Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A65795
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The middle state of souls from the hour of death to the day of judgment by Thomas White ...
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White, Thomas, 1593-1676.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing W1836; ESTC R10159
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87,827
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292
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third an explication of the ancient practise of the Church in praying for the Saints Pag. 13 IV. That S. Pernard only excepted all the rest of the Fathers deâ—y'd not to the faithful departed the Beatifical Vision before the day of Judgment Pag. 25 V. The fifth proof from Scripture is again urged and two others added Pag. 34 VI The eighth and ninth Texts are considered Pag. 42 VII Some places of Scripture apply'd by holy Fathers to confirm the same truth Pag. 51 VIII Testimonies from all antiquity maintaining the same truth Pag. 55 IX That the proofs of the opposite opinion are modern and betray their novelty Pag. 69 X. The first exception against the opposite Tenet from pure revenge Pag. 78 XI Two other Exceptions from the supposition of these pains to be involuntary and corporeal Pag. 92 XII Four other exceptions from those pains being to no purpose unproportioned to the sins of an Indivisible duration and endless Pag. 100 XIII Two other exceptions from the non-connexion of such pains with the sins and their being supposed to remain due after the fauls forgiven Pag. 110 XIV Of the punishments which we meet with in the sacred Scriptures and of the remission of sins Pag. 120 XV Three other exceptions that they neither truly take off the punishments nor rightly make them due nor in sine make any real Purgatory Pag. 136 XVI The thirteenth exception that their opinion is opposite to the expressions of Scriptures of Fathers of the Church of the Councel of Florence and Benedict XI Pag. 144 XVII That the ignorance of spiritual natures begâ—t this opinion Pag. 151 XVIII Objections from the holy Fathers against our Doctrine answered Pag. 158 XIX Of the authority of Apparitions and Visions Pag. 166 XX Of the authority of Visions compar'd with that of History together with a particular examination of some of them Pag. 17S XXI Whence wonderful events come to be foretold without any supernatural assistance Pag. 38 XXII What is the benefit of prayer for the dead Pag. 197. XXIII That the Practise of the Church as far as its words make known it's sense favours the ancient opinion Pag. â—07 XXIV That the Practise of the Church as it is visible in action makes likewise for the same truth Pag. 218 XXV The nature and history of Indulgences Pag. 225 XXVI That Indulgences generally taken make nothing against the ancient Doctrine Pag. 234 XXVII That particular Indulgences granted for he dead argue not the universal practise of the Church Pag. 243 XXVIII That the Vulgarity of the opposite opinion ought not to prejudice the true one Pag. 251 The First Accompt The Introduction and state of the Question THough such be the beauty of reason and such its soveraignty over humane nature when rightly disposed that no force of authority can be capable to weaken conclusions once demonstrated for what can authority presume unless reason pre-assures us of its veracity or how can reason give it that testimony having a demonstration against it yet is it not lawful for me to treat the question I have now in hand without first consulting the sentiments of antiquity I am endebted to the unwise as well as the wise and see them far more numerous who pin themselves upon authority few being able to sustain the esclat of discourse evidently and rigorously connected Besides it well becomes the dignity of the Church in which I live and is requisite for the satisfaction of those without her to make it clear that our forefathers generally do not dissent for me in this controversie This then shall be my aime in the following Treatise First to illustrate the nature of Purgatory from the sacred Scriptures and monuments of holy Fathers next immoveably to establish it by Faith or Principles evident in Nature but before all give me leave to summe up and state the whole controversie as it is on both sides asserted For the Church her self hath herein defined nothing more then that there is a Purgatory and that the souls there detained are reliev'd by the prayers and suffrages of the faithful The Vulgar modern Divines embrace in a manner generally this position That the deficiences of men are some mortal and punishable with eternal misery others venial and expiable by temporary sufferings Mortal lapses if repented they absolve from eternal condemning them notwithstanding to time-limitted torments So that suppose an imperfect Christian departed whose venial sins no satisfaction at all hath cancelled whose mortal an imperfect one hath diminished these Doctors admit him not to the beatifical vision but provide for him a subterraneous cave fill'd with flames and horrid instruments of torture which his there confined and imprison'd soul must till expiated endure And these pains they thus far suppose like to those we here experience that they are inflicted by extrinsecal Agents and against the will of the patient conceâ—ving moreover that they take their proportion from the measure and nature of the crimes committed in the body according to the estimate of Divine Justice Nor can these torments by any industry or force of the soul it self be evaded though by our prayers who survive they may be mitigated and before the otherwise due and prefixed time determined The same relief they fancy from the satisfaction or merits of the Saints if by the Church to that intent apply'd Thus these later Divines from whom in this discourse I must for the most part take leave to dissent I acknowledg in humane faylings a difference betwixt mortal and venial nor do I deny an imperfect remission of mortal impurities But I place not this imperfection in that the Sin is totally cancelled the pain only remaining but in the change of an Absolute into a conditional affection as it were instead of I will substituting I will not buâ— Oh that I lawfully might This sinner therefore concludes that an eternal good is to be preferr'd before that which he abandons and in his life and actions preferrs it but looks notwithstanding back upon it as amiable with a wishful glance not unlike the Cowes which bearing the Ark did bellow to their Calves shut up at home The affection or inclination he had to temporal good is restrain'd not extinguish'd of mortal become venial changed not destroy'd Being therefore by the operation of death as it were new moulded and minted into a purely spiritual substance he carries inseparably with him the matter of his torment in the like manner as he also doth who takes leave of the body with his affections only venially disordered Wehave no occasion here to employ infernal Architects to invent strange racks and dungeons since the innate and intimately inhering strife and fury of the affections teâ—t against reason perform alone that execution which is therefore proportioned to the sins because springing and resulting from them nor ever otherwise possibly capable to â—eâ—se and determine unless the soul by a new conjunction with the body become again susceptible of
us it is most evident that originally it was new and in respect of Catholick Faith can never cease to be new and consequently may at all times be segregated from it and can never lay claim to antiquity since the contrary was and ever will be more ancient But nothing is more apparent then that abstracting from Revelation there remains no one ground in Christian practise or Faith whereon to establish real flames or fire interceding betwixt the hour of Death and day of Judgment If therefore that perswasion can be known to have been introduced after the Apostles dayes it is and ever will be new and inferiour to the other which teaches that in the last day alone those material flames are to act upon us But that this conceit was of a later date then the Apostles S. Augustine to Dulcitius quaest. 1. will assure us 'T is not incredible also saith he that some such thing may be after this life and whether it may be so or not may be examined and either be discovered or continue hidden to wit that some of the faithful are by a certain Purgatory fire so much sooner or later saved by how much more or less they set their affections upon transitory goods Perceive you not that the Purgatory flames we are now discoursing of and their nature were such as in S. Augustines time had not yet been search'd into and the search such as perhaps might admit of a discovery perhaps not After S. Augustine let S. Gregory himself be heard a person beyond exception and the Father of the opinion it self In the fourth Chapter of his Dialogues he brings in Peter demanding why in those latter dayes so many things come to light concerning the condition of souls which were before unknown and this question is started immediately after the story of Paschasius freed from the Bathes and his answer acknowledges and confirms the truth of the demand Venerable Bede shall be our third witness whose history imbued our Country with that opinion He sufficiently declares that England embraced it upon the credit of a miracle wrought on a certain soldier whose chains fell off when Masse was said for him as supposed dead We may therefore conclude that this opinion is to be accounted new and no wayes comparable to the Doctrine of purgation of souls in the day of Judgment which extends it self to all Christian times and regions Lastly the Councel of Florence it self shall give us Testimony For as in other Articles then debated betwixt the Greeks and Latines the devision being made indifferent to either side it remains confessedly safe and lawful for Catholicks to hold which they shall see good so in this which was likewise discussed because the Latines having first propounded it and the Grecians abstractedly explicated theirs the Canon was at last framed abstractedly the Greeks were permitted to retain their own which in a book treating particularly of this subject they thus declare We from our Teachers have not received the Doctrine of Purgatory fire and punishment by temporary and ceasing flames nor do we know that the Eastern Church hath any such perswasion Which gave occasion to Fisher that learned and holy Bishop of Rochester to think they deny'd Purgatory whereas they deny'd it only in the sense of the Schoolemen And now looking back upon what hath been deduced a kind of unexpected miracle presents it self to wit That so many and so familiar expressions of the Saints hitherto lying open and subject to censure and esteemed as it were criminal should on a sudden put on a new face and come forth adorn'd with truth and candor These three Propositions I chiefly mention That the Saints may lawfully be pray'd for that they are yet detained in the Entry or Porch or Avenues of Heaven That they are all to pass through the fire of the last Judgment whereby themselves shall be approved others suffer detriment and finally be saved yet so as by fire All which from our grounds are convinc'd of manifest truth and with a grateful return give no less Testimony to our Doctrine placing it under the protection of Christian discipline and defence and with their impenetrable files securing it from all hostile attaques The Tenth Accompt The first exception against the opposite Tenet From pure Revenge HAving thus from the Oracles of Holy Scripture and Fathers laid the foundation of our Doctrine we ought no longer to delay the Superstructure But be at length permitted to have recourse to Reason which presupposes the basis of Faith and that she may have less of disguise let us by our first exception in part devest her thereof Those against whom we are at present armed maintain that all venial affections whatsoever which at the hour of death possesse the soul are by contrition in the very first moment of its dissolution cancelled and erased yet that the soul her self is precipitated notwithstanding into Torments for her past offences We on the other side That parting from the bodie she continnes in and still pursues the same affections which in this life she had contracted and that those very self same affections become her torment till the last day of Judgment when she is again enabled to retract them Our first exception then against our Adversaries is that there can be no such pains as they suppose which thus we prove If there be any such they must be purely vindicative But it becomes not God to inflict torments upon departed souls through the sole Motive of Revenge Therefore there are no such torments in Purgatory as they fancy due for the past offences of holy souls The proof of the Major proposition is obvious being our Adversaries own concession for they expect neither merit nor other advantage accrewing either to the souls themselves or any other either single person or community from these pains but purely a satisfaction to the Divine Justice which that it can have any other notion then of Revenge they go not about to shew According therefore to their opinion as far as I am able to apprehend it these pains are purely Vindicative I come then to the proof of the Minor and observe that Revenge is twofold publick and private In the publick I observe the Magistrate to aym at the cutting off from the Common-wealth an evil member disturbing the general peace thereof whether it be by such chastisements as are apt to correct the sufferer or by Death or Banishment which exterminate his person with this farther design to prevent future evils in the Common-wealth by deterring others prone to the like excesses by the sense of their sufferingâ— From both these considerations a Judg may fairly challenge all honest mens thanks for the penalties he inflicts I am not ignorant that there is also a third ground of inflicting punishment to wit the satisfaction or comfort of him who received the injury which seems chiefly to have had its place in the law of