of discharging punishments also But they will chuse to put this act of contrition to be made in the term of separation where merit and satisfaction have no longer place and the inevitable necessity of suffering only remains And then I shall demand from whence they have learn'd that blemishes can there be rectifyed where penalties cannot be mitigated Nor is there more strength of reason in this that the merits of the living may avail them but their own not so For could their proper merits be regarded all Purgatory according their own grounds were at an end for the perfect charity and coâ—â—â—â—ition of separated souls being exercised with the whole force of their substance would in one moment set them free Again what Piety what Justice hath enacted this Law that the distressed souls may not pray for their own delivery Can any thing be more absurd They make them such Favorites of God that for us they can obtain many graces whilst for themselves they can procure none I remember to have heard a Divine whom a printed course of all Divinity had already raised above the lowest form prescribing this advice or receipt that whosoever had lost any thing should promise upon condition he receiv'd it to procure so many Masses for departed souls and failing of his hopes should fail also in the performance thereby to compel the souls to obtain of God the recovery of what had miscarried O pitiful and sordid Divinity such a train of absurdities follow the admission even of one unexamin'd Principle To make up the compleat dozen Let us reflect on the abuse of the name it-self and observe that whilst they vainly labour to establish their own they destroy and annihitate all manner of Purgatory For to purge cleanse and the like expressions clearly import a supposition of stain and blemish in whatsoever is said to be purgÌ„ed and cleansed and in like sort to amend and rectifie presupposes faults and imperfections if you then take away their stains these imperfections you take away all Purgatory For certainly to smart and suffer is not to be purged but finally to be condemned or undergo the last sentence of Damnation But the Patrons of this kind of Purgatory lay this for the very foundation of their doctrine That the imprisoned souls are already holy and full of charity and consequently incapable of being purged Much better therefore and more solidly then they did the Poet philosophise in the sixth book of his Aeneids who having after his manner made a description of â— the torments of the damned thus proceeds to that of Purgatory and its causes Nor when pâ—or souls they leave this wretched life Do all their evils cease all plagues all strife Contracted in the Body many a stain Long time inur'd needs must even then remain For which sharp torments are to be endur'd That vice inveter are may at last be cuâ—'â— Some empty souls are to the piercing winds Expos'd whilst others in their several kinds Are plung'd in icy or Sulphureous lakes Each hath its doome cach one its fortune takes From whence â—e to the Elisian fields is lead Where few alas the pleasant alleys tread What could any Phylosopher meditate more sublime and noble That corporeal affections by depraved habits penetrate into and infect the soul that they are not by death extinguish'd but carry'd along to the next world whereby the souls are punished and their punishments become truly Purgatory or expiating that their torments are proportionate and of several degrees which degrees are taken from the division of Elements that is corporeal Agents from whence the disordered affections themselves have their roots The pursuers of Honour and Vanity are tormented by the wind that is their being puff'd up with Pride Those who delighted to wallow in sordid pleasures by the fluidness and momentariness of their fleeting enjoyments Lastly the Potent and ambitious affectors of Tyranny with their own ardent and truly enflamed desires That finally after this state of Purgatory they are made Denizons of Paradise and those speaking of the times he liv'd in but few the multitude whose sins were mortal and irretractable remaining engulf'd in eternal miseries The Sixteenth Accompt The thirteenth Exception That their opinion is opposite to the expressions of Scriptures of Fathers of the Church of the Councel of Florence and Benedict XI ANd I would to God the inconsequence of discourse and defect of right ratiocination were the only inconvenience and that their errour stretch'd not it self to the violation of sacred truths and contradiction of the holy Scriptures Machabeus offers sacrifice that the dead may be absolved from their sins Christ affirms that in the world to come sins are remitted The Apostle assures us that every ones works are to be try'd by fire and some persons to suffer detriment as though he should say that some thing should by fire be taken off from the party as dross from the pure mettal Nor do the expressions of Holy Fathers grounded on the Scripture any wayes disagree For whether they speak of Baptisme by fire of purging flames of fire correcting and amending of passing through the flames of the last Judgment which shall burn the sinner spare the Saint of a suspension in the day of Judgment and a kind of uncertainty of the Judge's sentence or whatsoever other expressions heretofore mentioned they make use of from whence any thing can be gathered towards the explication of Purgatory nothing can be drawn to establish pure pains but the whole discourse runs constantly of sins and of the purgations of sins and depraved affections so that nothing can be more clear then that these later Divines change the style of the whole Church a manifest token of their Novelty Let it therefore be acknowledg'd that this vulgar conceit as it is opposite to the sense of the Church really and effectually abolishing Purgatory and in lieu thereof presenting us a slaughter-house of barbarous executions destroying the tender mercy of God whose aim is alwayes the utmost good of every creature and instead thereof offering us a barren apprehension of Pure Justice and unbenefical pains so is it also dissonant and in a manner perfectly repugnant to the phrase both of the holy Scripture and of the Fathers explicating either it or the sense and belief of the Church Which if they are the marks of the ancient faith and perswasion then is this other new And if proposed to the Greeks under the notion of a Tradition and not only of an opinion they certainly had ground to object against the Latines that they endeavoured to superseminate tares and bring into the Church new Tenents and such as were recommended by no ancient Tradition The last but not the least of our exceptions against this vulgar opinion shall be their putting another impediment to the Beatifical Vision of souls freed from the body besides the want of charity For since the Church neither knows nor holds forth any
the sight of God That which puts God to inflict punishment not to better the creature but to revenge himself That which violates all Philosophy by confounding the natures of Spirit and Body That which makes the evil of pain spring not from the sinful defects of creatures but from the all-good-Will of God That which is impossible to be maintain'd but by legitimating extrinsecal imputation which is fundamentally opposite to Catholicism That which by making Purgatory not purge at all destroyes it's very notion and nature and makes even it's name breath contradiction Hath I say that Doctrine which is the ground of these and innumerable other absurdities no appearance of falshood And lastly as for their uncertainty is there so much as one Demonstration pretended on their behalf by their Patrons Or are they or any part of them of the substance of the Church's Doctrine If unawares they affirm it let them or at least the whole world besides take notice how a passionate affection to make good their credit and the reputation of their Authors transports them to destroy and violate at once the whole rule of Christian Faith and so become more fatal to the cause they own then all the enemies it ever had or can have that Rule of Faith I say which admits nothing as such into it's sacred liâ—t but what universal tradition assures us to have been unanimously deliver'd by our respective immediate fore-fathers as deliver'd by the Apostles as reveal'd by Christ But God be thanked they do not they cannot they dare not They confess at last that nothing of all this is of Faith that is that all is but probable that is possible to be otherwise that is uncertain that is expresly prohibited by the Church whose commands if Duty prompt them not to obey I know no sweeter force then that of Reason to compel them I come now to the second point the advantage of those who are heterodox and their farther abalienation from the Catholick Communion the reduction of whom I conceive to have been the Author's I am sure is my principal intention Can any one lay a greater slumbling-block in their way then is the confounding of Faith with Opinion certainty with uncertainty Can on the contrary any thing more invite a rational and well-meaning Protestant then throughly to observe how the great latitude in opinion amongst Catholicks establishes and confirms the unity of their Faith How impossible it is that any new Tenet should creep out of one Catalogue into the other whilst every minute question is ventilated with so much contention and scrutinie whilst the Almighty Providence makes use of the animosities of Thomist and Scotist Jansenist and Jesuit to demonstrate that what such dissenting Brethren perfectly agree in must have a higher principle then human invention let all those whom education or perhaps the indiscreet zeal of school men hath hitherto abused understand in Gods name that the Church as a Church has no partiality no adhesion to no obstinacy for any opinion whatsoever She is the Guardian of saith she permits none to add to or detract from the Divine truths committed to heâ— custody but admits all into her tuition who acknowledg them Let them look to it who see other bounds for my part I shall ever value that excellent Analysis of our learned Patriot Dr. Holden now as I hear happily rendered into his native language wherein that it may flourish more vigorously he hath lopp'd off and segregated all circumstantial excrescencies from the stock of Faith beyond all the nice productions of the Schools Thus much I have thought good to say in my own vindication One word more in behalf of the book it self and I have done It hath been wondered at by some and look'd on as an argument of it's falling short of the evidence it promiseth that in five years time it hath gained no greater applause or rather that in the way of Demonstration it hath not been able in that time to silence all opposition I shall say nothing of the progress it hath made but only desire thee Reader to reflect that the satisfaction of those who love science is ever silent and within themselves the opposition of those that seek it noâ— for the most part clamorous and disquieting others as well as themselves May it be thy fortune to farewell and hold thy peace To the most Reverend F. in Christ RICHARD Ld. Bishop of Calcedon MY LORD I Was much perplext when it was told me that some censure was past upon my poor Works by your Lp whose Ecclesiastical Government for so many years of the Catholick part of England hath deservedly so much influence upon our faith whose most innocent life exercised with continual fears at home and combats abroad hath begot in us a Veneration of your Dictates but above all whose many and excellent writings in defence of Catholick Tradition and neer fourscore years exhausted in perpetual study render your Judgment to us new-men of this Age as it were an oracle of Antiquity I was therefore about to apologize and beg pardon for my too much precipitation But your Lord-ships assurance by letter dated Jul. 6. 1652. that you had pass'd no censure at all and in effect the non-appearance of any such thing satisfy'd me of the unnecessariness of that pains It was a fiction contrived by the envy of some narrow Hearts and propagated by the unwary credulity of such as took all for Gospel which they said You declar'd that you had no other thoughts then so to dissent from my opinion as Divines without the least breach of Charity are laudably wont to do But yet even thus the weight of so great an Authority overburthen'd me and forc'd me to seek some support for my innocence And I would to God you had been pleas'd to remark in your Letter whatsoever you dislik'd of mine I would have spar'd no pains to give your Lord-ship satisfaction in every particular now I have singled out one point but that which being in every one's discourse I thought I could least be deceived in Be you Judg my Lord whether without the suffrages of the ancient Fathers or against the sence of the sacred Scriptures or unassisted by the Maximes of true Theology I have undertaken what may seem exotick to this Age we live in If I clear my self that I have opposed none of these as I am not ambitious of Victory so I despaire not of Pardon However it may succeed you have an ACCOMPT by detail as less subject to deceipt of my Stewardship Please you cast it up and if you find it Just give your Blessing to him who prostrates himself at your knees in quality of MY LORD Your Lordships most humble and most obedient servant THO. WHITE THE TABLE OF ACCOMPTS ACCOMPT I The introduction and state of the Question Pag. 1 II. Two proofs front the sacred Scripture favouring the truth we advance Pag. 7 III. Three other Texts and by occasion of the
in its right course it is therefore no less indubitable that it mis becomes God and ought not to be attributed to him You will object that the sacred stories overflow with Examples of chastisements which have no coherence with the crimes for which they are inflicted or at least grow not immediately out of them That David's son dy'd because he had made others blaspheme the name of the Lord That the Boys who scoffed at Elizeus were torn in pieces by a Bear That a Lyon destroy'd the disobedient Prophet and a thousand such like I answer in * the Theological Institutions it is sufficiently declared that there is then a necessity of a miracle or work beyond the usual and connatural course of causes when our good requires it should by us be thought that the order of Nature is shaken and overpower'd When this happens in order to punishments the connatural Government of men exacts that the usual connexion which is found in the ordinary series of things betwixt the fault and penalty should be omitted least the Revenge which God in those cases intends to signalize should seeme an effect of chance or Nature not of the uncontrouleable power of his Deity But these Examples are not to be drawn to the condition of ordinary punishments which are usual and customary in the common order of things The same humane frailty in point of discourse leads our Adversaries into another incongruity which it will not be amiss here to take notice of They affirm that God remits the guilt of sin but not the pain For as they experience in themselves when injur'd or exasperated a certain â—bullition or quick motion of spirits about the heart which though at the same time they forbear any violence yet can they not allay so do they perswade themselves that there is in God a certain aversion from a sinner which though upon his repentance it ceaseth yet do they conjecture that an intention of punishing him may still remain From whence they infer that all the guilt of the soul is pardon'd before it arrives at Purgatory but the pain is there notwithstanding to be endured But it seems they never consider that the passion or impetuosity spoken of is a corporeal motion unworthy a wise man much more unfit to be transâ—â—â—'d or apply'd to God For anger in God signifies no more then an intention to punish Whence necessarily it followes that as much as is remitted of the fault so much must be remitted of the punishment Again what can the sinner be guilty of if not of sin Of an Offence say you to God But that if Punishment ensue not thereon whom doth it prejudice The Man He is concern'd only in the Pain God against whom the offence is But God can receive no prejudice And indeed in our common speech we do not use to say sin deserves guilt but punishment so that the guilt of sin is the fault it self and not a guilt or obnoxiousness to fault but to punishment Impossible therefore it is that Pains purely upon the account of sins already remitted should be undergone in Purgatory Let them therefore consider whether the passion we experience in our selves be any thing else then a beginning or first motion of the Heart to Revenge that is to annoy the Offender that is in a spiritual substance a will to punish But though a will to punish be a different thing from an aversion to sin yet is it subsequent thereto and later then it and consequently according to the nature of the thing will first of the two cease It is therefore against Nature that the aversion should be taken away and yet the will to punish remain which is wholly grounded and originally dependent upon that aversion Whence those Divines are grosly mistaken who affirm the effect that is the Will to punish ceasing the Cause that is the aversion from the sinner is taken away and deny that the cause to wit the aversion being taken away the effect to wit the Will to punish ceases Finally if need were we could in our defence muster an army of Fathers and appeal to the common sense and Judgment of Mankind You will say perhaps at least it cannot be deny'd but that there is a previous dissimilitude betwixt God and the sinner antecedently to his Will of punishing him and that therein consists the point of offence It is answered no man explicates the nature of offence by dissimilitude but by action so that if the dissimilitude act not upon the offended party it is no offence at all And besides the dissimilitude it self is not so great as that of irrational creatures for though it disfigure yet doth it not cancel the image of God within us But all other things besides Man deserve not the honour of being called his image but his foot-step Lastly this aversion is the cause of his punishing whence without it there can be no liableness to Pain in Man no appetence thereof in God The Fourteenth Accompt Of the Punishments which we meet with in the sacred Scriptures and of the remission of sins TO what we have here delivered it may be objected that nothing is more frequent in the sacred Scripture then the account of punishments inflicted after the undoubted remission of the fault We his progeny feel yet the effects of the sins of our first Father Adam whom we no wayes doubt to reign with Christ our saviour in Heaven We read that the sins of Mâ—ses and Aaron were punished with death and yet at that same time that God familiarly conversed with them after the offence We read of the people sin which God threatens to remember in the day of Revenge and yet in the mean while acknowledg his great benificence to them and particularly his introduction of them into the Land of Promise Now Jeremiah tells us chap. 2. that the translation of the Tribe of Judah was that day of revenge Is not this saith he done unto thee because thou didst forsake the Lord thy God at that time when he led thee by the way And yet betwixt those two times how often was God reconciled to them especially in the dayes of Saâ—â—uel David and Solomon Of the sin of David we read that his son should dye and the sword never cease in his house yet are we confident of his being in favour with God and the text assures us that in the presence of Nathan his sin was transferred What then can be more evident than that punishment remains due after the sin is cancell'd So that it may well be concluded that mortal sins though remitted still challenge their reward in Purgatory and venial ones unrepented are there by those grudging flames to be expiated I answer Almost in all things which fall under our consideration we are forced to distinguish in the same propositions there being predicated sometimes simply sometimes secundum quid or according to some one respect or notion And