not found out your Gentleman will draw that St. Austin sayes that it cannot be proved that their opinion is false but onely that it may ly hidden And I cannot deny but that his Cavil is cunning But I pray when the question is of being or not being cannot the solution be either that it is or is not and if the question be not solved which is the solution to ly hidden are not both parts hidden and not onely one So that this answer is expresly against the Text. 3. His other solution is no less either against the Text or unreasonable for indeed it is a meer puzzle and not an answer For what matter is it whether the object be lawfull or unlawfull if this be confessed that the affection is sinfull Therefore it is not to be doubted but the question is whether sins in Purgatory be shorter and longer punished according to their gravity For let him look whether St. Austiâ— speaking of the punishment in this life puts it for any thing but sin Wherefore if Bellarmin had no better solution it was not worth the looking for and he rather disgrac'd the Catholick cause then helped it by so poor a discourse Therefore I can conclude no otherwise then that your Divine gives St. Austin fairly the ly to his face seeing that where he professes expresly he doth not know nor that it had as yet been brought in question whether in Purgatory some souls were purg'd sooner then others This Divine tells him he does know and brings his words to make him eat them But what are these words of St. Austin It is true he sayth The souls are helpâ— by prayers which is the position common to us both But then when is your Divines liberality whom I find light finger'd enough in his Translations 4. St. Austins adds that to whom prayers are available aut ad hoc prosunt ut sit plena remissio vel aut certe tolerabilior fiat ipsa damnatio Your Divine explicates it that in Purgatory either all the pain or some part be remitted But reading St. Austin makes me think that he speaks of Purgatory and Hell For he speaks in common of the dead descends particularly both to the damned and those in Purgatory and of the Damned he pronounces that Etsi nulla sunt adjumenta mortuorum qualescunque vivorum consolationes sunt As who should say their damnation is less because it is good to their living friends according to the prayer of the rich glutton in Hell who would not have his Brothers come to him which if it be the true meaning he will put that all prayers for those in Purgatory obtain full remission to wit when the time comes And though it be clear that seeing these words can be spoken no otherwise then upon supposition of a truth which he expresses to be unknown to him in the same Book and in the one hath these words Sive ergo in hac tantum vita ista homines patiuntur sive etiam post hanc vitam alia quaedam judicia subsequuntur non abhorret c. they truly signify nothing to our Controversy yet let them be taken in all the rigour the words can bear they say nothing against our opinion For both full remission in vertue of the prayers may belong to the day of Judgment and the more tolerableness of the pains argues not that the pains are lessened after the beginning nor that they receive end before the day of Judgment For God being the imposer of the pain in their way and all things being present to him he can when he list that is at the first instant proportion the pains as well to prayers as to sins and set such a pain to endure to the day of Judgment that the merit of prayer may have its value notwithstanding the equality of the duration This I speak in your Divines manner of discourse so that you may see that this conclusion may stand with their apprehensions of Purgatory so Revelations were set on side 5. Out of the explication of this place all other places out of St. Austin are plain though indeed even without this place they haue no difficulty For who doubts but that the dead are helped by prayers and if helped dealt more mercifully withall or that this is come to us by Tradition Likewise there is no question whether these torments begin before the day of Judgment or at the very hour of our death but whether they end before that day Nor likewise do we question whether they be purged after resurrection For our position is that Resurrection is the end of their torments But these I easily pardon him for I easily apprehend he understandeth not fully my opinion Wherefore to talk to him in his own Language let him compare an Instans Angelicum to the time it dures for example sake some grief that in a soul would be purging to the time which runs parallel to it and see whether it will not be a purging in every instant of time and yet will have purged nothing untill the Resurrection which we put to be the ending of the pains of Purgatory by which you will understand how far he looks awry to say we put no purging before the day of Judgment but all at or after it 6. Yet were he content to abuse St. Austin in a small matter we had reason to have patience His insolency grows so high as to condemn him of no less then Blasphemy Read in his fifth Number After he hath told us that St. Austin speaks of spirits being purg'd before they receive their bodies not distinguishing betwixt Purging and being purged which later St. Austin speaks not of He adds to make it more evident that he speaks of a purgation wholly ended and dispatched before any one resume their body And tells that St. Austin moves the question if any dye so immediately before the day of Judgment that there is not time enough for prayers to be said for them what shall become of them And St. Austin's resolution he doth not let us know but he presses that St. Austin requires time that they may be cleansed before the day of Judgment To which is answered I see well that the objection seems to do so but why the objection St. Austin makes should be taken for his Doctrin I do not know And if I were to answer the question I should doubt whether the great Persecution of Antichrist's times and the wonders of the dying world can stand with that tepidity which carryes men to Purgatory But what sayes your great Divine He tells us St. Austin stands in doubt whether a man who dyed then in the state of being to be purged should not be damned if there wanted time to purge him That is that St. Austin is of mind that a Venial sin becomes a mortal one by an extrinsecal accident that changeth nothing in the soul. Can you take this man either to be a solid Divine or to bear any
the explication and deduction of my opinion and I do not think my Adversary will quarrel at much of this not that I think them to be his opinions but because partly he knows them to be the opinions of other Divines and partly they are so rational that any sensible man will condemn him at first sight Now therefore it is time to lay down the Adversary's opinion as I apprehend it leaving him all liberty to explicate himself in what I shall miss in at his own pleasure 13. You must know therefore that the Scriptures preach the Doctrin I have lay'd down minutely and Philosophically in few and Metaphorical terms They represent you God like a Man-Law-giver tell you that he hath lay'd up fire for those who will not obey in the next world My Adversaries take this as a word and a blow and conceive that Sin is an Action to which punishment is due of its own nature and that God should not be just if he did not bestow it on the sinner so that they put the relation between sin and punishment and both them to God nor will they hear that this follows out of the Order of Causes which are set for the carrying of Man-kind to Heaven that there may be a proportion natural of the sin and punishment but that God appoints what punishment he thinks best After this they put that the three conditions or names of the Vertue of every Action be three divers Vertues or Qualities whereof one concerns not the other or at least may be separable So that the Action may be meritorious and yet neither impetrate nor satisfy likewise may be impetrative but not satisfactory and may be satisfactory without impetration or merit And hence they say some Saints have had Actions both meritorious and impetrative that satisfy'd for nothing or little because they ow'd little or little pains were due to their offences Whence it comes that there be great heaps of Actions as they are satisfactory lay'd up in the Treasure of the Church and that the Pope hath the power to take what quantity seems to him fitting and to pâ—eâ—ent it to God foâ— the sâ—ns of living or dead and that he is bound to accept of it for the debts or pains of such men or souls whereas my saying is that the abundance of the merits of Christ and the Saints give the Church and the Pope all power and vertue to relaxe sins and punishments alwaies that are for the Churches good This I understand to be the substance of their opinion And now the Reader may be prepared to understand what shall be sayd on both sides SECOND DIVISION Containing an Answer to his seventeenth Chapter That we agree with others in the Torment and disagree onely in the Instrument Ours more connatural and â—it His self-contradiction and false imposing of unheld Doctrin When Baptism remits all pains and how a soul in Purgatory purgeth her self Several petty mistakes No place for merit in the next world That souls in Purgatory are Saints and may be pray'd to The effect of those Prayers which accelerate the day of Judgment Divers intolerable errours and weaknesses in Divinity 1. IN his seventeenth Chapter he professes to shew my Principles to be ill grounded and that there are bad sequels following from them And if that shâ—wing signify no more then saying so I beleeve fully he will do what he promises but if it be taken for proving I doubt he will fall very short of his Title The reason of my suspicion is because I find it so as far as I have hitherto look'd For example the first Principle of mine he makes that the venial affections which mens souls carry into the next world are cause to them of great griefs and torments of mind he farther says I put no other torments in Purgatory but the grief of this affection being joyned to the soul and the privation of bliss And I tell him on the other side that he puts no torments in Purgatory but that I put the very same I confess this proposition is a very bold one for I know not how absurdly he may talk of those pains but in hope he speaks as commonly his fellows do I venture upon this affirmation 2. To make which good I distinguish between the Torment and the Instrument of the torment as to say Burning is the torment Fire the instrument by which the torment is inflicted And then I make this discourse Let him look into the ordinary explication of Divines and see whether they put in Purgatory any other torments then Acts of the will which they call griefs Now the question being of souls in Purgatory that is holy Souls I cannot imagin they will put them to be of other objects then such as deserve grief as of their sins of the want of â—lory and such like Now all these I put in the souls of Purgatory It is clear then then that I put the same torments in Purgatory that he doth not one excepted The difference then is onely that I do not put the same Instruments of torment which he does but I put connatural Instruments he strange and forced Instruments I the nature and eminency of a spirit he a dead body which cannot be imagin'd how it can hurt a soul. Ask which is the stronger Agent and fitter to torment the soul it is clear that her own nature is infinitely more strong infinitely more fit Why then doth not my way satisfy him Because he does not understand that the words of the Scripture are Metaphorical because he understands not what signifies Gods Justice because the Bells ring in his ears that the Councils signify other punishments then their words express He vaunts the Councils be against us but when he declares them he cannot find one word beyond what is common to both opinions 3. In his third and fourth Number he would perswade his Reader that we fall into his own Errour of denying Purgatory because we say these purging torments end not until the day of Judgment and hath not so much reflexion as to remember that there is no place for Purgatory when purging is done As long as we profess Purgatory we must profess not purged This is the Doctrin perpetually before his eyes in the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict and he looks so a squint that he cannot see what is plainly before him that as soon as purging is turned to purged the soul is in bliss About what then doth he quarrel with me because I say the ill affection is in Purgatory all the while the soul is there and yet he says the same Let him reflect upon these his own words N. 4. Whereas Purging cleansing c. signifies the taking away of something which contains the nature of a stain or blemish If this be so then clearly something containing the nature of a stain or blemish is in the soul as long as the soul is in Purgatory Then he unjustly accuses me of saying
confess those were satisfy'd with a threatning of a greater Champion to follow yet I must take leave to remit my Reader to that Answer when your Divine goes no farther then the Vindicatour As for your Divine my first exception is that in his first number he affirmeth that both sides agreed that what was left to be purged at death might in some time before the day of Judgment be often truly sayd to be now wholy purged and he adds in Latin Jam Purgatum ex toto I see it is happy for him that he has a good pair of Spectacles such as can make him see deep into a Mill-stone For I that can see onely the outside find no such sence in these words I find nothing in the words cited by him that speaks of Esse Existentiâ— as Philosophers term it but onely of Esse Essentiae that is of this consequence These men are purged what follows That they go to Heaven or no. I never learned in Logick that an Interrogatory form was affirmative Had he sayd that both parties had agreed that this should be the question I perforce must have submitted but to make the world believe that he who asks what is to be sayd in such a case should be supposed to think the case true is beyond my Logick But you may reply that it is no great matter for his Logick may be far beyond mine Nor can I deny it specially if he can make them agreed of what they never thought of For in the same Paragraph he tells us that before our unhappy age he finds no mention of any Catholick who denyed such Souls to be deliverable before that day He had done me a great pleasure if he had set down what Hereticks before that time had deny'd it For then we might have gather'd all Catholicks had agreed against those Hereticks Now the Agreement must be such as was the Solution a School-fellow of mine was wont to give to the difficulties he found in his dictates which was to forget them So this Agreement was never to think or motion it or at most to hold it no way concerning the difficulty then proposed 7. This I believe is the substance of this whole Chapter For I see he tosses it and tumbles it in divers expressions but gets not a foot farther For what he tells us in the next Number to wit that this question concerned much the souls in Purgatory is very true but how he can inser it belongs to the Popes question is what I make difficulty of For I do not understand the Pope either meant to handle all questions or any one of Purgatory or to make an exhortation to pray for the dead by this Definition but onely to declare the efficacioâ—sness of Grace to carry people to perfect bliss as is evident by the Popes so much insisting upon the explication of the fullness to which men arrive 11. In his fourth Number he presses what an intolerable thing it is to keep the souls of one who hath spoken but one Idle word so long not onely from the sight of God but also in most afflictive punishments I do not remember I have any where declared that any man was sent to Purgatory for just one Idle word I think my way teaches that the next world depends on the habits not on the acts otherwise then as they are causes of remaining dispositions in the soul I do not know also where I have determin'd how far the pangs of death do satisfy for sins so that I take his supposition to be very aerial but it is not here place to discuss it In the mean while I see it was a providence of God that your Divine lived not before our Saviour ' s Passion for had he gone to Limbo he would have so murmured against God for keeping Holy Abel so many years out of Heaven for Original sin which Divines hold to be less then any Venial sin that it would have troubled the whole company 9. He seems to press that this will retard men in their progress towards Heaven But he that were to speak for my opinion would say no but that it would press them so much the more to be of that number that shâ—ll not be stay'd so long from their desired reward seeing it is in their own hands to go immediately to Heaven if they will For the case the Pope speaks of differs from ours in this that in his case it was not in the power of the living to obtain their coming to Heaven but in our case it is For Purgatory must needs be a place for tepid people seeing it is written of Heaven that Violence doth carry it 10. In his fifth Number he tediously repeats the same Argument of pressing the word esse to signify existence onely he adds a more silly confirmation For where the Pope speaks of all three sorts of souls being in Heaven in common and uses the three tenses have been are and shall be he presses that these 3 tenses must be true of all 3 sorts of souls whereas any one soul is enough to verify those three tenses seeing who once has been in Heaven is there and ever shall be And this upon no other ground then because it is fit for his purpose So willfull an Interpreter he is 11. In his sixth Number he finds a gross Errour in him that shall say the Pope made but one Definition concerning the state of souls departed What a piece of Divinity is this It is agreed upon by both sides what the Pope determins and in particular there is no disagreement of any point whether it be defined or no And your Divine finds a gross Errour whether it is to be called one Definition or more And I take it for so pidling a question that though the Book ly by me and to my memory it is sufficiently resolved in former writings yet I do not think it worth looking the place to see what the resolution and proof is but onely that it is a great impertinency to count it a gross Errour though it should be found to have missed 12. In the same sixth Number your Divine finds the Popes definition concerning the point in difference in these terms That if there shall be any thing to be purged in them when after death they shall be purged they presently after the afore said purgation even before the resumption of their Bodies and before the general judgment were are and shall be in Heaven have seen and do see God Now I am so blind that I can find neither good sence nor true English in these He begins with if there shall be any thing to be purged and ends with were are and shall be have seen and do see So that in the same proposition the mediuâ— is future and the effect passed Which is a rare piece of Grammar and newly invented to make the Popes Definition reach to what the Pope thought not of Would it not turn a mans stomack to see
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
comparison to Aristotl's demonstration and saying that in Aristotl's way there be insuperablr difficulties which uses to be the saying of those who understand not this Demonstration of Aristotle which is fundamenta to Philosophy and acknowledged by all who deserves the name of Philosophers And so you may see I did well to promise him no demonstrations who know not what they signify but thinks every Anthropomorphitical explication of Scripture to be Demonstrative EIGHTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his twenty third and twenty fourth Chapters Our Opinion avouch'd by true Philosophy Hiâ— Calumny of our Teâ—ets God's Gâ—… of the Synagogue different from that of the Church The notion of the word Merit The connaturalâ—ess of the pains we put and the needlesness of his The many ill-consequences and absurdities of the Opinion that all Venial affections are blotted out by Contrition in the first Act of Separation The â—illiness of his Opinion that souls in Purgatory cannot help themselves His probable Divinity His non-sâ—… that lyability to be punisht without Fault is 〈◊〉 blem isâ— refuâ—ed 1. I cannot but complain of your Divine that having promised such wonders in the last discussed Chapter he came off so pitifully that where he had the advantage of human apprehension against me he gave me not as much as occasion to explicate my Doctrin unless I should have gone and stray'd from his Text. His oppositions were pure opinions without any sight of Evidence His Authority for the most part of St. Thomas from whom in this point we professedly recede His Scripture such as he himself is bound to solve in respect of Almighty God So that in its words it has no force and all the force must come out of this whether the nature of Angels requires to have the words explicated improperly or no which he may suppose but goes not about to prove otherwise then from uncertain Authority His solutions to admit contradiction or else propose some Argument by halfs The rest of his Chapter high words 2. Howsoever I hope his three and twentieth Chapter will make amends for the question is not so Metaphysical as the other was It begins with an explication of my Doctrin disguis'd in high terms yet true ones for the greatest part In his second Number he accuseth it of being against Philosophy to say that God so order'd all things in the beginning that he need not since put his hand to it By which if he understands that God doth not continue conserving of his creatures it is not my Doctrin If he grants Conservation to God though the truth is that Conservation is but the very Act of first Creation though in name and notion it be divers then I must see how he proves it against Philosophy For saith he no natural cause can produce the soul of a man and therefore God must do some new action when there is an exigence of creating a soul. I grant no creature can create a â—oul but affirm that the first act of Creation creates every soul when time is without farther or greater Influence of God He may reply he understands not this To which my answer is that I beleeve him but cannot help him seeing it is not here place to explicate Mysteries of incident Philosophical points He may help himself if he pleases with my Institutiones both Peripaticae and Sacrâ— He adds two other Philosophical necessities he finds one of the necessity of Gods actual concourse with second causes the other of Gods choosing Individâ—…s for the second causes to produce The former as far as it hath sence in it is done by the Action of Creation or Conservation by which God sets the Angels on work to move celestial Bodies from whose motion actual motion flows into all other causes and this is the true either premotion or concourse of God with creatures plain and visible The other which I fear he means hath no kind of Philosophy nor Divinity in it The choosing of Individâ—… is the rascallest and the ridiculousest Position that ever was affirmed by any scum of Philosophers You see what sound maximes â—e takes to impugn the perfection of God's Wisdom 3. In his fourth Number he begins to employ his Divinity And first he asks what natural cause can raise dead bodies and give them due torments And I must answer with a reply of a question to wit when this is to be done While the Fabrick of Nature holds or when it is ended If when it is ended how comes it to our purpose Or is not he grosly mistaken to put this amongst the workings of Nature Yet that the course of Natural Causes does prepare the World even to this unmaking of Nature you may find in the last book of my Institutiones Sacrâ— For the proportionable pains the Soul of themselves will cause those as you may see in the same book To fill up here a Page with his own opinion of Purgatory was besides the matter for we doubt not but that he puts more Wilfulness then Wisdom in God Almighty's Actions 4. His main Answer begins N. 3. where he tells us that it is Heresie to make natural causes to have vertue sufficient to bring man by themselves alone to his final end of Eterâ—… Bliss And then he tells you that our prime Argument is the same that Pâ—…gius's to wit that every natural Agent ought to have power given it from the Author of Nature to bring it self to its natural perfection But first I would enquire where â—e sound in any Writing of mine the Proposâ—â—on he condemns If I say that God hâ—th ordain'd second causes to do all effects which are not to be seen to be miraculous do I exclude supernatural causes Are not Christ's coming and Preaching the coming of the Holy Ghost the Habits of Faith Hope and Charity the Prayers and Preaching and good Works proceeding from men thorough such Habits the Sacraments the whole â—orm of the Church all Supernatural causes interwoven with natural To what purpose then doth this man talk that natural causes are not sufficient to bring a man to Heaven Is it not plain he knows neither what I say nor what himself See how just our Argument is the same with the Pelagâ—â—n's Out of this you see his Answer is like to be a good one and so it is For Numb 8. he hath so I answer As man's last 〈◊〉 cannot be reâ—ched by Nature so is it out of the reach of natural causes by their natural operation to chastise man's sinning proportionably to his voluntary acting against his supernatural end My Reply is that he must seek out to whom to answer for I never talked of purely natural causes but natural and supernatural together as they compound all second causes But the good man could think of no supernatural causes but God himself working immediately and so strayed to seek out why such actions were not miraculous which we will not follow him to because it is not concerning to our Theme 5.