out the truth of the citation nor if he had found it true could have forborn to give a note on it in his History wherefore we may justly conclude that both Baronius and he held it for Apocryphal Now to his Testimony He sayth the Pope in a Letter to the Bishops of France in the Government of Lewis the third who had assisted him to recover his Seat granted an Indulgence to all c. Had he cited the words of the Popes Letter or expressed the fact more larger we might have guessed how much this Testimony was to our matter Now the words going equally for the quick and the dead or rather onely for the dead and given immediately to the dead which is a new story in the Catholick Church if it be spoken in the new sence of Indulgences no mention made of remission of sins or pains this being the first mentioned towards the dead and Spondanus in no reputation of a Divine I see not why this word Indulgentia should be taken for the remission of sins or pains due to Goâ— rather then for the relaxation of some Ecclesiastical Duties or Obligations which such Souldiers might have incurred in their life times in which times the stories record great violences offer'd by the Gentry to the Clergy and Ecclesiastical Liberty And if you object that it is not to my Divines purpose unless it be understood of the pains in Purgatory I answer it was his duty to have made his objection home who could not chuse but have the command of good Libraries in one whereof my last enterview with him happend For this Pope was no such man as to authorise a new Institution in the Church being infamous both for his loose life by which he is suspected to have given occasion to the tale of Pope Joan and for prudentia carnis that is Worldliness So that he is not much to be suspected of beginning of spiritual customs nor would such novelties have come gracefully from him Wherefore I know no elder then Gelasius the second who lived in the twelfth Age and though he were a little Ancienter then Peter Lombard yet cannot be esteemed before all School-men for Rome was not built in a day Wherefore if I had said the Scholastick Divines were the first inventers of these Indulgences it had neither been concluded false nor to have proceeded out of the ignorance of Antiquity Since your Divine acknowledges that St. John Damascen was Prince of the Scholasticks of the Greek Church who lived divers Ages before Peter Lombard But the truth is my chief aym was at this manner of explicating Indulgences by a Treasure whence every one got from the Pope a share to pay his debts which as far as I find came not into the indultive Bulls untill Clement the sixth's time which was two hundred years after Gelasius the second Of the which manner of explication your Divine treats untill the end of this Chapter But because it supposes many by-questions is not to be treated by snatches and therefore I shall put it off untill a more commodious place when all his Authorities shall be answer'd EIGHTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters Remarks of several Follies and Mistakes of the Author's Doctrin as also of Councils and Pope Benedict his Bull. 1. I had conceived good hopes I might have passed over the next Chapter with silence having found the Title of it concerns the two Councils of Trent and Sens knowing the Council of Sens went no farther then Trent that the Council of Trent was already shew'd to have nothing against our opinion and to contain it self within the verities acknowledged by both parties which also I found to be true and that the whole Chapter is employ'd to shew how really he thinks and would prove that we put no pains due to Gods justice after the remission of the sin which if it were true yet it follow'd not that we opposed the Council but that we missed in some Doctrin consequent which he would draw to be a contempt of the Council And the truth is for the main Doctrin of this Chapter I intend to remit it untill after the explication of my opinion for there is nothing in it to require any explication of the Councils but onely to see how consequently we proceed to the Doctrin of the Councils which we profess Nevertheless as the Scripture warns us in much talking there must needs drop some folly and so I am forced to some notes even upon this Chapter for fear I should afterwards forget them 2. My first note shall be that in his third Number he puts it for the Doctrin of Councils that sinners that be onely imperfectly contrite when they are with due disposition baptitized go immediately to Heaven Which is a false Doctrin and no where to be found in the Councils or Fathers but onely in new Divines 3. My second note is that he imposes on us N. 8. to say all the punishments cited against Hereticks by the Councils are miraculous Where as in the very example of David we put part of the punishment Miraculous and part to follow naturally from the sin Where also is to be noted that sweet Argument that the examples would prove nothing against Hereticks if they were miraculous Whereas it is evident their proof is so much the stronger the more manifest God's hand is in punishing after the sin was forgiven 4. My third note is that N. 10. he would perswade his Reader that we deny Bodily austerities are undertaken to satisfy the pains due to God's Justice and after he has made an exclamation in the same Paragraph he puts us to affirm that they are to be done for the taking away of passions or ill motions left by sin and that this is to satisfy for the sin passed And this himself calleth a weak reply made in our defence by which he confesses we hold the contrary to what he imposes and therefore it is injuriously layd upon us For how weakly soever we defend what we hold yet assuredly we hold it As for his oppositions I refer them to their proper place for they concern not authority 5. My fourth note then is that N. 11. he explicates the receiving of Baptism duly to be the receiving it sine fictione an explication I never heard before nor ever was given by good Divine For although it be necessary to come â—ine fictione to the effect of receiving Grace yet to say that this is all that is due or fitting or that men should endeavour to have to receive Baptism as they ought is a Doctrin I have not yet found in any Casuist and yet it is a point deeply concerns his discourse as we hereafter shall shew 6. In his fourteenth Chapter he intends to press the Council of Florence and the decree of Benedict the eleventh It seems therefore the oppositions made by former opponents are judged by him not sufficient and his friends indeed seem'd to
saying adveniat Râ—gnum tuum all this being nothing but praying for themselves So learned are his Divines who question and dispute this Now to say such ardent prayers have no effect is as great an absurdity on th' other side The like is of that nonsensical division of Works into three as it were parts and to say quatenus they are impetratory of pardon they are not satisfactory for sin or quatenus they are meritorious of grace they are neither impetratory of remission of sin nor satisfactory for it a quibling of terms without ever weighing the signification of the words Towards the end of his ninth Paragraph he says that though some have inconsideratly sayd that this Divinity is brought out of the Skullery or Kitchin yet it may be maintain'd as probable even when a most rigorous examin shall be made of the Principles from which it is deduc'd To which I reply that he who sayd those words will say again that all such Opinions as have no more to plead for themselves then that they may be maintained to be probable are fitter for Skulleryes and Sculs then for Schools and Divinity For a Divine should not advance any Opinion which he thought not he could make appear certain to any well-disposed understanding though the Proposer might be deceiv'd in his confidence and deserve pardon as a Man not an Angel but what in his Conscience he does not perswade himself to be true it is unworthily done to propose it for a Divinity conclufion either to be taught in the Schools or preached in Churches 13. In his tenth Number he begins a new Objection to wit that because pains are neither sin nor foulness or blemish if there remains in Purgatory nothing but pains to be pay'd nothing is there to be purged and by consequence there is no Purgatory This is the Objection His Answer is That when one sinneth he committeth a fault and gains the Lyability to be punished that this Lyability is a blemish and so there is somewhat to be purged and by consequence a Purgatory truly so called Our Proverb is that an old Daw is not to be catched with chaff Therefore I desire not to be bobb'd off with two words signifying the same thing whereof one being affirm'd the other deny'd the Answer comes to be a pure contradiction I know there is nothing more frequent in his Divines mouthes then the distinction of the guilt of fault and the guilt of pain But what meaning corresponds to these words that is my difficulty I look upon a mortal sin remitted by Contrition or Sacrament and I see if any pain remains after Contrition presently men say his Contrition was â—ot perfect for had it been perfect it would have quitted all the pain Now the work of Contrition is by detestation to expel the affection to the detested Object I see therefore that some inclination to the same object remains that is some infection of sin whensoever all pain is not taken away by Contrition Remission by Sacrament is held to be done by a weaker disposition then is to be found in perfect Contrition Therefore I doubt not but rather more dregs of sin remain in the Soul after the Sacrament then when the sin is remitted by pure contrition I see likewise a satisfaction requir'd in Penance by which we seek to equal Contrition and so greater pains also to be generally esteem'd to remain after Sacramental Absolution then are thought to be left after Remission by 〈◊〉 contrite heart But in both I find dregs of sin left inwardly besides the pains due exteriourly Nor do I remember that I have had any certainty of pains remitted without the sin nor of sin remitted with no pain at all for the Councils specify directly that in the remission of the sin all pain is not remitted but some to be is evident in the remission of mortal sin where eternal pains are acknowledged constantly to be remitted So that looking into practice and things as far as we have any certainty neither pains are remitted without sin nor sin without pains So we see the Church provide in Indulgences that there go before Penance and other Acts which are supposed to help to the Remission of sin 14. Now let us look into the words There is say they guilt or Lyability of fault and guilt or lyability to punishment Here I note the impropriety of their Language that in the same distinction they must change the phrase from Lyability of to Lyability to a certain sign of imperfect Language but necessary For what could lyability to fault fignify Did any thing go before fault by which the Person was made lyable to commit the fault Again ask why a man deserves to be punished which signifies the same as by what he is lyable to punishment is it not answer'd because of such a fault fault then signifies lyability to punishment and lyability to punishment signifies fault Does God or Man do harm to another by reason unless he wishes harm to him To wish harm to him is not that to bear him ill-will and can a fault be called pardoned or remitted as long as God wishes him harm and evil Yes say they but a man may remit death to a man and yet keep him in Prison as we see David remitted his banishment to Absalom yet for two years would not admit him to his sight 〈◊〉 is not this clearly not to be so angry as before yet to be somewhat angry What plain nonsence then do these Divines speak And what a solid Solution do they give when they tell you there remains no fault but there remains a lyability to be punished that is as a Lawyer I have heard of used to say when one told him what he knew to be false it may be so he would answer but it is impossible Such is our great Divine's distinction and goodly subtilty Further this lyability either is in the sinner or not If not how can it be purged away or he purified from it If it be it must either be some ill affection or some natural quality Ill Affection is sin a natural quality is not to be purged seeing it is not hateful to God In a word it is senselesness to put lyability to be any thing that is neither sin nor some extrinsecal denomination Therefore nothing can be purged out of a Soul but sin The Fathers plainly call it Stubble Hâ—y Wood. They talk of consuming of Earthliness of feeding upon mending and many such terms which signify a real subtraction from the Soul and not onely of smarting as the Divine would perswade us NINTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his three last Chapters His Gross Errour concerning the Efficacy of Almes-deeds to remit Sin His needless Repetitions his blundering in one Council and open abuse of another and of his Adversary's Tenet The publishing uncertain Revelations punisht by the Church with Excommunication The efficacy of Prayer in common and to what t is efficacious particularly of those
own Errour any words may be so coloured As I remember my Master of Philosophy taught all to explicate Aristotle when he was against us by saying Aristoteles loquitur cum vulgo But if this be an unworthy practise let us see what his fourth Number offers us To wit that whereas we object to them how the whole face of the Churches prayers is directed to the Day of Judgment and not one word insinuated of remission of pains before that day which is an irrefragable testimony of the Churches meaning he seeks to retort the same Argument by saying Why does not the Church pray for the acceleration of the Day of Judgment To which we answer she does it perpetually For he that prays for good at the Day of Judgment prays for the Day of Judgment and he that prays for the Day of Judgments coming prays it may come as soon as possibly So that the Church prays perpetually for it when she prays for the Dead but their fixedness on their Opinion permits them not to see it 22. In his fifth Number he answers our Argument from Foundations for prayers until the Day of Judgment because those who made them were notoriously of their Opinion opposite to ours But we must expect more ground to believe that For such Foundations are sayd to be in France ever since the Children of Charles the Great 's time who were instructed by Alcuinus And therefore were of his and our English Saxon Opinion And later Foundations were made by the imitation of the former and though since the University of Paris got a great Vogue this new Opinion hath been amongst the Doctours yet it cannot be doubted but for a great while the Churches governed themselves by their anâ—ient Customs and by little and little admitted the Opinions of learned men Wherefore it is not to be admitted without proof that the Authours of perpetual Foundations proceeded out of an Opinion contrary to their practice He wonders how the Church should prefix a time to praying for the same soul. I answer by Revelation if she did accept of Opinions by private Revelations for why might not some Saint have a Revelation that no Soul lay in Purgatory more then 100 years as well as that such a Soul layd but three days What discretion of Prelates can provide that particular souls may have proportionable prayers I understand not for where there is not knowledg enough to found a ghess there discretion has no place 22. Here we might have made an End had not a saying of our Holy Bishop of Rochester stuck in his stomach I do not remember where I have made uâ—â— of that place But I less find to what purpose he brings it more then to frame an irreverent Interpretation of his own and impose it upon me and to take occasion to leave the Reader 's mouth season'd with a scandalous â—alumny againstâ— me as if that I favour'd Luther Whereas it is one of the greatest signs of Truth to be betwixt two opposite Errours Luther's and his and therefore no wonder if he cryes it sâ—ells of Luther's Doctrin as ever the middle Truth is wont to be calumniated by the extream Errours He repeats here that I deny the three Propositions he mention'd in his proof against me because I understand them like a Divine and not in his gross Market-way He tells us that supposing the Pope's Definitions be not infallible yet it is rashness not to admit such determinations and for so much he cites Veron But this â—olly to think Propositions and the like is of actions to be temerarious in common I have spoken of before In particular an Action is rash when it is not done upon good grounds But to say there cannot be good grounds to oppoâ—… a Proposition supposed to be false is beyond Logick As likewise it is against my Divinity to say that a true Proposition may have opposition to Principles solidly deduced from Fâ—… Which if it be not directly condemned in the Later an Council under Leo the tenth it is by consequence The words are these Sâ—…g that one truth is not contrary to another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all Propositions contrary to a truth known by Faith to be wholly false and do strictly coâ—… it not to be lawful to teach any otherwise And decree that all such as adhere to such Propositions are to be avoided and punished as Hereticks And so leaving him and the Divulgers of his Book this Bit to chaw upon I remit what is sayd on both sides to yours and all judicious Readers Judgments POSTSCRIPT SIR I have teceived the second part of Mr. M's remembrance to pray for the dead but to what purpose you sent it I do not know I cast my view over it and find it divided into two parts The one contains the Motives of praying for the dead the second â—…e Practise As to the first saving that he supposes his falsity for truth and the Divines imagination of the separable vertues of Satisfaction and Merit and Impetration in every charitable act which hath been sufficiently discoursed of his whole Doctrin is common to both opinions The proper Motives are contained in the three first Chapters in which there is no difference more then some applications of the same words diversly The seven following Chapters comprehend Motives common to all charitable actions and so unless it be in some considerable passages are common to all good books that exhort to any good work The five last Chapters lay forth a petty manner of devotion fit enough for weak souls and therefore not to be hindered What he says of Indulgences hath been twice answered in the book Some things there are in these last Chapters which deserve to be excepted against but because they require the declaration of some Principles of Devotion which I have not as yet explicated I hold it better to speak nothing then to speak without profit Those who understand any thing of devotion and perfection know that Charity is the end of it all and therefore know that those good acts whatsoever they be that increase Charity in our own souls are the best and that Charity is the love of God or of Bliss for so St. Thomas out of St. Austin defines Charity that it is motus Animi ad Deum ut fruendum The minds moving it self to the enjoyment of God Who then will understand what acts are best let him consider how much they advance this Love of God and whether he be onely a Christian or also a Directour let him select to his charge such actions as have the greatest power to make the soul he looks to more solid and fervent in the Love of God as of his last end For the substance of actions the nobler actions fit the nobler souls and fo are to be proposed unto them and as no body can doubt but it is better to hinder a soul from going to Purgatory and much more from going to Hell then to free it out of Purgatory so
souls out of Purgatory before the day of Judgment His two first Testimonies according to the custom of those whose chief end is to make a shew hang in the position which is common to both sides being but pure prayers that deceased souls should go to Heaven without specifying when But because his devotion was so hot that it could not expect God's pleasure and determination he would have us believe it was meant presently 2. His next two Testimonies are drawn from the Heresy of the Millenaries praying to God that the soul may rise in the first resurrection For the former Testimony being Tertullians of whom it is known that he was of that Sect and the words being proper to that Sect it cannot be doubted of his meaning The second Testimony is from the Gothick Liturgy the which of what authority it is I know not We well know the Goths were Arrians for the most part of their Flourish in Italy and a great while in Spain we know that this Millenary Errour was greatly dispersed even amongst Catholicks but more amongst Hereticks who have not the rule of Unity and Tradition which keep Catholicks from easy changing The words of the prayer are the proper words of the Millenarians The glosses he seeks to make as they may be good to the Text of the Apocalyps so is their sence too far fetcht to be the sence of a prayer for common People Wherefore either it is a pure piece of Millenarism or at least he must first vindicate it from being so before it can serve him for a Testimony Now the Chiliasts Errour was that Christ was to reign upon Earth corporally with his Saints for a thousand years before the general resurrection then to give the hundredfold of what his Saints had forsaken for his sake in this world according to his promise in the Gospel But because this was a corporal resurrection therefore though there had been no Heresy in the position it could serve your Divine to no purpose Now it serves onely to shew how short his performance falls from his bragging promises 3. His next authority comes truly after St. Austins time being a story out of St. Gregory of Tours contemporary to the Great yet because it is of St. Martin it must speak for St. Martin's age The story as he relates it is of a Holy Virgin to whom St. Martin after her death procured bliss His first Note is that Saints whose Sepulchers are visited for Saints Sepulchers may yet stay some while in Purgatory I easily grant him that without the Authority of this story For the fallibility of Peoples Judgments in such things is very well known And I should not boggle at it though it were untill the day of Judgment His second Note is that St. Martin in the primitive Church believed as we do But for this I know not that the name of the Primitive Church reaches after Constantin's time and St. Martin was but a young man in Julian's time when being but a Catechumen he gave half his Cloak to our Saviour Farther to think he believ'd as we do is a hard matter For I must first believe the story to be true which may be doubted since St. Gregory gives testimony of it onely as a report he had heard from some old men who lived where this Tombe was and none of them could have had been witness of the fact which was passed 1â—0 years before So that it has no better Authority then of a Country tale Nor does St. Gregory's Vote which is his third Note much mend it as he may easily see if he reads Baronius his Opinion of St. Gregory's History T. 2. An. 109. Sect. 49. And in the true History which he sets down but by halves there are divers inconvenient circumstances One he makes mention of to wit that the Holy Maid was kept from Heaven by reason of a no very great fault but in the History you cannot perceive there was any fault at all His fourth Note is that St. Gregory the great was not the first that began to write such stories but St. Gregory of Tours before him Those that will be accurate say seventeen yeares before him if that in such a question as this is not to be together But truly I believe it was one hundred at least For the Pope Gregory tells so many of like stories that a popular Errour can hardly be thought to grow so fast as that the first should have been but seventeen years before it could grow so common 2. Then he comes to St. Hierom out of whom he recounts what words a soul delivered out of Purgatory may say And if you ask what this is to the purpose he answers by adding to the words of St. Hierom that the soul speaks this before the resumption of her body and proves it because the Saint passing to other things saith they shall be done in the consummation of the world Is not this goodly stuff for a Divine to fill a Book withall 3. Next in rank is brought in St. Ambrose with the Elogy of the Father in Christ to St. Austin Out of him he cites two places The first out of the Preparatories to Mass assign'd for Friday His words to intreat that the Mass may this very day in great Letters be a great and full banquet of thee Jesus Christ the living Bread which came from Heaven I would he had taken the pains to apply his Text to our question for I find a great difficulty Yet I think I can find two pretty good constructions The one is to understand it objectively the other efficiently For the proposition being that the Mass should be this banquet either it must be meant that the dead should rejoyce of his saying of Mass by way of the devotion that is used to be called communicating spiritually or else that the Mass should be cause of their seeing of God Whether way soever it be taken the effect of the prayer is that he may this day say Mass with that Charity and Devotion as that it may be profitable to the souls of the dead But both these may be done without any change in the souls For if his Mass prove so good the souls knew of it at their first going out of the body and were to have the effect of it in its due time meerly by the position of the Action this very day without any great Letters But to understand it as it must be understood to serve for his purpose that this very day the souls should receive bliss was a very uncivil request to expect Purgatory should be emptied for the saying of one Mass and surely takes away all excuse from the Pope why he likewise doth not give such Indulgences as at least once in the year to make a Goal-delivery of Purgatory that Christians might have as much priviledge as the Jews to lye but one twelve month in that place But specially this request befitted not St. Ambrose whom we shall have our
will to make any doubt of it and should easiler hold it for a History not to be mentioned then to write my opinion of it For considering the story wiâ—h abstraction from the Authour who wrote it no man could judge it worth the degree of a Romance but rather a pure Fable of Garagantua invented for to please Children or rather to disgrace the Catholick opinion concerning Purgatory It hath no respect to nature making this supernatural Ghost to be now a Bird now a Fish now a kind of an Insect to live in fire And for acts of Christian life and to increase in vertuous actions and examples little or nothing All miraculous all hideous sufferings a life not imitable wholly corporeal little spirituality that setting aside the imagin'd good of freeing souls out of Purgatory would not be fit to mention before a prudent Auditory What necessity can be thought of in the soule of Purgatory for those forty years of her life that was neither before not since All St. Odiloe's and the Cluny Monastery's prayers were begun before I hear no body of opinion that there go fewer souls to Purgatory since then in her days What extraordinary zeal of God Almighty was it to raise such a great assistance to the souls for one Age Let us think a little farther Could so strange a miraculousness endure forty years and not all Christian People from all parts of Christendom resort to it Would not all Princes specially neighbouring ones cause it to be examin'd and have authentical relations brought to them Would not innumerable foundations for the dead have been made out of the Astonishment of the world at such rare miracles Would not all Histories all Chronicles have made mention of it Would not the Popes themselves have sent to have examin'd it Where are â—ll these Testimonies Cantipratanus was a worthy man and has at large written the story true it is But if you confer him with Gregory the Authour of the Dialogues you may think he may as well be decieved as he was and was no less given to collect pious stories then the Pope He affirms he could bring innumerable witnesses then living for what he wroâ—e This is a sign it was much talked on and a popular story in every mans mouth but how many of this great number would have proved eye-witnesses is not let down though when a famous story is in vogue every one who hath been in the Country will be ashamed to say he had not seen it The Church hath done wisely and worthily in later Ages to command Miracles should not be published without first being examin'd which if it had been done by Cantipratanus I doubt this story would have fallen very short Yes but it hath the authentication of two Cardinalls to wit of Jacobus a Vitriaco and Bellarmin As for the former he is accounted an able man but the quality of his approbation being not set down by your Authour I may easily conjecture it is but some memory of fame and hearsay which gives no great confirmation And as for Bellarmin this story puts me in mind how that good Cardinal was newly dead when I went first into Rome and the report of his worth in every mans mouth and amongst other commendations one was of his Christian simplicity and that he was according as we phrase it in English a meer Scholler and understood not the ways of the world but was subject to be deluded by fraudulent Persons And some Learned men have extended the same Censure to his works full of great reading but without any great choice and judgment in his Arguments 7. There wanted yet a piece of canting Rhetorick to set forth these goodly Merchandizes You shall have it in the fifth Number There he tells you that without holding your self wiser then St. Gregory and the rest you have heard of all this while you cannot hold the contrary Who would have expected so absurd a proposition from a Divine In a manner their whole study and pains is to impugn one the other and dissent from great and little and must we be bound to think they think themselves wiser or better then all from whom they dissent He himself confessedly will dissent from two of the chief of these he cites St. Bernard and St. Thomas about our Ladies Conception peradventure also from Snarez and Vasquez in other points shall we therefore think he esteems himself wiser then they As to the particulars we have already answer'd and many of those he cites they are not the men themselves but the writers of their lives whose information how good it was we cannot tell though it be but too evident that the writers of Saints lives are for the most part desirous to speak the most good of their subject which they admire and therefore a slight information is sufficient to make them give credit to what is spoken in their favour specially in miraculous things To end his Chapter he hath another pretty subject to wit to perswade his Reader that I think that anciently there were no Visions and so cites St. Austin testifying there were many who had seen the pains of Hell the which as it is nothing to the purpose so is it a cunning slaunder to suggest to people that we utterly deny such Miracles SEVENTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to the eleventh and twelfth Chapter His weak Attempts from Liturgies Rituals and Offices With what folly he charges Heresy and Excommunication upon the Doctrin of the Middle State How the Pope truly applies the merits of the Saints to the assistance of souls in Purgatory The Pope's Bull corruptedly alledged The Bull of Leo the tenth against Luther not touching the Authours Doctrin What Authority the Council of Trent gave the Pope No Authentick Testimony of the Antiquity of Indulgences for the dead 1. HIS eleventh Chapter pretends to shew out of the Liturgies and Rituals the Testimony of the Church against the delivery at the day of Judgment But to fill this new head he repeats first divers of those he brought before as that from St. Ambrose's prayer before Mass The Churches prayer that the dying person may never come in Purgaiory He mingles the prayers for the dying with the prayers for the dead as if they must needs signify the same specially because the Church so lately prayed for her not going to Purgatory therefore she must needs after death pray for it again as if in different cases the time ought to make the request the same Otherwise all he brings after death is common to both opinions and still he presses that to be going out of the body and being in Purgatory be the self-same occasions The like is his confirmation out of a prayer common to the living and dead as if we had not the wit to know their necessities were different but that we must pray that God should give both the same gifts I am ashamed to spend time and paper on so gross mistakes not without admiration
how zeal and obedience can blind so far a man of otherwise a good understanding 2. There follows the repetition of the Gothick Liturgy the which if it be found to be a Catholick Liturgy notwithstanding the Phrase be Millenarian at least cannot serve him For the Text of the Apocalyps doth plainly speak of Martyrs who cannot be pray'd for otherwise then for the receiving of their bodies at the last resurrection or honour in this world 3. His last Authority is from the Churches acceptation of the custom St. Odilo began of praying for the dead generally the second of November But it is not enough for him unless he adds of his own that the Church did it for the same end or upon the same Motive on which St. Odilo did the which if he could prove he would say something But there is nothing hut his conjecture for that seeing St. Odilo himself is like to have taken it from an higher origin it being known that this custom was in the Church two hundred years before though not universally and the reason of it that as all-saints-All-Saints-Day was instituted for such Saints as had not private days so this day for those dead who had not private service say'd for them which is likely to be the Churches intention in celebrating this office though St. Odilo was the occasion of it For the Church is tenacious of Ancient professions and is not lightly to be thought to take up new opinions which that it did your Divine will be hardly able to prove and so he may put in his pocket his sentence out of St. Austin concerning the opposing of what the whole Church practises For one thing is the Practice which he acknowledges another thing the Reason which stands onely upon his slight guess 4. The like invention â—e â—btrudes upon us that all the stories of the Martyrologe be Articles of faith a position that never wise man thought of Yet forsooth because the name of Paschasius is in the Martyrosoge the Church must hold it forth for a truth Is not this an unsufferable abuse both of the Church and of all her faithfull Children to impose upon them a necessity to believe stories partly corrected partly of new corrigible when it shall please the Church to look into them for inâ—rrable Doctrins of that uncontrolable Mistress And these men forsooth must pass for great Divines whose verdict must carry the world 5. His twelfth Chapter is all fire and to nothing but Excommunication and Damnation As for my Doctrin he tells us that it professeth that the Church to the living remitteth not the satisfaction due to God alone but that which belongs to God and her and as far as experiences can guide us I think the Church holds with me In the Roman absolution is pronounced Quicquid boni feceris vel mali sustinueris sit tibi in remissionâ—m peccatorum This I ever understood to belong to the satisfaction due to God and I see the words may extend themselves to Purgatory as well as to this world But I never heard that what we were to do or 〈◊〉 in this world was remitted by Indulgences Of Purgatory I can onely say we that walk by five Senses have no experience what Indulgences do there But nevertheless if your Divine can bring any Rule of Faith for it I shall not any way resist His first proof is out of Maldonat His discourse is that Indulgences are proportionable to Church-pâ—â—ances but Church-pâ—â—â—nces are impos'd to satisfy not onely before the Tribunal of the Church but also before the Tribunal of God so then do Indulgences also This is the first part of the excellent declaration of Maldonat which had the ill luck to â—ight upon such a dull Reader that understood not the consequence how it follow'd that because the Churches penance if it had been performed would have diminish'd the pains which should have satisfy'd God therefore if they be not performed so it be by the Churches consent they will nevertheless satisfy for those which were due to God I never understood that either the Church knew how much was due to God nor that Gods judgments were to be bound up to the Churches but that the Rule that man judges according to the apparence and God according to truth had run in this as well as in all things else 6. This then is the first solly of this discourse that whereas binding and loosing's being ratify'd in Heaven means that Christ ratifies it here towards the Government of the Church this excellent explication without the least proof applyes it to Gods Spiritual Tribunal and confounds the external Tribunal set up in this world with the secret Tribunal of Gods inerrant judgments His next folly is that he takes this Principle that God doth not punish twice that which himself confesseth was never punished but once but remitted But the most bold folly of this discourse is that the whole discourse is common to punishments in this world as well as in the next For the Council of Trent declares expresly that good works and sufferings of this world do satisfy for the pains due to sin in God's judgment which are to be payd in the next world if not in this Then the plenary Indulgence which exempts from all pain due in Purgatory frees from all which in this world would have served for the remission of Purgatory pains so that a plenary Indulgence will save the Drunken man from the dropsie the quarelsome man from being beaten or wounded the luxurious man from soul diseases nay the Robber from the Gallows For no man can deny that all these are due punishments of sin or that received 〈◊〉 judgments of God they do not diminish the fâ—tute torments of Purgatory if not qâ—itâ— take them away So that none of all this 〈◊〉 fall upon him who hath received a plenary Indulgence but God by this excellent Doctour's discourse must punish him twice for the same fault 7. Upon this solid Foundation your Divine buildeth the bloody scaffold of no less then Heresy and Exâ—…cation against â—â—y Doctrin The censure of Heresy began 1478 lay'd upon it as he tells you by Sixâ—â—s Quartus The proposition upon which it is lay'd as he recites it is that the Bishop of Rome cannot pardon the pains of Purgatory Then followeth the Thunder and Lightning I perswade my self when you read this you could think no otherwise then that I was fallen into open Heresy for the censure says it contains manifest Heresie unless your Divine gave you occasion to think otherwise by adding to the same words in his next Number denying that the Pope by any Indulgence can pardon the pain of Purgatory Now this word by any Indulgence being not in the proposition your Divine will permit me not to fall under the censure of the Bull if I confess the Pope can forgive the pains of Purgatory otherwise then by Indulgence and seeing he finds nothing spoken in my Book but of Indulgences before
that on their side can have no ground but Revelation this ungrounded Innovation is in matter of Revelation and we know onely Faith is the proper matter of Revelation Their opinion then is a piece of Faith as to the matter and should therefore have but hath no ground of Revelation 5. Your Divine replyes that he groundedly challenges also six hundred years before It is a folly to dispute this Question He speaks in supposition that he has layd solid grounds My answers are since made The two being compared men of wisdom and learning are to judge how solid his grounds are to make such a challenge upon He challenges us to shew one Authour who doth so much as by one Word insinuate that our opinion did grow to be more Universally received in the Church these last five hundred years then before it was A strange and shameless confidence Did not Odilo make it Universal in the Order of Cluny Did not the Pope command the Feast Did these make no more Universality See how many Revelations were before those days and how many since do all these signify no more Universality And this may serve untill his fourth Number all before being but the supposition of what he hath not done 4. In the fourth Number he tells us it cannot be deny'd but for these five hundred year all who have pray'd for the dead were instructed by their Ancestours to pray for the present either ease or delivery of the Dead Yet it is deny'd him that their Ancestours taught it them as likewise it is impossible to prove and improbable to beleeve that all were so taught We know Doctrins that are new first infect one part and then another and so by little and little get a popularity The reason why it easily attain'd to this is because the Corporality of those substances which we hold to be spiritual was long held in the Church nor is yet perfectly out I have heard men learned as they are generally called that is of much reading affirm that there were no simple substances but God and declare that this was the common opinion of the Fathers You see this opinion is very conformable to the apprehension of all who are not Metaphysicians And our opinion depends wholly of the Spirituality of Angels and Souls the which even those who follow follow but imperfectly For the nature of Science is to be attained by pieces and degrees so that we must not expect that all who hold the Soul and Angels to be Spirits should discourse of them as pure Spirits ought to be discoursed on St. Thomas took away proper Locality from them but is weakly followâ—d not onely by other Schools which are filled with Ubications but even in his own Now Immutability which Aristotle demoristrated of Spirits is not as yet accepted any thing commonly But if once it come to be thoroughly looked into it will be as well as Illocality and your Divines opinion of Purgatory as much rejected as the Corporality of Spirits is 7. To return to our purpose This apprehension of Corporal Torments and succession and parts in them being so natural to mans understanding also the ending of them was naturally apprehended as a thing conformable to the rest and so all this Doctrin when it began to be superadded to Tradition was received as conformable to it men not penetrating the consequences that followed out of the souls being a Spirit And otherwise seeing nothing contrary to Christian Piety before the excess came to be so great that it grew but a sport to deliver souls out of Purgatory This began to make men reflect and abhorring the excess to look into the causes of the mistake and to find it proceeded hence that some who ventur'd to meddle with Divinity without sufficiency in Philosophy in liew of explicating the Metaphorical words in which Scriptures and Fathers deliver Christian Doctrin that it may be common to learned and unlearned the which is the proper duty of a Scholastical Divine undertake to justify that the Metaphors and Allegories are to be understood according to the very bark of the Letter and to force the learned to have no other apprehensions then the unlearned have and so to understand Spiritual things corporeally and to cry out against them who seek to apply Incorporeal modifications to Incorporeal Substances So that the reason of the vulgarity of this opinion is because Animale is before Spirituale For what was deliver'd by the Apostles was onely that Prayers should be made for the dead You may note specially in St. Austin and St. Chrysostom that having much occasion to speak of Prayer for the dead they are earnest to report that this could not be unless some good arrived to the dead thereby but are as carefull not to tell any good in particular for fear of missing in what they had not found sufficient ground in Scripture 〈◊〉 declare Weaker men finding the question started resolved by the proportion to what they saw in human actions without reflecting upon what the Conditions of Incorporeal natures required and upon this apprehension follow'd the multitude of Visions and Revelations to confirm this position the which being coloured with two gratefull sightfullnesses Piety and Wonder easily got a great strength amongst the meaner sort of learned men and the multitude of the unlearned 8. In his fifth Number he presses that the Apostles taught the faithfull why they should pray for the dead and therefore he argues that motive must still remain in the Church I answer the Apostles taught them to pray for the dead to receive their reward at the day of Judgment as is beyond exception plain in St. Pauls prayer for Onesiphorus and abundance of Scripture and Fathers as may be read in my Treatise of Purgatory and is still conserved in the Church Offices 9. In his sixth Number he repeats the pressing of the Bulls so fully answered and of the cause of the keeping the Holy Commemoration of the dead and this holds to the end of the Chapter Onely I must note himself confesses Number the sixth that the Popes Decrees are not of the point it self but of others necessarily connexed with the point So that if his discourse do fail him there is no prohibition even by his own words of our tenet and out of what we have said it is easy to see it doth fail him And by consequence that all the ground they have is but a pious credulity 10. In his 16 Chapter and the last of his proving discourse for afterwards follow the answers to my Grounds he professes to deliver the fundamental reason of his opinion And I suppose in his first Paragraph he would say if he did dare speak out that he had none Yet not to scandalize his party he must make a shew and so in the midst of his third Number he saith our opinion is Paradoxical which is all the reason I can find And as for that I must remit him untill we explicate our
of others how near soever bound to him hinders nothing the confecution of his Beatitude and so is desirable no farther then the procuring of it is the best means to gain his own and that is by desiring of it wholly indifferentlyas concerning the providence of Almighty God 12. A fourth proposition is that the desiring or praying for the goods of others is many times good for us when the obtaining it is our good to wit when we are not raâ—…onal enough to abstain from wishing and desiring such a good For then our desire of such a temporal or accidental good hath the strength to make us lift up our Hearts to God and exercise Acts of Vertue which is a great good to us when peradventure if the effect were granted us it might be our harm or destruction A fifth proposition follows out of these that there is no certainty of effect when we pray for others unless we pray for known goods and undoubtedly conformable to Gods providence such as are the good spiritual and temporal of the Church in common or else we have some particular instinct from God Almighty to pray for such a thing in particular the which peradventure happens oftener then our selves know or can give account of The conclusion is clear For seeing all other Goods are indifferent and depending from Gods providence and onely these kind of goods determin'd to us to be under Gods providence we can have no certainty of the grant of others seeing we have no warrant of being heard for any but for our own good as the experience of so often missing the effect of our prayers when we pray for teâ—…poral things do put out of all doubt And for any man to contend that our prayers are still heard where we cannot perceive whether they be or no though it be evident in things where we have experience that the event is very uncertain is to play the Juggler as Astrologers and other Fortune-tels do and to be contemneed and condemned 13. Coming now to apply this Doctrin to our question As it is certain that prayers for the dead in common have effect so to come to particulars and to say that it hath effect upon this soul or that soul is wholly uncertain but certain it is that it hath good effect upon him that prays Therefore clear it is that prayers for the dead are to be recommended to the faithful for the living's sake For it is a clear case it doth a great deal of good upon them It puts them in mind of death of Judgment of hope of Resurrectfon and loving it where they shall meet their friends and towards which alone they can assist their friends It makes them see and loath the Vanity of the World out of which they lose their friends and see that they must have their time to follow and quit all this good which here delights them It makes them love their friends and kins-folks or children more spiritually And because it hath all these effects the stronglier how more vehement their affection is to their deceased friends therefore they are to be more incited to pray for them then for others But because mans nature is fram'd so so as to expect an effect of his prayer God hath not left us without hope of great goods to our friends in the day of Judgment by our prayer and the Church likewise in all her offices puts us in mind of it and to pray whatsoever faults our friends carry out of this World they may be all forgiven then That day comprehends all Gods gifts from death forwards It is the full of Christian hopes and desires Fear not that if there be any good to be granted before this day but that praying for this day you pray for it It is all preparation to this day and if it go before it shall not be lost for this days coming so late But praying for this day we pray for what we know out hopes are certain we shall not find our expectations deceived Those who aym at receiving good in the mean while trust upon promises no where given upon the presumption of men speaking without ground upon a hazard as if the goods which are certainly promised were not enough to satisfy the longing of mans natural Appetite The teachers play with their Auditours as Nurses do with Children tell them lys to still them untill their longing be passed and then care not whether it prove true or false This is not Christs way who is Verity it self this is not the Churches way which is the Pillar of truth but the Inventions of such as would dandle weak souls with a present content 14. It is time now to look into what your Divine objects for he seems to be in choler He tells us we use loud exclamations purposely to cool the laudable practise of such who by their Will and Testament leave a strict obligation to their Executors to procure the next morning or as soon as may be all those Sacrifices to be offered which they intend for the relief of their souls though they should be thousands yea though they should take no special order to have many offered after that time He does as he was wont to do and as Don Quixot gave him example to mingle some false and some true to shadow the false For the multitude of Masses I no wayes dislike so the intention and practise be right and conformable to the Circumstances that the Church requires That which I dislike is that the practise of hudling up of Masses seems to make a great dependance on the Execution of the work more then on the Charity of the Donour If the Action of the Donour be out of Charity and discretion I make no difference as to that consideration taken alone whether the Masses be sayd in three days or three years I do not believe God's fore-sight is so short that he cannot accept of that this day which is ordered to be done three years after I depend not from the explication taken out of the Authour of the Supplement whatsoever later Divines follow it I pronounce the Masses to do so much more good to the Soul the more good they do to the Church of God and the Priests who say them No man can deny but the Action of causing so many Masses to be sayd is the better by how much wiser and commodiouser it is I expect the profit of the Soul from Charity and Prudence Therefore I conclude where there is more Charity and Prudence there is also more profit to the Soul As your Divine has read Make unto your selves friends of the Mammon of Iniquity so I have read That the poor Widow offered to God more then the rich men And shall I not think that her two Mites redeem'd more pain due to sin then the Sacrifices which were made by the Rich-mens Gubbs He that will teach otherwise let him seek other Auditours I will not be of his School I believe that
the poor man who gives but a shilling or has but the hearty will to do what were fitting for the Church of God towards the good of his Soul shall find as much relief as the rich man who distributes an hundred pound in all hast for four thousand Masses Yet do I not say the like to rich men For in a Rich man a small thing is no Charity The Charity which dilates not his heart towards his Neighbour is no Charity to give that which he would not stoop to take up is no Charity If what he gives be not sensible to him if it doth not diminish his love to Money if greediness doth not miss it it is no Charity Therefore the Richer man must give more then the less Rich or poorer that it may do him first good in this life and thereby to his Soul in the next 15. He objects that if the Opinion which hath prevailed for five hundred years be true it cannot be but solid prudence to procure the Souls delivery as soon as may be But he mistakes the question which is not nâ—… Whither the Soul be deliverable before the Day of Judgment but by what means she comes to gain the good she may receive Whether by the pure execution of the External action or by the internal Charity which is where it can be the necessary and unfailing cause of the exteriour act And as for the opinion that the external act gains the remission I am afraid it is subject to that curse Pecunia tua sit tecum in perditionem For who can doubt but the remission of sin or pain and the coming to Heaven are Dona Dei and cannot pecunia possideri I abhor to hear that where there is no difference of Charity and internal goodness there should be a difference in remission of sins and purchasing of Heaven Now in this hudling of Masses regularly there is less internal vertue then when they are dispensed with choice and commodity of the Church 16. By what is sayd his second and third Arguments are annulled for the value of the gift and the good of the Soul is the same whether the Masses be sayd a hundred years hence or upon the obit day or even not at all so there be no fault in the Donour And if you object that then the Prayers are not sayd I answer that is an harm to those who should have sayd them and peradventure to the Church if God's Providence doth not supply it other ways but no hurt to the Donour whose work that is the Prudence and Charity by which he ordered it shall follow him and procure by their own sâ—rength what is due to him What then Do the prayers no good or impetrate nothing to him We know that impetration fâ—r others is uncertain depending from God's Providence no ways due to the prayers but as much and how and when they agree to God's Providence and therefore not to be rely'd upon for any effect but every one must look to bear his own burthen and to receive according to his deserts He tells us in the end of his fourth Paragraph that if he had ten thousand pounds at his death to leave for his Souls good he would expresly order that none should be touch'd by them who think it indifferent whether they pray for him this year or next c. I answer that I am of that mind also For who will take Alms must follow the Donour's conditions not his own knowledg But if I had but five shillings to leave for Masses I would rather seek out the Priest on whom I thought it best employ'd though he should say never a Mass for it then another who had a priviledge to say two Masses that very morning but who was not so prudently relieved by my Alms. It was my fortune to have recommended to me by a Gentlewoman upon her Death-bed about 4â— for the good of her Soul She dy'd in poverty in a strange Countrey yet had saved this to be prayed for according to the course of Piety she had been instructed in She had a Child to be put to Nurse without means to pay for the nursing I openly confess I procur'd her not one Mass in vertue of her money but caused it all to be bestow'd on the keeping of the Child out of opinion that in this I did supply the imprudence of the Mother and that to do so was to employ the money best for the Soul of the Mother And such a mind I pray God I may have for my self at my death if I have any thing to leave to make my last Act of the greatest Charity to my Neighbour that I can and I hope I shall do mine own Soul the greatest good that lyes in my power to do by disposing of Temporal Goods 17. In his fifth and sixth Paragraphs he takes that Souls are chiefly to be helped by the Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Council of Trent But if one can help saith he many much more What says he can be here deny'd by any Catholick I answer easily that nothing is to be deny'd but something to be understood And first because that out of the Principle lay'd Charity is the ground of all impetration therefore to understand how it is true that the Mass is the greatest help for souls inPurgatory we ought to understand how the Mass is the greatest act of Charity Which to do we must remember the Mass to have these two relations The one that it is the Christian Sacrifice The other that it is the Commemoration of the Passion of our Saviour The first Consideration stirs up our Intellectual power towards the Admiration and Adoration of his Essence and Thanksgiving for all the benefits which we have received and are to receive from his Almighty hand and to vow all our love and affection to him upon that score The later stirs up the man the Compound of Reason and Passion to the apprehension and esteem of the Mystery of our Redemption of the good received by it and of the penal course Christ took to do us this good Both these considerations are help'd by an awful reverence to the Action we do of handling Christ's own real Body and of presenting to God not our temporall goods as in Alms nor our own bodies as in Penal Exercises but the true and real Body of Jesus Christ accompany'd with his Soul and Divinity If all this raises not Charity to the heighth that Charity can have in this life it is not the fault of the Work but of the Person Wherefore clearly if Souls can be helped by nothing but Prayers and that Alms-deeds and Satisfactions can have no place but as they are Suffrages or impetrations who can require greater evidence that of all exteriour actions the Mass of its nature is the most impetrative and helpful to the deceased faithful But presently you see that Masses are to be weighed not numbred to increase the power of prevailing I might add
to all this that the very procuring of Masses is the greatest Act of Charity that a Lay-man can do speaking of exteriour acts and regularly For the procuring of Masses discreetly performed and of its own nature works not onely that Priests be maintain'd but also makes them devout and good The goodness of the Priest is the very health and happiness of the Parish The Spiritual good of the Parish is the greatest good that speaking of regular and not extraordinary heroical Works is found in Man's life therefore the procuring of Masses is the greatest extern Charity that any private Lay-man can do when it is done with prudence and discretion 18. I believe the rest of his Chapter is already answered For we scoff not at the multitude of Masses but at the indiscretion of using them and procuring them Nor do your Arguments perswade us that Rich-men are in any thing in better state then the Poor not onely for accidental considerations but for the very substance The Rich may do greater-acts of Charity but not acts of greater Charity they may relieve other Bodies and Souls more then poor men but poor men have as much power to help their own as the richest The Rich may procure more to pray for them but the Poor can pray for themselves as well as the Rich which is the certain and essential good And if you ask me whether these be not great enticements of Avarice I answer no Avarice but keeps its goods until death these men for the most part do their Alms while they live which makes no Avarice though they should procure Riches for such an end the which I believe is rare Our Wise-men have a saying I will make my own Hands my Executours and my Eyes my Overseers Whose Estates permit them this is their way for this perfects the heart extirpates or moderates the love of Temporalities in them which is the main good But the hope of good by what Nature takes away from them leaves the desires as great as ever to the last gasp St. Austin advances an Opinion that he who fears God and behaves himself like a Christian onely upon the fear of Torments in the next World is no good Christian and shall not reach to Heaven He says it is the love of Heaven and not the fear of Hell makes a good Christian. I will not interpose my verdict in this Controversie but will not he say the like of those who onely for fear of the pains of Purgatory part with their Goods to the Church when they cannot keep them when by Nature they are their Heirs Goods not theirs Will he not say it is no act done out of Charity and therefore doth them no good And as for the prayers of them who pray for the Donour besides the uncertainty of whether how and when they shall have effect let us but reflect that we cannot doubt but that if prayers can do the effect they cannot want the prayers of all Saints and Angels which must needs be more acceptable then ours But the difference is that they pray for nothing but what they know shall take effect by their prayers because they see what God's Providence and determination bears We pray blindly and many times for that which is not decreed by the Eternal Providence and so cannot be granted And this many times thorough concupiscence like to St. James's phrase Petitis non accipitis quia petitis ut in concupisâ—…s vestris insumatis So do we through natural desires or love without sufficient resignation and so give cause on our own parts to be deny'd 19. In his eleventh Number he answers the abuse of multiplying Priests to ferve in dead Masses to the devotion of the people by saying that if the Decrees of the Council of Trent were observed notwithstanding these Opinions Priests would not be over multiplyed The which as I will not contest so I may well say your Divine doth not consider that the maintaining of these Opinions is the cause why the Orders of the Councils cannot be observ'd thorough the importunity of credulous People which leaves not Bishops free to look to the observation of the Holily instituted Canons chiefly to thiâ— Incerta etiam quâ— speciâ— falsi laborant evulgari ac tractari non permittant The Council forbids uncertain opinions to be handled before the People your Divine teaches the People to leave the Ancient and Apostolical devotion to pray for a happy Day of Resurrection to fix their thoughts upon the uncertainty of being freed from imaginary pains which the Holy St. Catharine of Genua commended by my Adverâ—aries for one of the most illuminate Saints of our Age says they would not be freed from but by satisfying God's Justice Towards the end he cites us a speech of Gâ—nadius to say that it whatsoever that relates for the doth not declare iâ— but I think t is praying for the Dead was not decreed that the Priests might thereby gain their maintenance but for the good of the Dead which is to be understood with discretion as not to deny the one but to prefer the other For seeing St. Paul and God himself tells us that the Priests are to live by the service of the Altar it would be a very unadvised speech to deny the maintenance of Priests to be a secondary intention of the Church though the first and chiefest were the good of the Dead 20. He begins his last Chapter with telling us how inviâ—cible Arguments he has brought out the practice of the Church which makes me think the good man means honestly and verily perswades himself he hath done wonders His Arguments and my Answer may be compared together and the Reader thereupon give judgment As to what is particular in this Chapter in his second Number he not content with the translation made before him of those words Donum fac Remissionis himself mends it so Thy Pardons grant not to delay until the last accompting day Where he puts in the word last and in stead of saying Give Pardon he puts not to delay the Pardon The which though they leave the true sense yet they change the face of the speech and make shew as if until the very last day there were place for remission of which in the Latin there is no appearance but onely a desire of pardon while time is to wit in this life insinuating nothing whither after death there is place for Pardon until the Day of Judgment or no which his words make shew of such craft there is in dawbing 21. He seeks many ways of solving the plain prayers of the Church as saying the Church imagins this to be yet before the Soul is departed or that they are not spoken by the Dead but by him who prays And I cannot deny that if such explications be admitted to be the explications of men who proceed sincerely to understand the mind of the Church and not who seek to draw the words of the Church to their
actions which cause men to be good in this world are more to be recommended to comprehensive souls But if any one thorough subjectness to passion and shortness of discourse is more moved to Charity by corporeal apprehensions then by strength of reason this praying for the dead is well proposed to him Though the truth is it doth enervate the perfection of Charity not onely in it self by entrenching upon true resignation but also concerning the special fruit of praying for the dead of which the wise man admonishes us saying it is better going to the house of wayling then to the house of banqueting because in the former we are put in mind of the end of all men And J. M. himself cites out of St. Austin that when we celebrate the days of our dead Brethren we ought to have in our mind that which is to be hoped and that which is to be feared that is to say the day of Judgment What a strange humour then is this of men who pretend to devotion to cast away the substantial certain and ever in all Antiquity practised part of praying for the dead to set up a new fallacious uncertain way against the orders of the Church forbidding vncertainties to be taught publiâ—…y to the people against the perfection of those who pray to whom they preach to determin God and to desire a particular effect of which we neither have any promise that it shall be granted nor know whether it stands with Gods providence and even common rules of Government Let then Priests say their Masses and Offices according to the words they find in their Missals and Ceremonials and not frame sences that are not in the words Let them pray as all the former Church hath done and not frame out of Origenical or Chiliastical Principles new inventions to magnify themselves by having some priviledges or more power then others Let them first make it plain that what they profess hath better grounds then such as the Popes call the dreams of devout Persons in their prayers before they impose upon our belief new Articles of Faith Let them not oblige Divines to think that falsities may be solidly connected with Faith and such like Doctrins destructive of Truth and Religion and Devotion I pray also inquire where he found those words in St. Austin whence he father'd that gross absurdity upon him that some should be damned for want of time to be prayed for For I read the Chapter he cites twice over and could espy nothing like it Your Servant T. W. Errata PAg. 28. l. 25. as this is 48. l. 1â— in these 〈◊〉 63. l. â—8 swoun 65. l. 19. struggle 66. l. ult alter the story 67. l. 〈◊〉 â—…ir Inquisition 68. l. 11. severe l. 20. consider how much the torments of this 77. l. 27. we acknowledg 109. l. 28. that the Pope 154. l. 28. If this way 160. l. 18. for fear of being l. 28. knowing 180. l. 6. then we â—udg 181. l. 23. if mine 182. l. 15. Alcuinus 183. l. 24. essence of 184. l. 6. one whether 190. l. 20. not sute p. 19â— l. 6. by â—s 24â— l. 23. change but. 249. l. 16. Peripateticae 253. l. 2. for we FINIS A short Letter sent after the former SInce I writ the former I have found commodity to see the cited Books which before I wanted And can give this accompt of them The Authour of the Oration imposed upon St. John Damascen is an unexcusable Heretick The intent of the Oration to perswade men that however they live they may come to Heaven by other mens Prayers He puts Infidels to have been deliver'd out of Hell by our Saviour Jesus Christ at his descâ—â—sion which St. Gregory declared to be Heresie He puts perfect good works without Faith against the constant Doctrin of St. Paul which is perfect Pelagianism He puts that the Heathen Philosophers knew almost all the Mysteries of our Faith as much as we hear of the Sibyls And to make it wholly fure that he is an Heretick he doth more then half profess his Doctrin is his own invention and that he has evinced against the Prophet saying In inferno quis confitebitur tibi and against the present persuasion of Christians that there is confession in Hell As for Gennadius whom he presses likewise he is of the same stamp He teaches St. John Damascen found this Doctrin of praying for the damned He takes the whole sum of Doctrin out of that Oration He onely cousen'd the Latin Fathers in pretending in common to hold prayer for the dead And being returned into Grece joyn'd with Marcus Ephesinus to annul the Union made in the Council of Florence The work of St. Isidor I find to be none of his but of some Authour who lived about the beginning of the Schools he so perfectly useth the School-terms and so his Authority is no more then of a School-Doctor As for St. Julian of Toledo it is true that he holds the opinion of our Adversaries but so that he confutes their intention For having proposed the question he is so far from saying it was the opinion of the Church that he resolves it as upon his own head and that uncertainly with a Puto I think alleadging St. Austin for his saying whose sentence you have heard examined already So that his Authority is no greater then his ghess that so it is as St. Austin ghessed there might be some such thing So that we have out of St. Julian that it was not the credulity or received opinion in his days By which you will understand how small performances accompany the good mans great boastings And see the growing of their opinion St. Austin ghessed it possible at most for he professes onely not to oppose it The Authour of the Dialogues credited unlikely Revelations St. Julian ghessed it positively St. Odilo and those who follow'd him took it up for certain upon private Revelations The later Greeks upon the like Revelations took praying for damned souls And upon the combining of these two your great Doctour seeks to make it an Article of Faith These short Notes I thought fit to acquaint you with to compleat your satisfaction which done I rest Your Servant Tho. White FINIS