put him into the Catalogue of the Millenaries Not long after came Lactantius who in magnificent Terms entertains us with all the particulars of their Opinion saying Cum deleverit injustitiam c. When God shall have taken away Injustice and kept Sovereign Judgment and restrored to life the Just who were from the beginning he will converse among men for the space of a thousand years and shall rule over them with Justice Which is no more then what the prophecying and distracted Sibyl somewhere proclaims Mortals attend th' eternal King does reign And then those who shall be found alive in their Bodies shall not dy but during the said thousand years shall propogate an infinite multitude and their progeny shall be holy and dear to God Those also who shall be raised out of Hell shall as Judges command the living c. The holy City shall be established in the midst of the earth in which God the Founder thereof shall make his abode with the Just who govern After which he supposes all we have said of the fruitfulness of the earth of the peace which there shall be in it and of the change of the natures of cruel and savage Beasts alledging to that purpose though with some little diversity the words of the third Book of the pretended Sibyl in the thirty second and thirty fifth pages and those of the fifth Book in the fourty sixth page cited by us already Dionysius of Alexandria who had undertaken the Refutation not of Saint Irenaeus as Saint Hierome thought but of Nepos in two Books entituled Of the Promises was about one hundred years after engaged by Apollinarius of Laodicea as we learn from the same Saint Hierome saying Duobus voluminibus respondit Apollinarius c. That is to say Apollinarius answered in two Volumes whom follow not onely the men of his own Sect but also a great multitude of ours as to that particular onely So that I now see with a spirit foreseeing what will happen what considerable Persons will be exasperated against me Much about the same time lived Tychonius the learned African of the Donatist Party of whom Gennadius writes in his Catalogue Mille annorum quoque regni in terra Justorum post resurrectionem futuri suspicionem intulit c. He also gave some suspicion of imagining a Reign of the Just upon Earth for the space of a thousand years after the Resurrection To which may be added that in the confused Collection of Homilies which is attributed to Saint Augustine and was indeed extracted out of the Writings of Tychonius upon the Apocalyps we read these words Retulit Spiritus dum haec scriberet regnaturam Ecclesiam mille annos in hoc saeculo usque ad finem mundi That is to say The Spirit while he writ these things delivered that the Church should reign a thousand years upon Earth even to the end of the World The same Gennadius observes of one Commodianus De divinis repromissionibus adversùs illos Paganos agens vili satis crasso ut ità dixerim sensu disseruit illis stuporem nobis desperationem incutiens Tertullianum Lactantium Papiam sequutus c. Treating against the Heathens concerning the divine Promises he discoursed thereof in a sence sufficiently flat and unpolished casting them into Insensibility us into Despair wherein he followed Tertullian Lactantius and Papias for his Authours We have it also upon the account of St. Hierome that our Severus Sulpitius who writ the Life of St. Martin had committed the same Errour in his Dialogue entituled Gallus wherein yet there is not at this day any thing of that nature to be found Nay the same St. Hierome himself though not chargeable with the Errour which to his grief he saw generally followed by the Christians of the fifth Age betrays himself guilty of so great a respect towards those who first maintained it that he dares not condemn it saying about the year 415. Licet non sequamur tamen damnare non possumus quia multi Ecclesiasticorum virorum Martyres ista dixerunt unusquisque in suo sensu abundat Domini cuncta judicio reservantur c. In regard many Ecclesiastical Persons and Martyrs have said these things as also that every man aboundeth in his own sence and that all is reserved for the Judgment of the Lord though I do not follow them yet can I not condemn them CHAP. XIII Inducements of Praying for the Dead arising from the Hypotheses proposed in the pretended Sibylline Writing BY this means had the Opinion of the Millenaries with a success equal to that of the other Supposiâ—…s of the pretended Sibylline Writing not onely found Partisans among the Christians but also gained the applause of many of the most eminent among them and all had conceived this apprehension thereof that it was impossible to maintain all the Hypotheses contained in it without inducing by a necessary consequence Prayer for the Dead whom they imagined to stand so much the more in need of the Assistances of the living by how much they imagined them exposed as well to the disturbances which those might be subject to who are reduced to the expectation of their Happiness as to the Temptations and Assaults which the Faithfull are exercised with through the implacable malice of Evil Spirits and are obliged at last to stand to the rigorous Judgment of the God of glory We cannot make a better representation of the State whereto the Christians of that Time conceived their deceased Brethren to be reduced then by copying-out what Justin Martyr who had seen the Eruption of the first Sibylline Imposture hath written of the condition of our Saviour himself to whom he very justly applied those words of the two and twentieth Psalm according to the Hebrews Save me from the Lyon's Mouth That he prayed his Soul might be delivered from the Sword from the Lyon's Mouth and the Paw of the Dog was a request that none should prevail over his Soul to the end that when we come to depart this life we should desire the same things as he did of Almighty God that every wicked bold Spirit may be prevented from taking our Souls as being what the Souls expect I have shewn as much in that Saul required that the Soul of Samuel might be evocated by the Witch It appears also that the Souls of all those who have been Just and Prophets are subject to such Powers as by the effect it is manifest was that wherewith the Witch was Possessed Whence it is that he teacheth us by his Son that we for whose sake it is clear that that was done should Fight all manner of waies and desire at our Departure out of this life that our Souls may not fall under any such Powers for as much as when he gave up the Ghost upon the Cross he said Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit From which Discourse
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
which St. Epiphanius confines himself nor coincident with the ninety eighth chosen by Beda nor with the ninety ninth which Usuard hath taken nor yet with the hundredth which Cedrenus for some reason unknown to us thought most worthy his Choice And Thirdly the Death of St. John was seventeen years before that of Trajan who dyed of a Flux at Selinuntium in Cilicia on the tenth of August in the year 117. CHAP. II. The Sentiment of St. Epiphanius concerning the Time of the Apocalyps refuted I Have hitherto given an account of their Opinions who dissenting from the common Tradition thought that St. John had writ his Apocalyps either before the twelfth year of Domitian about four years sooner then he did or under the Reign of Trajan much later then is consistent with the Truth I now come to prove the mistake of Saint Epiphanius who contrary to the Opinion of all precedent Antiquity going back to the Reign of Claudius would needs make that Prince Authour of St. John's Banishment to Patmos The Holy Spirit saith he necessitates John who out of a Religious and humble respect refused to Evangelize in his old Age after the ninetieth year of his Life after his return from Patmos happening under Claudius Caesar and after an aboad of many years in Asia And towards the End of the same Treatise The Holy Spirit Prophetically foretells by the mouth of St. John what happened after his decease he himself having in the Time of Claudius Caesar long before when he was in the Isle Patmos for they themselves that is to say the Alogians acknowledg that these things have been accomplished in Thyatira written through the Spirit of Prophecy to those who professed Christianity there at that time that a Woman should call her self a Prophetess This Venerable man pressed to Ward off the Objections of the Hereticks alledging the Supposititiousness of the Apocalyps in that it presupposed as extant Churches that were not in the Time of St. John as for instance that of Thyatira admits without any necessity the Objection of those troublesom Spirits as if it had been out of all Question then Answers That John spoke by Prophecy not of the Church which was then but of that which should be planted some time after at Thyatira where the People seduced by the Alogians and Montanists should after the ninety third year from our Saviour's Ascension or the one hundred twenty sixth from his Birth according to the account of St. Epiphanius corrupt that wretched City with their Errour and having cited the Text of the Apostle makes Application of it in these Terms Do you not see that he speaks of Women who having been seduced with an Imagination that they had the Gift of Prophecy have seduced many others Now I speak of Priscilla and Maximilla and Quintilla whose Seduction hath not been hidden from the Holy Spirit In fine after he had searched into the time when he thought John Banished to Patmos he shuts up his Discourse with this Conclusion that is to say That in Thyatira a Woman should call her self a Prophetess But the more I consider this Answer the less I finde it without prejudice to the respect due to its Authour capable of giving satisfaction to judicious Persons For First Is there any likelyhood that the Holy Spirit should direct Letters from the Son of God to Churches which had no being when it dictated them and that we must understand these words Unto the Angel of the Church which is in Thyatira write these things I know thy works c. The last are more then the first c. I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest the woman Jezabel who calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce c. in this sence Write to the Angel of the Church which shall be in Thyatira I know the works thou shalt do the last shall be more then the first I shall have some few things against thee thou shalt suffer the woman Jezabel who shall call her self a Prophetess to teach c It was no hard matter for St. Epiphanius to write it but whom hath he hitherto convinced of it besides himself This manner of Interpretation being such as that not any one of either the Antients or Modern hath followed it the very Singularity thereof should be sufficient not onely to bring it into suspicion but also to represent it as so much the more unmaintainable in as much as all that professed Christianity from St. John to St. Epiphanius that is from the year 100. to the year 375. wherein the later wrote against the Alogians had held the contrary to what it supposes and took it for a thing indisputable that the seven Churches to whom our Saviour directed his Epistles had been planted by the Ministery of Saint John before his Banishment to Patmos Secondly Contradicting his own Hypothesis to wit that Thyatira had not had any Church in the Time of St. John he comes for want of reflection to maintain the opposite Affirmative saying Then the whole Church of Thyatira was wholly degenerated into the Sect of the Cataphrygians or Montanists accordingly the holy Spirit would needs reveal unto you how it should come to pass that the Church should be seduced after the time of the Apostles and St. John and those who came after it was about ninety three years after the Assumption of our Saviour that the Church of that place to wit Thyatira should be seduced and fall into the Heresie of the Cataphrygians For if the Church were planted at Thyatira it necessarily follows it was there the Allegation of the destruction of a thing containing the formal presupposition of its precedent existence Thirdly But not to meddle any further with that contradiction of St. Epiphanius nor the supposition which he granted the Hereticks as acknowledged by all he advances a new one against the express Text of St. John for he writes expresly that the whole Church of Thyatira was degenerated into the Sect of the Cataphrygians whereas the Holy Spirit on the contrary says it was not the whole Church of Thyatira that had committed Adultery with Jezabel and received her Doctrine but that in Thyatira there were some Members of that Church which were not fallen into those Errours as it expresly declares speaking To the rest in Thyatira who had not received that Doctrine nor known the depth of Satan I say c. Fourthly Saint Epiphanius himself does further destroy the Computation he had taken to denote the falling-away of the Church of Thyatira For whereas in his Dispute against the Alogians he affirms that in the ninety third year after the Ascension and consequently the one hundred twenty sixth after the Birth of our Saviour this Revolt happened in the fourty eighth Heresie where he particularly refutes the Montanists he comes thirty years later then that Date saying These to wit the Montanists were about the twenty fifth year of Antoninus Pius after Adrian
which according to our Computation cannot concur but with the year 156. and is necessarily false as to their Judgment who preceded in Time For Claudius Apollinaris Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia limits the first eruption of the Montanists to the Proconsulship of Gratus which is consonant to the year 142. or thereabouts and Apolionius the Romane Senatour who suffered Martyrdom under Perennius on the eighteenth of April 181. observes that fourty years before that Sect pretended to a Prophetick Spirit thereby insinuating that it had broke forth about the year 139 or 140. not much differing from the time assigned by Apollinaris but three years later then St Epiphanius would have it in his Dispute against the Alogians and thirty six years sooner then he said in his Treatise against the Montanists Fifthly This Sect rose up particularly in Phrygia at a little Village called Pepuzium which the Inhabitants upon occasion of their pretended Prophets who were Natives thereof named Jerusalem and not as Epiphanius imagined in Thyatira in Lydia which though adjacent indeed and lying upon the Frontiers of Phrygia yet made a Province of it self as appears by the Testimony of Strabo in his thirteenth Book by Ptolomy in the second Chapter of his first Book by the Councel of Nice Assembled by the Emperour Constantine the Great in the year 325. and by that of Lydia convened by Order of the Emperour Leo the First in the year 450. where the Bishops of Thyatira subscribed with the Lydians as being of the same Division Nay though there were onely to satisfie us but the very Denominations of Cataphrygians Phrygastae and Pepuziani given by the Catholicks to the Montanists they might suffice to make us apprehend that we are not to look for their extraction in Thyatira out of Phrygia from which they are specifically denominated Sixthly From the application of the Name Jezabel arises a new Difficulty against the Sentiment of St. Epiphanius For whether we read with St. Cyprian in his fifty second Epistle and with Primasius Andrew of Caesarea and Aretas Thy Wife Jezabel which is consonant to the Reading as well of the antient Copy of Alexandria wrote above thirteen hundred years since by Thecla and given to King James of Great Britain by the Patriarch Cyril as of that of the French King's Library followed by Robert Stephen in the Edition of the New Testament in folio that of Alcala de Henares and that which was followed in the Edition of the great Bible of Andwerp and other Impressions of Plantine Or simply The Woman Jezabel as is done by Hilary the Deacon upon the eleventh Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians Tychonius in the Homilies unjustly attributed to St. Augustine Beda Ansbert who joyns the two different Lections and Berengandus whose Commentary was published by Cuthbert Tonstal Bishop of Durham under the Name of St. Ambrose Or lastly take the Names of Woman and Jezabel properly to attribute either to the Wife of the Pastour of Thyatira or of some other particular Person subject to his Government Or whether lastly they be understood Figuratively of the Heresie as most of the antient Interpeters do we shall not finde any reason to apply them as St. Epiphanius does to the three Prophetesses of the Montanists Prisca or Priscilla Maximilla and Quintilla put together nor to any one of them in particular not onely because they were neither born at nor Inhabitants of Thyatira but Phrygians Natives of Pepuzium but also because the reprehension of the Son of God charging the Jezabel of the Thyatirians with Adultery and the use of things sacrificed to Idols can no way be said either of those Women whom Saint Epiphanius would have designed by the Name of Jezabel or to any of the Montanists persisting in the strict observation of the corrupt Maxims which made them to err For those People were so far from introducing Licentiousness and Dissolution into life and as Tertullian speaks unbuckling the Thong of Christian Discipline to give way to crimes that they passed to the other extreme of the most scrupulous and superstitious Austerity condemning Second marriages the Use of things sacrificed to Idols the Eating of juycie flesh and meats during the time of Fasting Flight in time of Persecution and much more the denial of Christianity Adultery and Idolatry from which as indeed from all impurity of life which they reproached the Catholicks with attributing to them a Beastial faith and upon that acount crying out against them by the Name of Psychici they thought themselves so free that they called themselves the Spiritualized followers of the Discipline of the Spirit which endeavoured after the Example of St. Paul to smother all the lusts of the Flesh and which to subdue it proposed those burthen om things which the Son of God meant when he said to his Disciples I have yet many things to tell you but you cannot now bear them But the crimes of the Jezabel of the Thyatirians were remarkable in the Sects of the Gnosticks Nicolaitans and others whom St. Irenaeus Tertullian Saint Epiphanius himself St. Augustine and all the Heresiologists that came after charge with the commission of them so far that Tertullian a Montanist and admirer of those Women whom St. Epiphanius pretends to have been designed by Jezabel engages agaiust the Gnosticks because they were guilty of the crimes mentioned by Saint John as his Scorpiacum and his other Writings justify This I say demonstratively proves against St. Epiphanius that we must seek out the Jezabel of the Thyatirians elsewhere then among the Montanists and mildly interpret what seems harsh in the Discourse of that good man wherein after he had said that the Apostle speaks under the Name of Jezabel of the seduced and seducing Women of the Montanists he adds that in that place St. John wrote that a Woman should call her self a Prophetess For one Woman to take the word strictly is not Women but I am rather apt to suppose he took the word Woman collectively and in that comply with his meaning As to his maintaining that the Holy Apostle was Banished to Patmos and there writ his Apocalyps under the Reign of Claudius at least fourty two years sooner then is held by the common Tradition of the Truth I desire the Reader to see him refuted by the very Acts of the Apostles where he may finde in the eighteenth and nineteenth Chapters that Saint Paul having in the year of our Lord 51. coincident with the eleventh of Claudius sowed the first Seeds of Christianity at Ephesus departed thence to go and keep Easter at Hierusalem and that after his Return he continued constantly at Ephesus two years that is to say the fifty second and fifty third of our Saviour concurrent with the twelfth and thirteenth of Claudius who died on the thirteenth of October 54. on the twentieth day of the ninth Moneth of his fourteenth year For since
the Tree were for the healing of the Nations The same Imagination so gained upon the holy Fathers that lived after the middle of the second Age that those good Souls prepossessed by the Opinion they had conceived of the pretended Sibylline Writing took literally and apprehended after the Jewish sence whatever they met with in Esay and Saint John concerning the First Raesurrection of those who died for the Testimony of Jesus their reign of a thousand years and all the glory of the celestial Jerusalem Thus Justin Martyr in his Dialogue against Trypho answering that Jew who page 306 had asked him Whether he acknowledged that Jerusalem should be rebuilt and the Christians assemble there and rejoyce with Christ in the company of the Patriarchs Prophets c. not onely confesses it but maintains further that he had already averred it reflecting no doubt on those words of page 271. where he saith that Christ being raised should come again inâ—â— Jerusalem and then drink anew and eat with his Disciples And secondly that he had signified unto him that Many among those who were not of the pure and religious sentiment of the Christians acknowledged it not whereupon he adds I and as many others as are of the right and truly Christian sentiment in all things know that there must be a Resurrection of the Flesh and the Prophets Ezechiel Esay and others confess that after Jerusalem shall be built adorned and amplified a thousand years shall be spent there alledging to that purpose the sixty fifth Chapter of Esay and the twentieth of the Apocalyps And reinculcating it page 340. where he says He viz. Jesus is the eternal Light which is to shine in Jerusalem and page 369. where he writes of the Christians that they know with whom Christ they shall be in that Land viz. Judaea which he had called the Land of all the Saints and that they shall inherit eternal and incorruptible goods Eusebius in the nine and thirtieth Chapter of the third Book of his Ecclefiastical History attributing the same opinion to Papias Bishop of Hierapolis who had been a follower of the Disciples of Saint John hath this Discourse He affirms also many other things that are more fabulous among which he saith that there are a certain thousand of years to pass after the Resurrection and that Christ shall reign corporally in the same Land Things which I think he hath onely imagined upon a misapprehension of the Apostolical Expositions Saint Irenaeus in the thirty fifth Chapter of his fifth Book does not onely agree with Papias but relyes upon his authority citing out of his fourth Book these words which Papias attributed to Saint John The daies shall come wherein there shall grow up Vines having each of them ten thousand Branches and upon every Branch ten thousand Boughs and on every Bough ten thousand Buds and on every Bud ten thousand Bunches and on every Bunch ten thousand Grapes and every Grape pressed shall yield twenty five Measures of Wine And when any one of the Saints shall take one of the Grapes another shall cry I am a better Grape take me and bless God by me In like manner one Corn of Wheat shall bring forth ten thousand Ears and every Ear shall have ten thousand Crains and every Grain shall give ten Pounds of clear and fine Flower and all other Fruits Seeds and Herbs proportionably Was ever the Synagogue cut off from the Covenant of God delivered of an Extravagance more deserving contempt then this which feigns Bunches of Grapes speaking and Vines yielding infinitely beyond all imaginable force of Nature millions of millions of measures of Wine And yet the Holy Martyr Saint Irenaeus out of an excess of respect by no means excusable in him preferring the authority of Papias deceived by the counterfeit Sibyl before all reason blindly swallowed it and in his two and thirtieth Chapter inferred from it that The Just shall reign here below before the day of Judgment that on the day of the Sabbath of the Just they shall have a Table furnished from God who shall replenish them with all manner of Viands That The Wolves shall feed with the Lambs and the Lyon shall live on Straw and in the thirty fifth Chapter that The Just shall reign on earth in the thirty sixth that proportionably to the fruit they have brought forth an hundred sixty or thirty for one they shall be placed either in Heaven or in Paradise or in Jerusalem and that In that regard it was that the Son of God said In my Father's House are many Mansions Tertullian who lived near the same time to shew us that he was carryed away with the same Prejudice cryes out in the twenty fourth Chapter of his third Book Against Marcion We confess that the Kingdom is promised us upon Earth for a thousand years after the Resurrection in the City of Divine workmanship Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven There is some ground to think that Meliton Bishop of Sardes Contemporary with Justin Martyr was of the same Opinion with him concerning the temporal Reign of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem in asmuch as to maintain it he writ upon the Revelation of Saint John the words whereof have been extreamly wrested by the Patrones of that Imagination but in regard I am nothing pressed and have onely Conjecture to inferr it from I shall forbear to urge it I come to Nepos the Aegyptian Bishop reverenced by Dionysius of Alexandria for his Faith and great Learning in the attainment whereof he had spent himself to the Last Of this Prelate Eusebius saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Teaching that the Promises made to the Saints in the Holy Scriptures were to be accomplished after the manner conceived by the Jews supposing that there were to pass a certain thousand of Years in the pursuit of corporal Enjoyments upon Earth and being of opinion he might confirm his Supposition by the Revelation of John He writ concerning the said Revelation a certain Discourse entituled A Reprehension of the Allegorists as not able to endure that men should take otherwise then Literally the Promises proposed by the Holy Spirit for the comfort of the Church nor that they should be understood mystically About fifty years after appeared our Victorinus Bishop of Poictiers who suffered Martyrdom on the second day of November in the year 303. after he had composed divers Treatises great indeed in respect of the sense and slight in respect of the contexture of the Words according to the observation of Saint Hierome which cannot be contradicted since there is nothing left of them and that the Commentary upon the Apocalyps which goeth under his name contains at this day nothing of what the Antients had read in it But Saint Hierome assuring us that he was of the number of those who expected to come from Heaven a Jerusalem adorned with precious Stones and Gold we need not fear upon his Affirmation to
Maccabees Thus Tertullian in the year 199. in the third Chapter of his Book De Corona tells us Quaramus an Traditio c. Let us enquire whether the not-written Tradition is not also to be received No doubt we shall deny that it ought to be received if no prejudice arise from the Examples of other Observations which we challenge to our selves without any recommendation from Scripture onely upon the accompt of Tradition fortified by the Patronage of Custom c. Upon anniversary-days we make Oblations for the departed and for their Birth-days c. viz. Of the departure of Martyrs In like manner St. Epiphanius in the year 376. concludes his Disputation against Aërius with the Allegation of Tradition saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Next I shall again take the consequence of this that the Church accomplishes this thing necessarily having taken the Tradition of the Fathers Now who can violate the Ordinance of his Mother or the Law of his Father according to the words of Salomon My Son hear the Instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother shewing that the Father that is to say God the onely Son and the Holy Spirit hath taught as well by writing as without writing and that our Mother the Church hath Laws made in her self such as are indissoluble and cannot be destroyed Denys the pretended Areopagite about the year 490. follows the same track in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy saying It is necessary to speak of the Tradition come even to us from our conductours inspired by God concerning the said Prayer which the Hierarch pronounces over the Deceased The like may be said of St. Augustine who had first of any alledged the pretended example of the Maccabees for distrusting what Arguments might be drawn thence he flies to the Authority of the Church and thereby shews his main strength lay on that side The same thing is further insinuated as well by the ingenuous confession which the Fathers make of the doubts of many of the Christians in their times concerning the advantage of Prayer for the dead as by the answers given by them thereto For Aërius in St. Epiphanius in the year 376. put this difficulty asking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Upon what accompt do you name after their death those who are dead For whether the surviving prays or dispenses his goods what advantage accrews thereby to the deceased If the Prayers of those who are here be any way beneficial to those who are there let not any one live religiously nor do well but so behave himself as he would have Friends whether it be by procuring them for many or intreating them at his death to pray for him to the end he may not suffer there and that there be no inquisition made into the incurable sins he hath committed Some twenty years before St. Cyril of Jerusalem had acknowledged in his fifth Mystagogical Catechesis that in Palaestine there were many persons troubled about the difficulty made by Aërius in Armenià crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I know many say thus What advantage is it to the Soul transported out of this World with sins or without sins that you remember her in your Prayers And about one hundred years after Denys the pretended Areopagite writing in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It may be will you say that these things are well said by us but that you are in doubt as to the Hierarch ' s desiring of the Sovereign goodness of God for the deceased the remission of his Sins and the portion of light assigned for those who are like God For if every one shall receive from the justice of God the reward of all the good things and others which he hath done in this life and the deceased hath accomplished all Functions suitable to the life which is led here by what Hierarchical Prayer shall he be transferred beyond his merit and the reward due to the life he hath led here into another lot From this diversity of Questions renewed from time to time it is apparent that the first answers made to those who could not conceive any benefit arising from Prayer for the dead had not given them satisfaction and that neither they nor those who answered them saw any Text of Scripture that could decide the difficulty proposed by them For who could expect from a Christian that he durst bring into question what he knew to have been resolved by the Oracles of God On the contrary who will not be easily induced to doubt of things whereof he findes no other confirmation then that of Custom and that not fortified by any Command of God to whose Worship it is pretended that Custome relates Nay when we do not finde in the Fathers Answers to the Objections whereby that Custom was opposed any mention either of the second of the Maccabees or of any place of Scripture concerning the State of the dead ought we not of necessity to conclude that not onely they had not any to alledge but also that they made not in their Offices for the dead any reflection on the second of the Maccabees or any of the Books justly or unjustly reputed Canonical but onely on the example of their Predecessours CHAP. XXV Whether there be any reason to ground Prayer for the Dead upon the Second Book of the Maccabees I Have hitherto made it my business onely to prove that praying for the Dead never was as to matter of fact grounded by the first that practised it among the Christians upon the second of the Maccabees nor any other Book either Canonical or Apocryphal I am to shew that as to matter of right it could not have been grounded thereon and to that purpose I am in the first place to give a relation of the fact of Judas Maccabaeus and secondly an accompt of the application made of it by Jason the Cyrenian or his Abridger The fact is set down in these Terms So Judas gathered his Host and came into the City of Odollam and when the seventh day came they purified themselves as the Custom was and kept the Sabbath in the same place And upon the day following as the use had been Judas and his Company came to take up the Bodies of them that were slain and to bury them with their Kinsmen in their Father's Graves Now under the Coats of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to the Idols of the Jamnites which is forbidden the Jews by the Law Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain All men therefore praysing the Lord the righteous Judg who had opened the things that were hid Betook themselves unto Prayer and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance Besides the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin for so much as they saw
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
refreshing and of the restitution of all things on the contrary I say the Person so wishing considered his Frienâ— as aspiring to the plenary enjoyment of that happy State whereof he expected the absolute accomplishment on the day of the general Resurrection at the end of the World though he were already by way of advance possessed of the Earnest thereof according to the Saying of the Authour of the Book of Wisdom who affirms that Though the righteous be prevented with death yet shall he be in rest where the Latine Version hath it in refrigerio c. in a place of refreshment Which shews that the Interpreter had found in his Copy not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Text hath it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that in the Discourses of the Antients the begging of refreshments for their departed Friends could not signifie any other thing then what is expressed in the Liturgy attributed to Saint James in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do thou cause them to rest there in the Land of the living in thy Kingdom in the Delights of Paradise in the Bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob our Holy Fathers where trouble and sorrow and Lamentation have no place Which indeed is no more then is required in the Liturgy which goes under the name of Saint Mark and more at large in that which is attributed to Saint Clement and those of Saint Basil and Saint Chrysostome all which concur in the demand of the Celestial Beatitude which they design by the several Expressions used in the Scripture to represent it and suppose that God hath communicated it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even there where the departed Person whose Memory is celebrated hath been already placed And in this sence is it confirmed by Tertullian the most antient of the Latines who speaking of Prayer for the dead does in the fourth Chapter De testimonio animae call eternal Beatitude a refreshment and saith Affirmamus expectare diem judicii proque meritis aut cruciaâ—ui destinari aut refrigerio utrique sempiterno c. We affirm that the Soul expects the day of Judgement and that according to her Works she is destined either to Torment or to Refreshment both which are eternal Which had made so deep an Impression upon some mens spirits that about the year 960. Hildegarius Bishop of Limoges Founder of the Abbey of St. Peter protested that the Motive of his Founding it was Ut pius clementissimus Deus in Die Judicii refrigerium praestare dignetur c. That God out of his compassion and clemency would be pleased to give to his own Soul and those of his Friends refreshment at the day of Judgment Some conceive that the Epitaphs which run thus In pace c. Quiescit in pace c. Depositus in pace c. Dormit in pace c. do not signifie that the Departed Person is in absolute possession of that sovereign Peace which is that of God but simply that he departed in the Peace of the Church For my part I am willing to believe that those who gave order for such Inscriptions intended thereby to comprehend the Peace of the Church remembring that as to be grafted into the Body of the visible Church is naturally an external mark of the Believer's admission into the society of the Saints whose Names are written in Heaven so the participation of her Peace is many times a Pledge of the Peace of God But it is impossible it should be the intention of the Authours of those anâ—ient Epitaphs to speak of the Peace of the Church and to insinuate that the Faithfull departed were not when God called them out of this world excommunicated And that for these reasons First These very Forms are indifferently used upon the Tombs of Martyrs little Children and Persons newly-baptized who every one knows could not have deserved the Censures of the Church but were without dispute passed from the troubles of this life into the rest of Heaven which onely may be denoted by the name of Peace inscribed upon their Monuments Secondly It may be said that neither being possessed of the Peace of the Church is an infallible assurance of the participation of that of God out of which are excluded Hypocrites whom the Church must of necessity entertain in her Communion as not knowing their interiour nor does the privation of the Church's peace necessarily infer the denyal of that of God it being possible that many good people through Errour in matter of Fact may be treated in the society of the Faithfull otherwise then they should as for Example a Meletius whom the Church of Rome never honoured with her Communion though now she acknowledges by the Celebration she annually makes of his Memory that he was most worthy of it and a Person precious in the sight of God Whence it follows that the Faithfull departed should not carry hence with them a truly perswasive Testimony of the Piety in which they ended their dayes if the surviving saying onely They died in Peace thought it enough to attribute to them an advantage many times common to those who have through their own fault been deprived of the Grace of God to their Dying-day Thirdly Because the Antients have by several Forms expressed their Sentiment and declared that when they assigned Peace to their deceased Brethren they specifically limited themselves to the peace of God which onely is able to make them happy Thus not to mention the Inscription of the Tombs of Severus of Badajox and the Inhabitant of Elvas which hath expresly Pacem Domini The peace of the Lord the Epitaph of Junius Bassus cited by Cardinal Baronius says that Neophytus îit ad Deum VIII Calend. Septemb. Eusebio Hypatio Coss c. Being newly-converted to the Faith he went to God on the eighth of the Calends of September Eusebius and Hypatius being Consuls that is to say August the twenty fifth 359. That of Eusebia Copied by Father Sirmond in his Notes upon Sidonius runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here lieth Eusebia who is in peace c. under the eighth Consulship of Honorius and the first of Constantine in the year 409. That of Gaudentia thus Gabina Gaudentia c. perpetuâ quiescit in pace c. Gabina Gaudentia resteth in perpetual peace That of Timothea thus Timothea in pace D. Kal. Nov. Cons D. N. Aviti c. Timothea hath been deposited in the peace of the Lord Nov. 1. Avitus our Lord being Consul in the year 456. That of Marius thus Satis vixit dum vitam pro Christo cum signo consumpsit in pace tandem quievit c. He hath lived long enough since he hath spent his life for Christ with the Sign of Faith and is at length deposed in peace That of Placidus thus Tandem in Caelo quiescit He is at length rested in
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
c. He rejoyces with the Angels in the Kingdom of heaven I acknowledg that the Opinion of Purgatory crept in among the Latines about the end of the sixth Age having by little and little gained credit many were easily induced to compose Epitaphs containing certain Wishes and Prayers for the Dead Yet did not their scrupulous manner of proceeding hinder any that would from attributing to them the possession of Celestial glory immediately upon their departure out of this life Thus the Epitaph of Pope Stephen the Sixth deceased the one and twentieth of May 891. hath these express Terms Aethera scandit spiritus almus ovans c. His milde Spirit ascends heaven triumphing That of the Kings Conrade the First Otho the First and Second and Zuentibold of Adalberon Bishop of Mets of Count Hugh and his Wife of the Countess Eve and her Sons of Arnoul and Rembal of Oudri Arch-Bishop of Rheims of Beatrix and Warin Abbot of Saint Arnoul de Mets express that their Souls In Coelis aeternâ pace fruuntur c. In heaven enjoy eternal Peace That of Reynold Abbot of S. Cyprian in Poictiers deceas'd in the year 1100. Rainaldi pars promptior Astra petivit c. Reynold's more willing part to heav'n is gone That of the Nun Benedicta Spiritus Astra tenet c. Of heav'n her Spirit 's possest That of Ranulphus the Priest her Contemporary Protinus ad Superos carne solutus abis c. Spiritus ecce tuus gaudens fuper Astra perennat c. Flesh once lay'd by to heav'n thou streight dost go c. Thy Spirit above eternal Joy attends Again Dans animam Coelo reddidit ossa solo c. To heav'n thy soul to earth thy bones return That of King Philip the First deceased in the year 1108. Augusti ternis conscendit in aeth'ra Kalendis c. He on the third of the Calends Of August unto heav'n ascends That of Reynold de Martigni Arch-Bishop of Rheims deceased in the year 1137. Hunc duodena dies Februi praeeuâ—do Kalendas Destituit mundo substituitque Polo c. On January's one and twentieth day He left the world and went to heav'n to stay That of Gerald first Abbot of Selue-Majour in Bourdelois deceased in the year 1094. the sixth of April En felix anima Coeli laetatur in Aula c. Coelorum civis dormîit in Domino c. Liber Coelos spiritus obtinuit c. Spiritus Abbatis vindicat Astra sibi c. Spiritus alta tenet c. His blissfull soul in Heav'n rejoycing is c. Heav'n's Citizen rests in the Lord c. His unconfin'd spirit in Heav'n is fix'd c. The Abbot's soul does challenge heav'n c. His spirit is on high That of Berenger Arch-Deacon of St. Maurice's of Anger 's deceased the sixth of January 1088. In Jano patuit tibi Janua vitae c. In Janus Moneth Life's Gate receiv'd thee And again Coelos animâ corpore ditat humum c. His Body Earth his Soul does Heav'n enrich That of the Empress Agnes deceased the 14th of December 1077. Die XIV Mensis Decembris animam bonis operibus foecundam Lateranis Salvatori suo atque omnium bonorum Authori reddidit hic quintâ die Mensis Januarii expectans spem Beatae Resurrectionis adventum Magni Dei membra carnis commendavit in pace Amen Vpon the fourteenth of December at Lateran she returned to her Saviour and God the Authour of all good things her soul fruitfull in good Works and on the fifth of January she recommended to this place her fleshly Members expecting the hope of a blessed Resurrection and the coming of the Great God Amen That of Bruno first General of the Carthusians deceased the sixth of October 1101. Ossa manent Tumulo Spiritus Astra petit c. Earth hath his bones to heav'n his spirit flies That of Geoffrey Bishop of Amiens deceased the eighth of November 1118. Hic jacet Astra petens c. Here going to Heav'n he lies That of Peter of Placentia Cardinal Terra suum Corpus Animámque recepit Olympus The Earth his body Heav'n his soul receiv'd That of Burohard Arch-Bishop of Vienna deceased about the year 1035. August the twenty ninth Cum quo perpetuò pace viget placidâ c. Sanctus Spiritus Astra petit c. Curribus ignicomis ad Superos gereris c. With him he lives in undisturbed peace c. His Holy Spirit to Heav'n flies c. In fiery Chariots to Heav'n thou' rt convey'd That of Alberic Arch-bishop of Bourges deceased in the year 1140. Modò major in arce Polorum c. In Heav'n he greater is That of Peter Leo in the year 1144. Junius in Mundo fulgebat Sole secundo Separat hunc nobis cùm Polus atque Lapis c. June's second day shone bright when joyless we Lost him between Earth and Felicity That of Peter Bishop of Poictiers deceased in the year 1115. unjustly reduced by Cardinal Baronius to the year 1130. Nunc dives liber stabilis sua praemia Christum Astra petit sequitur possidet iste Petrus c. Promovit privavit eum profugúmque recepit Papa Comes Christus ordine sede Polo c. This Peter rich freed firm rewards Christ Heav'n Now seeks pursues possesses freely giv'n c. A Pope Count Christ him rais'd depriv'd with love Receiv'd to Prelacy of 's See above That of Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury Assassinated the nine and twentieth of July 1170. Ab Orbe Pellitur fructus incipit esse Poli c. Forc'd hence in Heav'n he begins to grow That of Stephen Bishop of Meaux deceased the 12th of January 1187. Liber vivit terrâ divisus Astris Quae dederat Coelum Terráque solvit eis c. He freely lives 'tween Heav'n and Earth bestow'd And pay'd what unto Heaven and Earth he ow'd That of Robert Arch-bishop of Vienna deceased in the year 1195. June the seven and twentieth Junius aethereis mensis te reddidit oris c. Thee to thy Heav'nly Countrey June hath brought That of Mauricius Bishop of Paris deceased the eleventh of September 1196. Migrat Parisii Pater ad patriam Paradisi Mauricius c. Father of Paris Mauricius is hence To Paradise transferr'd That of Humbert Arch-bishop of Vienna deceased the twentieth of November 1125. Spiritus aeth'ra Praesulis Umberti petit c. The Prelat Umbert's Soul to Heav'n is gone That of Raoul Bishop of Arras deceased in the year 1220. Coeli Civis meritorum pondere vivis c. The weight of thy Good Works do thee sustain Thou Citizen of Heav'n That of Peter of Doway Arch-bishop of Sens deceased the twelfth of June 1222. Qui Spei certae suberat modò cernit apertè c. Who what he surely hop'd now clearly sees That of Hervey Bishop of Troyes deceased July the second 1223. Reddo Polo Spiritum ossa Solo c. My soul to heav'n my bones to
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
secretly fearing he should be torn in Pieces by the People and proceeded with so much the more confidence in all this change in as much as the Sicilian Vespers advised by his Father and sung by the tumultuous People on Easter-Day the twenty ninth of March 1282. had set Sicily and Arragon against the Pope and France Besides Philip de Courtenay and Baldwin his Father being come near the End of their unfortunate Lives had no further thoughts of revenge against him that Charles the First King of Sicily dying of Grief the seventh of January 1285. left Charles the Second his Son a Prisoner to the Sicilians and Arragonois who kept him from the two and twentieth of June 1284. to the twenty ninth of October 1288. So as that he had not during that time any means either to help himself or prejudice others and that none that had Relation to the Latines was in any capacity to disturb the East Michael thought to have done much for himself by his submission to and taking from the Church of Rome the Model of his Belief and by his Compliance with her disarming the Princes combined against his Dignity but from that Counsel suggested by the Prudence of this World he reaped onely shame and misfortune as well during his Life as after his Death For both his Ecclesiastical and Secular Subjects conspired together to put the affront upon him frustrate his Intentions and confidently to subvert the Design of his Treaty by a formal Opposition and so unanimous a Rejection of the Expedient which he had taken to settle his Peace that his Cruelty against the most resolute and the setting up of a new Patriarch who took the Catechism of his Belief from the Court prevailed nothing upon spirits so much the more exasperated the more sensible they were of the violence done them Pope Martin the Fourth taking it heinously that he was fallen off in as much as he bore with some of his Subjects who were contrary to his Opinion in the first year of his sitting in the Chair upon the day of the Dedication of Saint Peter's Church falling on the eighteenth of November 1281. pronounced him in Orvieto Excommunicated as a favourer of the Antient Schism and Heresie of the Greeks And after his Death which happened at the beginning of the fourteenth Indiction 1285. near Selybria the publick Aversion was so violent against his Memory that his own Son was forced to leave it exposed to a kinde of Infamy Nicephorus Gregoras having left us his remarkable Accompt of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Emperour Andronicus his Son who was present not onely honoured not his Father with the Sepulture ordinarily bestowed on Kings but vouchsafed him not that which was fit for Smiths and Pioners He onely ordered that a small number of men having carried him away in the Night some distance from the Camp should cast a quantity of Earth upon him out of a fear lest the Royal Body might be torn in pieces by the wilde Beasts Thus have we a great Prince for having forced the Consciences of his People reduced to the burial of a Dog and finde the Church of Rome who would have made her advantage of his Despair to spread her Authority into the East become through this kinde of proceeding so odious that the Ostentation of her Power did onely stir up the contradiction of those minds which she was in hope to enslave and animated them in a resolution not to receed in the least from their former Sentiment About 150. years after the Empire of the East falling under the Power of the Turks who had taken away from it on the one side all Natolia except Trebisonda where there was kept up a little Empire apart and on the other such a part of Thrace that Constantinople was as it were blocked up between both Johannes Palaeologus descended from Michael was though much against his Humour forced to call to minde the Advertisement of his Father Manuel who had not left him any other Hope of recovery in the Land then what was to be procured by the Assistances of the Latines Which to obtain contrary to the Advice of Sultan Amurath who knew that in the Concord of the Christians consisted the onely means to oppose his Tyranny he took a resolution in the year 1430. to make his Addresses to the West and after the Example of his Father who had in Person sollicited Italy France England and other Kingdoms sent several Embassies to Martin and Eugenius the Fourth to desire the calling of a Councel to consist of the Prelates of both the Greek and Latine Churches and by means of the Councel to engage the Latine Church in the defence of the Greek We do not finde how far Martin bestirred himself to do any thing in that Cause but God having taken him out of this World the one and twentieth of February 1431. and Eugenius the Fourth being chosen in his stead on the third of March following the Jealousie he took at the Councel which had been appointed to meet at Basil by that of Sienna in the year 1424. and began on Thursday the nineteenth of July 1431. and the high and violent Procedures of it towards the Greeks in Florence ruined the success of what ever he had undertaken He had ever since the twelfth of March appointed Julian Cardinal of St. Angelo to preside at the Councel of Basil eight Moneths after seised with an apprehension that that Assembly would offer to diminish his Power he repealed the Commission of his Legat and under pretence of gratifying the Greeks appointed the eighteenth of December for the Prelates to separate and summoned another Councel at Boulogne la Grass for the year 1433. Now that of Basil thinking the affront indigestible and to be revenged resolving to question him put him into such a fright that he thought himself obliged to grant what it would have to issue out his Bull of the fifteenth of December 1433. to repeal three others contrary thereto given the twenty seventh of July and the thirteenth of September before and to joyn with the Cardinal of St. Angelo four other Legats to wit Nicholas Cardinal of Saint Croix John Arch-Bishop of Tarentum Peter Bishop of Padua and Lewis Abbot of Saint Justina of Padua who were admitted the six and twentieth of April 1434. From the fifteenth of October and the eleventh of November 1433. the Greeks answering to the Summons of the Councel who had Deputed to them Anthony Bishop of Tuy in Galicia and B. Albert de Crespes Master in Theologie had sent on their behalf Demetrius Palaeologus Proto-vestiary Isidore Abbot of St. Demetrius and Johannes Lascaris sirnamed Disypatus to Treat of the Conditions of the Interview of both Parties and the Pope for his Part had towards the end of the same year offered by Christopher Garathon one of his Secretaries to send his Legats into the East to prosecute the affair of the Re-union But when
Creation shall be shaken with fear and then shall the light be changed O Word spare him who is translated hence Again I beseech you all who were of my acquaintance and who love me be mindful of me at the Day of Judgment that I may finde mercy before the Dreadful Tribunal Again Let us cry to the Immortal King when thou shalt come to make inquisition into the secret things of men spare thy Servant whom thou hast taken to thy self O Mankind-loving God Again I am dead after that I have passed away my life with security and I lye without voice in the Grave and now I expect the last Trumpet to awake me cries he who is dead but my Friends pray unto Christ that he would number me among the Sheep on his right hand c. I have consumed my life in great negligence and being translated from it I expect the dreadfull Tribunal before which O Jesu preserve me free from condemnation cries thy Servant Again O Lord who art the onely King entertain into the Celestial Kingdom thy Faithfull Servant whom thou hast now transferred hence and we beseech thee preserve him free from condemnation at the hour when all mortal men being to be judged shall make their appearance before the Judge c. Disacknowledged by my Brethren and sequestred from my Friends I cry in spirit from the noisomness of the Grave Examine not my failings at the day of Judgment despise not my Tears thou who art the joy of Angels but grant me rest O Lord even me whom out of thy great mercy thou hast taken to thy self c. Stuck fast in the Myriness of sin and devested of good actions I who am a prey to Worms cry to thee in Spirit cast me not behind thee wretch that I am place me not at thy left hand thou who hast framed me with thy Hands but out of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Having now quitted my Kinred and Countrey I am come into a strange way and am as stinking rottenness in the Grave Alass none shall afford me any assistance in that hour but O Lord because of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Again O what an inquisition and judgment are we to expect what fear and trembling in which Brethren the Elements themselves shall be moved and the creation shake come now and let us cast our selves at the feet of Christ that he may save the Soul he hath transferred An intolerable sire and external obscurity and the Worm which never dies is prepared for us sinners in the day of inevitable necessity then spare thy Servant whom thou hast transferred For as much then as the Prayers for the remission of sins made by the Greeks under the names as well of the Surviving praying for the Dead as of the Dead putting up their Requests for themselves are for the most part restrained to the day of Judgement we are so far from having any thing that might oblige us to take them in such a sence as that they should insinuate that the Faithfull between the moment of their death and that of the Last Judgment were reduced to the suffering of any pains that the Hypotheses of Antiquity seem clearly to exact the contrary And the result thence is that the Modern Greeks though great opposers of the Purgatory maintained by the Church of Rome have not kept within the Terms prescribed them by their Fore-fathers but have changed their Sentiments by the Introduction of Novelties which none of them would ever have imagined It will be demanded whence they derived the perswasion that there were Souls of a middle condition which being properly neither good nor bad could not after their separation from the Body enter into the possession of Paradise without having for a certain time lain drooping in I know not what place of Sequestration where they were to endure grief terrour and the incommodity of darkness which as is pretended covered them when nothing of all this either hath or could have any ground in Scripture which does every where make as immediate an opposition between Paradise and Hell the good and the bad the Faithfull and the Reprobate the Children of God redeemed and consecrated for ever by one onely Oblation and that once made with the blood of the Covenant and the children of the Devil who have held as prophane that precious blood as between life and death light and darkness the right hand and the left of the great Judge teaching us expresly that all the faithfull dying in the Lord are blessed rest from thenceforth come not into condemnation are passed from death to life are at their departure out of the body with the Lord and that all the rest without any exception dying in Adam and having not believed are already condemned 2. That Antiquity having happily shaken of the strange imagination which the Fathers of the Second Age had swallowed out of the pretended Sibylline Writing insinuating to them that the Spirits of all men as well good as bad necessarily descended into Hell and were to be there detained under the power of Devils till the Resurrection of the Bodies they had animated it thereupon formally maintained that immediately upon the Death of the Faithfull are the Nuptials of the Spouse that it remains onely for the surviving to give thanks to God that he hath crowned him who is departed from them and having delivered him out of all fear receives him to himself that to all the good Death is an assured Port a deliverance from the combat and bonds a Transporation to better things and that as soon as it happens the Cabinets are sealed and the time accomplished and the combat at an end and the race run and the Crowns bestowed and all is manifestly brought to perfection 3. That the Ritual it self as it were endeavouring to bring into discredit as well the distinction of the middle-conditioned Souls as their pretended banishment for a time into a dark place indifferently affirms of all those who die in the Faith of Christ men and women Ecclesiasticks those of Religious Professions and Laicks that they are gone to the Lord that they rest that Hell detains them not that they exchange Death for the divine life and are made the Children of immortality absolutely denying all that the vulgar Opinion temerariously and without any reason shewn affirms of some and wholly destroying it by so formal a contradiction But we are not to imagine our selves reduced to a necessity of being over-Critical in discovering the Origine of this errour since the falsificatour as well of the Ritual as of the Sentiment of those of his Nation hath done it so palpably to our hands that he hath not made any scruple to publish his own ignorance even in things evident and such as the word of God the best