kind of Relief these Bulls can afford to contrite and repenting Robbers against hanging in an human Judicature and then hope or despair of what they are boasted to do against the Soveraign Divine Justice Nay let the wisest of all the Papists hearken to their own sense and reason If an g Bellar. de Indulg l. 2. c. 1. sect Quarta Objectio Indulgence saies Bellarmin cannot so much as take away the Punishment which an Inferior Magistrate condemns a Thief or a Murderer to how much less able shall it be to take of that Punishment which God hath decreed against Sinners And what do they conceive Purgatory Burning to be else They * Ibid. acknowledg also that the Pope by his Indulgences cannot pardon any Punishment which is inflicted by God as Judg in an Exterior and criminal Judicature If so in good earnest doth not God Almighty act as a Judg when he condemns men to Punishment in order to satisfy his Justice And is not that an exterior and Criminal Court of Justice wheresoever men are condemned to such grievous and long and outward Punishments Or if you call it inward why should the Judgment of God be less and the Power of the Pope more regarded in Gods own internal then in his external Judicature Here the Popes are pleased to juggle as the Fellow used to do who bragged how far he could jump at Rhodes where he knew no man had seen him But saies one if it be so come friend here is as good ground as at Rhodes let us therefore see what you can do The Popes brag much how bravely they can save men from all the dangers in a Place where no body tells us the truth of what they are pleased to brag of But here in the Course of this mortal life where we see so many temporal Judgments of God so many Plagues and Penalties inflicted by God Almighty upon absolved sinners for their sins my Rhodian Boaster cannot jump the Popes Bulls save from none of them and by their own Confession their Indulgences h Bellar. de Indulg l. 1. c. 8. can help no man against any kind of Miseries whether for Original sins such as are Infirmities Diseases and Death or for any actual sins such as Plagues upon men and Countries It is in vain when men go to Rome for a Bull against any kind of Tribulations whatsoever either in their Soul or Body Relations or Fortune No Indulgence can reprive from any Punishments that we can see only that one which we see not the being tormented in Purgatory for sins which God hath forgiven and there only my Jumpers can work wonders and their Indulgences are worth Gold If the compassing of these two Ends namely the easing you from pious Exercises whensoever you are troubled with them and the removing of Gods purgatory Justice be both impious and impossible the manner of attemting it by laying out the blood of Christ in Indulgences is not much better At first when the Fathers of Trent talk magnificently of opening their great i Concil Trident. Sess 21. c. 9. Celestial Magazines and of drawing out thence by the means of their Indulgences Christs Blood and all sorts of Blessings all this makes shew of a great matter But if you will come but somewhat near you shall find it what Eneas did when being in the Heathenish Limbus he thought to see and embrace his Father it is but an emty Phantome which hath neither flesh nor bones that you can hold 1. For first this Celestial Magazine is not lockt and opened at Rome as the Vatican Library is whence the Pope and his Officers may lend to Baronius what Ancient Records he calls for there to find tales for his purpose and sometimes Truth against himself Nor is it like the Tresury where His Holiness keeps his Monies when it comes in from selling Bulls under the pretense of Holy Wars c. and goes out as they k Aventin Annal. Boior l. 7. say sometimes it doth in real truth to arm Turks against Chrians Nor is it like those more holy consecrated Repositories where their holy Relics are kept and whence they may at any time shew all what you have a mind to see the Head or the Toe of a Saint the Milk or the Hairs of the Virgin It were fair if this Tresury where Christs Blood and Ransom is kept were but like their Holy Mass Pyx where the whole Body lies still at hand for any man that may want it for then it were easy for the Pope to take in and out what he pleases They say that this whole Tresure is laid up in mente acceptatione Divina l Suarez De Thesaur Deip. 51. Sect. 1. n. 6. that is in the very mind and acceptation of God himself where no sober man will imagine that any Roman Pope can reach as he must in the present Case The Case is this The Pope must have to dispose of as much or as little of the blood of Christ as he intends to make his Indulgence to be worth If it be an Indulgence for 40 daies any Bishop may take as much so very little of this blood may serve if the Indulgence be for 40 or for 4 or 500 years he must proportionably take so much the more for all Indulgences being supposed to be really fraught with Christs Blood and to be effective Paiments made by the Pope to God himself out of his Sons satisfactions and Sufferings here first you must admit another such business as in the Mass Sacrifice First the Pope reaches to part of this Celestial Tresure which is with God above any human reach one should think otherwise how could he pay it and having it I leave to others to determine what way the Pope can come it supply all Exigencies especially at the Jubilee and generally at any time I ask any Christian Conscience whether these satisfactions and this Blood supposing true what they fancy should not be much better left in the hand of Christ himself then in the disposal of a Pope who when we may have the greatest need namely when after Death we must all stand above at the Bar is at a great distance from us knows neither our Danger nor our sins nor what Judgment shall pass on us nor what we want to secure against that danger Were not this better in his hand who hath shed it and presented it already to God who sees our need and who stands there to help out Were it not better left in Gods own hand to whom Christ first presented it And who is the Judg to whom they say the Pope must present it back again Is the Pope being at Rome more willing or more able having this Blood under his key to help with it remote and unknown Souls then Christ who is present to save his Members And whether of the two is more merciful and more likely to use it best to our Salvation the Pope at a distance
she was all the while rambling up and down in Bawdy-houses that it was not her self but an Angel who ran Races and fought Battels in the shape of her Worshippers being then at Mass Some are also pleased to say that every Saturday she goes down to Purgatory not by her self but by her Proxy for the rescuing thence of some Souls But none of her Historians will aver that it was a Deputy or any other but her self who did hug and kiss St. Bernard St. Dominic and St. Alain upon several occasions who did once ride behind a Knight in the shape of a Woman in order to surprize the Devil or who in a dark tempestuous night was really met by two wandering Travellers in a Forrest with St. Michael and St. Peter It is she and not another if you will believe what she saies who now and then will call her self the Mother of Grace and Mercies who comes often to visit Churches with sweet Perfumes or Holy Waters or whole Baskets of Holy Roses or white and black Hoods for her Chaplains And accordingly it is she her self and not her Angel that is adored in all the places where she appears No man praies either to her or to any other Saint or Angel upon any considerable occasion but thinks to have her and them present and so the very same conceit of an Universal Power and Presence essential Attributes of God which makes them willing to pray to Saints must needs make them Idolaters in praying thus This impious worship is an Abuse of what was don sometimes to God in the primitive times at the Graves of his own Martyrs and no wonder if ignorant men could turn the Miracles and Mercies of God as they can all other good things to their own destruction It is well known how many wonders were wrought at the Sepulchers of holy Martyrs as one at the shadow of S. Peter Act. 13. and at the Bones of the holy Prophet Elisha 2 Kin. 13.21 These Miracles were to those Saints in some mesure what the glorious Resurrection and Ascension had bin before to their Savior to wit high Declarations from above that their Souls and Bodies however they had appeared vile in the Eies of their Murderers were pretious in the sight of God and that what they had believed taught and signed as it were with their own Blood were both true Doctrines good Examples in order to Salvation And these extraordinary Marks of Gods favor on their Persons and Seals of truth to their belief as they were principally intended in behalfs of Infidels so they mostly and longest continued in those parts of the world as Africa e Lege Aug. de Civit. l. 22. for example where more Pagans remained not called or not converted to the Faith It is well known also how at the same time which was a time of generall and cruel persecutions the holy Zeal and Death of the Martyrs as it was marked out as it were by the finger of God in his Miracles so it was exalted both to their own praise and to the encouragement of others by the Christians in all Churches The highest strains of Eloquence which the Fathers had were spent in the magnifying of Martyrs They set down their Names in their best Church Records and rehearsed them duly in their solemn Eucharists and public praises to their Savior They gave the most honorable Burial they could in those sad times to their bodies and having no Churches then they made their graves their most ordinary Places of Meeting to declare before all the world that by this resorting to their Sepulchers they prepared themselves to their Death In a word they did what they could to bring both themselves and their Flocks to love and admire those holy Souls that so both themselves and others might be encouraged to follow them Bless and esteem most sincerely saies S. Basil f Basil in 40. Martyr the holy Martyrs that you may in your course do as they did in the mean while in your real intention be accounted as good as real Martyrs already that you may without the blows cruelties which they suffered attain to the rewards which they enjoy These zealous exhortations in times of Persecution and the visible hand of God confirming whatever they said as to this point prevailed so far upon the People that * S. Basil ibid. at every particulat occasion as well as upon solemn daies they did go and pray hard by their Graves and did take for a great honor to be buried where they had praied till at last their Pagan Foes began to take notice of it and to believe at least to say g Cyril Alexand. cont Jul. l. 6. p. 202. Ed. Paris 1638. Maximus Madaur ap August Ep. 43. that Christians did adore dead men as themselves did adore their Gods This gave an Occasion to the holy Fathers to wipe off all suspicions of this kind from Christian Religion and to declare to all the world I wish that Roman Catholics would take better notice of it first that they did not worship c Hieron contr Vigilant Martyrs at all neither as Gods nor as Presidents and Vice Roys d Cyrill Alex. contr Julian l. 6. of any Town or Country Secondly that the blessed Saints have neither particular notice e August de cura pro Mort. c. 13. nor care of the Affairs of this world and if by chance they medled with it it was as extraordinary to them to do so as f August ibid. c. 16. as to the Water to become Wine or to a dead Body to rise up Thirdly that the Veneration and Reverence which they did bear to holy Martyrs exceeded not that degree of honor which in former times was deferred to * Cyrill sup pag. 204. valiant men after they had spent their lives for the defence of their Country or that is due to all the Friends g Smyrnensis ap Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 4. c. 15. and true Disciples of Jesus Christ and is of no other h August cont Faust l. 20. c. 21. sort then is that which in this life we give to other holy men whom we think to be endued with the same piety that Martyrs were only our Devotion for the Dead Saints is more confident then it can be for living because these are yet fighting and those have got the victory Fourthly that when they builded i Idem De Civitat l. 22. c. 10. Monuments and Houses of Praier where these Martyrs were buried the Monuments were for the Dead Saints and the Houses of Praier were only for the living God Fifthly that when the names of the Martyrs were there mentioned it was neither to pray for them nor to them but to keep up after k Dionys Areop de Eccl. Hierar c. 3. their death an Authentic Declaration of their continual being with God and specially in these great Mysteries where Christ is both signified and received of their
had in her Breast turned into Oil wherewith she did anoint her sores and somtimes also she used it as Butter to sweeten her Bread Cardinals and whole Towns besides can aver these Extravagancies and make therewith the first kind of Roman Miracles A second Evidence against Roman Miracles is their looking quite another way and their being design'd for the confirmation of quite different Doctrines then ancient Miracles were The last Primitive Christian Miracles being wrought for the most part at the Graves of Holy Martyrs never confirmed more then this Truth That the Death the Souls and the very Ashes of those Saints were precious before the Lord and therefore that the Christian Faith which they had believed taught and died for was very true So it remained only to enquire what this Faith was and what kind of Doctrine St. Stephen and other Martyrs believed and Preach'd for nothing else but this can be asserted by their Miracles What is it saith St. Augustin g Aug de Civit. l. 22. c 9. that these Miracles will attest but the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ The Holy Apostles being alive never confirmed by their Miracles but what they taught and what they taught St. Paul tells you is concluded within the Law and the Prophets You may be sure it went no farther then what you find in Christs Gospel This is that Faith which once and but once being delivered to the Saints was carried thro all Nations and thus made Catholic by the Almighty Breath of God and there setled by his Almighty Hand and the Miracles that followed it Mark 16.20 So at this very day tho all sorts of Operations were continually seen at the Sepulcher of S. Paul at Rome they would rather confirm his Epistles then the Popes Bulls As for Roman Miracles they do follow likewise Roman Doctrines which sometimes are quite contrary to and alwaies quite different from the true Christian Gospel They would be huge books that could contain all the Revelations and strange Wonders that encourage Men in general to the worship of the Virgin Mary As many more are bestowed upon the doing it by special waies and at special Feasts for what else mean those swarms of Monks who lie hid h S. Anton. 3. part Hist. t. 23. c. 3. sect 1. under her Coat or those Ladders whited with her Milk i Chronic. Deip. an 1231. from which no body taking that way to go up to Heaven can tumble down or those Quires of k Histor. Carnat an 1116. Angels heard in the bottom of a deep Well to sing her Praises What can you make of those Images that l Archiv Buburg in Frand an 1383. bleed or m Menol. Cisterc 28. April speak or fly as light n Leand. in vita Hyacinthi ap Sur. 16. August as Feathers unless they serve to bring Mankind to the worshipping of Wood and Stone What aile those thousands of sad Souls to ramble up and down the whole World since the times of Pope Gregory but to revele Purgatory and to recommend Masses for the dead How many strange Feats have bin wrought by the hands of S. Dominic and S. Francis to no better end then to confirm the new Orders and waies of these Saints All those heaps of Excommunicated p Specul Exemp Tit. Excommunicatio Exemp 5. Flies and that q Ibid. Exemp 4. poor Raven pining to death under the same Fate for having fled away with a Bishops Ring What else can they signifie but the terror of the Roman Keies What shall I say of those both small and huge great Toads crawling r Ibid. Tit. Confessio Exempl 22. out and into Mens mouths when they do observe ill or well the Rules of Auricular Confession or of the many little Children s Ibid. Tit. Eucharistia standing upon Consecrated Wafers there purposely to justifie the real Transubstantiation at Mass or of the many Cures wrought every where partly in the behalf t S. Bonav in vit Franc. of the five Wounds which St. Francis had in his Body or of the Rope he did wear about his Loins And since we are about this great Saint tell me what you think of this Miracle †Hieron Platus de Bono statu Relig. l. 5. c. 33. A Bishop moved with Passion against a Convent of Franciscans had resolved to turn them out of his City and was to do it the next day the Night before behold their Sacrist sees in a Vision the Image of St. Paul and the Image of St. Francis both painted in the Church Window talking earnestly one with the other He hears St. Paul extremely blaming St. Francis o Gregor in Dialog passim for no better defending his own Order and St. Francis answering to him What shall I do saies he I have but a Cross and that is no defensive Weapon but had I a Sword as you have for commonly they represent them so perhaps I might do somewhat more The man being awak'd starts off his Bed and his Imagination being full of this runs to the Church finds the two Pictures had exchang'd their Arms Paul in the Window had the Cross and St. Francis had the Sword This amaz'd the whole Convent but that which is more then all the rest St. Francis had not St. Pauls Sword in vain for that same night the Bishop had his Throat cut What Evangelical Doctrine can be confirm'd by these three Wonders Pictures that can speak and move St. Paul that exhorts to revenge and a Saint who during his Life made conscience as they say to kill a Louse now can cut his Bishops Throat What I say can you make of this unless it be this wholesome Doctrine That Bishops are not Jure Divino but Fryers are All these and whole Millions of other such Roman Miracles are not fit for Christs Kalender because they never were fitted for perswading Men of the truth of Christs Gospel and therefore upon that account must needs proceed from any other then Christs Spirit The third foul mark of Roman Miracles is that besides their unchristian ends they happen in such suspicious times as may discredit the best that are The Gift of Miracles being to Teachers what both Credential Letters and Roial Colors are to public Officers which signifie much with good Subjects whilst they know them granted to none but such as the King doth really send but very little after they see those in the hands these on the backs of every dirty Carrier who hath a mind for his own ends to counterfeit them and rant with them No wise man takes for good paiment whatsoever hath Cesars Image after he hears of false Coiners who have dispersed vast sums abroad and marked them with the same Stamp We are not now in the privileged daies either of Moses or Elias or Jesus Christ or his Apostles when neither all the Magicians could make one Louse nor all the Baalims could light Fire on one Altar nor all
Christ the Merits of the Virgin Mary and the Suffrages of the Holy Church we beseech thee O Dominic do not keep us here any longer The Holy Angels can revele to thee at any time what thou wilt know and as for us we are such Liars as no Christian can believe us But the Saint fell to another Praier O worthiest Mother of Wisdom for the Salvation of this good People who have learned in this Rosary to salute thee force thou these Enemies to declare to us the plain truth He had scarce made an end of Praying when behold she comes with a Troop of above an hundred Angels armed with golden weapons and in the midst of them the Virgin with a golden Rod fell foul on the Devils Backs Then fell all the Devils to new howlings O Damning foe who emtiest Hell and makest the best way to Heaven thou dost force us against our will to speak out truth and our own Confusion Hear ye therefore O Christians This Mother of Christ is too potent to preserve her devout Servants from ever falling into our hands It is she who breaks all our Plots and we confess that whosoever keeps to her Adoration and Service can never be damned with us we never can prevail against any one of her People She saves many against our Rights at the very moment of Death and were it not that she frustrates all our Designs we might have long ago made all her Church fall from the Faith To say all in a word no man who makes use of her Rosary can be damned S. Dominic having by this time what he lookt for bids the People to say the Rosary then O Miracle never to be forgotten at every Ave Maria a Troop of Devils under the figure of burning Coals breaks out of that Heretics Body and being all out The Virgin gives them her Blessing and goes her way The Conclusion and design of all this is all sorts of People from that time applied themselves in good earnest to the use of the Rosary and to the worship of Mary Christ and all his Apostles never thought of making thus the Devils to preach his Gospel no more did Moses or Elias employ them so to confirm the Law It seems the Rosary as to its end hath neither Christ nor Elias nor Moses nor any true Saint to favor it and therefore t is no wonder if it was helped by other waies Nevertheless all the World was not so generally blind and sottish as not to see that the Devil could tell a ly and juggle then with S. Dominic and so this new sort of service having no better ground to stand upon then the warranty of the Devil made so little Progress in the world that the same sprite under the Name of the Virgin Mary 400 years after was fain to appear e Gonon Chronic. an 1476. to another Saint and with extraordinary Favors as Rings made of her own hair and milk which she Drew out of her own Brest to enchant him to the same Service At the first it was called our Ladies f Bulla Sext. 4. Psalter because the Lady hath there 150 Salutations as in the Bible the Lord hath 150 Psalmes Now it is called the Rosary either because of the Sweet Comforts that g Martin Navar. De Rosar Miscell 1. as they say it perfumes Devout Hearts with or more probably because of a sweet odour sweeter then that of any Roses which devout worshippers pretend to smell at such Praiers Herman this Ladies great Mignion did smell it so perfectly that at each naming of Mary h Chronic. Deip. an 1235. he stooped his nose to the very ground that so he might have it the fresher and they tell us of an old man of the same Confraternity that at any time or place soever when and where he said his Rosary i Ibid. an 1594. he was revived with this Aromatical Fragrancy Nay the very hand of Saint Caecilia k Ibid. an 1507. even after she was quite dead did smell they say better then any Rose by often touching her Rosary This smell is invented to perswade men of the Excellency of the matter which Excellency is quite other as they take it then could be had either from the breath of an Arch-angel or the mouth of a Prophet For the Roman Church hath improved it to such a form to such an end and to such a signification that now it hath a hundred Mysteries in the mouth of a Catholic which it never had in that of the Angel tho you should grant as they will have it that he l Gonon Chronicon pag. 10. sung it upon his knees For as they take it Ave that is sine vae that is without any thing that hath any smell of Curse is such m Martin Navar. de Oratione Dom. c. 19. n. 131. a Salutation as proclams the Virgin Mary to have bin free from all kind of sin whatsoever from the Original in her passive Conception from all Actual whether mortal or venial in her life time and from any decay or corruption in her Body either at or after her death Maria in their Roman Construction raises the heart of a Worshipper to adore her both Soverain and Universal Monarchy over all men and Angels sometimes n Missal Paris in Sab. Missae de S. Maria. over God himself too They take and construe o Navar. De Orat. Domin c. 19. Maria also for that special Star that guides poor Travellers upon the Sea Stella Maris the surest defense against all storms the best Leader into Heaven both by her Example and Merits the Light of them that sit in darkness and the great Star that Balaam saw Gratiaplena makes her in the same Grammar * Navar. ibid. a whole Sea and Ocean whence the Sinners have their Pardon the just men all Increase of Grace the Angels joy and the whole Trinity Glory here they find in particular the seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost the nine Miraculous Powers and the twelve p Antonin 4 part Tit. 15. c. 20. special Privileges of being the Mother of us all the Gate of Heaven c. Therefore this Ave Maria when specially thus understood makes the sweetest Melody by * Chronic. Deip. an 1303. her own confession that ever you can sing in her Ears Christ himself as they think or at the least say sings q Vita S. Margaritae Chronic. S. Franc. c. 3. it sometimes upon the Altar and the Virgin hath it written in letters of Gold upon r Gonon Chron. an 294. her brest Many People who knew nothing but the three or four first words of this Angelical Salutation s Chronic. Deip. an 1149. Ren. Benedict de Vit. SS 1. Nov. Th. Cantiprat l. 2. c. 29. sect 9. have bin as they say as well saved therewith as if they had known the whole Gospel And all the t Molan Indic SS Belg. Roses and white Lilies nay
Bull from Rome that discharges her from both doing and suffering it Do you not think to see this Soul as the Body of Moses was once between a good and a bad Angel Here God impresses a pious Fear in order that the Penitent may do ot suffer such a thing and there the Pope shews an Indulgence that he may do but what he pleases Do you not see God and the Pope contesting still about Moses strugling one against the other what way shall be taken by this honest Soul If the Pope have the better of it then his Indulgences come to this and the Satisfactions and Blood of Christ which the Pope wraps up in these Bulls have this good end namely that Men need not be perplexed for Gods Fear nor for the motions of Conscience Certainly not to do what both the fear of God and the sense of an honest Conscience do move us to is a fearful omission and if any Indulgence can wash it off it must exemt Men not only from a punishment as they pretend but from a very great sin also which they do not 3. This scattering and abusing the Blood of Christ by Indulgences will better appear if you consider in retail what these Penalties are which this Blood applied to us by them must free us from These Penalties are chiefly these three c Bellarm. de Poenitent l. 4. c. 6. Fasting Praier and Almes-giving The very * Aristot. Moral ad Nicomach l. 1 Pagans can tell you that the exercise of Moral Vertues is even a Soveraign Happiness How then come good Catholics to imagine that the exercise of Christian ones may be to them a punishment In conscience is Praying Fasting and giving of Alms the punishment or part of it which sin deserves Did ever Gods Law reckon Praier and Charity amongst its Curses Or did ever the Gospel of Christ impose this Holy and Blessed Exercise under the notion of Chastening Is it likely that the Apostles who often plagued Men with Blindness with Death with delivering them over to Satan ever inflicted Praiers and Exercises of Alms-giving as strokes of their Apostolical Rod Did the Lord Jesus shed his Blood to be applied in Indulgences that you should not Pray or Fast at all Or that we should not Pray or Fast so much And if this be none of the true ends of Christs Death and Satisfaction I do not say how unprofitable but how both unchristian and Antichristian are the Indulgences that trifle away this Sacred Blood to such contrary purposes 4. Lastly to lay this impious abuse aside and to let Fasting Praying and charitable giving of Alms pass at Rome for hard and painful Punishments yet they are neither the Death that the Law threatens sinners with nor the Hellish burning in Purgatory which as they say the Justice of God requires that they should suffer when they are dead they can be at the most but an emty shadow of these pains And tho they were what they are not a full Equivalent for them yet are they no satisfaction in any Balance of Justice unless God will accept of them for due paiment Therefore let Roman Confessors shew now to their poor Penitents either when and where God hath told them that he will accept of their Praiers c. instead of Purgatory Burnings which is their proper punishment and let the other greater Cheats the Popes and Bull-sellers of Rome assure any others but Fools upon any probable ground that God is both pleased and resolved to accept of their Indulgences in lieu of Fastings and Praiers and good and Christian giving of Alms. 2. The second end that Roman Indulgences are intended and so bought for is the removing of that Judgment which condemns Roman Catholics after this Life to dreadful Burnings and Tortures unless which few besides Saints and Martyrs can do they can satisfie otherwise This hot and terrible Torment is not imposed on departing Souls by Popes or Priests for if it were it would be no wonder that Popes and Priests could remove it It is none of those voluntary Chastisements which one may take upon himself to prepare him for Gods Mercies since it is confessed by them all that no Body grows better for them It is an unavoidable Punishment lying on them for the satisfaction of Justice It is they say decreed by God f Navar. de Jubil Notabil 15. n. 11. himself due and demanded by Gods Law grounded and radicated upon the essential right of Nature and by this you may judg how indispensable this Purgatory punishment is since as they say God Almighty will rather see his own Children burning many hundreds of years in hellish Flames when even their sins are pardoned then to break his Law to take it off Yet the Almighty Pope dares do it and if you cannot go so far as to Rome Rome will in a manner come to you and give you such an Indulgence that is in their own language such a juridical Absolution as shall reverse all Judgments whether of natural Justice or God himself and thus get you clear on all hands Heaven and Earth cannot afford the like Example A Hostler or a Porter making Acts of Oblivion or a Prisoner at New-Gate granting Decrees to stop the Judges and their Proceedings at Westminster are nothing to Pope Sixtus the 4th nor to Alexander the fixt nor to any of those Villains who send Indulgences from Rome and from the Embraces of their Harlots to obstruct the Course of Divine Justice and to order judicially to what degrees of Punishment it may proceed or whether it shall proceed at all This is far worse then what they say the Russians do when upon the breast f Wolfius Cent. 16. an 1580. of their dead Friends they send a Mandat to S. Peter charging him that at the same moment when he shall have received their letter he fail not to admit the Bearer thereof whom they have absolved from all sins For the Popes Indulgence is a formal Sentence and as they call it a Juridical Absolution directed to and served upon God himself against the usual course as they conceive of this ordinary Supreme Justice I have read of a conceited man who even to the endangering of his life keeping himself from making water for fear of drowning the whole World at last was perswaded it would not be so by the experience of his weakness upon a poor small Cottage set on fire which his friends had called him to quench If His Holiness in this respect were not twenty times more incurable twenty thousand experiments of the like nature might have cured him Let him and all Papists but consider what a most plenary Indulgence or even a whole Jubilee can do towards the preventing of the least other temporal punishment for sin for example want sickness or death and thence let them guess what it can do against the greatest and as they conceive the most fatal the burning of Souls after Pardon Let them try what