say so and that onely you pretended to make the Doctrin pass for an Article of faith the contrary of which all the world knew to be maintain'd by me Secondly I must remember you that you do indeed and inexcusably wrong me when you say I deny that such Souls are receiv'd presently into Heaven if you mean by the word such Souls purg'd after separation 't is no better then a cunning calumny and would represent me as holding directly contrary to the Bull and Council Whereas our dispute is whether Souls may be so purg'd out of their bodies before the day of Judgment not if they be so purg'd whether they go to Heaven before that Day this I agree to and is of faith that I deny is but an Opinion Thirdly you do not well justify your Friends for changing the Title from Concerning the Vision of God the Beatitude and Damnation of Souls to this shorter but more generall one Concerning the State of departed Souls while your answer signifies onely that they are severall expressions for the same thing which to a wary considerer will easily appear an artifice Is it all one to contend about white and black and about colours in generall No more is it all one to define concerning Beatitude and Damnation and to define concerning a State which is neither of them both Fourthly you often up and down your Book brand me with faithless Theology What do you mean do not your Doctors generally agree that somthing in Religion is demonstrable are they all therefore presently to be condemn'd as faithless cannot your self demonstrate there 's a God and will you think your self an Infidel for it Or dare you tell the Ladyes that for your part you are not so silly as to believe there 's a God you know it and that as for belief of such things it belongs to the simple unlearned not to Scolars I hope in your next work you will proceed with more candor and manliness Your thirty seventh Section being spent in petty quarrels though some lines in it be both false and malicious yet I will let all pass and go on to the thirty eighth Section where you rip up again the question whether the matter of the Decree be that perfect charity carries separated Souls immediately to Heaven In which you tell us your Publisher is indifferent and may yet chuse whether he will say that good Souls at their decease be wholly purg'd from all irrationall affections or no in the first Instant And this may peradventure be true But if I am not deceiv'd he will not say they are purg'd For I am sure you would censure it deeply in me if I should say that after this life there is any more disposing it self or meriting towards life eternal But I must not be over confident you may have two censures in your brest for the same saying in the mouths of different Persons You ask if Charity brings a Soul immediately to Bliss What then does your Adversary think of Lumen Gloriae It is to me a hard question what he will think of it for I see your great Divines cannot agree what to think of it But I guess he may think either Charity it self when perfect in a pure Spirit is the Light of Glory or causes it as well as the Beatificall Vision You press farther the perfection of Charity in this life doth not give the Beatificall Vision therefore neither in abstracted Souls But if I should ask you how you knew the Antecedent you would be at a stop I can hear it defended that St. Benedict had the clear sight of God And I was at a Sermon in Alcala made to the whole University in which the Preacher asserted our Lady had Beatifical Vision in the first Instant of her Conception and prov'd it out of his Text which was Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis Fundamenta ejus her conception in montibus Sanctis in the heighths or tops of Sanctity Therefore believing Divines must take heed of denying as well as of saying Besides I have read in St. Thomas and others both more Ancient and more Modern that there is a certain pitch of Charity to which when men arrive God takes them out of this World But however that stand I think there is a large difference betwixt the Charity of pure Spirits and of men So that the consequence may be true of one and not of the other Farther on you mention some reasons of mine against corporall punishing of Spirits but you knock them all on the head with a Canon of the Council of Trent To understand the state of the question it is not amiss to consider that a Sin specially a notorious one hath three effects or parts One in the rational Soul where it is a Judgment or resolution or affection that such an Action is to be done A second in the Appetite or Body where it makes certain motions and their causes which bring a likelihood of falling into the same sin The third part is in the external action where it brings in some disorder which is subject to propagate it self farther into other subjects The disorderly Judgment and affection is that which our School-men when they speak formally call the Sin and account the sin remitted when that is duly blotted out whatever that signifies But it is supposed to be done by Contrition and Absolution And although they admit this to be sufficient to go to Heaven if one dyes yet in a living man they with reason require that the other two parts or effects of sin should also be taken away which is to be done by Satisfaction So may the Reader understand what Satisfaction is required for Now let us see what you urge out of the Council First you object the Council teaches that it is against the word of God to say that the fault is never remitted but that all the punishment is also forgiven And so you see by the discourse above made that we say also Secondly the Council sayes that it becomes the Divine clemency that sins should not be parâ—on'd without any Satisfaction So we say also by the fore-made discourse Thirdly the Council charges Priests to impose Satisfaction so that it be not onely as to the guard of a new life but also as in revenge and chastisement of their past sins which is clearly necessary for the mending of the outward excesses brought in by the sin and so we say directly the same You press farther that the Council sayes in Baptism the whole pains are remitted And if you speak in opposition to sins remitted in Penance the cause is clear For the sins committed before Baptism belong not to the Churches Court But if you speak in regard of God Almighty I fear it will require I should ask your Judgment of a Case Your Divines tell us that he who receives Baptisme cum fictionâ— receives Baptism truly yet if he dye immediately I suspect whether you will send him immediately
ante-judiciary Delivery never taught as certain p. 83 84. 87. It s beginning and progress p. 77. to 81. True Discourse in Angels following from the Vindicators tenet p. 162 163. Distinguishers between Faith and Opinion must neither be illiterate nor meanly learned p. 76 84 85 87. Divinity grafted on the stock of our naturall speech and so on Philosophy p. 24. E. EYmericus his mistake p. 47 48. His censoriousness p. 39 40. F. FAith not endanger'd by true Science p. 12 13. but its objects better understood by it p. 9 10 14 15. not diversify'd according to the severall Apppehensions of the Faithfull p. 9 10 11. 14. 191. 198. 199. Soâ—e False-dealings and disingenuities toucht at p. 22 23. 27 28. 31. 48 49 50 52 61. 93 94. 112 113 115 120 121 125 126 174. Father and Son spoken of God metaphorically 102 103 104. That Foundations contradict ante-judiciary Delivery p. 79. G. THat a Governour dispossest ought to be restor'd when the common Good requires it the profest and express Doctrin of the Author p. 116. S. Gregory not the Author of those Dialogues which gave us the first news of an ante-judiciary Delivery p. 77 78. Hence the origin of that Opinion much later p. 107. I. I Dentification of the Soul and Body necessary for a Body's action on her p. 153. 155. Identity of the Soul and Body p. 154 155. Infallibility when certainly found in decrees of a Pope and Council p. 72 73. Inquest not necessary to find our Faith p. 73. Interpretation of the Bull and Council by the Vindicator manifoldly defective p. 75. M THe Method of a Divine in seeking Truth p. 8. to 14. Diverse Mistakes about the Council of Florence p. 92 93. of a Censure p. 16 17. of the occasion of my writing the Middle State p. 28 29. of a Metaphor p. 101. of the Liturgyes manifoldly p. 109 110. of my Doctrin concerning a dispossest Governour p. 116. and the Vncertainty of Scriptures letter 110 117 118. of best corporeall pleasures p. 134. of eternall Happiness to be no Good at all p. 166 167. of the Souls nature at reunion p. 183. Mysteries of Faith not knowable without Revelation p. 11. P. PAganism uncharitably and weakly objected p. 187. Pains of Purgatory what in the true opinion of the Author p. 144. Prayers and Alms for the Dead in use before the Opinion of ante-judiciary Delivery p. 78 79. and many wayes beneficiall to them in the Authors Doctrin p. 167. to 173. A Prohibition of a Book no Censure p. 16. to p. 20. Punishments of pure Spirits agreed by all to be Acts of the Will p. 88. Q. THE Question stated as in the Bull p. 34. S. Scriptures Letter uncertain without the ayd of Tradition p. 117. The Soul how substantially chang'd by separation yet the same p. 139 140. Pure Spirits know all things together and perpetually p. 156. to p. 161. The Sufferings of our Saviour not prejudic'd by the unyeeldingness of separated Souls to externall torments p. 146 147. T. TRadition not examinable p. 72. More or less Time coexisting adds or dimininishes nothing to a pure Spirit p. 149. to 153. Errata P. 114 l. 19 20. these terms but the Terms expressing those Mysteries which were p. 147. l. 9. conform. p. 157. l. 12. appetit RELIGION AND REASON First Essay Introduction SIR HAD your Answer to the unknown Author been written in my fresher dayes I should have endeavour'd to have given you an ampler satisfaction Now being come forth in my frozen Age when my long ague hath made me fitter to think of death than of School-quarrels I hope you will be patient with me if in as short a method as I can I give you rather hints by which a little endeavour of your own may find out satisfaction than dilate my self so far that every weak eye may see it Doctor Hammond as I am told about the same time hath bent himself against my Doctrine whom though I much esteem being assured by friends common to us both that he is a very courteous and civill person and hath spent much time in reading good Authors yet have I rather preferd the answering you both because I expect better quarter at your hands since the stricter bond of Religion should make us apt to interpret one another more fairly as also and indeed far more for I see that Tye very slippery in many because you have some tincture of the School and to my thinking are much sharper and abler to set off an argument and write a style solid and proper to the matter Whereas that loose way of preaching and affecttaion of words the Doctor uses shews more vanity than substance in his Discourses Besides he has an Adversary from satisfying whom he seems to me very short and I am gladly willing to excuse my pains when I see the same or more fruit come from anothers Pen Returning then to you I hold it my first duty to give you many thanks for your work you being the first who though somewhat late for me now scarce able to keep my self warm by a fire have given me the occasion to speak for my self that the world may see whether those many smother'd slanders which so long have layen heavy on me and my works bear a value proportionable to the noyse they have made Which to examin in short I divide your Treatise and so my Reply into two Parts the first holding twenty two of your Sections and belonging chiefly to the Middle State of Souls the second containing the rest of your Sections touching upon many points of my Doctrin in which you find fault FIRST PART Refuting some of the Vindicators Objections as they ly in his Book chiefly those that concern the Middle State FIRST DIVISION Containing an Answer to his five first Sections The Vindicator's mistake of the manner of treating Controversies and of the nature of a Censure The Method a knowing Divine ought to pursue Diverse Errors rectify'd TO begin then with your first Section I confess you speak very fairly had your patience but held out not to have broke your word in that very Section which I intend presently to declare if first I desire you to beware how you take principles out of Hereticks mouths The Nobleman out of whom you cite the Maxim that writing of Controversies ought to carry as much sweetnesse as Love-letters was a very ingenious and worthy Person but if you enquire of his Religion you shall find it in Chillingworths book in which he is thought to have had a great hand And Mr Chillingworths Religion how sound it was you may ghess out of the answers made by himself to himself which go before his book In one whereof he candidly professes that if tomorrow he sees more reason for another Religion and next day for a third he will change his Religion as often Now who can doubt but he that has his Religion tackt on him with such slight pins that he may change
lines out of Institutiones Sacrae where having concluded that those who dy'd in veniall affections towards corporall objects were not worthy the sight of God presently add per consequens cum illum Deum pro ultimo fine habeant ex desiderio Ejus paenitentia negligentiae suae gravissimas paenas sustinere Tomi 2. lib. 3. Lect. 10. which is exactly your full sence and not very different from your words wherefore I hope since I have prov'd an obedient Scholar to my power you will inform those your friends who intend to write against me that we are agreed in this point and that it is a wrong to report I say of Purgatory that the Souls are tormented with the desires of corporall pleasures much less that I place the whole misery of Purgatory in the deprivement of those And likewise that a farther design was cause that this would not content me for you see I put no other but in Hell You charge me farther to say that all external torments in Purgatory would be pure pleasures because they were suffered out of an extreme desire to come to Heaven by a courage that yeelded nothing to the force of the torments which the sufferers see to be their onely way to felicity I do not see any great difficulty in this to a sober Interpreter that what an external Agent inflicts is not the grief but breeds it nor will it reach so far as to breed grief if prevented still with a strong apprehension of an over-ballancing advantage to be gain'd by it which yet does not hinder but that such outward punishments are in their nature properly torments and 't is the extraordinary considerations of the benefits they bring that can sweeten them into pleasures and however the want of Heaven must needs be cause of an excessive grief You go on to object that this Doctrin changes all your pious Meditations on our SAVIOVRS Passion Be of good courage man and let no other pretence divert you but proceed constantly and faithfully every day in those holy Exercises and I fear not God will assist you to satisfy all those scruples and difficulty's which seldom become unanswerable till we grow cold and negligent in performing our Meditations Thus then you argue Christ sufferd with invincible courage therefore all pains were pleasures to Him I think you know there was in Christ two parts of his Soul the Rational and the Animal I do not know so much of the Souls of Purgatory When you say then he sufferd with an invincible courage do you mean of both parts or onely of the rational If you ask him he will tell you Spiritus promptus est Caro autem infirma If you reflect on his prayer in the Garden you shall see when he speaks out of the motion of his inferiour part how earnest he is against his passion you shall see he did pavere and taedere I pray put these points into your Meditations and you will find room enough for pains though the rational part was still fixt upon a fiat Voluntas tua And this our Saviour sufferd because he would For the strength of his Soul was so great that he could have had pure pleasures but would not that He might give us example how to fix our upper Souls when we are not strong enough to confirm the lower part THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section thirtieth to Section thirty fifth The Duration of pure Spirits free'd from the mistakes of Fancy The Identification of the Soul and Body maintaind by reason and Authority and that this is requisit to the Souls change The Vindicatours rude conceits of Angels Vnalterableness of pure Spirits prov'd from the Indivisibility of their actions His false pretence that the Author injur'd St. Thomas IN the thirtieth Section you examin the Duration of separated Souls And you readily advance a Conclusion that as it lyes I shal not deny but onely beg leave to offer a distinction For there being three parts Angels Souls and their Operations of which you pronounce I distinguish upon your third or last branch of Operations which Schollars divide into external and internal ones in the external ones I agree with you that they are measur'd by succession and by succession of time as being corporal motions But for their internall acts of understanding and will I hold of them as of the substances Your Propositions so jumble them together that I know not what you say separately of them and what in complexion but because I defend the same both singly and in complexion it doth not much concern me But to proceed you say it is incomparably false that to coexist to a greater or lesser part of time adds or diminishes nothing to them I ask whether that a greater or lesser time coexists to an Angel makes any intrinsecal change in the Angel I think you must be a little besides your Philosophy if you say it doth since common sence teaches the pure passing of time doth nothing even to us much less to spirits My next question is whether if there be no intrinsecal change there can be any addition intrinsecally made I think this also will appear a plain truth unless the fear of the sequel force you to contradict evidence For the inference will manifestly follow that purely to coexist to more or less time which is the same as that more or less time coexists to the Angel for the variety and quantity of coexistency holds it self on the part of time adds nothing to an Angel Now let us see your Arguments Your first is drawn from God in whose Closet you have been and can perfectly tell what he can do what not and so you press what if on a sodain God should make a new Angel would his duration be as long as that of the former Angels or separated spirits But Sir I would advertise you that when the speech is of an Action done it is not enough to examin his Omnipotence for that onely reaches to a possibility of the creature but you must also consult with his Wisdom as well as with his Omnipotency For example if you first ask whether it was in Gods power to make or not make the World and finding it was presently you would suppose then let him have made it and not made it the permission would not be granted you So likewise your assumption that if there were no time at all God could at his pleasure create and destroy a soul would be deny'd you or rather that God could have the pleasure to create and destroy a soul in that case And to shew your own consent in this point mark your discourse God could not do it in the same moment therefore in two moments Do you not see as soon as you have deny'd time you immediately put two moments which cannot be without time I pray remember St. Austin St. Thomas and others answering the Heathens question Why God made not the World sooner say because sooner
signifies in a former time and that a former time could not be unless God had created it Your other suppositions too of Gods creating and anihilating souls proceed from an unworthy apprehension of Almighty God as if he should make and destroy Spirits onely to shew tricks they having no more difficulty to be answer'd then the plain instance of one Souls separation before anothers and therefore is but the repetition of the same case But well what must be said to St. Peters Soul and the Soul of St. Teresa hath not St. Peters a greater duration then St. Teresa's To this I answer what is immediately loosed out of God Almighty's hand hath no respect to time but is created for eternity as the World and the Angels are But what God doth by the mediation of creatures takes a tang from them and so hath some savour of time from the very loose Therefore Souls when they go out of their bodies have a kind of individual difference from the causes and time by which they begin This is a kind of a difference when you compare one Soul to another nothing if you compare the same Soul to it self And out of this is taken that diversity of duration which is found in several Souls Your next Argument is from the time as the Divines call it of the way of Angels to bliss where you ask who hath made evident that it could be done in one instant to which I have nothing to say though there want not Divines who hold it but that St. Austin hath made it evident that neither position prejudices Christian Religion and therefore 't is lawful to hold either side and so let Divines dispute it for no Argument can be drawn from thence why succession should be necessary in the intrinsecal operations of Angels Your third Argument consists of some expressions cited out of Scripture to which I answer if you bring any Texts of the thoughts of Angels I shall yield but if they be onely of outward actions those are measur'd by time as by twenty dayes c. and so argue no special duration in the inward acts of Angels Those cryes of the Martyrs under the Altar are so plainly Allegorical that it were lost time to shew they signifie nothing of importance to our controversie In the 31 Section you say it is groundlesly assumed that the Identification of the body and soul is required for the Action of a bodily Agent upon the soul and I cannot deny you have said it But one that had spoken like a Philosopher would have brought the seeming grounds on which it is built and shew'd the vanity of them and not oppos'd his bare word against anothers reasons You ask who ever fancy'd such an Identity betwixt the Body and Soul I answer no body no more then they can fancy that parts are not actu in continuo But as Aristotle and St. Thomas have rais'd their speculations above fancy and understood this and taught it their Scholars so hath the Church done about this Identification of the Body and Soul if the notion of forma corporis be rightly comprehended Then you demand who ever believ'd our Souls in this life are truly and really our Bodies and our Bodies our Souls No body Sir that I know of is so grosly senseless and so I think you are at the end of your Arguments Now let us see your belief which is that the Soul and Body as two distinct parts concur to the building up of one man who is one not by simplicity nor Identification of the parts but by substantial Vnion or composition O how gay a thing it is to speak words and not understand them We say the same you do and nothing more if you would make your words good For if there be a substantial Union then there must be an Unum substantialiter or per se or properly one And if there be a truly one it is not truly many that is not many substances or things And if there be not truly many substances or things the parts of this truly one are not distinguish'd really into things which are actually but formally into things that may be made of this one thing which is to have its part in potentia Now if truly and really the thing be but one thing all that is spoken of that thing signifies nothing but that thing so that the man is body according to the signification of one word Another word will signifie him as he is Soul another as he hath the vertue of holding and so he will be a hand another as he hath the vertue of walking and that will speak of him by the name of foot and all this be but one thing which we call man Now Sir this is a Catholick verity defined by ancient Councils in the Unity of a Person that is an individual substance or thing against the Nestorians The same was done in latter times under the notion of our souls being truly the Form or giving the denomination of being a thing Now the difference betwixt us is that you examin the words by fancy and we by understanding and discourse You add further it can never be evidenc'd that so much as a substantial union is necessary for a Soul to suffer from the Body For who say you shall render it evident that in the state of separation by the omnipotent hand of God she may not be made passive by fire Sir I am so confident of your abilities that I believe you are able to shew that God by his omnipotent hand cannot turn a separated Soul into wood or straw or some other combustible matter by which she shall become passive by fire And therefore your Divines use to speak more warily when they say God elevates the Action of the fire not disposes the subject or soul But this also he that can prove Fire is but a body and his action either rarefaction or locall motion or some such other may to such as carry sence along with their words shew that seeing an action cannot be elevated unless it be that is Fire cannot burn violently unless it burn and that the Action of fire can have no place in a spirit which it cannot divide or burn neither may it be elevated to torment a separated soul Your 32 Section tells us it is a purely voluntary and false assertion that separated Souls know all things perpetually and together And as for the falsity we may guess by your Arguments But to say it is voluntary you have no reason since the proofs are set down in Institutiones Peripateticae which I suppose you read as all sober Adversaries do before you went about to confute Your Arguments are first Our Angel Guardians every day learn our Actions what they be as it were by seeing the outward effects of them You speak this so confidently that I may imagin you have talk'd with some of them and they have told you so and then who dares deny it Otherwise I must confess I
am hard of belief But you ground it upon this that Onely God is the searcher of the Hearts which although one might interpret to signifie the revealer of Hearts and find Texts of Scripture to that purpose yet I go not that way but tell you when God is said to be the knower of Hearts he is condistinguish'd onely to men and if you will have the sence reach farther you must prove it For it is against the principles your self uses to wit that Angels know all our material motions of our phantasie and sensitive appeal Now if there be no act of the understanding without a fancy agreeing to it Nor an act of will without a proportionate motion in the appetite you will leave few actions unknowable to Angels But our Saviour say you tells us Angels knâ—w not the day of Judgment And truly if he had not included himself in the same phrase the place would have born a great shew but since he that is to be the Judg cannot be thought ignorant of what he is to do I believe the meaning is that none makes that day known but onely the heavenly Father whose proper day it is in which he shall receive into his own hands the Kingdom which he had put in his Sons hands to be administred till that day as being his right hand and chief Instrument of Government and supernatural motion And this is a known Hebraism for in the Hebrew the same Verb in one Voyce signifies to know in another to make known nor want we such instances in our own Language To learn one a Lesson and to teach one a Lesson that is to make him learn it being the same signification Your other place that they rejoyce at the new conversion of a sinner wants one word to make it fit for your purpose to wit that they rejoyce of new For if they rejoyce from the beginning as God doth from all eternity it will come but lamely to your design In your 33 Section you go on with your questions easie to ask but long agoe resolved but as to you to little purpose seeing you do not take the pains to understand the answers As for the Arguments you bring out of Scripture they are already answer'd in my Institutiones sacrae but must be repeated because you take no notice of them yet so shortly that they may not be tedious to them who have read them You object then that the Dragon drew after him the third part of the Starrs but why this was not done in a moment you bring not a word You say also this Doctrine that Angels cannot immediately act one upon the other destroyes their Conversation for all eternity Sure you mean their Grayes-Inn Walks or Spring Garden where they use to walk together and treat one another or their Academies where they meet at Musicks or bring their Poems or discourse of news or some such like entertainments Are you not asham'd to dream of such follies in pure Spirits learn of Aristotle that man is a sociable creature but beasts or pure spirits not the one being below it the other above it But did not in the great Battel in Heaven one Angel work immediatly on another Yes but not by gossiping and tampering one with another to dispute or perswade them into the conspiracy but by example and by being the Objects one to another As when one scandalizes another by sinning in his sight But say you the Indivisibility of their Actions which is the foundation of this Doctrin is unsound since it will never be evinced that an act of a spirit cannot coexist to a greater or lesser part of time Sir If you gave us security of your spirit of Prophesie we would believe what you say of things to come till then we will grant your Proposition as it lies unwarily couch'd but not as you mean it For the Acts of one spirit may be longer then those of another as we said before of different souls but that is not your meaning but that the same spirit hath successive acts one of more duration another of less And this you should have prophesy'd of why the Argument of Indivisibility did not convince For speaking of one onely Angel either he is in some act or in none If in none either his nature with the pure force of his Power which the schools call Actus primus can burst into an act or it cannot If you say it can then you must put a thing first not to do after to do without any change that is to be not productive and productive of an Act that is two contradictories without any variety Put him now in act either his Essence with this Act abstracting from all other circumstances is productive of a 2d act or it is not If it be not then out of this Essence this act abstracting from all accidents he will never have a second But if the Essence with this Act is productive of a second act then as soon as he hath this act he produces the second that is both together or else as we said before the same thing without change will be productive and not productive and so of as many acts as follow in this sort one of another that is all that be in an Angel by his own power without external help or determination So that the conclusion is all such acts must be in the same moment altogether Your answer is that this is true of one act but not of all But you must shew that the Argument doth not convince as much of every one as of any one or otherwise it is but your bare word against a convincing Reason though you boldly term it a gross Errour But you press that I hold all causes are fixt and set as to all effects whatsoever from the very beginning to all future succession I pray distinguish the proposition you infer against me from this other There is no effect but had a cause and its cause had another cause and so till the beginning of the World For if you mean no more then this I must admit it howsoever you will please to miscall it If you have another meaning when you teach it me I shall tell you whether it be concurrent with my sentiment or no As for your crying out that 't is Pagan Fatality that it destroyes the liberty of God and the Contingency of all created things if of these three words though I doubt not but you have talkt them over often enough you understand any one I will yeeld you the honour of being my learned Master and shall not contest with you in Divinity But in the mean while I must defend my self from your assaults in your four and thirtieth Section wherein you accuse me that I fix upon Christianity and the Church an Ignorance of separated substances meaning by these great words those that hold the probable opinion which you maintain as also a most gross abuse upon the Angelicall St. Thomas My