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
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
into Heaven though neither the Councils nor the Popes words make any exception I doubt then when it is said all pains are remitted in Baptism the Councils suppose that Baptism is receiv'd with that disposition which out of the property of the Sacrament is due to it Now because your question is none of the intended ones but onely by the by I need not give a more positive Answer to it but leave it to your consideration It being by this clear that your calumny of saying I deny Satisfaction is fictitious I may go to your nine and thirtieth Section where having translated a long discourse of mine you learnedly ask in what mood and figure it is imagining your Reader to have so little understanding as to think a Demonstrative discourse ought to be just one Syllogism How favourable or otherwise your translation is I examin not since your chief aym is onely to make a little sport which you seldom have the luck to do with the least degree of good manners The Gentleman that translated the Book you mention is a Person whom all that have the happiness of his acquaintance know to be compleatly civil and ingenious and one who wants but the name which you indeed have to be every way accounted Religious a name I confess very honourable and which carryes with it a presumption of vertue but I have seen some instances where I fear it went no farther then a bare presumption I did not say how faithfull but how favourable since every Scholar knows the difficulty of rendring into significant and unbarbarous English the terms of art used by the most abstemious School-men in their discourses both of Philosophy and Theology All whom your rashness cares not to wound so it be thorough my sides Yet this fair offer I make you translate but your Dictates into smooth Love-letter English and I will freely forgive you for my part all you have unhandsomly written in this whole Section LAST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section fortieth to the End The Vindicators mistakes of what passes in the Soul at reunion The efficacy of his sleightly grounded Devotions examin'd on the by His impotent malice in objecting Paganism His many bogglings at Divinity-Explications like to fright him out of his Faith satisfy'd IN your fortieth Section you are troubled that after the griefs of Purgatory the sight of Christ should change the imperfect Affections which are in Souls while they remain in Purgatory So little do you understand the course of Nature that precedent motion is quite of a different nature from the following quiet which is the term of that motion And forgetting you had given leave to your publisher to say his Souls were purg'd in Purgatory now you will have it the faith of all Christians that there is no acting for Bliss at the Resurrection By which if you mean meriting 't is nothing to the purpose for 't is but your own fiction to put merit at the Resurrection But if you mean there is no change towards Beatitude you are not well instructed Neither is it a wonder that this is a pleasure seeing it is the very taking possession of Bliss after the pains of Purgatory or as Philosophers would term it the Purgatum esse which yet hinders not but what went before and was their purging or purgation in via was painful enough After this to make your Comedy compleat you will have a touch at Hell which God be thanked for my ease you will reserve to a new discovery Yet you very heartily beg to know why the damned Souls do not repent themselves at the day of Judgment and become Saints Which is a sign you understand not what you read though you are able to put it in English And that you conceive this putting in the body again makes the Soul not only fit to be perfected or totally fram'd to the proportion of her last end but that she is return'd again into the state of this World's mutability of forgetting working by abstract notions gaining new science c. which are the proprieties of her changeable condition in this World If you please to study to understand what you intend to oppose I shall be willing to contribute on my part what I can In the mean while having already answer'd the other things you touch at in this Section let me follow you in what you do understand In your 41 Section you accuse your Adversary of scoffing at hallowed Grains sanctify'd Beads c. Which it seems you will not permit to be held external devices whatsoever your meaning is Nor Vtensils of a thriving devotion which is a term of an indifferent signification and there must be somewhat in you to make you wince at it The next words of deluding priviledges I lookt for but could not find in this place yet afterwards reading them in the Post-script I conceive by their nearness to Quamcunque voluerit that they glance at the too much confidence of such a promise so large that were it true and Doctors say the value of Indulgences is to be taken as they sound I should reckon it a great temptation to neglect wholly both all venial sins and all satisfaction for mortall in this life The onely advantage that I know a priviledg'd Altar pretends if we may believe the words of the Priviledg it self is to deliver a soul out of Purgatory by saying Mass there This Mass we have daily experience may be procur'd to say truth at no unreasonable rate What need I then according to these Principles be much frighted at Purgatory and those dreadful pains they so often preach to me when all may be healed with a little wisely-bestow'd alms if these men be as good as their words But they say 't is advisable not to be too confident in one Mass but to get more and is there no suspicion incident to an advice so unnecessary if the priviledg speak true and however so convenient in all cases Pray you tell me in your next Discovery to how many Masses on our common Altars is one of your Priviledg'd Ones equivalent to ten then the Priviledg alone is equal to nine then which I think a greater blasphemy can scarce be spoken Perhaps you may reply I hold you too severely to your word and that by our promising a full Delivery we mean onely to contribute extraordinarily towards it but why do you give me your word if I must not take it as it signifies why do you not play fair and tell me that one Mass there is something better then half two elsewhere for at the end of the account that 's all your vast promises come to for ought I see Besides may not all the other Altars where the same great work is perform'd justly complain that you endeavour their impoverishment other questions there are as easie to make and as hard to answer but of this enough the Theam 's too plentiful and I am even weary with thinking on 't Next you