this which himself is â—ain to confess and I think against his own opinion who puts if I am not mistaken no stain or blemish in the souls of Purgatory and therefore no purging nor Purgatory and so all the Fathers he repeats anew be plainly against himself 5 In his fifth Number he imposes a new falsity upon me to wit that I say the souls at the day of Judgment pittifully burn in their Bodies but that that fire purgeth nothing that can be called sin I wonder where he found this imagination For my Doctrin is that the fire of Judgment is ministerial to the Angels framing the Bodies to Resurrection and by this precedent service is instrumental cause of what is done in the instant of Reunion and Resurrection in that instant all the Action of fire ceases and is turned into the Purgatum esse which Purgatum esse is the sight of Christ and God in the very first instant of Reunion And this Doctrin may he find in my second tome of Institutiones sacrae pag. 244. and in my book De medio statu by pieces here and there So that all this good mans discourse is built upon a fancy of his own and touches not my Doctrin 6. In his sixth Number he argues from the difference betwixt Baptism and Penance that the one takes away all the punishment due to sin the other leaves some punishment to be expiated by satisfaction And puts the case of an old man who comes to Baptism after a wicked long life with an imperfect sorrow and disposition yet says he all the punishment is remitted to him though there remains many vitious inclinations in him Now if this man dyes soon after with some small Venial sin he shall ly in great torments untill the day of Judgment according to my Doctrin This is his Argument which he repeats now the second time and therefore it requires an answer I tell him therefore that it is very true that Baptism being taken with a fitting disposition to the nature of the Sacrament remits all pains and the Sacrament of Penance does not as is plain seeing Satisfaction is one part of this Sacrament But I would gladly know by what Authority your Divine changeth the Councils Definition and that which the Council speaks of men coming to Baptism with a disposition conformable and proportionable to the nature of the Sacrament he enlarges it to them who come with an imperfect and unproportionable disposition All men know Baptism is a Regeneration in which we are made nova creatura in which our Vetus Homo is buried And therefore the connatural disposition is that a man come with a resolution of a perfect change of life such an one as we see in St. Austin at his conversion which made him feel no more tentations of his former imperfections such as we acknowledge in people perfectly contrite such as is supposed to be in men who relinquish the world to be Carthusians Eremites Anachorites c. in all which we acknowledge that their repentance cancels all pains but likewise we acknowledg it takes away all inclination to former Vices at least out of the spiritual part of men and so leaves no matter for the fire of Purgatory to work upon which burneth onely ill affections 7. In his seventh Number he cryes out against this Principle that the Soul now become a pure Spirit should retain her Affections to Bodily Objects and thinks this misbeseems a Philosopher to say therefore I think my best play is to say I speak as a Divine For I hope so to have the protection of all those who say that in Hell the Souls are unrepentant and obstinate in their sins and sinful desires Nevertheless if he will needs appeal to Philosophy let him consider what Plato 10. de Rep. What Cebes what the Pythagoreans teach and Virgil out of Philosophers Conjux ubi pristinus illi Respondet curis aequatque Sichaeus amorem And again Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But let us see what he objects against this received Doctrine of Divines and Philosophers Is saith he such a Soul purging her self I answer Yes forsooth I pray if you ever looked into the strife betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh either how a man purgeth himself in his whole life or in some great Battail and Pitch'd-Field see whether both are not compounded of vicissitudinary Victories now of the Spirit now of the Flesh. Reflecting now that the eminency of the separated Soul contains in it self at once more then the whole life-time of an incorporated Soul what must or can we think but that all this contradiction of Wills must be at once in an imperfect separated Soul which is in our life in parts and separated in time 8. He says again Philosophy teaches him that no body loves evil clearly apprehended to be evil that no disguise of good can cheat a separated Soul I must confess both these Propositions to be true and therefore I am forced to say that in Purgatory their love is not about evil objects but truly good and conformable to Nature and their fault consists onely in excess of love which makes them apt to follow their objects where and when they should not 9. His third Objection is How we know the Soul will embrace this wilfulness since it is voluntary and therefore in her liberty not to accept of it or chuse it This Objection hath two faults the one that it doth not distinguish betwixt Voluntary and Free their own Philosophy teaching them that the love of our last End or good in common is a voluntary act but not free The like they teach of the accepting of a medium when there is but one to gain the fore-embraced End The other is that he thinks that this wilfulness begins at Death whereas it doth but continue and began in the Body As the very words of remaining and being conserved do signifie 10. His last Objection is that there is in Purgatory an efficacious repentance and therefore no will to do the like again I answer this word repentance doth stick in my stomack for if it means onely an act of a contrary affection I easily accord it to him for in this consists the torment of a Soul that is vitious either in this World or in the next that she has contrary Affections in her self one fighting against the other for the general inclination to her last Good can never be rooted out and no Vice can be but contrary to this inclination But if Repentance be taken for the revoking cancelling or blotting out of the unlawful desire I doubt it would prove an Heresie to put that and that the Soul shall remain in Purgatory for then she would have no blemish in her 11. In his eighth Number he prosecutes the same but against all Divinity and himself For whereas he puts that after this life there is no place for
day it follows clearly that the position putting another time is added to Tradition and being in a matter that depends of Revelation and therefore cannot be known but by Tradition it appears not onely to be a Novâ—… but also ungrounded and not to be followed I must here note how your Divine who heretofore asked for but 〈◊〉 Aâ—…r who should say that the acceleration of the day of judgment was that which we were to pray for can here tell you that such speeches â—re in most common use and that the usual phrasâ— ruâ—s of this day that as the 〈◊〉 of speech is so usual in Scripture it is no wonder that the Fathers and our Liturgies do sometime make use of it Where you shall see a gradation made that in Scripture it is the usual phrase but the Father's and Liturgies do sometime make use of it As if the Fathers did not usually speak as the Scriptures not the Liturgies were made by the Fathers and at least follow their customs though every man of judgment cannot chuse but see the use of Fathers and Liturgies must of necessary be the same with the Scriptures whence they are taken which were it confessed as it is evident what Testimony could I desire at his hands greater then this 11. N. 7. he impugns the Text taken from the tenth to the Hebrewâ— where the Apostle threatneth a Purgation of 〈◊〉 to them who 〈◊〉 after Baptism which Bellarmin is forced to gloss against the Text to avoid Noâ—â—tus his Errour For whereas the Text speaks of a fire that should feed upon those who were not quite contrary to God which words cannot be understood of any â—â—re but Purgatory fire he very freely without any ground of the Text and onely because otherwise it will not stand with his opinion takes no notice of the properties which particularise this fire and by his own Authority puts in Hell fire and a distinction of the effects of these two fires to which sence a Cable is not strong enough to draw the words 12. In his ninth and tenth Paragraphs he impugns the Texts taken out of St. Matthew and St. Lukâ— concerning agreeing with our Adversary in the way that is in our life time that we may not be deliver'd to the eternal Judge And he thinks we urge this Text for not reflecting upon the particular Judgment at the hour of death and I cannot well deny it For I do not remember that in any place of Scripture Christ is called Judge in regard of the next World but either at his Refurrection or at the last day And besides what passeth at mans death I â—â—ke to be very improperly called Judgment and if it were a true Judgment this Formality of your Adversaries delivering you â—ver to the Judge I do not know that any one attributes to particular Judgment Which circumstances though they were pressed where he found the Argument he totally neglected and presses for himself those words of being sent to a Prison there to remain until he pay the last farthing This sayth he is most unnaturally spoken of the day of Judgment after which there remains no prison but eternal And his discourâ—â— were good if this delivery of our Saviour were not Allegoricaâ— that is a human expression of things above human reach and therefore not to be expected to be verify'd entirely to the material word which taken away it signifies no more then at the day of Judgment the sinners shall be punished without remission But to think there shall be other Prison then the mans own guilt or other toâ—…rer then his own knowledg and conscieâ—… is to be proved not supposed And why this must require length of time more then what precedes the sentence and of the which the sentence is the approbation as of all the rest that shall be executed all that day I expect some better declaration before I frame a new Judgment properly so call'd without any ground in Scripture or Antiquity 13. In his eleventh Number he treats the famous place taken out of the third Chapter of the first to the Corinths but so as if he aym'd not to give the sence of it but onely to wave the force from his opinion no matter how much against the words themselves For it being agreed between parties that the Apostle speaks of the day oâ— Judgment and of material fire yet he hath three solutions First that it is meant of no material fire but of the fire of the district Judgment But this is to prevaricate against themselves who agree there is a true material fire at that day which is the faith of all Christians and the Apostles words are plain that that great day shall be revealed in fire Now so far being the common Faith of Christians it is against all sence to say this is not the fire which shall try the works of all men For the Apostle gives for proof or ground why all mens works shall be try'd by fire because sayth he that day shall be revealed in fire What a strange perversion then of the Text is it to make the Apostle make this Argument The day of Judgment shall be revealed in material and elemental fire therefore the works of men shall be try'd by Gods judgment or spiritual districtness and yet this is the sence given to the Apostles words by this Interpretation His second Interpretation is that the meaning is the sinners shall be saved as it were by fire but fire precedent to the fire of Judgment and this explication 〈◊〉 more against the Text then the other For this ground which the Apostle takes that the day of Judgment shall be revealed in fire can be no more brought for the cause why the sinners works shall be try'd by a precedent fire then why they shall be try'd by Gods judgment And besides the Apostle so expressly says that every ones work shall be try'd by the fire in that day or of that day that nothing can be spoken more plainly against the Text then to say it is meant of another fire which went before Likewise that speech that whose work abides the fire he shall be rewarded but if any mans burn he shall suffer detriment is plainly spoken of the fire of that day so that such an interpretation is a plain corruption And no less can be said of his third explication that the meaning is that the fire shall manifest that is shew what was done before but not do any thing For those words If any mans work burns he shall suffer detriment cannot be understood of what was passed before the day of Judgment but of what is done in that day And therefore the trying he speaks of must necessarily be the working of the fire upon the sinners works so that it is evident he and his Bellarmin do not explicate but corrupt the Text against the plain words of the Apostle 14. The ninth Text concerning the Remission of sin in the next world is brought to shew that
his twelfth Number ne seems something to stumble at his fire because the Grecians explicate it a fire not combustive and the good man does not perceive that that signifies no corporeal fire For as if one should say a knife but not made to cut a beetle but not made to maul an eye but not made to see it were plain he must needs take away the essence of the thing signified by the word and by consequence the property of the speech so he that says a fire but not a burning one clearly speaks of no material fire For Fire is as properly an instrument of Burning as a Beetle of knocking or a Knife of cutting 13. In this thirteenth Number he pretends to reveal a mystery as he calls it of surceasing frâ—m action by pure cessation An high mystery that surceasing is cessation Well But let us seek to understand this mystery if we can reach to it Painfully purging fire says your Divine being elevated as an instrument of God's revenging will to produce in such intensness that afflictive spiritual quality with which the Soul is tortured acteth so long and no longer then his Justice moves his Will to apply it Then that fire that acted onely as obedientially elevated by his Will can now act no farther Behold the mystery c. And I submit for what is sayd passes all understanding Philosophers which use commonsense in their Philosophy tell us that a Knife of it self hath a fitness to cut But when a Carver takes it to make a Statue or other pretty Work Art doth elevate the Knife to an higher work then it hath by the proprieties of its Nature which make it onely able and fit to cut Likewise a Pipe or Recorder of its own qualities is fit by the inspiration of air to make one sound as we see in the drone of a Bag-pipe but when a Musician useth it there comes from it a song which the Art of the Musician makes dependently from the natural sound of the Pipe This now understanding Philosophers call elevating the Knife or Pipe that is to make the natural Action of the Pipe more perfect and excellent then their proper qualities did dispose to But in later ages Mysterious Divinity by the assistance of canting Philosophy is soar'd beyond all wisdom and tells you That all Creatures have in them an Obediential power to do what God will have them As for example If God will have a Knife to create an Angel the Knife will presently do it in vertue of its Obediential power And if you say a Knife signifies an instrument or power to cut and look that it shall make an Angel by cutting as it makes a Statue they take you for a dull fellow and repeat to you that it doth not this by its nature but by its obediential virtue So that if you will stick to the solemn Principle that nothing doth but what it can do and nothing can do but what is virtually in it this Knife must be by Obediential power which nevertheless they say to be the very Entity of the Knife the nature of all things which it may be elevated to make to wit a Man a Horse an Eagle an Angel and all sorts of Angels O height of Learning Is not this a pure MYSTERY Truly it seems to me no less But yet his Mystery is higher for when the time comes that the punishment is enough God and Fire and Soul remaining unchanged the fire leaveth to work by a deep understanding of God's Judgment and without changing becomes changed from an actour to a thing not able to act Is not this pretty stuff to beat poor Pulpits withall Are not the Schollers brought up in such Principles like to be great Lights of the Church and their Masters worthily held for the Masters of the World Who shall tell us that every thing is all things and the same thing without any change now able to work now not against common sense and the first notions common to Mankind SIXTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his twenty first Chapter Our Saviour's sufferings not forc'd More mistakes of our Doctrin The improportion of the pains he puts Places from Scripture answered His success in impugning of our Opinion concorning the indivisible duration of Souls His Ignorance of the Ground of Eviternity 1. HIs 21. Chapter beginneth with that question Whether the pains his way pâ—…ts are to any purpose In which it is explicated already how by the name of Pains are understood the Instruments which are proper to his way For as to the griefs seeing we both put the same no question can be between us Now to shew any utility in their proper explication he never goes about it he penetrates the matter so little Nor is there any fruit imaginable to the Souls there to be reaped out of this that the pains come from an extrinsecal Agent but rather they are more profitable if they come from an intrinsecal source Nor to us can there come any profit seeing they cannot be known but by Revelation of which there is none since it is constantly known that the Latin Church consented to the Greek Church to hold without opposition there was no true fire besides so the torments be the same what matter is it how they are made But he presses that whether the Fire be corporal or no concerns not the main question The which though it be true immediatly because to be corporeal fire may stand without the ending of the torments before the Day of Judgment yet peradventure the ending of Torments before the Day of Judgment is not necessary yet rationally is joyn'd with the succession of the pains and that with the corporiety of the causes 2. My Objection went higher and sayd such kind of pains would prove no pains but pleasures to the Souls of Purgatory being they could not but rejoyce at the means of gaining Beatitude and even in this World great courage takes away the force of the torment which they could not want His Answer is that our Saviour's courage was greater then any man's and the good to be obtained by his Passion motive enough to rejoyce yet hindered not either sorrow in his soul or that his pains were unparallel'd This Objection I answer'd already in Religion and Reason pag. 146. wherefore I may be shorter here onely admonishing him that the divinity which says our Saviour had those griefs by force and that his Soul was not able to have hindered them even by the natural perfection it had is too low for a Champion of his Company Let him look upon the Transfiguration and there see what the power of Christ's Soul was over its Body Let him look how he dy'd cum clamore which moved the Assistants to knock their breasts and say Vere Filius Dei â—rat Which your Divine may do well also to do for divulging this Doctrin so prejudicious to Christ's honour as to put him to have been forced by natural causes to the sorrow
some sin remains truly in Purgatory to be purged and that if onely pains are put in Purgatory it is no Purgatory This consequence we handled before when he pressed we put no Purgatory because there was nothing purged untill the day of Judgment Ch. 17. N. 4. Where I shewed how he himself acknowledges that there must be something that hath the nature of a Blemish that purgation be necessary His first objection is that Calvin uses this Argument I answer it was the fault of them who explicated Purgatory as Bellarmin and he does to give such an advantage to Hereticks by evil explicating our Faith that their argument though otherwise weak against Faith yet are demonstrative against it in their Explications His second solution is to fall into that condemned Heresie that after the souls are perfectly purged yet they remain in Purgatory For he will needs put a most intense act of charity and contrition for the first act of the soul separated which expels the guilt of Venial sin and by consequence the souls after they be purged remain to be tormented Besides he doth not reflect that if this act can deserve the Remission of the sin it can also the Remission of all pain which Doctours assign to perfect Contrition His third solution is that by the name of sin is to be understood lyability to punishment Which is very true if it be taken proportionally as it ought for there can be neither sin without pain due to it nor owing of pain but by sâ—n But the mistery is that he wil not understand this though a man should beat it into him with a pestil but will if you say the sin is not wholly remitted as long as pains are due for it cite you I know not how many Texts of Councils against you and yet now he can cite out of St. Thomas that the Remission of the pain belongs to the entire Remission of the sin and promises he will shew it to be the sence of the Fathers which I shall be thankfull to him for because it is a most plain truth But yet I cannot allow his consequence that when our Saviour says that a Sin shall not be forgiven either in this World or in the next it must in this World signify guilt and in the other onely pain For our Saviour does not use to make his words straddle so wide as within three words and continuing the same proposition to make a double sence of the same word He concludes that hitherto his Adversaries have brought no Demonstration Which whether it be true or no let wiser men then judge I can onely say that he hath solved no one Authority with any colourable answer but either by falling into Errours or abusing the words of Scripture by Paraphrases or inconsequent explications which are easily made appear to any one who attentively reads my Replyes FOURTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his nineteenth Chapter The Testimonies from Fathers and Antiquiquity brought for the Authours Doctrin in his Book of the Middle State maintain'd to be assertive of it and the Adversary's Interpretations shown to be most weak and senceless distortions of their words and meanings 1. HE begins his nineteenth Chapter with the Comparison of the multitude of Fathers he hath brought to the paucity of mine To which I have nothing to say for a comparison ought not to be made before both parts are seen and he will have the Reader judge before he hath made any discussion of mind Let the Reader therefore remember what is passed concerning his Fathers which he professeth to have cited plentifully to wit one class of them who speak of our Saviours Resurrection in which we are more forward then he that all souls were then delivered Another class of such Testimonies as are confessedly Erroneous and Heretical The rest of Fathers speaking in common what we both agree in unless St. Julian of whom I cannot pronounce having not seen the Books Lastly certain stories which some Fathers mention your great Divine making no difference betwixt the stating of Divinity and telling of news but parallelling what a Father says he heard to what the Church receives from Jesus Christ and his Apostles Is not this think you a goodly score to vaunt so much of He adds for the last thousand years not so much as a whisper of any one Father In what age then lived Alacinus St. Anselm and St. Thomas who are cited for holding the Fire of Judgment to be the fire of Purgatory and were in a manner the beginners of the Scholemen 2. In his second Number he comes to the objections Before I begin them I must give you a short note of the state of the question You are therefore to take notice of two famous propositions in Antiquity which modern use has much relinquished The one is that in the primitive Church the day of Judgment was hotly proposed to Christians as in which both rewards and punishments were to be expected Whereas now adays all the preaching almost tends to the present going to Heaven or to Hell And this is so plain thathe himself renders causes why it was so The second Doctrin was that because some souls needed purging and this was apprehended to depend of Judgment also the day in which the rewards or punishments were given was deputed for the purging of the souls which needed purgation This purging was by the Saints generally taken to be done by fire therfore of the last conflagration and other purging we hear not of until private Revelations took Authority to build Diuinity new Principles since which time almost all the Devotion of the Latin Church runs after the delivery of souls from present pains of fire which the Greek Church professed in the Council of Florence not to have heard of But as in the former proposition the difference betwixt Antiquity and the present use maketh not either reprehensible so in this later question there is no formal opposition but the Essence Purgatory is conserved in both to wit that some souls are in torment until they be delivered But Antiquity makes no mention of any delivery but at the day of Judgment Our later Revelations make irregular deliveries upon divers occasions Now what I aym at in the citation of Fathers is to shew that the Testâ—… brought out of them for purging of souls all or generally speak of the day oâ— Judgment so that as to the Fathers the question is all one if whether there be a Purgatory and whether the souls be released at the day of Judgment and all the Authorities which prove Purgatory fire be such as to prove that fire to be at the day of Judgment Whence it follows that who will put a Remission before must look for Fathers who say that directly and not rely upon the common speeches Farther the question is of that nature that it depends from solid Revelation out of Scripture or Tradition and no less Authority is able to make it a
Yet I may deliver one Doctrin which I know not whether he has reflected on or no which is that before Christ Miracles belonged to the Ordinary Government of the Church by God Almighty since Christ and his Apostles time these are become parts of Extraordinary Providence This I speak by reason of his great insisting upon pains in the Old Testament which followed not connatural to the sins For no small part of the motives proposed to the Jews were temporal Commodities which are propounded unto Christians meerly as accidents not to be sought for according to that saying Quâ—rite primum regnum Dei caetera adjicientur vobis And St. James tells us Siquis indiget sapientia postâ—let a Deo dabitur ei but for any thing else he does not tell us so but we know they are sometimes granted and sometimes denyed But in the Old Law the Prophets fore-told both punishments and rewards and they failed not Now that sort of Government is turned into a better and we have order to govern our selves by Reason and Faith is given us to help and strengthen our Reason that it may reach the motives propounded to us out of the state of the next World and to expect rewards and punishments there which spring out of our lives here according to the words of the Apostle that Afflictions here do work glory in Heaven and the other that their works follow them And this to those who use understanding Divinity is signified by the word meritorious After this he makes a repetition of some Arguments many times told over and at last Number 12. he tells us that he never sayd that after that God is in part pacified there still remains in him a boyling of his fury not quite allayed But says he we speak of a most just and rational proceeding in God c. What mood the good man was in when he wrote this I know not For the words express as if he meaned that before God is in part pacified there were in God a boyling of fury and not a just and rational proceeding 6. I told you somewhat of the signification of this word Meritorious but I fear I must eat it again For in his 24. Chapter Number second he tells us that when Nature by Death hath put a man out of this World she hath put his soul out of her reach c. So that now in this state the nature of a meritorious cause occurs to be consider'd by Divinity and Aristotle his Philosophy must stand in great part out of doors Farewel then poor Aristotle and his Philosophy Yet because he is a Philosopher he will ask a cause why he should be turn'd out of doors Let us then look into this Mystery If that a Work-man hath bestow'd a days work upon another man's ground he receives at night what according to the manner of living in that Countrey and the quality of the work is esteemed equal to his labour If a Souldier in a Battle or Siege did eminent service towards the winning of the â—attle or Town his General consults what is fitting to stir up others to dare the like and the Souldier receives it And both the Work-man and the Souldier are sayd to have deserved their rewards Another Work-man for example a Watch-maker makes a Watch and hath it and the fruit of it to know the hour of the day but is not sayd to deserve the Watch. And another Souldier goes out upon his enemies and getteth a good booty and is not sayd to have deserved it What is the reason of this variety of language Why the later used the natural causes of the effect which by their own force produc'd it The other got not this particular reward by a natural but by a rational means that is by pleasing one in whose power it was to bestow it upon him If this be well discoursed then also concerning Souls rewards if they be such as follow not out of the force of the disposition which their works have made the Soul to have in the next world but God by his arbitrary will determins to give them what he thinks best out of the General Principles by which he governs the World these rewards will be sayd properly to be deserved On the other side if the rewards are necessarily consequent to the disposition on which the Soul departs out of her body they will be properly called Effect improperly to be deserved 7. Applying this to our case that is to the pains of Purgatory let us see what is to be said And first I ask what pains doth the fire of Purgatory inflict upon the Souls I suppose your Divine will answer Griefs and Sorrows The next question are the griefs of Objects that deserve to be grieved for as it is fit for Holy Souls to have I suppose he will again say Yes The third question Would not she of her self have all those griefs I think he cannot chuse but say Yes and not put a new fault in the Souls not to have a grief which they ought to have The fourth Question is If she have this grief is it not a punishment layd upon her by God notwithstanding that it proceeds from their natural inclination which God gave them amongst other Reasons to punish their faults I know not what he can deny The fifth Question What then does the fire do make the same over again or increase it The former answer is absur'd To the later we ask the sixth Question Is not the grief of a holy and separate Soul proportionable to the offence or ill it did in this World If it be God's Justice requires no greater If it be not a probable cause must be rendred why a less sorrow would have quitted the sin in life and now such an excess will not Or else for any thing that I see Aristotle will claim a share for his Reasons in the next VVorld as well as in this which if your Divine will grant us we will in silence pass over his two first N. N. 8. In his third Number he cuts out a new piece of work to his friends which is that an act of contrition which they put in the first instant of it's nature taketh away pain as well as guilt therefore say we it must take away the pâ—ins of Purgatory if it hath there power to take away the guilt as in this World it usually does and would do if that act were here done seeing it springs out of the whole Heart and power of the Soul His first answer is that Bellarmin hath say'd much to this difficulty which your Divine passes over with a Besides and upon so good an authority I cannot doubt but that it deserves to be lay'd aside His second Solution is out of Saint Thomas which neither your Divine does stand to nor as it seem Saint Thomas himself making no mention of it in a later work where he handleth the question largely Wherefore omitting it let â—…me to the third
which he says to be â—…isfactory Which I believe if he takes 〈◊〉 comparatively for of the three it is the least faulty but if he means truly satisfactory he must first clear me a doubt or two before I can be of his mind First in it is supposed that we must necessarily say that Venial Sins are remitted after this life Which is true but unless the time be specify'd it may be at the Day of Judgment and so nothing to our present question What he adds that the remission of sin doth take away all impediment of going to Heaven but abateth nothing of their pains I do not understand for three Reasons First because it is onely sayd and no other cause rendred but because the state of merit ceaseth after this life But why to take away the guilt of sin and the impediment of going to Heaven is not the effect of merit is not declared and seems that it cannot be deny'd Secondly there is no reason given why it abates nothing of the Souls pain For why should this be accompted a merit more then the other Seeing it increaseth not Charity nor the reward of Charity and is but a removâ—ns prohibens as well as the other Why then is one admitted the other rejected Thirdly since the Council of Florence it is not to be tolerated to say that to a Soulâ—…ins â—…ins any impediment of going to Heaven And this answer puts the Soul to be pure 9. Another difficulty I have about that Proposition We must hold that in the life to come there is no essential change in the will to wit for that which belongs to the increase of Charity First about the Truth of it For I doubt not but by the Beatifical Vision whensoever it begins Charity is increased and likewise that at the re-union of our Bodies Charity and the reward of it shall both increase Neither do I take it to be spoken consequenter to put many acts of Charity and not put them to increase the habit though you put the acts to be of the same degree of intension For we cannot deny but one and one makes two and that two are more then one and ad hominem if the same pain put in a new time makes the pain greater much more two acts of Charity are more Charity If it be answered the time of merit is pass'd I reply then you must put no more merit But with one breath to put merit and cry the time of merit is passed is to oblige us to believe Opposites 10. A third difficulty I have how it is prov'd that in Purgatory there is an act of Charity with detestation of a Venial sin inconsistent with the affection of Venial sin For onely to say it is so is not to answer the Argument but to repeat your conclusion or ask the question It is confess'd by both parties that Charity not onely in habit but also in act stands with venial sin for otherwise every time we make an act of Charity we should revoke our affection to Veâ—ial Objects St. Thomas's known Doctrine is that a will once taken resolutely in the next World is unchangeable and truly that one act remains until a contrary be put out We must therefore either say that the Soul hath a new deliberation at her going out of the body or that she keeps the same she had in the body until she return to it If we put a new deliberation it may be as well of the End as of Venial Objects and so the Soul shall change her state of Salvation after Death and all place of merit will not be deny'd It follows then that there can be no act in the Soul incompossible to the affection of venial sin until Resurrection Wherefore I doubt not but to a man of a not-preoccupated Judgment this Answer will be so far from being satisfactory that it will manifestly appear that the holders of your Divine's Opinion as much as they cry up that there is no room for merit with one breath so much they pull it down by their inconsequent positions on the other side Besides another thing which in a Divine is a manifest defect that they render no rational cause of the impotency to merit which in our opinion is most manifest 11. In his sixth number he falls upon another question not properly against us but amongst his own Divines which I must a little rip up because it so clearly shews the huge weakness of their Doctrin and Doctours The Question arises out of this difficulty that it seems inconsequent that if the Souls in Purgatory may be helped by others they cannot be helped by themselves And it is as true an absurdity as it seems to be and rises out of the denying of our Opinion He seems to give an answer by saying that they have deserved in this life time to be helped in the next World But this doth rather aggravate the difficulty then solve it For it shews they are helpable and then the difficulty is greater why they cannot help themselves For to say it is precisely because God will not give them leave to help themselves is to call God unreasonable and wilful and cruel instead of playing the Divine and giving an accomâ—t why to do so is conformable to God's Goodness and Government But to fall to the Question Some of their Doctours seem to deny to the Souls of Purgatory power to pray which how it can fall into a Christian's head much less a Divine's I am not capable Are not the Acts of Faith Hope and Charity prayers Will any body deny them these Are not the acknowledgment of their sins and the desire of forgiveness prayers Do they doubt of this Can they wish the relaxation of torments from men and not from God How absurd a Position is this that God whose whole endeavour is to bring mens hearts to him should send abstracted Souls from himself to men The very absurdity of this saying to an impartial man would condemn the whole Opinion And yet more that they can impetrate that the Living may pray for them nay impetrate Graces for the Living but none for themselves whereas we are taught that God grants us easilier for our selves then for other men These sayings are so empty of all Divinity and Solidity that depending as they do meerly from this uncertain and unlikely ground of the Souls present delivery from Purgatory they make it like to themselves uncertain and unlikely also 12. In his seventh Number he tells us that perhaps God was mov'd by his Justice to ordain that the pains due in the other life be not ordinarily remitted but by satisfaction made either by themselves or others An excellent piece of Divinity to ground so substantial a point as whether the Souls in Purgatory pray for themselves or no which every man of any Judgment cannot doubt but that they can no more cease from doing then they can cease from loving themselves from hoping and desiring Beatitude and from
the poor man who gives but a shilling or has but the hearty will to do what were fitting for the Church of God towards the good of his Soul shall find as much relief as the rich man who distributes an hundred pound in all hast for four thousand Masses Yet do I not say the like to rich men For in a Rich man a small thing is no Charity The Charity which dilates not his heart towards his Neighbour is no Charity to give that which he would not stoop to take up is no Charity If what he gives be not sensible to him if it doth not diminish his love to Money if greediness doth not miss it it is no Charity Therefore the Richer man must give more then the less Rich or poorer that it may do him first good in this life and thereby to his Soul in the next 15. He objects that if the Opinion which hath prevailed for five hundred years be true it cannot be but solid prudence to procure the Souls delivery as soon as may be But he mistakes the question which is not nâ—… Whither the Soul be deliverable before the Day of Judgment but by what means she comes to gain the good she may receive Whether by the pure execution of the External action or by the internal Charity which is where it can be the necessary and unfailing cause of the exteriour act And as for the opinion that the external act gains the remission I am afraid it is subject to that curse Pecunia tua sit tecum in perditionem For who can doubt but the remission of sin or pain and the coming to Heaven are Dona Dei and cannot pecunia possideri I abhor to hear that where there is no difference of Charity and internal goodness there should be a difference in remission of sins and purchasing of Heaven Now in this hudling of Masses regularly there is less internal vertue then when they are dispensed with choice and commodity of the Church 16. By what is sayd his second and third Arguments are annulled for the value of the gift and the good of the Soul is the same whether the Masses be sayd a hundred years hence or upon the obit day or even not at all so there be no fault in the Donour And if you object that then the Prayers are not sayd I answer that is an harm to those who should have sayd them and peradventure to the Church if God's Providence doth not supply it other ways but no hurt to the Donour whose work that is the Prudence and Charity by which he ordered it shall follow him and procure by their own sâ—rength what is due to him What then Do the prayers no good or impetrate nothing to him We know that impetration fâ—r others is uncertain depending from God's Providence no ways due to the prayers but as much and how and when they agree to God's Providence and therefore not to be rely'd upon for any effect but every one must look to bear his own burthen and to receive according to his deserts He tells us in the end of his fourth Paragraph that if he had ten thousand pounds at his death to leave for his Souls good he would expresly order that none should be touch'd by them who think it indifferent whether they pray for him this year or next c. I answer that I am of that mind also For who will take Alms must follow the Donour's conditions not his own knowledg But if I had but five shillings to leave for Masses I would rather seek out the Priest on whom I thought it best employ'd though he should say never a Mass for it then another who had a priviledge to say two Masses that very morning but who was not so prudently relieved by my Alms. It was my fortune to have recommended to me by a Gentlewoman upon her Death-bed about 4â— for the good of her Soul She dy'd in poverty in a strange Countrey yet had saved this to be prayed for according to the course of Piety she had been instructed in She had a Child to be put to Nurse without means to pay for the nursing I openly confess I procur'd her not one Mass in vertue of her money but caused it all to be bestow'd on the keeping of the Child out of opinion that in this I did supply the imprudence of the Mother and that to do so was to employ the money best for the Soul of the Mother And such a mind I pray God I may have for my self at my death if I have any thing to leave to make my last Act of the greatest Charity to my Neighbour that I can and I hope I shall do mine own Soul the greatest good that lyes in my power to do by disposing of Temporal Goods 17. In his fifth and sixth Paragraphs he takes that Souls are chiefly to be helped by the Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Council of Trent But if one can help saith he many much more What says he can be here deny'd by any Catholick I answer easily that nothing is to be deny'd but something to be understood And first because that out of the Principle lay'd Charity is the ground of all impetration therefore to understand how it is true that the Mass is the greatest help for souls inPurgatory we ought to understand how the Mass is the greatest act of Charity Which to do we must remember the Mass to have these two relations The one that it is the Christian Sacrifice The other that it is the Commemoration of the Passion of our Saviour The first Consideration stirs up our Intellectual power towards the Admiration and Adoration of his Essence and Thanksgiving for all the benefits which we have received and are to receive from his Almighty hand and to vow all our love and affection to him upon that score The later stirs up the man the Compound of Reason and Passion to the apprehension and esteem of the Mystery of our Redemption of the good received by it and of the penal course Christ took to do us this good Both these considerations are help'd by an awful reverence to the Action we do of handling Christ's own real Body and of presenting to God not our temporall goods as in Alms nor our own bodies as in Penal Exercises but the true and real Body of Jesus Christ accompany'd with his Soul and Divinity If all this raises not Charity to the heighth that Charity can have in this life it is not the fault of the Work but of the Person Wherefore clearly if Souls can be helped by nothing but Prayers and that Alms-deeds and Satisfactions can have no place but as they are Suffrages or impetrations who can require greater evidence that of all exteriour actions the Mass of its nature is the most impetrative and helpful to the deceased faithful But presently you see that Masses are to be weighed not numbred to increase the power of prevailing I might add