our redemption was near Therefore St. Paul calls the good Christians Those who love his coming Therefore in the Apocalyps Christ shews himself as coming and adds My Reward is with me Therefore in the end of the Apocalyps we read that importunate calling on him Come and let him that hears say Come and this was the primitive devotion to desire to be with Christ Now to conclude he that by his Prayers effects the coming of the day of Judgment as far as he doth that so far he procures to his Friend the eternal Reward the main good the compleat satisfaction of the desires of Nature elevated by Grace The next consideration reaches to the particular good that accrews to the party pray'd for For the understanding whereof you are to remember the Doctrin of the Saints that for our selves we are heard as often as we ask in due manner what is good for us for our friends not so but according as is suitable to the rest of Gods providence Yet it is agreed that many times such Prayers bring some advantage even to the special party for whom they are made but when and how Gods providence doth carry such graces we know not unless the effect prove visible Now we pray for the change of the soul of our friend from misery to bliss If he be in capacity to be help'd without doubt our prayers are heard but when and in what degree onely he knows who grants it unless he hath reveal'd it And as when we pray for a living sinner the effect of our prayers if it be fit they should be heard is that circumstances are so cast in respect of this prayer that he lights into convenient dispositions to bring on his conversion so our prayers for the dead work that in the Resurrection such grace is increas'd to the party pray'd for as is fitting to be retributed to the prayers and affections devoutly powr'd out for him The third Consideration reaches even to the rendring less and more tolerable to them those pains they suffer before the day of Judgment in Purgatory which is to relieve them there To understand which we are to consider that the State of Purgatory differs from that of Hell mainly in this that this of Hell is ever accompany'd with the horrour of Despair that of Purgatory with the comfort of Hope to see God's divine face Now all Hope of a future good if it be rational is grounded in knowing the strength and efficacy of the causes which are to effect and bring it and the stronger causes appear to be layd in order to such an effect the livelier and firmer is our Hope and by consequence more vigorous and sweet the Comfort which springs from that hope thus erected wherefore the suffering souls by knowing that the releasment of all in generall and each in particular is procur'd by the prayers of the Church the more and the more fervent prayers they see powr'd out for them the stronger hope and comfort they conceive To apply then this to particulars as the aym and hope and present comfort of each Soul is its future eternal Happiness as best improovable to it by the order of Causes laid by Gods Wisdom and Goodness so the fore-knowledg that the prayers of Friends will bring to each with proportionable advantage their due reward as I exprest it in my second Consideration gives each soul anticipatedly present sentiments even in Purgatory of Hope Joy and Comforts for those advantages their Friends Prayers shall procure them in the day of Judgment which surely none that understand it can deny to be a very great relief The fourth consideration extends this advantage of prayers for a particular Soul even to the state of Heaven it self which to explicate we may remember the pious opinion commonly receiv'd that S. Francis S. Benedict and other Saints in Heaven have new accidental Joyes there for any good effect perform'd by the Order they founded that is for the arrivement of any good towards which they as Causes had any influence in this World now of all Goods imaginable none is or can be comparable to the bringing of the Kingdom of Heaven or universal Bliss this being the But and End of all our wishes and of all both natural and supernatural motion nay the onely aym of his Providence who is Goodness it self most certainly then they who in this World layd means of many efficacious prayers for the dead and for themselves in particular will in my Doctrin see themselves and rejoyce in Heaven to have been particularly influential towards that happiest and noblest effect of bringing that day Add that this will be gratefully acknowledg'd by the whole Court of Heaven and they respected accordingly which will cause almost infinit multiplications of the best accidental Joyes which they who in this World neglected to use and procure this devotion will deservedly want Reflecting then this thought back upon a Soul in Purgatory who has deserv'd by her carriage in this World and taken order to be efficaciously pray'd for that is to have a particular share in bringing Christ's coming in Glory she has antecedently even in Purgatory by foreknowledg of those accidental Joyes she shall futurely reap thereby a sence of them at present by meanes of the certain Hope to attain them and thence in due measure a proportionable comfort ease and relief even in Purgatory So that you see according to my Doctrin both Essential Bliss and best accidental Joyes in Heaven and from the foreknown efficacy of prayers to accomplish these a present comfort accrues to the Souls in that State through our suffrages for them You will say these motives will not be efficacious enough to stir up the hearts of your penitents I can answer nothing but that I doubt they are not well instructed and exhorted And that it is the Preachers duty to endeavour to stir up their hearts with solid Christian truths not by incertainties guilded over with a shew of piety For indeed what is not true cannot be pious When such Inventions have taken a good effect I bless God that shews his goodness as wel by weakness as by strength But to advise any man to teach or preach that out of which he and the Church thorough him may be upbraided to cozen the credulous faithfull into false and prejudiciall confidences and make them rely upon such Doctrins and Practises as have no reality in them I am not a fit Counsellour I leave that to you who like it In your thirty sixth Section you over-reach'd me again for by your beginning I perswaded my self I was come to a period of my pains and that the rest had been but personal quarrels which I could easily have swallow'd how bitterly soever prepar'd by your rash and angry hand But looking a little farther I perceiv'd I must tug again And first as for that question whether you had intention to wrong me in printing your Bull I beleive you had not because you
am hard of belief But you ground it upon this that Onely God is the searcher of the Hearts which although one might interpret to signifie the revealer of Hearts and find Texts of Scripture to that purpose yet I go not that way but tell you when God is said to be the knower of Hearts he is condistinguish'd onely to men and if you will have the sence reach farther you must prove it For it is against the principles your self uses to wit that Angels know all our material motions of our phantasie and sensitive appeal Now if there be no act of the understanding without a fancy agreeing to it Nor an act of will without a proportionate motion in the appetite you will leave few actions unknowable to Angels But our Saviour say you tells us Angels knâ—w not the day of Judgment And truly if he had not included himself in the same phrase the place would have born a great shew but since he that is to be the Judg cannot be thought ignorant of what he is to do I believe the meaning is that none makes that day known but onely the heavenly Father whose proper day it is in which he shall receive into his own hands the Kingdom which he had put in his Sons hands to be administred till that day as being his right hand and chief Instrument of Government and supernatural motion And this is a known Hebraism for in the Hebrew the same Verb in one Voyce signifies to know in another to make known nor want we such instances in our own Language To learn one a Lesson and to teach one a Lesson that is to make him learn it being the same signification Your other place that they rejoyce at the new conversion of a sinner wants one word to make it fit for your purpose to wit that they rejoyce of new For if they rejoyce from the beginning as God doth from all eternity it will come but lamely to your design In your 33 Section you go on with your questions easie to ask but long agoe resolved but as to you to little purpose seeing you do not take the pains to understand the answers As for the Arguments you bring out of Scripture they are already answer'd in my Institutiones sacrae but must be repeated because you take no notice of them yet so shortly that they may not be tedious to them who have read them You object then that the Dragon drew after him the third part of the Starrs but why this was not done in a moment you bring not a word You say also this Doctrine that Angels cannot immediately act one upon the other destroyes their Conversation for all eternity Sure you mean their Grayes-Inn Walks or Spring Garden where they use to walk together and treat one another or their Academies where they meet at Musicks or bring their Poems or discourse of news or some such like entertainments Are you not asham'd to dream of such follies in pure Spirits learn of Aristotle that man is a sociable creature but beasts or pure spirits not the one being below it the other above it But did not in the great Battel in Heaven one Angel work immediatly on another Yes but not by gossiping and tampering one with another to dispute or perswade them into the conspiracy but by example and by being the Objects one to another As when one scandalizes another by sinning in his sight But say you the Indivisibility of their Actions which is the foundation of this Doctrin is unsound since it will never be evinced that an act of a spirit cannot coexist to a greater or lesser part of time Sir If you gave us security of your spirit of Prophesie we would believe what you say of things to come till then we will grant your Proposition as it lies unwarily couch'd but not as you mean it For the Acts of one spirit may be longer then those of another as we said before of different souls but that is not your meaning but that the same spirit hath successive acts one of more duration another of less And this you should have prophesy'd of why the Argument of Indivisibility did not convince For speaking of one onely Angel either he is in some act or in none If in none either his nature with the pure force of his Power which the schools call Actus primus can burst into an act or it cannot If you say it can then you must put a thing first not to do after to do without any change that is to be not productive and productive of an Act that is two contradictories without any variety Put him now in act either his Essence with this Act abstracting from all other circumstances is productive of a 2d act or it is not If it be not then out of this Essence this act abstracting from all accidents he will never have a second But if the Essence with this Act is productive of a second act then as soon as he hath this act he produces the second that is both together or else as we said before the same thing without change will be productive and not productive and so of as many acts as follow in this sort one of another that is all that be in an Angel by his own power without external help or determination So that the conclusion is all such acts must be in the same moment altogether Your answer is that this is true of one act but not of all But you must shew that the Argument doth not convince as much of every one as of any one or otherwise it is but your bare word against a convincing Reason though you boldly term it a gross Errour But you press that I hold all causes are fixt and set as to all effects whatsoever from the very beginning to all future succession I pray distinguish the proposition you infer against me from this other There is no effect but had a cause and its cause had another cause and so till the beginning of the World For if you mean no more then this I must admit it howsoever you will please to miscall it If you have another meaning when you teach it me I shall tell you whether it be concurrent with my sentiment or no As for your crying out that 't is Pagan Fatality that it destroyes the liberty of God and the Contingency of all created things if of these three words though I doubt not but you have talkt them over often enough you understand any one I will yeeld you the honour of being my learned Master and shall not contest with you in Divinity But in the mean while I must defend my self from your assaults in your four and thirtieth Section wherein you accuse me that I fix upon Christianity and the Church an Ignorance of separated substances meaning by these great words those that hold the probable opinion which you maintain as also a most gross abuse upon the Angelicall St. Thomas My
say so and that onely you pretended to make the Doctrin pass for an Article of faith the contrary of which all the world knew to be maintain'd by me Secondly I must remember you that you do indeed and inexcusably wrong me when you say I deny that such Souls are receiv'd presently into Heaven if you mean by the word such Souls purg'd after separation 't is no better then a cunning calumny and would represent me as holding directly contrary to the Bull and Council Whereas our dispute is whether Souls may be so purg'd out of their bodies before the day of Judgment not if they be so purg'd whether they go to Heaven before that Day this I agree to and is of faith that I deny is but an Opinion Thirdly you do not well justify your Friends for changing the Title from Concerning the Vision of God the Beatitude and Damnation of Souls to this shorter but more generall one Concerning the State of departed Souls while your answer signifies onely that they are severall expressions for the same thing which to a wary considerer will easily appear an artifice Is it all one to contend about white and black and about colours in generall No more is it all one to define concerning Beatitude and Damnation and to define concerning a State which is neither of them both Fourthly you often up and down your Book brand me with faithless Theology What do you mean do not your Doctors generally agree that somthing in Religion is demonstrable are they all therefore presently to be condemn'd as faithless cannot your self demonstrate there 's a God and will you think your self an Infidel for it Or dare you tell the Ladyes that for your part you are not so silly as to believe there 's a God you know it and that as for belief of such things it belongs to the simple unlearned not to Scolars I hope in your next work you will proceed with more candor and manliness Your thirty seventh Section being spent in petty quarrels though some lines in it be both false and malicious yet I will let all pass and go on to the thirty eighth Section where you rip up again the question whether the matter of the Decree be that perfect charity carries separated Souls immediately to Heaven In which you tell us your Publisher is indifferent and may yet chuse whether he will say that good Souls at their decease be wholly purg'd from all irrationall affections or no in the first Instant And this may peradventure be true But if I am not deceiv'd he will not say they are purg'd For I am sure you would censure it deeply in me if I should say that after this life there is any more disposing it self or meriting towards life eternal But I must not be over confident you may have two censures in your brest for the same saying in the mouths of different Persons You ask if Charity brings a Soul immediately to Bliss What then does your Adversary think of Lumen Gloriae It is to me a hard question what he will think of it for I see your great Divines cannot agree what to think of it But I guess he may think either Charity it self when perfect in a pure Spirit is the Light of Glory or causes it as well as the Beatificall Vision You press farther the perfection of Charity in this life doth not give the Beatificall Vision therefore neither in abstracted Souls But if I should ask you how you knew the Antecedent you would be at a stop I can hear it defended that St. Benedict had the clear sight of God And I was at a Sermon in Alcala made to the whole University in which the Preacher asserted our Lady had Beatifical Vision in the first Instant of her Conception and prov'd it out of his Text which was Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis Fundamenta ejus her conception in montibus Sanctis in the heighths or tops of Sanctity Therefore believing Divines must take heed of denying as well as of saying Besides I have read in St. Thomas and others both more Ancient and more Modern that there is a certain pitch of Charity to which when men arrive God takes them out of this World But however that stand I think there is a large difference betwixt the Charity of pure Spirits and of men So that the consequence may be true of one and not of the other Farther on you mention some reasons of mine against corporall punishing of Spirits but you knock them all on the head with a Canon of the Council of Trent To understand the state of the question it is not amiss to consider that a Sin specially a notorious one hath three effects or parts One in the rational Soul where it is a Judgment or resolution or affection that such an Action is to be done A second in the Appetite or Body where it makes certain motions and their causes which bring a likelihood of falling into the same sin The third part is in the external action where it brings in some disorder which is subject to propagate it self farther into other subjects The disorderly Judgment and affection is that which our School-men when they speak formally call the Sin and account the sin remitted when that is duly blotted out whatever that signifies But it is supposed to be done by Contrition and Absolution And although they admit this to be sufficient to go to Heaven if one dyes yet in a living man they with reason require that the other two parts or effects of sin should also be taken away which is to be done by Satisfaction So may the Reader understand what Satisfaction is required for Now let us see what you urge out of the Council First you object the Council teaches that it is against the word of God to say that the fault is never remitted but that all the punishment is also forgiven And so you see by the discourse above made that we say also Secondly the Council sayes that it becomes the Divine clemency that sins should not be parâ—on'd without any Satisfaction So we say also by the fore-made discourse Thirdly the Council charges Priests to impose Satisfaction so that it be not onely as to the guard of a new life but also as in revenge and chastisement of their past sins which is clearly necessary for the mending of the outward excesses brought in by the sin and so we say directly the same You press farther that the Council sayes in Baptism the whole pains are remitted And if you speak in opposition to sins remitted in Penance the cause is clear For the sins committed before Baptism belong not to the Churches Court But if you speak in regard of God Almighty I fear it will require I should ask your Judgment of a Case Your Divines tell us that he who receives Baptisme cum fictionâ— receives Baptism truly yet if he dye immediately I suspect whether you will send him immediately