far modester than you and profest as he did dislike my opinions so he dissented no otherwise than as one Divine does from another and had never descended to censure any of them Perhaps of this point you may have heard the contrary but I have it under his own hand The second mistake is that he admonish't me of this point for he never descended to any particular and this you might understand as partly the other out of my Dedicatory of my Ratio villicationis written to him and presented in his lifetime The third that I had fore-prepar'd my Book of the Middle State and presently sent it him For the reason of my composing it was the many popular noises rais'd against me by persons some ignorant some malicious as if I were an Heretick which forc't me to write the Treatise in mine own defence and I dedicated it to my Lord though I knew no particular Exception of his against this point but judged he might have some because the greatest cry was against it The Translation as far as came to my knowledge was not made by any design upon earth though by the event I perceive it was out of speciall Providence in Heaven How things passed on your side and what were the true motâ—ves of your publishing the Bull and that Testimony of the Council I can onely collect from the phaenomena of all concurrent circumstances of which you may perhaps hereafter hear more You say the Publishers of the Bull had no respect to the Letter of Vindication I think you aym at one I wrote in Latin to a Person of Honour which was presented Him and by him shew'd to some Jesuits that frequented his House and they can be witnesses of the Truth between us This afterwards as I hear was translated into English and printed If this be the Letter you speak of I would gladly understand why you imagin the Author conceits himself inspir'd with the Genius of Mont-alt whose spirit I confess I take to be very solid and pious and generously adhering to persecuted Truth Nor do I find it unlawfull that any should wish to be inspir'd with it but truly conceive my self far below the hope of such Excellences What you heard well observ'd that all the Protestant Divines of England would subscribe to the same Protestation which is in that Letter I beleeve purely upon your report But tell me first may a Catholick protest nothing that a Protestant will subscribe to or can a Protestant profess nothing but what he will perform Again will any Protestant profess to renounce any Doctrin found to contradict any Authority constantly acknowledg'd for Infallible in the Catholick Church meaning the same by Catholick Church as my writings declare me to do that is all those who adhere to Tradition Will any Protestant be content to have lost his cause if any decree of a Pope be expresly repugnant to him which I there also profess How maliciously blind then was the observer you follow who could not see such distinctive expressions How uncharitable your self who catch at and magnifie every rash cavill out of a tooth to disgrace and abuse him that never did you injury Your calumny of my denying Decrees of Popes and Councils shall be answer'd in its due place You say the Publishers intended not to enter into the lists of Disputation which I easily beleeve and that they were perswaded the very reciting the Bull and Canon would have knockt down the Book which you say was the occasion of their setting them forth beyond all Reply How weak a conceit was this for men that saw both Bull and Canon cited and explicated in that very book and could not be ignorant that in many private Conferences the same Authorities had been debated You thought your Capitall Letters would have dazled the understanding of the adverse party so that none would have dar'd to look further into the meaning of those Authorities But God provided that al should not be so light of belief nor his Church led into Error by such a misgrounded Interpretation of its Decrees You complain much in your tenth Section that this pious intention of the Dispensers was wrong'd As though you did not know that Intentions are secret and must expect their reward from him that sees the heart Men judge of Actions and your self confess the effect was that pious that is credulous persons received satisfaction that is were seduced into Errour by that cuning practice and yet you think it not occasion enough for an understanding man to discover so prejudiciall an Interpretation forc't on the Church and would needs have it a wrong to you that one unknown not intended to be hurt by you should take this pains as if every honest and ableman were not interessed in the Churches quarrell of so high a nature as to set up an Opinion that may prove when examin'd erroneous for an Article of Faith In your eleventh Section you begin to produce your Arguments whereof the first is that all Orthodox writers who have treated this Subject of the State of separated Souls since the promulgation of the Bull a foresaid suppose it as a certain Truth But how many such do you cite Surely of five hundred which have written since those dayes your Readers might civilly expect at least half a score that positively assert it as an assur'd doctrin of the Church But such is the irregular way of discoursing your eminent Scholars use that when they have audaciously advanc't a proposition whereof they know nothing certain if it be deny'd against all Rules of Discourse and Logick they put the Defendant to prove the contrary which peradventure concerns not him a pin whether it be true or no As in the present what concerns it my Faith whether many or few interpret the Bull and Councill as you or I say To make a new Article of Faith the definition must be so clear that none can doubt of it And ipso facto that it needs Interpretation 't is evidently insufficient to make a new obligation of Faith Again suppose your Antecedent be true does any number of Interpreters lock up the understandings of those that follow that they may not see more than their Fore-goers If you say yes shew us some seal of Infallibility in their foreheads by which we may know so much or else your Faith will be but probable but a peradventure I peradventure no and Interest or Passion must supply the rest And such I beleeve is your Faith of this your new-born Article though somewhat an older Opinion In your twelfth Section you enquire into the state of the Question and when you have recited it out of the Bul you presently cry Victory without ever looking into the words and sence that one may note in you the wonted disposition of your great Masters to read the words but seldom take pains to understand them The Bull then sayes that in the dayes of the Popes Predecessor there rose a Question
the Latins were content they should do so At last your learned man would perswade us that it is most plain in Benedictus his Bull and that there the word Presently most manifestly signifies before the day of Judgment But because he sent me not the magnifying spectacles of Passion which he used I could not perceive such evidence He concludes with what may he judge of me who call this Definition of a holy Pope and Council a new Doctrin I pray certify him that I neither believe him nor you that the Doctrin I call new is either the Popes or the Councils Which that it may appear better I give you a few notes for our side upon the Council The first was that there was no debate betwixt the Greeks and Latins concerning Purgatory but onely about fire and with some Greeks about the Vision of God by confessedly just men so that your learned mans wilfull supposition of a strife concerning the gradation of Saints coming to Beatitude is a pure fiction without any ground of History and his whole discourse built upon it nothing but the humming of a Chimaera feeding upon entia rationis My second note is that whereas the Latins put in their confession that some of those who requir'd purgation came sooner to Beatitude others later The Greeks after they had seen the Latins confession quite left out that point and this upon the fourteenth day of June whereas the Latins put in their propositions the fourth so that you see it was not for hast or over-sight but because it was not settled amongst them as it seem'd to be amongst the Latins My third note is that the Greeks express the punishments of Purgatory to consist in griefs to wit for their sins and for the want of Beatitude which are the same in which I also think the pains of Purgatory consist howsoever you please not to take notice of it My fourth note is that the Latins never took notice of the Greeks disagreement in point of coming to bliss some sooner some later but proceeded joyntly to the Definition with words abstracting from both sides of this controversy All this is so manifest in the letter of the Council that there can be no dispute in truth of any part though of this later you and your learned assistant will force a disputation thrusting in a sence which the words bear not without shame or care of your conscience in so wicked an attempt as to corrupt a Council Now out of these Notes I frame a demonstration as strong as the nature of such a case can bear Where a difference is so plain betwixt 2 parties that it is not possible to be hidden from either and yet neither part takes notice of it it is plain they do not hold that difference to be materiall But there was a known and plain and unconcealable difference between the Greeks and Latines concerning this tenet whether some Soules were purged sooner then others the Latines putting it down expressly and the Greeks after having seen the Latins confession leaving it quite out and yet no quarrel or disputation arose betwixt them about this point Therefore neither part took it for a materiall point of Religion and Controversie Now then you see wherin consisted the agreement of the two Churches concerning this point to wit in this that neither of them thought it a matter to contend about I pray express your opinion in this point whether if the Latins had believ'd it an Heres'y to say one Soul was not deliver'd before another could they in conscience have admitted the Greek Church to communion without declaring their mind in this point and this after so open an opposition as to leave out all mention of it when the Latins had so positively express'd it If you think Councils can dissemble in points of this quality I believe the world wil soon confess that I as stubborn as you reckon me give far more reverence to Councells then you do Wherefore I press you farther out of the Council If any man should say it was an Heresy to hold there were no materiall fire in Purgatory or that it was not lawfull to consecrate in leaven'd Bread you would not spare to tell him that since the Council had declared it indifferent he stood not with the Council but seem'd at least to contradict it if he held it were a matter of Faith So do I press you since the Council hath pass'd this point for an indifferent one He that will say the opposite is an Heresy is malapert beyond his strength Arrogantia ejus plus quam fortitudo ejus You give us another paper which you say was written by a nameless Schollar of mine I could reply I have none For who converse with me I tell them they must see themselves not trust me which if they do they are Scholars to truth not to me If they trust me they follow me not and so are not my Scholars But I have too much ground to suspect you aym at some advantage against me by charactering him a very able proficient in my School and repeating it so often as if you would have men think that both Friends and Foes were all against me I must then once more tell you that the Authour of that Letter never was addicted to my Doctrin nor pretended to be my follower however you have got a trick to call all my Followers that will not censure me as loud as you nor willingly assent to your uncharitable carriage nor was he ever given to be curious in such kind of dissertations no not even to that degree as to have read my middle State which made him more easily liable to surprise in mistaking the Council at the first sight taking all for right which your learned Divine writ concerning it so that it was candid credulity of your Friends wrong relation of it not want of Judgment which betray'd him into the errour of imagining the Bull and Council on your side nor did he dream his Letter should ever come into print it being writ privately to the other as a Friend otherwise in likelihood he would have sifted the Testimonies himself and not have taken them on others account So that you first uncivilly print a private Letter of his surreptitiously procur'd without his knowledge then mischaracter him an able proficient in my School my Follower c. whereas what he writes is onely like a moderate and grave Christian who knows he is not even by Principles of Charity to interpret as disobedient one who publickly submits to the Church and so I look upon it as an act of charity not of particular Friendship to me But since you love to have it thought your party can gain some advantage against those who are proficients by my Books I will show you one your present Adversary whom your self character to be but a puny in my School and as I hear never appear'd in print nor set himself to write before yet has so
you put in the Edition of the Bull of Benedictus and the Council of Florence For before that even the consorts of your Tenet held it no otherwise then for the common opinion of Divines LAST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the eighteenth to Section the two and twentieth The Catholick Rule of Faith defended The Vindicators weakness in making the unlearned Judges of Controversy His frequently mis-representing my Doctrin and manifold failings in his new attempts from the Bull and Council YOur eighteenth Section you begin with saying my Doctrin which is a close adhering to Tradition is the way to make fools stray You follow still the same truantly humour of using words without looking into the sence For if Tradition signify the delivery of the Doctrin preach't and taught by our forefathers your proposition signifies that to follow what we are taught by our forefathers is the way to make fools go astray Neither do I deny but that you speak consequently if first you make the Popes veracity the veracity of the whole Church and that all the Church but he can err and consequently he may correct the Doctrin which was believ'd by the Church in the age immediatly going before him then 't is true that to prefer the Belief of the former age before the Popes word will lead fools astray But for my part I desire to be one of those fools and to go so astray You run on in a full careere and tell us of the Authority of the Church and Councils in common and that things settled by them must not be brought in question not seeing because you will not that what the Church believ'd in the last Age is more the Church's decree then what she speaks either by Pope or Council unless she speaks the same that she believed the last Age and so you continue your discoursing with words not taking their meaning along with you In your nineteenth Section you come so home as to judge and condemn me by mine own Doctrin a great shame to me I confess if you make it good You argue therefore what have we seen but Masses Dirges Almes c. so far is almost true but why did you not put in by which in express terms we pray'd for the welfare of the Souls at the day of the General Judgment but you had reason to leave that out for it would have set a shrewd puzzell in your Argument We have heard constantly say you that Souls are deliver'd out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the day of Judgment In this part you have mended your former fault for there you sayd too little to serve your purpose if you had prov'd all you said and here you say more then can be prov'd to serve your purpose do you mean that your way was preach't constantly that is as a certain and establisht Doctrin of faith or that for a long time they preacht it as a probable truth or without engaging at all into the degree of its assuredness but perhaps you proceed more nicely since you onely said you heard it constantly not that it was preach'd constantly For to say a thing constantly imports that the speaker teaches it to be certain and it is not enough if for a long time he tells you it is likely to be so Now so far as concerns the delivery of Souls from Purgatory by the potent means you speak of was ever constantly taught but that the delivery should be made before the day of Judgment was taught but as a pious opinion if the Preacher understood the sence of the Doctours of the Schools themselves who add no such qualification because their principles being either Authority or Reason they find in Authority neither Fathers nor Councils nor Popes express in the point and Reasons much less favourable and to say the truth though they are apt enough to dispute whether there be a God a Trinity an Incarnation c. Yet I do not remember to have heard of any one who hath treated of his proposition so directly as to dispute it pro and con Which being so what certainty can we expect a Preacher should fix upon this Doctrin But to declare what I think those whom you appeal to will answer I beleeve it is that they never reflected to make any difference of the things the Preachers deliver'd them and much less upon the degrees of assent they gave to this or that point and as far as they can tell they gave the same assent to any place of Scripture the Preacher explicated as they did to this point unless some particular occasion put them in mind to qualify one and not the other But as they found by experience in other things that if any rub came to make them doubt of any thing a Preacher sayd then first they began to consider on what grounds they were bound to believe the point proposed so they have done in this and of those who have spent any competent time in examining both sides many have discover'd your grounds unsafe to build any certainty on and some confest them too weak to sustain even so much as a probability What the Gentleman whose letter you cite and with some imprudent circumstances will say why he was carryed away with your Arguments I know not but had he read my Books as much as I esteem his learning and vertue he would surely have met with full answers to your very objections which they who read yours cannot do nor so much as hear of the Arguments I use to maintain my opinion you on set purpose concealing them and proposing in their stead as my whole grounds a discourse made to a meer Philosopher or Heathen where the method of a regular writer oblig'd me to abstract from Revelation But that this answer I set down is for the greatest part of those that follow this opinion a true one is not onely manifest to all that reflect upon what passeth within them on the like occasions but experience hath taught me it in every country where I have conversed since the publishing this Doctrin In all which I have found divers who upon hearing of it acknowledg'd that before they had in their hearts a certain dislike of your opinion but they knew not why it having a kind of an uncouth semblance yet they could not pitch upon any thing to say solidly against it One passage I will intreat your patience to let me tell you Before I printed it I communicated this point to one of the greatest Divines of Christendome and confest to be so He presently reply'd it was against the Council of Florence and went immediately to his Chamber and fetcht down the Council when we had a little debated the text and he saw it did not reach home he shut up the Book with these words Look to it you will draw all the Regulars upon your back meaning all such of them as found great profit by perswading the people they should procure a sudden
redemption of their friends out of Purgatory which I believe are those you speak of that hear not of this Doctrin without horrour Therefore Acute Sir you will or may see that your Argument is two edged and as the Auditours you speak of did not distinguish the degree of assent to this position from that they give to Faith so neither do they make any difference between it and the sleightest assent they have Thus may your Adversary by your Argument conclude any practise of the Church or common opinion of Preachers or generally receiv'd Ecclesiasticall storyes nay even the new holy dayes to be points of faith as well and as easily as you do this What difference of assent think you do the People make between these truths that there was a Saint Philip or Saint Jacob and that there was a Saint Bennet or Saint Augustin they hear of these far oftner then of those and seldom or never of the severall degrees wherein they are recommended to their assents Even the more prudent in many such points run currently on with an undistinguishing assent till something jog their thoughts and awaken them to look into the business then they begin to make it a question to examin and sift it and at last to settle it in its true box of Catholick or Theological or Historical faith or of some other inferiour assent You go on to perswade your Readers that those who accept of this Doctrin do it through comfortable apprehensions in lieu of great horrours before they were in and because it eases their consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their dead friends In the first you manifestly shew you understand not the Doctrin of your own Divines for we agree in the grievousness of the punishments or if we disagree in any thing it is that mine is the severer For the difference of our positions is not in what the punishments are which we both agree to be acts of the will Our difference is whether these acts of the will be caused by the force of nature in spirits as I say or by the force of material fire as your Divines maintain Which was the cause why when I explicated the nature of Hell in a Divinity lecture one of my Scholars told me I made Hell worse then it was For in truth the force of a material body is not to be compared to the strong activity of a subsistent spirit as any Divine will easily guess In your other point you seem to have fram'd your conceit out of conversation with Women and Children whose desires are violent at the instant but soon pass away and not out of the consideration of men whose counsels are govern'd by a far prospect and aym at perpetuity So you flatter poor Women with the hopes of relieving their friends the first morning or the first Saturday or in some speedy time and get present monies fit to make merry with for one day never reflecting that the ancient and manly charity for the dead was to establish Foundations and perpetual Anniversaries by which the memory of our friends and prayers for them was often renew'd and long continu'd whereas taking your Principles we need neither much fear the terrours of Purgatory nor seek new wayes to ease our Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting our departed friends since one Mass at a priviledg'd Altar will do the work alone and a very little sum of mony procure that Mass without going to the cost of Dirige's and such like chargable Offices And here I must ask my Readers my Adversary's leave to correct one suspition I had unawares entertain'd that Interest might have some influence upon the Defenders of this short stay in Purgatory I was deceiv'd and now I see they are no wayes accusable of that odious crime anciently great alms were given and those often repeated for the assistance of one Soul and so the Church and Church-men gain'd much and grew rich apace Now there is open'd a far cheaper way one piece alone and that of silver too dispatches the business Surely out fair and numerous and rich Monasteryes were not built and endow'd with such petty Contributions After this you proceed to the arraignment of me before my Bishop or a Nuncius Apostolicus But there want two things to make your arraignment good first that the people be inur'd to Tradition and to prefer the received Faith of the Church before all other Doctrins From the danger of which your Divines will secure me while they teach the People that the Church when it is sayd to be inerrable signifies the Pope alone that all the People may err that General Councils have no strength till they be seal'd by the Pope and so I shal have this help to appeal from them to the Pope let my Doctrin be as opposit as it will to all that hath been hitherto the belief of the Christian world The second thing that wants to the perfect arraignment is that you have not yet found out so weak a Bishop that will believe a Doctrin sprung from uncertain Visions foster'd by unlearned zeal and strengthen'd with an Exposition of a Council or of a Popes Bull against the rules of Grammar Logick and Divinity is the belief of the present Church In the mean while I give you great thanks both for your setting forth my plea against Luther and honouring it with so high an approbation that it thunders and lightens home For besides that the knowledge of that form of proceeding against Hereticks is very necessary it will give me a testimony that I am a good Christian and if I be not a very beast I have not committed an errour to fall under so gross and so well fore-seen a Censure To the charge it self from what I have already said you may gather my clear and full Ansver that the Doctrin I sustain is not by me pretended to be of faith but onely not against faith as also that the doctrin I oppose is not and Article of faith and supported by Fathers and Monuments of Antiquity and immemorable Custome but onely an Opinion not very ancient nor ratify'd by the consent of Fathers nor of so long a standing that it's beginning is not well enough known perhaps the later yet for its time as much prevailing doctrin of priviledg'd Altars may live to be as old as this is now and as common too will it therfore deserve to be put into our Creed or can it ever become an Article of faith which the whole Church professes is but an Opinion now And are not these differences betwixt Luthers case and mine whom you so charitably endevour to parallel sufficient to distinguish our dooms Examin them but once more and I will make you my Judg. Onely forget not these words which your self put down as part of my method to convince an heretick That the Authority of things which wee stand bound to beleeve descends handed down from CHRIST our B. SAVIOVR and no otherwise
I ever said the People should have it The same I conceive hath ever been in the Church in a certain degree Of which there are manifest signs in Saint Denys the Areopagite Saint Basil Saint Gregory Nazianzen and others as also in the Latin Church specially in Saint Austin Boetius Saint Auselm and others But I conceive demonstration will be both in its matter and in Divines much more diffus'd then it is yet So that in the Church will ever march together Science and Faith though in diverse measures Some other little nibblings at my Doctrin or rather at little bits of it snatcht from the Context as your custom is because taken entire 't is too difficult for your teeth interlace your jollity in these your Sections of mirth and raillery As that of a dispossest Governour which you deform in the worst manner you can by leaving out the Antecedents and Consequents which would have let you see that my discourse proceeds in the case that onely his own private interest or particular good be oppos'd and counter-ballanc't to the publike not if the publick good be for his restorement For then my whole Book favours him Wherefore to make my Doctrin invidious against the Person you mean you must first subsume that his re-entry is against the common good otherwise I say nothing against him but all for him and if you subsume this I believe you will deserve no great thanks for your officious mistake but approve your self his greatest enemy Next you are hugely troubled that in Rushworth's Dialogues which you say are mine I make the letter of the Scripture so uncertain And this objection I may conceive you borrow'd from Doctor Hammond whose Book in which he has something against me and as I am told this very passage was extant long before yours and I doubt not but you read very diligently whatever opposes me Unless perhaps good wits jump't in their observations which also may be likely for you agree much taken as Scholars in your method of seeking for Truth I must profess therefore to answer both in one that you are two of the prettiest men that ever I met with and most hard to please with reason Neither of you can endure I should attempt profess certainty and evidence in things capable of it that is in matters scientifical nor yet profess uncertainty in matters not capable of certitude as in our present point about the delivery of words by way of transcriptions of Copists or Scriveners relying upon their own human diligence which 't is impossible to secure against over-sight besides divers other miscarriages which the Fathers as well as I complain the Letter of the Scripture was lyable to But to satisfie your tender Conscience and other Catholikes like yours I profess that that place speaks of the Letter of Scripture as left to multitudes of human contingencies and imbecillities and as taken abstractedly from and unassisted by Tradition or the Churches living voice and practice to guide securely the delivery of it downwards But I ever profess that this guidance of Tradition did efficaciously preserve the Letter untainted in all that was coincident with Christian Tradition that is in all points necessary to mankinds salvation and not onely so but so far the rest of the Scripture's Letter too that nothing evidently contrary to the doctrin of Tradition or Christian Faith could light into it So that Catholiks may with all security accept it and hold to it And yet notwithstanding the aid of tradition formerly above 2000 faults were corrected in it by our late Pope's since the beginning of the Council of Trent and more still remain to be a mended as the Preface to the same Bible grants nor is any person living able to stint us the ultimate compleating of the true copy Thus much to you How I can satisfy Doctor Hammond who holds Tradition onely then when he can serve his turn of it and otherwhiles impugns it by what way in his grounds he can be certain of one little of it I know not and therefore must leave him to the Fruits of his Labour in impugning Tradition that is to a perfect uncertainty of any thing that can concern his Faith In a word to a Catholik my position onely signifies that we are beholding to the living voyce of the Church even for any Certainty of the true Copy of the Scripture which why it deserves more exception that Saint Austin's noted saying of Evangelio non crederem c. I should be glad to learn But you think Rushworth has made too long a Catalogue of uncertainties To which I answer that if you please to scan the occasions of that long Catalogue and then tell us how many we may safely abate I shall in his behalf remain very much oblig'd to you If not 't is plain you do not know we can abate any or that his Catalogue is longer then it should be in his case After this you give a wipe at my denying the Popes personall Infallibility and as for the point you well know 't is held but a probable opinion and that many learned Authors hold the same opinion with me As for my censuring it I shall hope the reasons given for it in Tabulae Suffragiales will stand to justify me till something of greater force than clamour appears to overthrow them that is till it can be shown less than Archi-hereticall to say that an opinion which confessedly is no more but probable can be a sufficient ground to build Christian Faith upon Your next piece of Gallantry is your old and oft repeated clamour of my denying the Infallibility of Councils which forces me to lay open to the world how far your Malice is above your Conscience in writing against me To do which I offer the Reader those few notes First that you onely cite here three words non est impossible to prove confusedly that I deny all Authority of Councils whereas in my Tab. suffrag. p. 277. the place where it is found which had you quoted the Reader might have rectify'd himself it follows immediately ut Concilium tentet hoc facere tentando in errorem incidat It is not impossible a Council should attempt This and so err Now what this word This relates to is to be seen in the Paragraph immediately foregoing to wit to the making new Articles of Faith so that I put Councils errable onely in such a matter that is in creating us a new Faith you by maiming purposely my words make me hold them to have no Authority in any thing Can this consist with honesty or fair dealing Next is to be noted that in the same Discourse there which gives account of my Doctrin professedly concerning Councils I maintain in express terms that Councils are of Infallible Authority in declaring Articles of Faith that the Pope declaring ex cathedra concerning a matter of Faith is infallible and that the same is to be said of Generall and even Provinciall
fault is that I say the opinion of Souls being deliver'd before the day of Judgment proceeded from the not following a Doctrin of St. Thomas That in abstracted Spirits there is no discourse or any manner of composition of knowledg Whence I infer there can be no falsity in them This is my position of which you tell us that it importeth not to consider whether the knowledg of Angels be by true discourse or onely by virtuall to which say you suffices a priority of causality But if a man should tell you that the causality you imagin cannot be without true time then peradventure it would be necessary to dispute whether there be a true discourse in Angels and this is the very case For take away succession and all corporeall causes which depend on time are taken away There remain then nothing but the spirituall qualities of the Angels to be causes which neither are distinguished from one the other nor from their subject and so all notion of Cause and Effect as they are proper to the Efficient are quite taken away and so there will not remain any discourse at all but a pure cleer sight fram'd on them by their Creatour in which I beleeve you will not say there is any Errour or can be So that the whole question resteth upon this whether there be true discourse or no Now how do you prove what you say is to the purpose to wit that it doth not follow out of this Doctrin of St. Thomas that there is no Errour in Angels Your proof is because St. Thomas notwitstanding this Doctrin acknowledges Errours in Devils Good Sir as long as you have been a Divine did you ever hear that it was a gross injury to St. Thomas to say some opinion of his was not true or not consequent to another Truly I desire not to do an injury to any much less to my Reverenc'd Master to whom after God I acknowledg it if I know any thing either in Philosophy or Divinity Yet I have no fear not to follow all his opinions much less not to make good all his consequences And so Sir I hope I am rid of your objections out of St. Thomas Onely because you often repeat that to say every thing hath a cause to make it before it be is an Epicurean Lucretian Pagan principle c. I must intreat you again to look to the sence of your words and not to beat so carelesly the Ayre If at anytime you happen to dispute of Liberty I will endeavour to shew you your Ignorance but for vapouring words let others judge how far they become you You go on in the same strain to except against the comparison of an Embryoes designing the Child to be born and mans life framing the Soul deliver'd into the next World But what you dislike I cannot tell you say it has no connexion with the immutability of the future state The answer is it was not brought to that purpose but to open the Readers understanding to aym at of what disposition the Soul is at her going out But if the Antecedent reach home you say 't is a position destructive of all Christianity But you say not to what it should reach but fain something as if you imagin'd I would have the body of a Child never grow in strength or good parts When I shall know what you aym at I may know what to answer So we may leave you to conclude your Chapter with a high conceit of the Victories you have obtain'd FOURTH DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the thirty fifth to Section the fortieth The Vindicators forgetfulness that Eternall Happiness was any Good at all That Prayers for the dead in the Authours Doctrin manifoldly profit the Souls in Purgatory and relieve them even there Charity asserted to be the immediate Disposition to Bliss The Authours Doctrin consonant to the Council of Trent in the points of Remission and Satisfaction Diverse Squibs and Insincerities of the Vindicatour toucht at THere followâ—â—our five and thirtieth Section in â—â—ich you have after so long a digression remember'd again the question of Purgatory And intend to shew that prayers for the dead are of no profit if Souls go not to Heaven before the day of Judgment An objection of every Gentlewoman but I hope seeing you have come into the lifts as their Champion you will set it high And so you do for scorning the lower waies of others who press this difficulty That the day of Judgment will come of it self at the time appointed and Then every one shal receive according to his deserts whether any prayers have been said for them or no you fly so high as to tell us that though the prayers made for the dead impetrate eternal bliss for those in Purgatory yet they are of no profit Is not this a gallant attempt What may be your Arms fit for so great an Atchievment Why say you the duration of separated Souls is according to me above time and comprehensive of it therefore it is but a moment whether bliss ever come or never therefore there is no profit in the prayers though they bring bliss and this is the full import of your discourse Could a man have expected such an Argument from 〈◊〉 Logick Master not to distinguish betwixt substance and an Accident yet undoubtedly according to his ordinary phrase All Christianity is ruin'd unless this consequence be good You were assuredly in a great Metaphysicall rapture when in the same short discourse you took two such hyper-Metaphysicall propositions as that it was indifferent to have or not to have the greatest good God hath created for a Person and that there could actually be an infinite Quantity or Time I must confess they are both very fit for your sort of Learning to bolt out words without looking into what they signify But because this is onely your private errour and the World is to be contented too which doth not apprehend any great benefit in hastning of Christ's coming I must a little shew the good that the prayers of the faithfull do for the dead Let us then consider that our chief Good is Heaven and the perfect sight of God at which we aym in all our actions and progresses from the first basis of our inclination to the End of nature even to the highest step of Charity from whence we immediately reach it This depends on two created causes The perfection of the World and The perfection of the private Person which is to attain it For God hath made the work of the World in so exact a method that it shall happen to be wound up all in a day St. Paul hath told us he would not have the foregoers be perfected before the rest the Apocalyps expresses the same Therfore Christ taught us in his own Prayer to say to his and our Father Thy Kingdom come Therefore he bad us when we saw signs of the approaching Judgment to lift up our Heads with hope because
our redemption was near Therefore St. Paul calls the good Christians Those who love his coming Therefore in the Apocalyps Christ shews himself as coming and adds My Reward is with me Therefore in the end of the Apocalyps we read that importunate calling on him Come and let him that hears say Come and this was the primitive devotion to desire to be with Christ Now to conclude he that by his Prayers effects the coming of the day of Judgment as far as he doth that so far he procures to his Friend the eternal Reward the main good the compleat satisfaction of the desires of Nature elevated by Grace The next consideration reaches to the particular good that accrews to the party pray'd for For the understanding whereof you are to remember the Doctrin of the Saints that for our selves we are heard as often as we ask in due manner what is good for us for our friends not so but according as is suitable to the rest of Gods providence Yet it is agreed that many times such Prayers bring some advantage even to the special party for whom they are made but when and how Gods providence doth carry such graces we know not unless the effect prove visible Now we pray for the change of the soul of our friend from misery to bliss If he be in capacity to be help'd without doubt our prayers are heard but when and in what degree onely he knows who grants it unless he hath reveal'd it And as when we pray for a living sinner the effect of our prayers if it be fit they should be heard is that circumstances are so cast in respect of this prayer that he lights into convenient dispositions to bring on his conversion so our prayers for the dead work that in the Resurrection such grace is increas'd to the party pray'd for as is fitting to be retributed to the prayers and affections devoutly powr'd out for him The third Consideration reaches even to the rendring less and more tolerable to them those pains they suffer before the day of Judgment in Purgatory which is to relieve them there To understand which we are to consider that the State of Purgatory differs from that of Hell mainly in this that this of Hell is ever accompany'd with the horrour of Despair that of Purgatory with the comfort of Hope to see God's divine face Now all Hope of a future good if it be rational is grounded in knowing the strength and efficacy of the causes which are to effect and bring it and the stronger causes appear to be layd in order to such an effect the livelier and firmer is our Hope and by consequence more vigorous and sweet the Comfort which springs from that hope thus erected wherefore the suffering souls by knowing that the releasment of all in generall and each in particular is procur'd by the prayers of the Church the more and the more fervent prayers they see powr'd out for them the stronger hope and comfort they conceive To apply then this to particulars as the aym and hope and present comfort of each Soul is its future eternal Happiness as best improovable to it by the order of Causes laid by Gods Wisdom and Goodness so the fore-knowledg that the prayers of Friends will bring to each with proportionable advantage their due reward as I exprest it in my second Consideration gives each soul anticipatedly present sentiments even in Purgatory of Hope Joy and Comforts for those advantages their Friends Prayers shall procure them in the day of Judgment which surely none that understand it can deny to be a very great relief The fourth consideration extends this advantage of prayers for a particular Soul even to the state of Heaven it self which to explicate we may remember the pious opinion commonly receiv'd that S. Francis S. Benedict and other Saints in Heaven have new accidental Joyes there for any good effect perform'd by the Order they founded that is for the arrivement of any good towards which they as Causes had any influence in this World now of all Goods imaginable none is or can be comparable to the bringing of the Kingdom of Heaven or universal Bliss this being the But and End of all our wishes and of all both natural and supernatural motion nay the onely aym of his Providence who is Goodness it self most certainly then they who in this World layd means of many efficacious prayers for the dead and for themselves in particular will in my Doctrin see themselves and rejoyce in Heaven to have been particularly influential towards that happiest and noblest effect of bringing that day Add that this will be gratefully acknowledg'd by the whole Court of Heaven and they respected accordingly which will cause almost infinit multiplications of the best accidental Joyes which they who in this World neglected to use and procure this devotion will deservedly want Reflecting then this thought back upon a Soul in Purgatory who has deserv'd by her carriage in this World and taken order to be efficaciously pray'd for that is to have a particular share in bringing Christ's coming in Glory she has antecedently even in Purgatory by foreknowledg of those accidental Joyes she shall futurely reap thereby a sence of them at present by meanes of the certain Hope to attain them and thence in due measure a proportionable comfort ease and relief even in Purgatory So that you see according to my Doctrin both Essential Bliss and best accidental Joyes in Heaven and from the foreknown efficacy of prayers to accomplish these a present comfort accrues to the Souls in that State through our suffrages for them You will say these motives will not be efficacious enough to stir up the hearts of your penitents I can answer nothing but that I doubt they are not well instructed and exhorted And that it is the Preachers duty to endeavour to stir up their hearts with solid Christian truths not by incertainties guilded over with a shew of piety For indeed what is not true cannot be pious When such Inventions have taken a good effect I bless God that shews his goodness as wel by weakness as by strength But to advise any man to teach or preach that out of which he and the Church thorough him may be upbraided to cozen the credulous faithfull into false and prejudiciall confidences and make them rely upon such Doctrins and Practises as have no reality in them I am not a fit Counsellour I leave that to you who like it In your thirty sixth Section you over-reach'd me again for by your beginning I perswaded my self I was come to a period of my pains and that the rest had been but personal quarrels which I could easily have swallow'd how bitterly soever prepar'd by your rash and angry hand But looking a little farther I perceiv'd I must tug again And first as for that question whether you had intention to wrong me in printing your Bull I beleive you had not because you
say so and that onely you pretended to make the Doctrin pass for an Article of faith the contrary of which all the world knew to be maintain'd by me Secondly I must remember you that you do indeed and inexcusably wrong me when you say I deny that such Souls are receiv'd presently into Heaven if you mean by the word such Souls purg'd after separation 't is no better then a cunning calumny and would represent me as holding directly contrary to the Bull and Council Whereas our dispute is whether Souls may be so purg'd out of their bodies before the day of Judgment not if they be so purg'd whether they go to Heaven before that Day this I agree to and is of faith that I deny is but an Opinion Thirdly you do not well justify your Friends for changing the Title from Concerning the Vision of God the Beatitude and Damnation of Souls to this shorter but more generall one Concerning the State of departed Souls while your answer signifies onely that they are severall expressions for the same thing which to a wary considerer will easily appear an artifice Is it all one to contend about white and black and about colours in generall No more is it all one to define concerning Beatitude and Damnation and to define concerning a State which is neither of them both Fourthly you often up and down your Book brand me with faithless Theology What do you mean do not your Doctors generally agree that somthing in Religion is demonstrable are they all therefore presently to be condemn'd as faithless cannot your self demonstrate there 's a God and will you think your self an Infidel for it Or dare you tell the Ladyes that for your part you are not so silly as to believe there 's a God you know it and that as for belief of such things it belongs to the simple unlearned not to Scolars I hope in your next work you will proceed with more candor and manliness Your thirty seventh Section being spent in petty quarrels though some lines in it be both false and malicious yet I will let all pass and go on to the thirty eighth Section where you rip up again the question whether the matter of the Decree be that perfect charity carries separated Souls immediately to Heaven In which you tell us your Publisher is indifferent and may yet chuse whether he will say that good Souls at their decease be wholly purg'd from all irrationall affections or no in the first Instant And this may peradventure be true But if I am not deceiv'd he will not say they are purg'd For I am sure you would censure it deeply in me if I should say that after this life there is any more disposing it self or meriting towards life eternal But I must not be over confident you may have two censures in your brest for the same saying in the mouths of different Persons You ask if Charity brings a Soul immediately to Bliss What then does your Adversary think of Lumen Gloriae It is to me a hard question what he will think of it for I see your great Divines cannot agree what to think of it But I guess he may think either Charity it self when perfect in a pure Spirit is the Light of Glory or causes it as well as the Beatificall Vision You press farther the perfection of Charity in this life doth not give the Beatificall Vision therefore neither in abstracted Souls But if I should ask you how you knew the Antecedent you would be at a stop I can hear it defended that St. Benedict had the clear sight of God And I was at a Sermon in Alcala made to the whole University in which the Preacher asserted our Lady had Beatifical Vision in the first Instant of her Conception and prov'd it out of his Text which was Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis Fundamenta ejus her conception in montibus Sanctis in the heighths or tops of Sanctity Therefore believing Divines must take heed of denying as well as of saying Besides I have read in St. Thomas and others both more Ancient and more Modern that there is a certain pitch of Charity to which when men arrive God takes them out of this World But however that stand I think there is a large difference betwixt the Charity of pure Spirits and of men So that the consequence may be true of one and not of the other Farther on you mention some reasons of mine against corporall punishing of Spirits but you knock them all on the head with a Canon of the Council of Trent To understand the state of the question it is not amiss to consider that a Sin specially a notorious one hath three effects or parts One in the rational Soul where it is a Judgment or resolution or affection that such an Action is to be done A second in the Appetite or Body where it makes certain motions and their causes which bring a likelihood of falling into the same sin The third part is in the external action where it brings in some disorder which is subject to propagate it self farther into other subjects The disorderly Judgment and affection is that which our School-men when they speak formally call the Sin and account the sin remitted when that is duly blotted out whatever that signifies But it is supposed to be done by Contrition and Absolution And although they admit this to be sufficient to go to Heaven if one dyes yet in a living man they with reason require that the other two parts or effects of sin should also be taken away which is to be done by Satisfaction So may the Reader understand what Satisfaction is required for Now let us see what you urge out of the Council First you object the Council teaches that it is against the word of God to say that the fault is never remitted but that all the punishment is also forgiven And so you see by the discourse above made that we say also Secondly the Council sayes that it becomes the Divine clemency that sins should not be parâ—on'd without any Satisfaction So we say also by the fore-made discourse Thirdly the Council charges Priests to impose Satisfaction so that it be not onely as to the guard of a new life but also as in revenge and chastisement of their past sins which is clearly necessary for the mending of the outward excesses brought in by the sin and so we say directly the same You press farther that the Council sayes in Baptism the whole pains are remitted And if you speak in opposition to sins remitted in Penance the cause is clear For the sins committed before Baptism belong not to the Churches Court But if you speak in regard of God Almighty I fear it will require I should ask your Judgment of a Case Your Divines tell us that he who receives Baptisme cum fictionâ— receives Baptism truly yet if he dye immediately I suspect whether you will send him immediately