often in belief of our Parents as the vulgar term it do the same thing which they did So the unlearned receiving or administring Sacraments through the confidence they have of the Church's sanctity do with good intention receive and administer them though ignorant what intention is properly due to the action It is not therefore necessary the Practise attest that which the private intention of every actor apprehends but only that which he intends joyntly with the Church though in particular ignorant of it Again it is manifestly one thing to be a practise and another to be the ground of a practise or reason for which it was instituted For a practise is received by custome or command and may have several motives or ends for its origin so that no one end can be evinced since any one may suffice much less doth pure opinion belong to practise which every Age may vary or oftener according to the greater or lesser science of Doctorâ— whereas the Practise may remain the same The five and twentieth Accompt The Nature and History of Indulgences THere lies yet another accusation against us from the use of Indulgences which we have not satisfy'd and it is also two-fold For they both urge in general that the whole force and fabrick of Indulgences falls to the ground if Purgatory-pains are not releas'd For what good do they do either in this world to the living or in the next to the departed if they neither abate nor discharge their present pains nor our future ones And again in particular what shall become of those concessions which grant expresly the releasment of a soul to every third thirtieth or single Mass Which with such and such fasts prayers alms visitations of Churches redeems or commutes so many dayes or years of sufferings Nothing can be said why all these should not declare the practise of the Church Thus they And indeed both the outward apparences and inward merit of the thing challenge a deep inspection and thorow-examination but let us at present content our selves briefly and according to the smallness of our volume and ability to discuss it No man that hath the least acquaintance and conversation with Ecclesiastical antiquity can be ignorant that all along even up to the very infancy of the Church Excommunications solemn increpations penitential ceremonies and rigorous satisfactions were in use That these rigours in diverse circumstances sometimes in consideration of the penitent himself sometimes of externs were not only abusively but canonically and profitably relaxed both the monuments of pious men and the vicissitude of humane nature assure us This relaxation was by the Latines in the Apostolical phrase called Indulgence And thus far no rational man questions their legitimate use These Indulgences being in order to such penalties as the Governours and Rulers of the Church conceived proportionable to the cancelling and extinguishing the sin they related to so that he who had legally performed them was supposed to have quitted that score before God it naturally became a question whether the remission granted by Bishops did free the penitent not only for those visible penalties which the visible Church was wont to exact or release but moreover discharge him from the account due to those sins in the sight of God and put him in the same condition as if he had actually performed the penalties themselves And S. Paul himself 2 Cor. 2. gives occasion of this question where treating of the penitent Fornicator he commands the Church to forbear to afflict him lest too much sadness should overwhelm him adding a general either truth or lenity that himself pardon'd whatsoever the Church should pardon And further giving his reason he saith For I my self if I have pardon'd any one any thing I have in the person of Christ pardon'd it for your sakes that Satan may not circumvent us for we are not ignorant of his arts To this purpose the Apostle wherein he unfolds to us the whole business of Indulgences That their matter is that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} rebuke or correption which it was fit the Church should exercise towards the sinner That there are two causes of remission the first the incapacity of the subject's bearing such Rigours who otherwise would be swallowed up by grief the second the good of the Church lest the Devil by pretext of too great severity or the like should provoke or stir up some to murmur and make a schism So that two things in the infliction and moderation of Ecclesiastical chastisements are to be regarded the good of the Person and the good of the Church But the Apostle explicates moreover the efficient cause which he makes to be three-fold the Church Himself us a Prelate of the Church and Christ our Lord For he saith that what he indulged he indulged in the person of Christ Had he spoken only of the Church and himself it would have pass'd for a Rule that as the Church knoweth not the interiour things so neither doth she judg of them or pretend to remit them But subjoyning that he did it in the person of Christ he seems to extend it to all that Christ our Lord doth or may remit and consequently to infer that the sinner is no longer as to that particular obnoxious to the Judgment of Christ This the fathers seem to countenance both universally in as much as they apply to Church-discipline that famous speech of Christ that sins are remitted or retain'd in Heaven proportionably to the severity or mildness of Apostolical proceedings upon earth And particularly S. Cyprian who affirms that Penitents may be aided before God in the abolition of their sins by the sollicitation and prerogative of Martyrs Yea Celerinus in his Epistle to Lucius beseeches those who were designed for Martyrdome which of them soever should first be crown'd to forgive the sin of two women who had deny'd their Faith Could any thing be more plain for this assertion that such sins are remitted also by God the punishments whereof the Church hath released But however that matter stood the use of Indulgences continued till the division of the Romane Empire and till the eleventh age as a certain Ecclesiastical Practise but without any special form or Court of Judicature In that age a new form was instituted Penitential Canons ordain'd which were partly redeem'd by Alms and other pious works partly by corporeal austerities and particularly by flagellation which thereupon took the name of Discipline In the XII Century their application was extended to Wars undertaken against Pirates and Infidels In the thirteenth Century the form of Jubile was instituted since which time the Harvest hath been too large for the Barns insomuch that it required the prudence of later Popes to restrain it Now in the XII Age the Schoolmen grew up a sort of men whilst closely adhering to the Fathers and Councels grave and learned whilest intent upon Philosophy and the Mysteries of
as most commonly it happens then is the sin simply remitted but in part remains and in this world it is punished by evils following this debility of mind either sins or conflicts or whatsoever other griefs proceeding from them but in the future by the fruit offspring of those evils till in the last Judgment day that tepidness and as it were rust with which the soul by contagion of that sin was infected be burnt off From whence you easily see that in a perfect repentance God remembers no longer the sin but in an imperfect one accommodates and adopts the pains to the state of the soul From what hath been declared it likewise appeareth how God revengeth the sins of parents to wit external ones upon their posterity and this sometimes intriâ—secally when the children become themselves wicked by example of their parents but for the most part extrinsecally Which laâ—â—er punishments are threefold first immediate as when the son of David was punished with death secondly as it were eternal as when for the same sin it was threatned that the sword should never depart from his house and likewise for the adoration of the golden calfe that they should be punished in the day of visitation For these expressions import that those very sins should cause a total destruction of that people Of which sort is likewise that prediction of Christ our Lord that all the innocent blood which had been spilt from the just Abel to his time should fall upon the Jewes The third degree is betwixt these two as a standing rule of the divine chastisements to wit to the fourth generation All this is evident in the examples which we hinted at For the punishments of Adam Moses Aaron and David also in the death of his son belong to that rank which we have called miraculous in which it was requisite they should seem to proceed not from the order of causes but the especial judgment of God But for the posterity of Adam their punishments whether internal or external are * clearly shewn in our Theology to flow from the order of causes where it is likewise evident that that sin * can never be remitted till the Resurrection and last Judgment The crime of adoring the golden Calf became in like sort almost eternal thâ—â— is lasted till the extirpation of the whole people Which Ezekiel testifies Chap. 20. reproaching the Jews that from their departure out of Egypt they persisted by continual relapses in the sins of their forefathers who came from thence Whence it may be seen that the stiffness of neck which Moses so oft exprobrated and complained of continued in that people till their utter extermination and that as Christ our Lord assures us all the just blood spilt through the world was punished in that last generation The very same discovers it self in the sin of David whose Love to Bersheba preferred Solomon before the rest of his Children to the succession of his Crown which was the apparent cause of emulation between Absolom and Adoniaâ— and of both their deaths and of all the crimes of Absolom From the same fountain through Solomons disorders sprung the schism of the ten tribes and all the subsequent warrs with the defection of the house of Israel from God and the corruption and wickedness of the house of Judah and consequently all their mutual chastisements and final overthrow the sons still inheriting the vices of their Parents Lastly from the same principles it appears why for the most part the sins of private persons cease in the third or fourth Generation to wit because their memory and imitation is for the most part lost the respect of kindred growing weak and the permixion of forreign blood in the several Mothers rarely suffering the great Grand-fathers blood to boyl with any notable vigour in the veins of his Great-grandchild From this explication it is easily gathered that according to the natural series of Agents and Patients the punishment of sin whether external or internal is nothing else but the increase and exaggeration of sins in those who are perverse and the decrease and diminution of them in those who amend For both the internal sin in the wicked is punished by greater sins and their external punishments are the extensionâ—nd propagation of the sin into new subjects or into more parts of the same subject that is encreases it extensively or intensively And on the contrary in those that are good the strugglings and dolorous affections which wrestle with the affection to sin are their punishments as to the internal and their external ones are the dimintiuon of the dying sin weakly derived into other subjects The Fifteenth Accompt Three other Exceptions That they neither truly take off the punishments nor rightly make them due nor in fine make any real Purgatory FRom hence we may observe another mistake of our Divines in their model Purgatory For though they determine the sufferings there to be certain pains inflicted by torments yet when these pains cease they neither require nor think of any pleasures or at least good acts which may succeed them parallelled to which kind of Philosophy neither the whole variety of Nature nor Grace that I know of affords one experiment For in vegetativâ— nature griefs are asswaged by a certain congruous and self cherishing disposition of nature and in supernatural works sin is not extinguished but by infusion of grace and affections opposite to sin To assert therefore certain pains which must be determin'd and asswaged by a pure cessations and not by the entrance and subinter mission of any contrary wholly misbecomes a Philosopher is altogether repugnant to the ground work of natural action which requires an opposition of causes severally challenging to themselves the common subject Our eleventh exception takes notice of another absurdity They affirm that in the instant of death whether in the body or out of the body I know not by an act of contrition all guilt whatsoever which during the whole life had been contracted is immediately wash'd off I urge since the efficacy of contrition is by both sides acknowledged to be such that it not only abolishes the crime but equalizes and consequently is of its own nature capable to extinguish also the punishment and the act of contrition we now treat of must needs be strong and perfect why doth it not by its equivalence supersede all punishment Certainly if it be made by the soul now discharged from the body we cannot doubt but it must be of the highest degree and much more intense and vehement then any contrition which here with ardency of affections were able even to set the very body on fire as some pious Histories relate to have happened But if it be put to be made in the body being endowed with so eminent a prerogative as not to leave uncancelled any one slight stain upon what grounds or how shall we deny it the power
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