but Christ requyres them to be done our part for they be our scores which be thus behind untill we shall have done all that he hath ordayned that we should doe to be partakers of the full fruit of his Passion in order to the cancelling of paines due for our sinns And we must either by our selves fill up what is behind or accomplish these things which want of the Passion of Christ to this effect or our charitable Brothers must by theyr suffering for us helpe us out as S. Paul here sayth he did helpe out the Coliossians by his suffering for them So that if we be fellows in his Passion we shall be fellows in his Resurrection and gloy Rom. 8.17 7. The obtayning of this remission of all sinns and of all paines due to these sinns which are committed after Baptisme is not done with that facility and easines with which all this was done in Baptisme but it is a thing requires much labour and paine Heb. 10.26 For if we sin willingly after the knowledge of truth receaved there is not left an Host for sins Wherefore though it be most true which was there sayd v. 14. By one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Yet the true meaning of that text is that he hath done this in that manner which he in his prudence and justice hath thought fitt that is he hath by that one oblation so perfected them for ever that they to be partakers of this consummated perfection compleated on his part must do all things which he exacts to be done on theyr parts that is believe repent resolue to keepe or endeavour to keepe the Commaundements If thus disposed they superadde Baptisme all is perfected wholy supposing theyr perseverance But if we sin after this Baptisme in which we professe the knowledge of the truth receaved there is now not an Host for sin that is the Host of Christ Crucified which is the oblation consummating them for ever is not left to witt it is not left to cancel and cleanse our sins so easily as before For none can again be baptized in cold water but wee must be rebaptized in the hott water of our teares in the baptisme of pennance for so the Scripture calls pennance in fasting sackcloath watching praying almesdeeds or else we must smart in Purgatory as by Scripture wee shall now prove THE XXV POINT Of Purgatory and prayer for the Dead 1. SOme are so ignorant in the understanding of Scripture that if they find not there the name of Purgatory they presently conclude that according to Scripture there is no such thing as Purgatory This is as great simplicity as it would be to deny the most Blessed Trinity because this name cannot be found in all the Scripture old or new Such men are to be taught that any thing is sufficiently proved out of Scripture if the Scripture can be shewed to contain such principles as cannot be true unlesse it be true allso that there is a Purgatory 2. I say then the Scripture holds forth vnto ut three severall principles all which three must be false unlesse we grant a Purgatory For first if any Scripture teach that although our sins be forgiven us whensoever we truly repent but yet that they are only forgiven so that all the paines due to them be not allwayes forgiven them together with these sins then that very Scripture teacheth us allso that there is a Purgatory because it may often happen that he to whom all sins were forgiven did depart this life before that all the paines due to those his sins were remitted These pains being due by divine Iustice and not being cancelled by any satisfaction made for them in this world it evidently follows that divine Iustice must exact the payment of them in the next world but not in Hell because no man is condemned to Hell who did truly repent for his sin Therefore some other place or state must needs be granted in which such a soule is to pay those temporall punishments which are yet due to her by divine Iustice This place or state is that which we call Purgatory 3. Secondly if any Scripture teach vs that we may live and dye with such sins as be not damnable but only deserve temporall punishment and not eternall that Scripture allso must needs teach us Purgatory which is nothing else but a place in which souls departed suffer only for a time and not for eternity 4. Thirdly if any Scripture teach us to pray for the dead that very Scripture teacheth us a Purgatory For prayers for the dead are unnescessary to those who are in heaven and unprofitable to such as are in Hell Those dead then who can receive help and relief by our prayers must neither be in heaven nor in Hell but in a third place which we call Purgatory My work then is done if I can shew that these three principles beheld forth unto us in Holy Scripture Yet fourthly we shall add severall other Texts in proofe of Purgatory 5. Let us now begin with the first principle and let us shew how the Scripture teacheth us that full often after the sin it self is forgived there do remain some pains yet due even to that sin We are all born in Originall sin This sin is quite forgiven to many children wether it by the faith of theyr parents as in the Law of nature or by Circumcision as in the old Law or by Baptisme as in the new And yet those very infants to whom this sin is forgiuen do notwithstanding for the selfsame forgiven sin suffer the punishment of death due unto them for no other cause but for that very originall sin which was forgiven them This is taught by S. Paul Rom. 5.12 As by one man sin entred into the world and by sin death so unto all death did passe yea truly unto all did death passe even to those innocent Children who have not committed the least offence in the world 6. In the book of Numbers ch 14 The people greviously offended God by murmuring But Moses praying earnestly for them our Lord said I have forgiuen it according to thy word But yet all the men that have seen the signes that I have done in Aegypt and in the wildernesse they shall not see the Land for which I sware to theyr Fathers v. 23. In this wildernesse shall your Carcases lye v. 28. and v. 32 Your Carcases shall be in the wildernesse your Children shall wander in the desert forty years and shall bear your fornication untill the Carcases of theyr Fathers be consumed in the desert And forty yeares shall ye bear your iniquities For as I have spoken so will I doe Note here that God with his own mouth sayd he had forgiven the sin and yet he with the same mouth and breath as I may say tells them there shall be still a just punishment undergone for this very sin for which though forgiven they shall dye in the wildernesse
and for forty yeares theyr very Children shall bear theyr fornication and they shall suffer all the incommodities of wandering in a wildernesse Can then any man wonder if they themselves who had theyr pardon on these termes and then were slain the very next day by theyr enemies should for a time yea perhaps for forty years suffer some punishment after death Eternall punishment the old sin being forgiven they could not suffer if they did no new one yet manifestly some punishmēt after death could not but be due to thē seeing that so great a punishment was so justly laid upon theyr Childrē for theyr sake for forty whole years 7. Let vs go on 2. Sam. ch 12. vpon Davids great repentance for his great sins of Murther and Adultery God by the Prophet Nathan tould him v. 13. Our Lord allso hath taken away thy sin Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Child that is borne unto thee shall surely die Behold the sin taken away and yet behold a punishment still due even for this deed Yea for this deed the sword shall not depart from thy house for ever I will take thy wives and give them to thy neighbours and they shall sleep with thy wives in the sight of this Sun v. 10.11 All which great punishments even after this forgiven sin did befall David and his family His son dyed v. 18. Three more of his own sons were slain Ammon in the next chapter Absolom chapter 18. Adonias 1. Kings v. 24. Yea Absolom before his death did raise an Army against David his Father and enforced him to fly Ierusalem being taken they pitched a tent for Absolom in the house top the leads of the place And he went to his Fathers Concubines before all Israël 2. Sam. Ch. 16. v. 22. Thus in the sight of the Sun lying with his own fathers wives called here concubines because they were not admitted to the title of Queenes 8. Our Lord sayd to Moses and Aaron Num. 20.12 because you have not believed me you shall not bring this people into the land which I will give them And v. 24. Aaron shall be gathared to his people that is shall dye for he shall not enter into the land which I have given to the Children of Israël because he rebelled against my word and v. 28. Aaron dyed there in the top of the mountaine and Ch. 27. v. 13. God sayd to Moses when thou hast seen the land of promise thou allso shall be gathered vnto thy people as Aaron thy Brother was gathered For ye rebelled against my commandment Thus you see these two great Saints both punished with a most speedy death For that very sin of which they being admonished by God himself questionlesse did repent Whence after this sin committed God did so familiarly converse with Moses from ch 20. to 27. By all these and a world of other such examples it is made evident that upon the true repentance of the delinquent though the pain of eternall death be allwayes forgiven him yet often the delinquent remaines liable to suffer temporall punishments even as in this world though upon the repentance of a delinquent deserving death the punishment of death be forgiven him yet he is justly made liable to suffer imprisonment or condemned to pay such a fine 9. Out of this principle it clearly followeth that there is a Purgatory for seeing that a man may dye before he hath suffered or satisfyed for the punishment due by divine Iustice unto him it doth necessarily follow that this punishment according to the same Iustice must be given him in the world to come not in hell because the sin is forgiven him but yet in the prison of Purgatory out of which he shall not go untill he hath paid the last farthing Matth. 5.26 It remains then proved that this principle so well grounded in Scripture cannot be true unlesse it allso be true that there is a Purgatory 10. I passe to the second principle teaching that some sins are only veniall deserving indeed some punishment but not eternall For as he were a Tyrant who would punish every offence though it deserves but whipping with a cruell death so we should have too too hard opinion of Gods Iustice if we believed that for every merry lye for every idle word or passionate speech for every trifling away of a small time unprofitably for every vain or lazy action he should punish the delinquent with death everlasting and the endlesse and unspeakable torments of Hell fire if the person dyeth without repentance as thousands must needs do who dye suddenly or out of theyr senses or in theyr sleep c. 11. That there be such veniall sins or smaller offences as these are which be truly sins yet not mortall or damnable is clear out of Scripture Exod 1.17 But the Midwives of Egypt feared God and preserved the men Children contrary to the command of the King who questioning them for breaking his commandment they answered The Hebrew weomen are not as the Egyptian weomen for they have the knowledg to play the Midwife themselves and before we come to them they are delivered God therefore did well to the Midwives and because they feared God be built them houses Here you shee the Midwives telling an officious lye which is a sin yet this sin did not take from them the love of God or made God hate them but they even then feared God as the Scripture sayth and he for this theyr fear exercised not in this lye but in theyr Charity and Mercy highly rewarded them Yet this lying being a sin divine Iustice could not but reserve some punishment for it though not eternall 12. Even so Iosue 2.2 The spies sent by Iosue entred the house of Rahab And it was told the King of Iericho He sent to Rahab saying bring forth the men that came to the for they be spies and the woman taking the men hid them and sayd I confesse they came to me when the gate was a shutting in the dark and they withall went out I know not whither they be gone persue quickly and you shall overtake them But she made the men go up to the roof of her house and covered them with the stalk of flax which was there Here you have another officious lye but only a veniall not a damnable sin By lying she sinned venially but by that act of charitably hiding the spies she pleased God For S. Paul sayth by Faith Rahab perished not receiving the spies with peace Hebr. 11. 31. And S. Iames chap. 2. v. 25. Rahab was she not justifyed by works receiving the Messengers and putting them forth another way after that she had first hid them Of these kind of veniall sins the Scripture allso sayth Seven times shall the just fall and rise again Prov. 24.16 For these smaller sins cast us not out of Gods favour wherefore by his grace we soon get pardon
took the mantle of Elias he smote the waters the second time and they were divided this way and that way and Elizeus passed over Do you not see how Elizeus yea rather how God honored by a stupendious miracle the cloake of Elias No wonder then Saints bodyes should be more graced with miracles then theyr garments Read what followeth there c. 13 v. 20. Elizeus therefore dyed and they buried him And the Bands of the Moabites invaded the Land the same yeare And it came to passe as they were burying a man behold they spyed a Band of men and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elizeus anciently they buried in the open fields making caves and grottes capable of more bodyes And when the man was lett downe and touched the bones of Elizeus he revived and stood upon his feet And will you be still scoffing at us for devout touching of Saints bones when so casuall a touch caused so great and stupendius a good to that man as was the restoring of his life Note allso how God honored Elizeus his bones by so miraculous an accident 2. Now to joyne the new Testament with the old I find that for keaping with all Reverence and rich inshrining of Reliques we read thus Heb. 9.4 In the which Ark was a golden pott having Manna and the rodd of Aaron that had budded and the Tables of the Covenant All these Reliques so honorably placed in gold and in the Ark were by consequence all hid by Ieremie with it and in it And so after the Captivity thus beeing miraculously found were with all pompe placed in the Temple which was restored by Zorobabel and amplified by Herod And there they remayned till Hierusalem under Titus and Vespasian was destroyed and had not left a stone upon a stone This is most to be noted because Protestants scoff so much at us for believing the wood of the H. Crosse aÌ„d many such Reliques to be preserved so many yeares uncorrupt Indeed though this be no part of our faith the probability of it is hence invincibly confirmed For the Tabernacle and all things perteyning to it was finished about the yeare of the world 2485. Now Christ was borne after the yeare of the world 4000. He lived 33. yeares and 40. yeares after his death Ierusalem was overthrown so that the Ark and Tabernacle with theyr Veiles and Courtaines and other appertinances lasted wel neer 2000. yeares uncorrupt and so the Rodd of Aaron so much inferior to the Crosse and the table of the Law yea and the Manna it self though so corruptible by nature that what was gathered one day would grow full of wormes the next day unlesse it were the Sabboth No wonder then many Reliques should keep and be reverently keept since Christs time which is farr shorter then the space which these Reliques were keept as appeares by S. Paul Lett us go on 3. What Relique meaner then the latchet of a shoe and yet S. Iohn Baptist the greatest Prophet which had risen sayd truly Io. 1. v. 27. Whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose For the Relation it had to Christ With what reverence think you would a S. Iohn Baptist have touched that poor leather thong Hence that devout woeman Matth. 9.21 If I may but touch his garment I shall be whole And Iesus turning him and seeing her sayth Thy faith hath made thee whole The faith therefore in this devout touch was not superstitious Note here how the cure was wrought by this exterior touch with interior faith see Mark 5.30 Luke 8.46 who Chap. 6.19 sayth The whole multitude sought to touch him For vertue came out of him and cured all We indeed touch the Reliques with faith and Reverence but the vertue by which any favour is granted comes from the Saint whose Reliques wee touch God giving him power to assist us for our devout recourse to him Hence Apoc. 2.26 He that shall overcome and keep my words to the end I will give him power over the nations He shall have power to helpe even whole nations but he shall have this power given by me I will give him c. 4. Note allso that the very manner of applying other things to touch Saints Bodyes and after they have touched them to apply them with devotion a thing most ieered at by our Adversaries is notwithstanding a thing recommended unto us in Scripture proposing the example of the first and best Christians in this point Act. 19.12 There were allso brought from his Pauls body napkins or handkerchâ—fs upon the sick and the deseases departed from them and the wicked spirits went out Do not then blame us for hoping to obtaine some blessings by wearing Saints bloud or bones or other Reliques which commonly have a farr greater Relation to them then those napkins or handkerchifs had to S. Paul meerly in respect of a simple touch of his body unles you dare venture to say that it is more to touch a Saints Body when his soule liveth in it then when his soul lives with God in heaven I pray tell me what hath a thinner relation to man then his shadow Or what apprentise Painter of one days standing will not be able to make a better Image of such a man then his shadow is And yet the first and purest Christians did hold the very shadow of Saints in great veneration either because it was a kind of Picture of them or had some smale relation at lest to them And God confirmed theyr devotion by a world of miracles Act. 5.5 In so much that they did bring forth theyr sick into the streits and layd them in beddes and couches that at lest the shadow of Peter passing by might over shadow some of them Our Bibles have that they all might be delivered from theyr infirmities Which it seems they should not have been though they had been neerer to him on the other side on which the Sunne shined Note here that there beeing so great a resort of all and all beeing cured surely many came devoutly from remoter parts to enjoy this favour Blame not then our Pilgrimages to his Body it self at Rome where he is enterred beeing the Scripture sheweth many to have come to his very shadow to obtaine help 5. The Point following hath so great connexion with this present point that as we desire the Reader to note all here sayd for proof of that point so we desire him for further proof of this point to have recourse to what shall be sayd in the point following And particularly in both thefe points we earnestly intreate our adversaries to observe how many and how strong Texts we bring for our doctrine in these points and how few and how weak proofs they can bring out of Scripture to the contrary It is a shame to them to appeale to Scripture in these Points or to say they will reforme our errors in them by clear Scripture which is here so clear against them THE XLII POINT