other way of attaining Beatitude but that great and Royal high-way of charity since Christ our Lord his Apostles and all other Fathers preach no other Doctrine to introduce any obstacle of Beatitude without their authority were clearly to controul the discipline of all Christian institution and put a bold exception to their general Rule Besides true Theology assures us that perfect charity is a disposition necessitating or determining Almighty God to communicate himself to those that bring it so that he can no more deny himself to be the object of a soul in perfect charity then forbear the concreation of a Rational soul when the Embrio is fully formed or the infusion of existence when the actions of inferiour causes requires it But it is manifest that those who put the soul in the first instant of its separation to be endowed with the same eminence of charity which it hath or shall have when it is admitted to the fruition of God and yet notwithstanding for sometime debar it thereof must needs suppose that disposition of soul not sufficient and adequate but require something else whereof neither the Scripture nor holy Fathersâ—â—ve us the least hint who all unanimously acknowledg no other partition-wall betwixt God and us but our Sins Finally the Florentine Councel and Benedict the eleventh seem clearly enough to have condemned this their Doctrine the latter determining that the souls of the Faithful which have nothing to be purged or expiated do immediately after their departure and before the General Day see the face of God the former adding thereto that the souls of such as dye presently after Baptism or such as after death are purged are immediately received into Heaven By both which expressions this may indubitably be concluded to be meant That nothing but what may be purged that is what stains and contaminates that is sin can deprive a soul from its admission to Heaven and the full sight of God Let us subsume But according to our Adversaries all who dye not in mortal sin after the first moment in which they are said to be perfectly converted to God have nothing now remaining to be expiated but are already after death cleansed Therefore they are all immediately after the first moment received into Heaven Is it not evident that the determination of this Pope and Councel subverts their whole fabrick of Purgatory For though they endeavour to equivocate yet the proper and dogmatical signification can be no other then that which we have given and the secondary explication of purging for enduring pains which do not cleanse the soul from any filth is harsh and improper and by themselves avoided when they come to explain themselves though in familiar conversation with those especially who understand not the different senses they make use of it that they may not seem to vary from the language of the Church and their Fore-Fathers The Seventeenth Accompt That the Ignorance of spiritual natures begat this Opinion FOr a conclusion at length of this part I shall observe to the Reader that this mistake of the school men proceeds from a higher principle Their not adhering to a certain Doctrine delivered by Saint Thomas of Aquine and by his school received He teaches that in abstracted spirits there is neither discourse nor any manner of composition but purely a simple apprehension so that errour and falsity can have no place in them That holy Doctor understood that all these were originally in us from the body and therefore could not in immaterial substances be expected For we find by experience that composition and discourse are begotten by the successive beatings of the memory on the Phantasie which intercourse if once you bar it is impossible that indivisibles should be capable of succession It is therefore certain that pure spirits contemplate all things as it were with one sight or glance and since with them all that relates to science is transacted by naked Definitions which no wordish equivocation can obscure it is evident that falshood cannot reach them there being no precipitation where no delay is required Nither the principles then nor their connexion can be concealed from them nor consequently the truths depending on them This may perhaps become more intelligible if we reflect that the Soule when first infused into the Body is such as the quality of the Matter it is united unto exacts and determines it to be because a natural action that is which doth not exceed the rank and limits of causes cannot but act according to the existence of the subject and do that which is conformable thereto and apt to be produced thereof But Death also is a natural action making that which of a man can be made to wit a spiritual substance which we call a soul And as the disposition of the Embrio or seminal concreation delineats the future man so that man to have had in the course of his whole life these and these thoughts and affections designes and points out by the impressions left the future condition of his Soul So that death produceth such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible and the Entity so made continueth such till it be aâ— it were new moulded which is the worke of the Resurrection For the spiritual being of the soul is what the whole course of map's life hath made it and bears that respect to the antecedent life which the being at Rome hath to the travelling to Rome or the being in health hath to the cure which was wrought by the Physician's hand Whence it appears that in the next world there can be no more motion since rest and not motion is the terme and period of motion So that for the soul to know to be joyful or to be sad in the future world is nothing else but to remain in that act of knowledge joy or sadness into which by the force of Death and dissolution it was translated And this is the very reason why every resolution made is from thencesorâ—h immutable because there are no instruments no diversity of parts whereof some may act on others no distinctioâ—matter and Agent all which are requir'd to effect a mutation But some may wonder how the soul can be disengaged from the false opinions with which she was here possessed and not have power to devest herself of the affections depending on those erroneous judgements To whom we must answer that this happens not through any discourse but by the precise stroak of death For it being impossible to a spiritual nature at one and the same time to assent to two contradictories seeing and comprehending the contradiction and nothing as hath been said being able to escape the knowledge of a separated soul it is evident that truth must overcome falsâ—â—y and since one of them only can take possession truth must abide and errour give place and this through the very disposition of the soul it self by Death But the affections
carnal people who are by fire to be saved and the carnal ones in fire to be damned And elsewhere in the Psalms and his Sermons de Tempore he repeats the same explication And that you may see he speaks not of those only who are just then to dye on the sixth Psalm above ciâ—ed he immediately addes Make me such a one O Lord as that I may not need the fire to mend me or the correcting fire And that you may further perceive he was herein constant to himself Lib. 20. de Civiâ— Dei cap. 25. From what we have alledged saith he it seâ—â—es evidently to appear that in that Judgment there will be certain purging punishments for some And whereas lib. 21. c. 26. he seemes to doubt whether such fire as consumes venial sins may not be admitted betwixt the day of Death and the day of Judgment that intrenches not upon the certitude of what he had already established but rather begins a new Question especially since he explicates himself not of material fire but of the fire of tribulation His intentions may perhaps be more illustrated if we adde the negative place De Civit. Dei l. 2. c. 24 As saith he in the resurrection of the dead there will not want those who after the pains which the spirits of the dead suffer shall find mercy that they be not precipitatid into eternal For it would not have been with truth affirmed that they should not be forgiven neither in this world nor the next unless there were some who though they founâ— it not here should notwithstanding obtain remission hereafter And in the fifth Chapter of the sixth book against Julian If no sin saith he were to be remitted in that last Judgment I suppose our Lord would not have said of a certain sin that it should neither be remitted in this world nor the next Finally Confess l. 9. c. 3. Grant him Verecundus in the resurrection of the just a recompensation for the good Offices he did us since thâ—â— hast already made him one of thy faithful Nor is his 80th Epistle to Hesichius to be omitted In what condition every mans last day finds him in the same shall worlds last day overtake him for such as in that day he departs such in the last day shall he be judged What can more throughly discredit all pretence of intermedial change Ruâ—â—inus if he be the Author of that work on the Psalms which is ascribed to him is to be explicated conformably when he saith By anger may be understood the trial by purging fire in which they shall be chastised who now build things unprofitable upon Christ their foundation as meaning by that purging fire the fire of the last day of Judgment and so he confirms our opinion To him we will joyn Eucherius Lugdunâ—nsis if the Homilies which carry the name of Eusebius Emissenus be his They who have committed things worthy of temporal punishment saith he to whom belongs that speech of our Lord that they shall not go free till they have paid the last farthing shall pass through a fiery River according to that of the Prophet a swift River ran before him through horrid gulfs of flaming metal And a good while after The just shall pass through them as through pleasant and refreshing baths the flames loosing their propriety and their untouched bodies shall be honour'd by the very Instruments of pain because they were not burthened with sin The description of the just passing through those flames with their bodies untouched and the fiery River running before the face of Christ give us sufficient light that the day of Judgment is here spoken of Nor need it any way trouble us that he saith the slowness in passing through shall be proportionable to the matter of sin for there may well in the compass of one day be diversity of torments and of their duration besides delay may not improperly signifie difficulty in passing The Ninth Accompt That the Proofs of the opposite opinion are Modern and betray their Novelty NOr hath the hasty progress of this vulgar perswasion concerning the cessation of punishments before the day of Judgment altogether Eclipsed the contrary For Venerable Bede himself doth not admit to Heaven those whom he supposeth to be freed and Alcuinus is positively against it Both S. Anselme and S. Thomas joyntly confess that the purging and saving fire mentioned by the Apostle may be understood of the fire of conflagration And the most eminent among our Modernes confess this to have been the sence of antiquity nor do themselves much labour to oppose or discredit it But nothing can be more clear then the Saxon Homilies lately set forth in the * Annotations upon Bede which having been purposely compiled that they might be read throughout all the Churches in England evidently declare the sence of the English Church till the beginning of the Schooles What shall I say of S. Gregory who first brought into the Church the contrary opinion from certain stories and relations of pious but timorous persons Not one word can be found in him of admitting those who were so pretended to be freed to the Beatifical Vision but one who had been excommunicated is reported to have received the Communion others to have quitted their painful prisons And here it may well be noted that our Modernists who admit the fire spoken of by S. Pâ—ul to be the fire of the last day cannot from that Text though none more clearly assert Purgatory draw the least advantage to the confirmation of theirs but on the contrary meere confusion and darkness And now let us cast up the total summe of this discourse which consists of these three constant asseverations of the holy Fathers first that some souls already enjoy God secondly that none are yet locally in heaven since to be in place requires a body thirdly that all the faithful expect the day of Judgment that they may receive the reward of what they acted in their life-time wherein all their works are to be try'd by fire and those who were not perfectly holy to be purged and suffer detriment From whence we may with the same constancy pronounce that since those who dye in sin provided their foundation be on Christ are in the last day to suffer purging flames there can be no other material ones after this liâ—e but they For if you substract those testimonies of the Fathers which either expresly speak of the day of Judgment or in such general terms that it is evident they ought to be applyed to it by consent and in complyance with the rest you must from them expect no authority at all for the establishing of Purgatory To which we may adde since all Christian belief or credulity is finally resolved into and totally depends on Christ and his Apostles Doctrine if any Tenet concerning a subject not otherwise then by revelation discoverable appear not to have been by un-interrupted succession from them derived unto
twentieth Accompt That the practise of the Church as far as it's words make known it's sense favours the ancient opinion FOr the last attempt they reserve the Practise of the Church which can neither deceive nor be deceived And this they drive on with great fury and clamour partly from the prayers which are said for the Dead partly from the concession and acceptation of Indulgences wherein their valour gains so much applause that it is worth our pains to give it a check Our first encounter shall be to demand of them when they talk of the Ecclesiastical Practise which do they mean an universal or a particular one Again if an universal one whether they intend only a present Universality or an universality including also the ancient practise If they admit an universality of place as they needs must if they will conclude any thing for otherwise by their own confession it will amount but to a probable that is fallible argument let them demonstrate to me that the practise they contend for either anciently was or at present is in the Grecian Church Sure I am neither in the Florentine Councel nor in the Union of the Armenians nor in the Profession of Faith prescribed by Urban VIII to the Oriental Churches any thing is expressed from whence this Doctrine may be deduc'd In like manner as to point of time it is evident that before S. S. Gregory and Bede there was no such notorious Practise even in the Roman Church and consequently that it became not general till after Odilo about six hundred years agoe But such a Practise no way deserves the title of Universal according to Time The question then is devolved to the Western Church for the four or five last ages for the universality cannot be stretch'd higher since the practise appears to have taken it's rise from the Devotions of the Clugniac Monks and the effect of those Devotions that is Revelations springing from them whereas before it was rare if not unknown Our next quaere is what they mean by practise For my part to avoid ambiguity I divide it into that of actions and of expressions both which if they apparently favour what we have delivered then is our adversaries last effort as in-effectual as the former The Churche's expressions are visible in her Missalls Rituals and Breviaries by which if I stand condemned I willingly yeild the cause To begin with the sequence of Dies irae Dies illa is it not throughout of the day of Judgment and the deliverance which is then to be made What else hath the Offertory Lord Jesus Christ King of glory free the souls of the faithful departed from the pains of Hell and the profound Lâ—ke free them from the Lions jawes that Hâ—ll may not devour them nor they fall into darkness but let the holy Ensign-bearer Michael conduct them into that happy light which thou hast heretofore promised to Abraham and his seed Thus far in general for all the Dead then in particular We offer up to thee O Lord sacrifices and thanksgiving prayers receive them for those souls which we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to Life These are the Church's prayers which to a Catholick what can they signifie but the examination and sentence of the last Judgment After the person is dead and that prayers begin to be said for him where is he in danger to perish but in the last Day If then the Church prayes not for what is past which seems to be unprofitable it prayes not for any other delivery of the Dead then what is to be in that final Judgment I easily foresee it may be objected that the Dead have in reality no incertitude or hazard even in that Day wherefore these Prayers must on both sides be acknowledged to have their improprieties My answer is twofold First in our way we coyn not a new Metaphor but prosecute that which Christ and Holy Scriptures have furnished us with For if they have styled it a Judgment not in order to an investigation or disquisition of things doubtful for what can be obscure when God himself is judg but meerly to signifiy the effect of the said Judgment that is the respective destribution of rewards and punishments to good and bad which then is made is it not evident that the Ecclesiastical manner of speech that it may be conformable to the sacred and Traditionary expressions must speak as it were of a dubious sentence whilst there is yet an affection to or expectation of punishment or reward These speeches then signifie just the same as if the Church should plainly say suffer them not to be cast into Hell but grant them eternal happiness And so is that particle also to be understood of passing from Death of life Though there be also another way in which the souls in Purgatory when they become partakers of the Beatifical Vision may not improperly be said to pass from Death to Life For those souls having according to what hath been explicated an impediment in themselves debarring them from true life which is perfect Beatitude clearly if death be opposite to life they are truely said to pass from death to life when they are freed from their sins and that impediment I am not ignorant that Divines taking it from the Lawyers suppose in these souls a certain Right to Beatitude by which they are rendred partakers of life But these expressions abuse us when besides an allegory we expect propriety in them Nor indeed doth right to a thing make a man owner of it but right in the thing and in reality those holy souls have not right to life but seeds of it to wit the faith of Christ which works by charity and which assuredly will through the last judgment fructifie to life eternal As then sâ—ea is not yet reckon'd among things living but dead so these souls also But we must observe the word dead hath a double sense being propounded abstractedly and privatively The damned are privatively dead because all possibility or root of eternal life is extinguished in them but those in Purgatory are only dead because they have not yet obtained life My second answer is that speeches of this kind are altogether inexplicable according to the contrary opinion which is a certain note that they mistake the Churches sense For proof hereof it were enough to charge them with it and put them to the trial But I can produce the express confession of an Author voluminous enough to appear great amongst them who paraphrasing upon the above cited words excuses their form Because saith he those who pray often use expressions which they are altogether ignerant what they signifie or whither they tend But surely the Rituals sufficiently declare whither these speeches tended Make him worthy by the assistance of thy Grace to escape the Judgment of revenge who living was signed with the seal of the Trinity Again Let us pray for
the spirit of our Brother that the mercy of our Lord may place him in the bosome of Abram Isaac and Jacob that when the day of Judgment shall come he may resuscitate him on the right hand among his Saints and Elect. Again We pray thee to command the soul of thy servant N to be carryed by the hands of thy Angels into the bosome of thy Friend Abraham the Patriarch to be resuscitated in the last day of Judgment that whatsoever vices by the deceipt of the Devil he hath contracted thou pious and merciful maist blot out by indulgence In the office of the dead in like manner in the Roman Breviary Lord when thou shall come to judg the Earth where shall I hide my self from the countenance of thy anger When thou comest to judg do not condeâ—n me Again be merciful unto me when thou shalt come to judg in the last day Again Remember not my sins O Lord when thou shalt come to judg the world by fire Lastly free me O Lord from eternal Death in that dreadful day when the Heavens and Earth shall be shaken when thou comest to judg the World by fire I tremble and fear whilest that discussion and future anger comes that day of anger that day of misery and calamity c. To this you may add the publick Litanies instituted as it is thought by Gregory the Great himself or at least by him recommended where you find In the day of Judgment deliver us O Lord And in the commendation of the soul departed In the day of Judgment deliver him O Lord Finally if we have yet any judgment left us and are not wholly transported and fascinated with the opposite opinion let us consider with our selves what a strange blindness and absurdity it had been in the composers of our sacred Liturgy if they intend to pray in the Mass and Offices for the delivery of souls before the day of Judgment not to express it in one clear sentence throughout so many and large prayers but perpetually to fix the Readers thoughts and expectations upon the last judgment What shall I say of so many who have not only used but corrected them yet never durst take the boldness to violate the ancient and received style Since then in Ecclesiastical Ceremonies the significations of the actions depends on the expressions and the expressions are so clear for purgation in the day of Judgment it is beyond dispute evident that this is the practise and intention of the Holy Church in all publick Prayers and Masses that is in all that are hers The four and Twentietth Accompt That the Practise of the Church as it is visible in action makes likewise for the same truth FRom what we have said the temerity and precipitation of those appears who from the denial of a sudden and capricious delivery of souls â—ye immediately to the refusal of supplicating any longer for them whereas on the contrary they ought more assiduously yea perpetually and without end to pray both because their torments are more durable because our own goods are so strictly conjoyned with theirs Our method therefore instructs us never to abandon never to remit or slacken the charity which we profess towards our friends lately departed and consequently by this new temporary motive fastens our souls upon the love and contemplation of the future world whereas the contrary opinion begets a short memory and long oblivion And here behold we are naturally put in mind of surveying the other branch of Practise which no less attests ours to be the Church's sense and perfectly conformable to her practise I mean the procurement of prayers for the souls of the Dead Let us reflect herein on the consequences which are apt to follow from either opinion If it be true that souls are from Purgatory conveigh'd to Beatitude before the day of Judgment though we know not how long the time may be of their durance yet this is certain that every one hath a limited time let us suppose ten years as a Divine famous enough hath opined the Church ought in reason to prescribe a cessation from thenceforward of duties for that soul that others may be benefited by what to it is now superfluous You reply that it is not done because the Church is uncertain how long the time may be Very well but how long I beseech you shall she continue uncertain till the day of Judgment And this of every one that is of all where then lies our quarrel I may perhaps affirm it to be certain that they are not dismiss'd before the day of Judgment and consequently that we ought alwayes to pray for them you affirm it to be uncertain whether they are sooner freed or no and consequently conclude the same thing to wit that we ought alwayes to pray for them The practise then of praying alwayes for them is common to us both More strongly indeed on our side from motives both of reason and antiquity which ever prayed for all without exception You reply it is so uncertain of every one in particular that notwithstanding it is indefinitely certain of some Let it be so because you are resolute what is that to the practise that remains common to both sides Can you from practise possibly convince that some indeterminately are exempted when you pray for every one as though he were detained Practise is an action and action is of Individuals that is of particular Agents about particular Patients But to proceed Imagine with your self some practise which may infer that some are freed ought there not to be a change in the Tenor of prayer and a thanksgiving succeed to supplication rather then that the self-same supplication should still continue Shew any such custome and you have won the day But if you cannot and on the contrary I can and do produce men pious and prudent who with their last breaths pray for their Grand-fathers and Great-Grand-fathers and when themselves come to dye build Churches Hospitals and the like eternal institutes with obligation to have themselves and their ancestors for ever pray'd for two things I shall esteem my self to have clearly prov'd first That Ecclesiastical Practise stands with us secondly that our Adversaries cannot bring the least shadow of proof from thence They quit not yet their station but threaten us with sorks now that their arrowes are spent Practise say they consists not only in the external action but in it with the intention opinion and hope conjoyn'd therewithall But it is evident that the opinion and hope with which men now adayes pray for the departed is that of a speedy delivery therefore the Church-practise concludes it In which first we deny the Major For when some action is handed down to us from our fore-fathers in the Church it doth not follow their intention must necessarily be derived to us by the same succession for though we know not in particular what they intended yet do we
Aristotle acute and sublime but when vex'd with the importunity of such as endlessly call'd upon them for answer they so confounded all that they neither throughout pursu'd the Allegory of Faith so necessary for the people nor yet were able streightned and urged by their importuners to attend the discovery of it's pure light which is only attainable by the faithful study of true and solid Philosophy and so bequeathed to their posterity an uneven incoherent and uncertain course of Doctrine These men therefore ravish'd with the consideration of the mâ—taphorical Laws of Justice betwixt God and sinners fancied certain pure pains after death and taught their followers the redemption of them by corporeal afflictions in this world And seeing with their own eyes the great fruits which some remission of penitential Canons did produce foreseeing also or rather already experiencing that Ecclesiastical Rules did or would by degrees lose their authority all beginning to subtilize and addict themselves to nice enquiries they concluded it fit to establish Indulgences upon a more solid basis and to that end pretended that the pains of Purgatory as they were extinguishable with penance so also with remissions or pardons And this they fell upon with such eagerness and numbers that they easily over perswaded Leo the Tenth then engaged against Luther to propose to the Christian World their whole fabrick with the treasures of Christ's merits and his Saints although they could never effect or extort any such thing from the Lâ—teran and Florentin Councels before him nor the Councel of Trent after him The six and twentieth Accompt That Indulgences generally taken make nothing against the ancient Doctrine THis is as far as I can comprehend the Historical progress and period of Indulgences From which it sufficiently appears that the School-men's conceit of them depends wholly upon the Metaphorical explication of Purgatory as the leaned Fisher Bishop of Rochester well observed when he said that men were first affrighted with the torments of Purgatory before they ran after those Indulgences and consequently that Indulgences are differently to be treated and explicated according to the different sentiments of Purgatory Those who believed pure pains in and successive deliveries out of Purgatory were necessitated to stretch Indulgences to the next world For what would such Indulgences signifie or with what spur would they quicken the Devotions and pious exercises of the faithful if no benefit accrue to those that accept them But on the contrary those who took not that way must go upon other grounds and suppose from what hath been said that the pains of Purgatory are not purely Vindicative but as their very nature imports Purgative and not to cease till that Purgation be perfected by the fire of conflagration They must suppose also that there is no proportion betwixt merits or prayers and the punishment due to sins and that this exchange and traffick of merits and pains smells too much of the Banquier's Laws to be formally transferred into Christian Divinity and apply'd to God But let us take a strict account of this new-found treasure They pretend a vast treasure and magazine of Merits laid up in Heaven What do they call merit Good works recompensed or not recompensed If recompensed how come they to superabound or why do they tell us of them If not recompensed what conceit would they frame in us of God who make him unable to reward his servants merits or leave him in their debt But we have shew'd in our * Theological Institutions that merit is nothing else but a good work fructifying to reward whence necessarily it ensues that it is either rewarded or no merit Besides what shall become of that Axiom God rewards beyond all merit drawn from the clear testimonies of the Apostle that the sufferings of this life are not proportionable to the future glory But go too heap sin upon sin will these Divines say that the punishments due to them exceed the merits of Christ nay even of one drop of his blood or of the least particle of a drop If they dare not to what end do they accumulate this treasure To what purpose do they add the merits of Saints to those of Christ For fear peradventure lest the punishment due to sin should exhaust the whole source of Christs merits Alas how can you value the least drop of his How can you assign a particle so minute as not to exceed the greatest debt imaginable If the least of Christs merits be dispensed it is too much and exceeds all punishment It is therefore consequent that Christ must long since have offer'd to his Father more merit then all the sins that ever shall be perpetrated can require nor indeed could he possibly do otherwise every least merit of his being perfectly infinite So that Christ's merits must absolutely be taken out of the scales if there must be an equality and exactness of communicative Justice For it is simply impossible even in respect of God's absolute power that so little should be offered to God of Christ's merits as not infinitely to overweigh all that enters the ballance with them It appears then that all this Doctrine is incoherent and incongruous and consequently to be rejected And if our discourse have hitherto been rightly pois'd we can no longer doubt of the two opinions concerning Indulgences which ballance sinks down with it's gravity which flyes up with its levity For first whereas they put Ecclesiastical penalties to be such as equalize the crime that may be understood two wayes The first that they should equalize the pains due in Purgatory which if it were in it self true what messenger could assure them of it For S. Gregory bears us witness that the Revelations which discover'd the state of souls at that time were new and consequently unknown to the Apostles and their successors But besides it being confessed that the lightest pain of Purgatory out-vyes all the sufferings of this world how can some determinate quantity of these be equivalent to those The other explication then of equivalence is that such a penance inflicted and performed would by its exemplarity cause such reparation in point of Ecclesiastical Discipline as the fault had caused miscarriage and transgression And this evidently may well be determin'd by the discreet arbitration of prudent censors of manners So that hence also it is apparent which opinion is to be embraced Let it be then established that Ecclesiastical Indulgence remits no more then what the Church imposed or thought fit to be imposed for the restauration of Discipline and that it affords no argument for remission of sin or pain either in this world or in the next other then the change which is made in the sinner himself or the Church scandalized by him As to that then of S. Paul it is answered that he who in some certain business is constituted Attâ—rney or procurator for another cannot thence take upon