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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59251	A vindication of the doctrine contained in Pope Benedict XII, his bull and in the General Council of Florence, under Eugenius the III concerning the state of departed souls : in answer to a certain letter, printed and published against it, by an unknown author, under this title, A letter in answer to the late dispensers of Pope Benedict XII, his bull, &c., wherein the progress of Master Whites lately minted Purgatory is laid open and its grounds examined ... / by S.W.	Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.	1659 (1659)	Wing S2599; ESTC R12974	85,834	208

Sunt purgatae are now purged in the preterpersect Tense either in their bodies which you do not deny compleatly perfected in some souls in this life or uncloathed of their bodies which still irrationally gratis and wilfully you deny though the Council defines of both in the same form and style of words Sunt purgatae they are now purged Which cleerly imports a Purgation now past and perfectly compleated But we Will take our rise a little Higher from the very process of both the Greek and Latin Fathers in this business of Purgatory now assembled at Ferrara where this Council though afterwards translated to Florence and so is called the Florentin Council began For there in the very beginning of the Council in order to this Decree this Question of Purgatory was handled See tom 4. Concil. Gen. oct. Synod Quaestio de Purgatorio And both the Latin and Greek Fathers lay down their several Positions of Purgatory And First the Latins thus begin We do believe in this world a Purgatory fire by which the souls guilty of lighter faults that is venial sins are purged For those who have confessed their sins and have received the most sacred Body of Christ and presently die before previous satisfaction without doubt in the above-named fire which is commonly called Purgatory are purged and together with the help of the Church the prayers of Priests Masses and Alms are expiated After this the Greeks lay down their perswasion of Purgatory in this manner We judge say they Purgatory not to be a fire but a darksome placee full of afflictions in which souls now being are deprived of Divine Light but that they are expiated and freed from this darksome place and torments by the help of the Church the Prayers of Priests Masses Alms c. Now Sir it were beyond all the degrees of modesty to assert that the question of Purgatory was not here disputed or defined Or that they talked onely of Charity as being an immediate disposition to bliss And it is most cleer that out of these several professions in which both sides agreed against you directly and home to our Point in question of an expiation and delivery from this Purgatory either a fire or a darksome place issued out this definition Being purged uncloathed of this body presently opposite to your Errour And I would have my Reader to observe how positively it was intended by the Council to deliver us the Faith of the Church conformable to the unanimous Doctrine of both parties both of the expiation or perfect Purging of Souls when uncloathed of their bodies and of their present delivery whilest uncloated for in all this both the Greek and Latin Fathers cleerly agreed against this new School which when he shall have considered I doubt not but he will rest satisfied it can not be an act of the Vnderstanding but of the Will which forces the word Presently to signifie if it signifie any thing at all by these moderns at the day of Iudgement which was not the time either the Latin or Greek Fathers ever thought of but of the intermediate time of separation which is our business now in hand But because this Point is excellently well handled by an eminently Learned Person of out Nation who with unavoidable strength pursues it more at large in a Paper which came lately to my hands I will presume to give it my Reader in his own words at the end of my discourse Letter C. And further Sir for your more compleat and full satisfaction since with confidence enough you strongly assert That it is Incomparably false that either the Pope or Council ever intended to settle this Point of the delivery of Souls out of Purgatory before reunion I will add to the Paper of this great Divine the answer of a School-fellow of yours yet if I mistake not a much better proficient in your Masters Doctrine certainly much more ingenuous who vanquished with the evidence of this Truth acknowledges what indeed he could not with any modesty deny That this your new Doctrine of Purgatory stands condemned by both the Bull and Council and yet he was so captivated that he endeavours to sustain it by other grounds he had now learnt in your School My Reader shall find his Letter at large Letter D. Sect. 17. But before I pass any further since I have already told you that both Master White the Author of this Purgatory and his abler Scholars are armed against the Authority both of Popes and Councils it will not be out of my Readers way but very much conducing to my design of giving him a prospect of this School if now by some short reflections on the Doctrine delivered both by this ingenious Gentleman and Master White himself I make good that charge For by them it will appear to what unavoidable exigencies the defence of new Fabricks in Religion drive those who wedded to their preconceived Phylosophical fancies are resolved ro square their belief to them This ingenuous Scholar confesses That truly according to the opinion that the Holy Ghosts assistance in Councils and Consistories it without restriction or limitation the Paper delivered Letter C. seems to him to evidence a deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory before the Day of Iudgment But according to the opinion that the assistance of the Holy Ghost in Councils and Consistories is no longer then there is a diligent search to find out what Christ taught and the Apostles delivered as so taught there appears onely that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict did think it to be so which may raise opposition to a disobedience but not to an Heresie c. So that unless We shew that the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict determined conformably to Tradition Mr. Blacklowes that is Master Whites calling the doctrine and practice new will not savour the least of Heresie c. But foreseeing the strange consequences of this Doctrine he therefore Adds This puts all to a loss for how shall it be known that Councils and Consistories apply themselves aright Easily says he by examining Tradition of what you have seen and heard This is the common light and plain way promised to keep even fools from straying from Christs Doctrine Thus he Now Sir this Exterminating Doctrine was learnt in Master Whites School where it is but too too frequent And first as to the infallibility of the Pope without which no submission as to Faith can take place Master White * now being constituted by God a speculatour proclaims against it with sound of trumpet and tells us That to maintain the Pope to be infallible is Heretical Son Bu● and Tabulae Suffragiales tab. 19. nay Archiheretical tab. 20. nay the most Horrid of all sins the sin of sins and for fear we should want Examples worse then violating sacred virgins on Altars then treading the ever B. Sacrament of Christs body under foot Or bringing the Turk or Antichrist into the Christian Dominions Son Buc. tract.

hear what Pegna writes of him Eymericus sayes he A famous learned and holy man who was appointed the general Inquisitor of the Kingdome of Aragon in the year 1358. which is only 22. years after the Promulgation of this Bull from whence he was called to Avignon by Pope Gregory 11. and there being his Chaplain composed his excellent Directory gathers ten Heresies condemned by this Extravagant and most truly admonishes that so many Catholick verities contrary to those Heresies are thereby prooved and established The place at length out of this so Authentick a Writer I give my Reader at the end of my discourse Letter B. not to interrupt the continued threed of it for by it my Reader will easily observe with what strong confidence the youthful Scholars of this modern School appear in print And if you had been pleased to peruse the continuation of Baronius his Ecclesiastical Annals by Spondanus you would have rested satisfied in this our point for at the year 1333. he thus delivers the opinion of Pope Iohn the 22. then disputed which occasioned this Bull of Benedict his successour For sayes he in that year 1333. as Villanius Rebdorfius the continuator of Nangius and others witness Iohn the 22. then Pope began publickly to treat of what before he had conceived concerning the beatifical vision of Souls what not a few of the ancient both Greek and Latine Fathers Iustinus Ireneus c. did seem to hold That souls now severed from their bodies and duely purged from all stain of sin either in this present mortal life or in the next in Purgatory do not enjoy perfectly the beatifical vision of the divine essence before the last day of Iudgment but do expect the Resurrection of their bodies that together with them they may attain perfect beatitude and to this opinion not as yet altogether reproved or condemned by the holy Church this Pope John himself seemed to incline c. For which reason he gained himself very many Adversaries both among the Cardinals and Prelates and also of other Doctors of Divinity every where and Religious men of all orders And at the year 1334 the same Sp●ndanus delivers that this Pope John the day before he died published a constitution in which he condemned that opinion of which he stood suspected Now Sir when you have perused and weighed these things which I am confident you never dreamt of before for in truth you rested satisfied with what your Solid and cleer-sighted friends had told you of their new devised question of Charity as then disputed you will perhaps observe your error you will see it is not a little heat of youth which presses men of your years to appear in print or a little tickling vein which eggs young men forward to catch their Adversary with an O or an A and pass a witty jest upon him till age and experience hath ripened their discretion which can warrant a Book in the publick view of discreet persons You will be convinced that you were mistaken by your great good affection and esteem of your solid cleer-sighted friends and that in truth you have ingaged your credit a little too farr upon their authority Sect. 14. But this is not all I have to say to you The first fault of negligence and boldness even in this kind is perhaps pardonable in young men But I beseech you Sir how could those solid cleer-sighted persons give you the confidence to impose so grosly upon us to state us here a question of which the Bull delivers not one word of which Cherubinus to whom you appeal makes not the least mention and yet you confidently add All Learned Writers agree pag. 14. Where if you had not named Writers I should have judged you appeal'd to your solid clear-sighted Friends for in truth I cannot find any one Learned Writer who states this your new question as then disputed or defined And I cannot pardon this your so confident imposing on your Reader You tell us our present controversie concerning the delivery of souls out of Purgatory stands not here defined because the Word Purgatory is not in the Bull however it is sufficiently in the Council and the Pope decrees of soul● now purged And you require pag. 26. the Popes or Councils positive is or is not and unless I can shew this Position in terms Souls are purged before the day of judgment I run a hazard to contradict both the Pope and Council Which how to excuse from nonsence if compared with what you are pleased ou● of your kindness to allow p. 27. that the Pope was of the opinion that Purgatory might be finished before the last day which could not be contradictory to his faith is past my skill You know what it is to bring rods to whip himself And can you have the confidence Sir to tell us pag. 29. and elsewhere the onely and sole controversie was Whether perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven and all that the Pope intended to secure● by this present Bull Whilst the Word Charity is not in the Bull whilst there is not the least mention of it in the question even now related in Spondanus which occasioned this definition whilst neither in the Preface to the Decree nor in the Decree it self nor any thing that follows it the Pope pronounces of Charity I or no much less doth he declare either the affirmative or negative of this your new Question to secure it nor is there the least hint in Cherurbinus of it I gave my Reader his whole Compendium that he might see how far you were transported with the high esteem of your solid clear-sighted Friends when you appeal to him who thus agreeing with the Pope pronounces against you All Nor do your Arguments drawn from holy desires pag. 15. 16. or the future rewards and punishments which the Pope so earnestly inculcates in his Preface to this definition at all avail you Alas Sir the whole systeme of Christian Religion every part and parcell of it is directed to plant to kindle holy desires in our Souls and yet I think you will not easily avow there is nothing else defined or recommended to us in this whole fabrick but purely and precisely that perfect Charity brings an immediate heaven nor will it be any plea for you that this was then the question because the Pope ushers his Definition with this Exhortation to holy desires which might very well and properly introduce any Position of Christian Religion whatsoever and peculiarly this because by progress in vertue and holy desires our endeavours are rendred more effectual for souls in that distressed condition as very neer allyed to his Decrees concerning the state of departed souls For how neer a tye soever the one hath to the other though it were by an immediate necessary evident consequence yet it is highly unlawful to change the state of the present question and impose upon us that not it but some other thus allyed to it stands

of Purgatory cannot subsist or else the Council in our very point in question hath not only possibly or not impossibly but de facto proceeded to an erroneous definition de facto by this attempt hath fallen into an errour and de facto publisht it to the World And the Church which hath constantly imbraced this Faith hath de facto erred as well as it And now I hope your peremptory When hath received its answer your so many times reiterated question When is this purgation perfected comp●eated ended Take the Popes answer since I hope you are not so good a proficient as to detest and abhominate his authority to teach you faith before the resumption of their bodies and the general day of Iudgment Let the Council satisfie you if you are not poysoned with that detestable Doctrine that it may err too as well as the Pope being purged even uncloathed of their bodies presently Agree and reunite your self to the Catholick Church and be refractory no longer upon the itch of novelties of seeming wiser then all the Christian World ever was before you Sect. 21. But still you bite the Bridle these words so directly opposite to your errour are in these sacred decisions there they are and there they must remain maugre the Gates of Hell which shall never prevail against this Faith and when you have turned your self into all your postures you appear with this pitiful evasion these words are ●here indeed but say you pag. 19 20. c. they reach not home to our point The Popes ante reassumptionem c. before the reunion depends on the precedent words when after death they shall be purged and after the aforesaid purgation which words also should have stalked in great Letters This purgation is indeed supposed but no way defined and for the Councils Presently it also depends on the foregoing words being purged uncloathed c. which presupposes a purgation held by some divines in the state of separation but no way Decrees it and since the question was not then of the truth of this supposition as now it is but that then it was admittted without more adoe you grant us that in that supposition those words passed into the Pope and Councils Decrees The Pope indeed was of the opinion that the purgation ●f souls might be compleated in the state of separation but what does that concern you You lawfully dissent from his Opinion if you find reason but not from his Faith where he opin●s you follow him as far as his reason leads but where he defines you submit Now Sir as to this I wondered at your last word submit for I understand not you if you understand your Master We are here in a business of Faith and certainly you pass a very handsome complement upon the Pope when you tell him you submit to his definitions If this be real since your submission in faith can not be grounded but upon the supposition that he is infallible your Master will instantly discard you out of the School For an Heretick an Arch-Heretick for an introducer of Antichrist into Christendome This censure he hath fixt on this Doctrine as I have told you before But as to your plea though to use your own Phrase it is incomparably false as is before evinced nor can it according to your Masters own grounds take place in the Council where they proceed upon the depositum of Faith Yet to give you that satisfaction we will joyn issue in this your subtility as if your plea were allowable And in truth when you say that they proceeded on this as a supposition onely Yonr moderate Reader will much blame the boldness of this attempt because it will leave very ill consequences behind it and besides he will tell you that you had a very great disesteem both for the Pope● and Council and that you fancied them to be admirably ridiculous Persons who should proceed to definitions of Faith to declar● us Articles of our belief which regulate so much practis● on suppositions not only false but impossible The whole Christian World was in labour about the state of souls in Purgatory the East and Western Churches meet the diligent scru●iny of Divines make a search into all Libraries Papers Scrowls and after all these Throwes the issue is n●nsensical definitions upon not onely ridiculous and false but impossible suppositions If they had troubled their heads to tell us that when the Sky falls we shall catch Larks it had been tollerable the supposition had been foolish not impossible But to tell us and make ●uch a putther to tell us when you remaining yet what you are shall become an Angel what then shall happen when indeed nothing shall happen or any thing may happen is to render the supream Pastor of the Church the sacred Assemblies of ●h● shepheards of our souls a laughing stock to children And yet this is our very case according to you for upon this bare and impossible supposition that the purgation of separated souls might be compleated before reu●ion issued this impossible Doctrine that they were presently and before the day of Iudgment received into heaven And if you had but weighed those very Examples you use pag. 20. 21. you would have observed this What sense will this bear A Prisoner when acquitted by Proclamation becomes a free-man or Fire applyed to combustible matter presently burns if it be absolutely impossible the Prisoner should ever be acquitted by Proclamation or that fire should ever be applyed to combustible matter what practise can we regulate by such Positions and yet your self had a ●winkling light of it p. 21. for having asked your friend when you should see him in the Coantry You complain of his canting answer when he tells you as soon as he comes down he will visit you since as you say it was the confidence of this which made you inquire the other We must be confident then of the supposition or else what is drawn out of it is nothing If it were impossible your time should ever be out under this your new Master your setting up a new School for your self would signifie nothing If it be impossible That you should ever hav● performed your previous exercises your presently proceeding Doctour would be out of doors So ●hat without being an Oedipus if the supposition as you will needs have it that Souls may be purged uncloathed of their Bodies be impossible the definitions both of the ●ope and Councill are more silily ridiculous then any Fable in Aesop or Ovid for in these there is still some Morall or Physicall Mystery coucht for our Instruction in them nothing at all But how do you parrallel pag 22 23. your Adversaries proceed in obscuring some words in an obscure Letter or render it worse then if he should set in Cpaital Letters Christ is not risen from the dead and our preaching is vain in lieu of these words of St. Paul If Christ is not risen from the dead Then

let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS A● which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Docto●r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him