Councils if they proceed duly in their discussion And must all this be conceald and onely three generall words which declare neither particular manner nor matter be barely alleadg'd as a ground of all your spitefull Rhetorick How strange a proceeding is this for a Christian My third note is that in case Christ be a perfect Law-giver and that the Faith he left be sufficient and no more necessary for the Church that is if a Council have nothing to do in making new Articles of Faith then I onely deny Infallibility to Councils in things unnecessary for the Church and unconcerning their duty as Definers of Faith and give them an absolute Inerrancy in all points necessary for the Church that is in all that can truly concern their main purpose that is defining Faith And more than this I beleeve you will find an hundred Catholick Doctors to one deny them as well as I. My fourth note shall be that you would make the denying Infallibility of Councils abstracting both from all matters and manners of proceeding or acceptation of the Church for so you treat it my singular opinion whereas thus spoken of we have for their Errability amongst the Franciscans Castillo and the learned Author of Systema Fidei who cites him for the Dominicans Sotus who tells us that if God by his secret judgment suffers a Council to err he will not permit it long to be conceald from the Church but will take order that it be corrected by another following Council before it be receiv'd in the Church For the Jesuits Bacon telling us it was the opinion of Saint Austin and of all the writers of that Age that the resolution of Faith was compleated in the reception of the whole Christian world For the Fathers Saint Austin himself whose known words are that Plenary Councils have been corrected by following ones where he seems also to speak even of matters of Faith Of Cardinalls Cusanus that it may be observ'd by all experience that an universall Council may fail For your own Doctors worthy Dean Cressy in whom you may find most of these Authors cited Exomol c. 33. where he acknowledges the placing the Infallibility of Councils ultimately in the acceptation of the Church an opinion at least allowable and according to his eminent learning and charity puts down the conveniences he observ'd in that Doctrin to the reducing the Heterodox party Nor onely these but indeed who is there of any note that will say a Council is Infallilible unless it proceed Conciliariter and that it may not proceed conciliarly or after the regular way of a Council I beleeve you are not unacquainted if you be let Pope Martin the fifth teach it you who in the last Session of the Council of Constance declares himself to hold and observe their Decrees made conciliariter non aliter nec alio modo and this too expresly in matters of Faith which caution of his shows he held a possibility of their proceeding illegally Now what they call Conciliariter I call in definitions of Faith attending to Tradition which put I hold and maintain them absolutely Infallible whereas I believe all except me if you examin the matter well and report it candidly put more numerous and more difficult conditions to their Infallibility and far more liable to contingency than what I require which is both extremely hard to fail and when it does must needs be most notorious to the whole world and so beyond my power to pretend or excuse it as you would wisely perswade the Reader by saying this Doctrin brings all into my hands So that we have eminently learned men of all the chief orders in Gods Church Cardinalls and Fathers to omit many or rather all others directly of my opinion in holding a Non est impossibile speaking in generall or rather I of theirs and yet I onely must be raild at as if none in the world held it or broacht it but I. Turn now I beseech you valiant Sir the mouth of your pot-gun against all these renowned Authors and discharge your intemperate spleen against them as abandoning the Catholick Church denying the Authority of Councils and such like which make up a great part of your worthy work and see how feeble an attempt you will make and whether you will not deserve as great an hiss as you have made a noise to no purpose but to breath out some of your swelling passion At least excuse your self to charitable Christians why omitting to mention all others Authority who held the same Doctrin with mine leaping over the backs of all distinctions both of matter and manner without which your discourse signify's nothing and lastly why leaving out words of mine within the same comma which should clear me you rawly took out three onely which were generall ones apply'd them to what particular sence you pleas'd nay extended them to that which was invidious and which I never held and by these arts abus'd the veneration which the vulgar justly have of Councils to stir up in them an undeserved ill opinion against me I pass by in my Book many such like carriages of yours this because you so often and so maliciously glance at I could not leave totally unreflected on If it would not spoil your sport I would crave leave to right the reader in the conceit you would imprint in him of my Romancicall Hell as you are pleas'd to term it the ridiculousness of which lies in your expressions not mine One would think by your putting Dancers Bowlers Fencers c. in other Letters they were my words but he would be mistaken One would think that the words attempting now in Hell in all their severall postures which signify'd as if they were playing tricks there were my words or sence but would be mistaken again One would have thought you might have had the candor not to omit the word quasi which would have spoild the exactness of the postures you fancy and so have much qualify'd your jeft Lastly one that had not known you might have imagin'd you would have transcrib'd to the full point and not still take two or three words single and then you should have seen the mixture of desperation fear and grief marring the perfect molds your Imagination had fram'd and made me say no more but that the shapes of the damned were frightfull and distracted But to omit other little advantages by which you strive in the translating 3 lines to render my sence ridiculous I would gladly know where you find these words spoken of damned Souls as you would here perswade us I would gladly know where you find the word now which you put as mine attempting now in Hell wheras the whole Chapter is intitled declares it self in each Paragraph to speak of their Bodyes onely not Souls and this not now but expresly at the day of Judgment or rather if it could be after it Were ever three lines singled out from their fellows so
ante-judiciary Delivery never taught as certain p. 83 84. 87. It s beginning and progress p. 77. to 81. True Discourse in Angels following from the Vindicators tenet p. 162 163. Distinguishers between Faith and Opinion must neither be illiterate nor meanly learned p. 76 84 85 87. Divinity grafted on the stock of our naturall speech and so on Philosophy p. 24. E. EYmericus his mistake p. 47 48. His censoriousness p. 39 40. F. FAith not endanger'd by true Science p. 12 13. but its objects better understood by it p. 9 10 14 15. not diversify'd according to the severall Apppehensions of the Faithfull p. 9 10 11. 14. 191. 198. 199. Soâ—e False-dealings and disingenuities toucht at p. 22 23. 27 28. 31. 48 49 50 52 61. 93 94. 112 113 115 120 121 125 126 174. Father and Son spoken of God metaphorically 102 103 104. That Foundations contradict ante-judiciary Delivery p. 79. G. THat a Governour dispossest ought to be restor'd when the common Good requires it the profest and express Doctrin of the Author p. 116. S. Gregory not the Author of those Dialogues which gave us the first news of an ante-judiciary Delivery p. 77 78. Hence the origin of that Opinion much later p. 107. I. I Dentification of the Soul and Body necessary for a Body's action on her p. 153. 155. Identity of the Soul and Body p. 154 155. Infallibility when certainly found in decrees of a Pope and Council p. 72 73. Inquest not necessary to find our Faith p. 73. Interpretation of the Bull and Council by the Vindicator manifoldly defective p. 75. M THe Method of a Divine in seeking Truth p. 8. to 14. Diverse Mistakes about the Council of Florence p. 92 93. of a Censure p. 16 17. of the occasion of my writing the Middle State p. 28 29. of a Metaphor p. 101. of the Liturgyes manifoldly p. 109 110. of my Doctrin concerning a dispossest Governour p. 116. and the Vncertainty of Scriptures letter 110 117 118. of best corporeall pleasures p. 134. of eternall Happiness to be no Good at all p. 166 167. of the Souls nature at reunion p. 183. Mysteries of Faith not knowable without Revelation p. 11. P. PAganism uncharitably and weakly objected p. 187. Pains of Purgatory what in the true opinion of the Author p. 144. Prayers and Alms for the Dead in use before the Opinion of ante-judiciary Delivery p. 78 79. and many wayes beneficiall to them in the Authors Doctrin p. 167. to 173. A Prohibition of a Book no Censure p. 16. to p. 20. Punishments of pure Spirits agreed by all to be Acts of the Will p. 88. Q. THE Question stated as in the Bull p. 34. S. Scriptures Letter uncertain without the ayd of Tradition p. 117. The Soul how substantially chang'd by separation yet the same p. 139 140. Pure Spirits know all things together and perpetually p. 156. to p. 161. The Sufferings of our Saviour not prejudic'd by the unyeeldingness of separated Souls to externall torments p. 146 147. T. TRadition not examinable p. 72. More or less Time coexisting adds or dimininishes nothing to a pure Spirit p. 149. to 153. Errata P. 114 l. 19 20. these terms but the Terms expressing those Mysteries which were p. 147. l. 9. conform. p. 157. l. 12. appetit RELIGION AND REASON First Essay Introduction SIR HAD your Answer to the unknown Author been written in my fresher dayes I should have endeavour'd to have given you an ampler satisfaction Now being come forth in my frozen Age when my long ague hath made me fitter to think of death than of School-quarrels I hope you will be patient with me if in as short a method as I can I give you rather hints by which a little endeavour of your own may find out satisfaction than dilate my self so far that every weak eye may see it Doctor Hammond as I am told about the same time hath bent himself against my Doctrine whom though I much esteem being assured by friends common to us both that he is a very courteous and civill person and hath spent much time in reading good Authors yet have I rather preferd the answering you both because I expect better quarter at your hands since the stricter bond of Religion should make us apt to interpret one another more fairly as also and indeed far more for I see that Tye very slippery in many because you have some tincture of the School and to my thinking are much sharper and abler to set off an argument and write a style solid and proper to the matter Whereas that loose way of preaching and affecttaion of words the Doctor uses shews more vanity than substance in his Discourses Besides he has an Adversary from satisfying whom he seems to me very short and I am gladly willing to excuse my pains when I see the same or more fruit come from anothers Pen Returning then to you I hold it my first duty to give you many thanks for your work you being the first who though somewhat late for me now scarce able to keep my self warm by a fire have given me the occasion to speak for my self that the world may see whether those many smother'd slanders which so long have layen heavy on me and my works bear a value proportionable to the noyse they have made Which to examin in short I divide your Treatise and so my Reply into two Parts the first holding twenty two of your Sections and belonging chiefly to the Middle State of Souls the second containing the rest of your Sections touching upon many points of my Doctrin in which you find fault FIRST PART Refuting some of the Vindicators Objections as they ly in his Book chiefly those that concern the Middle State FIRST DIVISION Containing an Answer to his five first Sections The Vindicator's mistake of the manner of treating Controversies and of the nature of a Censure The Method a knowing Divine ought to pursue Diverse Errors rectify'd TO begin then with your first Section I confess you speak very fairly had your patience but held out not to have broke your word in that very Section which I intend presently to declare if first I desire you to beware how you take principles out of Hereticks mouths The Nobleman out of whom you cite the Maxim that writing of Controversies ought to carry as much sweetnesse as Love-letters was a very ingenious and worthy Person but if you enquire of his Religion you shall find it in Chillingworths book in which he is thought to have had a great hand And Mr Chillingworths Religion how sound it was you may ghess out of the answers made by himself to himself which go before his book In one whereof he candidly professes that if tomorrow he sees more reason for another Religion and next day for a third he will change his Religion as often Now who can doubt but he that has his Religion tackt on him with such slight pins that he may change
I ever said the People should have it The same I conceive hath ever been in the Church in a certain degree Of which there are manifest signs in Saint Denys the Areopagite Saint Basil Saint Gregory Nazianzen and others as also in the Latin Church specially in Saint Austin Boetius Saint Auselm and others But I conceive demonstration will be both in its matter and in Divines much more diffus'd then it is yet So that in the Church will ever march together Science and Faith though in diverse measures Some other little nibblings at my Doctrin or rather at little bits of it snatcht from the Context as your custom is because taken entire 't is too difficult for your teeth interlace your jollity in these your Sections of mirth and raillery As that of a dispossest Governour which you deform in the worst manner you can by leaving out the Antecedents and Consequents which would have let you see that my discourse proceeds in the case that onely his own private interest or particular good be oppos'd and counter-ballanc't to the publike not if the publick good be for his restorement For then my whole Book favours him Wherefore to make my Doctrin invidious against the Person you mean you must first subsume that his re-entry is against the common good otherwise I say nothing against him but all for him and if you subsume this I believe you will deserve no great thanks for your officious mistake but approve your self his greatest enemy Next you are hugely troubled that in Rushworth's Dialogues which you say are mine I make the letter of the Scripture so uncertain And this objection I may conceive you borrow'd from Doctor Hammond whose Book in which he has something against me and as I am told this very passage was extant long before yours and I doubt not but you read very diligently whatever opposes me Unless perhaps good wits jump't in their observations which also may be likely for you agree much taken as Scholars in your method of seeking for Truth I must profess therefore to answer both in one that you are two of the prettiest men that ever I met with and most hard to please with reason Neither of you can endure I should attempt profess certainty and evidence in things capable of it that is in matters scientifical nor yet profess uncertainty in matters not capable of certitude as in our present point about the delivery of words by way of transcriptions of Copists or Scriveners relying upon their own human diligence which 't is impossible to secure against over-sight besides divers other miscarriages which the Fathers as well as I complain the Letter of the Scripture was lyable to But to satisfie your tender Conscience and other Catholikes like yours I profess that that place speaks of the Letter of Scripture as left to multitudes of human contingencies and imbecillities and as taken abstractedly from and unassisted by Tradition or the Churches living voice and practice to guide securely the delivery of it downwards But I ever profess that this guidance of Tradition did efficaciously preserve the Letter untainted in all that was coincident with Christian Tradition that is in all points necessary to mankinds salvation and not onely so but so far the rest of the Scripture's Letter too that nothing evidently contrary to the doctrin of Tradition or Christian Faith could light into it So that Catholiks may with all security accept it and hold to it And yet notwithstanding the aid of tradition formerly above 2000 faults were corrected in it by our late Pope's since the beginning of the Council of Trent and more still remain to be a mended as the Preface to the same Bible grants nor is any person living able to stint us the ultimate compleating of the true copy Thus much to you How I can satisfy Doctor Hammond who holds Tradition onely then when he can serve his turn of it and otherwhiles impugns it by what way in his grounds he can be certain of one little of it I know not and therefore must leave him to the Fruits of his Labour in impugning Tradition that is to a perfect uncertainty of any thing that can concern his Faith In a word to a Catholik my position onely signifies that we are beholding to the living voyce of the Church even for any Certainty of the true Copy of the Scripture which why it deserves more exception that Saint Austin's noted saying of Evangelio non crederem c. I should be glad to learn But you think Rushworth has made too long a Catalogue of uncertainties To which I answer that if you please to scan the occasions of that long Catalogue and then tell us how many we may safely abate I shall in his behalf remain very much oblig'd to you If not 't is plain you do not know we can abate any or that his Catalogue is longer then it should be in his case After this you give a wipe at my denying the Popes personall Infallibility and as for the point you well know 't is held but a probable opinion and that many learned Authors hold the same opinion with me As for my censuring it I shall hope the reasons given for it in Tabulae Suffragiales will stand to justify me till something of greater force than clamour appears to overthrow them that is till it can be shown less than Archi-hereticall to say that an opinion which confessedly is no more but probable can be a sufficient ground to build Christian Faith upon Your next piece of Gallantry is your old and oft repeated clamour of my denying the Infallibility of Councils which forces me to lay open to the world how far your Malice is above your Conscience in writing against me To do which I offer the Reader those few notes First that you onely cite here three words non est impossible to prove confusedly that I deny all Authority of Councils whereas in my Tab. suffrag. p. 277. the place where it is found which had you quoted the Reader might have rectify'd himself it follows immediately ut Concilium tentet hoc facere tentando in errorem incidat It is not impossible a Council should attempt This and so err Now what this word This relates to is to be seen in the Paragraph immediately foregoing to wit to the making new Articles of Faith so that I put Councils errable onely in such a matter that is in creating us a new Faith you by maiming purposely my words make me hold them to have no Authority in any thing Can this consist with honesty or fair dealing Next is to be noted that in the same Discourse there which gives account of my Doctrin professedly concerning Councils I maintain in express terms that Councils are of Infallible Authority in declaring Articles of Faith that the Pope declaring ex cathedra concerning a matter of Faith is infallible and that the same is to be said of Generall and even Provinciall
accuse your Adversary that he sayes you think such things promote souls in Holy desires though for my part I think it is a great reason of the use of them to make people be devout when otherwise they would not And for souls going to Heaven by them if they take away the pains of Purgatory with what face can you deny it I remember a Doctor of Divinity who having obtain'd a Scapular from the Carmes and a priviledg from the Jesuits to be admitted a Jesuit at the hour of his death was as confident to go directly to Heaven as if he had had a Patent for it under Jesus Christs own Hand Why then are you so touchy as if there could not be abuses in these things why cannot you be patient in this case as well as the Church is content to admit some abuses to have crept even into the administration of the Sacraments Your last note I believe is quite mistaken for I do not conceive your Adversary intended to make any comparisons both because he does not specifie any particular man to whom he should be suppos'd to compare me and because there is no occasion for it But peradventure he would not have the good life of any man be an Argument to bear down a contrary Doctrin For my self I profess no exemplarity If my life be such as may not unbeseem my Calling I have as much as I desire from men neither do I see any reason why any one should engage for me supra id quod videt in me I pray let not opinion-quarrels break into Personal dissentions Si invicem mordetis invicem consumemini To the same uncharitable end I fear tends your often repetition of diminishing words to those persons who think well of me or my Doctrin insisting especially on their small number but I pray you tell me how many you think have impartially and attentively read these few Books I have made I believe in proportion to them it is not a small number who profess to have met in many points with great satisfaction nor do I expect they should in all I may sometimes be mistaken my self and there I desire none to follow me others may sometimes be mistaken in me and there I am so far from being followed that my obscurity which I confess a defect will not let me be found Nor do I see so much cause to be troubled at the fewness as to bless God for the qualities of those who profess to have found good in my writings being Persons both ingenuous and vertuous and of such frank and unbyassed Principles as well by their own inclination as the influence my way may have had upon them that I am confident they desire nothing more then to see my Doctrin thorowly examin'd and speedily brought to a fair impartial Tryal by the sharpest Arguments that a pertinent opposer can make and indeed they themselves have been the strongest though not the fiercest Objectors I have met with One reason possibly of this little number may be that my Books have not as yet been long enough in the World to be fully perus'd by many what time may produce God onely knowes to whom I submit it But to return to my self and speak to what you dislike in me you absolve me from being an Heretick to make me a Pagan Nor will I refuse to be what you shall please when you have explicated your self But this not marking nor understanding your own words makes all the misintelligence You make me a Pagan but such an one as acknowledges Christ and every word and tittle either of the Scripture or any other Law of his Such a Pagan such a Naturalist was never heard of before Will you have me give you an Instance take this Bull and Canons which you cite and put them to my self or your Adversary and see whether we will either refuse to subscribe or even swear to them Then our Paganisus lyes in this that we do not think you have the right sence And this is my Paganism thorough all things belonging to Christian Faith You say I agree onely in words with the Church but saying so you say I agree in words and by consequence the whole disagreement is about the sence of the words In which controversy because I proceed out of Philosophy and reason and you out of what Masters Dictatts I know not you leave a great prejudice that my explication is the more reasonable Wherein consists then my Paganism Because I pretend to demonstrate what you think is not to be known but by Faith Then if I do not pretend to demonstrate but onely profess that they are demonstrable and exhort men to seek out the Demonstrations which is the true case and what you add is out of the fulness of your heart why do I not hold all the Articles by Faith and where is my Paganism But suppose some great Scholar possibly or impossibly as the Schools speak should have the demonstration of the Articles of Faith would he therefore be a Pagan sure you never thought what a Pagan signify'd when you spake so cholerick a word That peradventure might make him more then a man or more then a Christian as a Comprehensour is if it reach'd to Gods Essence less it could not make him Faith is not desirable for its Obscurity but for its Certainty We govern our lives by knowing the objects not by the defect in the knowledge Let a man see his way by the clear Sun and sure he will be as able to walk in it as by the dimmer light of a Star But you complain I reduce the mysteries of our faith to our narrow brains Sir you are mistaken It is the quite contrary you should rather accuse me of endeavouring to dilate our brains to the capacity of the mysteries by the help of Faith Why God cannot elevate our brains to understand what he hath deliver'd us to be understood You have not yet declar'd to my capacity You say when you are told Souls are not purg'd in the state of separation but at the reuâ—ion though the word remains your Faith is gone I easily believe you speak from your mind and that truly you apprehend the explication you frame to your self is your Faith and so that as many Christians as fancy divers explications of the same Article have so many faiths but by this way I see very few in the whole Church would be of the same faith 'pray consider a little that reflexion Nothing is more clear then your next Example You say you believe that Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our Souls in Baptism A Pope and a generall Council too declar'd that of two opinions of Divines this was the probabler and by saying so said this was not the faith of the Church and yet if this be not true your faith is gone Your next Example is to the same purpose that supernatural qualities are of a different series then nature
it a la mode has reason neither to take offence nor give any upon that account but civilly to proceed with a gentile and unengag'd indifferency as in a business that concerns him not enough to be angry about And if you have such an esteem of your Religion you shall do very well to follow that Maxim But if you conceit writing in Religion to be one of the most efficacious courses to breed an eternall and incomparable mischief to the readers if it be so handled that he may think both sides as men call it probable and that it sinks into neithers heart then I beleeve your pen will prove sharp and stinging as wee see the Fathers is in such occasions though some milk and honey towards the Persons bee mingled for Charity and Edifications sake Now let me perform my promise You say you cannot digest their boldnes who usurp the Authority of the supreme tribunal to brand any opinion with the title of Heresy whilest the Church has not done it to their hands Yet presently after you do it your self branding this opinion of Purgatory as Hereticall and bringing your Evidence that you are convinc't it is condemned And I pray who offâ—â—s to censure another but he takes himself to bee convinc't that it is against some Rule which he supposes sufficient to make a Catholick Truth as against Scripture Councils the generality of the Fathers or as you do against the Definition of a Pope and this to him is a Conviction that it is Condemned before he censures it Nor have you any more to build on than your own Perswasion that it is defin'd your self professing that the Question is brought to those niceties that one need have his Vnderstanding perfectly calm to judge of it So that on your perfectly calm judgment entirely relies this your censure Thus much to your self But as to the universall proposition of censuring opinions you seem a great stranger in the world For what famous Divine what University what Bishop is not thought fit to censure a malignant proposition Is there not regularly in all Dioceses some Censor Librorum expresly appointed Is not every Preacher subject to be forbidden the Chair if he advance a proposition that the Bishops Theologall thinks not fit to be suffer'd Are you ignorant of the pudder at Paris about censuring Monsieur Arnaulds letters which censure was not approved at Rome And yet you cannot digest their boldness who usurp the Authority of the supreme Tribunal to brand any opinion with the title of Heresy while the Church has not done it to their hands Know great Divine that the Pastor or Doctor who lets a wicked proposition run uncontroll'd among the people till means bee made to get it censuâ—'d and forbidden in Rome which how hard it is if the maintainer have great Friends may appear by the long contest betwixt the order of Saint Dominick and the Jesuits about certain propositions of Molina wrongs his own conscience and is unfaithfull to his vocation in suffering the infection to sink deeply into the hearts of the Faithfull ere he prepare an Antidote Besides when would the Pope take notice of what is publisht in France or England if no body cry Fire How many how violent out-cryes were there in France before the Jesuits wicked cases were condemn'd at Rome So that this principle of yours betrayes the Church into the hands of any potent Heresy that shall spring in a far Country Let me therefore intreat you not to use so uncivill terms towards all the learned Doctors of the Church I hope you will not be offended that I omit to answer some small-shot of yours in this Section that I may pass to the next in which I find my self taxed of a wrong Method in seeking Truth out of a story which as I do not particularly remember so am I far from denying for the Method you report as I understand you is truly mine that is as a Divine to find out the Truths in Philosophy and then the Mysteries of our Faith will square well enough with them and so I doubt not but I have been subject to declare it many times Nor can I conjecture who it was that gave mee the Answer you mention but shrewdly ghess that he either did not understand mee or the matter or both And because by your proceeding I fear you are in the same Errour I will endeavour to explicate my sentiments and leave the judgment of the cause to upright Understanders My conceit of matters of Faith is that the Scriptures and Creeds and sometimes also our Doctors deliver them in words well known but whose vulgar sence Divines see impossible to bee true For example where it is sung that the Eternall son descended from heaven the vulgar conceive a locall motion by which he came down into the B. Virgins womb and as I remember I saw it painted thus at Frankford in a Catholick Church whither I went to Mass The Holy Ghost above coming towards the Virgin and sending rayes before it in which was a little child carry'd by them towards that Blessed Mother An apprehension which the learned know to bee impossible So by our expression of Christ's sitting at the right hand of his father what doth a vulgar hearer imagin but an old man sitting in an high chair and his young Son in another set at his right hand I cannot believe you think it possible this meaning should be literally true To find out then the true sense I conceive Philosophy a fitting instrument So that by Philosophy we come thus to understand our Faith and by understanding it to be able both to defend it and propagate science out of it A certain sort of Divines if I wrong them not in calling them so there is who conceiting as soon as they have the words they know the meaning reckon not upon this way but cast about to find out more and other words that shall lead them to the defence and propagation of the known truths and think they must not look what Philosophy sayes but teach her what she ought to say This I conceive to have been the difference between me and the eminent Schollar that conferr'd with me When I had read thus far I expected to see the other Method strongly maintain'd mine as strongly laid flat on the ground but looking farther I onely find your own censure and that such a one as is hard to judge whether it be a dispraise or a commendation But whatsoever it is with mistake or addition From which last to begin you suppose I intend out of Philosophy to frame a Divinity and if I understand you right independently from Revelation which I am sure you can find neither in my words nor my writings but onely that revealed propositions were to be explicated by Philosophical ones known without Revelation Do you make no difference between inventing Divinity-truths and finding out the Meanings of the Words in which they are deliver'd Do not Lawyers dispute
far modester than you and profest as he did dislike my opinions so he dissented no otherwise than as one Divine does from another and had never descended to censure any of them Perhaps of this point you may have heard the contrary but I have it under his own hand The second mistake is that he admonish't me of this point for he never descended to any particular and this you might understand as partly the other out of my Dedicatory of my Ratio villicationis written to him and presented in his lifetime The third that I had fore-prepar'd my Book of the Middle State and presently sent it him For the reason of my composing it was the many popular noises rais'd against me by persons some ignorant some malicious as if I were an Heretick which forc't me to write the Treatise in mine own defence and I dedicated it to my Lord though I knew no particular Exception of his against this point but judged he might have some because the greatest cry was against it The Translation as far as came to my knowledge was not made by any design upon earth though by the event I perceive it was out of speciall Providence in Heaven How things passed on your side and what were the true motâ—ves of your publishing the Bull and that Testimony of the Council I can onely collect from the phaenomena of all concurrent circumstances of which you may perhaps hereafter hear more You say the Publishers of the Bull had no respect to the Letter of Vindication I think you aym at one I wrote in Latin to a Person of Honour which was presented Him and by him shew'd to some Jesuits that frequented his House and they can be witnesses of the Truth between us This afterwards as I hear was translated into English and printed If this be the Letter you speak of I would gladly understand why you imagin the Author conceits himself inspir'd with the Genius of Mont-alt whose spirit I confess I take to be very solid and pious and generously adhering to persecuted Truth Nor do I find it unlawfull that any should wish to be inspir'd with it but truly conceive my self far below the hope of such Excellences What you heard well observ'd that all the Protestant Divines of England would subscribe to the same Protestation which is in that Letter I beleeve purely upon your report But tell me first may a Catholick protest nothing that a Protestant will subscribe to or can a Protestant profess nothing but what he will perform Again will any Protestant profess to renounce any Doctrin found to contradict any Authority constantly acknowledg'd for Infallible in the Catholick Church meaning the same by Catholick Church as my writings declare me to do that is all those who adhere to Tradition Will any Protestant be content to have lost his cause if any decree of a Pope be expresly repugnant to him which I there also profess How maliciously blind then was the observer you follow who could not see such distinctive expressions How uncharitable your self who catch at and magnifie every rash cavill out of a tooth to disgrace and abuse him that never did you injury Your calumny of my denying Decrees of Popes and Councils shall be answer'd in its due place You say the Publishers intended not to enter into the lists of Disputation which I easily beleeve and that they were perswaded the very reciting the Bull and Canon would have knockt down the Book which you say was the occasion of their setting them forth beyond all Reply How weak a conceit was this for men that saw both Bull and Canon cited and explicated in that very book and could not be ignorant that in many private Conferences the same Authorities had been debated You thought your Capitall Letters would have dazled the understanding of the adverse party so that none would have dar'd to look further into the meaning of those Authorities But God provided that al should not be so light of belief nor his Church led into Error by such a misgrounded Interpretation of its Decrees You complain much in your tenth Section that this pious intention of the Dispensers was wrong'd As though you did not know that Intentions are secret and must expect their reward from him that sees the heart Men judge of Actions and your self confess the effect was that pious that is credulous persons received satisfaction that is were seduced into Errour by that cuning practice and yet you think it not occasion enough for an understanding man to discover so prejudiciall an Interpretation forc't on the Church and would needs have it a wrong to you that one unknown not intended to be hurt by you should take this pains as if every honest and ableman were not interessed in the Churches quarrell of so high a nature as to set up an Opinion that may prove when examin'd erroneous for an Article of Faith In your eleventh Section you begin to produce your Arguments whereof the first is that all Orthodox writers who have treated this Subject of the State of separated Souls since the promulgation of the Bull a foresaid suppose it as a certain Truth But how many such do you cite Surely of five hundred which have written since those dayes your Readers might civilly expect at least half a score that positively assert it as an assur'd doctrin of the Church But such is the irregular way of discoursing your eminent Scholars use that when they have audaciously advanc't a proposition whereof they know nothing certain if it be deny'd against all Rules of Discourse and Logick they put the Defendant to prove the contrary which peradventure concerns not him a pin whether it be true or no As in the present what concerns it my Faith whether many or few interpret the Bull and Councill as you or I say To make a new Article of Faith the definition must be so clear that none can doubt of it And ipso facto that it needs Interpretation 't is evidently insufficient to make a new obligation of Faith Again suppose your Antecedent be true does any number of Interpreters lock up the understandings of those that follow that they may not see more than their Fore-goers If you say yes shew us some seal of Infallibility in their foreheads by which we may know so much or else your Faith will be but probable but a peradventure I peradventure no and Interest or Passion must supply the rest And such I beleeve is your Faith of this your new-born Article though somewhat an older Opinion In your twelfth Section you enquire into the state of the Question and when you have recited it out of the Bul you presently cry Victory without ever looking into the words and sence that one may note in you the wonted disposition of your great Masters to read the words but seldom take pains to understand them The Bull then sayes that in the dayes of the Popes Predecessor there rose a Question
that is whether there were true fire in it was debated and so for any thing the Council says or I know it may be debated still Of the other points exprest in the decree of the Council there was an agreement without debate betwixt the generality of the Greeks and the Latins You go on pronouncing that in these professions both sides agreed against us directly and home to our point in question without expressing in what or bringing any proof of it For your self have before confest we hold both expiation and delivery and the onely question betwixt us is whether before the day of Judgment this expiation end of which though the very precise point we contend about you still have the ill luck to fall short you offer sometimes indeed to rack your Testimonies to confess what you desire were not the words too faithfull to their Speakers sence to be corrupted by you but if they will not do in Latin you have a trick to turn them into English and piece them our with stuff of your own making their sence to be this their present delivery whilst uncloth'd this you say the Council intended to deliver as the Faith of the Church in this both the Greek and Latin Fahers clearly agreed and yet plainly the conclusion I sustain was neither agreed to nor debated nor question'd if I be truly accus'd as the first Inventer of it nor so much as mention'd You conclude it must be an act not of understanding but of will to say presently signifies at the day of Judgment Truly it would be so and in the mean while 't is an act of ill will to impose on your Adversary that he sayes it Now a word to the discourse of an eminently learned Divine which you mark with the letter C. And for his learning I have nothing to say why it should not be eminently above yours but for his wyliness he is far short of you and if any thing corrupt his Judgment it is self-conceit and down-right passion his unhappy humors that strangely abound in him But I cannot omit to note in you that you had not the luck to give his Paper a convenient title but printed it just as he had written it for his own memory The entrance of his discourse is very good But his first proposition concerning the matter plainly and unexcusably mistaken for he sayth the matter in dispute betwixt the Latins and the Greeks was what Souls were admitted or to be admitted to eternal Beatitude before the day of Judgment A question that neither you as far as I can guess nor we ever found in this Council Neither do I remember to have met with such a gradation of Saints in any Author Therefore I leave this great Doctor to prove that there ever was such a question mov'd His next leap though he calleth it this question yet is quite from the question in hand being whether there be fire in Purgatory or no Which how it appertains to his mainly proposed question I leave to better wits to consider But I gather that this Paper was onely private notes not written in a form to be printed and that you have done very indiscreetly and to his dishonour to expose them to the publick He puts next the Latins position in which you who cannot pardon your Adversaries sloath in perusing of the Council omit a sentence most pertinent of any thing to the cause to wit that he who hath committed many offences is freed after a longer time of purgation but he who hath committed a few is sooner delivered which particularity had it been in the decision of the Council would have been something to the purpose and saved you the labour of corrupting the Council by your additions But I must note that this eminent man useth this phrase in this world and in the next for before the day of Judgment and after not as I think by affectation but by negligence which still more confirms me that the whole draught were but private notes and not fram'd for the print He goes on to give the variety of opinions concerning their going to Heaven in which he sayes the Greeks imagin that the Souls of just men have indeed obtained Beatitude but not perfectly and that they shall perfectly enjoy it when they shall be reunited to their bodies which position so far by his leave is common also to some principal Latin Fathers He adds that the Greeks say that in the mean while they remain in a separated place where they interiourly rejoyce entertaining their thoughts with the fore-seen and fore-known perfect Beatitude and adoption which is prepared for them But in the conclusion he seems to say that after many disputations the Greeks came to the ensuing resolutions which are well known In which he slaunders the Greek Church for it was but a part of them that maintained this last mention'd position upon the like Testimonies as John the two and twentieth did amongst the Latins so you see that his master piece for which he esteems himself so highly to wit to understand what the opinion of the Eastern Church was is a meer illusion bred out of the reading some Schismaticks works whom he took to be the mouth of the Greek Church For the Greeks themselves who at Rome write against Hereticks Profess that the Faith of the Greeks concerning Purgatory is contain'd in their Euchologies Ritualls which are ancient and used both by Catholicks and Schismaticks For as to their writers if you read one you know not who else will agree with him So various and irregular are their explications Now if their Ritualls and Euchologies be not more express then the Latins for your opinion you will easily see what will become of you there being not one word of delivery before the day of Judgment but all that is any way express referr'd thither which you are pleased to neglect though it be the publick profession of the Church and to seek birds-nests in the bushes of probable Authours Next then your eminently learned man makes his reflexions upon the word presently just as wisely as you perswading himself that we think the natural and formal signification of it is at the day of Judgment and insisting upon it because it is added onely to this member As if the reason were not evident to wit because the time was to be set down uncertainly onely in this member Presently therefore signifieth as soon as purg'd whensoever that be according to the variety of opinions He goes on to tell us that neither Greeks nor Latins doubted of the delivery of Souls at the day of Judgment which is very true and therefore also they put no more down He adds that the sole difficulty was of the precedent time as both their declarations do manifest But this manifestation was made in his learned brain for in the text there is no sight of any such contest betwixt them But it appears that the Greeks held their tongues about it and
the Latins were content they should do so At last your learned man would perswade us that it is most plain in Benedictus his Bull and that there the word Presently most manifestly signifies before the day of Judgment But because he sent me not the magnifying spectacles of Passion which he used I could not perceive such evidence He concludes with what may he judge of me who call this Definition of a holy Pope and Council a new Doctrin I pray certify him that I neither believe him nor you that the Doctrin I call new is either the Popes or the Councils Which that it may appear better I give you a few notes for our side upon the Council The first was that there was no debate betwixt the Greeks and Latins concerning Purgatory but onely about fire and with some Greeks about the Vision of God by confessedly just men so that your learned mans wilfull supposition of a strife concerning the gradation of Saints coming to Beatitude is a pure fiction without any ground of History and his whole discourse built upon it nothing but the humming of a Chimaera feeding upon entia rationis My second note is that whereas the Latins put in their confession that some of those who requir'd purgation came sooner to Beatitude others later The Greeks after they had seen the Latins confession quite left out that point and this upon the fourteenth day of June whereas the Latins put in their propositions the fourth so that you see it was not for hast or over-sight but because it was not settled amongst them as it seem'd to be amongst the Latins My third note is that the Greeks express the punishments of Purgatory to consist in griefs to wit for their sins and for the want of Beatitude which are the same in which I also think the pains of Purgatory consist howsoever you please not to take notice of it My fourth note is that the Latins never took notice of the Greeks disagreement in point of coming to bliss some sooner some later but proceeded joyntly to the Definition with words abstracting from both sides of this controversy All this is so manifest in the letter of the Council that there can be no dispute in truth of any part though of this later you and your learned assistant will force a disputation thrusting in a sence which the words bear not without shame or care of your conscience in so wicked an attempt as to corrupt a Council Now out of these Notes I frame a demonstration as strong as the nature of such a case can bear Where a difference is so plain betwixt 2 parties that it is not possible to be hidden from either and yet neither part takes notice of it it is plain they do not hold that difference to be materiall But there was a known and plain and unconcealable difference between the Greeks and Latines concerning this tenet whether some Soules were purged sooner then others the Latines putting it down expressly and the Greeks after having seen the Latins confession leaving it quite out and yet no quarrel or disputation arose betwixt them about this point Therefore neither part took it for a materiall point of Religion and Controversie Now then you see wherin consisted the agreement of the two Churches concerning this point to wit in this that neither of them thought it a matter to contend about I pray express your opinion in this point whether if the Latins had believ'd it an Heres'y to say one Soul was not deliver'd before another could they in conscience have admitted the Greek Church to communion without declaring their mind in this point and this after so open an opposition as to leave out all mention of it when the Latins had so positively express'd it If you think Councils can dissemble in points of this quality I believe the world wil soon confess that I as stubborn as you reckon me give far more reverence to Councells then you do Wherefore I press you farther out of the Council If any man should say it was an Heresy to hold there were no materiall fire in Purgatory or that it was not lawfull to consecrate in leaven'd Bread you would not spare to tell him that since the Council had declared it indifferent he stood not with the Council but seem'd at least to contradict it if he held it were a matter of Faith So do I press you since the Council hath pass'd this point for an indifferent one He that will say the opposite is an Heresy is malapert beyond his strength Arrogantia ejus plus quam fortitudo ejus You give us another paper which you say was written by a nameless Schollar of mine I could reply I have none For who converse with me I tell them they must see themselves not trust me which if they do they are Scholars to truth not to me If they trust me they follow me not and so are not my Scholars But I have too much ground to suspect you aym at some advantage against me by charactering him a very able proficient in my School and repeating it so often as if you would have men think that both Friends and Foes were all against me I must then once more tell you that the Authour of that Letter never was addicted to my Doctrin nor pretended to be my follower however you have got a trick to call all my Followers that will not censure me as loud as you nor willingly assent to your uncharitable carriage nor was he ever given to be curious in such kind of dissertations no not even to that degree as to have read my middle State which made him more easily liable to surprise in mistaking the Council at the first sight taking all for right which your learned Divine writ concerning it so that it was candid credulity of your Friends wrong relation of it not want of Judgment which betray'd him into the errour of imagining the Bull and Council on your side nor did he dream his Letter should ever come into print it being writ privately to the other as a Friend otherwise in likelihood he would have sifted the Testimonies himself and not have taken them on others account So that you first uncivilly print a private Letter of his surreptitiously procur'd without his knowledge then mischaracter him an able proficient in my School my Follower c. whereas what he writes is onely like a moderate and grave Christian who knows he is not even by Principles of Charity to interpret as disobedient one who publickly submits to the Church and so I look upon it as an act of charity not of particular Friendship to me But since you love to have it thought your party can gain some advantage against those who are proficients by my Books I will show you one your present Adversary whom your self character to be but a puny in my School and as I hear never appear'd in print nor set himself to write before yet has so
redemption of their friends out of Purgatory which I believe are those you speak of that hear not of this Doctrin without horrour Therefore Acute Sir you will or may see that your Argument is two edged and as the Auditours you speak of did not distinguish the degree of assent to this position from that they give to Faith so neither do they make any difference between it and the sleightest assent they have Thus may your Adversary by your Argument conclude any practise of the Church or common opinion of Preachers or generally receiv'd Ecclesiasticall storyes nay even the new holy dayes to be points of faith as well and as easily as you do this What difference of assent think you do the People make between these truths that there was a Saint Philip or Saint Jacob and that there was a Saint Bennet or Saint Augustin they hear of these far oftner then of those and seldom or never of the severall degrees wherein they are recommended to their assents Even the more prudent in many such points run currently on with an undistinguishing assent till something jog their thoughts and awaken them to look into the business then they begin to make it a question to examin and sift it and at last to settle it in its true box of Catholick or Theological or Historical faith or of some other inferiour assent You go on to perswade your Readers that those who accept of this Doctrin do it through comfortable apprehensions in lieu of great horrours before they were in and because it eases their consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their dead friends In the first you manifestly shew you understand not the Doctrin of your own Divines for we agree in the grievousness of the punishments or if we disagree in any thing it is that mine is the severer For the difference of our positions is not in what the punishments are which we both agree to be acts of the will Our difference is whether these acts of the will be caused by the force of nature in spirits as I say or by the force of material fire as your Divines maintain Which was the cause why when I explicated the nature of Hell in a Divinity lecture one of my Scholars told me I made Hell worse then it was For in truth the force of a material body is not to be compared to the strong activity of a subsistent spirit as any Divine will easily guess In your other point you seem to have fram'd your conceit out of conversation with Women and Children whose desires are violent at the instant but soon pass away and not out of the consideration of men whose counsels are govern'd by a far prospect and aym at perpetuity So you flatter poor Women with the hopes of relieving their friends the first morning or the first Saturday or in some speedy time and get present monies fit to make merry with for one day never reflecting that the ancient and manly charity for the dead was to establish Foundations and perpetual Anniversaries by which the memory of our friends and prayers for them was often renew'd and long continu'd whereas taking your Principles we need neither much fear the terrours of Purgatory nor seek new wayes to ease our Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting our departed friends since one Mass at a priviledg'd Altar will do the work alone and a very little sum of mony procure that Mass without going to the cost of Dirige's and such like chargable Offices And here I must ask my Readers my Adversary's leave to correct one suspition I had unawares entertain'd that Interest might have some influence upon the Defenders of this short stay in Purgatory I was deceiv'd and now I see they are no wayes accusable of that odious crime anciently great alms were given and those often repeated for the assistance of one Soul and so the Church and Church-men gain'd much and grew rich apace Now there is open'd a far cheaper way one piece alone and that of silver too dispatches the business Surely out fair and numerous and rich Monasteryes were not built and endow'd with such petty Contributions After this you proceed to the arraignment of me before my Bishop or a Nuncius Apostolicus But there want two things to make your arraignment good first that the people be inur'd to Tradition and to prefer the received Faith of the Church before all other Doctrins From the danger of which your Divines will secure me while they teach the People that the Church when it is sayd to be inerrable signifies the Pope alone that all the People may err that General Councils have no strength till they be seal'd by the Pope and so I shal have this help to appeal from them to the Pope let my Doctrin be as opposit as it will to all that hath been hitherto the belief of the Christian world The second thing that wants to the perfect arraignment is that you have not yet found out so weak a Bishop that will believe a Doctrin sprung from uncertain Visions foster'd by unlearned zeal and strengthen'd with an Exposition of a Council or of a Popes Bull against the rules of Grammar Logick and Divinity is the belief of the present Church In the mean while I give you great thanks both for your setting forth my plea against Luther and honouring it with so high an approbation that it thunders and lightens home For besides that the knowledge of that form of proceeding against Hereticks is very necessary it will give me a testimony that I am a good Christian and if I be not a very beast I have not committed an errour to fall under so gross and so well fore-seen a Censure To the charge it self from what I have already said you may gather my clear and full Ansver that the Doctrin I sustain is not by me pretended to be of faith but onely not against faith as also that the doctrin I oppose is not and Article of faith and supported by Fathers and Monuments of Antiquity and immemorable Custome but onely an Opinion not very ancient nor ratify'd by the consent of Fathers nor of so long a standing that it's beginning is not well enough known perhaps the later yet for its time as much prevailing doctrin of priviledg'd Altars may live to be as old as this is now and as common too will it therfore deserve to be put into our Creed or can it ever become an Article of faith which the whole Church professes is but an Opinion now And are not these differences betwixt Luthers case and mine whom you so charitably endevour to parallel sufficient to distinguish our dooms Examin them but once more and I will make you my Judg. Onely forget not these words which your self put down as part of my method to convince an heretick That the Authority of things which wee stand bound to beleeve descends handed down from CHRIST our B. SAVIOVR and no otherwise
am hard of belief But you ground it upon this that Onely God is the searcher of the Hearts which although one might interpret to signifie the revealer of Hearts and find Texts of Scripture to that purpose yet I go not that way but tell you when God is said to be the knower of Hearts he is condistinguish'd onely to men and if you will have the sence reach farther you must prove it For it is against the principles your self uses to wit that Angels know all our material motions of our phantasie and sensitive appeal Now if there be no act of the understanding without a fancy agreeing to it Nor an act of will without a proportionate motion in the appetite you will leave few actions unknowable to Angels But our Saviour say you tells us Angels knâ—w not the day of Judgment And truly if he had not included himself in the same phrase the place would have born a great shew but since he that is to be the Judg cannot be thought ignorant of what he is to do I believe the meaning is that none makes that day known but onely the heavenly Father whose proper day it is in which he shall receive into his own hands the Kingdom which he had put in his Sons hands to be administred till that day as being his right hand and chief Instrument of Government and supernatural motion And this is a known Hebraism for in the Hebrew the same Verb in one Voyce signifies to know in another to make known nor want we such instances in our own Language To learn one a Lesson and to teach one a Lesson that is to make him learn it being the same signification Your other place that they rejoyce at the new conversion of a sinner wants one word to make it fit for your purpose to wit that they rejoyce of new For if they rejoyce from the beginning as God doth from all eternity it will come but lamely to your design In your 33 Section you go on with your questions easie to ask but long agoe resolved but as to you to little purpose seeing you do not take the pains to understand the answers As for the Arguments you bring out of Scripture they are already answer'd in my Institutiones sacrae but must be repeated because you take no notice of them yet so shortly that they may not be tedious to them who have read them You object then that the Dragon drew after him the third part of the Starrs but why this was not done in a moment you bring not a word You say also this Doctrine that Angels cannot immediately act one upon the other destroyes their Conversation for all eternity Sure you mean their Grayes-Inn Walks or Spring Garden where they use to walk together and treat one another or their Academies where they meet at Musicks or bring their Poems or discourse of news or some such like entertainments Are you not asham'd to dream of such follies in pure Spirits learn of Aristotle that man is a sociable creature but beasts or pure spirits not the one being below it the other above it But did not in the great Battel in Heaven one Angel work immediatly on another Yes but not by gossiping and tampering one with another to dispute or perswade them into the conspiracy but by example and by being the Objects one to another As when one scandalizes another by sinning in his sight But say you the Indivisibility of their Actions which is the foundation of this Doctrin is unsound since it will never be evinced that an act of a spirit cannot coexist to a greater or lesser part of time Sir If you gave us security of your spirit of Prophesie we would believe what you say of things to come till then we will grant your Proposition as it lies unwarily couch'd but not as you mean it For the Acts of one spirit may be longer then those of another as we said before of different souls but that is not your meaning but that the same spirit hath successive acts one of more duration another of less And this you should have prophesy'd of why the Argument of Indivisibility did not convince For speaking of one onely Angel either he is in some act or in none If in none either his nature with the pure force of his Power which the schools call Actus primus can burst into an act or it cannot If you say it can then you must put a thing first not to do after to do without any change that is to be not productive and productive of an Act that is two contradictories without any variety Put him now in act either his Essence with this Act abstracting from all other circumstances is productive of a 2d act or it is not If it be not then out of this Essence this act abstracting from all accidents he will never have a second But if the Essence with this Act is productive of a second act then as soon as he hath this act he produces the second that is both together or else as we said before the same thing without change will be productive and not productive and so of as many acts as follow in this sort one of another that is all that be in an Angel by his own power without external help or determination So that the conclusion is all such acts must be in the same moment altogether Your answer is that this is true of one act but not of all But you must shew that the Argument doth not convince as much of every one as of any one or otherwise it is but your bare word against a convincing Reason though you boldly term it a gross Errour But you press that I hold all causes are fixt and set as to all effects whatsoever from the very beginning to all future succession I pray distinguish the proposition you infer against me from this other There is no effect but had a cause and its cause had another cause and so till the beginning of the World For if you mean no more then this I must admit it howsoever you will please to miscall it If you have another meaning when you teach it me I shall tell you whether it be concurrent with my sentiment or no As for your crying out that 't is Pagan Fatality that it destroyes the liberty of God and the Contingency of all created things if of these three words though I doubt not but you have talkt them over often enough you understand any one I will yeeld you the honour of being my learned Master and shall not contest with you in Divinity But in the mean while I must defend my self from your assaults in your four and thirtieth Section wherein you accuse me that I fix upon Christianity and the Church an Ignorance of separated substances meaning by these great words those that hold the probable opinion which you maintain as also a most gross abuse upon the Angelicall St. Thomas My
eloquently proper Style the diffusion of the Discourse the multitude of experiences even in Arts wherein I am totally ignorant do exclude me from the vanity of pretending to so excellent a piece so do they discover to the world the rashness of your impotent Envy My part follows next in the subscription of my Peripateticall Institutions the naturall sence whereof being Thomas an English man of the Whites of Essex you are pleas'd to transform according to your good will You add I say my Institutions are according to the Minde of that most eminent man and excellent Philosopher And as for the first Epithet I have the unanimous Testimony of all that know him and are able to judge in what consists the worth of abilities in the arts both of peace and warr And for the second concur with me all those in Italy France Germany and England whom their own industry and aequability of minde have made worthy to read his Book What your following discourse sayes of my Institutions I candidly confess and am bound to thank you for sealing it with your good word saving still what you cite out of the Consilium Authoris where is no such matter as you express though your sincerity can allow the puting it in a different letter as a citation from the place And therefore I see even when you make show to cite the very words the Reader must look the place if he will not be mistaken Though you seem to speak of a Point which all Peripateticks acknowledge to be done by Aristotle long since and so needs no greater excellency to perform than to have read and understood him It seems by your requiring Faith in your Reader that in your schools you do not use to let your schollars see evidence to anchor them in your doctrin but you propound some easy and plausible perswasion to tickle and inveigle their belief and so need none of those strange terms fit sequitur consequens est c. for no one thing follows another in your doctrin All are either primò nota or postremò ignota in your Philosophy Your next quarrell is that I say Divinity is inaedificata to Philosophy Lord how you would have been troubled if I should have sayd that Faith is grafted upon the stock of our naturall understanding and Charity on our Will and yet I beleeve this will prove the tenet of your eminent Schollars Now if this be so sure it is less absurd but not less necessary that our Divinity be grafted into the stock of our naturall Speech and words whose meanings and Definitions Philosophy must open to us I pray then be not offended with this word Inaedificatà e for it signifies not super aedificatae nor has the force to signify that the strength of Divinity comes from Philosophy but that Philosophy is the wax into which the seal of Divinity is printed which no learned ingenuous man will deny For if Definitions be the Principles of Science and Philosophy defines the words Divinity uses it must needs have a materiall priority to it Next you tell your Reader my Philosophy and Divinity are so perfectly squar'd that if I had not made a Division of the Books it had been impossible to know where one ended and the other began Honour'd Sir you know I am but a poor man and cannot give rewards for good turns done to me therefore I beseech you to be content with humble thanks For I owe them from my heart First to God who gave me to perform what you say or rather did it by me next to your self who so kindly acknowledge and divulge it For I see not how you could give a Schollar a greater praise than to signify that the contexture of not his Paragraphs but even his Books are so closely connected But to check my too much feeding on your praises you give me a knock with every bit you say I banish supernaturality evacuate Christian Faith admit nothing on other grounds than Demonstration all calumnies as false as bold and so can do me no harm where your bare word is not blindly beleev'd SECOND DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section sixth to the fifteenth The Ground-work of the Vindicator's impugnation of the Middle State found to be a most groundless Calumny The occasion of writing the Middle State the Letter of Vindication and that in Answer to the Dispensers of the Bull and Canon His weakness in arguing in stating the Question and opposing his Adversary IN the sixth Section you seem to come to the Question and cite a large Text our of my Peripateticall Institutions adding at the end this conclusion of your own This is the Essence the Substance of his Purgatory this is his whole chain or deduction of it this is the grief he admits in separated Souls c. Is it possible Sir you should thus forget all truth and honesty First you cite out of a Book where there is no more mention nor thought of Purgatory than of the Dungeon of Constantinople where Method permitted me to treat of no more than I had before layd grounds for where I had not made any mention of Christianity or Christian Felicity or Unhappiness Where in a word I could onely speak to pure Naturalists and yet you boldly pronounce this is the Essence the Substance of his Purgatory this is the grief he admits in separated Souls whereas the whole bufiness is both in the Sacred Institutions and Middle State the Books which purposely treat that Subject so quite differently and so at large explicated Pray Sir furnish your self and me with some excuse why you omit those Books which designedly handle that matter and cite out of another which handles it not at all and then upon this false and abusive pretence lay the whole Ground-work of your future impugnation The seventh and eighth Sections consist chiefly of my words and so I may omit them till there arise some occasion of farther examination onely I must note that at the end of your eighth Section you profess your great care fully to deliver the foundations of my new Fabrick of Purgatory yet make no mention at all of the Institutiones Sacrae or that there is either Scripture or Fathers or Theologicall reasons alledg'd in my Book of the Middle State by this sly trick seeking to draw your credulous Reader into the conceit that there is no other ground for my opinion than a Metaphysicall Argument whose force because they do not penetrate you may shake it off with crying 't is non-sence In the ninth Section you tell a forged story whether out of Ignorance or Malice I leave to your conscience that my Lord of Chalcedon admonish't me of this point and others and that I was ready with a premeditated Apology In which though short there ly three mistakes First that my Lord admonish't me For though he were my Superiour though one whom a long-well-spent Age great study and many writings had made awfull to our Church yet was he
It is indeed St. Thomas his opinion and a pure Scholastical one nor Universally receiv'd Yet if this notion of supernaturality be lost your faith is gone Good Sir take faster hold on it and let not your faith slip away so easily from you Again you believe the mystery of the Trinity but if it depends as to its deducibleness on what is Essential in God you doubt it is not your faith though all Divines will tell you all that is in God is Essential If St. Thomas explicate the Unity and Plurality in God by the Unity of Action and Passion in motion your faith is lost But chiefly if any miscreant or Imp of Hell as your Love-letter Complement is should say the names of Father and Son were derived to God from what we observe in natural Generation of living Creatures which being a materiall thing can be no otherwise in God then by Metaphor then your faith is different from those who explicate it so that is all the Divines I have either read or heard of who universally agree in transferring Aristotles Definition of Generation to the blessed Trinity You go on and tell us you have hitherto believ'd that God most freely and of his own goodness built this Vniverse and that he is not necessarily ty'd to the order and course of Nature All this is well but now you are taught that God must contradict himself if he act any thing against nature And what signifies this but what is consequent to that for if God be the builder of nature He hath setled this order which we call nature most freely but yet he hath done it and if he hath done it he cannot undo it again without undoing what he hath done which in English is called contradicting himself For one to contradict himself is to change his mind or will which it seems is your faith that God can do Another Article of your faith seems to be that out of the very series of nature Judas might have escaped being damn'd whereas all Catholicks agree that out of the pure series of Nature St. Peter could not have scap'd being damn'd At last your faith descends to flyes and wheras peradventure if you had thought should God have had the mind he had not formerly to make another fly his resolution that is his Essence had not been the same it is now your faith might have been the same with mine But by falling immediately upon the fly you have quite lost your faith And your conclusion comes to be the same with this that if God ties himself to any thing and so remains ty'd he is become a pagan Jupiter I confess this is not my faith You march forward telling us if God neither command nor forbid any thing all morality is lost All this would be well if you told us what you meant by Command if no more then Commonwealths do when they appoint rewards for them who do well and punishments for malefactors upon which morality consists your faith may be the same that mine is For so I profess God commands not onely by setting rewards and punishments but by denouncing them But if you have a special notion of commands importing a meer will or humour to command without designing any benefit to the obeyer then I cannot help your faith though we agree in these words God forbids to steal commands to honour him c. Then you begin to prognosticate how you will discover out of my works a morality that Escobar never thought on And truly I hope you will if you take pains to understand them But if you only use words and never look what they signifie you will do good neither to your self nor others To give an Essay of my Morality you bring this position of mine that Another man is no otherwise to me then a peece of Cloth or Wood which I cut and shape after my will Even though I do him harm or seek to ruin him I do him no wrong And you ask how this agrees with that Principle of Nature that we ought to do to others as we would have them do to us I can onely say if it doth not agree I was mistaken for I brought it to shew the ground the second Principle had in nature and my deduction is this Reason teaches me to use Cloth like Cloth and Wood like Wood and consequently a man like a man that is to think that fitting for him I think to be fitting for my self seeing a man is of the same nature with the Considerer Lastly you are afraid if faith yield to evidence our notions must be chang'd and in that you are not much amiss For I also conceive the notions of one who understands what he sayes are different from the notions of him who doth not and upon this subject I will propose you a place of St. Austin which seems to me very home to the purpose 'T is too long to copy out therefore I pray read the 26 27 and 28 Chapters of the 12th Book of his Confessions and specially reflect upon the divers sences or understandings which divers Christians have of the same places of Scripture and I may say of the same delivery of Faith The example in the end of the 27th and the beginning of the 28th is in a manner our very case There are two understandings of the Creation of the World one weak the other strong both necessary for divers sorts of people If the weak man when he hears the more intelligent explicate his faith should cry him down for a Pagan as taking away faith it were no wonder For so we read of a good Monk that had been an Anthropomorphite who when he was taught that God was a Spirit that is had no hands feet face c. as he before had fancy'd him cry'd out he had lost his God and perhaps was likely enough to call him a Pagan too that deny'd God such a shape and explicated to him according to the nature of a Spirit and like a Scholar those places of Scripture which begot and so suted to that fancy of his But no Scholar would judg him a great Divine for doing so If you read these latter Books of St. Austins Confessions you shall find that by natural knowledg he directed his understanding of Scripture and Faith and consequently was as very a Pagan as my self And so did all the Fathers by reason convince Hereticks follyes when they could and this is the duty of a Scholar which Saint Peter preaches to us and Saint Paul told us he practised among the Perfect giving to weaker stomacks Milk and not strong Meat By this Sir you easily perceive my principal aym to wit what I have learned by Faith and Tradition the same to understand and defend by the help of Sciences which I think I cannot do unless I first understand the Sciences themselves and not frame the Sciences to Faith before we understand what Faith it self teaches us How ridiculous is it that what apprehensions we made of our Creed when we were Children the same we should retain when we are men Or what Conceptions clowns frame to themselves in Religion Philosophers and Divines should be oblig'd not to transcend under pain of being esteem'd Supplanters of Christ and his Doctrin Evacuaters of Faith Miscreants and I know not how many other such ill-favoured names as you give me too often up and down your Book Think but how contrary 't is to mans Nature and the profession of the Church to forbid Learning to hinder men from searching the true Meaning of Gods word from endeavouring to come to Demonstration as near as we can to cut off all hopes of Certainty and confound all Sciences into a Chaos of probability Good Sir since God hath created us to Science and set our Bliss in the knowledg of himself since he hath given us a strong inclination to it do not seek to plunge us into a despair of it and confine us to the eternal darkness of knowing nothing If your self be discourag'd hinder not others to endeavour Should six persons find out but six conclusions there 's so far advanc'd those six may each of them produce six more and so go on with an unbounded improvement whose multiplying fruitfulness as we cannot conjecture so surely we ought not either to envy or obstruct IN your Postscript where you promise to make all such things good as depend on matter of fact before any Person of Honour I understand not well your meaning by this word matter of fact But if false citations go under that name I pray clear your self of this imputation I charge you with that you say I put the pains of Purgatory to be the irregular affections to worldly things A proposition you have so often rvepeated and urged that you cannot deny it to be deliberately and examinedly done So false and injurious that you cannot refuse to acquit your self if you be indeed Innocent And for a Close give me leave against your next Vindication to offer you this note not as a Rule for who made me your Superiour that I should flatter my self with thinking you would perhaps obey me but as a friendly intreaty that since we have experience enough of your power in Rhetorick you would wholy apply your self to solid and usefull reason This if you deny at least let me prevail with you to put at the beginning and end of those periods where you intend to be bitter some visible mark that I may save the labour of reading stuff so unsuitable both to you and me as also that some other of your Readers whose ears delight in such janglings may directly pick out the parts that most agree with them and not be diverted by your other less impertinent discourses whereas in your last work all is so jumbled together and closely woven quite through the whole piece that for my part I can scarce distinguish the strong sence from the blustring Satyr If you intend to write like a Man and like a Scholar take some Treatise or Book of mine end wayes then show either the Principles weak or the Consequences slack else every one knows that in Discourses single Paragraphs subsist by their fellows and so to impugn such taken apart signifies nothing FINIS