see a necessary connexion with the deliver'd Faith if you say so you desert your vertue of prophesying and come over to our School which you so abominate as rational and faithless yet this experience teaches us is the way that Popes and Councils use to take If you say their consulting must not hold till they see it by reason then tell me what Oedipus or Geometrician can guess or fix the terminating line of counsell prerequisite These points a Scholar would have setled You distinguish nothing but jumble all your Bells together into a confused noise and deafen more then instruct your Hearers Now 't is to much purpose to talk of the force of the word Anathema whilest you have not settled a matter in which the Church hath a power to impose it What an inconsiderate manner of arguing is this You say Catholiks require no other assurance of their Faith then upon this firm foundation that our holy Mother the Church is their infallible directress The proposition is the very Tenet we mainly advance and stick to Go but consequently to this and we shall have no quarrell You add another ground that the Councils her mouth are the unerring deliverers of truth This also is very true and never deny'd by us But there rises a great question whether Councils be perpetually and in all cases the mouth of the Church look upon Cariolanus his abridgment of the Councils and read his division of General Councils into approbata and reprobata and ex parte approbata and ex parte improbata and see how ignorantly you go to work even in the grounds of your own eminent learned men who will oppose you peradventure more then I and yet you preach Christian Religion is a mockery if this be taken away I desire not to look into particulars unless you force me to it For I cannot discover even your Errours without discovering too the vanity of that School which you nickname the Church and confidently take upon you to be one of her Masters I doubt not if you attentively consider your eminent Scholars you will find many of them speak indeed gloriously of Councils but unless I be strangely deceiv'd they give them less of inward and reall Authority then I while they make them in effect but Cyphers to the Pope without whom they signify nothing though added perhaps to him they increase his signification yet surely not very much since in many of those Masters opinion he alone is infallible and I think in every ones opinion all together are not much more Whereas the Doctrin I follow gives them an absolute Inerrancy in testifying receiv'd truths which is clearly sufficient to conserve and propagate the Faith of the Church I beleeve you mistake the meaning of that grave and worthy Person whom without any ground at all for your conceit you call my Scholar since he seriously protests he never gave his mind that way nor ever read over any considerable part of my Books nor particularly this of the Middle State his true meaning I conceive is we may know when Councils and Consistory's apply themselves right by examining not Tradition it self for that's evident in the sence of the Faithfull but their proceedings by Tradition whether they be conformable to it Which is not onely a maintainable but excellent truth And by this method the Divines of those dayes examin'd the Doctrin of John 22. For Tradition is the Law of Christ planted in the hearts of all Christians not to be examin'd it being to be read fair written there by their externall words and conversations Now if a Pope or Council be supposed to delver Doctrin against this 't is past darkness and examining since all the Christian world cannot choose but resent it and know it to be against their Faith and Judgment So that you plainly misunderstand the meaning of Tradition which is no hidden thing but the publick and settled belief of the Christian world You will say 't is impossible a Pope or Council should proceed so grosly I wish there were no examples of it But the truth is if instead of a Pope consider'd onely personally you take him as presiding in his Church and Seat and joyn'd with it which is a kind of more then a Provinciall Council but much more if you take a General Council without extraordinary violence without or within both mainly visible this cannot happen and so they have infallibility in attesting the received Doctrins most absolutely sufficient to secure the Church against being mis-led by them By the same Errour you look to determin Faith by Inquest not knowing it cannot be unknown in a Catholick Country to them that live there See the story of Luther Were men doubtfull of their Faith before he and his fellows in iniquity set themselves to snarl at it Therefore Inquest may be made how to answer their Argumments but not to understand what the Church held before opposition rose How much mistaken is all your discourse about the proceeding to higher Tribunals after so great diligence of scrutiny There is no such thing as scrutiny necessary to find out Faith nor ever was the Church to seek her Faith Since she once receiv'd it from Jesus Christ she never lost it and so is to look into it not for it If any thing be to be look for it is not faith it may be some Theologicall Verity not faith Your discourse therefore is wholly out of the way No wonder then you find your self at a loss and cry out like a blind man for a hand to guide you since instead of Christs faith you look for a new faith One would have it an Article of our Christian faith that his Order is a true Religious Order Another that one hang'd for treason is a true Martyr others seek some private revelation that brings in profit to be canoniz'd for faith and other such fine questions to be put in the Creeds of the Church and if it be not yeelded there 's a power in the Church to impose such beliefs upon men presently the denying Doctrin is an Exterminating School and pulls up by the roots all the foundations of Christian Religion Nor will there want some to say that though these things be true they are not to be published but Catholicks are to be left in ignorance of such tender points But will not the mischief by degrees grow intolerable if once it should come to that height that the People by a preoccupated credence be apt to be stirr'd seditiously against their naturall and lawfull Governour by any surreptitious Rescript fetch't from beyond Sea freshly seal'd with the new stamp of faith and to believe all Christianity is rain'd if such a Rescript nay the Interpretation of the procurers be any way doubted of O strange unhappy times You press farther that according to me the Church hath de facto erred in the Bull and Council so long treated of What a strange boldness is this you bring an Interpretation
Councils if they proceed duly in their discussion And must all this be conceald and onely three generall words which declare neither particular manner nor matter be barely alleadg'd as a ground of all your spitefull Rhetorick How strange a proceeding is this for a Christian My third note is that in case Christ be a perfect Law-giver and that the Faith he left be sufficient and no more necessary for the Church that is if a Council have nothing to do in making new Articles of Faith then I onely deny Infallibility to Councils in things unnecessary for the Church and unconcerning their duty as Definers of Faith and give them an absolute Inerrancy in all points necessary for the Church that is in all that can truly concern their main purpose that is defining Faith And more than this I beleeve you will find an hundred Catholick Doctors to one deny them as well as I. My fourth note shall be that you would make the denying Infallibility of Councils abstracting both from all matters and manners of proceeding or acceptation of the Church for so you treat it my singular opinion whereas thus spoken of we have for their Errability amongst the Franciscans Castillo and the learned Author of Systema Fidei who cites him for the Dominicans Sotus who tells us that if God by his secret judgment suffers a Council to err he will not permit it long to be conceald from the Church but will take order that it be corrected by another following Council before it be receiv'd in the Church For the Jesuits Bacon telling us it was the opinion of Saint Austin and of all the writers of that Age that the resolution of Faith was compleated in the reception of the whole Christian world For the Fathers Saint Austin himself whose known words are that Plenary Councils have been corrected by following ones where he seems also to speak even of matters of Faith Of Cardinalls Cusanus that it may be observ'd by all experience that an universall Council may fail For your own Doctors worthy Dean Cressy in whom you may find most of these Authors cited Exomol c. 33. where he acknowledges the placing the Infallibility of Councils ultimately in the acceptation of the Church an opinion at least allowable and according to his eminent learning and charity puts down the conveniences he observ'd in that Doctrin to the reducing the Heterodox party Nor onely these but indeed who is there of any note that will say a Council is Infallilible unless it proceed Conciliariter and that it may not proceed conciliarly or after the regular way of a Council I beleeve you are not unacquainted if you be let Pope Martin the fifth teach it you who in the last Session of the Council of Constance declares himself to hold and observe their Decrees made conciliariter non aliter nec alio modo and this too expresly in matters of Faith which caution of his shows he held a possibility of their proceeding illegally Now what they call Conciliariter I call in definitions of Faith attending to Tradition which put I hold and maintain them absolutely Infallible whereas I believe all except me if you examin the matter well and report it candidly put more numerous and more difficult conditions to their Infallibility and far more liable to contingency than what I require which is both extremely hard to fail and when it does must needs be most notorious to the whole world and so beyond my power to pretend or excuse it as you would wisely perswade the Reader by saying this Doctrin brings all into my hands So that we have eminently learned men of all the chief orders in Gods Church Cardinalls and Fathers to omit many or rather all others directly of my opinion in holding a Non est impossibile speaking in generall or rather I of theirs and yet I onely must be raild at as if none in the world held it or broacht it but I. Turn now I beseech you valiant Sir the mouth of your pot-gun against all these renowned Authors and discharge your intemperate spleen against them as abandoning the Catholick Church denying the Authority of Councils and such like which make up a great part of your worthy work and see how feeble an attempt you will make and whether you will not deserve as great an hiss as you have made a noise to no purpose but to breath out some of your swelling passion At least excuse your self to charitable Christians why omitting to mention all others Authority who held the same Doctrin with mine leaping over the backs of all distinctions both of matter and manner without which your discourse signify's nothing and lastly why leaving out words of mine within the same comma which should clear me you rawly took out three onely which were generall ones apply'd them to what particular sence you pleas'd nay extended them to that which was invidious and which I never held and by these arts abus'd the veneration which the vulgar justly have of Councils to stir up in them an undeserved ill opinion against me I pass by in my Book many such like carriages of yours this because you so often and so maliciously glance at I could not leave totally unreflected on If it would not spoil your sport I would crave leave to right the reader in the conceit you would imprint in him of my Romancicall Hell as you are pleas'd to term it the ridiculousness of which lies in your expressions not mine One would think by your putting Dancers Bowlers Fencers c. in other Letters they were my words but he would be mistaken One would think that the words attempting now in Hell in all their severall postures which signify'd as if they were playing tricks there were my words or sence but would be mistaken again One would have thought you might have had the candor not to omit the word quasi which would have spoild the exactness of the postures you fancy and so have much qualify'd your jeft Lastly one that had not known you might have imagin'd you would have transcrib'd to the full point and not still take two or three words single and then you should have seen the mixture of desperation fear and grief marring the perfect molds your Imagination had fram'd and made me say no more but that the shapes of the damned were frightfull and distracted But to omit other little advantages by which you strive in the translating 3 lines to render my sence ridiculous I would gladly know where you find these words spoken of damned Souls as you would here perswade us I would gladly know where you find the word now which you put as mine attempting now in Hell wheras the whole Chapter is intitled declares it self in each Paragraph to speak of their Bodyes onely not Souls and this not now but expresly at the day of Judgment or rather if it could be after it Were ever three lines singled out from their fellows so
redemption of their friends out of Purgatory which I believe are those you speak of that hear not of this Doctrin without horrour Therefore Acute Sir you will or may see that your Argument is two edged and as the Auditours you speak of did not distinguish the degree of assent to this position from that they give to Faith so neither do they make any difference between it and the sleightest assent they have Thus may your Adversary by your Argument conclude any practise of the Church or common opinion of Preachers or generally receiv'd Ecclesiasticall storyes nay even the new holy dayes to be points of faith as well and as easily as you do this What difference of assent think you do the People make between these truths that there was a Saint Philip or Saint Jacob and that there was a Saint Bennet or Saint Augustin they hear of these far oftner then of those and seldom or never of the severall degrees wherein they are recommended to their assents Even the more prudent in many such points run currently on with an undistinguishing assent till something jog their thoughts and awaken them to look into the business then they begin to make it a question to examin and sift it and at last to settle it in its true box of Catholick or Theological or Historical faith or of some other inferiour assent You go on to perswade your Readers that those who accept of this Doctrin do it through comfortable apprehensions in lieu of great horrours before they were in and because it eases their consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their dead friends In the first you manifestly shew you understand not the Doctrin of your own Divines for we agree in the grievousness of the punishments or if we disagree in any thing it is that mine is the severer For the difference of our positions is not in what the punishments are which we both agree to be acts of the will Our difference is whether these acts of the will be caused by the force of nature in spirits as I say or by the force of material fire as your Divines maintain Which was the cause why when I explicated the nature of Hell in a Divinity lecture one of my Scholars told me I made Hell worse then it was For in truth the force of a material body is not to be compared to the strong activity of a subsistent spirit as any Divine will easily guess In your other point you seem to have fram'd your conceit out of conversation with Women and Children whose desires are violent at the instant but soon pass away and not out of the consideration of men whose counsels are govern'd by a far prospect and aym at perpetuity So you flatter poor Women with the hopes of relieving their friends the first morning or the first Saturday or in some speedy time and get present monies fit to make merry with for one day never reflecting that the ancient and manly charity for the dead was to establish Foundations and perpetual Anniversaries by which the memory of our friends and prayers for them was often renew'd and long continu'd whereas taking your Principles we need neither much fear the terrours of Purgatory nor seek new wayes to ease our Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting our departed friends since one Mass at a priviledg'd Altar will do the work alone and a very little sum of mony procure that Mass without going to the cost of Dirige's and such like chargable Offices And here I must ask my Readers my Adversary's leave to correct one suspition I had unawares entertain'd that Interest might have some influence upon the Defenders of this short stay in Purgatory I was deceiv'd and now I see they are no wayes accusable of that odious crime anciently great alms were given and those often repeated for the assistance of one Soul and so the Church and Church-men gain'd much and grew rich apace Now there is open'd a far cheaper way one piece alone and that of silver too dispatches the business Surely out fair and numerous and rich Monasteryes were not built and endow'd with such petty Contributions After this you proceed to the arraignment of me before my Bishop or a Nuncius Apostolicus But there want two things to make your arraignment good first that the people be inur'd to Tradition and to prefer the received Faith of the Church before all other Doctrins From the danger of which your Divines will secure me while they teach the People that the Church when it is sayd to be inerrable signifies the Pope alone that all the People may err that General Councils have no strength till they be seal'd by the Pope and so I shal have this help to appeal from them to the Pope let my Doctrin be as opposit as it will to all that hath been hitherto the belief of the Christian world The second thing that wants to the perfect arraignment is that you have not yet found out so weak a Bishop that will believe a Doctrin sprung from uncertain Visions foster'd by unlearned zeal and strengthen'd with an Exposition of a Council or of a Popes Bull against the rules of Grammar Logick and Divinity is the belief of the present Church In the mean while I give you great thanks both for your setting forth my plea against Luther and honouring it with so high an approbation that it thunders and lightens home For besides that the knowledge of that form of proceeding against Hereticks is very necessary it will give me a testimony that I am a good Christian and if I be not a very beast I have not committed an errour to fall under so gross and so well fore-seen a Censure To the charge it self from what I have already said you may gather my clear and full Ansver that the Doctrin I sustain is not by me pretended to be of faith but onely not against faith as also that the doctrin I oppose is not and Article of faith and supported by Fathers and Monuments of Antiquity and immemorable Custome but onely an Opinion not very ancient nor ratify'd by the consent of Fathers nor of so long a standing that it's beginning is not well enough known perhaps the later yet for its time as much prevailing doctrin of priviledg'd Altars may live to be as old as this is now and as common too will it therfore deserve to be put into our Creed or can it ever become an Article of faith which the whole Church professes is but an Opinion now And are not these differences betwixt Luthers case and mine whom you so charitably endevour to parallel sufficient to distinguish our dooms Examin them but once more and I will make you my Judg. Onely forget not these words which your self put down as part of my method to convince an heretick That the Authority of things which wee stand bound to beleeve descends handed down from CHRIST our B. SAVIOVR and no otherwise
accuse your Adversary that he sayes you think such things promote souls in Holy desires though for my part I think it is a great reason of the use of them to make people be devout when otherwise they would not And for souls going to Heaven by them if they take away the pains of Purgatory with what face can you deny it I remember a Doctor of Divinity who having obtain'd a Scapular from the Carmes and a priviledg from the Jesuits to be admitted a Jesuit at the hour of his death was as confident to go directly to Heaven as if he had had a Patent for it under Jesus Christs own Hand Why then are you so touchy as if there could not be abuses in these things why cannot you be patient in this case as well as the Church is content to admit some abuses to have crept even into the administration of the Sacraments Your last note I believe is quite mistaken for I do not conceive your Adversary intended to make any comparisons both because he does not specifie any particular man to whom he should be suppos'd to compare me and because there is no occasion for it But peradventure he would not have the good life of any man be an Argument to bear down a contrary Doctrin For my self I profess no exemplarity If my life be such as may not unbeseem my Calling I have as much as I desire from men neither do I see any reason why any one should engage for me supra id quod videt in me I pray let not opinion-quarrels break into Personal dissentions Si invicem mordetis invicem consumemini To the same uncharitable end I fear tends your often repetition of diminishing words to those persons who think well of me or my Doctrin insisting especially on their small number but I pray you tell me how many you think have impartially and attentively read these few Books I have made I believe in proportion to them it is not a small number who profess to have met in many points with great satisfaction nor do I expect they should in all I may sometimes be mistaken my self and there I desire none to follow me others may sometimes be mistaken in me and there I am so far from being followed that my obscurity which I confess a defect will not let me be found Nor do I see so much cause to be troubled at the fewness as to bless God for the qualities of those who profess to have found good in my writings being Persons both ingenuous and vertuous and of such frank and unbyassed Principles as well by their own inclination as the influence my way may have had upon them that I am confident they desire nothing more then to see my Doctrin thorowly examin'd and speedily brought to a fair impartial Tryal by the sharpest Arguments that a pertinent opposer can make and indeed they themselves have been the strongest though not the fiercest Objectors I have met with One reason possibly of this little number may be that my Books have not as yet been long enough in the World to be fully perus'd by many what time may produce God onely knowes to whom I submit it But to return to my self and speak to what you dislike in me you absolve me from being an Heretick to make me a Pagan Nor will I refuse to be what you shall please when you have explicated your self But this not marking nor understanding your own words makes all the misintelligence You make me a Pagan but such an one as acknowledges Christ and every word and tittle either of the Scripture or any other Law of his Such a Pagan such a Naturalist was never heard of before Will you have me give you an Instance take this Bull and Canons which you cite and put them to my self or your Adversary and see whether we will either refuse to subscribe or even swear to them Then our Paganisus lyes in this that we do not think you have the right sence And this is my Paganism thorough all things belonging to Christian Faith You say I agree onely in words with the Church but saying so you say I agree in words and by consequence the whole disagreement is about the sence of the words In which controversy because I proceed out of Philosophy and reason and you out of what Masters Dictatts I know not you leave a great prejudice that my explication is the more reasonable Wherein consists then my Paganism Because I pretend to demonstrate what you think is not to be known but by Faith Then if I do not pretend to demonstrate but onely profess that they are demonstrable and exhort men to seek out the Demonstrations which is the true case and what you add is out of the fulness of your heart why do I not hold all the Articles by Faith and where is my Paganism But suppose some great Scholar possibly or impossibly as the Schools speak should have the demonstration of the Articles of Faith would he therefore be a Pagan sure you never thought what a Pagan signify'd when you spake so cholerick a word That peradventure might make him more then a man or more then a Christian as a Comprehensour is if it reach'd to Gods Essence less it could not make him Faith is not desirable for its Obscurity but for its Certainty We govern our lives by knowing the objects not by the defect in the knowledge Let a man see his way by the clear Sun and sure he will be as able to walk in it as by the dimmer light of a Star But you complain I reduce the mysteries of our faith to our narrow brains Sir you are mistaken It is the quite contrary you should rather accuse me of endeavouring to dilate our brains to the capacity of the mysteries by the help of Faith Why God cannot elevate our brains to understand what he hath deliver'd us to be understood You have not yet declar'd to my capacity You say when you are told Souls are not purg'd in the state of separation but at the reuâ—ion though the word remains your Faith is gone I easily believe you speak from your mind and that truly you apprehend the explication you frame to your self is your Faith and so that as many Christians as fancy divers explications of the same Article have so many faiths but by this way I see very few in the whole Church would be of the same faith 'pray consider a little that reflexion Nothing is more clear then your next Example You say you believe that Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our Souls in Baptism A Pope and a generall Council too declar'd that of two opinions of Divines this was the probabler and by saying so said this was not the faith of the Church and yet if this be not true your faith is gone Your next Example is to the same purpose that supernatural qualities are of a different series then nature
far modester than you and profest as he did dislike my opinions so he dissented no otherwise than as one Divine does from another and had never descended to censure any of them Perhaps of this point you may have heard the contrary but I have it under his own hand The second mistake is that he admonish't me of this point for he never descended to any particular and this you might understand as partly the other out of my Dedicatory of my Ratio villicationis written to him and presented in his lifetime The third that I had fore-prepar'd my Book of the Middle State and presently sent it him For the reason of my composing it was the many popular noises rais'd against me by persons some ignorant some malicious as if I were an Heretick which forc't me to write the Treatise in mine own defence and I dedicated it to my Lord though I knew no particular Exception of his against this point but judged he might have some because the greatest cry was against it The Translation as far as came to my knowledge was not made by any design upon earth though by the event I perceive it was out of speciall Providence in Heaven How things passed on your side and what were the true motâ—ves of your publishing the Bull and that Testimony of the Council I can onely collect from the phaenomena of all concurrent circumstances of which you may perhaps hereafter hear more You say the Publishers of the Bull had no respect to the Letter of Vindication I think you aym at one I wrote in Latin to a Person of Honour which was presented Him and by him shew'd to some Jesuits that frequented his House and they can be witnesses of the Truth between us This afterwards as I hear was translated into English and printed If this be the Letter you speak of I would gladly understand why you imagin the Author conceits himself inspir'd with the Genius of Mont-alt whose spirit I confess I take to be very solid and pious and generously adhering to persecuted Truth Nor do I find it unlawfull that any should wish to be inspir'd with it but truly conceive my self far below the hope of such Excellences What you heard well observ'd that all the Protestant Divines of England would subscribe to the same Protestation which is in that Letter I beleeve purely upon your report But tell me first may a Catholick protest nothing that a Protestant will subscribe to or can a Protestant profess nothing but what he will perform Again will any Protestant profess to renounce any Doctrin found to contradict any Authority constantly acknowledg'd for Infallible in the Catholick Church meaning the same by Catholick Church as my writings declare me to do that is all those who adhere to Tradition Will any Protestant be content to have lost his cause if any decree of a Pope be expresly repugnant to him which I there also profess How maliciously blind then was the observer you follow who could not see such distinctive expressions How uncharitable your self who catch at and magnifie every rash cavill out of a tooth to disgrace and abuse him that never did you injury Your calumny of my denying Decrees of Popes and Councils shall be answer'd in its due place You say the Publishers intended not to enter into the lists of Disputation which I easily beleeve and that they were perswaded the very reciting the Bull and Canon would have knockt down the Book which you say was the occasion of their setting them forth beyond all Reply How weak a conceit was this for men that saw both Bull and Canon cited and explicated in that very book and could not be ignorant that in many private Conferences the same Authorities had been debated You thought your Capitall Letters would have dazled the understanding of the adverse party so that none would have dar'd to look further into the meaning of those Authorities But God provided that al should not be so light of belief nor his Church led into Error by such a misgrounded Interpretation of its Decrees You complain much in your tenth Section that this pious intention of the Dispensers was wrong'd As though you did not know that Intentions are secret and must expect their reward from him that sees the heart Men judge of Actions and your self confess the effect was that pious that is credulous persons received satisfaction that is were seduced into Errour by that cuning practice and yet you think it not occasion enough for an understanding man to discover so prejudiciall an Interpretation forc't on the Church and would needs have it a wrong to you that one unknown not intended to be hurt by you should take this pains as if every honest and ableman were not interessed in the Churches quarrell of so high a nature as to set up an Opinion that may prove when examin'd erroneous for an Article of Faith In your eleventh Section you begin to produce your Arguments whereof the first is that all Orthodox writers who have treated this Subject of the State of separated Souls since the promulgation of the Bull a foresaid suppose it as a certain Truth But how many such do you cite Surely of five hundred which have written since those dayes your Readers might civilly expect at least half a score that positively assert it as an assur'd doctrin of the Church But such is the irregular way of discoursing your eminent Scholars use that when they have audaciously advanc't a proposition whereof they know nothing certain if it be deny'd against all Rules of Discourse and Logick they put the Defendant to prove the contrary which peradventure concerns not him a pin whether it be true or no As in the present what concerns it my Faith whether many or few interpret the Bull and Councill as you or I say To make a new Article of Faith the definition must be so clear that none can doubt of it And ipso facto that it needs Interpretation 't is evidently insufficient to make a new obligation of Faith Again suppose your Antecedent be true does any number of Interpreters lock up the understandings of those that follow that they may not see more than their Fore-goers If you say yes shew us some seal of Infallibility in their foreheads by which we may know so much or else your Faith will be but probable but a peradventure I peradventure no and Interest or Passion must supply the rest And such I beleeve is your Faith of this your new-born Article though somewhat an older Opinion In your twelfth Section you enquire into the state of the Question and when you have recited it out of the Bul you presently cry Victory without ever looking into the words and sence that one may note in you the wonted disposition of your great Masters to read the words but seldom take pains to understand them The Bull then sayes that in the dayes of the Popes Predecessor there rose a Question
the Latins were content they should do so At last your learned man would perswade us that it is most plain in Benedictus his Bull and that there the word Presently most manifestly signifies before the day of Judgment But because he sent me not the magnifying spectacles of Passion which he used I could not perceive such evidence He concludes with what may he judge of me who call this Definition of a holy Pope and Council a new Doctrin I pray certify him that I neither believe him nor you that the Doctrin I call new is either the Popes or the Councils Which that it may appear better I give you a few notes for our side upon the Council The first was that there was no debate betwixt the Greeks and Latins concerning Purgatory but onely about fire and with some Greeks about the Vision of God by confessedly just men so that your learned mans wilfull supposition of a strife concerning the gradation of Saints coming to Beatitude is a pure fiction without any ground of History and his whole discourse built upon it nothing but the humming of a Chimaera feeding upon entia rationis My second note is that whereas the Latins put in their confession that some of those who requir'd purgation came sooner to Beatitude others later The Greeks after they had seen the Latins confession quite left out that point and this upon the fourteenth day of June whereas the Latins put in their propositions the fourth so that you see it was not for hast or over-sight but because it was not settled amongst them as it seem'd to be amongst the Latins My third note is that the Greeks express the punishments of Purgatory to consist in griefs to wit for their sins and for the want of Beatitude which are the same in which I also think the pains of Purgatory consist howsoever you please not to take notice of it My fourth note is that the Latins never took notice of the Greeks disagreement in point of coming to bliss some sooner some later but proceeded joyntly to the Definition with words abstracting from both sides of this controversy All this is so manifest in the letter of the Council that there can be no dispute in truth of any part though of this later you and your learned assistant will force a disputation thrusting in a sence which the words bear not without shame or care of your conscience in so wicked an attempt as to corrupt a Council Now out of these Notes I frame a demonstration as strong as the nature of such a case can bear Where a difference is so plain betwixt 2 parties that it is not possible to be hidden from either and yet neither part takes notice of it it is plain they do not hold that difference to be materiall But there was a known and plain and unconcealable difference between the Greeks and Latines concerning this tenet whether some Soules were purged sooner then others the Latines putting it down expressly and the Greeks after having seen the Latins confession leaving it quite out and yet no quarrel or disputation arose betwixt them about this point Therefore neither part took it for a materiall point of Religion and Controversie Now then you see wherin consisted the agreement of the two Churches concerning this point to wit in this that neither of them thought it a matter to contend about I pray express your opinion in this point whether if the Latins had believ'd it an Heres'y to say one Soul was not deliver'd before another could they in conscience have admitted the Greek Church to communion without declaring their mind in this point and this after so open an opposition as to leave out all mention of it when the Latins had so positively express'd it If you think Councils can dissemble in points of this quality I believe the world wil soon confess that I as stubborn as you reckon me give far more reverence to Councells then you do Wherefore I press you farther out of the Council If any man should say it was an Heresy to hold there were no materiall fire in Purgatory or that it was not lawfull to consecrate in leaven'd Bread you would not spare to tell him that since the Council had declared it indifferent he stood not with the Council but seem'd at least to contradict it if he held it were a matter of Faith So do I press you since the Council hath pass'd this point for an indifferent one He that will say the opposite is an Heresy is malapert beyond his strength Arrogantia ejus plus quam fortitudo ejus You give us another paper which you say was written by a nameless Schollar of mine I could reply I have none For who converse with me I tell them they must see themselves not trust me which if they do they are Scholars to truth not to me If they trust me they follow me not and so are not my Scholars But I have too much ground to suspect you aym at some advantage against me by charactering him a very able proficient in my School and repeating it so often as if you would have men think that both Friends and Foes were all against me I must then once more tell you that the Authour of that Letter never was addicted to my Doctrin nor pretended to be my follower however you have got a trick to call all my Followers that will not censure me as loud as you nor willingly assent to your uncharitable carriage nor was he ever given to be curious in such kind of dissertations no not even to that degree as to have read my middle State which made him more easily liable to surprise in mistaking the Council at the first sight taking all for right which your learned Divine writ concerning it so that it was candid credulity of your Friends wrong relation of it not want of Judgment which betray'd him into the errour of imagining the Bull and Council on your side nor did he dream his Letter should ever come into print it being writ privately to the other as a Friend otherwise in likelihood he would have sifted the Testimonies himself and not have taken them on others account So that you first uncivilly print a private Letter of his surreptitiously procur'd without his knowledge then mischaracter him an able proficient in my School my Follower c. whereas what he writes is onely like a moderate and grave Christian who knows he is not even by Principles of Charity to interpret as disobedient one who publickly submits to the Church and so I look upon it as an act of charity not of particular Friendship to me But since you love to have it thought your party can gain some advantage against those who are proficients by my Books I will show you one your present Adversary whom your self character to be but a puny in my School and as I hear never appear'd in print nor set himself to write before yet has so
you put in the Edition of the Bull of Benedictus and the Council of Florence For before that even the consorts of your Tenet held it no otherwise then for the common opinion of Divines LAST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the eighteenth to Section the two and twentieth The Catholick Rule of Faith defended The Vindicators weakness in making the unlearned Judges of Controversy His frequently mis-representing my Doctrin and manifold failings in his new attempts from the Bull and Council YOur eighteenth Section you begin with saying my Doctrin which is a close adhering to Tradition is the way to make fools stray You follow still the same truantly humour of using words without looking into the sence For if Tradition signify the delivery of the Doctrin preach't and taught by our forefathers your proposition signifies that to follow what we are taught by our forefathers is the way to make fools go astray Neither do I deny but that you speak consequently if first you make the Popes veracity the veracity of the whole Church and that all the Church but he can err and consequently he may correct the Doctrin which was believ'd by the Church in the age immediatly going before him then 't is true that to prefer the Belief of the former age before the Popes word will lead fools astray But for my part I desire to be one of those fools and to go so astray You run on in a full careere and tell us of the Authority of the Church and Councils in common and that things settled by them must not be brought in question not seeing because you will not that what the Church believ'd in the last Age is more the Church's decree then what she speaks either by Pope or Council unless she speaks the same that she believed the last Age and so you continue your discoursing with words not taking their meaning along with you In your nineteenth Section you come so home as to judge and condemn me by mine own Doctrin a great shame to me I confess if you make it good You argue therefore what have we seen but Masses Dirges Almes c. so far is almost true but why did you not put in by which in express terms we pray'd for the welfare of the Souls at the day of the General Judgment but you had reason to leave that out for it would have set a shrewd puzzell in your Argument We have heard constantly say you that Souls are deliver'd out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the day of Judgment In this part you have mended your former fault for there you sayd too little to serve your purpose if you had prov'd all you said and here you say more then can be prov'd to serve your purpose do you mean that your way was preach't constantly that is as a certain and establisht Doctrin of faith or that for a long time they preacht it as a probable truth or without engaging at all into the degree of its assuredness but perhaps you proceed more nicely since you onely said you heard it constantly not that it was preach'd constantly For to say a thing constantly imports that the speaker teaches it to be certain and it is not enough if for a long time he tells you it is likely to be so Now so far as concerns the delivery of Souls from Purgatory by the potent means you speak of was ever constantly taught but that the delivery should be made before the day of Judgment was taught but as a pious opinion if the Preacher understood the sence of the Doctours of the Schools themselves who add no such qualification because their principles being either Authority or Reason they find in Authority neither Fathers nor Councils nor Popes express in the point and Reasons much less favourable and to say the truth though they are apt enough to dispute whether there be a God a Trinity an Incarnation c. Yet I do not remember to have heard of any one who hath treated of his proposition so directly as to dispute it pro and con Which being so what certainty can we expect a Preacher should fix upon this Doctrin But to declare what I think those whom you appeal to will answer I beleeve it is that they never reflected to make any difference of the things the Preachers deliver'd them and much less upon the degrees of assent they gave to this or that point and as far as they can tell they gave the same assent to any place of Scripture the Preacher explicated as they did to this point unless some particular occasion put them in mind to qualify one and not the other But as they found by experience in other things that if any rub came to make them doubt of any thing a Preacher sayd then first they began to consider on what grounds they were bound to believe the point proposed so they have done in this and of those who have spent any competent time in examining both sides many have discover'd your grounds unsafe to build any certainty on and some confest them too weak to sustain even so much as a probability What the Gentleman whose letter you cite and with some imprudent circumstances will say why he was carryed away with your Arguments I know not but had he read my Books as much as I esteem his learning and vertue he would surely have met with full answers to your very objections which they who read yours cannot do nor so much as hear of the Arguments I use to maintain my opinion you on set purpose concealing them and proposing in their stead as my whole grounds a discourse made to a meer Philosopher or Heathen where the method of a regular writer oblig'd me to abstract from Revelation But that this answer I set down is for the greatest part of those that follow this opinion a true one is not onely manifest to all that reflect upon what passeth within them on the like occasions but experience hath taught me it in every country where I have conversed since the publishing this Doctrin In all which I have found divers who upon hearing of it acknowledg'd that before they had in their hearts a certain dislike of your opinion but they knew not why it having a kind of an uncouth semblance yet they could not pitch upon any thing to say solidly against it One passage I will intreat your patience to let me tell you Before I printed it I communicated this point to one of the greatest Divines of Christendome and confest to be so He presently reply'd it was against the Council of Florence and went immediately to his Chamber and fetcht down the Council when we had a little debated the text and he saw it did not reach home he shut up the Book with these words Look to it you will draw all the Regulars upon your back meaning all such of them as found great profit by perswading the people they should procure a sudden
even till this age In your twentieth Section you pretend to examin the Councill of Florence once more against me Your first mistake is that it was the business of the Council in Florence to declare the faith of the Church concerning the state of Souls which depart this life I mean not to speak to your History for as much as was determin'd of Souls was agreed in Ferrara but to the word business for their business was onely to agree two points one about material fire the other about the Just Souls presently seeing God which was the business of Benedictus his Bull and some of the Greeks were of the same apprehension with John the 22. But you like an Astronomer considering the phoenomena's of the Definition frame the question out of that whereas all the rest was no business but the compleating of the doctrin by dilating it out of tenets agreed without and before any controversy Your next errour is that whereas you pretend to compare my doctrin with the councils you do it to the doctrin of the parts of the Council when it is a clear case the doctrin of one part is not the doctrin of the Council but that in which the whole Council agrees Your third Errour if it be not a willfull aequivocation is that you say the Latins believe material Fire in Purgatory which if you mean by belief Catholick faith is extremely absurd Since they joyn cōmunion with the Greeks who profess the contrary if you mean only they held it as a probable opinion you cosen your Auditory which expects you should speak of Faith and not of that from which I may dissent by authority of the Council Your fourth rather malice than mistakes is that you impose upon me that there is no purging of Souls before reunion for all who know that actio is prior termino will allow a purging before a being purged as going to London is before being there Besides your oft repeated fault of mischarging me to hold that the Soules irregular affections are the torments of purgatory Your fifth errour is that you put an opposition betwixt the Latins and me where we perfectly agree in all save onely that intruded word by this Fire which comes out of a former and spoils the whole tenet of the Latins from being a matter of Faith making it but a probable-opinion in whole though the other parts belong to faith You add the Latins must needs have thrust me out of communion not reflecting that they gave communion to the Greeks who dissented in all you have alledged truly against mee As to the Greeks First you say I hold against them that Souls are in no place And though I cannot affirm positively what the meaning of the Greeks was at the Council in this point yet knowing their Fathers use when they speak of spirits to call working in a place being in a place I am well assur'd they would not thrust me out of their Society for denying a true locality in spirits The second objection is answer'd by my answer to the Latins and the same is to be sayd to the third Of your last objection concerning the efficacy of the helps because you say you will evidence it I must expect the fulfilling your promise till then it is but a threatning likely to be of little effect You end with a great confidence that you have dispatch't this business and converted your adversary unless he will stand upon the Errability of the Council For you imagining your self inerrable in your rash and shallow interpretation of it cannot alas good Christian imagin any other possible way to maintain the conclusion I on the other side hope I have sayd somewhat that may help your imagination but dare entertain no great apprehension that I shall convert you knowing I have not spoken to the main foundation of your opinion which is setled in your will upon grounds beyond my removall Yet in the 21 Section you are forced to retire from your fair hopes for your great words satisfy your adversary no more then your Capital letters His answer in substance is that you misconstrue the Pope and Council as it hath been declar'd by him and me before And that the purgation before the day of Judgment may be suppos'd but not defin'd And clearly enough such is both the Popes and the Council's meaning as is before more largely insisted on which being the onely knot of the controversy you do well to prepare loud clamours against it and tell us it is a pitifull evasion Let us then suppose it were judg'd by the Pope to be the more probable opinion amongst Divines that Souls were purg'd before the day of Judgment though he held the other was also probable which I think you will not say impossible for a Pope since divers have gone that way in other matters In this case was it fit the Pope should define what became of such Souls or no if you say he could and should define what is become of all your clamours against defining upon a supposition which afterwards may be found to be impossible For he that judges an opinion onely probable leaves a probability that it is impossible to be true since whoever sayes one side is but probable as far as concerns science sayes it may be false for any thing he knows Now things that have a settled course in nature are so dispos'd that impossibility is concomitant to falsity nor can it ever be prov'd to be false unless it be prov'd to be impossible So that the Pope in defining the coming to heaven of such Souls proceeds not consequently to his opinion if he doth not go upon a supposition that himself confesses may be impossible and yet in all prudence he must define it as being but an extension of this his main question whether Saints go immediatly to heaven If you say he could not or ought not to define such a conditionall case who will or can believe you that hath any prudence since for the position it self He both thought it the more probable and saw it concern'd the most ample part of his division of Saints going to heaven For all christians imagin more go to heaven through Purgatory then either by the vertue of baptism or by eminency of Purity and Sanctity acquir'd in this world So that I persuade my self you would easily allow the Pope not only could but ought in case he thought both sides probable to proceed as he did in his definition Now that this was the Pope's case is absolutely certain and more then probable since we cannot doubt but it was the case of the Latines in the Council of Florence in which the Greeks by their leaving our the expression of some being deliver'd sooner some later directly wav'd that position and by consequence refused to profess an Article of faith if this were one and yet without any repugnance or quarrelling about this circumstance were admitted to communion and a common decree made in
the words he speaks You will say you scorn these Grammatical Lectures and I believe you but such pride hath brought you to call the principall Fathers of the Church and her best Divines Imps of Hell for all these say the same I do in this point You must have some miscreants to accompany your Imps Therefore you would have a miscreant teach that a moderate affection to a Concubine is a less crime then an immoderate love to a Wife and because this latter is no breach of Gods Commandments as your Discourse imports therefore he must be a miscreant that should say it O what want had Solomon of such a Ghostly Father to tell him that to love his Wives immoderately was no breach of the Commandments And that to love them so as out of that love to fill Hierusalem with Idols and Idolatrous Worship was not far worse then a moderate or rather an ordinary for none is moderate none but is sinful enough love of a Concubine Surely you have quite forgotten that excellent sentence of our Saviour He that hates not his Wife can be none of his Disciple or as it is expres't in another place he that loveth his Wife more then him For I have heard say that by these words is signified as much as he that loves his Wife immoderately Surely he was no miscreant that preach't to men to loavo their Wives if they would not let theâ— serve God quietly After this in your 22 Sect. you arm up your Fathers and set St. Austin in front to make a great shew with his name For in his words nothing is to be found for your purpose And indeed it is an imprudence to cite him for your opinion who professes expresly ad Dulcit quaest. 1. the question had not yet been handled before his time but might hereafter but that he knew not whether side would prove true Yet you will give him a paper in his hand to hold forth though it contains nothing but the profession of your Adversary And â—ot to take notice of the doubtfulness of the two latter Books you cite there is nothing in them that your Adbersary will deny but has already explicated them But if you fail in Saint Austin you will help it out by Origen who sayes too much for you being known to speak heretically when he uses those phrases you cite out of him For his opinion was that Purgatory began after the day of Judgment and the sentence given by Christ according to which some were to be longer some shorter in torments but all to be freed at last And this he expresses by the words you cite and you should have brought some words by which it might appear he spake of Souls before the day of Judgment But you have a salve against this saying he wrote this before he was an Heretick By which it is clear you speak at randome for he fell not to be an Heretick by a set occasion as some others did but as long as he liv'd was accounted a great Doctor of the Church and his Heresies not discover'd untill after his death and even then defended to be none of his but to have been foysted in by Hereticks Your next Author is St. Gregory of Nyssa a man of very great worth and auâ—hority of whom Petavius that famous Jesuit sayes that some in his time more piously then either truly or wisely striv'd to explicate some places of his which did savour of Origenism But Germanus Bishop of Constantinople ancienter then Photius defends this great man yet not without admitting the Origenists had mingled some sentences of their own here and there in his works Now this Germanus his Book is not extant and therefore such places as use the Origenists phrases are suspected ones Specially the Book you cite is excepted against Possevinus rejects it absolutely others object against it that 't is corrupted by the Origenists in divers other points so that it is neither certain the book you cite is his nor if it be that it can carry authority where the phrase is Origenical as this word Ignis Purgatorius is and avoided much by Greek Fathers because it is so notorious in Origen I have not the Book and so I cannot speak expresly to the words In conclusion you make the Judgment of the Ages before those strange Revelations which Gregorius Dialogus as the Greeks call him and say him to be the Pope whose successour was Zacharias who lived about the midst of the eighth Age hath left us or rather Odilo who lived about six hundred years agoe out of three Fathers whereof one sayes nothing special for your Doctrin and is certainly against it The second was notoriously an Heretick and the words you cite pertinent to the explication of his Heresy The third's words are certainly corrupted by the followers of the second and the Book out of which you cite the place rejected by learned Catholicks yet this you call the consent of Fathers and the apprehension of those ages to which I appeal But now comes such an impiety as should make a Christian sink for shame to wit that I say Virgils Purgatory is more rational then yours But what would you have me do I did not know that all the light of Christianity consisted in certain private Revelations quarum nox conscia sola est Now that you have told me so I will mend as soon as I shall believe you mean while till then I may conceive a man of wit may conjecture or feign likelier thing then we find in such visions as go generally accompany'd with some circumstance against the nature of Christian life Nor do I fear your exposition of the Councils will stand canonised in Christian Creeds however you assume the confidence to nickname such shallow conceits of your own Catholick Faith all over your Book You follow the same matter by citing places out of the publick Liturgies of which all but one are purely indifferent to both parties even in the very out side of the words and that one easily explicable in a sence consistent with mine You brave me to find out a new construction of Ante diem rationis and I tell you I have found one of which I never heard before and 't is in your book and in this very place pag. 83. wherein striving to apply that excellent Hymn to your purpose you mistake it I think as much as 't is possible First you make the Priest speak in the person of the dead whereas the whole style of the Hymn runs clearly in the person of him that prayes and in the singular Quid sum miser tunc dicturus c. supplicanti parce Deus Contremisco mei finis With which person suit these words best that of the dead or of the Priest Secondly your Argument must suppose him to pray for delivery from Purgatory let 's see how you hit it in this Ne perenni cremer igne can these words agree with Purgatory Thirdly you bring this