comfortable news of eternal bliss that he was not at all sensible of any oppression of nature nor seem'd to be the least concerned for it For said he what can any thing else availe me since I am one day to have Paradise with all the delights of Heaven Now if we Suar. d. 47. S. 3. credit the holy doctours of the Church and best divines of the Christian world the Souls in Purgatory are most certaine of their salvation For no sooner is the Soul departed this life but she is brought to a particular judgment where she receives an award of her eternal state of glory or confusion and from the mouth of God hears the irrevokable sentence from which there is no appeal no civil request no review of process no writ of errour for this decree of Gods justice must immediately be put in execution They say further that in the same moment that a Soul sees her selfe condemned to Purgatory she sees also the precise time prescribed her to continue there according to the ordinary strain of Gods justice But whether she know also by divine revelation who will pray for her and what assistance in particular they will give her or how much will be cut of of the time determined for her punishment is a nicer question which I purposely leave untouched for others to excercise their wits in as they please and make hast to take up the thred of my discourse I was letting fall in which I am to lay before your eyes the ineffable joyes of the soules in purgatory when they seriously reflect upon the certainty of their salvation and how soon they shall be drowned in the Divinity and yet swim in an Ocean of all heavenly comforts When Jacob knew for certaine that he was to have the fair Rachel he was content to be espoused first to Lia though she were blear-eyed and ill favoured and besides a world of heats and colds frights and fears and fourteen years toylesome service seemd scarse an hour to him so much was his heart inchanted with a holy love of his dearly beloved Rachel and so true it is that for the enjoyment of that which a soul loves in good earnest she makes no reckoning of fire and flames and a thousand Purgatories So that a Soul that is confident of espousing one day Rachel that is the Church triumphant sticks not to be first espoused to Lia that is the Church suffring with all the pains in Purgatory so long as it shall please God and fourteen years are unto her but as an houre such is the excess of her love to heaven O with what a good heart do I drink up my tears said the royal Prophet Ps 41. when I remember I shall pass into the heavenly Tabernacle were I to make my passage thither through Hell it selfe how willingly would I runn that way And to the same tune cried out St. Chrysostome with a masculine voice and a heart which was all heart If I were to pass through a thousand Hells so I might in the end of all meet with Paradise and my God how pleasing would these Hells seem unto me And certainly there are infinite soules would be ready to signe it with their heart blood that they would be willing to dwell in the flames of Purgatory till the day of judgement upon condition to be sure of eternal Glory at the last for believe it they that know well the meaning of these four words God Eternity Glory and Security can not but have a moderate apprehension of Purgatory fire be it never so hot and furious Another heavenly comfort They are impeccable which rejoyces these happy souls in the midst of their torments is an infallible and certain assurance which they have that although their pains be never so insupportable yet shall they never offend God neither mortally nor venially nor shew the least sign of impatience or indignation A true lover of God understands this language and if he do not shall in a moment learn it in Purgatory and find by experience that a soul there had rather be plunged in the deepest pit of Hell then be guilty of the least voluntary misdemeanour So that seeing her selfe to be grown impeccable and that no evils can have the power to make her offend God and that all impatience dies at the gates of Purgatory from whence all sins and humane failings are quite banished O God what a solid comfort must this needs be unto her The greatest affliction that good people can have in the suffrings of this life is the fear of â—ffending God or to think that the violence of their torments may make them subject to break out into a thousand foolish expressions and to tosse in their heads as many foolish thoughts filling their imaginations with a world of Chimeras and idle fancies of frightful objects or in a word because they appreâ—end either death or sin or the loss of their merit and labour or that God is angry with them For griefe with the Devils help strives to snatch out of our hands the victorious palme of our sufferings or at least to make us stoope to some frailties and imperfections which imbitter our hearts And were it not for this just fear Saints would not stick at the greatest evils they can endure in this world What a joy then must it be to these holy innocent Souls to see themselves become altogether impeccable The reason of this is clear because the particular judgment being once over the final senteâ—â—e is also pronounced and the Soul is no longer in a capacity to merit or demerit not so much as to satisfie by any voluntary sufferings of her own but only to submit to the sweet rigour of Gods justice who has taxed such a proportion of pains answerable to her demerits and so to clear her conscience and blot out the remainder of her frailties and impurities Make hast to do well before Eccl. 9. 10. death is the counsel of Almighty God for the appointed time wherein to heape up treasures of justice merits is before you appear in judgement for after that it will be too late The very instant that a soul leaves the body according to Gods law there is no more time for merit or demerit and therefore the souls that are sent into Purgatory are most certain they shall never more commit the least sin that can be imagined When St. Anthony was so furiously assaulted with a whole rabble regimâ—nt of Devils he was not greatly daunted at all their hideous shapes terrible howlings and rude blows all his fear was of offending God he apprehended more the stroaks of impatience then all the wounds of hell he called upon Christ for help and having obtained the favour of a personal visite he made him this amourous complaint and sweet expostulation O good Jesu where were you alass where were you even now my dear Saviour when your enemies and mine conspired so cruelly against me why came
all For say they how can you require more of them then to be two years miserably tormented in a burning furnace That which here might have been redeemed with a tear of true contrition or with a sigh of ardent charity can it not be purged with flames of fire in two whole years in the other world The most barbarous cruelty in this life is scarce ever seen to reach beyond a few houres and what shall we then say of two years in Purgatory which are as it were two ages or two little eternities so great are the torments shall it not be enough to purifie the most unclean soul in the world so she be in the state of Grace But yet this opinion is not received in the Church and it is a great madnesse to attempt any thing contrary to the common judgment of the Church and her Learned Doctors Sotus held a singular opinion of his own that no soule Sect. in 4. d. 17. q. 3. remains in Purgatory above ten years For said he we must set some bounds to the rigour of Gods justice who doth all things in number weight and measure and is said to dispose all things sweetly And is not ten years of most bitter pains a great number a grievous weight and an everflowing measure to say nothing of so many prayers so many masses so many tears so many priviledged altars and Plenary indulgences so many almes and other good deeds of the living and then the most powerful intercession of the whole court of Heaven but especially of our blessed Lady and her beloved son who is the Atturney general of the whole Church and who pleads for her with a most perswasive and divine Rhetorique Yet for all this I must tell you many divines lay heavy censures upon this opinion sticking not to call it not only temerarious but also erroneous and the common sense of the church is quite contrary as appears by the immemorial custome of perpetual foundations of set Masses to be yearly said for such particular persons and to continue to the worlds end all which would be needless if almighty God put a period to their punishments after ten years for to what purpose are those Masses after the ten years are expired And though the most learned of this age will not take upon them to condemne this opinion of errour yet they all accuse it of much temerity No certain time beyond which a soule may not be tormented because in truth this whole business is very uncertain as being a secret lockt up in the cabinet of God himself and letters sealed up which our Saviour would not hitherto open to his Spouse the church so that whilst it remains in the nature of a secret we must not presume to define any thing precisely Only this we know that many soules do but touch Purgatory as it were with their finger and away others lie there whole houres dayes months and years and as we are not easily to credit those visions which threaten the soules in Purgatory with a continuance of their torments untill the last day so are we to believe that God can well punish some of them so long that the space of ten years in comparison should seem little or nothing to it Hence it is a very laudable and pious custome to found Masses to perpetuity because alas who knows whether he may not be of the number of those unfortunate souls who are to be kept there so long How few know truly the state of their own soules and the debts they are to pay to the severity of our most just judge who is indeed ful of clemency but such as is ever accompanied with an impartial justice worthy of God I may adde here that the piety of the founders looks not only upon the releasing of their own soules out of torments which they are assured will have an end sooner or later but they open their hearts and bowels of charity and extend it to others who from time to time shall be in Purgatory and very possibly have no body to remember them in their devotions This certainly is a worke of charity well becoming a good Catholick and a well disposed soule to provide so as to co-operate even after his death to the help and salvation of other soules and to be ever and anon sending some into Heaven by antedating the time of their deliverance and encreasing the number of the glorious Saints Mean time what an inconsolable grief is it to the poor soules to see themselves plunged over head and eareâ— in flames of fire and condemned to remain there ten twenty a hundred years and perhaps to the worlds end if their friends upon earth do not afford them their best assistance middle State of Souls lately censured by his Holiness There are some few of late are faln so far into the contrary extream that they cannot afford a soule once in Purgatory should ever get out before the day of judgment But as this strange Paradox took its rise chiefly from a false conceipt of the nature of a spiritual substance and other wilde principles of a new minted Philosophy so is it generally cryed down and not only contradicted by many known apparitions revelations which the Reader will meet with in this Treatise attested by such grave Authours and Fathers of the Church that he has little reason to suspect them for old wives tales or melancholly dreams as these men would have them but seems to have been blasted long In Bullar Rom. Conc. Flor. in lit vnionis act 4. agoe and condemned in a particular Bull of Pope Benedict the eleaventh and in the holy Council of Florence where it was expresly defined that those soules which after they have contracted the blemish of sin are Purged either in their bodies or being uncloathed of their bodies are presently received into heaven And since the Author of this extravagance will have Tradition to be the sole rule of our Faith of which Tradition we can have no clearer proof then from the testimony of the Church let him but look into the general doctrine and practice of the church both now at this present and time out of minde and he shall discover as cleare a Tradition for this common perswasion of the soules being released out of Purgatory some sooner some later according to their own deserts and the relief of our suffrages as for any other thing in the world Do not good people generally ground themselves upon this when they offer up their prayers give almes procure Masses and Diriges apply Indulgences for the present relief of their deceased friends Is not the whole practise of Christians for as much as concernes their piety to the faithfull departed built so wholly upon this that were it not true we must conclude that the whole Catholick church has been all along fooled by her Pastors and Doctors Who has ever hitherto so much as fancied it in a dreame that his suffrages
of their sensual and beastly appetites But you must observe that all The power of grace above nature this happens while a soul is left to her selfe and her own natural forces for when the divine goodness is pleased to furnish her with plenty of his grace even in this world as wicked as it is this grace has such an ascendant over nature and breathes such spirit and vigour into a soul that she can wrestle with all difficulties and remove all obstacleâ— nay though the body be borne and sunke into the very center of misery yet can she still hold up her head and steer her course towards heaven Now will you clearly see how the souls can at the same instant swim in a paradise of delights and â—et be overwhelmed with the hellish torments of Purgatory cast your eyes upon the holy Martyrs of Gods Church and observe their behaviour They were torn mangled dismembred flead alive rackt broyled burnt and tell me was not this to live in a kind of Hell and yet in the very height of their torments their hearts and souls were ready to leape for joy you would have taken them to be already transported into heaven Hear them but speak for themselves O lovely Cross made St. Andrew beautiful by the precious body of Christ how long have I desired thee and with what care have I sought thee and now I have found thee receive me into thy armes and lift me up to my dear Redeemer O death how amiable art thou in my Eyes and how sweet is thy cruelty Your coales your flaming firebands and all St. Cecâ—ly the terrours of death are to me but as so many fragrant Roses and Lillies sent from Heaven Shower down upon me whole deluges St. Stephen of stones whil'st I see the Heavens open and Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of his eternal father to behold the fidelity of his Champion Turne O St. Laurence turne the other side thou cruel Tyrant this is already broild and cookt fit for thy Palate O how well am I pleased to suffer this little Purgatory for the love of my Saviour Make hast O my Soul St. Agnes to cast thy selfe upon the nuptial bed of flames which thy dear Spouse has prepared for thee O St. Felicitus and the Mother of the Machabees that I had a thousand Children or a thousand lives to sacrifice them all to my God What a pleasure it is to suffer for so good a cause Welcome tyrants tygres St. Ignatius Lyons let all the torments that the Devils can invent come upon me so I may enjoy my Saviour I am the wheat of Christ O let me be ground with the Lyons teeth Now I begin indeed to be the disciple of Christ O the luckie stroak St. Paul of a Sword that no sooner cuts of my head but makes a breach for my Soul to enter into Heaven Let it be far from me to glory in any thing but in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Let all evils band against me and let my body be never so overloaded with afflictions the joy of my heart will be sure to have the mastry and my soul will be still replenished with such heavenly consolations that no words nor even thoughts are able to express it You may imagine then that the Souls once unfettered from the body may together with their torments be capable of great comforts and divine favours and break forth into reâ—olute heroical and supercelestial acts The holy Ghost tels us that the body that Sap. 9. 15. is corrupted burthens the Soul and the earthly habitation presses downe the understanding So that a Soul by the infirmities of the body is violently kept from the free excercise of her functions whereas if the body were supple pliable and willing to follow the perswations of a resolute and generous Soul or the inspirations with which she is plentifully supplied from above what might we not be able to do even in this life Now that which is not done here but by very few who are lookt upon as so many miracles and prodigies of men is easily performed by those separate holy souls who are in the very porch of Heaven assured of their eternal salvation In fine will you have a most perfect exemplar and idea of this wonderful combination of â—oys and griefs in one simple person you may clearly see it in the most sacred person of our blessed Saviour who in the midst of his bitter passion and in the very height of his agony and extream dereliction when he not only seem'd to have been abandoned by his eternal Father but had even abandoned and forsaken himselfe by miraculously withholding the superiour part of his blessed Soul from relieving and assisting the inferiour yet even then had all the comforts of Heaven and saw God face to face and consequently was at the selfe same time most happy by the fruition of the beatifiâ—al vision and yet so oppressed with griefs that he cried out himself my soul is sorrowful unto death and againe O my God alas why hast thou thus forsaken me Conceive somthing like unto this of the Souls in Purgatory who are most miserably tormented and yet replenished with heavenly comforts §. 2. Two maine grounds of their comfort the double assurance they have of their salvation and impeccability THe better to unfold you this They are certain of â—heir salvation riddle I must tell you that possibly the most solid and powerful ground of their comfort is the assurance of their eternal salvation and that one day when it shall please God they shall have their part in the joyes of Paradise That which is the sorest affliction in this life unto the most refined Souls in the greatest torments is the fear of offending God and making an unhappy end for want of the gift of perseverance of which none can be assured without a particular revelation and so becoming the Devils martirs by purchasing one Hell with another For if an Angel should come down from Heaven and give this infallible assurance unto an affâ—â—cted person that undoubtedly he shall be saved as being one of the choyce number of the elect certainly his very heart would leap for joy nor would the severest usage with death it selfe and death represented in her most frightful and gastly attire seem cruel or irksome unto him but exceeding welcome and pleasant When almighty God was pleased once to reveal unto St. Francis his eternal predestination and to seal him as it were a deed of gift of Paradise this Seraphin incarnate was so transported with an extasie of joy and so ravished out of himselfe that for eight dayes together he did nothing but go up and down crying out Paradise Paradise O my soul thou shalt have Paradice and had so quite lost all memory of eating drinking sleeping suffering living dying and all things else as being inebriated with the sweet remembrance of that
who are truly miserable and yet holy under a cruel restraint and yet happy not able to merrit any thing and yet gracious in the sight of his divine Majesty no I do not say that when they are once got into Paradise they will be so many Angels Guardians of yours so many Advocates to plead your cause at the grand Tribunal of the most holy Trinity so many patrons and sureties for you and yours But I say that even while they remain prisoners they will do miracles for you I said miracles Now hear how they will doe that which cannot be done They will effect that for you which they cannot do for themselves and were it necessary to work a miracle in good earnest they would sooner do it then forsake you in your necâ—ssities I am not ignoâ—ant that the Angelical S. Thomas 2. 2 9 â—3 a. 〈◊〉 ad 3. Doctor teaches that those unhappy souls aâ—e in such a wretched state that they have more need to beg our prayers then to pray for us that they are wholly taken up with paying their debts to Gods justice who exacts an accompt of them to the last farthing that this suffering Church is rather in a condition to suffer them to act any thing that it is not now a time to merit but to burn not to succour those that are living but to expect succour from them A man that is drowning has not leasure to think of others a notorious malefactour that swims in boyling Oyl is not in a place where he ought or can plead for another his whole minde is so plung'd in the Oyle and all his thoughts so overwhelmed with the boyling liquour that torments him Alas those racked souls have more reason to cry out with holy Job Ah you my Job 19. 21. friends you aâ—â—east take pity of me for the hand of Gods justice so lovingly severe hangs continually over me and strikes me without intermission cease not to poure out your prayers for me to abate the rigour of his justice with your charitable sighs for a most miserable soul They have I say more need to beg our prayers then to pray for us I know well that many Learned Doctors are of opinion that the souls in Purgatory do not pray for us but it is no point of our faith and therefore they must give me leave to side with other great Divines who very probably maintain that Bell. l. 2. de Purgatorio c. 17. Suac d 47. Sect. 2. l. â— de oratione c. 11. those gratefull souls pray most ardently for those that pray for them The rich glutton though he were certainly damned could after his fashion pray for his brothers and shall not a holy soul have the power to do it Abraham argued the case with him call'd him lovingly sonne and seemd to be upon the â—oint of doing Luke 16. something for him at least gave him the comfort to tell him that his brothers had Moyses and the Prophets â—o instruct them as if he would haâ—e said that if his brothers had not been sufficiently provided of other means he would peradventure have granted him his request and sent Lazarus to preach to them But to Math. â— 31. give you yet a stranger instance The devils themselves have put up their requests to God have been heard and obtaind that sorry comfort they desired as when they begged not to be thrust down into Hell and got leave to enter into the heard of Swine and then to throw themselves into the Sea What! shall the damned soules pray and shall the divels be able to obtain their request and shall not the Souls in Purgatory have the like priviledges St. Thomas does not deny that they pray for us but onely affirms that they have more need of our prayers which is most true but may well stand with their praying for us A wicked Fellon that is going to be turn'd off the Ladder has yet a care to pray for his whole family for the King and the whole Bench that condemned him and many times for the very Hangman too who is ready to strangle him And shall this wretch have more power or more zeal or more grace then those souls who are so holy and who in spight of their torments are very present to themselves and have their wits about them free from all trouble and disquiet which might rob them of the sentiment and feeling which they ought to have of the obligation they owe to their charity that pray for them O no they do the one and yet neglect not the other They pray for themselves in suffering they pray for us in sighing and the one hinders not the other in Purgatory since that even here upon Earth the soul that is immersed in flesh and bloodâ— can perform both parts that â—â— sâ—tisfy for her self and yet have a sollicitous care of others Did not Onias and Hieremius pray affectionately for the people of God whilst they were in the dark prison of Abrahams bosome And do not the Saints assure us that God wrought a miracle for the merits of St. S. Greâ—â—â—dial Paschasius who yet neverthelesse was not out of Purgatory The same is reported of St Severin and though there be some dispute who this St. Severin was yet the Authors doubt not but that a Saint in Purgatory may work a miracle by Gods permission Some that are damned have wrought miracles and is it such a wonder that we should grant this to the Saints of Gods suffering Church We read in the life of St Catherine They are powerfull advocates of Bolognia whose Body Flesh and Bone is yet entire and sits to this houre 〈◊〉 chaire exposed to the view of the world though it be above sixty years since her death we read I say in her life which has the approbation of the sea Apostolick that she had not only a strange tendernesse for the soules but a singular devotion to them and was wont to recommend her self to them in all her necessities The reason she alleadged for it was this that she had learnt of Almighty God how she had frequently obtained farr greater favours by their intercession then by other means And the story adds this that it often happened that what she begged of God at the intercession of the Saints in Heaven she could never obtain of him and yet as soon as she addressed her self to the souls in Purgatory she had her suit instantly granted Can there be any question but there are souls in that purging fire who are of a higher pitch of sanctity and of a farr greater merit in the sight of God â—hen a thousand and a thousanâ— Saints who are already glorious in the Court of Heaven Tell 〈◊〉 was not our Dread Soveraignâ— during his late Banishment more puissant and more mighty then His Subjects who lived still in their own Country at their liberty and at their ease and perhaps in greater plenty for we see Him
dead parents and all the obligations they have to the rest of their friends It will help somthing to encrease Diod. Sic. l. 17. c. 16. our confusion to reflect how Alexander the great behaved himself at the Funerals of his dear Hephestion They tell us he spent at least twelve thousand Talents that is above seven Millions and two hundred thousand Crowns upon his funeral pile It was beautified with a world of rich and goodly statues made of Ivory Ebony or some precious Mettal amongst others you might have seen curious Mermaides with exquisite musick lockt up within them Eagles Dragons and other beasts represented to life stately galleries hung with Scarlet richly embroydered triumphant crowns of pâ—â—e Gold torches fifteen cubits high perfumes without end O what an excess of love and superfluity was this what a stâ—r to make a handful of ashes of the carcass of a miserable damned wretch And yet all this was nothing Justin l. 1. Diod. Sic. l. 3. Bud. to the mad profuseness of that other infamous and desperate King who yet living built his own funeral pile and made himself and a world of treasure to the valew of fifty millions of Gold to be all consumed to ashes What reflections shall we make upon all this we that are scarse willing to spare a shilling to ease a soul that lies consuming in the flames of Purgatory Tell me dear Reader what would they not have done for souls they that bore so Religious a respect to the bones ashes and smal remainder of dead carcasses They first cloth'd themselves with black cypres wash'd their hands clean quencht the fire with milk and wine then they made a diligent search for the bones carefully raking them up out of the ashes they placed them in their bosomes wash'd them with their tears and their choysest wines dried them again and lapped them up in their finest linnen covered them over with roses and oâ—her costly perfumes and so reserved them in urns of glasse Ivory or porphyry and could never think they had done enough for them And can we Christians with the eye of our faith pierce the Earth and see poor souls burning in Purgatory fire and see them with dry eyes and with a frozen heart Can we be so niggardly as to grudge them a little comfort or refuse to cast on our Wine our Milk and our flowers the wine of our charity the Milk of our innocency and the flowers of our devout sighs and prayers to help to quench their flames Christ Jesus told the Jewes that the Queen of Saba would condemne them at the latter day and I fear Queen Artemifia Strabo l. 14. Diod. l. 16. will condemne uâ— for having built one of the seven miracles of the world in honor of her dear Lord and Husband not content with this exteriour deâ—onstration of the dutiful affection she had for him she took a strange resolution to drink up his ashes and to lodge them in her heart and so to make it good to the very letter that man and wife are indeed but one flesh one body and and soul have but one life and can die but one death What would she not have done to have lodged his soul in Heaven she that took such care to lodge his ashes in her breast What have you to say for your selves you unkind wives or what answer can you make you unnatural Children when she shall question you what care you took to provide a better mansion for the Souls of your Husbands or your Parents when they were lodged in the merciless flames of Purgatory fire Sure you are not sprung from that wicked race of barbarouâ— people who were wont to feast themselves with the flesh of their dead Parents and to justifie the fact by saying that it was Strabo Val. Max. better their bodies should be their meat then the meat of worms and that they could not do better then to lodge them in their own bodies and so to returne the curtesie they received when they were heretofore lodged in theirs I know this brutishness does not raigne amongst us at this present but alas there is another not unlike to it which is much in fashion for how many Childen gourmandize themselves with the riches of their parents drink up the sweat of their browes and devoure their goods without so much as dreaming what becomes of their Souls whether they broyl in glowing fire or starve in freezing cold Cruel wretches Is this the gratitude with which they honour their Parents Are they indeed children or rather are they not direct vultures and Tygers I should never make an end should I go about here to reckon up all the religious expressions of charity which the Pagans are known to have made to their dead friends and therefore I say nothing of the ten valiant captains Xenoph. l. 1 Pausan l. 2. that were slain for not fishing for the bodies of their souldiers and causing them to be buried which was a crime they held unpardonable I say as little of that pions custome of the Athenians who would confer no honour or dignity but upon those who were well known to have been all wayes very religious in burying their ancestours and honouring their tombes I take no notice of a world of sacrifices prayers and ceremonies which were constantly performed by the vestall virgins Priests and whole pagan Clergy nor of the stately mausoleums pyramisses colossusses and other stately monuments which were built in honour of the dead It grieves me to the very heart to consider that there are scarce any to be found in the whole world that make less reckoning of the dead then some loose and idle Christians and I know not how to be better revenged of them then to wish that in punnishment of their coldness and want of charity they may be just so served by their successors as they dealt with their predecessours It is the least they deserve for neglecting a piety which they might have learnt of the Pagans of the very beasts themselves for some have been so curious as to observe in the Ants that in their little cells they have not only a hall and agranary but a kind of churchyard also or a place deputed for burying of their dead §. 2. The constant practise of the Church in all ages to pray for the dead IT is a pleasure to observe the 1. Age. constant devotion of the church of Christ in all ages to pray for the dead And first to take my rise from the Apostles time there are many learned Interpreters will have that baptisme for the dead of which the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 15. 29. to be meant only of the much fastâ—ng prayer almes-deeds and other voluntary afflictions which the first Christians undertook for the relief of their deceased friends But I need not fetch in obscure places to prove so clear an apostolical and early custome in Gods Church You may see a set forme of
trouble in her afflictions Fourthly He was sensible enough of his pain and would complain of it sometimes I say complain do you think Saints have bodies of Steele but betweeen one complaint and anoother he would be often thus sweetly interposing O my God I desire thy will may be fulfilled in all things and nothing else but thy will I am willing that thou handle this my body and all that belongs to me according to thy divine pleasure both in time and eternity Now tell me dear reader canst thou not do all this as well as this poore paralytick who lived for no other end but to be dying a lingring death all the dayes of his miserable and yet thrice happy life Will you have a soule so holy and so plyable â—o Gods will be thrown into Purgatory fire Sure said St. Austine if he meant to damn us in the other world he would not damn us in this to a Hell of most loathsome and intollerable diseases and I may say the like here that if God meant to punish his servaâ—ts in Purgatory after this life he would not punish them here in a Purgatory of miseries His goodnesse is not wont to punish the same fault twice Go into Hell and purgatory while you live cried In illud descendant in infernam St Bernard and you will be sure not to go thither after your death for it is not reasonable that you should have two Purgatories or two Hels Alas no And this is the cause why God to save his friends from those horrible torments of Purgatory fire sends them good store of crosses and afflictions in this world which are nothing so painfull and yet are highly meritorious in his sight Hom. 8. in c. 3. ad Colon. whereas the other are but pure sufferings Hear Saint Chrysostome The tongue that praises God in the midest of afflictions is not inferiour to the tongues of Martyrs and likely they may have both the same reward If a man praise God and give him thanks in his sufferings it is reputed as a kinde of Martyrdome and would you have a Martyr go to Purgatory he that findes heaven open and ready to receive him For as Emissenus saies very well the Heavens are not onely open to Saint Steven but unto all Martyrs and unto all that suffer and die with the name of Jesus in their mouths constancy in their hearts and fidelity in theirs souls The works of patience according to St. James are perfect and that which is perfect Jac. 1. ows nothing to Purgatory nor can Purgatory refine that which is already perfect no more then our fire can refine gold of twenty foure carrats that is so pure as not to have the least mixture or drosse or impurity § 7. The seventh Devotion for the Souls in Purgatory SHall I deal candidly with you one of my chief moâ—ives of publishing this Treatise was to perswade you this truth that one of the best means to prevent Purgatory is to have a great tendernesse and a particular care to comfort the souls there to spare nothing that can further their deliverance in a word to make your self a general Agent for this suffering Church to sollicite for their eternal rest Take now the proofs of this Assertion and the whole strength of my discourse 1. Christ said in plain terms In what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again that is you shall be dealt withall in some manner as you deale with others Mat. 7. So that if you have beat your brains and employed all your endeavours to help the souls in Purgatory and have really delivered some before their time it is but reason that this your charity should be requited with a like return and with a hundred fold besides and heaven at the end of it Methinks â—our case is not unlike to that of the prudent Abigail King David was so highly incensed 1 Reg. 25. against the ungratefull Nabal that he swore to pursue him and his whole Family with Fire and and Sword and to turn all into ashes For all this Abigail ventured to meet him with a Present and did it with so good a grace that she soon made up the breach and saved all For David after some little dispute with his anger grew calmer forgave all so sent her away joyfully in peace The application is easie T is true you have played the ungratefull Nabal you have offended God so far as to provoke his high displeasure so that he may seem to deale favourably with you if he sends you into Purgatory But you have with all played Abigails part in sending him as many gratefull Presenâ—s as you have breathed out fervent Prayers for the souls in Purgatory and with these you have made your peace so as you may look to be dismissed in peace into the Kingdome of Heaven 2. Take a second reason of St. Peter who exhorts us above all things to have charity for one another because charity covereth the multitude of sins For since it is the greatest Charity in the world to 1 Pet. 4. help poore souls out of Purgatory as I proved at large in the third Survey those that devote themselves wholly to this Service may be confident so to cover their sins as to put them out of the reach of Purgatory fire When Gibellin had straightly besieged Guelph Duke of Bavary and forced him to surrender his Town upon such hard Parud l. 2. c. 70. terms as that the women onely were permitted to secure themselves and to take away with them what they could carry upon their backs but as for the men they were to remain at mercy exposed to the fury of the fire and sword The good women laying their heads together found out this strange expedient to save their husbands as well as themselves for every one taking her husband upon her back and what else she was able to carry about her they marched out of the town Never was man so struck with astonishment as Gibellin was at this fight and though he might have disputed their passage as not consisting with the true meaning of the Articles yet was he so taken with so rare astratageme and strange example of a true conjugal love that â—he suffered them all to pass freely to the admiration of the whole world And surely we may hence conclude that all those who have so much love for the poor souls in Purgatory as to carry them as it were upon their backs out of their miserable thraldome will find heaven gates open and all the blessed spirits ready to receive them with acclamations of joy for so sweet an excess of charity 3 It is not possible that they who have been thus ransomed out of Purgatory by the ardent zeal of their friends here should not hold themselves obliged to restitution to return I say the like charity to the souls of their benefactours when they leave the world How can those happy souls that
end does not your heart tremble when you heare that the poore soules in Purgatory are tormented with the same or the like flames to those of the damned Can you hold from crying out with the Prophet Isay who c. 33. 14. can dwell with such devouring fire and unquenchable ardours Heavens what a lamentable case is this Those miserable soules who of late when they were wedded to their bodies were so nice and dainty forsooth that they durst scarce venture to enjoy the comfortable heat of a fire but under the protection of their skreens and their fans for feare of sullying their complexions and if by chance a sparke had been so rude as to light upon them or a little smoak it was not to be endured Those for whom down it self was too hard and even ready to break their bones one single grain of misfortune a stone but as big as a nutt a rotten tooth a sullen and malignant humour stoln into the marrow of a bone a cross word an affront an idle fancy a meer dream was enough to bury their whole felicity in a kind of hell Alas how will it fare with them when they shall see themselves tied to unmercifull firebrands or imbodied as it were with flames of fire surrounded with frightful darkness broyled and consumed without intermission and perhaps condemned to the same fire with which the divels are unspeakably tormented When Saul found himself beset on all sides and in the midst of his enemies and saw that he must either dye instantly or fall into the hands of that base and accursed crue Oh let me rather die cryed he he will do me a favour that will cut my throat 1. reg 31. that so I may not see my self butchered by such wicked hands and trail'd away by them death alass is not the thing I apprehend but that a King as I am should die like a slave ah is it that which gives me the fatal blow and even breaks my very heart O God! what a confusion what a sensible heart-breaking will it be to these noble and generous soules designed to eternall glory in the Kingdom of Heaven when they shall see themselves condemned to the same punishment and devoured by the same implacable flames with those of the damned and lodged in the very suburbs of hell A Prince had rather die a thousand deaths then be condemned to live amongst base slaves in a gally or be hang'd amongst fellons for it is not the death so much as the dishonour that makes them to die indeed And can you doubt whether the soules of the just have the same feelings when they see themselves involved in the same misfortune in the same place and in the same flames of fire with which the accursed rable of damned spirits is eternally tormented ah they take it for so high a dishonour that it may with reason be questioned whether this unhappy place and condition grieves them not more then the fire it self Plut. Sen. There was a time when they would have forced a young Roman Cavallier into the bottom of a darke and stinking pit but his heart was so fill'd with indignation at it that he chose rather to dash out his braines against a doore threshold and so to let out his blood and his life together then to enter into so noysome a place What a tearing grief must it be to those vertuous soules when they shall see themselves border upon the very confines of hell and in that accursed frontire and more then this to be shut up close prisoners in that unfortunate gulfe and to be condemned to suffer the same fire as the damned though their punishment be neither so terrible nor so lasting Good God! how the great Saints and Doctours astonish me when they treate of this fire and of the paine of sence as they tall it For they peremptorily pronounce that the fire that purges those both happy and unhappy Soules surpasses all the torments which are to be found in this miserable life of man or are possible to be invented for so far they go Out of which assertion it cleerly follows that the furious fits of the stone feavour or raging gout the tormenting chollick with all the horrible convulsions of the worst of diseases nay though you joyn racks grid-Irons boyling oyles wild beasts and a hundred horses drawing several waies and tearing one limb from another with all the other hellish devices of the most barbarous and cruell Tyrants all this does not reach to the least part of the mildest pains in Purgatory For thus they discourse the fire and the pains of the other world are of another nature from those of this life because God elevates them above their nature to be instruments of his severity Now say they things of an inferior degree can never reach to the power of such things as are of a higher ranke for example the ayre let it be never so inflamed unless it be converted into fire can never be so hot as fire Besides God bridles his rigour in this world but in the next he lets the reines loose and punishes almost equally to the desert And since those soules have preferred creatures before their Creatour he seems to be put upon a necessity of punishing them beyond the ordinary strength of creatures and hence it is that the fire of Purgatory burnes more torments and afflicts more then all the creatures of this life are able to doe But is it Aug. in Ps 37. S. Th. supp q. 100. a 3. in 4. d. 21. S. Greg. in 3. Ps Penitent S. Anselm in Elucydario really true that the least pain in Purgatory exceeds the greatest here upon earth O God! the very proposal makes me tremble for feare and my very hart freeses into ice with astonishment And yet who dare oppose * St. Aug. St. Thomas St. Anselme St. Gregory the great c. Is there any hope of carrying the negative assertion against such a stream of Doctours who all maintain the affirmative and bring so strong reasons for it Have patience to heare them yet once more sinne say they exceeds all creatures in malice and therefore let it be never so little it must deserve a punishment exceeding all the pain that can proceed from creatures Again creatures here below do nothing above their natural reach and capacity they act only within the sphere of their limited forces whereas the fire that is designed to purify guilty soules derives its vigour and force from God Who being Almighty and besides provoked to displeasure makes it so active and so prevalent that there is nothing can be compared with it And they adde unto all this a world of visions and revelations which seem to countenance the rigour of their position What then will become of thee poore idle soul if the least pains in Purgatory surpasse the greatest in this world what I say will become of thee that art so tender that a little smoak is able
St. John how can he make us believe 1 Jo. 4. 20. that he loves God whom he never saw That which I am to maintaine is that amongst all the acts of faternal charity or works of mercy the most sublime the most pure and the most advantagious of all others is the service we perform for the souls in Purgatory In the History of the incomparable A remarkable passage order of the great St Dominick it is authentically related that one of the first of those holy religious men was wont to say that he found himself not so much concerned to pray for the Souls in Purgatory because they are certain of their salvation and that upon this account we ought not in his judgement to be very sollicitous for them but ought rather to bend our whole care to help sinners to convert the wicked and to secure such souls as are uncertain of their salvation and probably certain of their damnation as leading very leud lives Here it is said he it is here that I willingly employ my whole endeâ—vours It is upon these that I bâ—stow my Masses and Prayers and all that little that is at my disposal and thus I take it to be well bestowed But upon souls that have an assurance of eternal happiness and can never more loose God or offend him I believe not said he that one ought to be so sollicitous This certainly was but a poor and weak discourse to give it no severer a censure and the consequence of it was this that the good man did not only himself forbear to help these poor souls but which was worse disswaded others from doing it and under colour of a greater charity withdrew that succour which otherwise good people would have liberally afforded them But God took their cause in hand for permitting the souls to appear and shew themselves in frightful shapes and to haunt the good man both by night and by day without respit still filling his fancy with dreadful imaginations and his eyes with terrible spectacles and withall letting him know who they were and why with Gods permission they so importuned him with their troublesome visits you may believe the good Father became so affectionately kind to the souls in Purgatory bestow'd so many Masses and Prayers upon them preached so fervently in their behalf stirr'd up so many to the same devotion that it is a thing incredible to believe and not to be expressed with Eloquence Never did you see so many and so clear and convincing reasons as he alleaged to demonstrate that it is the most eminent piece of fraternal charity in this life to pray for the souls departed Love and fear are the two most excellent Oratours in the world they can teach all Rhetorick in a moment and infuse a most miraculous eloquence This good Father who thought he should have been frighted to death was grown so fearful of a second assault that he bent his whole wit to invent the most pressing and convincing arguments to stir up the world both to pitty and piety and so perswade souls to help souls and it is incredible what good ensued thereupon The History does not set down the motives which he either invented or had by inspiration to evidence this truth and therefore I will borrow them of St. Thomas that angel for divinity of the same order and of other Saints and doctours of the Catholick Church § 1. The greatness of the charity to the Souls in Purgatory is argued from the greatness of their pains and their helpless condition SInce there is no torment under Most charity to help tbc greater sufferers Heaven comparable to the pains of Purgatory as you have already seen those unhappy souls must needs be the most afflicted creatures in the world and consequently there cannot be a greater charity then to relieve them The loving mother runs always to her sickest child not but that she is tender of them all and has her heart divided into as many parcels as she has children and sick children but where there is most need there she makes a greater demonstration of her love thither her heart is carried with a greater violence and tenderness of affection where the greatest evil or danger appears As for the rest their condition is not so pressing she speaks to them at leasure and by giving one of them a few comsits a good word to another a smile to a third they are all well contented but he that burns in the Purgatory of a violent feavour it is he that has most need of his mother and so you see her as it were nail'd to his pillow her heart her eyes her hands her mouth and her very bosome lye open to this child and she can think of nothing but him so that where there is a greater share of misery reason requires there should be more compassion and more charity expressed Cast but a morsel of bread to a needy beggar send a good almes to a poor Hospital visite a prisoner give a word of comfort to a sick person and they are very well satisfied but he that lies burning in unmerciful flames alas it is he that ought to move all the bowels of your compassion When the image of Cleopatra with the stinging Aspes at her breasts was carried in triumph before the Romans though otherwise fierce and cruel enough by nature yet could they not hold from shedding a few tears of compassion and truly such a Queen in so sad a condition was not to be lookt upon with dry eyes the other captives yet living did not move them at all in comparison of that unfortunate Princess for all she was only represented in colours upon a painted cloth You Angel-keepers of Purgatory I conjure you to unlock your gates and lay your prison open that I may discover those Kings and Queens I mean those holy Souls of both sexes who are shortly to have their share in the celestial empire that I may lay before the Eyes of the whole Catholick Church those Asps of grief that lye so close at their hearts those cruel flames I say that incessantly devour them and withall the infinite modesty and patience with which they endure all in so much that not one of them lets fall the least froward or inconsiderate word or makes the least complaint against the sweet rigour of God Is there a heart if it be the heart of a man indeed and has but a drop of true Christian blood in it that does not feel it self to be either broken or mollified at so pitiful and lamentable a spectacle to see I say such noble and generous spirits in so deplorable a condition Is there any thing within the whole circumference of the universe so worthy of compassion and that may so deservedly clayme the great'st share in al your devotions and charities as to see our Fathers our Mothers our nearest and dearest relations to lye broyling in cruel flames and to crye to us for help with
no sooner restored to His undoubted Right but he is every way as great â— King as His Predecessours as richly Attired as much Courted by Forraign Princes and as gloriously attended at White-hall whereas the rest of his Nobility and Gentry are but his creatures and most humble Servants There are great souls that for some slight misdemenours are banisht out of the Kingdome of Heaven to which they are heirs apparent as being the adopted Sons of God by Grace nay more are locked up in that burning furnace which we call Purgatory but they are scarseâ—â—â—â—â—ose when you may see them 〈◊〉 out in triumph and go soaring up above the Heavens so high as to loose all sight of them And when they are once there what will they not do for you And what did not our gracious King to his power to honour and gratifie those that stuck close to Him in his misfortune or were so lucky as to have a great hand in restoring Him King David at his death recommending his good servants to his Son Solomon spoke thus withall My Son there is such a one and such a one have well deserved death for the crimes they have committed but when I was generally deserted and when they took the boldness upon them to throw stones at me these men took pitty on me and gave me succour in my greatest affliction and therefore I charge thee O my dear son to be mindful of them and to favour them as thou lovest me Have not holy souls as much charity as David Is not the misfortune into which they are faln of a more sensible nature then His In what a lofty strain will they â—hen represent unto God the good service you have done for them in their extream necessity when they find themselves onâ—e securely seated in those heavenly mansions And what will not that boundless mercy be moved to grant at the instance of so dear friends Shall I tell you there are many worthy persons think these words of Jesus Christ may be very properly applied to the souls in Purgatory Do good saith he and make your selves friends at the charge of your purses and be good stewards of Mammon the false god of Riches that those whom you relieve may assist you at the hour of your death and lead you into eternal tabernacles Among the poor none so secure of enjoying the delights of Paradise as the souls in Purgatory who are all predestinate and all holy for the present they are poor indeed and helpless creatures but if you contribute never so little to their ease they will be sure to requite you in your necessities if not before at least when they are once possest of the joyes of Heaven Cardinal Baronius a man of credit beyond exception relates In annal Eccles how a person of rare vertue found himself dangerously assaulted at the hour of his death and that in this Agony he saw the heavens open and about eight thousand Champions all covered with white Armour to descend who feâ—l instantly to encourage him by giving him this assurance that they were come to fight for him and to disengage him from that doubtful combate And when with infinite comfort and tears in his eyes he besought them to do him the favour to let him know who they were that had so highly obliged him We are said they the â—â—uls whom you have saved and delivered out of Purgatory and now to requite the favour we 〈◊〉 come down to convey you instantly into Heaven And with that he died We read such another story of 〈◊〉 â—erthus apâ—â— P. Roam de Purg. c. 20. St Gertrude how she was troubâ—ed at her death to think what must become of her since she had given away all the rich treasure of her satisfactions to redeem other poor souls without reserving any thing to her self but that our Blessed Saviour gave her the comfort to know that she was not only to have the like favour of being immediately conducted into Heaven out of this world by those innumerable souls whom she had sent thither before her by her fervent prayers but was there also to receive a hunderfold of eternal glory in reward of her charity By which examples we may learn that we cannot make better use of our devotion and charity then this way But he that will 〈…〉 satisfie himself that he can loose nothing but gain excessively though he should offer up all his satisfactory works for the souls in Purgatory let him read over what F Eusebius Neremâ—ergicus and F. James Monford have excellently well written upon this subject The Fourth Survey Of the powerful means to quench the flames of Purgatory COuld the poor souls but They cannot help themselves help themselves or abate the cruelty of their torments with all their devont aspirations so pure and so holy they would soon free themselves But alas they cannot and this is one of their greatest miseries to see themselves in so desperate a condition as to be overwhelmed with raging fire and not to have the power to get out or to allay the fury of the flames or to merit the least favour in this kind not so much as de Congruo as they speak in Schools or by way of a certain congruity conveniency or decency The time of meriting expired with their lives what now remaines is wholly deputed for suffering and it is not the least of their vexations to see how easily they might have prevented all these mischiefs in their life time and that now there 's no remedy but by suffering to supply for that negligence though they would never so fane Howsoever I love those divines Su. in 3. p. d. 19. post St. Tho. who are somthing more civil in this point then their fellows and am easily perswaded by them that although the souls cannot immediately contribute the least to their own ransome or any way merit their own deliverance yet may they be so happy as to work upon the goodness of their Angels and by their means obtain some sweet refreshments at the merciful hand of God wherewith to allay the bitterness of their torments And following their opinion who teach that they pray for us and procure us heavenly favours what inconsequence were it to say further that they move our good Angels to inspire us efficaciously to intercede for them and to assist them with all the duties of Christian charity it being a thing to which they are otherwise of themselves so much inclined without the sollicitation or importunity of others §. 1. What succour they receive from the Angels and Saints in Heaven IN the first place you would be The Saints pray for them resolved whether the Angels and Saints in Heaven and above all the Mother of mercy Pray really for them If so how comes it to pass that they do not every hour or indeed every instant make a general Gaole delivery and quite empty Purgatory For what power has the Mother oâ— God
in the case of the rich glutton why may they not be so kind as to pray for one another If the flames of Hell said the Devout Sales that worthy Prelate of Geneva were not sullied with the smoake of sin were they but pure flames of holy love O what a pleasure were it to be swallowed up by such flames or to be thus damned eternally to love God What should hinder then but that the Souls in Purgatory where the fire of love triumphs over their tormenting flames may display their ardent charity and vigorously apply themselves to assist and comfort one another as far as Gods providence will give them leave May we not presume to fancy that out of an excess of charity they are willing to dispoil themselves of all those helps and advantages which they receive of their friends to throw theÌ„ upon others offering themselves freely to suffer for one another Tertul. Apolog. Tertullian admires how prodigal the first Christians were in this kind of charity of suffering and even dying for one another how ready they were to leap into the very flames and expose themselves to the most cruel tortures that could be devised and all to save others for whom they were prepared What shall frail mortals who are made up of flesh and blood thus willingly suffer for one another and shall not the souls who have cast of with their bodies all humane weakness and imperfection have as much charity for other souls especially being certain of their salvation of which men in this life can have no assurance without a particular revelation St. Ambros de Virgin Didymas offered to dye for St. Theodora and in conclusion both died for her and with her Elizeas being dead himself raised another from death to life which was more then he did for himself St. Paul seems to have been content to be damned to save the Jews alwayes reserved that it might be without sin David would willingly have met with death in her uggliest attire so he might have saved his son Absalon and yet he knew him to be but a graceless unnatural parricide Shall not holy souls have as much kindness for other souls whom they see upon the point of being metamorphosed into Seraphins as David had for a meer reprobate and lost creature Many Saints in this world have beg'd it as a favour of Almighty God that they might suffer for the souls in Purgatory and have done it in good earnest freely renouncing their own conveniences for the souls comfort by a most heroical act of supernatural charity Do not you believe that the souls in Purgatory have a more refined love and that they actuate themselves in more heroical transcendent acts of charity since they are not only grown to be inpeccable but have withal a far clearer insight into the nature of this divine vertue I but they can merite nothing True but do you take them to be so selfish as to do nothing purely for Gods sake without seeking their own interest what say you to our Angel Guardians is it for any private lucre or merit or purely to please God and to do us a work of singular charity that they have so sollicitous a care of us And when God himself loves us is it I pray you for any interest of his own or out of an excess of his overflowing bounty and charity which Math. 5. 48. well becomes him â—e perfect saith he as I am perfect now the means to do this is to be well versed in these acts of heroical love as to love God for God because he deserves it as being the only charming object of our love I love said St. Augustine because I love I am resolved to love because I am beloved of him that loves me only because he will needs love me To love for meer love is the quintessence of divine love What shall we be so niggardly so mercinary or so mechanical as not to excercise an act of pure love without hope of reward Is not our love well requited if we please God and those whom God loveth They say Appelles would give away his Pictures for nothing he had so great a valew for them he thought no set price could be equal to their worth and that gold it self was too mean a thing to purchase such precious labours which he therefore chose rather to give away gratis then to expose to an unworthy sale so that the bare pleasure he took in bestowing them upon his friends was all the recompence he lookt for for those incomparable pieces And certainly it is a most noble and truly royal thing to give and to give without hope of requital Seneca spoke a word which shew'd a magnanimous and true Sen. l. de benef generous heart To give and to loose all benefit by his gift is no wonder but to loose all benefit and yet to be still giving is a divine Master-piece and an act worthy of God indeed Now when these charitable soules can gratifie others by giving away the charities which are bestowed on them why should they not do it To do a pleasure for another without incommodating himself is no more then what you may expect of an Arabian or Barbarian but to incommodate himself to lye burning in fire groaning under excessive torments and all this to make others happy is certainly an act worthy of those noble and generous souls who are all inflamed with pure divine love When they had a minde to flatter their Caesars the people would cry out O Jupiter take away some of our years shorten our lives decimate our dayes and give it all to prolong the life of our good Prince let him live at the charge of our lives we are all ready to lay them down at his feet that he alone may live and raign happily in the flourishing greatness of his Empire Shall Infidels have more kindness for a mortal man perhaps a wicked Tyrant or a profane Atheist then holy souls have for those that are about to be Canonized for Saints in the Church Triumphant I have heard of great servants of God who when they saw some famous Preacher or Apostolical Person draw near to his end would expresse themselves to this purpose O that I were permitted to dye in his Roome for I alas am but an unprofitable member of the Church all my services avail but little to advance Gods cause whereas this worthy person may do a world of good and be a comfort to infinite souls What should hinder a soul in Purgatory from having the like feelings may she not and with truth cry out I am well acquainted with my own abilities and can have a nearer guesse what I am able to doe in Paradise where I am like to be one of the meanest servants in the whole house of God and therefore may be well spared but there is such a soul had she but once cleard the petty debts she stands yet engaged for she would instantly
Masses for them nor yet only by offering up your Prayers Fasts Alms-deeds other such works of Piety but you may bestow upon them all the good you do and all the evill you suffer in this world If you offer up unto God all the cruel frettings and gripings you endure in a fit of the Stone which tears up your very entralls if all the bitter sting and gnawings of the raging gout when it buries you alive in a kind of Purgâ—â—ory if all the sensible tearings of a desperare Megrim when it cleaves your head in pieces if the sullen humour of a Quartan Ague which steeps your very heart in the Gaul of a deep melancholy if all the other evils which murther you alive and do not kill you out right to be still killing you with a lingring death If I say you offer up unto God all that causes you any grief or affliction for the present relief of the poore languishing souls you cannot believe what ease and comfort they will finde by it and as in the buckets of a VVell while the one sinks down to the bottom the other mounts up to the top so the lower you humble your self in your sufferings the higher you will raise the souls in their flight towards heaven Nor will you have cause to fear forgetting your self while you satisfie for them for it will infallibly come to passe as St. John Chrysostome assures us that God who is always prodigal of his mercies will be sure to remember you and the holy Souls soaring up to Heaven with the wings of your Charity will there plead for you with so much eloquence as to gain your cause or at least obtain so much patience for you as to defie the worst of your evils which do so insult and tyranize over you with so much insolence Pliny would make us believe there are certain fishes that entertain so faire an amity and faithfull correspondence with one another that if one of them chance to be hung in the net the other strives al he can possibly to set him free and having no other means to compass his design presents his taile or one of his sins which the other lays fast hold on with his teeth so that while the one thrusts with all his might and the other draws with all his force they break the mash make way for the prisoner to get out and so swim away both triumphing in their liberty Mean while the kind fish that was sorely bitten bleeds fresh of his wounds and yet is so well pleased to have purchased his friends liberty though at the cost of his blood that he thinks not of his own mischief for the joy he takes in his friends safety Do you the same for your friends who are detained captives in Purgatory lend them your Armes your Head your Blood all your griefs and pains and they will be the sooner released out of their miserable thraldome and you by their favour shall in your turn passe through it with so much â—wiftnesse that you shall scarse feel the scorching flames with which they are so grievously tormented You have another easy but â—â—â—â—lgences most powerfull means to help these unfortunate souls and that is to dispense out liberally amongst them the inexhaâ—stible treasure of indulgences to cause Masses to be often saâ—◠〈◊〉 priviledged Altars to gain Jubilies and other plenary Indulgences which are appliable to the benefit of deceased soules For though some extravagant writers have been so bold in their unwary speculations upon this subject as to question whether the Popes power in granting Jubilies and other pardons reach to Purgatory or be only confined to this world yet the current of sober Doctors must bear the sway who all conclude that as to the living his Holiness proceeds by way of absolution and as to the dead by way of suffrages and satisfactions but has full power over both to loose or bind open or lock up Heaven gates and to distribute the treasure of the Church and that he has his commission for all this from the sacred mouth of Jesus Christ himself Math. 16. Certainly there be thousands deserve to lye in Purgatory were it only for this strange neglect that haâ—â—â—g so rich a treasure in their hanâ—s wherewith to ransome poore captive souls they were so carelesse as to make little or no use of it but let a thousand occasions slip in which they might have released them and all for want of a little pains to gain Indulgences And they are the less to be excused because it is very probable Prepos de Indulg q. 14 dub 10. Alii passim that they may gain Indulgences which are appliable to the dead whether they be in the state of grace or no so they do but the work prescribed What will they do sayes the Apostle â— Cor. 15. â—9 that are Baptized for the dead What means this Baptisme for the dead I leave a dozen of Interpretations to tell you there were some fervent Christians in those days that took a world of pains and suffered a world of austerities for the faithful departed and so were Baptized in the tears of contrition and in the blood of a most rigourouâ— and penitential life I requiâ—â— not so much of you only a little care of applying such indulgences as you have in your power to do them good who by a little of your favourable assistance would be soon set at liberty Cruel heart canst thou refuse so slight a curtesie to souls so holy and yet in so lamentable a condition And if thou hast the honour to get in thither thy self hereafter I say the honour dost thou not deserve to be let alone to feel at leisure the smart of thy idleness and disloyalty Who will take the pains to help a wretch who would scarse stir a finger to help out souls whose eternal happiness she might as easily have procured as cut a smal thred in two or quench a little sparke of fire I have not the confidence to Holy 〈…〉 ses 〈…〉 all 〈…〉 low propose things of greater hardship and therefore I will not exhort you to imitate the example of St. Catherine of Siena who offered to sâ—ffer the pains of Purgatory it sâ—lf in place of her dear Mother nor that of St. Catherine of Genua who really suffered two years together what flesh and blood is not able to endure in this mortal life not that of St. Christina the wonderful whose excesses Bellarm. Surius Vitriâ—co in this kind were incredible if not attested by very credible persons I know there is no perswading you to devote your self to such holy excesses least you should chance to be taken at your word as some others have been I hope at least I may without offence minde you not to stick to apply this way all your fasts hair girdles disciplins and other corporal afflictions and in a word all the evils you suffer in body or soul whether they
law but had secretly reserved to themselves a crime for which they all instantly concluded those unfortunate soules had deservedly been cast away and cut off by the hand of God And some there were doubtlesse that fell a cursing this their fordid avarice and high transgression but the good Captain takes this occasion to exhort them to adore the just judgments of heaven and to learn at the others cost to have the fear of God before their eyes and to be more religious in their wayes and yet withall to be more reserved in their censures and rather to have pitty on the soules of their fellow souldiers who probably might not die in so desperate a condition as not to be relieved by their help This done he makes a collection he raises a summe of 12000. drachms he sends it to Hierusalem to procure Sacrifices to be offered for their sins that were slain who for ought he knew might dye in a faire way to a hopefull resurrection Now whether shall we first admire the tender heart of this noble Cavalier or his religious piety or his charitabâ—â— liberality He knew well those miserable wretches had committed a most foul crime and yet he would not despaire of their salvation but was willing to believe they repented themselves of their frailty and that God had sent them their deaths onely as a temporal punishment for the terrour of others Nor had he the least doubt but that our Lord would be well pleased with his charity and accept of the Sacrifices which he thus offered for the repose of their souls And certainly the fact is most highly commended by the sacred Text which concludes the story in these words It is therefore a holy and healthfull cogitation to pray for the Dead that they may be loosed from their sins O that so faire an example would teach all Christians to be good and liberall to the Dead for alas the greatest part of mankinde content themselves with drawing two or three sighs at a funeral or saying aâ—â—â—â—rt prayer or two at most wherâ—â—â— this generous Captain even before the clear light of the Gospel did all this and consirmed it with a noble Gift of 12000. drachms §. 1. Of the natural instinct of all Nations to honour and comfort the dead IT may well put most Catholicks to the blush to consider what an incredible care all nations have ever had of the dead by the meer impulse of nature Cesar takes notice how superstitiously De bello Gall. pious the ancient French were in this kind who together with the dead corps which they burnt upon a great pile of wood were wont to consume all that had been precious and dear to him when he lived as all his rich moveables his Dogs his Horses nay sometimes his very Servants also who took it for a great honour that they might be suffered so to mingle their ashes with those of their dear Lord and Master And does not the Roman Tacit. Hist History tell us that when Otho the Emperous had 〈◊〉 himself with a Dagger many â—â— his Souldiers were seen to do the like to shew the affection they had for their Prince and how-ready they were to sacrifice their lives for his honour and service I know these customes were not only very extravagant but extream rude and barbarous and yet they may serve to shame Christians who are so far from expressing any such love for the souls of their friends though they believe them to lye broyling in Purgatory For what would not these others have done or what would they not have given to redeeme the souls of their friends out of cruel torments had they believed as much since they were so prodigal as to sacrifice their goods and their very lives to their bare memories What shall I say of those other Nations whose natural piety lead them to set burning Lamps at the sepulchers of the dead and strew them over with sweet flowers and Odoriferous perfumes Herod l. 2. do they not mind Christians to remember the dead and to cast after them the sweet incense of their devout sighs and prayers and the perfumes of their almes deeds and other good works It was very usual with the old Romans to shed whole floods of tears to reserve them in viol glasses and to bury them with the â—â—â—nes in which the ashes of their deâ—d friends were carefully laid up and by them to set Lamps so artificially composed as to burn without end By which Symbols they would give us to understand that neither their love nor their grief should ever dye but that they would always be sure to have tears in their eyes love in their hearts and a constant memory in their souls for their deceased friends Good God! shall charity be overcome by vanity shall Religion yeeld to Idolatry and shall â—he Catholick Roman stoop to the Pagan Roman shall a little vain glory or a meâ—â—â—atural affection have the power to draw whole Glasse fuls of tears from the eyes of idolatours and shall not a Religious compassion prevaile so far â—s to draw a single tear or a figh or a good word from the mouth of a Christian shall they take on so bitterly for dead carcasses that are not sensible of the flames that consume them shall not we be more concerned for souls that really feel the smart of a most cruel fire sure they will one day rise up in judgement against us and reproach us for believing as we do and carrying our felves clear contrary to the belief we profess They had another custome not only in Rome but elsewhere to walk about the burning pile where the dead Corps lay and with their mournful lamentations to keep time with the doleful sound of their Trumpets and still every turn to cast into the fire some precious pledg of their friendship The Women themselves would not stick to throw in their Rings Bracelets and other costly attires nay their very hair also the chief ornament of their Sex and they would have been sometimes willing to have thrown in both their eyes and their hearts too Nor were there some wanting that in earnest Suet. in Aug. Dion Alex. threw themselves into the fire to be consumed with their dear spouses so that it was found necessary to make a severe law against it such was the tenderness they had for their deceased friends such was the excess of a mere natural affection Now our love â—â— infused from heaven it is supernatural and consequently ought to be more active and powerful to stir up our compassion for the souls departed and yet we see the coldness of Christians in this kind how few there are that make it their business to help poor souls out of their tormenting flames It is not necessary to make Laws to hinder any excess in this kind it were rather to be wish'd that a Law were provided to punish all such ungrateful persons as forget the duty they owe to their
upon the Crosse and sitting now at thy right hand makes Intercession for us I know she has willingly and from her heart forgiven such as offended her forgive thou also her sins O Lord forgive her I beseech thee and enter not with her into judgment Let thy Mercy overtop thy Justice c. And I verily perswade my self that thou hast already done what I desire but yet accept O Lord this prayer which I willingly make For she when the day of her death drew neer upon her did not crave that her body might be sumptuously adorned or embalmed with Spices and Odours nor desired she any curious or choice monument or cared she to be conveyed into her own Country They were not these things she recommeâ—ded to us but only she desired to be remembred at the Altar whereat she used to assist without pretermission of any one day c. Let her therefore rest in peace with her husband c. And inspire O Lord my God inspire thy servants my brethren that whosoever reads these my confessions may at thy Altar remember thy servant Monaca with Patricius her husband c. St. Paulinus that charitable Prelate who sould himselfe to redeem others cold not but have a great proportion of charity for captive souls in the other world No he was not only ready to have turnd slave himself to purchase their freedom but he became an earnest solicitour to others in their behalf for in a letter to Delphinus alluding to the story of Lazarus he beseeches him to have at least so much compassion as to convey now and then a drop of water wherewith to coole the tongues of poor souls that lye burning in the church which is all a fire I am astonisht when I call to mind the sad regrets of the people of Africa when they saw some of their Priests drag'd away to Martyrdome The Author says they Victor utic l. 2. de persec Wandal flocked about them in great numbers and cryed out alas if you leave us so what will become of us who must give us absolution for our sins who must bury us with the wonted ceremonies of of the church when we are dead and who will take care to pray for our souls such a general belief they had in those dayes that nothing is more to be desired in this world then to leave those behind us who will do their best to helpe us out of our torments §. 3. A continuation of the same subject from the sixth Age after Christ unto our dayes ALmighty God has often 6. Age. miraculously made it appear how well he is pleased to be importuned by us in the souls behalf and what comfort they receive by our prayers S. John Climacus In 4. gradu scalae writes that while the Monkes were at service praying for their good Father Mennas the third day after his departure they felt a marvellous sweet smell to rise out of his grave which they took for a good omen that his sweet soul after three dayes Purgation had taken her flight into heaven For what else could be meant by that sweet perfume but the odour of his holy and innocent conversation or the incense of their sacrifices and prayers or the primitiall fruits of his happy soul which was now flown up to the holy mountain of eternal glory there enjoying the odoriferous and never fading delights of paradise Not unlike unto this is that story which the great St. Gregory relates of one Justus a l. 4. dial c. 55. Monke He had given him at first for a lost creature but upon second thoughts having ordered Mass to be said for him for thirty dayes together the last day he appears to his brother and assures him of the happy exchange he was now going to make of his torments for the joys of heaven Pope Symmachus and his Council 6. Synod Rom. had reason to thunder out anathema's against those sacrilegious persons who were so frontless as to turn pious legacies into profane uses to the great prejudice of the souls for whose repose they were particularly deputed by the founders And certainly it is a much fouler crime to defrande souls of their due relief then to disturbe dead mens ashes and to plunder their graves And yet we read of dead carcasses that have risen up in their graves to struggle for their sheets with the wicked wretches who would have stolne them away And it were to be wished that more were permitted to do the like and that souls might have leave to appear sometimes to those that abuse them so unconsieonably happily they might fright them into reason who will not be otherwise perswaded to do them right St. Isidor delivers it as an apostolical tradition and general 7. Age. l. 1. de offic c. 18. l. 2. c. penuâ—t practise of the Catholick Church in his time to offer up sacrifices and prayers and to distribute almes for the dead and this not for any encrease of their merit but either to mitigate their pains or to shorten the time of their durance Venerable Bede is a sure witness 8. Age. for the following Century whose learned works are ful of wonderful stories which he brings in confirmation of this Catholick doctrine and practise St. John Damascene made an eligant Orat. quod ij qui. c. oraâ—ion on purpose to stir up this devotion where amongst other things he says it is impossible to number up all the stories in this kind which bear witness that the souls departed are relieved by our prayers and that otherwise God would not have appointed a commemoration of the dead to be dayly made in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass nor would the Church have so religiously observed anniversaries and other dayes set a part for the service of the dead Were it but a dog says Simeon 9. Age. In vita St. Pachom St. Euseb c. Metaphrastes that by chance were faln into the fire we should have so much compassion for him as to help him out and what shall we do for souls who are faln into Purgatory fire I say souls of our Parentâ— and dearest friends souls who are predestinate to eternal glory and extream precious in the sight of God And what did not the Saints of Gods Church for them in those days some armed themselves from head to foot in course hair cloth others tore of their flesh with chains and rude disciplines some again pined themselves with rigourous fasts others dissolved themselves into tears some passed whole nights in contemplation others gave liberal almes or procured great store of Masses In fine they did what they were able and were not well pleased that they were able to do no more to relieve the poor souls in Purgatory Amongst 10. Age. Luitprand l. 4. c. 7. others Queen Melchtild is reported to have purchased immortal fame for her discreet behaviour at the death of the King her Husband for whose soul she caused
a world of Masses to be said and a world of almes to be distributed in lieu of other idle expences and fruitless lamentations There is one in the world to 11. Age. whom I bear an immortal envy and such an envy as I never mean to repent It is the holy Abbot Odilo who was the Authour of an invention which I would willingly have found out though with the loss of my very heart blood Take the story as it passed thus Sigeb in Chron. an 998. A devout religious man in his returne from Hierusalem meets with a holy hermite in Sicily he assures him that he ofteâ— heard the Devils complaine that souls were so soon discharged of their torments by the suffrages of the faithful and particularly by the devout prayers of the Monkes of Cluny who never ceased to power out their prayers for them This the good man carries to Odilo then Abbot of Cluny he praises God for his great mercy in vouchsafing to hear the innocent prayers of his monkes and presently takes occasion to command all the Monasteries of his order to keep yearly the Commemoration of all souls next after the feast of all Saints A custome which by degrees grew into such credit that the Caâ—â—olick Church thought sit to establish it all over the Christian world to the incredible benefit of poor souls and singular encrease of Gods glory For who can sum up the infinite number of souls who have been freed out of Purgatory by this holy invention or who can express the glory which accrued to this good Abbot who thus fortunately made himself Procuratour general of the suffering Church and furnished her people with such a considerable supply of necessary relief to alleviate the insupportable burthen of their suffrings St. Bernard would triumph 12. Age. Ser. 66. in Cant. when he had to deal with Hereticks that denied this piviledg of communicating our suffrages and prayers to the souls in Purgatory And with what fervour he would apply himself to this charitable employment of relieving poor souls may appear by the care he took for good Humbertur Ser. de obitu Humberti thogh he knew him to have lived and died in his Monasteâ—â— so like a Saint that he could scarce find out the fault in him which might deserve the least punishment in the other world unless it were to have been too rigourous to himself and too careless of his health which in a less spiritual eye then that of St. Pernard might have passed for a great virtue But it is worth your hearing that In vita Malach which he relates of blessed St. Malachy who died in his very bosome This holy Bishop as he lay a sleep hears a sister of his lately dead making lamentable moane that for thirty dayes together she had not eaten so much as a bit of bread He starts up out of his sleep and taking it to be more then a dream he concludes the meaning of the vision was to tell him that just thirty dayes were now past since he had said Mass for her as probably believing she was already where she had no need of his prayers For this indeed is the ordinary excuse wherewith many use to â—â—â—â—ke their idleness God be with him he was a good soul he is certainly in Heaven ere this there is no more need to pray for him c. whereas God knows heaven is not so easily purchased as fooles imagine Howsoever this worthy Prelate so plyed his Prayers after this that he soon sent his Sister out of Purgatory and it pleased God to let him see by the daily change of her habit how his Prayers had purged her by degrees and made her fit company for the Angels and Saints in Heaven For the first day she was covered all over with black Cypresse the next she appeared in a Mantle something whitish but of a dusky colour but the third day she was seen all clad in white which is the proper Livery of the Saints What think you now sayes Saint Bernard is not the Kingdome of Heaven got by violence Did not Saint Malachy force it by storming were not his Prayers like stroaks of a 〈◊〉 like engine to make a breach in heaven for his sister to enter at Sweet Jesus you that suffer this violence are your self the cause of it the good Prelate breaths nothing but what you have inspired him so sweet are you in your Mercies so faithfull in your Promises and so powerfull in your divine wonders Thus far Saint Bernard But I cannot let passe in silence one very remarkable passage which happened to these two great servants of God Saint Malachy had passionately desired to dye at Claravallis in the hands of devout Saint Bernard and this on the day immediately going before All Souls day and it pleased God to grant him his request It fell out then that while Saint Bernard was saying Masse for him in the midle of Masse it was revealed to him that Saint Malachy was already glorious in Heaven whether he had gone straight thither out of this world or whether that part of Saint Bernards Masse had freed him out of Purgatory is uncertain but Saint Bernard hereupon changed his note for having begun Masse of Requiem he went on with a Masse of a Bishop and Confessour to the great astonishment of all the standers by O t is good to have such devout Masses said presently after ones death t is good to dye in so good hands as will not quit you till they have conducted you safe to the Quire of Angels Saint Thomas of Aquin that 13. Age. great Champion of Purgatory gave God particular thanks at his death for not onely delivering a soule out of Purgatory at the instance of his Prayers but also permitting the same soule to be the messenger of so good news Durand argues the case thus Sure Christian charity has more 14. Age. In 4. d. 45. power with Almighty God then a mere natural friendship can have with the civill Magistrate now it has been often seen that a condemned person has been quit at the earnest entreaty or voluntary satisfaction of their friends Stories are full of such courteous Civilities How can we then make any question but that God will as easily be moved to release holy soules out of Purgatory at the sweet importunity of their friends tears prayers sufferings here upon earth It was a laudable custom in some Countries that if a chast Virgin should present her self at the place of Execution to beg a Fellon for her husband her request was granted and the poor criminal was with great joy instantly conveyed from the gallowes to a nuptial feast This custome though now out of date may yet serve to tell us that Almighty God will not deny to set a soule free from the punishment of all her misdemeanours if we beg it earnestly at the hands of his infinite mercy And now we are come down to the fifteenth
and draws his sermons out of the Pentatuke of the five wounds of his redeemer one that after he has done all he can believes he is an unprofitable servant unworthy to open his mouth or to tread upon the earth Such a one in my opinion if he die in the exercise of his holy function either goes not at all to Purgatory or stays not there This was the case of one Cherubin a famous Hist St. Fran. 3. p. l. 7. c. 2. Preacher of the Order of St. Francis who before he died had the comfort to see St. Hierome whom he had chosen for his peculiar Pation and with him three thousand souls all saved by his meanes who assured him that they were sent expresly by Almighty God to carry him into heaven and so to requite him for shewing him the way thither in his zealous sermons Not unlike unto this is that story which I touched elsewhere out of Cardinal Baronius He tels us that Annal. Eccl. an 716. St. Boniface saw a holy Abbot at his death surrounded with divels and much terrified see them so insolent as to cry out his soul was theirs when he behold his good Angel appears at the head of a white troop of blessed souls who after a solemn profession that they had been all saved by him gave him the comfort to understand that they had brought an express commission to convey him instantly into heaven But you long now to have me paint you out such a Preacher for though there may be many that sooth themselves up with a vain perswasion that they are the men yet if we sift a little narrowly into them we shall possibly find so much vanity so much care of esteem so many by ends and so many other imperfections to steale into their sermons that we may safely say there are but very few Apostolical preachers indeed and such as seek only Gods cause and the good of souls Take an exact Idea from one The Idea of an Apostolical Preacher that lived but in the last Age. Father Gonzales Silveria of the Society of Jesus scarce ever went up into the pulpit without a hairshirt and would say a man must be well armed who goes to fight against vice It was also very usuall with him to encounter Goliah with Davids sling to make a bloody discipline and so to mount up into the Pulpit and there like thunder to carry all before him He had for the most part but five books for his Library to wit his breviary the Bible the lives of Saints a crucifix and the picture of our Blessed Lady In these five books he studied for all his sermons and certainly the thunder boltâ— of his admirable eloquence were framed in the heart of his crucified Lord the best furnace of divine love the sweet flowers of his Rhetorick were steeped in the milke of the Virgin his trops and figures and the whole variety of his sermons were borrowed out of the word of God and the admirable lives of his Saints and lastly the religious and devout performance of his dayly task of divine office and holy Masse gave fire to his discourses wherewith he did not only heat but inflame the hearts of his auditours He would preach you twice or thrice a day and would do it the more willingly in the meanest places to the poorest people His common lodging was the Hospital where he contented himself with a spare diet and gross fare he was never observed to be over nice and coy of his sermons nor required he much time to make them with applause The only thing he had before his eyes was the glory of God and helpe of souls and his life preached more then his tongue for he really acted more in his own person then he taught others As for his manner of preaching it was rather powerful then charming and fitter to break their hearts then please their eares Such was his fervour that he poured his whole heart and his whole zeal out of his mouth and he would be so transported with this zeal as not to take notice of any thing else Once as he was Preaching he struck his hand upon a sharpe naile which stuck out in the Pulpit and made it bleed so extreamly that the whole Auditory took notice of it and some of the devout women courteously offered their handkerchiefs to bind up the wound and stop the bleeding and all this while the good man neither saw handkerchief nor naile nor blood nor took the least notice of any thing till after his sermon when the wound being grown cold he was heard to wonder how the blood came there and to complain that his hand put him to some paine Another time preaching in the Queen of Portugals chappel he had put himself into such a heat that his mouth being clammed up he could scarce get out his words when the Queen perceiving it called for an Ewer of water which was instantly brought and presented him by the young Princesse but the man of God was so rapt in his devout thoughts that he saw neither the Ewer nor the Princesse nor the Queen so that they were forced to pull him by the sleeve that the Princesse Royal might not stand thus waiting on him with the Ewer in her hand and then the Queen her self prayed him to make use of the water to coole and refresh his dry mouth With much a do the good Father came to himself and rising up made a low obeysance to the Queen and to the Princesse thanked them for their care excused himself for being so uncivill as not to minde them but for all thâ—s would not take a drop of water but went on with his Sermon to the great wonder and edification of all the standers by This this is to preach like a man full of Gods Spirit like one that has his heart so transported with zeale and his Eyes so bent upon moving his auditours that he can see nothing else And would you have such a fiery man as this be condemned to Purgatory one that has so much charity for others that he forgets himself and distills out his life into blood sweat and tears and is consumed in the fire of Charity which is the sweet Purgatory of the servants of God §. 4. The fourth To serve the infected THose that charitably expose themselves to serve the infected and so come to get the Plague and to die in the service freely giving away their lives to save others may have a great confidence that they have served out if not all at least the greatest part of their Purgatory For since an act of Contrition or of perfect Charity has power to make a soule instantly fit for heaven as it falls out in Martyrdom why may we not hope that the same priviledge follows these charitable soules we speak of who though they dye not by the hands of a bloody Executioner yet are cut off by a Martyrdome of incomparable Charity Christ our Saviour
said that the greatest Charity that a man could have in this life was to give his life for his friends where by the way Saint Bernard notes that his charity must needs be greater then the greatest since he gave his divine life not only for his friends but even for his enemies What shall we then thinke of their charity who voluntarily sacrifice their lives for infected persons whether friends or enemies acquaintance or no acquaintance rich or poor and do it generously dying a thousand deaths for feare danger and paine before they come to dye in good earnest Does not the Church list them amongst other Saints in the Roman Martyrologe Does she not keep their feast and make an honourable commemoration of their glorious death on the 28 day of February does she not withall tell us that the faithful devout people were accustomed to honour them as Martyrs would you then have these kind of Martyrs who dye in the fire of charity go to Purgatory To what purpose to Metamorphose it into heaven For if a Virgin who is violently dragd away to the stews which is a kind of hell where they make a Massacre of chastity in the opinion of St. Ambrose changes it into a kind of heaven what can we thinke of those charitable souls but that if they were conveyed into the suffering church they would sodainly change it into a Church Tryumphant Hear a comfortable story to this purpose One Damian of the holy order of Annal. St. Fran. St. Francis had devoted himself to serve those that lay sick of the Plague with a burning desire to give them all the comfort he could by his charitable visits St. Francis met him one day and said my Son did'st thou but know what a crown in heaven is prepared for thee in reward of this charity of thine thou would'st be out of thy self for meer joy go on in Gods name for it will not be long before thou art translated into heaven to eternal glory The good Frier continued the employment till one day being in fervent prayer he rendred up his happy soul into the hands of his creatour Can you now believe that a man that sacrifices a good part of his life on the Altar of the highest charity which is in the world next unto Martyrdom it self one that looses his own life to make others live and dyes in the flames of a devout prayer that this man I say goes to Purgatory or rather do you not believe that heaven stoops to take him up and to crown him with immortal glory Eusebius takes a pleasure to relate the high esteem they had of b. 1. c 20. those good Priests Deacons and Secular persons who thus exposed themselves to the Plague and sometimes were seen to tumble into the same graves where they had newly laid others The fiery furnace says St. Chrysostome was so Hom. de tribus pueris astonisht to see those three innocent creatures there that it durst not touch them but vented all its fury against the cords and fetters which bound them Let us then suppose these holy souls to be cast into the furnace of Purgatory who chose rather to forsake their lives then to forsake poor infected and forlorne creatures can we imagine any thing less then that those subterraneous flames should yeild and with reverence submit unto the flames of heaven which have already seazed on those holy souls and that they should say with Ecclesiasticus Thou hast delivered me according Eccl. 51. 6. to the multitude of thy mercies from the oppression of the flame which hath compassed me and in the midest of fire I was not burnt What! shall purity have the power to resist fire so that many chast Virgins have received no harme by it and shall not charity in its perfection be as good a preservative against the fire of Purgatory §. 5. The fifth A tender devotion to the Virgin I Cannot be perswaded that a soul truly devoted to the honour and service of the mother of God can be long detained in Purgatory if she go thither at all For how should this be does our blessed Lady want power she that can do all things says St. Anselme or charity she that has no bowels but of charity she that has a heart so tender that though you suppose a heart to be made up of all the mothers hearts in the world it could not be more tender then hers which is all sweetness and tenderness St Brigit had a son lived not so good a life Osor in cone St. Brigit revel as to look for Heaven without passing through Purgatory This great servant of God who was not without the passion of a loving mother casts about how to save the poor youth who was grown careless enough of himself She resolves therefore to offer him up to the Blessed Virgin and to trust her entirely with his salvation She undertakes the trust and carries it on so luckily that in fine she saves him and at the hour of death takes up his soul into Heaven This she did by first working him to a perfect act of contrition which impt his wings for Heaven and then cutting of the thred of his life which should have held out one day longer So that the Devil finding himself thus cozened made his complaint to God the just judge of the world who returned this answer Know that my mother is Lady and Queen of Heaven and therefore has liberty to place there whom she pleases and what she does in this kind is well done and pleasing in my sight There is a world of examples of the like favours graciously showred down from the mother of mercy who has often taken the pains to conduct her good Children and faithful Servants into Heaven And when it stands not with Gods justice but that a soul must into Purgatory what does she not to help her out as well by her own powerful intercession which she will be sure to interpose as far as it may stand with the just decrees of heaven as by the prayers of her devout servants into whose hearts she inspires a thousand good thoughts of tenderness for their souls who were particularly devoted to her How many divine consolations and refreshments does she send them by their good Angels And since it is certain that she goes somtimes to visite them on their death beds why may we not piously imagine that she gives them the like comfortable visits when they lye tied to their beds of fire in cruel torments The Lionness and the Tigress though never so fierce by nature will leap into the fire to save their young ones or perish there God forbid we should make any comparison between the Blessed Virgin mother of the Lyon of Juda and these wilde beasts and yet since we must allow so much tenderness to such cruel and savage Mothers we may not doubt but that the Mother of mercy seeing her beloved Children in the fire of
Solomon Answer It is chastity Again which of you can walk Prov. 6. 27. 28. upon firebrands or tread upon glowing coales as upon a bed of flowers Answer It is a Virginal chastity Witness St. Agnes who lay smiling in the midst of a most cruel fire Witness St. Thecla who could walk as confidently upon hot burning coales as if they had been Roses Witness St. Apollonia who made nothing of leaping into a dreadful fire which was prepared for her Witness a thousand other Virgins who were seen to triumph in flames of fire as if they had been in the empireal Heaven You may remember the Mart. Rom. 17. May. most chast and incomparable virgin Restituta who being condemned to be burnt alive was for that purpose put into an old ship ful â—f Pitch Brimstone and Fire and thus exposed to the mercy of those merciless Elements She apeared in the midst of the Sea as in a floating fire upon her knees and there breath'd out her sweet soul into the hands of her heavenly spouse leaving her Virginal boâ—â— still entier and without suffering the least detriment by the smoke or by the fire Now it was the fire of love that gave her the mortal wound no other fire durst touch or consume that Virginal flesh which was consecrated to her dear Saviour by the fair hands of chastity Go cast me such a soul into Purgatory fire and let it do its worst and burn her if it can No Fire will sooner melt a Diamond and all things that are the most impossible will sooner come to pass then a pure and angelical Virgin shall feel the smart of tormenting fire which has the discretion says St. Chrysostome to Hom. de tribus innocent distinguish innocency from guilt and to fly furiously upon the one while with veneration and reverence it fawnes upon the other §. 10. The tenth A profound humility IT cannot enter into my â—â—â—d that a soul which is truly humble shall ever enter into this place of torments much less be long detained there They say there is a bird that will be sure to save her self in all occasions of danger by sinking down so low into the water as to be out of all reach The soul of a man that is truly humble sinks down so deep into the center of her own nothing that there is not the thing under heaven that can come near her to annoy her and if by chance a little Purgatory fire should be let down upon her it would do by her as they say the fire which falls from heaven does by a peâ—ce of well disposed moulde which is so far from burning and destroying it that it converts it into some precious stone The great God of heaven who loves to crush the heads of ambitious persons to lay them level with the ground and to grinde them to powder takes pleasure to raise humble souls out of the dirt to make them prime potentates of Paradise and to fit among the Princes of his heavenly kingdom He that will be sure to find the glory of the Saints sayd St. Ser. 1. Dorotheus must seek it in the bosome of humility for there and only there all true joy content and happiness are to be found Paradise will sooner stoop down to Purgatory then suffer an humble soul to lye burning in those merciless flames Will you says St Chrysostome pass quickly thorough the raging and â—empâ—stuous ho. 38. ad pop ocean be sure that humility be your pilot When St. Paul took himself for no better then the dust of the common streets then it was that he was rapt up to the third heaven True And I may be bold to tell you that if you be but humble they will not easily make you stoop so low as Purgatory but will rather lift you up above the wings of Seraphims The royal Prophet made it his prayer to God to look down upon his humility to consider his labours and to blot out all his sins and make him as innocent as an Angel or a child of a year old What has an Angell or an Infant to do in Purgatory Some hold a man that is St. Doroth. ser 2. de humil very humble to be a kind of Martyr Must Martyrs be sent like criminals to broyle in Purgatory No no says Climachus rejoyce Grad 25. not that you have the gift of miracles like an Apostle or that you tread all the devills in hell under your feet it is a greâ—ter advantage to be humble and to have your names written in the golden book of humility Shall such as stand in competition with Apostles be sent into Purgatory There are stones of so happy a temper that though they should lye a thousand years in a hot furnace they would not be the worse for it but become still more fayre and beautiful Behold the true emblem of humility Purgatory will be sooner turned into Paradice then do an humble soul the least prejudice Ester whose very name carries humility was ready to dye when she saw the Majesty of King Assuâ—rus she humbled her self and lay prostrate at his feet and what followed They were so far from putting her to death according to the laws of the kingdome that they placed her in the Queens throne and made her onâ— of the greatest Princesses of her time when God sees a soul that is humble in good earnest to lye prostrate at his feet he has not the heart to condemn â—er to death or to torments my friend will he say mount up higher it is not your place to lye there melting in Purgatory mount up higher and do it boldly for I love to raise those high that humble themselves low and of the Children of Abraham who esteem themselves no better then a little dust I make the stars of my firmament and the Angels of my Paradice It is a strange thing to see that poor Lazarus as humble and contemptible as he was comes no sooner to dye but the Angels do him the honour to conduct him into Abrahams bosome And the good thief who had scarce any other vertue to pleade for him but a little humility to confess himself a vile wretch as he was did scarce find himself in the other world but he found himself in Paradise So true it is that God loves humility and that all the heavens stand open to entertain those that are truly humble §. 11. The Eleventh To communicate well and often I Should never make an end should I go about to bring in all the heroical vertues which are strong antidoâ—s and powerfull preservatives against the fire of Purgatory and yet I cannot chuse but vent a thought or two more which with the rest I submit to your discreete judgement And First I take those that communicate often and do it well and worthily to be pritty secure from feeling any great smart in Purgatory St Ignatius Ep. ad Eph. had reason to stile the holy Eucharist the
Antidoâ—e of immortality The Romans used to put a peecâ— of silver in the dead mans mouth and verily believed that by giving this for his passage he should be conveyed safe to the Elizian fields This was a vain superstition but you must give me leave to fancy that when a good Christian diâ—s with his saviour in his mouth or in his heart all Paradise lies open to receive him Open your gates you Princes of heaven open your gates for Ps 23. behold the King of glory is ready to make his entrance in the triumphant chariot of vertues sitting in a heart as white as Ivory which serves him for his royal throne Roger King of Sicily having long laboured in vain to Hist Neup p. 2. l. 1. make himself master of the Island Corfu at length tired out with so long a siege fell upon this noble stratageme He makes as if a certain Nobleman of the town were dead in his camp who desired to be buried within their walls with the rest of his ancestours He was accordingly layd upon the beare and covered like a dead corps a noble convâ—y was prepared to â—â—tâ—nd the Hearse with torches in their hands nothing was wanting to make up a compleat Funeral The Town mistrusting nothing set open their gates to let them in but my counterfeit dead man was scarse got upon the draw bridge ready to enter the Town when behold he sodainly changes the whole scen reviues and starts up with his sword in his hand which was a sign for all his attendants to throw away their torches and to betake themselves to their weapons and they managed them so well that they first took the Gate and then the Town and the whole Island to the great terrour and astonishment of their enemies who found themselves guld and surprized with so unexpected and unusual a ceremony A grave Prelate tearms the H. Paris lib. de Enchat Eucharist the incordiation of God as if he would have said that God in this holy Sacrament is as t' were incorporated into our hearts and our hearts into God so that God lying thus hidden within us he that is â—ord of the celestial Hierusalem to which our hearts have laid so close and so loving a seige if we present him to the blessed inhabitants as dead for the love of us they dare not but admit him and them also that carry him after this manner in the very center of their hearts and souls Upon occasion of a hot contest at Florence about Savanorola when some would have him an Heretick others not there were two amongst others took a strange resolution to put it to the trial of the fire and he that could endure the flames better was to be thought to have the better cause The day agreed on being come the fire prapared for the purpose and all the world longing to see the success of this strange challenge it was discovered that one of the parties had hid the blessed Sacrament in his bosome believing that the fire would not hurt him while he carried so precious a treasure about him What came of it and what was the conclusion of the whole business you may read at leasure in the History it self I only bring this to shew the mans confidence in this powerful preservative and then you may please to remember how the sacred host has been sometimes seen to hang in the ayre surrounded about with flames and thus to have been miraculously preserved I know we are not always to look for miracles of this nature and yet me thinks we may be confident that Purgatory fire will have nothing to do with a soul where Christ has been pleased to take up his constant lodging Where the King is there is the Court where Christ is says Sinesius there Syn Ep. 111. Ang. de gen ad litt must needs be good fortune and victory where God is says St. Austin there is Paradise ay though you were in the deepest pit of Purgatory God would not deny you entrance into Heaven who never refused to entertain him in your heart he never knocked at your door but you were still ready to receive him can you think he will be less courteous to you in the other world Besides all this he that receives often and devoutly receives withall such store of heavenly lights such a tenderness of heart such inflamed desires so much innocency in his conversation and so much purity of intention in all his actions he is withall so transformed into God upon whome he feeds and feasts himself continually he is so identified with him and to use the phraise of St. Dennis and St. Bonaventure he is so straightly united with God that as St. Paul speaks of them that cleave to God he becomes one spirit and as it were one thing with God This being so will you have this heart which is but one thing with Christ to be swallowed up in Purgatory and so to carry Christ thither They say Albertus Magnus held whether he held it or no I know many other worthy persons maintain that one single thought of the most bitter passion Granad deâ—rut du Pont. 4. p. Medit. of our Blessed Saviour is so powerful and so effectual that a man may gain sometimes more by it then if he had fasted with bread and water or disciplined himself every day til blood comes or read over dayly the whole Psalter I mean not to examine now the truth of this assertion according to the rigour of divinity I only say that in some sense it may be true and this makes very much for my present purpose For there is not the thing in the world that is a more lively representation of the Passion of Christ then the blessed Sacrament which he left expresly as an eternal memorial of his Passion commanding us to remember his death and bitter passion when we receive him and still acting in our hearts that sad tragedy though without the effusion of his blood and imprinting in our souls the several passages of his most precious death Good God of what merite then must a holy Communion be and a Communion which is often frequented and continued to the hour of death If such as these go to Purgatory sure there will be none free St. Thomas tels us the blessed Sacrament is call'd a pledge of eternal life now says he we never use to deliver up our pledge until we are possessed of the thing for which it was engaged see then saith he that you part not with the body of Christ unto his eternal father til he has received you into Paradise for which it was given you as a most precious and secure pledge Hence it is that St. Ambrose stiles it a parcel of eternal life an Ambros Opux de sanct sacram essay or tast a certain infallible assurance of enjoying it and St. Cyprian cals it an infusion of the Cyp. de cenâ— dom divine essence and St. Bonaventure a