in its right course it is therefore no less indubitable that it mis becomes God and ought not to be attributed to him You will object that the sacred stories overflow with Examples of chastisements which have no coherence with the crimes for which they are inflicted or at least grow not immediately out of them That David's son dy'd because he had made others blaspheme the name of the Lord That the Boys who scoffed at Elizeus were torn in pieces by a Bear That a Lyon destroy'd the disobedient Prophet and a thousand such like I answer in * the Theological Institutions it is sufficiently declared that there is then a necessity of a miracle or work beyond the usual and connatural course of causes when our good requires it should by us be thought that the order of Nature is shaken and overpower'd When this happens in order to punishments the connatural Government of men exacts that the usual connexion which is found in the ordinary series of things betwixt the fault and penalty should be omitted least the Revenge which God in those cases intends to signalize should seeme an effect of chance or Nature not of the uncontrouleable power of his Deity But these Examples are not to be drawn to the condition of ordinary punishments which are usual and customary in the common order of things The same humane frailty in point of discourse leads our Adversaries into another incongruity which it will not be amiss here to take notice of They affirm that God remits the guilt of sin but not the pain For as they experience in themselves when injur'd or exasperated a certain â—bullition or quick motion of spirits about the heart which though at the same time they forbear any violence yet can they not allay so do they perswade themselves that there is in God a certain aversion from a sinner which though upon his repentance it ceaseth yet do they conjecture that an intention of punishing him may still remain From whence they infer that all the guilt of the soul is pardon'd before it arrives at Purgatory but the pain is there notwithstanding to be endured But it seems they never consider that the passion or impetuosity spoken of is a corporeal motion unworthy a wise man much more unfit to be transâ—â—â—'d or apply'd to God For anger in God signifies no more then an intention to punish Whence necessarily it followes that as much as is remitted of the fault so much must be remitted of the punishment Again what can the sinner be guilty of if not of sin Of an Offence say you to God But that if Punishment ensue not thereon whom doth it prejudice The Man He is concern'd only in the Pain God against whom the offence is But God can receive no prejudice And indeed in our common speech we do not use to say sin deserves guilt but punishment so that the guilt of sin is the fault it self and not a guilt or obnoxiousness to fault but to punishment Impossible therefore it is that Pains purely upon the account of sins already remitted should be undergone in Purgatory Let them therefore consider whether the passion we experience in our selves be any thing else then a beginning or first motion of the Heart to Revenge that is to annoy the Offender that is in a spiritual substance a will to punish But though a will to punish be a different thing from an aversion to sin yet is it subsequent thereto and later then it and consequently according to the nature of the thing will first of the two cease It is therefore against Nature that the aversion should be taken away and yet the will to punish remain which is wholly grounded and originally dependent upon that aversion Whence those Divines are grosly mistaken who affirm the effect that is the Will to punish ceasing the Cause that is the aversion from the sinner is taken away and deny that the cause to wit the aversion being taken away the effect to wit the Will to punish ceases Finally if need were we could in our defence muster an army of Fathers and appeal to the common sense and Judgment of Mankind You will say perhaps at least it cannot be deny'd but that there is a previous dissimilitude betwixt God and the sinner antecedently to his Will of punishing him and that therein consists the point of offence It is answered no man explicates the nature of offence by dissimilitude but by action so that if the dissimilitude act not upon the offended party it is no offence at all And besides the dissimilitude it self is not so great as that of irrational creatures for though it disfigure yet doth it not cancel the image of God within us But all other things besides Man deserve not the honour of being called his image but his foot-step Lastly this aversion is the cause of his punishing whence without it there can be no liableness to Pain in Man no appetence thereof in God The Fourteenth Accompt Of the Punishments which we meet with in the sacred Scriptures and of the remission of sins TO what we have here delivered it may be objected that nothing is more frequent in the sacred Scripture then the account of punishments inflicted after the undoubted remission of the fault We his progeny feel yet the effects of the sins of our first Father Adam whom we no wayes doubt to reign with Christ our saviour in Heaven We read that the sins of Mâ—ses and Aaron were punished with death and yet at that same time that God familiarly conversed with them after the offence We read of the people sin which God threatens to remember in the day of Revenge and yet in the mean while acknowledg his great benificence to them and particularly his introduction of them into the Land of Promise Now Jeremiah tells us chap. 2. that the translation of the Tribe of Judah was that day of revenge Is not this saith he done unto thee because thou didst forsake the Lord thy God at that time when he led thee by the way And yet betwixt those two times how often was God reconciled to them especially in the dayes of Saâ—â—uel David and Solomon Of the sin of David we read that his son should dye and the sword never cease in his house yet are we confident of his being in favour with God and the text assures us that in the presence of Nathan his sin was transferred What then can be more evident than that punishment remains due after the sin is cancell'd So that it may well be concluded that mortal sins though remitted still challenge their reward in Purgatory and venial ones unrepented are there by those grudging flames to be expiated I answer Almost in all things which fall under our consideration we are forced to distinguish in the same propositions there being predicated sometimes simply sometimes secundum quid or according to some one respect or notion And
as most commonly it happens then is the sin simply remitted but in part remains and in this world it is punished by evils following this debility of mind either sins or conflicts or whatsoever other griefs proceeding from them but in the future by the fruit offspring of those evils till in the last Judgment day that tepidness and as it were rust with which the soul by contagion of that sin was infected be burnt off From whence you easily see that in a perfect repentance God remembers no longer the sin but in an imperfect one accommodates and adopts the pains to the state of the soul From what hath been declared it likewise appeareth how God revengeth the sins of parents to wit external ones upon their posterity and this sometimes intriâ—secally when the children become themselves wicked by example of their parents but for the most part extrinsecally Which laâ—â—er punishments are threefold first immediate as when the son of David was punished with death secondly as it were eternal as when for the same sin it was threatned that the sword should never depart from his house and likewise for the adoration of the golden calfe that they should be punished in the day of visitation For these expressions import that those very sins should cause a total destruction of that people Of which sort is likewise that prediction of Christ our Lord that all the innocent blood which had been spilt from the just Abel to his time should fall upon the Jewes The third degree is betwixt these two as a standing rule of the divine chastisements to wit to the fourth generation All this is evident in the examples which we hinted at For the punishments of Adam Moses Aaron and David also in the death of his son belong to that rank which we have called miraculous in which it was requisite they should seem to proceed not from the order of causes but the especial judgment of God But for the posterity of Adam their punishments whether internal or external are * clearly shewn in our Theology to flow from the order of causes where it is likewise evident that that sin * can never be remitted till the Resurrection and last Judgment The crime of adoring the golden Calf became in like sort almost eternal thâ—â— is lasted till the extirpation of the whole people Which Ezekiel testifies Chap. 20. reproaching the Jews that from their departure out of Egypt they persisted by continual relapses in the sins of their forefathers who came from thence Whence it may be seen that the stiffness of neck which Moses so oft exprobrated and complained of continued in that people till their utter extermination and that as Christ our Lord assures us all the just blood spilt through the world was punished in that last generation The very same discovers it self in the sin of David whose Love to Bersheba preferred Solomon before the rest of his Children to the succession of his Crown which was the apparent cause of emulation between Absolom and Adoniaâ— and of both their deaths and of all the crimes of Absolom From the same fountain through Solomons disorders sprung the schism of the ten tribes and all the subsequent warrs with the defection of the house of Israel from God and the corruption and wickedness of the house of Judah and consequently all their mutual chastisements and final overthrow the sons still inheriting the vices of their Parents Lastly from the same principles it appears why for the most part the sins of private persons cease in the third or fourth Generation to wit because their memory and imitation is for the most part lost the respect of kindred growing weak and the permixion of forreign blood in the several Mothers rarely suffering the great Grand-fathers blood to boyl with any notable vigour in the veins of his Great-grandchild From this explication it is easily gathered that according to the natural series of Agents and Patients the punishment of sin whether external or internal is nothing else but the increase and exaggeration of sins in those who are perverse and the decrease and diminution of them in those who amend For both the internal sin in the wicked is punished by greater sins and their external punishments are the extensionâ—nd propagation of the sin into new subjects or into more parts of the same subject that is encreases it extensively or intensively And on the contrary in those that are good the strugglings and dolorous affections which wrestle with the affection to sin are their punishments as to the internal and their external ones are the dimintiuon of the dying sin weakly derived into other subjects The Fifteenth Accompt Three other Exceptions That they neither truly take off the punishments nor rightly make them due nor in fine make any real Purgatory FRom hence we may observe another mistake of our Divines in their model Purgatory For though they determine the sufferings there to be certain pains inflicted by torments yet when these pains cease they neither require nor think of any pleasures or at least good acts which may succeed them parallelled to which kind of Philosophy neither the whole variety of Nature nor Grace that I know of affords one experiment For in vegetativâ— nature griefs are asswaged by a certain congruous and self cherishing disposition of nature and in supernatural works sin is not extinguished but by infusion of grace and affections opposite to sin To assert therefore certain pains which must be determin'd and asswaged by a pure cessations and not by the entrance and subinter mission of any contrary wholly misbecomes a Philosopher is altogether repugnant to the ground work of natural action which requires an opposition of causes severally challenging to themselves the common subject Our eleventh exception takes notice of another absurdity They affirm that in the instant of death whether in the body or out of the body I know not by an act of contrition all guilt whatsoever which during the whole life had been contracted is immediately wash'd off I urge since the efficacy of contrition is by both sides acknowledged to be such that it not only abolishes the crime but equalizes and consequently is of its own nature capable to extinguish also the punishment and the act of contrition we now treat of must needs be strong and perfect why doth it not by its equivalence supersede all punishment Certainly if it be made by the soul now discharged from the body we cannot doubt but it must be of the highest degree and much more intense and vehement then any contrition which here with ardency of affections were able even to set the very body on fire as some pious Histories relate to have happened But if it be put to be made in the body being endowed with so eminent a prerogative as not to leave uncancelled any one slight stain upon what grounds or how shall we deny it the power
matter upon and about which he did work Again he shall suffer damage must signifie he will be troubled or sorrowful but that the rather by impotency to sin a new and freshly then to be amended Lastly He shall be saved yet so as by fire Shall regret and sorrow for the loss of things temporal save him Or the loss it self by means of that sorrow It must be then understood that this tribulation must conect and reform him which though sometime it happens yet not alwayes or indeed for the most part which nevertheless is requisite to make the truth of the Text apparent Whosoever having throughly contemplated this passage and finding the interpretations given it by others to be scarce reconcileable with the Letter whereas ours in every particular wonderfully agrees with it shall notwithstanding profess himself unsatisfi'd in what we have offered I shall be much surpriz'd if he ever find conviction from any of the sacred writings My last Testimony shall be from S. Matth. 12 where Christ our Lord declares that the sin against the holy Ghost shall neither be remitted in this world nor in the next Which S. Mark in like manner expressing saith it shall not be remitted for ever Holy Fathers gather from hence not impertinently that there is a remission of sins after this life and some of our Moderns make use thereof to confirm the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is vulgarly described But in truth therein they fail for whatever venial stains the departed soul had contracted those they absolutely declare to be by a perfect conversion to God in the very first instant cancelled Purgatory therefore according to them doth not remit but chastise sins and consequently they have no right to alledg this place since remission of sins there is none according to them But on the contrary if the affections to sin remain after death and in the day of Judgment are rectifi'd 't is evident there must be a remission of sins in the next world And thus by the whole series of this discourse it is made appear that no one text of holy writ is or can be urged for Purgatory which by some circumstance or other does not at the same time prove that it is no otherwise a part of Christian belief then as we have already explicated The seventh Accompt Some places of Scripture applyed by holy Fatâ—â—â—s to confirm the same truth IT is now time to take the votes of antiquity and observe whether the suffrages of the holy Fathers are more numerous and propitious to our adversaries or us And first let us interrogate those who by application of holy Writ rather then by their own proper motion or design declare this Purgation to be made in the day of Judgment S. Basil Ch. 15. on Esay calls the baptisme of fire that probation which is made in the day of Judgment S. Hierome upon the third of Matthem saith In this world we are baptized with the spirit in the future with fire the Apostle also giving testimony that of what sort every ones works are the fire shall try Theodoret Ephrem and Rufinus explicate the prophecy of Malachy wherein Christ is said to purge the sons of Levi of the last judgment S. Augustine lib. 20. c. 25. de Civit. Dei conjoynes the place of Esay and Malachy and applies them both to the same day and lib. 16. c. 24. de Civ. Dei he in like manner explicates the passage of the fifteenth of Genesis of the smoaking furnace and flashes of fire passing through the midst of the divided carcases to be the fire of the last day which shall discriminate the carnal persons who are to be saved by fire from the carnal ones to be damned in fire From hence we may thus argue The Fathers interpret those places of holy Writ which speak clearly of the purgation of sins and that by fire to be meant of the day of Judgment therefore they teach that the purging of souls from their sins by fire is performed in that day and consequently that that is the Purgatory fire Whoever then confesses and acknowledges the purgation of souls in the day of Judgment by the general conflagration defends Purgatory in the sense of the Holy Fathers nor can any thing from their Testimonies be alledged for the cessation of or exemption from Purgatory before that day when they teach that souls are purged by fire And hence also are they easily silenc'd who cry out that such like Testimonies are to be understood of some few remaining alive to the very last hour For the maintainers of Purgatory waving those passages which speak so in general termes will find it no small difficulty to make a Father or two speak out for them and so the whole extrinsecal authority fit to maintain Purgatory will be lost both the Scriptures themselves as hath been shewn being a verse to that conceit and absolutely respecting the day of Judgment and the holy Fathers refusing to own it Besides most of the Patrons of this intermedial fire conceive that all men shall be dead before the day of Judgment so that the same flames may serve to expiate them without the help of those of the conflagration and Judgment and whatever is otherwise affirmed by them clearly is not a consequence of their Doctrine but an invention to elude the evidence of the Fathers Let as therefore dispel this mist also with the clear attestation of such of them as speak plainly and positively in the case The Eighth Accompt Testimonies from all Antiquity maintaining the same truth St. Denys of Areopagus shall usher them in who tells us that those Psalms were wont to be sung for the Dead which make mention of the Resurrection as also such lessons as contain the promises thereof And speaking of the secure estate of good men departing he saith they perfectly understand that all will go well with them in the life everlasting through their total resurrection From whence it is evident that the hope which they generally had for the dead and which was therefore fit to be expressed in the Office for the dead depended on the resurrection for its effect and this in the very beginings of Christianity Origen is yet more clear in his third Homily on the 36. Psalm As I conceive saith he we must all be brought to that fire it went a little before which is prepared for sinners though he be a Peter or a Paul he must come to that fire but such as they shall hear it said though you pass through it the flame shall not burn you But when such a sinner as my self shall come to the fire as Peter and Paul did he shall not pass through it as Peter and Paul did In the end of the eighth book of his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans he saith But he who neglects to be purged by the word of God and Evangelical Doctrines is reserv'd for sad and penal purifications that the flames of Hell
other way of attaining Beatitude but that great and Royal high-way of charity since Christ our Lord his Apostles and all other Fathers preach no other Doctrine to introduce any obstacle of Beatitude without their authority were clearly to controul the discipline of all Christian institution and put a bold exception to their general Rule Besides true Theology assures us that perfect charity is a disposition necessitating or determining Almighty God to communicate himself to those that bring it so that he can no more deny himself to be the object of a soul in perfect charity then forbear the concreation of a Rational soul when the Embrio is fully formed or the infusion of existence when the actions of inferiour causes requires it But it is manifest that those who put the soul in the first instant of its separation to be endowed with the same eminence of charity which it hath or shall have when it is admitted to the fruition of God and yet notwithstanding for sometime debar it thereof must needs suppose that disposition of soul not sufficient and adequate but require something else whereof neither the Scripture nor holy Fathersâ—â—ve us the least hint who all unanimously acknowledg no other partition-wall betwixt God and us but our Sins Finally the Florentine Councel and Benedict the eleventh seem clearly enough to have condemned this their Doctrine the latter determining that the souls of the Faithful which have nothing to be purged or expiated do immediately after their departure and before the General Day see the face of God the former adding thereto that the souls of such as dye presently after Baptism or such as after death are purged are immediately received into Heaven By both which expressions this may indubitably be concluded to be meant That nothing but what may be purged that is what stains and contaminates that is sin can deprive a soul from its admission to Heaven and the full sight of God Let us subsume But according to our Adversaries all who dye not in mortal sin after the first moment in which they are said to be perfectly converted to God have nothing now remaining to be expiated but are already after death cleansed Therefore they are all immediately after the first moment received into Heaven Is it not evident that the determination of this Pope and Councel subverts their whole fabrick of Purgatory For though they endeavour to equivocate yet the proper and dogmatical signification can be no other then that which we have given and the secondary explication of purging for enduring pains which do not cleanse the soul from any filth is harsh and improper and by themselves avoided when they come to explain themselves though in familiar conversation with those especially who understand not the different senses they make use of it that they may not seem to vary from the language of the Church and their Fore-Fathers The Seventeenth Accompt That the Ignorance of spiritual natures begat this Opinion FOr a conclusion at length of this part I shall observe to the Reader that this mistake of the school men proceeds from a higher principle Their not adhering to a certain Doctrine delivered by Saint Thomas of Aquine and by his school received He teaches that in abstracted spirits there is neither discourse nor any manner of composition but purely a simple apprehension so that errour and falsity can have no place in them That holy Doctor understood that all these were originally in us from the body and therefore could not in immaterial substances be expected For we find by experience that composition and discourse are begotten by the successive beatings of the memory on the Phantasie which intercourse if once you bar it is impossible that indivisibles should be capable of succession It is therefore certain that pure spirits contemplate all things as it were with one sight or glance and since with them all that relates to science is transacted by naked Definitions which no wordish equivocation can obscure it is evident that falshood cannot reach them there being no precipitation where no delay is required Nither the principles then nor their connexion can be concealed from them nor consequently the truths depending on them This may perhaps become more intelligible if we reflect that the Soule when first infused into the Body is such as the quality of the Matter it is united unto exacts and determines it to be because a natural action that is which doth not exceed the rank and limits of causes cannot but act according to the existence of the subject and do that which is conformable thereto and apt to be produced thereof But Death also is a natural action making that which of a man can be made to wit a spiritual substance which we call a soul And as the disposition of the Embrio or seminal concreation delineats the future man so that man to have had in the course of his whole life these and these thoughts and affections designes and points out by the impressions left the future condition of his Soul So that death produceth such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible and the Entity so made continueth such till it be aâ— it were new moulded which is the worke of the Resurrection For the spiritual being of the soul is what the whole course of map's life hath made it and bears that respect to the antecedent life which the being at Rome hath to the travelling to Rome or the being in health hath to the cure which was wrought by the Physician's hand Whence it appears that in the next world there can be no more motion since rest and not motion is the terme and period of motion So that for the soul to know to be joyful or to be sad in the future world is nothing else but to remain in that act of knowledge joy or sadness into which by the force of Death and dissolution it was translated And this is the very reason why every resolution made is from thencesorâ—h immutable because there are no instruments no diversity of parts whereof some may act on others no distinctioâ—matter and Agent all which are requir'd to effect a mutation But some may wonder how the soul can be disengaged from the false opinions with which she was here possessed and not have power to devest herself of the affections depending on those erroneous judgements To whom we must answer that this happens not through any discourse but by the precise stroak of death For it being impossible to a spiritual nature at one and the same time to assent to two contradictories seeing and comprehending the contradiction and nothing as hath been said being able to escape the knowledge of a separated soul it is evident that truth must overcome falsâ—â—y and since one of them only can take possession truth must abide and errour give place and this through the very disposition of the soul it self by Death But the affections
twentieth Accompt That the practise of the Church as far as it's words make known it's sense favours the ancient opinion FOr the last attempt they reserve the Practise of the Church which can neither deceive nor be deceived And this they drive on with great fury and clamour partly from the prayers which are said for the Dead partly from the concession and acceptation of Indulgences wherein their valour gains so much applause that it is worth our pains to give it a check Our first encounter shall be to demand of them when they talk of the Ecclesiastical Practise which do they mean an universal or a particular one Again if an universal one whether they intend only a present Universality or an universality including also the ancient practise If they admit an universality of place as they needs must if they will conclude any thing for otherwise by their own confession it will amount but to a probable that is fallible argument let them demonstrate to me that the practise they contend for either anciently was or at present is in the Grecian Church Sure I am neither in the Florentine Councel nor in the Union of the Armenians nor in the Profession of Faith prescribed by Urban VIII to the Oriental Churches any thing is expressed from whence this Doctrine may be deduc'd In like manner as to point of time it is evident that before S. S. Gregory and Bede there was no such notorious Practise even in the Roman Church and consequently that it became not general till after Odilo about six hundred years agoe But such a Practise no way deserves the title of Universal according to Time The question then is devolved to the Western Church for the four or five last ages for the universality cannot be stretch'd higher since the practise appears to have taken it's rise from the Devotions of the Clugniac Monks and the effect of those Devotions that is Revelations springing from them whereas before it was rare if not unknown Our next quaere is what they mean by practise For my part to avoid ambiguity I divide it into that of actions and of expressions both which if they apparently favour what we have delivered then is our adversaries last effort as in-effectual as the former The Churche's expressions are visible in her Missalls Rituals and Breviaries by which if I stand condemned I willingly yeild the cause To begin with the sequence of Dies irae Dies illa is it not throughout of the day of Judgment and the deliverance which is then to be made What else hath the Offertory Lord Jesus Christ King of glory free the souls of the faithful departed from the pains of Hell and the profound Lâ—ke free them from the Lions jawes that Hâ—ll may not devour them nor they fall into darkness but let the holy Ensign-bearer Michael conduct them into that happy light which thou hast heretofore promised to Abraham and his seed Thus far in general for all the Dead then in particular We offer up to thee O Lord sacrifices and thanksgiving prayers receive them for those souls which we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to Life These are the Church's prayers which to a Catholick what can they signifie but the examination and sentence of the last Judgment After the person is dead and that prayers begin to be said for him where is he in danger to perish but in the last Day If then the Church prayes not for what is past which seems to be unprofitable it prayes not for any other delivery of the Dead then what is to be in that final Judgment I easily foresee it may be objected that the Dead have in reality no incertitude or hazard even in that Day wherefore these Prayers must on both sides be acknowledged to have their improprieties My answer is twofold First in our way we coyn not a new Metaphor but prosecute that which Christ and Holy Scriptures have furnished us with For if they have styled it a Judgment not in order to an investigation or disquisition of things doubtful for what can be obscure when God himself is judg but meerly to signifiy the effect of the said Judgment that is the respective destribution of rewards and punishments to good and bad which then is made is it not evident that the Ecclesiastical manner of speech that it may be conformable to the sacred and Traditionary expressions must speak as it were of a dubious sentence whilst there is yet an affection to or expectation of punishment or reward These speeches then signifie just the same as if the Church should plainly say suffer them not to be cast into Hell but grant them eternal happiness And so is that particle also to be understood of passing from Death of life Though there be also another way in which the souls in Purgatory when they become partakers of the Beatifical Vision may not improperly be said to pass from Death to Life For those souls having according to what hath been explicated an impediment in themselves debarring them from true life which is perfect Beatitude clearly if death be opposite to life they are truely said to pass from death to life when they are freed from their sins and that impediment I am not ignorant that Divines taking it from the Lawyers suppose in these souls a certain Right to Beatitude by which they are rendred partakers of life But these expressions abuse us when besides an allegory we expect propriety in them Nor indeed doth right to a thing make a man owner of it but right in the thing and in reality those holy souls have not right to life but seeds of it to wit the faith of Christ which works by charity and which assuredly will through the last judgment fructifie to life eternal As then sâ—ea is not yet reckon'd among things living but dead so these souls also But we must observe the word dead hath a double sense being propounded abstractedly and privatively The damned are privatively dead because all possibility or root of eternal life is extinguished in them but those in Purgatory are only dead because they have not yet obtained life My second answer is that speeches of this kind are altogether inexplicable according to the contrary opinion which is a certain note that they mistake the Churches sense For proof hereof it were enough to charge them with it and put them to the trial But I can produce the express confession of an Author voluminous enough to appear great amongst them who paraphrasing upon the above cited words excuses their form Because saith he those who pray often use expressions which they are altogether ignerant what they signifie or whither they tend But surely the Rituals sufficiently declare whither these speeches tended Make him worthy by the assistance of thy Grace to escape the Judgment of revenge who living was signed with the seal of the Trinity Again Let us pray for