The one that he telis the story to have passed in Cyprus whereas St. John lived in Alexandria Secondly that whereas other stories of the same nature in Pope Gregory and Venerable Bede make the Bands remain loose this story makes them to be supernaturally bound again which seems to be against the nature of Gods gifts which are given without repentance but much favours the Doctrin of Relief in Hell Wherefore it is vehemently to be suspected that those words then and when come from his Paraphrase and that the Saint's words reached no farther then what we read in others that this story argued that prayers relieved the dead As truly no more can be gather'd out of such Histories which are Parabolical and it were very absurd to parallel small circumstances betwixt corporeal Allegories spiritual things signify'd by them Howsoever the Authority can be no greater then of Metaphrastes who is held in a Rhetorical way to fain many things and it is to be noted that he lived after Gregory the Third's dâ—ys and peradventure after the time of the Oration De dormientibus was written 13. Being freed from these sleight stories we may see what Testimonies of solid Fathers he brings for his opinion He cites St. Denys but never a word which brings the Testimony home to our Controversy he speaking but in common of the remission of the sin His second Authour is St. Athanasius The words that The souls of sinners feel some benefit when good works and offerings are performed for them This Testimony has three faults First the Authour is not St. Athanasius as is so manifest by the work it self that it is a gross mistake to cite it as his though this Divine be not the first who objected it to me and farther it is clear the Authour wrote since the Turks were Masters of Greece by the phrase of calling the Romans French-men His second fault is that he distinguishes not dead but pronounces of all dead mens souls which argues the opinion of those who hold relief in Hell Thirdly these words When good works c. are equivocal and may be as well interpreted that good works are the causes of relief as they do the time unless other words force them to be taken emphatically which do not appear here St. Ephrem is also cited but not in what work nor of what certainty for his works are very ambiguous Besides that he is cited out of another Authour named Severus Alexandrinus who what he was I know not One I read of but an Arch-heretick The Testimony it self smells of the intervalls which the comforters of Hell invent and the works attributed to St. Ephrem are so uncertain that no guess can be made of what value this Authority is 14. The Testimonies he cites out of St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom are more certain but they favour my opinion not his For to help and not cancel the sin and that some comfort accrues to the dead by the sacrifice of the Mass are the very expressions which we use But the other words to wit that it may happen that a total pardon may be obtained for them by our prayers comes out of a false Translation The true Translation is that it is possible to gather pardon from all sides by prayer that is that abundance of prayers may be gotten either from all sorts of persons or all sorts of actions towards getting of pardon for St. Chrysostom makes mention of both And these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies motion from the circumference to the centre His last place of St. Chrys. out of the 21 Homily upon the Acts I must tell him if he had not another Text then I he hath much abused the good Saint The words as I read them are est enim si voluerimus leve ipsi supplicium facere If we will it is possible to make his punishment light Which he translates lighter to which he adds as his own descant to make out the Testimony then it was at first Much from the Saints mind who though he be earnest to perswade to prayers and good works yet never descends to more particulars then that they will do some good or else that the Living shall get good by them nobis Deus placatior erit which St. Austin also glances at to wit when the soul is damned Now if the torment of the dead be sooner ended your Divine will not doubt but that it is lighter 15. But I must not forget his citation of St. Greg. Nazianzen of which he seems to make great esteem and it is least of all to the purpose For as it is true St. Gregory speaks of a Purging before Resurrection so is it clearly to be understood of that which is made by death as is evident by that expression either purged or lay'd aside For nothing can be understood to be layd aside but the body and what is layd aside with it So that all his expression is of the effect of death and nothing touching what is to be done in the pure spirit And so I am quit of this troublesome Chapter without any mention of delivering souls out of Purgatory in the Greek Fathers 16. As for the Greek Church he brings me a Letter from some Town wherein there lived many Catholick and Learned Grecians from whom his friend received this Character that all the Grecian Catholick Church approves and admits priviledged Altars and Indulgences for the souls in Purgatory the which they believe go streight to Heaven as soon as they have satisfyed And I am so far from discrediting this Letter as that I sincerely believe it and yet think what I sayd to be true For this word Catholick Greek Church is not exempt from the Law of other words to wit that it may be understood in divers senses by divers speakers so that if this City he speaks of signifies either Rome or Venice which are the likeliest Cities of Christendome to have Grecians of that quality living in them and the Greeks in those two Cities communicate with none but such as either live under Latin Governours and so do easily follow their customs or otherwise are instructed by such Missionaries as go from the Greek Colledg in Rome I do not wonder that they should answer that the Catholick Grecians hold Indulgences as they do in Italy Nay peradventure may think the rest no Catholicks even upon this score But when I spake of the Greek Church I spake of the descendents from the Greeks which made the Union in the Council of Florence without receiving any new Doctrin since THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his sixth Chapter Testimonies from Latin Fathers before St. Austin either savouring of Millenarism or opposit to the Alledger or not found but fram'd to his purpose by Additions of his own and lastly his onely express Testimony uncertain 1. IN the sixth Chapter he pretends to shew that the Latin Church before St. Austin held the delivery of
souls out of Purgatory before the day of Judgment His two first Testimonies according to the custom of those whose chief end is to make a shew hang in the position which is common to both sides being but pure prayers that deceased souls should go to Heaven without specifying when But because his devotion was so hot that it could not expect God's pleasure and determination he would have us believe it was meant presently 2. His next two Testimonies are drawn from the Heresy of the Millenaries praying to God that the soul may rise in the first resurrection For the former Testimony being Tertullians of whom it is known that he was of that Sect and the words being proper to that Sect it cannot be doubted of his meaning The second Testimony is from the Gothick Liturgy the which of what authority it is I know not We well know the Goths were Arrians for the most part of their Flourish in Italy and a great while in Spain we know that this Millenary Errour was greatly dispersed even amongst Catholicks but more amongst Hereticks who have not the rule of Unity and Tradition which keep Catholicks from easy changing The words of the prayer are the proper words of the Millenarians The glosses he seeks to make as they may be good to the Text of the Apocalyps so is their sence too far fetcht to be the sence of a prayer for common People Wherefore either it is a pure piece of Millenarism or at least he must first vindicate it from being so before it can serve him for a Testimony Now the Chiliasts Errour was that Christ was to reign upon Earth corporally with his Saints for a thousand years before the general resurrection then to give the hundredfold of what his Saints had forsaken for his sake in this world according to his promise in the Gospel But because this was a corporal resurrection therefore though there had been no Heresy in the position it could serve your Divine to no purpose Now it serves onely to shew how short his performance falls from his bragging promises 3. His next authority comes truly after St. Austins time being a story out of St. Gregory of Tours contemporary to the Great yet because it is of St. Martin it must speak for St. Martin's age The story as he relates it is of a Holy Virgin to whom St. Martin after her death procured bliss His first Note is that Saints whose Sepulchers are visited for Saints Sepulchers may yet stay some while in Purgatory I easily grant him that without the Authority of this story For the fallibility of Peoples Judgments in such things is very well known And I should not boggle at it though it were untill the day of Judgment His second Note is that St. Martin in the primitive Church believed as we do But for this I know not that the name of the Primitive Church reaches after Constantin's time and St. Martin was but a young man in Julian's time when being but a Catechumen he gave half his Cloak to our Saviour Farther to think he believ'd as we do is a hard matter For I must first believe the story to be true which may be doubted since St. Gregory gives testimony of it onely as a report he had heard from some old men who lived where this Tombe was and none of them could have had been witness of the fact which was passed 1â—0 years before So that it has no better Authority then of a Country tale Nor does St. Gregory's Vote which is his third Note much mend it as he may easily see if he reads Baronius his Opinion of St. Gregory's History T. 2. An. 109. Sect. 49. And in the true History which he sets down but by halves there are divers inconvenient circumstances One he makes mention of to wit that the Holy Maid was kept from Heaven by reason of a no very great fault but in the History you cannot perceive there was any fault at all His fourth Note is that St. Gregory the great was not the first that began to write such stories but St. Gregory of Tours before him Those that will be accurate say seventeen yeares before him if that in such a question as this is not to be together But truly I believe it was one hundred at least For the Pope Gregory tells so many of like stories that a popular Errour can hardly be thought to grow so fast as that the first should have been but seventeen years before it could grow so common 2. Then he comes to St. Hierom out of whom he recounts what words a soul delivered out of Purgatory may say And if you ask what this is to the purpose he answers by adding to the words of St. Hierom that the soul speaks this before the resumption of her body and proves it because the Saint passing to other things saith they shall be done in the consummation of the world Is not this goodly stuff for a Divine to fill a Book withall 3. Next in rank is brought in St. Ambrose with the Elogy of the Father in Christ to St. Austin Out of him he cites two places The first out of the Preparatories to Mass assign'd for Friday His words to intreat that the Mass may this very day in great Letters be a great and full banquet of thee Jesus Christ the living Bread which came from Heaven I would he had taken the pains to apply his Text to our question for I find a great difficulty Yet I think I can find two pretty good constructions The one is to understand it objectively the other efficiently For the proposition being that the Mass should be this banquet either it must be meant that the dead should rejoyce of his saying of Mass by way of the devotion that is used to be called communicating spiritually or else that the Mass should be cause of their seeing of God Whether way soever it be taken the effect of the prayer is that he may this day say Mass with that Charity and Devotion as that it may be profitable to the souls of the dead But both these may be done without any change in the souls For if his Mass prove so good the souls knew of it at their first going out of the body and were to have the effect of it in its due time meerly by the position of the Action this very day without any great Letters But to understand it as it must be understood to serve for his purpose that this very day the souls should receive bliss was a very uncivil request to expect Purgatory should be emptied for the saying of one Mass and surely takes away all excuse from the Pope why he likewise doth not give such Indulgences as at least once in the year to make a Goal-delivery of Purgatory that Christians might have as much priviledge as the Jews to lye but one twelve month in that place But specially this request befitted not St. Ambrose whom we shall have our
the explication and deduction of my opinion and I do not think my Adversary will quarrel at much of this not that I think them to be his opinions but because partly he knows them to be the opinions of other Divines and partly they are so rational that any sensible man will condemn him at first sight Now therefore it is time to lay down the Adversary's opinion as I apprehend it leaving him all liberty to explicate himself in what I shall miss in at his own pleasure 13. You must know therefore that the Scriptures preach the Doctrin I have lay'd down minutely and Philosophically in few and Metaphorical terms They represent you God like a Man-Law-giver tell you that he hath lay'd up fire for those who will not obey in the next world My Adversaries take this as a word and a blow and conceive that Sin is an Action to which punishment is due of its own nature and that God should not be just if he did not bestow it on the sinner so that they put the relation between sin and punishment and both them to God nor will they hear that this follows out of the Order of Causes which are set for the carrying of Man-kind to Heaven that there may be a proportion natural of the sin and punishment but that God appoints what punishment he thinks best After this they put that the three conditions or names of the Vertue of every Action be three divers Vertues or Qualities whereof one concerns not the other or at least may be separable So that the Action may be meritorious and yet neither impetrate nor satisfy likewise may be impetrative but not satisfactory and may be satisfactory without impetration or merit And hence they say some Saints have had Actions both meritorious and impetrative that satisfy'd for nothing or little because they ow'd little or little pains were due to their offences Whence it comes that there be great heaps of Actions as they are satisfactory lay'd up in the Treasure of the Church and that the Pope hath the power to take what quantity seems to him fitting and to pâ—eâ—ent it to God foâ— the sâ—ns of living or dead and that he is bound to accept of it for the debts or pains of such men or souls whereas my saying is that the abundance of the merits of Christ and the Saints give the Church and the Pope all power and vertue to relaxe sins and punishments alwaies that are for the Churches good This I understand to be the substance of their opinion And now the Reader may be prepared to understand what shall be sayd on both sides SECOND DIVISION Containing an Answer to his seventeenth Chapter That we agree with others in the Torment and disagree onely in the Instrument Ours more connatural and â—it His self-contradiction and false imposing of unheld Doctrin When Baptism remits all pains and how a soul in Purgatory purgeth her self Several petty mistakes No place for merit in the next world That souls in Purgatory are Saints and may be pray'd to The effect of those Prayers which accelerate the day of Judgment Divers intolerable errours and weaknesses in Divinity 1. IN his seventeenth Chapter he professes to shew my Principles to be ill grounded and that there are bad sequels following from them And if that shâ—wing signify no more then saying so I beleeve fully he will do what he promises but if it be taken for proving I doubt he will fall very short of his Title The reason of my suspicion is because I find it so as far as I have hitherto look'd For example the first Principle of mine he makes that the venial affections which mens souls carry into the next world are cause to them of great griefs and torments of mind he farther says I put no other torments in Purgatory but the grief of this affection being joyned to the soul and the privation of bliss And I tell him on the other side that he puts no torments in Purgatory but that I put the very same I confess this proposition is a very bold one for I know not how absurdly he may talk of those pains but in hope he speaks as commonly his fellows do I venture upon this affirmation 2. To make which good I distinguish between the Torment and the Instrument of the torment as to say Burning is the torment Fire the instrument by which the torment is inflicted And then I make this discourse Let him look into the ordinary explication of Divines and see whether they put in Purgatory any other torments then Acts of the will which they call griefs Now the question being of souls in Purgatory that is holy Souls I cannot imagin they will put them to be of other objects then such as deserve grief as of their sins of the want of â—lory and such like Now all these I put in the souls of Purgatory It is clear then then that I put the same torments in Purgatory that he doth not one excepted The difference then is onely that I do not put the same Instruments of torment which he does but I put connatural Instruments he strange and forced Instruments I the nature and eminency of a spirit he a dead body which cannot be imagin'd how it can hurt a soul. Ask which is the stronger Agent and fitter to torment the soul it is clear that her own nature is infinitely more strong infinitely more fit Why then doth not my way satisfy him Because he does not understand that the words of the Scripture are Metaphorical because he understands not what signifies Gods Justice because the Bells ring in his ears that the Councils signify other punishments then their words express He vaunts the Councils be against us but when he declares them he cannot find one word beyond what is common to both opinions 3. In his third and fourth Number he would perswade his Reader that we fall into his own Errour of denying Purgatory because we say these purging torments end not until the day of Judgment and hath not so much reflexion as to remember that there is no place for Purgatory when purging is done As long as we profess Purgatory we must profess not purged This is the Doctrin perpetually before his eyes in the Council of Florence and Pope Benedict and he looks so a squint that he cannot see what is plainly before him that as soon as purging is turned to purged the soul is in bliss About what then doth he quarrel with me because I say the ill affection is in Purgatory all the while the soul is there and yet he says the same Let him reflect upon these his own words N. 4. Whereas Purging cleansing c. signifies the taking away of something which contains the nature of a stain or blemish If this be so then clearly something containing the nature of a stain or blemish is in the soul as long as the soul is in Purgatory Then he unjustly accuses me of saying
prayers we say for other motives And comformable to this we ought to understand that rule that it is an injury to a Martyr to pray for him to wit as we pray for other Dead or for remission of his sins But that we may not joyn our prayers with theirs for the glorification of their Bodies I do not know Their prayer is recorded in the Apocalyps and the Answer that they must expect until the number of their Brethren be filled up Nor do I see how we can leave praying for them as long as we say Thy will be done for in that we pray for all things which we know to be God's Will that they shall be done And I fear 't is onely a blind Reverence not any knowledg in Divinity which keeps him from quarrelling with the Church as doing a superfluous action when she prays in the third Secreta of the Sunday Mass in Lent ut omnium fidelium nomina beatae praedestinatiâ—nis liber adscripta retineat 18. Out of what is hitherto discoursed it is evident that to accelerate the Day of Judgment is to cause it and all the good that shall be there done to any body and that therefore it cannot be question'd but that it is a great good But he presses the term of Acceleration and I must give accompt why we use that term which is because we find it to be Christ's own word He told us that propter electos breviabuntur dies illi And though he spake literally onely of the time of Antichrist yet we know all the rest hath proportion and Analogy to that What good is it which the Elect gain by this shortning of those days What but to be saved This same good get the Souls in Purgatory their Beatitude But your Divine's Fancy is so fixed upon their pains to have them decrease or increase by time that he cannot think of the substantial change from Pains to Bliss The which if he did consider he would not tell us Christ did no considerable favour in delivering the Fathers out of Limbo He would not tell us he that had more prayers got no more then he who had fewer unless he imagins prayers can get no other good then the relaxation of pain If in this World prayers can get all sorts of goods can it get nothing in the next World Do not the Saints tell us that prayers accompany Souls to the Tribunal of God that there they bring respect to the Person How this is to be understood is another question Two things are certain One that this is another thing then releasing from pains the other that these prayers make his reward the greater All therefore your Divines Arguments that he who hath no prayers shall have as much as he that hath many miss of their aym For in the payment comes the difference and your Divine cannot cast his eye once upon that his heart is so frighted with the pains By this you easily see that the apprehension of this good from the first instant in Purgatory must needs be a lessening of their pains in Purgatory For we do not esteem the Doctrin he learned from the Devil that it is just when the prayers are saying or said And though our Divine's discourses that then they begin to have efficacy is conformable to the Nature of the Prayers it is not to the Nature of the Souls which are to be helped which also is to be respected As for the Fathers they must be inched out by his good Translations or Explications or else they will not come home but favour our opinion 19. The first part of the proposed difficulty we delay until the 22. Chapter in expectation of a fuller accompt The later we find chiefly to be grounded on one Errour and one Carelesness The Errour that he makes God's Providence uncertain irresolute and depending on not making the comportment of the Creatures The Carelesness that he wholly neglects the good gotten by prayers at the Resurrection which has it's effect in the whole state of Purgatory fixing his discourse onely upon that which is no good So that of this Principle he hath no more to say now then that he saith that to put the acceleration of the Day of Judgment to be the fruit of the prayer for the Dead is an unheard novelty And I conceit it to be the chief fruit of all our prayers commanded in our Lord's Prayer containing our final Beatitude which should be our greatest if not our onely prayer He adds it will make many lay aside praying for the Dead I can say no more then that I wish they were better instructed But he is afraid that if the Day of Judgment come sooner fewer will be saved though our Saviour was of the contrary mind and tells us that if the time were not shortned non fieret salva omnis caro God was forced once to drown the World and shorten men's lives because all flesh had corrupted their ways to wit by the great adhâ—sion to corporal objects thorough the long enjoying of them Once again will he be forced to destroy the World by fire for the like malice of men In the mean while he is forced to contract the length of it that more may be saved and the number of the Elect come up in a shorter time I cannot omit his pleasant consideration that some will have a horrour to pray for the Day of Judgment because then the bodies of the wicked shall go to Hell O pious meditation to have a horrour that that should be done which Christ shall command with his own mouth and themselves if they will be partakers with Christ must have a share in O pittiful hearts that will not pray for the glorifying of their own bodies for fear that thereby others bodies may be cast into torments Yes but there is another secret which is that peradventure their own body may be one I perceive he makes them as prudent as the Spanish Souldier who lying on his Death-bed is reported when he had occasion to speak of the Devil still to term him Senor Diablo and being evil used if he fell into his hands as he had experience that it hapned to Souldiers to fall into their Enemies power by the chance of War Numb 22. He comes to the third Principle of how the Fire of Conflagration works upon those in Purgatory of which we have declared our Sentiment in the fifth Number to which I must remit you not knowing when I answered it that it would be repeated here over again Onely I must note that he understood nothing at all of what I sayd so that his Objections are against pure mistakes Numb 24. he repeats very stoutly that I deny any pains to be due after thâ— remission of the sin though it be most manifestly against my Writings and Doctrin in all places where I have occasion to speak of it in my Sacra Institutiones in my Book of Purgatory and Reason and Religion c. He is
so out of the way in the whole that I cannot set him right for he mistakes all and makes no sence of my sayings of this point and corrupts what he cites of other points Therfore I must seek the remedy of desperate evils to cut out all this discourse as incurable until he having read what I have written upon his fifth Number become capable of speaking and hearing fence in this matter THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his Eighteenth Chapter Bellarmin's Errours advantageous to Hereticks The Arguments in the Middle-State from Scripture maintain'd to be solid and the Adversary's mis-interpretations shown weak and inconsistent 1. SO thorough many Brambles we are come to his eighteenth Chapter In the Preface of which he gives me two warnings The first that in reason he should expect some clear demonstration to justify the abandoning the known persuasion of the Church And although I have already justify'd that it is no persuasion of the Church but onely a popular Errour which I forsake yet will I not insist upon that not to make needless repetitions But I must tell him he must not expect to see clear demonstration For that belongs to them that have scientifical eyes and not to them who learn onely to bable of what they understand not A Demonstratour must begin from the first Principles of Philosophy and drive them on to his Conclusion not take up his opinions upon Reasons that fall into his mouth out of the Ayr. What he takes out of Faith he must not be onely able to say the words or cite them out of some good Book but he must be sure to understand them well and see that his Explication contradicts neither Divinity nor any other Science And of these two courses neither he nor his Masters as far as I could see were ever guilty They take Texts and urge the letter without ever penetrating the sense and foregoing all principles they fly at every question with fantastick flashes like Hawks at their prey where ever they spy it 2. His second warning is that my Arguments are the out-casts and refuse of their Authours And I am far from denying it For indiscreet people are as subject to reject the best as the worst and if I be not mistaken in hâ—s Authours they ordinarily chuse the worst Opinions for themselves being men that in Sciences hunt after vanity and the pleasing of the unlearned mustitude and so are fit to make a shew in discourse until the weaker sort be beyond their speculation but never understand things solidly nor are able to give satisfaction to sober Wits who look into the depth of a difficulty He concludes that we never take notice of the Answers so fully made to the Objections we take out of his Authours I will not return this upon him and ask him how many Answers he has read in Religion and Reason and my other Writings which he hath read as appears by the impugning of the Doctrin yet will not cite that he may say he knew not of those Solutions which he impugns not But I will onely say let this encounter betwixt him and me bear testimony how fully and solidly the Answers are made 3. He begins his plea with telling his Reader that I borrowed the first and chiefest Objection from that infamous Heretick Ochinus How does he know this Bellarmin says Ochinus uses this Argument What then therefore I found it either in Bellarmin or Ochinus How proves he that The Spirit with which he writes tells him so And my Spirit tells me that the Spirit which tells him so is the Spirit of Errour and Calumny For when I wrote my Book I had neither Bellarmin nor Ochinus Nor did I ever study Bellarmin so much as to remember such particularities out of him I am not ashamed if I had taken any thing out of Bellarmin to acknowledg it For I acknowledg him to be the best Dictionary of Controversies I have seen but a man must beware how he trusts either his Arguments or Solutions Yet he is very good to suggest to a man occasions and matter that may be well used Neither should I be ashamed to use any Argument I had found in Ochinus or any other Heretick so the Argument be solid to my purpose And it is the prognostick of cosenage in the carriage of the cause to make such exceptions An Argument is good and bad by it self not by his Authour and Aristotle used to find the middle truth by comparing the falsities extreâ—mly opposit and so if I by comparing Ochinus and your Divine should find the truth to ly in the middle I should think my action deserve honour and to be profitable to the Church Let us then look into the Argument it self Ochinus to prove there was no Purgatory argu'd if there be a Purgatory then Souls are delivered before the Day of Judgment by prayers but that is false by the Text alleaged c. Now Bellarmin if he had been a solid answerer would have deny'd his first proposition and told him whether prayers deliver'd them before or not yet Purgatory remain'd safe and Ochinus choak'd that he could not have open'd his mouth and this Answer I have found printed at Rome against the Greek Hereticks 4. This Errour produced a greater to wit that their great Bellarmin was forced to confess that the words of the Scripture as they ly or in the plain sence are false and so he fairly betrayes the Catholick position of Purgatory to set up his own fancy For his solution says that these words If there were no Resurrection signify ' If the soul were not immortal which be so different meanings that by many Philosophers the one was confest and the other deny'd So that the two propositions are neither the same nor such as that their connexion is plainly seen Therfore to make this good he fains a third either falsity or at least not proved nor very probable which is that the writer of the second book of Macchabees wrote after Jonathas his time when by reason of a firm peace the Jews fell to dispute about their Law and so into great divisions and sects Whereas by probability this Book was written in Judas his time For it makes no mention of his death which it had been a fault to leave out if it had passed before the book was written which if it be true these words must not be spoken against any infection of Sadduces but of Greeks who had long domineer'd over Jury specially in Antiochus his time 5. His fourth Errour is that he makes our Saviour also make a false Argument and to conclude the Immortality of the soul in stead of the Resurrection and to make this consequence Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's fouls are alive therefore Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's bodies shall rise again The which would not have silenc'd the Sadduces but rather have made them contemn our Saviour For they better understood Resurrection then the being of an abstracted spirit
the best deeds are in Heaven the worst in Hell neither rewarded His answer is that the time of merit and demerit is passed which is true but nothing to the purpose For nevertheless it quelleth that Principle in common that to every act a proportionable payment is due Therefore the ground of their Doctrin is false and they must make pains due to sins for some farther end that is by rational Revenge not for pure Revenge 8. Number sixth he treats an objection which he mistakes For because in explicating corporal torments we sayd that by diversion they were alleviated or hinder'd as it is written in the life of St. Tâ—… that when his Lâ—â— was to be â—ear'd â—etting himself to study hard he 〈◊〉 not the burning he imagin'd the same to be meant of abstracted spirits and that they could also divert themselves whereas before he acknowledges for my Doctrin that acts are unchangeable in pure Spirits and our of this apprehension he teaches us that some actions are voluntary but not free a Doctrin true but not to the purpose My Argument then is out of the Doctrin of St. Thomas taken by most Divines for an Axiom that the will cannot be forced And the demonstration of it is plain and set down in St. Thomas Because force is against the inclination of the Person or nature forced the Will is the inclination of the person said to be forced therefore the act of the will is still according to the inclination and by consequence never forced This is so plain that every common Divine knows it and yet so mistaken by him that he distinguishes not between doing an outward action at which a Spirit wilfully grieves and the making by force an Action of the will and upon this score sets in array a squadron of places of Scripture to fight against a shadow 9. Number seventh he advances another question to wit why the omnipoteâ—t aâ—… should not haâ—e power by himself or other iâ—strument to make in the soul an afflictive Qâ—â—lity I gave you three answers One for want of a subject for in the Will there can be nothing but voluntary since voluntary signifies no more then the act of mans inclination The second Answer is because there are no such Entities as you call Species or qualities makeable as every one who knows more then trivial Philosophy can tell you And thirdly because God is no hangman but has all nature to serve him when he pleases to punish a creature and defiles not his own hands with such actions He steps on to fire and asks why that cannot torment a soul by some unknown way to us I answer because it cannot burn us for all that put fire put burning but burming seeing it is the dissolution of a thing that has parts cannot by all the Invention he can give to God be in a thing that has no parts therefore fire cannot torment but Metaphorically He says our Arguments have a thousand times been solved but because he takes not the pains to repeat either the Arguments or Solutions I also may pass them in silence Mine be in the eleventh account of my book of the Middle State of souls He may assign the solutions where he pleases Onely to his saying They are solved I must oppose my word that they neither are nor can be to sensible men that have not speculated beyond all reason He objects St. Austin I answer St. Austin affirms nothing of this point but onely presses an Argument of the Unity of the body and soul. I answer Philosophers affirm that Union to be of Actus and Potentia and that such an one cannot be betwixt a Spirit and Fire The meaning of those words and the reason why the same cannot be said of fire here is no place to declare It is enough they are Terms common in the School 10. He proceeds to prove that at least there is corporal fire in Hell because our Saviour shall say to the damned Depart from me you accursed into eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Another man would have proved out of this place that there was no corporeal fire in Hell For what can be more incongruously taken then to say that one had prepared corporeal fire to punish Spirits withall Wherefore this qualification of prepared for the Devil doth clearly manifest the fire to be spiritual If one who found his Garden dry'd with the hot Sun should send to Londen to buy a Pen-knife to water it withall would not any man that heard it judge him to be mad This sport he makes with God Almighty telling us that when he would punish pure Spirits he took corporeal fire which is far less fit for such an effect then a Pen-knife to water a Gurden And yet Christ expresses that the fire into which the damned were sent was fit to punish Angels that is nothing less then corporeal fire As for his Testimony from the Authour of the Dialogues I hope to have a time to answer it more largely then is here fitting 11. He presses farther St Julian's words that no wise man denies the souls of Reprobates to be detain'd in fire But to have made an Argument he should have added the word corporeal For truly the Scripture so frequently using the word of fire it is not for a good Christian to deny the word which were to affront both the Scriptures and all such as â—se without examination the same words But yet 't is the part of a Divine to admit of the literal word and understand the sense so that it may stand with God's Wisdom As for Bellarmin and Maldonatus's censures of temerity for resisting the consent of School-men I have answered it fully in my MUSCARIUM Ventilatione deciâ—â— to which I remit my Reader For such questions amongst ignorant people are â—ot to be much handled He presses farther how our explication of Torments is not convenient As to that of loss of past pleasures he says their state sets them above it In the which he shews himself ignorant of the nature of material sin for it doth subject the soul to things under its worth and therefore is sin and this subjection is far greater in Hell then in this World As to the delay of future glory he says we forget our selves to make that grieve the Souls since it is but one moment though it were of Millions of Ages Nor can I deny that I forget my self sometimes in speaking truths to them who are not capable of them Therefore I intreat him for the present to put instead of delay the not having of glory and if he pleases he may add while so much time ran for all this he knows to be my constant Doctrin that the Soul knows and grieves for And as for farther explication he himself hath remitted us to his 22. Chapter As for disordinaâ—â— affections remaining he says there are none as he hath proved but we reply'd It was Heresie to put Purgatory without them 12. In
and pains which he suffer'd Out of which Doctrin depends a very ill consequence that not onely Christ's fancy but even his concupiscible part was subject to tentation and passion Now if your Divine doth not hold this why doth he apply it here to shew that the constancy of the Souls in Purgatory cannot abate their sufferings from extern causes and turn them to pleasures Another pitiful answer he adds that 〈◊〉 Torments of Purgatory do not cause the entrance to Heaven but onely remove what hinders it As if he that destreth Heaven were not glad to have the hinderances taken away 3. In his third Number he pâ—etends to answer the improportion betwixt corporeal pains and spiritual offences but by his great skil in missing of the question his first Answeâ— returns the question upon us as if we held that some are burned more grievously or longer then others at the Day of Judgment The which is a pure mistake of our Doctrin as I have often repeated His second Objection is of the bodies of the blessed and damned the which he mistakes also thinking those pains and glories to be immediatly proportioned to the Acts of Vertue or Vice which they are not But the immediate proportions are of the Acts of the blessed or damned Souls in their lives and in their ending states Now as these Acts are stronger so do they diffuse into their bodies different qualities and hence it followeth that the bodies are proportionably rewarded not that the good or ill of the body hath any proportion to the merits or demirits but because the dispositions of the bodies follow 〈◊〉 of the final acts and dispositions of the souls which have proportion 4. He presses Scripture First out of the Apoâ—alyps where there is no mention of corporeal and spiritual but meerly of demerits and punishments Secondly from Job Chap. 〈◊〉 desiring that his offences and punishments â—…ight be weighed in a pair of Sâ—ales What shall I say If your Divine were asked whether the least venial sin be not worse then all the Torments Job suffered he would say questionless Yes What then doth he mean to make of this saying of Job That Job was a Fool to make such a proposition Surely in his way no less can be understood But that we may not onely confute simplicity but deliver true Doctrin we must tell him that Job cast his eyes upon the Providence God useth over the good and bad in this World to shew to his unpitiful friends that those harms were not come upon him for his excess of misbehaviour beyond others but out of God's special pleasure So that this example is nothing at all to our question since it speaks nothing but of God's external Providence in this World 5. Like to this is his next out of Levititus where to several sins several offerings were parallel'd the which it seems he would have to be understood as if the gifts were the true worth of the offence which I believe our Casuists and Ghostly Fathers will not allow of Another Objection is from the Proposition made by our Divines to the Greeks and by them not admitted which in great words he vents saying All the Latinâ— Church stands accused of folly Here the force of the Objection lyes in the word folly a worthy Objection as the most of his are For no man doubts but every speculative proposition which is false may be in rigour called folly but civility gives this name onely to such falsities as are avoided by the most of that Art or Science to which the discovery of such follies appertain Now to make an Argument this Proposition must be termed folly though in the same breath he professes few do avoid it He repeats divers other Authorities which as far as we got the books we examin'd in the places in which they were first urged He adds the practice of Indulgences But every man knows they are proportioned to the Poenitential Canons not the Laws of Purgatory when it is sayd so many days or years pardon and for the plenary delivery it hath been heretofore discussed At last he comes to reason and there he tells us that God looks not on the Physical Nature of the Acts but upon the Moral But what this Moral signifies he declares not Now according to my skill I must profess that I take it to be a meer nonsensical expression when it is apply'd to spiritual acts For an act of the will is Morality it self and how much it is physically harmful to the soul so much is it morally naught and how far profitable so much is it morally good so that to distinguish moral and physical in intrinsecal acts of the will is but to give a bob instead of a bit a name instead of a thing a covered mess without any meat in it 6. In his fourth Number your Divine as it seems feels himself in some streights for he crys for room and not without effect for he hath found a matter of twenty Leaves to examin one discourse yet I fear he has not made room in his brain for truth which is so elevated that a fancy stuft with corporeal imaginations and the sounds of unexamin'd words can afford it no place Nevertheless I must try to break in if not into his yet into our common Auditours apprehension Si qua fata aspera rumpam 7. In his fourth and fifth Number he explicates my Arguments for the most part truly whether sufficiently or no our encounter must declare Number sixth he begiâ—â— his hattery with telling us that he hath shew'd it to be contrary to the Doctrin both of the Church and of our own profession Ch. 17. N. 12. and 13. Where our answer also is given as far as depends not from this place The substance of it is that a present relief of the dead by prayers is neither the expectation of the Church or understanding Persons of their own opinion who all teach we must remit circumstances and substance also to Gods high Counsels and will And besides it is declared how the unchangeableness of spirits hinders not that the souls have relief in Purgatory and that Relief at the very time of prayers is contrary to the very sence of their own Divines 8. After this your Divine is equivocated something strangely not distinguishing between the duration of a Spirit and our measuring of that duration For no man disputes this with him whether we apprehend the duration of Angels or Souls as we do the durations of Bodies and so say that such a thing or action endured so many days weeks moneths or years But whether their proper duration be conformable to our apprehensions or that our apprehensions be as to the truth a weak babling fit for us but far below the truth of the thing and no more like it then a Body is to a Spirit So he need not trouble himself whether our expressions be by true time for they are by that same time by which we measure our
duration of every Angelical â—…ellection did not hold up more parts of our time and therefore must needs be higher then our time But he will say they have a time of their own and so cast us upon the other question what it signifies Time to be true which he understands as little not knowing that in Analogical Terms or such as are by design equivocal no secondary sence but onely the primary is the true sence of the word 9. Out of this he proceeds N. 21. to exemplify in the Locality of Angels in which he tells us that we know they are truly in a place in St. Thomas his Doctrin Whereas St. Thomas tells us it is per se notum sapientibus in corporalia non esse in loco That to wise men it is known of it self or without need of proof that spirits are not in place He concludes that men should content themselves to know that St. Michael was ever in Heaven as properly as Christ descended in-Hell I must answer so they do but that is to know that neither is properly spoken no more then it is properly spoken that the Sâ—n of God descended out of Heaven at his Incarnation And because they know that both are improperly spoken therefore they endeavour to know in what sence they are spoken that they may not chatter words without understanding like Magpyes as is the use amongst his Divines He adds it is no hard matter for a Scholler of ordinary capacity to conceive the succession of Acts in Angels Which is very true but peradventure it is a hard matter to overcome that apprehension and to see that Angels cannot be governed like Bodies nor are to be apprehended to have such a succession To the like purpose is it that he says that our absurdities will be infinitely increased by putting that the acts of a spirit are her very substance For the good man understands not that the playstering and mason-like Philosophy he has been bred unto is the most prostituted absurdity that can be taught 10. Pag. 378. He begins to answer objections and first this that if there be no inâ—rinsecal change the torment cannot be greater for the passing of time And he doth ingenuously confess it cannot But when he comes to apply his Doctrin he first advances this â—bsurdity that in our corporal torments there are no parts but the same part of the torment is put in more parts of time I do not wonder that an oversight might escape him whom peradventure weariness had dulled but that he had never a friend or overseer of his Book that could tell him corporal torments were motions and had their divers parts proportion'd to the parts of time I can hardly beleeve mine own eyes when I see it in his Book I pray consider to what absurdities their positions leads them it The next absurdity is nothing less though peradventure more cover'd He grants that if there be no real change there is no greater pain and he puts that time purely makes no real change but what it puts the same pain in a new time Be it so Where is the real change in the pain No for you say it is the same To be the same signifies not change Where then in the tiâ—… you say that adds nothing Where then in the putting of the pain to the time He says not so And it is plain that signifies but permaâ—…e or that the pain is the same in a 〈◊〉 time Where all novelty or change is in the time and onely in the time So that he puts both parts of the contradiction the pain without change is no greater and the pain without change is greater and in matching of these lyes his solution 11. After this he hopes it will not be hard to answer another objection he will put and he has reason For such solutions which admit both parts of a contradiction to be true are most easy to be made and impossible to be reply'd well against But let us hear the objection Saith the objectour if two acts be indivisible they cannot succeed one the other but they will be together This your Divine makes to be the objection and answers No they will not be together but succeed one the other And then says St. Thomas well observes this and that Aristotle for want of knowledg in Scripture knew not this and that he has proved it by above a dozen better demonstrations then this so often miscalled by that â—ame What can I say to this great Doctour Whence your Divine hath taken this Argument I cannot remember though my fancy gives that some where I have used Letters in this or some like subject but I cannot find the place I find the substance of the Argument is in my twelfth Account of the Treatise of the Middle State But there it is put in this Tenour that seeing the act of a Spirit hath no parts nor is capable of them either it will dure but for onely one moment of our time or else by by its nature it will dure for ever To dure for one moment of our time is not to dure at all for there are no instants in time or motion for they signify nothing but the not-being of motion Now if you assign a part of time in which this indivisible act continues you give it a duration essentially above the nature of time and therefore by its nature to endure all time if not longer then time There is added to this Argument this confirmation suppose of two acts which begin together in divers Angels one be put to dure longer then the other without any real addition of duration wherein can this consist that is it consists in nothing and therefore is impossible and Chimerical Of this Argument he brings no more then that of two acts succeeding one must needs be together with the other without any proof why which makes me think he aym'd not to bring this Argument though he professed to answer all he had ever heard of By the form of the Argument as he relates it the Authour of it seems to aym at this Conclusion that two acts of the same Spirit cannot be disjoynted by an intermission or Cessation from all act because there would be no medium but this your Divine seems not to â—ym at So that I can see nothing into this Argument but that it is imperfectly related Unless peradventure the Arguer takes the duration of Angelical acts to be purely Instantaneous as are the instants of time and your Divine speaks so ambiguously that a man cannot understand by his words whether he ever lookd into that point or desir'd to meddle with it For Aristotle hath demonstrated that two such instants cannot be together and that St. Thomas made no scruple to admit though your Divine seems to contradict Aristotle in his Doctrin which may easily be for not understanding either St. Thomas or the question or the force of a Demonstration As he plainly shews by bringing in Zeno's Errour in
comparison to Aristotl's demonstration and saying that in Aristotl's way there be insuperablr difficulties which uses to be the saying of those who understand not this Demonstration of Aristotle which is fundamenta to Philosophy and acknowledged by all who deserves the name of Philosophers And so you may see I did well to promise him no demonstrations who know not what they signify but thinks every Anthropomorphitical explication of Scripture to be Demonstrative EIGHTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his twenty third and twenty fourth Chapters Our Opinion avouch'd by true Philosophy Hiâ— Calumny of our Teâ—ets God's Gâ—… of the Synagogue different from that of the Church The notion of the word Merit The connaturalâ—ess of the pains we put and the needlesness of his The many ill-consequences and absurdities of the Opinion that all Venial affections are blotted out by Contrition in the first Act of Separation The â—illiness of his Opinion that souls in Purgatory cannot help themselves His probable Divinity His non-sâ—… that lyability to be punisht without Fault is 〈◊〉 blem isâ— refuâ—ed 1. I cannot but complain of your Divine that having promised such wonders in the last discussed Chapter he came off so pitifully that where he had the advantage of human apprehension against me he gave me not as much as occasion to explicate my Doctrin unless I should have gone and stray'd from his Text. His oppositions were pure opinions without any sight of Evidence His Authority for the most part of St. Thomas from whom in this point we professedly recede His Scripture such as he himself is bound to solve in respect of Almighty God So that in its words it has no force and all the force must come out of this whether the nature of Angels requires to have the words explicated improperly or no which he may suppose but goes not about to prove otherwise then from uncertain Authority His solutions to admit contradiction or else propose some Argument by halfs The rest of his Chapter high words 2. Howsoever I hope his three and twentieth Chapter will make amends for the question is not so Metaphysical as the other was It begins with an explication of my Doctrin disguis'd in high terms yet true ones for the greatest part In his second Number he accuseth it of being against Philosophy to say that God so order'd all things in the beginning that he need not since put his hand to it By which if he understands that God doth not continue conserving of his creatures it is not my Doctrin If he grants Conservation to God though the truth is that Conservation is but the very Act of first Creation though in name and notion it be divers then I must see how he proves it against Philosophy For saith he no natural cause can produce the soul of a man and therefore God must do some new action when there is an exigence of creating a soul. I grant no creature can create a â—oul but affirm that the first act of Creation creates every soul when time is without farther or greater Influence of God He may reply he understands not this To which my answer is that I beleeve him but cannot help him seeing it is not here place to explicate Mysteries of incident Philosophical points He may help himself if he pleases with my Institutiones both Peripaticae and Sacrâ— He adds two other Philosophical necessities he finds one of the necessity of Gods actual concourse with second causes the other of Gods choosing Individâ—…s for the second causes to produce The former as far as it hath sence in it is done by the Action of Creation or Conservation by which God sets the Angels on work to move celestial Bodies from whose motion actual motion flows into all other causes and this is the true either premotion or concourse of God with creatures plain and visible The other which I fear he means hath no kind of Philosophy nor Divinity in it The choosing of Individâ—… is the rascallest and the ridiculousest Position that ever was affirmed by any scum of Philosophers You see what sound maximes â—e takes to impugn the perfection of God's Wisdom 3. In his fourth Number he begins to employ his Divinity And first he asks what natural cause can raise dead bodies and give them due torments And I must answer with a reply of a question to wit when this is to be done While the Fabrick of Nature holds or when it is ended If when it is ended how comes it to our purpose Or is not he grosly mistaken to put this amongst the workings of Nature Yet that the course of Natural Causes does prepare the World even to this unmaking of Nature you may find in the last book of my Institutiones Sacrâ— For the proportionable pains the Soul of themselves will cause those as you may see in the same book To fill up here a Page with his own opinion of Purgatory was besides the matter for we doubt not but that he puts more Wilfulness then Wisdom in God Almighty's Actions 4. His main Answer begins N. 3. where he tells us that it is Heresie to make natural causes to have vertue sufficient to bring man by themselves alone to his final end of Eterâ—… Bliss And then he tells you that our prime Argument is the same that Pâ—…gius's to wit that every natural Agent ought to have power given it from the Author of Nature to bring it self to its natural perfection But first I would enquire where â—e sound in any Writing of mine the Proposâ—â—on he condemns If I say that God hâ—th ordain'd second causes to do all effects which are not to be seen to be miraculous do I exclude supernatural causes Are not Christ's coming and Preaching the coming of the Holy Ghost the Habits of Faith Hope and Charity the Prayers and Preaching and good Works proceeding from men thorough such Habits the Sacraments the whole â—orm of the Church all Supernatural causes interwoven with natural To what purpose then doth this man talk that natural causes are not sufficient to bring a man to Heaven Is it not plain he knows neither what I say nor what himself See how just our Argument is the same with the Pelagâ—â—n's Out of this you see his Answer is like to be a good one and so it is For Numb 8. he hath so I answer As man's last 〈◊〉 cannot be reâ—ched by Nature so is it out of the reach of natural causes by their natural operation to chastise man's sinning proportionably to his voluntary acting against his supernatural end My Reply is that he must seek out to whom to answer for I never talked of purely natural causes but natural and supernatural together as they compound all second causes But the good man could think of no supernatural causes but God himself working immediately and so strayed to seek out why such actions were not miraculous which we will not follow him to because it is not concerning to our Theme 5.