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

knowledge all erroneous judgments corrected in them their grief depending on this that their affections to corporal pleasures are greater then in proportion to other desires which ought to be preferred it would not be inconsequent to t●is Doctrine That those damned souls now seeing most evidently that other desires ought to be preferred before these affections to corporal pleasures since this errour is now rectified and they in a condition by re-union with the body of changeableness they should also rectifie their affections which are but these judgments and by consequence become now Denizons of Heaven which also might seem to become the Mercies of God and render the state of the Blessed more happy there by their company Sect. 41. Tenthly You entertain your Reader pag. 36 c. with scoffing at hallowed Grains sanctified Beads the extending of Indulgencies to the next World which you style External devices Vtensils of a thriving Devotion deluding Priviledges c. which perfectly befits a Scholar trained up in Luthers School thus he began And you are not content with this you retrive again in the same place and fix upon your Adversary that signal calumny long since fixt upon the Church for the use of such things That she goes to Heaven by such things not by holy desires Nor even pretends that such things promote souls in holy desires or increase sanctity in them In which you speak against your own Soul and Conscience For you very well know the Church is not guilty of this nor your Adversary who will tell you that he beleeves with St. Paul that if he had faith able to remove mountains yet it would not avail him without charity and further tells you That such things as you here enumerate do increase sanctity and holy desires in us and render our prayers more effectual for the Souls in Purgatory Eleventhly You tell us in your Postscript That private calumnies are whispered against Master White as holding strange Opinions which his own Books contradict I have also heard something of this and I think our informations jump you may peradventure find it hinted at in this discourse Nor need that Gentleman fear your title of a Calumniatour or that his Authority will not carry it nor indeed will it be engaged in the Quarrel he is provided of a Defence I have shewed him that very Doctrine in terms in your Masters Book which he had told him in Private it is ready for you you shall have it when you please to call for it And I wonder those solid persons acquainted with every ressort of his Learning did not see it Lastly You add Your Master hath this comfort That his carriage needs neither fear the exemplarity of his Adversaries lives nor his unparalled Learning the force of their Arguments In which your Reader will be perswaded that you were not a perfect Scholar in Galateus his School The Publisher against whom you write is a Person of eminent exemplarity and for my part where your Masters Pen is not engaged I have been edified by him even in his Writings I find some things most excellent but why comparisons should be made I do not understand You and I being private persons hope still the best and pray for all those whom we desire to better by our example But because it is both laudable and lawfull to magnifie the good and pious lives of men I joyn heartily with you in this Encomium of your Master And if you now design to advance in order to his Canonization and can make good his Faith which is the first Quaere of that Court I shall very willingly give testimony to the exemplarity of his Life I wish from my Soul his Doctrine would appear intirely and fully Catholick and for the rest you have my Vote he may be beleeved as holy as St. Iohn Baptist Sect. 42. And now Sir I hope to have given you some satisfaction in our point in controversie We as yet have proceeded upon this unshakeable ground That the Councils are unerrable in their Decrees and upon this I have received a very ample and full one my self I do beleeve That Souls are purged uncloathed of their Bodies and presently received into Heaven before re-union with them And that the Council and Pope deliver this Position I must see if I have eyes and I hope you will by what is said And this hope is heightned in me because my Conscience tell me I have proceeded with as even a hand as I could in balancing what you have said against it with that which I have said for it If I am byassed naturally on either side it is on yours Nature prompts me still to wish the Church and her Faith were not engaged against you Your opinion would at one blow ease me of that incumbent care to assist my dead Friends But I have learnt this work of mercy from a Child to pray for the Dead which in your Systeme as I have evinced is fruitless But alas Sir this business of Purgatory is not that which so much troubles my head though it be one I have a deeper fear I am pressed with the consideration of this new molded Theology I see this demonstrative Doctrine this pretence of reducing the mysteries of Faith to our narrow brains this hope of introducing Science in lieu of Faith into the World strikes much deeper then yet You imagine Nor am I at all confident of your solid cleer-sighted Friends who are acquainted with every resort of Master Whites Doctrine I fear and I think not without Reason the Church and He have nothing common but words for the notions and significations are quite different But our Faith lies not in the sound of words but in the sense and meaning of them When I am told Souls are not purged in the state of separation but onely at re-union though the word Purgatory yet remain my Faith remains not of this Article And so it will fare with the rest I do beleeve Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our souls in Baptism I do beleeve holy Iustif●ing Grace by which we are the Sons of God is something inhaerent in our souls and my notion of these things which are supernatural is that they are of a different order and series then Nature But when I am now taught God is the Author of Nature but showrs not down into us an other series of things of an other or differing order Reason is Nature to us and the perfection of Reason is Demonstration Though at the same time we are taught That God perfects Nature by supernatural things yet I suspect the word supernatural being still the same that now it is become aequivocal and signifies an other thing with him then it does with me I do believe the ever Blessed Trinity to be Three real Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost Yet where I find this most sublime mystery pretended to be Demonstrated by what is Essential in God to know and love

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

himself when I find it so brought down to our capacities that it is pretended The examples of Logick and Natural Phylosophy equalize this Mystery when I am taught That the Father and Son in Divinis are Metaphors I have a great apprehension that this Doctrin and my hitherto received Faith agree but in words not in the things signified by them I do believe That God most freely and of his own goodness built this Vniverse I believe He is not necessarily tyed to the order or course of Nature And when I am now taught That God must contradict himself if he Act any thing against Nature That Out of the force and series of Nature nothing could happen better to Iudas then to be damned In fine God should cease to be God if this Flye should not now be in nature I fear though we agree in this word God our apprehensions jump not at all Christians apprehend and adore the liberal free hand of their Maker but a God tyed to any thing besides himself is not a Christian God but a Pagan Iupiter I do believe upon Christs words That if I keep the Commandments I shall enter into life and this is the foundation of my Doctrin of manners And when I am now taught That God neither commands nor forbids any thing However we agree in these words Thou shalt not Steal Thou shalt not commit Adultery my whole Doctrin of Morality is banished by this assertion It will hereafter appear your Master hath furnished us with a fa● other Morality then ever Escobar thought of What do you think of this Position of your Master in his book of Government and Obedience ground 6. speaking of himself An other man says he is no otherwise to me then a peece of Cloath or Wood which I cut and shape after my own will fittingly for my use Even though I do him harme or seek his ruine It follows not I wrong him How well doth this agree with that Principle of Nature That we ought so to do to others as we would have them do to us In summ where I see a pretender to Demonstrate all the Mysteries of our holy Faith and that Faith shall cease and Evidence take place I justly fear though the words are still retained this is but to supplant Christ and his Doctrin our notions and significations of words must be changed or else these stupendious Mysteries can not be levelled to our weak capacities But though these be my apprehensions yet I wish I were mistaken I wish these new Doctrines may receive such Explications that they may appear no less Catholick then those I profess and shall be as happy to receive satisfaction as you to give it me but withal I must frankly promise you that I shall require your satisfaction both in these and many other Doctrines I do acknowledge with thankfulness that one may be instructed by Master White whose excellent Wit and Pen if duly applyed is admirable but if I mistake not he hath flown beyond the bounds fixed by an unerring hand and therefore desire you to accept of this serious Protestation That I have an intire respect for his Person and if any harsh word hath escaped my Pen it is the Doctrine not He that is concerned in the Epithete the same I speake and intend to your self Though if you consider the case aright where not only whatsoever is sacred to Catholicks but what the Heterodox-Party agree with them in is thus attaqued Where the foundations of Christianity and of all Religion the Liberty of God and Contingency of Creatures is thus attempted by a Lucretian Galamawfry Phylosophy to make way for a new Demonstrative Religion such an exotick design deserves not a more mild censure then what I have fixed upon it and yet I hope you will nor find your too too frequent Calumniating Adversaries or any thing like it in my whole booke If you think there is any animosity in my Discourse I heartily beg your pardon we daily say Sicut nos dimittimus where these heats are easily allayed and for our present Controversie of Purgatory let us patiently expect the determination of our undoubted Superior the Present soveraign Pastor who as the Florentin Council here tell us holds the Primacy over the whole World Who is the Successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ and the Head of the whole Church and the Father and Teacher of all Christians And who finally had full power delivered unto him by our Lord Iesus Christ in St. Peter to Feed to Rule and to Govern the Vniversal Church To whom we will Candidly Fairly and Religiously and not by any false suggestions or surprising friends as you most strangely suspect pag. 40. and thereby at once condemn both that Supream Court of Weakness if not of Corruption and your adversaries of Dishonesty remit the whole Controversie and humbly submit to his Judgment both in this Particular and in all other Disputable Points whatsoever FINIS THe Publisher desires my Adversary to take notice That if there be any thing in this Discourse which depends on matter of Fact in which he desires to be satisfied he is ready to give him intire satisfaction before any Person of Honour by undoubted Witnesses A THE BULL OF Pope BENEDICT the Eleventh Otherwise called the Twelfth Promulgated in the Year 1336. Concerning the State of Departed SOULS Faithfully Translated as it is in the Roman Bullary Printed at Rome Anno Dom. 1638. Benedict Bishop the Servant of Gods Servants To the perpetual memory of Posterity BLessed be God in his Gifts and Holy in all his works who through his mercy forsakes not the Sacred Roman Catholique and Apostolical Church which his right hand hath planted as his Vineyard and which he hath raised up as chief and Conqueress to be the head of all Churches our Lord saying to Peter Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church but by his blessed Apostles especially Peter and Paul the singular Defenders of the same Church keeps her through his compassionate Benignity and continual Piety that she being governed by these Rulers may remain stable in her self as founded upon the firm Rock and that all the believers of the Christian Faith may obey her may yield to her may intend to her may live under her authority may be under her discipline and correction That in her nothing may be taught rashly nothing brought in unwarily nothing in Faith unadvisedly introduced and that so men may decline from evil and do good that they may walk in the right paths and make progress to better things by their holy desires that they may hopefully expect the neer approaching rewards of the eternal life of just men and fearfully dread the not far off calamities of Hell appointed for the wicked For it is written Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to render unto every one according to his works But if it shall