contracted thou out of thy goodness and compassion mayst mercifully wash away To the same end are referred also the following Prosopopoeias wherein the Soul of every deceased Person is represented with motions of fear suitable to such as it might have had during the couse of this Life As for instance Libera me Domine c. O Lord deliver me from eternal death in that dreadfull day when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken when thou shalt come to Judge the World by Fire I am become trembling and fear till the discussion and wrath to come shall be over That day is a day of wrath calamity and misery a great day and very bitter when thou shalt come Again this Domine quando veneris c. O Lord where shall I hide my self from the countenance of thy wrath when thou comest to Judge the Earth For I have sinned extremely during my life I am frightened at the things I have committed and blush before thee when thou comest to Judge do not condemn me And this Memento mei Deus c. O God have me in remembrance because my life is but wind let the eye of him that hath seen me see me no more Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Lord Hear O Lord when I cry with my voice And this Hei mihi c. Wo unto me O Lord for I have sinned overmuch in my life What shall I do Wretch that I am Whither shall I flie if not unto my God Have compassion on me when thou shalt come at the Last day My soul is sore vexed but do thou Lord deliver it be mercifull c. And this Legem pone c. Teach me O Lord the way of thy Commandments and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies Deliver me not into the will of mine enemies for false Witnesses are risen up against me and iniquity hath belyed it self yet I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And this Peccantem me quotidie c. Sinnning daily and not repenting the fear of death distracts me in regard There is no redemption in Hell O God be mercifull unto me and save me O God save me for thy Name sake and deliver me in thy Power And this other Domine secundùm actum meum noli me judicare c. O Lord Judge me not according to what I have done I have done nothing in thy presence worthy it I therefore beseech thy Majesty to do away mine iniquity O Lord wash me from my injustice more and more and cleanse me from my sin And this other Sitivit anima mea c. My soul thirsteth for God when shall I come and appear before the Lord Deliver not the soul of thy Turtle-dove unto the multitude forget not the Congregation of thy poor for ever Our Father c. And Lastly this Libera me Domine c. O Lord who hast broken the Gates of Brass and visited Hell and given light that they might see thee to those who were in the Torments of darkness crying and saying Thou arâ— come O our Redeemer deliver me out of the ways of Hell For there is not any Body so weakly instructed as not easily to comprehend that the Authours of these Complaints and Lamentations meant them rather for the advantage and edification of the living by putting them in minde of the fear and trembling wherein they should be in the presence of their Lord then to represent the State of the Dead which they have been forced to express after their Fancy as such as had some resemblance with that of poor Wayfaring-men who yet walk in the Flesh because they had not any manifest knowledg thereof but onely Conjectures and presumptions and those many times not very conformable to the Rule of Faith and the Sentiments of the purest Antiquity Since it is absolutely impossible that he who makes a Prayer for his Soul should be any other thing then that Soul for which he Prays and that the Wish he makes that God would teach him the way of his Statutes which is onely in this Life and the Confession of sinning daily and the Prayer to be delivered out of the ways of Hell should suit with any but Travellers who walk yet in the Flesh struggling as they go with their own imperfections and the Infernal Powers and by continued endeavours tending to their rest whereof the separated Souls of the Faithfull departed who have finished their course in Faith and Hope must necessarily be possessed from the very moment of their separation The same moderation is required to finde out the true sense of the Prayers which seem to presuppose a certain deliverance out of Infernal pains wherein the deceased are ready to be tormented as when we read in the Missal Domine Jesu Christe c. O Lord Jesus Christ King of Glory deliver the Souls of all the Faithfull departed out of the power of Hell and out of the bottomless Lake deliver them out of the mouth of the Lyon Let not Hell swallow them up let them not fall into the obscure places of darkness but let the Standard-bearer St. Michael bring them into that holy light which thou didst sometime promise to Abraham and to his Seed We offer unto thee O Lord â—…oasts and Prayers for them receive the same for those Souls whom we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to an holy life And in the Office of the Dead A portâ inferni erus Domine animas eorum requiescant in pace Amen c. O Lord deliver their Souls from the Gate of Hell may they rest in peace Amen For though upon the first glance these words seem to revive the Hypothesis which Justin Martyr had drawn up out of the Quagmire of the counterfeit Sibyl imagining that the Soul of the greatest Saints were afer their departure out of the body sent to Hell and were subject to the power of evil Spirits yet must they necessarily have another signification and onely induce that God alone preserves those whom he calls so as that they fall not into the power of Hell but are by the Ministery of his holy Angels introduced into celestial light and that they are delivered not as escaping out of some Torment which they had for some time indured but as avoiding the necessity of enduring it And whereas it is said that the Hoasts mentioned in those Prayers are offered to Jesus Christ it necessarily induces that they neither are nor can be Jesus Christ himself as the Church of Rome imagines at this day but Gifts presented to God by his people as an expression of their gratitude And since what is said without any exception viz. That they are offered for the Souls of all the departed whose commemoration is celebrated it demonstratively proves that they are and were according to the intention of the Antients
that we are made partakers of their Dignity that they are to be honoured by way of imitation and not adored upon any religious accompt In a word that neither the Blessed Virgin Mother of our Saviour nor any of the Saints of either Sex can pretend to any part of that religious homage Saint Epiphanius one of the most earnest maintainers of Prayer for the Dead hath left to them and the whole Church of these last times these remarkable Precepts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Indeed the Body of Mary was holy but it was not God the Virgin was indeed a Virgin and honoured but she was not given us to be adored on the contrary she adored him who was begotten of her as to the flesh c. If God will not have the Angels to be adored how much rather will he not that she who was born of Ann should be c. God came from Heaven and the Word was clad in flesh taken from the holy Virgin but the Virgin is not adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Father Son and Holy Spirit be adored Let no man adore Mary though Mary be excellent and holy and honoured it is not that she should be adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Lord be adored But not to press any further this notorious defect which we finde at present in the Service of the Greeks we are to observe that among them the Office of the Dead is full of Prayers whereby is desired as in the Latine Service the mercy of God the remission of the sins of the deceased his absolution his blessed resurrection his introduction into rest into Abraham ' s Bosom into the Mansion of the blessed into refreshment into Paradise into the Tabernacle of God into his Kingdom glory light to the right hand of the great Judge into the Society of the Saints and Angels all which Expressions according to the Hypotheses of Antiquity may be applied to the Spirits already received into glory Which is so much the more evident for that the particular Office which concerns the Obsequies of Children is full of these Prayers that God would number the deceased among the Children to whom he hath promised his Kingdom that he would place him among the just who are acceptable in his sight that he would make him partaker of the good things which are above this World that he would let him enter into the joys of the Saints that in his holy Mountain he would gratifie him with celestial goods that he would write his name in the Book of those who shall be saved that he would make his face to shine upon him that he would lodge him in Abraham ' s Bosom that he would grant him the enjoyment of his Kingdom c. Yet were not these Desires made without a presupposition of his Beatitude as First when it is said to him He who hath taken thee from the Earth and gives thee place among his Saints shew◠that thou O truly blessed Childe art a Citizen of Paradise The Sword of Death falling on thee hath cut thee off as a tender Branch O blessed art thou who hast made no tryal of worldly pleasures but behold Christ opening the Gates of Heaven to thee numbring thee◠out of his great goodness among the Elect◠Secondly When he is brought in making this Discourse Why do you bewail me a Childe translated out of the World for I am not a Subject to be bewailed The joy of all the just is required for those Children who have not done works worthy Tears Thirdly When he acknowledges that Death is a freedom to Children that they are thereby exempted from the miseries of life and that they are gone to rest that they rejoyce in Abraham ' s Bosom in the divine Quires of Blessed Children and assuredly dance because their departure hence was a deliverance from the corruption which loves sin If then the Ritual of the Creeks be full of Prayers for the Children whom they unanimously acknowledge to be among the Blessed what inconvenience can there be to attribute to them that they had the same apprehension for persons of age of whose felicity they no way doubted But though reason should not lead us to think so yet does their formal confession obliges us to believe as much for there is not any deceased person for whom they say not to God Mercifully receive the faithfull person departed who hath holily quitted this life and is O Lord passed towards thee and whose Funeral Solemnities they do not conclude saying to him three several times Our Brother worthy to be ever blessed and always remembred thy memory is eternal To every Monk without any exception they address these words Brother thè way thou art in is that of bliss for that a place of rest is prepared for thee adding to that purpose the sixteenth Verse of the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm Return unto thy rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt kindly with thee and a little after He who is taken hence hath passed through the ever-troubled Sea of Life and by Faith is arrived at his Port conduct him O Christ with the Saints into thy tranquillity and ever-living pleasures In like manner to every Priest Thou hast piously signalized thy self in Faith Charity Hope Gentleness Purity of life and in the Sacerdotal dignity and therefore O Brother of eternal memory God who is before all Ages whom thou hast served will himself dispose thy Spirit into a place full of light and pleasure where the just are in rest and will make thee obtain of Christ at the day of Judgment pardon and great mercy And the deceased Person is introduced using these words I am now at rest and have found great favour for that I have been transferred from the corruption of life glory be to thee O Lord c. Thy divine Servant Deified in his Transportation by thy now-enlivening Mystery is come towards thee To every Woman departed Detain not any longer O malicious Hell the Souls of the Elect in the condemnation of the Transgression for all being now made assuredly conformable to Christ instead of Death receive divine life In a word she is made to say the same words as had been attributed to the Priest I am now at rest c. All these Confessions grounded on the Lessons of Scripture which for the most part contain assurances of the Love of God towards those who serve him and promises of their future Beatitude and glorious Resurrection demonstratively prove that the first Compilers of the Greek Office agreeing in what is most substantial with the Protestants believed that whoever dies in the Faith of the Lord does from the moment of his Death enjoy rest and glory in him and with him But for as much as from time to time the purity of belief and worship receiving adulteration among them there rose up a sort of people apt to feign any
to imagine any such thing of the Proconsul of Asia nor to presuppose that to comply with that Extravagance he had driven St. John who was not within his Jurisdiction from any place when at the same time that the Jews were forced to depart Rome St. Paul Priscilla Aquila and Apollos who were no less of Jewish Extraction then John sojourned at Ephesus without disturbance their Brethren according to the Flesh enjoyed there as much liberty as ever nay even when Demetrius had with those of his Profession made an Insurrection in the City against Saint Paul they thought themselves sufficiently Authorised to pacifie the Tumult thrusting out Alexander their Brother out of the Multitude and charging him to speak to the enraged People for if it were to no purpose that they attempted it it was at least without apprehension of any danger either to themselves or him Whence it follows that not onely without any necessity but also without any ground it is imagined that St. John who was not yet come to Ephesus when the Edict of Claudius came forth against the Jews was driven thence by Virtue of that Edict which no way concerned him and that if there never could be any excuse to introduce Novelties into the Business of Religion we should be much further from advancing ruinous Hypotheses to maintain the more ruinous Design of opposing common Sentiments So that no man should think it strange if through the just Judgment of God those who take a pleasure in contradicting things that are most evident unadvisedly engage themselves in inconsistent Opinions to the prejudice of their Reputation and such as are more apt to raise Compassion for their Weakness then Jealousie upon account of the great Esteem due to them CHAP. IV. A Refutation of the Sentiment of Johannes Hentenius of Maechlin concerning the Time of the Apocalyps HAving demonstrated the Improbability of the Sentiment as well of St. Epiphanius as of him who would needs make it his ground to build upon not considering he should do himself a thousand times more injury by following it contrary to the Truth then he could have done by contradicting it to promote the Truth he made it his Design to establish I conceive it lies upon me to discover the absurdity of another fond Conceit which to bring with less inconvenience the Tradition of the Church into Dispute about the year 1545. hath referred the writing of the Apocalyps to the Time of Nero ten years and more later then according to the Computation of Saint Epiphanius Johannes Hentenius an Hieronymite born at Maechlin who is the Authour of it would needs in his Preface upon the Commentary of Arethas entertain us with the following Discourse It seems to me that John the Apostle and Evangelist who is also called the Divine was Banished to Patmos by Nero at the very same time that he put to death at Rome the blessed Apostles of Christ Peter and Paul Tertullian who lived near the Times of the Apostles affirms as much in two several places Eusebius also treats of the same thing in his Book of Evangelical Preparation though in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History he saith it happened under Domitian which St. Hierome and divers others follow But to these last mentioned Books as such as were written some years before there is not so much Authority attributed as to that of Evangelical Preparation which was an after Work on which more care and exactness was bestowed Thus are we furnished by this man with a third Opinion inconsistent as well with the two precedent as the Truth it self which declares onely for the first confirmed by St. Irenaeus and others of the Antients and what should make this new Production the more contemptible is that it will be found grounded onely upon Chimaerical Suppositions and taking it at the best advantage speaks nothing positively Affirmative For whereas it is confidently affirmed that Tertullian assures us in two several places that Saint John was Banished at the time of the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul it is absolutely false that Father who makes mention of the Sufferings of the Saints Peter Paul and John jointly all together in one onely place to wit in the thirty sixth of his Praescriptions expressing it onely in these Terms That Church to wit that of Rome is very happy for which the Apostles spent their Doctrine and spilled their Blood where Peter was equalled to the Passion of his Lord that is to say Crucified where Paul was crowned with the same way of Departure as John that is to say Beheaded as St. John Baptist was where the Apostle John after he had been cast into the seething Oil yet suffered nothing was Banished into the Isle Whence it is evident that his Design was to shew that St. John was persecuted not at the same Time but at the same Place where St. Peter and St. Paul were so that his Discourse which proves nothing of what is in Question abates nought of its Truth though it be believed that Saint John's Banishment happened under Domitian and that eight and twenty years after the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul under Nero. Besides the place before cited there is in all the Works of Tertullian no more mention of the Writing of St. John then there is of the Discovery of the West-Indies so that Hentenius who brags that he had read what he says in them must needs read it in his Sleep Nor is there less Imposture in what he attributes to Eâ—sebius who in his third Book of Evangelical Preparation and the seventh Chapter having spoken of the Imprisonment of all the Apostles by the High-Priests of Jerusalem and afterwards of their Scourging of the Stoning of St. Stephen of the Decollation of St. James the Son of Zebedaeus of the Restraint of St. Peter and the Stoning of St. James the Brother of our Lord adds Peter was crucified at Rome with his Head downwards Paul had his Head cut off and John was Banished into an Isle For it is manifest that this Discourse designing neither the Place nor the Time of the Sufferings of these Holy men cannot oblige any Body to believe that they were persecuted by the same Tyrant and at the same Time and that nothing hinders but that according to Eusebius himself as well in his Chronicle as History the two former were put to Death by the command of Nero and the last Banished eight and twenty years after by Virtue of a Decree of Domitian's So that for a man to imagine the contrary from Eusebius cannot be without wresting his Words and to think to deduce it from the same words by the force of Ratiocination will amount to as much as a discovery of want of Reason and argue that the Person who attempts it dreams waking The said Authour thinks to give us a third Proof for confirmation of his Opinion when relying on a wrong Interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
while there shall onely be an Ostentation to name it and men shall wave to express the Nature of it to give the Eastern Greeks and the Protestants who absolutely deny it some proof of the Tradition which they pretend to produce for the Confirmation thereof CHAP. XXX Shewing that the first Hypothesis proposed by the Sibylline Writing so called is generally disclaimed AS to the first Hypothesis which concerns The detention of all souls whatsoever in Hell from their separation from the Bodies which they had animated to their Resurrection though it were in such high esteem that it induced the Christians of the second and third Ages to compose the ibera and the other Prayers in which the departed Person is introduced desiring to be delivered from eternal Death and the Living require that he be delivered from the Gates of Hell and preserved from the places of Torment Tartarus the deep Lake from the pains of Darkness from the mouth of the Lion yet was it at the very beginning moderated by those who seemed to have embraced it with greatest resolution For Tertullian perswaded by the Relation had been made to him of the Visions of St. Perpetua was of Opinion as we have already observed that the Souls of Martyrs were by way of preference placed in the Terrestrial Paradise and the rest confined in Hell And since it hath by little and little been abandoned yet so as that those who quitted it would not be obliged either to the rejection of the Sibylline Writing which had occasioned the production of it or to a change of the Prayers introduced into the Publick Service which presupposed it For many making no mention of Hell contented themselves to assign at least in words the souls of the Faithfull a certain sequestred place as under the Altars and Holy Tables appointed for the conservation and distribution of the Eucharist and upon that accompt if we may rely on the Judgment of the late Bishop of Orleans Gabriel de l'Aubespine the Councel Assembled about the year 305. from all Parts of Spain at Elvira near Granada had drawn up its thirty fourth Canon in these Terms Cereos per diem placuit in Coemeterio non incendi inquietandi enim spiritus Sanctorum non sunt c. It is thought good that in the day-time no Wax-candles should be lighted in the Church-yard for the spirits of the Saints are not to be disturbed In effect it might seem that the Christians at that time meeting in Coemeteries or Church-yards the Altars being upon that occasion placed there and many believing that the Angels and separated souls were disposed into some subtile Bodies capable as ours of resenting strong Perfumes Prohibition was made by the Spanish Prelates That Wax-candles should be lighted in the day-time lest the smoak of them might prove offensive to the spirits of the Faithfull whose Bodies had been there interred It might also be thought that Vigilantius by Birth indeed of Aquitain but a Priest of Barcelona who had with all Spain received the Decree of Elvira Disputing in the year 406. viz. an hundred years precisely after the said Decree against the Maintainers of the Worship done according to the Custom of that Time to the Reliques of the Saints whom he justly conceived illuminated by the Majesty of the Lamb sitting in the midst of the Throne of God crushed them with the Inconvenience which he found in their Opinion saying Ergò cineres suos amant animae Martyrum circumvolant eos sempérque praesentes sunt nè fortè si aliquis Precator advenerit absentes audire non possint c. The Souls therefore of the Martyrs are in love with their own dust and fly about it and are ever at hand lest if any one comes to pray they should not being absent hear him For this Argument makes onely against those who assigned at least in appearance the Souls of the Faithfull departed for their habitation the Place under the Altars that were near their Sepulchres There is also some Ground to number among the Followers of this strange Opinion those who had been so confident as to give it for certain to the good St. Augustine that St. John having caused himself to be buried alive at Ephesus the Earth continually sprung up and boyled as it were over the place of his Interment For if they thought it no Inconvenience to say of our Saviour's Beloved Apostle that he was confined to his Sepulchre there to expect in Body and Soul the Day of Judgment how much less would they have thought it to reduce the Souls of other Saints departed to the same condition St. Augustine thought it better to comply with the Opinion which he conceived could not be refuted by certain Proofs But it is so vanished of it self that being at this day generally declined we need not trouble our selves with the Confutation thereof no more then of that of Justine Martyr who from the Hypothesis of the pretended Sibylline Writing and the Story of the Witch of Endor inferred that all Souls without any exception either of Saints or Patriarchs or Prophets are in Hell under the power of the Devils For though the Prayers whereby it is even to this day required in the Church of Rome that God would deliver the Souls of the Faithfull departed from the power of Hell from the Mouth of the Lion from the Pains of Darkness and that he would put away far from them the Princes of darkness do notoriously discover they drew their Original from such a presupposition yet hath it nevertheless so absolutely lost all Credit that even in the year 380. Philastrius Bishop of Brescia charged it with Heresie saying Alia est Haeresis de Pythonissa c. There is another kind of Heresie concerning the Witch whereby some covering a Woman with Cloaths hoped they might obtain certain Answers from her whence it is said that that Witch raised out of Hell the Soul of the blessed Samuel and for that reason is it principally that many men even to this Day suspect that she might be believed especially for that it is known that she as it were a second time gave in that excitation true Answers of those things which the blessed Prophet had said to King Saul and because many are content to acquiesce in a Ly they descend into perpetual death since the Prophet saith The Souls of the Just are in the hand of the Lord and Death toucheth them not How then could an impious Soul raise out of Hell a pious and holy one especially that of a Prophet But what a strange astonishment must we necessarily conceive at this that the Opinion of Justine Martyr concerning the State of Souls should displease the whole Church which yet in her Service presupposed some such thing For if it be Heresie to think that the Souls of the â—aithfull after their retirement out of this World should be in danger of being exposed to the Rage of
Devils what pretence can there be to continue the Prayers which infinuate such a perswasion And if the Ground-work of such Prayers be taken away what reason can be alledged sufficient to authorise the continuance of them Can it be said It is lawful and consistent with the Piety of the Church to put up to God Requests that are erroneous according to her own Sentiment and impossible according to the perswasion she hath of the merciful disposal of her Saviour in respect of his Elect whom he hath taken away from the Evil to come to sleep in a sleep of Peace and to rest from their Labours And supposing these things grounded upon the express Text of the Scripture and the Canon of the Mass whâ—ch makes commemoration to God onely of those who sleeping a sleep of Peace are accordingly in Peace should not men think themselves obliged either to discard those Prayers which contain a formal expression of what is contrary to Peace in respect of those for whom they are made and prove so much the more fruitless and inconvenient by how much the Foundations thereof are undermined by rejecting the Hypotheses as well of the pretended Sibyllmâ— Writing as of Justine Martyr or by retaining them to run into the Inconvenience of a Contradiction and that so much the more inevitable the more unadvisedly they engage themselves upon the maintaining of both the Terms of it at the same time affirming on the one side that those who are to be delivered out of the Bonds of a dreadful death and from the Gates of Hell a place of Trouble and as the Text of the Prayer bears it of Pains are neither in Death nor in Bonds nor in Hell that those far from whom must be driven away the Princes of Darkness are not onely not engaged in any War against them but are in a condition to sleep the sleep of Peace to be in possession of Peace to rest in the enjoyment of that Peace from their Labours And on the other side that those who are taken away from the evil to come so as they sleep in Peace and rest from their Labours are in the most dreadful Abyss of Miseries in the horrour of the most irrevocable War and the extremity of Troubles And what does this amount to less then to affirm that they are and are not either in Peace and Rest or in Trouble and War and consequently that they both can and cannot be delivered out of them Time was when those who followed the Party of the Millenaries imagining that during the term of a thousand years which they assigned for the Earthly Kingdom of our Saviour in Jerusalem there should be a Resurrection preceding the general one of the Last-day and upon that accompt be called the First thought they had just ground to beg that their deceased Friends might have their part in that first Resurrection But as soon as their Imagination lost to all credit came of it self to be absolutely laid aside the use of that kind of Prayers came upon this very score that every one thought them ill-grounded 〈◊〉 to be so far abolished that there is no Track of them in any of the Formularies that are come to us but onely in the â—â—othick Which if who sees not there is the same Obligation to â—brâ—gâ—te the Praâ—ers which are as hath been clearly demonstrated formally contradicted by the Canon of the Mass whereby the Church of Rome is wholly directed at the present CHAP. XXXI That the Passage in the twelfth Chapter of the second Book of the Maccabees hath no relation to the Opinion of Purgatory nor to the Service of the Churches THe Doctours of the Romane Communion pretend that the Christians of the second Age grounded their Prayers for the Dead upon the Authority of the second Book of the Maccabees unknown as we have observed to the Jews who were contemporary with the Apostles or at least slighted by them and looked upon with so much indignation by the Christians that not any one of them before St. Augustine cited it with any respect to the Offices rendred by the surviving Faithfull to their departed Brethren Nay indeed none among them could without destroying his own presuppositions concerning the State of the Dead make any advantage of that Testimony which notoriously wrests the action and intention of Judas Maccabaeus to a wrong sence and applies it to the false Hypothesis which the Jews of the last times did and do still maintain so much the more obstinately the more they are perswaded that it may be derived from the words of the first Psalm in the fifth Verse saying that the wicked shall not stand or as the Greek Version and the antient Latine hath it shall not rise up in Judgment Since therefore they were of this extravagant Opinion that the Resurrection of the Last-day should be onely for the Just and that those who had concluded a criminal Life in the Wrath of God should not participate thereof it must needs be that having perswaded thereto either Jason the Cyrenaean or his Abridger the said Jason or other man had conceived it necessary that Judas should make a Prayer for a sort of unhappy wretches whom he acknowledged destroyed in their Sacrilege to the end that being freed from their sin they might be made capable of the Resurrection which according to their prejudicated judgment was to be peculiar onely to those who had continued and concluded their lives in piety This Imagination could not relate to any of the Opinions of the antient Christians assured by St. Paul that every one should appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ to receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad and unanimously presupposing that Judgment should be given of all good and bad according to their works and consequently believing that there would be a double Resurrection that is to say that of the righteous to eternal life and glory and that of the wicked to death and shame and everlasting contempt But let us put the Case that the Sentiment whether of the Authour of the Second Book of the Maccabees or of his Abridger was absolutely conformable to so manifest and so known a Truth and that he alledged this onely end of the Prayer attributed by him to Judas that the Dead for whom onely he pretends that he made it being freed from their sins were thereupon conveyed to the enjoyment of Beatitude which shall have its full accomplishment in the Resurrection which the Fathers call the proper Faith of Christians and the consummation of the glory which they expect Nay let us put the Case that the Latine Church had from the beginning a great esteem for the Testimony of that Person if as is supposed she drew up her Service according to the President of Judas Maccabaeus whence comes it that in the Canon of the Mass she hath made no mention of the Resurrection
art fled That of Pope Boniface the Fifth deceased the 25 th of October 625. Ad magni culmen honoris abit c. He 's gone of honour to th' accomplishment That of Pope Honorius deceased the twelfth of October 638. Aeternae luis Christo dignante perennes Cum Patribus sanctis posside jámque domos Thou who to ' th' holy Sires hast ta'ne thy flight Enjoy through Christ th' eternal Seats of Light That of Pope Benedict II. deceased the seventh of May 685. Percipe salvati praemia celsa gregis c. The high rewards of those are sav'd receive That of Ceadwalla King of the West-Saxons deceased the twentieth of April 689. Indict 2. Mente superna tenet Commutâsse magis sceptrorum Insignia credas Quem regnum Chrsti promeruisse vides c. His spirit in heaven soars Who to Christ's Throne is raised may be said But an exchange of Scepters to have made That of Theodore of Canterbury deceased the 19 th of September 690. Alma novae scandens felix consortia vitae Civibus Angelicis junctus in arce Poli c Advanc'd to a society of Bliss With Angel-Citizens h'in heaven is That of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of York deceased October the 12 th 709. Gaudens coelestia regna petivit c. Rejoycing he to heav'n's gone That of Bede rsinamed Venerable deceased May 26th being Ascension-Day which argues his death to have happened in the year 735. Juni septenis viduatus carne Kalendis Angligena Angelicam commeruit Patriam c. May's twenty sixth of flesh uncloathed Bede Mongst Angels went to have a heav'nly meed That of Richard King of England deceased February the 7 th 750. Regnum tenet ipse Polorum c. Of heav'n's Kingdom he 's possess'd That of Fulrad Abbot of St. Denys deceased in the year 784. Credimus idcirco Coelo societur ut illis c. In heav'n we Believe him blest with their society That of Meginarius his Successour Post mortem meliùs vivit in arce Poli c. Death past he lives in heav'n a better life That of Arichis Duke of Beneventum deceased the six and twentieth of August 787. Te pro meritis nunc Paradisus habet c. For thy good Works heaven is thy reward That of Tilpin Arch-Bishop of Rheims deceased the second of September 789. Mortua quando fuit mors sibi vita maner c. When Death is dead Life his Portion is That of Pope Adrian the First deceased the 26th of December 795. Mors janua vitae Sed melioris erat Death was the entrance of a better Life That of Peter Bishop of Pavia deceased about the same time Admistus gaudet caetibus Angelicis c. Retinent te gaudia Coeli c. Rejoycing among Angels he Heav'n's joys thy entertainment are That of Hildegard first Wife of Charle-maign deceased in the year 783. April the thirtieth Pro dignis factis sacra regna tenes Thy worthy acts the sacred Kingdom gain'd That of Fastrada second Wife of the same Prince deceased in the year 794. Modò Coelesti nobilior Thalamo c. A heav'nly bed makes her more Noble That of Count Gerald deceased in the year 799. Sideribus animam dedit He rendred his Soul to heaven That of Hildegard Daughter by his first Wife Tu nimium felix gaudia longa petis c. Thou ever-happy to long Joys dost go That of Charle-maign himself deceased on Saturday the eighth of January 814. Meruit fervida saec'li Aetherei c. Aequora transire placidum conscendere portum c. That of Adelbard Abbot of St. Peter of Corbie deceased the second of January 822. Paradisi jure colonis c. Inhabitant of Pardise That of Ermengard Wife to the Emperour Lotharius deceased the twentieth of March being Good-Friday in the year 852. Linquens regna soli penetravit regna Polorum Cum Christo sanctis gaudia vera tenens c. Leaving Earth's Crowns to those of Heav'n she 's gone With Christ and 's Saints in exultation That of Lewis the Debonnaire who died on Sunday the twentieth of June 840. In pacis metas colligit hunc pietas c. Him Piety brings into the land of Peace That of Dreux Bishop of Mets deceased the eighth of November 857. Spiritus in requie laetus ovat Abrahae c. The joyfull spirit exults in Abra'm's Rest That of the Emperour Lewis the Second deceased the thirteenth of August 875. Gaudet Spiritus in Coelis Corporis extat honos c. The Body's honour is Apparent but the spirit 's in heave'nly bliss That of the Emperour Carolus Calvus deceased the sixth of October 877. Spiritum reddidit ille Deo c. He to God his Spirit return'd That of Ansegisus Arch-Bishop of Sens deceased the twenty fifth of November 883. Spiritus Astra tenet c. Of heav'n his Spirit 's possest That of John Scotus dead the same year Christi conscendere regnum Quo meruit sancti regnat per saecula cuncti c. He to ascend Christ's Kingdom did obtain Where all the Saints eternally do reign That of Pope John the Eighth deceased the fifteenth of December the year before Et nunc coelicolas cernit super Astra Phalanges c. Above the Skies Now he the heav'nly Batallions spyes That of Ermengard Daughter of Lewis King of Germany deceased the three and twentieth of December about the same time Bis denos octo vitae compleverat annos Migrans ad sponsum Virgo beata suum c. Twice eighteen years this Maid had liv'd compleat When happy she went hence her Spouse to meet That of Bruno Arch-Bishop of Cullen deceased the eleventh of October 969. Iam frueris Domino Thou now enjoy'st the Lord. That of Notger Abbot of St. Gal deceased the sixth of April 981. Idibus octonis hic carne solutus Aprilis Coelis invehitur c. Having laid down his fleshy burthen on The sixth of April he to heav'n is gone That of Gonzales cited by Prudentio de Sandoval Bishop of Pampeluna to the year of the Julian Period 1030. or of Christ 992. A qui reposa y en la gloria goza c. Here rests and glorious happiness enjoys That of Donna Sancia Dio fin glorioso a esta vida Par a gozar de la aeterna c. That she might gain eternal life in Bliss She gave a glorious Period unto this That of Sancia Countess of Castile Bis vinctum Comitem è carcere adduxit Coelicas sedes beata quae possidet c. She out of Prison twice her Count reliev'd To heav'nly Seats who happy now 's receiv'd That of Count Fernand of Gonzalva Belliger invictus ductus ad Astra fuit c. To heav'n th' undaunted Souldier was convey'd And Sebastian of Salamanca speaking of Ordonio the First places him in Heaven saying Felix stat in Coelo c. Laetatur cum sanctis Angelis in Coelestibus regnis c. He is happy in heaven
cunctipotens animae c. Pardon thy Soul he whom all things obey he takes him for an Intercessour as he in requital Prays for him saying Oramus pro te pro nobis quaesumus ora c. We pray for thee thou us thy Pray'rs afford And elsewhere he lays it down as certain that the one and twentieth of January the day of his Decease Destituit Mundo substituitque Polo Snatch'd him from hence to place him in the Skie which cannot stand without his being received into Heaven In those of Howel Bishop of Mans deceased in the year 1129. and of the Abbot Joel having said Morte pari modicò Deus attigit ambos Ut sint translati Sidera magna Poli c. In equal death God did them both conjoyn Translated hence in Heav'n great Stars to shine A Discourse representing them already possessed of Celestial Glory and and particularly of the former Coram Sancto Vota vovent Tumulo c. Before his Tomb their Vows they pour Whence it follows that they took him for their Patron and must of necessity think him in Happiness Yet does he nevertheless pray for him saying Praesulis obtineat Spiritus Astra Poli c. May Heav'n the Prelate's Soul obtain as if contrary to his precedent Protestations he had thought him at a great distance from it In those of Audebert Abbot of Bourg-dieux and Arch-Bishop of Bourges deceased in the year 1098. he is very liberal of his Wishes as Communem Patrem communi tangite voto Ut det Pastori sedem super aethera vestro Again Audeberte vale sit pax tibi lúxque perennis Again In Domino requiem Spiritus inveniat c. Omnipotens animam Pontificis foveat c. To th' common Father your joynt Vows address That he your Pastour bring to happiness c. Audebert be well Eternal peace and light Thy Portion be May's Soul in God finde rest Kindely may God the Prelate's soul receive Who hearing him talk after this rate would not say that he were out of Heaven deprived of light peace and rest But look upon the Reverse of the Medal and you shall finde he looks on him as his Patron already possessed of Heaven saying Tu Pater à Superis saepe revise tuos c. Vadis te Christo per idonea signa vocante Et velut emerito tibi praemia digna parante Omni momento nostrî Patrone memento Et succurre gregi mortali morte redempto Again Nunc quoque cum Christo nos saepè revisat ab alto Thou Father from on high revisit thine c. By Christ hence As a discharged Champion thou art Of great rewards call'd to receive thy Part O Patron ever-mindfull of us be And those relieve whom mortal death set free With Christ from Heav'n often revisit us What could he have said more to St. Peter or St. Paul according to the Theologie of that Time In that of William Bishop of Engoulesm having invited those of his Diocess to worship his Body he advises them to pray for him Artus venerare Paternos Dic quoque Transcendat Gulielmi Spiritus Astra Thy Father's body having worship'd pray That William's soul to Heav'n may finde the way What could have been more ridiculous then to have perswaded People to the Veneration of a Body whose Spirit should at the same time have been in a place of Pain and deprived of Glory In that of Gerald of Orleans he says Datur hîc sua portio Terrae Spiritus in tenues vivens elabitur auras Cui tamen è rebus lutulentis si quid inhaesit Expediat totum clemens miseratio Christi His Precibus Lector Amen adjiciendo faveto Here Earth hath had her share The Spirit lives dissolv'd to subtile Air Which yet if stain'd with ought terrestrial May Christ in his great Mercy pardon all T advance these Prayers Reader Amen let fall Since then he conceived that at the fall of the Body when it became the portion of the Earth the Spirit lived and was escaped who sees not that he believed it to be in some other place then that of a grievous punishment and that the Prayer he afterward makes tends rather to assure the Expiation of his Offences then to implore it for him in as much as the Mercy of God is not communicated after death but to those who obtained it while they lived In that of Durand Bishop of Cler-mont deceased the nineteenth of November 1095. during the time of the Councel or Croisado for the Conquest of the Holy Sepulchre was published he exhorts the People of Auvergn to worship him and thereby declares him to be in Happiness saying Arvernus sanctos cineres reverenter habeto Atque Patrocinio tutior esto suo Worship his sacred ashes Cler-mont and Thou shalt in his protection safer stand In those of Gerald Abbot of Selue Majour in Bourdelois he is yet more excessive as hath been observed in the precedent Chapter And though the Prayers he makes in the Epitaphs of his other Friends as Reynold Clere Guy Raoul Clerembant William of Mont-soreau Berenger Arch-Deacon of Anger 's Froden of Anger 's Peter Dean of Dol Reinould Canon of Poictiers Geoffrey of Rheims Alexander of Tours Eriland Peter Prior Eudes Abbot of St. John d'Angely Raoul Arch-Deacon of Poictiers Chevalier Bouchard Chevalier Rahier the Countess Osanna Guy Tourangeau William Abbot of Bourgueil and Herard of Loudun though I say those Prayers might presuppose the Belief of Purgatory yet since they are consistent with the other Presuppositions and that Baldric made the like for Persons whom he believed crowned with Glory in Heaven it cannot be safely concluded that he ever intended to apply any one of them to the common Opinion current in his Time and which the Church of Rome maintains at this day The same is to be said of those who after him and to this present have declared and do declare according to the Custom of the Church of Rome and even in her Communion that the Persons whose Memory they have celebrated by their Verses and Sepulchral Inscriptions are in Happiness and possessed of celestial Glory For though they do not openly impugn the Opinion of Purgatory as the Protestants do and though they use such Expressions as might seem to maintain it yet do they not oblige themselves to maintain it in Effect and without any injury done them it may be taken for certain that they believed no more of it then the Reverend Peter Chastellain Bishop of Mascon who having on the three and twentieth of May 1547. advanced into Glory the great King Francis and scandalized the College of Sorbonne which looked on his Discourse as a Piece of Lutheranism flatly contradicting the common Opinion of Purgatory and demanded of him either the formal Retractation or Explication of it thought it satisfaction enough to give the Complainers and that in the presence of King Henry the Second and all his Court a Jest instead of an Apologie
Resurrection the Presupposition whereof does not in â—…e either that the Faithfull depart this Life to go into a place of Torments or that there is any necessity of Bewailing them or Praying for them after their Death the consequence being not good He shall rise up in Glory therefore He is in a place of Pains and must be delivered thence by Prayers Thirdly There is read the thirteenth Verse of the fourteenth Chapter of the Apocalyps where the Spirit of God advertising St. John by a voyce from Heaven that from henceforth those who die in the Lord are blessed and rest from their Labours demolishes the very Foundation as well of Prayer for the Faithfull departed as of Purgatory where it is pretended they suffer the temporal Punishment due to their Sins For if they are Blessed and upon that accompt in possession of what might be desired on their behalf they stand in no further need that any thing should be desired for them And again if they are Blessed and rest from their Labours from henceforth they are from henceforth exempted from Pain it being impossible that to be Blessed and to rest should signifie to be Tormented and on the contrary that to endure the burning of an infernal Fire should be to rest from one's labour and enjoy the Bliss consequent thereto Fourthly There is read from the one and fiftieth Verse of the fifteenth Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians to the fifty seventh inclusively expressing the Assurance which the Apostle gives the Church of her Blessed Resurrection whereby Death shall be swallowed up in Victory and every Believer cloathed with Immortality and every one knows that from this Proposition he shall rise again in Incorruption the Law of Ratiocination will never suffer this Inference to be drawn Therefore he is tormented and stands in need of being prayed for before he rises again Fifthly There is read the fourth Verse of the three and twentieth Psalm and the second third and fourth of the Two and fourtieth which onely represent the State of the Faithfull Person during the course of this Life and not that which is to follow upon his departure hence Sixthly There is read out of the eleventh Chapter of St. John from the one and twentieth Verse to the seven twentieth inclusively where the Son of God calling himself the Resurrection and the Life testifies that he who believes in him shall live and shall never die which to a Person that hath but the least use of Reason will never give any ground to Inferr that he who shall live and shall never die shall for a certain time after the dissolution of his Body be confined to a place of Torment where he shall stand extremely in need of the Prayers of the surviving Seventhly There is read out of the 6th Chapter of St. John the three and fiftieth and four and fiftieth Verses where the Son of God recommending the Eating of his Flesh and the Drinking of his Blood promises him who shall eat and drink thereof that he shall have eternal Life and shall be raised up again at the Last day Eighthly Immediately after there are read the second time as well the same Words as the precedent beginning from the one and fiftieth Verse which hath I know not how made shift to gather this Preface In illo tempore dixit Jesus Discipulis suis turbis Judaeorum c. Then Jesus said to his Disoiples and to the multitude of the Jews upon which I have further to observe that there is not the least necessity of concluding from the Promise made by the Son of God that those who participate of his Flesh and of his Blood should after Death be destined to endure the Punishment of a Subterranean Fire and therein tormented expect to be relieved by the Prayers of their surviving Brethren Ninethly There are read with the same Preface which yet is not to be found in any Part of the Chapter the 21 22 23 and 24th Verses of the fifth Chapter of St. John where our Saviour in as much as he affirms by Virtue of the power of Judging which he received of his Father that he who believes in him hath eternal life and shall not come into Judgment but shall pass or rather as the Greek the Syriaok and the Latine Version recommended by the Councel of Trent have it is passed from Death to Life in as much I say as our Saviour obliges the Believer to be certainly perswaded that he shall not after this Life be liable to any Pains whatsoever for his Sins since they are things absolutely incompatible that being passed from Death he should have eternal Life as the inviolable Promise of his Saviour expresses and that he should be to endure for ever so short a space of time the Torments of Death and Hell as the present Church of Rome supposes that he shall not come into Judgment as the Gospel expresly declares and that he shall come to Judgment to be therein condemned for a time according to what the Church of Rome teaches those of her Communion Tenthly and Lastly With a Preface taken up I know not whence there are read the thirty seventh the thirty eighth the thirty ninth and the fourtieth Verses of the sixth Chapter of St. John where our Saviour promising to raise up at the Last day those who believe in him gives them such comfort by the assurance of their final felicity as might raise them out of all fear that between the Moment of their Death and the day of Judgment they should suffer any Punishment and be sensible of any need they should stand in of the Suffrages of the Living In fine there are read as on the second of November and with the same Preface the twenty fifth the twenty sixth the twenty seventh the twenty eighth and the twenty ninth Verses of the fifth Chapter of Saint John which we have already observed to make nothing to the Business either of Purgatory or Prayer for the Dead On the Contrary from all these Lessons it is necessarily manifest First That the Church of Rome who at the present make use of them as inducements to the Living to take care of the Dead hath not haply any thing more Answerable to her Intentions and makes a silent Confession that her Service for the Departed and the Belief of her Purgatory have not any Foundation in the Word of God are the voluntary Devotions of men intruding into those things which they have not seen and for that Reason branded with the Censure of the Holy Spirit speaking by the mouth of St. Paul 2 Coloss xviii 22 23. Secondly That the Primitive Church who had introduced into her Liturgie the Commemoration of the Faithfull Departed many Ages before any of her children had conceived the least thought of Purgatory which is at this day maintained by Superstition and Interest had no other Design in it then by all these Lessons which Treat of the general
and afford them our assistance to deliver them out of the pretended Purgatory And yet these are in a mâ—â—ner all the materials which have been shuffled into the composure of all that piece of Worship which goes under the name of The Office of the Dead though they have not any relation to their state and do no more induce a necessity of praying for them or believing a Purgatory that should purifie them as is pretended then they do that of making boast of our own praises a vanity even though we were tempted thereto Christian moderation would not suffer us to be guilty of Nor can it be said with any more reason that the words of the Psalms which are recited in the said Office are to be considered as Prosopopoeias whereby the Faithfull deceased are represented speaking of their condition after death I. In as much as the whole Contexture of every Psalm requires that the words of it be applyed to those who live in the flesh so as that it were a manifest abuse to wrest them to any other sence II. For that it was never allowed any one to cast into the divine Worship Fictions whereby men of quick Imaginations might presume to become the mouths of their Brethren departed not having to that end either order from them or calling from God And lastly for that though it were left to any man's discretion to make after his own fancy representations of those whom God hath called to himself yet should not any one take the liberty to do it e're he were well informed and satisfied whether they might pass for true and certain especially seeing that when they should be urged out of a design to infer thence the necessity of praying for them they would prove so much the more unmaintainable for as much as in the same Office where it is pretended they are employed to that end there are those Texts alledged which absolutely destroy the use thereof For instance that of the 14th Chapter of the Apocalyps Verse 13. where the holy Spirit declares Blessed are those that die in the Lord for what rational inducement is there either to desire bliss absolutely for those who are already possessed thereof or the cessation of torments for those who do not onely not suffer any but are not subject to suffer any in as much as from henceforth they are blessed and in rest That of the sixth Chapter of St. John and the thirty seventh Verse where the Son of God attests that he will in no wise cast out him that cometh to him and that of the eleventh Chapter and the five and twentieth and six and twentieth Verses where calling himself the Resurrection and the Life he promises life and exemption from eternal death to whosoever believes in him For if he does not cast out any of the Faithfull if on the contrary he saves them all from death and puts them into possession of life the surviving believers who to express their belief of his words insert them into their publick Form of Service do thereby confess that they are obliged to give him thanks for them and not to make Requests which presuppose that they enjoy not the effect of his promise Thus is there not any Lesson in the Service of the Church of Rome which effectually induces or hath so much as the appearance of inducing any thing of what those of her Communion at this day pretend to CHAP. LII Of the Prayers contained in the Missal and Breviary used by the Church of Rome and that Purgatory cannot be necessarily inferred from any one of them FOr as much as in the Book intituled Ordo Romanus there is not any mention made of the Dead that in the Canon of the Mass which is inserted into it the Memento is not to be found and that in the other Ritual Books of the Latines there is not any Lesson obliging to the belief of Purgatory screwed up since the year 1439. by the Councels of Florence and Trent into an Article of Faith the Church of Rome who hath at this day in favour of Prayer for the Dead but one onely Lesson to wit that of the second of Maccabees a Book held by her self to be Apocryphal till after the year 590. the Church of Rome I say is forced to confess that it must have been inserted so much the later into her Missals and Breviaries though upon no other accompt then this that the Greeks use it not in their Office even to this day and that from her whole service it necessarily results that she met not in the holy Scriptures with any foundation of the opinion either of Purgatory which she maintains or of the custom which she practises in praying for the Dead upon Motives unknown to Primitive Antiquity It remains therefore that we see what can be gathered of any consequence from the Prayers which we read in the publick Forms of Service of her prescription We have in the first place such as desire of God that the sins of the deceased Person may be pardoned as for instance this Fidelium Deus omnium conditor Redemptor animabus famulorum famularúmque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum ut indulgentiam quam semper optaverunt piis supplicationibus consequantur c. O God Creatour and Redeemer of all the Faithfull grant unto the Souls of thy Servants of the one and the other Sex the remission of all their sins that by pious Supplications they may obtain the indulgence they have ever desired And this We beseech thee O Lord that this Supplication of ours may be beneficial to the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes intreating thee that thou wouldest cleanse them of all their sins and make them partakers of thy Redemption And this We beseech thee O Almighty God that the Soul of thy Servant purged by these Sacrifices may obtain admission to indulgence and eternal remedy And this Vouchsafe O Lord we beseech thee that the Soul of thy Servant and the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes the Anniversarie-day of whose Interment we now commemorate being purged by these Sacrifices may be received as well into indulgence as eternal rest And this O God who hast commanded that we should honour our Father and Mother be pleased out of thy mercy to have compassion on the Souls of my Father and Mother and pardon their sins and make me to live with them in the joy of eternal light And this We beseech thee O Lord be mercifull unto the Soul of thy Servant and being freed from the contagion of Mortality restore her to the portion of eternal salvation And this We beseech thee O Lord that by these Sacrifices without which no man is guiltless the Soul of thy Servant may be cleansed from all sins that by these offices of pious placation she may obtain eternal mercy And this O God in whose mercy the Souls of the faithfull are at rest be graciously pleased to pardon the sins of thy Servants
offered for the blessed then sleeping a sleep of Peace in as much as the Commemoration made in the Church comprehends all Which is further confirmed in that St. Cyprian expresly observes that that of his time always offered Sacrifices for the Martyrs of whose glory she neither made nor could make any question that St. Augustine both offered and caused to be offered the like for his Mother of whose bliss he thought himself so confident that he said to God I believe that thou hast already done it and that Saint Ambrose comforting Faustinus afflicted at the death of his Sister gave him this advice Non tam deplorandam c. I think she ought not to be so much lamented as attended with Prayers I conceive we ought not to condole at thy Tears but rather by Oblations recommend her soul to the Lord c. What should oblige us to sigh for the dead when the reconciliation of the World hath been already made with God the Father by the Lord Jesus For from all this and particularly from Faustinus's affirmation that he was confident of the Works and Faith of his Sister for whom St. Ambrose exhorted him to make Prayers and Oblations it necessarily results that those Oblations were not properly Propitiations but Thanksgivings for and Acknowledgments of the Propitiation made by Jesus Christ on the Cross and as the Forms used by the Church of Rome express it Sacrifices of Praise So that if they were sometimes called Hostiae placationis Hoasts of appeasment and if it be said that the Souls are per hujus virtutem Sacramenti à peccatis omnibus expiatae expiated from all sin by the virtue of this Sacrament which it is desired should be to him who participates thereof ablutio scelerum c. the washing away of his offences presupposing that it is celebrated by the Faithfull pro redemptione animarum suarum c. for the redemption of their souls this is to be understood rationally and in the same sense as when St. Peter teaches us concerning Baptism that it saves us and Antiquity sayes that it washes away sins in as much as it is the sacred Sign and the Pledge of the washing away which was made thereof once by the onely blood of Jesus Christ spilt on the Cross For according to the Sentiment of the primitive Christians the Sacraments received by the Faithfull crimina omnia detergunt c. do away all offences in as much as they are Memorials of the blood of Christ by the aspersion whereof mens Consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God and are said to be offered for their salvation not to be purchased but already purchased by the price of the same blood and for the Redemption of their Souls already accomplished in the death of the Son of God but whereof the Application is continually made in the preaching of the Gospel and Administration of the Sacraments to all those who embrace it through Faith There are also other Prayers wherein is desired for the Faithfull departed the felicity which they have hoped and wished for during the course of their life as appears by these following Forms Vitam aeternam habere mereantur in coelis c. In tuae redemptionis parte numerentur c. May they obtain eternal life in Heaven c. May they be numbred in the part of thy Redemption c. O Lord give them eternal rest and let everlasting light shine upon them c. Pâ—â—â—â—im in the Region of Peace and Light and grant him the Fellowship of thy Saints c. Grant him admittance into the society of eternal bliss c. To those on whom thou didst bestow the Merit or Honour of Christian Faith give also the Reward c. that through thy Compassion they may receive the bliss of eternal light c. Make them partakers of thy Redemption let them be added to the number of thy Saints c. Let them have their reward in the Life to come c. Let them be conveyed into the Habitations which thou hast prepared for the Blessed let them have the perpetual enjoyment of their Society c. Command that they have eternal joys in the Region of the Living c. Grant them the Habitation of refreshment blessed rest and the clearest light c. Vouchsafe to associate them to thy Saints c. May they receive eternal rest c. Grant them eternal joy in the Region of the living c. May he obtain eternal rest and light c. Restore them to the Portion of eternal salvation c. We beseech thee O Lord that be may come into the Fellowship of Eternal light c. That they may rejoyce with thee World without end c. May they obtain passage into life c. That they may obtain eternal joys Though it might seem that those for whom these Prayers are made were considered as deprived of Peace Light Joy Bliss Rest the Society of the Saints in Glory and the Eternal Reward promised their good Works and that to facilitate their entrance into the possession of future happiness some had conceived and inserted the foregoing Prayers into the Service of the Churches yet that it never was the intention of those who drew the first draught thereof to insinuate that the dead were actually excluded the things demanded for them is manifest in as much as the Memento was made onely in favour of those who rest in a sleep of Peace and consequently are already in Peace and Joy with the Lord. For the surviving Believers thought it became them to speak of the Beatitude of their Brethren deceased before them with a kind of hesitation as if it were delayed and that not without some colour for as much the good things prepared by the Lord for those who love him consist in things which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entred into the heart of Man and that they had not any evident knowledg thereof and could not frame to themselves any Idea suitable to the state whereto those are advanced who enjoy them they represented it after their manner with some conformity and proportion to that wherein they had left this World and as they have been for the most part forced thereto by the Imaginations wherewith the counterfeit Sibyl had dazled their minds so from the same hand is it also come that among those who some time after took the courage to disclaim them some did it not so resolutely as they should have done but thought it enough to compare their departed Brethren translated into the rest of God to Travellers who want somewhat of compleating their Journey Others considering that the enjoyment of the good things which follow this life and the exemption from the evils which sinners are to expect are for all eternity and that the continuance of that enjoyment to those who are once entred thereinto does so far depend on the goodness
place in the bosoms of thy Patriarchs her for whose sake thou mercifully didst descend upon Earth In the later it is said Be mindfull of him O Lord in the glory of thy brightness let the Heavens be open to him let the Angels rejoyce with him Lord receive thy Servant into thy Kingdom Let St. Michael the Arch-angel of God and General of the Celestial Militia entertain him let the holy Angels of God meet him and carry him into the Heavenly Jerusalem c. Loosed from the Chains of flesh may he be received into the glory of the celestial Kingdom c. If after all these Prayers the Agony continue there are at several times read the one hundred and sixth and one hundred and eighteenth Psalms according to the Greeks and Latines that is the one hundred and seventh and one hundred and nineteenth according to the Hebrews who are therein followed by the Protestants and when the Soul is departed they say Afford your assistance O ye Saints of God meet him O ye Angels of the Lord receiving his Soul and presenting it to the most high May Christ who hath called thee entertain thee and may the Angels conduct thee into the Bosom of Abraham c. O Lord give him eternal rest and let everlasting light shine upon him Lord deliver his Soul from the Gate of Hell let him rest in peace In the Mass for the sick who are in Agony besides two Lessons out of the Scripture whereof the former comprehends from the sixth Verse of the five and fiftieth Chapter of Isaiah to the twelfth with these words fastened in the beginning by I know not whom In diebus illis locutus est Esaias Propheta dicens and at the end Ait Dominus omnipotens and the later consists of the twentieth twenty first and twenty second Verses of the sixteenth Chapter of St. John with these words added at the beginning In illo tempore dixit Jesus Discipulis suis We have several Texts alledged containing Thanksgiving to God for his deliverances as the second sixth and seventh Verses of the eighteenth Psalm according to the Hebrews the fourth of the fifty seventh with Confessions of sins and Implorations of his mercy and assistance as the second Verse of the fifty seventh Psalm the first and second of the one hundred and thirtieth the eighth and ninth of the seventy ninth the first of the fifty first and the two and twentieth of the five and twentieth and in conclusion three Prayers in the first whereof we read these words Grant him O Lord thy grace that his Soul at the hour of its departure out of the body may be represented without the blemish of any sin by the hands of the holy Angels to thee who art the proper bestower thereof through our Lord c. The second is closed with this conclusion not much unlike the former That received by the Angels he may arrive at the Kingdom of thy glory through our Lord. And the third is laid down in these Terms O Lord we give thee thanks for thy manifold kindnesses wherewith thou art wont to satisfie the Souls of those who put their trust in thee we now confident of thy compassion do humbly beseech thee that thou wouldest vouchsafe to shew mercy on thy Servant lest at the hour of his departure out of the body the enemy prevail against him but that he may be thought worthy to pass to life through our Lord. If the Latine Church had from the beginning been imbued with this Sentiment that the Souls of the Faithfull are for the most part at their departure out of the Body confined to a place of Torment where they perfect the expiation of their sins through what misfortune is it come to pass that she so far forgot her self as not to have expressed any such thing in all their Service and that her Encouragements and Remonstrances to those that lie at the point of death who are as it is at this day presupposed in so great a necessity to prepare themselves for it and the Wishes and Prayers which she makes and appoints to be made as well for them as for the Dead whom a Superstitious perswasion imagines already set upon and invaded by Infernal flames in Purgatory do not onely not contain any remark thereof but formally teach the contrary And that they do so we are onely to instance out of what hath been newly alledged what they say of all without exception viz. that after death they have their place in Holy Sion that the Angels come to meet them that they convey them into the Kingdom of Glory into the bosom of a blessed Rest into the bosom of Abraham into the pleasant Verdures of Paradise that they might with the Quires of the Blessed contemplate Truth with their blessed eyes and enjoy the sweetness of divine contemplation eternally that the Lord places them in the Portion of the Elect in the place where they hoped for salvation opens the heavens to them gives them an eternal Rest and makes them pass into life which Expressions are such as that the Protestants could not according to the Hypotheses of their Belief either say or think any thing beyond them Shall we imagine her unfortunately seised by a Vertigo so extraordinary as that she would be guilty of such an Extravagance in favour of the Adversaries of her Sentiment so far as to furnish them with all the Expressions capable to ruine it and that she should be so unnatural and cruel towards those of her children whom death snatched away daily from her as not to vouchsafe to let them know by the last word that she had a Resentment of their Trouble or that it was her desire to procure their Deliverance out of it by her Prayers and to fortifie others whom she saw to fall into the like by communicating to them her Advertisements and Remonstrances and representing to them on the one side the necessity which the Justice of God imposed on them as is pretended to pass through the Fire and on the other the Hope which his Promise gave them to be preserved therein by his care till such time as his Goodness should grant them a glorious deliverance out of it Nay though we should be inclined to excuse in her so shamefull a want of compassion and memory could we free her from Prevarication charging her that instead of stirring up in her children the care of preparing themselves for Death and the temporal Pains which according to the Opinion of Purgatory were to follow upon it she hath treacherously permitted that to be rid of it with more ease they should run into erroneous perswasions and presume to promise themselves upon the very start out of this Life a passage into Abraham's Bosom and the Paradise of God or rather that she was resolved to lay them asleep her self by deceitfull Expressions in the Bosom of a prejudicial Security which smothers the apprehension they should have conceived of the Severity of that
is the second next the Pope then he of Alexandria after him that of Antioch then that of Jerusalem They had resolved not to acknowledge any thing further and to break off rather then be brought to it but the Pope delivered them out of all fear as to that accepting at least in appearance what they had written though granting him onely a primacy of Order over the other Patriarchs and absolutely quashing the dispute of his Predecessor Leo the First against Anatolius raised by the Councel of Chalcedon seconding in that the first of Constantinople to the second place This acceptation passed there seemed to be nothing to do but to sign and publish the Concordate or Agreement between both parties but there arises yet new difficulties For the Pope would have the Instrument drawn up in his own name onely but was therein formally opposed by the Greeks who after these words Eugenius Bishop Servant of the Servants of God required on Munday the nine and twentieth of June there should be added with the consent of the most serene Emperour of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the other Patriarchs He seemed also desirous to get inserted into it this Clause That he would have his priviledges according as the Holy Scripture defines and the expressions of the Saints which the Emperour withstood saying If any one of the Saints honour the Pope in a Letter he might write to him shall he take that for a priviledge Yet the next day it was granted him that he should have his priviledges according to the Canons the expressions of the Saints the holy Scripture and the Acts of Synods the Greeks on the other side having got into the same Decree that all the priviledges of their Patriarchs should be inviolably observed the Latines made no small difficulty on the second of July to let pass the word All which two days after they admitted Upon the fifth of the Moneth aforesaid the Concordate was signed by the Pope nine Cardinals two Titulary Patriarchs nine Arch-bishops forty nine Bishops and forty six Abbots on the one part and the Emperour seventeen Metropolitanes five Deacons one Arch-Priest and six Abbots and Religious Persons on the other On the sixth it was publickly read Eight days after the Pope having desired the Greeks to proceed to the Election of a Patriarch that might come into the place of the Patriarch Joseph deceased twenty six days before and that he whom they should choose might receive the Imposition of his hands was denyed as to both particulars and forced to suffer the Greeks to depart forsaken by Bessarion and Isidore Arch-bishops of Nicea and Russia and not long after Cardinals The rest heightned by the Example and Encouragements of Mark of Ephesus who would not by any means be drawn to subscribe or consent to the Concordate and withall troubled in Conscience that they had prostituted their Sentiment in the business of Religion for Bread prevented the disacknowledgment of the Body of their Countrey-men as soon as they were got to Constantinople declaring null all they had done and re-assuming their former Opinions with so much the greater readiness by how much they had onely quitted them in outward shew and to the regret of their whole Nation which would have treated them very harshly for having been so persidious to them From which proceedings it necessarily follows First That if the Church of Rome hath any reproach of Inconstancy wherewith to charge those among the Greeks who having received money from the Latines to acknowledg what they desired have since broken the Promises they had made them and disclaimed what they had done She hath nothing to say against Mark Arch-Bishop of Ephesus who never approved the management of that Affair nor yet against the others who had stay'd in the East without whose knowledg and contrary to whose intention the Concordate of Florence was drawn up as also that the said Church hath given them all great occasion to alienate themselves from Her inasmuch as instead of proving to them that they were in an errour Her design was to circumvent and surprise them and had so little regard I will not say to the glory of God to the Interest of his Truth and to that of Sincerity and publick Edification but even to her own Reputation aâ—â— theirs that she thought it a business of greater concernment to be defray'd the charges she had been at with them and in requital of that little Temporal Assistance which she offered them to draw them to an abjuration of the Belief which they had professed from Father to Son before they were convinced in Conscience Will it ever be thought just by the profusion of the things of this World to purchase Souls called by the Gospel to the hope of a Celestial Inheritance And if they prove more hard to be drawn in then was imagined will it be thought a rational kind of proceeding to frighten them by violences yet more inhumane and by the fears and tryals of those disgraces which may occasion the loss of the Body and its advantages boldly to thrust them upon the Precipices of Damnation as if it were ever left to our choice to force Religion by Religion to imprint the Sentiments thereof in the minds of men with Iron Bars and to promise our selves that we may bring men to Salvation by the shipwrack of good Conscience In the second place it is apparent that neither the Greeks nor Latines assembled at Florence have by their proceedings there discovered that they were very confident of what they should believe concerning the state of Souls after Death the former having as to that point quitted it without any Dispute and expressed their Union with the others in uncertain and indeterminate Terms as we have shewn before and the Latter who made account to bring over to them such as were of the contrary Opinion contenting themselves with what they were pleased to say though well examined it were such as could not give them any just satisfaction and that the Formulary of their Concurrence consisted onely in three words of a double meaning Lastly that the Church of Rome who had first set afoot the Conferences out of a consideration of the Question of Purgatory brought by her first upon the Stage hath made it appear by the event that her own perswasion of it was not very great forasmuch as immediatly after she in a manner shook off all further thoughts of it and towards the end of the Assembly thought it concerned her more to dispute the Privileges of her Pope thereby clearly discovering that it took up her thoughts more to plead for his Dignity then for the Salvation of the Greeks and that her endeavour was to enslave them to her self rather then to convert them to God However it be after their return into the East there was no difficulty made of taking the Concordate of Florence for a Tablature of their Sentiment The Oration which Bessarion had
according to them at such a point as immediately after their departure out of the Body to be at the self-same time exempted from the Pains of Restraint Obscurity or Grief through which it is affirmed they are to pass and deprived of the Rest which after the Pains they are to obtain so as that they are for the least space of time imaginable in a Neutral State which admits not the qualification of either Good or Bad of either Light or Darkness Rest or Torment and consequently of either Joy or Grief if not by accident And in Case that by the Place of Torment where it is feigned they fear being confined some may understand the Hell of the Damned is it possible they should ever be exposed thereto since it is presupposed they are of a middle Conditition and upon that very accompt as being chargeable onely with Venial Sins neither do nor can deserve Eternal damnation Be this therefore one unmaintainable and unimaginable Absurdity which must needs press hard upon our Forgers of Descriptions according to the Dictates of their own Fancies They make the deceased Priest further say Why O man dost thou trouble thy self thus unseasonably There is one onely hour and all passes away for in Hell there is no Repentance There is no Releasment in that place there is the Worm which never sleeps there is the darksom land and the obscure matter to which I am to be condemned c. Is this Discourse attributible to a Faithfull Person that had had here in this World the least taste of the Promise made by the Son of God assuring us that whoever believes in him is in such manner passed from death to life as that though he be dead yet shall he live through him that he shall not come into Condemnation and that there is not indeed any for those that are in him Are the Souls imagined to be in a middle Condition subject to the stingings of the Worm which never dies and liable to Damnation Which if it be supposed they neither are nor can why should they be feigned to say so and necessarily Lie in saying so This must then be a second Impertinence and a new Piece of Forgery committed by the Corrupters of the Ritual not onely against the Word of God but also against their Sentiment who in the same Ritual inserted this Confession which is both most true and Diametrically contrary to the Discourse before confuted Lament not all you who are departed in the Faith for as much as Christ hath suffered the Cross and was buried for us in the Flesh and hath made all those who call upon him children of Immortality For this once lay'd down does it signifie less then a total Eclipse of understanding and circumspection to make the children of Immortality for whom the Saviour of the World died and who consequently cannot perish say that they shall be Damned Nay the Prayers of the Living for their departed Brethren would be still chargeable with inconvenience even though they were taken literally For instance this O Lord as thou saidst unto Martha I am the Resurrection by the Effect accomplishing thy Word and calling Lazarus out of Hell so also mercifully raise this thy servant out of Hell For besides that it is a little too freely supposed that our Lord's Friend was confined in Hell from the moment of the Death of his Body to that of his Resurrection it is also false that our Saviour raises out of Hell whence the Ritual confesses that none is delivered any of his Servants Whoever once enters there never comes out again nor is there any raising up to be expected by him But these words may be maintained if they meet with a favourable Interpretation which might admit Hell to signifie not the place of the Damned in which sence it is ordinarily taken but the Grave whence our Saviour who called forth Lazarus will at the Last day raise up the Bodies of all his Servants With the help of the same favourable way of Interpreting it were possible to finde a sence conformable to the apprehension of Antiquity in those Prayers whereby the Greeks do at this day Beg the Remission of Sins for their Dead taking care to make them to relate to the Absolution which shall be solemnly pronounced by the Great Judg at the last day as may be deduced from this that most of them expresly mention it among others this Vouchsafe O Redeemer that when thou shalt come with ineffable glory in the Clouds after a dreadfull manner to Judge the whole World that thy Faithfull Servant whom thou hast taken from the Earth may joyfully meet thee which words are Grounded on 1 Thess Chap. iv Verse 17. In like manner this Vouchsafe O God to be mindfull of our Father who is now at rest and be pleased to deliver him from the corruption of sin at the day of Judgment through the good odour of thy goodness mercy and love towards men Again O Lord from whom the Spirits of those who serve thee do come and to whom they return we beseech thee to cause to rest in a place of light in the Region of the Just the Spirit of N. thy Servant now lying in his Grave and raise him up at thy second and dreadfull coming not to be condemned after the Resurrection but to be Absolved for no man living shall be justified in thy sight Again Let not thy Servant O Lord be confounded at thy coming When thou shalt discover all things that are hidden and shalt O Christ reprove our sins spare him whom thou hast taken hence being mindfull of his Preaching Again Forgive O Saviour the sins of him who hath been translated hence in Faith and vouchsafe to admit him to thy Kingdom there shall not any escape the dreadfull Tribunal of thy judgment Kings and Potentates and the Hireling all shall appear together and the dreadfull Voice of the Judge shall call the People that have sinned to the condemnation of Hell from which O Christ deliver thy servant Again Out of thy mercy O Christ exempt from the Fire of Hell and the dreadfull Sentence thy Servant whom thou hast now taken hence in Faith and let thy Domestick praise thee as God the mercifull Redeemer c. Brethren how dreadfull is the hour which sinners are to expect O what fear is there Then the Fire of Hell devours and the ravenous Serpent swallows wherefore mercifull Lord Christ deliver him from the day of dreadfull Gehenna O how great shall be the Joy of the Just which they shall be possessed of when the Judge comes for the Nuptial room is prepared and Paradise and the whole Kingdom of Christ into which O Christ receive thy Domesticks to rejoyce with thy Saints eternally Who O Christ shall bear the dreadfull threatning of thy coming Then shall Heaven be rolled up together as a Book after a dreadfull manner and the Stars will fall the whole