presuming to derive her thence A manifest Argument that Apollodorus could not ground his pretension on her contradictory Testimony but that the Counterfeit Sibyl having seen as being later by many Ages what he had written took occasion to oppose it as incompatible with his Fiction Thirdly For that she quarrels with the Greeks for having said of her things which not any one in particular could be convinced to have affirmed to wit That she was the Daughter of Circe and by Father of Gnostus for all those among the Antients who have left any thing behind them have made the Erythraean Sibyl the Daughter of Jupiter or of Apollo and Lamia or of Aristocrates and Hydole or of Crinagoras or in fine of the Shepherd Theodorus and the Nymph Idea and not any one of Circe besides that indeed they could not have done it without Absurdity For how could it have come into their minds to make her born at Erythrae a City of Asia if they had thought her the Daughter of Circe by Nation an Italian born and dwelling near Rome upon the Mount called to this day by her name Monte Circello I pass by as of less Consequence the Stupidity of that pretended Prophetess who to put a slur on the reputation of Homer betrayed her own Ignorance saying That Homer should write not truly but clearly of Ilium because he should see her Works For who will say they are things incompatible To say the Truth and To speak clearly Are they who speak Truth necessarily obliged to conceal themselves and Liers to discover themselves Or can it be said that the Consequence is good He hath my Verses therefore He shall not speak the Truth unless it be presupposed that those Verses are full of Untruths and teach him that hath them to Lie But the Books pretended to be writ by the Sibyls though they have for these fourteen hundred years and still do dazle the eyes of many swarm with such Impertinences CHAP. XVII That Pausanias hath not written any thing which may give credit to the Books mis-named the Sibylline NOr is there any more reason we should take the Discourse of Pausanias who says The Isle of the Rhodians hath been much shaken so that the Oracle of the Sibyl which had been given concerning Rhodes is come to pass for any confirmation of what the pretended Sibyl had writ in two several places The greatest unhappiness that may be shall happen to the Rhodians For he speaks of the Earth-quake which happened in that Isle almost two Ages before under Augustus soon after which Tiberius had in a manner raised it again through his continual Residence therein from the year of Rome 748. to the year 755. upon which account it is that the Epigram of Antiphilus calls him its Restorer and the pretended Sibyl threatens it with a Ruin to come at the end of the World when Rome having accomplished its Period nine hundred fourty and eight years shall be so destroyed by Nero returned from Persia that it shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a street Delos shall be no more and Samos be turned into an Heap of Sand. Which may serve to justifie the mistake of Tertullian who thrusting into his Book De Pallio these last words dis-joynted from the Precedent and Consequent applies them to that Desolation of those Isles which reached to his Time saying Of the Isles Delos no longer is Samos is become Sand and the Sibyl is no Lier whereas he should necessarily have concluded That she had lyed in referring to the end of the World and of Rome what had happened long before as also that all the eight Books in three whereof the Mis-fortune of that Isle was recapitulated in the same Terms were contrary to the Opinion since embraced by Lactantius the Draught of one and the same hand CHAP. XVIII That the Prohibition made to read the Books called the Sibylline and that of Hystaspes adds no Authority thereto THere is yet less ground to rely on the Words of Justine Martyr writing to the Emperours Through the working of Evil Spirits is it come that it is forbidden upon pain of Death to read the Books of Hystaspes â—…he Sibyl or the Prophets that so those who read them might by fear be diverted from taking cognizance of good things for we not onely read them without any fear but also as you see we recommend them to your inspection knowing they would be acceptable to you all Yet if we perswade but a little we gain much for that as good Labourers we shall receive a reward from the Master For though we may with some likelyhood conjecture that the Antient Prohibition to read the Prophetical Books was much more strictly observed after the discovery of the forged Pieces of Hystaspes and the Sibyl among the Heathens and that they had a particular aversion for those who gave credit thereto Yet is there not found in their Books any Law to that purpose nor does it appear that they made it much their business to prevent the reading of those Writings which they justly esteemed Supposititious and such as had never been among their Archivi nor yet that they decreed any Punishment to be inflicted on the Readers and Admirers of the Prophets of Israel since the exercise of the Jewish Religion had been always tolerated in the Empire and the Synagogues were continued every where And if the liberty of such as were inclined to Judaism was less after the tumult of Barchochebas and the whole Nation more hated yet did not that Hatred occasion the interdiction of the Prophetical Books but onely the Banishment of the natural Jews out of Palestine and some addition to their Taxes And as Justine neither says nor could have said That the Prohibition made to read the Fatidick Books in the Empire was more particularly levelled against the Christians then others since it was so general that it comprehended all Nations under the Romane Jurisdiction without distinction or exception and that it is manifest it was done upon occasion of the Books laid up first in the Capitol and afterwards under the Base of Apollo Palatinus So was there not any ground to imagine that it proceeded from the suggestion of Devils rather then from a deep Political Prudence which very rationally apprehended that these Oracles for which the Common People though they knew them not had so great an esteem upon this very account that they introduced Novelties into the antient Superstition and if I may so express it clad it in a new Dress notoriously derogated from the Customes derived from Father to Son were likely to fill mens minds with fruitless Curiosities and as Cicero says Valebant ad deponendas Religiones As for the Supposititious Pieces of Hystaspes and the Sibyl which under pretence of teaching the Worship of one God and recommending unto men the Mysteries of Christian Religion filled it with false Opinions and raised upon some sound
ballance so many stones and pieces of Timber out of his Churches that the good works of Charles had out-weighed the evil and that notwithstanding he had taken away his Soul from them And lastly towards the declination of the tenth Age to advance the reputation of the Order of Clugni and indeed of all the Religious Orders in general Peter Damiani Cardinal of Ostia and from him Sigebert have left in writing That a Religious man by Country of Rouërgue coming from Jerusalem entertained for some time in Sicily by the kindness of a certain Monk was told by him that in the Neighbour-hood there were certain places casting up flames of fire and called by the Inhabitants the Cauldrons of Vulcan in which the Souls of the departed endured several punishments according to their deserts and that there were in those places certain Devils appointed to see the execution done Of whom he said that he had often heard their voices indignation and terrours as also their lamentations when they complained that the souls were taken out of their hands by the Alms and Prayers of the Faithfull and especially at that time by the devotions of those of Clugni who incessantly prayed for the repose of the deceased That the Abbot Odilo receiving this information from him ordained in the year 998. through all the Monasteries subject to his Order that as the solemnity of All-Saints is observed on the first of November so the next day should be celebrated the memory of all those that rest in Christ which Custom passing to several Churches proved the ground of solemnizing the memory of the faithful departed Hence then came it 1. That Princes and the People moved with compassion for their kindred and friends and conceiving a fear of themselves with Consciences disturbed and racked with amazement multiplied their Donations to Churches and Monasteries even to infinite 2. That in the Instruments of those Donations they began to insert as necessary and essential this President whereof it were hard to produce many Examples more antient pro remedio animae animae parentum c. for the relief of my soul and the souls of my kindred And 3. That whereas Antiquity would hardly have been brought to grant any true and real apparition of souls some endeavoured to perswade people they are so common that they happen every minute To be short they thought they might with some probability introduce into the Church what the Platonick Philosophy had suggested to Virgil who gives us this draught of the state of separated Souls and of what he conceived of Hell Quin supremo cùm lumine vita reliquit Non tamen omne malum miseris nec funditùs omnes Corporeae excedunt pestes penitúsq necesse est Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris Ergò exercentur poenis veterúmque malorum Supplicia expendunt aliae panduntur inanes Suspensae ad ventos aliis sub gurgite vasto Infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni c. Nor when poor souls they leave this wretched life Do all their evils cease all plagues all strife Contracted in the body many a stain Long time inur'd needs must ev'n then remain For which sharp Torments are to be endur'd That vice invet'rate may at last be cur'd Some empty souls are to the piercing winds Expos'd whilst others in their sev'ral kinds Are plung'd in Icy or sulphureous Lakes c. For according to the Visions of Germanus Bishop of Capua and the Hermite of Sicily it would be insinuated that the Souls might be purged by Baths and subterranean fires and there remained onely to make it absolutely Heathenish Mythologie to feign some exposed to the Winds and hung up in smoak for which the Councel of Florence as it were to excuse Dante and Ariosto hath taken care supplying what the precedent Theologie of the Cloisters to whose advantages all these Relations do ever contribute seemed to have omitted CHAP. XXIX Proofs of the Novelty of the precedent Opinion of Purgatory THe precedent opinion concerning Purgatory came so lately into play that in the year 593. Petrus Diaconus astonished at the novelty of it was in a manner forced to make this question to St. Gregory Quid hoc est quaeso te qùod in his extremis temporibus tam multa de animabus clarescunt quae antè latuerunt ità ut apertis Revelationibus atque ostensionibus venturum saeculum inferre se nobis atque aperire videatur c. What means it I pray thee that in these last times so many things which before were hidden are now become so manifest concerning souls that the world to come seems by clear Revelations and Declarations to bring and discover it self to us And as by what we have heard of Odilo Abbot of Clugny it might be evident that at the expiration of the tenth Age but 400 years after St. Gregory that Religious man by Country of Auvergne extreamly moved at the discourse of I know not what Pilgrim of Rouërgue had the confidence to put the last hand to the draught of Purgatory which the first Antiquity had been ignorant of for five whole Ages so from this very Position that it was not believed from the beginning it follows that it neither is nor can be a Catholick Tenet But this hath appeared also by other means viz. First by the opposition of the Greeks and all the East which was no less constant and earnest then that of Peter De Bruis Henry his Disciple the Waldenses and the Albigenses and at the present all the Protestants in the West Secondly By the falling off of the Latines who have in some measure quitted the Sentiment of St. Gregory and Odilo which was restrained onely to the pain of fire when upon the ninth of June 1439. but some few hours before Joseph Patriarch of the Greeks then dying had signed his last Declaration running in general Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I confess the Purgatory of Souls they thought good to declare themselves by this indefinite expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Souls of a middle condition between the just and sinners are in a place of torments and whether it be fire or darkness or tempest or some other thing we differ not about it Thirdly By the Concordate signed by them on Sunday July the fifth and published the next day under the name of Pope Eugenius in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We decree that if those who have unfeignedly repented them of their sins die in charity towards God before they had by works worthy repentance made satisfaction for their sins as well those of Commission as Omission the Souls of such are after death purged by Purgatory pains Fourthly By the formal disallowance and Protestation of the Greeks immediately after their return against what ever extreme necessity had extorted from those of their Nation at Florence maintained by publick Writings by Mark
confined to Places of Punishment and upon that very accompt is not in his Rest To salve then so strange a Conception we must say that to Be in rest signifies not to be in rest and to rejoyce may be taken in the same sense as to be tormented But whom will they perswade to this unless those who have suffered such a dislocation of Understanding as hath made them uncapable of either discerning or disallowing any distorsion of words Secondly I earnestly intreat those who are in Communion with the Church of Rome to tell me conscientiously whether they think it possible that St. Augustine held their Purgatory for an Article of Faith when he is so far from making a certain acknowledgment of any that he leaves it to every one after his Example to put it to the Question Whether there be any or no. Will they say he was so weakly instructed that he was ignorant that Tenent if so be it were such as they would have it made or ought to make part of the Catholique Doctrine or that the Catholique Doctrine is duly professed when those who are called to teach it openly declare they doubt thereof It must then needs follow that Purgatory was not known to the Christians of that Age and therefore much less to those who had been Disciples of the Apostles CHAP. XLIV That the Proofs produced by Cardinal Bellarmine for Purgatory are Weak and Defective CArdinal Bellarmine who hath undertaken to prove the contrary cannot acquit himself without being forced to shamefull shifts and calling to his Assistance such Witnesses as depose onely on the behalf of Prayer for the Dead as if that Prayer which St. Epiphanius assures us to have been made in his Time for all the Saints without exception never either had or could have had any other Ground then the Purgatory held by the Church of Rome He cites to this purpose Councels almost all Latine viz. the Third of Carthage Assembled the first of September 397. and the Fourth held the sixth of November 398. the Third of Orleans celebrated the three and twentieth of June 533. the First of Braga convocated the first of May 563. the Collection compiled at the same Time by Martin Bishop of Dumium and afterwards Arch-Bishop of Braga the First Councel of Chaalons upon the Saone Assembled in the year 650. and that which the Greeks held in the Trullum of Constantinople in the year 691. Nay he makes accompt to put us off also with some Councels Assembled by the Popes for the maintaing of Abuses as well in Doctrine as Discipline as that of Lateran under Innocent the Third in the year 1215. that of Florence under Eugenius the Fourth in the year 1439. and that of Trent under Pius the Fourth as if the Authority of these last should have any other Effect then to provoke the just disgust of the Protestants Besides to strengthen the Dose he makes no small Stir with two Counterfeit Pieces advanced by shameless Impostours under the Names of the Sixth Councel of Rome under Symmachus and of that of VVorms held I know not when nor by whom Nay to give us an Essay of his own Abilities in such a Case after he had cited the sixty ninth Canon of the Collection made by Martin of Braga instead of the sixty eighth he falsely pretends that he took it out of the Synods of the Greeks never considering that in that Collection we have nine Canons of the First Councel of Toledo and two out of the third and fourth of Carthage with thirteen others which are not to be found in any of the Councels now extant either Greek or Latine and that the sixty eighth which he places in the sixty ninth rank is of that Number Next he cites the Liturgies which go under the Names of St. James St. Basil St. Chrysostome St. Ambrose c. and furnish us as do also the Councels onely with Prayer for the dead which not onely hath nothing common with the Purgatory held by the Church of Rome but presupposes what is directly contrary as assuring us that those for whom it is made are not in Torment but in Rest and Peace Thence he passes to the Greek Fathers and upon the first start alleges unto us as taking it from St. Clemens Romanus St. Denys the Areopagite and St. Athanasius of Alexandria the Constitutions forged under the Name of the said St. Clement about two hundred years after his Martyrdom the Hierarchy composed above four hundred years after the death of the said St. Denys and the Answers to the Questions of Antiochus written by Athanasius of Antioch who was later then him of Alexandria by four hundred years Then he produces St. Gregory Nazianzene St. Cyril of Hierusalem St. Chrysostome and Theophylact Arch-Bishop of Bulgaria who lived after the year 1000. and following the steps of those who had preceded him tells us onely of Prayer for the dead As for the Latines he produces Tertullian St. Cyprian St. Ambrose St. Hierome St. Paulinus of Nola St. Augustine Gregory the Great Isidore of Sevil Victor Bishop not of Utica as many conceive but of Ucetia and Bernard not one of whom Treats of any thing but Prayer Which I observe not to deny that St. Gregory and those of the Latines who lived after him might take the Opinion of Purgatory whereof St. Gregory may be called the Father or God-Father for a Motive of their Prayers for the dead but to advertise that no such thing can be said of such as were more antient who founded their Prayers on other Motives to wit those which have been represented already whereof there is not any one compatible with Purgatory such as it is at this day imagined to be CHAP. XLV That the Testimonies produced by Jodocus Coccius for the Opinion of Purgatory are also defective THere is somewhat much of the same Nature to be observed in that great Collection which Jodocus Coccius Canon of Juliers rather out of a scrupulous then judicious diligence makes of all manner of Pieces good and bad For he cites us among the Liturgies named by Cardinal Bellarmine those which are attributed to St. Peter St. Mark and St. Matthew those of Milan of the Mozarabes Goths and Armenians as also the Councels of Arles Vaison and Valentia which speak onely of Praying and Offering for the dead and for that very Reason say nothing as to the Business of Purgatory which is not necessarily deduced thence Coming to the Greek Fathers he produces out of a notoriously-counterfeit Piece of St. Clemens Romanus certain Words extracted out of the Rule of St. Benedict which was written four hundred and fifty years after the blessed Death of St. Clement and after all amounting to nothing in as much as they mention onely Prayer for the dead He cites Hermas an Apocryphal Authour one who expresly telling us that he speaks of Persons that are in a Condition of repenting or remaining Impenitent clearly shews that he says nothing competible to the
it hard in all the series of Time to meet with any one more remarkable then that of the mistake of Saint Justin a Person very recommendable if any may be admitted such First for his Antiquity since he dy'd but very little after the midst of the second Age of the Church Secondly for his knowledge as being one who before his reduction to the Christain Faith had by profession been a Philosopher Thirdly for his piety since he became so constant a maintainer of the true Religion as that he was at last honour'd with the Crown of Martyrdom All these advantages might have rais'd him above the ordinary rate of men yet have they not exempted him from being abus'd by certain advancers of foolish Stories who having perswaded him to take the Idol of Semo Sangus one of the false gods of the Sabini for the Statue of Simon Magus engag'd him I know not how to maintain his mistake in the presence even of some of the Heathens and that with so much confidence as clearly discover'd he said nothing but what he really believ'd He it was also who thought himself very much in the right when he boasted that he had seen at Pharos neer Alexandria the remainders of the LXXII Cells where the Interpreters of the Bible had been employ'd in that Work nay some others as Saint Irenaeus Saint Cyril and Saint Augustine have believ'd him and yet Saint Hierome who as well as the other had been upon the place and taken more particular notice thereof does not onely laugh at it but says I know not who by his glozing hath built them With the same security disputing against the Heathens who according to the observation of Origen by way of derision called the Christians Sibyllists he opposes thereto the Authority of Hystaspes a supposititious Author of whose Works there is at the present nothing extant as also the Oracles of the Cumaean Sibyl whom he pretends to have been the Daughter of Berosus who was later then Cyrus by 250 years and dyed in the 225 year of the foundation of Rome and the fourth of the reign of Tarquin to whom many hold that one call'd Amalthaea Sibylla sold at an excessive rate the books since known by the name of the Sibylline and preserv'd in Rome for the space of above 440 years till the civill wars of Sylla not minding it seems that according to the generall perswasion of the Romans the Cumaean Sibyl had entertain'd Aeneas who dyed 639 years before Cyrus possess'd himself of Babylon nor yet reflecting on what Pausanias an Author much about his own time observes from Hyperochus Cumanus and other Ancients 1. That the Sibyl who convers'd in that place was called Demo 2. That the Cumaeans had not any Oracle to shew of hers 3. That she had not been preceded by any but by Lamia the daughter of Neptune sirnamed by the Lybians Sibylla and Herophila the daughter of Jupiter and Lamia who had her residence sometimes at Ida in Phrygia sometimes at Mapessos sometimes at Samos sometimes at Claros of Colophon and sometimes at Delos and Delphi 4. That her Monument and her Epitaph grav'd upon a pillar was at Troas 5. That the Erythraeans would not onely have it that she was born among them of Theodorus a Shepherd and the Nymph Idaea but also that she gave Hecuba the interpretation of her dream and 6. That after the Cumaean Demo the Hebrews who live above Palestine set up Sabba the daughter of Berosus and Erimantha who went under the name of the Babylonian or Aegyptian Sibyl Nor lastly regarding that the very argument whereof he thought to make his greatest advantage in order to the conviction of Pagan Idolatry expresly maintains that she who compos'd it was wife to one of Noe's Sons and of neere kin to him who departed this life 1697. yeares before Antiochus Soter was established in Babylon and that Berosus whose Daughter they would have her to be meerely because her VVriting intimates her coming out of Babylon could have been allow'd the name of Father For these are her words O the great joy I have had since I have escap'd the destruction of the Deep having before undergone many misfortunes toss'd up and down by the waves with my husband my sisters-in-Law my Father and Mother-in-Law and those who were married together And elsewhere When the World was overwhelm'd with waters and that a certain man who had undergone the tryall was left alone exposed to the waters in a house cut out of the Forrest with the beasts and birds of the aire to the end that there might be a Restauration of the World to that man was I daughter-in-law engendred of his blood By which words she clearly destroyes what she had writ some lines before saying that the Greeks took her for the daughter of Circe and Gnostus or rather Ulysses whom she entitles known Father because of the reputation of his name never considering that 800. yeares and more were slipped away between the death of Noe and the arrivall of Ulysses at Cirâ—aeum She further affirmes that she came from Babylon in Assyria speaking so much the more improperly for that Babylon was neither built nor named till 153. yeares after the Deluge nor was it of Assyria properly so called but of another different Country that is to say of Sennaar and that it took not the name of Assyria till above 165. yeares afterwards Nay the impudence of the Imposture is so much the more palpable in that this pretended daughter-in-law of Noe describes her selfe as a notorious strumpet saying Ah wretch that I am what will become of me in that day for all the things I set my mind upon in my folly having no regard of either my Marriage or my reason And again What great evills have I heretofore committed wittingly and willingly and how many other things have I imprudently run after without the least remorse thereat I have taken my lustfull pleasure with ten thousand and have not had the least consideration of my marriage c. CHAP. III. The supposititiousnesse of the Writings pretended to be Sibylline exemplified in severall particulars IF St. Justin Martyr had been but pleased I will not say to look a little better about him but only to open his eyes and fasten them with ever so little recollection on what he read he had met with a thousand instances of imposture in those pleasant Oracles which he objected against the Heathens employing against them three Verses out of the first book as many out of the third and seven out of the fourth For he would upon the first sight have perceived that that ill-digested collection written in wretched Greek and coming from the hands of a person who discovers his ignorance of the Hebrew could not be attributed either to Noah's daughter-in-law who liv'd above 250. years before the confusion of Tongues and consequently before there was any Greek nor yet to the
read or interpret it and that the Quindecem-viri themselves whose particular Privilege it was durst not attempt any such thing without the express Order of the Senate Whence it follows that the Heathens had good reason to Charge with Imposture the Pieces produced by the Fathers upon this account particularly That they saw them in their hands and by them published nor could the Christians justly press them to produce what none of them could come at and was to continue locked up under the Key of a perpetual secret But all this notwithstanding Origen's Answer was not necessary Celsus does not demonstrate that the things which he conceives shuffled into the Works of the Sibyl are reproachfull or detractive therefore they are not such For though the imputation of Heathenish Superstitions be not properly detraction but a most true and most just reproach of their Impiety yet was it a Detraction according to their Opinion and to bring the Charge by a Sibyl that is the Person the most unfit to act such a part was to exercise a kind of Detraction against her Memory and to bear a false Testimony under her Name very well deserving to be taken off by the general complaint of all the Unbelievers Wherefore the Defence of Origen against the Objection of Celsus who as Contemporary with Justine Martyr and Lucian who dedicated his Pseudo-mantis to him had seen the breaking forth of the Imposture being but an Elusion and no more Saint Augustine hath had a thousand times more reason to leave it to the Adversaries of the Church to acknowledge or disclaim at their own choice the eight Books pretended to be Sibylline saying Therefore though they should not believe our Scriptures their own which they read with blindness are fulfilled upon them unless it happen that some may say The Sibyl ' s Prophecies are but the Fictions of the Christians And again But what other Prophecies soever there pass concerning Christ some may imagine forged by the Christians and therefore there is no way so sure to convince such as are Strangers in this matter and to confirm those of our own Profession as by citing the Prophecies contained in the Jews Books I would to God the Church's children had continued in these Terms and so have cleared their hearts of the evil Ambition of having been the Authours of some Pious Frauds and conceive an holy shame at their being employed in those which Imposture had endeavoured to introduce into the House of God For though they had not thought it fit to make any reflection on the Arguments I have brought against the spuriousness of the Sibylline Writings they needed no more then to have called to account those that produced them whence they had had them taking them up sharply with the ensuing Demands or the like How could these Sacred Privileges of the Empire and Religion come â—…o your hands By what Artifices could you you who call your selves The Faithfull possess your selves of the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Quindecem-viri the sworn Enemies of your Faith How comes our Age to be so happy as to have the advantage to discover and make publike the Predictions which had been concealed above six hundred and twelve years Especially seeing the lateness of their Discovery made after the Death of Adrian the confident Publication of the highest secret of Paganism and the contrariety of the Consequences arising from its Publication to all that Antiquity had heard of it for six Ages before might have given them more then a presumption of the Imposture particularly to Justine Martyr who writ his Apologie five years or ten at most after the Advancement of it And here I can do no less by the way then advertise the Reader that he who after the year four hundred and six took upon him under the name of that Holy Doctour to answer the Questions of the Greeks seems to be mistaken when having writ That the end of this World is the Judgment of the Wicked by Fire according to what is said in the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles he adds As also of those of the Sibyl according to what is said by the blessed Saint Clement in the first Epistle to the Corinthians For first The Epistle of Saint Clement which hath in some manner received a second life fifteen years since when England restored it to the Church of God says nothing of the Sibyl and though there be a Leaf wanting at the end yet is there not any likelyhood that in that later part which contained the Conclusion of all the precedent Discourse woven up of Scriptures the Holy Martyr should have recourse to the Authority of a strange Testimony and draw out of a prophane Source 2. The Allegation of the Sibyl's Words concerning the Judgment by Fire is in the Sixth Chapter of the fifth Book of the pretended Apostolical Constitutions where the fourteen last Verses of the fourth Book of the Counterfeit Sibyl have been inserted after the Texts of the Prophets and Apostles as of Genesis Chap. ii 7. and Chap. iii. 14. Isaiah Chap. xxvi 19. Ezekiel Chap. xxxvii 13. Daniel Chap. xii 2. St. Matthew Chap. iv 23. St. Luke Chap. xxi 18. and St. John Chap. v. 28. and xi 43. so that it is evident that the Authour of the Answers to the Questions of the Greeks was extremely mistaken negligently confounding the Constitutions unjustly attributed to St. Clement with his Epistle to the Corinthians 3. If the recourse to the Testimony of the Sibyl really be in the said Epistle it would be an Argument of the corruption of that precious Jewel of Christian Antiquity rather then a legitimate Confirmation of the Authority of the Books pretended to be Sibylline which we have demonstrated to have been forged after the Death of Adrian that is to say thirty eight years after the Martyrdom of St. Clement and sixty after his Banishment to Chersonesus CHAP. XXI That it cannot with any likelihood of Truth be maintained That the Books called the Sibylline were written by Divine Inspiration HAving according as the necessity of Reason and Truth required presupposed that the eight Books pretended to be Sibylline are the Fiction of some bold and busie Christian who would needs have his own fantastick Imaginations pass for Oracles This Question Whether they were writ by Divine Inspiration falls of it self to the ground For it would argue a total Eclipse of sense and understanding to think that God who is the source of Truth would be the adviser of an Imposture and to say he were Authour of it no less then stark madness since there is no communion between the light of Wisdom and the darkness of Lying Whereof the Result is That the Sibyls from whose Oracles the Idolatrous Romanes always derived Encouragements of Impiety to heighten their Superstition neither were nor could be in that regard the communications of the Spirit of God to whose Glory and Worship those Divinations were directly
〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his intention had been to tell us that Saint Irenaeus declared the Apocalyps rather then to give us to understand that according to the Declaration of that great Martyr St. John saw his Apocalyps not onely under Domitian but the fourteenth year of that Prince or to express it in his own Terms towards the end of his Reign But with this little distortion of the words of Eusebius St. Hierome in his Catalogue expresses their true sence saying Domitian in his fourteenth year raising after Nero the second Persecution John banished to the Isle of Patmos writ the Apocalyps which Justin Martyr interprets and Irenaeus So that we must not with Cardinal Baronius give that Interpretation to his Discourse as if Domitian had began his Reign fourteeen years after Nero. For though it be indeed true since Nero died the tenth of June 68. and Domitian came into his Brother's place on the eighteenth of September 81. thirteen years three moneths and eight days after the unfortunate End of Nero and consequently about the beginning of the fourteenth year yet was it not the intention of St. Hierome to acquaint us what number of years had passed between the Reign of Domitian and that of Nero but that Domitian in the fourteenth year of his Reign which was the twenty seventh after Nero's Death raised the second Persecution against the Church So that it was inconsiderately done of him who Translated the Greek Version of Sophronius the antient Interpreter of St. Hierome's Catalogue into Latine to make him say as he fancied The fourteenth year after the Death of Nero instead of turning it according to the proper expressions as well of St. Hierome as Sophronius The fourteenth year Domitian raising after Nero the second Persecution nor indeed could it have been without contradiction to St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius nay to himself and that so much the more notorious by how much the more he pretended to follow the last whose Discourse he hath Translated in a manner word for word The Arabian Prolegomena upon the Gospels published by Peter de Kirstein have these words in them John made his aboad at Ephesus seven and twenty years that is to say six under Nero ten under Vespasian two under Titus and nine under Domitian then was he Banished by Domitian into the Isle of Patmos where he stayed seven years till such time as he was called back by Nero the younger that is to say Nerva By this account the Apostle of God should have retired out of Palaestine into the Proconsulary Asia not as the Greek Fasti very probably suppose in the 68. of our Saviour because of the Revolt of the Jews from the Empire and the Eruption of the War brought into the Heart of their Country by Vespasian immediately upon the retreat of the Church of Jerusalem to Pella but in the year sixty three concurrent with the ninth of Nero and the time of St. John's Abode both at Ephesus and Patmos should have been thirty four years comprehending six years of Nero and the whole Reigns of Vespasian Titus and Domitian For Nero killed himself as hath been already observed the tenth of June 68. Vespasian having news brought him in Palaestina of the Murthering of Galba which happened on the sixteenth of January 69. as also of the Tragical End of Otho on the twentieth of April following and of the Rising of his Friends in Rome assumed the Empire and kept it till the twenty fourth of June 79. and Domitian who had succeeded his Brother Titus dying the 13th of September in the year 81. was violently forced out of the world on the 18th of September in the year 96. leaving the Empire vacant to Nerva who nulled all his Acts and by that means gave St. John the Liberty to return to Ephesus But if this Calculation be receivable in as much as it maintains the common Sentiment of the Fathers concerning the time of St. John's return yet can it not agree with the Relation of St. Irenaeus affirming that almost in his time Domitian began the Persecution towards the end of his Reign and leaving it to be inferred that the Persecution was of no long continuance which could not be said if according to the account of the Arabians we must assign it seven years that is to say a full half of Domitian's Reign and not onely the End whereto St. Irenaeus Eusébius and all the Fathers strictly limit themselves among whom Tertullian Contemporary with St. Irenaeus expresly observing the Violence of that Persecution to have made no great Havock says Domitian an Imp of Nero as to cruelty had designed a Persecution but being also himself a man he easily smothered what he had begun having re-established those whom he had Banished So that according to his Opinion the mischief was stayed by his very Order who had occasioned it But whereas by attributing to him the Re-establishment of the Banished he derogates from the Authority of the Tradition of the Antients which according to Eusebius delayed it till the Reign of Nerva whom the Prolegomena I know not why call Nero the younger I shall by no means presume so much upon his particular Opinion as to oppose it to the common belief of all the Fathers Which having forced us to reduce onely to one the seven years assigned by the Prolegomena for the Banishment of St. John imposes upon us yet a greater necessity to quit the Opinion of the Greek Fasti which place the return of St. John under the twelfth year of Domitian coincident with the ninety third of our Saviour and commit therein an Errour so much the more unmaintainable in that they make the Persecution cease as also the effect it had by the confession of all caused two years before it began and ridiculously presuppose that St. John was by the Decree for his Release restored to his former Liberty before he had been in a capacity to lose it by the unjust Decree for his Banishment He who hath busied himself in writing a Synopsis of the Lives of the Prophets and Apostles under the Name of Dorotheus having by mixture of his own Conceptions corrupted the words of the Synopsis of St. Athanasius imagines that St. John was Banished by Trajan that he lived one hundred and twenty years and returned from Patmos to Ephesus after Trajan's Death But all yet followed as it should seem by Suidas is contrary both to Tradition and the Truth since First Trajan came not to the Empire till the twenty eighth of July in the year 98. the very next to that wherein St. John was restored by Nerva Secondly St. John was according to the Opinion of St. Hierome honoured with the Apostleship in his Youth and while he was yet a Boy so that the hundredth year of our Saviour wherein he was Translated to Celestial glory could not have been much beyond the ninetieth of his Age to
say Grey-haired shall reign who shall derive his Name Adrian from the Adriatick Sea There shall be another Person absolutely good who shall know all things that is to say Antoninus the Affable and under thee O most Excellent and best of men who art Brown-haired and under thy Branches to wit Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus will come the time of the accomplishment of all things Three shall reign and the third shall have the government after all the rest And elsewhere speaking to Rome he says After that three times five Kings that is to say Julius Augustus Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Galba Piso Otho Vitellius Vespasian Titus Domitian Nerva and Trajan shall have reigned in Thee and subdued the World from East to West there shall be a King with an Hoary head taking his Name to wit Adrian from the Sea Adriatick c. Besides him there shall reign to wit Antoninus Marcus Aurelius and Verus under whom shall be the last of Times and by the Name they all shall have of Antoninus fill the Name of the celestical God to wit Adonai whose Power is now and will be for ever CHAP. V. A Refutation of Possevinus concerning the Time when the Sibylline Writing came first abroad IT must therefore of necessity follow that the Impostour who to draw up Catalogues of the Emperours had borrowed the Name of the Sibyl put that Cheat upon the World since the year 138. let us now see how long after Possevin in his Apparatus Sacer upon an imagination that he speaks of the second Conflagration of the Temple of Vesta makes him live after that Accident and thereupon is mistaken in four several respects For First he makes an ill concurrence between the year 199. with the Empire of Commodus Assassinated the 31th of December 192. Secondly he no less unjustly assigns the Conflagration of Vesta's Temple in the year 199. since that according to Dion in his seventy second Book Herodian in his first Book and Orosius in the sixteenth Chapter of his seventh Book it happened toward the end of Commodus's Reign who left this world seven years before To which may be added that Eusebius whose Authority he notoriously abuses determines the time of that ruinous Accident affirming it to have happened in the third year of the 242. Olympiad and the twelfth of Commodus which concurr onely with the 191. year of our Saviour Thirdly When he designs the three Successours of Adrian omitting Verus taken into Partnership of the Empire by Marcus Aurelius he reckons in his stead Commodus on whom the pretended Sibyl neither thought nor could have thought since she writ her Poem above fifteen years before the Birth of that Prince which was on the thirty first of August 161. and above thirty years before his association in the Empire happening on the twenty seventh of November 176. Fourthly Though the Authour of that Romance might have spoken somewhat of the Conflagration of Vesta's Temple since that upon the very account of his having supposed that Rome should be burned in the year after its Foundation 948. concurrent with the year 195. of Christ and the third of Severus he would insinuate that all the Temples of that City that of Vesta among the rest should be consumed by Fire and could not as being dead before either see the Conflagration of it or according to his own Hypotheses say that he had seen it yet how after he had measured the duration of Rome by the Lives of Antoninus and his two Adopted Sons Marcus Aurelius and Verus shewing thereby he writ in their Times and consequently before the year of Christ 160. could he have been in a capacity to speak of commodus who was born the last of August 161. five Moneths and twenty four days after the Death of Antoninus and affirm he had seen the second Conflagration of Vesta's Temple which came not to pass till the year 191. and the twelfth year after the Death of Marcus with whom he seemed to imagine that Rome and the whole World should perish For instance in the third Book page 27. he had written that Rome should become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a Village which he had done in imitation of the Apocalyps Chap. xvii Verse 16. and Chap. xviii Verse 8. and Chap. xix Verse 3. openly threatening it with a final destruction by Fire saying in the second Book page 14. Rome's seven-hill'd People God shall shake And Fire of much Wealth shall destruction make Snatch'd up by Vulcan's ravenous Flames And page 20. By a sad Fate There shall be three will lay Rome desolate All men shall in their Houses be destroy'd By Cataracts of Fire from Heav'n And in the fifth Book page 40. Surrounded with a burning Fire go dwell In the dreadfull aboad of lowest Hell And in the eighth Book page 58. To Naphta thou Bitumen Sulphur Fire reduc'd shalt be But Ashes to be burnt t'eternity Nay that there should not be the least difficulty as to what concerns the Time of that Catastrophe he had declared himself in these Terms page 59. Thou shalt compleat Three times three hundred years and fourty eight Of thy Name then the Number being past Thy wretched Fate shall Thee surprize in haste That is to say the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof the Letters produce the Number 948. thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 100. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 800. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 8. But could he without being ridiculous and passing for a Fool brag that he had survived those under whom Rome and the World should come to its Period but also that he had been Spectatour of an Accident which but four years preceeded the day he had assigned for that utter desolation Or could he with any countenance have acknowledged that he had out-lived the Time which he had assigned for the determination of the Empire and the Universe But he hath not shewed himself so much a Fool as a confident Impostour and his words which Possevin thought might be applied to the second Conflagration of Vesta's Temple relate onely to the final Destruction of that of Jerusalem which he calls the Amiable House the Guardian-Temple of the Divinity an Elogie which could not be given the Temple of Vesta by him who undertook to dispute against the Idolatry of the Heathen for the worship of one God Besides the Remark which Possevin makes of the Authour of the second Conflagration of that Temple which the Counterfeit Sibyl meant saying That he had with an impious hand attempted clearly discovers that he reflected on the Hand of that Infidel Souldier who had fired the Temple of Jerusalem and was declared impious by the Judgment of Titus General of the Romane Army For the Counterfeit Prophetess might well brag of the sight of that horrid Accident since it had happened in the year of our Lord 76. sixty eight years full before the reign of the Antonini under whom she writ though
John vi 31. concerning the Bread of heaven and Apocal. ii 17. concerning the Hidden Manna tells us in his Preface copied out by Theophilus of Antioch and Lactantius that Those who honour God inherit the true and eternal Life that is to say the time of Eternity having their abode in Paradise the flourishing Garden and eating the delicious Bread of heaven which at the end of the seventh Book page 56. he means of Manna saying All together eat of the bedewing Manna with their white Teeth This Doctrine was so much the more acceptable to the Fathers the more they thought themselves obliged to conceive an aversion for the extravagant Imagination of the Gnosticks who transformed Paradise into an Archangel and assigned for its station the fourth Heaven Thus Theophilus who gave Paradise the qualification of perpetual and hanging in the midst between heaven and the world grounded the perswasion he would give of it to Autolycus on the Authority of the pretended Sibyl and after his Example Lactantius in the twelfth Chapter of his second Book St. Irenaeus having in the thirty sixth Chapter of his fifth Book alledged these words of Esay out of the two and twentieth Verse of the sixty sixth Chapter As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me assigns to each of them its Inhabitants saying Then shall those who are worthy the conversation of heaven pass thither others shall enjoy the pleasures of Paradise and others shall possess the Holy earth and the splendour of the City that is to say Jerusalem Tertullian in the fourty seventh Chapter of his Apologetick We know Paradise to be a place of Divine pleasure destined for the reception of the spirits of the Saints and separated from the knowledg of the common world by a certain inclosure of that fiery Zone And in the eighth Chapter of his Poem of the Last Judgment There is a place in the Eastern Parts wherein the Lord takes great deligâ—… where there is a clear Light c. it is a Region most rich in Fields c. thither comes every godly man But in the fifty fifth Chapter of his Book Of the Soul this Great man dazled by the delusions of the Montanists moderates the Opinion he had taken out of the Books of the Counterfeit Sibyl and reserving Paradise for the entertainment of the Martyrs onely excludes out of it all the rest of the Faithfull saying You say that our Sleep that is to say the place of our Repose is in Paradise whither the Patriarchs and Prophets upon the Resurrection of our Lord being Appendages thereof passed from Hell but how comes it that that Region of Paradise which is under the Altar revealed to St. John discovered no Souls but those of the Martyrs How came Perpetua that most couragious Martyr in the Revelation which was made to her of Paradise not long before her Suffering to see there onely her companions in Martyrdom but that the Sword which keeps the Entrance of Paradise suffers none to get in but those who are departed in Christ not in Adam Saint Cyprian after the Example of his Master Tertullian speaking of our Lord to Demetrian Proconsul of Africk a passionate Enemy of Christianity hath this expression He opens to us the way of Life he is the Authour of our return into Paradise And in his Book Of Mortality towards the end We account Paradise saith he to be our Country we have already begun to have for our Fathers the Patriarchs And in the Chapter of Exhortation to Martyrdom If it be glorious for the Souldiers engaged in common Wars after the Conquest of their Enemies to return Triumphant into their Country how much a nobler and greater Glory is it to return Triumphant to Paradise after we have overcome the Devil and to carry away victorious Trophies after we have subdued him who had foiled us before to the place whence the Sinner Adam had been thrust out Lactantius in the place above cited God having pronounced his Sentence against Sinners that every one should work out his own livelihood cast man out of Paradise and encompassed Paradise round about with Fire that man might not approach it till he had exercised sovereign Judgment upon Earth and recalled to the same place those Just men that worshipped him Death being taken away Saint Athanasius in his Treatise upon these Words Matth. xii 27. All things are given to me c. Death prevailed from Adam to Christ the Earth was cursed and Hell opened and Paradise shut c. But assoon as all things were given to him and that he was made man all was amended and accomplished The Earth in stead of the Curse it lay under before was blessed and Paradise opened and Hell daunted And in his Exposition of Faith Christ shewed the entrance into Paradise whence Adam had been thrust out and into which he is again entred by the Thief according to what our Saviour said This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise whither Paul also is entred Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in his Mystagogical Instruction The Paradise of God which he had planted towards the East is open to thee whence our first Parent was banished because of his Transgression And this is signified by thy turning from the West to the East the place of Light Saint Basil in his Treatise Of Paradise How shall I be able to bring thee into sight of thy Country to the end thou mayst recall thy self from banishment c. If thou art carnal thou hast the description of him that is corporal And in the seven and twentieth Chapter of his Book Of the Holy Ghost We all in our Prayers look towards the East but there are few of us that know we thereby seek our antient Country that is to say the Paradise which God planted in Eden Saint Gregory of Nyssa in his Oration of the fourty Martyrs That then which is demanded is Whether Paradise because of the Turning Sword is also inaccessible to the Saints and If the Champions of Christ are excluded Paradise what Promise there remains upon which they should undertake Combats for Piety and whether they should obtain less then the Thief to whom the Lord said This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise though the Thief came not voluntarily to the Cross but when he was come near Salvation that Eagle-sighted and generous Thief saw the Treasure and finding an opportunity stole Life honourably and happily abusing the nature of Theft and saying Lord have me in remembrance when thou comest into thy Kingdom He was honoured with Paradise and does the Flaming Sword keep the entrance of Paradise against the Saints But the Question resolves it self For thence it is that the Word hath not represented the Sword always placed against those that enter but Turning that it might be opposite to the unworthy and be behinde the worthy opening unto them the not-forbidden entrance of Life into which those that is to say
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
by their own Devotions or those of their surviving Friends have the honour of rising if not the first at least before the expiration of the thousand years And thence takes occasion to exhort the Husband that hath lost his Wife not to propose to himself any change of condition but affectionatly to preserve the remembrance of his deceased Consort and to do upon her account all possible Offices saying e Pro anima ejus orat refrigerium interim adpostulat ei in prima Resurrectione consortium c. He prays for her Soul and in the mean time wishes her by his Prayers refreshment and a society with her in the first Resurrection as if he had said Let him wish that she be of the num ber of those who shall rise again during the thousand years of the Saints in Jerusalem and that in expectation of that Resurrection hastened by his Prayers she might receive those consolations from God which should refresh her Soul languishing in expectation of her Happiness CHAP. XXII The Sentiment of St. Ambrose brought to the Test ACcording to this Pattern was drawn the Antient Gothick Liturgie containing these words Quiescentium animas in sinu Abrahae collocare dignetur in partem primae Resurrectionis admittat per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum c. That the Lord would vouchsafe to dispose the Souls of those that rest into the Bosom of Abraham and admit them to a participation of the first Resurrection through Jesus Christ our Lord. It might seem and there want not Great men who have thought so that St. Ambrose was of the same Sentiment when closing up his Funeral Oration upon the Death of Valentinian the Second he writ in the year 392. Te quaeso c. I beseech thee Sovereign God that by an hastened Resurrection thou wouldest awake and raise up these most dear young men Gratian and Valentinian so as that thou recompense by an advanced Resurrection the course of this life which they have terminated before it was come to its perfection as if by the hastened or advanced Resurrection which he desired he had meant the first Resurrection which the Millenaries imagined to themselves and had begged it as well for Gratian who was born on the eighteenth of April 359. and had been murthered twenty four years four Moneths and seven days after that is to say on the twenty fifth day of August 383. as for Valentinian whose birth happening on the eighteenth of January 370. had not preceeded his death falling on Whitsun-Eve May the fifteenth 392 but twenty two years three Moneths and twenty seven days upon which account he called them both Young men and bemoaned them that the course of their Life had been cut off before its maturity and just perfection But neither the Expression of Resurrectio matura c. Hastened Resurrection upon which this Imagination was grounded does necessarily imply any thing whence such a Conceit might be induced nor can the Explication which St. Ambrose made of his Faith nine years before permit it For in his Treatise concerning the Faith of the Resurrection writ immediately upon the Death of his Brother Satyrus which happened on the seventeenth of September 383. supposing that the sound of many Trumpets shall awake the dead at the Last day he hath this Discourse absolutely incompatible with the Opinion of the Millenaries Adverte juxta Typum Legis ordinem Gratiae c. Consider according to the Type of the Law the order of Grace When the first Trumpet shall have sounded it gathers together those towards the East as the Principal and Elect. When the second those who are nearest in point of Merit such as being scituated towards Libanus have forsaken the vanities of the Nations When the third those who tossed as it were in the Sea by the Wind of this World have been overwhelmed with the Waves of the present Time When the fourth those who could not sufficiently soften the hardness of their understandings by the Precept of the spiritual Word and are for that reason called Those towards the North for Boreas according to Salomon is an hard Wind. Although therefore all shall be raised again in a moment and the twinkling of an Eye yet are all raised according to the order of their Merits and thereupon those shall be raised first who by an early Advancement of Devotion and a certain dawning of Faith have entertained the Raies of the eternal Sun rising upon them as I may justly instance according to the Tenour of the Old Testament in the Patriarchs or according to the Gospel in the Apostles But the second are those who quitting the Custom of the Nations are passed from the sacrilegious Errour to the Discipline of the Church and for that reason those first are of the Fathers those next from among the Gentiles This Discourse of St. Ambrose is an allusion to the Ordinance contained in the tenth of Numbers concerning the Assembling of the people of Israel and he applies to the Resurrection of the Dead what is said of the calling of those who possessed the Quarter towards the East Secondly Of those who were Quartered towards the South and as it was in his Translation towards Libs which he mistaking confounded with Libanus making for want of reflection a Mountain of a Wind and changing the South-Quarter whence Libs blows into that of the North on which side Libanus is in respect of the Desart Thirdly Of those who were disposed towards the Sea Fourthly Of those who were towards the Quarter of the North or of Boreas And as he applied the calling together of these several Quarters to the last Resurrection so he acknowledged withall it should be general and that all should rise not onely the same day but in the same moment Which Assertion of his was grounded on the express Declaration of Saint Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians and absolutely destroyed the Hypothesis of the Millenaries who believed there would be two Resurrections one preceding the other by above a thousand years but he supposed that in that moment of the general Resurrection there would be several divisions and a certain precedence of order among those Divisions according to the dispositions of each of them Next he pretended that the first Class of those that were raised should be that of the Patriarchs and Apostles who had never been infected with the Sacrilegious Errour of the Gentiles but were come by an early advancement and as it were at a start into the light and in that he also opposed the Errour of the Millenaries who imagined that the Patriarchs were risen with our Saviour that the Apostles and others of the most Eminent among the Saints should rise when according to their Opinion he should come to establish a yearsâ—t â—t Jerusalem and the rest of the Dead after the determination of the thousand years at the last Day When therefore he desires for Gratian and Valentinian
the Apocalyps which he confessed to be above his understanding and conceived to have been the work of some other Authour then the Apostle St. John should be understood in a more spiritual way then Cerinthus the pretended Sibyl and the Millenaries had conceived In so much that in the year 380. or thereabouts Philastrius Bishop of Brescia put into the Catalogue of Heresies the Sentiment of Caius saying Sunt Haeretici qui Evangelium Joannis Apocalypsim non accipiunt non intelligunt virtutem Scripturae c. Audent dicere Apocalypsim non Beati Joannis Evangelistae Apostoli sed Cerinthi Haeretici qui tunc ab Apostolis Beatis Haereticus manifestatus abjectus est ab Ecclesia c. There are certain Hereticks who receive not the Gospel of St. John and his Revelation and understand not the efficacy of Scripture c. They presumptuously affirm that the Apocalyps is not the Work of the Blessed John the Evangelist and Apostle but of the Heretick Cerinthus who having been then discovered to be an Heretick by the Blessed Apostles was cast out of the Church And yet some sixteen years before the Councel of Laodicea and that in the Time of Philastrius Gregory Nazianzene and Amphilochius of Iconia and most of the Greeks though they were not so unreasonable as to follow the Sentiment of Caius in making Cerinthus Authour of the Apocalyps did nevertheless incline so far to his side that they denied the said Book the Title of Canonical not vouchsafing to afford it any place among the Divine Writings Which obliged St. Hierome to write to Dardanus That as the Custom of the Latines admitted not the Epistle to the Hebrews among the Scriptures so the Greek Churches with the same liberty admitted not the Apocalyps of St. John Upon which may be noted that none of them who expressed so much distaste towards those two Sacred Books for ought we know at this day discovered any aversion against the Impostures of the pretended Sibyl which shews that as the Spirit of man is of it self inclined to love and admire its own Inventions let me not say Recreations in the things that are most serious and sacred so is it naturally backward as to the obedience of Faith in respect of the Divine which would not make any Impression upon him if God himself pressing them internally did not efficaciously insinuate the Truth thereof To be short the Errour of the Millenaries opposed from the beginning of the third Age being to be weeded out of the Sentiments of Christians those who first refuted it to compass their design engaged against not the Writing pretended to be Sibylline which formally contained what was most obviously reprovable therein but the Apocalyps which well considered had ever been free from all suspicion of affording it any countenance and it was the good pleasure of God that divers Great Men should rise up who to pull down that erroneous Opinion should knock against one of the most remarkable parts of that Rule which condemns them all and be so unfortunate as to spare a Fabulous Piece no way deserving their support while they deprived one of the most Divine of the honour and acknowledgement due thereto CHAP. XXVII That the third Hypothesis of the Sibylline Writing so called is at this day abandoned by all Christians THe third Hypothesis before extracted out of the Sibylline Writing so called and relating to the conservation of the Terrestrial Paradise and the establishment of the Saints after their Resurrection in that blessed habitation out of which the First-man had been driven was so far from having given Antiquity any trouble that though it supposed what was false it found favour and countenance from Age to Age the Paradise mentioned in the New Testament neither being to be understood carnally nor having any thing common with the other whereof the keeping and culture had been at first committed to Adam And as to this particular I conceive that without any injury done to the Holy Fathers who as it were with a certain emulation presupposed the Introduction of the Blessed into that Paradise towards the East where after the fall of Adam the Cherubims were placed to keep the way of the Tree of Life it may be confidently said of the Christians of all Nations that they have at the present as it were with an unanimous consent embraced a belief more conformable to the Truth then their Ancestours had since that there is not at this day that I know of any Church in the Universe which proposes to the Hope and Faith of Believers any other Paradise then the Celestial and which makes mention of that planted by the hand of God in the Garden of Eden out of any other Design then to recommend it to their consideration as a Type representing the Spiritual Paradise with the same imperfection according to which the first Adam who had been driven out of the Paradise of Eden was the Figure of the second who was to come to open unto us the entrance into the Holy places by his precious blood and the sword of the Cherubim a representation of the curse of the Law remains in respect of the Sinner onely the ministration of Death However it be the Supposition of the Counterfeit Sibyl is as to this respect insensibly vanished so as that it is quite discarded CHAP. XXVIII That the second Hypothesis of the Sibylline Writing so called made way for the new Opinion of Purgatory THe second Hypothesis which taught that the fire of the general Conflagration of the Universe should at the last day purge the Bodies of the Saints had not been long e're it opened a Gap to imaginations yet more Fantastick and irrational among others that of the cessation of all Infernal pains an Opinion taken out of the Schole of Plato into the Bosom of the Church by Origen and his Party to which not to mention the multitude that had followed it from the year 250. to the year 399. stuck the most eminent among the Fathers as Saint Gregory Nyssenus Didymus and in his Youth St. Hierome But the Councels of Alexandria Cyprus and Rome having almost at the same time issued out their Decrees against that inveterate corruption of Christian Doctrine and the fifth General Councel having solemnly fulminated it in the year 553. it by little and little vanished to make way for an Opinion before unknown to all Antiquity and which drew its origine First from the prejudication which the Christians of the sixth Age conceived of the necessity of their proper satisfactions to appease the wrath of God Secondly From the design which many among them had to reform the Custom of their Predecessours praying even for those whom they presupposed Damned as we have seen before Thirdly From the New Philosophy which some Melancholy Spirits apt upon any occasion to conceive Horrours began to advance in the West about the time of St. Gregory For
〈◊〉 c. I am perswaded by the Discourses of Wise men that every Soul which is good and loved of God after that being disengaged from the Body to which she was conjoyned she is retired hence that which clouded her being as it were purged or layed down or I know not how to express it immediately having a resentment of and in the contemplation of the happiness she is to be advanced to is in the possession of an admirable Pleasure and rejoyceth and joyfully passeth towards her Lord shunning as a loathsom Prison this present Life St. Epiphanius the most zealous Maintainer of Prayer for the Dead speaking about the year 375. of the closure of this Life and the consequences of it in relation to the Faithfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The time is accomplished the Combat is at an end the Lists are cleared and the Crowns are bestowed Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All is manifestly accomplished after the departure hence St. Chrysostome between the years 390. and 404. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Those who have carefully spent their Lives in the exercises of Virtue after they shall have been transported out of the present life shall truly be as if they had obtained a dismission after the Combats and as delivered out of Bonds for there is for those who live virtuously a certain transportation from worse things to better and from a temporal to a perpetual and immortal life and such as shall have no end Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Faithful depart to go with Christ and are with the King face to face Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After Death is once come then is the Wedding then is the Spouse Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be of good courage when thou art cut off by death for it exempts thee not onely from corruption and trouble but it also sends thee immediately to the Lord. And elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consider towards whom the departed Person is gone and take comfort thence there Paul is there Peter is there is the whole Quire of the Saints Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We give thanks unto God that he hath moreover crowned him who is departed hence that he hath exempted him from all troubles that delivering him out of all fear he keeps him near himself St. Augustine giving an account of the common Sentiment of the Churches of Africk about the year 400. Moritur aliquis Dicimus Bonus homo fidelis homo in pace est cum Domino c. Does any one dy We say The Good man The Faithfull man is in Peace with the Lord. Which shews that the Christians of that Time were fully perswaded of what Pope Pelagius the First about one hundred and fifty years after caused to be inserted into the Canon of the Mass viz. that Those who die in Christ sleep in Peace The Questions unjustly attributed to Justine Martyr since the Authour was contemporary with St. Augustine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Souls of the Saints are conveyed to Paradise there is the conversation there the sight of the Angels St. Cyril of Alexandria about the year 420. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I conceive it ought and that very probably to be held for certain that the Souls of the Saints leaving their earthly Bodies are for the most part committed to the indulgence and Philanthropie of God as resigned into the hands of a most loving Father and not as some Unbelievers suspect that they love to walk among dead men's Graves expecting Sepulchral Libations much less that they go as those of such as have loved sin to a place of unmeasurable Torment that is to Hell They rather run to be received into the hands of the Father of all and our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath also consecrated this way for us for he commended his Soul into the hands of his Father that we also taking Example thence as in it and by it may entertain noble hopes as being in that firm disposition and belief that having undergone the death of the Flesh we may be in the hands of God and in a better condition then when we were in the Flesh Whence it also comes that the wise Paul writes unto us that it is far better to be dissolved and to be with Christ Prosper about the year 450. Post hanc vitam succedit pugnae secura victoria ut Milites Christi laboriosâ jam peregrinatione transactâ regnent felices in patria c. After this life ended certain Victory is consequent to the Combat that the Souldiers of Christ their laborious Pilgrimage being over might reign happily in their Countrey c. Gennadius about the year 490. Exeuntes de corpore ad Christum vadunt c. The Faithful dislodging out of the Body go to Christ Andrew of Caesarea about the year 800. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The voice from Heaven does not beatifie all the Dead but those who die in the Lord those who are mortified to the World and bear in their Bodies the mortification of the Lord Jesus and who suffer with Christ for to those the departure out of the body is truly a releasment from labours To conclude of the same Sentiment was Aretas about the year 930. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon the vanishing away of Labours shall be introduced the reward of Works CHAP. XXXV The Sentiment of the Protestants further proved by the Description which the Father 's made of Abraham's Bosom FRom the Harmony of all the precedent Testimonies it may justly be inferred that according to the constant Doctrine of the Christian Church from the year 250. those who die in the Lord are with him and that to them the time which follows this life is a time of joy and marriage which from the moment of their Death brings them into the company of the Saints and Angels in the Paradise of God where they live and are in peace and are crowned and reign with him The same thing may be also deduced from the Description which the Fathers unanimously make of Abraham's Bosom the place assigned by all Christian Antiquity for the entertainment of the Souls of the Faithful after this Life For St. Gregory Nazianzene places it in Heaven saying to his Brother Caesarius who had dyed not long before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Mayst thou go to Heaven c. and rest in the Bosom of Abraham In like manner St. Chrysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He named Bosom of Abraham for the Kingdom St. Ambrose tells us that Sinus Patriarcharum recessus quidam est requietis aeternae c. The Bosom of the Patriarchs is a certain retirement of Eternal Rest St. Augustine Sinus Abrahae requies est Beatorum c. The Bosom of Abraham is the rest of the Blessed Again Non utique sinus ille Abrahae id est secreta cujusdam quietis
hinder her from going with a joyfull Heart and certainty of Faith towards the Holy Places into which that truly-divine blood had purchased her the Privilege to enter Nor indeed could St. Augustine who had not when she dislodged out of the Body to be with Christ any just cause of fear conceive nine years after her admittance to the fruition of her happiness any necessity of requiring on her Behalf that God would forgive her Sins that he would not enter into Judgment with her that he would glorify his Mercy above his Judgment and in a word do what was already done And indeed he immediately acknowledges as much ingenuously saying Et credo jam feceris quod te rogo sed voluntaria oris mei approba Domine c. And I believe thou hast already done what I intreat thee to do but yet approve O Lord this Prayer which so willingly I make Thus we see by his own Confession what Office St. Augustine undertook to render his Mother amounting to no more then a demand purely arbitrary of what had been accomplished before and which for that reason was not to be demanded But what moved him after so long time to make such earnest and particular requests for his Mother who had always from her Infancy been an Example of a rare and constant Virtue and who had been enflamed with so great Zeal for Piety that she had gained to the Lord her whole House not to say ought of his Father who had been a man of a turbulent Humour and so little inclined to Godliness that he could not be won to embrace Christianity till towards his last days Not to make any mention of him I say but onely occasionally and by the way with this little Expression which shews that he thought him in Happiness May she be in peace with her Husband was Patricius more assured in the Possession of Peace and did he stand less in need of the Suffrages of his Son then Monica who had ever excelled him in good Endowments and had been the Instrument of his Conversion to God I answer that St. Augustine who hath given such a particular accompt of the different Dispositions of his Parents could not have fallen into so great an Errour as to imagine his Prayers more necessary for his Mother then for his Father who having been less recommendable should seem to stand in greatest need thereof and that he was induced to make particular Addresses for his Mother was not as might be imagined out of any compliance with the general Custom of the Church of his Time which being of equal Obligation towards all would as well have obliged him to speak of his Father as to make mention of his Mother but in obedience to the command which his Mother had expiring lay'd upon him and the desire he had to submit to her last Will whereof he would rather be an Executour then a Censour This desire I say prevailing with him above all other Considerations he not onely thought it a kinde of pleasure to weep for her the night after her Departure but nine years after engaging himself to Write the History thereof and to give an accompt of her last Words Which the more fully to satisfy he gave way to a tenderness so great as if he represented her to himself in some danger that he might accordingly address to God the same Supplications as might be made for those who were still engaged in the Combats of this Life though he confessed withall they had already been accomplished Then calling to minde the last Command he had received from her that was long before dead not questioning whether it were then seasonable to do what he did he conformed himself thereto as before and at last required his Readers to undertake in what time or place soever the execution thereof With a design therefore to give an accompt of his Prayer viz. that the Lord would vouchsafe to accept the voluntary Words or Offerings of his mouth he adds Namque illa imminente die c. For she whom the day of her Death drew near desired not that her Body might be sumptuously adorned or enbalmed with Spices and Odours nor desired she any curious or choice Monument or cared she to be conveyed into her Native Countrey These things she recommended not to us but onely desired to be remembred at thy Altar c. Let nothing separate her from thy Protection Let not the Lion and Dragon either by force or fraud interpose himself between thee and her For she will not answer that she hath no Sin lest she be convinced and overcome by that crafty Accuser but she will answer that her sins are forgiven by him to whom no Creature can repay what he lai'd out for us whilest himself owed nothing Let her therefore rest in peâ—cewith her Husband c. And inspire O Lord my God inspire thy servants my Brethren thy Children my Lords whom with Heart and Tongue and Pen I serve that whosoever reads these Confessions may at thy Altar remember thy servant Monica with Patricius her Husband through whom thou broughtest me into the world though in what sort I know not Let them with a Pious Affection remember those who were my Parents in this transitory life and who were my Brethren in respect of thee who art our common Father in the Catholick Church our Mother and who are to be my Fellow-Citizens in the eternal Jerusalem for which the Pilgrimage of thy People doth groan from their Birth unto her Death that what she made her last desire to me may be more abundantly performed to her through the Prayers of many as well by means of these my Confessions as particular Prayers I have hitherto alledged the Words of St. Augustine which justify in the first Place That the onely Motive which had in the year 398. prevailed with him to make Prayers for his Mother Dead nine years before and from that time according to his own Presuppositions in Happiness was onely the Injunction she had at her Death lai'd upon him to remember her Secondly That these Prayers by his own Confession neither were nor could be of any necessity or benefit to her for whom they were or might be made since she had reason to answer the Accuser That her Debts were discharged and accordingly she had nothing to fear as to the Consequences thereof For who can be separated from the Protection of God but by Sin which alone according to the Saying of the Prophet Esay does properly make a separation between man and his God causing him to hide his face and not to hear that he might protect But can Sin which hath no longer being assoon as it is once expiated and discharged any way prejudice him who hath been once delivered from it Or is any man able to conceive that what is not is or may be cause of any thing since that to be Cause does not onely imply Being but in some manner both Being and
for his Funeral-Oration and to stop their Mouths tell them that he denied not he had been there but that it was onely to take a Glass of Wine as he passed by which Discourse was to them an absolute Put-off and caused them to be laughed at whereever they came CHAP. XLII Of the true Motives which the Antients had to Pray for the Blessed Saints in Heaven BUt not further to mention Baldric or the Bishop of Mascon it will be demanded what Motive enclined those who since the year 500. are found to have made Prayers for the Dead to do so And here I am willing to acknowleg that there was no more noise of the Opinion which had so much distracted the Spirits of Christians of the Second and Third Age deceived by the Pretended Sibylline Writing and presupposing that all Souls without exception descended to Hell were there confined till the Resurrection of their Bodies and exposed not onely to the temptations but also to the violences of Evil Spirits which to prove Justine Martyr alledged to Trypho the Jew the pretended raising of Samuel by the Witch of En-dor For though the most antient Prayers as for Instance those which St. Augustine made for his Mother seem to have been drawn up by that Precedent and that the Libera if it be applied to the Departed rather then to the Faithfull in Agonies and preparing themselves for death requires we should think they were yet had they even from the Time of Tertullian seventy years or thereabouts after the first coming abroad of the Sibylline Writing so called begun to exempt the Martyrs from the necessity of descending into Hell and so by little and little the minds of the Christians strugling with and overcoming the Imposture that first Hypothesis was cast out of doors yet so as that it was done without a rejection of the Forms which those who maintained it had introduced into the Publick Service of the Church And thence comes it that St. Ambrose prays for his Brother Satyrus saying Tibi nunc omnipotens Deus innoxiam commendo animam c. Now O Almighty God I recommend unto thee his innocent soul And for Valentinian the Second and Gratian in these words Hîc adhuc intercessionem c. Should I still make Intercession here for him to whom I dare promise a reward Put into my hands the sacred Mysteries let us with a devout affection demand rest for him give me the celestial Sacraments let us attend his religious soul with our Oblations Lift up your hands with me in the Sanctuary O ye People to the end at least that by this Present we may recompense his merits c. No night shall go over my head but that I will make you some present of my prayers in all my Visitations I shall remember you c. And for the Great Theodosius Praesumo de Domino c. I so far presume of the Lord that he will hear the voyce of my cry wherewith I attend thy pious soul c. Grant perfect rest unto thy servant Theodosius even that rest which thou hast prepared for thy Saints May his soul return thither whence it descended where he cannot feel the sting of death where he may be satisfied that this death is the end not of Nature but of sin c. From which Prayers it is to be observed by the way First That this Holy Prelate expressing that he considered not his prayers for Valentinian who died a Catechumen but a Person very Religious and truly inclined to Piety as an Office whereof he stood in need but as a simple Effect of his good Wishes manifestly discovers that not any one of the Faithfull departed in the Lord stands in any necessity of the suffrages of the surviving and accordingly that the Protestants who believe that in matter of Religion nothing should be attempted without the express order of God himself speaking in his Word cannot be accompted criminals for their declining an act which is not even in their Judgment who practised it of any necessity or any way beneficial to those for whom the voluntary devotion or Will-worship of men designs it Secondly That St. Ambrose who calls the Eucharist celebrated in memory of Valentinian and upon his occasion a Present which he makes his Friend and by which he requites him could not have believed it to be either the Body of the Son of God or the Offering-up of that Body or in general a Propitiatory Sacrifice properly so called For who could without an impious Absurdity imagine that the real Body of our Saviour should be so much at our disposal as that we might make Presents of it to our Friends c. that the Proper Oblation of the same Body being infinitely more precious then we or any thing that can proceed from us is or could be a supplement which we adjoyn to our Prayers for our Friends and that this kind of Present is as the meanest kindness we can do them so as that we might say with St. Ambrose that at least by that Present we requite them It seems then he pretended not to do what the Church of Rome thinks to do at this day in the Masses of Requiem For she professes to present the Oblation she makes therein whatever it may be not to the deceased for whom she prays but onely to God for or on the behalf of the deceased She conceives also that her Host which she believes to be properly and really the Body of the Son of God surpasses in value not onely our Prayers but what ever is most excellent either in Earth or in Heaven among the Angels and Spirits of the glorified Saints And though she who cannot endure the Protestants because they are unwilling to submit their Consciences to any other Rule then that of Faith contained in the Sacred Scriptures hath born in her Bosom and suffered unreproved those inconsiderate Children who have had the boldness to write that the solemn Sacrifice might be offered to Creatures As when the Authour of the great Chronicle of the Low-Countries thrust in this into his History that on the 27th of October 1467. Charles last Duke of Burgundy who conquered the People about Liege Ecclesiae Lovaniensis universo Clero commisit omnipotenti Deo suaeque sanctae Genitrici offerre suo nomine sacrificium c. gave express Order to all the Clergy of the Church of Lovain to offer unto Almighty God and to his most Holy Mother the solemn Sacrifice in his name never considering either that the Oblation of the solemn Sacrifice is by the confession of all the act of Latria and sovereign adoration due to God alone as being the most proper Object and most worthy of it nor that the most Holy Mother of our Lord though blessed according to the saying of the Angel among Women never ceased being a Creature and that she is such now in Heaven as much as she was before she was crowned with Glory or
a good Conscience which in the Business of Religion cannot advance any thing either false or superfluous much less ought that is repugnant to what it hath undertaken to prove CHAP. XLVI Of the Reasons which might have moved the Antients to Interr their departed Friends in the Churches consecrated to the Memory of the Saints ALl this thus presupposed as it may well be in as much as the necessary result from it is that that Part of Antiquity which prayed for the dead had not any thought of either the Purgatory where the Church of Rome teaches that they burn or their deliverance out of that grievous Pain but intended onely to desire of God that he would be pleased to pardon their Sins at the day of his Son 's Last coming deliver them from the general Conflagration of the World and give their Bodies a glorious Resurrection it remains to discover what may have been their intention who have ordered their Friends to be Buried near the Martyrs or at least in the places and Edifices dedicated since the peace of the Church to their Memory To proceed in a more certain order and take things at their proper Sources I observe First That the Christians no more then the Jews had not at the beginning any common Cemiteries or Church-yards but that every one made choice of such place for his Sepulchre as he thought fit and that it was thus the most antient Monuments yet remaining among us give sufficient Testimony Secondly That according to the Politicks of the Jews and Romans Sepulchres were not within Cities but onely near and about them Thirdly That as among the Jews and Heathens there were certain particular Places of Sepulture for those of the same Family so the resentments of Christian Fraternity whereby all the Saints make up the Family of God and are Members one of another prevailed so far upon the Spirits of the Faithfull that they begat in them as far as the Extremities of those Times permitted a desire that their Bodies might be deposited near those of their Brethren who had before fought the good Fight of Faith and held fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end Fourthly That the Church during the rigour of the Persecutions having been forced to Assemble to serve God before day and to seek the safety of her Children in the silence of the Night and the Solitudes of Cemiteries Places not onely of no great shew but such as were if the Scituation permitted it for the most part under Ground as the Catatumbs about Rome and could not upon that accompt give any Jealousie to the Pagans the Faithfull who were there daily animated to Constancy by the Instruction of their Pastours and the sight of the Tombs which they considered as so many Trophies of their Brethren seeing the Mystical Table purposely placed towards that part where their bodies rested as it were to make unto them a literal Application of the Words of St. John who affirms that he saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony which they held derived from all these Considerations that noble desire of remaining conjoyned with the Saints of God in Life and Death and when the time should come depose their own Bodies as it were into the Bosom of those Friends whose Examples they had followed in all the course of their Lives Fifthy That after the Conquest of Paganism under the Reign of Constantine the Great Constantius his Son who at the time he was most violent against the Orthodox bethought him of making the first Transportations of Saints bodies in as much as upon the first of June 356. he transferred to Constantinople the body of St. Timothy which he had taken out of Ephesus and the third of March following caused to be brought from Patras the bodies of St. Andrew and St. Luke Constantius I say raised in all those that came after him such a desire to attempt the like Translations that there can hardly be named any one of the antient Martyrs and Confessours whose body hath not been digged out of the Earth and torn in Pieces to be distributed into many several places In imitation of Princes private Persons began to exercise that Piece of Will-worship those who wanted Authority to countenance their Actions taking the liberty to make use of Violence and commit Robberies not to speak of the Adulterations and Impostures which in less then thirty years were come to that Excess that on the six and twentieth of February 386. it was thought necessary to repress it by an Express Law to this Effect Humanum corpus nemo ad alterum locum transferat nemo Martyrem distrahat nemo mercetur c. Let no man translate any man's body from one place to another let no man sell no man set to a Price any Martyr But since that time the Disease growing too violent for the Remedy what had been accompted an Execrable attempt became an Act of Religion and there wanted not an Emulation among those that practised it who should be most criminal and whereas at the beginning People thought it enough to consider the Monuments of Martyrs and Confessours onely as the glorious marks of their Christian Profession with such a respect as admitted not the violation of their bodies they came in time to exercise that rudeness upon them as is done on a Prey exposed to the covetousness of the first that lays hands on it every one endeavoured to keep his share their very bones were cut to Pieces and instead of honouring their Memory and celebrating their Virtues by a pious imitation thereof they turned their Veneration towards the Repositories into which they were disposed If on the one side Antiquity reduced to those Extremities as to keep its Assemblies in Cemeteries thought it a glory to place the Eucharistical Table under their Tombs to teach every one of her children that they belonged both living and dead to that Great Saviour who hath commanded us to shew forth his death till his coming again Posterity on the other which had the opportunity to build as many Temples as they pleased and where they pleased hath suffered their Liberty to degenerate into Superstition imagining that no Altar was to be erected but it must be made a Repository of Reliques and the disorder as it were by an universal Deluge spread it self so suddenly over all that the General Councel of all Africa Assembled at Carthage on the thirteenth of September 401. was forced to make Provision against it by this remarkable Decree Placuit ut Altaria quae passim c. It hath been thought fit that the Altars which are erected up and down the Fields and High-ways as Memorials of the Martyrs wherein there are not any Body or Reliques of the Martyrs interred be if possible demolished by the Bishops under whose Jurisdictions those Places are But if by reason
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
and afford them our assistance to deliver them out of the pretended Purgatory And yet these are in a mâ—â—ner all the materials which have been shuffled into the composure of all that piece of Worship which goes under the name of The Office of the Dead though they have not any relation to their state and do no more induce a necessity of praying for them or believing a Purgatory that should purifie them as is pretended then they do that of making boast of our own praises a vanity even though we were tempted thereto Christian moderation would not suffer us to be guilty of Nor can it be said with any more reason that the words of the Psalms which are recited in the said Office are to be considered as Prosopopoeias whereby the Faithfull deceased are represented speaking of their condition after death I. In as much as the whole Contexture of every Psalm requires that the words of it be applyed to those who live in the flesh so as that it were a manifest abuse to wrest them to any other sence II. For that it was never allowed any one to cast into the divine Worship Fictions whereby men of quick Imaginations might presume to become the mouths of their Brethren departed not having to that end either order from them or calling from God And lastly for that though it were left to any man's discretion to make after his own fancy representations of those whom God hath called to himself yet should not any one take the liberty to do it e're he were well informed and satisfied whether they might pass for true and certain especially seeing that when they should be urged out of a design to infer thence the necessity of praying for them they would prove so much the more unmaintainable for as much as in the same Office where it is pretended they are employed to that end there are those Texts alledged which absolutely destroy the use thereof For instance that of the 14th Chapter of the Apocalyps Verse 13. where the holy Spirit declares Blessed are those that die in the Lord for what rational inducement is there either to desire bliss absolutely for those who are already possessed thereof or the cessation of torments for those who do not onely not suffer any but are not subject to suffer any in as much as from henceforth they are blessed and in rest That of the sixth Chapter of St. John and the thirty seventh Verse where the Son of God attests that he will in no wise cast out him that cometh to him and that of the eleventh Chapter and the five and twentieth and six and twentieth Verses where calling himself the Resurrection and the Life he promises life and exemption from eternal death to whosoever believes in him For if he does not cast out any of the Faithfull if on the contrary he saves them all from death and puts them into possession of life the surviving believers who to express their belief of his words insert them into their publick Form of Service do thereby confess that they are obliged to give him thanks for them and not to make Requests which presuppose that they enjoy not the effect of his promise Thus is there not any Lesson in the Service of the Church of Rome which effectually induces or hath so much as the appearance of inducing any thing of what those of her Communion at this day pretend to CHAP. LII Of the Prayers contained in the Missal and Breviary used by the Church of Rome and that Purgatory cannot be necessarily inferred from any one of them FOr as much as in the Book intituled Ordo Romanus there is not any mention made of the Dead that in the Canon of the Mass which is inserted into it the Memento is not to be found and that in the other Ritual Books of the Latines there is not any Lesson obliging to the belief of Purgatory screwed up since the year 1439. by the Councels of Florence and Trent into an Article of Faith the Church of Rome who hath at this day in favour of Prayer for the Dead but one onely Lesson to wit that of the second of Maccabees a Book held by her self to be Apocryphal till after the year 590. the Church of Rome I say is forced to confess that it must have been inserted so much the later into her Missals and Breviaries though upon no other accompt then this that the Greeks use it not in their Office even to this day and that from her whole service it necessarily results that she met not in the holy Scriptures with any foundation of the opinion either of Purgatory which she maintains or of the custom which she practises in praying for the Dead upon Motives unknown to Primitive Antiquity It remains therefore that we see what can be gathered of any consequence from the Prayers which we read in the publick Forms of Service of her prescription We have in the first place such as desire of God that the sins of the deceased Person may be pardoned as for instance this Fidelium Deus omnium conditor Redemptor animabus famulorum famularúmque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum ut indulgentiam quam semper optaverunt piis supplicationibus consequantur c. O God Creatour and Redeemer of all the Faithfull grant unto the Souls of thy Servants of the one and the other Sex the remission of all their sins that by pious Supplications they may obtain the indulgence they have ever desired And this We beseech thee O Lord that this Supplication of ours may be beneficial to the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes intreating thee that thou wouldest cleanse them of all their sins and make them partakers of thy Redemption And this We beseech thee O Almighty God that the Soul of thy Servant purged by these Sacrifices may obtain admission to indulgence and eternal remedy And this Vouchsafe O Lord we beseech thee that the Soul of thy Servant and the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes the Anniversarie-day of whose Interment we now commemorate being purged by these Sacrifices may be received as well into indulgence as eternal rest And this O God who hast commanded that we should honour our Father and Mother be pleased out of thy mercy to have compassion on the Souls of my Father and Mother and pardon their sins and make me to live with them in the joy of eternal light And this We beseech thee O Lord be mercifull unto the Soul of thy Servant and being freed from the contagion of Mortality restore her to the portion of eternal salvation And this We beseech thee O Lord that by these Sacrifices without which no man is guiltless the Soul of thy Servant may be cleansed from all sins that by these offices of pious placation she may obtain eternal mercy And this O God in whose mercy the Souls of the faithfull are at rest be graciously pleased to pardon the sins of thy Servants
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