Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A65798
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Notes on Mr. F.D.'s Result of a dialogue concerning the middle state of souls in a letter from Thomas White.
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White, Thomas, 1593-1676.
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1660
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Wing W1838; ESTC R27876
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31,093
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81
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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
especially should my Vindicator proceed close and pertinently like a serious man and an ingenious Schollar for so I should have more time to attend on the weightier matters And most of all if he would enlarge himself a little upon the same Question in his next Vindication for I shall be glad to be directed and assisted by any one But if any be so unexperienc'd as to imagin all that is deliver'd or decreed is absolutely of Faith let him satisfie the instances commonly urg'd by Divines of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady of the souls being the Form of our body and many other such truths universally assented to but not admitted into the Catalogue of Articles In fine if this last be your opinion you will find very few wise men of your mind if the former you are equally concern'd with me to separate Catholike from Theologicall Faith or any other Proposition of inferiour qualification The Conclusion THus have you my Opinion on your Result as full and particular as can be expected from a weak understanding subject to negligence and oversight yet to my power sincere and captive to the love of truth I hope you cannot be offended at my oppositions for I have that esteem of you that you are a lover of truth and not sway'd by passion or interest but only prejudiced by the force of custom and the reverence of School-opinions Censures though I think they belong to the duty of a Divine fit to shew his works to the Sun yet in this piece I have used none And though the unwary compliance of this age with Error makes me esteem'd censorious yet my heart told me I was oblig'd to do so when ever I engag'd my Pen into it and that I spared far more Opinions justly blameable then I censured because I deemed them not so pernicious as to force me to it The style I have not much regarded holding that both the matter and my age warn me not to be sollicitous of it but rather to speak quinque verba in meo sensu quam decem millia verborum in lingua In a word if I gain your Opinion of my sincerity let the Controversy it self speak for the truth and the reasons which are on both sides I must acknowledge my self ever obliged to you that you have shewn our Catholiques how to demean themselves with moderation towards one another in litigious disputes and with these thanks make way to your credulity that I am Your cordiall Friend and Servant THOMAS WHITE Postscript BEing inform'd that some few scrupulous and I fear unsatisfiable persons object against my Religion and Reason that it takes no notice of those words even before the Resumption of their bodies c. on which they chiefly ground I could not I confess at first but wonder at their prejudice which had so imprinted those words in their fancyes in Capitall that they could not see or know them in a lesser Character For I not onely took notice of them in my 34 and 35 pages and put them down at large as in the Bull cited by themselves but addrest my self purposely there to show them as impossible to favour their Cause as 't is that the Subject of a Proposition should be the Predicate which every smatterer knows to be in Logick the highest absurdity imaginable Besides in divers other places of my Book where any thing was attempted or urg'd from those words I offer'd my satisfaction to their difficulties with what success the Books must shew In the mean time I crave the favour upon occasion of their miscarriage in this that none would lend too easie credit to objections whispered in corners which are afraid to appear and justifie themselves in writing under their hands If any such be offer'd I shall both take it as a favour and acknowledge it my duty to satisfie them If not 't is so like the way of clamour and detraction that all persons meanly prudent will I hope neglect them and so shall I. INDEX AEviternal things not changable by Time p. 37.38 S. Ambrose's Testimony not prejudiciall p. 29.30 The opinion of Ante judiciary Delivery by occasioning the multitude of unworthy Priests harmfull to the Church p. 5.6 impairing solid Devotion p. 6.7 injuring civill Duties if follow'd p. 7. Fraudulently practis'd by many ibid. The Effects of it is true uncertain p. 9.10 The Church not chargeable with these Abuses p. 10. Censures allowable among Divines p. 67. S. Chrysostom's Testimony not prejudiciall p 31 32. Charity to be used in managing Opinions and why p. 12 13. Composition how found in Spirits p. 51 52. Delivery in the day of Judgment not singular in being universally held yet but an Opinion p. 12.16 18.19.26.61 not prejudic'd by Priviledg'd Altars and Indulgences rightly understood and sincerely practis'd p. 65 66. Delivery from Hell pray'd for in the offertory p. 34 35. Devotions not warrantable glanc't at p. 63 64 65. Identity of Time why necessary to Contradiction p. 57. Iudgment-day desirable p. 43 44 45. Language concerning Spirits how verifiable p 21 22 23 c. Penance how held by the Authour p. 38 39. Prayer when perfectest p. 50 51. Prayer for the dead manifoldly beneficiall p. 45. to p. 50. of equall efficacy in the deniers as the holders of Ante judiciary Delivery p 30 31. Priority of Nature not found in a pure Indivisible p. 38. Relief in Purgatory in the Authors Doctrin from p. 20 to p. 28. Reuelations even of great Saints how errable p. 69. Those of Gregory and Bede generally contradicted p. 32 33.72 This later unconsonant to Faith p. 70.71 That of the dead Skull examin'd p. 14 15 16.72 Sins remoining in Purgatory granted p. 39. Seuls separate why unchangeable in true Peripatetick Doctrin p. 40 41. This Incapacity of change the Result of their nature p 55 56. In what sence supernaturally deliverable before Iudgment p. 73 74. Tradition alone sufficient for Faith p. 35 36. Translating the Middle State not criminally scandalous p. 4 5. but judiciously pious p. 10. occasioned by others p. 11. Not this but the Adversaries carriage forbid by the Council of Trent p. 42 43. FINIS