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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28402	A treatise of the sibyls so highly celebrated, as well by the antient heathens, as the holy fathers of the church : giving an accompt of the names, and number of the sibyls, of their qualities, the form and matter of their verses : as also of the books now extant under their names, and the errours crept into Christian religion, from the impostures contained therein, particularly, concerning the state of the just, and unjust after death / written originally by David Blondel ; Englished by J.D.	Blondel, David, 1591-1655.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1661 (1661)	Wing B3220; ESTC R38842	342,398	310

to the Corinthians All the wickedness which as so much false Alloy is mixed among the things that are being taken away by the melting of the Purgative Fire whatsoever drew its Original from God shall become such as it was at the beginning before it had received the tincture of that wickedness Saint Ambrose in his Sermon upon the thirty sixth Psalm according to the Greeks By Fire therefore shall the Sons of Levi be purged by Fire Ezechiel by Fire Daniel but though they are tried by Fire yet shall they say We have passed through the Fire and through the Water others shall remain in the Fire upon these the Fire shall fall down like dew as upon the Hebrew children c. We shall be saved by Faith yet shall we be saved so as by Fire though we shall not be absolutely burnt up yet shall we burn and the Holy Scripture teacheth us how some continue in the Fire others pass through it to wit as the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the Red Sea through which the children of Israel had passed before them c. And on the twentieth Section of the hundred and eighteenth Psalm according to the Greeks It is necessary that all those who desire to return to Paradise be tried by Fire for it is not without reason written that Adam and Eve being thrust out of the seat of Paradise God placed at the entrance of Paradise a flaming Sword which turned every way All therefore must pass through the Flames whether it be Saint John the Evangelist whom the Lord loved so dearly that he said of him to Peter If I would have him to stay what is that to thee Follow thou me some have doubted of his death of his passage through the Fire we cannot doubt or whether he be Peter who was entrusted with the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven he must say We have passed through the Fire c. One onely who is the Justice of God was not subject to the sense of that Fire to wit Christ who hath committed no sin for the Fire found not in him what it might have burned And in his Book Of Widows God requires not of thee the price of a glittering Metal but the Gold which the Fire cannot burn at the day of Judgment Saint Hierome towards the end of the sixty sixth Chapter of Esay disputing against those who denied the perpetuity of Torments suffered by the Damned proposes his sentiment in these Terms which suppose a general examination by Fire at the last day As we believe the Torments of the Devil and of all such as deny God and of wicked men who have said in their heart There is no God to be eternal so do we believe moderated and capable of compassion the Sentence of the Judg concerning those who though sinners and wicked are yet Christians whose Works are to be tried and purged by Fire Saint Augustine in the four and twentieth Chapter of his sixteenth Book Of the City of God where he speaks of the Vision of Abraham mentioned in the fifteenth Chapter of Genesis By that Fire which Abraham saw is signified The Day of Judgment distinguishing between those who are to be saved by the Fire and those who are to be condemned to the Fire And in the five and twentieth Chapter of the twentieth Book where he explicates the second and third Verses of the third Chapter of Malachy By the things which have been said it seems to be very manifest that in that Judgment that is the Last some are to undergo Purgatory pains c. We are to take the Sons of Levi Juda and Jerusalem for the Church of God assembled not onely among the Hebrews but also among other Nations not such as it is at the present where if we say We have no sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us but such as it it shall be then cleansed by the last Judgment as a floor that is swept those to whom such a cleansing is necessary having been also cleansed by the fire The Authour of the third Homily upon the Epiphany unjustly attributed to Eusebius Emissenus since it seems to have been written either by Eucherius of Lyons or by Faustus of Rhegium There that is at the last Day Conflagrations changing their nature the Just shall pass through horrid Gulfs Their Bodies which are to derive Glory from their pains because they are not burthened by sins shall not be touched by the Fires for the cruel Burnings shall prevail nothing on those whom the Flames of sinfull lusts had not overcome before and the rational heat shall not be able to injure those on whom Purity hath conferred reverence Otherwise avoiding wrath it shall make way for the vapours and will of its own accord obey because it shall not finde any thing on which it may be necessary it should exercise Judgment Diadochus Bishop of Photica in the Antient Epirus in the last Chapter of his Book Of Spiritual perfection Those who at their death shall express ever so little fear shall be left in the multitude of all other men as undergoing the Judgment to the end that being examined by the Fire of Judgment they may receive from the All-good God and the King Jesus Christ the reward due unto them according to their Works From the joynt Testimony of these twelve Witnesses now produced it is apparent that the second head of the Opinions proposed by the Sibylline Writing was equally with the former constantly maintained by the most eminent Prelates of both the Greek and Latine Churches till after the year 459. wherein Diadochus subscribed with the Councel of the Antient Epirus the Letter written to the Emperour Leo the First concerning the proceeding of Timothy surnamed Aelurus Usurper of the Chair of Alexandria against Proterius whom he had Assassinated Nay it further appears from the Epitaph of Vilithut● a Parisian Lady writ in the year 560. by Venantius Fortunatus afterwards Bishop of Poictiers that the Church of that Time was not free from that Opinion which he expresses in these Terms Digni lumen habent damnati incendia deflent Illos splendor alit hos vapor igne coquit Res est una quidem duplici sed finditur actu Nam cremat indignos quo probat igne pios The Blest have Light the Damn'd their Fires bewail Those are in Bliss o're these the Flames prevail The same thing doth t' a double Act divide The Bad i' th Fire are Burn'd the Just are Try'd CHAP. XI The Third main Tenet proposed by the Sibylline Writing THe third Head of Doctrine proposed by the Sibylline Writing concerning the State of the Dead is that The Saints after their Resurrection are to be reconducted to live in that Paradise of the possession whereof Adam and Eve were for their disobedience deprived For the Authour of that Romance having taken literally and understood carnally what he had read Luke xxiii 43. 2 Cor. xii 4. Apoc. ii 7. concerning Paradise and

And then shall all pass through the burning River and the unextinguishable Flame all the just shall be saved but the wicked shall perish to all ages c. The Angels carrying them through the burning River shall bring them into Light c. He will give men the power to save themselves from the burning fire and eternal gnashings of Teeth c. And then shall God send from heaven the King and shall judge every man by blood and the splendour of Fire This Imagination considered by the most antient of the Fathers as taken out of a Book of divine Authority made so strong an Impression upon them that they took it for an infallible Lesson Hence Saint Irenaeus in the ninth Chapter of his Book having applied to the end of the world those words of Malachy The day of the Lord shall burn as an Oven adds John the Baptist tells us who that Lord is at whose coming there shall be such a day saying of Christ He shall baptise you with the holy Ghost and with Fire having his Fan in his hand to cleanse his Floor and he will put up the Corn into his Garner but shall burn the Chaff in unquenchable Fire He therefore who made the corn is no other then he who made the chaff but one and the same judging those things and separating them Origen in his third Homily upon the thirty sixth Psalm If in this life we slight the words of the Scripture admonishing us and will not be either healed or amended by the reprehensions thereof it is certain we must come to the Fire which is prepared for sinners even to that Fire 1 Cor. iii. 13. which shall try every mans work of what sort it is And as I conceive it is necessary that we all come to that fire though one be a Paul or a Peter he will nevertheless come to that fire But those who are such shall hear Though thou walkest through the Fire the Flame shall not kindle upon thee Isa xliii 2. But if any one be a sinner as my self he shall indeed come to that Fire as well as Peter and Paul And as the Hebrews came to the Red Sea so did also the Egyptians but the Isralites passed through the Red Sea and the Egyptians were overwhelmed therein In like manner we if we are Egyptians and follow Pharao who is the Devil obeying his commandments shall be overwhelmed in that fiery Lake or River when we shall be guilty of the sins which we are addicted to no doubt through the commandment of Pharao But if we are Israelites and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb without spot if we carry not about us the leaven of malice and wickedness we also must enter into the fiery River but as the Waters were to the Israelites a wall on the right hand and on the left so shall the Fire be as a Wall if we do as it is reported of them that is to say that they believed the Lord and his servant Moses that is to say his Law and Commandments and by that means follow the Pillar of Fire and the Pillar of the Cloud And in his fourteenth Homily upon Saint Luke I think that even after the Resurrection of the dead we shall stand in need of the Sacrament to cleanse and purge us for none will be able to rise again without Filth Lactantius in the twenty first Chapter of his seventh Book When he shall judge the just he shall also try them by Fire then shall those whose sins have prevailed either as to their weight or number be smitten by the Fire and burnt but those whom a fulness of Justice and maturity of Virtue shall have hardned shall not be sensible of that Fire Saint Hilary who in the second of his Canons upon Saint Matthew had observed in general that it lies even upon those who are baptised with the Holy Spirit to be consummated or accomplished by the Fire of the last Judgment in his third Sermon upon the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm according to the Greeks applies it particularly to the blessed Virgin to shew that in his judgment it cannot admit any exception saying Since we are to give an account Matthew xii 36. for every idle word do we desire to come to the day of Judgment wherein we are to pass through that indefatigable Fire wherein we are to suffer those grievous Torments which tend to the expiation of the soul from its sins If a sword did pierce through the soul of the Blessed Mary that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed if that Virgin who was capable of receiving God was to come to the severity of Judgment who will presume to desire to be judged of God Saint Gregory Nazianzene Orat. 26. The day of the revelation will declare manifestly whether it be through a sound Ratiocination that I please not as also the last Fire by which all our works shall be judged and purged And in the thirty ninth speaking of those who think themselves so pure that they think they have reason to bid their Brethren Stand at a distance from them It may be that there to wit at the end of the world they shall be baptized by Fire with the final Baptism which is the most grievous and most long which feeds on the matter as on grass and consumes the vanity of all wickedness And in the fourtieth where he bewails his own imperfection Who will secure me that I shall be saved at the end and that the judicial seat will not look upon me still as a debtour and one that stands in need of the Cons●agration which shall be then Saint Basil upon the 4th of Esay Verse 4th where the Prophet treats of the cleansing of Jerusalem hath this consideration Are there not three Notions of Baptism The Purgation of the Filth the Regeneration by the Spirit and the Examination by the fire of Judgment And upon these words of the Tenth Howl for the day of the Lord is at hand by the day of the Lord he means that of the last Judgment Then adds If none be pure in respect of the works that are forbidden let every one fear that day for saith he to wit Saint Paul 1 Cor. iii. 15. If any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by Fire And in the fifteenth Chapter of his Book Of the holy Ghost Saint John calleth Baptism of Fire the Trial which shall be made at the day of Judgment according to what the Apostle saith The Fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is And in the nine and twentieth speaking of Athenogenes a Man famous among the Antient Christians he says That he strove to arrive at the consummation or accomplishment which shall be made by Fire Saint Gregory of Nyssa Brother to St. Basil in his Oration upon the eight and twentieth Verse of the fifteenth Chapter of the first Epistle

question the truth of other times Of that kind is that which is attributed to the Sibyl of Moses hinting at and foretelling the Deluge Lib. 1. p. 9. as also what is found written in the same Book pag. 11. that the Sibyl her self with her husband her Father-in-law Mother-in-law her brethren-in-law and others was t●ss'd up and down by the waves in the time of the Deluge But it is evident rom pag. 30. that those very things which have come abroad under the name of Oracles were written fifteen hundred years after the Empire of the Greeks whereof whether we take the beginning from the reign of the Argives or Sicyonians or Athenians or whether it be taken from Moses from the reign of Solomon the Macedonian Empire or the four Monarchies those things which are called Predictions will be frivolous and after the things done They will be found also to be wanting as to truth if the government of the Greeks began since Moses for from the departure of Moses and Israel out of Aegypt to the destroying of the Administration or Commonwealth and Government of the Jews under Vespasian are reckoned one thousand four score and two years Further what can be said as to what we find in the fifth Book p. 49. where the Sibyl affirms that she had seen a second conflagration of the Temple of Vesta And that according to the testimony of Eusebius it happened under the Emperour Commodus in the year 199. for in that year the Temple of Vesta and the Palace and the greatest part of the City was burnt whereas the first conflagration happened in the 134. Olympiad Whence it is to be conceiv'd that the Prophetess if it may be lawfull to call her such prophesy'd not before the birth of Christ but long after and pretends not to any thing beyond Commodus since that in the eighth Book p. 57. she says that three Emperours shall reign after Adrian that is to say Antoninus the Debonnaire Antoninus the Philosopher and Commodus To this may be added that it is apparent from the first Book of Lactantius Firmianus Chap. 6. that each of the Sibyls writ her own Book and yet that now they seem to be all the Work of one because they all go under the name of the Sibyl and that we cannot distinguish them nor assign to any one her own unless it be to the Erythraean who put her name into her Poem and is called Erythraea now that was the Work of the Erythraean which takes up the third place among those Books The Author of the first Book feign'd himself to be daughter-in-law to Noë the second and the seventh seems to personate a most impudent strumpet pag. 56. though there want not some credible Authors who affirm that the true Sibyls were chast and inspir'd of God The sister of Isis challenges the fifth Book the rest were publish'd under the names of uncertain Authors By way of Annotation upon this granting what he sayes as to the supposititiousness of the pretended Sibyl as also that Moses is more ancient then any that have gone under that name I affirm In the first place That the writing which goes commonly under that title does not introduce Moses but Noah himself foretelling the Deluge which speaks yet a little more confidence 2. That from the departure out of Aegypt to the taking of Jerusalem by Titus there are 1600. years compleat 518. more then was thought 3. That the Author of the Sibylline Books does not affirm he saw the second conflragration of the Temple of Vesta but the last of Jerusalem The house sometime so much desir'd by thee says he to Rome when I saw that house pull'd down and set on fire the second time by an impure hand a house ever flourishing and having God in it which house he supposes that Christ himself descending from heaven will come and re-establish together with Jerusalem to reign there in his glory Which manifestly argues that though threatning Rome with finall destruction he writes The Virgins shall not always find the Divine fire yet he neither saw nor foresaw the conflagration that happened in the twelfth year of Commodus which was but the 191. of our Saviour but reflected on the Prediction of St. John expressing that Rome should be utterly burnt with fire and be found no more at all so that he thought it would be to no purpose to look there for Vesta's fire and other Monuments of her Paganisme 4. That if his intention had been to denote the conflagration happened under Commodus he could not truly have call'd it the second for that besides the first mentioned in Dionysius Halicarnassaeus and happening under the Consulate of Gracchus and Falto in the third year of the 135. Olympiad and the 516. of Rome there had been a second observ'd by Tacitus and other creditable Authors under the Consulship of Bassus and Crassus in the fourth year of the 210. Olympiad which was the 817. of Rome the 64. of our Saviour and 11. of Nero. 5. That he doth not onely not pretend to any thing beyond Commodus but makes an apparent stop at Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus which latter he presum'd must needs as being the younger by seven years out-live the other After him saith he whose name begins with a T. the note of the number three hundred that is to say Trajan another shall reign a person with a silver head that is one that was already arriv'd to grey hairs or shall be as he speaks in the eighth Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoary and his name that is to say Adrian shall be deriv'd from the Sea Adriatick and he shall be good all manner of wayes and shall know all things and under thee O man absolutely good excellent all manner of wayes and hoary headed and under thy boughs that is to say thy adoptive sons the last dayes shall come to pass three shall reign that is to say Antoninus Marcus and Lucius but the last that is Lucius shall obtain the soveraignty of all things And in the eighth Book After him that is to say Adrian there shall reign three who shall see the last days filling the Name of the heavenly God whose kingdom is now and to all ages that is to say they shall be called Antonini or according to our manner of pronouncing Andonini from the name Adonai and Adonim that is Antoninus the Debonaire Antoninus the Philosopher and Lucius Verus Antoninus who he pretends ought as being the youngest to survive the other two succeed them and continue til the 948. year of Rome or the 195 of our Redemption in which he would have been 67. years of age never imagining that Lucius by his irregularities would prejudice his health so as to be cut off in the flower of his age in the midst of Winter between the years 169. and 170. 6. That though Lactantius carried away with the prejudice of his time conceiv'd that the Books called Sibylline

it was no less then the height of impertinence in her to call her self as she did Noah's Daughter-in-law and to boast that she had seen a ruin 2068. later then the death of Noah and 2427. years after the Deluge as if according to the Fable advanced by Ovid in the thirteenth Book of his Metamorphoses that pretended Prophetess having obtained the Privilege of living as many years as there were Grains in the heap of Sand shewed by the Cumaean Sibyl to Apollo she had at the time of her Writing already passed not 700. years as that Prophetess of Ovid but above 2400. and expected to continue till the end of the World whereas the Cumaean Sibyl as is reported of her thought she was to become at the end of a thousand so wasted as not to have any Body at all having after the dissolution of her precedent Form onely her voice left her to foretell what was to come Her words taken out of the fifth Book page 49. are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nor longer shall in Thee the Virgin quire The Fuel finde of their perpetual Fire The Amiable House long since by thee Hath been destroy'd The second I did see The guardian-Temple o' th' Divinity That ever flourishing house in 'ts Ashes lie Fir'd by an impious hand c. Which Discourse cannot clearly relate to any thing but the Conflagration of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romane Army as a Punishment for which act the Authour of the Sibylline Oracles pretends that Rome should be lai'd desolate in such manner as that the Vestals should not any longer keep in the Fire which they called Sacred and Divine CHAP. VI. Of the Time when the Sibylline Books were written FRom what hath been said is manifest that the Opinion of Possevin concerning the Time wherein the Person who counterfeited the Sibyl lived is ill grounded and our Method now calls upon us to make enquiry how many years we must ascend assuredly to finde it out That he Writ under Antoninus his own words were sufficient to convince any man that should well consider them but his credit sequestered from the things which may otherwise keep it up being with good reason of no account his sincerity is greatly to be suspected and his discourse requiring much caution it is necessary we finde other helps to confirm what is advanced and preferr the Testimonies of those whom his Imposture hath circumvented before any thing he could have represented of himself Theophilus of Antioch who died on the thirteenth of October in the year 180. in regard he hath inserted into his Books To Autolycus divers things taken out of the Sibylline Writings does irrefragably prove that they were before him in Time and that contrary to the conjecture of Possevin the Authour who first writ them reached not the Reign of Commodus who when Theophilus died onely began the eighth Moneth of his Reign Athenagoras who in his Embassy to the Emperours Marcus Aurelius and Verus on the behalf of the Christians copied six Verses out of the second Book shews that this counterfeit Prophecy was in Vogue some time before the year 170. in which Verus died Hermas whom Tertullian affirms to have been Brother to Pope Pius the First who took the Chair on Sunday the seventh of March 146. under the Consulship of Clarus and Severus and died on the eleventh of July 150. under the Consulship of Gallicanus and Vetus discovers that he had a particular knowledg of the said Writings since that in his Work entituled The Pastour he hath not onely shuffled many fantastick Imaginations suitable to those of the pretended Sibyl but designed the Authour by the very Name he would go under For as much as in the second Vision of the first Book having imagined that an Aged Woman had while he was in Ecstasie given him a little Book to transcribe containing Exhortations to Penance he expressed what he seemed to believe of it in these Terms Brethren it hath been revealed to me in my Sleep by a Young man of a goodly appearance and saying to me Who do you think this Aged Woman is of whom you received the Book and I said The Sibyl Whence it follows That before the year 150. this Opinion had gained Footing at Rome among the Christians That a Sibyl much unlike that of the Heathens gave Sinners wholesom Instructions in order to the Exercises of Penance and true Piety And whereas Pope Pius in his second Epistle to Justus of Vienna makes mention of the Death of his Brother saying The Priest called The Pastour hath founded a Title and is worthily departed in the Lord it justifies that between the year 146. and 150. Hermas had maintained the Suppostion of the Sibyl and that the Authour of the Books attributed to her must be yet more antient St. Justin a Christian Philosopher a Native of Neapolis in Palaestina sometime called Sichem and who afterwards suffered Martyrdom at Rome on the first of June 163. does in his First Apologie presented to the Emperour Antoninus his Adopted Sons and the People before Marcus Aurelius had been received into Partnership of the Empire and consequently about the year 141 or 142. complain of the Prohibition had been made that none upon pain of Death should read the Books of Hystaspes and the Sibyl which he presented to the Princes and Senate as things deserving to be highly esteemed and it is not to be doubted but that Holy Person spoke of those which are come to our hands since that in his Exhortation to the Greeks he copied three Verses out of his Preface three out of the third Book and Seaven out of the Fourth a manifest Argument that they were already published since they had passed through his Hands and that he objected them as Pieces generally known to the Heathen themselves whose Errours he opposed CHAP. VII A Conjecture concerning the Authour of the Sibylline Writings IT were at this Day impossible for any man to be so happy in the discovery of the Authour of that Imposture as that he might without any fear of Mistake make his Name publike to be covered with the shame and enormity of his sacrilegious attempt against the sincerity of the Church But methinks there is some ground to charge if not as the principal advancer of the Cheat at least as a complice of his crime Hermas who as hath been observed spoke of the Sibyl in the year 148 or 149. and who was grown infamous for another kind of Supposititious dealing whereby he presumed to feign Apparitions of Women and Angels disguised like Shepherds who furnished him with Instructions of Penance pestered with fantastick Imaginations which he hath expressed in as wretched Greek as that of the Sibylline Writings and such as equally with the other deserves perpetual dishonour Though he were a Native of Aquileia yet was his residence with his Brother Pope Pius at Rome that is in the Heart of that place which for the space of

most Antient and the Exercise of the same Prayers as they had made use of For though they make mention of the Last day's Fire and are absolutely silent concerning Purgatory yet do not those in the Western-Church who pray for the Dead hardly fasten their thought on any thing but their deliverance out of the pretended place of Pain and their disposal into rest and I am to learn whether there be any who think of the Resurrection to which alone relate even to this day both the Texts and Prayers usually read in the Office of the Dead Besides it be thought shamefull to pray as in the Times of St. Chrysostome Prudentius and St. Augustine for the Damned not out of any hope to attain their absolute deliverance but onely some alleviation of the Pai●s they suffer in Hell And the Legends of Fa●tonilla and Trajan rescued out of eternal Damnation by the Prayers of St. Thecla and Gregory the Great are somewhat offensive to the Learned even of the Roman Communion who are not a little troubled to excuse John Damascene as to that particular To be short not one of the Doctours before the year 590. proposed to himself any such thing as either the confinement of the Dead in Purgatory or Prayer for their deliverance out of it CHAP. XLIII The Obscurity and Uncertainty of the Opinion of Purgatory GREGORY the Great the first of all those of whom we have remaining among us any Monuments to this purpose having in the year 593. begun to fasten together in his Dialogues and Sermons the Discourses he had heard and which he recommends to us with this notable Observation that they were Novelties not heard of before since he brings in Peter his Deacon putting this Question to him Quid hoc est quaeso te quod in his extremis temporibus tammulta de animabus clarescunt quae antè latuerunt c. What means it I beseech you that in these Last Times there are discovered concerning souls so many things which were hidden before The Leaven so spread it self since that in the Time of Beda viz. one hundred and twenty years after St. Gregory some numbred cold and temperate Purgatories as well as hot ones which was further heightned by Visions and Prodigious Relations as if the confidence of Feigning should as it grew Elder grow also stronger But though there were no other reason to quarrel at this Opinion then the Novelty of it as such as had not appeared in the West before the end of the sixth Age and could never obtain Naturalization in the East and South where it is yet unknown to the Vulgar and discarded by the Learned and the irresolution wherewith its Principal and first Promoter Pope Gregory spoke whether of the place of Hell or the activity of Infernal Fire upon the Spirits which according to his Imagination are tormented therein yet they clearly justifie that he Treated not the Question of the State of the dead but as it were by conjecture and upon the Imaginations of Persons so apt to be mis-informed as that there needed onely some common Report and the affirmation of a confident Dreamer to perswade them to any thing I know well enough that Cardinal Bellarmine to derive the Business somewhat higher cites St. Augustine who being in some difficulty about the Explication of those Words of Saint Paul He shall be saved yet so as by Fire had about the year 410. made use of these Words which manifestly discover how far he was unresolved in the Case Sive in hac vita tantùm ista homines patiuntur sive etiam post hanc vitam talia quaedam Judicia subsequuntur non abhorret quantum arbitror à ratione veritatis iste intellectus hujus Sententiae veruntamen etiamsi est alius qui mihi non occurrit eligendus non cogimur dicere injustis c. Salvi eritis c. Whether it be in this Life onely that men suffer such things that is to say dolefull Regrets for the things of this World which they have carnally loved or that after this Life some such Judgments follow this way of understanding the place of the Apostle is not in my Judgment repugnant to the reason of Truth yet if we must pitch upon another sense which is not obvious to me we are not forced to say to the unjust c. You shall be saved Continuing still in the same posture about the year 419. he writ to his Friend Laurence Tale aliquid c. That some such thing may happen even after this Life is not incredible and whether it be really so may be questioned and it may be either found true or remain concealed to wit whether some of the Faithfull according as they have more or less loved perishable Goods may be sooner or later saved through a Purgatory Fire And note that having not any thing more certain to answer he kept to the same Terms in resolving the first Question proposed to him by Dulcitius Nay in the year 424. which was the seventh before his death publishing his Books Of the City of God he harped on the same Doctrine saying Post istius sanè corporis mortem c. But as for the time between the bodily death and Last Judgment if any one say that the Spirits of the Dead are all that while tried in such a Fire as they do not any way feel who were not subject to the same Inclinations and Affections in this Life that their Wood Straw and Stubble might be consumed but that others who carry hence such Buildings do onely here or both here and there or here so as not there pass through the purging Fire of a Transitory Tribulation which burns the things of this World though Venial in respect of Damnation I reprove him not for that it is possible he is in the right But the Proceeding of the present Church of Rome who triumphs so much upon these Passages whereby she pretends to draw St. Augustine to her side is so much the more unjust towards him the more she presumes on the Testimony of a Witness who does not onely not say any thing as to what she would have him but absolutely destroys it in as much as he speaks of a Fire which some feel even in this Life and others after it Whence it follows that his Imagination reached no further then a Metaphorical and Intentional Fire which may be felt even during the Life of this Body whereas the Romane Church supposes a real and material one which burns not the living but torments the spirits of the Departed Secondly That he is not confident of his having found out the true sense of St. Paul's Words but ingenuously confesses that they may be understood in some other to him absolutely unknown Thirdly That treading as it were upon Thorns he is not over-ready to give us any thing for certain but entertains us with a simple Conjecture which might be brought to Question