which we see amongst even our Moderns many profess not to understand and many of those who profess to understand it by their gross explications shew they do not penetrate it But you may ask what then is the force of our Saviours Argument I answer that we have it from our Saviour himself who told his Apostles that Lazarus was asleep not dead and the like he spake of the Prince of the Synagogues daughter and the phrase amongst Christians is used of all the Faithfull and so we sing Regem cui omnia vivunt venite adoremus and St. Paul expresses it in the words then says he those who have fallen asleep in Christ are perished When then our Saviour says God is not God of the dead this word dead must be taken for perished according to what St. Paul comforteth the Christians and tells them they must not be sorrowful at their friends deaths as Gentils were and giveth the reason qui spem non habent that is who expect no Resurrection but think their dead for ever perished and not to be as it were in a sleep untill the last Trumpet awakes them There is yet a deeper Mystery in our Saviours words which neither pleased Bellarmin nor his admirer to wit that because all things are present to God in eternity therefore no future thing is absent to God so that Abraham Isaac and Jacob did live to God and as to God were really living 6. He presses also that St. Paul urgeth the like Argument saying that if there be no Resurrection let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall dye But this Argument sheweth plainly that his former solution was naught For St. Paul speaks not to Sadduces but rather to Pharisees to whom belongeth the custom of often Baptisms which he there urges therefore it depends not out of the connexion of the Immortality of the soul and Resurrection but rather it supposes the Immortality of the soul to be a thing not known to the vulgar For according to that saying of his sapientiam loquimur inter perfectâ—s he apply'd his Doctrin to his Auditory To the multitude he preached what they were capable of 〈◊〉 is he proposed the Goods proper to the whole man and as it were an excellency and heighth of those goods whereof they had experience reserving the declaration of goods purely spiritual to the special audieâ—ce of the more understanding part Wherefore all his publick preaching being of the rewards 〈◊〉 be received in the Resurrection be mâ—keâ— this Argument if there be no Resurrection we are the most miserable of men for in this world we enjoy no pleasure and in the next we have no reward So you see this solid resolution of Bellarmin to be compounded of pure mistakes and improbabilities And yet if his worship had been so curious he might have found it confuted in the third account of the Book whence he read the objection made though Bellarmin is not by name cited not every petty confirmation impugned the which I should have done if I had taken it out of Bellarmin 7. He yet presseâ— That those who were seduced by the Geâ—â—ils would not esteem of 〈◊〉 Authority of Judas Maccabâ—â—â— in which he shews either little experience or much cunning For as an Ordinary Protestant such as depend from the Authority of their Preacher if he see it prov'd that all Antiquity is against what his Preacher teaches is presently strucken with a horrour and begins to waver because it is natural to men to love and adhere to their Ancestours so those who were wavering amongst the Jews upon the perswasions of the Gentils when they saw the publick profession of their Country in the fact of Judas Maccabaeus would be much sollicited to forgo the apparent reasons of the Gentiles and prefer their Countries belief before them Either therefore your Divine did not understand this or else under the colour of some obstinate Persons he would cunningly make his Reader believe that no body would take good by this example of Judas Maccabaeus 8. His opposition to my second Text is already answer'd for St. Paul did not speak to the Sadduces but to such as received the custom of Baptisms or praying for the dead and his Argument is as strong as that when we out of praying for the dead prove a Purgatory and remission of sins in the next world so does St. Paul prove the Resurrection Whence it is manifest that he taught the Christians to pray for that good to the dead which they were to receive at the Resurrection and by consequence that all the good the dead can receive before that day is already received before they are pray'd for 9. The third Text he dissembles to understand and for that reason with his Paraphrase corrupts the Text The Text it self says that his spirit or soul may be saved in the day of our Lord. He paraphrases Saved to signify to appear with great honour and glory But every one who understands the word knowâ— it signifies to be freed from some danger or harm and all Catholicks by admitting a particular judgment know all danger is past therefore the meaning must be that in that day he shall be freed from punishment and misery At length he turns off this Text with a jeer telling us St. Paul was not so uncharitable as to wish no good to Onesiphorus beforâ— the day of Judgment As if it were not charity mistaken to wish him what St. Paul knew was not to be had St. Paul therfore in this expression wisheth Onesiphorus all good that could happen to him which as yet he possessed not and so shews there was no good to be expected for the dead but either what they have before prayers or else are to receive 〈◊〉 the day of Judgment 10. In his eighth Number he goes over this Text anew and says or rather grants that indeed it is the common phrase of Christians to speak so but that as it cannot be inferred thence that the wicked go not to Hell before that day no more can it be inâ—…ed that the just commonly receive not their reward before that day But the difference of the two 〈◊〉 is very manifest For the damning of the wicked is not proposed to us as a thing to be desir'd and effected by our prayers and therefore concerns not us when it is done But the Reward of our Benefactours is propos'd to be gain'd by our prayers and therefore we ought to know what to pray for and he confesses that Universally the phrase which is the witness oâ— our thoughts and of what we are taught runs so as to wish good in the day of Judgment The consequence therefore is most infallible and in a manner belonging to Tradition that all our prayer for the dead must be that they may receive their reward at the day of Judgment For although Tradition doth not expressly teach the Negative yet because it Universally teaches the positive to pray for good at the last
will follow out of both joyn'd together His proposition is that these Revelations are undenyable because the Authours are known to be of great vertue and integrity who for a world would not recommend what they thought to be a ly or not as they deliver it and the Relatours are either those who had the Vision or some who had it from them immediately so that there can likewise be no moral difficulty or doubt of their true relating This proposition I fully acknowledge and a man would think that in so doing I give him full content Here must I advance my Proposition which if it please him as well as his does me I hope we shall agree in the conclusion to be drawn out of both Mine then is that Revelations Visions Apparitions c. cannot be certain to any body but onely to whom they are made and by consequence it is a folly to seek to prove them to any one who doth not of his own good nature take them for true As for the party to whom the Revelation is made I doubt not but God may have such a kind of influence as to make it beyond all doubt that it is himself who speaks to the party But that it must not rely upon the Authority of this party whatsoever is communicated to others that is the position I deny I say therefore the security of a Revelation may be as great as the Authority of the party to whom it is made And it must be certain to others that such a party neither was nor could be deceived in this kind before we can make any argument from the Revelation Out of these two propositions I gather this conclusion That private Relations for the most part can neither be proved nor deny'd and therefore make nothing probable or improbable and so by Divines are to be let alone and lay'd by to let the Historians first resolve of them whether they be true or false which is impossible to do unless there be some outward effects which seldom happen in matters of Purgatory of which we treat 3. I must add one note about his undenyable stories that divers of his Authours are known sometimes to have miscarry'd in their Revelations as by name St. Brigit and St. Bernard as likewise St. Catharin of Sena St. Mathildis and others And since I know no more assurance for others then for these I believe that prudent men will neither doubt but that divers Revelations are true nor precipitate easily to believe that this in particular is to be held for such Nevertheless I except those apparitions which come out with Authority beyond exception As I have light upon one which the Authour brags of that its Authority is not begged from ancient writers but signified by present experiences rhe year the Authour printed the seventh Edition of his Book So that it may be of as great Authority as our Authours Latin book which was translated into many Languages It came to Sevill where Father Martin de Roa a great Jesuit printed his brave Book in the year 1634 on Munday the twenty ninth of May when his seventh Edition was quite done and so it was fain to be put after the end to give you a faithfull Testimony of the duration of the pains of Purgatory The Title of the Book is Estado de las almas de Purgatorio and you may have in it both for Theological resolutions and for fine stories concerning Purgatory what your heart can wish Having told you where you may find what you want I may contract the story it self Not forgetting that it past at Vienna in Austria in the Jesuits house there which I do not know for they had three in that Town The substance of the story carryes that a woman one hundred and thirty foure years before had killed her two Children with poyson and dyed six and thirty years and an half afterward having recieved the Sacraments and suffered incredible torments ninety four years and four months And the Authour notes that surely they all three had no body to pray for them that they lay so long in Purgatory First appeared one of the sons to a lay Brother as he went to see whether all doors were wel shut and lay'd hands on him to carry him to the Church but being contented with the promise of three Masses let him go to bed Yet as it seems repenting of his bargain two hours after came to his bed to get him out of his bed to go to the Church though being fed with the promise of four Masses more it left him but so broken with resisting the violence of the spirit that he could not stir himself Some three weeks after he came again two several nights with the like violence and some eight days after came again as it seems more gently and waking him out of his sleep bad him say nothing and follow him but the Brother speaking and asking what he was vanished away Now whether the souls in Purgatory want civility to treat one so rudely of whom they desire succour or that they do not understand how to insinuate themselves without frighting of People I leave to your Divine for the Authour gives no account nor likewise why he could not endure to be spoken to A while after the spirit came to his chamber and led him silent into the Church where were other two spirits but all vanished as soon as the Brother being frighted cry'd out and he was found on the Floor in a Town from which the Physician freed him yet was he not for some days able to go he was so weakned Eight days after he had a new vision and the next night the apparition of two of the Spirits who after a great intreating that he would not speak told him the story above mentioned and having intreated some prayers and that he would keep fast and silence 34 hours let him alone so long and then appeared all glorious though two of them before had appeared all white and the first ever yet they were all three delivered together It seems the two Children expected their Mother They told him how they meant to have led him to their Mother's grave whom he should have seen in such a case that it would have killed him if they had not negotiated for his life by the Intercession of their good Angels because it was revealed unto them that by his prayers they should that year be set free 4. I doubt not but that the great Divine will out of this Revelation draw high points of Divinity and enrich the Art of Apparitions greatly It must needs be more certain then Venerable Bede's revelations seeing at least three housefull of Jesuits were witnesses to the whole Process Therefore it is no doubt but it is as strong a princple of Divinity as any if not all the Revelations hitherto cited and set forth expressly to inform the Christian World of the conditions of Purgatory I pray then use your diligence to your great
that on their side can have no ground but Revelation this ungrounded Innovation is in matter of Revelation and we know onely Faith is the proper matter of Revelation Their opinion then is a piece of Faith as to the matter and should therefore have but hath no ground of Revelation 5. Your Divine replyes that he groundedly challenges also six hundred years before It is a folly to dispute this Question He speaks in supposition that he has layd solid grounds My answers are since made The two being compared men of wisdom and learning are to judge how solid his grounds are to make such a challenge upon He challenges us to shew one Authour who doth so much as by one Word insinuate that our opinion did grow to be more Universally received in the Church these last five hundred years then before it was A strange and shameless confidence Did not Odilo make it Universal in the Order of Cluny Did not the Pope command the Feast Did these make no more Universality See how many Revelations were before those days and how many since do all these signify no more Universality And this may serve untill his fourth Number all before being but the supposition of what he hath not done 4. In the fourth Number he tells us it cannot be deny'd but for these five hundred year all who have pray'd for the dead were instructed by their Ancestours to pray for the present either ease or delivery of the Dead Yet it is deny'd him that their Ancestours taught it them as likewise it is impossible to prove and improbable to beleeve that all were so taught We know Doctrins that are new first infect one part and then another and so by little and little get a popularity The reason why it easily attain'd to this is because the Corporality of those substances which we hold to be spiritual was long held in the Church nor is yet perfectly out I have heard men learned as they are generally called that is of much reading affirm that there were no simple substances but God and declare that this was the common opinion of the Fathers You see this opinion is very conformable to the apprehension of all who are not Metaphysicians And our opinion depends wholly of the Spirituality of Angels and Souls the which even those who follow follow but imperfectly For the nature of Science is to be attained by pieces and degrees so that we must not expect that all who hold the Soul and Angels to be Spirits should discourse of them as pure Spirits ought to be discoursed on St. Thomas took away proper Locality from them but is weakly followâ—d not onely by other Schools which are filled with Ubications but even in his own Now Immutability which Aristotle demoristrated of Spirits is not as yet accepted any thing commonly But if once it come to be thoroughly looked into it will be as well as Illocality and your Divines opinion of Purgatory as much rejected as the Corporality of Spirits is 7. To return to our purpose This apprehension of Corporal Torments and succession and parts in them being so natural to mans understanding also the ending of them was naturally apprehended as a thing conformable to the rest and so all this Doctrin when it began to be superadded to Tradition was received as conformable to it men not penetrating the consequences that followed out of the souls being a Spirit And otherwise seeing nothing contrary to Christian Piety before the excess came to be so great that it grew but a sport to deliver souls out of Purgatory This began to make men reflect and abhorring the excess to look into the causes of the mistake and to find it proceeded hence that some who ventur'd to meddle with Divinity without sufficiency in Philosophy in liew of explicating the Metaphorical words in which Scriptures and Fathers deliver Christian Doctrin that it may be common to learned and unlearned the which is the proper duty of a Scholastical Divine undertake to justify that the Metaphors and Allegories are to be understood according to the very bark of the Letter and to force the learned to have no other apprehensions then the unlearned have and so to understand Spiritual things corporeally and to cry out against them who seek to apply Incorporeal modifications to Incorporeal Substances So that the reason of the vulgarity of this opinion is because Animale is before Spirituale For what was deliver'd by the Apostles was onely that Prayers should be made for the dead You may note specially in St. Austin and St. Chrysostom that having much occasion to speak of Prayer for the dead they are earnest to report that this could not be unless some good arrived to the dead thereby but are as carefull not to tell any good in particular for fear of missing in what they had not found sufficient ground in Scripture 〈◊〉 declare Weaker men finding the question started resolved by the proportion to what they saw in human actions without reflecting upon what the Conditions of Incorporeal natures required and upon this apprehension follow'd the multitude of Visions and Revelations to confirm this position the which being coloured with two gratefull sightfullnesses Piety and Wonder easily got a great strength amongst the meaner sort of learned men and the multitude of the unlearned 8. In his fifth Number he presses that the Apostles taught the faithfull why they should pray for the dead and therefore he argues that motive must still remain in the Church I answer the Apostles taught them to pray for the dead to receive their reward at the day of Judgment as is beyond exception plain in St. Pauls prayer for Onesiphorus and abundance of Scripture and Fathers as may be read in my Treatise of Purgatory and is still conserved in the Church Offices 9. In his sixth Number he repeats the pressing of the Bulls so fully answered and of the cause of the keeping the Holy Commemoration of the dead and this holds to the end of the Chapter Onely I must note himself confesses Number the sixth that the Popes Decrees are not of the point it self but of others necessarily connexed with the point So that if his discourse do fail him there is no prohibition even by his own words of our tenet and out of what we have said it is easy to see it doth fail him And by consequence that all the ground they have is but a pious credulity 10. In his 16 Chapter and the last of his proving discourse for afterwards follow the answers to my Grounds he professes to deliver the fundamental reason of his opinion And I suppose in his first Paragraph he would say if he did dare speak out that he had none Yet not to scandalize his party he must make a shew and so in the midst of his third Number he saith our opinion is Paradoxical which is all the reason I can find And as for that I must remit him untill we explicate our
this which himself is â—ain to confess and I think against his own opinion who puts if I am not mistaken no stain or blemish in the souls of Purgatory and therefore no purging nor Purgatory and so all the Fathers he repeats anew be plainly against himself 5 In his fifth Number he imposes a new falsity upon me to wit that I say the souls at the day of Judgment pittifully burn in their Bodies but that that fire purgeth nothing that can be called sin I wonder where he found this imagination For my Doctrin is that the fire of Judgment is ministerial to the Angels framing the Bodies to Resurrection and by this precedent service is instrumental cause of what is done in the instant of Reunion and Resurrection in that instant all the Action of fire ceases and is turned into the Purgatum esse which Purgatum esse is the sight of Christ and God in the very first instant of Reunion And this Doctrin may he find in my second tome of Institutiones sacrae pag. 244. and in my book De medio statu by pieces here and there So that all this good mans discourse is built upon a fancy of his own and touches not my Doctrin 6. In his sixth Number he argues from the difference betwixt Baptism and Penance that the one takes away all the punishment due to sin the other leaves some punishment to be expiated by satisfaction And puts the case of an old man who comes to Baptism after a wicked long life with an imperfect sorrow and disposition yet says he all the punishment is remitted to him though there remains many vitious inclinations in him Now if this man dyes soon after with some small Venial sin he shall ly in great torments untill the day of Judgment according to my Doctrin This is his Argument which he repeats now the second time and therefore it requires an answer I tell him therefore that it is very true that Baptism being taken with a fitting disposition to the nature of the Sacrament remits all pains and the Sacrament of Penance does not as is plain seeing Satisfaction is one part of this Sacrament But I would gladly know by what Authority your Divine changeth the Councils Definition and that which the Council speaks of men coming to Baptism with a disposition conformable and proportionable to the nature of the Sacrament he enlarges it to them who come with an imperfect and unproportionable disposition All men know Baptism is a Regeneration in which we are made nova creatura in which our Vetus Homo is buried And therefore the connatural disposition is that a man come with a resolution of a perfect change of life such an one as we see in St. Austin at his conversion which made him feel no more tentations of his former imperfections such as we acknowledge in people perfectly contrite such as is supposed to be in men who relinquish the world to be Carthusians Eremites Anachorites c. in all which we acknowledge that their repentance cancels all pains but likewise we acknowledg it takes away all inclination to former Vices at least out of the spiritual part of men and so leaves no matter for the fire of Purgatory to work upon which burneth onely ill affections 7. In his seventh Number he cryes out against this Principle that the Soul now become a pure Spirit should retain her Affections to Bodily Objects and thinks this misbeseems a Philosopher to say therefore I think my best play is to say I speak as a Divine For I hope so to have the protection of all those who say that in Hell the Souls are unrepentant and obstinate in their sins and sinful desires Nevertheless if he will needs appeal to Philosophy let him consider what Plato 10. de Rep. What Cebes what the Pythagoreans teach and Virgil out of Philosophers Conjux ubi pristinus illi Respondet curis aequatque Sichaeus amorem And again Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But let us see what he objects against this received Doctrine of Divines and Philosophers Is saith he such a Soul purging her self I answer Yes forsooth I pray if you ever looked into the strife betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh either how a man purgeth himself in his whole life or in some great Battail and Pitch'd-Field see whether both are not compounded of vicissitudinary Victories now of the Spirit now of the Flesh. Reflecting now that the eminency of the separated Soul contains in it self at once more then the whole life-time of an incorporated Soul what must or can we think but that all this contradiction of Wills must be at once in an imperfect separated Soul which is in our life in parts and separated in time 8. He says again Philosophy teaches him that no body loves evil clearly apprehended to be evil that no disguise of good can cheat a separated Soul I must confess both these Propositions to be true and therefore I am forced to say that in Purgatory their love is not about evil objects but truly good and conformable to Nature and their fault consists onely in excess of love which makes them apt to follow their objects where and when they should not 9. His third Objection is How we know the Soul will embrace this wilfulness since it is voluntary and therefore in her liberty not to accept of it or chuse it This Objection hath two faults the one that it doth not distinguish betwixt Voluntary and Free their own Philosophy teaching them that the love of our last End or good in common is a voluntary act but not free The like they teach of the accepting of a medium when there is but one to gain the fore-embraced End The other is that he thinks that this wilfulness begins at Death whereas it doth but continue and began in the Body As the very words of remaining and being conserved do signifie 10. His last Objection is that there is in Purgatory an efficacious repentance and therefore no will to do the like again I answer this word repentance doth stick in my stomack for if it means onely an act of a contrary affection I easily accord it to him for in this consists the torment of a Soul that is vitious either in this World or in the next that she has contrary Affections in her self one fighting against the other for the general inclination to her last Good can never be rooted out and no Vice can be but contrary to this inclination But if Repentance be taken for the revoking cancelling or blotting out of the unlawful desire I doubt it would prove an Heresie to put that and that the Soul shall remain in Purgatory for then she would have no blemish in her 11. In his eighth Number he prosecutes the same but against all Divinity and himself For whereas he puts that after this life there is no place for