2. 22. Tab. Suff. tab. 21. And having thus rid his hands of the Pope he proceeds against the infallibility of the Councils in his Tab. Suff. tab. 22. This being his signal Doctrine Non est impossibile c. It is not impossible that the Pope or Council should attempt to establish that as now of Faith which was some time before not of Faith and by that very attempt fall into an error and even promulgate that error c. And further he tells us As to a certain prophetick inspiration immediately and miraculously enlightning the Council or Pope if constantly and by the ordinary Law of God it be asserted to be required it is altogether fabulous and asserted without any solid ground Thus he Upon these grounds I say did this good proficient in this his Masters School endeavour to sustain your otherwaies ruinous Fabrick of Purgatory for in truth there is no other means left to support it but by the destruction of all the Authority of both Popes and Councils to deliver us our holy Faith And now I desire my Reader to consider for his just and full satisfaction of the design of this School that if these grounds be once admitted Christian Faith which they now combat is a meer mockery For if after all the Canons of Councils all the Anathmaes pronounced against any Opinion the very Anathema it self carrying with it and being an exercise of that power invested in the Church to oblige us to submission and beleef it still remains to be showen that the Pope or Council determined conformably to Tradition or else Master Whites styling the doctrine and profession new will not savour the least of Heresie or that it is not impossible a Council may err and promulgate an errour we are at an irrecoverable loss For no Catholick claims any other assurance of his Faith then upon this firm foundation that our holy Mother the Church is his infallible Directress That the Councils her mouth are the unerring Deliveres of Truth Which if it stand no firm absolutely but upon a supposition of a due application it being impossible we should have any higher or more authentique proof of this supposition then the Council it self there is no security no assurance left of any thing delivered by them Not so says he We may easily know when Councils and Consistories apply themselves aright by examining tradition of what we have seen and heard And shall I a private an illiterate Christian not yet acquainted with these solid and cleer-sighted Persons recall all the decrees of Councils to a new examine is there still a higher Court to which I may and ought to appeal from their sentence as to a superiour Iudg and Umpire over them shall I take this liberty upon me to censure their Proceeds to admit to reject their definitions as my weakness shall find them consonant to or dissonant from what I have seen and heard and if they were to receive their approbation from this Court How can I unless a senseless pride blind me hope that my industry in the search my ability to find shall not only equallize but even exceed that of five hundred perhaps a thousand Bishops and Prelates and the scrutiny of numberless Divines assisting them in this Inquest And even to ease us of this sollicitude you see what exact care is taken in these proceeds Pope Benedict here tells you of the holy Church that she teaches nothing rashly brings in nothing unwarily introduces nothing in faith unadvisedly And hence it is that all such sacred decisions are still ushered in with some such expressions as these After an humble invocation of the holy Ghost After a careful examination of the matter After a diligeâ—â— deliberation with our brethren c. But if all this sollicitude in truth signifie nothing if we must not acquiesce here but re-examine all in a higher tribunal iâ— not this the utter Extermination of all that authority we hitherto have believed the Church is furnished with to deliver us our holy Faith Is not this to resolve finally en dernier resort our Creed into our own brests to make every idle head competent Judge of Popes Councils Consistories All And them Judges of just nothing wherein do those loose bands of disagreeing Protestants all disagree from us and all agree against us but in this that we acquiesce and submit to the holy Church as the faithful keeper and dispenser of our Faith and Tradition and so submit that from her sentence we admit no Appeal against her decrees we admit no Contradiction whilst they by a supereminent pride assume to themselves a power to judg this Pillar of Truth and resolve All into their own capriccioes private reason spirit fancies pride and nothing And yet I pray you consider whether by this appealing from the Church to Tradition what we have seen and heard we are not sunk into a deeper sink of Errour of Independancy then they for they appeal to Scripture which though irrationally they accept as Canonical they admit their Translations as authentick and contest the sense onely with the Church whilst this Doctrine affoords us a far more full and ample reserve to evacuate all Faith at our pleasures since it is still in our power and we competent Judges what is Tradition what not where the Council proceeded with due Application upon the depositum of Faith where upon the uncertain wavering opinions of Schoolmen or pretended assistance of the Holy Ghost which extends to Creeds Catechismes Definitions yea the very Canon of Scriptures and indeed All that any way belongs to Christian Religion Nor will it avail if this Gentleman should tell me that I do him wrong to rank his Doctrine with that of the Protestants or indeed hold it worse then theirs for the Protestants down right tell us the Church hath erred de factâ— in these these Points in particular He and Master White more modestly and shily mince the matter and teach us that possibly onely or not impossibly the Council may err and promulgate an errour And perhaps he will say that these inconveniencies are saved by this his succeeding Doctrine in the same place Tab. 22. For there having delivered this his Doctrine against the infallibility of Councils he presently adds But it is impossible that such an errour thus promulg'd by the Council should pass into an establisht Doctrine of the Church and be accepted as a Doctrine delivered by the Fathers and preached by Christ For as to the first it will presently appear even in this our question that if their new model of Purgatory be subsistent not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto the Florentin Council and Church hath erred in this particular And since to say even not impossibly the Council may err the foundation of all assurance is now pulled up I know not but this Doctrine is as high and higher Independancy then theirs And as to those words of Master Whites I answer that they
hath not wrought upon their inconstancy to abandon the Tents of the Church and to list themselves in this new Squadron to impugn their pious Mother to forsake a formerly received Beleef now to adhere to a new Doctrine which certainly at the first proposal checkt their former perswasion the holy Faith planted in their Souls Nor hath the contrary Assertion any thing but a bold confidence to warrant it for we know we feel we experience in our selves this Beleef We do beleeve the Councils can not misguide us We do beleeve the delivery of Souls before the Day of Iudgment This is our Faith as firm as a Rock not to be shaken by all the Sophistry of the world If it were possible as certainly it is not possible that it could be evidenced that our faith of both these is erroneous yet certainly it could never carry any fâ—ce of probability that we have not hitherto or even yet do not beleeve them every man being furnisht within his own brest with an irrefragable witness stronger then all the wit and Logick of the world The Protestants face us down that we make Idols of â—â—ictures against our own souls and knowledge What impudence is this And shall this new School have the confidence against all mens experience thus to give the Lye to the Consciences of the whole Christian world So that I hope my Reader rests satisfied that even this Courâ— to which he appeals hath given sentence against him even by this Question what we have seen and heard And how happily hath this our great Master Master White Arraigned himself as the first Author of our new Purgatory or any other the first Broâ—cher of a new Doctrine under the person of Luther Sonus Buccinae Tract. 1. viii before the Tribunal of his Bishop or a Nuntius of the Apostolick See That his own condemnation might be the more solemn and the sentence pronounced against himself conceived in his own words Thus then he makes Luthers and his own Process And let him be asked sayes he of the Doctrine of which he stands suspected and much more if now he hath sustained in Print whether he believes this his new Doctrine of Purgatory to be that Doctrin which this present Age he now lives in received from their Fathers of the immediate foregoing Age Whether he received it in his childhood when he was first instructed in Christian belief and which till he now became a Doctor he followed And let him answer for himself for what other answer can he make then that this his new broached Purgatory is not that Doctrin he thus was taught whilst he was yet a Child But that it is better Doctrine then the former which he himself hath now evinced out of sacred Monuments Heathen Poets out of the Bowels and Principles of Nature by Demonstration And that the contrary Doctrine to which he had been bred took its rise onely from ignorance of the nature of separated substances And let the faithfull people says he encompass the Tribunal now educated in this faith that the Authority of things which 〈◊〉 stand bound to beleeve descends handel down from Christ our B. Saviour and is otherwise even till this Age Will they nâ— cry out upon him as an Innovatour a Prophane Person an Heretick will they not proclaim and invoque to Prisons Fire with him to rid such a plague out of the world And he pursues But let the people be silent and let the Iudge â—erge him And do you not know Sir this new Doctrine fights against the known Laws of your Country that such an Author as you are first thrust out of the sacred Communion of the faithful should expiate or pay for this his presumption with death Do you not know that you now fight against the Fathers and Monuments of Antiquity that you combate an immemorable custome that you now impugne that reverence due to our most dear Parents by whom above all things else the contrary Doctrine of Purgatory is recommended to us as most profitable both for soul and body And since it can not with any face be denyed but that he knows he contends against all these Let the Iudg further urge him From whence Sir can you hope to draw any Argument of that evidence which may inforce us and other prudent men to follow this noveltie with an obdurate soul And let him answer that out of the Scriptures And the Iudg reply and do not you know that wilfully you inhere to holy Scriptures Do you not know that words do not signifie naturally but by institution And therefore the construction of words is subâ—ect to such variety that it is impossible to pick out any sence demonstratively at least any one expresly repugnant to the Doctrine of so many wise men who all of them indeavour the understanding of those sacred Texts as well as you Or can you pretend Christian Faith is directed by the â—ables of Heathen Poets or that you now can demonstratively shew out of the Principles of reason that to be false which we all have with unavoidable Authority hitherto believed to be true or that you now have attained to such a cleer understanding of the nature of separated souls that all the learning of mankind before you could not reach that which now you pretend to have demonstratively and scientifically proved Is it not evident sayes he that this large-wide mouth'd gaping promiser will produce nothing worthy the hearing but must needs bâ— esteemed as a meer frantick and mad person as he who Vaunts he will do that which all learned men know is impossible and the very unlearned see is improbable And further he pursues let the same or another Writer sayes he being now unmindful of his own weakness imagin to himself that either by his own reason or explication of Scriptures he hath now found out that which all former ages were ignorant of to wit that now in the third age or mans estate of the Church we shall be directed by faith no longer 〈…〉 for the future by his demonstrations which is the Position of this our Master as we shall presently see And that this truth was left by God to him to be revealed and manifested to the Church Of which Position the vulgar Christians as a sluggish Cattel not at all given to speculation know nothing and so he contemns them he laughs at the Doctours he styles the Saints lyars because men but that he himself is the first to whom God hath made known so great a mystery But though he be a most arrogant person let him weigh with him and consider Though I have hitherto contemplated this sublime and happy truth But when I come to propose this Doctrine to others they will presently object and ask whether Christian Faith hath any other ground of its security then a continued succession through all ages to our present time Do you Sir promise this new light of science of Demonstration If I deny it will they
not presently hiss me out Will they not cry out to the faggot with me And shall we believe that in such a disposition of the faithful people that such an Innovatour will dare to print or publish his novelty or that he shall hope to find either buyers of his Book or followers of his Doctrine Thus he And thus Sir your great Master pleads the cause and arraigns himself and all the Proselytes of his new Purgatory thus he thunders and lightens and I think home to our purpose for the consciences of all the faithful bear witness against it the unlearned know it is improbable and the learned see it is impossible Having said this to the ingenuous Gentleman the Author of that Letter who is a very able proficient in this new School I hope he will pardon me if I make his Letter publick without his name I hope these short reflections on his and his Masters grounds without which he acknowledges this Purgatory can not be sustained will prove an effectual admonition to him both to see and repent that he hath entred himself a Scholar into this dangerous School and therefore out of hand to withdraw his name Sect. 20. And now Sir I hope this better proficients judgment will be of some weight since he is your School-fellow I think an unprejudiced understanding will be convinced by that evidence I have already brought the undoubted intention of the Pope was to deliver us our holy Faith in all the several conditions of souls which depart this mortal life either in the state of grace or out of it either which need or need not any Purgation in the next life and for the Council besides the strength of words of the Decree the very Process of it the several Doctrines of the Latine and Greek Churches in order to this Decree will evince that their intentions reach as home to our purpose as their words But because the Reverend Esteem of â—â—ur new Master and of those solid and cleer-sighted persons stop your eares against the voice of the Church Let us try that Musick which certainly would cure you of this Tarantula What if we could obtain your new Master to plead on the behalf of that Faith we now maintain this certainly would prevail Let us attempt it then if you are not as yet so good a proficient in your new School that you are ready to believe the Council erred in this particular question of Purgatory I doubt not to conclude you out of your Masters own grounds Master White then layes you down this fundamental Doctrine The Church sayes he in her definitions of Faith proceeds onely on tradition and declares to us that Depositum of Faith which was handed down from Christ and his Apostles by an innumerable number of Fathers and Pastors to their numberless children and flock through age to age even to any one detèrminate moment When then any controversie is to be decided and a Council is summoned to declare our Faith what course is then taken surely no other then this The Fathers there gathered lay down that Faith thus handed down to them which they received from their precedent teachers and was commended to them to deliver to posteriâ—y as a sacred treasure not to be violated since it is their light their guide in their way to Heaven This Doctrine presupposed let it not be denyed but the Florentin Council proceeded in that very way he hath chalked out for them in our present question and my work is done Let us take a view of the Council Both the Greek and Latine Fathers meet first at Ferrara afterwards at Florence their business there is to declare the Faith of the Church concerning the state of souls which depart this life and in particular concerning the Souls which are detained in Purgatory both sides lay down their hitherto received Faith in order to a decision Let us see how happily they agree with this new molded Purgatory And first as to the Latins They â—elieve a Purgatory Fire directly against Master White who pretends to demonstate that no material agent can work upon the soul in its state of separation they believe that souls guilty of venial impurities are purged by this fire directly against Master White who holds there is no purging of the soul in the state of separation neither by fire nor not by fire for this is reserved to the reunion when her now torment her irregular affections shall be changed They believe that souls there detained by this fire together with the help of the Church the Prayers of the Priests Masses Almes c. are Expiated directly against Master White in the point in Question both as to the indivisible duration of the state he pretends to demonstrate and the unchangeableness of it and the continuation of it till the day of Iudgment Being thus unfortunate with the Latins who must needs have thrust this new School out of their Communion let us see what favour it would find with the Greeks These then profess this belief That souls there are detained in a darksome place Directly against Master White who holds that souls in the state of separation doe not only abstract from place but comprehend and are in some manner governours of all place they believe souls are expiated and freed directly against Master White who holds there is no expiating and freeing of souls but at re-union with their bodies they believe souls are freed by the Prayers and Sacrifices of Priests Almes c. directly against Master White in all the wayes before mentioned both as to his indivisible measure or duration of souls the unchangeableness of their state and the continuation of it till the day of Iudgment And most especially both sides unanimously agree against him in asserting the efficacy of Prayers and Sacrifices of the Priests for the dead for in his new systeme as shall be evidenced hereafter these endeavours advantage not the souls any thing at all What wonder then if out of both the Greek and Latin Professions thus directly opposite to him should issue out a Decree directly destructive of this his Machin or whilst neither part would admit him into their Communion they should conspire to destroy his errour The sacred Council approving We define say they that the souls of them who after Baptisme received have contracted no blemish of sin as also those souls who after they have contracted the blemish of sin are purged either in their bodies or being uncloathed of their said bodies are presently received into heaven What wonders is it we should have a purging of souls uncloathed of their bodies and a pâ—esent Translation into Heaven in which both sides agreed against him destructive of all this new Doctrine And truly what to answer to this evidence but by those other grounds that the Council did not proceed with due Application and so erred I cannot imagine And now I think I have fulfilled my promise to my Reader that either this new model
Tradition faded and dwindled into this mysterious expression That the Errour of a Council though promulgated should not pass into an established Doctrine of the Church as delivered by Fathers and preached by Christ by which he brought all into his own power again And when he had thus as he thought cut all the sinews of Christian-Beleef the mystery of all the design is discovered We must be governed by Faith no longer Christ with his Doctrine hath possessed the Chair long enough Master White with his Demonstrations must now take place And least my Adversary should tell me I do him wrong in asserting That after the rest he hath now laid Tradition aside I desire him and his solid cleer-sighted Friends to give me a Catalogue of all those Doctrines he admits into his new Theology or prooves in his Institutiones sacrae which are to be our Scriptures Fathers Councils School-men for the future by Tradition or on the score of Authority Nor let him complain I impose a heavy task upon him Those who are acquainted with every Ressort of his Doctrine will quickly answer it The Catalogue will proove so slender so short it will cost him no considerable Pains I could comprehend them All in this one Word Nothing For in truth there is none at all So safe a truth it is that in lieu of Faith and Christian Religion we have nothing in this School but under the title of Peripatetick and Sacred Institutions an Epicurean Lucretian Phylosophy or rather a medley of both theirs and Aristotles Phylosophy and Pretended Demonstrations not of our Faith as Catholiques have hitherto understood it but as now changing quite the Notions of the Mysteries he is pleased to understand it Of which we shall see more hereafter Sect. 26. Why then should we wonder at the Issues of this Brain What should we wonder at these Productions which out of an absolutely erroneous Method were hatched and brought to light It is no marvel if a most Exotick Phylosophy being presupposed an equally or more Exotick Divinity is built upon it A little Errour in the beginning prooves a great one in the last end The attempt to square Theology to I know nor what pretended Demonstrations hath wrought this destruction Nor need we the help of Divinity Our own Experience and Reason sufficiently evince and discover this method to be ruinous There is no man who hath made even a moderate progress in Sciences but is sufficiently convinced how weak how feeble our Understandings are They are but Novices in Sciences who are puft into a vanity as if they were even now become Masters The better Proficients they grow the more daily and howrly do they cleerly discover their own Ignorance Let 's consider it in particular there is no knowledg so certain so connatural to our undexrstandings as that of Quantity the Object of Mathematiques and yet all the wit of men that ever yet have been in the world come so far short of the discovery that millions of Problemes might yet be proposed which no man can solve And now as to our knowledge of Natural Bodies it is far inferior to the former for of these we scarce understand any thing at all Who ever comprehended the Composition the Properties or even the Essential notion of a Fly What Physitian ever understood fully the Nature the operations the effects of any one Herb any one Simple Who ever knew how Rubarb works on the innumerable parts of our bodies how it purges how it refines how it abates how it heightens the several humours of it St. Basill understood our weakness much better who in his 168 Epist. to Eunom prosecuting this subject proposes above twenty questions to which twenty and twenty more may be added of a contemptible Emmet In none of which the wit of man can satisfie his curiosity And if we are thus short in those things we daily converse with which we touch and tast what will our knowledge amount to in Separated Substances in Souls in Angels in God himself The true ground of this our ignorance being this That our understandings in our present state of mortality being onely naturally moveable from our Phansies which depend wholly on the weak reports drawn from our Senses we have not in this state without Revelation any other notions but such as are abstracted from sensible Objects so that the peculiar properties of abstract Substances since we are not now possest of the peculiar essential notions of them can not now by us naturally be known And hence it is that finding our selves so feeble in things the most obvious even to our senses all the Wise men of the World have ever been struck dumb and ravisht in the consideration of that Omnipotent hand which built both us to honour and love him and them for our use to that end so that where his Authority is ingaged as certainly it is in all things that apperrain to Faith we abase our prying proud curiosity and square our weak apprehensions to them and not these stupendious supernatural Mysteries to our creeping groveling apprehensions of Nature It was then upon this mistake that this new Purgatory came to light it is one and but one of a thousand of those unheard of productions this new Phylosophical Theology is stuft with I could give my Reader many instances of Doctrines he never yet not indeed the world was acquainted with but I will conclude with that very Doctrin because it offers it self as neer allyed to this our present Subject with which he concluds his Demonstrative Divinity It is concerning the Damned Souls for we have not onely a Poetical Purgatory he hath also furnisht us with a most Romancical Hell and who can but smile to think of those ridiculous mimick postures he fancyes of Horse-coursers Dancers Fencers Bowlers and all other Brutals attempting now in Hell in all their several postures those very pleasures in which they constituted their final end in this life Thus then of those Souls he concludes Their misery sayes he depends on their present perverseness so that if they themselves would they might even yet be happy Out of the force and series of Nature of which they are parts nothing better to wit then to be damned could happpen to them neither to All of them in general nor to Any one of them in particular And least Nature or God should escape this Fatall Doctrin he adds And even Nature and God himself should have been worse if they had been otherwise dealt with Pagan Fatality Out of the force and Series of Nature nothing better could happen to Iudas then to be damn'd and if he had not been so God had ceased to be God as so forsooth Wisdom is justified against her children Thus he concludes his Prodigious Theology Sect. 27. And now I hope my Reader hath some light of the Method and Genius of this our great Master and his new School It will give him an introduction into the further discovery of
souls be concerned when the day of Judgment shall come And hath not your admired Master made a fair hand of it hath he not now compleately ended his work This and only this remained in his new Systeme That the day of Iudgment is hastned by our prayers that so the souls may be assisted by them and he himself escape that brand of Heresie whilst the Councils pronounce They are assisted by us which even vulgar eyes would presently have fixt upon his Opinion And now he hath fairly delivered us of that empty pretence It is not It can not be according to him That the pepetuating of the motions of the heavens or their even now ending their Circulations can give any addition or diminution to the torments and sufferings of souls in the state of separation For in them to co-exist to one hower to one minute and a million of Ages is one and the same thing Let the Angels Trumpet summon them this moment let it be deferred ten thousand thousand years He tells us and for fear we should not understand him again and again tells us Their duration is still the same Their moment one and the same Their pains their sufferings one and the same But how happily will he be surprized if out of these grounds it be evinced That those Souls as to their present state of separation can not be concerned whether ever the Day of Iudgment come or no Let us suppose that the Providence of God had so ordered this machin of the world that these circulations of the Heavens should never receive their last end and period Separated Souls most evidently according to his Positions would not at all be concerned in this our Supposition for where to coexist to one minute howr or a million of ages is the same thing the Soul in that state cannot be concerned whether Time ever or never receive an end He himself tells us Nothing is gained or lost by the perpetuating that is never ending or even now contracting of these motions And this will be rendred more evident by the consideration of this our Supposition For since to suppose the world shall last for ever is but to suppose it shall last longer then any determinable number of Ages and since his indivisible duration of Souls doth not onely comprehend this or that determinate number of years but all time whatsoever He himself teaches us That every Act of a pure Spirit reflected on it self is greater then the whole extension of time It follows that this duration of Souls it self remaining the very same would comprehend all Time in that Supposition that time should never have an End and by consequence a separated Soul as to its state of separation is wâ—olly unconcerned whether ever the world should have or not have an end And what influence this his Doctrine will have to evacuate our apprehensions of Eternity I leave to my Readers consideration Away then with these idle Winter-tales away with this Ignorance of the nature of separated souls A Purgatory fire A purging in the state of separation A delivery from thence before re-union An assistance given by our Prayers to their sufferings Fables Dreams and Nothings Farewel to Prayers Offrings Masses Alms Legacies Foundations Meer cheats and devices Utensils of a thriving Devotion imposed by the Church on the pious credulity of ignorant people Here is a period put by our Thomas the English-man to that sensless Devotion which hath so long troubled the ignorant silly world And which then certainly shall have its period when Scriptures Fathers Popes Councils and All other Schools shall cease when the Faith Christ our Saviour taught us shall be evacuated and have an end and great Trinobant be inthroned to inlighten the hitherto darken'd world by His and his Knights Demonstrations Sect. 36. But let us make an end I have run through my Adversaries defence of his Purgatory against our present Bull and Council I have given my Reader some small light into this School Its Method Its Design I have given some touches upon Its Doctrines Its Demonstrations and we have concluded with this Devotion for the Dead There remains onely that I make some short reflexions on what is added in this Letter either as to the Publishers Persons or other things which did not directly pertain to our present Question of Purgatory And First as to his Quarrel pag. 1 c. That the Publishers printed this Book without any application A Medium by which Mr. White might seem an Heretick to the good women as he tells us of which there are not a few and ignorant men of which there are too many Nay their own Proselytes become such by making private Interpretations since this is to give themselves over to the private Spirit I answer The Faith of their Flock being attempted their Pastoral Care obliged them to this proceed They published the Condemnation of this Doctrine and pointed it out which prooved effectual to their Design When Creeds and Catechisms are proposed to the vulgar without further application to this or that Opinion of a private Doctour or Heresie there is no fear Children should become Heretiques but are instructed in Faith It is those who with Pride and Pertinacy wrest these Sacred Texts to their own preconceived fancies that run the hazard To Master Whites person neither they nor I have any Quarrel It 's an errour of Judgment to conceive him an Heretique For those onely are such who voluntarisy and pertinaciously adhere to some one or more Doctrines contrary to the received Faith of the Church Those who deny all Faith who pretend no Knowledge is necessary but such as is establisht by natural Science and Demonstrations are not Hereticks but Naturalists and Pagan Phylosophers In your Third Age of the Church which shall be directed by this new Light there will be no possibility of Heresies When St. Pauls words Without faith it is impossible to please God shall be evacuated his other Doctrine Oportet Haereses esse will find no place Secondly â—ow was this your Quarrel ushered in pag. 4. with Tantoene animis coelestibus irae The Publisher had not bewrayed the least impatience there was nothing in the Book you pretend to answer of his own It was not he but you that pronounce your self guilty of Anger And yet this was as pertinent as your Quid non mortalia pectora cogis is adapted to him whom all good men better acquainted with him have been more prone to censure of the contrary disposition to that which you now slily would fix upon him But yet not altogether unhappily was your Defence of a Poetical Purgatory ushered in with these Poetical Exclamations Thirdly You tell us pag. 7 9. That Master White had long before appeal'd to these very Authorities and urged them so home that he had rendred it evident They speak his Opinion and against that Faith I sustain My Reader may if he please for his satisfaction peruse that mysterious place in
the Arim to their preferring their private reasonings before the proper rule and light Tradition appointed by Christ to steer by and the concurrence of Divines seems general holding that there is no new Revelation that the Church onely declares matters of Faith which supposes them delivered not newly found out else she might make matters of Faith and bring all Truths within the compass of Christianity whereas indeed Christianity can onely be a belief of those Truths Christ taught whilest he was conversant amongst men This puts all to a loss For how shall it be known when Councils and Consistories apply themselves aright Easily by examining Tradition of what you have seen and heard This is the common light and plain way promised to keep even fools from straying from Christs Doctrine Neither is Mr. b b White Blacklow taxable in point of Disobedience he having submitted himself both to the Pope and Council FINIS The principal Errours PAg. 70. line 4. leave very ill consequences behind it read draw very ill consequences after it p. 98. l. 11. I now draw hopes r. I now draw is hoped p. 150. l. 3. corporea r. corporeae Introduction This is not well 〈◊〉 by T. W. See Consilium Authoris a See ratio operis Scito Dâ—um naturae esse authorâ—m c. Know God is the Author of Nature and that he perfects and elâ—vates it by supernatural things not that he showrs into our souls a series of things of a different or unlike order or nature Reason is Nature to us and the perfâ—ction of Reason is demonstration Do not then despair of demonstration from God Page 3. Page 11 Page 31. Page 12 13 14 15 16. Peg. com 21. * Sonus Buccinae the Title of one of Mr. Whites Books In Edic consir Conc. Câ—lc act 3. Gâ—l Pap. 1. ad Ep. Dar. miratisumus Grat. cau 24. q. 1. C. majores Aug. Ser. 32. de verb Apostoli Aug. Ser. 41. de S. S. Hom. 16. de 50. Serm. 41. de S. S. Hom. 14. in Levit. lib. 8. in Ep. ad Rom. 11. Master Whites Name in his Instit. Sac. a See Institutiones Sacrae in the beginning Ratio operis where after a description of the Theology he delivers Vide c. saith he to the Reader See what an execrable thing it is in such matters as these after a proposition and a hope of Verity in them to feed our hungry Souls with vain and lying trifles Remember then thou art a man born capable of truth and that all these things are proposed to thee in a familiar language that thou mightst understand and enjoy them He who hopes this without Demonstration goes about to delude himself and thee They object the obscurity of Faith and the inaccessible darkness of the Divinity to our Reason But this hinders nothing for such Demonstrations may be given of the Mysteries as is given of God himself c. Courage then and dare thou to expect in Theology the full satiety of thy understanding Seek in it certainty and the evidence of Science and Demonstration And in the same Institut Sac. 2 Volume lib. 3. Lect. 2. And since Grace is so implanted in Nature that they draw each other with connected Members and interlaced links it is not to be doubted but most of the Mysteries of Faith may be Demonstratively known so that the Church now proceeding to the midday they are to be Demonstrated b See ibid Ratio operis Theology is planted in nature Faith is delivered to us in humane language What more sublime things are disputed in Theology then Father Son Generation Spiration Nature Person c. And yet we were taught all these things by Nature and Reason even before Christ But if these things now be rendered evident there will nothing at all remain obscure See more fully in the same Book lib. 2. where all these things are pretended to be demonstrated by the Principles of natural Reason c See ibid. Ratio operis A libertatis cavo sibilâ—t alter anguis The other Snake hisses out of the Denn of Liberty Where of these contingent Theological Truths he largely promises demonstrations and attempts is every where in his new Theology where these mysteries are treated d See ibid Ratio operis Eadem Labyrintho c. In the same Labyrinth with Divinity Phylosophy too grew old But Digby hath held forth his Torch If now they dispair of it is vanished Dare now greater things his foot-steps will lead thee to the fortress of Theology c. What then dost thou fear and trembling shunnest the Digbaean attempts If the things thou learnest are false reason it self will teach thee so if they are true the happy success will now provoke thee glad if they are uncertain dost thou loose any thing by seeking set then the right foot forward and gratefully hold on that path trodden by other mens labours Exeg on the Apocalyps Sec. xâ— a See Instit. Sac. Ratio operis Expect that full Satiety or surfet of thy Vaderstanding in Theology Inst. Sac. lib. 2 Lect. 1. Inst S. li 3. lec 2. alibi In the Letter of Vindication Exeg on the Apocalyps sect. xi a See Instit. Sac. Ratio operis Sulcus quem duco c. The trench I now draw hoped will serve to derive both truth and certainty in Theological matters b See ibid. neque tamen sustinet haec aetas c. Nor does the present age sustain that mention be made of demonstrations or infallible decisions that theology may be esteemed a science knit together and woven with the connexion of consequences or that it be believed to stand on other foundations then a meer habnab medley of waxen words or a certain juggling temerity of babling Crackers without any sence or meaning under the sir-name of Phylosophy on either side of the contradiction What further mischief can we expect or how long do we hinder Fire and Sword and adore this Idol of desolation in the Temple c. Exeg on the Apacalyps Sec. 14. Master Whites Prophesie of the happy state of the Church and civil Governments guided by his demonstrâ—tive Religion In Râ—shâ—orths Dialogues Dialog. 2. Instit. Sac. 1. 3. Lcct. xi Inst. Sac. lib. 3 Lect. 9. Inst. Sac. lib. 3. Lect. 1. Concilium Provinciale Senonense Decreta fidei cap. 12. Inst. Periâ— lib. 5. lec 4.
hath given us on several occasions And the rather because the authority of our supream Pastor hath already taken notice of and interposed his sharp but justly deserved censures against divers of them and doubtless will proceed against the rest according to their demerits I shall then as to the present concern my self only with this one controversie of the state of those souls which leave this life in the state of Grace but so that they are not as yet fully purged and with those positions and grounds on which this new molded Fabrick of Purgatory stands unless some one Doctrine or other of the Author of it having a neer alliance with the business in hand so offer it self that our discourse and the Subject would be illustrated by it Sect. 4. And first as to the opinion it self he thus delivers it of the middle State acc. 1. I acknowledg sayes he in humane failings a difference betwixt mortal and venial nor do I deny an imperfect remission of mortal impurities but I place not this imperfection in that the sin is totally cancelled the pain only remaining but in the change of an absolute into a conditional affection as it were instead of I will substituting I will not but Oh that I lawfully might c. the affection or inclination he had to temporal good is restrained not extinguished of mortal become venial changed not destroyed Being therefore by the operation of death as it were new molded and minted into a purely spiritual substance he carries inseparably with him the matter of his torment in like manner as he also doth who takes leave of his body with his affections only venially disordered we do not then anywhere imagine a place filled with hellish dishes by which the soul as from an external tormentor suffers a butchery but we are in horrour of the strife and fury of innate affections which is therefore proportioned to the sâ—ns because springing from them nor ever otherwise possible to be defaced unless the soul by a new conjunction to the body become passive or susceptible of contrary affections c. These are his new apprehensions of the State of Souls in their separation perfectly squared to those Phylosophical grounds he had long before layed in his Peripatetick Institutions Sect. 5. Now as to the order in which this new fabrick of Purgatory and indeed a whole new system of Philosophy and Divinity was made publick it was as I take it this after the Book of the immortality of of the soul fathered on Sir Kenelm Digby Master White appeared himself on the Stage under the name of Thomas the Englishman of the Albiâ— of the East Saxons where in a moderate volume intituled Peripatetick Institutions to the mind of that most eminent man and most excellent Philosopher Sir Kenelm Digby c. He discovers the great mine of this Phylosophy here the suttleties of Logick the secrets of nature the hidden properties of bodies both heaven and earth are layed open and not only that but we are further led on by an undisolvable chain of unavoidable consequences as is pretended to the abstract notions of metaphysicks to the clear understanding of separated souls intelligences even the existence and attributes of God himself And All this if the Reader hath faith enough to believe for otherwise I am confident he will find but slender satisfaction by most clear and evident demonstrations by a long chain of consequences or a series of Patets Fits sequiturs clarum ests consequens ests confectum ests and the like The Foundations thus laid conformable to this incomparable and I think incomprehensible Peece for never Daughter was liker her Mother issued out some time after his Divinity under this Title Institutiones Sacrae built as he professes in or on Inaedificatae his former Peripatetick Institutions This now containing a perfect Sum or Model of his Divinity as that had formerly done of his Phylosophy And certainly happy it was the Author divided them to our hands and gave us them in several Volumes and under several titles for else it hd been impossible to know where the first ended or the second began this being so perfectly squared to that that in the very entry to his Divinity he banisheth the a Notion of Supernaturality though not the word out of his School the whole design of his new Theology being now in the third age of the Church to evacuate Christian Faith and out of his Phylosophical grounds to mould us up a new demonstrative Religion for nothing is upon any other grounds admitted into this new Theological School of which I give my Reader a full Account Sect. 23 24. c. Sect. 6. In his Peripatetick Institutions then or Philosophy 5 book lesson 1. he lays the foundations of his future Purgatory or the state of Souls in separation and having in the first place laboured to evince That Rational Souls such as those of men are may exist or be without their Bodies He delivers that notion which he desires to imprint in us of a separated Soul in these words nu 9 10 11. Now he who desires to frame to himself in some sort a notion of a separated Soul let him ponder with himself that Object which corresponds to the word Man or Animal as such which when he shall see Abstracts from Place and Time and is a substance by the only necessity of the terms let him conceive the like of a separated soul Then let him attentively consider some self evident and most Natural Proposition in which when he shall have Contemplated That the Object is in the Soul with its proper existence and as it were by it let him think a separated Soul is a Substance that is all other things by the very Connexion of Existencies Lastly When in bodies he shall observe that motion proceeds from the quality of the mover and a certain impulse and that this impulse is derived again from another impulse and so even up to that which is first moved and beyond Let him imagine the soul is a kind of Principle of such impulse whatsoever thing that must be And so he holds on nu 12. What is said of the substance of the soul undoubtedly must be understood too of its proper accidents for since they depend onely on the soul being something of it nay even the very soul it self and it would be more imperfect without them they must run the same fortune with it unless some special reason interpose Out of which he deduces immediately num 13. Whatsoever things then were in the man according to his soul at the instant of his death remain inseparably in the state of separation Wherefore all his resolutions or judgments whether speculative or practical shall remain in it Out of which he deduces in the same Book less 4. num 1. And because the affections in the soul are nothing else but judgements upon which operation does or is apt to follow c. it comes to pass
the easiliest misled for them was pubâ—ished this our Bull of Pope Benedict the xii and as much of the Florentin Council as seemed necessary and sufficient to arm their souls against the attempts of this novelty by some Pious and Vigilant Shepheards to whom the care of their souls was committed Which Bull and part of the Council because it may not have fallen into my Readers hands I give it him again at the â—atter end of my Discourse Letter A. This Sir was the true ground of putting forth that little Volume nor had the Publishers any regard aâ— all as you tell us pag. 7. and 8. to The Letter of Vindication or as you now style it Challenge of which certainly not Master White himself but some Scholar of his and he but a slender Proficient in his Masters Doctrine was Author And truly the likeness of its style with that of this your Letter and the Authors still fancying himself inspired with the genius of Montalt the fained Writer of the late Provincial Letters as children by reading Romances fancy themselves to be Knight Errants Don Hercioes would perswade me they both came out of the same Shop And besides that the Protestation contained in the beginning of that Challenge as I heard well observed would be subscribed by all the Protestant Divines of the Church of England It is not consequent if Master White remaine still himself that now he should proclaim That if any thing expresly repugnant to any Doctrine of his be found in any Decree of Councils or Popes he is contented to be esteemed to have lost the Cause who had so lowdly before the publication of this book in his other writings disclaimed and disowned the authority of both Popes and Councils as we shall presently see Sect. 17. The Publishers supposed the sole evidencing that this new minted Purgatory stood condemned by that authority to which he who resists cannot remain a Catholick would proove a sufficient defence to well meaning souls against the assaults of this new Doctrine nor had they any design to enter the lists of Disputation against any persons whomsoever as appears evidently in this that they make no application of the Doctrine of this Bull or Council to any particular Doctrine of any particular Writer but fairly and candioly deliver the words of both the Pope and sacred Council in their Original and our vulgar Language And this indeed was abundantly sufficient for their design There needed no Application of the Churches affirmative to their negative now sustained both in private discourses and in Print they needed not tell the Reader that where one part of the contradiction stands defined the other undoubtedly stands condemned by the same sentence Children know that already Sect. 10. Who could justly suspect that this innocent this piously zealous proceeding should beget an adversary in print who could imagine that the care of the flock of Christ should now be accused of unreasonableness of injustice the Publishers accused of weakness of ignorance even of School-boyes Latine of animosity of an empty vanity to appear in print in a little volume without any name without any designed adversary where there was nothing their own but the pains to translate and the charges to print But so it was those whose consciences were their self-accusers who saw with what satisfaction that little Volume was received by pious persons and how their new Doctrine of Purgatory stood pointed out to every mans eye as condemned by that sacred authority took fire An O or an A shall be a sufficient subject to him who watches an occasion to write A Puny Scholar then of that School for such an one he was as will be rendered evident hereafter and none of the ablest proficients appears in the Field armed with a strong zeal to his Masters Doctrine and with contempt enough against the innocent Publishers whom in the entry to his discourse he proceeds to vilifie and undervalue Persons surely who never wronged him probably never saw him till now never heard of him and at this howr do not know him But it is not to vindicate their persons however injured and undervalued or to make use of that right which nature furnishes all men with to repell an offered violence by an equally violent resistance For we have learnt a far other lesson in the School of Grace then my Adversary hath in his new Masters Master Whites To render good for evil to pardon and pray for those that injure us But in the defence of our holy and deer Mother the Catholick Church and her never erring Faith in the defence of these decrees of the Pope and sacred Council that I undertake this quarrel and I desire my Reader but to be unbyassed in this our present dispute whether this Position That no Souls are delivered out of Purgatory before the re-assumption of their bodies and the general day of judgment stands not condemned by this present Bull of Pope Benedict 12. and the Florentine Council Sect. 11 And first that the contradictory of this Position is the universally received Doctrine of the Catholick Church appears most evidently in this That all Orthodox Writers who have treated this subject of the state of separated souls since the Promulgation of the Bull aforesaid and Council suppose it as a certain truth and therefore no one of them anywhere sustain the contrary Nor can the force of this evidence be weakned by saying That it is indeed the universally received opinion of Divines only but not their Faith for besides what I shall hereafter say in refutation of this answer those who are acquainted with the prying curiosity of the Schools and with the strange variety of their apprehensions know very well that where any thing may lawfully be denyed their restless curiosity ceases not to call it to the Test nor is it universally imbraced as Truth and therefore it is authority only and that irrefragable which puts limits and bounds to their curious scrutiny and the variety of their opinions But because my Adversary having now as he tells us conferred with those solid Persons acquainted with every Ressort of Master Whites Doctrine and as cleer sighted in those ages which afford us these Authorities as in that they live in With a strong youthful Confidence proclaims That it is incomparably false That the Question of Purgatory was in the dayes of Benedict agitated and settled by this Bull of his Or that the Council of Florence ever intended or defined any such matter And with a clutter of four or five pages settles us a quite other Question and Controversie as then disputed and determined to wit Whether perfect Charity be a sufficient disposition to beatifie a soul And appeals to Cherubinus his Compendium of this Bull and tells us That all Learned Writers agree It will justly fall under our consideration First Whether this our present Question of Purgatory were not then intended and defined And secondly Whether this his new
defined by the Decree When the Church combated the Eutychian Heresie which denyed two natures in Christ no Christian dare affirm it onely then defined the plurality of Wills against the Monothelites because these two questions have so necessary and immediate a connexion And can you hope to perswade an ignorant Reader that when the Pope defines That after purgation even before the re-assumption of their bodies departed souls are received into heaven he defines nothing at all about Purgatory but onely this that perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven though he hath not any thing like this Position in his Bull and that this should be fixed on the Pope and Cherubinus and all Learned Authors to boote I hope then Sir you will pardon my boldness if I challenge you fairly with this If you do not make it appear by those unknown Learned Authors in terms that yours was the question and not that of Purgatory we shall judg you have wrong'd them as much as now to our eyes you have imposed on the Pope and Cherubinus And I justly challenge it of you that you bring us it in terms and not by a consequence of a second or third remove or else your sincerity in citing Authors will be highly questionable by your Reader or indeed now past Question And truly I wondred at the first perusal of this part of your Book why you should use this sleight to prepossess the unwary Reader but afterwards by the rest of your discourse I easily observed it was but made use of to render by this art of changing the question a plawsible answer to this Bull and Council otherwise unavoidable and yet I discovered at last a further design which no man but a Prophet could have foreseen to wit that you might fix upon your Adversary that he not you stands guilty of disowning these sacred authorities and that forsooth because he opposes the efficacy of holy charity the Queen of vertues which you and your Master indeavour to sustain of which your slye accusation I shall have occasion to speak hereafter but I hope to render this your craft wholly unsuccessful Sect. 15. But how unfortunate a Writer you are will be rendred evident and how unfit you are to catechise and instruct others this Grave and Learned Eymericus shall tell you because you do not explicitely believe this Doctrine of Purgatory now in question For having distinguished all the Credibilia or matters of faith into three Classes according to St. Thomas and shewed what the vulgar and simple sort of Christians as also what Superiours Prelates and Doctours are bound to believe both explicitely and implicitâ—ly he there concludes concerning the middle sort of Christians under which name he comprehends Priests CuÌ„rates and all Religious Persons who have undertaken to instruct the ignorant in faith and good manners The middle sorts sayes he who are to teach the simple people are obliged to believe some of these points that is such as are determined by the holy Church in her Councils and Consistories Explicitely though not all these Points singly nor all these Persons equally but according to their several state and learning whereby they are to instruct the ignorant As for example they are all bound to believe explicitely that the souls of just men departed without sin as of little Infants or if they have sinned have here or in Purgatory fully satisfied are pass'd into Heaven before the day of Iudgment according to the Church's determination making it a matter of faith in the extravagant of Pope Benedict xii beginning Blessed be God Sect. 16. And having said this as to the intention of the Pope in our present Bull before I proceed further in your Answer let us take a short survey of the Florentin Council of which I can not but blame you of neglect in that you give your Reader so slender an account And if I must not flatter your sloth I know not how otherwise to excuse it then that you were not conversant at all in it and so you rested satisfied with what your cleer-sighted friends told you or Cherubinus his Vbi hoc idem firmatum fuit since if it were possible the Council seems more full and home to our Question And first In the Third Article which the Publishers gave you it defines If truely penitent Souls shall depart this life before they have satisfied for their Commissions and Omissions by worthy fruits of Penance that their Souls are purged by the punishments of Purgatory after their bodies death c. Which Doctrine can finde no admittance in your new modell for all the sufferings of souls which you fancy by their irregular and now unchangeable affections avail nothing as to the Purging or cleansing of Souls in their state of Separation since that is wholly reserved by you to the change of those affections at the re-union And secondly when Art 4. upon this Doctrine of the Council so said down it pursues to declare unto us That Souls which are purged either in their bodies ar being uncloathed of their bodies as is above said are presently received into heaven I would have you to observe how this further Doctrine of the delivery of them and the compleating of this purging being uncloathed of their bodies is by this Parenthesis as is above said wholly built on the former Doctrine of the purging itself And it will be unavoidable since there is a Purgation of souls by the punishments of Purgatory against you that there also is as effectually concluded a compleat Purgation of them whilst uncloathed of their bodies and an immediate delivery perfectly condemning and destructive of your Doctrine in the very point in Question But that my Reader may have a cleerer view of this unavoidable Truth let us set together and compare this Doctrine of the Council with yours The Council defines That truly penitent souls which depart this life before they have satisfied for their sins are purged by the punishments of Purgatory after death and being thus purged uncloathed of their bodies are presently received into Heaven Or as the Pope more expresly pronounces before the reassumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment Now how happily do you and your new Master agree with this Doctrine when you tell us Souls which depart this life with affections to corporal pleasures suffer a vast grief by reason those pleasures are now impossible to be enjoyed but they are now in an unchangeable condition both as to the affections their torment and the state it self So that there is no hope they should ever be released before reunion with their bodies for though they suffer by their inordinate unchangeable affections yet not possibly as to any purging or change of their state or sufferings whilest uncloathed of their bodies and therefore can not Presently be received into Heaven or before the Re-assumption of their said bodies and the general Day of Iudgment And I would have you further to observe and weigh the words
notwithstanding it is still in his power by his former Doctrine that it is not impossible the Council may err and promulgate an error to evacuate all the Canons of all the Councils at his pleasures for however the Authority of the Council now stands ingaged in the definition of any Doctrine however the Decree is now published to the whole world however the Church accept of the Decree however all Catholiques submit to the Decree yet it remains still in his power to say It never passed into an established Doctrine of the Church whilest he or his cleer-sighted Scholars intend to shake it And how far this his reserve of an establisht Doctrine delivered by Fathers and preached by Christ extends will sufficiently appear in his very attempt of the Faith of the Church in our Question of Purgatory For I have reason to beleeve he had a special regard to his beloved Purgatory when he renounced thus the Authority of Councils The consciences of all the illiterate Catholiques bear witness that the delivery of Souls from Purgatory is now their received Faith from their present Pastors and Teachers no Divine but knows that for Three hundred years and upwards ever since the promulgation of Pope Benedict his Bull no Orthodox Writer but submits to his Decree as unquestionable Master White himself tells us That St. Gregory the great was the first Founder of that Faith we now fight for a thousand years ago pursued and sustained by the numberless number of incomparably eminent Doctors and Saints In sum if there be any Article of our Faith witnessed any establisht it is this not any one carrying after it a more ample continued practise not any one testified by so many Foundations Prayers Masses Almes c. as this And yet this is no establisht Doctrine of the Church It is not a Truth delivered by Fathers as preacht by Christ And therefore he being overwhelmed with the consent of the whole Church for a thousand years appeals with the Protestants to the Primitive Ages immediate to Christ their plea and his being just the same differing onely in this that they say the substance of Purgatory is not the establisht Doctrine of the Church as delivered by Fathers preacht by Christ He that the delivery of Souls from thence is not even yet established Sect. 18. This Doctrine then is not the way as our ingenious Scholar says to keep fools from straying but the way to make fools stray and supposes a high folly in him who accepts it who leaves the received Doctrine of the holy Church to gadd after new models of a modern Divine But the way to keep both fools and wise men from straying is that which all the wise men in the world have hitherto followed to acquiesce to submit to the Church the Pillar of Truth without further dispute or reserve without further examination of her Decrees by what we have seen and heard We know assuredly that he shall never have God his Father in Heaven who hath not the Church his Mother on Earth And how injurious would he shew himself sayes the pious Emperour Marcianus to the most Reverend Synod who should attempt to question anew and publickly dispute and controvert such points as are once judged and rightly determined For who will grant says Pegna more authority to the Opinions of single persons disputing of Faith according to their own Fancy then to the definitions of Councils lawfully called and congregated where the Fathers hearts are governed by the Holy Ghosts dictamen T is already excellently well decreed for many Reasons That things once defined should be no more called in question For if such Doctrines as are thus constituted and decreed should be again brought under doubt and disputation surely no Iudgment or Sanction would remain firm and strong against any Errours what soever every establisht Truth and Definition of the Church being troubled afresh with the same Furies Thus Gelasius the First related by Gratian By which my Reader will observe how far a different road that ancient piety of Christians walkt in to Heaven then what is now chalked out to us by this School armed against the Authority of Popes and Councils Sect. 19. But before I leave this Point I will mind my Reader That if it were as he supposes it lawfull for every man to call the Decrees of Popes and Councils to a new trial by this Touchstone of Tradition by asking his very Question What we have seen and heard my Adversary hath lost his cause For to this Question being proposed in our present controversie of Purgatory what can we with truth answer but that we have seen innumerable Masses Dirges Alms c and that we have constantly heard that souls are delivered out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the Day of Iudgment And what can we with truth answer but that we have hitherto beleeved this and if we are still our selves and are not so inconstant as to be carried away wiâ—h the wind of a new Doctrine we do beleeve it and shall continue to believe it And for the proof of this Assertion I appeal safely even to the Consciences of those few Proselytes this new Master Master White hath gained Whether till of late this new Systeme of Purgatory came to light they ever entertained the least doubt of it Whether it were not their full perswasion A Doctrine which they beleeved to have been delivered with as firm and constant an Authority as any other whatsoever Whether ever they divided this from the rest of their Faith and allowed it a less degree of assurance onely as of Opinion Nor will it avail my Adversary to say That it was indeed his full perswasion buâ— not his beleef he never understood it though delivered to him from his present Pastors as the Faith of the Church but onely as the generally received Opinion of Divines and that in truth he never ranked it among the Articles of his Creed but in a lower form of I know not what consent of Schoolmen For the Experience of all Mankind will refute this falshood And confident I am if a long perswasion of his now received Doctrine hath not effaced the memory of his past disposition of soul his own conscience bears witness against him For as to the whole Universality of Catholiques they still assert and sustain this Faith they hear not of this novelty without horrour And for that handfull of persons who are thanks be to God not one in a million who have of late embraced the contrary let them for it highly concerns them duely examine their consciences Whether the private esteem of their Master Master White the Authour of this Doctrine the comfortable new apprehensions he introduces in lieu of that great terrour and fear they before were in of the sufferings of that state the easing their Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their departed friendâ— for all this is immediately wrought by an acceptance of this Position
of Purgatory cannot subsist or else the Council in our very point in question hath not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto proceeded to an erroneous definition de facto by this attempt hath fallen into an errour and de facto publisht it to the World And the Church which hath constantly imbraced this Faith hath de facto erred as well as it And now I hope your peremptory When hath received its answer your so many times reiterated question When is this purgation perfected compâ—eated ended Take the Popes answer since I hope you are not so good a proficient as to detest and abhominate his authority to teach you faith before the resumption of their bodies and the general day of Iudgment Let the Council satisfie you if you are not poysoned with that detestable Doctrine that it may err too as well as the Pope being purged even uncloathed of their bodies presently Agree and reunite your self to the Catholick Church and be refractory no longer upon the itch of novelties of seeming wiser then all the Christian World ever was before you Sect. 21. But still you bite the Bridle these words so directly opposite to your errour are in these sacred decisions there they are and there they must remain maugre the Gates of Hell which shall never prevail against this Faith and when you have turned your self into all your postures you appear with this pitiful evasion these words are â—here indeed but say you pag. 19 20. c. they reach not home to our point The Popes ante reassumptionem c. before the reunion depends on the precedent words when after death they shall be purged and after the aforesaid purgation which words also should have stalked in great Letters This purgation is indeed supposed but no way defined and for the Councils Presently it also depends on the foregoing words being purged uncloathed c. which presupposes a purgation held by some divines in the state of separation but no way Decrees it and since the question was not then of the truth of this supposition as now it is but that then it was admittted without more adoe you grant us that in that supposition those words passed into the Pope and Councils Decrees The Pope indeed was of the opinion that the purgation â—f souls might be compleated in the state of separation but what does that concern you You lawfully dissent from his Opinion if you find reason but not from his Faith where he opinâ—s you follow him as far as his reason leads but where he defines you submit Now Sir as to this I wondered at your last word submit for I understand not you if you understand your Master We are here in a business of Faith and certainly you pass a very handsome complement upon the Pope when you tell him you submit to his definitions If this be real since your submission in faith can not be grounded but upon the supposition that he is infallible your Master will instantly discard you out of the School For an Heretick an Arch-Heretick for an introducer of Antichrist into Christendome This censure he hath fixt on this Doctrine as I have told you before But as to your plea though to use your own Phrase it is incomparably false as is before evinced nor can it according to your Masters own grounds take place in the Council where they proceed upon the depositum of Faith Yet to give you that satisfaction we will joyn issue in this your subtility as if your plea were allowable And in truth when you say that they proceeded on this as a supposition onely Yonr moderate Reader will much blame the boldness of this attempt because it will leave very ill consequences behind it and besides he will tell you that you had a very great disesteem both for the Popeâ— and Council and that you fancied them to be admirably ridiculous Persons who should proceed to definitions of Faith to declarâ— us Articles of our belief which regulate so much practisâ— on suppositions not only false but impossible The whole Christian World was in labour about the state of souls in Purgatory the East and Western Churches meet the diligent scruâ—iny of Divines make a search into all Libraries Papers Scrowls and after all these Throwes the issue is nâ—nsensical definitions upon not onely ridiculous and false but impossible suppositions If they had troubled their heads to tell us that when the Sky falls we shall catch Larks it had been tollerable the supposition had been foolish not impossible But to tell us and make â—uch a putther to tell us when you remaining yet what you are shall become an Angel what then shall happen when indeed nothing shall happen or any thing may happen is to render the supream Pastor of the Church the sacred Assemblies of â—hâ— shepheards of our souls a laughing stock to children And yet this is our very case according to you for upon this bare and impossible supposition that the purgation of separated souls might be compleated before reuâ—ion issued this impossible Doctrine that they were presently and before the day of Iudgment received into heaven And if you had but weighed those very Examples you use pag. 20. 21. you would have observed this What sense will this bear A Prisoner when acquitted by Proclamation becomes a free-man or Fire applyed to combustible matter presently burns if it be absolutely impossible the Prisoner should ever be acquitted by Proclamation or that fire should ever be applyed to combustible matter what practise can we regulate by such Positions and yet your self had a â—winkling light of it p. 21. for having asked your friend when you should see him in the Coantry You complain of his canting answer when he tells you as soon as he comes down he will visit you since as you say it was the confidence of this which made you inquire the other We must be confident then of the supposition or else what is drawn out of it is nothing If it were impossible your time should ever be out under this your new Master your setting up a new School for your self would signifie nothing If it be impossible That you should ever havâ— performed your previous exercises your presently proceeding Doctour would be out of doors So â—hat without being an Oedipus if the supposition as you will needs have it that Souls may be purged uncloathed of their Bodies be impossible the definitions both of the â—ope and Councill are more silily ridiculous then any Fable in Aesop or Ovid for in these there is still some Morall or Physicall Mystery coucht for our Instruction in them nothing at all But how do you parrallel pag 22 23. your Adversaries proceed in obscuring some words in an obscure Letter or render it worse then if he should set in Cpaital Letters Christ is not risen from the dead and our preaching is vain in lieu of these words of St. Paul If Christ is not risen from the dead Then
time and so took its rise and continued support by piâ—us but sillily credulous Monks for all those Lights of the Church are most severely whipt for their foolish credulity of Dreams Fansies Melancholy apprehensions and nothings And besides because it is provoked after the mode of our late cast-aways in Faith to the primitive Ages immediate to Christ I will for my Readers just satisfaction give him two or three of the most eminently learned Fathers of those Ages to which they appeal and the rather because it will appear how far different their sentiments were both as to the Substance of those sufferings as well as to the Coâ—tinuation of them from those of this modern School Let Great St. Augustine stand in the Front We may not doubt says he but that the dead are helped by the Prayers of the holy Church and by the wholsome Sacrifice and by the Almes which are distributed for their souls c. For this is a Doctrine delivered by the Fathers and observed by the whole Church And afterwards Now when works of Mercy are performed for their assistance who doubts but that they help them for whom prayers are not in vain offered up to the Divine Majesty c. This place I choose to stand in the Front because it strongly asserts the Essence of Purgatory derived by Tradition from the Fore-fathers and observed by the whole Church and because it is so home to the relief those souls receive by our Prayers and Alms. And now this great Father having told us what he hath thus received as to the Substance let him also tell us what he hath received as to their Sufferings there and Continuation of them Let no man say I care not how long I must tarry in the way if at last I come to aeternal life let no one say so dear Brethren For surely that Purgatory fire will be more severe then any punishment which can be felt or imagined in this world And again According to the greatness of the sin shall be the length of the stay And again We must so long remain in that Purgatory fire until the aforesaid small sins as it were Chips Hay Straw are consumed Let us add to him Learned Origen more ancient then St. Augustine who though he afterwards erred yet in all points stood cleer when he writ those Learned Commentaries I here cite The nature of the sin says he is like the matter which is consumed by the fire which as the Apostle affirms is built by sinners who upon the Foundation of Christ build Wood Hay Stubble Whereby is plainly declared That some sins are so light as they may be compared to Stubble to which if fire be applied it can not stay long in it Other sins are like Hay which the fire also consumes without much difficulty though it stayes somewhat longer then in the Stubble And other sins are compared to Wood in which according to the quality of the crimes the fire finds a lasting and great substance to feed upon Thus therefore each sin according to its quality or quantity is punished but for how long time or how many Ages this purgation which is by the punishmâ—nt of fire shall endure he alone knows to whom the Father hath committed all Iudgment Let 's hear pious and learned S. Greg. Nyss. in that excellent disputation he had with hâ—s Sister Macrina As they who purge Gold saves he from its drossie mixture by the fire do not onely melt that which is adulterate but must of necessity melt that also which is pure together with the counterfeit bad and corrupted matter which corruption being consumed the Gold remains purified In like sort it is also necessary that whilst the naughtiness and corruption is consuming in the fire of Purgatory the soul which is united to this naughtiness and corruption must continue in the fire until that adulterate gross impure and corrupt matter be wholly abolisht and consumed c. Wherefore the torment and sorrow there suffered is measured by the quantity of the Vitiosity as he terms it and naughtiness which is found in each one of the sufferers For it is not meet that both of them to wit he who for a long time hath wallowed in forbidden evils and he who hath faln into certain mean offences should be equally tormented and afflicted by the purgation of his viâ—ious custome and habitude but proportionably to the measure and quantity of the matter shall that pain-bringing flame be inkindled to continue for a longer or shorter space of time according as it shall find fewel to nourish it The Soul therefore that is clogg'd with a great inherent burthen of matter must necessarily suffer a great and longer induring flame which may waste that matter But the soul to which that consuming fire is applied for a less space of time the pâ—nishment doth remit so much of its vehement and severe operation by how much the subject hath a less measure of corruption vitiosity and naughtiness to be consumed I hope Sir when you have perused and duely weighed the how long which rendred St. Augustine so sollicitous his length of the stay in propottion to the greatness of the sin the whose Analogy of Wood Hay Stubble in which St. Paul had before delivered this Doctrine of Purgatory exactly answered by the time of their sufferings in Origen his how long time how many Ages The whole design of St. Greg. Nyssen in his discourse his kindling the flame for a longer or shorter time his so many times repeated a great and longer induring flame his apply'd for a less space of time you will see those Ages to which you appeal had far other apprehensions of Purgatory then are consistent with your new Systeme and perhaps a modest Christian Divine would have blusht to pronounce That all these Apprehensions proceed but out of ignorance of the nature of separated Souls De Med. Stat. dimens 17. And if He had had the least respect for Christian Religion he would have sunk with shame to appeal from all the Light of Christianity to the ancient Fables and Fictions of Heathen Poets How could those shameless words pass from his Pen Much better then and more solidly then they did the Poet Philosophyse in the sixth the Aeneads where he fansied to have found his Purgatory never admitted or thought of in Christs School Pardon me Sir if a zeal hath transported me I can not endure the confidence of a Christian Writer who should prefer a Fable of Virgil before the consent of all Christianity and that now in point of Faith of Purgatory It is to give an approbation to an infamous slander I have read in a modern Enemy of the Catholick Church That she hath pickt her Tenets out of the Poets and now their Fables stand canonized in her Creed But to the consent of these great Lights of the Church let us add the publique Lyturgy the great conveyer of Tradition to us
let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS Aâ— which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Doctoâ—r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him
be Inthroned Let Peter Paul and Iohn nay let our Master who came from heaven to teach us give way Let all other Doctors whatsoever attend upoâ— his Triumph Let the astonisht captivated world shutting henceforth their ears to all others hear him Alone Why should we trouble our heads any more with the Gospels with Paul We find no Satiety of our understanding in their bare naked Assertions In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word What if ten thousand miracles were wrought in confirmation of this Doctrine my Soul haâ—h not its full content I still thirst after light after evidence which here is not to be found Let us then shutting our ears to these drily proposed Doctrines hear great Trinobant and Satiate and glut our understandings with this his evident cleer Demonstration For thus what St. Iohn obscurely had told us he makes apparent That there is Vnity and Plurality in God without Repugnance Since that God knows himself and the thing defined being put the definition is also to be put in him but to know is to be another thing as another thing and to be known is to be an other thing as an other thing the business is plainly ended that God is in God as an other in an other and by consequence Aliety is truly and really and as a predicat of God found in God and not onely as a manner of predicating or as it is in our Vnderstanding Here is light here is evidence able to ravish a soul nay Satiate and Surfet her in the height of all her Thirst and longing after Truth Sect. 24. In truth Sir a sober Reader though he were in a melancholy mood would be tempted to smile at this Demonstration as you did pag. 11. at the word verbatim And yet that Passion would justly give way to his indignation against this Presumption No Christian but hath heard That the Faith our B. Saviour taught Mankind was to continue in his holy Spouse the Church on earth till the consummation of the world and his second coming to Judge And can we cease to wonder or indeed to conceive a just indignation now to find a Thomas the English-man who after Forty or Fifty years study should tell us That in truth we have all been mistaken there is no such matter But that in the Infancy and Child-hood of the Church She was to walk indeed by Faith but now in the third Age or Mans estate she is no more to be governed by Faith but by Science by Demonstration In this very Third Age or Mans estate of the Church in which now we live to begin undoubtedly from himself since he admits of no one Demonstration in any one former Schoolman and himself promises thousands And all this made out of the most prodigious explication of the Apocalypse that ever saw light as if it were a meer Poem and a Stage-play And peculiarly of that passage That there were two wings of a great Eagle given to the Woman that she might fly into the desart He understanding this Woman to be the Church these two Wings to be Faith and Science Faith which our B. Saviour gave her in his Oeconomy on Earth by which she was to steer her course in her Nonage But now She being come to Mans estate He himself gives her the other Wing of Knowledg for henceforth she is onely to be directed by his Demonstrations And with this new Wing he now gives her fairly she may walk if she please unless she be able to fly as she hath hitherto done for Sixteen hundred years with one Wing alone since this Wing quite destroys the other Evidence and Science being perfectly destructive of Obscurity and Faith But it is worth my Readers pains to see this admirable conception of his fancied demonstrative Third Age of the Church described at large in the same Book Sect. 9. and elsewhere In the tenth Chapter sayes he begins and is perfected the Enarration of the Third Age of the Church which because it is to be prosperous and blessed and subject to few evils therefore it is described onely in general c. The Reason of this is for since Grace prefects Nature and since in rational nature there are three degrees or species of knowledg by which successively the soul receives increase to wit Faith which governs Children Opinion which steers young men as yet unexperienced and unskilful And lastly Science which directs men now perfect It is necessary that in the Church Nature ascend by the self same degrees Till Constantins time the first Christian Emperour Faith alone took place From Constantin till our age Hereticks were combated by Rhetorical and Logical dissertations which because by little and little is fitted to conduct men to Evidence the immediat succeeding Age of the Church is to be expected in which Evidence succeeding there will be no place for Heresies but the Church shall flourish in most perfect Peace and Prosperity And having thus adorned the scene he brings himself down from Heaven with these happy demonstrations in this manner As in this Chapter sayes he S. John teaches describing unto us A strong Angel as fitting for mans estate Descending from Heaven from whence all good things are derived to us Cloathed with a Clowd That is with a celestial garment as who brings heavenly things to us not keeping himself aloof from us but even approaching and coming neer unto us â—nd the Rainbow which is the symbol of Divine Peace hung over his Head And his Face was like the Sun To wit as he who came to communicate perfect light to humane kind And his Leggs in strength and firmness as Pillars And in activity as Fire And he had in his Hand an open Book that is to be read and understood by All And in which there was no obscurity or involution And He put his right Foot on the sea that is he subjected turbulent spirits by force and Power And His left Foot on the Land that is confirming and strengthening the humble and meeek And he cried out with a lowd voice even like the roaring of a Lyon Which apertains to the latitude of the Church which is signified to be extended as farr as his voice might be heard c. And the effect of his voice was that the seven Thunders might speak their Uoices that is have their effects which the Apostle is forbidden to write for the reasons above delivered nevertheless he is commanded to seal them in his memory perhaps to be told to pious men in privat not publickly to be promulgated to the Church But least this could not be so happily adapted to himself and his long lasting third age of the Church steered by his Demonstrative Religion since presently the Text introduces this same Angel swearing That time should be no more and S. Iohn is presently described to have devoured this open Book which the Angel brought from heaven Which might seem to
their learning But because his pretended Demonstrations are now so cryed up by that little handful of his Scholars whose itch after novelties hath rendred Proselites of his Doctrin and since in the Entry to my Discourse I have laid down those as they would have us believe unshakable grounds of this new minted Purgatory my Reader may justly challenge that we should take a Survey of them And though this might seem weakly to anticipate what I heare far abler Pens have undertaken at large yet why should we not take a short view of them and that even in the very order they lye And first then leaving his Gibberish Notion of a Separated Soul how Ridiculous is this Position That the proper accidents that is those things that are in the Soul according to the Soul its practical judgments Its affections to friends and acquaintance even to Corporal pleasures are the Soul it self Since that they are so is not onely Indemonstrable but Incomparably false for the Soul is both Created without them remains in the Body without them in such as by grace have subdued these Inordinations and much more in Heaven both with and without the Body before and after the Resurrection And even in his Systeme of Purgatory the Soul shall be divested of them at the re-union and yet all the Peripateticks or Lucretian Phylosophy in the world can never evince that the Soul can be separated from it self Therefore nor from these Affections if they be the Soul it self And how came these immediately insuing words to escape his wary Pen That the Soul without them were more imperfect Are those very Affections which constitute Purgatory and Hell too perfections of the Soul Or when she comes to divest her self of them at the Re-union does she remain more imperfect in Heaven then when she was in the state of suffering by Them or is she then not her selfe because she is without them or had she been less Perfect if she had passed out of this life by perfect mortification without them But because this Doctrin That the Soul were more imperfect without these Affectinos is very neer allyed to an other excellent Doctrin of our great Master and which will much promote solid devotion of the Corporal Pleasures themselves let us compare them together they agree very happily and will illustrate one an other Since Corporal life sayes he is made in order to the attaining of Beatitude and Corporal pleasures are conformable to corporal life and therefore of necessity that Corporal life in its kinde is the best which hath the most and greatest Corporal pleasures as elsewhere is shewn more at large And further since the best Corporal life doth best serve to the attaining of Beatitude it is also necessary that the Christian discipline which is the Mistriss of Beatitude should even fill our lives with the pleasures of the Body and those who live piously should enjoy a hundred fold of those Corporal pleasures more then those who live ill Might not this excellent Sermon very well become a St. Austen or a St. Paul No truly Sir they never were acquainted with this Demonstration They lived in the Non-age of the Church they were steered by Faith not by this Evidence and Science And so they walkt in Austerities Tenances Mortifications They never fancyed That that Corporal life was best in its kind which abounded with most and greatest Corporal pleasures much less That such an one was best adapted to attain that Beatitude they thirsted after They looked on Corporal Pleasures as the Bane of the Soul But our Great Master being still himself might well teach us That the Soul without these Affections were more imperfect since he placed the Perfection of a Corporal life best adapted to attain Beatitude in the injoyment of the Pleasures themselves In earnest Sir I have a scruple to Translate such Doctrines as these are which onely befit Epicurus his School and the life of Hogs though you would perswade us they are truths which promote solid Devotion if I were not confident of my Readers vertue and that they will beget a just horror in his Soul both against the Doctrines themselves and those Principles that lead to them Sect. 28. Secondly How frivolously he concludes That the affections to corporal pleasures accompany the soul in her state of separation Their rise their origin is the Body The Soul were untouchable by them if it were not by reason of that union it hath to that clay which now incloses her How could the Soul be concerned to see to hear to touch if she had neither eyes ears hands or any other corporeal organs by which these pleasures could be conveyed to her especially if she enjoyed her fill of those far more noble and excellent satisfactions such as he puts of eminent compleat knowledge proportionable to that state of separation And what Purgatory could a Scholar indure who should pass out of this life with all his Affections regulated save onely that to learning since in that state his soul should even be ravisht with the injoyment of all that knowledge which he inordinately long'd for in this mortal life How then is not the soul divested of those base affections when she passes out of the body which have their source from this earthly habitation But let us compare this Doctrine with an other admirable Non-sence of our Master He tells us in his Peripateticks lib. 5. lec 1 n. 6. That the separation of the soul from the body is of that efficacy that the soul even in substance is changed and that a separated soul is in truth an other thing in substance then it was in the body As if forsooth it were this thing this soul which now informs my body that offends God in this life and an other thing an other soul shall be punished for it in the next And doth not this Doctrine evacuate all the fear of Purgatory Judgment and Hell too And let not my Adversary tell me he says it is an other thing but says not that it is an other soul For I desire him to tell me what other thing it is if it be not an other soul for still it is a soul and nothing but a soul A thing is a notion more universal then a soul and what are distinguished in a notion that is more universal can not be the same in a notion that is less universal No Logician ever fancied that those things which are distinguished in the notion of Animal can be the same in the notion of Homo If then the separation render the soul an other thing an other soul how should it not have other accidents and affections which according to him are the soul it self or must it not of necessity have so But let this too be supposed Sect. 29. Thirdly Whoever fancied That a separated soul shall be tormented with a vast grief by reason corporal pleasures are now impossible to be injoyed Who ever was concerned or tormented
principles and consequences to be true that there is no Error no Ignorance no Succession in Separated Substances now in their present state of Separation How inconsequent is it as he there tels us That they are now just that as to their affections which this state of union with their bodies and mortality made them What a frivilous discourse he introduces arguing in the same 17 Acc. As an Embriâ— sayes he or seminal Mushrom delineates a future man so the thoughts and affections of this life design by their impressions the future condition of the Soul So that death produces such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible thus to remain till Resurrection For this hath no Connexion with the precedent Doctrine of the Immutability of Souls in the state of Separation If we should suppose that there is no variety in them no succession in that single state of Separation how will it follow there is no change of affections in these two and those so different States of Separation and Vnion Besides Sir if the Antecedent of this his Argument reach home to his purpose it is a Position destructive of all Christianity if this Embrio or seminal Mushrom delineate the future man if the Soul be such as the quality of the matter exacts and determines it to be as he tells us it is at the first infusion into the body and remains so or else he tels us nothing to his purpose Our liberty is destroyed There remains no hopes that these his Determinations by the matter or body should be changed by education by vertue should be corrected by Grace Since then this his Doctrin is absolutely false and since souls in truth by the assistance of Divine Grace do perfectly overcome even whilst in their Bodies what they contract or are determâ—nod by their Bodies as our holy Faith teaches how excellently is it concluded That Souls now in Separation do not Correct what was in them by the commerce of that unworthy Clay which before inclosed them And how will it not be as well or more effectually concluded that Souls at their Re-union too passing now from Separation to Union as well as before from Union to Separation carry with them their unchangable Affections and so never get out of his Purgatory neither before nor at the day of Iudgment By these short reflections my Reader will easily observe how far these Adamantin unshakeable grounds fall short of that so much boasted Evidence even of Truth some of them being most perfect falshoods the rest groundless uncertain dreaming Assertions and yet they are such as shall serve the levity of some men to abandon the authority of the whole Catholick Church and upon these shall be Errected a new modled Purgatory as upon other the like they have built us a whole new faithless Religion of which they are so fondly inamoured and peremptory that now they boldly pronounce The hither to received Faith of the Church proceeded out of Ignorance of the Nature of Separated Substances Sect. 35. But to conclude my Adversary and our business if this his Position be true That no Souls are delivered out of Purgatory before the day of Iudgment What serve for all our Devotions Prayers Alms Offerings Doth the holy Sacrifice of the Altar which the Church hath defined to be Propitiatory even for the Dead avail those distressed Souls nothing at all No my Adversary dares not as yet venture upon this The Councils are so cleer so home to this Point his credit were ruined if he should attempt to deny it His new Purgatory then must be furnished with some new way by which our endeavours may be beneficial to those poor Souls or else no Catholiques Ears could be open to his new Divinity Is it perhaps the intermitting at some times or abating of the fury of their torments O no this Doctrin finds no admission in his School His indivisible duration admits of no intermission and where the Soul by her now unchangable affections is her own executioner no Allay or Abatement of torment can be hoped for till Reunior What then perhaps shall our Prayers be of force to obtain their Release O no this the least of all It were against all their Demonstrations and therefore is reserved to his new changeable state at the Resurrection What then is the effect of all our tears and prayers What benefit doe Separated Souls receive by them This and onely this That the day of Iudgment is hastned by them And is this all Yes truly this is all our new Systeme of Purgatory can admit of as to the Assisting of the Souls detained in it But what if this accelerating the day of Iudgment prove no advantage no help at all to those distressed souls Would not all Christians be justly charged with an intollerable folly Would nâ—t the Church be unavoidably guilty of a â—upereminent Error in a Doctrin which draws so much practice after it Whilst both the Florentin Council here and that of Trent pronounce and all Christians agree That the Souls detained in Purgatory are assisted delivered by the Prayers and Suffrages of the Faithful yet living And yet certain it is that the hastning of the day of Iudgment is no advantage to them in these their Positions and grounds Let this great Master himself plead the Cause Let him fairly deliver us his sublime sense in his own words Whether our devotions assist those souls or no Whether the hastning of the day of Iudgment be any way beneficial to them and that by his very â—bylosophical grounds the basis and foundation of the duration of souls now detained in his new minted Purgatory In spiritual acts says he whether they bring happiness or misery there is no proportion to time so as to make pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner to be less for these are the properties of corporal things Every act of a pure Spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c If then to a thing or separated soul which co-exists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists with a less part of time nothing be diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases So that whatsoever grief of a separattd soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same grief let its co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less by the force of its essence less Nothing being gained or lost by the perpetuating or contracting of the motions of the Sun or other Celestial bodies So that whatsoever time intervenes between death and the Restauration of the world at the day of Judgment is to separated souls as one moment This doctrin presupposed What can separated
his 16 dimens De med. Stat. And I answer That it is not altogether unhappy in an ill Cause to be able to say any thing without blushing I have seen Criminals deride the Court scorn the Iudge but I never yet heard any of that eminent Confidence that he durst Vaunt the Court had pronounced in his favour when he stood condemned by the Sentence But because you have learnt to say so too after your Master an ordinary Reader will judge That you verily beleeve you have no Credit to lose when you will venture your rest at this disadvantage The Pope defines Souls being purged even before the re-assumption of their bodies and before the general Iudgment were are and shall be in Heaven The Council defines Souls being now purged uncloathed of their Bodies are Presently received into Heaven I sustain this Faith That Souls may be purged uncloathed of their bodies and that such are received presently into Heaven before the re-assumption of their bodies and general Iudgment You maintain the contradictory of this Position and yet you have the confidence to tell your Reader and even hope he beleeves you That the Sentence is pronounced in your favour and that I stand condemned by it Fourthly You quarrel pag. 10. at the Title of their Book which is Concerning the state of departed Souls You fancy a Mystery which they never meant and tell us this is a false Title the true one is A definition of certain Articles concerning the blessed vision of God and the beatitude and damnation of Souls Which yet is the very self-same with the other in this onely differing that what they comprehended in the word state is here declared by this division Of beatitude and damnution Sect. 37. Fifthly You tell us pag. 11. the word Verbatim made you smile Surely Sir you do not smile without some special grace since you mind us so often of it And presently you triumph about the gender of Synodus which you insinuate the Publisher was ignorant of he having added to it an Adjective in the Masculine gender and you pursue your sport amain and tell us The Printer must take the fault upon him or else the publisher will be suspected to be better skilled in transcribinâ— Three hundred lines of Latin then making three and yet you safely pass this censure upon him since the Printer was exact enough in all the Popes and Councils Latin And further you read us a Grammar Lesson that some words in us are of the Feminine some in a of the Masculine gender Now Sir we will suppose that you were very carefull to examine the Print and yet for all your care Sacrâ—sanctum Ecclesiam escaped your eye For since you came so lately from Grammar I do not suspect you have forgot that Ecclesiaâ— and Musa are of the Feminine gender though Poeta indeed is as you tell us of the Masculine But these are meer seven-years-old-School-boys imployments unworthy your reflections now you write Man and would be tampering in Divinity But it unbeseems your Youth thus to attaque a person of Merit and Learning who long before your new minted Purgatory appeared in the world both read and sustained Orthodox Divinity in a famous University and I hope I may say it without vanity with Dignity and Honour to that Chair which was not every ones good fortune even after their Conclusions had passed the Press as I am informed out of Portugal Sixthly You laugh pag. 18. at your Adversaries as if they were afraid to produce their Reasons against Master White and therefore you must guess at their whispering Objections by their stalking in great Letters And elsewhere you tell us We can not weild Reason and therefore our weapons are Authority What Goliath is this that exprobrates the Hoast of the Living God The Church Sir is both armed with Authority against Novelties and is not unfurnished with Reason to sustain her Faith against all the Pagan Phylosophy of the world If my indeavours receive your approbation I shall proceed to further discoveries in this your faithless pretended Theology And as to your complaint That some words in their little Book stalkt in great Letters 't is grounded on your little conversation with Books where Capital Letters are frequent especially in citing Authorities For there where the force of the proof lies in two or three words they are pointed out thus to the Readers eye and observation You may if you please print in Capital Letters Monachi subditi Episcopis and Notent Monachi and then you will onely publish a little yet undigested Choler in a Controversie again and again decided by that Tribunal from which there is no appeal Seventhly You tell us pag. 14. Master Whites opposers acknowledge that this Question of Purgatory was not handled in Pope Benedict his dayes since they accuse Master White for the first starter of this doubt Your Adversary the Publisher of the Bull hath nothing at all of this If his other Opposers accuse him of it I know not how they can justifie the Accusation New Opinions are raked out of hell every day by the Heterodox party of which we yet finde obscure footsteps in Antiquity Many opinions were choaked by the authority of the Church even in their birth and broached again Your self acknowledge Pope Benedict and many Doctors of the Latin Church were of opinion That Purgation might be perfected before Reunion pag. 19. and it will not be improbable if it was onely their Opinion as you pretend that others with Master White held the contrary But how can you parallel pag. 17. Master White according to your Adversary with him who brake a Law before it was made if Master White now breaks one three hundred years after it was made unless you will suppose that no one Article of our Faith was establisht till some one or other impugned it for otherwise his now Crime or erroneous Doctrin might stand condemned long agoe Sect. 38. Eightly You would perswade your Reader pag. 34 35. that not You but We stand condemn'd by this Bull and Council because the sole design of the Pope was to secure this sacred verity That perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven And since your Adversary holds That every soul immediately upon her separation converts her self perfectly to God and yet he detains her still in Purgatory to suffer a dry and arbitrary punishment which doth not redress the already rectified affections of the soul It follows He contradicts the Popes design and stands condemned by this his Sentence I answer first That I have already charged you with imposing on the Pope and if it were true that the Pope doth here define That perfect Charity brings an immediate Heaven which when you shew we shall be thankful for the miracle yet does not your argument against us at all conclude for where does your Adversary tell you That immediately upon separation all the affections of the soul are rectified and she in perfect Charity much less
that she hath satisfied the divine Justice for her irregularites in this mortal life The Publisher hath not one word of this in his book you pretend to answer You are like a Romancical Knight you make Gyants and kill them but if he truely did hold this Doctrin which you impose upon him yet will your Argument be of no force against him For this question being proposed Whether souls immediately upon separation rectifie all their affections Your Adversary may take which side of the contradiction he pleases and still sustain with the Pope and Council this their Doctrin of Purgatory against you And first let us suppose he should asserâ— with you That inordinate affections do accompany the soul into the next life yet he may sustain those Affections are purged and rectified before re-union and what crime should he be guilty of but of opposing your pretended Demonstrations and so your mock Victory and Pageant Triumph whilst you would perswade him p. 35. to acknowledge with regret that the Pope and Council pronounce against him is at an end the strength of your proof depending on An Imposition on the Pope An Imposition on your Adversary and a non-concluding Argument drawn out of them both I had almost forgot that in this case he should withstand the authority of Virgil whose Phylosophy your Master magnifies above that of the Church though the Poet describes both corporal punishments inflicted on the Souls which your master will needs understand after his too frequent Metaphorical manner and admits their passing into Elysium his feigned heaven before Resurrection of which the Poet never dreamt Nor even as to the proof that Affections to corporal pleasures do remain in Separated Souls for which end it is introduced doth this place of this Poet reach home nec funditus omnes Corporea excedunt pestes penitusque necesse est Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris For these words doe not clearly carry this sense Do all evils cease all plagues all strifes Contracted in the body many a stain Long time inured needs must even then remain But however to do him right if this place do not reach home this Doctrin is frequent with the Heathen Poets in their Fables as in that of Narcissus 3. Metamor where he stands condemned to gaze upon himself in the next life because he passed out of this in a doting self-love But if we should suppose the Publisher to approve That such souls immediately upon separation rectifie all disordered affections how will you justifie that this or perfect Charity is an immediate disposition to Beatifical Vision What do you think of Lumen Gloriae the Light of Glory which is farther required And if you fancy with your Master lib. 5. Perip Lect. 15. That God is a Sun darting out existencies according to the several dispositions of Creatures What doctrin shall we have from you of the Saints in this life will you pronounce That never any Saint had perfectly regulated his affections but just in that very moment he passed out of this life What do you conceive of the holy Apostles of the Baptist what in particular of St. Paul when he tels us I live now not I but Christ lives in me What of the holy Fathers ofx the old Law What of the ever Blessed Virgin even when she bore the Saviour of the world in her sacred womb did all these injoy Beatitude or were they imperfect in Charity or did this Sun not dart forth his existencies as perfect Charity the immediate disposition to heaven required But let us consider your Argument you tell us that your Adversary conceiving the Souls now perfect in Charity delayes their Beatitude and condems them to a dry and arbitrary punishment pag. 35. This dry and arbitrary punishment you have out of your Masters Doctrin for he prosecutes it at length in his Middle Stateâ— Acc. 10 11 c. And first he tells us God doth not punish sinners upon the score of Revenge nor for the satisfaction of Iustice since he suffers no injury by our offences Nor can the punishments of Souls be involuntary or springing from an external much less from a material Agent but from within That such pains neither avail Them nor Vs Lastly That these sufferings have no connexion with the sins and yet God being a perfect Architect hath so artificially framed his work that of it self it performs all operations without supplement or future minute alterations in any of its Members or Organs And so he excepts against punishments which are supposed to remain due after the fault forgiven Acc. 13. All which is but to retrive what the Heterodox party alledged long since in their impugnations of Purgatory and Penance and which stands condemned by this the 30 Canon of the Council of Trent Sess. 6. de Iustif. occasioned by this Doctrine If any one shall say That to every penitent sinner after the grace of Iustification received that so the fault is forgiven and the guilt of eternal punishment that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be payd either in this life or in the future in Purgatory before the passage to Heaven may be opened let him be Anathema Thus the Council Where by the way you may observe a temporary punishment in Purgatory against your Systeme and after the remission of the fault a punishment due But because this Truth is so fundamental in the Sacred Council all its Doctrine of Satisfaction the third part of Penance depending on it Let us compare its Sacred Oracles with the Doctrine of our new Master And first Sess. 14. cap. 8. Of the necessity and fruit of Satisfaction The Council declares this Doctrine of Satisfaction to have been the constantly received Faith of the Church by Divine Tradition and is impugned now by those who have an outside of Piety but have denied the vertue of it Directly opposite to our new School which teaches That Pains remain not due after the fault forgiven under pretence of promoting solid Devotion And the Council pronounces That it is altogether false and against the Word of God that the fault is never remitted but that All the punishment is also forgiven For besides Divine Tradition there are illustrious examples in holy Writ which most manifestly convince this Errour Thus the Council directly against our new Master as will presently appear by his answer to this Doctrine Further the Council pursues Nay the order of the Divine Iustice doth seem to require that in an other manner sins should be pardoned in them who before Baptism offended by ignorance then in those who after Baptism violate the Temple of God And it becomes the Divine Clemency that sins should not be pardoned in Penance without any satisfaction Directly against our Master who tells us No Punishments are inflicted upon the score of satisfying the Divine Iustice since God suffers no injury by our offences The Council holds on Let the Priests of God have before their eyes that the
knowledge all erroneous judgments corrected in them their grief depending on this that their affections to corporal pleasures are greater then in proportion to other desires which ought to be preferred it would not be inconsequent to tâ—is Doctrine That those damned souls now seeing most evidently that other desires ought to be preferred before these affections to corporal pleasures since this errour is now rectified and they in a condition by re-union with the body of changeableness they should also rectifie their affections which are but these judgments and by consequence become now Denizons of Heaven which also might seem to become the Mercies of God and render the state of the Blessed more happy there by their company Sect. 41. Tenthly You entertain your Reader pag. 36 c. with scoffing at hallowed Grains sanctified Beads the extending of Indulgencies to the next World which you style External devices Vtensils of a thriving Devotion deluding Priviledges c. which perfectly befits a Scholar trained up in Luthers School thus he began And you are not content with this you retrive again in the same place and fix upon your Adversary that signal calumny long since fixt upon the Church for the use of such things That she goes to Heaven by such things not by holy desires Nor even pretends that such things promote souls in holy desires or increase sanctity in them In which you speak against your own Soul and Conscience For you very well know the Church is not guilty of this nor your Adversary who will tell you that he beleeves with St. Paul that if he had faith able to remove mountains yet it would not avail him without charity and further tells you That such things as you here enumerate do increase sanctity and holy desires in us and render our prayers more effectual for the Souls in Purgatory Eleventhly You tell us in your Postscript That private calumnies are whispered against Master White as holding strange Opinions which his own Books contradict I have also heard something of this and I think our informations jump you may peradventure find it hinted at in this discourse Nor need that Gentleman fear your title of a Calumniatour or that his Authority will not carry it nor indeed will it be engaged in the Quarrel he is provided of a Defence I have shewed him that very Doctrine in terms in your Masters Book which he had told him in Private it is ready for you you shall have it when you please to call for it And I wonder those solid persons acquainted with every ressort of his Learning did not see it Lastly You add Your Master hath this comfort That his carriage needs neither fear the exemplarity of his Adversaries lives nor his unparalled Learning the force of their Arguments In which your Reader will be perswaded that you were not a perfect Scholar in Galateus his School The Publisher against whom you write is a Person of eminent exemplarity and for my part where your Masters Pen is not engaged I have been edified by him even in his Writings I find some things most excellent but why comparisons should be made I do not understand You and I being private persons hope still the best and pray for all those whom we desire to better by our example But because it is both laudable and lawfull to magnifie the good and pious lives of men I joyn heartily with you in this Encomium of your Master And if you now design to advance in order to his Canonization and can make good his Faith which is the first Quaere of that Court I shall very willingly give testimony to the exemplarity of his Life I wish from my Soul his Doctrine would appear intirely and fully Catholick and for the rest you have my Vote he may be beleeved as holy as St. Iohn Baptist Sect. 42. And now Sir I hope to have given you some satisfaction in our point in controversie We as yet have proceeded upon this unshakeable ground That the Councils are unerrable in their Decrees and upon this I have received a very ample and full one my self I do beleeve That Souls are purged uncloathed of their Bodies and presently received into Heaven before re-union with them And that the Council and Pope deliver this Position I must see if I have eyes and I hope you will by what is said And this hope is heightned in me because my Conscience tell me I have proceeded with as even a hand as I could in balancing what you have said against it with that which I have said for it If I am byassed naturally on either side it is on yours Nature prompts me still to wish the Church and her Faith were not engaged against you Your opinion would at one blow ease me of that incumbent care to assist my dead Friends But I have learnt this work of mercy from a Child to pray for the Dead which in your Systeme as I have evinced is fruitless But alas Sir this business of Purgatory is not that which so much troubles my head though it be one I have a deeper fear I am pressed with the consideration of this new molded Theology I see this demonstrative Doctrine this pretence of reducing the mysteries of Faith to our narrow brains this hope of introducing Science in lieu of Faith into the World strikes much deeper then yet You imagine Nor am I at all confident of your solid cleer-sighted Friends who are acquainted with every resort of Master Whites Doctrine I fear and I think not without Reason the Church and He have nothing common but words for the notions and significations are quite different But our Faith lies not in the sound of words but in the sense and meaning of them When I am told Souls are not purged in the state of separation but onely at re-union though the word Purgatory yet remain my Faith remains not of this Article And so it will fare with the rest I do beleeve Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our souls in Baptism I do beleeve holy Iustifâ—ing Grace by which we are the Sons of God is something inhaerent in our souls and my notion of these things which are supernatural is that they are of a different order and series then Nature But when I am now taught God is the Author of Nature but showrs not down into us an other series of things of an other or differing order Reason is Nature to us and the perfection of Reason is Demonstration Though at the same time we are taught That God perfects Nature by supernatural things yet I suspect the word supernatural being still the same that now it is become aequivocal and signifies an other thing with him then it does with me I do believe the ever Blessed Trinity to be Three real Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost Yet where I find this most sublime mystery pretended to be Demonstrated by what is Essential in God to know and love
himself when I find it so brought down to our capacities that it is pretended The examples of Logick and Natural Phylosophy equalize this Mystery when I am taught That the Father and Son in Divinis are Metaphors I have a great apprehension that this Doctrin and my hitherto received Faith agree but in words not in the things signified by them I do believe That God most freely and of his own goodness built this Vniverse I believe He is not necessarily tyed to the order or course of Nature And when I am now taught That God must contradict himself if he Act any thing against Nature That Out of the force and series of Nature nothing could happen better to Iudas then to be damned In fine God should cease to be God if this Flye should not now be in nature I fear though we agree in this word God our apprehensions jump not at all Christians apprehend and adore the liberal free hand of their Maker but a God tyed to any thing besides himself is not a Christian God but a Pagan Iupiter I do believe upon Christs words That if I keep the Commandments I shall enter into life and this is the foundation of my Doctrin of manners And when I am now taught That God neither commands nor forbids any thing However we agree in these words Thou shalt not Steal Thou shalt not commit Adultery my whole Doctrin of Morality is banished by this assertion It will hereafter appear your Master hath furnished us with a faâ— other Morality then ever Escobar thought of What do you think of this Position of your Master in his book of Government and Obedience ground 6. speaking of himself An other man says he is no otherwise to me then a peece of Cloath or Wood which I cut and shape after my own will fittingly for my use Even though I do him harme or seek his ruine It follows not I wrong him How well doth this agree with that Principle of Nature That we ought so to do to others as we would have them do to us In summ where I see a pretender to Demonstrate all the Mysteries of our holy Faith and that Faith shall cease and Evidence take place I justly fear though the words are still retained this is but to supplant Christ and his Doctrin our notions and significations of words must be changed or else these stupendious Mysteries can not be levelled to our weak capacities But though these be my apprehensions yet I wish I were mistaken I wish these new Doctrines may receive such Explications that they may appear no less Catholick then those I profess and shall be as happy to receive satisfaction as you to give it me but withal I must frankly promise you that I shall require your satisfaction both in these and many other Doctrines I do acknowledge with thankfulness that one may be instructed by Master White whose excellent Wit and Pen if duly applyed is admirable but if I mistake not he hath flown beyond the bounds fixed by an unerring hand and therefore desire you to accept of this serious Protestation That I have an intire respect for his Person and if any harsh word hath escaped my Pen it is the Doctrine not He that is concerned in the Epithete the same I speake and intend to your self Though if you consider the case aright where not only whatsoever is sacred to Catholicks but what the Heterodox-Party agree with them in is thus attaqued Where the foundations of Christianity and of all Religion the Liberty of God and Contingency of Creatures is thus attempted by a Lucretian Galamawfry Phylosophy to make way for a new Demonstrative Religion such an exotick design deserves not a more mild censure then what I have fixed upon it and yet I hope you will nor find your too too frequent Calumniating Adversaries or any thing like it in my whole booke If you think there is any animosity in my Discourse I heartily beg your pardon we daily say Sicut nos dimittimus where these heats are easily allayed and for our present Controversie of Purgatory let us patiently expect the determination of our undoubted Superior the Present soveraign Pastor who as the Florentin Council here tell us holds the Primacy over the whole World Who is the Successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ and the Head of the whole Church and the Father and Teacher of all Christians And who finally had full power delivered unto him by our Lord Iesus Christ in St. Peter to Feed to Rule and to Govern the Vniversal Church To whom we will Candidly Fairly and Religiously and not by any false suggestions or surprising friends as you most strangely suspect pag. 40. and thereby at once condemn both that Supream Court of Weakness if not of Corruption and your adversaries of Dishonesty remit the whole Controversie and humbly submit to his Judgment both in this Particular and in all other Disputable Points whatsoever FINIS THe Publisher desires my Adversary to take notice That if there be any thing in this Discourse which depends on matter of Fact in which he desires to be satisfied he is ready to give him intire satisfaction before any Person of Honour by undoubted Witnesses A THE BULL OF Pope BENEDICT the Eleventh Otherwise called the Twelfth Promulgated in the Year 1336. Concerning the State of Departed SOULS Faithfully Translated as it is in the Roman Bullary Printed at Rome Anno Dom. 1638. Benedict Bishop the Servant of Gods Servants To the perpetual memory of Posterity BLessed be God in his Gifts and Holy in all his works who through his mercy forsakes not the Sacred Roman Catholique and Apostolical Church which his right hand hath planted as his Vineyard and which he hath raised up as chief and Conqueress to be the head of all Churches our Lord saying to Peter Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church but by his blessed Apostles especially Peter and Paul the singular Defenders of the same Church keeps her through his compassionate Benignity and continual Piety that she being governed by these Rulers may remain stable in her self as founded upon the firm Rock and that all the believers of the Christian Faith may obey her may yield to her may intend to her may live under her authority may be under her discipline and correction That in her nothing may be taught rashly nothing brought in unwarily nothing in Faith unadvisedly introduced and that so men may decline from evil and do good that they may walk in the right paths and make progress to better things by their holy desires that they may hopefully expect the neer approaching rewards of the eternal life of just men and fearfully dread the not far off calamities of Hell appointed for the wicked For it is written Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to render unto every one according to his works But if it shall
be otherwise attempted by any one that she forthwith by her authority adding also punishments thereunto as she shall judge it expedient totally root it out For which Church to the end that she subsisting in her self might inform others our Saviour Christ Jesus prayed to his Father in the time of his Passion saying Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may fift you as Wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail and when thou art converted strengthen thy Brethren 1. There arose indeed a matter of question not long since in the time of Iohn the 22 our Predecessor of happy memory between some Doctors of Divinity concerning the Vision of the Souls of just men after their death in which there was nothing to be purged when they departed out of this world or if there were it was now totally purged Whether they see the Divine Essence before the assumption of their Bodies and the generall Judgement and also concerning other matters some of them holding the negative some the affirmative others according to their own imaginations endeavouring to shew divers things and in divers manners concerning the Vision of the Divine Essence by the Souls aforesaid as it is known apparently by their words and writings and by their rejected Disputations which we here omit for brevities sake because they so differed amongst themselves from our determinations And whereas our aforesaid Predecessor to whom the determination of the above-mentioned Questions did belong had prepared himself in his publick Consistory as well before his Brethren the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church of whose members we our selves then were as before the Prelates and Doctors in Divinity many of them being present strictly charging and commanding them that each one should deliberately deliver his opinion concerning the matter of the aforesaid Vision when he should require it from them But being prevented by Death as it pleased God he could not effect it 2. We therefore after the death of our aforesaid Predecessor being assumed to sit in the Apostolical Seat more seriously considering how great dangers of Souls might be incurr'd and how many scandals might arise if the aforesaid contentions were left unresolved to the end that the diversity of opinions may perish and the solidity of truth may plainly appear having first made use of a careful examination of the matters aforesaid and having diligently deliberated with our Brethren the Cardinals of the said Roman Church Do with the advice of those our Brethren by the Apostolicall authoritie Define by this constitution to be valid for ever 3. That according to the common ordination of God The Souls of all the Saints which departed out of this world before the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ as also the Souls of the holy Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and of the other faithfull departed after they had received Christs sacred Baptism in whom there was nothiâ—g to be purged when they departed nor also shxall be when heâ—eafter they shall depart this life or if there then be or shall be any thing to be purged in them when after Death they shall be purged And That the Souls of Infants regenerated with the said Christian Baptism and to be baptized when being baptized they shall depart this life before they have the use of their free will PRESENTLY after their departure and after the aforesaid Purgation in such as stood in need thereof EVEN BEFORE THE RESUMPTION OF THEIR BODIES AND BEFORE THE GENERAL JUDGEMENT since the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus into Heaven WERE ARE AND SHALL BE IN HEAVEN in the heavenly Kingdome in the celestial Paradise with Christ aggregated to the fellowship of the holy Angels and since the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ they have seen and do see the Divine Essence by an intuitive vision and even face to face without the mediation of any creature interposing it self by way of a visible object but the Divine Essence shewing it self immediately unto them nakedly clearly and openly And That they thus seeing the Divine Essence do enjoy the same Moreover That by such a vision and fruition the Souls of them who are already departed out of this life are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest and so shall their Souls be which shall hereafter depart this life when they shall see the same Divine Essence and enjoy it before the general Judgment And That this Vision and Fruition of the Divine Essence doth evacuate in them and cause to cease the Acts of Faith and Hope as Faith and Hope are properly Theological Vertues And That after such an intuitive and facial Vision and Fruition shall be begun in them the same Vision and Fruition without any interruption evacuation or cessation hath remained continued and shall be continued even to the final Judgment and afterwards even to all Eternity 4. Moreover We Define That according to Gods common ordination the souls of such as die in actual deadly sin descend PRESENTLY into Hell after their death where they are tormented with infernal punishments and That nevertheless in the Day of Judgment all men shall appear before the Tribunal of Christ with their bodies to render an account of their own actions that every one may bear the proper things of his body according to what he hath done whether good or evil 5. Decreeing That our Definitions or Determinations aforesaid and every of them be held by all faithfull people And that whosoever shall hereafter presume wittingly and pertinaciously to hold affirm preach teach and defend by Word or by Writing contrary to these our aforesaid Definitions or Determinations and every of them It be proceeded against him in due manner as AGAINST AN HERETICK 6. Let it not therefore be lawfull for any man to violate this Page of our Constitution or by a rash boldness to do against the same But if any one shall presume to attempt it let him know that he shall incur the wrath of the Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul his Apopostles Given at Avinion on the Fourth of the Calends of February in the Second Year of Our Popedome In like manner it was decreed in the Eighth General Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth as appears in the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Church In these terms Out of the Eighth Geneneral Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth In the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Churches The Sacred Council aprooving We Define Artic. 3. IF truly penitent Souls shall depart this Life before they have satisfied for their Commissions and Omissions by the worthy Fruits of Penance That their Souls are purged by the punishment of Purgatory after their Bodies Death And that to relieve them from such their punishments the Suffrages of the faithfull yet living do profit them to wit Sacrifices of the Mass Prayers Alms-deeds and other offices of piety