which he says to be â—…isfactory Which I believe if he takes 〈◊〉 comparatively for of the three it is the least faulty but if he means truly satisfactory he must first clear me a doubt or two before I can be of his mind First in it is supposed that we must necessarily say that Venial Sins are remitted after this life Which is true but unless the time be specify'd it may be at the Day of Judgment and so nothing to our present question What he adds that the remission of sin doth take away all impediment of going to Heaven but abateth nothing of their pains I do not understand for three Reasons First because it is onely sayd and no other cause rendred but because the state of merit ceaseth after this life But why to take away the guilt of sin and the impediment of going to Heaven is not the effect of merit is not declared and seems that it cannot be deny'd Secondly there is no reason given why it abates nothing of the Souls pain For why should this be accompted a merit more then the other Seeing it increaseth not Charity nor the reward of Charity and is but a removâ—ns prohibens as well as the other Why then is one admitted the other rejected Thirdly since the Council of Florence it is not to be tolerated to say that to a Soulâ—…ins â—…ins any impediment of going to Heaven And this answer puts the Soul to be pure 9. Another difficulty I have about that Proposition We must hold that in the life to come there is no essential change in the will to wit for that which belongs to the increase of Charity First about the Truth of it For I doubt not but by the Beatifical Vision whensoever it begins Charity is increased and likewise that at the re-union of our Bodies Charity and the reward of it shall both increase Neither do I take it to be spoken consequenter to put many acts of Charity and not put them to increase the habit though you put the acts to be of the same degree of intension For we cannot deny but one and one makes two and that two are more then one and ad hominem if the same pain put in a new time makes the pain greater much more two acts of Charity are more Charity If it be answered the time of merit is pass'd I reply then you must put no more merit But with one breath to put merit and cry the time of merit is passed is to oblige us to believe Opposites 10. A third difficulty I have how it is prov'd that in Purgatory there is an act of Charity with detestation of a Venial sin inconsistent with the affection of Venial sin For onely to say it is so is not to answer the Argument but to repeat your conclusion or ask the question It is confess'd by both parties that Charity not onely in habit but also in act stands with venial sin for otherwise every time we make an act of Charity we should revoke our affection to Veâ—ial Objects St. Thomas's known Doctrine is that a will once taken resolutely in the next World is unchangeable and truly that one act remains until a contrary be put out We must therefore either say that the Soul hath a new deliberation at her going out of the body or that she keeps the same she had in the body until she return to it If we put a new deliberation it may be as well of the End as of Venial Objects and so the Soul shall change her state of Salvation after Death and all place of merit will not be deny'd It follows then that there can be no act in the Soul incompossible to the affection of venial sin until Resurrection Wherefore I doubt not but to a man of a not-preoccupated Judgment this Answer will be so far from being satisfactory that it will manifestly appear that the holders of your Divine's Opinion as much as they cry up that there is no room for merit with one breath so much they pull it down by their inconsequent positions on the other side Besides another thing which in a Divine is a manifest defect that they render no rational cause of the impotency to merit which in our opinion is most manifest 11. In his sixth number he falls upon another question not properly against us but amongst his own Divines which I must a little rip up because it so clearly shews the huge weakness of their Doctrin and Doctours The Question arises out of this difficulty that it seems inconsequent that if the Souls in Purgatory may be helped by others they cannot be helped by themselves And it is as true an absurdity as it seems to be and rises out of the denying of our Opinion He seems to give an answer by saying that they have deserved in this life time to be helped in the next World But this doth rather aggravate the difficulty then solve it For it shews they are helpable and then the difficulty is greater why they cannot help themselves For to say it is precisely because God will not give them leave to help themselves is to call God unreasonable and wilful and cruel instead of playing the Divine and giving an accomâ—t why to do so is conformable to God's Goodness and Government But to fall to the Question Some of their Doctours seem to deny to the Souls of Purgatory power to pray which how it can fall into a Christian's head much less a Divine's I am not capable Are not the Acts of Faith Hope and Charity prayers Will any body deny them these Are not the acknowledgment of their sins and the desire of forgiveness prayers Do they doubt of this Can they wish the relaxation of torments from men and not from God How absurd a Position is this that God whose whole endeavour is to bring mens hearts to him should send abstracted Souls from himself to men The very absurdity of this saying to an impartial man would condemn the whole Opinion And yet more that they can impetrate that the Living may pray for them nay impetrate Graces for the Living but none for themselves whereas we are taught that God grants us easilier for our selves then for other men These sayings are so empty of all Divinity and Solidity that depending as they do meerly from this uncertain and unlikely ground of the Souls present delivery from Purgatory they make it like to themselves uncertain and unlikely also 12. In his seventh Number he tells us that perhaps God was mov'd by his Justice to ordain that the pains due in the other life be not ordinarily remitted but by satisfaction made either by themselves or others An excellent piece of Divinity to ground so substantial a point as whether the Souls in Purgatory pray for themselves or no which every man of any Judgment cannot doubt but that they can no more cease from doing then they can cease from loving themselves from hoping and desiring Beatitude and from
The one that he telis the story to have passed in Cyprus whereas St. John lived in Alexandria Secondly that whereas other stories of the same nature in Pope Gregory and Venerable Bede make the Bands remain loose this story makes them to be supernaturally bound again which seems to be against the nature of Gods gifts which are given without repentance but much favours the Doctrin of Relief in Hell Wherefore it is vehemently to be suspected that those words then and when come from his Paraphrase and that the Saint's words reached no farther then what we read in others that this story argued that prayers relieved the dead As truly no more can be gather'd out of such Histories which are Parabolical and it were very absurd to parallel small circumstances betwixt corporeal Allegories spiritual things signify'd by them Howsoever the Authority can be no greater then of Metaphrastes who is held in a Rhetorical way to fain many things and it is to be noted that he lived after Gregory the Third's dâ—ys and peradventure after the time of the Oration De dormientibus was written 13. Being freed from these sleight stories we may see what Testimonies of solid Fathers he brings for his opinion He cites St. Denys but never a word which brings the Testimony home to our Controversy he speaking but in common of the remission of the sin His second Authour is St. Athanasius The words that The souls of sinners feel some benefit when good works and offerings are performed for them This Testimony has three faults First the Authour is not St. Athanasius as is so manifest by the work it self that it is a gross mistake to cite it as his though this Divine be not the first who objected it to me and farther it is clear the Authour wrote since the Turks were Masters of Greece by the phrase of calling the Romans French-men His second fault is that he distinguishes not dead but pronounces of all dead mens souls which argues the opinion of those who hold relief in Hell Thirdly these words When good works c. are equivocal and may be as well interpreted that good works are the causes of relief as they do the time unless other words force them to be taken emphatically which do not appear here St. Ephrem is also cited but not in what work nor of what certainty for his works are very ambiguous Besides that he is cited out of another Authour named Severus Alexandrinus who what he was I know not One I read of but an Arch-heretick The Testimony it self smells of the intervalls which the comforters of Hell invent and the works attributed to St. Ephrem are so uncertain that no guess can be made of what value this Authority is 14. The Testimonies he cites out of St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom are more certain but they favour my opinion not his For to help and not cancel the sin and that some comfort accrues to the dead by the sacrifice of the Mass are the very expressions which we use But the other words to wit that it may happen that a total pardon may be obtained for them by our prayers comes out of a false Translation The true Translation is that it is possible to gather pardon from all sides by prayer that is that abundance of prayers may be gotten either from all sorts of persons or all sorts of actions towards getting of pardon for St. Chrysostom makes mention of both And these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies motion from the circumference to the centre His last place of St. Chrys. out of the 21 Homily upon the Acts I must tell him if he had not another Text then I he hath much abused the good Saint The words as I read them are est enim si voluerimus leve ipsi supplicium facere If we will it is possible to make his punishment light Which he translates lighter to which he adds as his own descant to make out the Testimony then it was at first Much from the Saints mind who though he be earnest to perswade to prayers and good works yet never descends to more particulars then that they will do some good or else that the Living shall get good by them nobis Deus placatior erit which St. Austin also glances at to wit when the soul is damned Now if the torment of the dead be sooner ended your Divine will not doubt but that it is lighter 15. But I must not forget his citation of St. Greg. Nazianzen of which he seems to make great esteem and it is least of all to the purpose For as it is true St. Gregory speaks of a Purging before Resurrection so is it clearly to be understood of that which is made by death as is evident by that expression either purged or lay'd aside For nothing can be understood to be layd aside but the body and what is layd aside with it So that all his expression is of the effect of death and nothing touching what is to be done in the pure spirit And so I am quit of this troublesome Chapter without any mention of delivering souls out of Purgatory in the Greek Fathers 16. As for the Greek Church he brings me a Letter from some Town wherein there lived many Catholick and Learned Grecians from whom his friend received this Character that all the Grecian Catholick Church approves and admits priviledged Altars and Indulgences for the souls in Purgatory the which they believe go streight to Heaven as soon as they have satisfyed And I am so far from discrediting this Letter as that I sincerely believe it and yet think what I sayd to be true For this word Catholick Greek Church is not exempt from the Law of other words to wit that it may be understood in divers senses by divers speakers so that if this City he speaks of signifies either Rome or Venice which are the likeliest Cities of Christendome to have Grecians of that quality living in them and the Greeks in those two Cities communicate with none but such as either live under Latin Governours and so do easily follow their customs or otherwise are instructed by such Missionaries as go from the Greek Colledg in Rome I do not wonder that they should answer that the Catholick Grecians hold Indulgences as they do in Italy Nay peradventure may think the rest no Catholicks even upon this score But when I spake of the Greek Church I spake of the descendents from the Greeks which made the Union in the Council of Florence without receiving any new Doctrin since THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his sixth Chapter Testimonies from Latin Fathers before St. Austin either savouring of Millenarism or opposit to the Alledger or not found but fram'd to his purpose by Additions of his own and lastly his onely express Testimony uncertain 1. IN the sixth Chapter he pretends to shew that the Latin Church before St. Austin held the delivery of
this which himself is â—ain to confess and I think against his own opinion who puts if I am not mistaken no stain or blemish in the souls of Purgatory and therefore no purging nor Purgatory and so all the Fathers he repeats anew be plainly against himself 5 In his fifth Number he imposes a new falsity upon me to wit that I say the souls at the day of Judgment pittifully burn in their Bodies but that that fire purgeth nothing that can be called sin I wonder where he found this imagination For my Doctrin is that the fire of Judgment is ministerial to the Angels framing the Bodies to Resurrection and by this precedent service is instrumental cause of what is done in the instant of Reunion and Resurrection in that instant all the Action of fire ceases and is turned into the Purgatum esse which Purgatum esse is the sight of Christ and God in the very first instant of Reunion And this Doctrin may he find in my second tome of Institutiones sacrae pag. 244. and in my book De medio statu by pieces here and there So that all this good mans discourse is built upon a fancy of his own and touches not my Doctrin 6. In his sixth Number he argues from the difference betwixt Baptism and Penance that the one takes away all the punishment due to sin the other leaves some punishment to be expiated by satisfaction And puts the case of an old man who comes to Baptism after a wicked long life with an imperfect sorrow and disposition yet says he all the punishment is remitted to him though there remains many vitious inclinations in him Now if this man dyes soon after with some small Venial sin he shall ly in great torments untill the day of Judgment according to my Doctrin This is his Argument which he repeats now the second time and therefore it requires an answer I tell him therefore that it is very true that Baptism being taken with a fitting disposition to the nature of the Sacrament remits all pains and the Sacrament of Penance does not as is plain seeing Satisfaction is one part of this Sacrament But I would gladly know by what Authority your Divine changeth the Councils Definition and that which the Council speaks of men coming to Baptism with a disposition conformable and proportionable to the nature of the Sacrament he enlarges it to them who come with an imperfect and unproportionable disposition All men know Baptism is a Regeneration in which we are made nova creatura in which our Vetus Homo is buried And therefore the connatural disposition is that a man come with a resolution of a perfect change of life such an one as we see in St. Austin at his conversion which made him feel no more tentations of his former imperfections such as we acknowledge in people perfectly contrite such as is supposed to be in men who relinquish the world to be Carthusians Eremites Anachorites c. in all which we acknowledge that their repentance cancels all pains but likewise we acknowledg it takes away all inclination to former Vices at least out of the spiritual part of men and so leaves no matter for the fire of Purgatory to work upon which burneth onely ill affections 7. In his seventh Number he cryes out against this Principle that the Soul now become a pure Spirit should retain her Affections to Bodily Objects and thinks this misbeseems a Philosopher to say therefore I think my best play is to say I speak as a Divine For I hope so to have the protection of all those who say that in Hell the Souls are unrepentant and obstinate in their sins and sinful desires Nevertheless if he will needs appeal to Philosophy let him consider what Plato 10. de Rep. What Cebes what the Pythagoreans teach and Virgil out of Philosophers Conjux ubi pristinus illi Respondet curis aequatque Sichaeus amorem And again Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But let us see what he objects against this received Doctrine of Divines and Philosophers Is saith he such a Soul purging her self I answer Yes forsooth I pray if you ever looked into the strife betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh either how a man purgeth himself in his whole life or in some great Battail and Pitch'd-Field see whether both are not compounded of vicissitudinary Victories now of the Spirit now of the Flesh. Reflecting now that the eminency of the separated Soul contains in it self at once more then the whole life-time of an incorporated Soul what must or can we think but that all this contradiction of Wills must be at once in an imperfect separated Soul which is in our life in parts and separated in time 8. He says again Philosophy teaches him that no body loves evil clearly apprehended to be evil that no disguise of good can cheat a separated Soul I must confess both these Propositions to be true and therefore I am forced to say that in Purgatory their love is not about evil objects but truly good and conformable to Nature and their fault consists onely in excess of love which makes them apt to follow their objects where and when they should not 9. His third Objection is How we know the Soul will embrace this wilfulness since it is voluntary and therefore in her liberty not to accept of it or chuse it This Objection hath two faults the one that it doth not distinguish betwixt Voluntary and Free their own Philosophy teaching them that the love of our last End or good in common is a voluntary act but not free The like they teach of the accepting of a medium when there is but one to gain the fore-embraced End The other is that he thinks that this wilfulness begins at Death whereas it doth but continue and began in the Body As the very words of remaining and being conserved do signifie 10. His last Objection is that there is in Purgatory an efficacious repentance and therefore no will to do the like again I answer this word repentance doth stick in my stomack for if it means onely an act of a contrary affection I easily accord it to him for in this consists the torment of a Soul that is vitious either in this World or in the next that she has contrary Affections in her self one fighting against the other for the general inclination to her last Good can never be rooted out and no Vice can be but contrary to this inclination But if Repentance be taken for the revoking cancelling or blotting out of the unlawful desire I doubt it would prove an Heresie to put that and that the Soul shall remain in Purgatory for then she would have no blemish in her 11. In his eighth Number he prosecutes the same but against all Divinity and himself For whereas he puts that after this life there is no place for