this Case He next puts down their Opinion that will have it to relate to those who are just a dying and drawing on but this Opinion he says is generally rejected not only because those that are only drawing on cannot be with any propriety of Speech called the Souls of the Dead but because the Custom of the Church is to use this Prayer for those Souls which have many years ago left the Body After which He concludes that this Prayer is used for those that are in Purgatory and gives us this Exposition of the Words of the Prayer Deliver O Lord the Souls of all the Faithful Deceased from the Pains of Hell that is from PURGATORY-FIRE WHICH IS HELD TO BE ALTOGETHER THE SAME WITH HELL-FIRE and from the Bottomless-Pit and from the Mouth of the Lion that is from the Prison hid under m Juxta haec singula illius Orationis verba exponi possunt nam dicitur Domine libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis Inferni id est à PURGATORIO IGNE qui IDEM prorsus esse perhibetur atque IGNIS INFERNI de profundo lacu de Ore Leonis à Carcere nimirum sub Terram abdito ubi detentae expurgantur animae piorum Ne absorbeat eas Tartarus hoc est ne amplius diutius eas profundi illius Carceris Cavernae vincula remorentur nec Inferni poenae tanquam fauces quaedam belluae immanis saevae truculentae detineant Unde IGNEM PURGATORIUM cum sit IDEM qui IGNIS INFERNI appellat Ecclesia Tartarum Ne cadant in Obscurum id est ne obscurum quas cadentes excepit longius detineat Fr. Raimund Capisucchi Controversiae Theolog selectae Controversia 5 ta p. 237. Edit Romae 1677. the Earth wherein the Souls of the Faithful are detain'd to be purged that HELL may not swallow them up for Ever that is that the Receptacles and Bands of that deep Prison may not stay them further or any longer nor the PAINS OF HELL as the Jaws of some fierce cruel and savage Beast detain them Whereupon the Church doth call PURGATORY-FIRE Hell because Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire is the same that they may not fall into outer darkness that is that this Obscure Place may no longer detain the Souls which it receives falling into it Here is the Interpretation of a Great Cardinal of the Church of Rome now alive and which is more the Chief Licenser of all Divinity Books at Rome as Master of the sacred Palace one of the qualifications for which place certainly is to understand the Faith and Doctrines of the Church of Rome Here we meet with him explaining that Prayer in the Mass for the Dead as relating to Purgatory and calling it over and over again a place of Torment Purgatory-Fire and declaring it to be the same with Hell-Fire I took the pains to peruse and transcribe that large passage about the Exposition of this Prayer hither because I could not call it to mind without a secret Indignation that this Cardinal Capisucchi but two years before the Printing of this Book which was not then first written but Reprinted was one of those who Licensed and so much commended the Bishop of Condom's Exposition in which we find an account of Purgatory perfectly inconsistent with what the Cardinal had written in his Controversies In the Bishop of Condom's Exposition we find these expressions about Purgatory This is what the Council of Trent proposes to our Belief touching the Souls detained in Purgatory without determining n Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church By the Bishop of Condom p. 15. in WHAT Their PAINS consists or many other such like things concerning which this holy Council demands great moderation blaming those who divulge what is uncertain or suspected Such is the innocent and holy DOCTRINE of the CATHOLICK CHURCH touching Satisfactions But for all Cardinal Capisucchi's Licensing and approving this passage in that Exposition He himself had written the direct contrary when he makes the Pains of Purgatory to be by Fire and makes Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire to be the SAME and not only knew this to be but published that it was the Faith of their Church that does in that Prayer for the Dead call Purgatory Hell because Purgatory-Fire and Hell Fire were the very same All the defence that can be made for Cardinal Capisucchi must be that the Bishop of Condom's words were restrained to the Council of Trent which Council it is certain did not determine any thing about what the Purgatory pains consisted in but this can by no means excuse him since it is false that the Bishop of Condom's words are confin'd to that Council for he just after the mention of the Council says that what he had set down there about Satisfactions in this World or in Purgatory was the innocent and holy Doctrine of the CATHOLICK CHURCH which thing Cardinal Capisucchi did not only know in his Conscience to be false but had written the contrary to it which I suppose he is willing should be thought the truer of the two But granting that the Bishop of Condom's words had been restrain'd wholly to the Council of Trent Cardinal Capisucchi ought not to have Licensed or approved that Bishop's Exposition if he would have approved himself a sincere Man since he could not but know that this passage of the Bishop of Condom about Purgatory was a perfect Juggle and altogether unbecoming a Christian much more a Bishop for tho' the Council had been so reserved about the nature of the Pains in Purgatory yet he knew too well that their Church their Catholick Church had plainly and fully determined about the nature of those Purgatory Pains in her Office for the Dead by which she had spoken her sense intelligibly enough to the very meanest Capacities that those pains are by FIRE by FIRE which is the SAME with HELL-FIRE I will urge this thing no further but only pray to God that those great men may repent of such unwarrantable actions and of such arts which are altogether a dishonour to our Holy Religion I think I have very fully shewn what I did undertake for upon this business to wit that the Romish Purgatory is a place of Torment wherein the Souls of those who are in it undergo the same pains that the damned do and that there is no other difference betwixt Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire but that the One is Eternal and the other but Temporal Having shewn all this so effectually from their approved Writers from the Council of Florence from the Catechism ad Parochos and from the Office for the Dead in their Romish Missal it would be the veriest loss of Paper and the greatest affront to Readers of any sense to set formally here to the shewing how inconsistent this Romish Purgatory is with the Opinions of the Primitive Fathers about the State of the Deceased Faithful whom they believed to be when they
his little touches at me I had like to have slipt I know not how over his saying I impose sillily upon the Reader when in answer to the Objection made about no one 's denying the Bishop of Rome 's power of Excommunicating the Asiaticks I had said Every Bishop might deny to communicate with any other Bishop or Church against whom they had sufficient reason As if says he denying to communicate were the same thing as to Excommunicate to the doing of which an Authority or Jurisdiction over them who are Excommunicated is required whilst refusing Communion may be done without any such power Well then this Man shall have his Will and I therefore tell him that by denying Communion I meant a doing it authoritatively that is a putting the other Bishop from them by Ecclesiastical Censure but I must also tell him that an Authority or Jurisdiction over the persons to be Excommunicated is not required but that an Equality of State with the other persons is sufficient and this of his is dangerous Doctrine since every Greek can prove their Bishops of Constantinople to have Jurisdiction over the Bishop of Rome by this Argument since Photius's time who did Excommunicate the then Bishop of Rome and the Bishops of that Church do continue to excommunicate yearly to this day the Bishop and Church of Rome and not only the Greeks but the French Bishops also may by this Argument also be proved to be above the Pope since they so long ago as Monsieur Talon told the Parliament of Paris the other day threaten'd the Pope that if he came to Excommunicate them He should be Excommunicated himself for medling in things he had nothing to do with So that I suppose I shall hear no more of my imposing sillily about this thing nor the Compiler have any thanks for his untoward Observation Such little things will not serve to build that Supremacy upon which is pretended to by the Bishops of Rome And as the Primitive Fathers neither knew of nor believed nor therefore could submit to any Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome for the first six Centuries so they were as far from the Romish Doctrines about Tradition grounding all Matters of Faith as we do upon the Holy Scriptures and were as far from Invocating Saints as we of the Church of England and from the Belief of Purgatory or Transubstantiation and did detest the Worship of Images and Reliques as much as we can so that since in all these Points their Doctrines were contrary to the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and their Practices contrary to the present Practices of that Church we are bound to vindicate them to the world and to inform our Readers that they were no more Papists as to those Points mentioned by the Compiler in his Nubes Testium than we of the Reformation are and therefore I have Reason to conclude my Defence as I did my last Book against the Nubes with asserting it upon further Reasons That the Primitive Fathers were no Papists THE END Books lately Printed for Richard Chiswell A Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants Being a Reply to the Reflections upon the Answer to A Papist Misrepresented and Represented 4 to An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by the late BISHOP of CONDOM in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church 4to A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Exceptions of Mons de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator 4to A CATECHISM explaining the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome With an Answer thereunto By a Protestant of the Church of England 8vo A Papist Represented and not Misrepresented being an Answer to the First Second Fifth and Sixth Sheets of the Second Part of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented and a further Vindication of the CATECHISM truly representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome 4to The Lay-Christian's Obligation to read the Holy Scriptures 4to The Plain Man's Reply to the Catholick Missionaries 24. An Answer to THREE PAPERS lately printed concerning the Authority of the Catholick Church in matters of Faith and the Reformation of the Church of England 4to A Vindication of the Answer to THREE PAPERS concerning the Unity and Authority of the Catholick Church and the Reformation of the Church of England 4to Mr. Chillingworth's Book called The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation made more generally useful by omitting personal Contests but inserting whatsoever concerns the common Cause of Protestants or defends the Church of England with an exact Table of Contents and an Addition of some genuine Pieces of Mr. Chillingworth's never before Printed viz. against the Infallibility of the Roman Church Transubstantiation Tradition c. And an Account of what moved the Author to turn Papist with his Confutation of the said Motives An Historical Treatise written by an Author of the Communion of the Church of Rome touching Transubstantiation Wherein is made appear That according to the Principles of that Church this Doctrine cannot be an Article of Faith. 4to The Protestants Companion or an Impartial Survey and Comparison of the Protestant Religion as by Law established with the main Doctrines of Popery Wherein is shewn that Popery is contrary to Scripture Primitive Fathers and Councils and that proved from Holy Writ the Writings of the ancient Fathers for several hundred years and the Confession of the most learned Papists themselves 4to The Pillar and Ground of Truth A Treatise shewing that the Roman Church falsly claims to be that Church and the Pillar of that Truth mentioned by S. Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy chap. 3. ver 15. 4to A Sermon preached on St. Peter's Day published with Enlargements A short Summary of the principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines in answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Protestancy destitute of Scripture-Proofs 4to An Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled The Judgment and Doctrine of the Clergy of the Church of England concerning one special Branch of the King's Prerogative viz. In dispensing with the Penal Laws A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist in the two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host in Answer to the Two Discourses lately printed at Oxford on this Subject To which is prefixed a large Historical Preface relating to the same Argument Two Discourses Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead The People's Right to read the Holy Scriptures asserted The Fifteen Notes of the Church as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmine examined and confuted 4 to With a Table to the whole Preparation for Death being a Letter sent to a young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which she died By William Wake M. A. 12mo The Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in opposition to a late Book Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome 4to A Private Prayer to be used in difficult Times A True Account of a Conference held about Religion at London Sept. 29. 1687. between A. Pulton Jesuit and Tho. Tenison D. D. as also of that which led to it and followed after it 4to The Vindication of A. Cressener Schoolmaster in Long-Acre from the Aspersions of A. Pulton Jesuit Schoolmaster in the Savoy together with some Account of his Discourse with Mr. Meredith A Discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries and that Their Religion is the surest way to Heaven 4to Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist wherein is shewed That the Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Proofs of Christian Religion A Discourse concerning the pretended Sacrament of Extreme Vnction with an Account of the Occasions and Beginnings of it in the Western Church In Three Parts With a Letter to the Vindicator of the Bishop of Condom The Pamphlet intituled Speculum Ecclesiasticum or an Ecclesiastical Prospective-Glass considered in its false Reasonings and Quotations There are added by way of Preface two further Answers the first to the Defender of the Speculum the second to the Half-sheet against the Six Conferences A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the new Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The FIRST PART in which the Account that has been given of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition is fully vindicated the Distinction of Old and New Popery Historically asserted and the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in point of Image-Worship more particularly considered 4to The incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome By the Author of the Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist 4to Mr. Pulton considered in his Sincerity Reasonings Authorities Or a Just Answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True Account his True and Full Account of a Conference c. His Remarks and in them his pretended Confutation of what he calls Dr. T 's Rule of Faith. By Th. Tenison D. D. A Full View of the Doctrines and Practices of the Ancient Church relating to the Eucharist wholly different from those of the Present Roman Church and inconsistent with the Belief of Transubstantiation being a sufficient Confutation of Consensus Veterum Nubes Testium and other late Collections of the Fathers pretending to the contrary 4to An Answer to the Representer's Reflections upon the State and View of the Controversy With a Reply to the Vindicators Full Answer shewing that the Vindicator has utterly ruin'd the New Design of Expounding and Representing Popery An Answer to the Address presented to the Ministers of the Church of England
of all Sense of Modesty as well as betraying a want of Learning He is now come to the Body of my Answer and complains of my admirable Talent of trifling in quarrelling him for beginning his Book with The History of Donatus and shewing the Nature of Schism and for my saying That this was so far from being a Chief Point that it is no Point of Controversy at all betwixt us And upon this he falls to pitying me who had dwelt so long among Books for losing my time and then shews that a Chapter about Schism was not improper to begin his Book with But I would fain see this trifling proved and will now prove that he is the guilty person who hath shuffled three Chapters together here and hath not given us a true or fair state of the Chapters I do own that a Discourse about Schism might be a proper Introduction to a Controversial Book however I did shew that what he advanced there was perfect trifling I have once already done it sufficiently and must be forced in Vindication of my self to do it again to let the World see who is the Caviller and at whose Door the trifling must be laid His first Chapter was that the Fathers accused the Donatists of being guilty of Schism for making the wicked Lives of the Members of the Church the reason of their Separation My answer to this was that this can be no point of Controversy betwixt us and the Church of Rome as he had made it since we never urged the wicked Lives of some Members of the Church of Rome as the ground of our Separation from them and what says our Representer in Reply to this Does he either prove that that is a point of controversie betwixt us or that our Separation from the particular Church of Rome is grounded upon the same matter that the Donatists was No we have no reason to expect a fair Reply from him who did not set down the state of this Chapter at all The second Chapter was that the Fathers teach against the Donatists that the Catholick Church cannot fail This I told him could be no Controversie betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome since we believe with the Fathers that the Catholick Church cannot fail Was this then the trifling I am accused of if it be the Compiler had done well to have shewn it that so upon the sight of my errour I might have altered my mind but this he thought fit not at all to attempt His third Chapter was that the Fathers taught that whosoever breaks the Vnity of the Catholick Church upon any pretext whatsoever is guilty of Schism Upon this I told him that taking the word pretext for a groundless pretence I was of the same mind and did believe the Donatists who acted so to be guilty of a Criminal Schism but assured the Compiler withal that this could not be matter of dispute betwixt us who both assented to that doctrine of the Fathers and here it is my trifling must be discovered and here he will have me not only to differ from them but from the Fathers this is hard when I had assented to that Chapter as set down by him and proved by the Fathers but he will have it that I am for making the breach of the Vnity of the Catholick Church not Schism unless it be done causelesly whereas the Fathers teach there can be no just cause I grant the Fathers teach that there can be no just cause given by the Catholick Church however that particular Churches can give and do often give just cause for others to break Communion with them is what no Father will deny is what the Church of Rome it self must grant which hath not only broken Communion with us but with the whole Greek Church and yet I suppose does pretend to shew that she had a just cause for it He hath offered hereupon nothing new in defence of his three Chapters but some hard words and those I do not intend to reply to but will pass to the defence of his Chapter about the Supremacy I had charged him with giving a false and imperfect state of the Controversie betwixt us in relation to the Pope's Supremacy but this he is not willing to defend but turns it off with saying that it only is so if my word be to be taken for it but I had not only given him my word but very good reasons for it and therefore since the Compiler hath no mind to be medling with reasons it would be uncivil to be importunate with calling upon him to disprove them That Chapter as it did concern the greatest point of Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome so it did require a great deal of canvasing and admit of a vast variety of dispute in it I was careful to follow the Compiler through it and to debate and disprove every thing that was brought to support the Pope's Supremacy in it but our Compiler is not so civil to me nor so just to his Book in his Vindication but forsakes the defence of every one of his passages and only seems solicitous to make a shew and that he may not be accused of saying nothing at all in defence of his Testimonies and in Answer to a great many very severe charges in that Chapter he serves us up again two or three bits of his former passages and that is all I told him his first quotation from Irenaeus was of no use and gave him in short my reasons for it all the answer he makes is to give us anew a piece of the same passage and this with two or three scornful words and crying good and great must be called defending and we must be content with such from him since it seems the Man is not furnisht with better but if the old quotations presented anew will signify any thing they are at your service but upon this condition that they may serve for a defence of themselves And such is his behaviour as to the next passage from Optatus which I shewed to have been very obscure and that in affirming there was but one Cathedra in the World possessed first by S. Peter and after him by his Successours at Rome it did not only contradict the other parts of his Writings but all Church Writers before and after him for hundreds of years who make as many Cathedra's as Bishops in the World and I instanced in a most plain place in Tertullian which did assert the direct contrary to the Doctrine of that passage of Optatus All the Answer besides rude language to these reasons that I can observe is that it is a notorious fraud in me to pretend that the Father maintains here That the Chair of Rome was such that the rest of the Apostles might not have Cathedra's for themselves whereas says the Compiler S. Optatus no where affirms this but only that the rest of the Apostles should not set up other Episcopal Chairs in
did see it necessary to speak out more plainly the Sense of their Church about the Nature of Purgatory and therefore upon the Fifth Article in the Apostles Creed about the Descent into Hell when they come to give the various Senses in which the word Hell is used they tell us it is first taken for the Receptacle of the Damned wherein the Souls of them are tormented with an Eternal and Vnquenchable Fire They next will have it to signifie Purgatory and these are their own Words Furthermore there is a PURGATORY FIRE in which the Souls of the Pious are * Praeterea est PURGATORIUS IGNIS in quo Piorum Animae ad definitum tempus cruciatae expiantur ut iis in aeternam Patriam ingressus patere possit in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur Catechism ad Parochos Pars 1. p. 50. Edit Lugd. 1676. TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME in order to their being expiated that so an Entrance into their Eternal Country may lye open unto them into which nothing polluted does enter And to let the World see they did not give their own Sense herein but that of their Church they quote in the Margin the Council of Trent it self for it in the 25th Session about Purgatory and tell us immediately after that Holy Councils by which they must mean that of Florence as well as that of Trent have declared for the Truth of this Doctrine that it is confirmed by the Testimonies of Scripture and Apostolical Tradition and therefore the Parish Priest is to treat more diligently and more frequently of Purgatory because we say the Authors of the Catechism are fallen into those times wherein Men do not endure SOUND DOCTRINE If the Times were thought so bad when that Catechism was drawn up what must be thought of ours when not only the Protestants will not endure this SOUND DOCTRINE but the Present Writers of the Church of Rome the Bishop of Meaux his Vindicator and the Compiler will no more endure this SOUND DOCTRINE of a PURGATORY FIRE than the Hereticks but cry out so often that the Church doth not believe that the Church doth not teach a Purgatory FIRE Whereas it is as evident as that there is Day and Night that this Catechism drawn up by the Order of the Council of Trent and confirmed by Pope Pius the Fifth doth not only here deliver it as Sound Doctrine that there is a PURGATORY FIRE WHEREIN THE SOULS of the FAITHFUL are TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME but in the next Page speaking of the Souls of the Faithful which departed this Life before Christ's Resurrection says that they went not to Heaven which was not opened to any before Christ's Death and Resurrection but that they were carried either into Abraham 's Bosom or as it NOW happens to those who have something to discharge when they dye were expiated or purged by the FIRE OF PURGATORY But I have a better evidence than all these to prove that by Purgatory the Church of Rome doth certainly mean a Place of Torment wherein those Souls that are detain'd in it undergo Fiery-Torments which differ no otherwise from Hell-Torments but only in the Duration of them that Purgatory Torments are but for a time but the other are everlasting and it is no other than the Office for the Dead in the Romish Missal In the Mass for the Dead the Offertory runs thus O Lord Iesu Christ King of Glory DELIVER the SOULS of all the FAITHFUL DECEASED from the PAINS OF HELL and from the BOTTOMLESS PIT Deliver them l Domine Jesu Christe Rex Gloriae libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de Poenis Inferni de profundo lacu libera eas de Ore Leonis ne absorbeat eas Tartarus ne cadant in Obscurum sed signifer Sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in Lucem Sanctam quam olim Abrahae promisisti semini ejus Missa pro Defunctis in Missali Romano fol. 51. Edit Paris in 8o. 1582. from the MOUTH of the LION that HELL may not SWALLOW THEM UP FOR EVER and that they may not fall into outer Darkness but let thy Holy Angel Michael convey them unto that Heavenly Light which thou hast promised of old to Abraham and to his Séed This is the service of the Church of Rome at this very day for the Dead the only enquiry now to be made is who these are for whom the Church of Rome is so solicitous to have them delivered out of the Pains of Hell and out of the Mouth of the Lion c. And who can I better inquire of than our Compiler himself He shall be the Man that the World may see how very fairly I deal with my Adversaries This Prayer then must be put up for one of these three sorts of men either for the Souls who are in Heaven or for the Souls who are in Hell or for some Souls who are neither in Heaven nor Hell but in a middle State or Place which their Church doth call Purgatory Is this Prayer therefore used for the Souls in Heaven No says our Compiler for it is needless to pray for those that are in Heaven there being no want there at all no want of Relief of Refreshment and consequently no Hell-Torments undergone by any Souls there of Pardon there being no Guilt there of Sins Is it for the Souls in Hell No replies the Compiler again it is as fruitless to pray for those in Hell that State being wholly irreversible So that by his help we have light upon the Souls that are prayed for there and those are the Souls in Purgatory which according to this Prayer undergo their Hell-Torments and are in a Condition nothing different from the damned but meerly in the Duration of their Pains these Souls torments being but temporary but those of the damned eternal And for the Condition of the Place in which these miserable Souls are we find it here represented in this Prayer as the same with Hell and we meet in this short Prayer with all the Terms by which Hell is described to us in the word of God so that there is no danger of our mistaking the sense of the Church of Rome about Purgatory since we find it so plainly set forth in her Office for the Souls in it as a Place of Fiery Torments However to put this thing without the possibility of a Reply that the Compiler may see that it is not I alone who gather thus much out of that Prayer I will give the Reader an account of Cardinal Capisucchi's Opinion in his 5th Controversy about the Words of this very Prayer which I have made use of and put down above The Cardinal first puts down the Opinion of them who look upon that Prayer as offer'd up for those that are in Hell who may come to be deliver'd thence as Trajan the Heathen Emperour is said to have been but This he refuses as most false and erroneous upon the reasons commonly given in