Christ shewing that on the one side these things to be abjent from the body or from the Lord and being in the body or with the Lord are irreconcileably opposite on the other side these to be absent from the body and to be with the Lord and on the contrary to be present in the body and to be absent from the Lord are inseparably conjoined so that the very act of the separation of the body necessarily translates the Faithfull into the presence of the Lord of which their presence in the body deprives them Yet this Supposition though refuted as aforesaid had such a strange influence upon the spirits of many great Church-men in the Second and Third Age that they outvied one another in the maintaining of it Thus Hermas at the same time that the Counterfeit Sibyl made her first attempt upon the sincerity of the Christians became the Patron and Propagatour of it writing of the Apostles and Faithfull departed before The Apostles and Doctours who have preached the Name of the Son of God and are dead by the power of God and by Faith preached to those who were dead before and gave them the Seal of preaching They are descended with them into the water and they ascended again out of it but those who were dead before descended dead and ascended living Which words are so much the more observable in that they have been subscribed by Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. 2 and 6. inferring from them that the Apostles conformably to what had been done by our Saviour preached the Gospel to those who were in Hell and that it was necessary that the best of the Disciples should be imitatours of their Master there as they had been here supposing after Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus that our Saviour being descended into hell after his Passion had preached the Gospel to those who were detained there in which Opinion he hath been followed by St. Athanasius St. Hilary of Poictiers Hilary Deacon of the Romane Church St. Epiphanius St. Hierome St. Cyril of Alexandria Oecumenius c. And secondly for that they insinuate not onely that the Apostles descended into hell after their death for to preach there but that the Faithfull departed after the Passion of our Saviour had been there taught and converted and consequently that all without any exception were there detained Presently after the publication of Hermas's Writings Pope Pius the First Brother to that pretended Prophet complies with him in his first Epistle to Justus of Vienna saying The Priests who having been nourished by the Apostles have lived to our days with whom we have divided together the word of Faith being called hence by the Lord are detained shut up in eternal Repositories sufficiently discovering by these words which denote a perpetual detention if not absolutely at least in some respect that he had embraced the same Opinion Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew writ some years after the presentation of his Apologie where he makes mention of the Sibyl endeavours all he can to maintain it as well by his Hypothesis of the Souls of the Just being exposed to the rage of evil Spirits as by an Apocryphal Passage he attributes to Jeremy and which Irenaeus sometime after cites one while under the name of Esay another under that of Jeremy and certainly with as little reason one as the other in these Terms The God of Israel hath remembred his dead lying in the slimy earth and descended to them to preach his salvation among them Which St. Irenaeus does five several times apply to the descent of our Saviour into hell after his Passion saying If the Lord that he might become the first-fruits from the dead Col. i. 18. observed the Law of the dead and continued to the third day in the lower parts of the Earth Ephes iv 9. c. since he went to the valley of the shadow of death Psal xxiii 4 where the souls of the dead were c. it is manifest that the souls of his Disciples for whose sake the Lord did those things shall also go to the invisible place designed them by God and remain there expecting the Resurrection till the Resurrection Whence it must needs be that the Latine Interpreter having found in the Original Text the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies Invisible and hath been taken by all the Heathens either for Hell or the God which they imagined presided there Literally translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Into an invisible place By which place the lovers of Truth are not as many at this day who to free St. Irenaeus form the Errour first proposed in the Sibylline Writing attribute to him Conceptions he neither ever had nor could have had to understand the State of the souls of the Saints departed which those Gentlemen conceive might be expressed by the Term of invisible place because Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for those that love him wherever they may be laid up for them rather then the place properly so called where they effectually enjoy them For St. Irenaeus his manner of reasoning and the contexture of his Discourse expresly refutes their Glosses in as much as if the Disciples whom the Gospel assures us not to have been above their Master ought both in life and death to imitate him and if the Master according to the sentiment of St. Irenaeus and the Church of Rome at this day passed from the Cross to the lower parts of the earth and to the valley of the shadow of death that is to say to hell properly so called and remained there all the time from his Passion to his Resurrection it must of necessity follow that by the invisible place whither the Disciples go after their Death should according to the said Father be understood hell scituated in the lower parts of the earth and in the Valley of the shadow of Death and that they remain there till the time of their Resurrection It is apparent from the words before transcribed that Clemens Alexandrinus Contemporary with St. Irenaeus was of the same Opinion And Tertullian whom St. Cyprian acknowledges for his Master and whom Saint Hierome affirms to have died about the year 217. being arrived to a very great Age discovers in many places that all the Montanist Party had embraced it For instance in the seventh Chapter of his Book Of the Soul After the divorce saith he or separation of the body the soul is transferred to hell she is there detained she is there reserved â—ill the day of Judgment c. Christ at his Death descended to the souls of the Patriarchs And in the ninth Chapter The souls of Martyrs are understood to be under the Altar And in fifty fifth Chapter Hell is in an hollowness of the earth a vast space as to its depth and there is an undiscovered profundity in its entrails c. Christ descended into the lowest parts of
that to address to her either separately or joyntly with God Almighty the solemn Sacrifice is to serve her with the service of Latria and to transfer to the Creature the Glory of the Creatour Or when Jovianus Pontanus a Great Person otherwise Councellour and Secretary of State to Ferdinand of Arragon King of Naples feigned that St. Michael the Archangel appearing to Laurence Bishop of Sipontum in Apulia had entertained him with this horrid and necessarily-false Discourse concerning the Grot of the Mountain Garganus now called Mont di S. Angelo Michael ego sum qui hoc excavato saxo hac antro hoc habitaculo his assidue manantibus stillis abluturus sum ac deleturus meam ad aram confugientium mortalium errata c. I am Michael who having hollowed this Rock this Cave this Habitation shall by these perpetually falling drops wash away and take off the sins of those who have recourse to my Altar as if ever any one of the blessed Angels of Light of whom St. Augustine sometime said to the Heathens Utinam vos illos colere velletis facilè enim ab ipsis disceretis non illos colere c. I wish you would also attempt to serve them as sometime did St. John for you might learn of them not to serve them as if I say it had been a thing becoming any of the Angels to importune men for Temples and Altars or at least to erect them to themselves or lastly to attribute to themselves the honour of washing away and blotting out the sins of men or as if any other then the Son of God had purged our sins and that by the sacrifice of himself appearing now once for to put away sin sanctifying those who are his through the offering of his Body once for all having offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever and by that offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified Upon which accompt St. John says that he is the Propitiation for our sins and that his blood cleanseth us from all â—n yet this very Church of Rome I say who hath in those of her Communion forborn to take any notice of the wicked and scandalous Expressions we have even now refuted made no difficulty after St. Augustine to declare those guilty of sacrilege who should presume to sacrifice to any of the Saints nor in imitation of him to affirm that it is a less sin to return drunk from the Memorials or Sepulchres of the Martyrs then to sacrifice to them fasting But considering with the whole antient Church in her Liturgies the things distributed in the Eucharist no otherwise then as gifts and presents which God gives us and which he creates and dayly leaves to our disposal though by their consecration we hold with the Holy Fathers that they become Religious Sacraments Figures Images Signs and Similitudes of the Body and Blood of Christ nay that very Body and Blood in a Sacramental way no man ought to think they absolutely cease to be what they were according to the condition of their nature before the Consecration viz. aliments of refection created for our use and left to our discretion to be communicated to those who are with us whether effectually or in outward appearance in the Communion of the Church Upon this accompt St. Ambrose might say that he made a Present of it to Valentinian a Catechumen indeed as to outward appearance but in effect one of the Faithfull in as much as he had made a Vow to receive Baptism much after the same manner as at this day the Church of Rome in the distribution of the Bread which she calls Holy reserves even for the absent that are in Communion with her whom the Persons that offer it are willing to honour their portion as a kinde of Honourary Present Thirdly I intreat the Reader to observe that St. Ambrose who had said of the Great Theodosius that he had attained salvation through his humility in imitation of David that his soul was returned into her rest c. that she had made haste to enter into the City of Jerusalem into true glory in the Kingdom of the blessed in the enjoyment of perpetual light rejoycing in the fruits of the reward for the things he had done in his body does not when he concludes his Discourse with this Wish Grant thy servant perfect rest that rest which thou hast prepared for thy Saints any way insinuate to the prejudice of what he had said before that the Soul of that Prince was then when he spoke in expectation of her rest for he adds immediately after that he remains in light and is glorified in the Assemblies of the Saints in the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus enjoying the society of Gratian his Brother-in-law of Flaccilla his Daughter and of the great Constantine but he desires on his behalf not absolutely rest since he was possessed of it as to his Soul but the perfect rest the possession whereof he could not arrive to in Body and Soul till after the Resurrection and in comparison to which what he was then possessed of could not be accompted other then imperfect and as it were half since he enjoyed it but in one of the parts of his Person the other being to remain under the power of Death till the Last day at which time it was to be rejoyned to the other that they might be joyntly received into Glory Into this Doctrine which in the main presupposes the Hypothesis of the Protestants concerning the Beatitude of the Faithfull as to their souls from the Moment of their Body's dissolution we finde a little rubbish shuffled which the Protestants do not conceive any one should force them to take upon their accompt In the first place according to the then Custom but without any Command or Promise of God and without the Example of the Apostolique Church the onely means able to Authorise his Action St. Ambrose prays for him whom he acknowledged in Bliss in the Kingdom of God a kinde of Office which he himself in his Funeral Oration for Valentinian had declared purely Arbitrary and proceeding from the Will-worship whereof St. Paul had about three hundred and thirty years before expresly advertized the Colossians and by them the whole Church through all Ages to beware And secondly where he prays that the Soul of Theodosius might return into the rest whence it had descended he not onely makes a superfluous Wish and consequently ill-grounded according to his own confession since that Soul was already gotten into the place where he wished it But he shews further that he had a little Tincture of Origene's Venom whose Imagination it was that the souls having sinned in Heaven and being forced to depart thence were descended guilty of Crimes and as such had been disposed into Bodies An Opinion which was condemned in the year 399. by the unanimous consent of the whole Church which constantly maintains even to this day and that
to felicity and desire to escape Damnation she I say neither prays nor thinks she ought to pray for either the Saints Glorified nor the Sinners Condemned but onely for the Faithfull whom she presupposes to expect their Glorification and that onely for a certain time Thirdly that if from this antecedent he hath sinned it did of necessity always follow We must Pray for him the Church of Rome would be obliged to Pray First For the Apostatized Angels who having quitted their first station sinned no less then men do but in such manner that their offence condemned by an irrevocable decree is absolutely incapable of remedy Secondly For the Damned who are not in a state capable of amendment Thirdly For those that are Glorified who have not any good to obtain and that as well after as before the last Judgment since that after the Pronuntiation of it this truth that men and Devils have sinned will remain evident and irrefragable as before though that after the retribution which shall be for ever made to every one according to his works it will not be any longer either necessary or convenient or rational to pray for him CHAP. XVII Saint Epiphanius's fift Motive considered FOr a fifth consideration Saint Epiphanius alledges that Prayers for the Dead are made by the surviving out of a design to signifie what is accomplished thereby insinuates that he conceived the state of the Faithfull from the moment of their death to the time of their resurrection to be imperfect and capable of melioration it is possible Aerius might have been of the same Sentiment and upon that account have been forced to acknowledg some necessity of praying for them untill the absolute accomplishment of their Glory But this imagination neither hath nor can have any force against the Protestants who believe that the Faithfull at the very demolition of the earthly Tabernacles of their bodies are received according to the saying of St. Paul into their celestial habitations and that at the very instant of their putting-off of Flesh God cloaths their souls with the glory which they are eternally to enjoy so that what till then was in part and imperfect in them is from thence absolutely abolished and that these Considerations that the Prayer does not cut off all that is layed in charge against the dead and that it is made to signifie what is accomplished cannot be any way seasonable in respect of those who as they are perswaded by the Scripture that to no purpose are alledged either the need which the Faithfull departed stand in of their accomplishment since they are already in actual possession thereof being present with the Lord and absent from the body particularly to that end or the charges which are pretended to remain against them after death since there can be no accusation nor any one to lay ought to their charge who are justified by the Lord who protesteth according to the tenour of his own Covenant that he will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will he remember no more CHAP. XVIII Saint Epiphanius's sixth Motive Considered IN the sixth place St. Epiphanius tells us That some in his Time prayed for Sinners departed having a respect or recourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Mercy of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imploring the Mercy of God and it may be said that upon this ground That sinners continued charged with sins and imperfections after their decease Antiquity was induced to demand by Prayers the remission of their sins and consequently their establishment in a place of rest To this purpose is what we read in the one and fourtieth Chapter of the eighth Book of the Constitutions attributed to Saint Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That God the lover of men having received his soul would turn away his face from all his sins voluntary and unvoluntary and out of his Graciousness and Mercy place him in the Region of the godly who enjoy themselves in the Bosom of Abraham c. whence trouble sadness and sighing are departed c. Look upon this thy servant whom thou hast chosen and taken to thy self to receive another lot and pardon him what he hath voluntarily or involuntarily sinned and place about him good Angels and dispose of him into the Bosom of the Patriarchs c. where there is neither sadness nor trouble nor sighing c. In the Liturgie of the Armenians Memento Domine miserere fac gratiam animabus requiescentibus pacifica illumina eas c. Remember O Lord shew Mercy and be Gracious unto the souls which are in rest pacify them and illuminate them c. In the Liturgy of St. Basily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the repose and remission of thy Servant In the Anaphora or Liturgie translated out of the Syriack and attributed to St. Basil whereof the Summary is alledged by Cassander That God would conduct the departed through the horrid receptacles and place them in habitations of light That God would deliver them out of the thick darkness of tribulation and grief that he would not enter into judgement with them c. If they have sinned in any manner as men clad in flesh that he would pardon them In the Missal of the Latine Church Animabus famulorum famularumque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum ut indulgentiam quam semper optaverunt piis supplicationibus consequantur c. Grant O Lord unto the souls of thy Servants of what Sex soever the remission of all their sins that by devout supplications they may obtain that indulgence which they have always desired c. Do away by the pardon of thy most mercifull Piety the sins which he hath committed through the frailty of worldly conversation c. Do thou O God mercifully out of thy wonted Goodness wipe away the stains which the souls have contracted from the contagion of the World Amen Mercifully pardon them c. put them into perpetual oblivion Amen c. O Lord enter not into judgment with thy Servants for no man shall be justifyed in thy sight deliver their souls from the Gates of Hell c. Grant them the remission of all their sins c. free them from all their sins c. We beseech thee that thy judicial sentence fall not heavy upon them c. That what vices soever she hath through the subtlety of the Devil contracted thou wouldest out of thy compassion and mercy indulgently do away c. Free O Lord we beseech thee the soul of thy Servant from all chains of sin Which Prayers are for the most part repeated in the first Book of Sacred Ceremonies Sect. 15. chap. 1. and the ensuing is there added over and above by a late Cardinal Non intres in judicium tuum Domine cum servo tuo c. O Lord enter not into judgment with thy servant for no man shall be justifyed in thy sight if the remission of
some persons having observed that the Heathens called by the Name of Ollas Vulcanias or Kettles of Vulcan the gaping places through which the Mountains of Gibel Vesuvium Lipara Strongoli and other places full of sulphur disburthen themselves of the Flames which either by intervals or a constant burning devour their Entrails and taken either out of astonishment or of set purpose the crakings of those subterranean Fires for the groans and crys of Tormented persons and lastly met with men who had the confidence either out of the excess of their malice against some Persons Departed or a desire to make their advantage of the credulous simplicity of the Living to compose Histories of the Apparitions of Souls separated by Death from the Bodies which they had animated before would needs without any Oracle of Scripture or Tradition of the first Ages of the Church and without the Example of any of the Saints that lived in them suppose that the Souls of those Christians which during their life-time had been defiled with Sin were after their death as it were melted again in a subterranean Fire where they were purified some sooner others later and all before the Last Day And as we finde the Poet Dante by a Liberty truly Poetical confined to the Hell where the Damned were all his enemies advanced into Paradise the best of his Friends and reduced the rest to be content with Purgatory so were there about the midst of the sixth Age a sort of People that had the boldness to affirm upon the Authority of their own pretended Visions the damnation of the Greatest men About that time was it that the Hermit of Lipara had perswaded the Father of the Step-father of Julian one of the Agents of the Romane Church that he had seen Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths who died on the one and thirtieth of August 536. led between Pope John the First and Symmachus without a Girdle without Shoes his hands tyed and at last cast into the next Vulcanian Cauldron whence honest St. Gregory inferred in the year 593. that by the Eructations of Fire which happened many times in Sicily and other adjacent Islands the tormenting Cauldrons were discovered Thus also came it to pass that after the Death of Charles Martel which happened on the two and twentieth of October 741. the Monks of St. Tron having published that Eucherius Bishop of Orleans had seen in a Vision the eternal Torments of that Prince who had dealt very roughly with him and given Ecclesiastical Revenues to those who had assisted him in the War and that thereupon there had been found in his Sepulchre onely a Dragon with the visible marks of his Body's being Divinely consumed by Fire the Story though so much the more evidently false in as much as the Death of Eucherius who died the fifteenth of February 727. preceded by fifteen years eight Moneths and two days that of Charles Martel whom he is ridiculously supposed to have survived was so pleasing to the humour of the Clergie that the Writers of the Legends of Rigobert of Rheims of Eucherius and Peter the Library-keeper and Flodoard undertook the dispersing of it and in the year 858. in November the Prelats of the Provinces of Rheims and Rouēn gave it for certain to Lewis King of Germany whom they knew to be descended of Martel by Pipin his second Son who upon the twenty ninth of July 753. concurrent with the fourth of his Reign gave for his Father's sake Saint Michael's-Mount in Verdunois to the Abbey of Saint Denys and by Lewis the Debonnaire Grand-Son of Pipin who Writ in the year 836. to Hilduin Abbot of Saint Denys that Charles his Great-grandfather had religiously recommended himself and had for that end principally shewn his Devotion and confidence towards that his particular Patron a manifest Argument that the Fable of his Damnation was not yet invented and that those Gentlemen who two and twenty years before bragged they had heard the Relation of it from Lewis imposed upon him and very boldly abused the credulity of Lewis King of Germany and Charles the Bald his children And in the year 1090. In Saxony a Clergy-man Dead as was conceived dragged into Hell and returning thence three days after confirmed by the Prediction of his own Death and the discoveries of other things the Judgment he had before given concerning the Torments of Pope Gregory the Seventh and the Petty Kings Rodolph and Herman the first of whom died the twenty fourth of May 1085. the second the fifteenth of October 1080. and the third in the year 1088. These three Examples whereto a thousand others of equal authority might be added are sufficient to make it appear what a strange power malice hath over those who are once infected with its venome There may be produced also such as shall demonstrate what Impressions Interest can give for to raise an horrour against Schism there was spread up and down Rome this Discourse concerning Paschasius Deacon of the Romane Church who had been to his death engaged in the Party of the Anti-Pope Laurence put by his pretences the 23 of October 501. That notwithstanding the merit of his Person being such that the very touching of the Surplice placed upon his biere had while he was carrying to the ground healed a possessed person yet had his soul been condemned to endure the ardors of the boyling-waters in the Baths surnamed the Angulani whence it was afterwards delivered upon the Prayers of Germanus Bishop of Capua And to encourage men to liberality it was said of Dagobert who died January 19. 644. that the Devils beating him as they were carrying him away in a Boat towards the Isles of Vulcan St. Denys St. Maurice and St. Martin whom he continually called to his relief came with Thunder and Tempest to his rescue and disposed him afterwards into Abraham's Bosom all which passages John the Hermite who lived in a little Isle not far thence saw in a Vision and gave the Relation of it to Anseald then Agent and afterwards Bishop of the Church of Poictiers In like manner the Impostor who took upon him the name of Turpin for that of Tilpin Arch-Bishop of Rheims who died the third of September 789. never considering that Wolfarius Successour to Tilpin did in the year 811. subscribe the Testament of Charle-maigne feigned that that Prince dying on Saturday Jan. 28. 814. and Canonized by Paschal the Third Anti-Pope in the year 1166. had been carried up to the Celestial Kingdom by the assistance of St. James to whom he had built many Churches and that a certain Devil whom he had seen running after the Troops of his Companions and drawing towards Aix la Chapelle whither they were all going in hope to be present at Charles's death and afterwards to carry away his Soul to Hell had told him at his return that the headless Galician had put into the
while there shall onely be an Ostentation to name it and men shall wave to express the Nature of it to give the Eastern Greeks and the Protestants who absolutely deny it some proof of the Tradition which they pretend to produce for the Confirmation thereof CHAP. XXX Shewing that the first Hypothesis proposed by the Sibylline Writing so called is generally disclaimed AS to the first Hypothesis which concerns The detention of all souls whatsoever in Hell from their separation from the Bodies which they had animated to their Resurrection though it were in such high esteem that it induced the Christians of the second and third Ages to compose the ibera and the other Prayers in which the departed Person is introduced desiring to be delivered from eternal Death and the Living require that he be delivered from the Gates of Hell and preserved from the places of Torment Tartarus the deep Lake from the pains of Darkness from the mouth of the Lion yet was it at the very beginning moderated by those who seemed to have embraced it with greatest resolution For Tertullian perswaded by the Relation had been made to him of the Visions of St. Perpetua was of Opinion as we have already observed that the Souls of Martyrs were by way of preference placed in the Terrestrial Paradise and the rest confined in Hell And since it hath by little and little been abandoned yet so as that those who quitted it would not be obliged either to the rejection of the Sibylline Writing which had occasioned the production of it or to a change of the Prayers introduced into the Publick Service which presupposed it For many making no mention of Hell contented themselves to assign at least in words the souls of the Faithfull a certain sequestred place as under the Altars and Holy Tables appointed for the conservation and distribution of the Eucharist and upon that accompt if we may rely on the Judgment of the late Bishop of Orleans Gabriel de l'Aubespine the Councel Assembled about the year 305. from all Parts of Spain at Elvira near Granada had drawn up its thirty fourth Canon in these Terms Cereos per diem placuit in Coemeterio non incendi inquietandi enim spiritus Sanctorum non sunt c. It is thought good that in the day-time no Wax-candles should be lighted in the Church-yard for the spirits of the Saints are not to be disturbed In effect it might seem that the Christians at that time meeting in Coemeteries or Church-yards the Altars being upon that occasion placed there and many believing that the Angels and separated souls were disposed into some subtile Bodies capable as ours of resenting strong Perfumes Prohibition was made by the Spanish Prelates That Wax-candles should be lighted in the day-time lest the smoak of them might prove offensive to the spirits of the Faithfull whose Bodies had been there interred It might also be thought that Vigilantius by Birth indeed of Aquitain but a Priest of Barcelona who had with all Spain received the Decree of Elvira Disputing in the year 406. viz. an hundred years precisely after the said Decree against the Maintainers of the Worship done according to the Custom of that Time to the Reliques of the Saints whom he justly conceived illuminated by the Majesty of the Lamb sitting in the midst of the Throne of God crushed them with the Inconvenience which he found in their Opinion saying Ergò cineres suos amant animae Martyrum circumvolant eos sempérque praesentes sunt nè fortè si aliquis Precator advenerit absentes audire non possint c. The Souls therefore of the Martyrs are in love with their own dust and fly about it and are ever at hand lest if any one comes to pray they should not being absent hear him For this Argument makes onely against those who assigned at least in appearance the Souls of the Faithfull departed for their habitation the Place under the Altars that were near their Sepulchres There is also some Ground to number among the Followers of this strange Opinion those who had been so confident as to give it for certain to the good St. Augustine that St. John having caused himself to be buried alive at Ephesus the Earth continually sprung up and boyled as it were over the place of his Interment For if they thought it no Inconvenience to say of our Saviour's Beloved Apostle that he was confined to his Sepulchre there to expect in Body and Soul the Day of Judgment how much less would they have thought it to reduce the Souls of other Saints departed to the same condition St. Augustine thought it better to comply with the Opinion which he conceived could not be refuted by certain Proofs But it is so vanished of it self that being at this day generally declined we need not trouble our selves with the Confutation thereof no more then of that of Justine Martyr who from the Hypothesis of the pretended Sibylline Writing and the Story of the Witch of Endor inferred that all Souls without any exception either of Saints or Patriarchs or Prophets are in Hell under the power of the Devils For though the Prayers whereby it is even to this day required in the Church of Rome that God would deliver the Souls of the Faithfull departed from the power of Hell from the Mouth of the Lion from the Pains of Darkness and that he would put away far from them the Princes of darkness do notoriously discover they drew their Original from such a presupposition yet hath it nevertheless so absolutely lost all Credit that even in the year 380. Philastrius Bishop of Brescia charged it with Heresie saying Alia est Haeresis de Pythonissa c. There is another kind of Heresie concerning the Witch whereby some covering a Woman with Cloaths hoped they might obtain certain Answers from her whence it is said that that Witch raised out of Hell the Soul of the blessed Samuel and for that reason is it principally that many men even to this Day suspect that she might be believed especially for that it is known that she as it were a second time gave in that excitation true Answers of those things which the blessed Prophet had said to King Saul and because many are content to acquiesce in a Ly they descend into perpetual death since the Prophet saith The Souls of the Just are in the hand of the Lord and Death toucheth them not How then could an impious Soul raise out of Hell a pious and holy one especially that of a Prophet But what a strange astonishment must we necessarily conceive at this that the Opinion of Justine Martyr concerning the State of Souls should displease the whole Church which yet in her Service presupposed some such thing For if it be Heresie to think that the Souls of the â—aithfull after their retirement out of this World should be in danger of being exposed to the Rage of
Reliques as if they had been animated with the same Spirit as had made use of them to the glory of God during the course of his life and intended onely to signifie thus much that if they had been capable of Resentment they might have suffered through the nearness of his Body to them the shame and dissatisfaction which happen to generous Persons who being unequally matched desire and endeavour to free themselves out of the slavery of an importunate and dishonourable Society CHAP. XLVII The Sentiments of Saint Ambrose and Paulinus concerning the Burial of the Faithfull in Churches Examined BUt all the rest of the Prelates were not so scrupulous as Pope Damasius on the contrary Saint Ambrose carried away the rest by Custom as by the violence of an impetuous Torrent had not onely caused his Brother Satyrus deceased the seventeenth of September 383. to be buried near St. Victor Martyr but made his Tomb famous with this Epitaph Uranio Satyro Supremum frater honorem Martyris ad laevam detulit Ambrosius Haec meriti merces ut sacri sanguinis humor Finitimus penetrà ns adluat exuvias Here on the Martyr's left Ambrose bestows Here on the Martyr's left Ambrose bestows Last Honours on his Brother Satyrus That 's sacred Blood merit's reward it is May piercing drench the neighbouring Carkases In like manner commendation is given to his Sister Marcellina deceased the seventeenth of July about the year 398. or 99. for that she had chosen the place of her Burial near her Brethren in sacred Ground for her Epitaph runs thus Marcellina tuos cùm vita resolveret artus Sprevisti Patriis corpus sociare Sepulchris Cùm pia fraterni superas consortia somni Sanctorúmque cupis charâ requiescere terrâ c. Nor would'st thou be when death thy Limbs disjoyn'd To thy forefather's Sepulchres confin'd Out of a hope t' injoy thy Brother's rest And to remain'ith Region of the Blest Saint Paulinus then indeed onely a Priest but afterwards Bishop of Nola shewing that he had conceived an Imagination suitable to that of St. Ambrose writ concerning Celsus a young man deceased at Complutum or Alcada de Henarez in Spain about the year 393. Complutensi mandavimus urbe propinquis Conjunctum tumuli foedere Martyribus Ut de vicino Sanctorum sanguine ducat Quo nostras illo purget in igne animas c. In Complutum he 's dispos'd Among the Martyrs in a Tomb inclos'd That from th' adjacent blood o' th' Saints he may Derive what can our Souls purge in that day viz. that of the Conflagration of the Universe Of these Epitaphs the result is that as the Prophet Elizeus was heretofore so assisted by the Almighty power of the God of Glory that a dead Carkase cast by those that carried it into his Grave without any other Design then that to rid themselves of a trouble which might have retarded their Flight recovered Life as soon as it had touched his bones so according to the Opinion as well of St. Ambrose as Paulinus the Bodies of Martyrs were endued with a certain Virtue such as Sanctified and Purged the Things that were placed near them We cannot at this day affirm whether St. Ambrose did or did not change his Opinion but we are obliged to observe by the way what there is in it that is inconvenient nay indeed unmaintainable since that it presupposed that from the body of St. Victor beheaded at Milan the eighth of May 303. under Maximian and from that time shut up in a Tomb the Blood should eighty years after issue out in such quantity as to penetrate the Ground all about and moisten the body of Satyrus though enclosed also in his Grave and communicate its Virtue to him But if beheaded Bodies must necessarily be Bloodless and if that Blood be naturally fixed into a consistency as soon as it is issued out of the Veins what possibility was there in the Supposition which St. Ambrose made of that which Saint Victor had spilt eighty years before representing it onely liquid but streaming in such quantity as might penetrate the adjacent Ground And if it be pretended he grounded it on the Conception of some Miracle whence did he derive it unless from his own voluntary Devotion or Will-worship which inclined him to believe as actually existent what he thought possible to the power of God Besides this inconvenience whereto the Opinion of St. Paulinus writing the Epitaph of Celsus lies open and that the more expresly the more likely it is he conceived or pretended to conceive that from the Bodies of Justus and Pastor who had their Throats cut and consequently lost all their Blood at Complutum on the sixth of August 303. that is to say ninety years at least before the Death of Celsus the Body of that young man should derive Blood that purges souls as if of any other blood then that of the Lamb of God who of God hath been made unto us Sanctification and Redemption and hath himself purged our Sins it could be truly and in good sence said that it taketh away the Sin of the World and cleanseth us from Sin those Imaginations which taken rigorously would be found Diametrically opposite to the Doctrine of Faith do stand so much in need of a candid Reader who must do his Judgment some violence to draw them into a good sense that without the Byas which a forced Interpretation may give them it were impossible to deducc thence I will not say any thing good but any thing excusable About nine years after the same Paulinus writing the Epitaph of Clarus Disciple of St. Martin and a Priest of Tours deceased the eighth of November 401. in as much as his Body was to be Interred at the foot of the Altar takes a new Fancy and says Sancta sub aeternis Altaribus ossa quiescunt Ut dum nostra Pio referuntur munera Christo Divinae è sacris animae jungantur odores c. His sacred Bones now undisturbed lie Under Eternal Altars that when we To Christ our Presents offer his Soul may Be joyn'd to th'odours Sacred things convey He pretended as you see that the placing of the Body of the Faithfull Person departed near the Altar would be of such advantage to the Soul that some increase of Grace might accrue to her thereby and all this with much sincerity and good meaning which is wont to open a spacious Gap to those that consult it But upon what grounded What place of Holy Scripture can be produced to Authorise the Advice thereof Accordingly the same Paulinus to let us know that he found not himself any way satisfied with either of those two Presuppositions with much confidence and asseveration acknowledged that he was yet to be advised therein in the year 419. wherein two fresh Accidents to wit the Interrment of Flora's Son and that of Cynegius a young man who had at his Death required that his Body might be Buried in
a little Season to rest above and further consider as the highest point of their pretension that admirable perfection which the first shall not attain without the last one and the same day to wit that of the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment being appointed to make an eternal assurance of the full Perfection of their Glory The Antients I say upon these Considerations might and after their Example the Faithfull still may and do continually desire and beg it as well for themselves as for all those who before them had served their generations by the will of God and happily finished their course in this life Fourthly It may be observed that in this kinde of Prayer they seem to follow the Example of the Apostle praying for Onesiphorus that the Lord would grant that he might finde mercy with the Lord in that day in which he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe For whatever may be presupposed concerning the State of Onesiphorus and whether it be said that that good Person was or was not discharged as to the necessities of this life when the Wish set down in the Second Epistle to Timothy was made for him it will make no difference in the main and it will still be certain that the good expressed by St. Paul's Prayer hath not been hitherto accomplished in any one that it is of no less importance at this day to Onesiphorus then when St. Paul prayed for him that St. Paul and Onesiphorus and all the Saints who are with God wait for as much as we do who are saved by Hope onely the Day of the Lord and the Mercy which Onesiphorus and all the rest of the Elect shall finde when that day comes and that he who prays his Friend may obtain what cannot be conferred on him till many Ages after his Introduction into celestial Beatitude seems necessarily to pray for one that is Blessed if not effectually when he conceived his Prayer at least for one considered as such when he shall see the Effect thereof so that whensover a man undertakes to pray for him whether while he is alive or after his death or both before and after his death he still makes the same Prayer for him which not onely does not but canot change its nature in the revolution of Ages since that its foundation still unchangeably subsists and that it is impossible it shall have its Effect in any but a Person that hath been already a long time in Glory with God and who stands in need not of Beatitude in it self which he is already possessed of but the last Perfection of it and as it may be expressed in vulgar Terms the Over-weight which is necessarily to be added thereunto Thus the Fathers not without some Ground conceived they had pertinent Reasons to pray for those whom they thought gathered into the eternal Rest of God nay some out of a Motive of extraordinary compassion took the liberty to pray and advised others to make Prayers and give Alms for the Damned yet so as that for ought we know it hath not happened that for the space of six hundred years together any one of them laid it down as a Tenent of Catholique Faith That the Souls of those who ended their Lives in the Profession of that Faith were reduced immediately upon their departure to endure any temporal Punishment for their sins and to make full satisfaction to the Justice of God before they took possession of their Bliss The Antient Liturgies are so far from teaching any such thing that they have formally expressed the contrary and even to this day the Form of Prayer for the Recommendation of Persons in Agony expresly presupposes that their Souls at their departure out of the Bodies are to be carried by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom a Mansion of Rest and Felicity and not of Torment For after the Litanies whereby the Mercy of God is implored they say to the sick Person Proficiscere anima Christiana de hoc Mundo c. Depart out of this World O Christian Soul in the Name of God the Father Almighty who hath created thee in the Name of Jesus Christ the Son of God who hath suffered for thee in the Name of the Holy Ghost which is shed into thee c. May thy place be this day in Peace and thy habitation in Holy Sion through the same Christ our Lord. Amen To this Wish there is added a Prayer which demands for the sick Person the Remission of his sins the Renewing of whatever there was corrupt in him and his reconciliation with God and then this Discourse is addressed to him Commendo te c. I recommend thee most dear Brother to God Almighty and cōmit thee to him whose creature thou art that when by the interposition of death thou shalt have cancelled the Obligation of humanity thou mayst return to thy Authour who hath formed thee out of the slime of the Earth May therefore a bright Assembly of Angels meet thy soul at its departure out of the body c. May the embraces of the Patriarchs confine thee to the Bosom of a blissfull rest c. Mayest thou be delivered from Torment by Christ who was crucified for thee mayst thou be delivered from eternal death by Christ who vouchsafed to die for the May Christ the Son of the living God place thee in the ever-pleasant verdures of his Paradise and may that true Shepheard own thee among his Sheep May he forgive thee all thy sins and place thee in the portion of his Elect on his right hand Mayst thou face to face see thy Redeemer and being ever present behold with thy blessed eyes the most manifest truth Being then placed among the Quires of the blessed mayst thou enjoy the sweetness of divine contemplation world without end Amen After such a Discourse there is made this Prayer Suscipe Domine servum tuum c. O Lord Receive thy servant into the place where he is to hope salvation from thy mercy Amen O Lord deliver the soul of thy servant from all dangers of Hell and from the snares of Torments and from all Tribulations Amen Then having made a recital of the Deliverances of Enoch and Elias of Noë Abraham Joab Isaac Lot Moses Daniel and his three Companions David Saint Peter and Saint Paul they conclude with these words And as thou hast delivered from three most grievous Torments the most blessed Virgin and Martyr Thecla in like manner mayest thou be pleased to deliver the soul of this this thy servant and grant that he may rejoyce with thee in the enjoyment of celestial goods Amen At last follow two Prayers whereof the former begins with these words Commendamus animam Famuli tui c. O Lord we recommend unto thee the soul of thy servant and we humbly beseech thee O Jesus Christ Saviour of the World that thou wouldest not refuse to
Antiquity and Reason assisted by both teach so clearly that there can be onely those who are unwilling to learn of them that are not informed thereof Take the draught he gives us of it with his own hand introducing the Priest whose Funeral Obsequies are celebrated making at his death this Discourse strange indeed and more suitable with the Principles of a Pagan without hope then to those of a Christian illuminated by Faith Brethren I am banished from my Brethren I leave all my Friends and go my ways yet I know not whither I am going and am ignorant what condition I shall be in there God onely who calls me knows but make a commemoration of me with the Antients Hallelujah Whither do Souls now go And after what manner do they now converse together in that place I would gladly understand that Secret but there is no body able to declare it to me c. None of those that are there ever returned to life again to give us an accompt in what manner they behave themselves who were sometime our Brethren and Nephews who are gone before us to the Lord c. It is a bad way that I go in and I never went it before and that Region where no body knows me I have not any account or knowledge of It is a horrour to see those who are carried away and he who calls me is worthy to be dreaded he who is Lord of Life and Death and who calls us away when he pleases Hallelujah Removing out of one Region into another we stand in need of some Guids what shall we do where we go in a Region in which we have no acquaintance Of the same strain are the Discourses in the Office of the Soul in Agony for she is made to speak as one in the depth of despair begging assistance of the Blessed Virgin of Angels and of Men and complaining that she is forsaken of all that estranged from the Glory of God she served unclean Devils who holding the Schedules of her sins and crying with vehemence would impudently have her that she is alienated from God and her Brethren that a Cloud of Devils come pouring upon her and that the darkness of her own unclean actions cover her commands her Body to be cast into a Common-Sewer that as she is dragged into the places of dreadful punishments the Dogs may eat her heart declares that she is delivered up to the Devils who carry her away by violence to the bottom of Hell that she knows all have forgotten her that she shall remember God no more since that in Hell there is no memory of the Lord that overwhelmed with darkness she expects the Resurrection that examined by all men she shall be cast into the fire that neither God nor his Angels nor his Saints shall think of her for which reason she calls upon the Virgin Angels and Men Earth nay Hell it self to which she is delivered to be bitterly punished to bewail her Misery What greater Impurity could the rage of a despairing Judas disgorge shall we say there could be any thing of Christianity in the apprehensions of a sinner who without any recourse to the Mercy of God and the Merit and Intercession of his Saviour numbers himself among the damned not vouchsafing to consider the assurances which the Scripture gives all men testifying unto them that Christ is our peace and redemption that his blood cleanseth us from all sin that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Further that he is still living to make intercession for us and since he vouchsafes to receive us among his Sheep no man shall pluck us out of his hand and the wicked one shall not touch us When the same Divinely-inspired Scripture hath loudly published that all the righteous that is to say those who walk before God are taken away from the evil to come that being absent from the body they are present with him that even here upon Earth they are of the Houshold of God and fellow-Citizens with the Saints that they ought to go boldly to the Throne of Grace where he himself gives them access by the Spirit of his Son and that the Angels are now ministring Spirits to minister to their Salvation should we ever imagine so brutish a stupidity and so prophane an excoecation in any of those who have any way contributed to the Greek Ritual affirming according to the Scripture that the Christian who dies does by death arrive at the Port goes to the Lord rests is translated from the corruption of life exchanges death for divine life and is at his death in the way to bliss as that he should presume to say that way is bad and that he knows not whether he is going knows no body there nor is known to any Can the way to bliss be a bad way Is he who knows he is going to God in a condition to complain truly that he knows not whether he goes Since he is retiring to his Father and those of the same Houshold with him hath he any cause to say that he knows not any of those to whom he is retiring and that they know not him Being called how can he imagine that he who calls him should be so far mistaken as to take his Childe for a Stranger And since he gives him access to himself by his own Spirit is there any reason it should be supposed not onely that he stands in need of a Guid but that he neither hath nor can finde any What occasion have either the living or the dying to bemoan themselves that not any one returns from the Dead to inform them of the state of the World to come since the Son of God himself gave us this advertisement that it is of greater advantage to us to have Moses and the Prophets that is to say the holy Scriptures then if one rose from the Dead to give us an accompt of their condition It were not haply much besides our Purpose to desire those who entertain us with Stories of dark Prisons for those Souls which they pretend to be of a Middle-condition to tell us whether they hope to revive that ruined Party among the Antients who believing that Angels and separated Souls were clad with a body subject as ours to be incommodated by Darkness discovered that they apprehended not any distinction between immortal Substances and corporeal As also whether allowing them separated from all matter and assigning them for Torment Obscurity and Darkness taken in their Proper and Primitive Signification they think themselves better grounded in Reason then those who are perswaded that material Fire whose activity can onely exercise it self on Bodies is and eternally shall be the Instrument of Torment as well for Devils as impious Souls Turn which side they will they shall not free themselves
to come and the Son of God clearly shew that he alludeth to those very books which are now extant of them and consequently that his work was hatch'd after that entitled the Sibylline and must needs be later then the year of our Lord 137. 2. That with Justin and Clemens he acknowledges but one Sibyl who manifested one onely God which shews it were to little purpose to look for different Authors for the eight books that are come to our times 3. That the most clear and remarkable descriptions of the Son of God palpably relate to the designation as well of the four vowels and two consonants which make up the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the number precisely arising thence as also the Acrostick of the eighth book wherein we have consecutively the names of Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour and Cross with the Paraphrase on the greatest part of the history of the Gospel 4. That the more express and historicall these descriptions are the more apparent it is that they are supposititious and written after the event the Spirit of God having never thought it convenient to propose things to come otherwise then aenigmatically and under the veil of severall figures and there being no instance but onely of one person whose proper name it hath express'd in its Oracles that is to say Cyrus twice nam'd by Isaiah 175. years before he was possess'd of the Monarchy of the Universe Clemens might soon have observ'd this if to compass his design he had made it as much his business to exercise his judgement as exhaust his memory but having resolv'd to make use of Heathens and Hereticks against themselves so to undeceive them all without taking heed himself of being surpriz'd he as well as others is fallen into the snare and the cloud of witnesses he had to produce suffer'd him not to see the bad marks which some of them carried in their very faces Accordingly do we find That this vast Wit whom nothing escap'd and who thought to make his advantages of all and take away as sometimes Israel did all the treasures of Aegypt after he had with a miraculous ostentation laid down the Depositions of 250. Heathen Authors as well Philosophers as Historians and Poets and given quarter to the most execrable Heretiques such as Basilides Carpacrates Julius Cassianus Epiphanes Heracleon Hermogenes Isidorus Marcion Prodicus Tatian Valentin c. and opened his brest to Apocryphall pieces that is to say the Prophesies of Enoch Cham Abacuc Esdras Parchor and Sophony the book of the Assumption of Moses the Gospels of the Aegyptians and Hebrews the Sermons of St. Peter and St. Paul the Traditions of St. Matthias the Epistle of St. Barnabas the Pastor of Hermas Brother to Pope Pius the first a piece which dazled the eyes of St. Irenaeus and many others hath also given credit to the counterfeit Sibyll whose discourse he thought so much the more authentick the more directly it contributed to his design CHAP. VI. An accompt of severall instances of dis-circumspection in Clemens Alexandrinus SInce therefore it could not well be otherwise but that this great man drawing out of so many severall sources must needs out of divers of them bring up dirt rather then water we shall not fear being thought awanting as to the respect we owe his memory and the merit of his great abilities and knowledge if we presume to affirm that in what we have left of his Works we meet with many instances of dis-circumspection weakness and an excessive credulity To come to particulars what is it else when he says after a very uncouth manner of speaking that the Word is the minister of the paternall will and the second cause which comes nearest the Father That the Angels fell through fornication That it is not lawfull for a man to touch blood nor to swear That Philosophy hath been to the Gentiles a Paedagogue to bring them to Christ fo far that it hath justified them that thereby they have glorify'd God and that it hath been their Testament and the foundation of all Christian Philosophy That Numa who dyed in the second year of the 27. Olympiad 134. years before Pythagoras appear'd and 168. years before he came into Italy was a Pythagorean That Semiramis was Queen of Aegypt That the Devil may repent That it is in our power to be delivered from ignorance and bad choyce That the soul makes the difference in the election of God That man is saved through his own means That in the time of Debora Osius the son of Riezu was high-priest That Solomon was Son-in-law to Hiram That Rehoboam was father to Abiu and Abiu to Athaman and this last to Jehosaphat and that Joram was father to Ozias That Jonathan was son to Ozias that Amos the Prophet was father to Isaiah That Achaz was father to Osea and Osea to Hezechias That from the time of Samuel to that of Josias the Passover was never celebrated That the false Prophet Ananias was son to Josias That Nechao fought Josias neer the river Euphrates That Helchias the high-Priest was father to Jeremy and that he dy'd immediately after he had read the book of the Law That the ten Tribes carried away according to the express certificate of the Scripture in the sixth year of Hezechias were brought into captivity in the fifteenth year of Achas his father That the transportation of the Jews under Sedechias who was later then the birth of Moses by about 1073. years and the raising of David to the Throne by 517. years was after the former 1085. years six months ten dayes and after the latter 492. years six months ten days precisely That Zachary who began not to prophesie to the people till the second year of Darius which was the first of the 65. Olympiad is more ancient then Pythagoras who began to come into reputation in the fourth year of the 60. Olympiad That Moses before his adoption was called Joachim and that now he goes under the name of Melchi That he killed the Aegyptian by his word that he was cast into prison and afterwards got out by miracle That the King having heard the name of God pronounc'd fell dumb and was afterward miraculously restor'd That it was to Philip oâ—… â—…aviour said Let the dead bury their dead That the body is the Sepulchre of the soul That Saint Matthias is Zachaeus the Publican That the Sacerdotall Vestment was bordered with 360 bells That the Son of God and his Apostles did after their death preach in hell that many were there converted that there was so great a necessity of that predication that otherwise God had been unjust That our Saviour did not eat out of any need his body stood in of sustenance but out of a fear of raising any ill opinion of himself in those who saw him That he who is endu'd with knowledge is free from all animal passion and cupidity that he is not overcome
to imagine any such thing of the Proconsul of Asia nor to presuppose that to comply with that Extravagance he had driven St. John who was not within his Jurisdiction from any place when at the same time that the Jews were forced to depart Rome St. Paul Priscilla Aquila and Apollos who were no less of Jewish Extraction then John sojourned at Ephesus without disturbance their Brethren according to the Flesh enjoyed there as much liberty as ever nay even when Demetrius had with those of his Profession made an Insurrection in the City against Saint Paul they thought themselves sufficiently Authorised to pacifie the Tumult thrusting out Alexander their Brother out of the Multitude and charging him to speak to the enraged People for if it were to no purpose that they attempted it it was at least without apprehension of any danger either to themselves or him Whence it follows that not onely without any necessity but also without any ground it is imagined that St. John who was not yet come to Ephesus when the Edict of Claudius came forth against the Jews was driven thence by Virtue of that Edict which no way concerned him and that if there never could be any excuse to introduce Novelties into the Business of Religion we should be much further from advancing ruinous Hypotheses to maintain the more ruinous Design of opposing common Sentiments So that no man should think it strange if through the just Judgment of God those who take a pleasure in contradicting things that are most evident unadvisedly engage themselves in inconsistent Opinions to the prejudice of their Reputation and such as are more apt to raise Compassion for their Weakness then Jealousie upon account of the great Esteem due to them CHAP. IV. A Refutation of the Sentiment of Johannes Hentenius of Maechlin concerning the Time of the Apocalyps HAving demonstrated the Improbability of the Sentiment as well of St. Epiphanius as of him who would needs make it his ground to build upon not considering he should do himself a thousand times more injury by following it contrary to the Truth then he could have done by contradicting it to promote the Truth he made it his Design to establish I conceive it lies upon me to discover the absurdity of another fond Conceit which to bring with less inconvenience the Tradition of the Church into Dispute about the year 1545. hath referred the writing of the Apocalyps to the Time of Nero ten years and more later then according to the Computation of Saint Epiphanius Johannes Hentenius an Hieronymite born at Maechlin who is the Authour of it would needs in his Preface upon the Commentary of Arethas entertain us with the following Discourse It seems to me that John the Apostle and Evangelist who is also called the Divine was Banished to Patmos by Nero at the very same time that he put to death at Rome the blessed Apostles of Christ Peter and Paul Tertullian who lived near the Times of the Apostles affirms as much in two several places Eusebius also treats of the same thing in his Book of Evangelical Preparation though in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History he saith it happened under Domitian which St. Hierome and divers others follow But to these last mentioned Books as such as were written some years before there is not so much Authority attributed as to that of Evangelical Preparation which was an after Work on which more care and exactness was bestowed Thus are we furnished by this man with a third Opinion inconsistent as well with the two precedent as the Truth it self which declares onely for the first confirmed by St. Irenaeus and others of the Antients and what should make this new Production the more contemptible is that it will be found grounded onely upon Chimaerical Suppositions and taking it at the best advantage speaks nothing positively Affirmative For whereas it is confidently affirmed that Tertullian assures us in two several places that Saint John was Banished at the time of the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul it is absolutely false that Father who makes mention of the Sufferings of the Saints Peter Paul and John jointly all together in one onely place to wit in the thirty sixth of his Praescriptions expressing it onely in these Terms That Church to wit that of Rome is very happy for which the Apostles spent their Doctrine and spilled their Blood where Peter was equalled to the Passion of his Lord that is to say Crucified where Paul was crowned with the same way of Departure as John that is to say Beheaded as St. John Baptist was where the Apostle John after he had been cast into the seething Oil yet suffered nothing was Banished into the Isle Whence it is evident that his Design was to shew that St. John was persecuted not at the same Time but at the same Place where St. Peter and St. Paul were so that his Discourse which proves nothing of what is in Question abates nought of its Truth though it be believed that Saint John's Banishment happened under Domitian and that eight and twenty years after the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul under Nero. Besides the place before cited there is in all the Works of Tertullian no more mention of the Writing of St. John then there is of the Discovery of the West-Indies so that Hentenius who brags that he had read what he says in them must needs read it in his Sleep Nor is there less Imposture in what he attributes to Eâ—sebius who in his third Book of Evangelical Preparation and the seventh Chapter having spoken of the Imprisonment of all the Apostles by the High-Priests of Jerusalem and afterwards of their Scourging of the Stoning of St. Stephen of the Decollation of St. James the Son of Zebedaeus of the Restraint of St. Peter and the Stoning of St. James the Brother of our Lord adds Peter was crucified at Rome with his Head downwards Paul had his Head cut off and John was Banished into an Isle For it is manifest that this Discourse designing neither the Place nor the Time of the Sufferings of these Holy men cannot oblige any Body to believe that they were persecuted by the same Tyrant and at the same Time and that nothing hinders but that according to Eusebius himself as well in his Chronicle as History the two former were put to Death by the command of Nero and the last Banished eight and twenty years after by Virtue of a Decree of Domitian's So that for a man to imagine the contrary from Eusebius cannot be without wresting his Words and to think to deduce it from the same words by the force of Ratiocination will amount to as much as a discovery of want of Reason and argue that the Person who attempts it dreams waking The said Authour thinks to give us a third Proof for confirmation of his Opinion when relying on a wrong Interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
seven hundred and tweny years had pretended to the custody of the Sibylline and Prophetical Books dictated by the Spirit of Impiety and Lying to the Heathens in the same City and at the same time that Justin Martyr as Eusebius hath observed made his Exercises so that he was present at the first production of the abortive Issue of the Counterfeit Sibyl and had been one of the most ready to take care of it But when I consider on the one side that the Adulterous Father of the Poem pretendedly Sibylline insinuating that he was a Phrygian by extraction represents Phrygia as the first of the habitable parts of the Earth after the Deluge calls it upon that occasion Life-bringing and Antient introduces in the first Book of his pretended Oracles page 9. Noah making this Discourse Above the Floods T' appear thou Phrygia first shalt strive That so a second Race thou mayst derive Of men and be the common Nurse of all and adds presently after In Phrygia's Confines a black Mountain is Call'd Ararat high reaching to the Skies Translating Ararat out of Armenia into Phrygia it may be because he found there between the Mountain Taurus and the Maeander the City of Apamaea sirnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cibotos scituated at the foot of the Mountain Signias in the midst of the Rivers of Marsyas Obrima and Orga all falling into the neighbouring Maeander and imagined that it was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Ark in memory of Noah's Ark which he supposed to have rested on the Mountain Signias never considering that that Mountain is not of such height and extent as to bear the Epithets he gives it nor that Josephus whose Writings he might have read and whose person he might have seen affirms from Berosus Hierome of Egypt Mnaseas and Nicholas of Damascus that Noah's Ark rested in Armenia upon the Mountain Baris in the Countrey of the Cordueni above Minyas that the Ruins of it were there preserved and that the Inhabitants were wont to scrape off bitumen to use as a Preservative which is also confirmed by Eusebius from Abydenus and on the other that just at the time that the Counterfeit Sibyl came first abroad Claudius Apollinaris Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia and Apollonius the Romane Senatour and Martyr affirmed as hath been already observed that Montanus a Phrygian and their Contemporary took upon him to act the Prophet I finde so much the more likelyhood to lay this Bastard to him the more free I find it as the Pastour of Hermas from containing any Passage that might displease the Montanists but I determine nothing and am very willing to resign to any one that shall take the trouble upon him the task of teaching us better things CHAP. VIII Divers Extravagances remarkable in the Sibylline Writing IN the beginning of this Treatise I gave several Instances of the fond Imaginations observable in that Work most part whereof are either without order and coherence or no way prejudiced the Truth I might further reduce to this Head an affectation of the Authour sufficiently importunate and no way suitable to the end he seemed to propose to himself namely that of shuffling into his Discourse most of those terms which the Heathens in their Mythologie had used for the Description of Hell and Infernal places as if he had made it his Business to bring it into reputation Such are for instance that of â—rinnys used by him lib 3. page 38. Styx lib. 3. pag. 22. that of Tartarus lib. 1. pag. 7 8. lib. 2. pag. 18. lib. 5. pag. 44. lib. 8. pag. 61. that of Frebus lib. 1. pag. 7. lib. 3. pag. 33. that of Acheron lib. 1. page 11. lib. 2. page 18. lib. 5. page 51. that of Flysium lib. 2. page 18. lib. 3. page 32 34. his licentiousness of expression not well suiting with Christianity taken in good part by the Fathers hath been constantly dissembled by them in like manner as were the Fables of the Titans Saturn and others which were of no small account in the pretended Sibylline Poem but there are some other Passages scattered up and down in it of a much greater concern and such as have occasioned Consequences of far greater importance I shall not insist on the Authour 's having thrust into his eighth Book an Acrostick made up of these five words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof the initial Letters put together made up the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish from which supposition Tertullian in his Book De Baptismo Zeno de Verone Serm. 5. ad Neophytos Optatus Milevitanus lib. 3. St. Augustine De Civit. Dei lib. 18. cap. 23 and others have derived so great prejudice that they have with a certain emulation made a noise about it calling the Lord Jesus Piscem nostrum that is to say our Fish the Christians regenerated by Holy Baptism pisciculos little fishes the Baptismal Font piscinam the fish-pond or place where the Fishes are kept in consequence whereof a pleasant Humour took them of Allegorizing upon the Piscina or Pool mentioned in the Latine Version of the fifth Chapter of Saint John's Gospel CHAP. IX The first Principal Tenet of the Sibylline Writing THe same Authour having fondly derived from Adam which is originally Hebrew that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades which is purely Greek and signifies in the New Testament either Hell as in Matth. xvi 18. Luke x. 15. and xvi 23. or the Sepulchre and State of the departed in respect of their Bodies as Acts ii 27 31. 1 Cor. xv 55. Apocal. i. 18. and vi 8. and xx 13 14. lays it down as a thing manifest that all men from Adam are after their death confined in Hell till the time of their resurrection saying in the first Book pag. 7. All men who have been Inhabitants of the earth are commanded or said to go to the habitations of Hell and page 11. where he speaks of the three Sons of Noah whom he feigns never to have been sick or troubled with the inconveniences of Old-age They by a certain sleep o'recome shall die And gone to Ach'ron there in honour be For happy they were of the blessed Race In whom God Sabaoth did his Wisdom place His will to these he ever did declare To these who though in Hell yet happy are He lays it down I say as a thing manifest That all men from Adam descend into hell and there expect their Resurrection a Supposition refuted by the History of Eliah whom Elizeus saw ascending into Heaven in a Whirl-winde and by the Gospel which assures us that the Thief converted upon the Cross was the same day that he died with the LORD in Paradise and by St. Paul who teaches that as being in the body we are absent from the Lord so being absent from the body we are present with the Lord and protests that his desire is to depart and to be with
we learn that he had a certain persuasion of four things 1. That our Saviour at the time of his Passion for our salvation prayed that his Soul might not fall under the power of the Devils 2. That we are obliged upon our approaches to Death to imitate his Example 3. That the Prophets were after death exposed to the insolencies of Evil Spirits in such manner that the Soul of Samuel could be evocated by the Witch of Endor 4. That the Souls of the Faithfull who dayly depart this world are subject to the same inconveniences and consequently do all stand in extraordinary need of being relieved by the Prayers of the Living In like manner do we see that upon this mold must needs be fashioned those Antient Prayers which the Church of Rome makes at this day for the Faithfull departed saying Domine Jesu Christe Rex gloriae libera animas omnium Fidelium defunctorum de manu Inferni de profundo lacu Libera eas de ore Leonis nè absorbeat eas Tartarus nè cadant in obscura Tenebrarum loca Fac eas Doniâ—… transire te de morte ad vitam San ctam c. Liberatae de principibus Tenebrarum locis paena rum c. Repelle quaesumus Domine ab ea omnes Principe Tenebrarum c. That is to say O Lord Jesus Christ King of Glory deliver out of the hand of Hell and from the deep Lake the souls of all the Faithfull departed Save them from the mouth of the Lyon that Hell do not swallow them up and that they may not fall into the obscure places of Darkeness c. Lord make them to pass from Death to an Holy Life c. may they be delivered from the Princes of Darkness and the places of Torments c. Drive away from them all the Princes of Darkness O Lord we beseech thee Nay the tender Saint Augustine had such a kind of Letany in his Imagination when celebrating in his Confessions the Memory of Saint Monica his Mother who was dead at least six years before he hath this Language Nemo à protectione tua dirumpat eam non se interponat nec vi nec insidiis Leo Draco nec enim respondebit illa nihil se debere nè convincatur obtineatur ab Accusatore callido c. Let no body snatch her out of thy protection let not the Lion or the Dragon interpose themselves either by force or by ambush for she will not answer that she ows nothing lest she be convicted and carried away by the crafty Accuser CHAP. XIV The Motives proposed by Justin Martyr disallowed and those which St. Epiphanius had to pray for the Dead taken into Consideration BUt since the Hypothesis of Justin Martyr was not embraced by all Antiquity Tertullian telling us in general Absit ut animam cujuslibet Sancti nedum Prophetae à Daemonio credamus extractam c. Far be it from us to believe that the Soul of any Saint whatsoever much less of a Prophet hath been extracted by the Devil and Pionius Metaphrastes upon the first of February Methodius in a particular Treatise against Origen St. Basil upon the eighth Chapter of Esay and in an Epistle to Eustathius Saint Gregory of Nyssa in an Epistle to Theodosius Saint Gregory Nazianzene in the second Invective against Julian Saint Hierome upon the sixth Chapter of Saint Matthew St. Cyril of Alexandria in the sixth Book of Adoration in Spirit and Truth Procopius of Gaza upon the eight and twentieth Chapter of the first Book of Kings Georgius Syncellus in his History and others particularly charging with Imposture the pretended Evocation of Samuel and Philastrius numbring it expressly among Heresies we are now to examine upon what reasons Praying for the Dead hath been since grounded and to hear upon this Point St. Epiphanius disputing in the year 376. against Aerius who thinking it not enough to deny that there accrewed any advantage to the deceased from the Prayers made on their behalf by the living had withall upon that account left the Church of Sebaste He engages against him with these Considerations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Those who are here believe that those who are departed this world live and that they are not deprived of being but that they both are and live to the Lord. And to the end that this excellent Doctrine may be explained that there is an hope for those who pray for their Brethren as for persons in their journey the prayer made for them is also profitable although it does not cut all that may be alledged against them but in as much as many times while we are in this world we sin voluntarily and involuntarily to signisie what is accomplished For we make mention of the Just and pray for sinners for sinners directing our Eyes to the mercy of God which they have obtained for the Just for the Fathers Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs Confessours Bishops Anachorets and the whole Battalion to the end that we might make a distinction between the rank of men and the Lord Jesus Christ because of the honour which is due to him and render him convenient Veneration as having this apprehension that our Lord is not to be parallelled with any of mankinde though every one of mankinde were possessed of Justice ten thousand times and more It is evident that the first Consideration of Saint Epiphanius could make nothing against Aërius who denyed the advantage of Prayer for the Faithfull departed the Ratiocination or Argument of this Father being not necessary either absolutely or in respect of his Adversary He is living Therefore he must be prayed for since that if this were allowed Prayers should be made for all the living Creatures that are Angels Men and Beasts without any exception and that for this reason that all these every one of these kindes is possessed of Being and Life in some degree Besides the Consequence of such a way of reasoning would go much beyond as well the intention of its Authour as the practice of the Church of Pontus in vindication whereof he had framed it since that no Community of Christians ever did or thought it self obliged to communicate its Suffrages to the Angels who live and stand in the presence of the Lord as supposing that Office could not be due to them nor be conceived a rational service in regard they neither stand in need thereof nor can receive any advantage thereby The second Consideration which concerns the Hope the Christians of the fourth Age conceived of the effect of their Prayers for their deceased Brethren could not be of greater weight then the former as far as it concerned Aërius who denyed not that the Faithfull of his Time had a certain hope of profiting the Dead by their Prayers for that they had was manifest but that their hope was well grounded and that their Prayers for the Dead were or could be of any advantage But as I
not oppose But in the tenth Chapter of his Manual copied-out by Isidorus Arch-Bishop of Sevil Offic. lib. 1. Chap. 18. by Julian Arch-Bishop of Toledo Prognost lib. 1. Chap. 21. by Bede in 2 Cor. v. by Eterius Bishop of Osmo Adversùs Elipand lib. 1. he makes a clearer discovery of his sentiment writing Cùm sacrificia sive Altaris sive quarumcunque Eleemosynarum pro Baptizatis defunctis omnibus offeruntur c. When the Sacrifices whether of the Altar or of Alms of what kinde soever they be are offered for all the Faithfull departed they are acts of thanksgiving for those that have been very good Propitiations for those who have not been very Bad consolations in some sort to the living for those who have been very wicked though there are no assistances of the dead and as for those who reap advantage by them they benefit them in this that either their sins are fully remitted or their damnation made more supportable The result whereof is that according to the Opinion of this Father whom so many others have followed as their Guid and Directour it was not impossible but that Alms might procure an Alleviation of the Torments of the damned for whom they had been offered to God by the Living Athanasius of Antioch in his Answer to the thirty fourth Question of Antiochus asking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. How then do not the Souls even of Sinners receive some benefit when Assemblies meet Good Deeds are done and Offerings are offered for them concludes that they do and says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If they reap no good thereby there would be no mention made of them at their Intorment And note that he speaks of the Souls of those Sinners of whom he had said in his Answer to the two and thirty Question that they minded nothing but their punishment and in that to the thirty third that they could do neither good nor ill opposing them to the Souls of the Saints which seized by the Angels praise God From this Source sprang several ill-digested Stories and Relations about the year 416. Vincent Rogatista objected to St. Augustine that St. Perpetua had by her Prayers obtained the dismission of Dinocrates her Brother out of the place of Torments Nay after the year 730. Damascene undertook to deliver out three thence upon his Warrant the first taken out of the Legend of St. Thecla converted in Iconia by Saint Paul where the Authour who seems to have been very desirous to take upon him the Name of Basil Bishop of Seleucia upon this account that in his City rested the body of that Blessed Virgin says that Tryphaena a Kinswoman to the Emperour who after the death of her Daughter Falconilla though dead in the darkness of Paganism had entertained at her house Thecla persecuted by Alexander and upon his prosecution condemned to be torn in pieces by the Beasts in the Theatre of Antioch that this Tryphaena I say in a Dream saw her Daughter Falconilla earnestly begging of her to implore the assistance of the Saints Prayers that by her intercession she might be transferred into the abode of the Just and that her desire was immediately granted The Second is taken out of the History of Palladius Bishop of Helenopolis where there is no Track of any such thing to be found now to this effect that Saint Macarius the Hermite having made some question to the dry Skull of a certain Heathen God inspired that dry Bone with this true Discourse by way of Answer When thou offerest thy Prayers for the Dead we receive some little consolation The Third attested as he saies by the East and West though not any one of the Latines speak of it attributes to Saint Gregory the Great the deliverance of Trajan's Soul who was not onely an Infidel but a Persecutour also 470. years and above after his death and detention in Hell But it is to litle purpose to disturb the dust of an old Imagination frivolous enough and disclamed even by those who are at this day the most earnest Patrones of Prayer for the Dead CHAP. XVI The Third and Fourth Motives of Saint Epiphanius taken into consideration THe third Consideration of Saint Epiphanius to confirm the custom of Praying for the Dead viz. That the departed are in relation to the living as persons that Travell seems to presuppose the first Hypothesis of the pretended Sibylline Writing which gives occasion to imagine that those who dy arrive upon the dissolution of the Body not at the place of their sovereign Happiness but are transferred to some unpleasing receptacle under the earth where their patience is no less exercised then that of Travellers who have a long and tedious Journey to go through This Hypothesis indeed if so be it were maintained by Aërius might justly have been objected to him to induce him to admit Prayer for the Dead since it is evident that those who are at a distance from their Happiness and languish in the expectation of it stand in need of comfort and the Prayers requisite to obtain grace of him who is the author of Grace But it cannot be of any consideration as to what concerns the Protestants who unanimously Impugn it and constantly teach that the Souls of men at the very departure out of their Bodies enter either into Eternal fire whence there is no deliverance and where there is no comfort or into the Glory of God which for ever exempts them from all those exigencies which they are Subject to who are deprived thereof while they endeavour to attain it The fourth Consideration of the same Father to wit that those who dy have during the time of their Pilgrimage in this world Sinned both voluntarily and involuntarily is very Just and as Aërius never had any reason to deny it so is it not at all contradicted by any of the Protestants who by that which they have learnt of Saint John that those men who at any assignable time of their Life say they have no sin deceive themselves make God a Lyar and have neither his word nor truth in them do very well comprehend that it must of necessity follow that those who should deny they had any till the hour of Death would deceive themselves no less then others and with equal presumption charg with falsehood the God of truth But omitting what Aerius might have said according to his Hypothesis of which we have nothing certain the Protestants hold that there is no necessity of this consequence he hath whether voluntarily or involuntarily it matters not sinned during his life therefore we must Pray for him after his death Secondly that the Church of Rome grants it inasmuch as she acknowledging that this Antecedent he hath sinned is and shall eternally be as undeniably true in respect of the Saints which are and ever shall be in the Glory of God and the Damned who shall never come out of Hell torments as of the living who aspire
Opinion which the Sibylline Writing falsly so called had introduced among Christians hath unanimously embraced and constantly taught the Protestants the Sentiment which they with one accord follow concerning the State of the Faithfull departed in Jesus Christ it were no hard matter for them to make a more ample Production of Instances since that in a manner all we have left of the Lives of Persons who have made profession of Piety assures us that all without any distinction Martyrs Confessours Prelates Religious Persons Laicks c. even to the Catechumens whom an invincible necessity deprived of the Baptism they had earnestly desired were upon their dissolution translated to Heaven where they have been and still are in Rest Happiness and Glory expecting the Resurrection of the Bodies they have deposited in Earth And as we might justly rely on the grave Remonstrance which Saint Hierome made above one thousand two hundred and seventy years ago even in Rome it self to Paula excessively lamenting the death of her Daughter Blaesilla speaking of himself and of all Christians in general Nos quorum exitum Angelorum turba comitatur quibus obviam Christus occurrit gravamur magis si diutiùs in isto mortis Tabernaculo habitamus c. In Jesu mortem gaudia prosequuntur c. We whose Departure the Assemblies of Angels accompany whom Christ comes to meet are more grieved that we dwell any longer in this Tabernacle of Death c. Joys attend the death which is in Jesus c. So might we with good reason summon those who hold the contrary to let us know what they have of greater Consequence then the unanimous Consent of Eusebius's Athanasius's Gregory's Ambrose's Hierome's Chrysostome's c. and might induce them not to embrace it and force us to change our Opinion CHAP. XXXIX The same Sentiment further confirmed from Sepulchral Inscriptions BUt though we should be willing out of a Design to gratify our Adversaries not to bring into any accompt at all the Depositions of all these Great Persons and make a voluntary loss of their Writings and Judgments yet would the Epigrams and Inscriptions of antient Monuments which Rome and her Correspondents preserve for us be enough to keep us from falling into so great a weakness as the renouncing of our present Opinion concerning the State of the Faithfull departed Nay though all the Doctours of the Church were silent and their Testimonies cast out of all respect the Stones as long as they shall remain will not cease publishing and that very loudly the truth of the perswasion maintained by us Let us then consult those half consumed Epitaphs which the Providence of God hath made to triumph over so many ruins and make our advantage of the hardness of Marbles which have hitherto stood out against the injury of Times to confound the insensibility of those who seem desirous injuriously to smother a most evident Truth Let us propose it to their own Consciences whether it be not a very strong presumption against them that not any one of those Antient Inscriptions whereof they are the Preservers and Admirers can without violence be applied to their Sentiment and that all of them presuppose ours which yet they charge I know not upon what accompt with Novelty Which to make so much the more manifest I shall begin with the most simple which I shall reduce into Classes alledging of every one some Instance then conclude with those which being of greater length make a clearer discovery of the Design of their Authours The Book entituled Roma Subterranea in as much as it contains a Description of the Vaults and Cemiteries digged under ground in and about that City furnishes us with about ninety Examples of Epitaphs which say simply In Pace c. In Peace as that of Proclus Interred under the eighth Consulship of Honorius that is to say in the year 409. that of Hilara deceased under the Consulship of Opilio that is to say in the year 453. those of Crescentina Honoraius Pelagia Ulpius Festus Quartina c. Others had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Place of Rest As that of Ammonius and of Eutyches Locus GerontI Presbyteri c. The Place of Gerontius the Priest deceased the seventeenth of June under the Consulship of Avitus that is to say in the year 456. Hîc habet sedem Leo Presbyter c. The Priest Leo hath his Seat here Others which in some sort savour of the Style of the Heavens As Domus aeterna Ex. Tyres in Pace c. The eternal house of Ex. and Tyre in peace and that of Valeriana in like manner Others had onely this word Quiescit c. He rests As that of Victoria that of Pancratius the Bishop deceased in the year 493. and that of Alix the Daughter of Pipin Interred at St. Arnoul-de-Mets Or Requiescit which signifies the same thing As that of Gordianus Interred the ninth of September under the Consulship of Symmachus that is to say in the year 485. That of Aemiliana Interred the eleventh of October under the Consulship of Probinus viz in the year 489. That of Pelagius the First deceased the fourth of March 558. That of Augustine Arch-Bishop of Canterbury deceased the twenty fifth of May 604. That of Boniface the Fourth deceased the eighth of May 614. That of Theodore who died in the year 619. That of Theobald Bishop of Ostia That of Roderick last King of the West-Goths in Spain who died on Sunday the eleventh of November 714. That of Alcuin deceased the nineteenth of May 804. That of Bernard King of Italy deceased April the 17 th 871. and Interred at Milan that of the Abbot Vintila deceased at Leon the three and twentieth of December in the year 928. Others Quievit c. He is at rest As that of Susanna deceased the seven and twentieth of July under the Consulship of Caesarius and Atticus in the year 397. Or Requievit as that of Leo the Neopâ—yte deceased the four and twentieth of June under the Consulship of Philippus and Sallea in the year 348. and that of Leontius the Spanyard deceased the four and twentieth of June 510. Others Depositus c. He is left as a Pledge c. As those of Macedonia and Fortunula Others Quiescet in pace c. He shall rest in Peace As that of Marinus deceased the thirtieth of November under the Consulship of Arbaethio and Lollianus in the year 355. Others Requiescet in pace which signifies the same thing as that of Felix Others Requievit in pace c. He is at rest in peace as that of Litorius deceased at Talabriga or Talavera della Reina the four and twentieth of June in the year of the Aera 548 or 510 of Christ That of Primus deceased at Evora the thirteenth of March according to the Aera 582. or 544 of Christ That of Paulina deceased the eighteenth of November under the Consulship of Datianus and Cerealis in the year 318. That of
enquiry into the Motives which might have induced the Authours of those Epitaphs to insert into them Prayers for their departed Friends and to place their Tombs near those of the Martyrs who had sealed with their Blood the Truth of Christianity The most antient Epitaph we finde containing a mixture of Wishes and Prayers is that which St. Gregory Nazianzene writ in Honour of St. Basil deceased the twelfth of January in the year 378. where we read these Words concerning that Great Prelate gathered to his Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God give him Happiness as if he had not been in the actual possession thereof and as if St. Gregory had not expresly required of him before that he would appear for the World and offer gifts to God and that in consequence of his being in Heaven as he had desired Again That he had quitted his Episcopal See as Christ would have it that he might become one among the Inhabitants of Heaven It seems then he believed him in Heaven and possessed of the Glory and Happiness of Heaven as soon as he had at his departure out of this World quitted his Episcopal See and yet he desires that God would give him Happiness meaning that he would confirm and improve the gift he had already made him which hath nothing common with the Hypotheses maintained at this day by the Church of Rome In the year 395. deceased the Prefect PROBUS and his Epitaph which loudly published that he was in the Plains of Heaven seated among the Saints possessed of perpetual Rest that he lived crowned with bliss in the Everlasting Mansions of Paradise concludes with this Prayer Hunc tu Christe Choris jungas Coelestibus oro Te canat placidum jugiter aspiciat Quique tuo semper dilectus pendet ab ore Auxilium soboli conjugióque ferat Joyn'd with Celestial Quires O Christ may he Thy praises sing thy constant favour see Whō ever-lov'd did ev'r on thee depend May he to 's Race and Widow some help lend Shall we say he was in Heaven and yet not joyned with the Celestical Quires That he was in any danger to see his Saviour incensed and that he could be possessed of Paradise without Happiness If not it must needs be that the Authour of his Epitaph prayed that he might enjoy it without any diminution and be eternally in the Favour and Peace of his Saviour in the Society of the rest of the Blessed Saints which hath nothing common with what is now desired by the Church of Rome We have such another Desire made in the Epitaph of Pope BENEDICT Hic Benedictus adest meritò sub rupe Sepulchri Quem tenet Angelicus Chorus in arce Poli Aurea saec'la cui pateant sine fine per aevum Sorte beatificâ scandat ut aetheria c. Here Benedict justly beneath this Stone Is plac'd whom Angels in the Heav'ns enthrone To whom be golden Ages without end That he the Skies may ever-bless'd ascend For who sees not that he who is enthroned by Angels in Heaven must of necessity be there and stood not in need of ascending thither nor that any golden Ages should be desired for him But in as much as he was to ascend thither in his Body after the general Resurrection the Authour of the Epitaph makes a Wish to that purpose and requires that the Happiness which he was then possessed of as to his Spirit might be ever continued to him that he might be eternally filled with Joy as well in body as soul thereby discovering that he reflected not in the least on the Purgatery held by the Church of Rome which none of her Followers ever yet placed in Heaven or any way thought on the delay of Benedict's Felicity whom he esteemed already received into the Society of the Angels The same accompt is to be given of the Epitaph of Marinian Arch-Bishop of Ravenna deceased in the year 601. where we finde these words Ipsius in locis sit tibi certa quies c. Mayst thou with God assured rest obtain As also of that of Venerable Bede deceased in the year 735. Dona Christe animam in Coelis gaudere per aevum c. Dáque illum Sophiae inebriari fonte Christ grant his soul in heav'n eternal joy c. And him inebriate with Wisdom's spring For it does not thence follow either that he was at the hour of his death deprived of the Joy of Heaven or that Wisdom had not filled him with the Effects of her Virtue or lastly that those who are once entred into the Joy of Heaven could ever forfeit it or be deprived of the communication of eternal Wisdom but that the Surviving thought they might rationally demand for their deceased Friends the perpetuity of their Happiness though they certainly knew it could never be taken from them That of Pope ADRIAN the First writ either by Charle-maign or in his Name by Alcuin notwithstanding he had presupposed that his Death was the entrance of a better Life yet forbore not to make these Wishes for him Cum Christo teneas regna beata Poli c. Quique legis Versus devoto pectore supplex Amborum mitis dic miserere Deus Haec tua nunc requies teneat charissime membra Cum sanctis Anima gaudeat alma Dei Ultima quippe tuas donec Tuba clamet in aures Principe cum Petro Surge videre Deum Auditurus eris vocem scio Judicis almam Intra nunc Domini gaudia magna tui Tum memor esto tui Nati c. Mayst thou with Christ a blessed Seat obtain c. Who humbly readst this Verse with pious heart May God his mercy say to both impart May here the precious body finde it's Rest May the fair soul rejoyce among the blest Since when the latest Trump shall summon thee God and the great Saint Peter for to see I know thou 'lt hear the Judge's gentle voyce Of thy Lord enter into the great Joys Remember then thy Son Now as the demand he made for Adrian that he might obtain a blessed seat with Christ in Heaven did not signify that he was not yet admitted into the Possession of that better Life whereof his death was the entrance so the Invitation to implore for him the Mercy of God was no argument that he had not obtained it since that even then he exhorted his Soul to rejoyce with the Saints of God and shewed that he thought it not tormented in a Fire such as were likely to deprive it of all Joy but that it was in Bliss reigning in the Company of the Saints of the Apostle St. Peter and our Saviour a felicity whereto nothing could be added by desire but the perpetuity of it which yet is so much the more certain in as much as it is grounded on the unchangeable counsel of God whose Gifts and Calling are without repentance That of Charle-maign of whom the Authour viz. Agobard Arch-Bishop of Lions said That he
whether it were so or not which also he but slightly advances as finding it not contributary to ought Impious yet without imposing any necessity to admit it and which in fine he lets pass under a Whether an It may be a Peradventure so that not presuming himself to approve it all the kindness he hath for it is expressed in his telling us that he does not disallow it Fourthly That the very thing which he proposes so doubtfully may be adjusted to the Opinion which the most Antient had had of the general Conflagration of the Universe at the end of the World whose Imagination it was that it should serve as a general Lustration through which the Spirits of the Saints even that of the Blessed Virgin were to pass and who reflected on nothing less then the Purgatory proposed to us at this day Fifthly That though he should assure us that that certain Fire of Grief whereof he speaks shall be a material Fire that it shall burn the Spirits of men and that the Torment which they shall endure thereby shall afflict them from their departure out of the Bodies they had cast off yet should not his assurance be of greater weight to the Protestants then to the Church of Rome which submits not to his Authority but onely in what she finds consistent with her own Opinions land confidently rejects what she quarrels at For if she think it just to dissent from him when he teaches that In the Deity there are three Substances that The Angels are corporeal that The sins of the Fathers make the Children liable to punishment that The souls of all the Departed are between the day of their departure out of this World and that of the Last Judgment shut up in secret Receptacles that the Prayers made for them are beneficial to them to the end that either the Remission may be full or that their Damnation be more tolerable and that those Prayers made on the behalf of the Damned are a kinde of consolation to the â—iving all which things the said Holy Prelate positively affirms why should she take it ill that after her Example we should refuse absolutely to depend on his Authority especially in a subject wherein he does not pretend any in as much as it is his own acknowledgment that he was not resolved what he should should hold What greater Necessity is there that we should determine for the Affirmative when he himself makes it a Question Whether there be after this life a Purgatory for the Spirits of the Deceased then when he doubts Whether the Sun Moon and Stars belong to the society of the blessed Spirits in Heaven Though we had read no other Lecture of Modesly then the reservedness which prevailed with him to forbear resolving ought upon these two Questions do we not deserve commendation for having in imitation of him kept the Scales in our Hands rather then Blame which we must never expect to avoid if without pregnant Proof we affirmed what he proposed onely Problematically and without any decision If it may with any colour be pretended that the Bent of his inclination was the Affirmative of a Purgatory of some kinde or other and that it should be a Pattern for us to do the like why should not his confidence in denying the Antipodes force us by a like Negative to dispute against our own Experience whose Testimony for these 150. years assures us he was mistaken Were it not much better that those who would make use of his Name in a Cause he never maintained should behave themselves according to his Moderation and protest with him I would if it might be or rather I will if it may be be overcome by the Truth which is not openly repugnant to the sacred Scriptures in as much as that which is repugnant to them cannot in any sort be either called or accompted Truth I therefore intreat them in the fear of God to take it into their serious Consideration First Whether it be possible their Belief such as they propose it to us can be the same with that of St. Augustine who never for ought we could ever learn determined in the Affirmative of any Purgatory much less of that which the Monastical Revelations have furnish'd us with in despight of the most Venerable Antiquity but hath expresly declared by his Sermons that he acquiesced in the common Sentiment of the Church of his Time which held that those whom God calls to himself are Translated at their Death either into the actual enjoyment of their Felicity or confined in the Place of their eternal Punishment To this Effect does he express himself to his Church upon the eleventh Chapter of St. John Receptus est Pauper receptus est Dives sed ille in sinu Abrahae ille c. The Poor man was received the Rich man was received but the former into Abraham ' s Bosom the later where he should be thirsty and not finde a drop of Water the souls of all men therefore that I may hence take occasion to instruct your Charity all souls have after their departure out of this World their several Retreats the Good are in Bliss the Wicked in Torments c. The rest which is given immediately after Death whoever is worthy of it receives it immediately when he Dies And upon the First of St. John Ille qui vixit mortuus est c. He who hath lived is also dead his Soul is transported into other places his Body is disposed into the Ground whether those words viz. those of his Last Will be put in execution or not it does not concern him he does he endures quite another thing he either rejoyces in Abraham ' s Bosom or in eternal Fire prays for a little Water I know Cardinal Bellarmine either thought or pretended to think that all could be deduced from those Words was that the Souls of the Faithfull are immediately after their Departure out of this World gathered into rest in as much as assured of their eternal Salvation and that thence they derive great Joy but that to some it is not given without the admixture of Temporal Pains But I maintain that his Commentary is a formal corruption of the Text to which he applies it in as much as S. Augustine gives us to observe therein as things immediately opposite the Good and the Wicked the Joy of the former in Abraham's Bosom and the Torments of the later in eternal Fire so that as the Torment of these is an absolute Privation of Joy and Rest so the Joy and Rest of the other is necessarily an absolute exemption from Torment Besides I do not see how long any can number among those who rejoyce and are in Bliss the Spirits of such as are supposed to suffer more then could be suffered in this Life and much less how the Believer dead in the Lord receives when he dies his Rest and Joy if he be then
Souls which the Church of Rome pretends to be so confined in her Purgatory that they cannot merit there much less be converted to God He takes for good the Testimony of Origene who believed not any Pains eternal and that of St. Gregory Nyssenus who was lightly led away into that Errour He summons in also Ephraim Deacon of Eâ—…a Diadochus Bishop or Photice Maximus and Oecumenius who speak of no other Fire then that of the last Conflagration Synesius Bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrenaica who Treats of the Pains inflicted by Devils and consequently of those of the damned Procopius of Gaza who proposing to us a Purgative Fire which the Seraphim brings from Heaven to Earth to sanctifie as well the Ministers of the Church as the sinners for whom they pray clearly discovers he never thought on the Romish Purgatory which does not sanctifie any one and which cannot be in Heaven for this very Reason that it is placed in Hell Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople who speaks of the Efficacy of our Saviour's Passion to deliver out of Limbus those whom Antiquity believed to have been there confined in expectation of his coming as also of the Purgatory of those who die daily says nothing to his purpose He makes great ostentation of a Fragment unjustly attributed to Theodoret which is not to be found any where in his Works of Gennadius Scholarius drawn into the Church of Rome's Party by the Caresses and kindnesses of Pope Eugenius the Fourth and of Zagazabo an Abyssine Bishop whom the Portuguez deceitfull Interpreters of his Sentiments made to say what they pleased directly contrary to the common Belief of his Countrey-men He further brings in the Depositions of that Impostour who had in the year 1595. taken upon him the Name of Gabriel Patriarch of the Cofti and who hath been since acknowledged by the Doctours of the Church of Rome to be what he was as also those of Hypatius Arch-Bishop of the Black-Russians who to comply with the King of Poland Father of the last-deceased had submitted to the Church of Rome and in consequence thereof had made such a profession of Faith as she desired he should In a word he shuffles together all he met with of one I know not what Eusebius of Alexandria unknown to Antiquity of Eusebius of Caesarea of the Arabian Canons of Timothy of Alexandria of St. Epiphanius of Palladius of John sirnamed Cassian of Justine Justinian and Leo the Wise Emperours of John sirnamed Climacus of Gregory the Priest of Leontius of Sophronius of Damascene of Anastasius of Simeon Metaphrastes of Constantine sirnamed Manasses of Nicetas of Nicholas Cabasilas of Athanasius of Constantinople of Nicephorus Gregoras of the Greeks deputed to the Councel of Basil of those who reside at Venice and of Jeremy Patriarch of Constantinople not omitting any of the Authours alleged by Cardinal Bellarmine and never minding whether from any one of the Testimonies he draws from this long Catalogue of Witnesses any thing more can be gathered then Prayer for the dead Then turning to the Latine Fathers and bringing in all those whom Cardinal Bellarmine had cited he produces over and above Arnobius who simply says that the Church prays for all both living and dead and Zeno of Verona blaming the VVidows who by their lamentations interrupt the prayers whereby the Souls of their deceased Husbands are recommended to God and shews even in that that he thought they no way deserved those lamentations which yet were but the just and necessary Effects of the compassion of the living if they presupposed with any certainty of their departed Friends that they burn in an Infernal Fire Besides all this he shuffles in the Depositions of Lactantius of Hilarius the Deacon of Eucherius of Lyons of Caesarius of Arles and of Boethius who speaks of the Conflagration of the World at the Last day of Prudentius who speaks of the Hell of the damned of Philip the Priest who Treats Of the Absolution and Remission of Sins which shall be solemnly given to every Believer at the Last day of St. Hilary of Poictiers who discourses Of the Tribulations of this Life of Bacchiarius who to confute those who made any difficulty to allow the peace of the Church to their Brethren that were fallen alledges the care which Saul's Concuhine had taken of the bodies of his children hanged upon occasion of the Gibeonites and that of Judas Maccabaeus for those of his Army who after their Death had been found seized of the prey taken in the Temple of Jamnia of Primasius and Faustus Religious Men of the Monastery of St. Maurus who are pleased to approve Prayers and Offerings for the dead and to give us good measure when we are to be cheated he cites us a Writing lately Fathered on Pope Sixtus the Third an Homily of the Lord's Supper stuffed with passages out of St. Hilary St. Hierome St. Augustine St. Prosper Isidore of Sevil Bede and Alcuin and consequently unjustly attributed to Saint Eloy deceased the first of December 663. before the birth of Bede who was more antient by Fifty years then Alcuin the Commentary which Sedulius not as he thinks the antient who writ the Opus Paschale but another of the same Nation dressed up since the year 700. out of the Writings and abundance of other Authours of later date whom I forbear to bring into the Accompt out of a consideration that in regard they lived since St. Gregory and have had a great Veneration for the Writings and Authority of that Renowned Prelate it may be they might have some Thoughts of the Purgatory whereof he was the first Founder when they writ what is alledged out of them though they contain not any formal mention thereof So that to make good the Protestant Cause against the Church of Rome it is sufficient if I maintain First That she hath nothing expresly affirmed on the behalf of her Purgatory among the Latines before Gregory the First Secondly That that onely reflection may give the more simple light enough to comprehend that that Point of Doctrine being so new that it was not known for the space of six Ages together even among the Doctours of the Western Church who have not neither any one of them in particular nor all together anything determinate to induce the reception of it and justifie that they had received it can by no means be an Article of Faith Thirdly That such as alledge unto us the Greeks who never believed nor can to this day believe what is proposed to them concerning it by the Church of Rome deal very unhandsomly and are more worthy reproach then refutation which their Supposition doth not deserve And lastly That Coccius who hath made no difficulty to bring in as Witnesses the Greeks sojourning at Venice and Jeremy Patriarch of Constantinople who in those very Places which he cites deny what he pretends to prove did not any way consider what he ought either his own Cause or the sincerity of
the Church of Saint Felix of Nola had reduced him to confess his Perplexity For though he had commended the Affection as well of the deceased as of their Mothers yet as it were acknowledging he knew not why and that he was not very well assured of what he did he desires to be informed by St. Augustine asking him Utrùm profit cuiquam post mortem quòd corpus ejus apud Sancti alicujus memoriam sepeliatur c. Whether it be beneficial to any one after Death that his Body be buried in the Memorial of some Saint which signifies no less in Effect then to be reduced to the same Predicament as St. Cyril of Hierusalem Denys the pretended Areopagite and Athanasius of Antioch who before and after Paulinus made this Question Of what benefit to the Dead were the Prayers made by the surviving for them CHAP. XLVIII The Sentiment of St. Augustine concerning the Burial of the Faithfull in Churches enquired into SAint Augustine in his Treatise De cura pro mortuis to give greater satisfaction to his Brother lays down that the Care which is taken of the dead Body the manner of Sepulture and the Funeral Solemnities are rather Alleviations of the grief of the Living then of any assistance or benefit to the Dead Secondly That the care taken of the Funeral and the choice of the place for Burial are Effects of the Piety of the surviving towards the Dead Thirdly That the advantage which may be drawn from the Interrment of the deceased Person in the Church of some Saint can be no other then that of recommending him more commodiously and affectionately to the Saint as to a kinde of Patron that that Office might be done to the deceased Party though his Body were not present in the same place and that the Sepulture of it in the same place is to no other end then to excite a desire and affection to pray for him Fourthly That what is said of the Visions of Souls is to be understood in the same manner as we do the Dreams we have of those who are yet alive and think not in the least of what the Imagination of the such as are asleep attribute to them as when Evodius afterwards Bishop of Uzalis dreamed that St. Augustine shewed him the sence of a Passage in Cicero's Rhetorick and when Curmas Curialis dreamed of the death of Curmas the Lock-Smith and imagined that he saw St. Augustine and the Priests of his City exhorting him to receive Baptism Fifthly That the Souls of the Departed neither know nor concern themselves about what is done here that if they did St. Monica his Mother would often discourse with him and God himself would not have said of his children whom he calleth hence before he exercises his Judgments on those which remain that he calls them Lest they might see Evil. Sixthly That the Souls Departed may know somewhat that concerns the Living either from the report of such as Die or from that of Angels or by Revelation from God Seventhly That the perswasion which we have of the assistance given by the Martyrs to those who implore it may be taken in the same sence as that which the Living have of assisting the Dead by their Prayers though they know not any thing in particular of their Condition and onely desire of God for them and on their behalf Grace and Rest Or that of the assistances which the Living think they receive from them there may be made the same Judgment as of the Opinion which the People of Nola had of the Apparition of St. Felix during the time they were besieged by the Barbarians or of the Promise which John the Monk made to shew himself the Night following to a certain Woman who thought she really saw him though he stirred not from the place where he was Eightly That we must not be overy-ready upon the clamours of Evil Spirits complaining that they are tormented by the Martyrs to infer that the Martyrs have in Effect tormented them since that in the Church of the Saints Gervasius and Protasius they said as much of St. Ambrose then living who yet never attributed to himself any thing of what they imputed to him Ninthly That in fine what may be thought of the Sepulture bestowed on the Departed is that it is an Office of Humanity towards them and not any assistance and that Prayers and Oblations may be beneficial to them if by the Life they led before they were in a capacity of receiving the benefit thereof From this Abridgment of the afore-said Treatise of St. Augustine it is manifest that that Great Man who had been Disciple to St. Ambrose and continued even to his Death an intimate Friend to St. Paulinus held nothing of the Hypotheses which those two famous Prelates had advanced with a kinde of Emulation and which the later had afterwards tacitely disacknowledged as such as whereof he himself was not satisfied But though his Conceptions are much more Rational and less Subject to Contradiction yet does it not hinder but they have this palpable Default that he lays down as a thing confessed what he might justly have disputed and what would be at this day actually denied him by the Protestants to wit That he was assured that there accrues a benefit to the Dead from the Prayers and Offerings made for them by the Living and that the Living have a sufficient ground to dedicate to the Dead those two Offices and to suppose upon Authority of the Custom which hath introduced the Exercise thereof into the Church that they effectually relieve them Julian Arch-Bishop of Toledo who in the Preface of his Prognostick to Idalius Bishop of Barcelona ingenuously confesses that neither of them thought himself able to resolve the Difficulties arising from the consideration of the State of the Dead chose rather to follow the Track of St. Augustine then of his Master St. Ambrose and that not without reason CHAP. XLIX The Sentiment of Maximus Tyrius concerning the Interment of the Faithfull Departed in Churches Considered BUt notwithstanding the Authority of that great Luminary of Africk which was not received every where Maximus who held the See of 〈◊〉 in the year 465. and on the eighteenth of November the same 〈◊〉 was present at the Councel of Rome under Pope Hilarus discovers 〈◊〉 Presupposition beyond that of St. Ambrose and Paulinus writing Ideo à Majoribus provisum est ut Sanctorum corporibus nostra corpora sociemus ut dum illos Tartarus metuit nos poena non tangat dum illos Christus illuminat nobis tenebrarum caligo diffugiat cùm sanctis ergo Martyribus quiescentes evadimus Inferni tenebras eorum propriis meritis attamen consocii sanctitate c. For this Reason have our Ancestours made provision that we should joyn our Bodies to those of the Saints to the end that while Hell stands in fear of them no Pain
of both Sexes whereever resting in Christ that being freed from all their sins they may rejoyce with thee world without end And this O mercifull God receive this Hoast offered for the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes whereever resting in Christ that delivered by this super-excellent Sacrifice out of the Chains of dreadfull death they may obtain eternal life And this O God whose property it is ever to have mercy and to forgive be favourable unto the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes and pardon all their sins that being loosed from the Chains of Death they may obtain passage into life And this Free O Lord we beseech thee the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes from all the bands of sin that being raised up among thy Saints and Elect they may live again in the glory of the Resurrection And this O Almighty and everlasting God who rulest as well over the living as the dead and shewest mercy unto all those whom thy fore-knowledge seeth will be thine in faith and good works we humbly beseech thee that those for whom we have appointed to pour out our Prayers and whom either this world does still detain in the flesh or the next hath already received uncloathed of the body may through the greatness of thy clemency be made worthy to obtain the forgiveness of all their sins and joy everlasting And this O Almighty and most mercifull God we humbly beseech thee that the Sacraments which we have received may purifie us and grant that this thy Sacrament be not unto us an obligation to punishment but a comfortable intercession for pardon that it be the cleansing of crimes that it be the strength of the fainting that it be a Bulwark against the dangers of the World that it be the remission of all the sins of the faithfull living and dead through Jesus Christ It might seem at the first sight that all these Prayers in general and every one in particular upon this very accompt that they speak of the forgiveness of sins for those who are departed this life do presuppose if not a Purgatory such as the Church of Rome hath imagined and described it some Ages since at least a certain necessity incumbent on the deceased to make satisfaction to the justice of God after their death But we must necessarily infer the contrary For not to take notice that to punish an evil doer is not to purge him if according to the tenour of the Prayers contained in the Mass of the Dead God forgives the sin of the deceased he does not require he should be punished for it if he loose the Chains he suffers him not to be still bound thereby if he exercises towards him his mercy through Jesus Christ he does not execute against him the rigour of his Justice such as it is conceived is felt by the Souls which they pretend are to pass through the fire of Purgatory Whence it follows that the design of those prayers which desire of God the effect of his mercy in the remission of their sins whom he hath called hence never was nor could be to procure their deliverance out of the torment which they are imagined at this day to suffer and whoever would finde the true meaning thereof is to reflect on the perswasions of those who were the first Authours thereof for they held that all those of whom they made a Commemoration were in as much as they were dead in the Lord gathered by him into Abraham's Bosom where they rested in a sleep of peace as it is expresly set down in the Memento So that no man well-informed prayed for them as for wretched Criminals and such as are deprived of the felicity which God hath prepared for his Saints but as for Champions already triumphant and glorious And yet out of a consideration that the perpetuity of the bliss into which every one presupposed them introduced proceeded from the continuation of the mercy according to which God had at first bestowed it and that it comprehended in it self the ratification of the pardon once granted to the deceased in pursuance whereof they were entred into and continued in the possession of celestial peace and joy the surviving thought fit to desire on their behalf mercy and remission of sins not absolutely as if they were still under the weight of God's wrath but upon a certain accompt to wit in as much as it is necessary that even in Heaven the mercy of God should be perpetually communicated to those whom it had already visited incessantly assuring them of the free gift he had made them first of his grace and afterwards of his glory as believing that those who enjoy so great a happiness are nevertheless to expect a more solemn sentence of Remission and Absolution in that great Day whereof we are all obliged both for our selves and on the behalf of our Brethren living upon Earth and reigning in Heaven to desire the blessed coming In this sence indeed the Antients never made any difficulty to desire on the behalf of the Blessed in Heaven the Pardon they had already obtained in as much as they were to obtain it again after a more glorious manner at the Day of Judgment whereto are particularly referred many of their Prayers As for instance that which we have already cited wherein they desire that their Souls freed from all the Bands of sin may be raised up again among the Saints in the Glory of the Resurrection And again thus Non intres c. Enter not into Judgment with tthy servant O Lord for in thy sight shal no man be justified unless thou grantest him the remission of all his sins We beseech therefore that the Sentence of thy Judgment may not lie heavy on him whom the sincere supplication of Christian Faith recommends but grant that he who while he lived was signed with the Sign of the blessed Trinity may by the assistance of thy Grace avoid the Judgment of Vengeance Again Oremus Fratres charissimi c. Let us pray dear Brethren for the spirit of our Brother whom the Lord God hath been pleased to deliver out of the snares of this world whose body is this day put into the Ground that the Lord would out of his goodness vouchsafe to place him in the Bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that when the day of Judgment comes he may be placed among the Saints and Elect raised up again on the right hand And this taken out of the Ceremonial Deus cui omnia vivunt c. O God to whom all things live and to whom our bodies though they die perish not but are changed for the better we humbly beseech thee that thou command that the soul of thy servant N. be carried into the bosom of the Patriarch Abraham by the hands of thy holy Angels to be raised up again the last day of the great Judgment that what imperfections soever it hath through the deceit of the Devil
contracted thou out of thy goodness and compassion mayst mercifully wash away To the same end are referred also the following Prosopopoeias wherein the Soul of every deceased Person is represented with motions of fear suitable to such as it might have had during the couse of this Life As for instance Libera me Domine c. O Lord deliver me from eternal death in that dreadfull day when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken when thou shalt come to Judge the World by Fire I am become trembling and fear till the discussion and wrath to come shall be over That day is a day of wrath calamity and misery a great day and very bitter when thou shalt come Again this Domine quando veneris c. O Lord where shall I hide my self from the countenance of thy wrath when thou comest to Judge the Earth For I have sinned extremely during my life I am frightened at the things I have committed and blush before thee when thou comest to Judge do not condemn me And this Memento mei Deus c. O God have me in remembrance because my life is but wind let the eye of him that hath seen me see me no more Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Lord Hear O Lord when I cry with my voice And this Hei mihi c. Wo unto me O Lord for I have sinned overmuch in my life What shall I do Wretch that I am Whither shall I flie if not unto my God Have compassion on me when thou shalt come at the Last day My soul is sore vexed but do thou Lord deliver it be mercifull c. And this Legem pone c. Teach me O Lord the way of thy Commandments and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies Deliver me not into the will of mine enemies for false Witnesses are risen up against me and iniquity hath belyed it self yet I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And this Peccantem me quotidie c. Sinnning daily and not repenting the fear of death distracts me in regard There is no redemption in Hell O God be mercifull unto me and save me O God save me for thy Name sake and deliver me in thy Power And this other Domine secundùm actum meum noli me judicare c. O Lord Judge me not according to what I have done I have done nothing in thy presence worthy it I therefore beseech thy Majesty to do away mine iniquity O Lord wash me from my injustice more and more and cleanse me from my sin And this other Sitivit anima mea c. My soul thirsteth for God when shall I come and appear before the Lord Deliver not the soul of thy Turtle-dove unto the multitude forget not the Congregation of thy poor for ever Our Father c. And Lastly this Libera me Domine c. O Lord who hast broken the Gates of Brass and visited Hell and given light that they might see thee to those who were in the Torments of darkness crying and saying Thou arâ— come O our Redeemer deliver me out of the ways of Hell For there is not any Body so weakly instructed as not easily to comprehend that the Authours of these Complaints and Lamentations meant them rather for the advantage and edification of the living by putting them in minde of the fear and trembling wherein they should be in the presence of their Lord then to represent the State of the Dead which they have been forced to express after their Fancy as such as had some resemblance with that of poor Wayfaring-men who yet walk in the Flesh because they had not any manifest knowledg thereof but onely Conjectures and presumptions and those many times not very conformable to the Rule of Faith and the Sentiments of the purest Antiquity Since it is absolutely impossible that he who makes a Prayer for his Soul should be any other thing then that Soul for which he Prays and that the Wish he makes that God would teach him the way of his Statutes which is onely in this Life and the Confession of sinning daily and the Prayer to be delivered out of the ways of Hell should suit with any but Travellers who walk yet in the Flesh struggling as they go with their own imperfections and the Infernal Powers and by continued endeavours tending to their rest whereof the separated Souls of the Faithfull departed who have finished their course in Faith and Hope must necessarily be possessed from the very moment of their separation The same moderation is required to finde out the true sense of the Prayers which seem to presuppose a certain deliverance out of Infernal pains wherein the deceased are ready to be tormented as when we read in the Missal Domine Jesu Christe c. O Lord Jesus Christ King of Glory deliver the Souls of all the Faithfull departed out of the power of Hell and out of the bottomless Lake deliver them out of the mouth of the Lyon Let not Hell swallow them up let them not fall into the obscure places of darkness but let the Standard-bearer St. Michael bring them into that holy light which thou didst sometime promise to Abraham and to his Seed We offer unto thee O Lord â—…oasts and Prayers for them receive the same for those Souls whom we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to an holy life And in the Office of the Dead A portâ inferni erus Domine animas eorum requiescant in pace Amen c. O Lord deliver their Souls from the Gate of Hell may they rest in peace Amen For though upon the first glance these words seem to revive the Hypothesis which Justin Martyr had drawn up out of the Quagmire of the counterfeit Sibyl imagining that the Soul of the greatest Saints were afer their departure out of the body sent to Hell and were subject to the power of evil Spirits yet must they necessarily have another signification and onely induce that God alone preserves those whom he calls so as that they fall not into the power of Hell but are by the Ministery of his holy Angels introduced into celestial light and that they are delivered not as escaping out of some Torment which they had for some time indured but as avoiding the necessity of enduring it And whereas it is said that the Hoasts mentioned in those Prayers are offered to Jesus Christ it necessarily induces that they neither are nor can be Jesus Christ himself as the Church of Rome imagines at this day but Gifts presented to God by his people as an expression of their gratitude And since what is said without any exception viz. That they are offered for the Souls of all the departed whose commemoration is celebrated it demonstratively proves that they are and were according to the intention of the Antients
offered for the blessed then sleeping a sleep of Peace in as much as the Commemoration made in the Church comprehends all Which is further confirmed in that St. Cyprian expresly observes that that of his time always offered Sacrifices for the Martyrs of whose glory she neither made nor could make any question that St. Augustine both offered and caused to be offered the like for his Mother of whose bliss he thought himself so confident that he said to God I believe that thou hast already done it and that Saint Ambrose comforting Faustinus afflicted at the death of his Sister gave him this advice Non tam deplorandam c. I think she ought not to be so much lamented as attended with Prayers I conceive we ought not to condole at thy Tears but rather by Oblations recommend her soul to the Lord c. What should oblige us to sigh for the dead when the reconciliation of the World hath been already made with God the Father by the Lord Jesus For from all this and particularly from Faustinus's affirmation that he was confident of the Works and Faith of his Sister for whom St. Ambrose exhorted him to make Prayers and Oblations it necessarily results that those Oblations were not properly Propitiations but Thanksgivings for and Acknowledgments of the Propitiation made by Jesus Christ on the Cross and as the Forms used by the Church of Rome express it Sacrifices of Praise So that if they were sometimes called Hostiae placationis Hoasts of appeasment and if it be said that the Souls are per hujus virtutem Sacramenti à peccatis omnibus expiatae expiated from all sin by the virtue of this Sacrament which it is desired should be to him who participates thereof ablutio scelerum c. the washing away of his offences presupposing that it is celebrated by the Faithfull pro redemptione animarum suarum c. for the redemption of their souls this is to be understood rationally and in the same sense as when St. Peter teaches us concerning Baptism that it saves us and Antiquity sayes that it washes away sins in as much as it is the sacred Sign and the Pledge of the washing away which was made thereof once by the onely blood of Jesus Christ spilt on the Cross For according to the Sentiment of the primitive Christians the Sacraments received by the Faithfull crimina omnia detergunt c. do away all offences in as much as they are Memorials of the blood of Christ by the aspersion whereof mens Consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God and are said to be offered for their salvation not to be purchased but already purchased by the price of the same blood and for the Redemption of their Souls already accomplished in the death of the Son of God but whereof the Application is continually made in the preaching of the Gospel and Administration of the Sacraments to all those who embrace it through Faith There are also other Prayers wherein is desired for the Faithfull departed the felicity which they have hoped and wished for during the course of their life as appears by these following Forms Vitam aeternam habere mereantur in coelis c. In tuae redemptionis parte numerentur c. May they obtain eternal life in Heaven c. May they be numbred in the part of thy Redemption c. O Lord give them eternal rest and let everlasting light shine upon them c. Pâ—â—â—â—im in the Region of Peace and Light and grant him the Fellowship of thy Saints c. Grant him admittance into the society of eternal bliss c. To those on whom thou didst bestow the Merit or Honour of Christian Faith give also the Reward c. that through thy Compassion they may receive the bliss of eternal light c. Make them partakers of thy Redemption let them be added to the number of thy Saints c. Let them have their reward in the Life to come c. Let them be conveyed into the Habitations which thou hast prepared for the Blessed let them have the perpetual enjoyment of their Society c. Command that they have eternal joys in the Region of the Living c. Grant them the Habitation of refreshment blessed rest and the clearest light c. Vouchsafe to associate them to thy Saints c. May they receive eternal rest c. Grant them eternal joy in the Region of the living c. May he obtain eternal rest and light c. Restore them to the Portion of eternal salvation c. We beseech thee O Lord that be may come into the Fellowship of Eternal light c. That they may rejoyce with thee World without end c. May they obtain passage into life c. That they may obtain eternal joys Though it might seem that those for whom these Prayers are made were considered as deprived of Peace Light Joy Bliss Rest the Society of the Saints in Glory and the Eternal Reward promised their good Works and that to facilitate their entrance into the possession of future happiness some had conceived and inserted the foregoing Prayers into the Service of the Churches yet that it never was the intention of those who drew the first draught thereof to insinuate that the dead were actually excluded the things demanded for them is manifest in as much as the Memento was made onely in favour of those who rest in a sleep of Peace and consequently are already in Peace and Joy with the Lord. For the surviving Believers thought it became them to speak of the Beatitude of their Brethren deceased before them with a kind of hesitation as if it were delayed and that not without some colour for as much the good things prepared by the Lord for those who love him consist in things which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entred into the heart of Man and that they had not any evident knowledg thereof and could not frame to themselves any Idea suitable to the state whereto those are advanced who enjoy them they represented it after their manner with some conformity and proportion to that wherein they had left this World and as they have been for the most part forced thereto by the Imaginations wherewith the counterfeit Sibyl had dazled their minds so from the same hand is it also come that among those who some time after took the courage to disclaim them some did it not so resolutely as they should have done but thought it enough to compare their departed Brethren translated into the rest of God to Travellers who want somewhat of compleating their Journey Others considering that the enjoyment of the good things which follow this life and the exemption from the evils which sinners are to expect are for all eternity and that the continuance of that enjoyment to those who are once entred thereinto does so far depend on the goodness
he saw him returned and understood that the Councel who was not of his Opinion and had reduced him to quit it and by a second Deputation sent Brother John de Raguse a Domiuican afterwards Bishop of Argos Henry Menger Canon of Constance and Simon Freron Canon of Orleans who as to his particular had Order to pass through Rome to aquaint the Court with the occasion of his Message instead of being satisfied with this submission which seemed absolutely to secure his Interest he conceived a greater jealousie thereof and taking it very ill that as he thought the Councel should think to get the glory of the Reconciliation with the Greeks he so far prevailed with them by his sollicitations and the sums of Money he paid them out of his own Purse which was better furnished then that of the Councel that they broke their Word with the Deputies suffered the House where John de Raguse the chiefest among them was lodged to be set upon by a Party of Cross-bowsiers who attempted to force it and openly took their resolution to go to Ferrara where the Pope was in Person and was drawing together all his Partisans It were impossible to avoid being importunate to the Reader if we should trouble our selves to give a particular Relation of all the complaints reciprocally made by the Pope and Cauncel It shall therefore suffice to observe that the Councel defeated of their Hope saw another convened as it were in defiance of it at Ferrara where the Greeks to the number of about twenty Metropolitanes and a dozen others of their Clergie made their appearance with their Emperour at the Pope's Charges upon the fourth and eighth of March 1438. sojourned there without any thing done till Wednesday the fourth of June at which time were begun some private Conferences upon the Questions of Purgatory and the State of Souls after their departure out of the Body yet so as that on the Part of the Greeks till Thursday the seventeenth of July there passed no other decision save that the Souls of the Saints enjoy immediately after Death the perfect felicity competent to them though they expect upon the compleating of their Persons a more full perfection After two Moneths delay laying aside that kinde of Dispute when the General Sessions of the new Councel began they were taken up in debating concerning the Addition made by the Latines to the Creed and the manner of the Procession of the Holy Ghost which they pretend to be not from the Father and the Son but from the Father by the Son About this there passed at Ferrara from that time to the eighth of January 1439. sixteen Sessions and the Plague having made the place not onely incommodious but also dangerous the Pope resolved to leave it transferred the Assembly to Florence on the eleventh defrayed the charges of the Greeks by paying nineteen thousand Florens for the Garison of Constantinople and on the nineteenth following departed with the Greeks who made their entrance into Florence on Friday the fourteenth and Sunday the sixteenth of February began their Sessions on Thursday the twenty sixth of the same Moneth and continued them to no purpose till the seventeenth of March Two days after the Emperour weary of Disputing and seised with an apprehension of his own danger pressed his People to capitulate with the Latines addressing himself to them in these pitifull Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Time is spent to no purpose and we have done nothing as to the furtherance of our Affair remember our House what hazard it runs amongst the wicked If any thing happen alass how heavy will it fall upon us I hold the Persecution will be more intolerable then that of Diocletian and Maximian wherefore let us lay aside Discourses and Debates and finde out some Mean so to pass into the same Sentiment Mark and Anthony Arch-Bishops of Ephesus and Heraclea notwithstanding those Deplorations making some difficulty to comply were by him forbidden to come into the two following Congregations and the rest yielding the Pope was not awanting to take his advantage and to extort from those poor People a forced Acquiescence the Patriarch Joseph having upon the thirtieth of March being Munday in the Passion-Week given them this sad accompt of the Pope's Pleasure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That we should resolve to do of two things one either finde out by Easter falling that year on the fifth of April the means of an Union with him or take some course to return into our Countrey And notwithstanding that Isidore and Bessarion Arch-Bishops of Russia and Nicaea who had engaged in the Party of the Latines and given their Hands saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more expedient for us to unite in body and soul then to go hence without having done any thing for it is no hard matter to be gone but how we should go or to what place or when I know not Dositheus Bishop of Monembasia cried out immediately 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What would you that our departure hence may be defrayed by the Pope would you have us betray our Doctrine I will die rather then ever Latinize The Arch-bishop of Heraclea added that the Antient Fathers were for his Opinion that of Ephesus that the Latines were not onely Schismaticks but also Hereticks And the Nobility who had an Aversion for the Agreement so exasperated those of their Party that being met the first of April at the Patriarch's Lodgings who was then so indisposed that on the Saturday following they were forced to administer the Extreme Unction to him as soon as the poor Patient had opened his Mouth to ask what they had to say made him this short answer by the Arch-bishop of Heraclea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. There are four things demanded of you First Whether you are satisfied with the most clear and solid Demonstration according to which we have shewn you by the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and by the Son if you are so be it if not tell us what you doubt of and why you are not satisfied that we may finde out some remedy and way clearly and purely establish that in very truth the same Procession is also from the Son Secondly If you have any Proofs from the Holy Scriptures maintaining the contrary to what we affirm Produce them Thirdly If you have any strong places out of the Scriptures proving that what you hold is better and more holy then our Doctrine Fourthly If you will not stand to these things let us meet together in an Assembly Let the Hierarch celebrate the Divine Service Let us all as well Latines as Greeks take an Oath Let the Truth be boldly discovered by the Oath and what shall appear most clear to the Major part be embraced by both sides For among Christians an Oath is not violated After this Overture all that remained was to press those poor People by bitter Reproaches
according to them at such a point as immediately after their departure out of the Body to be at the self-same time exempted from the Pains of Restraint Obscurity or Grief through which it is affirmed they are to pass and deprived of the Rest which after the Pains they are to obtain so as that they are for the least space of time imaginable in a Neutral State which admits not the qualification of either Good or Bad of either Light or Darkness Rest or Torment and consequently of either Joy or Grief if not by accident And in Case that by the Place of Torment where it is feigned they fear being confined some may understand the Hell of the Damned is it possible they should ever be exposed thereto since it is presupposed they are of a middle Conditition and upon that very accompt as being chargeable onely with Venial Sins neither do nor can deserve Eternal damnation Be this therefore one unmaintainable and unimaginable Absurdity which must needs press hard upon our Forgers of Descriptions according to the Dictates of their own Fancies They make the deceased Priest further say Why O man dost thou trouble thy self thus unseasonably There is one onely hour and all passes away for in Hell there is no Repentance There is no Releasment in that place there is the Worm which never sleeps there is the darksom land and the obscure matter to which I am to be condemned c. Is this Discourse attributible to a Faithfull Person that had had here in this World the least taste of the Promise made by the Son of God assuring us that whoever believes in him is in such manner passed from death to life as that though he be dead yet shall he live through him that he shall not come into Condemnation and that there is not indeed any for those that are in him Are the Souls imagined to be in a middle Condition subject to the stingings of the Worm which never dies and liable to Damnation Which if it be supposed they neither are nor can why should they be feigned to say so and necessarily Lie in saying so This must then be a second Impertinence and a new Piece of Forgery committed by the Corrupters of the Ritual not onely against the Word of God but also against their Sentiment who in the same Ritual inserted this Confession which is both most true and Diametrically contrary to the Discourse before confuted Lament not all you who are departed in the Faith for as much as Christ hath suffered the Cross and was buried for us in the Flesh and hath made all those who call upon him children of Immortality For this once lay'd down does it signifie less then a total Eclipse of understanding and circumspection to make the children of Immortality for whom the Saviour of the World died and who consequently cannot perish say that they shall be Damned Nay the Prayers of the Living for their departed Brethren would be still chargeable with inconvenience even though they were taken literally For instance this O Lord as thou saidst unto Martha I am the Resurrection by the Effect accomplishing thy Word and calling Lazarus out of Hell so also mercifully raise this thy servant out of Hell For besides that it is a little too freely supposed that our Lord's Friend was confined in Hell from the moment of the Death of his Body to that of his Resurrection it is also false that our Saviour raises out of Hell whence the Ritual confesses that none is delivered any of his Servants Whoever once enters there never comes out again nor is there any raising up to be expected by him But these words may be maintained if they meet with a favourable Interpretation which might admit Hell to signifie not the place of the Damned in which sence it is ordinarily taken but the Grave whence our Saviour who called forth Lazarus will at the Last day raise up the Bodies of all his Servants With the help of the same favourable way of Interpreting it were possible to finde a sence conformable to the apprehension of Antiquity in those Prayers whereby the Greeks do at this day Beg the Remission of Sins for their Dead taking care to make them to relate to the Absolution which shall be solemnly pronounced by the Great Judg at the last day as may be deduced from this that most of them expresly mention it among others this Vouchsafe O Redeemer that when thou shalt come with ineffable glory in the Clouds after a dreadfull manner to Judge the whole World that thy Faithfull Servant whom thou hast taken from the Earth may joyfully meet thee which words are Grounded on 1 Thess Chap. iv Verse 17. In like manner this Vouchsafe O God to be mindfull of our Father who is now at rest and be pleased to deliver him from the corruption of sin at the day of Judgment through the good odour of thy goodness mercy and love towards men Again O Lord from whom the Spirits of those who serve thee do come and to whom they return we beseech thee to cause to rest in a place of light in the Region of the Just the Spirit of N. thy Servant now lying in his Grave and raise him up at thy second and dreadfull coming not to be condemned after the Resurrection but to be Absolved for no man living shall be justified in thy sight Again Let not thy Servant O Lord be confounded at thy coming When thou shalt discover all things that are hidden and shalt O Christ reprove our sins spare him whom thou hast taken hence being mindfull of his Preaching Again Forgive O Saviour the sins of him who hath been translated hence in Faith and vouchsafe to admit him to thy Kingdom there shall not any escape the dreadfull Tribunal of thy judgment Kings and Potentates and the Hireling all shall appear together and the dreadfull Voice of the Judge shall call the People that have sinned to the condemnation of Hell from which O Christ deliver thy servant Again Out of thy mercy O Christ exempt from the Fire of Hell and the dreadfull Sentence thy Servant whom thou hast now taken hence in Faith and let thy Domestick praise thee as God the mercifull Redeemer c. Brethren how dreadfull is the hour which sinners are to expect O what fear is there Then the Fire of Hell devours and the ravenous Serpent swallows wherefore mercifull Lord Christ deliver him from the day of dreadfull Gehenna O how great shall be the Joy of the Just which they shall be possessed of when the Judge comes for the Nuptial room is prepared and Paradise and the whole Kingdom of Christ into which O Christ receive thy Domesticks to rejoyce with thy Saints eternally Who O Christ shall bear the dreadfull threatning of thy coming Then shall Heaven be rolled up together as a Book after a dreadfull manner and the Stars will fall the whole
Creation shall be shaken with fear and then shall the light be changed O Word spare him who is translated hence Again I beseech you all who were of my acquaintance and who love me be mindful of me at the Day of Judgment that I may finde mercy before the Dreadful Tribunal Again Let us cry to the Immortal King when thou shalt come to make inquisition into the secret things of men spare thy Servant whom thou hast taken to thy self O Mankind-loving God Again I am dead after that I have passed away my life with security and I lye without voice in the Grave and now I expect the last Trumpet to awake me cries he who is dead but my Friends pray unto Christ that he would number me among the Sheep on his right hand c. I have consumed my life in great negligence and being translated from it I expect the dreadfull Tribunal before which O Jesu preserve me free from condemnation cries thy Servant Again O Lord who art the onely King entertain into the Celestial Kingdom thy Faithfull Servant whom thou hast now transferred hence and we beseech thee preserve him free from condemnation at the hour when all mortal men being to be judged shall make their appearance before the Judge c. Disacknowledged by my Brethren and sequestred from my Friends I cry in spirit from the noisomness of the Grave Examine not my failings at the day of Judgment despise not my Tears thou who art the joy of Angels but grant me rest O Lord even me whom out of thy great mercy thou hast taken to thy self c. Stuck fast in the Myriness of sin and devested of good actions I who am a prey to Worms cry to thee in Spirit cast me not behind thee wretch that I am place me not at thy left hand thou who hast framed me with thy Hands but out of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Having now quitted my Kinred and Countrey I am come into a strange way and am as stinking rottenness in the Grave Alass none shall afford me any assistance in that hour but O Lord because of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Again O what an inquisition and judgment are we to expect what fear and trembling in which Brethren the Elements themselves shall be moved and the creation shake come now and let us cast our selves at the feet of Christ that he may save the Soul he hath transferred An intolerable sire and external obscurity and the Worm which never dies is prepared for us sinners in the day of inevitable necessity then spare thy Servant whom thou hast transferred For as much then as the Prayers for the remission of sins made by the Greeks under the names as well of the Surviving praying for the Dead as of the Dead putting up their Requests for themselves are for the most part restrained to the day of Judgement we are so far from having any thing that might oblige us to take them in such a sence as that they should insinuate that the Faithfull between the moment of their death and that of the Last Judgment were reduced to the suffering of any pains that the Hypotheses of Antiquity seem clearly to exact the contrary And the result thence is that the Modern Greeks though great opposers of the Purgatory maintained by the Church of Rome have not kept within the Terms prescribed them by their Fore-fathers but have changed their Sentiments by the Introduction of Novelties which none of them would ever have imagined It will be demanded whence they derived the perswasion that there were Souls of a middle condition which being properly neither good nor bad could not after their separation from the Body enter into the possession of Paradise without having for a certain time lain drooping in I know not what place of Sequestration where they were to endure grief terrour and the incommodity of darkness which as is pretended covered them when nothing of all this either hath or could have any ground in Scripture which does every where make as immediate an opposition between Paradise and Hell the good and the bad the Faithfull and the Reprobate the Children of God redeemed and consecrated for ever by one onely Oblation and that once made with the blood of the Covenant and the children of the Devil who have held as prophane that precious blood as between life and death light and darkness the right hand and the left of the great Judge teaching us expresly that all the faithfull dying in the Lord are blessed rest from thenceforth come not into condemnation are passed from death to life are at their departure out of the body with the Lord and that all the rest without any exception dying in Adam and having not believed are already condemned 2. That Antiquity having happily shaken of the strange imagination which the Fathers of the Second Age had swallowed out of the pretended Sibylline Writing insinuating to them that the Spirits of all men as well good as bad necessarily descended into Hell and were to be there detained under the power of Devils till the Resurrection of the Bodies they had animated it thereupon formally maintained that immediately upon the Death of the Faithfull are the Nuptials of the Spouse that it remains onely for the surviving to give thanks to God that he hath crowned him who is departed from them and having delivered him out of all fear receives him to himself that to all the good Death is an assured Port a deliverance from the combat and bonds a Transporation to better things and that as soon as it happens the Cabinets are sealed and the time accomplished and the combat at an end and the race run and the Crowns bestowed and all is manifestly brought to perfection 3. That the Ritual it self as it were endeavouring to bring into discredit as well the distinction of the middle-conditioned Souls as their pretended banishment for a time into a dark place indifferently affirms of all those who die in the Faith of Christ men and women Ecclesiasticks those of Religious Professions and Laicks that they are gone to the Lord that they rest that Hell detains them not that they exchange Death for the divine life and are made the Children of immortality absolutely denying all that the vulgar Opinion temerariously and without any reason shewn affirms of some and wholly destroying it by so formal a contradiction But we are not to imagine our selves reduced to a necessity of being over-Critical in discovering the Origine of this errour since the falsificatour as well of the Ritual as of the Sentiment of those of his Nation hath done it so palpably to our hands that he hath not made any scruple to publish his own ignorance even in things evident and such as the word of God the best