Roman Church you are obliged to get Eternal Life by your Merits instead of putting your whole trust in Gods Mercy through Jesus Christ you shall never enjoy any Peace of Conscience seeing that the most righteous Persons have great Defects and stand in need of Gods Pardon Good works indeed are necessary to Salvation not from any merit in them but as the onely means prescribed by God to attain the the Kingdom of Heaven One of the great Diseases of the Roman Church is that a Sinner after he hath confess'd his Sins to a Priest receiveth from him the Pardon of them A Sinner forgiveth another Sinner Offences committed against God as if a Felon did forgive another Felon Crimes committed against the King Thereby a man makes himself a Judge in Gods Cause A Priest takes upon him to be Judge of Sins which he knoweth not for he knoweth not the Thoughts and the Affections of the Heart in which Sin doth chiefly consist Neither doth he know the truth of the Sinners Repentance without which there is no Pardon Indeed faithful Pastors have received of Christ the Power to remit Sins as touching the Ecclesiastical Penalty and Censure of the Church and to reconcile the Sinner excluded from the Communion to the Church But you would be much disappointed if you thought that the Pardon given you by a Priest doth exempt you from answering for your Actions before Gods Judgment Seat For when the King forgives a Felon he doth not exempt him from being judged by that great Judge Can a man that feareth God and to whom God hath left some liberty of Judgement read without horrour the Cauteles and Rubricks of the Mass in the beginning of the Missal which the Priest hath upon the Altar Whereby Provision is made against the inconveniencies that may happen to the Consecrated Host when it happens that Mice have gnawn the Mass-God or when a Beast hath devoured it or when the Wind hath carried it away or when the Priest or a sick person hath vomited it Can ye find in your heart to worship a God that may be stollen or eaten by Beasts or blown away by the Wind and that being fallen cannot raise himself How many times doth Scripture say That Jesus Christ gave Bread to his Disciples and that we break and eat Bread in the Lords Supper Luke 22.19 20. That Bread is called the Body of Christ as it is in remembrance of him In the same manner as in the next line the Cup is called the New Testament because it is the Sign and the Memorial of it Therefore the Apostles did not worship it The Roman Church holds that Jesus Christ did communicate in the Holy Eucharist with his Disciples All Parties agree that it follows from the Doctrine of that Church that Jesus Christ did eat himself and had his Head and his Feet in his Mouth The Gospel tells us that in that Holy Action the Devil entred into Judas Can ye believe that Jesus Christ and the Devil entred together into him To strengthen these Errours the sixth Chapter of St. Johns Gospel is impertinently alleged in which the Lord Jesus speaks of giving his Flesh to eat for Pope Innocent the III and after him a multitude of Doctors have determined that in that Chapter the Eucharist is not meant at all and that these words of giving his Flesh to eat must be understood of a Spiritual eating by Faith There Jesus Christ speaks to the Capernaïtes to whom he promiseth to give his Flesh for their meat but he never gave them the Eucharist He speaks to them of a manner of Eating necessary to Salvation and without which none can be saved saying John 6.53 Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man there is no Life in you Now many are saved without receiving the Eucharist as the converted Thief crucified with Christ and John the Baptist and many Martyrs And Jesus Christ declareth that by Eating and Drinking he understands Believing when he saith v. 35. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Wherefore he warneth them v. 63. that the words which he said unto them were Spirit and Life It is acknowledged by all that many Priests of the Roman Church are ill-Livers yet it is the Doctrine of that Church that a Priest who hath been wallowing all Night in a Debauch hath the power in the Morning to make a God with five words and hath him in his power I must also humbly beseech your Grace to consider that the Councel of Trent declareth it to be the Tenet of the Roman Church generally believed that Sacraments are Null if the Priest hath no Intention to Consecrate which Intention is presumed but by Conjecture and none can be certain of it so that the People adore an Host not knowing whether it be consecrated which is an Adoration at a venture Neither can any in the Roman Church be certain whether he be baptized for none knoweth the Intention of him that baptizeth nor that of him that gave him Orders These things my Lord I touch summarily of which the Proofs are easie but too long for a Letter To disguise these Truths unto Your Grace I am told that you have been perswaded to read the Invectives of Barklay in which Scripture is hardly alledged and Gualtiers Chronicle which is but a web of false passages of some supposititious Books which are not received by the Learned of the Roman Church or Calumnies imputed unto us and such things as we never thought on If upon those false Passages and Calumnies Your Grace had been pleased to consult with some of our Side expert in such Matters they would have made you see evidently the falshood of them The like I say of some passages of Fathers shewed unto Your Grace most of them taken out of forged Writings whose falshood is acknowledged by our Adversaries We have Fathers only as they were copied out of Manuscripts that were found in Monasteries written by Monks who have falsified them and whose false dealing is discovered by the diversity of the Copies of which I could shew you many Instances if I had the Honour to converse with Your Grace about that Subject But God hath not permitted our Adversaries to bring to an end that Enterprize of corrupting all the Fathers for numberless Passages are found in them which bear witness unto the Truth For which the Doctors of the Roman Church blame them very often and give them many ill words But because that Discourse might grow too to great a length I do only refer Your Grace to a Paper by it self a * Which die Reader shall find in the second Chapter of this Authors Anatomy of the Mass Comparison of the Lords Supper with the Mass that you may know what horrible alteration was made in the Lords Institution and that you may know that by going to Mass you cannot be saved You I say My Lord
A SHORT VIEW OF THE Chief Points IN CONTROVERSY Between the REFORMED CHURCHES And the CHURCH of ROME IN Two LETTERS to the Duke of Bouillon upon his turning PAPIST Written by the Reverend PETER DV MOVLIN Professor of Divinity in the University of Sedan Newly translated out of the FRENCH Copy which was never Printed LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1680. To the Honourable Sir NORTON KNATCHBVL Knight and Baronet Honourable Sir THese Letters written fifty years ago to reduce the Duke of Bouillon to the Protestant Religion which he had forsaken never were put to the Press for Fear of provoking that great Lord to confute them with Arguments of Power against which those of Truth and Learning too often cannot stand That they now come out in English the Church of England is obliged Sir to you who having by your diligent Search made your self Owner of a fair Manuscript of the same were pleased to bestow it upon me the Authors Son adding your Request which to me is a Command that I would translate it into English and give it to the Publick I have now obeyed your Order which I could not have done in a more seasonable Conjuncture and I cannot in Duty but return this Translation to the bountiful Giver of the Original Sir you have by your excellent Labours already publisht shewn to the World how well you can match hearty Piety with eminent Learning Now you are pleased to give another Instance of your Affection to both by procuring the setting forth these following Treatises Short indeed they are but as compact with the Sinews of Reason and Learning as any that ever came from the Study of that strong Champion of Gods Cause May God be glorified by it his Truth asserted his Opposers converted and your Zeal for Gods Truth and Glory be rewarded by God and imitated by men So prayeth SIR Your true Honourer and most humble Servant PETER DU MOULIN THE FIRST EPISTLE MY LORD UPON hearing the Report that you purpose to change your Religion I continued a long time doubtful whether I should write to Your Grace about it For being hardly perswaded that such a thought could come into your mind I was afraid to be offensive to Your Grace by my Mistrust But now seeing that Report to continue and increase I could hold no longer from imparting my thoughts to Your Grace upon that Subject being inferiour to none in Fidelity and Affection to your Service You were instructed My Lord from your Infancy by an Excellent Father and a Virtuous Mother in a Religion of which you have learned to fear God and serve him according to his Word In that Religion if you had met with some Scruple you ought at the least to have heard both the Parties and not have taken counsel onely of the Adversaries This is plain tempting of God who being thereby justly provoked blindeth the Spirit of those that seek occasions to turn from his Service Had Your Grace done me that Honour to acquaint me with your Doubts I might have easily shewed you that the Roman Religion is altogether contrary to the Word of God That they celebrate every day a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Redemption of Souls other than the Death of our Lord Jesus Christ That the Communion of the Cup expresly commanded in Scripture is denied to the Laity That the People say Prayers to God which they do not understand and the Publick Service is performed in a Language unknown to them contrary to the express Prohibition of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.16 That the Trinity is represented in carved Stone and Picture and the Adoration of Images is enjoyned by many Popes and new Councels contrary to Gods express Prohibition in the Second Commandment Which was taken away from the Law of God in the Offices and Breviaries that the People might not see it That Bones and Relicks of Saints are adored That by the Doctrine of their Purgatory God is made to burn the Souls of his Children for Sins fully pardoned and for which Jesus Christ hath wholly satisfied and that not to mend the Sinners but to satisfie his Justice That the Pope without any Authority from the Word of God taketh upon him to be Successor to St. Peter in the Apostleship and in the Primacy over the Universal Church To defend which Primacy Epistles and Decretals of the Antient Bishops of Rome were forged and many Books and supposititious Passages the falshood whereof we shew by invincible Proofs In Decrees Councels Canons and Principal Authors of the Roman Church the Pope is called God and the Divine Majesty having all Power in Heaven and Earth By which Power he fetcheth Souls out of Purgatory puts such as he pleaseth in the List of the Saints by Canonizing them giveth Pardons of Sins of two or three thousand years giveth and taketh away Kingdoms dispenseth with Oaths made unto God dissolveth Marriages lawfully contracted boasting that he cannot err in the Faith and that he hath Power to add new Articles to the Creed to be Judge above Scripture and to alter that which God hath instituted in his Word Of these I could bring to Your Grace a thousand Proofs drawn from the Decrees and Councels of Popes and from Publick Experience The Pope boasteth that he hath a Treasure in which he layeth up all the Overplus of the Penitential Works of the Saints and distributeth them unto others by his Indulgences and makes multitudes to travel two or three hundred Leagues to get the Remission of their Sins which is offered to them at home gratis by the Doctrine of the Gospel If a Rich man dieth who hath given any thing to the Church he hath many private Masses Obits and Suffrages for his Money But never any private Mass is sung for a Beggar or one that hath given nothing In the Roman Church departed Saints are prayed to of whom Holy Scripture saith that they know not the Hearts of men and whose Invocation hath neither Command nor Example nor Promise in the Word of God I am told that Your Grace hath given ear to Capucins who have for their Patron and Author of their Order St. Francis whose Life if you had read as our Adversaries themselves have publish'd it you might think that it was purposely written to defame him There you may find how he preach'd unto Birds that being stark naked he embraced a Woman made of Snow to repress his Heats that he took up again the Lice that fell down from his Garments and many the like Feats These Capucins as other Monks boast that they doe Works of Supererogation that is better and more perfect Works than God hath commanded in his Law For which therefore they look for a degree of Glory in Paradise above other Saints who had attained to no greater Perfection than to fulfil the Law of God perfectly who thereby have not got any greater Reward than Eternal Life If by the Doctrine of the
his Disciples and from the words of Christ that he drunk the Fruit of the Vine we expound his other words this is my Bloud We expound also these words of Christ This is my Body from St. Pauls words who 1 Cor. 11. saith four times that we eat Bread in the Lords Supper and that we break Bread Certainly that Apostle giveth a clear Exposition of Christ's words This is my Body and this is my Blood saying 1 Cor. 10.16 The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ We alledge also those Texts that say that Jesus Christ is no more in this World that the Heaven doth contain him that Christ is like unto us in all things sin onely excepted and that by consequent he hath not a Body dispersed in a Million of several places at once and inclosed whole in every Crum of the Host and in every Drop of the Chalice Likewise when Jesus saith Do this in remembrance of me We expound not these words as the Councel of Trent doth which puts this Sense upon them I do constitute you to be Priests to sacrifice my Body really under the species of Bread and Wine but we bring the Interpretation which St. Paul addeth 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lords Death Consider also that there is great Difference between a Judgment of Authority and a Judgment of Discretion With this last we judge of Meats by the Taste without giving Laws to any And it is so that not only Pastours but also every one of the People may and doth judge of the true Doctrine And it is so that St. Paul will have the Corinthians to judge of his Doctrine 1 Cor. 10.15 I speak as to wise men judge ye what I say Of that matter and of the Interpretation of Scripture I have written a Book purposely which I have dedicated to your Grace and which was presented to you by Monsieur de Cabrilles from me I asked your Grace at Liege whether you had received it Your Answer was that you knew not what was in it for you have laboured to strengthen your self with Reasons against us but would not take Notice how we answer them and have conversed much with our Adversaries but hid your self from your Servants who might have cleared your Mind about their Objections and armed you with Answers Of the Condemnation of Hereticks Your Grace saith farther that you have desired to see whether the ancient Hereticks were condemned by Persons of our Religion and whether one man be found in all Antiquity that had the same Religion as we in all Points These Condemnations of Hereticks were made by men sound in the Faith that were of the same Religion as we in all points who have condemned many Errours now received in the Roman Church The Councel of Laodicea approved by many Universal Councels which were held since rejecteth the Books of Judith Tobit Maccabees and other Apochryphal Books The Eliberin Councel held about the year of the Lord 305 hath made this Canon It is decreed that there shall be no Picture in the Church that the things that are adored or served be not painted upon Walls The Councels that have commanded the Adoration of Images are later by 4 or 5 hundred years In the first Nicen Councel the Marriage of the Pastors of the Church was approved upon the Remonstrance of Paphnutius Such is the fourth Canon of the Councel of Gangra If any makes a Difference of a married Priest as if he ought not to participate of the Oblation when he doth administer let him be Anathema This is the XXXV Canon of the Councel of Laodicea Christians must not forsake the Church of God and go to serve Angels and gather Congregations If any them be found applying himself to that secret Idolatry let him be Anathema because he hath forsaken the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God About the year of the Lord 399 a Councel was held at Carthage of which this is the 23 Canon When Service is made at the Altar the Prayer must always be address't to the Father The present Roman Church contradicts that Canon for in their Service they have Prayers addrest unto Saints This is the 25 Canon of the same Councel In the Divine Service let nothing be offered but the Body and Blood of the Lord that is Bread and Wine mingled with Water The 16 Canon of the IV Councel of Carthage absolutely forbids swearing by the Creatures To this the Catechism of the Councel of Trent is contrary which approveth swearing by Relicks The 10 Canon of that Councel of Carthage saith Mulier baptizare non presumat Let not a Woman presume to baptize The Practise of the Roman Church is contrary to that The Milenitan Councel where St. Austin was present and of which he hath made the Canons forbids Appeals from Africk to Rome in these Words It is declared That if the Priests or other Clerks in such Causes as they shall have shall complain of the Judgment of their Bishops the Bishops shall hear them But he that will appeal beyond the Seas let him not be admitted to the Communion by any living in Africk In the VI Councel of Carthage there is a long Epstle of the Councel to Celestin Bishop of Rome who by a new Usurpation would draw to himself the Appeals of the Bishops of Africk whereby the Fathers of the Councel beseech him to receive no more Appeals from their Countrey forbidding him to send any more of his Legats or to use any more forged Canons to raise his Dignity and bring Worldly Pride into the Church of Christ Therefore Baronius and Bellarmin and Cotton Jesuits condemn that Councel In the Councel of Chalcedon held in the Year of the Lord 451 the Legats of the Bishop of Rome pretending to the Primacy and bringing forth a forged Canon of Nicea laboured to hinder the Bishop of Constantinople from being equal with the Bishop of Rome against which the Councel made this Canon The Fathers with good reason have given Prerogatives to the See of Antient Rome because she was the Imperial City And the hundred and fifty Bishops of the first Councel of Constantinople moved with the like consideration have attributed to the most holy See of New Rome which is Constantinople equal Priviledges judging with good reason that the City honoured with the Empire and the Senate and which hath the same Prerogatives as the Antient Rome Imperial ought to be magnified as much as Rome it self in Ecclesiastical things The Popes of our time and their Advocates condemn that Council not only because it equalleth the Bishop of Constantinople with that of Rome but chiefly because it groundeth the preeminence of the Bishop of Rome upon the Dignity of the City because Rome is the Capital City of the Empire and not
upon the Succession in the Apostleship of St. Peter For the Fathers of that Council do not acknowledge him in that Quality The Council of Aurange condemneth the Merits in the 12th Canon saying God loveth us according as we shall be by his Grace and not such as we shall be through our Merits In the Year of Our Lord 549 Reparatus Bishop of Cathage called a Synod in which Vigilius Bishop of Rome was anathematized as an Heretick Eutychian And Honorius Bishop of Rome was condemned by the VI and the VII Universal Councils as an Heretick Monothelite In the VI Council of Constantinople assembled again in the Palace of Trulle in the 17 and the 77 Canon the Church of Rome is expresly and by name condemned and is commanded to hinder no more the cohabitation of Priests with their Wives and to Fast no more on the Lords Day upon pain of Deposition or Excommunication Whence it appeareth by the way that the Greek and Eastern Church in which that Council was celebrated in which that Council was celebrated was not subject to the Roman Church since she prescribed Laws to her In the Year 754 a Council composed of 338 Bishops was held at Constantinople in which it was decreed that Images should be removed out of Churches and the worship of them was forbidden There also the Bread of the Eucharist is called the Image and the Figure of the Body of Jesus Christ But in the Year 787 the Empress Irene assembled another Council against that Council at Nicea in which Images were set up again and the Worship of them was commanded upon Pain of Anathema But in the year 794 the Emperour Charles the Great caused that Council of Nicea to be condemned by another Council assembled at Frankford although he knew that Pope Adrian was of a contrary Opinion and had defended that Council of Nicea by an express Book This is My Lord the Condemnation of Errours about our Controversies which I find in the ancient Councils Neither could I find any ancient Council which in matters of Faith condemns the Doctrine that we profess For the Chronicle of Gaultier which was shewed to your Grace representeth things falsly and doth not agree with other Authors of his Religion who justifie us against most of his Calumnies I am ready to undergo any Punishment if in the 500 years which your Grace mentions one only man be found that had a Religion any whit like the present Religion of the Roman Church In the ancient Church the publick Service was celebrated in the vulgar Tongue understood by the People The Laity received the Communion in the two kinds The reading of Scripture was not prohibited to the People The Church did not believe Purgatory Before the year 370 of the Lord no Tract is found of Invocation of Saints There was no Mention of Roman Indulgences nor of the Treasure of the Church in which the Pope hath laid up the Overplus of the penal Works and Satisfactions of Saints and Monks which he distributes among the People by his Indulgences In those days they made no Images of God They worshipped not the Images of Saints They adored not the consecrated Host with Worship of Latria They spake not of Accidents without a Subject They believed not that Mice could gnaw the Body of Christ or that it could be blown away be the Wind or stole or devoured by Beasts as we are taught in the Beginning of the Missal In those days the Bishops of Asia Africa Aegypt Graece c. took no Oath of Allegiance to the Roman Bishop in their Ordination and took no Letters of Investiture from him In those Days they believed not that Jesus Christ had eaten his own Body in the Communion They believed not that it was in the Priests Power to create his Creator The Pope did not style himself God and the Divine Majesty He boasted not that he could not err and that he was the Sovereign Judge of Controversies He drew no Souls out of Purgatory He took not upon him the Power of adding to the Creed He canonized no Saints He gave no Pardons of two or three hundred years He dispensed not with Vows and Oaths He dispensed no with Vows and Oaths He neither gave nor took away Kingdoms He put no Kingdom in Interdict In those days the Blessed Virgin Mary was not called the Queen of Heaven and the Lady of the World The Bishop of Rome did not bestow several Offices upon Saints charging one to look over such a Country another to such a Disease another to such a Trade They spake not in those days of Franciscan Fryars nor of Dominicans nor of Capucins nor of Jesuits nor of Beads Rosaries Agnus Dei and the like Commodities In a Word the Roman Religion is a Religion spick and span new and an horrible defacing of the ancient Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles If Your Grace hath such a great Desire to be instructed about Antiquity you may desire one of those that take upon them to instruct you to give you but one Example upon any of the forementioned Points I am sure that they will never undertake it it being utterly impossible I could shew to Your Grace that all these Inventions were devised to serve the Gain and Ambition of the Pope and his Clergy But I will pass to that which Your Grace addeth Of the Pope's Primacy From thence you pass to the Pope's Primacy and speak thus I sought to be informed whether all the Western Churches had not always acknowledged the Bishop of Rome to be the Primate and the Head of the visible Church established by our Lord for the Conduct of the same and seeing the Protestants were so far from rejecting the first five Centuries that they often both in their Sermons and Books quote and produce the Fathers that writ in those Ages I thought the shortest way for my Information would be to see what were the Sentiments of those Fathers in the controverted Points Truly my Lord that short way which you say you have taken is of an infinite Length and indeed there is no end of it It would have been a far shorter way to have asked of the ablest men of the Roman Church whether it may be found in Gods Word that God hath established the Pope Successor of St. Peter in his Apostleship and in his Primacy over the Universal Church They would have freely confest unto you that the Holy Scripture saith nothing of it and that it is a Tradition about which we have no Commandment of God I observe also that you speak only of the Western Churches whence I gather that he who suggested these things to your Grace knows that the Eastern and the African Church never acknowledged the Bishop of Rome in that Quality and Character Now those Churches were then greater than the Western as also they are ancienter Now by the Councils approved both by the Western and the Eastern Churches which I have already
of Pardon ch 28. There is no middle place so that he that dwelleth not with Christ can be any where else than with the Devil The fifth Book of the Hypognosticks speaks thus The Catholick Faith grounded upon Divine Authority is that the first place is the Kingdom of Heaven and the second is Hell We believe no third place and find none in the holy Scriptures In the Book of the Vanity of the World chap. 1. Know ye that when the Soul separates from the Body it is at the same Instant placed in Paradise for its good Works or cast down into the Gulf of Hell for its Sins I could bring Your Grace Passages by hundreds out of the Fathers which express that the Souls of the godly are presently after Death carried into Paradise or into Hell I will content my self with one or two Cyprian in the Book against Demetrian speaks thus This temporal Life being ended we are sequestred either in the Habitation of Death or in that of eternal Life And in the same place When men are gone from hence there is no place left for Penitence no Fruit no effect of Satisfaction and in Death it self they pass to Immortality The Fathers were so far from believing that Souls were burnt in Purgatory that many of them believed not that the Souls could be tormented without the Bodies Thus Tertullian in the 48 Chap. of his Apologetick The Soul saith he cannot suffer without solid Matter that is without Flesh And Gregory in the Oration of the Lords Resurrection The Fire can never work upon the separate Soul and Darkness cannot be grievous to it because it hath no Eyes Ambrose in the first book of Penitence Chap. 17. The Soul without the Body and the Body without the Soul cannot be Partakers of Punishment or Reward Chrysostom in the 39 Homily upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians The Soul without the Flesh shall not receive her hiden Goods as likewise she shall not be punisht without the Flesh The Truth is so strong on our side that many of our Adversaries freely confess that the Fathers speak little or not at all of Purgatory Navarrus the Popes Penitentiary in the beginning of the year of Jubile saith No Orthodox doubteth that there is a Purgatory Yet the Ancients make no mention of it or very seldom and that he saith after Roffensis otherwise the Cardinal of Rochester whom he alledgeth Alphonsus de Castro one of the Doctors of the Councel of Trent in his eight Book against Heresies upon the Word Indulgentia speaks thus In the ancient Writers the mention of the Transubstantiation of the Body of Christ is very rare of the Procession of the Holy Ghost more rare yet of the Purgatory they make almost no mention at all especially the Greek Authors as also to this day the Greeks have not believed Purgatory One may see in the Dialogues of Gregory the First That Satan in his time was brewing that Mystery by Visions and Apparitions of Souls some of which said that they purged themselves at the Smoak of Baths others in the Wind others in Rivers and this was already in the year of our Lord 595. But the Popes that came after found out another kind of Purgatory wonderfully gainful whereby they have heaped up to themselves and their Clergy infinite Riches For the Pope by Bulls and Indulgences fetcheth Souls out of Purgatory at the Suit of those that will come to his Price to buy them and particular Masses whose number is infinite are bought very dear and none of them is sung with particular Application to beggers or those that have given nothing Yet they hold one Age to be exempted from Purgatory for say they when Jesus Christ cometh to judge the World then all that live in the World shall be exempted from that Torment In the mean while one may wonder that whilst Jesus Christ is interceding for the Souls that are burning in that Fire for he intercedeth for all the faithful those Souls come not out by this Intercession but by the Popes Indulgence By all that has been said here Your Grace may perceive how much you are mistaken in the Fathers and indeed by your manner of alledging them it is easie to see that you have not read them but that some ignorant men furnish you with Passages which have quite another Sense than that which they put upon them If forsaking what you know from the holy Scripture which as St. Paul saith is able to make us wise upon Salvation you take those things upon Trust which others tell you out of the Fathers and if you greedily embrace all that shall be presented unto you of this kind you will find enough to help your Resolution not to be separated neither in this World nor in the other from my Lady your Dutchess You say that you would know the Grounds of her Religion whilst her Grace did not trouble her self to know the Grounds of yours My Lord how could that Thought come into your Mind to believe Purgatory upon two or three Passages of Fathers distored from their right Sense and to shut your Eyes against all that the Word of God speaks against it Apoc. 14.13 Out of that good Word you might have learned that Blessed are they that dye in the Lord that they rest from their Labours and that their Works follow them Isa 57.1 2. that when the righteous dyeth he shall enter into Peace that we must make to our selves Friends by Alms Luke 16.9 which when we fail may recieve us into everlasting Habitations That Jesus Christ said to the repenting Thief crucified with him Luke 23.43 This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise And yet by the Doctrine of the Roman Church he had need of great Purgation 1 John 1.7 That the Blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanseth us from all Sin This is our true Purgatory God who is all just and all good would he take two Payments for the same Debt when the first Payment which is the death of Christ is sufficient would he delight to torment his Children for many Ages in an internal fire for Sins which he hath freely pardoned as we learn of St. Paul Eph. 4.32 Col. 2.13 that God for Christs sake hath forgiven us all our Trespasses Every Father that chastiseth his Children unless he be altogether unnatural doth it to make them better but the Roman Church will have God to burn his Children not to make them more righteous for by their Doctrine they are perfectly righteous before they enter into Purgatory but to content himself and satisfie his Justice Let them find if they can one example in Scripture of any Soul that was sent to Purgatory It is very considerable that in the Levitical Law there are Sacrifices prescribed for all sorts of Sin and Pollution even of Leprosie and the touching of a dead body but that law prescribes no Sacrifice for the dead nor any