of discharging punishments also But they will chuse to put this act of contrition to be made in the term of separation where merit and satisfaction have no longer place and the inevitable necessity of suffering only remains And then I shall demand from whence they have learn'd that blemishes can there be rectifyed where penalties cannot be mitigated Nor is there more strength of reason in this that the merits of the living may avail them but their own not so For could their proper merits be regarded all Purgatory according their own grounds were at an end for the perfect charity and coâ—â—â—â—ition of separated souls being exercised with the whole force of their substance would in one moment set them free Again what Piety what Justice hath enacted this Law that the distressed souls may not pray for their own delivery Can any thing be more absurd They make them such Favorites of God that for us they can obtain many graces whilst for themselves they can procure none I remember to have heard a Divine whom a printed course of all Divinity had already raised above the lowest form prescribing this advice or receipt that whosoever had lost any thing should promise upon condition he receiv'd it to procure so many Masses for departed souls and failing of his hopes should fail also in the performance thereby to compel the souls to obtain of God the recovery of what had miscarried O pitiful and sordid Divinity such a train of absurdities follow the admission even of one unexamin'd Principle To make up the compleat dozen Let us reflect on the abuse of the name it-self and observe that whilst they vainly labour to establish their own they destroy and annihitate all manner of Purgatory For to purge cleanse and the like expressions clearly import a supposition of stain and blemish in whatsoever is said to be purgÌ„ed and cleansed and in like sort to amend and rectifie presupposes faults and imperfections if you then take away their stains these imperfections you take away all Purgatory For certainly to smart and suffer is not to be purged but finally to be condemned or undergo the last sentence of Damnation But the Patrons of this kind of Purgatory lay this for the very foundation of their doctrine That the imprisoned souls are already holy and full of charity and consequently incapable of being purged Much better therefore and more solidly then they did the Poet philosophise in the sixth book of his Aeneids who having after his manner made a description of â— the torments of the damned thus proceeds to that of Purgatory and its causes Nor when pâ—or souls they leave this wretched life Do all their evils cease all plagues all strife Contracted in the Body many a stain Long time inur'd needs must even then remain For which sharp torments are to be endur'd That vice inveter are may at last be cuâ—'â— Some empty souls are to the piercing winds Expos'd whilst others in their several kinds Are plung'd in icy or Sulphureous lakes Each hath its doome cach one its fortune takes From whence â—e to the Elisian fields is lead Where few alas the pleasant alleys tread What could any Phylosopher meditate more sublime and noble That corporeal affections by depraved habits penetrate into and infect the soul that they are not by death extinguish'd but carry'd along to the next world whereby the souls are punished and their punishments become truly Purgatory or expiating that their torments are proportionate and of several degrees which degrees are taken from the division of Elements that is corporeal Agents from whence the disordered affections themselves have their roots The pursuers of Honour and Vanity are tormented by the wind that is their being puff'd up with Pride Those who delighted to wallow in sordid pleasures by the fluidness and momentariness of their fleeting enjoyments Lastly the Potent and ambitious affectors of Tyranny with their own ardent and truly enflamed desires That finally after this state of Purgatory they are made Denizons of Paradise and those speaking of the times he liv'd in but few the multitude whose sins were mortal and irretractable remaining engulf'd in eternal miseries The Sixteenth Accompt The thirteenth Exception That their opinion is opposite to the expressions of Scriptures of Fathers of the Church of the Councel of Florence and Benedict XI ANd I would to God the inconsequence of discourse and defect of right ratiocination were the only inconvenience and that their errour stretch'd not it self to the violation of sacred truths and contradiction of the holy Scriptures Machabeus offers sacrifice that the dead may be absolved from their sins Christ affirms that in the world to come sins are remitted The Apostle assures us that every ones works are to be try'd by fire and some persons to suffer detriment as though he should say that some thing should by fire be taken off from the party as dross from the pure mettal Nor do the expressions of Holy Fathers grounded on the Scripture any wayes disagree For whether they speak of Baptisme by fire of purging flames of fire correcting and amending of passing through the flames of the last Judgment which shall burn the sinner spare the Saint of a suspension in the day of Judgment and a kind of uncertainty of the Judge's sentence or whatsoever other expressions heretofore mentioned they make use of from whence any thing can be gathered towards the explication of Purgatory nothing can be drawn to establish pure pains but the whole discourse runs constantly of sins and of the purgations of sins and depraved affections so that nothing can be more clear then that these later Divines change the style of the whole Church a manifest token of their Novelty Let it therefore be acknowledg'd that this vulgar conceit as it is opposite to the sense of the Church really and effectually abolishing Purgatory and in lieu thereof presenting us a slaughter-house of barbarous executions destroying the tender mercy of God whose aim is alwayes the utmost good of every creature and instead thereof offering us a barren apprehension of Pure Justice and unbenefical pains so is it also dissonant and in a manner perfectly repugnant to the phrase both of the holy Scripture and of the Fathers explicating either it or the sense and belief of the Church Which if they are the marks of the ancient faith and perswasion then is this other new And if proposed to the Greeks under the notion of a Tradition and not only of an opinion they certainly had ground to object against the Latines that they endeavoured to superseminate tares and bring into the Church new Tenents and such as were recommended by no ancient Tradition The last but not the least of our exceptions against this vulgar opinion shall be their putting another impediment to the Beatifical Vision of souls freed from the body besides the want of charity For since the Church neither knows nor holds forth any
other way of attaining Beatitude but that great and Royal high-way of charity since Christ our Lord his Apostles and all other Fathers preach no other Doctrine to introduce any obstacle of Beatitude without their authority were clearly to controul the discipline of all Christian institution and put a bold exception to their general Rule Besides true Theology assures us that perfect charity is a disposition necessitating or determining Almighty God to communicate himself to those that bring it so that he can no more deny himself to be the object of a soul in perfect charity then forbear the concreation of a Rational soul when the Embrio is fully formed or the infusion of existence when the actions of inferiour causes requires it But it is manifest that those who put the soul in the first instant of its separation to be endowed with the same eminence of charity which it hath or shall have when it is admitted to the fruition of God and yet notwithstanding for sometime debar it thereof must needs suppose that disposition of soul not sufficient and adequate but require something else whereof neither the Scripture nor holy Fathersâ—â—ve us the least hint who all unanimously acknowledg no other partition-wall betwixt God and us but our Sins Finally the Florentine Councel and Benedict the eleventh seem clearly enough to have condemned this their Doctrine the latter determining that the souls of the Faithful which have nothing to be purged or expiated do immediately after their departure and before the General Day see the face of God the former adding thereto that the souls of such as dye presently after Baptism or such as after death are purged are immediately received into Heaven By both which expressions this may indubitably be concluded to be meant That nothing but what may be purged that is what stains and contaminates that is sin can deprive a soul from its admission to Heaven and the full sight of God Let us subsume But according to our Adversaries all who dye not in mortal sin after the first moment in which they are said to be perfectly converted to God have nothing now remaining to be expiated but are already after death cleansed Therefore they are all immediately after the first moment received into Heaven Is it not evident that the determination of this Pope and Councel subverts their whole fabrick of Purgatory For though they endeavour to equivocate yet the proper and dogmatical signification can be no other then that which we have given and the secondary explication of purging for enduring pains which do not cleanse the soul from any filth is harsh and improper and by themselves avoided when they come to explain themselves though in familiar conversation with those especially who understand not the different senses they make use of it that they may not seem to vary from the language of the Church and their Fore-Fathers The Seventeenth Accompt That the Ignorance of spiritual natures begat this Opinion FOr a conclusion at length of this part I shall observe to the Reader that this mistake of the school men proceeds from a higher principle Their not adhering to a certain Doctrine delivered by Saint Thomas of Aquine and by his school received He teaches 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 That holy Doctor understood that all these were originally in us from the body and therefore could not in immaterial substances be expected For we find by experience that composition and discourse are begotten by the successive beatings of the memory on the Phantasie which intercourse if once you bar it is impossible that indivisibles should be capable of succession It is therefore certain that pure spirits contemplate all things as it were with one sight or glance and since with them all that relates to science is transacted by naked Definitions which no wordish equivocation can obscure it is evident that falshood cannot reach them there being no precipitation where no delay is required Nither the principles then nor their connexion can be concealed from them nor consequently the truths depending on them This may perhaps become more intelligible if we reflect that the Soule when first infused into the Body is such as the quality of the Matter it is united unto exacts and determines it to be because a natural action that is which doth not exceed the rank and limits of causes cannot but act according to the existence of the subject and do that which is conformable thereto and apt to be produced thereof But Death also is a natural action making that which of a man can be made to wit a spiritual substance which we call a soul And as the disposition of the Embrio or seminal concreation delineats the future man so that man to have had in the course of his whole life these and these thoughts and affections designes and points out by the impressions left the future condition of his Soul So that death produceth such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible and the Entity so made continueth such till it be aâ— it were new moulded which is the worke of the Resurrection For the spiritual being of the soul is what the whole course of map's life hath made it and bears that respect to the antecedent life which the being at Rome hath to the travelling to Rome or the being in health hath to the cure which was wrought by the Physician's hand Whence it appears that in the next world there can be no more motion since rest and not motion is the terme and period of motion So that for the soul to know to be joyful or to be sad in the future world is nothing else but to remain in that act of knowledge joy or sadness into which by the force of Death and dissolution it was translated And this is the very reason why every resolution made is from thencesorâ—h immutable because there are no instruments no diversity of parts whereof some may act on others no distinctioâ—matter and Agent all which are requir'd to effect a mutation But some may wonder how the soul can be disengaged from the false opinions with which she was here possessed and not have power to devest herself of the affections depending on those erroneous judgements To whom we must answer that this happens not through any discourse but by the precise stroak of death For it being impossible to a spiritual nature at one and the same time to assent to two contradictories seeing and comprehending the contradiction and nothing as hath been said being able to escape the knowledge of a separated soul it is evident that truth must overcome falsâ—â—y and since one of them only can take possession truth must abide and errour give place and this through the very disposition of the soul it self by Death But the affections
vain and altogether impossible For all corporeal action requiring space can by no means be exercised on an indivisible subject Again the quality of a Body extends not it self beyond its own subject whence no corporeal action is performed without a sallying forth of parts which touch and insinuate themselves into some other body which how it can be in relation to spiritual substances is above humane capacity Further the action of bodies is performed by division and involves Rarefaction and Condensation from which the very Patrons of the opinion we reject exempt and discharge pure spirits Nor is it any thing to the purpose to cry out that the corporeal action which they require is only instrumental for all that endeavour to speak intelligibly make that to be the instrumental action which is the principal action of the instrument abstracted from the principal Agent which being directed by the principal Agent or by the admixture of its action changed acts otherwise then naturally it would have done So that there being no principal action of bodies upon spirits neither can there be any instrumental one Nor need we fear least they urge a â—â—rity of the soul immured in the body For Man being truely one Entity the soul cannot in this life be actually divided from the body for so man would become two Entities or Hypostases And if Man be but one Entity he must be an Entity actually corporeal and virtually only spiritual so that there is no inconvenience in its being changed by a corporeal Agent And because the subject in which the change is wrought is virtually spiritual it may be altered as such by the said change because the whole is yet actually corporeal When Man therefore shall be resolved into Soul and Carcass both parts shall be found such as virtually they were in the pre-existing Man after and by the said immutation Thus whilst the soul inhabits the body it's immutation from corporeal Agents is not a change wrought by a body on a substance actually spiritual but actually corporeal and virtually only spiritual in which there is not the least shadow of inconvenience But those who put the soul whilest it is in the body to be actually distinct from it both render it an Assisting Form and are altogether at a loss to explicate how it is by the body changed The Twelfth Accompt Four other Exceptions from these Pains being to no purpose unproportioned to the sins of an indivisible duration and endless IT is now time we should ask our Adversaries to what end or for what good they suppose God should inflict such torments on these souls as neither avail them nor are visible to us Nay such as can have no effect upon them since it is evident by the loss of the things that were dear to them by the delay of their rewards by the repentance of their past deviations they really and naturally suffer whatsoever by the Metaphors of fire gnashing of teeth worm of Conscience and darkness useth to be explicated to us or to speak more properly being in its self inexplicable is insinuated to us by the severest punishments we are acquainted with that so raising our thoughts above them we may endeavour to discover things more sublime and subtile For that darkness is a faint expression of the privation of the Beatifical Vision it is superfluous to observe That fire and burning describe Love and Grief Poets and Chirurgeons can tell us the one observing inflammation to be the companion of pain the other calling Love a consuming flame and devouring fire The worm of Conscience and gnashing of teeth aptly betoken repentance since we find in our selves that collision of our teeth when we are ashamed and confounded at the foulness of some unhandsom action and the gnawing worm of the conscience by the very phrase represents the dictates and instinct of natural piety It being then apparent from what hath been said in * our Philosophy that all this from the very nature of the thing must needs be verify'd in the souls that are purged why presume we that fire alone is to be taken truly and literally all the rest Metaphorically And what can less be excus'd why should God since all this may be perform'd conformably to the order and government of Nature her self superadd to natural causes other improper unnecessary and disproportion'd ones From whence a sudden and unexpected truth breaks forth That all these pains are purely pleasures For the souls to be purged being on the one side truly in Charity and extremely thirsting after eternal Good which they are certain to attain and on the other side clearly understanding that corporeal punishments are the only means to capacitate and adopt them to the fruition of that Beatitude it is evident They look upon these pains as a man of invincible courage highly inflam'd and passionately enamoured of some atchievement would upon his adventurous actions or sufferings in the pursuit wherein reason and experience tells us he would feele unspeakeable pleasure Our fifth charge takes its rise from a principle in Logick though if I well remember deduced by the Philosopher in the fifth book of his Physicks He admonishes us that some things there are which will by no means suffer themselves to be compared each to other to wit such things as are rank'd under divers kinds or predicaments For it is madness to say a Horse runs as much as a Swan is white or Rome is as far distance from London as an Elephant is great These are the comparisons of fools But I beseech you can any corporeal thing so differ from another corporeal as it doth from a spiritual if then this be impossible what rule of proportion can we invent betwixt burning and willing that is sinning And yet upon this comparison stands all the fabrick of their Doctrine for take away the proportion betwixt the action of fire upon the soul and it's assent to sin and it is impossible that pains should be assigned to and compensate sins and such a duration in flames correspond to so much heynousness in the offence But on the contrary if voluntary griefs be understood to be the punishment of sin they being the very effects thereof they must also of necessity keep exactest proportion with it the sins themselves measuring out their own punishment From the same root shoots forth another objection that in spiritual acts whether they concern Beatitude or Misery there is no proportion to Time so as to make the pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner less These are the proprieties of things corporeal whereas among spiritual substances the whole difference of their duration consists in the necessity of their â—eing or inexisting For as because spirits have no dimensions their substances cannot be compared to any quantitative bulk as this Angel to a Perch that to an Aâ—re the third to a mile but the very lowest of them is more noble
so in our present case treating of the remission of sins we must acknowledg an absolute and a respective remission which I shall presently descend to explicate If first I be permitted to admonish the readder of a danger he may easily incur of being drawn into errour by the manner of our conceptions or apprehensions of things For experiencing in our selves that we then properly forgive an injury when our exaspâ—rated minds return from their commotion to an even and calme temper we are apt to expect the same should happen in the remission of our sins in Gods part Which notwithstanding is quite otherwise For since there neither is nor possibly can be any temporary or indeed any relation at all in God to his creatures 't is evident that as well all relation as all change to which relation is subsequent is on the creature's side A sin therefore to be or to have been remitted signifies nothing else then that the sinner himself is or was converted From which animadversion we may easily secure our selves against the errour into which many are unâ—arily precipitated beleeving that sint are indivisibly remitted so that not by parts and in process of time but instantaneously by a certain conversion of the Divine disposition from malevolent to benign the said remission is effected But if we look upon this remission as made on the creatures side then by how much and by what degrees the soul is perfected and corrected as to the object of sin by so much and by the self-same degrees will the remission of the sin be wrought And since we have already said that the remission of sin is twofold simple and according to some respect it followes evidently that if sin be destroy'd as to that wherein its essence consists it is to be termed simply and perfectly destroy'd But if it be only destroy'd as to certain things which are accidental to the nature of the sin we must say that it is in some respects remitted but simply remaines and contrarywise it may perhaps remain in some regards though simply destroy'd sin essentially consists in an affection opposite to and incompossible or inconsistent with the love of God or Charity that is in such a disposition towards a created good as is apt to render it the ultimate end of that man so that during that affection he cannot have a will to relinquish it or esteem himselfe happy if deprived of it for ever All other affections towards the said good are not properly sin as for example the habitual inclination to desire it for it self and the conditional appetency by which we should be actually carried towards it unless it deprived us of our Beatitude and whatever other way a thing may be said to be a sin Now it is evident that this sin is divided into the internal affection and external operation both which are termed sin but so that though the extern act more vulgarly yet the intern more properly hath the nature of sin that is of evil since its nature is formally rooted in the mind and by participation only is communicated to the external action And from hence again a new equivocation springs which darkens the subject we have in hand unless we steadily fix our eye on the several senses which overshadow one the other We are then to enquire after the remission both of the internal and external sin and that both simply and comparatively It having therefore been said already that according to the well-ordere providence of God the punishments of sin signifie the evils which emerge from them and again that the guilt of sin consists in man's obnoxiousness to those punishments that is evil consequences of the sin it remains concluded that a sin is then remitted when the sinner is no longer liable to the evil fruits of his sin But it is apparent that upon every actual internal mortal sin an eternal privation of the Beatifical Vision must of its own nature ensue together with those griefs which spring either from the loss or impotence of obtaining the affected false goods or the consideration of the true ones neglected and that in the obnoxiousness thereto consists the essential guilt of mortal sin oâ— of sin properly taken whensoever therefore by true repentance the affections of the sinner are so changed that for the love of God and Beatitude he is ready to abandon the pleasures or profits which formerly he valued above all it is evident 〈◊〉 is no longer lyable to the griefs and evils springing from those affections and consequently his sin is substantially that is simply remitted Farther it is manifest that every affection to a created Good which though weakly indeed and so as not to overthrow the soul 's fix'd and setled appetency of Beatitude is yet carried towards it not purely as towardâ— a means but in some sort for its own sake must needâ— cause in the soul a privation of the Beatifical Vision and the griefs comitant therewith till it be retracted and consequently render the sinner obnoxious to thâ—se sufferings but not eternally because the love of preference of Beatitude above all things is a cause inexisting in the soul which in due circumstances is fit to rectifie that lesser inordinate affection Which affection may either primarily and originally be thus conversant about its object or be the remains of a precedent mortal distemper If the first it is not to be esteemed remitted if the second the sin may be said to be simply remitted but in some râ—spect to remaine Of external sin the same may be affirmed that through the well regulated providence of God it is punished by the ill effectâ— oâ—consequences thereof and by degrees remitted in the same proportion as by little and little those ill effects cease to flow from it And thus the sense of the holy Scriptures as to this point is â—lucidated and the seeming contrariety opens it self into a faire distinction For when God professes that in whatsoever hour the sinner shall repent of his wickedness in the self same he will remit and pardon him it is spoken of the internal sin and its proper punishments For the Church acknowledges that a perfect act of true contrition quits the scores of punishment as well as guilt I mean if it arrive at that degree that as demonstration chaseth away at once all doubtfulness and staggering incertitude so the firmness of its resolutions cuts off all manner of tendency towards the formerly beloved object Such seemes to have beene that noble one of holy St. Augustine who after that sharpe and violent conflict of the Flesh against the Spirit was suddenly translated into so perfect a quiet of mind that from thence forward he felt no attempts upon the superiour part of his soul But if the resolution be not so strong and generous but that new assaults of temptations shake it and though they cannot overthrow yet make the soul as it were to reel or stagger
twentieth Accompt That the practise of the Church as far as it's words make known it's sense favours the ancient opinion FOr the last attempt they reserve the Practise of the Church which can neither deceive nor be deceived And this they drive on with great fury and clamour partly from the prayers which are said for the Dead partly from the concession and acceptation of Indulgences wherein their valour gains so much applause that it is worth our pains to give it a check Our first encounter shall be to demand of them when they talk of the Ecclesiastical Practise which do they mean an universal or a particular one Again if an universal one whether they intend only a present Universality or an universality including also the ancient practise If they admit an universality of place as they needs must if they will conclude any thing for otherwise by their own confession it will amount but to a probable that is fallible argument let them demonstrate to me that the practise they contend for either anciently was or at present is in the Grecian Church Sure I am neither in the Florentine Councel nor in the Union of the Armenians nor in the Profession of Faith prescribed by Urban VIII to the Oriental Churches any thing is expressed from whence this Doctrine may be deduc'd In like manner as to point of time it is evident that before S. S. Gregory and Bede there was no such notorious Practise even in the Roman Church and consequently that it became not general till after Odilo about six hundred years agoe But such a Practise no way deserves the title of Universal according to Time The question then is devolved to the Western Church for the four or five last ages for the universality cannot be stretch'd higher since the practise appears to have taken it's rise from the Devotions of the Clugniac Monks and the effect of those Devotions that is Revelations springing from them whereas before it was rare if not unknown Our next quaere is what they mean by practise For my part to avoid ambiguity I divide it into that of actions and of expressions both which if they apparently favour what we have delivered then is our adversaries last effort as in-effectual as the former The Churche's expressions are visible in her Missalls Rituals and Breviaries by which if I stand condemned I willingly yeild the cause To begin with the sequence of Dies irae Dies illa is it not throughout of the day of Judgment and the deliverance which is then to be made What else hath the Offertory Lord Jesus Christ King of glory free the souls of the faithful departed from the pains of Hell and the profound Lâ—ke free them from the Lions jawes that Hâ—ll may not devour them nor they fall into darkness but let the holy Ensign-bearer Michael conduct them into that happy light which thou hast heretofore promised to Abraham and his seed Thus far in general for all the Dead then in particular We offer up to thee O Lord sacrifices and thanksgiving prayers receive them for those souls which we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to Life These are the Church's prayers which to a Catholick what can they signifie but the examination and sentence of the last Judgment After the person is dead and that prayers begin to be said for him where is he in danger to perish but in the last Day If then the Church prayes not for what is past which seems to be unprofitable it prayes not for any other delivery of the Dead then what is to be in that final Judgment I easily foresee it may be objected that the Dead have in reality no incertitude or hazard even in that Day wherefore these Prayers must on both sides be acknowledged to have their improprieties My answer is twofold First in our way we coyn not a new Metaphor but prosecute that which Christ and Holy Scriptures have furnished us with For if they have styled it a Judgment not in order to an investigation or disquisition of things doubtful for what can be obscure when God himself is judg but meerly to signifiy the effect of the said Judgment that is the respective destribution of rewards and punishments to good and bad which then is made is it not evident that the Ecclesiastical manner of speech that it may be conformable to the sacred and Traditionary expressions must speak as it were of a dubious sentence whilst there is yet an affection to or expectation of punishment or reward These speeches then signifie just the same as if the Church should plainly say suffer them not to be cast into Hell but grant them eternal happiness And so is that particle also to be understood of passing from Death of life Though there be also another way in which the souls in Purgatory when they become partakers of the Beatifical Vision may not improperly be said to pass from Death to Life For those souls having according to what hath been explicated an impediment in themselves debarring them from true life which is perfect Beatitude clearly if death be opposite to life they are truely said to pass from death to life when they are freed from their sins and that impediment I am not ignorant that Divines taking it from the Lawyers suppose in these souls a certain Right to Beatitude by which they are rendred partakers of life But these expressions abuse us when besides an allegory we expect propriety in them Nor indeed doth right to a thing make a man owner of it but right in the thing and in reality those holy souls have not right to life but seeds of it to wit the faith of Christ which works by charity and which assuredly will through the last judgment fructifie to life eternal As then sâ—ea is not yet reckon'd among things living but dead so these souls also But we must observe the word dead hath a double sense being propounded abstractedly and privatively The damned are privatively dead because all possibility or root of eternal life is extinguished in them but those in Purgatory are only dead because they have not yet obtained life My second answer is that speeches of this kind are altogether inexplicable according to the contrary opinion which is a certain note that they mistake the Churches sense For proof hereof it were enough to charge them with it and put them to the trial But I can produce the express confession of an Author voluminous enough to appear great amongst them who paraphrasing upon the above cited words excuses their form Because saith he those who pray often use expressions which they are altogether ignerant what they signifie or whither they tend But surely the Rituals sufficiently declare whither these speeches tended Make him worthy by the assistance of thy Grace to escape the Judgment of revenge who living was signed with the seal of the Trinity Again Let us pray for