great Judg who intends to examine them with all rigour And though we should endeavour to reconcile these kinds of Expressions which mutually destroy one the other would it be in our power to perswade any that those who after they have said of the Dead that they are immediately upon their departure carried by the Angels into the Bosom of the Patriarchs hold withall that they are before-hand sent into a place of Torments speak more rationally then those who durst affirm that the King lodges near himself in his Palace the Malefactours whom he keeps in restraint in the most loathsom Dungeons and holes of his Prisons And that no man may imagine that this Wish May Christ who was crucified for thee deliver thee out of Torment hath any relation to the Torment of the pretended Purgatory we need onely to observe that it is made for a sick Person overwhelmed with the Torment of the last Agony immediately preceding his Death To which may be added that though it were understood of the Torments which wicked Spirits are to expect after Death Reason would force us to avow that the Believer recommended to the Grace of God is exempted from them after Death in the same manner as he is delivered from eternal Death from the dangers of Hell and from the snares of his Torments which he never felt nor ever shall feel for as much as Christ crucified and dead for him preserves and frees him from them And as to the Prayers which the Church of Rome makes and appoints to be made for the Dead desiring that God would pardon their Sins deliver them from the Gates of Hell and from the Last Judgment and put them into the possession of eternal Bliss they cannot according to the intention of Antiquity be taken in any other sence then what we have already alledged nay this very Circumstance that the Modern Greeks and others who deny Purgatory no less then the Protestants do daily make those Prayers irrefutably proves that Purgatory cannot necessarily be inferred from them CHAP. LIII The Sentiment of the Modern Greeks concerning the State of the Dead FOr as much as the Church of Rome and those of her Communion are not any way satisfied with the Sentiment of the Greeks at this day who so joyn with her in the Custom of Praying for the Dead that they joyn with the Protestants against her in denying Purgatory and that upon that accompt she censures them as Desertours of the Faith delivered by the Holy Fathers whom she pretends to be of her side and reproaches them with a shamefull breach of the Promise they had made on Friday the sixth of July 1274. at the Councel of Lions and on Munday the sixth of July 1439. at that of Florence to embrace her Belief we are to consider these two things distinctly First What Ground she may have to complain of their inconstancy and Secondly In what Opinion they have continued to the present The Latines who had taken Constantinople by assault on Munday the twelfth of April 1204. having been driven thence by Michael Palaeologus on Wednesday the twelfth of July 1261. This Prince to settle himself in his Possession against the attempts as well of the Turks as the Emperour Baldwin de Courtenay who was then in League with Charles of Anjou King of the two Sicilies the Republique of Venice and Theobald King of Navarr and Count of Champagne to whom he had promised the fourth part of the lost State in case he might recover it took what according to the advice of his despair seemed best a resolution to cast himself into the arms of Pope Gregory the Tenth and to grant him any thing he should desire For perceiving that Baldwin his Competitour had in the year 1267. affianced and in the year 1273. Married his onely Son Philip to Beatrix the Daughter of Charles that Charles not thinking it enough that his Son-in-Law had taken the Imperial Crown had also raised a powerfull Army to carry on his Design and that the Councel of Lions Convocated by Pope Gregory to meet on the first of May 1274. threatned him with no less then absolute ruin he hastened to conjure and lay it by the onely means he had left him sending to him in whose hands it lay to prevent the Storm The Pope flattered by a great Confidence of establishing his Power in the East immediately dispatched thither Hierome d' Ascoli Reimond Beranger Bonagratia of Saint John's in Perficeto and Bonaventure de Mugello Franciscan Friers who entred into conference with the Greek Emperour got from him what they desired and caused him to write concerning the State of the Dead in these Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If those who are truly penitent depart hence in Charity before they have by Works worthy Repentance made satisfaction for that wherein they have sinned and failed the souls of such are after death purged by the Pains of Purgatory according to what Brother John hath declared unto us And to mitigate those Pains the Congregation of the Faithfull surviving is beneficial I mean the sacred Celebration of Services Prayers and Alms and other works of Piety which are ordinarily performed by the Faithfull for others of the Faithfull according to the Ordinance of the Church These Letters which tended onely to gain the Affection of the Pope and traverse the Designs of the King of Sicily had struck the Patriarch Joseph so to the Heart that after he had boldly protested against them he withdrew choosing rather to continue the rest of his days a private Person then to enjoy the Prelacy with the remorse and shame of having countenanced by his consent an Agreement which he thought concluded by Counsels carried on by worldly Designs and Interests and indeed the greatest part of the East conspiring in the same Sentiment had such a detestation for the Peace with Rome that there was a necessity of employing force to smother the dissatisfactions of those who were scandalized thereat John sirnamed Bec High Chancellour of the Empire had been imprisoned and roughly dealt with upon that Occasion but not long after either weary of suffering or Cajolled and drawn in by a Promise of the Patriarchate joyning with his Prince he came with some other Greek Prelates to the Councel of Lions where he made his first entrance on the 24th of June and while the Emperour lived helped him to keep in his Country-men extremely exasperated to see themselves forced to a Profession which they approved not of Michael dying towards the end of the year 1285. after he had eluded all the Storms of the King of Sicily Andronicus his Son and Successour who had with much impatience born with the violence done to the common Sentiment of his Nation not onely restored it to its former Liberty as soon as he was gotten into the Throne but re-established the Patriarch Joseph put Bec who had taken his Place into such a Fright that he was forced to withdraw
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
the Birth of men so they shew'd that Pollio's Wife who had been very much indisposed during her Pregnancy should after her Delivery make her self known to her childe by her joy that that Joy was as it were the Earnest of the child's Blessing as it were a signification of Misfortune to him if his Parents were not joyfull at his Birth But the Emperour transforming the Discourse of Virgil according to his own way makes him say Begin laughing and lifting up thy sight to know thy Mother who should be dear to thee for she hath carried thee in her womb many years thy Parents have not smiled on thee at all thou hast not been put in a Couch nor had splendid Banquet Whereupon he adds by way of Comment upon it How have not the Parents smiled on this childe Certainly it was because he who begot him is a certain Power that hath no Qualities nor can be figured by the delineation of other things nor hath a humane body Now who knows not that being a holy Spirit it can have no experience of Coitions And what inclination and desire can be imagined in the disposition of that good with a greediness whereof all things are inflamed Or what compliance is there between Wisdom and Pleasure But let these things be said onely by those who introduce I know not what humane generation of God and endeavour not to cleanse their minds of every bad Word and Work What a small matter needs there to divert men from the Truth since the pure Imagination of a Mystery where there is not any is able to do it Certain it is that as God the Father hath neither Qualities nor Figure nor Body nor Passions nor Desires so the eternal Generation of his Word hath nothing common with that of men But nothing of all this coming to the knowledg of Virgil and his words neither expressing nor capable of expressing it since the Greek properly speaking is a corruption of the Latine which tended to no other end then to promise Happiness to Pollio's young Son to what purpose have some thought to Philosophize as they have done For there had been no occasion given had they not altered the Sense by supposing as many have done that Pollio's little childe had laughed assoon as he was born and that upon that extraordinary Laughter the whole Prediction of his Happiness had been grounded and imagining that Virgil had said of the child's Laughter what he meant of the Mother's as also that she had born him several years and that he was not descended of Parents subject to either any inclination to Laughter or the natural necessity of Sleep and Rest For should that Great man have returned to Earth again he might with reason have said to Constantine what St. Augustine said since to Julian the Pelagian Restore me my Words and thy dreaming Imaginations will vanish CHAP. XV. That it cannot be said That Virgil in his Fourth Eclogue disguised his own Sentiment THe same thing may also be said of the same Emperour 's supposing that the Poet spake Figuratively and disguised the Truth out of a fear that any of the Potentates of the Royal City should charge him with writing against the Laws of his Country and dcrogating from what had sometime been the sentiment of his Ancestours concerning the Gods and that he wished the prolongation of his own life to see the coming of our Saviour For as it happened about three hundred years since that the Poet Dante mov'd by an Admiration of that incomparable Wit would needs deliver him out of his Hell in like manner the good opinion Constantine had conceived of him hath made him read in his Poem what indeed is not in it out of such an Imagination as those have who looking up to the Clouds think they see such and such Figures therein And thence comes it that he hath spoken so much to his advantage though without any ground either in Truth it self or indeed in the very outward Dress of his Work which was not done according to the certain Pattern of any antient Oracle of the Sibyls nor yet to the eight Books now extant among us and which were writ above one hundred fourscore and six years after the Consulship of Pollio but was design'd onely to express the desire which Virgil had to comply with Augustus and Pollio and to insinuate more and more into their Favour Whereupon I conclude That the antient Paganism what Opinion soever Constantine and others may have had to the contrary hath not given any Testimony either in favour of these pretended Sibylline Oracles which openly oppose Idolatry or yet to confirm the perswasion which the Fathers have had thereof CHAP. XVI That Apollodorus had no knowledg of the Eight Books called the Sibylline FOr to think with the generality of modern Christians that Apollodorus the Erythraean had seen the Third Book because as Lactantius observes from Varro he had affirmed of the Erythraean Sibyl That she was of his City and that she had Prophecied to the Greeks going to Ilium that Troy should be destroyed and that Homer should write Lies is a manifest abuse The Words we read to this purpose are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Troy I compassionate thy Miseries A fair Erinnys shall from Sparta rise Which Europe and the Asian Realms will vex But thee 'bove all with many Woes perplex Her self much crown'd with Fame that never dies An Aged Man Authour of many Lies Shall flourish next of unknown Country blind His Eyes but of a clear quick-sighted Mind He his conceptions into Verse shall frame And what he writes stile with a double Name Profess himself a Chian and declare Th' Affairs of Ilium not as they were Yet clear both in my Words and Verse for he The first that looks into my Works shall be This I say is a manifest Mistake For First It is no hard matter to imagine that the Impostour who composed the Eight Books of the Sibyls and had impudently taken upon him the name of Wife to Noah ' s Son two hundred years after the Death of Varro who died according to Eusebius in the seven hundred twenty and sixth year of Rome might at his ease and long enough before have read what he had alledged out of Apollodorus who was more antient whether in his Latine or in the Greek Text of Apollodorus and that he could do no less for his own Reputation then produce as a probable Argument of his pretended Antiquity what he had found in him Secondly For that Apollodorus who attests of the Erythraean Sibyl that she was born in his City and acknowledged a Native thereof whether by common Report or upon the Credit of her Writings could not have said any such thing of our Counterfeit Sibyl who says she came from Babylon and was Noah's Daughter-in-law and formally denyes that she was by Country an Erythraean and charges the Greeks with Imposture for
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
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
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
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
Devils what pretence can there be to continue the Prayers which infinuate such a perswasion And if the Ground-work of such Prayers be taken away what reason can be alledged sufficient to authorise the continuance of them Can it be said It is lawful and consistent with the Piety of the Church to put up to God Requests that are erroneous according to her own Sentiment and impossible according to the perswasion she hath of the merciful disposal of her Saviour in respect of his Elect whom he hath taken away from the Evil to come to sleep in a sleep of Peace and to rest from their Labours And supposing these things grounded upon the express Text of the Scripture and the Canon of the Mass whâ—ch makes commemoration to God onely of those who sleeping a sleep of Peace are accordingly in Peace should not men think themselves obliged either to discard those Prayers which contain a formal expression of what is contrary to Peace in respect of those for whom they are made and prove so much the more fruitless and inconvenient by how much the Foundations thereof are undermined by rejecting the Hypotheses as well of the pretended Sibyllmâ— Writing as of Justine Martyr or by retaining them to run into the Inconvenience of a Contradiction and that so much the more inevitable the more unadvisedly they engage themselves upon the maintaining of both the Terms of it at the same time affirming on the one side that those who are to be delivered out of the Bonds of a dreadful death and from the Gates of Hell a place of Trouble and as the Text of the Prayer bears it of Pains are neither in Death nor in Bonds nor in Hell that those far from whom must be driven away the Princes of Darkness are not onely not engaged in any War against them but are in a condition to sleep the sleep of Peace to be in possession of Peace to rest in the enjoyment of that Peace from their Labours And on the other side that those who are taken away from the evil to come so as they sleep in Peace and rest from their Labours are in the most dreadful Abyss of Miseries in the horrour of the most irrevocable War and the extremity of Troubles And what does this amount to less then to affirm that they are and are not either in Peace and Rest or in Trouble and War and consequently that they both can and cannot be delivered out of them Time was when those who followed the Party of the Millenaries imagining that during the term of a thousand years which they assigned for the Earthly Kingdom of our Saviour in Jerusalem there should be a Resurrection preceding the general one of the Last-day and upon that accompt be called the First thought they had just ground to beg that their deceased Friends might have their part in that first Resurrection But as soon as their Imagination lost to all credit came of it self to be absolutely laid aside the use of that kind of Prayers came upon this very score that every one thought them ill-grounded 〈◊〉 to be so far abolished that there is no Track of them in any of the Formularies that are come to us but onely in the â—â—othick Which if who sees not there is the same Obligation to â—brâ—gâ—te the Praâ—ers which are as hath been clearly demonstrated formally contradicted by the Canon of the Mass whereby the Church of Rome is wholly directed at the present CHAP. XXXI That the Passage in the twelfth Chapter of the second Book of the Maccabees hath no relation to the Opinion of Purgatory nor to the Service of the Churches THe Doctours of the Romane Communion pretend that the Christians of the second Age grounded their Prayers for the Dead upon the Authority of the second Book of the Maccabees unknown as we have observed to the Jews who were contemporary with the Apostles or at least slighted by them and looked upon with so much indignation by the Christians that not any one of them before St. Augustine cited it with any respect to the Offices rendred by the surviving Faithfull to their departed Brethren Nay indeed none among them could without destroying his own presuppositions concerning the State of the Dead make any advantage of that Testimony which notoriously wrests the action and intention of Judas Maccabaeus to a wrong sence and applies it to the false Hypothesis which the Jews of the last times did and do still maintain so much the more obstinately the more they are perswaded that it may be derived from the words of the first Psalm in the fifth Verse saying that the wicked shall not stand or as the Greek Version and the antient Latine hath it shall not rise up in Judgment Since therefore they were of this extravagant Opinion that the Resurrection of the Last-day should be onely for the Just and that those who had concluded a criminal Life in the Wrath of God should not participate thereof it must needs be that having perswaded thereto either Jason the Cyrenaean or his Abridger the said Jason or other man had conceived it necessary that Judas should make a Prayer for a sort of unhappy wretches whom he acknowledged destroyed in their Sacrilege to the end that being freed from their sin they might be made capable of the Resurrection which according to their prejudicated judgment was to be peculiar onely to those who had continued and concluded their lives in piety This Imagination could not relate to any of the Opinions of the antient Christians assured by St. Paul that every one should appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ to receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad and unanimously presupposing that Judgment should be given of all good and bad according to their works and consequently believing that there would be a double Resurrection that is to say that of the righteous to eternal life and glory and that of the wicked to death and shame and everlasting contempt But let us put the Case that the Sentiment whether of the Authour of the Second Book of the Maccabees or of his Abridger was absolutely conformable to so manifest and so known a Truth and that he alledged this onely end of the Prayer attributed by him to Judas that the Dead for whom onely he pretends that he made it being freed from their sins were thereupon conveyed to the enjoyment of Beatitude which shall have its full accomplishment in the Resurrection which the Fathers call the proper Faith of Christians and the consummation of the glory which they expect Nay let us put the Case that the Latine Church had from the beginning a great esteem for the Testimony of that Person if as is supposed she drew up her Service according to the President of Judas Maccabaeus whence comes it that in the Canon of the Mass she hath made no mention of the Resurrection
〈◊〉 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
art fled That of Pope Boniface the Fifth deceased the 25 th of October 625. Ad magni culmen honoris abit c. He 's gone of honour to th' accomplishment That of Pope Honorius deceased the twelfth of October 638. Aeternae luis Christo dignante perennes Cum Patribus sanctis posside jámque domos Thou who to ' th' holy Sires hast ta'ne thy flight Enjoy through Christ th' eternal Seats of Light That of Pope Benedict II. deceased the seventh of May 685. Percipe salvati praemia celsa gregis c. The high rewards of those are sav'd receive That of Ceadwalla King of the West-Saxons deceased the twentieth of April 689. Indict 2. Mente superna tenet Commutâsse magis sceptrorum Insignia credas Quem regnum Chrsti promeruisse vides c. His spirit in heaven soars Who to Christ's Throne is raised may be said But an exchange of Scepters to have made That of Theodore of Canterbury deceased the 19 th of September 690. Alma novae scandens felix consortia vitae Civibus Angelicis junctus in arce Poli c Advanc'd to a society of Bliss With Angel-Citizens h'in heaven is That of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of York deceased October the 12 th 709. Gaudens coelestia regna petivit c. Rejoycing he to heav'n's gone That of Bede rsinamed Venerable deceased May 26th being Ascension-Day which argues his death to have happened in the year 735. Juni septenis viduatus carne Kalendis Angligena Angelicam commeruit Patriam c. May's twenty sixth of flesh uncloathed Bede Mongst Angels went to have a heav'nly meed That of Richard King of England deceased February the 7 th 750. Regnum tenet ipse Polorum c. Of heav'n's Kingdom he 's possess'd That of Fulrad Abbot of St. Denys deceased in the year 784. Credimus idcirco Coelo societur ut illis c. In heav'n we Believe him blest with their society That of Meginarius his Successour Post mortem meliùs vivit in arce Poli c. Death past he lives in heav'n a better life That of Arichis Duke of Beneventum deceased the six and twentieth of August 787. Te pro meritis nunc Paradisus habet c. For thy good Works heaven is thy reward That of Tilpin Arch-Bishop of Rheims deceased the second of September 789. Mortua quando fuit mors sibi vita maner c. When Death is dead Life his Portion is That of Pope Adrian the First deceased the 26th of December 795. Mors janua vitae Sed melioris erat Death was the entrance of a better Life That of Peter Bishop of Pavia deceased about the same time Admistus gaudet caetibus Angelicis c. Retinent te gaudia Coeli c. Rejoycing among Angels he Heav'n's joys thy entertainment are That of Hildegard first Wife of Charle-maign deceased in the year 783. April the thirtieth Pro dignis factis sacra regna tenes Thy worthy acts the sacred Kingdom gain'd That of Fastrada second Wife of the same Prince deceased in the year 794. Modò Coelesti nobilior Thalamo c. A heav'nly bed makes her more Noble That of Count Gerald deceased in the year 799. Sideribus animam dedit He rendred his Soul to heaven That of Hildegard Daughter by his first Wife Tu nimium felix gaudia longa petis c. Thou ever-happy to long Joys dost go That of Charle-maign himself deceased on Saturday the eighth of January 814. Meruit fervida saec'li Aetherei c. Aequora transire placidum conscendere portum c. That of Adelbard Abbot of St. Peter of Corbie deceased the second of January 822. Paradisi jure colonis c. Inhabitant of Pardise That of Ermengard Wife to the Emperour Lotharius deceased the twentieth of March being Good-Friday in the year 852. Linquens regna soli penetravit regna Polorum Cum Christo sanctis gaudia vera tenens c. Leaving Earth's Crowns to those of Heav'n she 's gone With Christ and 's Saints in exultation That of Lewis the Debonnaire who died on Sunday the twentieth of June 840. In pacis metas colligit hunc pietas c. Him Piety brings into the land of Peace That of Dreux Bishop of Mets deceased the eighth of November 857. Spiritus in requie laetus ovat Abrahae c. The joyfull spirit exults in Abra'm's Rest That of the Emperour Lewis the Second deceased the thirteenth of August 875. Gaudet Spiritus in Coelis Corporis extat honos c. The Body's honour is Apparent but the spirit 's in heave'nly bliss That of the Emperour Carolus Calvus deceased the sixth of October 877. Spiritum reddidit ille Deo c. He to God his Spirit return'd That of Ansegisus Arch-Bishop of Sens deceased the twenty fifth of November 883. Spiritus Astra tenet c. Of heav'n his Spirit 's possest That of John Scotus dead the same year Christi conscendere regnum Quo meruit sancti regnat per saecula cuncti c. He to ascend Christ's Kingdom did obtain Where all the Saints eternally do reign That of Pope John the Eighth deceased the fifteenth of December the year before Et nunc coelicolas cernit super Astra Phalanges c. Above the Skies Now he the heav'nly Batallions spyes That of Ermengard Daughter of Lewis King of Germany deceased the three and twentieth of December about the same time Bis denos octo vitae compleverat annos Migrans ad sponsum Virgo beata suum c. Twice eighteen years this Maid had liv'd compleat When happy she went hence her Spouse to meet That of Bruno Arch-Bishop of Cullen deceased the eleventh of October 969. Iam frueris Domino Thou now enjoy'st the Lord. That of Notger Abbot of St. Gal deceased the sixth of April 981. Idibus octonis hic carne solutus Aprilis Coelis invehitur c. Having laid down his fleshy burthen on The sixth of April he to heav'n is gone That of Gonzales cited by Prudentio de Sandoval Bishop of Pampeluna to the year of the Julian Period 1030. or of Christ 992. A qui reposa y en la gloria goza c. Here rests and glorious happiness enjoys That of Donna Sancia Dio fin glorioso a esta vida Par a gozar de la aeterna c. That she might gain eternal life in Bliss She gave a glorious Period unto this That of Sancia Countess of Castile Bis vinctum Comitem è carcere adduxit Coelicas sedes beata quae possidet c. She out of Prison twice her Count reliev'd To heav'nly Seats who happy now 's receiv'd That of Count Fernand of Gonzalva Belliger invictus ductus ad Astra fuit c. To heav'n th' undaunted Souldier was convey'd And Sebastian of Salamanca speaking of Ordonio the First places him in Heaven saying Felix stat in Coelo c. Laetatur cum sanctis Angelis in Coelestibus regnis c. He is happy in heaven
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
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
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
offered for the blessed then sleeping a sleep of Peace in as much as the Commemoration made in the Church comprehends all Which is further confirmed in that St. Cyprian expresly observes that that of his time always offered Sacrifices for the Martyrs of whose glory she neither made nor could make any question that St. Augustine both offered and caused to be offered the like for his Mother of whose bliss he thought himself so confident that he said to God I believe that thou hast already done it and that Saint Ambrose comforting Faustinus afflicted at the death of his Sister gave him this advice Non tam deplorandam c. I think she ought not to be so much lamented as attended with Prayers I conceive we ought not to condole at thy Tears but rather by Oblations recommend her soul to the Lord c. What should oblige us to sigh for the dead when the reconciliation of the World hath been already made with God the Father by the Lord Jesus For from all this and particularly from Faustinus's affirmation that he was confident of the Works and Faith of his Sister for whom St. Ambrose exhorted him to make Prayers and Oblations it necessarily results that those Oblations were not properly Propitiations but Thanksgivings for and Acknowledgments of the Propitiation made by Jesus Christ on the Cross and as the Forms used by the Church of Rome express it Sacrifices of Praise So that if they were sometimes called Hostiae placationis Hoasts of appeasment and if it be said that the Souls are per hujus virtutem Sacramenti à peccatis omnibus expiatae expiated from all sin by the virtue of this Sacrament which it is desired should be to him who participates thereof ablutio scelerum c. the washing away of his offences presupposing that it is celebrated by the Faithfull pro redemptione animarum suarum c. for the redemption of their souls this is to be understood rationally and in the same sense as when St. Peter teaches us concerning Baptism that it saves us and Antiquity sayes that it washes away sins in as much as it is the sacred Sign and the Pledge of the washing away which was made thereof once by the onely blood of Jesus Christ spilt on the Cross For according to the Sentiment of the primitive Christians the Sacraments received by the Faithfull crimina omnia detergunt c. do away all offences in as much as they are Memorials of the blood of Christ by the aspersion whereof mens Consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God and are said to be offered for their salvation not to be purchased but already purchased by the price of the same blood and for the Redemption of their Souls already accomplished in the death of the Son of God but whereof the Application is continually made in the preaching of the Gospel and Administration of the Sacraments to all those who embrace it through Faith There are also other Prayers wherein is desired for the Faithfull departed the felicity which they have hoped and wished for during the course of their life as appears by these following Forms Vitam aeternam habere mereantur in coelis c. In tuae redemptionis parte numerentur c. May they obtain eternal life in Heaven c. May they be numbred in the part of thy Redemption c. O Lord give them eternal rest and let everlasting light shine upon them c. Pâ—â—â—â—im in the Region of Peace and Light and grant him the Fellowship of thy Saints c. Grant him admittance into the society of eternal bliss c. To those on whom thou didst bestow the Merit or Honour of Christian Faith give also the Reward c. that through thy Compassion they may receive the bliss of eternal light c. Make them partakers of thy Redemption let them be added to the number of thy Saints c. Let them have their reward in the Life to come c. Let them be conveyed into the Habitations which thou hast prepared for the Blessed let them have the perpetual enjoyment of their Society c. Command that they have eternal joys in the Region of the Living c. Grant them the Habitation of refreshment blessed rest and the clearest light c. Vouchsafe to associate them to thy Saints c. May they receive eternal rest c. Grant them eternal joy in the Region of the living c. May he obtain eternal rest and light c. Restore them to the Portion of eternal salvation c. We beseech thee O Lord that be may come into the Fellowship of Eternal light c. That they may rejoyce with thee World without end c. May they obtain passage into life c. That they may obtain eternal joys Though it might seem that those for whom these Prayers are made were considered as deprived of Peace Light Joy Bliss Rest the Society of the Saints in Glory and the Eternal Reward promised their good Works and that to facilitate their entrance into the possession of future happiness some had conceived and inserted the foregoing Prayers into the Service of the Churches yet that it never was the intention of those who drew the first draught thereof to insinuate that the dead were actually excluded the things demanded for them is manifest in as much as the Memento was made onely in favour of those who rest in a sleep of Peace and consequently are already in Peace and Joy with the Lord. For the surviving Believers thought it became them to speak of the Beatitude of their Brethren deceased before them with a kind of hesitation as if it were delayed and that not without some colour for as much the good things prepared by the Lord for those who love him consist in things which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entred into the heart of Man and that they had not any evident knowledg thereof and could not frame to themselves any Idea suitable to the state whereto those are advanced who enjoy them they represented it after their manner with some conformity and proportion to that wherein they had left this World and as they have been for the most part forced thereto by the Imaginations wherewith the counterfeit Sibyl had dazled their minds so from the same hand is it also come that among those who some time after took the courage to disclaim them some did it not so resolutely as they should have done but thought it enough to compare their departed Brethren translated into the rest of God to Travellers who want somewhat of compleating their Journey Others considering that the enjoyment of the good things which follow this life and the exemption from the evils which sinners are to expect are for all eternity and that the continuance of that enjoyment to those who are once entred thereinto does so far depend on the goodness