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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	appear_v	life_n	sin_n	4,010	5	4.7063	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59251	A vindication of the doctrine contained in Pope Benedict XII, his bull and in the General Council of Florence, under Eugenius the III concerning the state of departed souls : in answer to a certain letter, printed and published against it, by an unknown author, under this title, A letter in answer to the late dispensers of Pope Benedict XII, his bull, &c., wherein the progress of Master Whites lately minted Purgatory is laid open and its grounds examined ... / by S.W.	Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.	1659 (1659)	Wing S2599; ESTC R12974	85,834	208

let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS A● which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Docto●r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him

general Iudgement Let us hear the Latins in this question concerning the fire of Purgatory presently in the beginning of the Council The Latins acknowledge both in this world a fire and a Purgatory by fire and also in the future world they acknowledg a fire yet not purging but eternal They confess also That souls are cleansed and freed by that first named Purgatory Fire and that he who hath committed many offences is freed after a long time of purgation but he who hath committed a few is sooner delivered Let us now heare the Greeks The Greeks are of opinion That the Fire is in the future onely and that in this world The temporary punishment of sinful Souls consists in their being imprisoned in a darksome place where they remain for a time but that they are purged that is freed and delivered from that obscure and afflicting place by the Prayers and Sacrifices of the Priests but not by Fire Hitherto the Council of the Souls in Purgatory It proceeds to declare the opinions of both Churches concerning the souls of Just men which have no debt at all to be paid The Latins say That the souls of holy and just men are in Heaven and that without any medium they see and enjoy the Sacred Trinity The Greeks imagine that the souls of just men have indeed obtain'd Beatitude but not perfectly and that they shall perfectly enjoy it when they shall be reunited to their Bodies in the Resurrection And that in the mean while they remain in a separated place where they interiorly rejoyce entertaining their thoughts with the fore-seen and fore-known perfect Beatiude and Adoption which is prepared for them You see the Question cleerly and plainly propounded You see wherein the Eastern and Western Churches agree wherein they disagree What after their frequent disputations was at last concluded Surely no other thing then The sacred Councill approving We define That the souls of them who after Baptism received have contracted no blemish at all of sin as also those souls which after they have contracted the blemish of sin are purged either in their Bodies or being vncloathed of their said Bodies are presently received into Heaven and cleerly behold God himself in Trinity and Vnity as he is Behold a Categorical Definition directly determining the proposed difficulty The Question was How many sorts of souls were admitted to the intuitive Vision of God before the general day of Judgment The Councill answers Three Sorts The first sort such as after Baptism contracted no sin The second such as although they contracted sin yet fully satisfied for them before their death by worthy fruits of Pennance The third such as contracted sin and did not fully satisfie in this life but were purged afterwards in Purgatory Our Aversary dares not deny an admittance of the First and Second sort of Souls to the fruition of God presently before the day of general Judgment But he most inconsequently rejects the Third sort now in Question For what an absurd Exposition of the Council would this be The souls of Just men having no sin at all are received presently befor the day of general Judgment to the cleer Vision of God In like manner the souls which have fully satisfied for their sins before their departure are admitted presently before the day of Judgment to eternal Beatitude the souls cleansed in Purgatory are admitted presently that is in the day of Judgment When as this Third Sort of Souls is contained in the same period under the self same form of words And which is to be taken special no●ice off the Particle Mox presently wherein is the greatest force is joyned onely to this Third sort of Souls though it is also necessarily understood in the two former Surely none of the Latins none of the Greeks did either question or controvert Whether the Souls of Just men or the Souls in Purgatory were admitted to eternal Beatitude in the Day of general Iudgment But the sole difficulty was of the time preceding as manifestly appears by the Declaration of both Churches and as concerning Purgatory the difference between them was onely this That the Latins admitted the operation of a material Fire the Greeks a darksome place but not Fire Now for that the Adversary is pretended to be a Catholick and acknowledges that he ought to submit himself not onely to General Councils but also to the Judgment of the Chief Pastor Let him attentively read and consider the solemn Decree of Pope Benedict the xii above related where he shall find his Assertion in most plain terms condemned For by that Constitution he may easily perceive in what sense this particle Mox presently inserted in the Florentin Council is to be explicated where the same matter almost in the self-same words is handled and where it most manifestly signifies immediately and before the day of general Judgme●t This Decree is extant in Sanderus de visibili Monarchia and it is also mentioned in the 7th Tome of the Councils in the life of the said Benedict in these terms He defined That the Souls of holy men sufficiently expiated from their sins were blessed and enjoyed the cleer sight of God before the day of Iudgment And he is there highly praised as a vertuous man and one perseverantly constant till his death in pious actions What think you may we now judge of him who calls the Definition of such a Pope and of so great a Council a new Doctrine supported by no foundation and opposite to the Churches practise D The Answer to the Precedent discourse by one of Master Whites Scholers now a very able Proficient in his School SIr I have perused your Papers which truly according to the Opinion That the Holy Ghosts assistance in Councils and Consistories is without restriction or limitation seems to me to evidence a deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory before the Day of Iudgment But according to the Opinion That the assistance of the Holy Ghost in Councils and Consistories is no longer then there is a diligent search to find out what Christ taught and his Apostles delivered as so taught there appears onely that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict did think or judge it to be so which may raise opposition to a Disobedience but not to an Heresie For according to this later Opinion that opposition and no other is to be termed Heretical that gain-says apparent Tradition So that unless you shew that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict determined conformably to Tradition Mr. a a That is Master Whites Blacklowes calling the Doctrine and Practice new will not savour the least of Heresie For certainly that Doctrine and Practice must be new that took beginning after Christ and the Apostles O! but where is this restriction In Christs own words Docebit vos omnia quaecunque dixero vob●s Not all truths but such as I shall reveal to you This restriction Vincentius Lirinensis understood when he imputed the Erring of

Question of Charity was there disputed and setled by this our Bull and Council Sect. 12. And as to the first If such an oversight could have hapned to a Person whose business it was to answer this very Bull and of all those solid and cleer-sighted Persons by conferring with whom he was now raised above his own pitch I should justly suspect that neither he nor any one of them had ever read this very Bull about which we now dispute For was it possible that a few great Letters should so possess their eyes and their great good affection to their new Masters Doctrine so fill their hearts that there was no room for any thing else of the whole Context For the Pope himself in this Bull having in most plain and express words stated our very Question to their hands how was it possible they should All over-look it There arose saith he a matter of question not long since in the time of John the xxii our Predecessor of happy memory between some Doctors of Divinity concerning the vision of the souls of Iust men after their death in which nothing was to be purged when they departed out of this world or if there were it was now totally purged whether they see the Divine Essence before the re-assumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment and also concerning other matters c. And yet in truth to do him right he did see this and cites it page 24. and yet hath the confidence to impose his quite different Question upon us Now Sir if it were possible this should escape your consideration yet since you appeal to Cherubinus his Compendium of this Bull you ought at least to have read and considered him and yet in truth I cannot believe it For was it possible that after Cherubinus too agreeing perfectly with the Pope had stated our Question you should have the boldness to deny it and obtrude your new fancied controversie of Charity upon us and appeal to this very Author whose words do most clearly and evidently condemn you But having heard the Pope I will satisfie my Reader and let him hear Flavius Cherubinus in his own words Because sayes he there arose a question among the Divines and others Whether the souls of Iust men departed in which there was nothing to be purged or if there were it was now purged did see the Divine Essence before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment 1. For the deciding of which question John xxii enjoyned the Cardinals Pr●lates and Divines in a Publick Consistorie That they should deliberately speak what they thought of it when he should demand it but being prevented by death could not perfect it Now Benedict the xii after a diligent examination and deliberation with the Cardinals of the Sacred Roman Church and by their counsel cleerly defines this question 2. seq. And another concerning souls deparned in mortal sin 4. And commands that it be proceeded against such as pertinaciously hold or assert the contrary as against Hereticks 5. And hereunto he adds a penal Sanction This is the whole Compendium of Cherubinus who directly with the Pope states our present Question and delivers us that it stands defined And yet against this evidence to which you your self appeal you have the confidence to tell us The sole and only Question was Whether perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven Sect. 13. Now Sir it is not possible for you to perswade an intelligen Reader as you endeavor page 24 that there was one onely Question disputed and defined in that time The Pope himself and Cherubinus to whom you appeal have in terms made two First Concerning the souls of Iust men in which nothing remains to be purged when they pass out of this life And secondly Of those souls in which something is to be purged And that there were more Questions then one determined by this self-same Bull that very Title which you say page 10. belongs to it and stands printed at Rome 1617. A definition of certain Articles concerning the blessed vision of God and the Beatitude and damnation of souls will clearly evince Let my Reader consider the word Articles the several states of souls of which our holy Faith is here delivered and I think he will rest satisfied it was not one only question much less your only question of Charity which stands here defined to us Nor will that Criticism that the Pope styles it Quaestio a Question and after him Cherubinus at all avail you for every one knows that where a question is stated of any Subject which suffers divisions and subdivisions it comprehends in it all those several questions which of every one of those divisions and subdivisions may justly be made and so it is in our very business where the present question concerning the state of departed souls extends to all the several conditions of souls which departed this life And that it was the Popes design and full purpose to deliver us what of all these we stand bound to believe will appear evidently by his exact division and enumeration of the several conditions in which souls depart from this their earthly habitation Both of Infants who after Baptism received dye before the use of freewill Of those who coming to the use of Reason after Baptism incur no blemish of sin Of those who in the same supposition have incurred the blemish of sin and yet depart this life having fully satisfied by worthy fruits of penance Of those who in the same supposition have incurred the blemish of sin and have not made full satisfaction but pass out of this life with a guilt of temporal punishment due in the next And lastly of those who depart this life in mortal sin and enmity to God of all which he here delivers our holy Faith so unquestionable a truth it is it was not one only or your only single question of Charity which stands here defined And truly Sir if your patience had held out to read but to the end of the second Scholion of this said Cherubinus to whom you appeal you would have found not only this one question of the souls of just men who depart this life without any need of being purged in the next or this other of those souls which so leave their bodies with a guilt of punishment in the next life but eight more questions answered and decided even according to this Cherubinus his judgment by this self same Bull of Pope Benedict the xii For thus he concludes I give you to understand that by this determination of Benedict the xii t●n Heresies are condemned which Eymericus in his Directory examines and relates In which Cherubinus was not at all mistaken for so indeed it is and since this Eymericus is an Author of that high esteem and deservedly and his Book hath received so signal an approbation by Gregory the xiii and is in deed as well as in title the Directory of the Inquisitors let us

of Purgatory cannot subsist or else the Council in our very point in question hath not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto proceeded to an erroneous definition de facto by this attempt hath fallen into an errour and de facto publisht it to the World And the Church which hath constantly imbraced this Faith hath de facto erred as well as it And now I hope your peremptory When hath received its answer your so many times reiterated question When is this purgation perfected comp●eated ended Take the Popes answer since I hope you are not so good a proficient as to detest and abhominate his authority to teach you faith before the resumption of their bodies and the general day of Iudgment Let the Council satisfie you if you are not poysoned with that detestable Doctrine that it may err too as well as the Pope being purged even uncloathed of their bodies presently Agree and reunite your self to the Catholick Church and be refractory no longer upon the itch of novelties of seeming wiser then all the Christian World ever was before you Sect. 21. But still you bite the Bridle these words so directly opposite to your errour are in these sacred decisions there they are and there they must remain maugre the Gates of Hell which shall never prevail against this Faith and when you have turned your self into all your postures you appear with this pitiful evasion these words are ●here indeed but say you pag. 19 20. c. they reach not home to our point The Popes ante reassumptionem c. before the reunion depends on the precedent words when after death they shall be purged and after the aforesaid purgation which words also should have stalked in great Letters This purgation is indeed supposed but no way defined and for the Councils Presently it also depends on the foregoing words being purged uncloathed c. which presupposes a purgation held by some divines in the state of separation but no way Decrees it and since the question was not then of the truth of this supposition as now it is but that then it was admittted without more adoe you grant us that in that supposition those words passed into the Pope and Councils Decrees The Pope indeed was of the opinion that the purgation ●f souls might be compleated in the state of separation but what does that concern you You lawfully dissent from his Opinion if you find reason but not from his Faith where he opin●s you follow him as far as his reason leads but where he defines you submit Now Sir as to this I wondered at your last word submit for I understand not you if you understand your Master We are here in a business of Faith and certainly you pass a very handsome complement upon the Pope when you tell him you submit to his definitions If this be real since your submission in faith can not be grounded but upon the supposition that he is infallible your Master will instantly discard you out of the School For an Heretick an Arch-Heretick for an introducer of Antichrist into Christendome This censure he hath fixt on this Doctrine as I have told you before But as to your plea though to use your own Phrase it is incomparably false as is before evinced nor can it according to your Masters own grounds take place in the Council where they proceed upon the depositum of Faith Yet to give you that satisfaction we will joyn issue in this your subtility as if your plea were allowable And in truth when you say that they proceeded on this as a supposition onely Yonr moderate Reader will much blame the boldness of this attempt because it will leave very ill consequences behind it and besides he will tell you that you had a very great disesteem both for the Pope● and Council and that you fancied them to be admirably ridiculous Persons who should proceed to definitions of Faith to declar● us Articles of our belief which regulate so much practis● on suppositions not only false but impossible The whole Christian World was in labour about the state of souls in Purgatory the East and Western Churches meet the diligent scru●iny of Divines make a search into all Libraries Papers Scrowls and after all these Throwes the issue is n●nsensical definitions upon not onely ridiculous and false but impossible suppositions If they had troubled their heads to tell us that when the Sky falls we shall catch Larks it had been tollerable the supposition had been foolish not impossible But to tell us and make ●uch a putther to tell us when you remaining yet what you are shall become an Angel what then shall happen when indeed nothing shall happen or any thing may happen is to render the supream Pastor of the Church the sacred Assemblies of ●h● shepheards of our souls a laughing stock to children And yet this is our very case according to you for upon this bare and impossible supposition that the purgation of separated souls might be compleated before reu●ion issued this impossible Doctrine that they were presently and before the day of Iudgment received into heaven And if you had but weighed those very Examples you use pag. 20. 21. you would have observed this What sense will this bear A Prisoner when acquitted by Proclamation becomes a free-man or Fire applyed to combustible matter presently burns if it be absolutely impossible the Prisoner should ever be acquitted by Proclamation or that fire should ever be applyed to combustible matter what practise can we regulate by such Positions and yet your self had a ●winkling light of it p. 21. for having asked your friend when you should see him in the Coantry You complain of his canting answer when he tells you as soon as he comes down he will visit you since as you say it was the confidence of this which made you inquire the other We must be confident then of the supposition or else what is drawn out of it is nothing If it were impossible your time should ever be out under this your new Master your setting up a new School for your self would signifie nothing If it be impossible That you should ever hav● performed your previous exercises your presently proceeding Doctour would be out of doors So ●hat without being an Oedipus if the supposition as you will needs have it that Souls may be purged uncloathed of their Bodies be impossible the definitions both of the ●ope and Councill are more silily ridiculous then any Fable in Aesop or Ovid for in these there is still some Morall or Physicall Mystery coucht for our Instruction in them nothing at all But how do you parrallel pag 22 23. your Adversaries proceed in obscuring some words in an obscure Letter or render it worse then if he should set in Cpaital Letters Christ is not risen from the dead and our preaching is vain in lieu of these words of St. Paul If Christ is not risen from the dead Then