which St. Epiphanius confines himself nor coincident with the ninety eighth chosen by Beda nor with the ninety ninth which Usuard hath taken nor yet with the hundredth which Cedrenus for some reason unknown to us thought most worthy his Choice And Thirdly the Death of St. John was seventeen years before that of Trajan who dyed of a Flux at Selinuntium in Cilicia on the tenth of August in the year 117. CHAP. II. The Sentiment of St. Epiphanius concerning the Time of the Apocalyps refuted I Have hitherto given an account of their Opinions who dissenting from the common Tradition thought that St. John had writ his Apocalyps either before the twelfth year of Domitian about four years sooner then he did or under the Reign of Trajan much later then is consistent with the Truth I now come to prove the mistake of Saint Epiphanius who contrary to the Opinion of all precedent Antiquity going back to the Reign of Claudius would needs make that Prince Authour of St. John's Banishment to Patmos The Holy Spirit saith he necessitates John who out of a Religious and humble respect refused to Evangelize in his old Age after the ninetieth year of his Life after his return from Patmos happening under Claudius Caesar and after an aboad of many years in Asia And towards the End of the same Treatise The Holy Spirit Prophetically foretells by the mouth of St. John what happened after his decease he himself having in the Time of Claudius Caesar long before when he was in the Isle Patmos for they themselves that is to say the Alogians acknowledg that these things have been accomplished in Thyatira written through the Spirit of Prophecy to those who professed Christianity there at that time that a Woman should call her self a Prophetess This Venerable man pressed to Ward off the Objections of the Hereticks alledging the Supposititiousness of the Apocalyps in that it presupposed as extant Churches that were not in the Time of St. John as for instance that of Thyatira admits without any necessity the Objection of those troublesom Spirits as if it had been out of all Question then Answers That John spoke by Prophecy not of the Church which was then but of that which should be planted some time after at Thyatira where the People seduced by the Alogians and Montanists should after the ninety third year from our Saviour's Ascension or the one hundred twenty sixth from his Birth according to the account of St. Epiphanius corrupt that wretched City with their Errour and having cited the Text of the Apostle makes Application of it in these Terms Do you not see that he speaks of Women who having been seduced with an Imagination that they had the Gift of Prophecy have seduced many others Now I speak of Priscilla and Maximilla and Quintilla whose Seduction hath not been hidden from the Holy Spirit In fine after he had searched into the time when he thought John Banished to Patmos he shuts up his Discourse with this Conclusion that is to say That in Thyatira a Woman should call her self a Prophetess But the more I consider this Answer the less I finde it without prejudice to the respect due to its Authour capable of giving satisfaction to judicious Persons For First Is there any likelyhood that the Holy Spirit should direct Letters from the Son of God to Churches which had no being when it dictated them and that we must understand these words Unto the Angel of the Church which is in Thyatira write these things I know thy works c. The last are more then the first c. I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest the woman Jezabel who calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce c. in this sence Write to the Angel of the Church which shall be in Thyatira I know the works thou shalt do the last shall be more then the first I shall have some few things against thee thou shalt suffer the woman Jezabel who shall call her self a Prophetess to teach c It was no hard matter for St. Epiphanius to write it but whom hath he hitherto convinced of it besides himself This manner of Interpretation being such as that not any one of either the Antients or Modern hath followed it the very Singularity thereof should be sufficient not onely to bring it into suspicion but also to represent it as so much the more unmaintainable in as much as all that professed Christianity from St. John to St. Epiphanius that is from the year 100. to the year 375. wherein the later wrote against the Alogians had held the contrary to what it supposes and took it for a thing indisputable that the seven Churches to whom our Saviour directed his Epistles had been planted by the Ministery of Saint John before his Banishment to Patmos Secondly Contradicting his own Hypothesis to wit that Thyatira had not had any Church in the Time of St. John he comes for want of reflection to maintain the opposite Affirmative saying Then the whole Church of Thyatira was wholly degenerated into the Sect of the Cataphrygians or Montanists accordingly the holy Spirit would needs reveal unto you how it should come to pass that the Church should be seduced after the time of the Apostles and St. John and those who came after it was about ninety three years after the Assumption of our Saviour that the Church of that place to wit Thyatira should be seduced and fall into the Heresie of the Cataphrygians For if the Church were planted at Thyatira it necessarily follows it was there the Allegation of the destruction of a thing containing the formal presupposition of its precedent existence Thirdly But not to meddle any further with that contradiction of St. Epiphanius nor the supposition which he granted the Hereticks as acknowledged by all he advances a new one against the express Text of St. John for he writes expresly that the whole Church of Thyatira was degenerated into the Sect of the Cataphrygians whereas the Holy Spirit on the contrary says it was not the whole Church of Thyatira that had committed Adultery with Jezabel and received her Doctrine but that in Thyatira there were some Members of that Church which were not fallen into those Errours as it expresly declares speaking To the rest in Thyatira who had not received that Doctrine nor known the depth of Satan I say c. Fourthly Saint Epiphanius himself does further destroy the Computation he had taken to denote the falling-away of the Church of Thyatira For whereas in his Dispute against the Alogians he affirms that in the ninety third year after the Ascension and consequently the one hundred twenty sixth after the Birth of our Saviour this Revolt happened in the fourty eighth Heresie where he particularly refutes the Montanists he comes thirty years later then that Date saying These to wit the Montanists were about the twenty fifth year of Antoninus Pius after Adrian
who would prove their Custom out of the Old in the same manner as these later disclaim all the advantage which St. Chrysostom had promised himself in the allegation of the Apostolical Law Secondly That it argues want of circumspection to suppose as acknowledged what is in Question viz. That the Synagogue under the Old Testament made any Prayers for the dead and that their Practice can be justified by Writings either precedent or immediately subsequent to the Birth of Christianity For since the Hierosolymitane Talmud was not by the Confession even of the Jews themselves began till one hundred sixty two years after the Destruction of both Jerusalem and its Temple and consequently fifteen years at least after the Death of Tertullian which happened as S. Hierome would have it under Caracalla Assassinated on the eighth of April in the year 217. seventy nine years after the first littering of the pretended Sibylline Writings that the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud began not till the 476. year after the final Destruction of the Temple that is to say in the year of our Lord 546. that it took up an hundred years to finish it that these two Collections were made by the implacable enemies of the Gospel and its Truth such as have thrust together without either sincerity or judgment all the Extravagancies that ever troubled the Brains of their Ancestours delivered over as themselves into a reprobate sence and that their Opinions concerning the State of the dead hold correspondence neither with the Sentiment of the Fathers nor with that of the Greeks nor lastly with that which the Church of Rome holds at present there cannot with reason any certa in relyance be made thereon Thirdly That to no purpose is alledged the seventeenth Verse of the fourth Chapter of Tobit which runs thus Pour out thy Bread the old Latine Version made according to the Chaldee adds and thy Wine on the Burial of the Just but give nothing to the wicked because First it is not manifest that there ever was really such a man as Tobit and that the Relation of his Adventures smell as much as may be of a Romance Secondly That the Jews as well Antient as Modern have not attributed any authority thereto Thirdly That all the Greek Fathers unanimously and many of the Latine have held it to be Apocryphal Fourthly That though of all the Canonical Books it were the most Canonical yet neither ought the words alledged out of it to be taken literally since they are notoriously figurative nor could they have any relation to the Custom either of praying or making Offerings for the Dead but according to the use of Funeral Entertainments or Banquets ordained not to procure ease to the Departed but to relieve the kindred he had left to induce them to an oblivion of their mourning and to comfort them For as the Prophet Jeremy threatning the Jews with the Judgment of God which was likely to deprive them of all means of comforting one another said Neither shall men break Bread for them in mourning to comfort them for the Dead neither shall men give them the Cup of consolation to drink for their Father or for their Mother so Tobit exhorting his Son to the Offices of Charity towards his afflicted Brethren orders him to Pour out his Bread and his Wine on the Burial of the dead and by a kind of speaking to fill it by kindly treating those that were in mourning upon their accompt and raising them out of their Heaviness which does not inferr either Prayer or Offering for the dead but onely a charitable care and tenderness towards the living Fourthly That the words of the Son of Sirach in the thirty third Verse of the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiasticus A gift hath grace in the sight of every man Living and for the Dead detain it not make nothing to the Business of Offerings and Prayers for the Dead to which some would have them relate in as much as that Authour who made his Collection of Sentences in the year 247. before the Birth of our Saviour is so far from saying that the gift which was to be given upon the accompt of the dead was to be exercised towards the departed Person himself that he expresly declares it was so done upon the accompt of the dead that it referred as to its proper object to the surviving adding in the next verse Fail not to be with them that weep and mourn with them that mourn as if he said That that kindness which he desired should not be detained for the dead consists not in praying for the dead but in having a sympathy for their affliction who bewail him and endeavouring to comfort them Besides it is to be noted by the way that the Book of Ecclesiasticus though very antient since it was written 247. years before the Birth of our Saviour and very full of good Doctrine upon which accompt it hath been cited by the Fathers was never enrolled among the Canonical Books neither by the Jews nor by any of the Greek Fathers nor by most of the Latines Fifthly That there cannot be a clearer Evidence to convince those of Errour who suppose that the Custom of Praying for the Dead was antiently among the Jews then to urge that there is not the least track of it in those who were Contemporary with the Apostles viz. Philo who had made himself Master of all prophane Wisdom and the Philosophy of Plato and who was in Caligula's Time reputed the Glory of his Nation and Josephus who was one of the chief Commanders of the Jewish War under Nero and the most diligent searcher into the Antiquities of his Nation under Domitian So that the later Jews must needs have borrowed the Custom they still continue either from some piece of Heathenish superstition or from the Opinions crept into Christianity through their means who were admirers of the pretended Sibylline Writing Sixthly That the second Book of the Maccabees was neither known nor of any accompt among the Jews For as it is manifest that it hath no coherence with the first neither in respect of the observations of time nor in respect of events and their circumstances so we both may and ought to hold it for certain that Josephus who very strictly followed the first either had not any knowledg of it or if he had made no accompt of it since that even when it was his business to represent some History whereof there was also a relation in that Book he hath not onely related it according to his own way but hath often laid it down in circumstances as to the matter of fact incompatible with what was reported thereof in the said Book Whereto may be added the strange obscurity of it which is such that it is not known neither who they were nor about what Time flourished either Jason the Cyrenian the first Authour or the Abbreviator who reduced into a small Epitome the five Books of
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
Activity Who is so much liable to the interposition of the Lion and Dragon to endure the open Ravage of his Violences and the secret mischief of his Ambushes as he who like an undischarged Debtour is dragged before the dreadfull Tribunal of God's avenging Justice Can Debts of what nature soever they are be Legally exacted of those who are by the Acquittance of the Creditour absolutely discharged Are they in fine to fear any Unhappiness whose Sins our Lord bore in his own Body upon the Tree and blotted out the Hand-writing that was against them Thirdly That the Church of Rome in whose Communion there is not any one that prays for St. Monica whom the said Church hath taken out of their Rank for whose benefit she designs her Suffrages to raise her into the Sphear of Glorious Spirits whose Intercession she begs however she may make a great stir about the Example of St. Augustine does not onely not satisfy the Intreaty of that Great man any more then the Protestants whom she accuses as desertours of the antient Tradition but conceives it neither just nor rational to satisfy it And as she does not think her self guilty of any breach of Duty in forbearing to pray for St. Monica because she accompts her to be in Bliss and as such not in a capacity to receive the assistance of the Living in their Prayers nor that they should according to the desire of St. Augustine expect inspirations from God such as might incline them to demand things already done and undertake what she conceives neither rational nor feasable so the Protestants who in this particular are the more willing to follow his Sentiment the more consonant they finde it to the Word of God and to Reason cannot whatever the Church of Rome may say to insinuate the contrary be perswaded they err in not-acknowledging any Object of Religious Adoration however it may be conceived other then God alone Father Son and Holy Ghost blessed for ever according as the Church of Rome her self expresses it in the first of her Commandments One onely God shalt thou adore nor any Advocate properly so called other then him who is proposed to all Christians by St. John as a propitiation for the sins of all the World For as they have learn'd of St. Paul that there is one Mediatour between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all whence Avitus Arch-Bishop of Vienna inferred That if our Saviour was not according to his Humane Nature taken into the Unity of Person Father's Hand-writing against us They religiously stand to the Protestation made by the Primitive Christians concerning their Martyrs viz. We adore him who is the Son of God but we love according as it is required of us the Martyrs as Disciples and Imitatours of our Lord and Saviour and to that of St. Augustine We honour the Martyrs by a Worship of Dilection and Society by which the Holy men of God are in this life also honoured Whence they conclude That according to the common Sentiment of the purest part of Antiquity there cannot be done to the Citizens of the Jerusalem that is on high any Honour but what may be called a civil Honour or of Society Whether they are actually received into that blessed Habitation or are in their way thereto that they have been and ever shall be entertained there immediately upon their departure out of this World and that the honourable Solemnities which accompany their Bodies when they are deposited in the Earth never had any Ceremony which served not to demonstrate the assurance and joy which the surviving had conceived of their happy Condition CHAP. XXXVIII The Sentiment of the Protestants confirmed by the Eloges antiently bestowed on the Faithfull departed THe same thing may be said of the Eloges wherewith the worthy Persons of Antiquity have honoured the Memory of those for whom the Custom would have Prayers made Eusebius speaking of the Death of Helene who died on the eighteenth of August about the year 330. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. She was called to a better Lot c. So that those who had a right Sentiment justly conceived that that thrice-happy Lady should not die but to say the Truth expect the Exchange and Translation of a Terrestrial life into a Celestial Her Soul therefore returned to the Principle thereof being received into an incorruptible and Angelical Essence near her Saviour And of Constantine who preparing himself for Death protested of himself that he was making haste and that he would no longer delay his departure towards his God he affirms that on Sunday May 22.th 337. being Whit sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He was gathered to God leaving to Mortals what was of the same Nature with them and as for himself uniting to God whatever his Soul had that was Intellectual and beloved of God Then representing the common Belief of all the Subjects of the Empire concerning his Beatitude he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Having framed a figure of Heaven in a draught in colours they painted him above the Celestial Vaults resting in an heavenly Mansion c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. They graved his Effigies upon Medals having on one side the Pourtraiture of the Blessed Emperour with his â—…ead veiled and on the Reverse the same mounted on a Chariot drawn by four Horses as if he drove it raised into the Seat by an hand reached forth to him from heaven on the right side which Description might as well relate to the carrying up of Elias rather then to the Apotheoses of the Heathens which Constantine upon his embracing of Christian Religion had absolutely renounced Saint Athanasius who observes that St. Anthony had seen the Monk Ammonius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 raised from the Earth and the great joy of those that came to meet him affirms that on the seventeenth of January 358. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As having seen friends coming towards him and filled with joy because of them he fainted The same St. Athanasius making a Relation of the wicked attempt of Magnentius upon the Life of Constans who was murthered on the eighteenth of January 350. and numbring that Prince among the Martyrs hath these remarkable Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That to the Blessed Man proved the occasion of his Martyrdom St. Gregory Nazianzene represents in Celestial Glory Constantius who after he had through misapprehension persecuted the Orthodox died on the third of November 361. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I know that he is above our Reprehension having obtained a place with God and possession of the Inheritance of the Glory which is there and transported to such a distance from us as the Translation from one Kingdom to another amounts unto The same St. Gregory saies of his Brother Caesarius who died on the 25.th of February about the year
it hard in all the series of Time to meet with any one more remarkable then that of the mistake of Saint Justin a Person very recommendable if any may be admitted such First for his Antiquity since he dy'd but very little after the midst of the second Age of the Church Secondly for his knowledge as being one who before his reduction to the Christain Faith had by profession been a Philosopher Thirdly for his piety since he became so constant a maintainer of the true Religion as that he was at last honour'd with the Crown of Martyrdom All these advantages might have rais'd him above the ordinary rate of men yet have they not exempted him from being abus'd by certain advancers of foolish Stories who having perswaded him to take the Idol of Semo Sangus one of the false gods of the Sabini for the Statue of Simon Magus engag'd him I know not how to maintain his mistake in the presence even of some of the Heathens and that with so much confidence as clearly discover'd he said nothing but what he really believ'd He it was also who thought himself very much in the right when he boasted that he had seen at Pharos neer Alexandria the remainders of the LXXII Cells where the Interpreters of the Bible had been employ'd in that Work nay some others as Saint Irenaeus Saint Cyril and Saint Augustine have believ'd him and yet Saint Hierome who as well as the other had been upon the place and taken more particular notice thereof does not onely laugh at it but says I know not who by his glozing hath built them With the same security disputing against the Heathens who according to the observation of Origen by way of derision called the Christians Sibyllists he opposes thereto the Authority of Hystaspes a supposititious Author of whose Works there is at the present nothing extant as also the Oracles of the Cumaean Sibyl whom he pretends to have been the Daughter of Berosus who was later then Cyrus by 250 years and dyed in the 225 year of the foundation of Rome and the fourth of the reign of Tarquin to whom many hold that one call'd Amalthaea Sibylla sold at an excessive rate the books since known by the name of the Sibylline and preserv'd in Rome for the space of above 440 years till the civill wars of Sylla not minding it seems that according to the generall perswasion of the Romans the Cumaean Sibyl had entertain'd Aeneas who dyed 639 years before Cyrus possess'd himself of Babylon nor yet reflecting on what Pausanias an Author much about his own time observes from Hyperochus Cumanus and other Ancients 1. That the Sibyl who convers'd in that place was called Demo 2. That the Cumaeans had not any Oracle to shew of hers 3. That she had not been preceded by any but by Lamia the daughter of Neptune sirnamed by the Lybians Sibylla and Herophila the daughter of Jupiter and Lamia who had her residence sometimes at Ida in Phrygia sometimes at Mapessos sometimes at Samos sometimes at Claros of Colophon and sometimes at Delos and Delphi 4. That her Monument and her Epitaph grav'd upon a pillar was at Troas 5. That the Erythraeans would not onely have it that she was born among them of Theodorus a Shepherd and the Nymph Idaea but also that she gave Hecuba the interpretation of her dream and 6. That after the Cumaean Demo the Hebrews who live above Palestine set up Sabba the daughter of Berosus and Erimantha who went under the name of the Babylonian or Aegyptian Sibyl Nor lastly regarding that the very argument whereof he thought to make his greatest advantage in order to the conviction of Pagan Idolatry expresly maintains that she who compos'd it was wife to one of Noe's Sons and of neere kin to him who departed this life 1697. yeares before Antiochus Soter was established in Babylon and that Berosus whose Daughter they would have her to be meerely because her VVriting intimates her coming out of Babylon could have been allow'd the name of Father For these are her words O the great joy I have had since I have escap'd the destruction of the Deep having before undergone many misfortunes toss'd up and down by the waves with my husband my sisters-in-Law my Father and Mother-in-Law and those who were married together And elsewhere When the World was overwhelm'd with waters and that a certain man who had undergone the tryall was left alone exposed to the waters in a house cut out of the Forrest with the beasts and birds of the aire to the end that there might be a Restauration of the World to that man was I daughter-in-law engendred of his blood By which words she clearly destroyes what she had writ some lines before saying that the Greeks took her for the daughter of Circe and Gnostus or rather Ulysses whom she entitles known Father because of the reputation of his name never considering that 800. yeares and more were slipped away between the death of Noe and the arrivall of Ulysses at Cirâ—aeum She further affirmes that she came from Babylon in Assyria speaking so much the more improperly for that Babylon was neither built nor named till 153. yeares after the Deluge nor was it of Assyria properly so called but of another different Country that is to say of Sennaar and that it took not the name of Assyria till above 165. yeares afterwards Nay the impudence of the Imposture is so much the more palpable in that this pretended daughter-in-law of Noe describes her selfe as a notorious strumpet saying Ah wretch that I am what will become of me in that day for all the things I set my mind upon in my folly having no regard of either my Marriage or my reason And again What great evills have I heretofore committed wittingly and willingly and how many other things have I imprudently run after without the least remorse thereat I have taken my lustfull pleasure with ten thousand and have not had the least consideration of my marriage c. CHAP. III. The supposititiousnesse of the Writings pretended to be Sibylline exemplified in severall particulars IF St. Justin Martyr had been but pleased I will not say to look a little better about him but only to open his eyes and fasten them with ever so little recollection on what he read he had met with a thousand instances of imposture in those pleasant Oracles which he objected against the Heathens employing against them three Verses out of the first book as many out of the third and seven out of the fourth For he would upon the first sight have perceived that that ill-digested collection written in wretched Greek and coming from the hands of a person who discovers his ignorance of the Hebrew could not be attributed either to Noah's daughter-in-law who liv'd above 250. years before the confusion of Tongues and consequently before there was any Greek nor yet to the
daughter of Berosus born in the Metropolis of Chaldaea and later by almost 1700 years Nay he would have thought that the Impostor who had made it so much his business to gain reputation by a cheat of so great antiquity had sufficiently discover'd himself an upstart 1. In deriving Adam from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were a word of Greek extraction 2. In saying that the same word signifies East West South and North by its four letters though in the Hebrew and Chaldee it hath but three 3. In supposing that the letters of the Name of God make up the number of 1697 which cannot be true but onely writing it in Greek characters and that barbarously too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. In drawing from those of the Name of Jesus which he makes to consist of four vowels and two consonants the number of 888. which again cannot agree With the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is onely of five letters all consonants and exceed not the number of 391. unless it be in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. In affirming that the duration of Rome shall be 948 years because the number 948 arises from the Greek letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which make onely 251. 6. In placing Ararat where the Ark stay'd in Phrygia 7. In affirming that Phrygia was the first Countrey discovered after the Deluge and that Noe who continu'd in the Ark from the seventh day of the second Month to the twentieth day of the second Month in the year following stay'd there but one and fourty days 8. In imagining that the Fables of the Titans were true Histories 9. In supposing according to the heresie of the Chiliasts that Jerusalem shall not only be re-built again but shall be the Imperiall seat of the Son of God where the faithfull having pass'd through the purgatory fire of the worlds conflagration shall enjoy all manner of delights corporeall and spirituall 10. In feigning that the Eurotas a River of Laconia in Peloponnesus issues aut of Dodona in Epirus and mingles with the Peneus a river of Thessaly Again that Gog and Magóg are among the Aethiopians 11. In foretelling that the Italians shall become subject to the Asiaticks 12. In maintaining that Nero is the great Antichrist that he is retir'd into Persia and that returning from Babylon with an army of Jews he will destroy Rome and set it on fire 13. In confounding Alexandria with Memphis 14. In feigning that Eliah shall come down from Heaven in a Chariot That Joshuah rais'd again shall restore the Jews That Tyberius was to set upon Persia and Babylon That Trajan a native of Italica in the extremities of Spain was born among the Gauls That Adrian strangled himself with a string That under Antoninus sirnamed the Debonnaire whom he impertinently calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his two adoptive Sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus one whereof must necessarily survive the other would be the end of the world That Rome being destroy'd in the 948. year after its foundation should come to its period in the year of our Lord 195. which was the third year of Severus And lastly after all this in acknowledging himself to be a Christian by these words which absolutely take off all the precedent suppositions And yet we descended from the holy geniture of Christ are called of the same blood For from the consistency of all these remarks this consequence must necessarily â—e deduced that the Impostor who took upon him the name of Noës daughter-in-law and perswaded St. Justin that he was the daughter of Berosus was by Profession a Christian but ignorant of the Hebrew Tongue and true Theologie no less then of Geography and History and that he compiled his Rhapsody between the year 138. wherein Adrian was by death deliver'd of his disease on the twelfth of July and the year 142. or 151. in which Cardinall Baronius with divers others affirm that justin presented his Apology to the Emperor Antoninus and the Caesars his adoptive sons and consequently that this counterfeit piece was just come out of the Mint and was not quite cold when he undertook the dispersing of it and by his example recommended it to Athenagora Theophilus of Antioch Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian the Author of the Work called The Apostolicall Censtitutions Lactantius Constantine the Great Eusebius Optatus Hierom Augustin Prosper Palladius Sozomenus Junilius c who have all drunk out of the common shore of the Sibylline Imposture and that with so little difficulty and so strong a prejudice that nothing could ever offend their stomacks If therefore so many great men and Justin himself who first broke the Ice before them could find any relish in so unsavory a dish and if they have with a kind of emulation serv'd it up and commended it to others with so much assurance as begat an imagination that to express any horrour thereat was to quarrell with God himself who can think it strange that the example of their credulity should be able in as high a measure to injure others CHAP. IV. The judgement of Antonius Possevinus concerning the Wâ—itings pretended to be Sibylline taken into examination IT is no miracle to me if after the antiquity of the first Ages had been circumvented through the excess of their credulous sincerity ours though much refin'd from the scurf of ignorance and forc'd by the necessity of so many difficult experiments to be more cautious and diffident should not be wholly free from the remainders of the same misfortune in so much that we now find there are some very grave men such for instance as Onuphrius Sixtus of Sienna the Cardinalls Baronius and Bellarmine and the Bishop of Norwich Montague enslav'd by the tyranny of the popular errour fortifi'd by length of time and consent of such Christians as are admirers of inveterate opinions Yet can I not but express my dissatisfaction with the judgment of Antonius Possevinus a Divine of the Society of Jesus who having discover'd the Imposture of the Sibylline books hath chosen rather to think them corrupted then supposititious I shall therefore in the first place to make a full discovery of this forgetfulness in him lay down his censure with some observations thereupon and afterwards examine the ground of his Sentiment It is apparent saith he both from the Fathers and other Ecelesiasticall Writers that there was not any Sibyl before Moses to the end the world might know that if in the Oracles publish'd under the name of the Sibyls and compriz'd in eight Books there be any thing relative to what was before the Age of Moses it is counterfeit and false as having been since sown by Satan out of a design that falshood being thrust in together with truth might bring into
the charge of the High-priesthood of the Divinatory Writings as well Greek as Latine he burnt above two thousand books brought together from all parts and divulg'd either without Authors or under the names of Authors not much to be credited and reserv'd onely the Sibylline and that after tryall made thereof he lock'd them up in two golden Drawers under the basis of Apollo Palatinus To which relates also that saying of Horace Lib. 1. Epist 3. Et tangere vitet Scripta Palatinus quaetunque recepit Apollo So that it was then in vain to look for them any more in the Capitol or for any to pretend a more familiar acquaintance with them then before Under the Consulship of Silanus and Norbanus in the year of Rome 771. which was the ninteenth after the Incarnation according to our accompt now and the fifth of Tiberius a certain Oracle which agreed not with the time of the City put the people into no small disturbances for it said that three times three hundred years being come and gone an intestine sedition and a kind of Sibaritick madness would prove the destruction of the Romans But Tiberius found much falt with that Verse as guilty of imposture caused a review to be made of all the books which contain'd any prediction rejected some as being of no worth or credit and retain'd others And in the eighteenth year of his Empire which was the 785. of Rome and the two and thirtieth of our Lord under the Consulship of Domitius and Camillus it was propounded in the Senate by Quintilianus Tribune of the people concerning the Sibyls book which Caninius Gallus one of the Quindecimviri had requested might be receiv'd among other books of the same Prophetess and demanded it might be so established by Decree of the Senate Which being uanimously granted Caesar sent Letters somewhat reprehending the Tribune as ignorant of the old custom by reason of his youth and upbraided Gallus that having grown old in knowledge and the Ceremonies he had nevertheless demanded the opinion of the Senators it being uncertain who was the Author thereof and before the Colledge had yielded their judgement neither as the custom was the Verses having been read and taken into consideration by the Masters He further represented what abundance of vain things were published under so celebrious a name that Augustus had under a certain penalty set down a day within which such books should be brought to the Praetor of the City and that it was not lawfull for any to have them in their private possession That the same thing had been decreed by their Ancestors that after the burning of the Capitol during the time of the civil war their Verses were sought at Samos Ilium and Erythrae through Africk also Sicily and the Colonies of Italy whether there were one Sibyl or many and a charge was given to the Priests to distinguish the true Prophesies from the false as near as might be by the judgement of man so the book was referr'd to the examination of the Quindecimviri To be short two and thirty years after viz. in the year of Rome 817. which was the 64. of our Lord and the tenth of Nero under the Consulship of Bassus and Crassus the City having been set on fire on the ninteenth of July the fire could not be stopped till it had devour'd the Palace and Nero's house and all about it And though as Tacitus observes recourse was then made to the books of the Sibyl yet the whole Quarter where they had been disposed by Augustus being destroy'd by the fire it is very probable they were in no less hazard then they had been six and fourty years before when the Capitol was burnt as it was again afterwards in the year of Rome 822. in the month of December CHAP. X. The Motives which he might have gone upon who was the first Projector of the eight books which at this day go under the name of the Sibylline AFter so many irreconcileable differences making it undeniably apparent that the ancient Heathens never had any thing which might be rely'd on as certain concerning their Sibyls after the conflagration of the books sold by one of them to Tarquin and the severall accidents which since the time of Sylla happened to that confused collection which the superstition of the Romans had glean'd together from all quarters of the world after the Senate had in the first place interposed their judgement on all that had been sent to them and that Augustus had 65. years after smothered to the number of two thousand books such as were thought either supposititious or of little consequence and exercised his censure on the rest after that Tiberius had two severall times taken into a re-examination the sentence of Augustus to cull out as superfluous what he had any quarrell at and the fire if not devour'd or prejudic'd at least come very near what had after so many disquisitions and retrivals been preserv'd who I say all these things considered can think it strange that Posterity should from time to time have been guilty of a presumption of furnishing the Romans with some new piece of that kind though it were done meerly by reason of their being the more inquisitive after Writings of that nature by how much they both were and were oblig'd by their own provisions and orders to that purpose to be ignorant of what they contain'd and consequently that they should deferr the publishing thereof till after the death of Adrian at which time supposititious pieces of that kind had free toleration even among the Pagans 74. years after the conflagration of Mount Palatine under Nero and 69. after the desolation of the Capitol under Vitellius and Vespasian And to give a check to the Authority of the Heathenish Prophetesses and confirm this common principle of both the Jews and the Fathers that the most ancient monuments of Idolatry were later then the Writings of Moses and to raise a greater reverence thereof in the Christians who were not acquainted with any thing at so great a distance from their own times they brought upon the stage Noah's daughter-in-law who liv'd eight Ages before and much about the same time that the Gnosticks who called his wife Noria made it their brag among the Christians that they had some of her Writings out of a design to corrupt the simplicity of the Church by a supposititious piece pretending to so great Antiquity the Millenaries and some counterfeit Christians scatter'd up and down certain spurious Oracles and Predictions under the name of one of his sons wives especially among the Gentiles imagining not without some likelihood that the curiosity of those blinded wretches would open a gap for the cheat and dazle their understandings into admiration and that the Christians overjoy'd to find therein the condemnation of idolatry the preaching of one only God the prediction of the Incarnation of the Word the redemption of mankind by the blood of
disburthening of the Ark wherein she with a strange impudence affirm'd that she had been kept in one and fourty days a thing which never either came or could come into the imagination of Daphne The second is when after he had said That on a certain time the Sibyl fill'd with a divine inspiration utter'd the 33. Verses which make up the Acrostick of these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he adds It is manifest that Cicero having read this Poem translated it into the Language of the Romans and inserted it into his Works and that he was kill'd while Anthony had the supreme power of the Empire in his hands and that Augustus who reign'd 56. years came after Anthony and that Tiberius succeeded Augustus in whose time was the coming of the Saviour into the World and the mysterie of the most holy Religion came into reputation For not to take much notice that the Acrostick of the pretended Sibyl such as we find it in the eighth Book of her Writings consists of four and thirty Verses among which Constantine hath left out this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the ninth and according to the translation of the ancient Interpreter in Saint Augustine and Prosper rendered thus Exuret terras ignis pontumque polumque whence it follows that the spurious Sibyl had writen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as hath been notoriously discovered by the Author of the Traduction copied by Saint Augustine wherein the Latine Acrostick runs in this order of the Letters Jesues Qreistos c. Nay further to pass by as what 's generally acknowledg'd that Anthony was the contriver of Cicero's death that Augustus reign'd 56. years afterward or thereabouts and that Tiberius succeeded him and not to urge that though the most remarkable accidents of the reign of Tiberius were the Baptisme and Passion of our Saviour yet his coming into the World cannot be properly attributed to that time since he took flesh of the blessed Virgin in the fourty second year of Augustus's government and consequently that he was going out of the fifteenth year of his age when the same Augustus departed this life Now I say to make any advantage of all this I answer that it is not onely not manifest either from the reading or the version nor yet from the record pretended to be made thereof by Cicero that any such thing was but that what is directly contrary it is evident from the very ground whence it might be imagin'd that Constantine deriv'd his opinion that is to say from the second Book of Divination written by Cicero between the fifteenth of March in the year of Rome 710. wherein Julius Caesar was murther'd in the Senate and the seventh of December in the year 711. in which he was himself put to death by the command of Anthony that he neither did nor could have done what is pretended The first reason is for that he maintains in generall terms that there is no Divination by inspiration such as it is supposed was that of the Sibyls What authority saith he is there in that fury which you call Divine which is such as that a person distracted seeth what a wise man sees not and that he who is at a loss of humane abilities should have acquir'd divine Secondly for that he particularly observes that the Author of the Verses which were kept at Rome under the title of the Sibylline was so far from doing what he did by vertue of any inspiration that it was the effect of a jugling and crafty invention out of a design to cheat We take notice saith he of these Verses of the Sibyl which it is reported fell from her in a fury out of which it was thought not long since that is to say in the year 710 that the Interpreter Cotta would tell the Senate things that were not true according to the common report of men to wit that if we would be safe from the Parthians we must call him King who in effect was our King If this he in the Books what man what time does it particularly design For finally he who hath composed these things hath so done his work as that whatsoever should happen it might seem to be foretold the determinate observation of men and times being taken away He hath also put on a vayl of obscurity that the same Verses might seem applyable one while to one thing another to another But that the Poem is not the work of a person in fury on the one side the Poem it self declares it for it is rather the effect of Art and diligence then of transportation and extasie and on the other the Acrostick as they call it when there may some connexion be made of the first Letters of the Verse as in some of Ennius's Poems this certainly is the work rather of an attentive mind then of a distracted Thirdly in as much as he concludes that that the Poëms committed in Rome to the custody of the Quindecimviri tended rather to impiety then the establishment of Religion Wherefore saith he Let the Sibyl be still secret and sequestred from us that as it hath been ordered by our Ancestors the books be not read without the permission of the Senate as contributing more to the putting off religious worships then submission thereto Let us treat with the Priests that they would draw any thing out of them rather then a King which neither gods nor men will ever hereafter suffer in Rome This he spoke in relation to the design of Cotta and his Colleagues to have Caesar proclaim'd King the poor man not in the least imagining that he was himself upon the threshold of his greatest misfortune for having through an almost fatall inconsiderateness contributed to the translation of the Royall power which Caesar had been possess'd of into the hands as well of a remote descendant Augustus of that Prince as of Anthony his most inexorable enemy And thence it may be deduc'd 1. That he had not though Augur read the Sibylline books in as much as he expresses himself in these terms If that be in the books and with greater reason that he had not been the Interpreter of them nor inserted into his Works any pieces thereof 2. That though they had been absolutely at his disposal yet would he not have taken the trouble upon him either to transcribe ought out of them or give any interpretation thereof since he did not acknowledge there was any thing Divine in them but onely artifice mixt with imposture and impiety 3. That it is not possible he should account the Sibyl whatever she might be a Prophetess in as much as he deny'd there either were or could be any Prophets it being not imaginable in an understanding man and a Philosopher that after he had laid down this universall negative Proposition No person was ever seiz'd by Divine fury he would betray so much forgetfulness as to maintain the
on any Oracle which might set his fancy on work In the year of Rome 713. which was the third of the Triumvirate and the one and fourtieth before our Saviour under the Consulship of L. Antonius and P. Servilius Augustus victorious over Cassius and Brutus whom he had defeated the Summer before to recompence his old Soldiers bestow'd on them the Lands beyond the Po so that the Inhabitants of Cremona and Mantua were cruelly treated and Virgil then in the twenty ninth year of his age had been put to great extremities his estate being fallen to the share of Claudius a Veterane or Arius a Centurion who coming to take possession thereof had put him into some danger of his life had it not been for the support of Asinius Pollio Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus who procur'd his indemnity And as to represent the misery of the poor Mantuans he had introduc'd Melibaeus crying out Shall ever I again my old aboad c. Shall th'impious Soldier have these new-plow'd Fields And Moeris complaining that the new-comers said to the antient Inhabitants Depart and that Mantua had been too neer to sad Cremona and said elsewhere That unhappy Mantua had lost her fields which Martial in imitation of him alluding to writes that Tityrus had lost his Lands neer wretched Cremona So to express his gratitude he call'd Augustus the god who had been the Author of his quiet and speaking of himself sayes that he had seen at Rome That gallant youth for whom Twice six dayes annually his altars fume And that he answering first his suit said Shepherds feed your cattel as before and let your Oxen plow and celebrated Pollio by his third and fourth Eclogues Varus by the sixth and ninth and Gallus by the tenth besides that he had fill'd the fourth of his Georgicks with the praises of the last But to comply with the humour of Augustus who forc'd him fourteen years after to kill himselfe as guilty of some attempt against his life he transform'd all into the Fable of Aristeus In the year of Rome 714. which was the fourth of the reign of Augustus the first of Herod's and the fourtieth before our Saviours coming Pollio being raised to the Consulship with Domitius Calvinus and his wife brought to bed of a son Virgil thought himself obliged to take occasion upon these two honourable and pleasing accidents to break forth into praises I am loth to say flatteries and vows for Augustus for Pollio and for his child Thence is it that he says in his fourth Eclogue that there was then coming on a new age and a golden race of mankind beginning with the Consulship of Pollio and the Nativity of Saloninus his son that in Pollio's happy reign all nations should be freed from fear of the Iron age if any Track of it remain Apollo that is Augustus already reigning who shall live the life of the gods and be mixt with them that is converse familiarly with them and the Heroes and shall rule the World by his mighty Father's power Julius Caesar That the little Saloninus shall be surrounded with such happiness that the earth shall no longer bear any pernitious plant nor Serpents but produce Assyrian Roses and play-games for his Infancy That during his youth Harvests and Vintages shall come without trouble and honey from the Oak distill though as yet there must be setting out of Ships fortifying of Cities War and Tillage But when he shall have attain'd the age of a perfect man there shall be no longer any commerce by Sea or Land no Agriculture or Mechanicks forasmuch as all places shall bring forth all things And thereupon desiring Augustus burthen'd with the weight of the Worlds government to accept the honours due to him he wishes himself a long life to describe his atchievements Now what is there in all this not suitable to a Heathen Or what is there that makes the least discovery of any Divine revelation Nay indeed what is more remarkable all along then that there is not any thing which speaks not the person wholly Idolatrous as one whose imagination cannot raise it self to ought more excellent then the fabulous state of the world under Saturne but withall promising himself according to the Platonick principle the restauration of it in the revolution of the great Months of the long year which that Philosopher imagin'd to himself should come and mingling the frivolous hope of that feign'd prosperity with the invocations of the fals Deities so far as to cry out O chast Lucina aid the blessed birth c. The Fates conspiring with eternall doome Said to their Spindles Let such ages come Accordingly could not the good Emperour Constantine give any Christian interpretation to his Verses without making them speak otherwise then they do in themselves For whereas Virgil had said Tu modo nascenti puero quo ferrea primum Desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo Casta fave Lucina tuus jam regnat Apollo Téque adeo decus hoc aevi te consule inibit Pollio incipient magni procedere menses Te duce siqua manent sceleris vestigia nostri Irrita perpetuâ solvent formidine terras O chast Lucina aid the blessed birth Who shall from Ir'n extract a golden Age And to thy Phoebus all the world engage Thou child being Consul Pollio shall that year Be most renown'd then glorious dayes appear If any print of antient crimes remain Thou shalt efface them in thy happy reign And from perpetuall fear all nations free He makes him say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who would ever imagine without notice given him aforehand that those four Greek Verses were brought to express the seven Latine ones of Virgil or that any one should thence take occasion to discourse of the Adoration due to Christ and the reconciliation of the World to God through his blood Since they attribute that to the child newly born which the Poet had expresly said of the Consul Pollio they turn the prayer he made to Lucina to be favourable to the little Saloninus into a command directed to the Moon to adore the Saviour of the World and referr to the spiritual tranquillity of mens Consciences effected by the remission of sins what he had hinted at concerning the establishment of temporal peace by a restauration of the government of Saturn succeeding under Augustus the crimes of the Iron-Age which was according to his supposition to give place to the Golden-Age coming in under the Consulship of Apollo Nor that onely but they must also omit the clauses which made mention both of that Consulship and the reign of Apollo by which name the Poet had meant Augustus and the more probably not onely for that the Heathens as Macrobius observe referr'd all the gods whom they thought below the heaven to the Sun or Apollo but also by reason
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
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
in this third Volume to Probus held this Discourse The Gauls were antiently by reason of the Whiteness of their Bodies called Galatae and the Sibyl calls them so Which the Poet would express when he said Their Milkie Necks enchac'd in Gold when he might as well have said White For it is evident First That he attributes not to the Sibyl the Words which Virgil made use of but onely the Use of the word Galatae derived according to the common Opinion from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Milk Secondly That he would not say that Virgil took his Conception from the Sibyl but that he as well as the other reflected on the Etymologie of Galatae derived fron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and applied to the Gauls by reason of the Whiteness of their Bodies Besides in the pretended Sibylline Writing upon which Lactantius onely cast his eye the word Galatae is not used to signifie our Western Gauls who are therein called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their Land 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to design the numerous Colony they had sent into the East of Gallo-Grecians or Asiatick Gauls and the Counterfeit Sibyl hath not any where insinuated that these Gauls derived their Name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Lactantius presupposed it as likely though without any necessity CHAP. XXVIII That the Conjecture of Cardinal Baronius concerning the Correspondence between Virgil and Herod is not maintainable CArdinal Baronius fixed in the Imagination that Virgil had learned from the Sibylline Verses the approaching Advent of the great King and that he had out of flattery wrested the Sence and applied it to Pohio's Son alledges the Authority of the Emperour Constantine whereto we have answeredalready then makes this Observation The said Maro might also have understood something from the Hebrews concerning this Business fâ—r Herod King of the Jews when he came to Rome had often as Josephus writes been entertained at the House of Pollio Virgil ' s great Friend Now I intreat the Reader to consider that all this is nothing but Wind. For First Josephus who acknowledges that Pollio was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the number of those who made greatest account of Herod ' s Friendship does not particularly denote of which Pollio he speaks and it is generally known that besides Virgil's great Friend mentioned by Pliny there was at the same time in Rome Vedius Pollio a man no less familiar with Augustus then Asinius as is observed by the same Pliny Secondly Though Herod came four several times to Rome yet is it impossible to make the conceit of Baronius to suit with any one of them For the first Journey he made thither was in the year of Rome 714 during the Consulship of Pollio to implore the assistances of the Senate against the Parthians and then he was in a private Condition made little stay had other Things in his thoughts then Discoursing with Virgil who was then onely beginning to come into Repute without minding ought of Religion and having his Imagination employed how to get as he afterwards did the Crown of Judaea he would have been more likely to entertain Virgil and Pollio with the Rising of his own Glory then of that of our Saviour whom the Scripture calls the King of the Nations and the Day-spring from on high As for the other three they were all of them some years after the Death of Virgil which happened on the two and twentieth of September in the year of Rome 735. For the first was in the year of Rome 738. to carry away the children of Mariamne into Judaea the second in the year 744. to accuse them before Augustus and the last in the year 746. to restore into favour Archelaus King of Cappadocia his Ally So that Virgil was not then in a Condition to learn any thing either of him or of any of his Retinue or yet of his Friend Pollio Thirdly Josephus does not say that Pollio was ever Host unto or entertained Herod at his House but that he lodged his Children from the year of Rome 733. at which time Virgil was in Greece to the year 738. which was the third after his Death And it is so far from being a good Consequence Pollio entertained in his House the Children of Herod therefore He received Herod himself into his House that the contrary seems rather to be inferred He lodged the Children of Herod therefore He could not at the same time lodg Herod himself their Father who had a Royal Retinue about him and was more vain-glorious then any Prince of his Time I press not that Cardinal Baronius directly contrary to the Emperour Constantine who commends the Piety of Virgil censuring his prophane Flattery renders him so much the more criminal for that having learned of the Jews the Mysterie of the Messias he out of a voluntary Malice applied the Prophecy to Pollio and his Son All which considered gives me the Confidence to affirm that the presumed communication of Virgil with the Jews is a groundless Imagination and no more CHAP. XXIX That the Opinion of Anthonius Possevinus concerning the Sibyls and their pretended Writings is not more rational then that of Cardinal Baronius ANthony Possevin carried away with the Tortent of the common Opinion makes as the rest no small Stir with the Sibyls saying That Plato Iamblichus Porphyrius and the other Academicks of whose Doctrine Petrus Crinitus hath written have treated of the Sibyls Cicero hath treated of them and Pliny and before them Varro in his Books Of Divine things To Caesar As also afterwards Cornelius Tacitus Solinus Fenestella Marcianus Capella Virgil Servius and others and of the Greeks besides the Platonists Diodorus Siculus Strabo Suidas Aelian in his Books De varia Historia nay among the Christians and antient Greek Fathers Eusebius Justin Clemens Alexandrinus Stratonicus Cumanus Theophilus in his Books to Autolycus and among the Latines Lactantius Hierome Augustine c. Now many of the Fathers have affirmed that these Sibyls had foretold things through the inspiration of God and the Apostle St. Paul exhorted the Gentiles to read their Oracles as Clemens Alexandrinus hath left in writing c. Peter Garcias Galarza hath so Treated of all this whole matter that comparing the Verses of the ten Sibyls with the Prophecies of the Holy Scripture he hath shewed the admirable Harmony between them But the Reader will be pleased once more to consider the inconsiderateness of this otherwise learned man who cites among the Authours that have spoken of the Sibyls Theophilus of Antioch and in his Apparatus questions whether he should be admitted into that number saying Theophilus of Antioch in Case that Theophilus ever writ of the Sibyls For First The Heathens knew not of any Sibyl but the Idolatrous as hath been already proved and cite not any thing of what the Christians thought Sibylline the Christians on the
contrary made no account of what the Heathen esteemed and confining themselves to the Rhapsody of the eight Books which go under the Title of the Sibylline Oracles were deceived thinking them to be the antient Sibyls and consequently the Testimony of neither Heathens nor Christians is not strong enough to authenticate them in as much as the former have charged them with Forgery and the later who made account of them were circumvented and their Design to bring them into credit proves ineffectual upon this account that according to the Civil Maxim The consent of him who is mistaken is null Secondly St. Paul neither was nor could be the Authour of the Recommendation attributed to him but some Apocryphal Writer who impiously-bold took his Name upon him to deceive the World with more ease Thirdly Eusebius does not so much as name the Sibyls in the fifth Book of his History Fourthly The Name of Stratonicus was never heard of among the Fathers of the Church Cumae is not found to have produced any Ecclesiastical Writers and Possevin himself grants as much for that he does not allow his Stratonicus any place in his Apparatus Sacer. Fifthly It was no hard matter for Galarza to finde a Conformity between the Prophets and the Writings of the Counterfeit Sibyl since she was whatever she may seem to the contrary a Christian by Prosession and that she writ them one hundred thirty and eight years after the Birth of our Saviour onely it is to be remembred that this Conformity is not such as is imagined and that the pretended Prophetess to whom it is attributed was full of Errours and a corrupt Divine If therefore we must with Possevin blame Opsopoeus the Printer of Basil it should be for having inserted this confused Medley into the Body of Orthodox Writers and added thereto the Oracles of the false Gods when nothing of it is Orthodox or ought to finde place in the Christian Library And as to what is added by Possevin That It had been more expedient to set apart some few things of many and particularly what might be taken as most certain out of the Writings of the Fathers with Notes or a Paraphrase thereupon such as Constantine the Great hath put before the Cumaean Sibyl cited by Virgil or Lactantius before Firmianus or Augustine before the Acrostick produced by Cicero it is an Errour infinitely beyond what he was guilty of before For it will never be expedient to propose to Christians as a Direction the Stumbling-Blocks against which the Fathers fell much less to raise them into an admiration of Supposititious Pieces Besides it is inconsiderately done by some to alledg either the Paraphrase of Constantine who hath put Virgil and his Poem so unmercifully to the Rack or the Acrostick of the eighth Book of the Sibylline Oracles which Cicero no more thought on then he did on the Story of Apuleius's Ass The End of the First Book OF THE SIBYLS The Second Book Of the CONSEQUENCES arising upon the Supposititiousness of the Writing pretended to be Sibylline ADVERTISEMENT TO revenge the antient Injury done to the Church in whose Bosom it is now above fifteen hundred years that some have been willing to fasten the Supposititious Work of the Sibylline Writing and to Truth which hath been miserably disguised thereby and lastly to the Fathers who have been surprised by the unheard-of Impudence of the Impostour who presenting them with a counterfeit Jewel instead of a right Diamond made them take Coals out of Hell-fire for a Divine Treasure I have been forced to search into the very Roots of so deep an Imposture as such as whereto many of our Time even among the Protestants are still inclined to give Credit And in what I have done out of this Design I have cherished a certain Hope that those who shall be any way offended at the seeming Novelty of my Sentiment will vouchsafe to consider it without Prejudice that upon their acknowledgment of the solidity of its Grounds they may acquiesce therein or if they think otherwise of it with Reason correct it In the Interim presupposing it as well and sufficiently proved I shall intreat the Reader 's Attention to consider the Consequences of the Doctrine unjustly attributed to the Counterfeit Sibyl and to proceed therein with some Order Observe First In what Year precisely the Apocalyps whereof the false Prophetess attempts to wrest the true Sence was written by the Apostle Saint John Secondly About what time the extravagant Imaginations of the pretended Sibylline Writings came first abroad Thirdly By how strong a Prejudice they were possessed who were out of an excessive Easiness of Belief induced to admit them A TREATISE OF THE SIBYLS BOOK II. CHAP. I. An Enquiry thout the Time wherein Saint John wrote his REVELATION AS we have on the one side the Consent of Antiquity assigning the Life of Saint John to have ended on Sunday the 27th of December in the third year of Trajan coincident with the hundredth year after the Birth of our Saviour according to the Computation now used so have we on the other Saint Irenaeus who suffered Martyrdom in the one hundred ninety and eighth year of Christ affirming in the thirtieth Chapter of his fifth Book cited by Eusebius both in the eighth Chapter of the third Book and the eighth Chapter of the fifth Book of his History that the Apocalyps was written about the end of Domitian ' s Reign which is confirmed by Clemens Alexandrinus about the year 200. writing at the place Copied out by Eusebius that St. John returned from Patmos after the Tyrant ' s Death that is to say after the eighteenth of September in the year ninety six on which Domitian was Assassinated Eusebius seems the more absolutely to acquiess in their Sentiment in that having further published and observed in the seventeenth Chapter of his third Book that Domitian towards the end of his Reign became the Successour of Nero in his enmity and War against God he certifies in the nineteenth Chapter that Domitilla was Banished for the Profession of Christianity in the fifteenth and last year of that Prince's Reign which falls in with the ninety sixth of our Saviour Further that the Tradition of the Antients affirmed that St. John was called back from Patmos by Nerva and in his Chronicle upon the fourteenth year of Domitian which he makes coincident with the second of the two hundred and eighteenth Olympiad that Domitian was the second after Nero who persecuted the Christians and that in his Reign the Apostle St. John then banished to Patmos had seen the Apocalyps as Irenaeus declares Which words manifestly relate to the place of that holy Prelate which he had Transcribed twice in his History and which yet St. Hierome as well in his Version of Eusebius's Chronicle as in his Catalogue wrests to another sence turning it Which Irenaeus interprets as if Euschius had written not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his intention had been to tell us that Saint Irenaeus declared the Apocalyps rather then to give us to understand that according to the Declaration of that great Martyr St. John saw his Apocalyps not onely under Domitian but the fourteenth year of that Prince or to express it in his own Terms towards the end of his Reign But with this little distortion of the words of Eusebius St. Hierome in his Catalogue expresses their true sence saying Domitian in his fourteenth year raising after Nero the second Persecution John banished to the Isle of Patmos writ the Apocalyps which Justin Martyr interprets and Irenaeus So that we must not with Cardinal Baronius give that Interpretation to his Discourse as if Domitian had began his Reign fourteeen years after Nero. For though it be indeed true since Nero died the tenth of June 68. and Domitian came into his Brother's place on the eighteenth of September 81. thirteen years three moneths and eight days after the unfortunate End of Nero and consequently about the beginning of the fourteenth year yet was it not the intention of St. Hierome to acquaint us what number of years had passed between the Reign of Domitian and that of Nero but that Domitian in the fourteenth year of his Reign which was the twenty seventh after Nero's Death raised the second Persecution against the Church So that it was inconsiderately done of him who Translated the Greek Version of Sophronius the antient Interpreter of St. Hierome's Catalogue into Latine to make him say as he fancied The fourteenth year after the Death of Nero instead of turning it according to the proper expressions as well of St. Hierome as Sophronius The fourteenth year Domitian raising after Nero the second Persecution nor indeed could it have been without contradiction to St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius nay to himself and that so much the more notorious by how much the more he pretended to follow the last whose Discourse he hath Translated in a manner word for word The Arabian Prolegomena upon the Gospels published by Peter de Kirstein have these words in them John made his aboad at Ephesus seven and twenty years that is to say six under Nero ten under Vespasian two under Titus and nine under Domitian then was he Banished by Domitian into the Isle of Patmos where he stayed seven years till such time as he was called back by Nero the younger that is to say Nerva By this account the Apostle of God should have retired out of Palaestine into the Proconsulary Asia not as the Greek Fasti very probably suppose in the 68. of our Saviour because of the Revolt of the Jews from the Empire and the Eruption of the War brought into the Heart of their Country by Vespasian immediately upon the retreat of the Church of Jerusalem to Pella but in the year sixty three concurrent with the ninth of Nero and the time of St. John's Abode both at Ephesus and Patmos should have been thirty four years comprehending six years of Nero and the whole Reigns of Vespasian Titus and Domitian For Nero killed himself as hath been already observed the tenth of June 68. Vespasian having news brought him in Palaestina of the Murthering of Galba which happened on the sixteenth of January 69. as also of the Tragical End of Otho on the twentieth of April following and of the Rising of his Friends in Rome assumed the Empire and kept it till the twenty fourth of June 79. and Domitian who had succeeded his Brother Titus dying the 13th of September in the year 81. was violently forced out of the world on the 18th of September in the year 96. leaving the Empire vacant to Nerva who nulled all his Acts and by that means gave St. John the Liberty to return to Ephesus But if this Calculation be receivable in as much as it maintains the common Sentiment of the Fathers concerning the time of St. John's return yet can it not agree with the Relation of St. Irenaeus affirming that almost in his time Domitian began the Persecution towards the end of his Reign and leaving it to be inferred that the Persecution was of no long continuance which could not be said if according to the account of the Arabians we must assign it seven years that is to say a full half of Domitian's Reign and not onely the End whereto St. Irenaeus Eusébius and all the Fathers strictly limit themselves among whom Tertullian Contemporary with St. Irenaeus expresly observing the Violence of that Persecution to have made no great Havock says Domitian an Imp of Nero as to cruelty had designed a Persecution but being also himself a man he easily smothered what he had begun having re-established those whom he had Banished So that according to his Opinion the mischief was stayed by his very Order who had occasioned it But whereas by attributing to him the Re-establishment of the Banished he derogates from the Authority of the Tradition of the Antients which according to Eusebius delayed it till the Reign of Nerva whom the Prolegomena I know not why call Nero the younger I shall by no means presume so much upon his particular Opinion as to oppose it to the common belief of all the Fathers Which having forced us to reduce onely to one the seven years assigned by the Prolegomena for the Banishment of St. John imposes upon us yet a greater necessity to quit the Opinion of the Greek Fasti which place the return of St. John under the twelfth year of Domitian coincident with the ninety third of our Saviour and commit therein an Errour so much the more unmaintainable in that they make the Persecution cease as also the effect it had by the confession of all caused two years before it began and ridiculously presuppose that St. John was by the Decree for his Release restored to his former Liberty before he had been in a capacity to lose it by the unjust Decree for his Banishment He who hath busied himself in writing a Synopsis of the Lives of the Prophets and Apostles under the Name of Dorotheus having by mixture of his own Conceptions corrupted the words of the Synopsis of St. Athanasius imagines that St. John was Banished by Trajan that he lived one hundred and twenty years and returned from Patmos to Ephesus after Trajan's Death But all yet followed as it should seem by Suidas is contrary both to Tradition and the Truth since First Trajan came not to the Empire till the twenty eighth of July in the year 98. the very next to that wherein St. John was restored by Nerva Secondly St. John was according to the Opinion of St. Hierome honoured with the Apostleship in his Youth and while he was yet a Boy so that the hundredth year of our Saviour wherein he was Translated to Celestial glory could not have been much beyond the ninetieth of his Age to
to imagine any such thing of the Proconsul of Asia nor to presuppose that to comply with that Extravagance he had driven St. John who was not within his Jurisdiction from any place when at the same time that the Jews were forced to depart Rome St. Paul Priscilla Aquila and Apollos who were no less of Jewish Extraction then John sojourned at Ephesus without disturbance their Brethren according to the Flesh enjoyed there as much liberty as ever nay even when Demetrius had with those of his Profession made an Insurrection in the City against Saint Paul they thought themselves sufficiently Authorised to pacifie the Tumult thrusting out Alexander their Brother out of the Multitude and charging him to speak to the enraged People for if it were to no purpose that they attempted it it was at least without apprehension of any danger either to themselves or him Whence it follows that not onely without any necessity but also without any ground it is imagined that St. John who was not yet come to Ephesus when the Edict of Claudius came forth against the Jews was driven thence by Virtue of that Edict which no way concerned him and that if there never could be any excuse to introduce Novelties into the Business of Religion we should be much further from advancing ruinous Hypotheses to maintain the more ruinous Design of opposing common Sentiments So that no man should think it strange if through the just Judgment of God those who take a pleasure in contradicting things that are most evident unadvisedly engage themselves in inconsistent Opinions to the prejudice of their Reputation and such as are more apt to raise Compassion for their Weakness then Jealousie upon account of the great Esteem due to them CHAP. IV. A Refutation of the Sentiment of Johannes Hentenius of Maechlin concerning the Time of the Apocalyps HAving demonstrated the Improbability of the Sentiment as well of St. Epiphanius as of him who would needs make it his ground to build upon not considering he should do himself a thousand times more injury by following it contrary to the Truth then he could have done by contradicting it to promote the Truth he made it his Design to establish I conceive it lies upon me to discover the absurdity of another fond Conceit which to bring with less inconvenience the Tradition of the Church into Dispute about the year 1545. hath referred the writing of the Apocalyps to the Time of Nero ten years and more later then according to the Computation of Saint Epiphanius Johannes Hentenius an Hieronymite born at Maechlin who is the Authour of it would needs in his Preface upon the Commentary of Arethas entertain us with the following Discourse It seems to me that John the Apostle and Evangelist who is also called the Divine was Banished to Patmos by Nero at the very same time that he put to death at Rome the blessed Apostles of Christ Peter and Paul Tertullian who lived near the Times of the Apostles affirms as much in two several places Eusebius also treats of the same thing in his Book of Evangelical Preparation though in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History he saith it happened under Domitian which St. Hierome and divers others follow But to these last mentioned Books as such as were written some years before there is not so much Authority attributed as to that of Evangelical Preparation which was an after Work on which more care and exactness was bestowed Thus are we furnished by this man with a third Opinion inconsistent as well with the two precedent as the Truth it self which declares onely for the first confirmed by St. Irenaeus and others of the Antients and what should make this new Production the more contemptible is that it will be found grounded onely upon Chimaerical Suppositions and taking it at the best advantage speaks nothing positively Affirmative For whereas it is confidently affirmed that Tertullian assures us in two several places that Saint John was Banished at the time of the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul it is absolutely false that Father who makes mention of the Sufferings of the Saints Peter Paul and John jointly all together in one onely place to wit in the thirty sixth of his Praescriptions expressing it onely in these Terms That Church to wit that of Rome is very happy for which the Apostles spent their Doctrine and spilled their Blood where Peter was equalled to the Passion of his Lord that is to say Crucified where Paul was crowned with the same way of Departure as John that is to say Beheaded as St. John Baptist was where the Apostle John after he had been cast into the seething Oil yet suffered nothing was Banished into the Isle Whence it is evident that his Design was to shew that St. John was persecuted not at the same Time but at the same Place where St. Peter and St. Paul were so that his Discourse which proves nothing of what is in Question abates nought of its Truth though it be believed that Saint John's Banishment happened under Domitian and that eight and twenty years after the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul under Nero. Besides the place before cited there is in all the Works of Tertullian no more mention of the Writing of St. John then there is of the Discovery of the West-Indies so that Hentenius who brags that he had read what he says in them must needs read it in his Sleep Nor is there less Imposture in what he attributes to Eâ—sebius who in his third Book of Evangelical Preparation and the seventh Chapter having spoken of the Imprisonment of all the Apostles by the High-Priests of Jerusalem and afterwards of their Scourging of the Stoning of St. Stephen of the Decollation of St. James the Son of Zebedaeus of the Restraint of St. Peter and the Stoning of St. James the Brother of our Lord adds Peter was crucified at Rome with his Head downwards Paul had his Head cut off and John was Banished into an Isle For it is manifest that this Discourse designing neither the Place nor the Time of the Sufferings of these Holy men cannot oblige any Body to believe that they were persecuted by the same Tyrant and at the same Time and that nothing hinders but that according to Eusebius himself as well in his Chronicle as History the two former were put to Death by the command of Nero and the last Banished eight and twenty years after by Virtue of a Decree of Domitian's So that for a man to imagine the contrary from Eusebius cannot be without wresting his Words and to think to deduce it from the same words by the force of Ratiocination will amount to as much as a discovery of want of Reason and argue that the Person who attempts it dreams waking The said Authour thinks to give us a third Proof for confirmation of his Opinion when relying on a wrong Interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 which is equivocal he supposes the Chronicle of Eusebius and his History were written before his Work of Evangelical Demonstration and as less elaborate were of less Authority For whence does he inferr it Eusebius in the thirteenth Chapter of his sixth Book of his Evangelical Demonstration had used these worrds And if our own enquiry into things that concern our selves is of any account we have seen with our own eyes Sion which was of old so celebrious plowed up with Oxen and subjected to the Romanes And every one knows that Eusebius who lived not far from Sion and was a Native of the Countrey might discourse to that effect with the more certainty by reason of his having had the opportunity to go thousands of times to the Place nay what is more that at this day as in the Time of Adrian who re-edified Jerusalem under the Name of Aelia Sion which in our Saviour's Time was within its Walls and the Fortess thereof is wholly out of the Compass of it and in a manner uninhabited so that the ground thereof is and may be cultivated by the labour of Oxen. But Hentenius imagining that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not signifie any thing but his Ecclesiastical History suffered to slip out of his Memory what the Place of the Authour he had in hand should have suggested to him to wit that that very word is there as frequently in other good Writers used to denote an enquiry a survey a visit as when Plutarch in his Book Of the Cessation of Oracles and Theodoret in the second Chapter of the first Book of his Ecclesiastical History make use of it and when Suidas explicates the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nay further though we were apt to understand it otherwise Eusebius himself would not permit it nor yet that we should suppose his Evangelical Demonstration was or was written after or of greater account or more elaborate and correct then his History since that in the third Chapter of the first Book of his History he cites the Demonstration saying Having disposed into Commentaries purposely designed for that end the Extracts of the Prophets concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ and in others demonstratively confirmed the things which have been declared of him and clearly proves that he had written it before and it follows not that if he had writ it afterwards it should be ever the more elaborate for as much as The Life of Constantine whereof contrary to what many at this day think he declares himself the Authour was written after the year 337. long after his Ecclesiastical History yet was never the more elaborate since that what it hath common with the History is alleged in express Terms in several places which shews that Eusebius had not any thing better to entertain us with nor could have expressed himself in better Terms then he had done in his History which he carried on but to the the year 325. The same may be said of his Chronicle which being cited as well in the Evangelical Praeparation as in his Ecclesiastical History must of necessity have been written first For it is so far upon that account from being less correct and elaborate that on the contrary we must necessarily by it correct several Passages which he hath without sufficient recollection thrust into his History which in that regard is the less elaborate Add to this the likelyhood there is that the Chronicle which at present makes mention not onely of the Death of Licinius of the Councel of Nice and the wretched end of Crispus killed in the year 326. was reviewed by him after the setting forth of his History and consequently more elaborate then any other of his Works which Consideration contributes as much or more then any thing hath been said to the conviction of Hentenius of mistake and to the making of his imagination of no account It is therefore manifest by the Testimonies of St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Eusebius and St. Hiâ—rome in the places alleged as also by Severus Sulpitius in the second Book of his Sacred History by Paulus Orosius in the tenth Chapter of the seventh Book of his History by Primasius Bishop of Adrumetum in his Commentary upon the Apocalyps by Jornandes in his Book De Regn. success by Isidore of Sevil in his Chronicle and his Book of the Death of the Saints by the Authour of the Preface put before the Treatises of St. Augustine upon St. John by Maximus on Dionysius his tenth Epistle by the Counterfeit Abdias and Prochorus in the Life of St. John by Bede on the Apocalyps and Of the six Ages by Him who wrote Of the Martyrdom of St. Timothy by Ambrose Ansbert upon the Apocalyps by Paul the Deacon in Miscelia by Freculsius of Lizieux Tom. 2. Book 2. Chap. 7 and 8. by the Romane Martyrologies of Bede Usuard Ado Notker c. by Michael Syncellus in Encomio Dionysii by Regino by Arothas Arch-Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia by Simeon Metaphrastes by the Greek Fasti by the Arabian Prolegomena by Hermannus sirnamed Contractus by Lambert of Schaffnabourg by Marianus Scotus by Zonaras by Cedrenus by Nicephorus Callistus in the eleventh Chapter of his first Book and the fourty second Chapter of his second Book by Georgius Paechymerius on â—ionysius his Episiles and by almost all those that have written since the Time of St. John that that great Apostle received the Revelations from God under Domitian near the end of his Reign that he was recalled from Paâ—mos by Nerva and writ his Gospel after his return to Ephesus and ended this Life in the third year of Trajan so that whosoever will have the Obstinacy to maintain the contrary must needs before he pretend to have any credit given himself wholly take away that of all Antiquity Fourty two years after the re-establishment of Saint John at Ephesus and thirty eight years after his Death the Emperour Adrian troubled with a mortal Disease and without Issue did upon the five and twentieth of February in the year 138. adopt Antoninus sirnamed The Debonnaire conditionally that the Adoption should be extended to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus the Sons of his former adopted Son who died on the first of January in the year 137. and he himself coming to die the 12th of July following immediately thereupon came abroad the Poem attributed to the Sibyls wherein the Authour who towards the end of the 8th Book assigned the utter destruction of Rome to happen in the four hundred ninety eighth year after its Foundation coincident with the year 195. of our Saviour upon this very account that giving two several times a List of the Emperours he reckons after Adrian Antoninus and his two adopted Sons evidently shews that he lived and writ after their Adoption His own words make it manifest After him that is to say Trajan another one with a Silver Head that is to
say Grey-haired shall reign who shall derive his Name Adrian from the Adriatick Sea There shall be another Person absolutely good who shall know all things that is to say Antoninus the Affable and under thee O most Excellent and best of men who art Brown-haired and under thy Branches to wit Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus will come the time of the accomplishment of all things Three shall reign and the third shall have the government after all the rest And elsewhere speaking to Rome he says After that three times five Kings that is to say Julius Augustus Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Galba Piso Otho Vitellius Vespasian Titus Domitian Nerva and Trajan shall have reigned in Thee and subdued the World from East to West there shall be a King with an Hoary head taking his Name to wit Adrian from the Sea Adriatick c. Besides him there shall reign to wit Antoninus Marcus Aurelius and Verus under whom shall be the last of Times and by the Name they all shall have of Antoninus fill the Name of the celestical God to wit Adonai whose Power is now and will be for ever CHAP. V. A Refutation of Possevinus concerning the Time when the Sibylline Writing came first abroad IT must therefore of necessity follow that the Impostour who to draw up Catalogues of the Emperours had borrowed the Name of the Sibyl put that Cheat upon the World since the year 138. let us now see how long after Possevin in his Apparatus Sacer upon an imagination that he speaks of the second Conflagration of the Temple of Vesta makes him live after that Accident and thereupon is mistaken in four several respects For First he makes an ill concurrence between the year 199. with the Empire of Commodus Assassinated the 31th of December 192. Secondly he no less unjustly assigns the Conflagration of Vesta's Temple in the year 199. since that according to Dion in his seventy second Book Herodian in his first Book and Orosius in the sixteenth Chapter of his seventh Book it happened toward the end of Commodus's Reign who left this world seven years before To which may be added that Eusebius whose Authority he notoriously abuses determines the time of that ruinous Accident affirming it to have happened in the third year of the 242. Olympiad and the twelfth of Commodus which concurr onely with the 191. year of our Saviour Thirdly When he designs the three Successours of Adrian omitting Verus taken into Partnership of the Empire by Marcus Aurelius he reckons in his stead Commodus on whom the pretended Sibyl neither thought nor could have thought since she writ her Poem above fifteen years before the Birth of that Prince which was on the thirty first of August 161. and above thirty years before his association in the Empire happening on the twenty seventh of November 176. Fourthly Though the Authour of that Romance might have spoken somewhat of the Conflagration of Vesta's Temple since that upon the very account of his having supposed that Rome should be burned in the year after its Foundation 948. concurrent with the year 195. of Christ and the third of Severus he would insinuate that all the Temples of that City that of Vesta among the rest should be consumed by Fire and could not as being dead before either see the Conflagration of it or according to his own Hypotheses say that he had seen it yet how after he had measured the duration of Rome by the Lives of Antoninus and his two Adopted Sons Marcus Aurelius and Verus shewing thereby he writ in their Times and consequently before the year of Christ 160. could he have been in a capacity to speak of commodus who was born the last of August 161. five Moneths and twenty four days after the Death of Antoninus and affirm he had seen the second Conflagration of Vesta's Temple which came not to pass till the year 191. and the twelfth year after the Death of Marcus with whom he seemed to imagine that Rome and the whole World should perish For instance in the third Book page 27. he had written that Rome should become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a Village which he had done in imitation of the Apocalyps Chap. xvii Verse 16. and Chap. xviii Verse 8. and Chap. xix Verse 3. openly threatening it with a final destruction by Fire saying in the second Book page 14. Rome's seven-hill'd People God shall shake And Fire of much Wealth shall destruction make Snatch'd up by Vulcan's ravenous Flames And page 20. By a sad Fate There shall be three will lay Rome desolate All men shall in their Houses be destroy'd By Cataracts of Fire from Heav'n And in the fifth Book page 40. Surrounded with a burning Fire go dwell In the dreadfull aboad of lowest Hell And in the eighth Book page 58. To Naphta thou Bitumen Sulphur Fire reduc'd shalt be But Ashes to be burnt t'eternity Nay that there should not be the least difficulty as to what concerns the Time of that Catastrophe he had declared himself in these Terms page 59. Thou shalt compleat Three times three hundred years and fourty eight Of thy Name then the Number being past Thy wretched Fate shall Thee surprize in haste That is to say the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof the Letters produce the Number 948. thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 100. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 800. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 8. But could he without being ridiculous and passing for a Fool brag that he had survived those under whom Rome and the World should come to its Period but also that he had been Spectatour of an Accident which but four years preceeded the day he had assigned for that utter desolation Or could he with any countenance have acknowledged that he had out-lived the Time which he had assigned for the determination of the Empire and the Universe But he hath not shewed himself so much a Fool as a confident Impostour and his words which Possevin thought might be applied to the second Conflagration of Vesta's Temple relate onely to the final Destruction of that of Jerusalem which he calls the Amiable House the Guardian-Temple of the Divinity an Elogie which could not be given the Temple of Vesta by him who undertook to dispute against the Idolatry of the Heathen for the worship of one God Besides the Remark which Possevin makes of the Authour of the second Conflagration of that Temple which the Counterfeit Sibyl meant saying That he had with an impious hand attempted clearly discovers that he reflected on the Hand of that Infidel Souldier who had fired the Temple of Jerusalem and was declared impious by the Judgment of Titus General of the Romane Army For the Counterfeit Prophetess might well brag of the sight of that horrid Accident since it had happened in the year of our Lord 76. sixty eight years full before the reign of the Antonini under whom she writ though
it was no less then the height of impertinence in her to call her self as she did Noah's Daughter-in-law and to boast that she had seen a ruin 2068. later then the death of Noah and 2427. years after the Deluge as if according to the Fable advanced by Ovid in the thirteenth Book of his Metamorphoses that pretended Prophetess having obtained the Privilege of living as many years as there were Grains in the heap of Sand shewed by the Cumaean Sibyl to Apollo she had at the time of her Writing already passed not 700. years as that Prophetess of Ovid but above 2400. and expected to continue till the end of the World whereas the Cumaean Sibyl as is reported of her thought she was to become at the end of a thousand so wasted as not to have any Body at all having after the dissolution of her precedent Form onely her voice left her to foretell what was to come Her words taken out of the fifth Book page 49. are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nor longer shall in Thee the Virgin quire The Fuel finde of their perpetual Fire The Amiable House long since by thee Hath been destroy'd The second I did see The guardian-Temple o' th' Divinity That ever flourishing house in 'ts Ashes lie Fir'd by an impious hand c. Which Discourse cannot clearly relate to any thing but the Conflagration of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romane Army as a Punishment for which act the Authour of the Sibylline Oracles pretends that Rome should be lai'd desolate in such manner as that the Vestals should not any longer keep in the Fire which they called Sacred and Divine CHAP. VI. Of the Time when the Sibylline Books were written FRom what hath been said is manifest that the Opinion of Possevin concerning the Time wherein the Person who counterfeited the Sibyl lived is ill grounded and our Method now calls upon us to make enquiry how many years we must ascend assuredly to finde it out That he Writ under Antoninus his own words were sufficient to convince any man that should well consider them but his credit sequestered from the things which may otherwise keep it up being with good reason of no account his sincerity is greatly to be suspected and his discourse requiring much caution it is necessary we finde other helps to confirm what is advanced and preferr the Testimonies of those whom his Imposture hath circumvented before any thing he could have represented of himself Theophilus of Antioch who died on the thirteenth of October in the year 180. in regard he hath inserted into his Books To Autolycus divers things taken out of the Sibylline Writings does irrefragably prove that they were before him in Time and that contrary to the conjecture of Possevin the Authour who first writ them reached not the Reign of Commodus who when Theophilus died onely began the eighth Moneth of his Reign Athenagoras who in his Embassy to the Emperours Marcus Aurelius and Verus on the behalf of the Christians copied six Verses out of the second Book shews that this counterfeit Prophecy was in Vogue some time before the year 170. in which Verus died Hermas whom Tertullian affirms to have been Brother to Pope Pius the First who took the Chair on Sunday the seventh of March 146. under the Consulship of Clarus and Severus and died on the eleventh of July 150. under the Consulship of Gallicanus and Vetus discovers that he had a particular knowledg of the said Writings since that in his Work entituled The Pastour he hath not onely shuffled many fantastick Imaginations suitable to those of the pretended Sibyl but designed the Authour by the very Name he would go under For as much as in the second Vision of the first Book having imagined that an Aged Woman had while he was in Ecstasie given him a little Book to transcribe containing Exhortations to Penance he expressed what he seemed to believe of it in these Terms Brethren it hath been revealed to me in my Sleep by a Young man of a goodly appearance and saying to me Who do you think this Aged Woman is of whom you received the Book and I said The Sibyl Whence it follows That before the year 150. this Opinion had gained Footing at Rome among the Christians That a Sibyl much unlike that of the Heathens gave Sinners wholesom Instructions in order to the Exercises of Penance and true Piety And whereas Pope Pius in his second Epistle to Justus of Vienna makes mention of the Death of his Brother saying The Priest called The Pastour hath founded a Title and is worthily departed in the Lord it justifies that between the year 146. and 150. Hermas had maintained the Suppostion of the Sibyl and that the Authour of the Books attributed to her must be yet more antient St. Justin a Christian Philosopher a Native of Neapolis in Palaestina sometime called Sichem and who afterwards suffered Martyrdom at Rome on the first of June 163. does in his First Apologie presented to the Emperour Antoninus his Adopted Sons and the People before Marcus Aurelius had been received into Partnership of the Empire and consequently about the year 141 or 142. complain of the Prohibition had been made that none upon pain of Death should read the Books of Hystaspes and the Sibyl which he presented to the Princes and Senate as things deserving to be highly esteemed and it is not to be doubted but that Holy Person spoke of those which are come to our hands since that in his Exhortation to the Greeks he copied three Verses out of his Preface three out of the third Book and Seaven out of the Fourth a manifest Argument that they were already published since they had passed through his Hands and that he objected them as Pieces generally known to the Heathen themselves whose Errours he opposed CHAP. VII A Conjecture concerning the Authour of the Sibylline Writings IT were at this Day impossible for any man to be so happy in the discovery of the Authour of that Imposture as that he might without any fear of Mistake make his Name publike to be covered with the shame and enormity of his sacrilegious attempt against the sincerity of the Church But methinks there is some ground to charge if not as the principal advancer of the Cheat at least as a complice of his crime Hermas who as hath been observed spoke of the Sibyl in the year 148 or 149. and who was grown infamous for another kind of Supposititious dealing whereby he presumed to feign Apparitions of Women and Angels disguised like Shepherds who furnished him with Instructions of Penance pestered with fantastick Imaginations which he hath expressed in as wretched Greek as that of the Sibylline Writings and such as equally with the other deserves perpetual dishonour Though he were a Native of Aquileia yet was his residence with his Brother Pope Pius at Rome that is in the Heart of that place which for the space of
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
Maccabees Thus Tertullian in the year 199. in the third Chapter of his Book De Corona tells us Quaramus an Traditio c. Let us enquire whether the not-written Tradition is not also to be received No doubt we shall deny that it ought to be received if no prejudice arise from the Examples of other Observations which we challenge to our selves without any recommendation from Scripture onely upon the accompt of Tradition fortified by the Patronage of Custom c. Upon anniversary-days we make Oblations for the departed and for their Birth-days c. viz. Of the departure of Martyrs In like manner St. Epiphanius in the year 376. concludes his Disputation against Aërius with the Allegation of Tradition saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Next I shall again take the consequence of this that the Church accomplishes this thing necessarily having taken the Tradition of the Fathers Now who can violate the Ordinance of his Mother or the Law of his Father according to the words of Salomon My Son hear the Instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother shewing that the Father that is to say God the onely Son and the Holy Spirit hath taught as well by writing as without writing and that our Mother the Church hath Laws made in her self such as are indissoluble and cannot be destroyed Denys the pretended Areopagite about the year 490. follows the same track in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy saying It is necessary to speak of the Tradition come even to us from our conductours inspired by God concerning the said Prayer which the Hierarch pronounces over the Deceased The like may be said of St. Augustine who had first of any alledged the pretended example of the Maccabees for distrusting what Arguments might be drawn thence he flies to the Authority of the Church and thereby shews his main strength lay on that side The same thing is further insinuated as well by the ingenuous confession which the Fathers make of the doubts of many of the Christians in their times concerning the advantage of Prayer for the dead as by the answers given by them thereto For Aërius in St. Epiphanius in the year 376. put this difficulty asking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Upon what accompt do you name after their death those who are dead For whether the surviving prays or dispenses his goods what advantage accrews thereby to the deceased If the Prayers of those who are here be any way beneficial to those who are there let not any one live religiously nor do well but so behave himself as he would have Friends whether it be by procuring them for many or intreating them at his death to pray for him to the end he may not suffer there and that there be no inquisition made into the incurable sins he hath committed Some twenty years before St. Cyril of Jerusalem had acknowledged in his fifth Mystagogical Catechesis that in Palaestine there were many persons troubled about the difficulty made by Aërius in Armenià crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I know many say thus What advantage is it to the Soul transported out of this World with sins or without sins that you remember her in your Prayers And about one hundred years after Denys the pretended Areopagite writing in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It may be will you say that these things are well said by us but that you are in doubt as to the Hierarch ' s desiring of the Sovereign goodness of God for the deceased the remission of his Sins and the portion of light assigned for those who are like God For if every one shall receive from the justice of God the reward of all the good things and others which he hath done in this life and the deceased hath accomplished all Functions suitable to the life which is led here by what Hierarchical Prayer shall he be transferred beyond his merit and the reward due to the life he hath led here into another lot From this diversity of Questions renewed from time to time it is apparent that the first answers made to those who could not conceive any benefit arising from Prayer for the dead had not given them satisfaction and that neither they nor those who answered them saw any Text of Scripture that could decide the difficulty proposed by them For who could expect from a Christian that he durst bring into question what he knew to have been resolved by the Oracles of God On the contrary who will not be easily induced to doubt of things whereof he findes no other confirmation then that of Custom and that not fortified by any Command of God to whose Worship it is pretended that Custome relates Nay when we do not finde in the Fathers Answers to the Objections whereby that Custom was opposed any mention either of the second of the Maccabees or of any place of Scripture concerning the State of the dead ought we not of necessity to conclude that not onely they had not any to alledge but also that they made not in their Offices for the dead any reflection on the second of the Maccabees or any of the Books justly or unjustly reputed Canonical but onely on the example of their Predecessours CHAP. XXV Whether there be any reason to ground Prayer for the Dead upon the Second Book of the Maccabees I Have hitherto made it my business onely to prove that praying for the Dead never was as to matter of fact grounded by the first that practised it among the Christians upon the second of the Maccabees nor any other Book either Canonical or Apocryphal I am to shew that as to matter of right it could not have been grounded thereon and to that purpose I am in the first place to give a relation of the fact of Judas Maccabaeus and secondly an accompt of the application made of it by Jason the Cyrenian or his Abridger The fact is set down in these Terms So Judas gathered his Host and came into the City of Odollam and when the seventh day came they purified themselves as the Custom was and kept the Sabbath in the same place And upon the day following as the use had been Judas and his Company came to take up the Bodies of them that were slain and to bury them with their Kinsmen in their Father's Graves Now under the Coats of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to the Idols of the Jamnites which is forbidden the Jews by the Law Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain All men therefore praysing the Lord the righteous Judg who had opened the things that were hid Betook themselves unto Prayer and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance Besides the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin for so much as they saw
some persons having observed that the Heathens called by the Name of Ollas Vulcanias or Kettles of Vulcan the gaping places through which the Mountains of Gibel Vesuvium Lipara Strongoli and other places full of sulphur disburthen themselves of the Flames which either by intervals or a constant burning devour their Entrails and taken either out of astonishment or of set purpose the crakings of those subterranean Fires for the groans and crys of Tormented persons and lastly met with men who had the confidence either out of the excess of their malice against some Persons Departed or a desire to make their advantage of the credulous simplicity of the Living to compose Histories of the Apparitions of Souls separated by Death from the Bodies which they had animated before would needs without any Oracle of Scripture or Tradition of the first Ages of the Church and without the Example of any of the Saints that lived in them suppose that the Souls of those Christians which during their life-time had been defiled with Sin were after their death as it were melted again in a subterranean Fire where they were purified some sooner others later and all before the Last Day And as we finde the Poet Dante by a Liberty truly Poetical confined to the Hell where the Damned were all his enemies advanced into Paradise the best of his Friends and reduced the rest to be content with Purgatory so were there about the midst of the sixth Age a sort of People that had the boldness to affirm upon the Authority of their own pretended Visions the damnation of the Greatest men About that time was it that the Hermit of Lipara had perswaded the Father of the Step-father of Julian one of the Agents of the Romane Church that he had seen Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths who died on the one and thirtieth of August 536. led between Pope John the First and Symmachus without a Girdle without Shoes his hands tyed and at last cast into the next Vulcanian Cauldron whence honest St. Gregory inferred in the year 593. that by the Eructations of Fire which happened many times in Sicily and other adjacent Islands the tormenting Cauldrons were discovered Thus also came it to pass that after the Death of Charles Martel which happened on the two and twentieth of October 741. the Monks of St. Tron having published that Eucherius Bishop of Orleans had seen in a Vision the eternal Torments of that Prince who had dealt very roughly with him and given Ecclesiastical Revenues to those who had assisted him in the War and that thereupon there had been found in his Sepulchre onely a Dragon with the visible marks of his Body's being Divinely consumed by Fire the Story though so much the more evidently false in as much as the Death of Eucherius who died the fifteenth of February 727. preceded by fifteen years eight Moneths and two days that of Charles Martel whom he is ridiculously supposed to have survived was so pleasing to the humour of the Clergie that the Writers of the Legends of Rigobert of Rheims of Eucherius and Peter the Library-keeper and Flodoard undertook the dispersing of it and in the year 858. in November the Prelats of the Provinces of Rheims and Rouēn gave it for certain to Lewis King of Germany whom they knew to be descended of Martel by Pipin his second Son who upon the twenty ninth of July 753. concurrent with the fourth of his Reign gave for his Father's sake Saint Michael's-Mount in Verdunois to the Abbey of Saint Denys and by Lewis the Debonnaire Grand-Son of Pipin who Writ in the year 836. to Hilduin Abbot of Saint Denys that Charles his Great-grandfather had religiously recommended himself and had for that end principally shewn his Devotion and confidence towards that his particular Patron a manifest Argument that the Fable of his Damnation was not yet invented and that those Gentlemen who two and twenty years before bragged they had heard the Relation of it from Lewis imposed upon him and very boldly abused the credulity of Lewis King of Germany and Charles the Bald his children And in the year 1090. In Saxony a Clergy-man Dead as was conceived dragged into Hell and returning thence three days after confirmed by the Prediction of his own Death and the discoveries of other things the Judgment he had before given concerning the Torments of Pope Gregory the Seventh and the Petty Kings Rodolph and Herman the first of whom died the twenty fourth of May 1085. the second the fifteenth of October 1080. and the third in the year 1088. These three Examples whereto a thousand others of equal authority might be added are sufficient to make it appear what a strange power malice hath over those who are once infected with its venome There may be produced also such as shall demonstrate what Impressions Interest can give for to raise an horrour against Schism there was spread up and down Rome this Discourse concerning Paschasius Deacon of the Romane Church who had been to his death engaged in the Party of the Anti-Pope Laurence put by his pretences the 23 of October 501. That notwithstanding the merit of his Person being such that the very touching of the Surplice placed upon his biere had while he was carrying to the ground healed a possessed person yet had his soul been condemned to endure the ardors of the boyling-waters in the Baths surnamed the Angulani whence it was afterwards delivered upon the Prayers of Germanus Bishop of Capua And to encourage men to liberality it was said of Dagobert who died January 19. 644. that the Devils beating him as they were carrying him away in a Boat towards the Isles of Vulcan St. Denys St. Maurice and St. Martin whom he continually called to his relief came with Thunder and Tempest to his rescue and disposed him afterwards into Abraham's Bosom all which passages John the Hermite who lived in a little Isle not far thence saw in a Vision and gave the Relation of it to Anseald then Agent and afterwards Bishop of the Church of Poictiers In like manner the Impostor who took upon him the name of Turpin for that of Tilpin Arch-Bishop of Rheims who died the third of September 789. never considering that Wolfarius Successour to Tilpin did in the year 811. subscribe the Testament of Charle-maigne feigned that that Prince dying on Saturday Jan. 28. 814. and Canonized by Paschal the Third Anti-Pope in the year 1166. had been carried up to the Celestial Kingdom by the assistance of St. James to whom he had built many Churches and that a certain Devil whom he had seen running after the Troops of his Companions and drawing towards Aix la Chapelle whither they were all going in hope to be present at Charles's death and afterwards to carry away his Soul to Hell had told him at his return that the headless Galician had put into the
And that among the Liturgies of the Greeks Armenians c. there are onely two viz. those of St. Basil and St. Chryâ—ostome drawn up one by the other which have onely this word of it by the way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Resting in hope of Resurrection and eternal life Where it is evident to any one that hath but common sense that he who pronounces the Prayer desires not for the Dead either Resurrection or Life but onely declares that both of them have ever been the Object of their hope To be absolutely silent in it as the Canon of the Latine Mass is or to speak uncertainly of it without making any request is that proposing to one's self the pretended Example of Judas Maccabaeus and the Tradition of the antient Synagogue Or can it either enter into any man's Imagination to say they imitate who neither in their Discourses nor in their Actions express any thing of what is contained in the Original If it be said that the Latins in the Office of the Dead added to the Canon demand the Resurrection of the departed Person whom they recommend to God in their Prayers it will be easie to reply that of three and fourty Prayers whereof that Office consists one onely viz. the fifth proposes in one word that kinde of supplication saying Partem Resurrectionis accipiat Anima famuli tui c. That the soul of thy servant may participate of the blessed Resurrection three others which spake of the Resurrection presuppose it without making any demand and amount to no more then to require onely the effect of it as for instance the second layd down in these Terms Inter Sanctos Electos tuos resuscitati gloriâ manifestae contemplationis perpetuò satientur c. That thy servants being raised again may be perpetually silled among the Saints and Elect with the glory of a manifest contemplation the fourth which hath Ad propria corpora quandoque reversuras Sanctorum tuorum caetibus aggregari praecipias c. That thou wouldest command that the souls of all the Faithfull which are one day to return to their bodies may meet together in the Assemblies of thy Saints and the nine and thirtieth which contains these words In Resurrectionis gloria inter Sanctos Electos tuos resuscitati respirent c. That thy servants of both Sexes being raised up may live among thy Saints and Elect in the glory of the Resurrection From all which Forms it necessary follows that the Latine Church never thought of framing her Service according to the Example of Judas Maccabaeus and that it is vainly and without any shadow of Proof that any Venture at this day to maintain it never considering that if the first Authours of Praying for the Dead among Christians had had any design to build their Form of Service upon the pretended Pattern of the Maccabees they could not without prevarication from their own Intentions fo far have missed the Lineaments thereof as to have omitted in their Canon what they had proposed to themselves to put in Practice or not to insist on it but obliquely and perfunctorily not making it as they should have done their Principal business CHAP. XXXII That the Primitive Sence of the Prayers whereby the Remission of Sins is demanded for the Dead is not embraced by any THe Prayers which the antient Church made for Remission of Sins on the behalf of the Faithfull departed did not onely proceed from the Hypothesis of the Sibylline Writing concerning the consinement of all Souls in Hell and of Justine Martyr concerning the power of the Devils even over those of the greatest Saints but is also an effect of their Opinion who imagined that our Saviour and his Apostles after his Example being after their departure descended into Hell had preached there and in effect converted many of those who were gone thither in the state of Sin For looking upon as reduced to the Trial of some punishment those whose Beatitude was during their restraint in the common prison of the Dead deferred and conceiving that their Condition was capable of being changed into better they inferred very suitably to these Opinions that it was necessary to implore the mercy of God and to demand on their behalf the forgiveness of their Sins which for a time kept the Gates of glory shut against them and exposed them in some manner to the violences of Evil spirits till such time as that by their own supplications and the suffrages of their surviving Friends they might better their Condition We have already produced Examples of those Prayers and there is not any Expression so strong or efficacious which we finde not employed to make us comprehend that heretofore the surviving Faithfull were of a Belief that their departed Brethren were treated as Malefactours and in a manner covered with the wrath of God But from the beginning of the Third Age and afterwards those among the Fathers who had more attentively considered the Oracles of God affirming That There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus That No man is able to pluck them out of his hand That They are at the hour of death taken away from the evil to come That They depart out of the Body to be with the Lord That Their iniquity shall be sought for and there shall be none because God hath pardoned them That as soon as they are dead in the Lord they rest from their labours and according to what we finde in express Terms in the Canon of the Mass sleep a sleep of Peace as being actually in Peace and freed from Sin which deprives a man of it and makes a separation between the Lord and him that commits it the Fathers I say not discontinuing out of the respect they had for their Ancestours the Prayers inserted by them upon prejudications both ill-grounded and extremely mistaken into the Service of the Church do by the formal Confession of the insufficiency of those Principles make a certain disclaim of the Prayers enough to justifie that according to them being taken literally they are absolutely unprofitable as being destitute of Truth and a maintainable Foundation Hence is it that in the year 252. St. Cyprian tells us of the advantage which accrews to the Faithfull at their death Lucrum maximum jam nullis peccatis vitiis carnis obnoxium fieri c. It is a very great gain not to be any longer subject to sins and the lusts of the flesh St. Cyril of Jerusalem about the year 350. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remission having its Ordinance onely in this life St. Epiphamus in the year 375. in the nine and fiftieth Haeresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is not any progress either of Piety or Repentance after death St. Ambrose about the year 378. Qui hic non acceperit remissionem illic non erit c. He who shall not have received remission here shall not
Beatitude writing in the nine and twentieth Homily upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Without the flesh the soul shall not receive those unspeakable goods in like manner shall she not also be punished c. If the body be not raised again the soul remains uncrowned deprived of that Beatitude which is in the Heavens c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. You also think what and how great a thing it is that Abraham and the Apostle Paul should sit down till such time as thou shalt be accomplished to the end that then they might receive their reward for if we also are not arrived the Saviour hath foretold that he would not give it c. What shall Abel do who overcame first of all and is sate down without being Crowned Thirdly From what is said by Prudentius who speaking of the Martyrs of Saragossa seems to deny their Souls admission into Heaven saying Sub Altari sita sempiterno turba c. The company seated under the Eternal Altar To which may be added that St. Augustine not content to have said That after this life ended we shall not be there where the Saints shall be as if he could not have designed by its proper Name the place of the Soul's habitation is forced in several places to make use of the most general Term of all viz. that of Receptacles And to that that of Paulinus who in his Epitaph upon Clarus as if he knew not where to assign him Entertainment makes this Discourse to him Sive Patrum sinibus recubas Dominive sub ara Conderis aut sacro pasceris in nemore Qualibet in regione Poli situs aut Paradisi Clare sub aeternâ pace quietus agis c. Whether in th' Patriarch's Bosom thou remain Or under the Lord's Altar art detain d Or an Aboad i' th' sacred Grove hast gain'd What part or place of Paradise thou hast got Clarus eternal Peace and Rest's thy Lot But all this is not enough to induce me to subscribe to the disadvantageous Censure given by Stapleton who not making any distinction of either Times or Persons or Expressions durst attribute to all Antiquity what the Authour of the pretended Sibylline Writing had perswaded those who had first consulted it Nor do I see that from the places above cited it may rigorously be inferred that the Fathers out of whose Writings they are extracted delayed the Beatitude of the Saints till after the Day of Judgment For though the words of Sain◠Ambrose seem to bear that they expect their Happiness with uncertainty and doubtfully yet he neither understood nor could have understood it so since that in the second of the places objected to him he writes that the Soul of the Faithfull Person departed Non busto tenetur sed quiete piâ fungitur c. is not detained upon the Funeral Pile where the Body had been consumed but enjoys a pious Rest His design then as it was also St. Chrysostom's who means by the Bosom of the Fathers the Kingdom of Heaven was to have it understood that the supreme Happiness and absolute accomplishment of the glory of the Saints departed was to be a Consequence of the Resurrection and Last Judgment at which time the souls already in Glory shall receive their true Crowns in the remuneration promised to compleat Persons whereof they before made the principal part and that in expectation of the Judgment which shall fully consummate their Glory they remain in suspense not as uncertain of the effect it shall produce but as ignorant of the time when it shall please God that so admirable an Event shall come to pass So that his particular Judgment reaches no further then that the souls freed from their bodies are transmitted to Hell but simply supposes that as to the Heathen it was enough to say so much As for Prudentius and Paulinus their conception of the Eternal Altar is not after a gross but after a refined and mystical manner Prudentius saying of the blessed souls that they shall rest in the Bosom of the blessed Old man where Lazarus is and in Paradise And Paulinus expressly declaring of Clarus Libera corporeo mens carcere gaudet in Astris Pura probatorum sedem sortita piorum c. Spiritus aethere gaudet Discipulúmque pari sociat super astra Magistro c. Among the Just his Habitation is Of Body freed possess'd of Heav'nly Bliss c. His soul to Heav'n is gone The Scholar to the Master 's equal grown So that according to these two Authours to rest under the Eternal Altar in the Bosom of Abraham in Paradise in Heaven above the Stars is one and the same thing as to the effect and design though by divers expressions the Beatitude and Glory of the children of God as well in general as in particular CHAP. XXXIV The Uniformity of the Sentiment of the Fathers and of the Protestants I Add that most of the Fathers who lived after Tertullian what Expressions soever they may make use of were of a Sentiment consonant to what is at the present held by the Protestants and firmly maintained that all the Souls of those of whose Names there was a Commemoration made in the Service of the Church were at the very hour of their death conveyed to the enjoyment of their Rest and Glory Hence was it that St. Cyprian even in the year 252. resolutely pronounces De istis mundi turbinibus extracti c. Having escaped the Tempests of this World we make towards the secure Haven of an eternal Mansion c. We are not to put on Mourning-Garments here when they there have already put on their White Robes c. It is not a departure but a passage and the Temporal journey being at an end a transportation towards the things That are Eternal c. Let us embrace the day which assigns to every one his own Mansion which restores us taken away hence and disingaged from the snares of this World to Paradise and the celestial Kingdom c. Again Lucrum maximum c. exemptum pressuris-urgentibus venenatis Diaboli faucibus liberatum ad laetitiam salutis aeternae Christo vocante prosicisci c. It is an exceeding great advantage c. to go Christ calling us to the Joys of Eternal Salvation after we are freed from those pressures which lie heavy upon us and delivered from the poisonous jaws of the Devil To the same effect Origene about fifteen years before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We hope to be above the Heavens after the Combats and Troubles which we have run through here St. Basil in the following Age about the year 370. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An eternal Rest is proposed to those who shall have lawfully maintained the Combat of the Life which is here St. Gregory Nazianzene in his tenth Oration pronounced about the year 369. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Heaven To the same sense was that of Alexander the Martyr burnt at Rome on the tenth of July for the Testimony of Christ Alexander mortuus non est sed vivit super Astra corpus in hoc Tumulo quiescit Vitam explevit cum Antonino Imp. quiubi multum beneficii antevenire praevideret pro gratia o'dium reddit genua enim flectens vero Deo sacrificaturus ad supplicia ducitur O témpora infausta quibus inter sacra vota nè in cavernis quidem salvari possimus Quid miserius vita sed quid miserius in Morte cùm ab Amicis Parentibus sepeliri nequeamus Tandem in Coelo corruscat parùm vixit iv x. tem ........ Alexander is not dead but lives above the Stars and his Body rests in this Tomb. He ended his life with the Emperour Antoninus who foreseeing that much good was to happen to him returns him Hatred instead of Favour For when he had bent his Knees to sacrifice to the true God he is led to punishment O unhappy times wherein among sacred Exercises and Devotions we cannot be safe not even in Caverns What more miserable then Life but is there any thing more miserable in Death then that we cannot be buried by our Friends and Kindred At length he shines in heaven he hath lived but a short time c. That of Mala Requiescit in somno pacis c. accepta apud Deum c. She rests in a sleep of peace c. received near God That of Marius Innocentius In pace Deidormit c. He sleeps in the Peace of the Lord. That of Paulina 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 She lies in the place of the Blessed That of Florentius Requiem accepit in Deo Patre nostro Christo ejus c. He is at rest in God our Father and his Christ That of Lucius Deo Sancto unite cum pace c. Thou united to the Holy God with peace That of Leo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is Victoriour That of Receptus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He goes before in peace That of Jovinus Locus Sallii Pontii Jovini in Christo c. The place of Sallius Pontius Jovinus in Christ Having thus heard the Judgment of Pious Antiquity concerning the State of the Faithfull departed and learn'd of it that they go to God that they are and go before in peace that they are and sleep in the peace of the Lord that they are received to the Lord and united to him with peace that they are in the place of the Blessed that they rest in eternal peace and in heaven as Conquerours which is confirmed by the Figures of Crowns Palms and the Dove bringing to Noë the Olive-branch the Symbol of the peace of God graved upon most of the antient Tombs who can without renouncing common sence and opposing the Testimony of his own eys which read these words and see these Symbolical Pourtraitures upon the Monuments where words are wanting imagine that the Epitaphs whereby the Deceased are said to be in peace c. in peace signifie onely that they died not under Excommunication and not that they are as Combatants retired out of the Field happy and triumphant in Celestical Glory CHAP. XL. The same deduced from larger Epitaphs WE have not any Epitaph in Verse of more Antient Date then the Papacy of Damasus by whose Hand the first we have were written but we may confidently affirm that even those and almost all that have been composed from the year 384. in which that Prelate ended his Life to the year 900. constantly presuppose the Beatitude and Glory of those to whose Memory they were Dedicated Thus that of Irene Sister to the said Pope Quum sibi eam raperet melior tunc Regia Coeli Non timui mortem Coelos quòd libera adiret Sed dolui fateor consortia perdere vitae c. Now that 〈◊〉 a better place she 's snatch'd her death I grieve not since to heav'n she 's freely gone But that I 've lost her conversation Is my regret That of Projecta deceased the thirtieth of December under the Consulship of Merobaudes and Saturninus in the year 383. Ex oculis Flori Genitoris abivit Aetheream cupiens Coeli conscendere lucem c. Sâ—â— vanish'd from her Father's sight Greedy to go to heav'ns aethereal Light That of Tigris Deacon of the Romane Church Quaeris Plebs sancta redemptum Levitam subitò rapuit sibi Regia Coeli c. Nunc Paradisus habet sumpsit qui ex hoste Trophaea c. Do you the redeemed Levite seek Heav'n's Court hath snatch'd him hence Who Tropheys from the Enemy did wrest Of heav'n is now possest A manner of speaking used by Pope Damasus in the Epitaph of his sister Irene and of the Saints Martyrs of whom he says Sublimes animas rapuit sibi Regia Coeli c. To heav'n's Court high souls are carried hence And the conclusion of the whole Epigram is He who took Tropheys from the Enemy In Paradise enjoyes felicity That of Tigris the Priest Sedibus in propriis mens pura membra quiescunt Ista jacent Tumulo gaudet at illa Polo c. Promeruit superas laetior ire domos c. His Minde and Members sev'ral seats contain In Heaven that these in the Grave remain That of Marcellina Sister of St. Ambrose Te pia Virgo supernum Accipit Imperium placidaeque ad munera vitae Aeternum Christus pretium tibi destinat Aulae c. Te Virgo tuus transvexit ad aethera Sponsus c. To blessed Life and a Superual Throne The just reward of thy Devotion Does Christ receive thee Virgin c. Virgin to Heaven thy Spouse does thee transport That of Probus Praefect of the Praetorium Eximii resolutus in aetheris aequore tutum Curris iter c. Nunc propior Christo Sanctorum sede potitus Luce nova frueris Lux tibi Christus adest c. Renovatus habes perpetuam requiem Candida fuscatus nullâ velamina culpâ Et novus insuetis incola luminibus c. Vivit in aeternum Paradisi sede Beatus Qui nova decedens muneris aetherii Vestimenta tulit quo demigrante Belial Cessit ingemuit hic nihil esse suum c. Dilectae gremio raptus in astra Probae c. Vivit astra tenet c. Dissolv'd thou safely runst th' etherial Plain Near Christ thou of a blessed Seat possest Christ being thy light thou a new light enjoy'st c. Thou now renew'd perpetuall rest dost gain Thy snowy Robes of guilt admit no stain And of an unaocustom'd place thou art A new Inhabitant c. He ever-happy lives in Paradise Who carries hence Robes first had from the Skies At his departure Belial complies And grieves to find in him there 's nothing his c. In his lov'd Proba's Bosom hee 's receiv'd c. Possest of Heaven he lives That of Pope SIRICIUS deceased the 22th of February in the
the Consulship of Basilius that is to say in the year 553. Fulgida regna petens coelesti sorte vocatus Lucis aeternae penetrans fastigia laetus Optimus atque pius nunc Florentinus in isto Resplendot Tumulo c. Hinc celsa Poli capiens jam praemia felix Sanctorum socius fruitur cum laude coronam c. Good Florentinus fam'd for Piety Call'd hence by a celestial Lot does hy Joyfull to th' Palace of eternal Light Shining ev'n in his Tomb Heav'n's high rewards he happy does obtain And with the Saints an equal Crown does gain That of Pope PELAGIUS the First deceased March the 2d 559. Vivit in arce Poli coelesti luce beatus c. In th' Starry Tow'rs Blest with celestial light he spends his hours That of St. Germain of Paris deceased the 28th of March 576. Carne tenet Tumulum mentis honore Polum c. Jure triumphali considet arce Poli c. The Tomb with Flesh he fills the Heav'n his Mind Adorns c. He sits in Heav'n by a Triumphal right That of Chlodobert the Son of King Chilperïcus and Fredegonda Non fleat ullus amor quem modo cingit honor c. Perpetui regni se favet arce frui c. Whom Honour now surrounds no Love bewail c. He Joyes possess'd of the eternal Throne That of Dagobert Brother of Chlodobert Rapte Polis c. Lux tenet alta Throno c. To Heav'n snatch'd c. an Heav'nly light detains Him on the Throne That of Andrew of Caieta deceased in the year 585. Pande tuas Paradise fores sedémque beatam Andreae meritum suscipe Pontificis c. Quae meditata fides credita semper inhaesit Haec te usque ad coelos super astra tulit c. For Andrew's Merit open'd Heav'n prepare A blessed Seat The constant Faith which ever was in thee Hath rais'd thee above Heav'n's sublimity That of Gregory Bishop of Langres deceased January the 4th about the year 540. Post Tumulos implet honore Polos c. Nunc super Astra manet c. Death once o'recome he fills the Heav'n with praise c. His Mansion is above the Stars That of Tetricus Son and Successour of Gregory deceased about the year 570. Dignus in Astris Mentis honore nites Thou by an exc'llent mind Among the Stars to shine a place dost finde That of Evemerus Bishop of Nantes deceased about the year 550. Aeternum locum missus ad Astra tenet c. Felix ille abîit c. Sent to the Skies his everlasting Seat c. Blest man he 's gone That of the two Ruricius's Bishops of Limoges Grand-father Grand-childe the former deceased about the year 500 the later about the year 550. Inter Apostolicos credimus esse Choros c. Among th' Apostles we believe they are That of Chronopius Bishops of Perigueux deceased about the year 540. Tua Coelis stat sine labe domus c. Nunc tibi pro meritis est sine fine dies c. Thy House in Heaven stands c. For thy good Works an endless day 's thy lot That of Chalacterius or Cales Bishop of Chartres deceased the eighth of October about the year 570. Abreptus terris justus ad Astra redis c. Ad Paradisiacas Epulas te cive reducto Unde gemit mundus gaudet honore Polus c. Snatch'd from the Earth thou dost to Heav'n retire c. While thou at heav'nly Feasts art entertain'd The Earth bewails what Heaven hence ha's gain'd Where by what makes the Farth bewail must needs be understood the Translation of that Prelate into Glory That of Esocius Bishop of Limoges deceased about the year 580. Non decet hunc igitur vacuis deflere lamentis Post tenebras mundi quem tenet aula Poli c. Who this world darkness left to heav'n's Court 's gone Needs not our fruitless Lamentation That of Victorinus Abbot of Agaunum or St. Maurice de Chablais Contemporary with Esocius Nunc fruitur vultu quem cupiebat amor c. The Face which was the Object of his Love H 'as now the Bliss to see That of Hilarius the Priest Corpore qui terras tenet Astra Fide c. Whose Body Earth whose Faith the Skie contains That of Servilio Coelis gaudia vera tenet c. Raptus ab Orbe quidem laetus ad Astra redit c. He 's fill'd in Heav'n with certain Joys Snatch'd hence he joyfull to the Stars returns That of Praesidius Inter Angelicos fulget honore Choros c. Mong Quires of Angels he in honour shines c. That of Aegidius Nulli flendus erit quem Paradisus habet c. Whom Heav'n enjoys no man needs lament c. That of Basilius Patriam Coeli dulcis Amice tenes c. Of heav'n thy Countrey Friend thou art possess'd That of Avolus Gaudia Lucis habet Felix post Tumulos possidet ille Polos c. Luce perenè fruéns felix cui mortua mors est c. H enjoys the Joys of Light To Heav'n after death he blessed is transferr'd c. How happy he Who blest with light o're Death hath Victory That of Euphrasia the Wife of Namatius Bishop of Vienna deceased the seventeenth of November about the year 560. Inclyta Sydereo radias Euphrasia regno Nec mihi flenda manes nec tibi laeta places Terrae terra dedit sed Spiritus Astra recepit Pars jacet haec Tumulo pars tenet illa Polum c. Thou now Euphrasia shin'st in Heaven bright My grief no longer nor thy own delight Earth went to Earth the Stars her spirit have This part 's in Heav'n th' other in the Grave That of Vilithura the Wife of Dagulph Quae larga dedit haec modò plena metit c. What freely given was she fully reaps That of Queen Theodechilda the Daughter of Thierry King of Mets Son to the Great Clodoveus Felix cui meritis stat sine fine dies c. Happy whose Works eternal day attends That of Gelesventha second Wife of King Chilpericus the First Non hunc flere decet quam Paradisus habet c. T were ill the Blest in heaven to lament c. That of Eoladius of Nevers deceased about the year 570. Adventum gaudens sustinet hic Domini c. He glad expects the coming of the Lord. That of Pope Gregory the First deceased the 4th of March 604. Spiritus Astra petit c. Mercedem operum jam sine fine tenes c. His spirit to Heaven flies c. Thou of thy Works hast now thy endless Meed That of Vincent Abbot of Leon deceased the eleventh of March according to the Julian Period 668. or 630 after Christ Sua sacratenet anima coeleste His sacred Soul is in an heavenly Mansion c. Raptus ad aetherias subitò pervenit ad auras c. Snatch'd hence thou soon t' th' heav'nly parts
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
every where that all Souls are produced by God at the very instant of their infusion into the Bodies they are to animate and that for as much as they were not at all before they were united to their Bodies they could not either be or sin in Heaven or consequently descend thence as St. Ambrose presupposed that which is not absolutely neither having before it is any Being nor pre-existing nor capable of either Action or Motion from one place to another or of any Passion any way conceivable by us But as to the main point it is manifest that St. Ambrose and all the Church of his Time had absolutely rejected the first Hypothesis derived from the pretended Sibylline Writing maintaining that all Souls without exception descend into Hell after their departure out of the Bodies wherewith they every one as to its own particular constituted humane Persons and that that other Branch of Errour which had prepossessed the Spirit of Justine Martyr and his Contemporaries whereby they imagined that the Souls of the greatest Saints during their pretended detention in Hell were in some sort subject to the power of Evil Spirits and upon that accompt stood in need of being relieved by the Prayers of the Living imploring on their behalf the Protection of God and his good Angels was no longer held it being the perswasion even of those who continued to make the same Prayers as they who had been of that Belief that the true Christians departing out of the Body were with the Lord in an eternal rest and absolute safety In so much that these who recommended the Dead to God grounded not their so doing on either of these two Motives St. Ambrose telling us plainly concerning Valentinian the Second Requiescamus inquit anima pia in Castellis ostendens illic esse quietem tutiorem quae septo Coelestis refugii munita atque vallata non exagitatur soecularium incursibus Bestiarum c. Let us rest says the Faithfull soul in Towers shewing that there where she is received there is a more assured Repose which being encompassed and fortified with the Enclosure of celestial refuge is not disturbed by the Incursions of the Beasts of this World that is to say Evil Spirits and Wicked Men. And concerning Theodosius Lapsum sentire non poterit in illa requie constitutits c. Being seated in that Rest he cannot be subject to fall from it And Paulinus not long before the Death of St. Ambrose to Pammachius concerning his Wife Paulina deceased in the year 396. Satis docuit Rex Propheta c. The Royal Prophet hath sufficiently taught us how far we should be troubled at the departure of our Friends and Kinred to wit so as rather to think of our Journey after them then of that which they are already come to the end of It is indeed an Expression of Piety to be cast down at the taking away hence of Just men but it is also an Holy thing to be raised up into Gladness upon the Hope and Faith of God's Promises and to say to him that it is in trouble Why art thou sad Be it so that Piety bewail for a time yet is it necessary that Faith should always be joyfull Upon this Ground was it that all those who for the space of six hundred years made it their Business to write the Lives of the Faithfull accompted them among the Blessed not admitting any adjournment of their Peace and Felicity after their death In so much as Gregory Arch-Bishop of Tours deceased the seventeenth of November 592. about which time Pope GREGORY first of that Name was designing the first-draught of Purgatory should not have spoken of those Virtuous Persons whose memory he celebrated in other Terms then those who had preceeded him saying of Gregory Bishop of Langres of Nicetius Bishop of Lyons of Porcianus Ursus and Caluppa Religious Men Migravit ad Dominum c. He is gone hence to the Lord of Gullus Bishop of Cler-mont of Nicetius Bishop of Trier and of Lupicinus Spiritum coelo intentum proemisit ad Dominum c. He sent before his Body to the Lord his Soul imployed in Thoughts of Heaven of Friard Christus animam suscepit in Coelo c. Christ hath received his soul into Heaven of Martius Ad Coronam commigravit c. He is gone hence to receive a Crown of Venantius Vitam percepturus aeternam emicuit saeculo c. He is hurried hence to receive eternal Life of Leobord Manifestum est eum ab Angelis susceptum c. It is manifest he hath been entertained by Angels In a word the great number of those who admire the Novelties that have crept into the Opinion of Purgatory hath been no hindrance but that the Authours of Lives who have written since the year 600. have spoken and believed of their Dead consonantly to what had been done by the most Antient. If therefore even in the Time of St. Ambrose the Opinion of the Millenaries was so lost to credit that St. Hierome who out of respect towards the Great Persons that had followed it forbore to express his Thoughts thereof and to number it among Heresies thought it a great Tenderness towards it to assign it a place among the dreaming Imaginations of mis-informed Spirits it is not to be conceived that after the year 500. descending still it should have regained any Partizans and that there should have been any man whose Prayers for his deceased Friends proceeded from that Motive so as that he thought himself obliged to wish them their part in the First Resurrection which no man then understood in the sense wherein Tertullian and those of his Time had conceived it But indeed many even till after the year 600. relying on that Hypothesis partly extracted out of the pretended Oracles of the Counterfeit Sibyl that All Souls should pass through the last Conflagration of the World demanded on the Behalf of their departed Friends two things One that they might pass through that great Conflagration as through a Purgative Fire not to be prejudiced thereby no more then the Gold melted in the Crucible Another that they might have their part with all the Saints in the Resurrection to Glory Upon this perswasion Kindasvind King of the West-Goths in Spain who reigned between the year 642. and 649. had caused these Verses to be written on the Tomb of his Wife Reciberga Ego te Conjux quia vincere fata nequivi Funere perfunctam Sanctis commendo tuendam Ut cùm Flamma vorax veniet comburere Terras Coetibus ipsorum meritò sociata resurgas Since death on my desires would not thee spare Of thee departed may the Saints take care That thou with them mayst rise again that day When of the Fire the Earth shall be the prey The First of these Demands hath lost much of that Consideration with those who have embraced the New Opinion of Purgatory which seemed to require the Example of the
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
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
that we are made partakers of their Dignity that they are to be honoured by way of imitation and not adored upon any religious accompt In a word that neither the Blessed Virgin Mother of our Saviour nor any of the Saints of either Sex can pretend to any part of that religious homage Saint Epiphanius one of the most earnest maintainers of Prayer for the Dead hath left to them and the whole Church of these last times these remarkable Precepts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Indeed the Body of Mary was holy but it was not God the Virgin was indeed a Virgin and honoured but she was not given us to be adored on the contrary she adored him who was begotten of her as to the flesh c. If God will not have the Angels to be adored how much rather will he not that she who was born of Ann should be c. God came from Heaven and the Word was clad in flesh taken from the holy Virgin but the Virgin is not adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Father Son and Holy Spirit be adored Let no man adore Mary though Mary be excellent and holy and honoured it is not that she should be adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Lord be adored But not to press any further this notorious defect which we finde at present in the Service of the Greeks we are to observe that among them the Office of the Dead is full of Prayers whereby is desired as in the Latine Service the mercy of God the remission of the sins of the deceased his absolution his blessed resurrection his introduction into rest into Abraham ' s Bosom into the Mansion of the blessed into refreshment into Paradise into the Tabernacle of God into his Kingdom glory light to the right hand of the great Judge into the Society of the Saints and Angels all which Expressions according to the Hypotheses of Antiquity may be applied to the Spirits already received into glory Which is so much the more evident for that the particular Office which concerns the Obsequies of Children is full of these Prayers that God would number the deceased among the Children to whom he hath promised his Kingdom that he would place him among the just who are acceptable in his sight that he would make him partaker of the good things which are above this World that he would let him enter into the joys of the Saints that in his holy Mountain he would gratifie him with celestial goods that he would write his name in the Book of those who shall be saved that he would make his face to shine upon him that he would lodge him in Abraham ' s Bosom that he would grant him the enjoyment of his Kingdom c. Yet were not these Desires made without a presupposition of his Beatitude as First when it is said to him He who hath taken thee from the Earth and gives thee place among his Saints shew◠that thou O truly blessed Childe art a Citizen of Paradise The Sword of Death falling on thee hath cut thee off as a tender Branch O blessed art thou who hast made no tryal of worldly pleasures but behold Christ opening the Gates of Heaven to thee numbring thee◠out of his great goodness among the Elect◠Secondly When he is brought in making this Discourse Why do you bewail me a Childe translated out of the World for I am not a Subject to be bewailed The joy of all the just is required for those Children who have not done works worthy Tears Thirdly When he acknowledges that Death is a freedom to Children that they are thereby exempted from the miseries of life and that they are gone to rest that they rejoyce in Abraham ' s Bosom in the divine Quires of Blessed Children and assuredly dance because their departure hence was a deliverance from the corruption which loves sin If then the Ritual of the Creeks be full of Prayers for the Children whom they unanimously acknowledge to be among the Blessed what inconvenience can there be to attribute to them that they had the same apprehension for persons of age of whose felicity they no way doubted But though reason should not lead us to think so yet does their formal confession obliges us to believe as much for there is not any deceased person for whom they say not to God Mercifully receive the faithfull person departed who hath holily quitted this life and is O Lord passed towards thee and whose Funeral Solemnities they do not conclude saying to him three several times Our Brother worthy to be ever blessed and always remembred thy memory is eternal To every Monk without any exception they address these words Brother thè way thou art in is that of bliss for that a place of rest is prepared for thee adding to that purpose the sixteenth Verse of the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm Return unto thy rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt kindly with thee and a little after He who is taken hence hath passed through the ever-troubled Sea of Life and by Faith is arrived at his Port conduct him O Christ with the Saints into thy tranquillity and ever-living pleasures In like manner to every Priest Thou hast piously signalized thy self in Faith Charity Hope Gentleness Purity of life and in the Sacerdotal dignity and therefore O Brother of eternal memory God who is before all Ages whom thou hast served will himself dispose thy Spirit into a place full of light and pleasure where the just are in rest and will make thee obtain of Christ at the day of Judgment pardon and great mercy And the deceased Person is introduced using these words I am now at rest and have found great favour for that I have been transferred from the corruption of life glory be to thee O Lord c. Thy divine Servant Deified in his Transportation by thy now-enlivening Mystery is come towards thee To every Woman departed Detain not any longer O malicious Hell the Souls of the Elect in the condemnation of the Transgression for all being now made assuredly conformable to Christ instead of Death receive divine life In a word she is made to say the same words as had been attributed to the Priest I am now at rest c. All these Confessions grounded on the Lessons of Scripture which for the most part contain assurances of the Love of God towards those who serve him and promises of their future Beatitude and glorious Resurrection demonstratively prove that the first Compilers of the Greek Office agreeing in what is most substantial with the Protestants believed that whoever dies in the Faith of the Lord does from the moment of his Death enjoy rest and glory in him and with him But for as much as from time to time the purity of belief and worship receiving adulteration among them there rose up a sort of people apt to feign any
Antiquity and Reason assisted by both teach so clearly that there can be onely those who are unwilling to learn of them that are not informed thereof Take the draught he gives us of it with his own hand introducing the Priest whose Funeral Obsequies are celebrated making at his death this Discourse strange indeed and more suitable with the Principles of a Pagan without hope then to those of a Christian illuminated by Faith Brethren I am banished from my Brethren I leave all my Friends and go my ways yet I know not whither I am going and am ignorant what condition I shall be in there God onely who calls me knows but make a commemoration of me with the Antients Hallelujah Whither do Souls now go And after what manner do they now converse together in that place I would gladly understand that Secret but there is no body able to declare it to me c. None of those that are there ever returned to life again to give us an accompt in what manner they behave themselves who were sometime our Brethren and Nephews who are gone before us to the Lord c. It is a bad way that I go in and I never went it before and that Region where no body knows me I have not any account or knowledge of It is a horrour to see those who are carried away and he who calls me is worthy to be dreaded he who is Lord of Life and Death and who calls us away when he pleases Hallelujah Removing out of one Region into another we stand in need of some Guids what shall we do where we go in a Region in which we have no acquaintance Of the same strain are the Discourses in the Office of the Soul in Agony for she is made to speak as one in the depth of despair begging assistance of the Blessed Virgin of Angels and of Men and complaining that she is forsaken of all that estranged from the Glory of God she served unclean Devils who holding the Schedules of her sins and crying with vehemence would impudently have her that she is alienated from God and her Brethren that a Cloud of Devils come pouring upon her and that the darkness of her own unclean actions cover her commands her Body to be cast into a Common-Sewer that as she is dragged into the places of dreadful punishments the Dogs may eat her heart declares that she is delivered up to the Devils who carry her away by violence to the bottom of Hell that she knows all have forgotten her that she shall remember God no more since that in Hell there is no memory of the Lord that overwhelmed with darkness she expects the Resurrection that examined by all men she shall be cast into the fire that neither God nor his Angels nor his Saints shall think of her for which reason she calls upon the Virgin Angels and Men Earth nay Hell it self to which she is delivered to be bitterly punished to bewail her Misery What greater Impurity could the rage of a despairing Judas disgorge shall we say there could be any thing of Christianity in the apprehensions of a sinner who without any recourse to the Mercy of God and the Merit and Intercession of his Saviour numbers himself among the damned not vouchsafing to consider the assurances which the Scripture gives all men testifying unto them that Christ is our peace and redemption that his blood cleanseth us from all sin that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Further that he is still living to make intercession for us and since he vouchsafes to receive us among his Sheep no man shall pluck us out of his hand and the wicked one shall not touch us When the same Divinely-inspired Scripture hath loudly published that all the righteous that is to say those who walk before God are taken away from the evil to come that being absent from the body they are present with him that even here upon Earth they are of the Houshold of God and fellow-Citizens with the Saints that they ought to go boldly to the Throne of Grace where he himself gives them access by the Spirit of his Son and that the Angels are now ministring Spirits to minister to their Salvation should we ever imagine so brutish a stupidity and so prophane an excoecation in any of those who have any way contributed to the Greek Ritual affirming according to the Scripture that the Christian who dies does by death arrive at the Port goes to the Lord rests is translated from the corruption of life exchanges death for divine life and is at his death in the way to bliss as that he should presume to say that way is bad and that he knows not whether he is going knows no body there nor is known to any Can the way to bliss be a bad way Is he who knows he is going to God in a condition to complain truly that he knows not whether he goes Since he is retiring to his Father and those of the same Houshold with him hath he any cause to say that he knows not any of those to whom he is retiring and that they know not him Being called how can he imagine that he who calls him should be so far mistaken as to take his Childe for a Stranger And since he gives him access to himself by his own Spirit is there any reason it should be supposed not onely that he stands in need of a Guid but that he neither hath nor can finde any What occasion have either the living or the dying to bemoan themselves that not any one returns from the Dead to inform them of the state of the World to come since the Son of God himself gave us this advertisement that it is of greater advantage to us to have Moses and the Prophets that is to say the holy Scriptures then if one rose from the Dead to give us an accompt of their condition It were not haply much besides our Purpose to desire those who entertain us with Stories of dark Prisons for those Souls which they pretend to be of a Middle-condition to tell us whether they hope to revive that ruined Party among the Antients who believing that Angels and separated Souls were clad with a body subject as ours to be incommodated by Darkness discovered that they apprehended not any distinction between immortal Substances and corporeal As also whether allowing them separated from all matter and assigning them for Torment Obscurity and Darkness taken in their Proper and Primitive Signification they think themselves better grounded in Reason then those who are perswaded that material Fire whose activity can onely exercise it self on Bodies is and eternally shall be the Instrument of Torment as well for Devils as impious Souls Turn which side they will they shall not free themselves
1 Cor. 13. 7. 13. Rom. 8. 20. Matth. 10. 16. Tertul. loco ciâ—to Ibid. Matth. 3. 16. Luke 1. 78. Tertul. loc citat Semo Sangus Simon Magus Lib. 3. c. 26. Catech. 4. De Civit Dei l. 18. c. 42. In Ezech. l. 10. c. 33. Epist 104. Lib. 5 advers Cels. * Tatian sayes that he dedicates his three books of the Chaldaick History to Antiochus Soter who began hisreign in the year of Rome 472. or the 472. after the death of Cyrus Phâ—cai lib. 10. Of the same opinion is Plutarch De Pythiae Orac. i Lib. 1. ad finem Lib. 3. ad finem Lib. 2. Lib. 7. ad finem Lib. 1. p. 7. * ΑΔΑΜ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2. p. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 1. p. 8. The Hebrew letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce but 41. Lib. 1. p. 12. Lib. 2. p. 58. Lib. 1. p. 10. Lib. 1. p 9. 11. 7. p. 53. Lib. 1. p. 11. Lib. 2. p. 14. 17. 18. 3. p. 34. 49. Lib. 3. p. 22. Lib. 3. p. 26. Ibid. Lib. 5. p. 41 43 44. 49. Lib. 8. p. 57. Lib. 2. p. 15. Lib. 5. p. 41. Lib. 5. p. 46. Lib. 5. p. 41. Lib. 8. p. 57. Lib. 8. p. 57. Lib. 8. p. 59. Lib. 8. p. 66. Appar Sacr. verbo Sibyllarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoc. 18. 8 21 Lib. 2. Annal. 15. Marcus was born in the year 121. and Lucius in the year 128. Lib. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ga'en de praecogn post c. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. lib. 6. p. 136. Baron Appar 19. Sixt. Sen. Bibl lib. 2. Possevin Appar Bib. Sel. lib. 2. c. 71. Lib. 17. c 20. Psal 147. 19 20. Joh. 4. 22. Acts 14. 16. Acts 17. 30. Rom. 3. 1 2. Rom. 9 4. Rom. 10. 19. Isai 44. 28. and 45. 1. Paedag l. 1 c. 2. p. 80. Strom l 7. 695. 702. 3. Lib. 3. c 2. Strâ— l. 3 p. 450 lib 4 p 550 Padag l. 3 c. 3. Ibid c 11 Strom. lib 1. p 280. 309. 18 19 lib 6 636 63â— 48 Strom lib 1. p 304. 5 p. 548. Lib. 1. p. 307. P 310 P 311. Lib 5 p 615. Lib 6 p 662 Lib 1. p 324. P 325. p. 326. P. 327 P. 328. P. 332. P. â—43 â—ib 〈◊〉 p. 428. P 349. lib 4 p 529 Lib. 4 p. 488. Lib. 5. p. 564. Lib. 6. p 637. 638 639. P. 649. P. 650. 51 54. Lib. 7. p. 706. 47. Lib. 6. p. 667. P. 669. Lib. 7. p. 730. P. 748. P. 676. Paedag. l. 1. c. 5. Strom. l. 5. 549. * Pag 688. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pag. 690 91. Pag. 692. P. 695. P. 696. P. 647. Can. 53. P. 698. P. 696. P. 678. * In this placeis inserted a Discourse of 20. lines concerning St. John his Baptisme death and the defeat of Herod Advers Cels. lib. 1. Euseb Hist lib 2. c. 23. Hieron Catal. Antiq lib. 20. cap. 2. Oros lib. 7. c. 6. Phil. 1. 13. 3. 8. 4. 22. De Civit. Dei lib. 6. c. 11. Tacit. Annal 15. Jo. 8. 44. Lib. 4. Aeneid 10. Baeotic lib. 4. Lib. 1. cap. 6. Lib. 1. 4. 6. 10. Lib. 13. 17. Lib. 7. c. 33. 13. cap. 13. Antiq. l. 1. c. 5. Apol. Legal Exhort ad Autolyc lib. 2. Apud Orig l. 7. In Peregrino Pseudomanti Lib. 34. c. 5. Cap. 7. De Var â—â—ist l. 12 c. 35. Strom. 1. Lib. 2. 1. 6. Tivoli Tâ—veron Orig l. 8. c. 8. Constantine the Great in his Oration to the Assembly of the Saints follows Pausanias in that he maintains that the Erythraean Sibyl was at Delphi but he leaves him again when with Diodorus Siculus he calls her Daphâ—â— Saint Cyril in his first book against Julian places the Erythraean Sibyl under the 9 Olympiad and distinguishes her from Herophila whom he makes to flourish in the 17. Olympiad Strom 1. p. 304. 323. * Noct. Attick lib 1 c 14. * Servius in Aeneid lib 6. Suidas verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tres libros à Sibylla Erythraea Romam allatos ait sive sub Tarquinio sive sub Consulibus itaque sibi non constat Lib. 4. Dionys l. 4. Val. Max. l. 1. c. 1. Lactant. lib. 2. cap. 6. ex Fenestella Lib. 4. Lib. 23. Lib. 2. Quamvis sedecies denis mille peractis Annus praetere jam libi nonus eat August de Civit Dei lib. 18. cap. 53. Cap. 54. Idem Epist 201 2. 53 54 67. De promis l. 3. c. 38. Cod. Theod. lib. 16. tit 10. c. 15. 16 17 18. Dion lib. 46. Sueton. in Caesare Plutar. in Caesare Cicer. de Divin lib. 2. Dio. lib. 54. In Octavio cap. 13. Dio. lib. 57. Tatit. Annal. 6. Sam 2. Annal. 15 Dio. lib. 6. Suet. in Noâ—…on See in Lucian the supposititious Oracles advanced in favour of Alexander Abonotichites and Peregrinus notorious cheats Epiph. haeres 26. calls her Barthenos Colos 1. 20. Philo Biblianus from Sanchomathon a Reritian called de Saturno Euseb praep l. 1. c. 20. Bibl. De Civit. Dei l. 8. c. 23 24 26. De Promiss l. 3 c. 38. Orat. ad Sanct. coet c. 18. Lib. 1. p. 8. Ibid. p. â—1 Ibid. De civit Dei â— 18. c. 23. De promis l. 3. c. 6. 14. From the â—7 of Novem. in the year 711. to the 29. of August in the year of Rome 767. De Divin l. 2. c. 110. Cap. 111. Cap. 112. C. 12. Aiqui in Sibyllinis ex primo versu cujusque sententiae primis literis illius sententiae carmen omne praeiexitur The same thing may be said of the verses which Zosimus attributes to the Sibyls and for the same reason Tertul. de Bapt. c. 1. Optat. l. 3. August de civ Dei l. 18. c. 23. Tit. 3. 5. Psal 36. 9. * Servius upon the ninth Eclogue sayes that the Inhabitants of Cremona having entertain'd the forces of Brutus Cassius and Anthony Augustus overcoming Anthony gave away their lands but he is mistaken since that donacton had been made ten years before the war against Antâ—ony Ecl 9. Georg. l. 2. Ecl. 1. * For that Augustus born in Sept. 23. 691. was then in the 22 year of his age Donatus in Virgils life writes that Cicero had seen his Bucolicks but it is more likely he took from the recovery of his estate occasion to write them two years after Cicero's death As when he says in the 6. of the Aeneidâ—… Longa â—tas meaning a thousand years J. O. * To keep close to Virgil it should have been rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Virgil had indeed said Our crime out of a reflection that he and all those who had preceeded the Consulship of Pollio had been under the Iron-Age and participated of the crime thereof * Saturn lib. 1. cap. 17. * Marcellus whose Death is bewayl'd by Anchises in the sixth Book of the Aeneids died in the year of Rome 731. Ec. 4. Aen. 6. Gal. 4. 4. Metam l.
Arch-Bishop of Ephesus and Nilus And lastly by the Answer which the Greeks of the State of Venice made in the year 1560. to the fourteenth of the Questions proposed by the Cardinal of Guise in these Terms Eorum hominum animae quorum quasi media quaedam conditio est c. The Souls of those men that are as it were in a middle condition between the just and the unjust that is to say those who gave not up their last breath in mortal Sins yet were not absolutely free from guilt nor manifested the Fruits of Repentance the Souls I say of such are thought by ours to be purged in this manner not by any Purgatory Fire or by any determinate Punishment in some certain place but some by pure fear at the very separation from the Body others after the separation it may be also detained in Hell not so as if they were in Fire or Punishment but as if they were kept in Prison and Chains Of which Sentiment though there is as little ground either in Scripture or Reason as there is for the Fire generally believed by most of the Church of Rome yet may it suffice to force her to acknowledge that her Supposition advanced after the year 500. and consequently New and not Catholick nor was nor is avowed neither every where nor by all People whereof the Inference again is that it neither is nor can be Catholick by her own Confession since that in imitation of Vincentius Lirinensis whose words she perpetually abuses against the Protestants it may be said Quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc verè propriéque Catholicum c. What hath been believed in all places at all times and by all people that is truly and properly Catholick Besides that it is impossible that the indefinite and doubtfull Proposition of the Councel of Florence declaring that they admit for Purgatory either fire or darkness or tempest or any thing else as if they would have said expressly that they were content with any thing provided it had some appearance of conformity with their Opinion should serve to any other end then to shew that they knew not what to fasten on and found in their consciences that their Purgatory which they neither durst nor could determine could not any way be an Article of Faith Nor hath the Councel of Trent been more fortunate in the business then the other for though the Prelates there began their Decree on the fourth of December 1563. in very magnificent Terms saying Cùm Catholica Ecclesia Spiritu Sancto edocta sacris literis antiqua Patrum Traditione in sacris Conciliis novissimè in hâc Oecumenic â Synodo docuerit Purgatorium esse animasque ibi detentas fidelium suffragiis potissimùm verò acceptabili Altaris sacrificio juvari praecipit sancta Synodus Episcopis ut sanam de Purgatorio Doctrinam à Sanctis Patribus sacris Conciliis traditam à Christi fidelibus credi teneri doceri ubique praedicari diligenter studeant c. Whereas the Catholick Church taught by the Holy Spirit the divine Scriptures and the antient Tradition of the Fathers in Sacred Councels and lately in this Oecumenical Synod hath taught that there is a Purgatory and that the souls there detained are by the Suffrages of the Faithfull but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the Altar relieved the holy Synod enjoyns the Bishops that they endeavour that the sound Doctrine of Purgatory delivered by the holy Fathers and sacred Councels may be believed by the faithfull maintained taught and preached in all places Yet all this well considered comes to nothing since the Scripture does not any where teach there is either any subterranean Fire that purges the separated souls or any place where they are purged since that not any one of the Fathers before St. Gregory either durst define that there was any place of Torment appointed for the purgation of Souls after this life or positively affirmed that they pass through any subterraneous Purgatory fire since that no Councel no not even that of Lateran under Innocent the Third whereto nevertheless Cardinal Bellarmine either deceived himself by others or not caring much how he deceives us is pleased to referr us no Councel I say before that of Florence affirmatively assigned any Purgative place after any manner whatsoever for the Souls of the Faithfull departed and consequently that the Councel of Trent which had though it boasted as much neither Scripture nor Fathers of the first five Ages nor Councel before that of Florence from which it might derive ought in the Question of Purgatory a thing unknown to Antiquity hath taught us not what it had learned from antient Tradition but what it pleased it self and purely upon its own Authority As to what the Councel adds concerning what it had it self taught before as if it had taken it either out of the antient Tradition of the Fathers or their Councels 't is a pure Illusion for before the twenty fifth Session we have not in all its Decrees and Anathematisms but two words whence any supposition of Purgatory may be deduced and those without any proof of Declaration of what it is the Former in the thirtieth Anathematism fulminated on the seventeenth of January 1547. in the sixth Session where it pronounces Anathema Si quis it à reatum Poenae aeternae deleri dixerit ut nullus remaneat reatus poenae Temporalis exsolvendo vel in hoc saeculo vel in futuro Purgatorio c If any one shall affirm that the guilt of eternal Punishment is so forgiven as that there remains no guilt of Temporal Punishment to be paid either in this life or hereafter in Purgatory c. The later in the twenty second Chapter of the Decree of the Mass drawn up on the seventeenth of September 1562. in the two and twentieth Session where it says again that the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered pro defunctis in Christo nondum ad plenum purgatis c. for the departed in Christ not yet fully purged Having therefore heard the Councel referring at its last Session to the precedent if you pretend to finde therein any allegation either of Scripture or Tradition for Purgatory or any Reason insinuating it or any Declaration expressing the nature of it with any satisfaction you will make no great advantage of the Allegations they containing in effect but a simple and naked description and no more And whereas the Councel thinks it enough by its Decree to say that it is without declaring in what manner and whether it does or does not consist in Fire such as Saint Gregory and Odilo conceived it and the common Opinion seems to insinuate it is thence apparent that it knew no more of it then other Councels and that its Exhortation to the Bishops to observe and cause to be observed the sound Doctrine thereof is and shall ever be a sound without signification