out the truth of the citation nor if he had found it true could have forborn to give a note on it in his History wherefore we may justly conclude that both Baronius and he held it for Apocryphal Now to his Testimony He sayth the Pope in a Letter to the Bishops of France in the Government of Lewis the third who had assisted him to recover his Seat granted an Indulgence to all c. Had he cited the words of the Popes Letter or expressed the fact more larger we might have guessed how much this Testimony was to our matter Now the words going equally for the quick and the dead or rather onely for the dead and given immediately to the dead which is a new story in the Catholick Church if it be spoken in the new sence of Indulgences no mention made of remission of sins or pains this being the first mentioned towards the dead and Spondanus in no reputation of a Divine I see not why this word Indulgentia should be taken for the remission of sins or pains due to Goâ— rather then for the relaxation of some Ecclesiastical Duties or Obligations which such Souldiers might have incurred in their life times in which times the stories record great violences offer'd by the Gentry to the Clergy and Ecclesiastical Liberty And if you object that it is not to my Divines purpose unless it be understood of the pains in Purgatory I answer it was his duty to have made his objection home who could not chuse but have the command of good Libraries in one whereof my last enterview with him happend For this Pope was no such man as to authorise a new Institution in the Church being infamous both for his loose life by which he is suspected to have given occasion to the tale of Pope Joan and for prudentia carnis that is Worldliness So that he is not much to be suspected of beginning of spiritual customs nor would such novelties have come gracefully from him Wherefore I know no elder then Gelasius the second who lived in the twelfth Age and though he were a little Ancienter then Peter Lombard yet cannot be esteemed before all School-men for Rome was not built in a day Wherefore if I had said the Scholastick Divines were the first inventers of these Indulgences it had neither been concluded false nor to have proceeded out of the ignorance of Antiquity Since your Divine acknowledges that St. John Damascen was Prince of the Scholasticks of the Greek Church who lived divers Ages before Peter Lombard But the truth is my chief aym was at this manner of explicating Indulgences by a Treasure whence every one got from the Pope a share to pay his debts which as far as I find came not into the indultive Bulls untill Clement the sixth's time which was two hundred years after Gelasius the second Of the which manner of explication your Divine treats untill the end of this Chapter But because it supposes many by-questions is not to be treated by snatches and therefore I shall put it off untill a more commodious place when all his Authorities shall be answer'd EIGHTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters Remarks of several Follies and Mistakes of the Author's Doctrin as also of Councils and Pope Benedict his Bull. 1. I had conceived good hopes I might have passed over the next Chapter with silence having found the Title of it concerns the two Councils of Trent and Sens knowing the Council of Sens went no farther then Trent that the Council of Trent was already shew'd to have nothing against our opinion and to contain it self within the verities acknowledged by both parties which also I found to be true and that the whole Chapter is employ'd to shew how really he thinks and would prove that we put no pains due to Gods justice after the remission of the sin which if it were true yet it follow'd not that we opposed the Council but that we missed in some Doctrin consequent which he would draw to be a contempt of the Council And the truth is for the main Doctrin of this Chapter I intend to remit it untill after the explication of my opinion for there is nothing in it to require any explication of the Councils but onely to see how consequently we proceed to the Doctrin of the Councils which we profess Nevertheless as the Scripture warns us in much talking there must needs drop some folly and so I am forced to some notes even upon this Chapter for fear I should afterwards forget them 2. My first note shall be that in his third Number he puts it for the Doctrin of Councils that sinners that be onely imperfectly contrite when they are with due disposition baptitized go immediately to Heaven Which is a false Doctrin and no where to be found in the Councils or Fathers but onely in new Divines 3. My second note is that he imposes on us N. 8. to say all the punishments cited against Hereticks by the Councils are miraculous Where as in the very example of David we put part of the punishment Miraculous and part to follow naturally from the sin Where also is to be noted that sweet Argument that the examples would prove nothing against Hereticks if they were miraculous Whereas it is evident their proof is so much the stronger the more manifest God's hand is in punishing after the sin was forgiven 4. My third note is that N. 10. he would perswade his Reader that we deny Bodily austerities are undertaken to satisfy the pains due to God's Justice and after he has made an exclamation in the same Paragraph he puts us to affirm that they are to be done for the taking away of passions or ill motions left by sin and that this is to satisfy for the sin passed And this himself calleth a weak reply made in our defence by which he confesses we hold the contrary to what he imposes and therefore it is injuriously layd upon us For how weakly soever we defend what we hold yet assuredly we hold it As for his oppositions I refer them to their proper place for they concern not authority 5. My fourth note then is that N. 11. he explicates the receiving of Baptism duly to be the receiving it sine fictione an explication I never heard before nor ever was given by good Divine For although it be necessary to come â—ine fictione to the effect of receiving Grace yet to say that this is all that is due or fitting or that men should endeavour to have to receive Baptism as they ought is a Doctrin I have not yet found in any Casuist and yet it is a point deeply concerns his discourse as we hereafter shall shew 6. In his fourteenth Chapter he intends to press the Council of Florence and the decree of Benedict the eleventh It seems therefore the oppositions made by former opponents are judged by him not sufficient and his friends indeed seem'd to
the best deeds are in Heaven the worst in Hell neither rewarded His answer is that the time of merit and demerit is passed which is true but nothing to the purpose For nevertheless it quelleth that Principle in common that to every act a proportionable payment is due Therefore the ground of their Doctrin is false and they must make pains due to sins for some farther end that is by rational Revenge not for pure Revenge 8. Number sixth he treats an objection which he mistakes For because in explicating corporal torments we sayd that by diversion they were alleviated or hinder'd as it is written in the life of St. Tâ—… that when his Lâ—â— was to be â—ear'd â—etting himself to study hard he 〈◊〉 not the burning he imagin'd the same to be meant of abstracted spirits and that they could also divert themselves whereas before he acknowledges for my Doctrin that acts are unchangeable in pure Spirits and our of this apprehension he teaches us that some actions are voluntary but not free a Doctrin true but not to the purpose My Argument then is out of the Doctrin of St. Thomas taken by most Divines for an Axiom that the will cannot be forced And the demonstration of it is plain and set down in St. Thomas Because force is against the inclination of the Person or nature forced the Will is the inclination of the person said to be forced therefore the act of the will is still according to the inclination and by consequence never forced This is so plain that every common Divine knows it and yet so mistaken by him that he distinguishes not between doing an outward action at which a Spirit wilfully grieves and the making by force an Action of the will and upon this score sets in array a squadron of places of Scripture to fight against a shadow 9. Number seventh he advances another question to wit why the omnipoteâ—t aâ—… should not haâ—e power by himself or other iâ—strument to make in the soul an afflictive Qâ—â—lity I gave you three answers One for want of a subject for in the Will there can be nothing but voluntary since voluntary signifies no more then the act of mans inclination The second Answer is because there are no such Entities as you call Species or qualities makeable as every one who knows more then trivial Philosophy can tell you And thirdly because God is no hangman but has all nature to serve him when he pleases to punish a creature and defiles not his own hands with such actions He steps on to fire and asks why that cannot torment a soul by some unknown way to us I answer because it cannot burn us for all that put fire put burning but burming seeing it is the dissolution of a thing that has parts cannot by all the Invention he can give to God be in a thing that has no parts therefore fire cannot torment but Metaphorically He says our Arguments have a thousand times been solved but because he takes not the pains to repeat either the Arguments or Solutions I also may pass them in silence Mine be in the eleventh account of my book of the Middle State of souls He may assign the solutions where he pleases Onely to his saying They are solved I must oppose my word that they neither are nor can be to sensible men that have not speculated beyond all reason He objects St. Austin I answer St. Austin affirms nothing of this point but onely presses an Argument of the Unity of the body and soul. I answer Philosophers affirm that Union to be of Actus and Potentia and that such an one cannot be betwixt a Spirit and Fire The meaning of those words and the reason why the same cannot be said of fire here is no place to declare It is enough they are Terms common in the School 10. He proceeds to prove that at least there is corporal fire in Hell because our Saviour shall say to the damned Depart from me you accursed into eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Another man would have proved out of this place that there was no corporeal fire in Hell For what can be more incongruously taken then to say that one had prepared corporeal fire to punish Spirits withall Wherefore this qualification of prepared for the Devil doth clearly manifest the fire to be spiritual If one who found his Garden dry'd with the hot Sun should send to Londen to buy a Pen-knife to water it withall would not any man that heard it judge him to be mad This sport he makes with God Almighty telling us that when he would punish pure Spirits he took corporeal fire which is far less fit for such an effect then a Pen-knife to water a Gurden And yet Christ expresses that the fire into which the damned were sent was fit to punish Angels that is nothing less then corporeal fire As for his Testimony from the Authour of the Dialogues I hope to have a time to answer it more largely then is here fitting 11. He presses farther St Julian's words that no wise man denies the souls of Reprobates to be detain'd in fire But to have made an Argument he should have added the word corporeal For truly the Scripture so frequently using the word of fire it is not for a good Christian to deny the word which were to affront both the Scriptures and all such as â—se without examination the same words But yet 't is the part of a Divine to admit of the literal word and understand the sense so that it may stand with God's Wisdom As for Bellarmin and Maldonatus's censures of temerity for resisting the consent of School-men I have answered it fully in my MUSCARIUM Ventilatione deciâ—â— to which I remit my Reader For such questions amongst ignorant people are â—ot to be much handled He presses farther how our explication of Torments is not convenient As to that of loss of past pleasures he says their state sets them above it In the which he shews himself ignorant of the nature of material sin for it doth subject the soul to things under its worth and therefore is sin and this subjection is far greater in Hell then in this World As to the delay of future glory he says we forget our selves to make that grieve the Souls since it is but one moment though it were of Millions of Ages Nor can I deny that I forget my self sometimes in speaking truths to them who are not capable of them Therefore I intreat him for the present to put instead of delay the not having of glory and if he pleases he may add while so much time ran for all this he knows to be my constant Doctrin that the Soul knows and grieves for And as for farther explication he himself hath remitted us to his 22. Chapter As for disordinaâ—â— affections remaining he says there are none as he hath proved but we reply'd It was Heresie to put Purgatory without them 12. In
men so wilfully seek to blind themselves and others in a question as clear as that two and three make five Suppose of those Divines whom the Pope heard in this question the one held that souls were delivered before the day of Judgment out of Purgatory and the other as stoutly deny'd it And the Pope asked them whether at least they agreed in this that whensoever the souls went out of Purgatory they went straight to Heaven and both answered yes they both hold that the Pope could not without nonsence tell them he would define that which they both agreed upon without mâ—dling with the question they disagreed in And if this be as plain as that two and three make five if it were the ordinary Rule and proceeding of the Fathers in the Council of Trent as every one may see in the Catholick History of it is it not pure frowardness and pertinacy in your Divine to spend some four leaves to prove this Nonsence But you may reply for him that there was no such opposition of Divines First I ask how he knows it for he hath cited never a Diariâ—… of what passed about making of the Bull. But suppose there was not doth what passed a day or a month before make the Pope's proposition as it lyes to be Sence or Nonsence And the substance of this answer by all probability your Divine had read in Religion and Reason pag. 69. since though without naming it he often cites it and yet resolvedly rambles upon other solutions without taking notice of this which was the main I would intreat my Reader who shall not be satisfy'd with this to read the place newly cited for this Divines Catching of Larks and Pope Joan is such stuff as deserves not to be looked into 13. In his twelfth Number he falls upon the Council of Florence but speaketh nothing of any consequence which hath not been answered Wherefore I reâ—it the Reader to Religion and Reason p. 58 59 60. 14. N. 13. he turns us back to his fifth Chapter where he had mention'd Gennadius and the truth is my answer there was short and must be still For although I am secure that what I there sayd was true yet I am desirous to see the Book it self before I give a fuller answer not to your Divine but to another who before him objected the same Authority a great deal more strongly against me There remains no more in this Chapter but to joyn in prayer with your Divine for the good man who published in English this Bull of Pope Benedict and the Council of Florence that every Judicious man may see who truly stand to their words and meaning and who do violently strain them against both words and sence NINTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his fifteenth and sixteenth Chapters Universality of Opiners no way obliging to Belief His bold and weak Challenges That the imagin'd Corporeity of Spirits grounded the Opinion of their Mutability What foâ—…ed and spread it A short Account of J. M's weak performances hitherto 1. HIS fifteenth Chapter carries for title The Verdict of the Catholick world for us A brave title 〈◊〉 and I will do him that right as to testify he follows it handsomely His first Argument is that suppose the delivery of souls before Judgment had been but a probable opinion yet Universal to all Pastors Doctors and leading Teachers for five hundred years it would be far more rational to follow it then another which should be pretended a Demonstration but for whatsoever the Auditour can tell may have some horrid Errour ly for a while couched in it which might in time be discovered To this I give two answers 2. The first is that in Metaphysical rigour of truth no multitude of men can be so vast no gravity and wisdome of them so high and great as to oblige any ingenious man to beleeve that which themselves profess they do not know whether it be true or no. â—or all Belief is grounded upon the knowledg of another If I be secured he does not know the thing I should beleeve upon his credit I have no ground of belief for upon this point he is a pure Ignorant If you reply though he do not know it to be true yet he thinks so I must answer that I ought to beleeve him the less seeing he is not so honest to himself but that he will cozen himself by trusting that to which his own conscience telleth him he ought not to trust Now this is the condition of all those who hold a proposition as probable And therefore though all the world for five hundred Ages had held the deliverableness of souls out of Purgatory onely as probable in rigour it made no advantage at all 3. My second Answer is more accommodated to human practise and it is taken out of Nature and Experience out of which St. Austin took it This distinguishes Mankind into two degrees One that is able fully and properly to judge of a truth proposed with due proof and as it should be The other that either for natural dullness or for unwillingness to take pains is not in state to look upon truth in it self and therefore is fittingly to be governed by Authority To the former no multitude nor time can bring obligation to refuse a well proposed Verity as long as the contrary Authority is uncertain The other ought indeed not to meddle but if by any necessity he must do beyond his reach it is clear the greater number ought to oversway with him as far as he is not able to weigh the worth of both sides By these two Answers you will see the pleading of multitudes of Opinatours will not much advantage your Divines opinion further then amongst them who ought not to meddle in such questions 4. Although this evidently ruines his Argument yet I cannot omit to shew another weakness unsufferable for its plainness For he adds that if they had no other witness then of the Latin Church for these last five hundred years this alone were not to be sleighted I pray why not Is not the contrary Testimony of the Greek Church predominant over the Latin where there is but an opinion of five hundred years on one side and one thousand five hundred on the other Nay put case the Greek Church were not against it considering that the subject is a matter not otherwise to be known then by Revelation were it not intolerable to bind any man to the belief of it otherwise then because it is revealed which if it were but of five hundred years standing were impossible to be For the Church professes no Revelations for her guide since the Apostles dyed If then your Divine professed no farther he must confess it to be a weak and ungrounded Innovation For supposing it cannot be known but by Revelation and that there has been no Revelations these six hundred years it is clearly wholly ungrounded And because the subject is a subject of Revelation that is
and pains which he suffer'd Out of which Doctrin depends a very ill consequence that not onely Christ's fancy but even his concupiscible part was subject to tentation and passion Now if your Divine doth not hold this why doth he apply it here to shew that the constancy of the Souls in Purgatory cannot abate their sufferings from extern causes and turn them to pleasures Another pitiful answer he adds that 〈◊〉 Torments of Purgatory do not cause the entrance to Heaven but onely remove what hinders it As if he that destreth Heaven were not glad to have the hinderances taken away 3. In his third Number he pâ—etends to answer the improportion betwixt corporeal pains and spiritual offences but by his great skil in missing of the question his first Answeâ— returns the question upon us as if we held that some are burned more grievously or longer then others at the Day of Judgment The which is a pure mistake of our Doctrin as I have often repeated His second Objection is of the bodies of the blessed and damned the which he mistakes also thinking those pains and glories to be immediatly proportioned to the Acts of Vertue or Vice which they are not But the immediate proportions are of the Acts of the blessed or damned Souls in their lives and in their ending states Now as these Acts are stronger so do they diffuse into their bodies different qualities and hence it followeth that the bodies are proportionably rewarded not that the good or ill of the body hath any proportion to the merits or demirits but because the dispositions of the bodies follow 〈◊〉 of the final acts and dispositions of the souls which have proportion 4. He presses Scripture First out of the Apoâ—alyps where there is no mention of corporeal and spiritual but meerly of demerits and punishments Secondly from Job Chap. 〈◊〉 desiring that his offences and punishments â—…ight be weighed in a pair of Sâ—ales What shall I say If your Divine were asked whether the least venial sin be not worse then all the Torments Job suffered he would say questionless Yes What then doth he mean to make of this saying of Job That Job was a Fool to make such a proposition Surely in his way no less can be understood But that we may not onely confute simplicity but deliver true Doctrin we must tell him that Job cast his eyes upon the Providence God useth over the good and bad in this World to shew to his unpitiful friends that those harms were not come upon him for his excess of misbehaviour beyond others but out of God's special pleasure So that this example is nothing at all to our question since it speaks nothing but of God's external Providence in this World 5. Like to this is his next out of Levititus where to several sins several offerings were parallel'd the which it seems he would have to be understood as if the gifts were the true worth of the offence which I believe our Casuists and Ghostly Fathers will not allow of Another Objection is from the Proposition made by our Divines to the Greeks and by them not admitted which in great words he vents saying All the Latinâ— Church stands accused of folly Here the force of the Objection lyes in the word folly a worthy Objection as the most of his are For no man doubts but every speculative proposition which is false may be in rigour called folly but civility gives this name onely to such falsities as are avoided by the most of that Art or Science to which the discovery of such follies appertain Now to make an Argument this Proposition must be termed folly though in the same breath he professes few do avoid it He repeats divers other Authorities which as far as we got the books we examin'd in the places in which they were first urged He adds the practice of Indulgences But every man knows they are proportioned to the Poenitential Canons not the Laws of Purgatory when it is sayd so many days or years pardon and for the plenary delivery it hath been heretofore discussed At last he comes to reason and there he tells us that God looks not on the Physical Nature of the Acts but upon the Moral But what this Moral signifies he declares not Now according to my skill I must profess that I take it to be a meer nonsensical expression when it is apply'd to spiritual acts For an act of the will is Morality it self and how much it is physically harmful to the soul so much is it morally naught and how far profitable so much is it morally good so that to distinguish moral and physical in intrinsecal acts of the will is but to give a bob instead of a bit a name instead of a thing a covered mess without any meat in it 6. In his fourth Number your Divine as it seems feels himself in some streights for he crys for room and not without effect for he hath found a matter of twenty Leaves to examin one discourse yet I fear he has not made room in his brain for truth which is so elevated that a fancy stuft with corporeal imaginations and the sounds of unexamin'd words can afford it no place Nevertheless I must try to break in if not into his yet into our common Auditours apprehension Si qua fata aspera rumpam 7. In his fourth and fifth Number he explicates my Arguments for the most part truly whether sufficiently or no our encounter must declare Number sixth he begiâ—â— his hattery with telling us that he hath shew'd it to be contrary to the Doctrin both of the Church and of our own profession Ch. 17. N. 12. and 13. Where our answer also is given as far as depends not from this place The substance of it is that a present relief of the dead by prayers is neither the expectation of the Church or understanding Persons of their own opinion who all teach we must remit circumstances and substance also to Gods high Counsels and will And besides it is declared how the unchangeableness of spirits hinders not that the souls have relief in Purgatory and that Relief at the very time of prayers is contrary to the very sence of their own Divines 8. After this your Divine is equivocated something strangely not distinguishing between the duration of a Spirit and our measuring of that duration For no man disputes this with him whether we apprehend the duration of Angels or Souls as we do the durations of Bodies and so say that such a thing or action endured so many days weeks moneths or years But whether their proper duration be conformable to our apprehensions or that our apprehensions be as to the truth a weak babling fit for us but far below the truth of the thing and no more like it then a Body is to a Spirit So he need not trouble himself whether our expressions be by true time for they are by that same time by which we measure our
an unknown Authour 1. WE are now come to the so often promised two and twentieth Chapter and hope to have the happiness to see the Mysteries worthy of so great expectation but they ly not in the first four Numbers whereof the first contains no more then a weak explication of my Tenets the which I will take notice of as occasion and his Errours themselves shall present In the second Number your Divine wonders to see all School-men taxed of Ignorance So should I to see his wonderment if I did not know the cause of it For every School-man who thinks himself sure of his conclusion cannot chuse but tax all that be against him of ignorance in that point But those Divines who think nothing to be certain or which is all one true for what is not certain is not true to him to whom it is uncertain have no reason to tax others of Ignorance knowing themselves to be ignorant in verity thinking there is no Science upon this Argument which to them seems evident We have as much knowledg as any body but we have no Science therefore no body has any The Major Pride and Vanity makes evident to them The minor experience demonstrates to them and others And the conclusion is not onely the Condemnation of all School-men but of human Nature it self But this must be born withall because they say it who call themselves All the world the whole Church c. though never so impudently I that do nothing but what every good Divine doth and is obliged to do that is to say who apprehend that all who hold not that which I conceive to be true are amiss in this point am unsufferable and to be condemned upon the score of many being against me Again your Divine wonders to see St. Thomas stand accused to have mistaken somewhat that followed out of a former Verity acknowledged by him And because it was apparent that this bore no blame but is a thing necessarily befalling to any Divine who writes very much and arises from the weakness of our nature your Divine adds out of his own Treasure that he is accused of missing grosly the which all who know my respect to that great Doctour know I would not say even if I thought it true His third and fourth Numbers are but a repeating of the same Doctrin and Testimony of St. Thomas 2. In his fifth Number he proposeth to shew that Angels and Spirits have change of Intellections and Affections And first he tells us how Angels and Souls come to know to wit by Gods infusing of certain Entities called Specieses of the which he bestows upon every one what is conformable to their natures and this in his first Number he takes for my Doctrin Which because it is not so I am constrained to lay forth a short declaration of my Doctrin in this point Which is that in an Angel out of the force of his creation his Essence is actually in his intellective Power that is is actually underderstood Now to understand a thing connected to his Essence the Essence it self is cause enough as the hollow of a bowl seen is sufficient to make us understand what globosity is necessary to the filling of that vacuity So out of the Essence of an Angel is to be understood both the quality of the cause which is to make it and the quality of such matters upon which the Angel can or is made to act that is God above him and Bodies below him as far as they have connexion with him And these two parts we think to be connected with all other Creatures whatsoever Whence the extent of his knowledg we conceive to be all existeâ—t substances and all their actions which follow the substances As for the manner of his knowledg instead of syâ—â—ogistical discourse we conceive to be such an intuition as sometimes we have after we have found a truth by discourse and for the most part have in the assenting to those Verities which we call per se nota So that an Angel sees in his Essence that there is a God as clearly as we see the verity of this truth that the whole is greater then its part And in the same manner he sees in God that God hath made the world and so every other verity as it hangs to these by a connexion in vertue of which we might draw the same consequences if we had Science time which he draws without time by force of pure intuition and intuitive strength He cannot then know the farther conclusion without knowing the nearer nor any other without knowing his Essence 3. You will easily see by this that an Angel cannot have the knowledg of a particular thing or accident without having the actual knowledg of all the causes on which it doth depend and therefore that his actual knowledg is extreamly large To which if we joyn that whatsoever is foreknown strengthneth and prepareth the understanding towards the succeeding knowledg you wil not fear the understanding's being clogged with too many objects And out of that you will see a necessity that the Angel must see all things at once unless there be some that have no connexion with those which are linked to his Essence and that such he can never see unless by some unnatural means And so you have my thoughts of the manner and extent of Angelical knowledg And the like apprehension I frame of separated Souls though there be some differences which concern not our present quarrel In his sixth seventh eighth and ninth Numbers he pretends that this our Doctrin is against many verities which we know by Faith Whether these that Angels know not future things depending of hazard or the present secrets of mens Hearts or the number of elect or damned be any of these which he thinks to be of Faith I know not but I well know that I know no ground why they should by any understanding Divine be so accounted and since there is nothing for them but some places of Scripture enlarged beyond the intention of Scripture and one prayer of the Church and all these in common without any special mention of Angels attributed to God alone in which kind of speeches God is commonly understood to include his Ministers and to be contradistinguished onely against the knowledg of Men without entring into the nature of Spirits unknown to us and not concerning our government in way of Christian life to be curious of The like is of the souls knowing what their posterity do in the Earth taken out of the 14. of Job Which out of the Hebrew Text we understand to be that the dead man takes no notice of his posterity non advertit eis to wit he meddles not with it or them which is also a legitimate sence of the word ignoravit when it is said Esay 6â— Abraham nescivit nos Israel ignoravit nos See Muscariâ—m Ventilatio 7. 4. In his tenth Paragraph he cites out of St. Thomas that
of others how near soever bound to him hinders nothing the confecution of his Beatitude and so is desirable no farther then the procuring of it is the best means to gain his own and that is by desiring of it wholly indifferentlyas concerning the providence of Almighty God 12. A fourth proposition is that the desiring or praying for the goods of others is many times good for us when the obtaining it is our good to wit when we are not raâ—…onal enough to abstain from wishing and desiring such a good For then our desire of such a temporal or accidental good hath the strength to make us lift up our Hearts to God and exercise Acts of Vertue which is a great good to us when peradventure if the effect were granted us it might be our harm or destruction A fifth proposition follows out of these that there is no certainty of effect when we pray for others unless we pray for known goods and undoubtedly conformable to Gods providence such as are the good spiritual and temporal of the Church in common or else we have some particular instinct from God Almighty to pray for such a thing in particular the which peradventure happens oftener then our selves know or can give account of The conclusion is clear For seeing all other Goods are indifferent and depending from Gods providence and onely these kind of goods determin'd to us to be under Gods providence we can have no certainty of the grant of others seeing we have no warrant of being heard for any but for our own good as the experience of so often missing the effect of our prayers when we pray for teâ—…poral things do put out of all doubt And for any man to contend that our prayers are still heard where we cannot perceive whether they be or no though it be evident in things where we have experience that the event is very uncertain is to play the Juggler as Astrologers and other Fortune-tels do and to be contemneed and condemned 13. Coming now to apply this Doctrin to our question As it is certain that prayers for the dead in common have effect so to come to particulars and to say that it hath effect upon this soul or that soul is wholly uncertain but certain it is that it hath good effect upon him that prays Therefore clear it is that prayers for the dead are to be recommended to the faithful for the living's sake For it is a clear case it doth a great deal of good upon them It puts them in mind of death of Judgment of hope of Resurrectfon and loving it where they shall meet their friends and towards which alone they can assist their friends It makes them see and loath the Vanity of the World out of which they lose their friends and see that they must have their time to follow and quit all this good which here delights them It makes them love their friends and kins-folks or children more spiritually And because it hath all these effects the stronglier how more vehement their affection is to their deceased friends therefore they are to be more incited to pray for them then for others But because mans nature is fram'd so so as to expect an effect of his prayer God hath not left us without hope of great goods to our friends in the day of Judgment by our prayer and the Church likewise in all her offices puts us in mind of it and to pray whatsoever faults our friends carry out of this World they may be all forgiven then That day comprehends all Gods gifts from death forwards It is the full of Christian hopes and desires Fear not that if there be any good to be granted before this day but that praying for this day you pray for it It is all preparation to this day and if it go before it shall not be lost for this days coming so late But praying for this day we pray for what we know out hopes are certain we shall not find our expectations deceived Those who aym at receiving good in the mean while trust upon promises no where given upon the presumption of men speaking without ground upon a hazard as if the goods which are certainly promised were not enough to satisfy the longing of mans natural Appetite The teachers play with their Auditours as Nurses do with Children tell them lys to still them untill their longing be passed and then care not whether it prove true or false This is not Christs way who is Verity it self this is not the Churches way which is the Pillar of truth but the Inventions of such as would dandle weak souls with a present content 14. It is time now to look into what your Divine objects for he seems to be in choler He tells us we use loud exclamations purposely to cool the laudable practise of such who by their Will and Testament leave a strict obligation to their Executors to procure the next morning or as soon as may be all those Sacrifices to be offered which they intend for the relief of their souls though they should be thousands yea though they should take no special order to have many offered after that time He does as he was wont to do and as Don Quixot gave him example to mingle some false and some true to shadow the false For the multitude of Masses I no wayes dislike so the intention and practise be right and conformable to the Circumstances that the Church requires That which I dislike is that the practise of hudling up of Masses seems to make a great dependance on the Execution of the work more then on the Charity of the Donour If the Action of the Donour be out of Charity and discretion I make no difference as to that consideration taken alone whether the Masses be sayd in three days or three years I do not believe God's fore-sight is so short that he cannot accept of that this day which is ordered to be done three years after I depend not from the explication taken out of the Authour of the Supplement whatsoever later Divines follow it I pronounce the Masses to do so much more good to the Soul the more good they do to the Church of God and the Priests who say them No man can deny but the Action of causing so many Masses to be sayd is the better by how much wiser and commodiouser it is I expect the profit of the Soul from Charity and Prudence Therefore I conclude where there is more Charity and Prudence there is also more profit to the Soul As your Divine has read Make unto your selves friends of the Mammon of Iniquity so I have read That the poor Widow offered to God more then the rich men And shall I not think that her two Mites redeem'd more pain due to sin then the Sacrifices which were made by the Rich-mens Gubbs He that will teach otherwise let him seek other Auditours I will not be of his School I believe that
actions which cause men to be good in this world are more to be recommended to comprehensive souls But if any one thorough subjectness to passion and shortness of discourse is more moved to Charity by corporeal apprehensions then by strength of reason this praying for the dead is well proposed to him Though the truth is it doth enervate the perfection of Charity not onely in it self by entrenching upon true resignation but also concerning the special fruit of praying for the dead of which the wise man admonishes us saying it is better going to the house of wayling then to the house of banqueting because in the former we are put in mind of the end of all men And J. M. himself cites out of St. Austin that when we celebrate the days of our dead Brethren we ought to have in our mind that which is to be hoped and that which is to be feared that is to say the day of Judgment What a strange humour then is this of men who pretend to devotion to cast away the substantial certain and ever in all Antiquity practised part of praying for the dead to set up a new fallacious uncertain way against the orders of the Church forbidding vncertainties to be taught publiâ—…y to the people against the perfection of those who pray to whom they preach to determin God and to desire a particular effect of which we neither have any promise that it shall be granted nor know whether it stands with Gods providence and even common rules of Government Let then Priests say their Masses and Offices according to the words they find in their Missals and Ceremonials and not frame sences that are not in the words Let them pray as all the former Church hath done and not frame out of Origenical or Chiliastical Principles new inventions to magnify themselves by having some priviledges or more power then others Let them first make it plain that what they profess hath better grounds then such as the Popes call the dreams of devout Persons in their prayers before they impose upon our belief new Articles of Faith Let them not oblige Divines to think that falsities may be solidly connected with Faith and such like Doctrins destructive of Truth and Religion and Devotion I pray also inquire where he found those words in St. Austin whence he father'd that gross absurdity upon him that some should be damned for want of time to be prayed for For I read the Chapter he cites twice over and could espy nothing like it Your Servant T. W. Errata PAg. 28. l. 25. as this is 48. l. 1â— in these 〈◊〉 63. l. â—8 swoun 65. l. 19. struggle 66. l. ult alter the story 67. l. 〈◊〉 â—…ir Inquisition 68. l. 11. severe l. 20. consider how much the torments of this 77. l. 27. we acknowledg 109. l. 28. that the Pope 154. l. 28. If this way 160. l. 18. for fear of being l. 28. knowing 180. l. 6. then we â—udg 181. l. 23. if mine 182. l. 15. Alcuinus 183. l. 24. essence of 184. l. 6. one whether 190. l. 20. not sute p. 19â— l. 6. by â—s 24â— l. 23. change but. 249. l. 16. Peripateticae 253. l. 2. for we FINIS A short Letter sent after the former SInce I writ the former I have found commodity to see the cited Books which before I wanted And can give this accompt of them The Authour of the Oration imposed upon St. John Damascen is an unexcusable Heretick The intent of the Oration to perswade men that however they live they may come to Heaven by other mens Prayers He puts Infidels to have been deliver'd out of Hell by our Saviour Jesus Christ at his descâ—â—sion which St. Gregory declared to be Heresie He puts perfect good works without Faith against the constant Doctrin of St. Paul which is perfect Pelagianism He puts that the Heathen Philosophers knew almost all the Mysteries of our Faith as much as we hear of the Sibyls And to make it wholly fure that he is an Heretick he doth more then half profess his Doctrin is his own invention and that he has evinced against the Prophet saying In inferno quis confitebitur tibi and against the present persuasion of Christians that there is confession in Hell As for Gennadius whom he presses likewise he is of the same stamp He teaches St. John Damascen found this Doctrin of praying for the damned He takes the whole sum of Doctrin out of that Oration He onely cousen'd the Latin Fathers in pretending in common to hold prayer for the dead And being returned into Grece joyn'd with Marcus Ephesinus to annul the Union made in the Council of Florence The work of St. Isidor I find to be none of his but of some Authour who lived about the beginning of the Schools he so perfectly useth the School-terms and so his Authority is no more then of a School-Doctor As for St. Julian of Toledo it is true that he holds the opinion of our Adversaries but so that he confutes their intention For having proposed the question he is so far from saying it was the opinion of the Church that he resolves it as upon his own head and that uncertainly with a Puto I think alleadging St. Austin for his saying whose sentence you have heard examined already So that his Authority is no greater then his ghess that so it is as St. Austin ghessed there might be some such thing So that we have out of St. Julian that it was not the credulity or received opinion in his days By which you will understand how small performances accompany the good mans great boastings And see the growing of their opinion St. Austin ghessed it possible at most for he professes onely not to oppose it The Authour of the Dialogues credited unlikely Revelations St. Julian ghessed it positively St. Odilo and those who follow'd him took it up for certain upon private Revelations The later Greeks upon the like Revelations took praying for damned souls And upon the combining of these two your great Doctour seeks to make it an Article of Faith These short Notes I thought fit to acquaint you with to compleat your satisfaction which done I rest Your Servant Tho. White FINIS