potentiality especially in respect of to be subsistent which is both essence and to be it is concluded such a Saint by all which is in him not to be any thing else but an actual and exercised potentiality of being God Since therefore on the part of God out of that that he is to be it self or speaking more especially it is to be understood in act it self or to be in act understood which is to be his own to understand passively so that to be understood is not in him a denomination but a real quality that very quality which constitutes the Father and this quality or property is subsistent and by consequence proper to no power but to any one accommodated nothing can be wanting which appertains to the reason of act and actuality it is concluded That the Saints and God are one by power and act that is that the Saints cleerly see God And now truly Sir if my Readers patience hath held out as mine hath to Translate this long Demonstration just as it lyes for fear of spoiling the Non-sense I think he desires me to make it his humble request to that Ingenious Gentleman who Translated your Masters Middle State of Souls who hath so well delivered us Virgils sense to put this admirable Demonstration in Rhime it will go rarely to a Jewes Trump And I desire you to tel me when you Write again in what Moode and Figure this Syllogisme concludes But now having Demnostratively understood That the Saints perfect in Charity immediately see God Let us see how you pursue the way that Separated Souls attain to this perfection by Re-union And so Sect. 40. Ninethly You tell us pag. 37. Master White endeavours to finde a state in which the soul may be changeable to more holy desires and a connatural cause to give her those desires to wit the corporal and mental sight of her dearest Saviour c. For what state more fit for changeableness then a corporeal one and what more powerful to ravish the whole affections of a soul then the divine face of her Spouse My Reader will not wonder at the inventions your Master finds out now he is a little acquainted with the head that finds them Yet this invention is worth our observation which I suspect you will hardly shew in any former writer and so justly he may be proud of it The Souls then have been all the time of their separation in a state of suffering only by their irregular affections which being wholly unchangeable in that state they are as yet not purged or cleansed at all but perfectly the same they were at the moment of death but now by reunion with the body they are put into a new state of changeableness Now Sir Christians that have hitherto walked by Faith do all conceive that the way or Pilgrimage of men to the future life is ended at death They never heard that Souls at the Resurrection are returned to Act again in order to Eternity If that state do render Souls changeable and free and their actions then have such an influence on their future state it will justly be feared that many of them may drop out of Purgatory into Hell Nor will the sight of the Divine face of their Spouse quite evacuate this apprehension For if the Soul be not necessarily but freely and voluntarily ravisht the doubt will remain Whether she will still continue her inordinate affections or avert her self wholly from God and so either remain in his Purgatory still or nowpass into Hell And how happily Sir doth this change of affections which is your sole and onely purging or cleansing of the Soul wrought by the sight of the Divine face of Christ which sight is doubtless an incomparable pleasure and such an one as ravishes the whole affections of the Soul agree with the Decrees of these Councils That of Florence when it defines The Souls are purged by the pains of Purgatory That of Trent when it teaches After the sin remitted temporary pains are due in Purgatory When now we are taught that souls are purged by pure pleasures the sight of their dear Spouse And in earnest Sir I know not why the world is not more inamoured of your Doctrine You have now filled our lives with the pleasures of the body you have quite turned the pains and afflictions of Souls in the state of separation into Pure pleasures And now at the Re-union you fancy the Souls affections changed that is her self purged by an incomparable pleasure which even ravishes all her affections And to compleat a most pleasant Divinity I could pursue it even to your Masters pleasant Hell who Instit. Sac. lib. 3. lec 9. describes the damned so pleased with their torments that they are in love with them and would not be without them But I reserve that to an other discovery Onely I will for the present mind you that since the inordinate Affections of the damned are their torment according to your Master in that same place and those affections remain in them in the same proportion they were in this life and since doubtless where pleasures are possible and easie to be attained and we continually pressed by our bodies to the enjoyment the refraining from them is a far greater torment then where the temptations are not so impetuous or none at all and the injoyment represented as impossible which at one blow outs off all the Wills pursuit It will follow That those who restrain themselves from these pleasures are in a greater Hell in this life then those who are damned in the next And therefore it would not seem very rational that any man should precipitate himself voluntarily now into a greater Hell where is duration and succession to avoid a less in the future life the duration of which is but as one moment And let me further beg of you to render us a cleer account How it should happen that the Souls of the damned at the re-union should not all of them rectifie their now disordered affections and fly to Heaven For since your Master hath already taught us That the damned Souls are now furnished with all