of as great mutability as time hath mutation is in potentia another thing to the proportion of the changes of time as because a man who walks can stop and the flame of a candle go out in an instant therefore the consistency of a material subject as to our minds consideration is but moment-strong and we can affirm nothing of it in force of contradiction more durable then the unchangeableness or identity of time which is purely a thought or an abstraction Out of this it follows that if we put in spirituall substances a more then momentanean constancy we must also put the force of contradiction in them proportionable to that constancy or identity of it self to it self Now your self seeming to admit this constancy under the name of aeviternity in spirits for a future eternity it seems to me you should admit nothing in spirits that is not compossible together in the subject and by evident consequence that not to have an act and to have one in the same aeviternity is as impossible as not to have and to have in the same instant of time You will peradventure tell me this position ruins some common opinions in Divinity and my brittle Vindicator would tell me it moulder'd away his faith Sir if you be of the opinion that Theology is arriv'd to its non plus ultra I am not I think many now common and probable opinions will in after ages be demonstrated against and prove erroneous and therefore the pure authority of Divines who build upon pure reason hath no farther force with me then their reason And I think I have learned this lesson out of Saint Augustin as I am sure your self also have how ever in practice apparences may seduce you from the exercise of it as if you believe it consonant to Scriptures Fathers Councils c. without a legitimate examination of them which when you go about you find them to be easily eluded by the glosses of blasted Authors many of which kind of Authors nevertheless Saint Hierom in his Comments upon the Scriptures was used to cite that men of understanding might see in the variety of divers conceits what truths might be picked out even of blasted Authors as Aristotle out of the verities mingled among false opinions drew his own demonstrations The rest of these Chapters is but an explication indifferent to both sides in which as you admit in Purgatory a disposition to charity so me thinks you should to the change of affections by it And whereas you say that the soul is extra viam the common Tenet of Divines should admonish you that she is not in state to have new revelations and changes which are the propriety of Via Notes on the tenth Chapter WHich is for its Positions entirely true and holy but you seem to suppose as true some misinformations or misapprehensions concerning your Adversary as that he questions generall traditions and calls them novelties which how you can do who know Saint Austin testifies in his time as yet the question was not agitated and that each part might prove either true or false and that the Authour of the celebrated Dialogues expresly teaches they were unknown till his dayes and from thence till Saint Odilo's time very little esteemed or noysed How such an opinion can chuse but be a Novelty in respect of the Church of God I cannot understand or that six hundred years ago with a known beginning can enroll it into the practices or doctrins delivered by the Apostles passes my reach As for the universall sense of the Church I hope the Council of Florence's act will demonstrate the contrary as you may see in my answer to the Vindicator whither I beg leave to remit you The Text you cite out of Saint Austin is excellently true Quae universa tenet Ecclesia ab Apostolis praecepta bene creduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur but with these cautions That the Church that is the community of Believers as such not as a multitude of men hold them as of faith not opine them only to be current truths else every common perswasion grounded on any probable Reason or Authority would become an unchangeable Article of Christian Religion and in this I think I have your consent if I mistake not the the 32. Chapter of your Systema which I formerly cited and desire my Reader to peruse the whole Chapter being excellently pertinent to this purpose As also Verons general Rule of Catholike faith which I hear is newly translated into English There you shall see how warily that experienced Controvertist proceeds in separating faith from opinions No doctrin says he begun since the Apostles though confirm'd by miracles and those miracles reported by Saints or approved by generall Councils or attested in the Bulls of canonization can ever be an Article of faith Nor is the practice says the same Auhor even of the universall Church a ground firm enough to build a point of Catholike faith upon because the object of faith is truth and the Church often guides her practices by probable opinions which upon occasion she may change And for Decrees of Councils the same Doctor maintains and cites Bellarmin for his opinion that unless the Council proceed conciliarly that is by due examination c. and define properly not barely affirm a thing by simple assertion and occasionally as it were en passant it does not oblige our belief and which is highest of all though the Council decree expresly and professedly a Doctrin debated yet unless it be defined as a truth to be believed with Catholike faith they are not properly heretiques that hold the contrary What you deliver that one mans satispassion may by way of impetration satisfie for another and profit him is very acceptable and none but they who mistake the words can dislike the sense for we see humiliations accompany solemn prayers both in the Law of Moses and Grace and nature it self teaches us it is a convenient habit for him that intreats mercy Notes on the eleventh Chapter WHere I see very little for me particularly to except against but that you term our Tenet an Innovation which name better becomes your own But this is an Indulgence to be granted to the conceit every one has of his own arguments For the opinion that the sensitive or corporeall part of man is capable of venial sin in it self and so of goodness I neither have nor will have any thing to do with it You say 't is taught by the most speculative Divines as Scotus's Scool and Cajetan c. I dare not meddle with such great men As for your Opiniators you speak of I cannot point you to a fairer example then the Vindicators Creed which he hath declared to be his faith in his Discourse against me To the touch you give about probable opinions the question is too great to engage in on so slight an occasion The place you quote out of Saint Austin seems not to concern the
NOTES ON Mr. F. D's RESULT Of a Dialogue concerning the MIDDLE STATE OF SOULS In a LETTER from Thomas White Gent. PARIS MCDLX To his much esteemed Friend Mr. F. D. Ever honoured Sir FOR such both your Prudence and Learning have made you to me and specially your rich Systeme the citing whereof in this your Result gave me full notice of your Person though many good passages in your Book did partly interpret to me the fairly prognosticating Ciphers of your Name in the Frontispiece I am glad to encounter an adversary who knows what Divinity is and can in due proportion mingle together subtilty with civility Therefore I also intend to my power to joyn the satisfaction I am able to offer you with the respect your grave carriage of the controversy deserves being really perswaded it was no interest nor passion moved you to write nor vain glory to put it in print but the intreaty of such who may command as you ingeniously express your self and a cordial perswasion of the truth of your Tenet To begin then with your Preface give me leave to advertise you of a mistake as I think in the word Aristophanes which I will courteously hope you conceive imports no more then a Divulger of high and mysterious truths among people uncapable of such Doctrins for so your following discourse intimates But because Aristophanes did it with Flouts and Jeers for which the sect of Poets whose writings were called Comaedia prisca was silenced some Readers may possibly interpret you to cast a blemish on a Person whose true worth and vertue as much secures him from deserving it as your discreet and friendly nature can restrain you from meaning it Afterward you add that the Gentleman who rendred that Treatise into English was instrumental of great scandal You are not ignorant that scandals must come nor am I that woe be to him by whom they come But both you and I are bound to understand those words with this necessary caution by whose fault noâ— by whose act they come Else even our Blessed Saviour himself was an occasion of scandal but such as woe be unto them who are scandaliz'd in Him The Quality therefore of the cause not the effect is chiefly to be examin'd ere we charge on any so foul an imputation Turn then your impartiall eyes on the two sides of the Controversy and see the great and many inconveniences visible and sensible that grow upon the Church in case the Affirmative which you sustain be false You are not one I 'm sure who think Priests cannot be too many but wisely judg their number well contriv'd when the ends they are ordain'd for are fully comply'd with so that the Church be neither over-charg'd by the multitude nor unprovided by the paucity of her spiritual Governours Consider the dignity of the Office and the difficulty of observing its Obligations and you wil soon discover 't is too high and perfect a Calling for a multitude Consider the mischief if the unworthy Priests of which some few I confess must still be tolerated while we live in this World of flesh and blood bear any notable proportion to the number of the worthy ones how the sacredst Profession on Earth is under-valued their Sermons inefficacious their Sacraments neglected and the whole life and vigour of Christianity extenuated and endanger'd Consider what a vast crowd of young Scholars thrust themselves into these holy Orders by occasion of getting Souls suddenly out of Purgatory to which they often think themselves sufficiently qualified with a very mean degree God knows of Vertue or Learning Consider how apt this opinion is to breed in all the World a neglect of venial sins when they shall be taught that a Mass or two or a few prayers put a period to all their pains they can fear in Purgatory And as for mortal sins even they also will find too much encouragement from so slack a Discipline T is but being afraid of Hell and upon that receiving Absolution and then procuring some devotions especially if in a proper place and the Soul that has lived its whole life in folly and worse is instantly taken up into all the glories of Paradise What can more dangerously weaken if not quite abolish that best and onely immediate disposition of our Souls for Heaven the hearty love of God above all things what can be possibly more prejudiciall to them that are in the Church or more scandalous to them that are out of it Consider farther how widows and poor folks defraud their children and Parents of such helps as else they could afford them did not the eager hope of a hasty release from those dreadfull pains divert their charities another way And truly in my conceit with a great deal of reason if your opinion be the right for who to deliver himself from the rack would not think it fit his friends how near soever should suffer a little hunger or who that believes your tenet is not bound in true and wise charity to purchase at any rate even with the disinheriting his posterity so great a happiness to his own Soul as the enjoyment of Heaven within a day or week after his departure from hence nay more what heir is not oblig'd in duty to give away the vain riches of this transitory world to gain so speedy an Eternity for his Father whose over-loving him perhaps made him need it Add to this the unedifying imputation of Avarice and Fraud upon such as gain by these offices and I pray God it be without just cause while they promise far more then they know they can perform The words they expose to the people on the faces of their Churches and Altars speak roundly like fair Chap-men let a Mass be said and the Soul of your friend Shall be deliver'd or to that effect and who can be uncharitable enough or such a silly Merchant as not to disburse a little to procure so great a benefit at so cheap a rate but when you come to examin the performance on their side it amounts to no more then this short payment They have offer'd up their prayers for you and must leave the success to Gods mercy and this is well and the truth but why then did you tell them when you took their mony that their friend should be deliver'd in what Court would so fraudulent a Plea be allowed If you will expresly undertake for my ten or twenty pounds which I really give you to pay my debts and free me out of prison and when I look for Effects as reall as my mony you put me off with this cold comfort that you have intreated for me but must leave the decision of the cause to the sentence of the Judg. May I not expect you should shew me at least some assurance from the Judg himself that he wil effectually release me that within the time you made me believe when I parted with my mony and may I not if you
too credulous to fabulous narrations In it are recorded the famous tales of Trajan and Falconilla saved from Hell by the prayers of Saint Gregory and Saint Thecla There is the monstrous story which you are pleased to recount to your Readers of an Heathens scull that told a good Eremite they received some comfort when they were pray'd for Which story is taken either out of Palladius his Historia Lausiaca or else Evagrius his Vitae Patrum of which Saint Hierom testifies onely the first life to be true and even in it is that notorious Romance of Macarius Romanus And of the former the same Saint Hierom testifies he was an Origenist wherefore the Authour of this Oration attributed to St. John Damascen is justly fear'd to have himself also been one seeing his fine stories aym at the comfort of the damned Besides our Criticks tell us this story is imposed on the great Saint Macarius being originally written of another of the same name and the Oratour adding that the answer was from God whereas the Original attributes it to the scull of a dead heathen Priest and so far likelier came from the Devil All the rest you say in this Chapter is just the Doctrin of your Epistolar Antagonist as far as you let us understand his mind and mine too to wit that to deny prayers profit the dead cometh from the Devil The general resistence you plead against this Doctrin of Souls continuance in Purgatory finds a parallel in all popular perswasions how weakly grounded soever which none but discreet persons can endure to hear opposed And for the answer I intreat your pardon if I remit you to my late Reply to the Vindicator For the rest you seem to press us that we must take your sence of the Fathers and Councils telling us it is the onely ingenious one and others are but extorted meanings Truly I believe you speak what you think but I desire you think what you speak that is examin it well for I believe your thinking is bred ex consuetudine videndi your education hath been amongst them who dayly practis'd it you hear the Bells ever ringing to such devotions you see the custom spread over all the Western Church and do not lift up your eyes to the beginning of it and therefore you think it was ever so and that it is the sence of those great Authorities But I cannot omit a by-word of yours that it is easie to elude the Fathers by the voluntary glosses of blasted Authors Is this spoken like a Controvertist like a victorious and crowned Champion over Heretiques and that by weapons out of the Fathers as you are esteemed and worthily too When you bring Fathers against any of them do you profess they may be easily answer'd by blasted Authors Whence then comes it that in this Controversie you flie to an evasion so unprofitable to your self injurious to the Fathers and advantageous to the common Enemy but that you esteem the Fathers you bring come not home to the point and that they must be inched out by a pious affection whereof to tell you my mind I believe all speciousness of piety which prevents the understanding from being indifferent to judge of the truth is in very deed a piece of impiety and temerity And in our present Controversie if the words of the Fathers by which they attribute purging of souls to the fire of Judgment be not beyond contest I will yeeld the whole cause Some I have cited in my Treatise and more I can cite if necessity requires but if they be why is it not lawfull for me to alledge them though Heretiques make use of them for an evil end charge either the Fathers for writing so or the Heretiques for abusing them however I I am free Notes on the second and third Chapters THese 2 Chapters go without Proofs being as it were but inferences from the pretended Ones of the First and consequently their fate depends on the fortune of their Leaders which I hope I have already sufficiently disabled Yet give me leave here to add one Caution that may accompany you in your journey to ask all the Catholick world whether they believe a Release of Souls out of Purgatory ordinarily obtainable before the day of Judgment as an Article of their faith or onely assent to it as a current truth which they never doubted nor ever examin'd Should you proceed thus warily I believe your number would strangely diminish how many think you would fall off as not conceiving themselves able to examin so hard a Question how many of the learned would confess the more they impartially consider it the more they discover reasons not to be too confident of its being a point of Faith especially if they have the fortune to compare it with other common perswasions which themselves acknowledg Universal and ancient yet not of Faith as that of material fire now in Hell and Purgatory c. how few then will the number of your Voters be set but aside all those who think there 's literal fire there which you are bound to do because they believe it cerraintly yet is it not of Faith and presently your multitude in Spain Italy Turky and Soria whither you went for witnesses will shrink into a slender and inconsiderable number Whereas you add we never read in Scriptures Fathers or Councils that all those that go to Purgatory must necessarily be detaind there without any relief till the day of Judgment I answer first 't is but a negative Argument Secondly It plainly agrees with my Opinion who hold them relieved there as well as you though I explicate my Tenet another way Which here I intend in brief to shew you Wherein that we may proceed more safely let us first see how far we agree and where we begin to differ We agree that there is a Purgatory and that souls there detain'd are helpt or reliev'd by the prayers of the faithfull We begin to differ in explicating what we conceive by relief and we wholy disagree in the time of ordinary deliverableness Your conception of Relief I imagin is that when prayers are said for the departed their souls are really changed from the state of pains they were in before to one of a milder affliction where they must expect till some new cause raise them a step higher and so by degrees having past over all those steps are at last admitted into heaven your self will agree these words are metaphoricall and translated from our manner of speaking and I gather and conceive the sense too of these words is translated from our thinking and indeed if we mind our selves well we shall still find our words of the same piece with our notions now we being conversant onely with our bodies frame all our notions after their measure and speak and think too generally of spirits and even of God himself as of things we daily commerce with Do we not still fancy such motions changes and other operations
among Angels as we see here among our selves Does not the very Scripture in condescendence to us use the same method In most of which cases both you and I are equally engaged to seek out a wiser meaning then appears in the naked expressions this task is common to all Divines to endeavour the verifying these phrases so grosly absurd in their bare letter by an explication that may strictly and rigorously maintain them to be true The Spirits I shall treat of to this purpose are God the blessed in heaven and the souls in Purgatory And to begin with God the beginning of all things what do we conceit of him when we read of his being angry and pleased his resolving to punish and afterwards repenting his having eyes and hands his going from place to place his abiding from generation to generation his seeing successively and decreeing conditionally and a thousand other instances all this Divines must and do find ways to verify of One simple and absolute unchangeable Essence whose being and knowing and willing is altogether without the least shadow of succession for ever All this Divines will say was perfect in God from the first instant as I may call it of his Being that is from eternity and yet our condition obliges us to speak and even think of all this in a way infinitly below the severe truth though more or less approaching to it according to the pitch of our capacities For Angels as we read many of the like passages concerning them and their actions so the like explications with observance of a due proportion betwixt the Creator and the creature be applied to them The Angels we know rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner and sure it were no blameable practice to allow for that joy some little share in our intention and perhaps to begin a particular devotion directed to the increase of joy in the Saints and Angels would be as laudable an invention as some that are highly commended Every day new sinners are converted every day new joy is among the Angels for those conversions How must we fairly reconcile the difficulties the Scriptures say they receive joy and Divinity sayes their nature is fixt In our solemnest oblations we pray it may profit the Saints to glory and our Doctors hold they are in termino and no longer in the Way Can a change consist with fixture and a going on with being at the end in rigor we see it is impossible and therefore must cast about to find out the Riddle which is not so hard as we imagin if we take the right course to seek First let us sever the parties Scriptures and Liturgies are on one side Divines on the other Were the question of the truth of the words without precisely determining the particular sense I should clearly follow the former but if it be onely of the Propriety of their signification and what is severely verifiable of them I make no scruple to adhere to the later and this without the least diminution to the other The authority of those I confess is more sacred and venerable but the reasonings of these I cannot deny are more exact and artificiall each fittest for its peculiar office Those undertake the instruction of the world and perform it according to the capacity of the persons they deal with these onely intend their notions for the Learned and their highest praise is to illustrate and fortifie and improve true Religion by true Reason But to come neerer our particular question when we pray to Saints or Angels do we not hope we move them then to go make their addresses to God for us which they were not doing before do we not expect that at the time of our prayers to them they should entertain a new affection of charity to us and even ground our devotion on this expectance and wisely too till our understandings be elevated to more perfect apprehensions yet in a strict Examin all these our conceits are very unsuitable to what really passes among these pure spirits Nor are we disappointed in the least of the fruit of our prayers though we never so much apprehend the manner either of their hearing us or interceding for us which assurance ought to suffice the unlearned whose sincere devotion will infallibly save them without these subtilties the more speculative heads will find if they search for it other satisfaction To these inquiries perhaps this one consideration may give some assurance it is clear in God as we said above all is eternall and whatever we read or imagin as done successively in Him must be entirely verified of his first instant were there any such beginning of existence in his perfect eternity Why may not the same be affirmed proportionally of Angels whose being though neither independent nor infinit yet is purely spirituall and their duration altogether and consequently the joy our good works give them was really in them at their beginning with relation indeed and dependance on our conversions which were to happen afterwards in succession of time but lodg'd in their brests altogether at first by the large sore knowledge wherewith their bounteous God endued them else what a strange perpetuall motion would there be in heaven if every good or bad work of all the men on earth should beget a new affection of joy or grief in all the Angels of heaven I suppose our sins displease them as they do God and contristate them as they do the holy Ghost nor shall I so far distrust my Reader as to doubt his admittance of the same conclusions for Saints as well as Angels since they both agree in the common notion of Spirits To apply this now to our present Case As our conversions procure joy to the Angels without making any new change in them why may not our prayers procure relief to the souls in Purgatory without making any new change in them As all that we express in terms of succession whē we speak of Angels is in Theology sufficiently verify'd by referring it to the first instant of their fixed being why may not also the Relief we impetrate in succession of time for souls departed be sufficiently verify'd by referring it to the first instant of their fixt being or separation I confess I know not how to find an unevenness in the two sides they are so exactly parallel Addition of joy in one diminution of pains in the other new honour to the one new relief to the other and both from the same act the same prayer the same oblation If the whole body of Catholikes expect to alter the sorrows of the souls departed do they not also expect to advance the honour of the Saints and Angels nay even of God himself If that be universally practised and with such hope is not this so too If the common people feel their imaginations check at our interpretation of that would they not be as much startled did they strongly reflect on 't at the Schoolmens