hath given us on several occasions And the rather because the authority of our supream Pastor hath already taken notice of and interposed his sharp but justly deserved censures against divers of them and doubtless will proceed against the rest according to their demerits I shall then as to the present concern my self only with this one controversie of the state of those souls which leave this life in the state of Grace but so that they are not as yet fully purged and with those positions and grounds on which this new molded Fabrick of Purgatory stands unless some one Doctrine or other of the Author of it having a neer alliance with the business in hand so offer it self that our discourse and the Subject would be illustrated by it Sect. 4. And first as to the opinion it self he thus delivers it of the middle State acc. 1. I acknowledg sayes he in humane failings a difference betwixt mortal and venial nor do I deny an imperfect remission of mortal impurities but I place not this imperfection in that the sin is totally cancelled the pain only remaining but in the change of an absolute into a conditional affection as it were instead of I will substituting I will not but Oh that I lawfully might c. the affection or inclination he had to temporal good is restrained not extinguished of mortal become venial changed not destroyed Being therefore by the operation of death as it were new molded and minted into a purely spiritual substance he carries inseparably with him the matter of his torment in like manner as he also doth who takes leave of his body with his affections only venially disordered we do not then anywhere imagine a place filled with hellish dishes by which the soul as from an external tormentor suffers a butchery but we are in horrour of the strife and fury of innate affections which is therefore proportioned to the sâ—ns because springing from them nor ever otherwise possible to be defaced unless the soul by a new conjunction to the body become passive or susceptible of contrary affections c. These are his new apprehensions of the State of Souls in their separation perfectly squared to those Phylosophical grounds he had long before layed in his Peripatetick Institutions Sect. 5. Now as to the order in which this new fabrick of Purgatory and indeed a whole new system of Philosophy and Divinity was made publick it was as I take it this after the Book of the immortality of of the soul fathered on Sir Kenelm Digby Master White appeared himself on the Stage under the name of Thomas the Englishman of the Albiâ— of the East Saxons where in a moderate volume intituled Peripatetick Institutions to the mind of that most eminent man and most excellent Philosopher Sir Kenelm Digby c. He discovers the great mine of this Phylosophy here the suttleties of Logick the secrets of nature the hidden properties of bodies both heaven and earth are layed open and not only that but we are further led on by an undisolvable chain of unavoidable consequences as is pretended to the abstract notions of metaphysicks to the clear understanding of separated souls intelligences even the existence and attributes of God himself And All this if the Reader hath faith enough to believe for otherwise I am confident he will find but slender satisfaction by most clear and evident demonstrations by a long chain of consequences or a series of Patets Fits sequiturs clarum ests consequens ests confectum ests and the like The Foundations thus laid conformable to this incomparable and I think incomprehensible Peece for never Daughter was liker her Mother issued out some time after his Divinity under this Title Institutiones Sacrae built as he professes in or on Inaedificatae his former Peripatetick Institutions This now containing a perfect Sum or Model of his Divinity as that had formerly done of his Phylosophy And certainly happy it was the Author divided them to our hands and gave us them in several Volumes and under several titles for else it hd been impossible to know where the first ended or the second began this being so perfectly squared to that that in the very entry to his Divinity he banisheth the a Notion of Supernaturality though not the word out of his School the whole design of his new Theology being now in the third age of the Church to evacuate Christian Faith and out of his Phylosophical grounds to mould us up a new demonstrative Religion for nothing is upon any other grounds admitted into this new Theological School of which I give my Reader a full Account Sect. 23 24. c. Sect. 6. In his Peripatetick Institutions then or Philosophy 5 book lesson 1. he lays the foundations of his future Purgatory or the state of Souls in separation and having in the first place laboured to evince That Rational Souls such as those of men are may exist or be without their Bodies He delivers that notion which he desires to imprint in us of a separated Soul in these words nu 9 10 11. Now he who desires to frame to himself in some sort a notion of a separated Soul let him ponder with himself that Object which corresponds to the word Man or Animal as such which when he shall see Abstracts from Place and Time and is a substance by the only necessity of the terms let him conceive the like of a separated soul Then let him attentively consider some self evident and most Natural Proposition in which when he shall have Contemplated That the Object is in the Soul with its proper existence and as it were by it let him think a separated Soul is a Substance that is all other things by the very Connexion of Existencies Lastly When in bodies he shall observe that motion proceeds from the quality of the mover and a certain impulse and that this impulse is derived again from another impulse and so even up to that which is first moved and beyond Let him imagine the soul is a kind of Principle of such impulse whatsoever thing that must be And so he holds on nu 12. What is said of the substance of the soul undoubtedly must be understood too of its proper accidents for since they depend onely on the soul being something of it nay even the very soul it self and it would be more imperfect without them they must run the same fortune with it unless some special reason interpose Out of which he deduces immediately num 13. Whatsoever things then were in the man according to his soul at the instant of his death remain inseparably in the state of separation Wherefore all his resolutions or judgments whether speculative or practical shall remain in it Out of which he deduces in the same Book less 4. num 1. And because the affections in the soul are nothing else but judgements upon which operation does or is apt to follow c. it comes to pass
that our affections to acquaintance and friends and the rest we cultivated in this life shall remain in the future And more fully in the same place num 2. The affections shall remain and that in the same proportion they were during life Out of which he concludes there num 3. Those who have given themselves up wholly to corporal pleasures will be affected with a vast grief through the impossibility of those pleasures there that is because corporal pleasures cannot now be injoyed by the soul in her state of separation 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 for accusing them of ignorance who conceive fire or any other material or external agent hath power to afflict them in that state he conceives them sufferers from these remaining affections to corporal pleasures which therefore torment the souls because they now are in a state where these pleasures are impossible to be injoyed Sect. 7. Now as to the measure or duraration of separated souls and the continuation of that state till the day of judgment the foundations are laid in the same Book less 3. num 5. Again sayes he it is plain that a separated soul in an other manner excels place and time then in the body since in that it only abstracts from them but out of that it comprehends them For this universal and actual knowledg places all place and all time within the soul so that it can act in every place at once and together as far as concerns this respect and provide for all time wherefore it is in a manner a maker and governour of time and place out of which he deduces fully of the middle state acc. 12. in spiritual acts whether they bring happiness or misery there is no proportion to time so as to make pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner to be less for those are the properties of corporal things c. Every act of a pure spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time is not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c. And in the next Sect. more fully If to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing which coexists to a shorter part of time nothing be thereby diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases c. So that whatsoever grief of a separated soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same let its Co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less less intense nothing being gained oâ— lost by the perpetuating or shortning of the motions of the Sun or other caelestial bodies c. And from this ground in the same book account 22. he concludes Whatsoever time intervenes betwixt it that is the prayer now powred out for a departed soul or death and the restauration of the world that is the day of general judgment is to departed souls but as one moment Sect. 8. And further as to the Immutability of that state of separation and the unchangeableness of the acts of Souls now severed from their Bodies his grounds are laid down in the afore-cited Perepatetick Institutions book 5. less 4. num 6 7 8. Moreover says he out of what hath been said 't is deduced That in the state of separation no variety can happen to Souls from any body or the change of Bodies for since 〈◊〉 change passes not from any body into the soul but through the Identification of the soul with its own body and this Identification ceaseth by the state of separation it follows that no action nor mutation can be derived from any Body to the Soul Nor has the Soul of it self a principle of change in it self not from hence only because an indivisible cannot act on it self but also because since a mutation of the Soul cannot be any other then either according to the Vnderstanding or according to the Will But the Vnderstanding is supposed to know all things together and for ever whence by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science And the Will is either not distinct from the Vnderstanding or at least is adequately governed in the state of separation it follows that naturally no mutation can happen to a separated soul from within or caused by it self Nor yet from any other Spirit without the Interposition of the Body for since all Spirits are indivisible their operations too will be such but an indivisible effect supposing all the causes of necessity exists in the same instant wherefore if any thing be to be done between Spirits t is all in one instant so done and perfected that afterwards an other action cannot be begun for if it begin either the causes were before adequately put or not if they were the effect was put if they were not some of the causes is changed that it may now begin to act and not this bâ—â— the former is the first mutation whereof it is to be urged Whether the causes were put before These are the eternal truths as they would perswade us the unshakable foundations of Phylosophy on which this whole new Fabrick of Purgatory stands and I have been the more careful to deliver them fully to my reader even in this beginning of my discourse that he may with one cast of his eye see on what firm foundations this new school hath abandoned the hitherto received faith of our holy mother the Church and now dares pronounce That what she hath hitherto taught us proceeded but out of ignorance of the nature of separated substances Of the Mid. State Acc. 17. Sect. 9. But because Master White the Author of this new Purgatory and our faithless demonstrative Religion was sufficiently conscious to himself that these novelties would call upon the vigilancy and care of the Shepheards of Christs flock he stood ready prepared to receive their incounter And no sooner had the late Bishop of Calcedon his then superior admonished him of this and other his new Doctrines in this new pretended Demonstrative Theology but in defence of his new molded Purgatory issued out his premeditated as it seems book Of the Middle State of Souls directed to the same Bishop which book if it had remained in the Authors obscure and mysterious Dialect which he above all modern Writers seems to affect and reason enough he hath to come Mascaradoed into the world and to involve himself had layed deservedly neglected But it having been by the indiscreet care of some one of his Proselytes put into an English dress and exposed to the weak capacities even of Vulgar Readers lest this new erroneous Doctrine contained in it might spread among those whose infirmity betrayed them to be
defined by the Decree When the Church combated the Eutychian Heresie which denyed two natures in Christ no Christian dare affirm it onely then defined the plurality of Wills against the Monothelites because these two questions have so necessary and immediate a connexion And can you hope to perswade an ignorant Reader that when the Pope defines That after purgation even before the re-assumption of their bodies departed souls are received into heaven he defines nothing at all about Purgatory but onely this that perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven though he hath not any thing like this Position in his Bull and that this should be fixed on the Pope and Cherubinus and all Learned Authors to boote I hope then Sir you will pardon my boldness if I challenge you fairly with this If you do not make it appear by those unknown Learned Authors in terms that yours was the question and not that of Purgatory we shall judg you have wrong'd them as much as now to our eyes you have imposed on the Pope and Cherubinus And I justly challenge it of you that you bring us it in terms and not by a consequence of a second or third remove or else your sincerity in citing Authors will be highly questionable by your Reader or indeed now past Question And truly I wondred at the first perusal of this part of your Book why you should use this sleight to prepossess the unwary Reader but afterwards by the rest of your discourse I easily observed it was but made use of to render by this art of changing the question a plawsible answer to this Bull and Council otherwise unavoidable and yet I discovered at last a further design which no man but a Prophet could have foreseen to wit that you might fix upon your Adversary that he not you stands guilty of disowning these sacred authorities and that forsooth because he opposes the efficacy of holy charity the Queen of vertues which you and your Master indeavour to sustain of which your slye accusation I shall have occasion to speak hereafter but I hope to render this your craft wholly unsuccessful Sect. 15. But how unfortunate a Writer you are will be rendred evident and how unfit you are to catechise and instruct others this Grave and Learned Eymericus shall tell you because you do not explicitely believe this Doctrine of Purgatory now in question For having distinguished all the Credibilia or matters of faith into three Classes according to St. Thomas and shewed what the vulgar and simple sort of Christians as also what Superiours Prelates and Doctours are bound to believe both explicitely and implicitâ—ly he there concludes concerning the middle sort of Christians under which name he comprehends Priests CuÌ„rates and all Religious Persons who have undertaken to instruct the ignorant in faith and good manners The middle sorts sayes he who are to teach the simple people are obliged to believe some of these points that is such as are determined by the holy Church in her Councils and Consistories Explicitely though not all these Points singly nor all these Persons equally but according to their several state and learning whereby they are to instruct the ignorant As for example they are all bound to believe explicitely that the souls of just men departed without sin as of little Infants or if they have sinned have here or in Purgatory fully satisfied are pass'd into Heaven before the day of Iudgment according to the Church's determination making it a matter of faith in the extravagant of Pope Benedict xii beginning Blessed be God Sect. 16. And having said this as to the intention of the Pope in our present Bull before I proceed further in your Answer let us take a short survey of the Florentin Council of which I can not but blame you of neglect in that you give your Reader so slender an account And if I must not flatter your sloth I know not how otherwise to excuse it then that you were not conversant at all in it and so you rested satisfied with what your cleer-sighted friends told you or Cherubinus his Vbi hoc idem firmatum fuit since if it were possible the Council seems more full and home to our Question And first In the Third Article which the Publishers gave you it defines If truely penitent Souls shall depart this life before they have satisfied for their Commissions and Omissions by worthy fruits of Penance that their Souls are purged by the punishments of Purgatory after their bodies death c. Which Doctrine can finde no admittance in your new modell for all the sufferings of souls which you fancy by their irregular and now unchangeable affections avail nothing as to the Purging or cleansing of Souls in their state of Separation since that is wholly reserved by you to the change of those affections at the re-union And secondly when Art 4. upon this Doctrine of the Council so said down it pursues to declare unto us That Souls which are purged either in their bodies ar being uncloathed of their bodies as is above said are presently received into heaven I would have you to observe how this further Doctrine of the delivery of them and the compleating of this purging being uncloathed of their bodies is by this Parenthesis as is above said wholly built on the former Doctrine of the purging itself And it will be unavoidable since there is a Purgation of souls by the punishments of Purgatory against you that there also is as effectually concluded a compleat Purgation of them whilst uncloathed of their bodies and an immediate delivery perfectly condemning and destructive of your Doctrine in the very point in Question But that my Reader may have a cleerer view of this unavoidable Truth let us set together and compare this Doctrine of the Council with yours The Council defines That truly penitent souls which depart this life before they have satisfied for their sins are purged by the punishments of Purgatory after death and being thus purged uncloathed of their bodies are presently received into Heaven Or as the Pope more expresly pronounces before the reassumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment Now how happily do you and your new Master agree with this Doctrine when you tell us Souls which depart this life with affections to corporal pleasures suffer a vast grief by reason those pleasures are now impossible to be enjoyed but they are now in an unchangeable condition both as to the affections their torment and the state it self So that there is no hope they should ever be released before reunion with their bodies for though they suffer by their inordinate unchangeable affections yet not possibly as to any purging or change of their state or sufferings whilest uncloathed of their bodies and therefore can not Presently be received into Heaven or before the Re-assumption of their said bodies and the general Day of Iudgment And I would have you further to observe and weigh the words
principles and consequences to be true that there is no Error no Ignorance no Succession in Separated Substances now in their present state of Separation How inconsequent is it as he there tels us That they are now just that as to their affections which this state of union with their bodies and mortality made them What a frivilous discourse he introduces arguing in the same 17 Acc. As an Embriâ— sayes he or seminal Mushrom delineates a future man so the thoughts and affections of this life design by their impressions the future condition of the Soul So that death produces such an Entity as from the man so disposed is naturally producible thus to remain till Resurrection For this hath no Connexion with the precedent Doctrine of the Immutability of Souls in the state of Separation If we should suppose that there is no variety in them no succession in that single state of Separation how will it follow there is no change of affections in these two and those so different States of Separation and Vnion Besides Sir if the Antecedent of this his Argument reach home to his purpose it is a Position destructive of all Christianity if this Embrio or seminal Mushrom delineate the future man if the Soul be such as the quality of the matter exacts and determines it to be as he tells us it is at the first infusion into the body and remains so or else he tels us nothing to his purpose Our liberty is destroyed There remains no hopes that these his Determinations by the matter or body should be changed by education by vertue should be corrected by Grace Since then this his Doctrin is absolutely false and since souls in truth by the assistance of Divine Grace do perfectly overcome even whilst in their Bodies what they contract or are determâ—nod by their Bodies as our holy Faith teaches how excellently is it concluded That Souls now in Separation do not Correct what was in them by the commerce of that unworthy Clay which before inclosed them And how will it not be as well or more effectually concluded that Souls at their Re-union too passing now from Separation to Union as well as before from Union to Separation carry with them their unchangable Affections and so never get out of his Purgatory neither before nor at the day of Iudgment By these short reflections my Reader will easily observe how far these Adamantin unshakeable grounds fall short of that so much boasted Evidence even of Truth some of them being most perfect falshoods the rest groundless uncertain dreaming Assertions and yet they are such as shall serve the levity of some men to abandon the authority of the whole Catholick Church and upon these shall be Errected a new modled Purgatory as upon other the like they have built us a whole new faithless Religion of which they are so fondly inamoured and peremptory that now they boldly pronounce The hither to received Faith of the Church proceeded out of Ignorance of the Nature of Separated Substances Sect. 35. But to conclude my Adversary and our business if this his Position be true That no Souls are delivered out of Purgatory before the day of Iudgment What serve for all our Devotions Prayers Alms Offerings Doth the holy Sacrifice of the Altar which the Church hath defined to be Propitiatory even for the Dead avail those distressed Souls nothing at all No my Adversary dares not as yet venture upon this The Councils are so cleer so home to this Point his credit were ruined if he should attempt to deny it His new Purgatory then must be furnished with some new way by which our endeavours may be beneficial to those poor Souls or else no Catholiques Ears could be open to his new Divinity Is it perhaps the intermitting at some times or abating of the fury of their torments O no this Doctrin finds no admission in his School His indivisible duration admits of no intermission and where the Soul by her now unchangable affections is her own executioner no Allay or Abatement of torment can be hoped for till Reunior What then perhaps shall our Prayers be of force to obtain their Release O no this the least of all It were against all their Demonstrations and therefore is reserved to his new changeable state at the Resurrection What then is the effect of all our tears and prayers What benefit doe Separated Souls receive by them This and onely this That the day of Iudgment is hastned by them And is this all Yes truly this is all our new Systeme of Purgatory can admit of as to the Assisting of the Souls detained in it But what if this accelerating the day of Iudgment prove no advantage no help at all to those distressed souls Would not all Christians be justly charged with an intollerable folly Would nâ—t the Church be unavoidably guilty of a â—upereminent Error in a Doctrin which draws so much practice after it Whilst both the Florentin Council here and that of Trent pronounce and all Christians agree That the Souls detained in Purgatory are assisted delivered by the Prayers and Suffrages of the Faithful yet living And yet certain it is that the hastning of the day of Iudgment is no advantage to them in these their Positions and grounds Let this great Master himself plead the Cause Let him fairly deliver us his sublime sense in his own words Whether our devotions assist those souls or no Whether the hastning of the day of Iudgment be any way beneficial to them and that by his very â—bylosophical grounds the basis and foundation of the duration of souls now detained in his new minted Purgatory In spiritual acts says he whether they bring happiness or misery there is no proportion to time so as to make pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner to be less for these are the properties of corporal things Every act of a pure Spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c If then to a thing or separated soul which co-exists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists with a less part of time nothing be diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases So that whatsoever grief of a separattd soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same grief let its co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less by the force of its essence less Nothing being gained or lost by the perpetuating or contracting of the motions of the Sun or other Celestial bodies So that whatsoever time intervenes between death and the Restauration of the world at the day of Judgment is to separated souls as one moment This doctrin presupposed What can separated
themselves to have God for the last end and sâ—le good having now received this plentitude of knowledg out of that that they more strongly and evidently know this truth do infinitely increase in the affection to see God and since the Will is a reflection of existence upon essence by which the vertue of the entity is exercised and applyed to the desired effect such a Saint not to be any other thing then a man exercised according to the whole vertue and Entity in respect of the Vision of God Since that then as to know himself is to be himself to be so to know God is to be God that is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to be of to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} esse esse but since the vertue of a thing to be is nothing but a potentiality especially in respect of to be subsistent which is both essence and to be it is concluded such a Saint by all which is in him not to be any thing else but an actual and exercised potentiality of being God Since therefore on the part of God out of that that he is to be it self or speaking more especially it is to be understood in act it self or to be in act understood which is to be his own to understand passively so that to be understood is not in him a denomination but a real quality that very quality which constitutes the Father and this quality or property is subsistent and by consequence proper to no power but to any one accommodated nothing can be wanting which appertains to the reason of act and actuality it is concluded That the Saints and God are one by power and act that is that the Saints cleerly see God And now truly Sir if my Readers patience hath held out as mine hath to Translate this long Demonstration just as it lyes for fear of spoiling the Non-sense I think he desires me to make it his humble request to that Ingenious Gentleman who Translated your Masters Middle State of Souls who hath so well delivered us Virgils sense to put this admirable Demonstration in Rhime it will go rarely to a Jewes Trump And I desire you to tel me when you Write again in what Moode and Figure this Syllogisme concludes But now having Demnostratively understood That the Saints perfect in Charity immediately see God Let us see how you pursue the way that Separated Souls attain to this perfection by Re-union And so Sect. 40. Ninethly You tell us pag. 37. Master White endeavours to finde a state in which the soul may be changeable to more holy desires and a connatural cause to give her those desires to wit the corporal and mental sight of her dearest Saviour c. For what state more fit for changeableness then a corporeal one and what more powerful to ravish the whole affections of a soul then the divine face of her Spouse My Reader will not wonder at the inventions your Master finds out now he is a little acquainted with the head that finds them Yet this invention is worth our observation which I suspect you will hardly shew in any former writer and so justly he may be proud of it The Souls then have been all the time of their separation in a state of suffering only by their irregular affections which being wholly unchangeable in that state they are as yet not purged or cleansed at all but perfectly the same they were at the moment of death but now by reunion with the body they are put into a new state of changeableness Now Sir Christians that have hitherto walked by Faith do all conceive that the way or Pilgrimage of men to the future life is ended at death They never heard that Souls at the Resurrection are returned to Act again in order to Eternity If that state do render Souls changeable and free and their actions then have such an influence on their future state it will justly be feared that many of them may drop out of Purgatory into Hell Nor will the sight of the Divine face of their Spouse quite evacuate this apprehension For if the Soul be not necessarily but freely and voluntarily ravisht the doubt will remain Whether she will still continue her inordinate affections or avert her self wholly from God and so either remain in his Purgatory still or nowpass into Hell And how happily Sir doth this change of affections which is your sole and onely purging or cleansing of the Soul wrought by the sight of the Divine face of Christ which sight is doubtless an incomparable pleasure and such an one as ravishes the whole affections of the Soul agree with the Decrees of these Councils That of Florence when it defines The Souls are purged by the pains of Purgatory That of Trent when it teaches After the sin remitted temporary pains are due in Purgatory When now we are taught that souls are purged by pure pleasures the sight of their dear Spouse And in earnest Sir I know not why the world is not more inamoured of your Doctrine You have now filled our lives with the pleasures of the body you have quite turned the pains and afflictions of Souls in the state of separation into Pure pleasures And now at the Re-union you fancy the Souls affections changed that is her self purged by an incomparable pleasure which even ravishes all her affections And to compleat a most pleasant Divinity I could pursue it even to your Masters pleasant Hell who Instit. Sac. lib. 3. lec 9. describes the damned so pleased with their torments that they are in love with them and would not be without them But I reserve that to an other discovery Onely I will for the present mind you that since the inordinate Affections of the damned are their torment according to your Master in that same place and those affections remain in them in the same proportion they were in this life and since doubtless where pleasures are possible and easie to be attained and we continually pressed by our bodies to the enjoyment the refraining from them is a far greater torment then where the temptations are not so impetuous or none at all and the injoyment represented as impossible which at one blow outs off all the Wills pursuit It will follow That those who restrain themselves from these pleasures are in a greater Hell in this life then those who are damned in the next And therefore it would not seem very rational that any man should precipitate himself voluntarily now into a greater Hell where is duration and succession to avoid a less in the future life the duration of which is but as one moment And let me further beg of you to render us a cleer account How it should happen that the Souls of the damned at the re-union should not all of them rectifie their now disordered affections and fly to Heaven For since your Master hath already taught us That the damned Souls are now furnished with all
not presently hiss me out Will they not cry out to the faggot with me And shall we believe that in such a disposition of the faithful people that such an Innovatour will dare to print or publish his novelty or that he shall hope to find either buyers of his Book or followers of his Doctrine Thus he And thus Sir your great Master pleads the cause and arraigns himself and all the Proselytes of his new Purgatory thus he thunders and lightens and I think home to our purpose for the consciences of all the faithful bear witness against it the unlearned know it is improbable and the learned see it is impossible Having said this to the ingenuous Gentleman the Author of that Letter who is a very able proficient in this new School I hope he will pardon me if I make his Letter publick without his name I hope these short reflections on his and his Masters grounds without which he acknowledges this Purgatory can not be sustained will prove an effectual admonition to him both to see and repent that he hath entred himself a Scholar into this dangerous School and therefore out of hand to withdraw his name Sect. 20. And now Sir I hope this better proficients judgment will be of some weight since he is your School-fellow I think an unprejudiced understanding will be convinced by that evidence I have already brought the undoubted intention of the Pope was to deliver us our holy Faith in all the several conditions of souls which depart this mortal life either in the state of grace or out of it either which need or need not any Purgation in the next life and for the Council besides the strength of words of the Decree the very Process of it the several Doctrines of the Latine and Greek Churches in order to this Decree will evince that their intentions reach as home to our purpose as their words But because the Reverend Esteem of â—â—ur new Master and of those solid and cleer-sighted persons stop your eares against the voice of the Church Let us try that Musick which certainly would cure you of this Tarantula What if we could obtain your new Master to plead on the behalf of that Faith we now maintain this certainly would prevail Let us attempt it then if you are not as yet so good a proficient in your new School that you are ready to believe the Council erred in this particular question of Purgatory I doubt not to conclude you out of your Masters own grounds Master White then layes you down this fundamental Doctrine The Church sayes he in her definitions of Faith proceeds onely on tradition and declares to us that Depositum of Faith which was handed down from Christ and his Apostles by an innumerable number of Fathers and Pastors to their numberless children and flock through age to age even to any one detèrminate moment When then any controversie is to be decided and a Council is summoned to declare our Faith what course is then taken surely no other then this The Fathers there gathered lay down that Faith thus handed down to them which they received from their precedent teachers and was commended to them to deliver to posteriâ—y as a sacred treasure not to be violated since it is their light their guide in their way to Heaven This Doctrine presupposed let it not be denyed but the Florentin Council proceeded in that very way he hath chalked out for them in our present question and my work is done Let us take a view of the Council Both the Greek and Latine Fathers meet first at Ferrara afterwards at Florence their business there is to declare the Faith of the Church concerning the state of souls which depart this life and in particular concerning the Souls which are detained in Purgatory both sides lay down their hitherto received Faith in order to a decision Let us see how happily they agree with this new molded Purgatory And first as to the Latins They â—elieve a Purgatory Fire directly against Master White who pretends to demonstate that no material agent can work upon the soul in its state of separation they believe that souls guilty of venial impurities are purged by this fire directly against Master White who holds there is no purging of the soul in the state of separation neither by fire nor not by fire for this is reserved to the reunion when her now torment her irregular affections shall be changed They believe that souls there detained by this fire together with the help of the Church the Prayers of the Priests Masses Almes c. are Expiated directly against Master White in the point in Question both as to the indivisible duration of the state he pretends to demonstrate and the unchangeableness of it and the continuation of it till the day of Iudgment Being thus unfortunate with the Latins who must needs have thrust this new School out of their Communion let us see what favour it would find with the Greeks These then profess this belief That souls there are detained in a darksome place Directly against Master White who holds that souls in the state of separation doe not only abstract from place but comprehend and are in some manner governours of all place they believe souls are expiated and freed directly against Master White who holds there is no expiating and freeing of souls but at re-union with their bodies they believe souls are freed by the Prayers and Sacrifices of Priests Almes c. directly against Master White in all the wayes before mentioned both as to his indivisible measure or duration of souls the unchangeableness of their state and the continuation of it till the day of Iudgment And most especially both sides unanimously agree against him in asserting the efficacy of Prayers and Sacrifices of the Priests for the dead for in his new systeme as shall be evidenced hereafter these endeavours advantage not the souls any thing at all What wonder then if out of both the Greek and Latin Professions thus directly opposite to him should issue out a Decree directly destructive of this his Machin or whilst neither part would admit him into their Communion they should conspire to destroy his errour The sacred Council approving We define say they that the souls of them who after Baptisme received have contracted no blemish of sin as also those souls who after they have contracted the blemish of sin are purged either in their bodies or being uncloathed of their said bodies are presently received into heaven What wonders is it we should have a purging of souls uncloathed of their bodies and a pâ—esent Translation into Heaven in which both sides agreed against him destructive of all this new Doctrine And truly what to answer to this evidence but by those other grounds that the Council did not proceed with due Application and so erred I cannot imagine And now I think I have fulfilled my promise to my Reader that either this new model
their learning But because his pretended Demonstrations are now so cryed up by that little handful of his Scholars whose itch after novelties hath rendred Proselites of his Doctrin and since in the Entry to my Discourse I have laid down those as they would have us believe unshakable grounds of this new minted Purgatory my Reader may justly challenge that we should take a Survey of them And though this might seem weakly to anticipate what I heare far abler Pens have undertaken at large yet why should we not take a short view of them and that even in the very order they lye And first then leaving his Gibberish Notion of a Separated Soul how Ridiculous is this Position That the proper accidents that is those things that are in the Soul according to the Soul its practical judgments Its affections to friends and acquaintance even to Corporal pleasures are the Soul it self Since that they are so is not onely Indemonstrable but Incomparably false for the Soul is both Created without them remains in the Body without them in such as by grace have subdued these Inordinations and much more in Heaven both with and without the Body before and after the Resurrection And even in his Systeme of Purgatory the Soul shall be divested of them at the re-union and yet all the Peripateticks or Lucretian Phylosophy in the world can never evince that the Soul can be separated from it self Therefore nor from these Affections if they be the Soul it self And how came these immediately insuing words to escape his wary Pen That the Soul without them were more imperfect Are those very Affections which constitute Purgatory and Hell too perfections of the Soul Or when she comes to divest her self of them at the Re-union does she remain more imperfect in Heaven then when she was in the state of suffering by Them or is she then not her selfe because she is without them or had she been less Perfect if she had passed out of this life by perfect mortification without them But because this Doctrin That the Soul were more imperfect without these Affectinos is very neer allyed to an other excellent Doctrin of our great Master and which will much promote solid devotion of the Corporal Pleasures themselves let us compare them together they agree very happily and will illustrate one an other Since Corporal life sayes he is made in order to the attaining of Beatitude and Corporal pleasures are conformable to corporal life and therefore of necessity that Corporal life in its kinde is the best which hath the most and greatest Corporal pleasures as elsewhere is shewn more at large And further since the best Corporal life doth best serve to the attaining of Beatitude it is also necessary that the Christian discipline which is the Mistriss of Beatitude should even fill our lives with the pleasures of the Body and those who live piously should enjoy a hundred fold of those Corporal pleasures more then those who live ill Might not this excellent Sermon very well become a St. Austen or a St. Paul No truly Sir they never were acquainted with this Demonstration They lived in the Non-age of the Church they were steered by Faith not by this Evidence and Science And so they walkt in Austerities Tenances Mortifications They never fancyed That that Corporal life was best in its kind which abounded with most and greatest Corporal pleasures much less That such an one was best adapted to attain that Beatitude they thirsted after They looked on Corporal Pleasures as the Bane of the Soul But our Great Master being still himself might well teach us That the Soul without these Affections were more imperfect since he placed the Perfection of a Corporal life best adapted to attain Beatitude in the injoyment of the Pleasures themselves In earnest Sir I have a scruple to Translate such Doctrines as these are which onely befit Epicurus his School and the life of Hogs though you would perswade us they are truths which promote solid Devotion if I were not confident of my Readers vertue and that they will beget a just horror in his Soul both against the Doctrines themselves and those Principles that lead to them Sect. 28. Secondly How frivolously he concludes That the affections to corporal pleasures accompany the soul in her state of separation Their rise their origin is the Body The Soul were untouchable by them if it were not by reason of that union it hath to that clay which now incloses her How could the Soul be concerned to see to hear to touch if she had neither eyes ears hands or any other corporeal organs by which these pleasures could be conveyed to her especially if she enjoyed her fill of those far more noble and excellent satisfactions such as he puts of eminent compleat knowledge proportionable to that state of separation And what Purgatory could a Scholar indure who should pass out of this life with all his Affections regulated save onely that to learning since in that state his soul should even be ravisht with the injoyment of all that knowledge which he inordinately long'd for in this mortal life How then is not the soul divested of those base affections when she passes out of the body which have their source from this earthly habitation But let us compare this Doctrine with an other admirable Non-sence of our Master He tells us in his Peripateticks lib. 5. lec 1 n. 6. That the separation of the soul from the body is of that efficacy that the soul even in substance is changed and that a separated soul is in truth an other thing in substance then it was in the body As if forsooth it were this thing this soul which now informs my body that offends God in this life and an other thing an other soul shall be punished for it in the next And doth not this Doctrine evacuate all the fear of Purgatory Judgment and Hell too And let not my Adversary tell me he says it is an other thing but says not that it is an other soul For I desire him to tell me what other thing it is if it be not an other soul for still it is a soul and nothing but a soul A thing is a notion more universal then a soul and what are distinguished in a notion that is more universal can not be the same in a notion that is less universal No Logician ever fancied that those things which are distinguished in the notion of Animal can be the same in the notion of Homo If then the separation render the soul an other thing an other soul how should it not have other accidents and affections which according to him are the soul it self or must it not of necessity have so But let this too be supposed Sect. 29. Thirdly Whoever fancied That a separated soul shall be tormented with a vast grief by reason corporal pleasures are now impossible to be injoyed Who ever was concerned or tormented
because he could not do that which he knew to be impossible Who ever was intollerably afflicted because he could not Fly or render his body as incorruptible as a Diamond or become an Angel Stay you 'l say I suppose an ardent â—â—ffection to pleasures not impossible absolutely but onely by reason of the present state And what then The Soul is now Mistress of perfect Reason euen of all knowledge according to you They are â—hreneticks onely who torment themselves because they can not do that which they see is impossible in their present state whilst they cannot transfer themselves into an other state in which the pleasure they so much covet may be possible How ardent a thirst soever you have to the knowledge of all truth yet since you see such knowledge is in this life impossible to be attained and you hope for it in the next yet do I not beleeve you indure any vast grief or even are much tempted to rid your self out of this world that you may injoy it in the next Besides your Master tells us The Will is either not distinct from the Vnderstanding or at least is adequately governed in the state of separation How then can the Will be tormented with a vast grief because of the impossibility of those pleasures whilst the Understanding shall cleerly represent to it the Baseness Vileness Vnworthiness of such Pleasures and which at one blow cuts off all the Wills pursuit shall represent them as Impossible But the truth is this Doctrine is grounded upon a pure mistake For the absence much less the impossibility of corporal pleasures doth not torment with any vast or considerable grief those souls even in this life which are most of all immerst in the affections to them and by consequence not separated souls for he tell us they remain in the state of separation even in that same proportion they were in this life but just then when the body prompts or calls for an injoyment Let us consider the most luxurious the most gluttonous person in the world when the present capacity of his body is satiated with those pleasures he indures no considerable torment till the body again call for a reiterated enjoyment It is not then rational to say That a Soul which passes out of this life by a long continued Feaver and therefore carries with it into the next world a great affection to drink shall be tormented in the next life with a vast grief because she now can not injoy the pleasure of drinking whilst in truth she can never suffer any thirst And how sordid and low a fancy he had of Spiritual Substances in their state of separation to conceive them thus tortured because Corporal pleasures can not now be inâ—ayed Which pleasures pious Christians abominate even in this their Pilgrimage which the Pride and Ambition of Worldlings easily overcome which the wiseâ— sort of Pagans scorn which Heathen Phylosophers would not stoop to which Avicen though a Turk contemned and his Master Mahomets Heaven built up and fancied for Swine It had been pious and worthy a Phylosopher to conceive them as good Christians do tormented with a vast grief because they had so ungratefully offended Almighty God and delayed their beatitude for such low contemptible transitory Pleasures But this satisfied not his design it reacht not home to build us up a Purgatory out of which no delivery could be hoped for till the Day of Iudgment This grief was rather a disposition for Heaven and therefore he must find us out some unworthy and unchangeable Affection which must detain Souls there till he please to release them Besides it is frequent that vicious men detest at their deaths those brutalities the excess of which hath ruined their Bodies Fame and Fortunes and yet pass out of this life without true Repentance to be punisht for them in the next for all Eternity But let us also compare this with an other signal Doctrine of this our Maâ—â—er De Med. Stat. dim 12. He there disputing against those afflictions which he supposes his Adversary asserts that the Souls suffers by some external Agent delivers us this unexpected Doctrine thus arguing against him From whence sayes he an unexpected Truth breaks forth That all those pains inflicted by an external Agent on the Soul are Purely Pleasures For since on the one side the souls thus to be purged are supposed to be perfect in Charity and extremely thirsting of the eternal good which they are certain to attain and on the other side cleerly understand that corporeal punishments are the onely means by which they may attain beatitude it is evident they to these pains are as a man of an invincible courage in whom no weakness of mind can take place who being highly inflamed to attain some good ventuâ—es on things of great difficulty either in acting or suffering In which both Experience and Reason teach us he would feel unspeakable pleasure As if forsooth Pains and torments cease to be such and become purely pleasures whilst the soul now perfect in charity faints not in suffering them As if with perfect conformity to the Divine Will and an absolute desire to satisfie the Divine Justice an earnest longing after the ending of these griefs and the enjoyment of beatitude were inconsistent which necessarily includes and carries with it a high affliction But how by this sudden and unexpected Doctrin all our apprehensions are changed in the sufferings of our B. Saviour Who by a most perfect charity inflamed with the thirst of redeeming mankind under went all with an invincible courage for in him no weakness of mind could take place We must now change all our pious meditations no more must we consider the Scourges Whips Contempts the Nails and Cross to have been any other thing but pure pleasures to him An excellent Doctrin to increase our Love to our deer Saviour who to redeem mankind was patient and resigned to suffer pure pleasures and to incourage penance according to S. Paul si compatimur conglorificabimur This is an other truth to promote solid devotion Now then as to the Souls in Purgatory which certainly being perfect Masters of Reason and now in charity and see their own affections to be unchangeable can not be conceived to faint in their sufferings let us now learn this unexpected sudden truth which now breaks out that we have been hitherto quite mistaken their sufferings are so far from being pains that in truth they are nothing but purely pleasures O happy model of Purgatory But let this be supposed too Sec. 30. Fourthly to come to the other fundamental stone of this fabrick It is incomparably false that separated Souls or Angels both as to their substance and operations are measured by this indivisible duration or moment or that to co-exist to a greater or less part of time adds or diminishes nothing to them What if the Omnipotent Hand of God should create in this moment a new Soul separated
from any body had the rest of souls departed their bodies many ages agoe no greater duration then this their even now created companion What if the same Hand of God should now destroy one of those separated souls shall the rest of them which shall co-exist to all future time have therefore no longer duration then she What if there were no body no motion no time at all could not God create a Soul and destroy it at his pleasure and yet not this in the same indivisible moment For then it would follow the Soul is and is not in the same instant Therefore in some other posteriour moment What if God should again repair this thus annihilated soul We could not imagine that this new second existence would be measured with the same duration that the first for this would exclude the very supposition of an interruption Besides Sir Christian Theology teaches us that Angels whose duration is as indivisible as that of Souls were not created in Termino but in Viâ The holy Angels were not Created in the State of Fruition nor the Devils in the State of Damnation but both in the way to these several States And that first they were in the State of Grace in which the good by adhering to God were afterwards translated to Glory whilst the Devils by their pride and disobedience were deservedly afterwards thrust out headlong into Hell Who hath rendred it evident that all this could be effected in one indivisible moment And further Sir as to this point that my Reader may be cleared more fundamentally in it We must observe That since Eternity which is devoid of all Succession is the measure of a Perfectly Permanent being that is of God himself as far forth as any thing recedes from a Permanent being so far it recedes from Eternity and comes to Succession Now though the being of Angels does not consist in motion and therefore is not measured by our Time Yet since the Essence of an Angel is neither its Vnderstanding nor its Will much less is it the Acts of these Powers The substance of an Angel is not measured by Eternity since it hath Transmutation adjoyned to it and so hath a proper duration or measure between it and time And further since the Operations of Angels have a real and true succession they are measured by a true succession and time not that of bodies or the motions of them but by a time proper to the succession of those Operations and if holy Writ deliver us any other then Metaphorical truths of separated Substances it delivers this succession in them Your Master himself takes notice in his Med. Stat. acc. 22. Of the Souls of the slain described in the Apocalyps resting under the Altar and crying out to have the day of Iudgement hastned which reaches home to our purpose that they are concerned in the length of the stay and that it is absolutely false that there is no succession of Acts even in Beatified Souls or that to coexist to a greater or less part of time adds or diminishes nothing to them Though it fals much short of rendring our Prayers onely available for the hastning of that day as we shall presently see for which end he there introduces it And if you please to consider in the 10th Chap. of Daniel where the Angel appearing tels him That the Prince or Angel of the Kingdome of the Persians resisted him one and twenty dayes And behold Michael one of the first Princes he who stands for the Children of the Jewish Nation came to his help You will easily observe there is not this comprehension of all time your Master fansied in the workings or beings of Separated Substances Sect. 31. Fifthly As to his grounds of the Immutability of that state it is groundlesly assumed That a Soul can suffer no alteration from a Body but by identification or by being the same thing with that body And indeed who ever fanfied that the soul could thus be identified or become the very self-same thing with the body Who ever believed that now in this life our Souls are really and truly our Bodies and our Bodies are our Souls Or if they were thus Identified or the same thing how were it possible they should ever be severed since nothing can be imagined to be served from it self Christian Phylosophy never admitted this position it is evidently destructive of the Immortality of our Souls and of all Religion For if the Soul be Identified or the same thing with the body it must of necessity be resolved into dust with the body For no man can conceive how any thing should supervive it self so that this will put an end to Purgatory Heaven Hell and All Religion We that walk by Christian Faith and not by new Lights this Ignis Fatuus of Demonstrations alwayes believed That the Soul and Body as two distinct parts concurred to the building up of one Man who is one not by simplicity not by Identification of the parts or I know not what strange fancyed Transubstantiation of the Soul into the Body but by substantial Vnion or Composition Further Sir It can never be evidenced That not onely such an Inimaginable Identification should be necessary to the end that a Soul may be passive from the Body but that even a Substantial union is requisite We see that the Soul in the state of Vnion even Naturally suffers by the Bodies Indisposition as in Frensies caused by Feavours or other distempers And who shall render it evident that in the state of separation not naturally but by the Omnipotent Hand of God she may not be passive by Fire or some other External Agent by some way our Vnderstandings now reach not to Sect. 32. Sixthly It is a purely voluntary and false Assertion That a separated soul knows all things together and perpetually The very holy Angels do not thus know all things Our Blessed Guardians of new know daily and howrly our actions and represent our sighs and devotions in the sight of God and since in these we are free and not tyed necessarily to any thing but our selves it is impossible they should know them till we our selves have determined our selves to them Nor even then immediately for God alone is the searcher of hearts till they have sallied out into some effect And our B. Saviour himself tells us The holy Angels themselves know not of that day and howr to wit of Judgment but onely the Father Matth. 24. and they rejoyce at the new conversion of a sinner Sect. 33. Seventhly Who ever rendred it Evident that No Alteration can befall a separated Soul from any other Spirit without the interposition of the Body For Spirits can act on Spirits immediately without such interposition and the contrary Doctrine is destructive of all the conversation of the holy Angels for all Aeternity is destructive of the Doctrine holy Writ delivers us of the fall of the Devils where the Dragon is described to have drawn after him the
his 16 dimens De med. Stat. And I answer That it is not altogether unhappy in an ill Cause to be able to say any thing without blushing I have seen Criminals deride the Court scorn the Iudge but I never yet heard any of that eminent Confidence that he durst Vaunt the Court had pronounced in his favour when he stood condemned by the Sentence But because you have learnt to say so too after your Master an ordinary Reader will judge That you verily beleeve you have no Credit to lose when you will venture your rest at this disadvantage The Pope defines Souls being purged even before the re-assumption of their bodies and before the general Iudgment were are and shall be in Heaven The Council defines Souls being now purged uncloathed of their Bodies are Presently received into Heaven I sustain this Faith That Souls may be purged uncloathed of their bodies and that such are received presently into Heaven before the re-assumption of their bodies and general Iudgment You maintain the contradictory of this Position and yet you have the confidence to tell your Reader and even hope he beleeves you That the Sentence is pronounced in your favour and that I stand condemned by it Fourthly You quarrel pag. 10. at the Title of their Book which is Concerning the state of departed Souls You fancy a Mystery which they never meant and tell us this is a false Title the true one is A definition of certain Articles concerning the blessed vision of God and the beatitude and damnation of Souls Which yet is the very self-same with the other in this onely differing that what they comprehended in the word state is here declared by this division Of beatitude and damnution Sect. 37. Fifthly You tell us pag. 11. the word Verbatim made you smile Surely Sir you do not smile without some special grace since you mind us so often of it And presently you triumph about the gender of Synodus which you insinuate the Publisher was ignorant of he having added to it an Adjective in the Masculine gender and you pursue your sport amain and tell us The Printer must take the fault upon him or else the publisher will be suspected to be better skilled in transcribinâ— Three hundred lines of Latin then making three and yet you safely pass this censure upon him since the Printer was exact enough in all the Popes and Councils Latin And further you read us a Grammar Lesson that some words in us are of the Feminine some in a of the Masculine gender Now Sir we will suppose that you were very carefull to examine the Print and yet for all your care Sacrâ—sanctum Ecclesiam escaped your eye For since you came so lately from Grammar I do not suspect you have forgot that Ecclesiaâ— and Musa are of the Feminine gender though Poeta indeed is as you tell us of the Masculine But these are meer seven-years-old-School-boys imployments unworthy your reflections now you write Man and would be tampering in Divinity But it unbeseems your Youth thus to attaque a person of Merit and Learning who long before your new minted Purgatory appeared in the world both read and sustained Orthodox Divinity in a famous University and I hope I may say it without vanity with Dignity and Honour to that Chair which was not every ones good fortune even after their Conclusions had passed the Press as I am informed out of Portugal Sixthly You laugh pag. 18. at your Adversaries as if they were afraid to produce their Reasons against Master White and therefore you must guess at their whispering Objections by their stalking in great Letters And elsewhere you tell us We can not weild Reason and therefore our weapons are Authority What Goliath is this that exprobrates the Hoast of the Living God The Church Sir is both armed with Authority against Novelties and is not unfurnished with Reason to sustain her Faith against all the Pagan Phylosophy of the world If my indeavours receive your approbation I shall proceed to further discoveries in this your faithless pretended Theology And as to your complaint That some words in their little Book stalkt in great Letters 't is grounded on your little conversation with Books where Capital Letters are frequent especially in citing Authorities For there where the force of the proof lies in two or three words they are pointed out thus to the Readers eye and observation You may if you please print in Capital Letters Monachi subditi Episcopis and Notent Monachi and then you will onely publish a little yet undigested Choler in a Controversie again and again decided by that Tribunal from which there is no appeal Seventhly You tell us pag. 14. Master Whites opposers acknowledge that this Question of Purgatory was not handled in Pope Benedict his dayes since they accuse Master White for the first starter of this doubt Your Adversary the Publisher of the Bull hath nothing at all of this If his other Opposers accuse him of it I know not how they can justifie the Accusation New Opinions are raked out of hell every day by the Heterodox party of which we yet finde obscure footsteps in Antiquity Many opinions were choaked by the authority of the Church even in their birth and broached again Your self acknowledge Pope Benedict and many Doctors of the Latin Church were of opinion That Purgation might be perfected before Reunion pag. 19. and it will not be improbable if it was onely their Opinion as you pretend that others with Master White held the contrary But how can you parallel pag. 17. Master White according to your Adversary with him who brake a Law before it was made if Master White now breaks one three hundred years after it was made unless you will suppose that no one Article of our Faith was establisht till some one or other impugned it for otherwise his now Crime or erroneous Doctrin might stand condemned long agoe Sect. 38. Eightly You would perswade your Reader pag. 34 35. that not You but We stand condemn'd by this Bull and Council because the sole design of the Pope was to secure this sacred verity That perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven And since your Adversary holds That every soul immediately upon her separation converts her self perfectly to God and yet he detains her still in Purgatory to suffer a dry and arbitrary punishment which doth not redress the already rectified affections of the soul It follows He contradicts the Popes design and stands condemned by this his Sentence I answer first That I have already charged you with imposing on the Pope and if it were true that the Pope doth here define That perfect Charity brings an immediate Heaven which when you shew we shall be thankful for the miracle yet does not your argument against us at all conclude for where does your Adversary tell you That immediately upon separation all the affections of the soul are rectified and she in perfect Charity much less
Sunt purgatae are now purged in the preterpersect Tense either in their bodies which you do not deny compleatly perfected in some souls in this life or uncloathed of their bodies which still irrationally gratis and wilfully you deny though the Council defines of both in the same form and style of words Sunt purgatae they are now purged Which cleerly imports a Purgation now past and perfectly compleated But we Will take our rise a little Higher from the very process of both the Greek and Latin Fathers in this business of Purgatory now assembled at Ferrara where this Council though afterwards translated to Florence and so is called the Florentin Council began For there in the very beginning of the Council in order to this Decree this Question of Purgatory was handled See tom 4. Concil. Gen. oct. Synod Quaestio de Purgatorio And both the Latin and Greek Fathers lay down their several Positions of Purgatory And First the Latins thus begin We do believe in this world a Purgatory fire by which the souls guilty of lighter faults that is venial sins are purged For those who have confessed their sins and have received the most sacred Body of Christ and presently die before previous satisfaction without doubt in the above-named fire which is commonly called Purgatory are purged and together with the help of the Church the prayers of Priests Masses and Alms are expiated After this the Greeks lay down their perswasion of Purgatory in this manner We judge say they Purgatory not to be a fire but a darksome placee full of afflictions in which souls now being are deprived of Divine Light but that they are expiated and freed from this darksome place and torments by the help of the Church the Prayers of Priests Masses Alms c. Now Sir it were beyond all the degrees of modesty to assert that the question of Purgatory was not here disputed or defined Or that they talked onely of Charity as being an immediate disposition to bliss And it is most cleer that out of these several professions in which both sides agreed against you directly and home to our Point in question of an expiation and delivery from this Purgatory either a fire or a darksome place issued out this definition Being purged uncloathed of this body presently opposite to your Errour And I would have my Reader to observe how positively it was intended by the Council to deliver us the Faith of the Church conformable to the unanimous Doctrine of both parties both of the expiation or perfect Purging of Souls when uncloathed of their bodies and of their present delivery whilest uncloated for in all this both the Greek and Latin Fathers cleerly agreed against this new School which when he shall have considered I doubt not but he will rest satisfied it can not be an act of the Vnderstanding but of the Will which forces the word Presently to signifie if it signifie any thing at all by these moderns at the day of Iudgement which was not the time either the Latin or Greek Fathers ever thought of but of the intermediate time of separation which is our business now in hand But because this Point is excellently well handled by an eminently Learned Person of out Nation who with unavoidable strength pursues it more at large in a Paper which came lately to my hands I will presume to give it my Reader in his own words at the end of my discourse Letter C. And further Sir for your more compleat and full satisfaction since with confidence enough you strongly assert That it is Incomparably false that either the Pope or Council ever intended to settle this Point of the delivery of Souls out of Purgatory before reunion I will add to the Paper of this great Divine the answer of a School-fellow of yours yet if I mistake not a much better proficient in your Masters Doctrine certainly much more ingenuous who vanquished with the evidence of this Truth acknowledges what indeed he could not with any modesty deny That this your new Doctrine of Purgatory stands condemned by both the Bull and Council and yet he was so captivated that he endeavours to sustain it by other grounds he had now learnt in your School My Reader shall find his Letter at large Letter D. Sect. 17. But before I pass any further since I have already told you that both Master White the Author of this Purgatory and his abler Scholars are armed against the Authority both of Popes and Councils it will not be out of my Readers way but very much conducing to my design of giving him a prospect of this School if now by some short reflections on the Doctrine delivered both by this ingenious Gentleman and Master White himself I make good that charge For by them it will appear to what unavoidable exigencies the defence of new Fabricks in Religion drive those who wedded to their preconceived Phylosophical fancies are resolved ro square their belief to them This ingenuous Scholar confesses That truly according to the opinion that the Holy Ghosts assistance in Councils and Consistories it without restriction or limitation the Paper delivered Letter C. seems to him to evidence a deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory before the Day of Iudgment But according to the opinion that the assistance of the Holy Ghost in Councils and Consistories is no longer then there is a diligent search to find out what Christ taught and the Apostles delivered as so taught there appears onely that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict did think it to be so which may raise opposition to a disobedience but not to an Heresie c. So that unless We shew that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict determined conformably to Tradition Mr. Blacklowes that is Master Whites calling the doctrine and practice new will not savour the least of Heresie c. But foreseeing the strange consequences of this Doctrine he therefore Adds This puts all to a loss for how shall it be known that Councils and Consistories apply themselves aright Easily says he by examining Tradition of what you have seen and heard This is the common light and plain way promised to keep even fools from straying from Christs Doctrine Thus he Now Sir this Exterminating Doctrine was learnt in Master Whites School where it is but too too frequent And first as to the infallibility of the Pope without which no submission as to Faith can take place Master White * now being constituted by God a speculatour proclaims against it with sound of trumpet and tells us That to maintain the Pope to be infallible is Heretical Son Buâ— and Tabulae Suffragiales tab. 19. nay Archiheretical tab. 20. nay the most Horrid of all sins the sin of sins and for fear we should want Examples worse then violating sacred virgins on Altars then treading the ever B. Sacrament of Christs body under foot Or bringing the Turk or Antichrist into the Christian Dominions Son Buc. tract.
of Purgatory cannot subsist or else the Council in our very point in question hath not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto proceeded to an erroneous definition de facto by this attempt hath fallen into an errour and de facto publisht it to the World And the Church which hath constantly imbraced this Faith hath de facto erred as well as it And now I hope your peremptory When hath received its answer your so many times reiterated question When is this purgation perfected compâ—eated ended Take the Popes answer since I hope you are not so good a proficient as to detest and abhominate his authority to teach you faith before the resumption of their bodies and the general day of Iudgment Let the Council satisfie you if you are not poysoned with that detestable Doctrine that it may err too as well as the Pope being purged even uncloathed of their bodies presently Agree and reunite your self to the Catholick Church and be refractory no longer upon the itch of novelties of seeming wiser then all the Christian World ever was before you Sect. 21. But still you bite the Bridle these words so directly opposite to your errour are in these sacred decisions there they are and there they must remain maugre the Gates of Hell which shall never prevail against this Faith and when you have turned your self into all your postures you appear with this pitiful evasion these words are â—here indeed but say you pag. 19 20. c. they reach not home to our point The Popes ante reassumptionem c. before the reunion depends on the precedent words when after death they shall be purged and after the aforesaid purgation which words also should have stalked in great Letters This purgation is indeed supposed but no way defined and for the Councils Presently it also depends on the foregoing words being purged uncloathed c. which presupposes a purgation held by some divines in the state of separation but no way Decrees it and since the question was not then of the truth of this supposition as now it is but that then it was admittted without more adoe you grant us that in that supposition those words passed into the Pope and Councils Decrees The Pope indeed was of the opinion that the purgation â—f souls might be compleated in the state of separation but what does that concern you You lawfully dissent from his Opinion if you find reason but not from his Faith where he opinâ—s you follow him as far as his reason leads but where he defines you submit Now Sir as to this I wondered at your last word submit for I understand not you if you understand your Master We are here in a business of Faith and certainly you pass a very handsome complement upon the Pope when you tell him you submit to his definitions If this be real since your submission in faith can not be grounded but upon the supposition that he is infallible your Master will instantly discard you out of the School For an Heretick an Arch-Heretick for an introducer of Antichrist into Christendome This censure he hath fixt on this Doctrine as I have told you before But as to your plea though to use your own Phrase it is incomparably false as is before evinced nor can it according to your Masters own grounds take place in the Council where they proceed upon the depositum of Faith Yet to give you that satisfaction we will joyn issue in this your subtility as if your plea were allowable And in truth when you say that they proceeded on this as a supposition onely Yonr moderate Reader will much blame the boldness of this attempt because it will leave very ill consequences behind it and besides he will tell you that you had a very great disesteem both for the Popeâ— and Council and that you fancied them to be admirably ridiculous Persons who should proceed to definitions of Faith to declarâ— us Articles of our belief which regulate so much practisâ— on suppositions not only false but impossible The whole Christian World was in labour about the state of souls in Purgatory the East and Western Churches meet the diligent scruâ—iny of Divines make a search into all Libraries Papers Scrowls and after all these Throwes the issue is nâ—nsensical definitions upon not onely ridiculous and false but impossible suppositions If they had troubled their heads to tell us that when the Sky falls we shall catch Larks it had been tollerable the supposition had been foolish not impossible But to tell us and make â—uch a putther to tell us when you remaining yet what you are shall become an Angel what then shall happen when indeed nothing shall happen or any thing may happen is to render the supream Pastor of the Church the sacred Assemblies of â—hâ— shepheards of our souls a laughing stock to children And yet this is our very case according to you for upon this bare and impossible supposition that the purgation of separated souls might be compleated before reuâ—ion issued this impossible Doctrine that they were presently and before the day of Iudgment received into heaven And if you had but weighed those very Examples you use pag. 20. 21. you would have observed this What sense will this bear A Prisoner when acquitted by Proclamation becomes a free-man or Fire applyed to combustible matter presently burns if it be absolutely impossible the Prisoner should ever be acquitted by Proclamation or that fire should ever be applyed to combustible matter what practise can we regulate by such Positions and yet your self had a â—winkling light of it p. 21. for having asked your friend when you should see him in the Coantry You complain of his canting answer when he tells you as soon as he comes down he will visit you since as you say it was the confidence of this which made you inquire the other We must be confident then of the supposition or else what is drawn out of it is nothing If it were impossible your time should ever be out under this your new Master your setting up a new School for your self would signifie nothing If it be impossible That you should ever havâ— performed your previous exercises your presently proceeding Doctour would be out of doors So â—hat without being an Oedipus if the supposition as you will needs have it that Souls may be purged uncloathed of their Bodies be impossible the definitions both of the â—ope and Councill are more silily ridiculous then any Fable in Aesop or Ovid for in these there is still some Morall or Physicall Mystery coucht for our Instruction in them nothing at all But how do you parrallel pag 22 23. your Adversaries proceed in obscuring some words in an obscure Letter or render it worse then if he should set in Cpaital Letters Christ is not risen from the dead and our preaching is vain in lieu of these words of St. Paul If Christ is not risen from the dead Then
let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS Aâ— which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Doctoâ—r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him
third part of the Stars or Angels into his Rebellion And if Angels can thus Act on Angels without this interposition of a body why not on separated souls Nor is that Foundation of this his Doctrine at all subsistent For since says he All Spirits are indivisible their Operations must be indivisible And consequently perfected All of them in one moment For this consequence is perfectly null Nor will it ever be rendred evident that an Act of a Spirit may not coexist to a great or less part of time much less will it ever be evinced as is already proved that there is not a true and real succession in their operations So that his Doctrine is absolutely false when he tells us If any thing be to be done among Spirits it is so done and perfected in one moment that afterwards an other action can not be begun And besides when he assumes An indivisible effect the causes being put of necessity exists in the same moment Though he may say true for that one Act but when he infers the same for all succeeding Acts unto Aeternity he errs most grosly Imagining this which is one of the most fundamental Bases of all his Phylosophy and Divinity that all Causes are fixt and set as to All Effects whatsoever from the very beginning unto all future succession By which Doctrine both God himself is necessitated so to do that he can not do otherwise then he doth do and each intelligence so to know by the connexion of existences that it can not know otherwise then it does know which is most pure Pagan Fatality destructive of the Liberty of God and all contingency in all created things whatsoever Sect. 34. Lastly That we may vindicate Christianity and the Church from that ignorance of separated Substances he boldly and injuriously fixes upon Her and the Angelical St. Thomas from a most gross abuse let us take a survey of his 17 Accompt in his Middlè State of Souls He there tells us The delivery of Souls before Reunion proceeded out of the ignorance or not adhering to this Doctrine of the incomparable St. Thomas and his School That in Abstracted Spirits there is neither discourse nor any manner of composition but purely a simple apprehension so that errour and falsity can have no place in them For these sayes he depend on the body so that it is impossible Indivisibles or Spirits should be capable of Succession Now that my Reader may fully understand both the Truth here contained and his most erroneous Consequences drawn from It We must observe that there is a double Composition in Vnderstandong both of the Praedicat to the Subject and of the Conclusion to the Premisses Both which take place in Vs by reason of the weakness of our Vnderstandings in this state of mortality For neither do We at one single glance understand the Praedicat though we cenceive the Subject nor do we attain to the Conclusions included in the Principles but by a long indeavour and succession of reasoning or discourse So that our Uâ—derdandings arrive not to Truth but by compounding or dividing the terms one with the other and the Conclusion with the Premisses But it happens otherwise in Angels For they by a cleer strength of Vnderstanding apprehend both the composition and division of Propositions with one simple sight and the Conclusions in the Principles without this succession of discourse This is St. Thomas his Doctrine 1 Par. quaest. 58. art 3. 4. Now it imports not our present business to consider Whether this knowledge of Spirits is a true discourse since a succession of time is not perhaps requisit to that but onely of causality which is here found But it imports us to consider That out of this Doctrine of St. Thomas it no ways follows That Errour or falsity can have no place in separated Substances For the same St. Thomas disputes this in the very next Article and teaches us That though in such things as are thus naturally known by the apprehensions of the terms or Principles Spirits can not err yet in such things as depend on the supernatural Ordination of God as far forth as they are supernatural Errour may take place in them And this says he happens not to the good Angels because they judge not of those things which supernaturally belong to the Object without due submission to the Divine Ordination but it does in the Devils who by their perverse will withdrawing themselves from the Divine Wisdome judge erroneously of supernatural things But that we may further see how injuriously he would improove the Doctrine of this great Saint and Doctour both against him and the Church we must further observe that his Consequence That Indivisibles or Spirits are not capable of succession is both null and against this holy Doctour every where For in the first Article of this very Question he teaches That Angels are not alwayes in actual consideration of those very things they know naturally He tells us That of those thinge which God reveals to them of which they receive new revelations by the occasions of affairs they are in potentiality or preceding ignorance He tells us in the next Article Those things whose knowledge depend on one onely Species Angels know all together but not those which depend on divers He tells us in fine everywhere That there is a real and true Succession in their Acts which is measured by a real and true Succession of Time And I can not admonish my Reader too of ten of His fatal Necessity and Connexion of Causes which runs through all his Doctrine and grounds these his Positions when he tells us That a separated Soul is all other things by the connexion of existencies and since she knows all things together and for ever by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science Which Doctrine is the Corner-stone of all his Fabrick of Purgatory and is perfectly destructive of all Religion because destructive of all Liberty in God and Creatures And peculiarly destructive of all the mysteries of Grace and Supernaturality for all these depend on the pure freedom and Will of God who is not nor can not be tyed to creatures and therefore the same Angelical Doctor in the precedent 57. Quest Art 3 4 5. concludes That Angels neither know all future contingencies Nor the secrets of our hearts Nor the mysteries of Grace but as far forth as it pleases God to reveal these to them which in their first Creation he did in some measure but more amply and fully afterwards according as it did agree with their Offices and imployments in this Vniverse This Sir is true Christian Theology which reaches much more to souls in Purgatory learnt by revelation from him who neither can be deceived nor deceive us not out of Epicurean Lucretian Pagan Principles of Fatality in things and of Necessity in God in order to his Creatures But if we should suppose all these Vnchristian
souls be concerned when the day of Judgment shall come And hath not your admired Master made a fair hand of it hath he not now compleately ended his work This and only this remained in his new Systeme That the day of Iudgment is hastned by our prayers that so the souls may be assisted by them and he himself escape that brand of Heresie whilst the Councils pronounce They are assisted by us which even vulgar eyes would presently have fixt upon his Opinion And now he hath fairly delivered us of that empty pretence It is not It can not be according to him That the pepetuating of the motions of the heavens or their even now ending their Circulations can give any addition or diminution to the torments and sufferings of souls in the state of separation For in them to co-exist to one hower to one minute and a million of Ages is one and the same thing Let the Angels Trumpet summon them this moment let it be deferred ten thousand thousand years He tells us and for fear we should not understand him again and again tells us Their duration is still the same Their moment one and the same Their pains their sufferings one and the same But how happily will he be surprized if out of these grounds it be evinced That those Souls as to their present state of separation can not be concerned whether ever the Day of Iudgment come or no Let us suppose that the Providence of God had so ordered this machin of the world that these circulations of the Heavens should never receive their last end and period Separated Souls most evidently according to his Positions would not at all be concerned in this our Supposition for where to coexist to one minute howr or a million of ages is the same thing the Soul in that state cannot be concerned whether Time ever or never receive an end He himself tells us Nothing is gained or lost by the perpetuating that is never ending or even now contracting of these motions And this will be rendred more evident by the consideration of this our Supposition For since to suppose the world shall last for ever is but to suppose it shall last longer then any determinable number of Ages and since his indivisible duration of Souls doth not onely comprehend this or that determinate number of years but all time whatsoever He himself teaches us That every Act of a pure Spirit reflected on it self is greater then the whole extension of time It follows that this duration of Souls it self remaining the very same would comprehend all Time in that Supposition that time should never have an End and by consequence a separated Soul as to its state of separation is wâ—olly unconcerned whether ever the world should have or not have an end And what influence this his Doctrine will have to evacuate our apprehensions of Eternity I leave to my Readers consideration Away then with these idle Winter-tales away with this Ignorance of the nature of separated souls A Purgatory fire A purging in the state of separation A delivery from thence before re-union An assistance given by our Prayers to their sufferings Fables Dreams and Nothings Farewel to Prayers Offrings Masses Alms Legacies Foundations Meer cheats and devices Utensils of a thriving Devotion imposed by the Church on the pious credulity of ignorant people Here is a period put by our Thomas the English-man to that sensless Devotion which hath so long troubled the ignorant silly world And which then certainly shall have its period when Scriptures Fathers Popes Councils and All other Schools shall cease when the Faith Christ our Saviour taught us shall be evacuated and have an end and great Trinobant be inthroned to inlighten the hitherto darken'd world by His and his Knights Demonstrations Sect. 36. But let us make an end I have run through my Adversaries defence of his Purgatory against our present Bull and Council I have given my Reader some small light into this School Its Method Its Design I have given some touches upon Its Doctrines Its Demonstrations and we have concluded with this Devotion for the Dead There remains onely that I make some short reflexions on what is added in this Letter either as to the Publishers Persons or other things which did not directly pertain to our present Question of Purgatory And First as to his Quarrel pag. 1 c. That the Publishers printed this Book without any application A Medium by which Mr. White might seem an Heretick to the good women as he tells us of which there are not a few and ignorant men of which there are too many Nay their own Proselytes become such by making private Interpretations since this is to give themselves over to the private Spirit I answer The Faith of their Flock being attempted their Pastoral Care obliged them to this proceed They published the Condemnation of this Doctrine and pointed it out which prooved effectual to their Design When Creeds and Catechisms are proposed to the vulgar without further application to this or that Opinion of a private Doctour or Heresie there is no fear Children should become Heretiques but are instructed in Faith It is those who with Pride and Pertinacy wrest these Sacred Texts to their own preconceived fancies that run the hazard To Master Whites person neither they nor I have any Quarrel It 's an errour of Judgment to conceive him an Heretique For those onely are such who voluntarisy and pertinaciously adhere to some one or more Doctrines contrary to the received Faith of the Church Those who deny all Faith who pretend no Knowledge is necessary but such as is establisht by natural Science and Demonstrations are not Hereticks but Naturalists and Pagan Phylosophers In your Third Age of the Church which shall be directed by this new Light there will be no possibility of Heresies When St. Pauls words Without faith it is impossible to please God shall be evacuated his other Doctrine Oportet Haereses esse will find no place Secondly â—ow was this your Quarrel ushered in pag. 4. with Tantoene animis coelestibus irae The Publisher had not bewrayed the least impatience there was nothing in the Book you pretend to answer of his own It was not he but you that pronounce your self guilty of Anger And yet this was as pertinent as your Quid non mortalia pectora cogis is adapted to him whom all good men better acquainted with him have been more prone to censure of the contrary disposition to that which you now slily would fix upon him But yet not altogether unhappily was your Defence of a Poetical Purgatory ushered in with these Poetical Exclamations Thirdly You tell us pag. 7 9. That Master White had long before appeal'd to these very Authorities and urged them so home that he had rendred it evident They speak his Opinion and against that Faith I sustain My Reader may if he please for his satisfaction peruse that mysterious place in
that she hath satisfied the divine Justice for her irregularites in this mortal life The Publisher hath not one word of this in his book you pretend to answer You are like a Romancical Knight you make Gyants and kill them but if he truely did hold this Doctrin which you impose upon him yet will your Argument be of no force against him For this question being proposed Whether souls immediately upon separation rectifie all their affections Your Adversary may take which side of the contradiction he pleases and still sustain with the Pope and Council this their Doctrin of Purgatory against you And first let us suppose he should asserâ— with you That inordinate affections do accompany the soul into the next life yet he may sustain those Affections are purged and rectified before re-union and what crime should he be guilty of but of opposing your pretended Demonstrations and so your mock Victory and Pageant Triumph whilst you would perswade him p. 35. to acknowledge with regret that the Pope and Council pronounce against him is at an end the strength of your proof depending on An Imposition on the Pope An Imposition on your Adversary and a non-concluding Argument drawn out of them both I had almost forgot that in this case he should withstand the authority of Virgil whose Phylosophy your Master magnifies above that of the Church though the Poet describes both corporal punishments inflicted on the Souls which your master will needs understand after his too frequent Metaphorical manner and admits their passing into Elysium his feigned heaven before Resurrection of which the Poet never dreamt Nor even as to the proof that Affections to corporal pleasures do remain in Separated Souls for which end it is introduced doth this place of this Poet reach home nec funditus omnes Corporea excedunt pestes penitusque necesse est Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris For these words doe not clearly carry this sense Do all evils cease all plagues all strifes Contracted in the body many a stain Long time inured needs must even then remain But however to do him right if this place do not reach home this Doctrin is frequent with the Heathen Poets in their Fables as in that of Narcissus 3. Metamor where he stands condemned to gaze upon himself in the next life because he passed out of this in a doting self-love But if we should suppose the Publisher to approve That such souls immediately upon separation rectifie all disordered affections how will you justifie that this or perfect Charity is an immediate disposition to Beatifical Vision What do you think of Lumen Gloriae the Light of Glory which is farther required And if you fancy with your Master lib. 5. Perip Lect. 15. That God is a Sun darting out existencies according to the several dispositions of Creatures What doctrin shall we have from you of the Saints in this life will you pronounce That never any Saint had perfectly regulated his affections but just in that very moment he passed out of this life What do you conceive of the holy Apostles of the Baptist what in particular of St. Paul when he tels us I live now not I but Christ lives in me What of the holy Fathers ofx the old Law What of the ever Blessed Virgin even when she bore the Saviour of the world in her sacred womb did all these injoy Beatitude or were they imperfect in Charity or did this Sun not dart forth his existencies as perfect Charity the immediate disposition to heaven required But let us consider your Argument you tell us that your Adversary conceiving the Souls now perfect in Charity delayes their Beatitude and condems them to a dry and arbitrary punishment pag. 35. This dry and arbitrary punishment you have out of your Masters Doctrin for he prosecutes it at length in his Middle Stateâ— Acc. 10 11 c. And first he tells us God doth not punish sinners upon the score of Revenge nor for the satisfaction of Iustice since he suffers no injury by our offences Nor can the punishments of Souls be involuntary or springing from an external much less from a material Agent but from within That such pains neither avail Them nor Vs Lastly That these sufferings have no connexion with the sins and yet God being a perfect Architect hath so artificially framed his work that of it self it performs all operations without supplement or future minute alterations in any of its Members or Organs And so he excepts against punishments which are supposed to remain due after the fault forgiven Acc. 13. All which is but to retrive what the Heterodox party alledged long since in their impugnations of Purgatory and Penance and which stands condemned by this the 30 Canon of the Council of Trent Sess. 6. de Iustif. occasioned by this Doctrine If any one shall say That to every penitent sinner after the grace of Iustification received that so the fault is forgiven and the guilt of eternal punishment that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be payd either in this life or in the future in Purgatory before the passage to Heaven may be opened let him be Anathema Thus the Council Where by the way you may observe a temporary punishment in Purgatory against your Systeme and after the remission of the fault a punishment due But because this Truth is so fundamental in the Sacred Council all its Doctrine of Satisfaction the third part of Penance depending on it Let us compare its Sacred Oracles with the Doctrine of our new Master And first Sess. 14. cap. 8. Of the necessity and fruit of Satisfaction The Council declares this Doctrine of Satisfaction to have been the constantly received Faith of the Church by Divine Tradition and is impugned now by those who have an outside of Piety but have denied the vertue of it Directly opposite to our new School which teaches That Pains remain not due after the fault forgiven under pretence of promoting solid Devotion And the Council pronounces That it is altogether false and against the Word of God that the fault is never remitted but that All the punishment is also forgiven For besides Divine Tradition there are illustrious examples in holy Writ which most manifestly convince this Errour Thus the Council directly against our new Master as will presently appear by his answer to this Doctrine Further the Council pursues Nay the order of the Divine Iustice doth seem to require that in an other manner sins should be pardoned in them who before Baptism offended by ignorance then in those who after Baptism violate the Temple of God And it becomes the Divine Clemency that sins should not be pardoned in Penance without any satisfaction Directly against our Master who tells us No Punishments are inflicted upon the score of satisfying the Divine Iustice since God suffers no injury by our offences The Council holds on Let the Priests of God have before their eyes that the
knowledge all erroneous judgments corrected in them their grief depending on this that their affections to corporal pleasures are greater then in proportion to other desires which ought to be preferred it would not be inconsequent to tâ—is Doctrine That those damned souls now seeing most evidently that other desires ought to be preferred before these affections to corporal pleasures since this errour is now rectified and they in a condition by re-union with the body of changeableness they should also rectifie their affections which are but these judgments and by consequence become now Denizons of Heaven which also might seem to become the Mercies of God and render the state of the Blessed more happy there by their company Sect. 41. Tenthly You entertain your Reader pag. 36 c. with scoffing at hallowed Grains sanctified Beads the extending of Indulgencies to the next World which you style External devices Vtensils of a thriving Devotion deluding Priviledges c. which perfectly befits a Scholar trained up in Luthers School thus he began And you are not content with this you retrive again in the same place and fix upon your Adversary that signal calumny long since fixt upon the Church for the use of such things That she goes to Heaven by such things not by holy desires Nor even pretends that such things promote souls in holy desires or increase sanctity in them In which you speak against your own Soul and Conscience For you very well know the Church is not guilty of this nor your Adversary who will tell you that he beleeves with St. Paul that if he had faith able to remove mountains yet it would not avail him without charity and further tells you That such things as you here enumerate do increase sanctity and holy desires in us and render our prayers more effectual for the Souls in Purgatory Eleventhly You tell us in your Postscript That private calumnies are whispered against Master White as holding strange Opinions which his own Books contradict I have also heard something of this and I think our informations jump you may peradventure find it hinted at in this discourse Nor need that Gentleman fear your title of a Calumniatour or that his Authority will not carry it nor indeed will it be engaged in the Quarrel he is provided of a Defence I have shewed him that very Doctrine in terms in your Masters Book which he had told him in Private it is ready for you you shall have it when you please to call for it And I wonder those solid persons acquainted with every ressort of his Learning did not see it Lastly You add Your Master hath this comfort That his carriage needs neither fear the exemplarity of his Adversaries lives nor his unparalled Learning the force of their Arguments In which your Reader will be perswaded that you were not a perfect Scholar in Galateus his School The Publisher against whom you write is a Person of eminent exemplarity and for my part where your Masters Pen is not engaged I have been edified by him even in his Writings I find some things most excellent but why comparisons should be made I do not understand You and I being private persons hope still the best and pray for all those whom we desire to better by our example But because it is both laudable and lawfull to magnifie the good and pious lives of men I joyn heartily with you in this Encomium of your Master And if you now design to advance in order to his Canonization and can make good his Faith which is the first Quaere of that Court I shall very willingly give testimony to the exemplarity of his Life I wish from my Soul his Doctrine would appear intirely and fully Catholick and for the rest you have my Vote he may be beleeved as holy as St. Iohn Baptist Sect. 42. And now Sir I hope to have given you some satisfaction in our point in controversie We as yet have proceeded upon this unshakeable ground That the Councils are unerrable in their Decrees and upon this I have received a very ample and full one my self I do beleeve That Souls are purged uncloathed of their Bodies and presently received into Heaven before re-union with them And that the Council and Pope deliver this Position I must see if I have eyes and I hope you will by what is said And this hope is heightned in me because my Conscience tell me I have proceeded with as even a hand as I could in balancing what you have said against it with that which I have said for it If I am byassed naturally on either side it is on yours Nature prompts me still to wish the Church and her Faith were not engaged against you Your opinion would at one blow ease me of that incumbent care to assist my dead Friends But I have learnt this work of mercy from a Child to pray for the Dead which in your Systeme as I have evinced is fruitless But alas Sir this business of Purgatory is not that which so much troubles my head though it be one I have a deeper fear I am pressed with the consideration of this new molded Theology I see this demonstrative Doctrine this pretence of reducing the mysteries of Faith to our narrow brains this hope of introducing Science in lieu of Faith into the World strikes much deeper then yet You imagine Nor am I at all confident of your solid cleer-sighted Friends who are acquainted with every resort of Master Whites Doctrine I fear and I think not without Reason the Church and He have nothing common but words for the notions and significations are quite different But our Faith lies not in the sound of words but in the sense and meaning of them When I am told Souls are not purged in the state of separation but onely at re-union though the word Purgatory yet remain my Faith remains not of this Article And so it will fare with the rest I do beleeve Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our souls in Baptism I do beleeve holy Iustifâ—ing Grace by which we are the Sons of God is something inhaerent in our souls and my notion of these things which are supernatural is that they are of a different order and series then Nature But when I am now taught God is the Author of Nature but showrs not down into us an other series of things of an other or differing order Reason is Nature to us and the perfection of Reason is Demonstration Though at the same time we are taught That God perfects Nature by supernatural things yet I suspect the word supernatural being still the same that now it is become aequivocal and signifies an other thing with him then it does with me I do believe the ever Blessed Trinity to be Three real Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost Yet where I find this most sublime mystery pretended to be Demonstrated by what is Essential in God to know and love
be otherwise attempted by any one that she forthwith by her authority adding also punishments thereunto as she shall judge it expedient totally root it out For which Church to the end that she subsisting in her self might inform others our Saviour Christ Jesus prayed to his Father in the time of his Passion saying Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may fift you as Wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail and when thou art converted strengthen thy Brethren 1. There arose indeed a matter of question not long since in the time of Iohn the 22 our Predecessor of happy memory between some Doctors of Divinity concerning the Vision of the Souls of just men after their death in which there was nothing to be purged when they departed out of this world or if there were it was now totally purged Whether they see the Divine Essence before the assumption of their Bodies and the generall Judgement and also concerning other matters some of them holding the negative some the affirmative others according to their own imaginations endeavouring to shew divers things and in divers manners concerning the Vision of the Divine Essence by the Souls aforesaid as it is known apparently by their words and writings and by their rejected Disputations which we here omit for brevities sake because they so differed amongst themselves from our determinations And whereas our aforesaid Predecessor to whom the determination of the above-mentioned Questions did belong had prepared himself in his publick Consistory as well before his Brethren the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church of whose members we our selves then were as before the Prelates and Doctors in Divinity many of them being present strictly charging and commanding them that each one should deliberately deliver his opinion concerning the matter of the aforesaid Vision when he should require it from them But being prevented by Death as it pleased God he could not effect it 2. We therefore after the death of our aforesaid Predecessor being assumed to sit in the Apostolical Seat more seriously considering how great dangers of Souls might be incurr'd and how many scandals might arise if the aforesaid contentions were left unresolved to the end that the diversity of opinions may perish and the solidity of truth may plainly appear having first made use of a careful examination of the matters aforesaid and having diligently deliberated with our Brethren the Cardinals of the said Roman Church Do with the advice of those our Brethren by the Apostolicall authoritie Define by this constitution to be valid for ever 3. That according to the common ordination of God The Souls of all the Saints which departed out of this world before the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ as also the Souls of the holy Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and of the other faithfull departed after they had received Christs sacred Baptism in whom there was nothiâ—g to be purged when they departed nor also shxall be when heâ—eafter they shall depart this life or if there then be or shall be any thing to be purged in them when after Death they shall be purged And That the Souls of Infants regenerated with the said Christian Baptism and to be baptized when being baptized they shall depart this life before they have the use of their free will PRESENTLY after their departure and after the aforesaid Purgation in such as stood in need thereof EVEN BEFORE THE RESUMPTION OF THEIR BODIES AND BEFORE THE GENERAL JUDGEMENT since the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus into Heaven WERE ARE AND SHALL BE IN HEAVEN in the heavenly Kingdome in the celestial Paradise with Christ aggregated to the fellowship of the holy Angels and since the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ they have seen and do see the Divine Essence by an intuitive vision and even face to face without the mediation of any creature interposing it self by way of a visible object but the Divine Essence shewing it self immediately unto them nakedly clearly and openly And That they thus seeing the Divine Essence do enjoy the same Moreover That by such a vision and fruition the Souls of them who are already departed out of this life are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest and so shall their Souls be which shall hereafter depart this life when they shall see the same Divine Essence and enjoy it before the general Judgment And That this Vision and Fruition of the Divine Essence doth evacuate in them and cause to cease the Acts of Faith and Hope as Faith and Hope are properly Theological Vertues And That after such an intuitive and facial Vision and Fruition shall be begun in them the same Vision and Fruition without any interruption evacuation or cessation hath remained continued and shall be continued even to the final Judgment and afterwards even to all Eternity 4. Moreover We Define That according to Gods common ordination the souls of such as die in actual deadly sin descend PRESENTLY into Hell after their death where they are tormented with infernal punishments and That nevertheless in the Day of Judgment all men shall appear before the Tribunal of Christ with their bodies to render an account of their own actions that every one may bear the proper things of his body according to what he hath done whether good or evil 5. Decreeing That our Definitions or Determinations aforesaid and every of them be held by all faithfull people And that whosoever shall hereafter presume wittingly and pertinaciously to hold affirm preach teach and defend by Word or by Writing contrary to these our aforesaid Definitions or Determinations and every of them It be proceeded against him in due manner as AGAINST AN HERETICK 6. Let it not therefore be lawfull for any man to violate this Page of our Constitution or by a rash boldness to do against the same But if any one shall presume to attempt it let him know that he shall incur the wrath of the Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul his Apopostles Given at Avinion on the Fourth of the Calends of February in the Second Year of Our Popedome In like manner it was decreed in the Eighth General Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth as appears in the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Church In these terms Out of the Eighth Geneneral Synod held at Florence under Eugenius the Fourth In the Letters of the holy Union between the Latin and Greek Churches The Sacred Council aprooving We Define Artic. 3. IF truly penitent Souls shall depart this Life before they have satisfied for their Commissions and Omissions by the worthy Fruits of Penance That their Souls are purged by the punishment of Purgatory after their Bodies Death And that to relieve them from such their punishments the Suffrages of the faithfull yet living do profit them to wit Sacrifices of the Mass Prayers Alms-deeds and other offices of piety
which are used to be performed by the faithfull for other faithfull according to the institute of the Church Art 4. And that the Souls of them who after Baptism received have contracted no blemish at all of any Sin as also those Souls which after they have contracted the blemish of sin are purged either in their Bodies or being UNCLOATHED OF THEIR BODIES as is above-said are PRESENTLY received into Heaven and clearly behold God himself in Trinity and Unity as he is yet according to the diversity of Merits one more perfect then another Art 5. But that the Souls of them who depart this life in actual deadly sin or onely in Original sin do PRESENTLY descend into Hell to be there punished though with unequal punishments We also define That the holy Apostolical Sea and the Roman Bishop holds the Primacy over the whole World and that he the Roman Bishop is the Successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ and the Head of the whole Church and the Father and Teacher of all Christians and that full power was delivered unto him by our Lord Jesus Christ in St. Peter to feed to rule and to govern the universal Church As it is also contained in the Acts of General Councils and in the sacred Canons Given at Florence in the publick Synodical Session In the year 1439. And subscribed by the Emperour of Constantinople and the Greek and Latin Fathers there and then present as it appears in the Books of the Councils B The Ten Heresies condemned by this Bull of Pope Benedict gathered by Eymericus in his Directory of the Inquisitors approved by Gregory xiii cited Pag. 29. IN the Extravagant of Pope Benedict xii says Eymericus which begins Blessed be God These following Heresies are condemned and their contraries are proved to be Catholick verities and to be held as matters of Faith The first Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of Just men departed before the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ in which nothing was to be purged presently after the said Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ before the resumption of their Bodies and the general Iudgment did not see nor do see nor shall see cleerly and openly the Divine Essence nor do enjoy it No◠after the Ascension of our Lord Iesus Christ were are nor shall be in Heaven in the Heavenly Kingdome and celestial Paradise with Christ aggregated to the fellowship of the holy Angels The Second Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of Just men departed before the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ in which something remained to be purged the purgation being totally compleated presently after the said Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment did not see nor do see nor shall see the Divine Essence clearly and openly not do enjoy it Nor after the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ were are nor shall be in Heaven c. The Third Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of Just men departed after they had received the sacred Baptism in which nothing is to be purged when they depart before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment do not see nor shall see the Divine Essence clearly and openly nor do enjoy it nor are nor shall be in Heaven in the Heavenly Kingdome c. The Fourth Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of Just men departing after they have received the sacred Baptism in which there is somthing to be purged when they depart their purgation being also totally compleated before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment do not see nor shall see clearly and openly the Divine Essence nor do nor shall enjoy it nor are nor shall be in Heaven c. The Fifth Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of Infants regenerated by sacred Baptism departing before the use of their Free-will before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment do neither see nor shall see clearly and openly the Divine Essence nor do enjoy it nor shall enjoy it nor are nor shall be in Heaven c. The Sixth Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls of all the aforesaid Just men departed before the resumption of their bodies and the general Iudgment shall not be blessed with the Divine Vision and Fruition nor shall have eternal life and rest The Seventh Heresie is That the Vision which the blessed Souls have of the Divine Essence is not an intuitive and facial Vision The Eighth Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the intuitive and facial Vision and Fruition of the Divine Essence shall be evacuated in the Blessed nor shall be continued until the final Judgment nor from thence unto all Eternity The Ninth Heresie is That according to the common ordination of God the Souls departed in mortal Sin presently after death do not descend into Hell nor are tormented with infernal punishments The Tenth Heresie is That in the day of Judgmen◠all men shall not appear with their bodies before the Tribunal of Christ to render an account of their actions 2 Cor. 5. 10. that every one may receive the things done in his bodie according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad C. The Discourse of an Eminently Learned Divine of our Nation to prove the delivery of Souls before the Resurrection Cited pag. 42. The Condemnation of Blacklow or White by a Pope and General Council THe sense of the Florentin Council of the admission of some Souls even those that now are in Purgatory to Eternal Beatitude before the day of General judgment The Definition of the Council In the Name of the most holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost This Sacred and Vniversal Florentin Council approving we define That the Souls of those who after Baptism received have contracted no Blemish at all of sin as also the souls of those which after the blemish of sin contracted are now purged either in their bodies or uncloated of their said bodies as is above said presently are received into Heaven and do behold God himself in Trinity and Vnity as he is Thus the Council Though the very Text it self of the Florentin Council seemes abundantly sufficient to evince what we here aime at and intend yet that the Stubborness of some persons who are not the most knowing in the Ecclesiastical doctrin may more powerfully be repressed It is to be noted That when any doubt arises concerning the meaning of a Council we are diligently to seek out what occasioned such a Decree and find what was then chiefly agitated and debated The matter here in dispute between the Latins and the Greeks was this What Souls were admitted 〈…〉 to eternal Beatitude before the day of
general Iudgement Let us hear the Latins in this question concerning the fire of Purgatory presently in the beginning of the Council The Latins acknowledge both in this world a fire and a Purgatory by fire and also in the future world they acknowledg a fire yet not purging but eternal They confess also That souls are cleansed and freed by that first named Purgatory Fire and that he who hath committed many offences is freed after a long time of purgation but he who hath committed a few is sooner delivered Let us now heare the Greeks The Greeks are of opinion That the Fire is in the future onely and that in this world The temporary punishment of sinful Souls consists in their being imprisoned in a darksome place where they remain for a time but that they are purged that is freed and delivered from that obscure and afflicting place by the Prayers and Sacrifices of the Priests but not by Fire Hitherto the Council of the Souls in Purgatory It proceeds to declare the opinions of both Churches concerning the souls of Just men which have no debt at all to be paid The Latins say That the souls of holy and just men are in Heaven and that without any medium they see and enjoy the Sacred Trinity The Greeks imagine that the souls of just men have indeed obtain'd Beatitude but not perfectly and that they shall perfectly enjoy it when they shall be reunited to their Bodies in the Resurrection And that in the mean while they remain in a separated place where they interiorly rejoyce entertaining their thoughts with the fore-seen and fore-known perfect Beatiude and Adoption which is prepared for them You see the Question cleerly and plainly propounded You see wherein the Eastern and Western Churches agree wherein they disagree What after their frequent disputations was at last concluded Surely no other thing then The sacred Councill approving We define That the souls of them who after Baptism received have contracted no blemish at all of sin as also those souls which after they have contracted the blemish of sin are purged either in their Bodies or being vncloathed of their said Bodies are presently received into Heaven and cleerly behold God himself in Trinity and Vnity as he is Behold a Categorical Definition directly determining the proposed difficulty The Question was How many sorts of souls were admitted to the intuitive Vision of God before the general day of Judgment The Councill answers Three Sorts The first sort such as after Baptism contracted no sin The second such as although they contracted sin yet fully satisfied for them before their death by worthy fruits of Pennance The third such as contracted sin and did not fully satisfie in this life but were purged afterwards in Purgatory Our Aversary dares not deny an admittance of the First and Second sort of Souls to the fruition of God presently before the day of general Judgment But he most inconsequently rejects the Third sort now in Question For what an absurd Exposition of the Council would this be The souls of Just men having no sin at all are received presently befor the day of general Judgment to the cleer Vision of God In like manner the souls which have fully satisfied for their sins before their departure are admitted presently before the day of Judgment to eternal Beatitude the souls cleansed in Purgatory are admitted presently that is in the day of Judgment When as this Third Sort of Souls is contained in the same period under the self same form of words And which is to be taken special noâ—ice off the Particle Mox presently wherein is the greatest force is joyned onely to this Third sort of Souls though it is also necessarily understood in the two former Surely none of the Latins none of the Greeks did either question or controvert Whether the Souls of Just men or the Souls in Purgatory were admitted to eternal Beatitude in the Day of general Iudgment But the sole difficulty was of the time preceding as manifestly appears by the Declaration of both Churches and as concerning Purgatory the difference between them was onely this That the Latins admitted the operation of a material Fire the Greeks a darksome place but not Fire Now for that the Adversary is pretended to be a Catholick and acknowledges that he ought to submit himself not onely to General Councils but also to the Judgment of the Chief Pastor Let him attentively read and consider the solemn Decree of Pope Benedict the xii above related where he shall find his Assertion in most plain terms condemned For by that Constitution he may easily perceive in what sense this particle Mox presently inserted in the Florentin Council is to be explicated where the same matter almost in the self-same words is handled and where it most manifestly signifies immediately and before the day of general Judgmeâ—t This Decree is extant in Sanderus de visibili Monarchia and it is also mentioned in the 7th Tome of the Councils in the life of the said Benedict in these terms He defined That the Souls of holy men sufficiently expiated from their sins were blessed and enjoyed the cleer sight of God before the day of Iudgment And he is there highly praised as a vertuous man and one perseverantly constant till his death in pious actions What think you may we now judge of him who calls the Definition of such a Pope and of so great a Council a new Doctrine supported by no foundation and opposite to the Churches practise D The Answer to the Precedent discourse by one of Master Whites Scholers now a very able Proficient in his School SIr I have perused your Papers which truly according to the Opinion That the Holy Ghosts assistance in Councils and Consistories is without restriction or limitation seems to me to evidence a deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory before the Day of Iudgment But according to the Opinion That the assistance of the Holy Ghost in Councils and Consistories is no longer then there is a diligent search to find out what Christ taught and his Apostles delivered as so taught there appears onely that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict did think or judge it to be so which may raise opposition to a Disobedience but not to an Heresie For according to this later Opinion that opposition and no other is to be termed Heretical that gain-says apparent Tradition So that unless you shew that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict determined conformably to Tradition Mr. a a That is Master Whites Blacklowes calling the Doctrine and Practice new will not savour the least of Heresie For certainly that Doctrine and Practice must be new that took beginning after Christ and the Apostles O! but where is this restriction In Christs own words Docebit vos omnia quaecunque dixero vobâ—s Not all truths but such as I shall reveal to you This restriction Vincentius Lirinensis understood when he imputed the Erring of