DEVOTION AND REASON FIRST ESSAY WHEREIN Modern Devotion for the Dead is brought to solid Principles and made Rational In way of Answer to Mr J. M's Remembrance for the Living to pray for the Dead By THOMAS WHITE Gent. In quo quemque invenerit suus novissimus dies in eo eum comprehendet mundi novissimus dies Aug. Epist. 80. ad Hesychium PARIS MCDLXI PREFACE To the Gentleman who sent me Mr. J. M's Book SIR PEradventure you may desire as well my Judgment of Mr. M's Book as the answering of it In Brief then The man I knew many years ago and concieved a good Idea of his honesty and such Learning as could then be expected from him He went after beyond the Seas where as I heard he follow'd other studies and at his return I saw him once but had a good Character of him from a common friend as touching his Honesty For as to his Learning either my friend had not try'd it or we had no occasion to discourse of it With this Character of his Person I undertook the reading of his Book In which I find all the Arts necessary to the dâ—fending of a bad cause with as little shame as is possible He brings known Heresies for his defence of lawfull Authours he stretches their Persons to the heighth their words beyond their extent if he lights upon an Authority of some Church Book you would think it were the Definition of a General Council he so presses the Authority of the Church for it By Interpretations and Translations he makes them say what he lists He imposes upon his Adversaries Erroneous Doctrin sometimes because he hath not taken the pains to understand them and other times because otherwise his cause would be openly gone He specially presses my opposition to Popes Bulls as ayming by confirmation of them to have me censured Of two the one he corrupts the other he understands more like a Banquier then a Divine and yet sets his rest upon them Most of his Arguments are from places common to both sides A great weapon with him is to tax his Adversaries Arguments as employed by Hereticks to prove Errours not knowing that it is a principal Method of gaining Science to use the Arguments of extream Errours to conclude the middle Truth a way much practised by Aristotle and very laudable For as Aristotle teaches there is nâ— famous Errour without some truth in it seeing wiâ—h â—t shew of Truth Nature could not receive it He hath made a Collection of good and bad I think of as much as can be said but seems to make no distinction between those that have some weight and those which have none His Answers are sometimes the admitting of plain Contradiction sometimes admitting of all we say and for the most some difference in words more then in meaning Yet he brags fearfully of his great Exployts and Triumphs When he pleases he explicates my opinions in disguised Language and ordinarily imperfectly I hope his Book will prove the decision if not of the cause at least of the handling of it He hath had two great Advantages against me One by which a witty Spanish Preacher called Padre Mancio overcame his corrival to a Sermon in a Country Parish For putting him to say his Pater noster in Latin before the People to try his learning when his corrival said it right he would correct him according to the false pronunciation of the common People which the People applauding preferred him So your Authour has the Advantage by explicating Spiritual things corporally to have the apprehension of Ordinary both Men and Divines and consequently the applause for him The secend is that he hath commodity of Books which to me being a stranger and unknown and in a Town not extraordinary boâ—kish are hard to find for which reason I am fain to be content with the faults his citations afford without being able to give so ample satisfaction as the seeing of the works themselves might have made me able to exhibit Yet all this doth not cause me to make an evil apprehension of the man I know the nature of the cause and the perswasions he hath been imbued with must needs have this effect that he must help himself by all the means he can and very likely is conceited that he doth Sacrifice to God in making my opinion seem the worst he can His way of Piety his instruction to handle Divinity by the Authorities of Authours whose Votes have no force his Obedience and the Utility of his Friends all drive him to this I on the other side am forced to treat sometimes his opinions rudely sometimes his Arguments because the English Tongue makes our Controversy exposed to such Judgments as are to be told what the nature of proofs or saying are and well it falls out when even after telling it they be able to see it But I do not desire any of my sayings should reflect 〈◊〉 his Person for his Learning beseems well enough the Narrative Divinity that he hath followed which hath no deeper root then whether some Classical Authour under which nation comes many a mean Divine hold such an opinion and if some Number hold it then it is Canonized for good Doctrin But it is not my Theme here to declaim against the weakness of vulgar Divines but to recommend my pains and self to you desiring yours and your friends opinion of them and of Your ever Friend and Servant Thomas White FIRST PART Refuting the Arguments from Authority and Reason against the Doctrin of the Middle State FIRST DIVISION Containing what in the first four Chapters concerns the Authour to answer The Adversaries misrepresentings of the Author's Doctrin and mistakes of the Council of Trent His Arguments to prove that some Saints of the Old Law reassum'd not their Bodies drawn from Authority and their remaining Reliques shown inefficacious and springing from shallowness in Philosophy SIR 1. THE Book you sent me put me in mind of a punishment St. Hierom reports to have been used to some Martyrs whom first the Pagans anointed with hony and then exposed to be tortured with flyes and gnats For so it serves me first it declares my opinion reasonable candidly It testifies that I aim at shewing the Fabrick of the World to be a perfect work of Wisdom and not a wilfull and arbitrary government Thus far is Hony for if I do perform it questionless I play the part of a good Divine if I do not at least he gives me the commendation of intending it Some parts of my opinion he explicates not well but I conceive it is our of mistake One thing he fumbles in which was plain enough Whereas I put in a sin three parts the strong and resolute Affection Reliques in the Soul after the resolution is changed and lastly the outward Action and give to all these for punishment their several proper effects so that the Resolution which is properly the Sin may be forgiven and cancell'd and
that on their side can have no ground but Revelation this ungrounded Innovation is in matter of Revelation and we know onely Faith is the proper matter of Revelation Their opinion then is a piece of Faith as to the matter and should therefore have but hath no ground of Revelation 5. Your Divine replyes that he groundedly challenges also six hundred years before It is a folly to dispute this Question He speaks in supposition that he has layd solid grounds My answers are since made The two being compared men of wisdom and learning are to judge how solid his grounds are to make such a challenge upon He challenges us to shew one Authour who doth so much as by one Word insinuate that our opinion did grow to be more Universally received in the Church these last five hundred years then before it was A strange and shameless confidence Did not Odilo make it Universal in the Order of Cluny Did not the Pope command the Feast Did these make no more Universality See how many Revelations were before those days and how many since do all these signify no more Universality And this may serve untill his fourth Number all before being but the supposition of what he hath not done 4. In the fourth Number he tells us it cannot be deny'd but for these five hundred year all who have pray'd for the dead were instructed by their Ancestours to pray for the present either ease or delivery of the Dead Yet it is deny'd him that their Ancestours taught it them as likewise it is impossible to prove and improbable to beleeve that all were so taught We know Doctrins that are new first infect one part and then another and so by little and little get a popularity The reason why it easily attain'd to this is because the Corporality of those substances which we hold to be spiritual was long held in the Church nor is yet perfectly out I have heard men learned as they are generally called that is of much reading affirm that there were no simple substances but God and declare that this was the common opinion of the Fathers You see this opinion is very conformable to the apprehension of all who are not Metaphysicians And our opinion depends wholly of the Spirituality of Angels and Souls the which even those who follow follow but imperfectly For the nature of Science is to be attained by pieces and degrees so that we must not expect that all who hold the Soul and Angels to be Spirits should discourse of them as pure Spirits ought to be discoursed on St. Thomas took away proper Locality from them but is weakly followâ—d not onely by other Schools which are filled with Ubications but even in his own Now Immutability which Aristotle demoristrated of Spirits is not as yet accepted any thing commonly But if once it come to be thoroughly looked into it will be as well as Illocality and your Divines opinion of Purgatory as much rejected as the Corporality of Spirits is 7. To return to our purpose This apprehension of Corporal Torments and succession and parts in them being so natural to mans understanding also the ending of them was naturally apprehended as a thing conformable to the rest and so all this Doctrin when it began to be superadded to Tradition was received as conformable to it men not penetrating the consequences that followed out of the souls being a Spirit And otherwise seeing nothing contrary to Christian Piety before the excess came to be so great that it grew but a sport to deliver souls out of Purgatory This began to make men reflect and abhorring the excess to look into the causes of the mistake and to find it proceeded hence that some who ventur'd to meddle with Divinity without sufficiency in Philosophy in liew of explicating the Metaphorical words in which Scriptures and Fathers deliver Christian Doctrin that it may be common to learned and unlearned the which is the proper duty of a Scholastical Divine undertake to justify that the Metaphors and Allegories are to be understood according to the very bark of the Letter and to force the learned to have no other apprehensions then the unlearned have and so to understand Spiritual things corporeally and to cry out against them who seek to apply Incorporeal modifications to Incorporeal Substances So that the reason of the vulgarity of this opinion is because Animale is before Spirituale For what was deliver'd by the Apostles was onely that Prayers should be made for the dead You may note specially in St. Austin and St. Chrysostom that having much occasion to speak of Prayer for the dead they are earnest to report that this could not be unless some good arrived to the dead thereby but are as carefull not to tell any good in particular for fear of missing in what they had not found sufficient ground in Scripture 〈◊〉 declare Weaker men finding the question started resolved by the proportion to what they saw in human actions without reflecting upon what the Conditions of Incorporeal natures required and upon this apprehension follow'd the multitude of Visions and Revelations to confirm this position the which being coloured with two gratefull sightfullnesses Piety and Wonder easily got a great strength amongst the meaner sort of learned men and the multitude of the unlearned 8. In his fifth Number he presses that the Apostles taught the faithfull why they should pray for the dead and therefore he argues that motive must still remain in the Church I answer the Apostles taught them to pray for the dead to receive their reward at the day of Judgment as is beyond exception plain in St. Pauls prayer for Onesiphorus and abundance of Scripture and Fathers as may be read in my Treatise of Purgatory and is still conserved in the Church Offices 9. In his sixth Number he repeats the pressing of the Bulls so fully answered and of the cause of the keeping the Holy Commemoration of the dead and this holds to the end of the Chapter Onely I must note himself confesses Number the sixth that the Popes Decrees are not of the point it self but of others necessarily connexed with the point So that if his discourse do fail him there is no prohibition even by his own words of our tenet and out of what we have said it is easy to see it doth fail him And by consequence that all the ground they have is but a pious credulity 10. In his 16 Chapter and the last of his proving discourse for afterwards follow the answers to my Grounds he professes to deliver the fundamental reason of his opinion And I suppose in his first Paragraph he would say if he did dare speak out that he had none Yet not to scandalize his party he must make a shew and so in the midst of his third Number he saith our opinion is Paradoxical which is all the reason I can find And as for that I must remit him untill we explicate our
duration of every Angelical â—…ellection did not hold up more parts of our time and therefore must needs be higher then our time But he will say they have a time of their own and so cast us upon the other question what it signifies Time to be true which he understands as little not knowing that in Analogical Terms or such as are by design equivocal no secondary sence but onely the primary is the true sence of the word 9. Out of this he proceeds N. 21. to exemplify in the Locality of Angels in which he tells us that we know they are truly in a place in St. Thomas his Doctrin Whereas St. Thomas tells us it is per se notum sapientibus in corporalia non esse in loco That to wise men it is known of it self or without need of proof that spirits are not in place He concludes that men should content themselves to know that St. Michael was ever in Heaven as properly as Christ descended in-Hell I must answer so they do but that is to know that neither is properly spoken no more then it is properly spoken that the Sâ—n of God descended out of Heaven at his Incarnation And because they know that both are improperly spoken therefore they endeavour to know in what sence they are spoken that they may not chatter words without understanding like Magpyes as is the use amongst his Divines He adds it is no hard matter for a Scholler of ordinary capacity to conceive the succession of Acts in Angels Which is very true but peradventure it is a hard matter to overcome that apprehension and to see that Angels cannot be governed like Bodies nor are to be apprehended to have such a succession To the like purpose is it that he says that our absurdities will be infinitely increased by putting that the acts of a spirit are her very substance For the good man understands not that the playstering and mason-like Philosophy he has been bred unto is the most prostituted absurdity that can be taught 10. Pag. 378. He begins to answer objections and first this that if there be no inâ—rinsecal change the torment cannot be greater for the passing of time And he doth ingenuously confess it cannot But when he comes to apply his Doctrin he first advances this â—bsurdity that in our corporal torments there are no parts but the same part of the torment is put in more parts of time I do not wonder that an oversight might escape him whom peradventure weariness had dulled but that he had never a friend or overseer of his Book that could tell him corporal torments were motions and had their divers parts proportion'd to the parts of time I can hardly beleeve mine own eyes when I see it in his Book I pray consider to what absurdities their positions leads them it The next absurdity is nothing less though peradventure more cover'd He grants that if there be no real change there is no greater pain and he puts that time purely makes no real change but what it puts the same pain in a new time Be it so Where is the real change in the pain No for you say it is the same To be the same signifies not change Where then in the tiâ—… you say that adds nothing Where then in the putting of the pain to the time He says not so And it is plain that signifies but permaâ—…e or that the pain is the same in a 〈◊〉 time Where all novelty or change is in the time and onely in the time So that he puts both parts of the contradiction the pain without change is no greater and the pain without change is greater and in matching of these lyes his solution 11. After this he hopes it will not be hard to answer another objection he will put and he has reason For such solutions which admit both parts of a contradiction to be true are most easy to be made and impossible to be reply'd well against But let us hear the objection Saith the objectour if two acts be indivisible they cannot succeed one the other but they will be together This your Divine makes to be the objection and answers No they will not be together but succeed one the other And then says St. Thomas well observes this and that Aristotle for want of knowledg in Scripture knew not this and that he has proved it by above a dozen better demonstrations then this so often miscalled by that â—ame What can I say to this great Doctour Whence your Divine hath taken this Argument I cannot remember though my fancy gives that some where I have used Letters in this or some like subject but I cannot find the place I find the substance of the Argument is in my twelfth Account of the Treatise of the Middle State But there it is put in this Tenour that seeing the act of a Spirit hath no parts nor is capable of them either it will dure but for onely one moment of our time or else by by its nature it will dure for ever To dure for one moment of our time is not to dure at all for there are no instants in time or motion for they signify nothing but the not-being of motion Now if you assign a part of time in which this indivisible act continues you give it a duration essentially above the nature of time and therefore by its nature to endure all time if not longer then time There is added to this Argument this confirmation suppose of two acts which begin together in divers Angels one be put to dure longer then the other without any real addition of duration wherein can this consist that is it consists in nothing and therefore is impossible and Chimerical Of this Argument he brings no more then that of two acts succeeding one must needs be together with the other without any proof why which makes me think he aym'd not to bring this Argument though he professed to answer all he had ever heard of By the form of the Argument as he relates it the Authour of it seems to aym at this Conclusion that two acts of the same Spirit cannot be disjoynted by an intermission or Cessation from all act because there would be no medium but this your Divine seems not to â—ym at So that I can see nothing into this Argument but that it is imperfectly related Unless peradventure the Arguer takes the duration of Angelical acts to be purely Instantaneous as are the instants of time and your Divine speaks so ambiguously that a man cannot understand by his words whether he ever lookd into that point or desir'd to meddle with it For Aristotle hath demonstrated that two such instants cannot be together and that St. Thomas made no scruple to admit though your Divine seems to contradict Aristotle in his Doctrin which may easily be for not understanding either St. Thomas or the question or the force of a Demonstration As he plainly shews by bringing in Zeno's Errour in
Yet I may deliver one Doctrin which I know not whether he has reflected on or no which is that before Christ Miracles belonged to the Ordinary Government of the Church by God Almighty since Christ and his Apostles time these are become parts of Extraordinary Providence This I speak by reason of his great insisting upon pains in the Old Testament which followed not connatural to the sins For no small part of the motives proposed to the Jews were temporal Commodities which are propounded unto Christians meerly as accidents not to be sought for according to that saying Quâ—rite primum regnum Dei caetera adjicientur vobis And St. James tells us Siquis indiget sapientia postâ—let a Deo dabitur ei but for any thing else he does not tell us so but we know they are sometimes granted and sometimes denyed But in the Old Law the Prophets fore-told both punishments and rewards and they failed not Now that sort of Government is turned into a better and we have order to govern our selves by Reason and Faith is given us to help and strengthen our Reason that it may reach the motives propounded to us out of the state of the next World and to expect rewards and punishments there which spring out of our lives here according to the words of the Apostle that Afflictions here do work glory in Heaven and the other that their works follow them And this to those who use understanding Divinity is signified by the word meritorious After this he makes a repetition of some Arguments many times told over and at last Number 12. he tells us that he never sayd that after that God is in part pacified there still remains in him a boyling of his fury not quite allayed But says he we speak of a most just and rational proceeding in God c. What mood the good man was in when he wrote this I know not For the words express as if he meaned that before God is in part pacified there were in God a boyling of fury and not a just and rational proceeding 6. I told you somewhat of the signification of this word Meritorious but I fear I must eat it again For in his 24. Chapter Number second he tells us that when Nature by Death hath put a man out of this World she hath put his soul out of her reach c. So that now in this state the nature of a meritorious cause occurs to be consider'd by Divinity and Aristotle his Philosophy must stand in great part out of doors Farewel then poor Aristotle and his Philosophy Yet because he is a Philosopher he will ask a cause why he should be turn'd out of doors Let us then look into this Mystery If that a Work-man hath bestow'd a days work upon another man's ground he receives at night what according to the manner of living in that Countrey and the quality of the work is esteemed equal to his labour If a Souldier in a Battle or Siege did eminent service towards the winning of the â—attle or Town his General consults what is fitting to stir up others to dare the like and the Souldier receives it And both the Work-man and the Souldier are sayd to have deserved their rewards Another Work-man for example a Watch-maker makes a Watch and hath it and the fruit of it to know the hour of the day but is not sayd to deserve the Watch. And another Souldier goes out upon his enemies and getteth a good booty and is not sayd to have deserved it What is the reason of this variety of language Why the later used the natural causes of the effect which by their own force produc'd it The other got not this particular reward by a natural but by a rational means that is by pleasing one in whose power it was to bestow it upon him If this be well discoursed then also concerning Souls rewards if they be such as follow not out of the force of the disposition which their works have made the Soul to have in the next world but God by his arbitrary will determins to give them what he thinks best out of the General Principles by which he governs the World these rewards will be sayd properly to be deserved On the other side if the rewards are necessarily consequent to the disposition on which the Soul departs out of her body they will be properly called Effect improperly to be deserved 7. Applying this to our case that is to the pains of Purgatory let us see what is to be said And first I ask what pains doth the fire of Purgatory inflict upon the Souls I suppose your Divine will answer Griefs and Sorrows The next question are the griefs of Objects that deserve to be grieved for as it is fit for Holy Souls to have I suppose he will again say Yes The third question Would not she of her self have all those griefs I think he cannot chuse but say Yes and not put a new fault in the Souls not to have a grief which they ought to have The fourth Question is If she have this grief is it not a punishment layd upon her by God notwithstanding that it proceeds from their natural inclination which God gave them amongst other Reasons to punish their faults I know not what he can deny The fifth Question What then does the fire do make the same over again or increase it The former answer is absur'd To the later we ask the sixth Question Is not the grief of a holy and separate Soul proportionable to the offence or ill it did in this World If it be God's Justice requires no greater If it be not a probable cause must be rendred why a less sorrow would have quitted the sin in life and now such an excess will not Or else for any thing that I see Aristotle will claim a share for his Reasons in the next VVorld as well as in this which if your Divine will grant us we will in silence pass over his two first N. N. 8. In his third Number he cuts out a new piece of work to his friends which is that an act of contrition which they put in the first instant of it's nature taketh away pain as well as guilt therefore say we it must take away the pâ—ins of Purgatory if it hath there power to take away the guilt as in this World it usually does and would do if that act were here done seeing it springs out of the whole Heart and power of the Soul His first answer is that Bellarmin hath say'd much to this difficulty which your Divine passes over with a Besides and upon so good an authority I cannot doubt but that it deserves to be lay'd aside His second Solution is out of Saint Thomas which neither your Divine does stand to nor as it seem Saint Thomas himself making no mention of it in a later work where he handleth the question largely Wherefore omitting it let â—…me to the third
he can press this Decree against me he must shew there is no other way of remitting Purgatory pains Which certainly there is since all Catholicks agree that the satisfactions and prayers of the faithfull and alms-giving do assist the souls of Purgatory So that the Pope by such means may redress the souls of Purgatory more assuredly then by Indulgences And when this is done by way of Command it is as full and perfectly a pardon to the souls as if it be done by the application of the merits of the Saints For they are assuredly in the Popes Jurisdiction and may be applyed by him of the others it is questionable and otherwise the way is the same both being the applying of the Church's merits 8. Yet have I one scruple more about this pointâ— Why your Divine changed the words of the Sentence condemned by the Bull which I find to be Quod Papa non potest indulgere alicui vivo poenam Purgatorii Now these words alicui vivo quite alters the question and makes that the Bull doth no way touch what the Pope can do to the souls in Purgatory and the leaving out of these words wholly disgraces both the Bull and the Pope making him speak against the received opinion of Divines both before and since his time who for the most part agree that the Pope hath no Jurisdiction over Purgatory and cannot absolve men from the pains of it Which is contradictory directly to the words your Divine cites to wit that the Bishop of Rome can pardon the pains of Purgatory For a proposition taken abstractedly to be censur'd must be understood in the proper sence of the words and the proper sence of these words The Pope can forgive the pains of Purgatory is that he hath Power and Jurisdiction over Purgatory to forgive punishments there which some one Divine may have â—eld but 't is generally rejected even by Martinus Roa that great Visionaire What should I think of this â—…eless proceeding and corrupting a Pope's Bull in so main a point Truly the good opinion I have of the Authour of the Book will not let me think he did it maliciously but rather to guess that the Bullary consen'd him having copy'd this Bull out of some negligent Transcriber to whose Errour I impute this fault â—or the Ballary is not a publick work but the collection of a private Authour who cannot be free from such mischances Wherefore I let him understand that the Text I cite is out of the Authentical Copies which are conserv'd in Spain 9. Next he brings in the Bull of Leo the tenth against Luther to what purpose is hard to say For I do not know that any man makes difficulty of the three propositions he cites as therein condemned The propositions are these The first that the Treasures of the Church whence the Pope giveth Indulgences are not the merits of Christ and his Saints This proposition was well condemned in Luther who denyed Indulgences and the Pope's Authority in them but what it hath to do with my opinion who profess that the Pope when he remits sins or the pains due unto them doth it in the same Authority in which St. Paul did who clearly says he does it in Persona Christi I do not understand For I think that includes the merits of Christ and to be an immense Treasure if it can be called a Treasure that cannot be consumable in the least part of it The next condemned proposition is that Indulgences to those who do truly gain them do not avail them to gain pardon of the pain due to actual sins by the Divine Justice This proposition may well be Luther's a boystrous fellow more clamorous then understanding But how it can be apply'd to my way of discoursing who profess all punishments Natural Civil and Ecclesiastical which follow sin to be the punishments due to God's Justice which is the plain sence of Scriptures Fathers and Councils falls not into my brain For assuredly he gains not Indulgence who gains not the remission of some of these pains 11. The third proposition brought for condemned is that to six kinds of men Indulgences are neither necessary nor profitable to wit to the Dead c. As for this proposition I think his want of Divinity is cause why he applyes it to me because he understands not how any thing can profit the dead unless it be immediately put into their hands Which Errour of his likely enough is the cause of applying all the rest to my Doctrin For when he hears the Pope pronounce these propositions to be false he presently appprehends the Pope had the same fancies which he has and therefore can mean nothing else but what rings in his Ears Whereas Pope's use to hear all opinions and then to declare so abstractedly as not to hurt any Catholick Tenet but onely what is against all Catholick Doctours 12. But to understand more fully the case it is not amiss to set down a discourse related by Francesco Chiericato Bishop of Fabriano and Nuncio to the Diet of Noremberg against Luther sent by Adrian the sixth with whom he had much acquaintance and confidence He wrote a Diary of what passed in Rome in the beginnings of Adrian the sixth's reign and in it this History How this good Pope had as it is yet to be seen in his works written of the nature of Indulgences and his opinion was that when an Indulgence was granted to any one for doing a good work the work might be so done that the whole Indulgence might be gained But if the work were not perform'd perfectly enough then the performer gaineth so much of the Indulgence as answereth in proportion to the imperfect work This thought the good Pope to decree ex Cathedra and propound it to the whole Church but first communicated his thoughts to Cardinal Caietan who had been a great Student of this question by oâ—der of Leo the Tenth and by the necessity of dealing with Luther and both a better Divine and more practised in the World then Adrian was This man as to the substance of the Divinity-question agreed with the Pope and told him that he stedfastly believ'd the Doctrin in his conscience yet had so carryed it in his writings that none but the most Learned men could draw it from his words Further he gives reasons why he thought it not fitting this Doctrin should be made too publick to the common people 13. This story the Authour of the Roman History of the Council of Trent doth much disparage And as far as concerns the Historical Verity it concerns not me but that at least it is ben trovato that is a likely and rational History seems to me evident out of the opinions of the two men extant not onely in their works but confessed in the Roman History For he confesses tom 1. l. 2. c. 4. that the subtilty that Adrian the sixth invented consisted in this that every good external act might bud out
men so wilfully seek to blind themselves and others in a question as clear as that two and three make five Suppose of those Divines whom the Pope heard in this question the one held that souls were delivered before the day of Judgment out of Purgatory and the other as stoutly deny'd it And the Pope asked them whether at least they agreed in this that whensoever the souls went out of Purgatory they went straight to Heaven and both answered yes they both hold that the Pope could not without nonsence tell them he would define that which they both agreed upon without mâ—dling with the question they disagreed in And if this be as plain as that two and three make five if it were the ordinary Rule and proceeding of the Fathers in the Council of Trent as every one may see in the Catholick History of it is it not pure frowardness and pertinacy in your Divine to spend some four leaves to prove this Nonsence But you may reply for him that there was no such opposition of Divines First I ask how he knows it for he hath cited never a Diariâ—… of what passed about making of the Bull. But suppose there was not doth what passed a day or a month before make the Pope's proposition as it lyes to be Sence or Nonsence And the substance of this answer by all probability your Divine had read in Religion and Reason pag. 69. since though without naming it he often cites it and yet resolvedly rambles upon other solutions without taking notice of this which was the main I would intreat my Reader who shall not be satisfy'd with this to read the place newly cited for this Divines Catching of Larks and Pope Joan is such stuff as deserves not to be looked into 13. In his twelfth Number he falls upon the Council of Florence but speaketh nothing of any consequence which hath not been answered Wherefore I reâ—it the Reader to Religion and Reason p. 58 59 60. 14. N. 13. he turns us back to his fifth Chapter where he had mention'd Gennadius and the truth is my answer there was short and must be still For although I am secure that what I there sayd was true yet I am desirous to see the Book it self before I give a fuller answer not to your Divine but to another who before him objected the same Authority a great deal more strongly against me There remains no more in this Chapter but to joyn in prayer with your Divine for the good man who published in English this Bull of Pope Benedict and the Council of Florence that every Judicious man may see who truly stand to their words and meaning and who do violently strain them against both words and sence NINTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his fifteenth and sixteenth Chapters Universality of Opiners no way obliging to Belief His bold and weak Challenges That the imagin'd Corporeity of Spirits grounded the Opinion of their Mutability What foâ—…ed and spread it A short Account of J. M's weak performances hitherto 1. HIS fifteenth Chapter carries for title The Verdict of the Catholick world for us A brave title 〈◊〉 and I will do him that right as to testify he follows it handsomely His first Argument is that suppose the delivery of souls before Judgment had been but a probable opinion yet Universal to all Pastors Doctors and leading Teachers for five hundred years it would be far more rational to follow it then another which should be pretended a Demonstration but for whatsoever the Auditour can tell may have some horrid Errour ly for a while couched in it which might in time be discovered To this I give two answers 2. The first is that in Metaphysical rigour of truth no multitude of men can be so vast no gravity and wisdome of them so high and great as to oblige any ingenious man to beleeve that which themselves profess they do not know whether it be true or no. â—or all Belief is grounded upon the knowledg of another If I be secured he does not know the thing I should beleeve upon his credit I have no ground of belief for upon this point he is a pure Ignorant If you reply though he do not know it to be true yet he thinks so I must answer that I ought to beleeve him the less seeing he is not so honest to himself but that he will cozen himself by trusting that to which his own conscience telleth him he ought not to trust Now this is the condition of all those who hold a proposition as probable And therefore though all the world for five hundred Ages had held the deliverableness of souls out of Purgatory onely as probable in rigour it made no advantage at all 3. My second Answer is more accommodated to human practise and it is taken out of Nature and Experience out of which St. Austin took it This distinguishes Mankind into two degrees One that is able fully and properly to judge of a truth proposed with due proof and as it should be The other that either for natural dullness or for unwillingness to take pains is not in state to look upon truth in it self and therefore is fittingly to be governed by Authority To the former no multitude nor time can bring obligation to refuse a well proposed Verity as long as the contrary Authority is uncertain The other ought indeed not to meddle but if by any necessity he must do beyond his reach it is clear the greater number ought to oversway with him as far as he is not able to weigh the worth of both sides By these two Answers you will see the pleading of multitudes of Opinatours will not much advantage your Divines opinion further then amongst them who ought not to meddle in such questions 4. Although this evidently ruines his Argument yet I cannot omit to shew another weakness unsufferable for its plainness For he adds that if they had no other witness then of the Latin Church for these last five hundred years this alone were not to be sleighted I pray why not Is not the contrary Testimony of the Greek Church predominant over the Latin where there is but an opinion of five hundred years on one side and one thousand five hundred on the other Nay put case the Greek Church were not against it considering that the subject is a matter not otherwise to be known then by Revelation were it not intolerable to bind any man to the belief of it otherwise then because it is revealed which if it were but of five hundred years standing were impossible to be For the Church professes no Revelations for her guide since the Apostles dyed If then your Divine professed no farther he must confess it to be a weak and ungrounded Innovation For supposing it cannot be known but by Revelation and that there has been no Revelations these six hundred years it is clearly wholly ungrounded And because the subject is a subject of Revelation that is
prayers we say for other motives And comformable to this we ought to understand that rule that it is an injury to a Martyr to pray for him to wit as we pray for other Dead or for remission of his sins But that we may not joyn our prayers with theirs for the glorification of their Bodies I do not know Their prayer is recorded in the Apocalyps and the Answer that they must expect until the number of their Brethren be filled up Nor do I see how we can leave praying for them as long as we say Thy will be done for in that we pray for all things which we know to be God's Will that they shall be done And I fear 't is onely a blind Reverence not any knowledg in Divinity which keeps him from quarrelling with the Church as doing a superfluous action when she prays in the third Secreta of the Sunday Mass in Lent ut omnium fidelium nomina beatae praedestinatiâ—nis liber adscripta retineat 18. Out of what is hitherto discoursed it is evident that to accelerate the Day of Judgment is to cause it and all the good that shall be there done to any body and that therefore it cannot be question'd but that it is a great good But he presses the term of Acceleration and I must give accompt why we use that term which is because we find it to be Christ's own word He told us that propter electos breviabuntur dies illi And though he spake literally onely of the time of Antichrist yet we know all the rest hath proportion and Analogy to that What good is it which the Elect gain by this shortning of those days What but to be saved This same good get the Souls in Purgatory their Beatitude But your Divine's Fancy is so fixed upon their pains to have them decrease or increase by time that he cannot think of the substantial change from Pains to Bliss The which if he did consider he would not tell us Christ did no considerable favour in delivering the Fathers out of Limbo He would not tell us he that had more prayers got no more then he who had fewer unless he imagins prayers can get no other good then the relaxation of pain If in this World prayers can get all sorts of goods can it get nothing in the next World Do not the Saints tell us that prayers accompany Souls to the Tribunal of God that there they bring respect to the Person How this is to be understood is another question Two things are certain One that this is another thing then releasing from pains the other that these prayers make his reward the greater All therefore your Divines Arguments that he who hath no prayers shall have as much as he that hath many miss of their aym For in the payment comes the difference and your Divine cannot cast his eye once upon that his heart is so frighted with the pains By this you easily see that the apprehension of this good from the first instant in Purgatory must needs be a lessening of their pains in Purgatory For we do not esteem the Doctrin he learned from the Devil that it is just when the prayers are saying or said And though our Divine's discourses that then they begin to have efficacy is conformable to the Nature of the Prayers it is not to the Nature of the Souls which are to be helped which also is to be respected As for the Fathers they must be inched out by his good Translations or Explications or else they will not come home but favour our opinion 19. The first part of the proposed difficulty we delay until the 22. Chapter in expectation of a fuller accompt The later we find chiefly to be grounded on one Errour and one Carelesness The Errour that he makes God's Providence uncertain irresolute and depending on not making the comportment of the Creatures The Carelesness that he wholly neglects the good gotten by prayers at the Resurrection which has it's effect in the whole state of Purgatory fixing his discourse onely upon that which is no good So that of this Principle he hath no more to say now then that he saith that to put the acceleration of the Day of Judgment to be the fruit of the prayer for the Dead is an unheard novelty And I conceit it to be the chief fruit of all our prayers commanded in our Lord's Prayer containing our final Beatitude which should be our greatest if not our onely prayer He adds it will make many lay aside praying for the Dead I can say no more then that I wish they were better instructed But he is afraid that if the Day of Judgment come sooner fewer will be saved though our Saviour was of the contrary mind and tells us that if the time were not shortned non fieret salva omnis caro God was forced once to drown the World and shorten men's lives because all flesh had corrupted their ways to wit by the great adhâ—sion to corporal objects thorough the long enjoying of them Once again will he be forced to destroy the World by fire for the like malice of men In the mean while he is forced to contract the length of it that more may be saved and the number of the Elect come up in a shorter time I cannot omit his pleasant consideration that some will have a horrour to pray for the Day of Judgment because then the bodies of the wicked shall go to Hell O pious meditation to have a horrour that that should be done which Christ shall command with his own mouth and themselves if they will be partakers with Christ must have a share in O pittiful hearts that will not pray for the glorifying of their own bodies for fear that thereby others bodies may be cast into torments Yes but there is another secret which is that peradventure their own body may be one I perceive he makes them as prudent as the Spanish Souldier who lying on his Death-bed is reported when he had occasion to speak of the Devil still to term him Senor Diablo and being evil used if he fell into his hands as he had experience that it hapned to Souldiers to fall into their Enemies power by the chance of War Numb 22. He comes to the third Principle of how the Fire of Conflagration works upon those in Purgatory of which we have declared our Sentiment in the fifth Number to which I must remit you not knowing when I answered it that it would be repeated here over again Onely I must note that he understood nothing at all of what I sayd so that his Objections are against pure mistakes Numb 24. he repeats very stoutly that I deny any pains to be due after thâ— remission of the sin though it be most manifestly against my Writings and Doctrin in all places where I have occasion to speak of it in my Sacra Institutiones in my Book of Purgatory and Reason and Religion c. He is
so out of the way in the whole that I cannot set him right for he mistakes all and makes no sence of my sayings of this point and corrupts what he cites of other points Therfore I must seek the remedy of desperate evils to cut out all this discourse as incurable until he having read what I have written upon his fifth Number become capable of speaking and hearing fence in this matter THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his Eighteenth Chapter Bellarmin's Errours advantageous to Hereticks The Arguments in the Middle-State from Scripture maintain'd to be solid and the Adversary's mis-interpretations shown weak and inconsistent 1. SO thorough many Brambles we are come to his eighteenth Chapter In the Preface of which he gives me two warnings The first that in reason he should expect some clear demonstration to justify the abandoning the known persuasion of the Church And although I have already justify'd that it is no persuasion of the Church but onely a popular Errour which I forsake yet will I not insist upon that not to make needless repetitions But I must tell him he must not expect to see clear demonstration For that belongs to them that have scientifical eyes and not to them who learn onely to bable of what they understand not A Demonstratour must begin from the first Principles of Philosophy and drive them on to his Conclusion not take up his opinions upon Reasons that fall into his mouth out of the Ayr. What he takes out of Faith he must not be onely able to say the words or cite them out of some good Book but he must be sure to understand them well and see that his Explication contradicts neither Divinity nor any other Science And of these two courses neither he nor his Masters as far as I could see were ever guilty They take Texts and urge the letter without ever penetrating the sense and foregoing all principles they fly at every question with fantastick flashes like Hawks at their prey where ever they spy it 2. His second warning is that my Arguments are the out-casts and refuse of their Authours And I am far from denying it For indiscreet people are as subject to reject the best as the worst and if I be not mistaken in hâ—s Authours they ordinarily chuse the worst Opinions for themselves being men that in Sciences hunt after vanity and the pleasing of the unlearned mustitude and so are fit to make a shew in discourse until the weaker sort be beyond their speculation but never understand things solidly nor are able to give satisfaction to sober Wits who look into the depth of a difficulty He concludes that we never take notice of the Answers so fully made to the Objections we take out of his Authours I will not return this upon him and ask him how many Answers he has read in Religion and Reason and my other Writings which he hath read as appears by the impugning of the Doctrin yet will not cite that he may say he knew not of those Solutions which he impugns not But I will onely say let this encounter betwixt him and me bear testimony how fully and solidly the Answers are made 3. He begins his plea with telling his Reader that I borrowed the first and chiefest Objection from that infamous Heretick Ochinus How does he know this Bellarmin says Ochinus uses this Argument What then therefore I found it either in Bellarmin or Ochinus How proves he that The Spirit with which he writes tells him so And my Spirit tells me that the Spirit which tells him so is the Spirit of Errour and Calumny For when I wrote my Book I had neither Bellarmin nor Ochinus Nor did I ever study Bellarmin so much as to remember such particularities out of him I am not ashamed if I had taken any thing out of Bellarmin to acknowledg it For I acknowledg him to be the best Dictionary of Controversies I have seen but a man must beware how he trusts either his Arguments or Solutions Yet he is very good to suggest to a man occasions and matter that may be well used Neither should I be ashamed to use any Argument I had found in Ochinus or any other Heretick so the Argument be solid to my purpose And it is the prognostick of cosenage in the carriage of the cause to make such exceptions An Argument is good and bad by it self not by his Authour and Aristotle used to find the middle truth by comparing the falsities extreâ—mly opposit and so if I by comparing Ochinus and your Divine should find the truth to ly in the middle I should think my action deserve honour and to be profitable to the Church Let us then look into the Argument it self Ochinus to prove there was no Purgatory argu'd if there be a Purgatory then Souls are delivered before the Day of Judgment by prayers but that is false by the Text alleaged c. Now Bellarmin if he had been a solid answerer would have deny'd his first proposition and told him whether prayers deliver'd them before or not yet Purgatory remain'd safe and Ochinus choak'd that he could not have open'd his mouth and this Answer I have found printed at Rome against the Greek Hereticks 4. This Errour produced a greater to wit that their great Bellarmin was forced to confess that the words of the Scripture as they ly or in the plain sence are false and so he fairly betrayes the Catholick position of Purgatory to set up his own fancy For his solution says that these words If there were no Resurrection signify ' If the soul were not immortal which be so different meanings that by many Philosophers the one was confest and the other deny'd So that the two propositions are neither the same nor such as that their connexion is plainly seen Therfore to make this good he fains a third either falsity or at least not proved nor very probable which is that the writer of the second book of Macchabees wrote after Jonathas his time when by reason of a firm peace the Jews fell to dispute about their Law and so into great divisions and sects Whereas by probability this Book was written in Judas his time For it makes no mention of his death which it had been a fault to leave out if it had passed before the book was written which if it be true these words must not be spoken against any infection of Sadduces but of Greeks who had long domineer'd over Jury specially in Antiochus his time 5. His fourth Errour is that he makes our Saviour also make a false Argument and to conclude the Immortality of the soul in stead of the Resurrection and to make this consequence Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's fouls are alive therefore Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's bodies shall rise again The which would not have silenc'd the Sadduces but rather have made them contemn our Saviour For they better understood Resurrection then the being of an abstracted spirit
Day of their Judgment and another thing to be presently crowned by our Lord. In this Translation He puts in two words the first before the Tribunal of Mercy the other Their which break the sense of St. Cyprian for other faults I mark not We must first note that all this is spoken of the next World as the antithesis proves For to come presently to Glory is in the next World so then must also be the waiting for Pardon which he explicates to stand before the Tribunal of Grace for Pardon whereas it signifies no more then as yet not to be pardoned Again what the Saint calls to pendere in die Judicii ad sententiam Domini which signifies plainly to depend of the sentence our Lord shall give in the Day of Judgment he translates to hang in suspence concerning the Sentence of our Lord in the Day of their Judgment So that by false translating and adding he changes the whole mind of St. Cyprian because it will not fail with his opinion And against all sense puts one part of the Antithesis in this world and the other in the next What Saint Cyprian speaks plainly of the Day of Judgment by adding their he makes it to be spoken of the Day of Death For it is plain the Day of Judgment taken without determination signifies the last Day the private Judgment being called so neither properly nor at all without one explicate himself to signify so much He objects to excuse his violence by necessity that the Souls of Purgatory are not in suspence of their Sentence It is answer'd not S. Cyprian but he only uses that expression And that there is no doubt but that the Souls in Purgatory depend for their delivery from the Sentence of that Day which is the natural sense of the place He would fain persuade his Auditory that this place is against us because there is an expression of length of time as if I held that time stood still betwixt the death of a Sinner and the Day of Judgment 9. In the next testimony cited out of Saint Chrysostom telling us that One siphorus should have his reward in that dreadful day when we shall stand in need of much mercy his Solution does so waver that 't is hard to find where it lyes As to that part that One siphorus shall then receive his reward he seems to say nothing but rather to deny that most faithful men shall need mercy at that day whereas it is not onely St. Chrysostom's nor onely Saint Hierom's or Saint Hillary's whom he cited when he would persuade us that we should not pray for the acceleration of that day chap. 17 Nu 21. but the apprehension of all the Christian World and for this reason because 〈◊〉 must then render an accompt of â—ll our actions Saint Hillary specifies of every idle word And here denying their standing in need of mercy he infers that then they must be in a sad condition until then How will he excuse this from being a contradicting the general apprehension of the Church But the good man seems to be afraid that if we pray for mercy at that day we should pray to have none before a very superficial and weak consequence seeing the means â—o have mercy then is to have mercy in other things before-hand and that the mercy there will not hinder the fore-going mercies but rather compleat and increase them 10. Lastly he comes to St. Augustin and first to a place in which St. Augustin says that at the Day of Judgment those who have not Christ as a Foundation are condemned those who build upon that Foundation Wood Hay and Stubble are punished for that is the force of the Latine emendantur that is purged His answer is that they are sayd to be purged by that fire because that last fire by not touching them shews them to be formerly sufficiently purify'd Is not this a very curious explication they are punished id est not touched they are purged id est purify'd If these be good explications let that pass for good also that a Poet making an Argument to the first Chapter of Saint Matthew wrote Priâ—â—ipium vita Christi libâ—r aâ—stinetiste and set in the margin Abstiâ—et i. e. câ—â—tinet 11. The next Text of St. Austiâ— tells us that the fire of Judgment divides betwixt the carnal People who are to be dâ—…ed and the carâ—al who are to be saved Yes says your answerer by not touching them or if it doth touch some quickly dispatchiâ—g But this fine Solution is against the word Carnal which signifyes that there is in them purifying matter which is not in spiritual ones His second Solution by not refuâ—ing the universality of the word carnales admits that this fire belongs to all câ—râ—ales salâ—â—ndâ—s as well as to all carnales â—…s 12. There follow two places out of St. Austin in which St. Austin sayth that in the Day of Judgment the sins of some are to be remitted which he easily puts off by saying those some are such as dy so lately that they have not been purged But the evil luck is that St. Austin makes this Argument in the later place that unless this were so there would be no remisâ—in of siâ—s in the next world Which is to say that all that are remitted in the next world are remitted in the Day of Judgment which is invincibly to say there iâ— no reâ—ission of 〈◊〉 before that dâ—y iâ— the â—â—xt woâ—ld Aâ—…â—aâ—â— Argument is repeâ—… in the neâ—t â—itation to which he â—nswers he verily thinks that it is spoken not of remission bâ—t of â—aâ—â—festatiâ—n How rationally he thinks so you may judge ouâ— of Christ s words which are shall not be remitted in this world nor in the next Did any man ever hear such a hobling construction as to make the same word remittetur not as much as repeated joyn'd to in this world to signifie true remission and joyn'd to in the next world to signify â—â—nifestation Have we not need to study Grammar again to understand so obscure speeches As for Pope Gregory I cannot remember his very words yet as far as I do remember them they reach onely to prove that there is a râ—…ion in the next world but not that it is made at the Day of Judgment 1â— The last Text of St. Austin is that in what state a man dyes in that he will be found the last Day This â—e says we esteem much and I think with good reason for the words are plain His Solution is that after this life there is no more merit nor demerit which he proves to be St. Austin's opinion but needed not for we not onely agree but hold it more rigorously thâ—â— he and his Bellâ—rmin whom he cites But we question what has that position to do with these words Iâ— what condition every 〈◊〉 lâ—st day fiâ—ds him in the same shall the worlds last day catch him For these words signify no kind of change to be