does not concern him at all yet he does or endures something he either rejoyceth in Abraham's Bosom or he begs a drop of Water in everlasting Fire Now as according to this Doctrine the two Conditions of eternal misery and Abraham's Bosom and everlasting Fire are immediately opposite so is it necessary that whoever departs this life must immediately enter either into the Joy which is unspeakable and glorious which shall never be taken away from him or into a Misery incapable of Comfort and such as shall never end Secondly It is no less certain from the Testimony of St. Augustine formerly alledged that Abraham's Bosom is the rest of the Blessed where there is no place for Temptation Thirdly It is not possible he should have thought his Mother after her Departure any where but in Abraham's Bosom since he thought it not fit to celebrate her Funeral with Tears that he was of this Opinion that she could not die miserably or rather that she could not die at all that he acknowledged that being quickened and renewed in Christ she had so lived as that the Name of God had been praised both in her Belief and Life that he thought himself obliged to give God Thanks with Joy for her good actions that he numbered her among the Children of God and Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem who have the privilege to answer the Accuser that their Debts are discharged and who have done works of Mercy and have freely from their hearts forgiven their Debtours All this which cannot any way be contradicted presupposed I ask what Consideration of danger could prevail upon the Spirit of Saint Augustine to make him shed Tears for a Mother whom he thought so dead in Adam as that she rested in the Lord since that if he conceived he ought to say she was dead in Adam in regard of the dissolution of her Body he was withall as much obliged to confess that she was also dead in the Lord in as much as she had ended her Life in the Faith of his Name and that the dissolution of her Body in some manner changing its Nature was become to her an happy passage to the true Life of her Spirit which he acknowledged had been before quickened in Christ and by him discharged of all Sins For what danger can there be for those who dying in the Lord do according to the saying of the Holy Spirit thenceforth rest from their labours Are not the Gifts and Calling of God without repentance And as it is not possible to separate from the love of God those whom he hath loved in Jesus Christ so is it also true that None can pluck them out of his hand nor lay any thing to their charge nor condemn them and consequently that There is no condemnation for tham that They shall not see death and that They are already passed from Death to Life Saint Augustine confesses it and proclaims it saying in the fourty eighth Treatise upon St. John Quid potest Lupus c. What can the Wolf do What can the Thief and Robber do They destroy onely those that are predestinated to Death c. Of those Sheep such as was according to his own description his good Mother St. Monica neither shall they be the prey of the Wolf nor shall the Thief take them away nor the Robber kill any of them he who knows what they cost him is secure as to their Number I most willingly acknowledg that the ensuing Considerations of St. Augustine are most just and well-grounded Non audeo dicere c. I dare not affirm that from the time that thou didst regenerate her by Baptism there issued no word out of her mouth against thy Commandment and it is said by thy Son who is Truth it self that If any one call his Brother Fool he shall be guilty of Hell-fire nay wo be even to those who lead commendable lives if thou examine them without Mercy For since St. John protests of himself and all the Faithfull If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us and we make God a Lyar since the Prophet to whose Oracle St. Augustine expresly refers himself cryes out Enter not into Judgment with thy Servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified since Job a man according to the judgment of God himself upright and just fearing God and shunning evil since Job I say being come to himself found himself obliged to make this humble Confession I have uttered that I understood not c. wherefore I abhor my self that I spoke in that manner and repent in Dust and Ashes who would be so far out of himself as to deny either of St. Monica or any other of the Blessed Saints that he ever sinned in speaking against the Commandment of God since his Baptism or imagine that his Life in the profession of Christianity hath been so perfect as might stand to the disquisition of a judgment without mercy But allowing all the pious and necessary Considerations made by St. Augustine upon the course of his Mother's Life I am still to seek and cannot finde the reason of the Consequence he would have drawn thence to think himself obliged as one shaken by the fear of some imminent danger to pray for her who by his own confession had obtained a discharge for all her sins and as St. Cyprian said of all the Faithfull delivered out of the Tempests of this world had reached the Haven of eternal safety Nay what sin soever she might be supposed to have committed after her Baptism having seriously repented of it and deplored her condition with a faithfull recourse to the good Ointment of Christ whose Blood as St. John declares cleanseth us from all Sin her Conscience being purged by that precious Blood and fully purified from dead Works is so absolutely discharged in the sight of God as St. Augustine himself expounding the Words of St. John acknowledges saying Magnam securitatem dedit Deus c. God hath given us a great assurance with good reason is it that we celebrate the Pasch since the Blood of our Lord whereby we are cleansed from all sin hath been shed for us let us fear nothing The Devil kept the Writing of Slavery against us but it hath been cancelled by the Blood of Christ c. If through the infirmity of Life sin hath crept unawares upon thee discover it immediately be offended at it immediately condemn it immediately and when thou shalt have condemned it thou wilt come confidently before the Judg there thou hast an Advocate be not afraid to lose the Cause of thy Confession Since then St. Monica expired recommending her Soul to her faithfull Creatour and imploring his Mercy through the eternal Merit of that blessed Blood the pure Oblation whereof had already washed off her Original Sin and consecrated her for ever nothing could
most Antient and the Exercise of the same Prayers as they had made use of For though they make mention of the Last day's Fire and are absolutely silent concerning Purgatory yet do not those in the Western-Church who pray for the Dead hardly fasten their thought on any thing but their deliverance out of the pretended place of Pain and their disposal into rest and I am to learn whether there be any who think of the Resurrection to which alone relate even to this day both the Texts and Prayers usually read in the Office of the Dead Besides it be thought shamefull to pray as in the Times of St. Chrysostome Prudentius and St. Augustine for the Damned not out of any hope to attain their absolute deliverance but onely some alleviation of the Paiâ—s they suffer in Hell And the Legends of Faâ—tonilla and Trajan rescued out of eternal Damnation by the Prayers of St. Thecla and Gregory the Great are somewhat offensive to the Learned even of the Roman Communion who are not a little troubled to excuse John Damascene as to that particular To be short not one of the Doctours before the year 590. proposed to himself any such thing as either the confinement of the Dead in Purgatory or Prayer for their deliverance out of it CHAP. XLIII The Obscurity and Uncertainty of the Opinion of Purgatory GREGORY the Great the first of all those of whom we have remaining among us any Monuments to this purpose having in the year 593. begun to fasten together in his Dialogues and Sermons the Discourses he had heard and which he recommends to us with this notable Observation that they were Novelties not heard of before since he brings in Peter his Deacon putting this Question to him Quid hoc est quaeso te quod in his extremis temporibus tammulta de animabus clarescunt quae antè latuerunt c. What means it I beseech you that in these Last Times there are discovered concerning souls so many things which were hidden before The Leaven so spread it self since that in the Time of Beda viz. one hundred and twenty years after St. Gregory some numbred cold and temperate Purgatories as well as hot ones which was further heightned by Visions and Prodigious Relations as if the confidence of Feigning should as it grew Elder grow also stronger But though there were no other reason to quarrel at this Opinion then the Novelty of it as such as had not appeared in the West before the end of the sixth Age and could never obtain Naturalization in the East and South where it is yet unknown to the Vulgar and discarded by the Learned and the irresolution wherewith its Principal and first Promoter Pope Gregory spoke whether of the place of Hell or the activity of Infernal Fire upon the Spirits which according to his Imagination are tormented therein yet they clearly justifie that he Treated not the Question of the State of the dead but as it were by conjecture and upon the Imaginations of Persons so apt to be mis-informed as that there needed onely some common Report and the affirmation of a confident Dreamer to perswade them to any thing I know well enough that Cardinal Bellarmine to derive the Business somewhat higher cites St. Augustine who being in some difficulty about the Explication of those Words of Saint Paul He shall be saved yet so as by Fire had about the year 410. made use of these Words which manifestly discover how far he was unresolved in the Case Sive in hac vita tantùm ista homines patiuntur sive etiam post hanc vitam talia quaedam Judicia subsequuntur non abhorret quantum arbitror à ratione veritatis iste intellectus hujus Sententiae veruntamen etiamsi est alius qui mihi non occurrit eligendus non cogimur dicere injustis c. Salvi eritis c. Whether it be in this Life onely that men suffer such things that is to say dolefull Regrets for the things of this World which they have carnally loved or that after this Life some such Judgments follow this way of understanding the place of the Apostle is not in my Judgment repugnant to the reason of Truth yet if we must pitch upon another sense which is not obvious to me we are not forced to say to the unjust c. You shall be saved Continuing still in the same posture about the year 419. he writ to his Friend Laurence Tale aliquid c. That some such thing may happen even after this Life is not incredible and whether it be really so may be questioned and it may be either found true or remain concealed to wit whether some of the Faithfull according as they have more or less loved perishable Goods may be sooner or later saved through a Purgatory Fire And note that having not any thing more certain to answer he kept to the same Terms in resolving the first Question proposed to him by Dulcitius Nay in the year 424. which was the seventh before his death publishing his Books Of the City of God he harped on the same Doctrine saying Post istius sanè corporis mortem c. But as for the time between the bodily death and Last Judgment if any one say that the Spirits of the Dead are all that while tried in such a Fire as they do not any way feel who were not subject to the same Inclinations and Affections in this Life that their Wood Straw and Stubble might be consumed but that others who carry hence such Buildings do onely here or both here and there or here so as not there pass through the purging Fire of a Transitory Tribulation which burns the things of this World though Venial in respect of Damnation I reprove him not for that it is possible he is in the right But the Proceeding of the present Church of Rome who triumphs so much upon these Passages whereby she pretends to draw St. Augustine to her side is so much the more unjust towards him the more she presumes on the Testimony of a Witness who does not onely not say any thing as to what she would have him but absolutely destroys it in as much as he speaks of a Fire which some feel even in this Life and others after it Whence it follows that his Imagination reached no further then a Metaphorical and Intentional Fire which may be felt even during the Life of this Body whereas the Romane Church supposes a real and material one which burns not the living but torments the spirits of the Departed Secondly That he is not confident of his having found out the true sense of St. Paul's Words but ingenuously confesses that they may be understood in some other to him absolutely unknown Thirdly That treading as it were upon Thorns he is not over-ready to give us any thing for certain but entertains us with a simple Conjecture which might be brought to Question
the Birth of men so they shew'd that Pollio's Wife who had been very much indisposed during her Pregnancy should after her Delivery make her self known to her childe by her joy that that Joy was as it were the Earnest of the child's Blessing as it were a signification of Misfortune to him if his Parents were not joyfull at his Birth But the Emperour transforming the Discourse of Virgil according to his own way makes him say Begin laughing and lifting up thy sight to know thy Mother who should be dear to thee for she hath carried thee in her womb many years thy Parents have not smiled on thee at all thou hast not been put in a Couch nor had splendid Banquet Whereupon he adds by way of Comment upon it How have not the Parents smiled on this childe Certainly it was because he who begot him is a certain Power that hath no Qualities nor can be figured by the delineation of other things nor hath a humane body Now who knows not that being a holy Spirit it can have no experience of Coitions And what inclination and desire can be imagined in the disposition of that good with a greediness whereof all things are inflamed Or what compliance is there between Wisdom and Pleasure But let these things be said onely by those who introduce I know not what humane generation of God and endeavour not to cleanse their minds of every bad Word and Work What a small matter needs there to divert men from the Truth since the pure Imagination of a Mystery where there is not any is able to do it Certain it is that as God the Father hath neither Qualities nor Figure nor Body nor Passions nor Desires so the eternal Generation of his Word hath nothing common with that of men But nothing of all this coming to the knowledg of Virgil and his words neither expressing nor capable of expressing it since the Greek properly speaking is a corruption of the Latine which tended to no other end then to promise Happiness to Pollio's young Son to what purpose have some thought to Philosophize as they have done For there had been no occasion given had they not altered the Sense by supposing as many have done that Pollio's little childe had laughed assoon as he was born and that upon that extraordinary Laughter the whole Prediction of his Happiness had been grounded and imagining that Virgil had said of the child's Laughter what he meant of the Mother's as also that she had born him several years and that he was not descended of Parents subject to either any inclination to Laughter or the natural necessity of Sleep and Rest For should that Great man have returned to Earth again he might with reason have said to Constantine what St. Augustine said since to Julian the Pelagian Restore me my Words and thy dreaming Imaginations will vanish CHAP. XV. That it cannot be said That Virgil in his Fourth Eclogue disguised his own Sentiment THe same thing may also be said of the same Emperour 's supposing that the Poet spake Figuratively and disguised the Truth out of a fear that any of the Potentates of the Royal City should charge him with writing against the Laws of his Country and dcrogating from what had sometime been the sentiment of his Ancestours concerning the Gods and that he wished the prolongation of his own life to see the coming of our Saviour For as it happened about three hundred years since that the Poet Dante mov'd by an Admiration of that incomparable Wit would needs deliver him out of his Hell in like manner the good opinion Constantine had conceived of him hath made him read in his Poem what indeed is not in it out of such an Imagination as those have who looking up to the Clouds think they see such and such Figures therein And thence comes it that he hath spoken so much to his advantage though without any ground either in Truth it self or indeed in the very outward Dress of his Work which was not done according to the certain Pattern of any antient Oracle of the Sibyls nor yet to the eight Books now extant among us and which were writ above one hundred fourscore and six years after the Consulship of Pollio but was design'd onely to express the desire which Virgil had to comply with Augustus and Pollio and to insinuate more and more into their Favour Whereupon I conclude That the antient Paganism what Opinion soever Constantine and others may have had to the contrary hath not given any Testimony either in favour of these pretended Sibylline Oracles which openly oppose Idolatry or yet to confirm the perswasion which the Fathers have had thereof CHAP. XVI That Apollodorus had no knowledg of the Eight Books called the Sibylline FOr to think with the generality of modern Christians that Apollodorus the Erythraean had seen the Third Book because as Lactantius observes from Varro he had affirmed of the Erythraean Sibyl That she was of his City and that she had Prophecied to the Greeks going to Ilium that Troy should be destroyed and that Homer should write Lies is a manifest abuse The Words we read to this purpose are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Troy I compassionate thy Miseries A fair Erinnys shall from Sparta rise Which Europe and the Asian Realms will vex But thee 'bove all with many Woes perplex Her self much crown'd with Fame that never dies An Aged Man Authour of many Lies Shall flourish next of unknown Country blind His Eyes but of a clear quick-sighted Mind He his conceptions into Verse shall frame And what he writes stile with a double Name Profess himself a Chian and declare Th' Affairs of Ilium not as they were Yet clear both in my Words and Verse for he The first that looks into my Works shall be This I say is a manifest Mistake For First It is no hard matter to imagine that the Impostour who composed the Eight Books of the Sibyls and had impudently taken upon him the name of Wife to Noah ' s Son two hundred years after the Death of Varro who died according to Eusebius in the seven hundred twenty and sixth year of Rome might at his ease and long enough before have read what he had alledged out of Apollodorus who was more antient whether in his Latine or in the Greek Text of Apollodorus and that he could do no less for his own Reputation then produce as a probable Argument of his pretended Antiquity what he had found in him Secondly For that Apollodorus who attests of the Erythraean Sibyl that she was born in his City and acknowledged a Native thereof whether by common Report or upon the Credit of her Writings could not have said any such thing of our Counterfeit Sibyl who says she came from Babylon and was Noah's Daughter-in-law and formally denyes that she was by Country an Erythraean and charges the Greeks with Imposture for
it seems to be sufficiently pestered with Pelagianisms if Primasius Bishop of Adrumetum had not almost wholly Copied it into his own even that very Passage where that man whoever he were Contemporary of St. Augustine interpreting the words of St. Paul ordering him that spoke in a strange Tongue to be silent in the Church and to speak to himself and to God when there is not any to interpret writes Let him prudently keep it to himself and to God that he hath that grace And upon these words The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets he adds He who hath the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the other Prophets by the society of Grace whereby he is not jealous that another should Prophecy when it is revealed to him By Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus who upon these Words The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets declares That the Gifts are called Spirits By Primasius Bishop of Adrumetum who concludes from the same place That The Spirit of Humility and Charity ought to be in the Prophets because God is not the Authour of Pride and Dissension who dwells not in them but of Peace because the things they Prophecy are known to them And from the last Verse of the same Chapter He who is a true Prophet no doubt knows and stands not in need of admonition or reproof because he judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man By Remy Arch-Bishop of Lyons confounded by Villalpandus and others with St. Remy of Rheims when having read the Text of St. Paul in the Singular number The Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets he observes That The Holy Spirit is after a certain manner subject to all the Saints for that it forces them not of a sudden to break forth into speech as the evil Spirit doth in Possessed Persons and Lunaticks but leaves them at liberty to speak or be silent Then adds Otherwise if we read in the Plural Number The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets we must understand by Spirits the Gifts of the Holy Spirit that is to say the Tongues the Virtues the Casting out of Devils the advice of Wise men Now these Gifts are in such manner subject to the Elect that when they please they exercise them and when they please they keep them as it were concealed By these Words is given us to understand that although many Doctours were together who knew by the Holy Spirit what they ought to say yet are they not always so compelled by the Holy Spirit but that one being silent the rest may also be silent By Oecumenius who inserts these Words in his Chain upon the same Passage He calls the Spirits of the Prophets the spiritual Gift it self Then to the end no man should say And how can I be silent for the Holy Spirit inspiring forces a man to speak whether he will or no No saith he for the Gift is subject to the Prophet that is to say it is in his power to speak or be silent contrary to what happens in Diviners for those after their Enthusiasm even against their wills as Possessed Persons say what they would not If then the Gift be subject to the Prophets would it not be inconvenient that you should be subject to what profits in common so as that when it were requisite to be silent you should be silent Consonant thereto is the common Sentiment of the Modern Latine Interpreters as Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris Nicholas de Lyra a Franciscan Thomas de Vio Cardinal Cajetan Ambrose Catharin Arch-Bishop of Conza James de Feure D'Estaples John de Gagny and Claudius Cuillaud Doctours of Sorbon Francis Titelman of the Order of Saint Francis Arias Montanus of the Order of Saint James â—…anuel Sà of the Society of Jesus and others whom for brevity â—…ke I forbear to mention CHAP. XXVI Consequences following upon the common Sentiment of the Fathers concerning Enthusiasm FRom all the precedent Testimonies it follows First That there never was any Body deprived of their Understanding by the efficaciousness of any celestial Inspiration Secondly That whoever says he is compelled transported and alienated in spirit does by that very allegation discover that he is not moved by the Holy Spirit Thirdly That the Sibyls who by the Confession of all Antiquity were Mad during the time of their Enthusiasm were Women not onely Heathens but possessed with Evil Spirits Fourthly That the name of Sibyl having never been used but to denote Persons of that condition could never have been appropriated to any of the Holy women mentioned in Scripture So that as Glycas who bestowed it on the Queen of Sheba did in so doing treat her very unworthily so Onuphrius writing That Deborah the Wife of Lapidoth an Hebrew woman mentioned in the fourth Chapter of Judges might be the most antient of all the Sibyls and that there might be added to her Miriam the Sister of Moses and Aaron as may be read in Exodus and lastly Huldah the Wife of Shallum of whom are read many things in 2 Chron. 34. under Josias King of Judahâ— not onely contradicts himself in that to the prejudice of his Supposition concerning Moses's Sister whom he places among the Sibyls he conceives Debora who was not born till one hundred fourscore and one years after the Death of Miriam was the most antient of them all but hath also for want of reflection put a notorious Affront upon those Devout and Religious Ladies in comparing them to Possessed Persons and Sorceresses such as were all those whom the Heathens put into the qualification of Sibyls because of their Transportation which they believed to have been Divine Fifthly That the Authour of the eight Books entituled the Sibylline upon this very account that he brags of having pronounced his Oracles with alienation of spirit by violence and not knowing what he said hath disclaimed the quality of Prophet which he would have usurped and deserved we should apply to his Fantastick Imaginations the Judgment which St. Epiphanius made of those of Montanus Those are the Discourses of an Ecstatick and one who comprehends not what he says but shews another Character then the Character of the Holy Spirit who spoke by the Prophets Sixthly That if the pretension of the foresaid bold Forger argued him guilty of the greatest Impudence imaginable that of the Authour of the Predication of St. Paul which refers the Heathens to the Sibyl and Hystaspes was yet more unworthy and more sacrilegious Seventhly That St. Justin who maintains the Transportation of the Cumaean Sibyl and attributes to her the Verses he had extracted out of the eight Supposititious Books under the name of Noah's Daughter-in-law went upon a most false ground and such as was contrary to the perswasion of the whole Church and to the form of Disputation between the Orthodox and the Montanists and such Fanaticks Eighthly That the same St.
Christ shewing that on the one side these things to be abjent from the body or from the Lord and being in the body or with the Lord are irreconcileably opposite on the other side these to be absent from the body and to be with the Lord and on the contrary to be present in the body and to be absent from the Lord are inseparably conjoined so that the very act of the separation of the body necessarily translates the Faithfull into the presence of the Lord of which their presence in the body deprives them Yet this Supposition though refuted as aforesaid had such a strange influence upon the spirits of many great Church-men in the Second and Third Age that they outvied one another in the maintaining of it Thus Hermas at the same time that the Counterfeit Sibyl made her first attempt upon the sincerity of the Christians became the Patron and Propagatour of it writing of the Apostles and Faithfull departed before The Apostles and Doctours who have preached the Name of the Son of God and are dead by the power of God and by Faith preached to those who were dead before and gave them the Seal of preaching They are descended with them into the water and they ascended again out of it but those who were dead before descended dead and ascended living Which words are so much the more observable in that they have been subscribed by Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. 2 and 6. inferring from them that the Apostles conformably to what had been done by our Saviour preached the Gospel to those who were in Hell and that it was necessary that the best of the Disciples should be imitatours of their Master there as they had been here supposing after Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus that our Saviour being descended into hell after his Passion had preached the Gospel to those who were detained there in which Opinion he hath been followed by St. Athanasius St. Hilary of Poictiers Hilary Deacon of the Romane Church St. Epiphanius St. Hierome St. Cyril of Alexandria Oecumenius c. And secondly for that they insinuate not onely that the Apostles descended into hell after their death for to preach there but that the Faithfull departed after the Passion of our Saviour had been there taught and converted and consequently that all without any exception were there detained Presently after the publication of Hermas's Writings Pope Pius the First Brother to that pretended Prophet complies with him in his first Epistle to Justus of Vienna saying The Priests who having been nourished by the Apostles have lived to our days with whom we have divided together the word of Faith being called hence by the Lord are detained shut up in eternal Repositories sufficiently discovering by these words which denote a perpetual detention if not absolutely at least in some respect that he had embraced the same Opinion Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew writ some years after the presentation of his Apologie where he makes mention of the Sibyl endeavours all he can to maintain it as well by his Hypothesis of the Souls of the Just being exposed to the rage of evil Spirits as by an Apocryphal Passage he attributes to Jeremy and which Irenaeus sometime after cites one while under the name of Esay another under that of Jeremy and certainly with as little reason one as the other in these Terms The God of Israel hath remembred his dead lying in the slimy earth and descended to them to preach his salvation among them Which St. Irenaeus does five several times apply to the descent of our Saviour into hell after his Passion saying If the Lord that he might become the first-fruits from the dead Col. i. 18. observed the Law of the dead and continued to the third day in the lower parts of the Earth Ephes iv 9. c. since he went to the valley of the shadow of death Psal xxiii 4 where the souls of the dead were c. it is manifest that the souls of his Disciples for whose sake the Lord did those things shall also go to the invisible place designed them by God and remain there expecting the Resurrection till the Resurrection Whence it must needs be that the Latine Interpreter having found in the Original Text the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies Invisible and hath been taken by all the Heathens either for Hell or the God which they imagined presided there Literally translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Into an invisible place By which place the lovers of Truth are not as many at this day who to free St. Irenaeus form the Errour first proposed in the Sibylline Writing attribute to him Conceptions he neither ever had nor could have had to understand the State of the souls of the Saints departed which those Gentlemen conceive might be expressed by the Term of invisible place because Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for those that love him wherever they may be laid up for them rather then the place properly so called where they effectually enjoy them For St. Irenaeus his manner of reasoning and the contexture of his Discourse expresly refutes their Glosses in as much as if the Disciples whom the Gospel assures us not to have been above their Master ought both in life and death to imitate him and if the Master according to the sentiment of St. Irenaeus and the Church of Rome at this day passed from the Cross to the lower parts of the earth and to the valley of the shadow of death that is to say to hell properly so called and remained there all the time from his Passion to his Resurrection it must of necessity follow that by the invisible place whither the Disciples go after their Death should according to the said Father be understood hell scituated in the lower parts of the earth and in the Valley of the shadow of Death and that they remain there till the time of their Resurrection It is apparent from the words before transcribed that Clemens Alexandrinus Contemporary with St. Irenaeus was of the same Opinion And Tertullian whom St. Cyprian acknowledges for his Master and whom Saint Hierome affirms to have died about the year 217. being arrived to a very great Age discovers in many places that all the Montanist Party had embraced it For instance in the seventh Chapter of his Book Of the Soul After the divorce saith he or separation of the body the soul is transferred to hell she is there detained she is there reserved â—ill the day of Judgment c. Christ at his Death descended to the souls of the Patriarchs And in the ninth Chapter The souls of Martyrs are understood to be under the Altar And in fifty fifth Chapter Hell is in an hollowness of the earth a vast space as to its depth and there is an undiscovered profundity in its entrails c. Christ descended into the lowest parts of
while there shall onely be an Ostentation to name it and men shall wave to express the Nature of it to give the Eastern Greeks and the Protestants who absolutely deny it some proof of the Tradition which they pretend to produce for the Confirmation thereof CHAP. XXX Shewing that the first Hypothesis proposed by the Sibylline Writing so called is generally disclaimed AS to the first Hypothesis which concerns The detention of all souls whatsoever in Hell from their separation from the Bodies which they had animated to their Resurrection though it were in such high esteem that it induced the Christians of the second and third Ages to compose the ibera and the other Prayers in which the departed Person is introduced desiring to be delivered from eternal Death and the Living require that he be delivered from the Gates of Hell and preserved from the places of Torment Tartarus the deep Lake from the pains of Darkness from the mouth of the Lion yet was it at the very beginning moderated by those who seemed to have embraced it with greatest resolution For Tertullian perswaded by the Relation had been made to him of the Visions of St. Perpetua was of Opinion as we have already observed that the Souls of Martyrs were by way of preference placed in the Terrestrial Paradise and the rest confined in Hell And since it hath by little and little been abandoned yet so as that those who quitted it would not be obliged either to the rejection of the Sibylline Writing which had occasioned the production of it or to a change of the Prayers introduced into the Publick Service which presupposed it For many making no mention of Hell contented themselves to assign at least in words the souls of the Faithfull a certain sequestred place as under the Altars and Holy Tables appointed for the conservation and distribution of the Eucharist and upon that accompt if we may rely on the Judgment of the late Bishop of Orleans Gabriel de l'Aubespine the Councel Assembled about the year 305. from all Parts of Spain at Elvira near Granada had drawn up its thirty fourth Canon in these Terms Cereos per diem placuit in Coemeterio non incendi inquietandi enim spiritus Sanctorum non sunt c. It is thought good that in the day-time no Wax-candles should be lighted in the Church-yard for the spirits of the Saints are not to be disturbed In effect it might seem that the Christians at that time meeting in Coemeteries or Church-yards the Altars being upon that occasion placed there and many believing that the Angels and separated souls were disposed into some subtile Bodies capable as ours of resenting strong Perfumes Prohibition was made by the Spanish Prelates That Wax-candles should be lighted in the day-time lest the smoak of them might prove offensive to the spirits of the Faithfull whose Bodies had been there interred It might also be thought that Vigilantius by Birth indeed of Aquitain but a Priest of Barcelona who had with all Spain received the Decree of Elvira Disputing in the year 406. viz. an hundred years precisely after the said Decree against the Maintainers of the Worship done according to the Custom of that Time to the Reliques of the Saints whom he justly conceived illuminated by the Majesty of the Lamb sitting in the midst of the Throne of God crushed them with the Inconvenience which he found in their Opinion saying Ergò cineres suos amant animae Martyrum circumvolant eos sempérque praesentes sunt nè fortè si aliquis Precator advenerit absentes audire non possint c. The Souls therefore of the Martyrs are in love with their own dust and fly about it and are ever at hand lest if any one comes to pray they should not being absent hear him For this Argument makes onely against those who assigned at least in appearance the Souls of the Faithfull departed for their habitation the Place under the Altars that were near their Sepulchres There is also some Ground to number among the Followers of this strange Opinion those who had been so confident as to give it for certain to the good St. Augustine that St. John having caused himself to be buried alive at Ephesus the Earth continually sprung up and boyled as it were over the place of his Interment For if they thought it no Inconvenience to say of our Saviour's Beloved Apostle that he was confined to his Sepulchre there to expect in Body and Soul the Day of Judgment how much less would they have thought it to reduce the Souls of other Saints departed to the same condition St. Augustine thought it better to comply with the Opinion which he conceived could not be refuted by certain Proofs But it is so vanished of it self that being at this day generally declined we need not trouble our selves with the Confutation thereof no more then of that of Justine Martyr who from the Hypothesis of the pretended Sibylline Writing and the Story of the Witch of Endor inferred that all Souls without any exception either of Saints or Patriarchs or Prophets are in Hell under the power of the Devils For though the Prayers whereby it is even to this day required in the Church of Rome that God would deliver the Souls of the Faithfull departed from the power of Hell from the Mouth of the Lion from the Pains of Darkness and that he would put away far from them the Princes of darkness do notoriously discover they drew their Original from such a presupposition yet hath it nevertheless so absolutely lost all Credit that even in the year 380. Philastrius Bishop of Brescia charged it with Heresie saying Alia est Haeresis de Pythonissa c. There is another kind of Heresie concerning the Witch whereby some covering a Woman with Cloaths hoped they might obtain certain Answers from her whence it is said that that Witch raised out of Hell the Soul of the blessed Samuel and for that reason is it principally that many men even to this Day suspect that she might be believed especially for that it is known that she as it were a second time gave in that excitation true Answers of those things which the blessed Prophet had said to King Saul and because many are content to acquiesce in a Ly they descend into perpetual death since the Prophet saith The Souls of the Just are in the hand of the Lord and Death toucheth them not How then could an impious Soul raise out of Hell a pious and holy one especially that of a Prophet But what a strange astonishment must we necessarily conceive at this that the Opinion of Justine Martyr concerning the State of Souls should displease the whole Church which yet in her Service presupposed some such thing For if it be Heresie to think that the Souls of the â—aithfull after their retirement out of this World should be in danger of being exposed to the Rage of
year 398. Nunc requiem sentit coelestia regna potitus c. Now got to Heav'n he does his rest enjoy That of Celsus a young Lad a Spaniard deceased about the year 394. and celebrated by Paulinus since Bishop of Nola Laetor obîsse brevi functum mortalia saec'lo Ut citò divinas perfrueretur opes c. Placidam Deus aethere Christus Arcessens merito sumpsit honore animam c. Spiritus Angelico vectus abit gremio c. Superno in lumine Celsum Credite vivorum lacte favisque frui c. Glad that he 's soon discharged hence I am That sooner he Riches divine might claim c. Christ hath his peacefull Soul to Heav'n receiv'd With its deserved honour To Angels Bosoms his spirit is convey'd c. Celsus in light above doubt not though dead With living Milk and Honey-combs is fed That of Clarus deceased the 8th of November about the year 402. Libera corporeo mens carcere gauder in astris Pura probatorum sedem sortita piorum c. Spiritus aethere gaudet Discipulúmque pari sociat super astra Magistro c. Emeritus superis Spiritus involitas Sive Patrum sinibus recubas Dominive sub ara Conderis aut sacro pasceris in nemore Qualibet in regione Poli siâ—â—s aut Paradisi Clare sub aeterna pace quietus agis c. Among the Just his Habitation is Of Body free'd possess'd of Heav'nly bliss c. His Soul to Heav'n is flown The Scholar to the Master equal grown c. Thou a discharged Spirit to Heav'n fly'st And whether thou i th' Patriarch ' s Bosom ly'st Or under the Lord ' s Altar art detain'd Or an aboad i th' Sacred Grove hast gain'd What part or place of Paradise thou 'st got Eternal Peace and Rest is Clarus lot That of Paula deceased in the year 404. Aspicis angustum praecisa rupe Sepulchrum Hospitium Paulae coelestia regna tenentis c. Seest thou a Rock into a Coffin hewn 'T is Paula ' s Mansion who to Heav'n is flown That of Concordius of Arles deceased about the same time Integer â—tque que pius vitáque corpore purus Aeterno hîc positus vivit Concordius aevo c. Hunc citò sideream raptum Omnipotentis in Aulam Et Mater bland 〈◊〉 Fratres in funere quaerunt c. Here Pious Good of Life and Body pure Coâ—…dius of Eternity lies sure c. Him snatch'd to the Almighty's starry Hall A Mother kind and Brethren do bewail That of Pope BONIFACE the First deceased the 25th of October 423. Membráque clausit Certus in adventu glorificanda Dei c. Quis te Sancte Parens cum Christo nesciat esse c. His Members he did lay Assur'd of Glory on the last great day c. Who doubts thy being with Christ Great Man That of Pope CELESTINE gathered to the rest of the LORD April the 6th 432. Vitam migravit in illam Debita quae Sanctis aeternos reddit honores c. Mens nescia mortis Vivit aspectu fruitur bene conscia Christi c. He to that life is gone Where blessed Saints eternal Honours crown c. The Mind immortal lives And guiltless Christ contemplates That of St. Hilary of Arles departed this world to a better Life May the 5th 449. Hîc carnis spolium liquit ad astra volans c. Nec mirum post mortem tua limina Christe Angelicásque domos intravit aurea regna Divitias Paradise tuas fragrantia semper Gramina nitentes divinis floribus hortos Subjectásque videt nubes sidera coeli c. To Heav'n flown his Fleshy Robe lies here c. Nor is it much if after Death To Angels Mansions he admittance hath And of the Golden Kingdoms is possest And with thy Wealth O Paradise is blest Where ever-fragrant Verdures he may tread And Gardens with divinest Flow'rs or'espread And Clouds and Stars beneath him c. That of the Abbot ABRAHAM deceased the 15th of June about the year 480. in Auvergne Jam te circumstant Paradisi millia sacri Abraham jam te comperegrinus habet Jam patriam ingrederis sede qua decidit Adam Jam potes ad fontem fluminis ire tui c. Thousands of Paradise now round thee are With Abraham thy Fellow-traveller Thou art possessed of that whence Adam fell Thou mayst of thine own Streams go to the Well That which Ennodius the Deacon and afterwards Bishop of Pavia made in Honour of Bonus Exemplum terris linquens ad sidera raptus c. The World he leaves Taught by 's Example him the Sky receives That of Abundantius composed by the same Ennodius Non sentit damna Sepulchri c. Feels not the Losses of the Grave That of Rustica writ by the same Hand Purior aethereas graderis sine carne per arces c. Disrob'd of flesh thou walk'st th' ethereal Tow'rs That of Melissa due to the same Authour De vita ad vitam transitus iste placet c. From life to life to pass is my delight That whereby he celebrated the Memory of Victor Bishop of Novara Spiritus aetherea congaudet lucidus arce c. His lightsom Soul sports in the Starry Vault That which he hath left in Honour of Euphemia Mens niveis quà m bene juncta choris c. How well her minde suits with the snowy Quires Of Blessed Spirits That of Atolus of Rheims Contemporary with Saint Remy Proprium censum coelum transvexit in altum In quo suscepit quod miserendo dedit c. Praerutilum detinet ipse Polum Heav'ns Treasure he to Heav'n ha's reassign'd Where what he here in pity gave does finde c. Of Heaven he 's possest That of the Consul BOETHIUS Beheaded in the year 524. by the command of Thierry King of the Ostrogoths Probitas me vexit ad auras c. Ecce Boethus adest in coelo magnus c. My piety to Heaven me brought c. Behold in Heav'n the great Boethius is c. That of Petronius Corpus humo animam Christo Petroni dedisti Nam justae mentes foventur luce celesti Sidereásque colunt sedes mundóque fruuntur c. Thy Body earth does finde Thy Soul Petronius th' hast to Christ assign'd Just minds celestial Light surrounds the Sky Their Seat they onely what is pure enjoy That of Liberius Praefect of that Part of the Gauls now called Languedoc under Theodorick King of the Ostrogoths Cùm membra recedunt Nescit fama mori lucida vita manet c. Thy Limbs may rot Thy Fame remains a brighter Life's thy lot That of Pope FELIX the Fourth deceased February the 29th 528. Certa fides justis coelestia regna patere Antistes Felix quae modo laetus habet c. Felix in Heaven hath felicity Whose Courts unto the Just ev'r openly That of Florentinus Abbot of Saint Croix d'Arles deceased April the 25th Indict 1. in the 12th year after
art fled That of Pope Boniface the Fifth deceased the 25 th of October 625. Ad magni culmen honoris abit c. He 's gone of honour to th' accomplishment That of Pope Honorius deceased the twelfth of October 638. Aeternae luis Christo dignante perennes Cum Patribus sanctis posside jámque domos Thou who to ' th' holy Sires hast ta'ne thy flight Enjoy through Christ th' eternal Seats of Light That of Pope Benedict II. deceased the seventh of May 685. Percipe salvati praemia celsa gregis c. The high rewards of those are sav'd receive That of Ceadwalla King of the West-Saxons deceased the twentieth of April 689. Indict 2. Mente superna tenet Commutâsse magis sceptrorum Insignia credas Quem regnum Chrsti promeruisse vides c. His spirit in heaven soars Who to Christ's Throne is raised may be said But an exchange of Scepters to have made That of Theodore of Canterbury deceased the 19 th of September 690. Alma novae scandens felix consortia vitae Civibus Angelicis junctus in arce Poli c Advanc'd to a society of Bliss With Angel-Citizens h'in heaven is That of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of York deceased October the 12 th 709. Gaudens coelestia regna petivit c. Rejoycing he to heav'n's gone That of Bede rsinamed Venerable deceased May 26th being Ascension-Day which argues his death to have happened in the year 735. Juni septenis viduatus carne Kalendis Angligena Angelicam commeruit Patriam c. May's twenty sixth of flesh uncloathed Bede Mongst Angels went to have a heav'nly meed That of Richard King of England deceased February the 7 th 750. Regnum tenet ipse Polorum c. Of heav'n's Kingdom he 's possess'd That of Fulrad Abbot of St. Denys deceased in the year 784. Credimus idcirco Coelo societur ut illis c. In heav'n we Believe him blest with their society That of Meginarius his Successour Post mortem meliùs vivit in arce Poli c. Death past he lives in heav'n a better life That of Arichis Duke of Beneventum deceased the six and twentieth of August 787. Te pro meritis nunc Paradisus habet c. For thy good Works heaven is thy reward That of Tilpin Arch-Bishop of Rheims deceased the second of September 789. Mortua quando fuit mors sibi vita maner c. When Death is dead Life his Portion is That of Pope Adrian the First deceased the 26th of December 795. Mors janua vitae Sed melioris erat Death was the entrance of a better Life That of Peter Bishop of Pavia deceased about the same time Admistus gaudet caetibus Angelicis c. Retinent te gaudia Coeli c. Rejoycing among Angels he Heav'n's joys thy entertainment are That of Hildegard first Wife of Charle-maign deceased in the year 783. April the thirtieth Pro dignis factis sacra regna tenes Thy worthy acts the sacred Kingdom gain'd That of Fastrada second Wife of the same Prince deceased in the year 794. Modò Coelesti nobilior Thalamo c. A heav'nly bed makes her more Noble That of Count Gerald deceased in the year 799. Sideribus animam dedit He rendred his Soul to heaven That of Hildegard Daughter by his first Wife Tu nimium felix gaudia longa petis c. Thou ever-happy to long Joys dost go That of Charle-maign himself deceased on Saturday the eighth of January 814. Meruit fervida saec'li Aetherei c. Aequora transire placidum conscendere portum c. That of Adelbard Abbot of St. Peter of Corbie deceased the second of January 822. Paradisi jure colonis c. Inhabitant of Pardise That of Ermengard Wife to the Emperour Lotharius deceased the twentieth of March being Good-Friday in the year 852. Linquens regna soli penetravit regna Polorum Cum Christo sanctis gaudia vera tenens c. Leaving Earth's Crowns to those of Heav'n she 's gone With Christ and 's Saints in exultation That of Lewis the Debonnaire who died on Sunday the twentieth of June 840. In pacis metas colligit hunc pietas c. Him Piety brings into the land of Peace That of Dreux Bishop of Mets deceased the eighth of November 857. Spiritus in requie laetus ovat Abrahae c. The joyfull spirit exults in Abra'm's Rest That of the Emperour Lewis the Second deceased the thirteenth of August 875. Gaudet Spiritus in Coelis Corporis extat honos c. The Body's honour is Apparent but the spirit 's in heave'nly bliss That of the Emperour Carolus Calvus deceased the sixth of October 877. Spiritum reddidit ille Deo c. He to God his Spirit return'd That of Ansegisus Arch-Bishop of Sens deceased the twenty fifth of November 883. Spiritus Astra tenet c. Of heav'n his Spirit 's possest That of John Scotus dead the same year Christi conscendere regnum Quo meruit sancti regnat per saecula cuncti c. He to ascend Christ's Kingdom did obtain Where all the Saints eternally do reign That of Pope John the Eighth deceased the fifteenth of December the year before Et nunc coelicolas cernit super Astra Phalanges c. Above the Skies Now he the heav'nly Batallions spyes That of Ermengard Daughter of Lewis King of Germany deceased the three and twentieth of December about the same time Bis denos octo vitae compleverat annos Migrans ad sponsum Virgo beata suum c. Twice eighteen years this Maid had liv'd compleat When happy she went hence her Spouse to meet That of Bruno Arch-Bishop of Cullen deceased the eleventh of October 969. Iam frueris Domino Thou now enjoy'st the Lord. That of Notger Abbot of St. Gal deceased the sixth of April 981. Idibus octonis hic carne solutus Aprilis Coelis invehitur c. Having laid down his fleshy burthen on The sixth of April he to heav'n is gone That of Gonzales cited by Prudentio de Sandoval Bishop of Pampeluna to the year of the Julian Period 1030. or of Christ 992. A qui reposa y en la gloria goza c. Here rests and glorious happiness enjoys That of Donna Sancia Dio fin glorioso a esta vida Par a gozar de la aeterna c. That she might gain eternal life in Bliss She gave a glorious Period unto this That of Sancia Countess of Castile Bis vinctum Comitem è carcere adduxit Coelicas sedes beata quae possidet c. She out of Prison twice her Count reliev'd To heav'nly Seats who happy now 's receiv'd That of Count Fernand of Gonzalva Belliger invictus ductus ad Astra fuit c. To heav'n th' undaunted Souldier was convey'd And Sebastian of Salamanca speaking of Ordonio the First places him in Heaven saying Felix stat in Coelo c. Laetatur cum sanctis Angelis in Coelestibus regnis c. He is happy in heaven
enquiry into the Motives which might have induced the Authours of those Epitaphs to insert into them Prayers for their departed Friends and to place their Tombs near those of the Martyrs who had sealed with their Blood the Truth of Christianity The most antient Epitaph we finde containing a mixture of Wishes and Prayers is that which St. Gregory Nazianzene writ in Honour of St. Basil deceased the twelfth of January in the year 378. where we read these Words concerning that Great Prelate gathered to his Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God give him Happiness as if he had not been in the actual possession thereof and as if St. Gregory had not expresly required of him before that he would appear for the World and offer gifts to God and that in consequence of his being in Heaven as he had desired Again That he had quitted his Episcopal See as Christ would have it that he might become one among the Inhabitants of Heaven It seems then he believed him in Heaven and possessed of the Glory and Happiness of Heaven as soon as he had at his departure out of this World quitted his Episcopal See and yet he desires that God would give him Happiness meaning that he would confirm and improve the gift he had already made him which hath nothing common with the Hypotheses maintained at this day by the Church of Rome In the year 395. deceased the Prefect PROBUS and his Epitaph which loudly published that he was in the Plains of Heaven seated among the Saints possessed of perpetual Rest that he lived crowned with bliss in the Everlasting Mansions of Paradise concludes with this Prayer Hunc tu Christe Choris jungas Coelestibus oro Te canat placidum jugiter aspiciat Quique tuo semper dilectus pendet ab ore Auxilium soboli conjugióque ferat Joyn'd with Celestial Quires O Christ may he Thy praises sing thy constant favour see Whō ever-lov'd did ev'r on thee depend May he to 's Race and Widow some help lend Shall we say he was in Heaven and yet not joyned with the Celestical Quires That he was in any danger to see his Saviour incensed and that he could be possessed of Paradise without Happiness If not it must needs be that the Authour of his Epitaph prayed that he might enjoy it without any diminution and be eternally in the Favour and Peace of his Saviour in the Society of the rest of the Blessed Saints which hath nothing common with what is now desired by the Church of Rome We have such another Desire made in the Epitaph of Pope BENEDICT Hic Benedictus adest meritò sub rupe Sepulchri Quem tenet Angelicus Chorus in arce Poli Aurea saec'la cui pateant sine fine per aevum Sorte beatificâ scandat ut aetheria c. Here Benedict justly beneath this Stone Is plac'd whom Angels in the Heav'ns enthrone To whom be golden Ages without end That he the Skies may ever-bless'd ascend For who sees not that he who is enthroned by Angels in Heaven must of necessity be there and stood not in need of ascending thither nor that any golden Ages should be desired for him But in as much as he was to ascend thither in his Body after the general Resurrection the Authour of the Epitaph makes a Wish to that purpose and requires that the Happiness which he was then possessed of as to his Spirit might be ever continued to him that he might be eternally filled with Joy as well in body as soul thereby discovering that he reflected not in the least on the Purgatery held by the Church of Rome which none of her Followers ever yet placed in Heaven or any way thought on the delay of Benedict's Felicity whom he esteemed already received into the Society of the Angels The same accompt is to be given of the Epitaph of Marinian Arch-Bishop of Ravenna deceased in the year 601. where we finde these words Ipsius in locis sit tibi certa quies c. Mayst thou with God assured rest obtain As also of that of Venerable Bede deceased in the year 735. Dona Christe animam in Coelis gaudere per aevum c. Dáque illum Sophiae inebriari fonte Christ grant his soul in heav'n eternal joy c. And him inebriate with Wisdom's spring For it does not thence follow either that he was at the hour of his death deprived of the Joy of Heaven or that Wisdom had not filled him with the Effects of her Virtue or lastly that those who are once entred into the Joy of Heaven could ever forfeit it or be deprived of the communication of eternal Wisdom but that the Surviving thought they might rationally demand for their deceased Friends the perpetuity of their Happiness though they certainly knew it could never be taken from them That of Pope ADRIAN the First writ either by Charle-maign or in his Name by Alcuin notwithstanding he had presupposed that his Death was the entrance of a better Life yet forbore not to make these Wishes for him Cum Christo teneas regna beata Poli c. Quique legis Versus devoto pectore supplex Amborum mitis dic miserere Deus Haec tua nunc requies teneat charissime membra Cum sanctis Anima gaudeat alma Dei Ultima quippe tuas donec Tuba clamet in aures Principe cum Petro Surge videre Deum Auditurus eris vocem scio Judicis almam Intra nunc Domini gaudia magna tui Tum memor esto tui Nati c. Mayst thou with Christ a blessed Seat obtain c. Who humbly readst this Verse with pious heart May God his mercy say to both impart May here the precious body finde it's Rest May the fair soul rejoyce among the blest Since when the latest Trump shall summon thee God and the great Saint Peter for to see I know thou 'lt hear the Judge's gentle voyce Of thy Lord enter into the great Joys Remember then thy Son Now as the demand he made for Adrian that he might obtain a blessed seat with Christ in Heaven did not signify that he was not yet admitted into the Possession of that better Life whereof his death was the entrance so the Invitation to implore for him the Mercy of God was no argument that he had not obtained it since that even then he exhorted his Soul to rejoyce with the Saints of God and shewed that he thought it not tormented in a Fire such as were likely to deprive it of all Joy but that it was in Bliss reigning in the Company of the Saints of the Apostle St. Peter and our Saviour a felicity whereto nothing could be added by desire but the perpetuity of it which yet is so much the more certain in as much as it is grounded on the unchangeable counsel of God whose Gifts and Calling are without repentance That of Charle-maign of whom the Authour viz. Agobard Arch-Bishop of Lions said That he
cunctipotens animae c. Pardon thy Soul he whom all things obey he takes him for an Intercessour as he in requital Prays for him saying Oramus pro te pro nobis quaesumus ora c. We pray for thee thou us thy Pray'rs afford And elsewhere he lays it down as certain that the one and twentieth of January the day of his Decease Destituit Mundo substituitque Polo Snatch'd him from hence to place him in the Skie which cannot stand without his being received into Heaven In those of Howel Bishop of Mans deceased in the year 1129. and of the Abbot Joel having said Morte pari modicò Deus attigit ambos Ut sint translati Sidera magna Poli c. In equal death God did them both conjoyn Translated hence in Heav'n great Stars to shine A Discourse representing them already possessed of Celestial Glory and and particularly of the former Coram Sancto Vota vovent Tumulo c. Before his Tomb their Vows they pour Whence it follows that they took him for their Patron and must of necessity think him in Happiness Yet does he nevertheless pray for him saying Praesulis obtineat Spiritus Astra Poli c. May Heav'n the Prelate's Soul obtain as if contrary to his precedent Protestations he had thought him at a great distance from it In those of Audebert Abbot of Bourg-dieux and Arch-Bishop of Bourges deceased in the year 1098. he is very liberal of his Wishes as Communem Patrem communi tangite voto Ut det Pastori sedem super aethera vestro Again Audeberte vale sit pax tibi lúxque perennis Again In Domino requiem Spiritus inveniat c. Omnipotens animam Pontificis foveat c. To th' common Father your joynt Vows address That he your Pastour bring to happiness c. Audebert be well Eternal peace and light Thy Portion be May's Soul in God finde rest Kindely may God the Prelate's soul receive Who hearing him talk after this rate would not say that he were out of Heaven deprived of light peace and rest But look upon the Reverse of the Medal and you shall finde he looks on him as his Patron already possessed of Heaven saying Tu Pater à Superis saepe revise tuos c. Vadis te Christo per idonea signa vocante Et velut emerito tibi praemia digna parante Omni momento nostrî Patrone memento Et succurre gregi mortali morte redempto Again Nunc quoque cum Christo nos saepè revisat ab alto Thou Father from on high revisit thine c. By Christ hence As a discharged Champion thou art Of great rewards call'd to receive thy Part O Patron ever-mindfull of us be And those relieve whom mortal death set free With Christ from Heav'n often revisit us What could he have said more to St. Peter or St. Paul according to the Theologie of that Time In that of William Bishop of Engoulesm having invited those of his Diocess to worship his Body he advises them to pray for him Artus venerare Paternos Dic quoque Transcendat Gulielmi Spiritus Astra Thy Father's body having worship'd pray That William's soul to Heav'n may finde the way What could have been more ridiculous then to have perswaded People to the Veneration of a Body whose Spirit should at the same time have been in a place of Pain and deprived of Glory In that of Gerald of Orleans he says Datur hîc sua portio Terrae Spiritus in tenues vivens elabitur auras Cui tamen è rebus lutulentis si quid inhaesit Expediat totum clemens miseratio Christi His Precibus Lector Amen adjiciendo faveto Here Earth hath had her share The Spirit lives dissolv'd to subtile Air Which yet if stain'd with ought terrestrial May Christ in his great Mercy pardon all T advance these Prayers Reader Amen let fall Since then he conceived that at the fall of the Body when it became the portion of the Earth the Spirit lived and was escaped who sees not that he believed it to be in some other place then that of a grievous punishment and that the Prayer he afterward makes tends rather to assure the Expiation of his Offences then to implore it for him in as much as the Mercy of God is not communicated after death but to those who obtained it while they lived In that of Durand Bishop of Cler-mont deceased the nineteenth of November 1095. during the time of the Councel or Croisado for the Conquest of the Holy Sepulchre was published he exhorts the People of Auvergn to worship him and thereby declares him to be in Happiness saying Arvernus sanctos cineres reverenter habeto Atque Patrocinio tutior esto suo Worship his sacred ashes Cler-mont and Thou shalt in his protection safer stand In those of Gerald Abbot of Selue Majour in Bourdelois he is yet more excessive as hath been observed in the precedent Chapter And though the Prayers he makes in the Epitaphs of his other Friends as Reynold Clere Guy Raoul Clerembant William of Mont-soreau Berenger Arch-Deacon of Anger 's Froden of Anger 's Peter Dean of Dol Reinould Canon of Poictiers Geoffrey of Rheims Alexander of Tours Eriland Peter Prior Eudes Abbot of St. John d'Angely Raoul Arch-Deacon of Poictiers Chevalier Bouchard Chevalier Rahier the Countess Osanna Guy Tourangeau William Abbot of Bourgueil and Herard of Loudun though I say those Prayers might presuppose the Belief of Purgatory yet since they are consistent with the other Presuppositions and that Baldric made the like for Persons whom he believed crowned with Glory in Heaven it cannot be safely concluded that he ever intended to apply any one of them to the common Opinion current in his Time and which the Church of Rome maintains at this day The same is to be said of those who after him and to this present have declared and do declare according to the Custom of the Church of Rome and even in her Communion that the Persons whose Memory they have celebrated by their Verses and Sepulchral Inscriptions are in Happiness and possessed of celestial Glory For though they do not openly impugn the Opinion of Purgatory as the Protestants do and though they use such Expressions as might seem to maintain it yet do they not oblige themselves to maintain it in Effect and without any injury done them it may be taken for certain that they believed no more of it then the Reverend Peter Chastellain Bishop of Mascon who having on the three and twentieth of May 1547. advanced into Glory the great King Francis and scandalized the College of Sorbonne which looked on his Discourse as a Piece of Lutheranism flatly contradicting the common Opinion of Purgatory and demanded of him either the formal Retractation or Explication of it thought it satisfaction enough to give the Complainers and that in the presence of King Henry the Second and all his Court a Jest instead of an Apologie
for his Funeral-Oration and to stop their Mouths tell them that he denied not he had been there but that it was onely to take a Glass of Wine as he passed by which Discourse was to them an absolute Put-off and caused them to be laughed at whereever they came CHAP. XLII Of the true Motives which the Antients had to Pray for the Blessed Saints in Heaven BUt not further to mention Baldric or the Bishop of Mascon it will be demanded what Motive enclined those who since the year 500. are found to have made Prayers for the Dead to do so And here I am willing to acknowleg that there was no more noise of the Opinion which had so much distracted the Spirits of Christians of the Second and Third Age deceived by the Pretended Sibylline Writing and presupposing that all Souls without exception descended to Hell were there confined till the Resurrection of their Bodies and exposed not onely to the temptations but also to the violences of Evil Spirits which to prove Justine Martyr alledged to Trypho the Jew the pretended raising of Samuel by the Witch of En-dor For though the most antient Prayers as for Instance those which St. Augustine made for his Mother seem to have been drawn up by that Precedent and that the Libera if it be applied to the Departed rather then to the Faithfull in Agonies and preparing themselves for death requires we should think they were yet had they even from the Time of Tertullian seventy years or thereabouts after the first coming abroad of the Sibylline Writing so called begun to exempt the Martyrs from the necessity of descending into Hell and so by little and little the minds of the Christians strugling with and overcoming the Imposture that first Hypothesis was cast out of doors yet so as that it was done without a rejection of the Forms which those who maintained it had introduced into the Publick Service of the Church And thence comes it that St. Ambrose prays for his Brother Satyrus saying Tibi nunc omnipotens Deus innoxiam commendo animam c. Now O Almighty God I recommend unto thee his innocent soul And for Valentinian the Second and Gratian in these words Hîc adhuc intercessionem c. Should I still make Intercession here for him to whom I dare promise a reward Put into my hands the sacred Mysteries let us with a devout affection demand rest for him give me the celestial Sacraments let us attend his religious soul with our Oblations Lift up your hands with me in the Sanctuary O ye People to the end at least that by this Present we may recompense his merits c. No night shall go over my head but that I will make you some present of my prayers in all my Visitations I shall remember you c. And for the Great Theodosius Praesumo de Domino c. I so far presume of the Lord that he will hear the voyce of my cry wherewith I attend thy pious soul c. Grant perfect rest unto thy servant Theodosius even that rest which thou hast prepared for thy Saints May his soul return thither whence it descended where he cannot feel the sting of death where he may be satisfied that this death is the end not of Nature but of sin c. From which Prayers it is to be observed by the way First That this Holy Prelate expressing that he considered not his prayers for Valentinian who died a Catechumen but a Person very Religious and truly inclined to Piety as an Office whereof he stood in need but as a simple Effect of his good Wishes manifestly discovers that not any one of the Faithfull departed in the Lord stands in any necessity of the suffrages of the surviving and accordingly that the Protestants who believe that in matter of Religion nothing should be attempted without the express order of God himself speaking in his Word cannot be accompted criminals for their declining an act which is not even in their Judgment who practised it of any necessity or any way beneficial to those for whom the voluntary devotion or Will-worship of men designs it Secondly That St. Ambrose who calls the Eucharist celebrated in memory of Valentinian and upon his occasion a Present which he makes his Friend and by which he requites him could not have believed it to be either the Body of the Son of God or the Offering-up of that Body or in general a Propitiatory Sacrifice properly so called For who could without an impious Absurdity imagine that the real Body of our Saviour should be so much at our disposal as that we might make Presents of it to our Friends c. that the Proper Oblation of the same Body being infinitely more precious then we or any thing that can proceed from us is or could be a supplement which we adjoyn to our Prayers for our Friends and that this kind of Present is as the meanest kindness we can do them so as that we might say with St. Ambrose that at least by that Present we requite them It seems then he pretended not to do what the Church of Rome thinks to do at this day in the Masses of Requiem For she professes to present the Oblation she makes therein whatever it may be not to the deceased for whom she prays but onely to God for or on the behalf of the deceased She conceives also that her Host which she believes to be properly and really the Body of the Son of God surpasses in value not onely our Prayers but what ever is most excellent either in Earth or in Heaven among the Angels and Spirits of the glorified Saints And though she who cannot endure the Protestants because they are unwilling to submit their Consciences to any other Rule then that of Faith contained in the Sacred Scriptures hath born in her Bosom and suffered unreproved those inconsiderate Children who have had the boldness to write that the solemn Sacrifice might be offered to Creatures As when the Authour of the great Chronicle of the Low-Countries thrust in this into his History that on the 27th of October 1467. Charles last Duke of Burgundy who conquered the People about Liege Ecclesiae Lovaniensis universo Clero commisit omnipotenti Deo suaeque sanctae Genitrici offerre suo nomine sacrificium c. gave express Order to all the Clergy of the Church of Lovain to offer unto Almighty God and to his most Holy Mother the solemn Sacrifice in his name never considering either that the Oblation of the solemn Sacrifice is by the confession of all the act of Latria and sovereign adoration due to God alone as being the most proper Object and most worthy of it nor that the most Holy Mother of our Lord though blessed according to the saying of the Angel among Women never ceased being a Creature and that she is such now in Heaven as much as she was before she was crowned with Glory or
every where that all Souls are produced by God at the very instant of their infusion into the Bodies they are to animate and that for as much as they were not at all before they were united to their Bodies they could not either be or sin in Heaven or consequently descend thence as St. Ambrose presupposed that which is not absolutely neither having before it is any Being nor pre-existing nor capable of either Action or Motion from one place to another or of any Passion any way conceivable by us But as to the main point it is manifest that St. Ambrose and all the Church of his Time had absolutely rejected the first Hypothesis derived from the pretended Sibylline Writing maintaining that all Souls without exception descend into Hell after their departure out of the Bodies wherewith they every one as to its own particular constituted humane Persons and that that other Branch of Errour which had prepossessed the Spirit of Justine Martyr and his Contemporaries whereby they imagined that the Souls of the greatest Saints during their pretended detention in Hell were in some sort subject to the power of Evil Spirits and upon that accompt stood in need of being relieved by the Prayers of the Living imploring on their behalf the Protection of God and his good Angels was no longer held it being the perswasion even of those who continued to make the same Prayers as they who had been of that Belief that the true Christians departing out of the Body were with the Lord in an eternal rest and absolute safety In so much that these who recommended the Dead to God grounded not their so doing on either of these two Motives St. Ambrose telling us plainly concerning Valentinian the Second Requiescamus inquit anima pia in Castellis ostendens illic esse quietem tutiorem quae septo Coelestis refugii munita atque vallata non exagitatur soecularium incursibus Bestiarum c. Let us rest says the Faithfull soul in Towers shewing that there where she is received there is a more assured Repose which being encompassed and fortified with the Enclosure of celestial refuge is not disturbed by the Incursions of the Beasts of this World that is to say Evil Spirits and Wicked Men. And concerning Theodosius Lapsum sentire non poterit in illa requie constitutits c. Being seated in that Rest he cannot be subject to fall from it And Paulinus not long before the Death of St. Ambrose to Pammachius concerning his Wife Paulina deceased in the year 396. Satis docuit Rex Propheta c. The Royal Prophet hath sufficiently taught us how far we should be troubled at the departure of our Friends and Kinred to wit so as rather to think of our Journey after them then of that which they are already come to the end of It is indeed an Expression of Piety to be cast down at the taking away hence of Just men but it is also an Holy thing to be raised up into Gladness upon the Hope and Faith of God's Promises and to say to him that it is in trouble Why art thou sad Be it so that Piety bewail for a time yet is it necessary that Faith should always be joyfull Upon this Ground was it that all those who for the space of six hundred years made it their Business to write the Lives of the Faithfull accompted them among the Blessed not admitting any adjournment of their Peace and Felicity after their death In so much as Gregory Arch-Bishop of Tours deceased the seventeenth of November 592. about which time Pope GREGORY first of that Name was designing the first-draught of Purgatory should not have spoken of those Virtuous Persons whose memory he celebrated in other Terms then those who had preceeded him saying of Gregory Bishop of Langres of Nicetius Bishop of Lyons of Porcianus Ursus and Caluppa Religious Men Migravit ad Dominum c. He is gone hence to the Lord of Gullus Bishop of Cler-mont of Nicetius Bishop of Trier and of Lupicinus Spiritum coelo intentum proemisit ad Dominum c. He sent before his Body to the Lord his Soul imployed in Thoughts of Heaven of Friard Christus animam suscepit in Coelo c. Christ hath received his soul into Heaven of Martius Ad Coronam commigravit c. He is gone hence to receive a Crown of Venantius Vitam percepturus aeternam emicuit saeculo c. He is hurried hence to receive eternal Life of Leobord Manifestum est eum ab Angelis susceptum c. It is manifest he hath been entertained by Angels In a word the great number of those who admire the Novelties that have crept into the Opinion of Purgatory hath been no hindrance but that the Authours of Lives who have written since the year 600. have spoken and believed of their Dead consonantly to what had been done by the most Antient. If therefore even in the Time of St. Ambrose the Opinion of the Millenaries was so lost to credit that St. Hierome who out of respect towards the Great Persons that had followed it forbore to express his Thoughts thereof and to number it among Heresies thought it a great Tenderness towards it to assign it a place among the dreaming Imaginations of mis-informed Spirits it is not to be conceived that after the year 500. descending still it should have regained any Partizans and that there should have been any man whose Prayers for his deceased Friends proceeded from that Motive so as that he thought himself obliged to wish them their part in the First Resurrection which no man then understood in the sense wherein Tertullian and those of his Time had conceived it But indeed many even till after the year 600. relying on that Hypothesis partly extracted out of the pretended Oracles of the Counterfeit Sibyl that All Souls should pass through the last Conflagration of the World demanded on the Behalf of their departed Friends two things One that they might pass through that great Conflagration as through a Purgative Fire not to be prejudiced thereby no more then the Gold melted in the Crucible Another that they might have their part with all the Saints in the Resurrection to Glory Upon this perswasion Kindasvind King of the West-Goths in Spain who reigned between the year 642. and 649. had caused these Verses to be written on the Tomb of his Wife Reciberga Ego te Conjux quia vincere fata nequivi Funere perfunctam Sanctis commendo tuendam Ut cùm Flamma vorax veniet comburere Terras Coetibus ipsorum meritò sociata resurgas Since death on my desires would not thee spare Of thee departed may the Saints take care That thou with them mayst rise again that day When of the Fire the Earth shall be the prey The First of these Demands hath lost much of that Consideration with those who have embraced the New Opinion of Purgatory which seemed to require the Example of the
might come near us that while Christ illuminates them the obscurity of darkness may flie away from us resting therefore with the Holy Martyrs we escape the darkness of Hell through their Merits indeed yet as their companions in Sanctity From which words it is manifest First That maintaining as Tertullian did the first Hypothesis of the pretended Sibylline Writing he conceived that all the Souls of the Faithfull those onely of Martyrs excepted descended into Hell where by the Merit of the Saints with whom their Bodies were Interred they remain without any Torment till the day of Resurrection Secondly That according to the Sentiment of St. Ambrose and Paulinus he thought that from the Bodies of Saints there issues a certain Virtue which preserves and exempts from Torment the Faithfull Interred near them Which Prejudications we are so much the more strictly obliged to oppose in as much as even those who have followed them as Paulinus were ashamed thereof confessing that in effect they were never satisfied thereof Besides the Church of Rome her self Teaching at this day that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by his Passion upon the Cross hath merited justification for us and on our behalf satisfied God the Father who for his sake forgives with the Guilt the eternal Pains of Hell to lay down after Maximus that by the Merit of the Saints we escape the darkness of â—ell which stands in fear of them were to lay down the Contradictory Affirmative of the Negative which God himself writ with the Hand of St. Peter saying There is no salvation in any other for there is no other Name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved and on the contrary to maintain There is salvation in some other fâ—â— there are other names under Heaven whereby we must be saved to wit those of the Martyrs CHAP. L. A Reflection on certain Followers of the Sentiment of the foresaid Maximus I Am willing to Believe that Maximus was so desirous to comply with the Custom of his Predecessours that he took not the Leisure to consider what might be the consequence thereof Others have Imitated him in that Particular relying on the Example of their Ancestours without examining the just weight of its Authority as Theodimus a Spanish Sub-Deacon upon whose Tomb are to be read these Words addressed to St. Andrew Tuis adjutus auxiliis disruptis vinculis Inferni hinc resurgere caro misera possit in die examinationis calcatis facinorosis peccatis gaudia divina percipiat te interprecante Martyr Andrea c. O Martyr Andrew assisted by thy help having broken in pieces the Chains of Hell may his wretched body be raised hence and 〈◊〉 the day of Examination his deadly sins being trod under foot may he take possession of divine glory through the intermediation of thy Prayers And Kindasvind King of the West-Goths in the Epitaph of his Wife Reciverga Ego te conjux quia vincere fata nequivi Funere perfunctam Sanctis commendo tuendam Ut cùm flamma vorax veniet comburere terras Coetibus ipsorum merito sociata resurgas c. Since death on my desires would not thee spare Of thee departed may the Saints take care That thou with them mayst rise again that day When of the fire the earth shall be the prey And Paul the Deacon in the Epitaph of Arichis Duke of Beneventum Profit huic sacro membra dedisse lari c. May 't be to 's good his body to have laid Within this sacred place And Dungalus who in the year 826. objected to Claudius Bishop of Turin the before-mentioned Epitaph of Satyrus acquiescing in the Sentiment which St. Ambrose seems to have been of concerning the sanctification of his Brother's body by its nearness to that of the Martyr Victor and the affluence of his blood and clearly justifying that that Hypothesis though inconvenient and unmaintainable in it self and notwithstanding that it had been disavowed 36. years after by Paulinus and refuted by St. Augustine had not yet lost its credit 540. years after the name and memory of St. Ambrose acquiring it such Sectatours as took it from his good meaning without any examination and by a kind of implicit submission which ought not at this day be any hinderance but that the Lovers of Truth should open their eyes to her light to follow her with their hearts and confess with their mouths that it sometimes happens even to the greatest men to speak with less caution then was consistent with their reputation whether they were transported by heat of dispute or that their spirits were charmed by their partiality to the matter they treated as it should seem St. Ambrose was prepossessed in this particular and St. Gregory Nazianzene in his first Invective against Julian when he says That the Souls of Martyrs and their bodies considered severally and every drop of their blood and the least Signs of their passion chace away evil spirits and heal diseased persons and St. Basil cited by Pope Adrian in his Treatise for Images when upon the 115. Psalm he maintains that whoever touches the bones of a Martyr derives some participation of sanctity by the grace residing in the body of the said Martyr and St. Chrysostome when in the 26th Homily on the second Epistle to the Corinthians he says that the bones of Saints allay and torment evil Spirits and unbind those that are bound in those unhappy fetters and St. Hierome when he maintains to Vigilantius that if the Lamb be every where they therefore the Saints who are with the Lamb are to be believed to be also every where and St. Gregory of Rome chap. 21st of the third Book of his Dialogues that the dead bones of the Saints live in the many miracles wrought by them and chap. 14th of the twelfth of his Morals upon Job That it is not to be believed that those who within them see the clearness of Almighty God should be ignorant of any thing without them and chap. 33d. of the fourth of his Dialogues that there is nothing which they know not who know him that knows all things For there is not any one of these kinds of speaking but is chargeable with inconvenience and falsity if understood according to its literal sense and without acknowledging what there may be in them of abuse and hyperbole For 1. The vertue of Sanctifying and healing Diseases without any application of Remedies operating naturally as also that of driving away and tormenting evil Spirits does not properly and of it self belong to any but to God alone and is not a quality that any nature in it self corporeal can be affected with 2. It is absolutely impossible the Spirit of any Saint can be every where as St. Hierome seems to affirm whose discourse therefore is to be explicated with the help of the same moderation as is used by him when he speaks of evil spirits who wandering all over the World and that with an
â—ejurrection of the Saints to comfort the Faithfull cast down at the death of their Brethren setting before their eyes so many Certificates of the future Resurrection of him whose Memory they celebrated and inclining every one of them by the Meditation of so many celestial Documents to the expectation of that last deliverance wherein their Lord making them to triumph over Death shall cloath them with incorruption and crown their heads with eternal Glory If then the set Form of the Mass for the Dead cannot afford us any Text of Holy Scripture which may serve either for the confirmation of the Doctrine of Purgatory or the insinuation of the Custom of praving for the dead we are not to promise our selves that the Office of the Dead contained in the Breviary should furnish us with any thing more express In this later we meet with several Lessons out of the Book of â—ob the First taken out of the seventh Chapter from the sixteenth Verse to the end the Second out of the tenth Chapter from the first Verse to the seventh inclusively the Third out of the same Chapter from the eighth Verse to the twelfth the Fourth out of the thirteenth Chapter from the twenty second Verse to the twenty eighth the Fifth out of the fourteenth Chapter from the first Verse to the sixth the Sixth Lesson out of the same Chapter from the thirteenth Verse to the eighteenth the Seventh out of the seventeenth Chapter from the first Verse to the third and from the eleventh to the fifteenth Verse the Eighth out of the nineteenth Chapter from the twentieth Verse to the twenty seventh and the Ninth out of the tenth Chapter from the eighteenth Verse to the two and twentieth We finde there also the seventh and eighth Verses of the seventh Chapter and every where we have certain bewailings of that great Example of Patience groaning under the Scourge of God and forced to Lamentations under the greatness of his Chastisements but who from the cries and complaints of a man alive forcing their way from the Bottom of his Heart through the violence of his Anguish and the Dread he was in of the Judgment of God will conclude either that there is Purgatory or any necessity of Prayer for the dead Must the Expressions used by afflicted Persons reduced to bemoan themselves in this Life serve for a Precedent to the separated Souls which are supposed not simply to pass through but to be melted again after a certain manner in the Fire appointed to purge them Were it granted that some Blessed Soul crushed after its departure out of the Body under the Hand of the great Judge might make to her self some certain Application of the grievances of Job shall the Church of Rome take upon her without falling into the inconvenience of making her self ridiculous to attribute unto it the Lessons she hath extracted out of his Discourses which cannot suit but with the Condition of a man languishing in this World For example what he says in the First My days are vanity c. How long wilt thou not let me alone till I swallow down my spittle c. Now shall I sleep in the dust c. In the Second My Soul is weary of my life c. In the Third Thou hast made me as Clay and wilt thou bring me into dust again Thou hast cloathed me with skin and flesh c. In the Fourth I am to be consumed as a thing that is rotten and as a Garment that is Moth-eaten In the Fifth Man that is born of a woman is of few days In the Sixth If a man die shall he live again In the Seventh My days are extinct the Graves are ready for me In the Eighth My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh hardly am I escaped with the skin of my Teeth And in the Ninth Are not my days few cease then c. These complaints proceed not from a Spirit destitute of Body but may well fall from a diseased Person suffering as well in Body as Spirit who makes accompt to die without any respite and who considers with horrour that his languishing life is as it were swallowed up in a Gulf of misery It is to be considered also that there are some Passages which discover so much disorder that Job being come to himself after he had been reproved not onely by Elihu but by God himself condemned them acknowledging that he spoke what he knew not abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes For who could endure in the second Lesson the bitter reproaches against God Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress me that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands and shine upon the counsel of the wicked And in the Seventh I have not sinned and my eye is fastened on bitterness To speak sincerely could the Church of Rome who holds as a thing decided by the Scripture and the Fathers that the Souls of the Faithfull are Impeccable from the moment of their departure out of the Bodies they animated without extravagance mold her Devotions on those slips of Discourse which God himself hath charged with Sin She hath therefore made an Extract of these Nine Lessons taken out of the Book of Job not to serve for a Draught of the dolefull state of the Souls which she pretends condemned into her Purgatory but to instruct every one of those whom she exhorts to relieve them with their Suffrages that to be well disposed to render them that office he should view himself in the example of Job religiously imitate his Virtues and Faith and be always carefull to avoid his miscarriages Upon the same accompt hath she inserted into the Office of the Dead abundance of Psalms containing not onely Lessons of Penance as the 6. 32 38 51 102 130 and 143. called upon that occasion the seven Penitential Psalms but also of Prayer as the 5 7 25 42 67 120 123. of Praise as the 65 121 126 127 128 131 132 133 134 135 146 148 149 150. of Thanksgiving as the 23 27 40 63 116 124 129 136. the Canticles of Ezechias and Zacharies of Blessing and Exhortations as the 41 122 125 131. the first verse of the 95th Psalm and the 8th Verse of the 113th For who could ever be perswaded that the Protestations which we make in the presence of God of our mortification and the Prayers whereby we beg his Protection and Favour towards our selves and the Praises whereby we celebrate the glory of his sacred Majesty and the Thanks we give him for the benefits which he daily communicates to us and the Benedictions which we pour out with joy being to publish the welfare as well of the whole State of his Church as of the Members whereof it consists and the Exhortations whereby we encourage them to well doing should rationally be looked on as Suffrages whereby we relieve our departed Brethren
contracted thou out of thy goodness and compassion mayst mercifully wash away To the same end are referred also the following Prosopopoeias wherein the Soul of every deceased Person is represented with motions of fear suitable to such as it might have had during the couse of this Life As for instance Libera me Domine c. O Lord deliver me from eternal death in that dreadfull day when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken when thou shalt come to Judge the World by Fire I am become trembling and fear till the discussion and wrath to come shall be over That day is a day of wrath calamity and misery a great day and very bitter when thou shalt come Again this Domine quando veneris c. O Lord where shall I hide my self from the countenance of thy wrath when thou comest to Judge the Earth For I have sinned extremely during my life I am frightened at the things I have committed and blush before thee when thou comest to Judge do not condemn me And this Memento mei Deus c. O God have me in remembrance because my life is but wind let the eye of him that hath seen me see me no more Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Lord Hear O Lord when I cry with my voice And this Hei mihi c. Wo unto me O Lord for I have sinned overmuch in my life What shall I do Wretch that I am Whither shall I flie if not unto my God Have compassion on me when thou shalt come at the Last day My soul is sore vexed but do thou Lord deliver it be mercifull c. And this Legem pone c. Teach me O Lord the way of thy Commandments and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies Deliver me not into the will of mine enemies for false Witnesses are risen up against me and iniquity hath belyed it self yet I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And this Peccantem me quotidie c. Sinnning daily and not repenting the fear of death distracts me in regard There is no redemption in Hell O God be mercifull unto me and save me O God save me for thy Name sake and deliver me in thy Power And this other Domine secundùm actum meum noli me judicare c. O Lord Judge me not according to what I have done I have done nothing in thy presence worthy it I therefore beseech thy Majesty to do away mine iniquity O Lord wash me from my injustice more and more and cleanse me from my sin And this other Sitivit anima mea c. My soul thirsteth for God when shall I come and appear before the Lord Deliver not the soul of thy Turtle-dove unto the multitude forget not the Congregation of thy poor for ever Our Father c. And Lastly this Libera me Domine c. O Lord who hast broken the Gates of Brass and visited Hell and given light that they might see thee to those who were in the Torments of darkness crying and saying Thou arâ— come O our Redeemer deliver me out of the ways of Hell For there is not any Body so weakly instructed as not easily to comprehend that the Authours of these Complaints and Lamentations meant them rather for the advantage and edification of the living by putting them in minde of the fear and trembling wherein they should be in the presence of their Lord then to represent the State of the Dead which they have been forced to express after their Fancy as such as had some resemblance with that of poor Wayfaring-men who yet walk in the Flesh because they had not any manifest knowledg thereof but onely Conjectures and presumptions and those many times not very conformable to the Rule of Faith and the Sentiments of the purest Antiquity Since it is absolutely impossible that he who makes a Prayer for his Soul should be any other thing then that Soul for which he Prays and that the Wish he makes that God would teach him the way of his Statutes which is onely in this Life and the Confession of sinning daily and the Prayer to be delivered out of the ways of Hell should suit with any but Travellers who walk yet in the Flesh struggling as they go with their own imperfections and the Infernal Powers and by continued endeavours tending to their rest whereof the separated Souls of the Faithfull departed who have finished their course in Faith and Hope must necessarily be possessed from the very moment of their separation The same moderation is required to finde out the true sense of the Prayers which seem to presuppose a certain deliverance out of Infernal pains wherein the deceased are ready to be tormented as when we read in the Missal Domine Jesu Christe c. O Lord Jesus Christ King of Glory deliver the Souls of all the Faithfull departed out of the power of Hell and out of the bottomless Lake deliver them out of the mouth of the Lyon Let not Hell swallow them up let them not fall into the obscure places of darkness but let the Standard-bearer St. Michael bring them into that holy light which thou didst sometime promise to Abraham and to his Seed We offer unto thee O Lord â—…oasts and Prayers for them receive the same for those Souls whom we this day commemorate grant them O Lord to pass from Death to an holy life And in the Office of the Dead A portâ inferni erus Domine animas eorum requiescant in pace Amen c. O Lord deliver their Souls from the Gate of Hell may they rest in peace Amen For though upon the first glance these words seem to revive the Hypothesis which Justin Martyr had drawn up out of the Quagmire of the counterfeit Sibyl imagining that the Soul of the greatest Saints were afer their departure out of the body sent to Hell and were subject to the power of evil Spirits yet must they necessarily have another signification and onely induce that God alone preserves those whom he calls so as that they fall not into the power of Hell but are by the Ministery of his holy Angels introduced into celestial light and that they are delivered not as escaping out of some Torment which they had for some time indured but as avoiding the necessity of enduring it And whereas it is said that the Hoasts mentioned in those Prayers are offered to Jesus Christ it necessarily induces that they neither are nor can be Jesus Christ himself as the Church of Rome imagines at this day but Gifts presented to God by his people as an expression of their gratitude And since what is said without any exception viz. That they are offered for the Souls of all the departed whose commemoration is celebrated it demonstratively proves that they are and were according to the intention of the Antients
and favour of God ever faithful in his promises and whose Gifts are without Repentance that in this very regard that he continually conserves them he seems to make a new distribâ—…on thereof every moment and by the perpetual influence of his benediction on those whom he hath received into glory to assure them more and more of their possession thereof others I say out of such or the like Considerations were perswaded that there was no inconvenience in demanding for the departed what they already had their own reason telling them that the Authour of so good a gift ceases not to give it in continuing and conserving it to those whom he had once made partakers thereof For as those on whom he here below bestows abundance of temporal goods are not less obliged to beg of him every day their daily Bread then if as he sometime did to the Israelites in the Desert he dealt them onely one day's Provision at a time the plenty which they had so liberally received from his hand though such as might suffice for their whole life and that with so much certainty in appearance as nothing could reduce them to want no way hindring but that they should acknowledg their indigence and natural insufficiency and have a constant recourse to his Grace to desire as the most unworthy that he would give them their Bread for as much as though they have enough lying by them yet is it their evident concernment that he who hath given them should every day renew his Donation in conserving them and sanctifying them to their use So the Saints who in the other life are possessed of Celestial goods are by the necessity of the same reason obliged to make perpetual acknowledgments notwithstanding that the immutability of the Counsel according to which he bestows them for ever and the nature of those very goods not subject to perish and decay seems not any way to hinder but that they should every one for himself and the surviving upon Earth for them all desire the conservation and continuance of them though that be so much the more certain and infallible in as much as it is grounded on the unchangeable Decree of the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning In this sense it might be thought that Jesus the Head and finisher of our Faith who was yesterday is to day and shall be the same for ever though he were confident of the issue of his combats and was so much the more certain that nothing could prevail against him that he sustained himself by his own Power yet forbore not to recommend himself to his Father and to desire of him the glory he was possessed of and had had with him before the World was and consequently that the antient Church neither made nor ought to have made any difficulty to pray for all the blessed whose State she knew to be unchangeable and whose Felicity unalterable and accordingly is it that as she does in general make a Commemoration of all those who sleep the Sleep of Peace so hath she particularly comprehended in her Prayers the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs without any regard to the inconvenience which some have alledged since that to pray for a Martyr is to be injurious to him Nay the Church of Rome her self to shew that she could not recede from the Sentiment of Primitive Antiquity as we have above represented it hath not ceased nor does to this day cease to make this Prayer contained in her Missal Deus cui soli cognitus est numerus Electorum in superna felicitate locandus tribue quaesumus ut univer sorum quos Oratione commendatos suscepimus omnium fidelium vivorum atque mortuorum nomina beatae praedestinationis liber adscripta retineat per Dominum c. O God to whom alone is known the number of the Elect who are to be placed above in Felicity we beseech thee to grant that the Book of blessed Predestination may retain written the name of all those whom we have taken upon us to recommend in our Prayers as also those of all the Faithfull both dead and living through our Lord c. I seriously ask whether it be possible any thing should be blotted out of the Book of Life which is God himself whose Counsel shall stand eternally And since there is no danger should make us fear that God will deny himself and that the Book of his Predestination should not retain the Names which his Hand hath written in it to desire of him that it might retain them is it not to pray him to do what it is absolutely impossible but he should and after the Example of the Antient Christians to make a Prayer for the Blessed that they might be blessed not indeed as if they were to pass from misery to the possession of Bliss but in persisting as it must of necessity be in the enjoyment of the Bliss which hath been once for all communicated to them Lastly The Antients considering that the Felicity which the Faithfull enjoy from the instant of their departure is not that absolute Fulness of Glory wherewith they expect to be Crowned at the Resurrection of the Just and that they might justly desire of God the accomplishment of what is expected according to the Word of his Grace as well for themselves as for others since it is a signification of the coming of his Kingdom that we are all taught by the Lord himself earnestly to desire and hasten it as much as may be by our Wishes Secondly That the Motion of all the Creation groaning and travelling till such time as it is delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God is expressed to us by St. Paul as a great and violent desire inclining the Creatures to expect the manifestation of the Sons of God and incites us so much the more by how much we who have the first fruits of the Spirit are all together waiting for the Redemption of our Body Thirdly That in that Noble desire is shewn the principal Effect of the Sympathy which ought to be beween all the Saints Members of the same mystical Body and Members one of another for if the Holy Spirit to rejoyce the spirits of the Just in Glory and crying with a loud voyce that the Lord would judge and revenge their Blood on them that dwell on the Earth proposes to them as the principal Subject of their Joy the approaching accomplishment of their Fellow-servants and Brethren yet engaged against the Militia of Satan the world here below why should not these Champions who are still sweating and out of breath in the Field where they are all covered with Blood and Dust have their courage heigthned by reflecting on their advantages who had gone before them that as they aspire to those White Robes of Glory wherein their Brethren are for
thing and to affirm for true all they had feigned and that from that source are derived abundance of things inconvenient and contradictory which are at this day as so many Black-Patches in the face of their Service reason calls upon us to direct our hand to the most remarkable and discover the Scars and Imperfections which lie under them For as much then as the Greek Fathers taught by St. Paul even in that very place which is copied in the Ritual advertised the Christian People committed to their charge not to be sad for their Brethren departed after the manner of the Heathens who are without hope and St. Chrysostome threatned to excommunicate as impious those who took a glory in grieving upon such occasions it is impossible those should have been well informed in their duty and the Sentiments of their fore-Fathers who making a Virtue of a Vice and stuffing the publick Forms of Service with their Deplorations have had the boldness to introduce the Faithfull deceased pressing those whom they left behind them to lamentations at their misfortune that is to say at what according to the Scriptures neither is nor can be As for instance when they inserted at the end of the common Formulary this extravagant half-Heathenish Discourse absolutely contradictory to the Exhortation of St. Paul to the Thessalonians Brethren and Friends Kinred and Acquaintance now that you see me laid without Voice and without Breath lament all over me for yesterday I spoke with you and suddenly the dreadfull hour of Death surprized me But come ye all who are desirous of my Company and kiss me with the last kiss for I shall have no further conversation with you nor ever speak to you again I am going to the Judg with whom there is no respect of persons since the Servant and the Master the King and the common Souldier the rich man and the begger are to appear before him in an equal condition and every one shall be either glorified or made ashamed by his works But I intreat and conjure you all without ceasing to pray for me to Christ God c. And in the Office of the Priest My Brethren Children and Friends I remember you before the Lord forget me not when you pray learn I conjure beseech and require you these things that they may serve you for a memorial and bewail me night and day Again In great compassion weep for me O ye Lovers of Christ and earnestly petition the God of all that he would grant me to rest with the Saints And in that of the Woman Come Fathers and behold how Beauty fades come Mothers and see how the Flesh moulders away and cry with Tears Lord grant that by thy Command she may rest whom thou hast taken hence But as those carnal sallies of Spirit are palpably contrary to the advice of the Apostle and upon that accompt not to be endured so the absurdity thereof is so evident that the Authour of the Ritual could not forbear expressing the dislike it might occasion saying in the Office of the Priest O men why do you so earnestly bewail me Why do you give your selves this vain trouble He who is transferred from Life saith to all Death is become a Rest to all Nor do I think it strange the Formulary should swell with the descriptions of the Miseries and Vanity of this Life for since the Prophet hath vouchsafed to give us a Draught thereof to the end that Learning to number our days we might apply our hearts to Wisdom we cannot be too often touched with the sting of so necessary an Advertisement yet is it not expected from us that to shew our selves smitten and humbled before God we should presume to act the Disconsolate contrary to the Instruction of St. Paul and make such Discourses as these notoriously false in respect of any one of the Faithfull Alass What a combat is the Soul separated from the Body engaged in Alass How does she then lament and there is not any Body hath pity on her Turning her eyes to the Angels she beseeches to no purpose and reaching forth her hands to men no body relieves her For if there be any Combat in the Soul before its separation as soon as that is over she is passed from the Combat to the Triumph since that according to the Instruction of the Spirit her being with the Lord is upon this accompt that she absent from the body Secondly There is not from thence forward any Tears to be shed for her in as much as she is in fulness of joy and pleasures and that his Goodness promises to wipe away all Tears from the eyes of those who stand before his Throne Thirdly There is no further necessity she should call upon either Angels or Men in regard she is in the blessed Society of Millions of Angels and in the Congregation and Assembly of the First-born who are written in Heaven And should she stand in any need of Relief she would remember that her Help was even during this Life in the Name of the Lord who made Heaven and Earth that he alone is our Refuge Glory and the Rock of our Srength that we are at all times to put our Trust in him and that if all the men in the World should be put together into a balance they would be found lighter then Vanity it self But to excuse the frequent Prosopopoeias which in these Forms of Service represent separated Souls as seised with horrour and reduced to deplorations and desires of Relief it may be pretended that these Descriptions made at discretion are Instructions to the Living as to what lies upon them to do To answer that and whatever else may be alledged to extenuate their Offence who have shuffled those things into the Greek Service it need onely be said that we are to take for Lessons of our Duty not Imaginations of what never either was or will be but the pure Will of God our onely Rule in Life and Death and if it were lawfull for us to use Fiction it were but requisite we had the Judgment not to advance any thing absurd and contrary to our Principles shewing our selves in that more Prudent then the Modern Greeks who transported by I know not what Stupidity do almost every where run against their own Hypotheses But to make it clear by certain Examples Their common Principle is That good Souls pass at the very Instant of their separation into the possession of their Rest the bad are immediately confined to Hell of those in a middle Condition onely the Salvation is deferred Let us now hear what pretty Discourses they attribute to them I beseech you all and conjure you that without ceasing you pray for me unto Christ God to the end that I may not according to my sins be confined to place of Torment but that he would place me where is light of Life The middle-conditioned Souls are they ever
Antiquity and Reason assisted by both teach so clearly that there can be onely those who are unwilling to learn of them that are not informed thereof Take the draught he gives us of it with his own hand introducing the Priest whose Funeral Obsequies are celebrated making at his death this Discourse strange indeed and more suitable with the Principles of a Pagan without hope then to those of a Christian illuminated by Faith Brethren I am banished from my Brethren I leave all my Friends and go my ways yet I know not whither I am going and am ignorant what condition I shall be in there God onely who calls me knows but make a commemoration of me with the Antients Hallelujah Whither do Souls now go And after what manner do they now converse together in that place I would gladly understand that Secret but there is no body able to declare it to me c. None of those that are there ever returned to life again to give us an accompt in what manner they behave themselves who were sometime our Brethren and Nephews who are gone before us to the Lord c. It is a bad way that I go in and I never went it before and that Region where no body knows me I have not any account or knowledge of It is a horrour to see those who are carried away and he who calls me is worthy to be dreaded he who is Lord of Life and Death and who calls us away when he pleases Hallelujah Removing out of one Region into another we stand in need of some Guids what shall we do where we go in a Region in which we have no acquaintance Of the same strain are the Discourses in the Office of the Soul in Agony for she is made to speak as one in the depth of despair begging assistance of the Blessed Virgin of Angels and of Men and complaining that she is forsaken of all that estranged from the Glory of God she served unclean Devils who holding the Schedules of her sins and crying with vehemence would impudently have her that she is alienated from God and her Brethren that a Cloud of Devils come pouring upon her and that the darkness of her own unclean actions cover her commands her Body to be cast into a Common-Sewer that as she is dragged into the places of dreadful punishments the Dogs may eat her heart declares that she is delivered up to the Devils who carry her away by violence to the bottom of Hell that she knows all have forgotten her that she shall remember God no more since that in Hell there is no memory of the Lord that overwhelmed with darkness she expects the Resurrection that examined by all men she shall be cast into the fire that neither God nor his Angels nor his Saints shall think of her for which reason she calls upon the Virgin Angels and Men Earth nay Hell it self to which she is delivered to be bitterly punished to bewail her Misery What greater Impurity could the rage of a despairing Judas disgorge shall we say there could be any thing of Christianity in the apprehensions of a sinner who without any recourse to the Mercy of God and the Merit and Intercession of his Saviour numbers himself among the damned not vouchsafing to consider the assurances which the Scripture gives all men testifying unto them that Christ is our peace and redemption that his blood cleanseth us from all sin that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Further that he is still living to make intercession for us and since he vouchsafes to receive us among his Sheep no man shall pluck us out of his hand and the wicked one shall not touch us When the same Divinely-inspired Scripture hath loudly published that all the righteous that is to say those who walk before God are taken away from the evil to come that being absent from the body they are present with him that even here upon Earth they are of the Houshold of God and fellow-Citizens with the Saints that they ought to go boldly to the Throne of Grace where he himself gives them access by the Spirit of his Son and that the Angels are now ministring Spirits to minister to their Salvation should we ever imagine so brutish a stupidity and so prophane an excoecation in any of those who have any way contributed to the Greek Ritual affirming according to the Scripture that the Christian who dies does by death arrive at the Port goes to the Lord rests is translated from the corruption of life exchanges death for divine life and is at his death in the way to bliss as that he should presume to say that way is bad and that he knows not whether he is going knows no body there nor is known to any Can the way to bliss be a bad way Is he who knows he is going to God in a condition to complain truly that he knows not whether he goes Since he is retiring to his Father and those of the same Houshold with him hath he any cause to say that he knows not any of those to whom he is retiring and that they know not him Being called how can he imagine that he who calls him should be so far mistaken as to take his Childe for a Stranger And since he gives him access to himself by his own Spirit is there any reason it should be supposed not onely that he stands in need of a Guid but that he neither hath nor can finde any What occasion have either the living or the dying to bemoan themselves that not any one returns from the Dead to inform them of the state of the World to come since the Son of God himself gave us this advertisement that it is of greater advantage to us to have Moses and the Prophets that is to say the holy Scriptures then if one rose from the Dead to give us an accompt of their condition It were not haply much besides our Purpose to desire those who entertain us with Stories of dark Prisons for those Souls which they pretend to be of a Middle-condition to tell us whether they hope to revive that ruined Party among the Antients who believing that Angels and separated Souls were clad with a body subject as ours to be incommodated by Darkness discovered that they apprehended not any distinction between immortal Substances and corporeal As also whether allowing them separated from all matter and assigning them for Torment Obscurity and Darkness taken in their Proper and Primitive Signification they think themselves better grounded in Reason then those who are perswaded that material Fire whose activity can onely exercise it self on Bodies is and eternally shall be the Instrument of Torment as well for Devils as impious Souls Turn which side they will they shall not free themselves