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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28164	Purgatory surveyed, or, A particular accompt of the happy and yet thrice unhappy state of the souls there also of the singular charity and wayes we have to relieve them : and of the devotion of all ages for the souls departed : with twelve excellent means to prevent purgatory and the resolution of many curious and important points.; De l'etat heureux et malheureux des âmes souffrantes du purgatoire. English. 1663	Binet, Etienne, 1569-1639.; Ashby, Richard, 1614-1680.	1663 (1663)	Wing B2915; ESTC R31274	138,491	416

Purgatory Survey OR A Particular accompt of the happy and yet thrice unhappy state of the Souls there ALSO Of the singular Charity and wayes we have to relieve them And of the Devotion of all Ages for the Souls departed WITH Twelve excellent means to prevent PURGATORY AND The Resolution of many Curious and Important Points Printed at Paris 166● To the truly Noble and Vertuous Lady Mris. D. C. Madam THough this Survey of Purgatory address it self to all Roman Catholikes in general yet is there not the person to whom it is more peculiarly devoted nor indeed any from whom it may with more confidence look for shelter and entertainment then your self For were it a meer stranger to you yet am I so well acquainted with your noble humour and civility to all your guests as not to despair of a friendly wellcome But since it was so lucky as to receive its first birth or at least to begin to breath our English Aire under your roofe it is certainly there it may best challenge countenance and protection now it comes to appear abroad and expose it self to publick view And if I mistake you not you are neither so wedded to the pleasures of this transitory life as not to be more concerned for what passes in the other world nor so taken up with Playes and Romances the usual employment of your sex but that you can lend an eye or an ear now and then and with delight too to spiritual discourses though running in a lower strain not so agreeable to the quaint Palats of our times Howsoever I dare promise you here no unpleasant entertainments I am sure at least you are read a very pleasing lecture in the last Survey For while you see the way for you to scape Purgatory chalked out you will clearly find your self already in it as practising most of the twelve means there prescribed To say nothing of the rest in which no doubt you have a large share I cannot but take notice of two of the most important I mean your singular charity to the poor your patient suffering for a good cause Your loyalty and your noble Consorts to God and your King even when you saw others to renounce both was very remarkable and I think I may safely say with proportion to your Estate you were as great sufferers upon this score as the worst of times could produce And yet you were never so great loosers your selves but you could still have the heart to spare a very liberal proportion to relieve others I could bring instances and enlarge my self upon each particular did not your modesty give me a silent check I will only then conclude with leaving you this comfortable satisfaction to know you are in the ready way to redeem a good part of your Purgatory in this life if not all as he most heartily wishes you may who must ever subscribe himself Madam Your most obliged humble Servant R. T. A Prefatory address to the Catholike Reader Dear Reader THe drift of this Treatise is not to prove Purgatory but taking it for granted as a prime maxime of Catholicism that God has a suffering Church in the other world besides that which triumphes in heaven and is militant here upon earth the design is to set it forth in such lively colours as may not only express its nature as far as we are able to judge of it at so great a distance but raise your thoughts first to a compassionate care for the present of procuring all possible relief for such distressed souls as are already faln under the lash of those merciless torments and secondly to a provident prevention for the future that the like mischief may not involve your selves hereafter Now this being the chief aime of these my labours I am put upon a kind of necessity of giving you the trouble of this Prefatory address For should this Survay of Purgatory fall into any other hands but yours it could look for no better entertainment then to be laid aside for wast paper such as would be some strange Map or Survay of another world which had no other subsistance but in the brains of the Painter For why should the enemies of truth whose belief reaches only to heaven and hell amuse themselves with the consideration of a third place for which they can find no place in their Creed And yet though I presume this will be its common fate when it meets with such persons yet I am very confident the judicious Protestant if he can but find in his heart to peruse these Papers especially the fifth Survay will find more then enough to convince him of this middle state of Souls which we call Purgatory Now to say the truth of this Treatise I know not well how to profess my self the Author nor yet the Translator of it Not Author for I must acknowledge the maine bulke and substance of what I offer to be borrowed of the Reverend Father Steven Binet of the Society of Jesus Not a bare Translatour because I am to do my self so much right as to tell you that I have not tied my self so wholly to that worthy persons method or matter as not to yeeld a little now and then to my own genius but have so made use of his learned pen as to dispose abridge or enlarge where I took it to be more for your satisfaction in this conjuncture of time and place wherein I was to puhlish it As for the language I have taken care neither to have it so bald as not to sute a little with this eloquent age we live in nor yet so flourishing and luxuriant as to dry up the fountains of devotion which I seek to open And if all my endeavours prove but so lucky as to occasion the releasing of any one soul out of Purgatory or the conveying of any other into heaven without passing that way I have my end which is only the greater glory of God and the good of souls There was a Roman Emperour would never dine but he would be feeding his eyes and his thoughts with the contemplation of the torments of hell and the pleasures of the Elizian fields which he had caused to be curiously painted and exposed for that purpose in his dining room I do not press you to use any such devotion or pictures I only offer you this Survay of Purgatory which I beseech you to look often upon and withall to have an eye still upon heaven and the best meant how to send souls thither and to follow them your selves without stepping a side into Purgatory for believe it if you come once there you will find it a very restless and uncomfortable lodging which I pray God you may all timely prevent and I earnestly beg your good prayers that the like mercy may not be deuied Your most devoted Servant R. T. The Contents The First Survey PVrgatory is layd open with all the hellish paines wherewith the souls are there tormented Page 1.

a world of Masses to be said and a world of almes to be distributed in lieu of other idle expences and fruitless lamentations There is one in the world to 11. Age. whom I bear an immortal envy and such an envy as I never mean to repent It is the holy Abbot Odilo who was the Authour of an invention which I would willingly have found out though with the loss of my very heart blood Take the story as it passed thus Sigeb in Chron. an 998. A devout religious man in his returne from Hierusalem meets with a holy hermite in Sicily he assures him that he ofte● heard the Devils complaine that souls were so soon discharged of their torments by the suffrages of the faithful and particularly by the devout prayers of the Monkes of Cluny who never ceased to power out their prayers for them This the good man carries to Odilo then Abbot of Cluny he praises God for his great mercy in vouchsafing to hear the innocent prayers of his monkes and presently takes occasion to command all the Monasteries of his order to keep yearly the Commemoration of all souls next after the feast of all Saints A custome which by degrees grew into such credit that the Ca●●olick Church thought sit to establish it all over the Christian world to the incredible benefit of poor souls and singular encrease of Gods glory For who can sum up the infinite number of souls who have been freed out of Purgatory by this holy invention or who can express the glory which accrued to this good Abbot who thus fortunately made himself Procuratour general of the suffering Church and furnished her people with such a considerable supply of necessary relief to alleviate the insupportable burthen of their suffrings St. Bernard would triumph 12. Age. Ser. 66. in Cant. when he had to deal with Hereticks that denied this piviledg of communicating our suffrages and prayers to the souls in Purgatory And with what fervour he would apply himself to this charitable employment of relieving poor souls may appear by the care he took for good Humbertur Ser. de obitu Humberti thogh he knew him to have lived and died in his Monaste●● so like a Saint that he could scarce find out the fault in him which might deserve the least punishment in the other world unless it were to have been too rigourous to himself and too careless of his health which in a less spiritual eye then that of St. Pernard might have passed for a great virtue But it is worth your hearing that In vita Malach which he relates of blessed St. Malachy who died in his very bosome This holy Bishop as he lay a sleep hears a sister of his lately dead making lamentable moane that for thirty dayes together she had not eaten so much as a bit of bread He starts up out of his sleep and taking it to be more then a dream he concludes the meaning of the vision was to tell him that just thirty dayes were now past since he had said Mass for her as probably believing she was already where she had no need of his prayers For this indeed is the ordinary excuse wherewith many use to ●●●●ke their idleness God be with him he was a good soul he is certainly in Heaven ere this there is no more need to pray for him c. whereas God knows heaven is not so easily purchased as fooles imagine Howsoever this worthy Prelate so plyed his Prayers after this that he soon sent his Sister out of Purgatory and it pleased God to let him see by the daily change of her habit how his Prayers had purged her by degrees and made her fit company for the Angels and Saints in Heaven For the first day she was covered all over with black Cypresse the next she appeared in a Mantle something whitish but of a dusky colour but the third day she was seen all clad in white which is the proper Livery of the Saints What think you now sayes Saint Bernard is not the Kingdome of Heaven got by violence Did not Saint Malachy force it by storming were not his Prayers like stroaks of a 〈◊〉 like engine to make a breach in heaven for his sister to enter at Sweet Jesus you that suffer this violence are your self the cause of it the good Prelate breaths nothing but what you have inspired him so sweet are you in your Mercies so faithfull in your Promises and so powerfull in your divine wonders Thus far Saint Bernard But I cannot let passe in silence one very remarkable passage which happened to these two great servants of God Saint Malachy had passionately desired to dye at Claravallis in the hands of devout Saint Bernard and this on the day immediately going before All Souls day and it pleased God to grant him his request It fell out then that while Saint Bernard was saying Masse for him in the midle of Masse it was revealed to him that Saint Malachy was already glorious in Heaven whether he had gone straight thither out of this world or whether that part of Saint Bernards Masse had freed him out of Purgatory is uncertain but Saint Bernard hereupon changed his note for having begun Masse of Requiem he went on with a Masse of a Bishop and Confessour to the great astonishment of all the standers by O t is good to have such devout Masses said presently after ones death t is good to dye in so good hands as will not quit you till they have conducted you safe to the Quire of Angels Saint Thomas of Aquin that 13. Age. great Champion of Purgatory gave God particular thanks at his death for not onely delivering a soule out of Purgatory at the instance of his Prayers but also permitting the same soule to be the messenger of so good news Durand argues the case thus Sure Christian charity has more 14. Age. In 4. d. 45. power with Almighty God then a mere natural friendship can have with the civill Magistrate now it has been often seen that a condemned person has been quit at the earnest entreaty or voluntary satisfaction of their friends Stories are full of such courteous Civilities How can we then make any question but that God will as easily be moved to release holy soules out of Purgatory at the sweet importunity of their friends tears prayers sufferings here upon earth It was a laudable custom in some Countries that if a chast Virgin should present her self at the place of Execution to beg a Fellon for her husband her request was granted and the poor criminal was with great joy instantly conveyed from the gallowes to a nuptial feast This custome though now out of date may yet serve to tell us that Almighty God will not deny to set a soule free from the punishment of all her misdemeanours if we beg it earnestly at the hands of his infinite mercy And now we are come down to the fifteenth

be voluntary or unavoidable This I beg as a most w●lcome almes to the poor souls in Purgatory and a charity which will be of no little comfort to your self Do but as Magdalen and Martha did when they saw their brother Lazarus lockt up under ground and overwhelmed with Earth they wept and took on so bitterly that they drew tears from our blessed Saviour and rescued their brother out of the Jawes of death They are your brothers I entreate for they are prisoners under ground Christ Jesus has as tender a hart as ever give your selves then to acts of contrition let a tear steal now and then from your eyes and happily sweet Jesus will be so well pleased to see them that they may suffice to quench the flames of Purgatory and possibly work a miracle there in raysing souls to life everlasting and placing them above the firmament that lye now as it were buried in that subterraneous lake of fire But if you be so aride and barren or so niggardly as not to afford them a tear at least send them the sweet refreshment of a devout aspiration or some short but rigourous jaculatory prayer which as a fiery dart you may be still levelling at the heart of Almighty God give them a good thought or a cordial expression of sorrow that you are not able to afford them the relief you could wish Do never so little so you do it with a good heart and you will assuredly give them much ease in their implacable torments The people of God was condemned to be cruelly massacred or destroyed by fire when Queen Esther fetching but a deep sigh or two and whispering but a few words into the eare of King Assuerus did so charm him as to work the redemption of above a million of souls who must otherwise have been delivered over to the fury of fire and sword Are you so voide of charity or is the blood that runs in your veins and feeds your heart so frozen up as not to yeild one drop of compassion for Gods people who are most miserably handled by a most cruel inundation of Purgatory fire If so let 's conclude that nature was deceived for thinking to make you a man she missed of her aime and made you a very Tiger void of all humanity and common civility It was a pious invention that Baron An. 987. A sodality to help the 〈◊〉 of certain Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons of Rome An. 984. to erect a sodality of those that should particularly devote themselves to pray for the dead which custome continued a long time at Rome and is yet extant in some part of the Christian world When one of their number dies they all contribute their pious labours to help him out of Purgatory I say all not only those who remain yet alive but those also who are already got into heaven so that it is impossible for him to make any long stay there What a pleasure is it to see that a soul of this happy confraternity does no sooner enter into Purgatory but a good part of Heaven and Earth conspires to procure her enlargement This is to be wise indeed these are matters of state which all the world would be well versed in as importing them far more then the government of whole Kingdomes Methinks you that read this should now long to spread abroad this most excellent devotion by erecting one of these sodalities which would be of so great advantage to your self and others Most part of mankind is so taken up with building rich houses or providing stately Tombs for their Rotten Carcasses they have no leasure to think what will become of their souls or in what a fiery mansion they are like to be lodged at their first appearance in the other world Do they not in truth deserve to lye there frying whole yeares Without mercy they that had so little wit as not to endeavour the avoiding of an evil which only deserves the name if compared with the petty evils of this world which are such bug-bears in our weak sighted apprehensions A man that is undone by some cheat or surprize may be pittied but he that sees his own ruine and will not stir a foot to prevent it no creature can pitty such a man and certainly he deserves not the least compassion The world has generally a great esteem of Monsieur d' Argenton Phillip Commines and many worthily admire him for the great Wisdome and sinceraty he has laboured to express in his whole History but for my part I commend him for nothing more then for the prudent care he took here for the welfare of his own soul in the other world For having built a goodly Chappel at the Augustins in Paris and left them a good foundation he tied them to this perpetual obligation that they should no sooner rise from table but they should be sure to pray for the rest of his precious soul and he ordered it thus by his express will that one of the Religious should first say aloude let us pray for the soul of Monsieur d' Argenton and then all shoul● instantly say the Psalm de Profundis Gerson lost not his labour when he took such pains to teach little children to repeat often these words my God my Creatour have pitty on your poor servant John Gerson For these innocent Souls all the while the good man was a ●●ying and after he was dead went up and down the Town with a mournful voice singing the short lesson he had taught them and comforting his dear soul with their innocent prayers Now as I must commend their prudence who thus wisely cast about how to provide for their own souls against they come into Purgatory so I cannot but more highly magnifie their charity who less sollicitous for themselves employ their whole care to save others out of that dreadful fire And sure I am they can loose nothing by the bargaine who dare thus trust God with their own souls while they do their uttermost to help others Nay though they should follow that unpparallel'd example of F. Hemando de Rbo Hist l. 1 c. 4. §. 3. Monsoy of the society of Jesus who not content to give away all he could from himself to the poor souls while he lived made them his heirs after death and by express will bequeathed them all the Masses Rosuries and whatsoever else should be offered for him by his friends upon Earth §. 5. Certain questions resolved about the application and distribution of our suffrages IT will not be amiss here to resolve you certain pertinent questions Whether the suffrages we offer up unto God shall really availe them for whom we offer them and whether they alone or others also may receive benefit by them Whether it be better to pray for a few at once or for many or for all the souls together And for what souls in particular To the first I answer if your How our suffer ages