Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	receive_v	soul_n	6,167	5	5.1563	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B02879	The result of a dialogue concerning the middle-state of souls. Wherein is asserted, the ancient doctrine of their relief, obtainable by prayers, alms, &c. before the day of judgment. / By F.D. professor of divinity.	Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598-1680.	1660 (1660)	Wing D355A; ESTC R175909	24,202	157

of Faith But let us go further if every person from hence to Cades in Spain and from thence to Rome and from thence to Constantinople and from thence to Jerusalem through both Churches were asked whether in their prayers for the dead they do not hope to help them to Heaven before the last day every one would assert it CHAP. II. It is not matter of Opinion THerefore most certainly the hope of present easing them was not grounded on matter of Opinion which intrinsically involves actuall fear or doubt of the truth else they would have praied faintly but it is a traditionary doctrine and under that notion by all understood Hence we never read in Scriptures Councels or Fathers any one clear assertion as sufficiently appears in those which are most urged That all those that go to Purgatory must be necessarily detained there without any relief till the day of judgement which sure were impossible if there had been any fluctuation in it or if they had been of that opinion as some gently perswade us That some things have been delivered to posterity in the Church which could never obtain more authority then opinion I have made evident in my System even in grave Subjects of which number this was not but how to distinguish such from doctrines of a higher nature in case Holy Church did not conveigh clearly their qualifications with them as in some cases evidently it did and in others it did not as there I give instances then the onely way is to return to general Councels that they according to their office may conquisitione facta after the example of the Apostles juridically appoint to each their seats where all must acquiesce as here was done conformable to all antiquity as I have declared and shall more CHAP. III. Why the resurrection is inculcated THe Holy Scriptures indeed our B. Lord and especially B. St. Paul and since them holy Church and Fathers most pressingly inculcates the truth of the general resurrection as being the basis of our hope the motive of piety and good works all which would be adjudged fruitless by the generality of men if it were not for this though even Aristotle who with the rest of his friends of Athens would have laughed to have heard Saint Paul Preach and assert it yet they would judge vertue to carry and bring with it a present reward for which it should be embraced but our expectations are infinitely higher by our believed and hoped for resurrection and therefore it alwaies produced proportionate effects in Gods holy Martyrs and Saints especially in those first times as the course of Gods providence required and therefore there was a necessity effectually to settle this radical doctrine as also of the last judgement to inculcate a just fear as S. Paul did This other of relief of souls in and out of Purgatory being of far less concernment as to the generality of mankind and being as it were a particular of it or subalternate to it needed not so strong frequent inculcation though holy Church did not take it up upon vulgar and light hear-sayes but with and by the Apostles Praedications which according to S. Augustines Rule are sufficiently proved by the Churches Doctrine and practice The holy Scriptures themselves as interpreted by antiquity also declare it which are obviously knowne Neither do the Texts though brought with violence touch the contrary nor were ever so interpreted Some mistake also ariseth in this business from not observing that holy Scriptures and from thence holy Church and the Fathers frequently understand by Resurrection even the assumption of souls to Heaven without the bodies and therefore S. Aug. calleth the later of soul and body the perfect resurrection as condistinct from the former in his care of the dead c. 6. But here we treat of the Churches practice and doctrine which are cleare even amongst the Greekes as well as Latines You know that according to Mr. Rushworth and Mr. White whose authority cannot be denied by you the publique practice or oral conveyance demonstrates universal Tradition and consequently Christian Truths Therefore when I look upon the anxious solicitude with which now and in all former ages good Christians Greeks and Latines have prosecuted their friends deceased with their Prayers Alms-deeds which all Christian Monuments declare methinkes it were strange now at length to have all resolved into a cold Oblation or Prayer for Doomsday wherin their particular Allies are no more concerned than all others so all the pious indeavours of friends are of no effect as relating to what they intended in order to particular persons but might as well be contracted into a general Prayer for all the dead against not onely orall tradition but the manifest writings of the most ancient and learned in the bulke of the Fathers as S. Aug. is sufficient testimony for all the rest in his Treatise of this subject stiled by him A care of the dead where he supposeth it to be the common sense of the whole Catholique Church that particular persons dead who have acquired merit in their life time by which such things may be rendred profitable after death do receive benefit by what is done for them religiously after their decease and he speaks cleane through the whole Book of actual benefit profit help advantage availment and rest to be procured for the souls And lest we should glosse it for the soules in their reunion with their bodies he frequently speakes condistinctively of the soule as separated from the body or as it is when the body is dead and he saith that then it receiveth succour which as he shews and I have said was the practice of all Churches in their publique Liturgies I do not esteem it constancy but obstinacy to intort antiquity to our sense gainst their own CHAP. IV. The sences of Greek and Latine Lyturgies and Fathers AMongst the Greeks I observe in their Liturgies that sometimes they pray with Tertullian de Monogamia that the dead may have refrigerium that is some ease as S. Greg. Nazian his Liturgie p. 34 in the Rubrick Other times they pray that they may be put into a place of light sommess where sorrow is banisht and groaning c. as in S. Basils Liturgie Sometimes that they may rest in Abrahams bosome as in S. James his Liturgie All these intimate a change a present relief though not alwayes a release as the stile evidently imports which destroyes your very ground for you teach that no prayers can relieve or change them till Doomes-day S. James in his Lyturgie prayes that God would cause the souls to rest with the Saints You say he meanes that they may not rest or have ease or lightsomness c. till after the day of judgment Besides they constantly pray for the remission of their sins as in S. Basils and the rest this is not for the resurrection and finally they pray for all who died in communion of the faithful and for

to be very much to undervalue her operations in such penal acts or passions as holy Church presents to our belief in the dead Nay even all other corporal afflictions and austerities in this life voluntarily undertaken you are thought to judge superfluous if not superstitious and derogatory to charity You know how far our neighbours have by urging this reduced all Christian duties of this kind to such a pure worshipping of God in spirit that there is no visible footstep of any old austerities amongst them and even all these old symptomes of Christianity are with them by a new sort of Chymistry evaporated It seems certain according to the received doctrine of great Divines wherein you doe not wholly dissent that all souls which depart from their bodies in a capacity of Heaven at their separation do appretiate God above all and do heartily desire that they had never placed any created object in his room which is never to have sinned mortally Which doctrine methinks is consequent to St. Thomas his opinion of infants in their first act of reason applying themselves to God And this act as I said is esteemed naturally indelible in the dead according to their state with which is consistent a desire of fulfilling Gods Laws in order to expiation of former sins nay that is inconsistent with it self without a desire of complyance with Gods ordinances in this and every other kind Whence follows that their sufferings after death are voluntary as relating to their former acts of conformity to Gods orders and the virtual or habitual durance of it howsoever by some so palpable a truth is denied The whole universe therefore having been deformed in some manner by our deordinations it must be reform'd by our pennances For according to Divines Infligitur poena ut ordinetur culpa and it is so even following nature So that the order of the Universe by Gods original position of causes exacts this method of us Therefore there is no necessity which some are affrighted at so much to attribute their penal detention to revenge in God though it is but quaestio de nomine as diversly taken since it is consequent to our peccaminous acts to be liable to it especially holding as truth seems to convince that the reliques of the sinnes themselves or those very sins of which the souls were guilty in death remain till the change of the souls after Purgation Which doctrine is very conformable to Scotus who holds that venial sins after proportionable punishment in hell it self cease to be that is after the remorse and punishment proportionable to such sin cease which as I have noted elsewhere is Origen's and Gregorie Nissenes clear doctrine for they both seem to admit that only Purgatory I said punishments for which we now call punishments as to the minds remorse for sin in time of nature we would call effects of sin as I shewed de Mundo It s true we have not injured God in our sins who is above and beyond the spheres of our most malitious activity but our selves are principally endamaged in mortal sins by losing all title to Heaven or at least by diminishing it as in venial Which losse caused by violation of his Lawes must be repaired by charity directing to submit to and to keep Gods Commandments according to that Text of our Saviour If you love me keep my Commandements whereof one is to submit to his orders in Purgatory wherein this voluntary due chastisement at last will procure remission of those sins which remain at the least in their dregs Charity indeed hath God himself under the noblest motives for its immediate object but it is exercised not onely in a naked wishing or willing well to God which is to love him but it breaks out into a hearty complyance with all his orders Hence St. Peter John the last Chapter v. 15. being demanded whether he loved God to his triplicated affirmation was as often subnected Feed my sheep c. So that this love hath a great extent though it alwaies terminates in God as it begins in him St. Paul also 1 Cor. 13.4 tells us summarily but pathetically the further operation of charity Charitas patiens est benigna est c. whence will follow that charity can be exercised in following any of Gods orders in respect of the living or the dead as in those St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 15.29 who were baptized that is suffered for the dead as the Text clearly speaks It is not then any indignity to charity that good Christians dying invested with it should be exercised afterwards in expiation of former deordinations by their passive complyance with Gods orders which dying in charity they could not but desire This divine order being fulfilled and expiation being effected the soul is rendred through Gods mercy capable of her hoped supervestition of eternity CHAP. VII How a soul according to others can change Of the horror of Doomes-day Whether it is to be prayed for I will now suppose that borrowed principle out of Aristotles Schooles that the soul is not capable of any change once separated from the body as having not the fancy whence the changes were occasioned Which doctrine although I have taught in my System and so do St. Thomas in his School Henricus de Gandavo and others as to natural causes yet it will not reach so far as I conceive as to build a consequence so remote from the common sense of Christians as this of all soules which do not immediately go to Heaven or to Hel their prestolation of the last day in Purgatory and that then upon the reunion of their bodies our blessed Lord shall represent to our corporal eies his most blessed humanity of which he made us not capable during our long expectation in the soules separation upon sight whereof they shall fall into raptures of divine love c. The whole complex taken altogether is the product of a great wit possessed of much learning and if kept within the Schooles as we use frequently impossible suppositions might exercise wits with profit and applause as I believe was intended but where it toucheth upon a noble particle of our Religion as here the putting it into a vernacular Idiome is dangerous and against the Councel of Trent in in this particular Sess 25. Apud rudem verò plebem difficiliores ac subtiliores quaestiones quaeque ad aedificationem non faciunt ex quibus plerunque nulla fit pietatis accessio a popularibus concionibus secludantur incerta item vel quae specie falsi laborant evulgari ac tractari non permittant c. This comes home We are forbidden to move these questions in English Prayer for the Dead as for such as are helped by it being in an indigent condition is one of the most universal most constant and most solemn practises of holy Church as all Monuments declare which by this your speculation is rendred speaking really of no use as being resolved by