body and what a trifle it was that impeded her A moment lost of those inebriating joyes seems to her now worthy to be redeemed with an eternity of pains Then reflecting with her self that she was created only for God and can not be truly satisfied but by enjoying God and that out of him all this goodly machine of the world is no better then a direct Hell and an abisse of evills alas what Worms what Martyrdomes and what nipping Pincers are such pinching thoughts as these The fire is to her but as smoak in comparison of this vexing remembrance of her own follies which betray'd her to this disgracefull and unavoidable misfortune There was a King in an humour gave away his Crown and his whole Estate for the present refreshment of a cup of cold water but returning a little to himself and soberly reflecting what he had done had like to have run stark mad to see the strange irreparable folly he had committed To loose a year or two years to say no more the beatificall vision for a glasse of Water for a handfull of Earth for the love of a fading Beauty for a little Ayre of worldly praise a meer puff of Honour ah it is the Hell of Purgatory to a Soul that truely loves God and frames a right conceipt of things Jephte Judic c. 11 c. 18. could have died for grief when he saw that by his own rashnesse he was to loose his onely daughter the light of his Eyes the life of his Soul and Soul of his life And that poore youth from whom they had stolne his gods although they were meere Idols yet did he take on most bitterly and was become so disconsolate there was no chiding him out of that humour What! said he have you rob'd me of my gods and do you now question me why I lament as if he had not cause enough to grieve who has lost his gods And you may observe it was not his fault that they were lost and besides they were but gods of wood and stone such as a skilfull Artist would have made farr better The case here is different for the Souls clearly see they have lost God through their own carelesness and lost him for ten twenty or perhaps thirty years and this puts them out of the reach of all comfort T is true here below we are not able to taste the bitternesse of this wormwood but those pure Souls who are in the grace of God and full of light and well grounded discourses see so clearly the grossenesse and foulnesse of this errour and taste so sensibly the gall and bitternesse thereof that it is a more vexing pain to them then that of the fire But you will say it is but for a short time that they are to be kept out of paradise O God! this is enough to break their hearts for in that short time you speak of they could have exercised a Million of most refined heroicall and divine acts in Heaven and all this is lost And if one act of vertue here on Earth give so much glory to God and so much joy to the whole Court of Heaven what a losse is it to have carelesly let slip the occasion of excercising a million of such acts in Heaven which can never be recalled I speak not for the merit nor for the content there is in doing well nor for the degrees of glory which are lost no I touch not yet what concernes their interest but I onely treat of the glory which they might have given to God by their signal services of Love and Adoration all which pretious treasure is negligently cast away When that Marc. 12. 42. Luc. 21. 2. good poore widow cast her two brasse mites into the Treasury Christ Jesus was as well pleased as if she had cast in both her eyes or as many Worlds and when St. Martin cut his Cloak in two to give one half of it to a needy beggar our Blessed Saviour vouchsafed to cloath himself with that half garment and turning to the Angels who were about him in great numbers and withall shewing them that livery of his servant behold said he how noble this young Catechumen has attired me If the Almighty Monark of the world makes so great a reckoning of one act of vertue one small charity what vexation will it breed in a Soule of the other World to consider that other glorious soules and perhaps some of her alliance or acquaintance are alredy daily spending themselves in acts of highest perfection and that she has wilfully thrown away all this glory which she might have given to Almighty God and in place of acting so gloriously in the empireall Heaven all resplendent with divine Fire she is constrained to lye parching and frying in the flames of Purgatory and undergoing a thousand inconsolable punishments Now if you lay on the back of Their incredible losse this the consideration of interest good God! what a terrible grief will it be to holy Souls to reflect on the losse of so many degrees of Grace and Glory which they have foolishly and negligently cast away for meere trifles and without hope of recovery One grain of Grace is certainly more worth then all the world what a misery then what a grief and what a confusion will it be to have prodigally sold for nothing so many grains so many graces and so many worlds of true happiness Since I have lost my Empire cried Nero there is no living for me Could I but one day arrive to be King of Athens â—â—d a Grecian I could be content to walk barefoot to the bottomlesse pit of hell so great a valew do I set upon swaying the Scepter but one day and so pretious is the least grain of glory in my estimation Now if these ambitious souls have such feelings for a little transitory and worldly glory what will they have who breath nothing but the pure love of God and know how to set a true value upon glory and celestial glory in those heavenly mansions This in the opinion of learned Suarez is a worm the most sensible and the most vexatious of all others in that Church of patient sufferers But since these two Wormes Whether Love or grief torments most Love and Griefe combine together to martyrise those poore Soules which of the two is the most grievous charity or contrition They have neither of them teeth to bite with but they conjure up such tempests of biting thoughts in these unfortunate souls as gâ—â—e them a world of afflictions Me thinks I hear them discourse in their turnes much after this fashion Love O ungratefull and disloyal Soul hast thou so easily lost the sight of thy mercifull Redeemer Grief Dye for shame unlucky Soul and dye for Grief for having so easily merited that God should thus banish thee and punish thee in these base flames Love What hast thou got by loosing so good a God whom thou wert already to have
have this privation or pain of loss to be so cruel as others make it and in particular he maintains that it does not always exceede the greatest torments of this life I will not take upon me the boldness to make my selfe judge and umpire between St. Thomas and Saint Bonaventure that is to say between an Angel and a Seraphin an angelical doctor and a Seraphical Doctor in a word between two famous oracles of Divinity two glorious Suns placed in the several Spheres of their religious orders But what remedy whether of the two shal we believe The one assures us that the privation of the sight of God is a martyrdomes beyond all the Martyrdome of this world the other tels us for a truth that it were certainly a most grievous torment but that it is somtimes so tempered and alleniated by other considerations that it equals not the severest rigour of the Torments of this world What is there no means to reconcile these two heavenly Doctors May we not say they have both reason on their sides they have both won and both lost the field and whilst the one looks as it were to the North the other to the South they both meet in the Meridian line of charity and rest securely in the bosome of the same truth St Thomas would say that if you look upon this privation as it relates to God the loss is incomparable and he speaks the very truth that the Soul has not a more violent instinct then that which carries her to God this is also an undoubted truth that there cannot be a heavier loss then that of God and is not this also clear That unless this greife be otherwise moderated it is the most intolerable of all others this is as evident as the rest that you cannot deprive a Soul of a more lively object and consequently that there is not the thing in this world whose absence is of its Nature so sensible who can doubt of all this certainly if you state the case thus and go no further St. Thomas has clearly got the victory Now let us hear St. Bonaventure Who tels us that this evil of privation being joyned with a most certaine hope of seeing God ere long may be much lessened that even in this world we want the sight of God and yet by reason of other diversions are not so much concerned for it that the holy Souls most contentedly submit themselves to this piece of severity and the more willingly they do it the less are they burthened with sorrow that many Saints out of pure charity and for the glory of God have offered themselves to be thus eternally deprived of the sight of God and have taken great pleasure in it with a world of other reasons of which I shall treat in the next Survey where I must 〈◊〉 up the comforts of the Souls in Purgatory Has he not reason for all this I pray you Nay have they not both reason for what they teach Me thinks they do like those that look upon your pictures which are drawn after the Italian fashion by Mathematical projection one looks upon them this way and sees a faire Picture of St Michael another that way and sees St Laurence upon a Gridiron represented to life the one vowes he sees an Angel and he saies true the other is ready to swear he sees a Martyr and he is not mistaken mean while they contest about it and neither of them will forsake his Opinion whil'st both are in the right though they seem to wrong one another Let us therefore conclude that in truth there is somthing in this pain of loss which surpasses all that can be imagined in this world but that God is pleased in some cases to mingle certaine Comfortable sweets with it which take off much of the bitterness which the Souls would otherwise find in it §. 3. Other Considerations much aggrevating these Pains BUt that which adds new Life To loose God willfully and strength to these quick and piercing pains is to see that they have not only willfully lost for ever so many degrees of glory whereof the least is an inestimable treasure but are also estranged from the sight of God by their own carelesness and tepidity To want the sight of God out of charity is to find a kind of Paradice in Hell but to loose the sight of God by his own fault though it be but for a moment is a Hell indeed to a Soul that loves Naturalists tell us of a little bird thâ—â— is so far in love with the sun that she lives no longer then she can behold it and so lives but a few hours for no sooner does the sun set but the poor bird seeing no longer the living rayes of the sun believing it to be really dead dies also as not being able to survive the sole object of his love God is the Sun of our Souls and therefore these worthy Souls seeing this Sun quite ecliâ—sed from their eyes and overcast with the sable night of a suffering people would doubtless die if they could for God being the life of their life having lost his life how should they live When the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph had lost the sight of the little Infant Jesus what Tongue can express the affliction of their Souls He only knows who has tried it by experience and whose eyes God hath opened what it is to loose the sight of God and to loose it through his own fault and to be as it were poinâ—â—d at for a wretch that has lost 〈◊〉 God I wept sayes holy David and I Ps 41. 4. wept night and day when they would be still thus obrayding me why David where is thy God the God for whom thou hadst so much love Oh it is a dagger at my very Heart and they kill me when they aske me the question Now this dagger is never from the hearts of those desolate and languishing Souls I will either die this day cried Caesar or I will be the chief in Rome for what likelihood is there that Caesar should live and not be Caesar live and not live in the quality which is due to his birth and courage Oh how often does this thought assault persecute these holy Souls alas how easily could I have purchased a million of degrees of essential Glory and got Laurels upon Laurels Crowns upon Crowns and Trophees without number and unfortunate wretch as I am I have lost all this eternally for meer sloath for want of a little striving for it am I not worthy to undergo the pains I suffer though they were a thousand times more rigourous and intollerable I do not wonder that Divines affirme this Heart-breaking to be far worse then the privation of the sight of God for to this they can find some ease and comfort but the other is altogether inconsolable since it is purely through their own faults You may imagine all the vertues All the vertues charge
comfortable news of eternal bliss that he was not at all sensible of any oppression of nature nor seem'd to be the least concerned for it For said he what can any thing else availe me since I am one day to have Paradise with all the delights of Heaven Now if we Suar. d. 47. S. 3. credit the holy doctours of the Church and best divines of the Christian world the Souls in Purgatory are most certaine of their salvation For no sooner is the Soul departed this life but she is brought to a particular judgment where she receives an award of her eternal state of glory or confusion and from the mouth of God hears the irrevokable sentence from which there is no appeal no civil request no review of process no writ of errour for this decree of Gods justice must immediately be put in execution They say further that in the same moment that a Soul sees her selfe condemned to Purgatory she sees also the precise time prescribed her to continue there according to the ordinary strain of Gods justice But whether she know also by divine revelation who will pray for her and what assistance in particular they will give her or how much will be cut of of the time determined for her punishment is a nicer question which I purposely leave untouched for others to excercise their wits in as they please and make hast to take up the thred of my discourse I was letting fall in which I am to lay before your eyes the ineffable joyes of the soules in purgatory when they seriously reflect upon the certainty of their salvation and how soon they shall be drowned in the Divinity and yet swim in an Ocean of all heavenly comforts When Jacob knew for certaine that he was to have the fair Rachel he was content to be espoused first to Lia though she were blear-eyed and ill favoured and besides a world of heats and colds frights and fears and fourteen years toylesome service seemd scarse an hour to him so much was his heart inchanted with a holy love of his dearly beloved Rachel and so true it is that for the enjoyment of that which a soul loves in good earnest she makes no reckoning of fire and flames and a thousand Purgatories So that a Soul that is confident of espousing one day Rachel that is the Church triumphant sticks not to be first espoused to Lia that is the Church suffring with all the pains in Purgatory so long as it shall please God and fourteen years are unto her but as an houre such is the excess of her love to heaven O with what a good heart do I drink up my tears said the royal Prophet Ps 41. when I remember I shall pass into the heavenly Tabernacle were I to make my passage thither through Hell it selfe how willingly would I runn that way And to the same tune cried out St. Chrysostome with a masculine voice and a heart which was all heart If I were to pass through a thousand Hells so I might in the end of all meet with Paradise and my God how pleasing would these Hells seem unto me And certainly there are infinite soules would be ready to signe it with their heart blood that they would be willing to dwell in the flames of Purgatory till the day of judgement upon condition to be sure of eternal Glory at the last for believe it they that know well the meaning of these four words God Eternity Glory and Security can not but have a moderate apprehension of Purgatory fire be it never so hot and furious Another heavenly comfort They are impeccable which rejoyces these happy souls in the midst of their torments is an infallible and certain assurance which they have that although their pains be never so insupportable yet shall they never offend God neither mortally nor venially nor shew the least sign of impatience or indignation A true lover of God understands this language and if he do not shall in a moment learn it in Purgatory and find by experience that a soul there had rather be plunged in the deepest pit of Hell then be guilty of the least voluntary misdemeanour So that seeing her selfe to be grown impeccable and that no evils can have the power to make her offend God and that all impatience dies at the gates of Purgatory from whence all sins and humane failings are quite banished O God what a solid comfort must this needs be unto her The greatest affliction that good people can have in the suffrings of this life is the fear of â—ffending God or to think that the violence of their torments may make them subject to break out into a thousand foolish expressions and to tosse in their heads as many foolish thoughts filling their imaginations with a world of Chimeras and idle fancies of frightful objects or in a word because they appreâ—end either death or sin or the loss of their merit and labour or that God is angry with them For griefe with the Devils help strives to snatch out of our hands the victorious palme of our sufferings or at least to make us stoope to some frailties and imperfections which imbitter our hearts And were it not for this just fear Saints would not stick at the greatest evils they can endure in this world What a joy then must it be to these holy innocent Souls to see themselves become altogether impeccable The reason of this is clear because the particular judgment being once over the final senteâ—â—e is also pronounced and the Soul is no longer in a capacity to merit or demerit not so much as to satisfie by any voluntary sufferings of her own but only to submit to the sweet rigour of Gods justice who has taxed such a proportion of pains answerable to her demerits and so to clear her conscience and blot out the remainder of her frailties and impurities Make hast to do well before Eccl. 9. 10. death is the counsel of Almighty God for the appointed time wherein to heape up treasures of justice merits is before you appear in judgement for after that it will be too late The very instant that a soul leaves the body according to Gods law there is no more time for merit or demerit and therefore the souls that are sent into Purgatory are most certain they shall never more commit the least sin that can be imagined When St. Anthony was so furiously assaulted with a whole rabble regimâ—nt of Devils he was not greatly daunted at all their hideous shapes terrible howlings and rude blows all his fear was of offending God he apprehended more the stroaks of impatience then all the wounds of hell he called upon Christ for help and having obtained the favour of a personal visite he made him this amourous complaint and sweet expostulation O good Jesu where were you alass where were you even now my dear Saviour when your enemies and mine conspired so cruelly against me why came
griefs alas I have deserved far more but with all be pleased I beseech thee to remember in thy mercy to encrease also my courage and to fortify my patience Ther 's nothing sure that is Nothing to pure heavâ—nly consolations comparable to pure heavenly consolations When all creatures are wanting all other worldly satisfactions eclipsed from our hearts so that we remain in pure suffrance and savour nothing but God alone then it is says the mistical divines that we prosess the joy of all joys and the quintessence of all true and solid comfort God has done us the honour says St. Paul to ad Ephes 2. 6 make us sit by his divine Majesty and as it were side by side to his son Jesus Christ a favour that has so ravisht my soul that I cannot think on it without incredible St. Christ Homil. de laud Pauli joy Where do you imagine was S. Paul says S. Chrysostome when he spoke this For my part I believe he was lying in a dungeon in irons neck and heels together forsaken of all the world and that it was in this generall dereliction when he was surprised with those ravishing joys of heaven and had such a feeling of Gods greatness that he seem'd to be already seated at his right hand When thinke you says S. Thomas was he rapt up into the In ep ad Cor. third heaven I am apt to believe it was at his conversion when despoiled of all worldly comforts and all things failing him at once all mighty God snatcht up his soul into heaven and gave him a sweet relish of the delights of Paradise What shall I say then of the souls who seeing themselves besieged with fire and torments and a thousand Martyrdoms and having no humane consolation are put upon a sweet necessity to have their recourse unto God and to seek their contentment in him alone O what fervent aspirations what holy exstasies what cordial oblations what divine acts of uniformity How amorously doth God and his Angels inspire them what pure lights and affections do they instill Heare the Prophet David Ps 93. 19. according to the multitude of my bitter griefs your consolations O my God have rejoyced my heart And S. Paul when I 2 Cor. 1. 5. am oppressed with evills then it is that my soul swims in celestial joys and that I am as it were all can died with sweetness And the Prophet Esay in the greatness of our furies in the severest rigour of your anger O my Lord you have cast out some raies of your sweet mercies and have ravished me with admiration Now though all this be said of this mortal life yet may we in some proportion give a guesse by it how it fares wâ—th the holy souls in Purgatory and the rather because a soul once severed from the body has much more liberty to actuate her self and to couple an excess of torments with an excesse of joys since the same in some sort has been seen to have happened in this life Have you ever read in St Austin that if a drop of the Heavenly torrent should fall into Hell Hell would no longer seem to be Hell but a kind of Heaven Now certainly the divine goodnesse le ts fall some of those drops into Purgatory nor are the Angels sparing but rather prodigal in showring them down upon the souls there who within a few moments are to be exalted into Heaven as high and gracious as themselves and possibly more I begin to fear this discourse may debauch your devotions and coole your charity and that seeing the souls enjoy so much comfort in Purgatory your compassion for them may grow slack and so not continue equall to their desert Remember then that notwithstanding all these comforts here rehearsed the poor creatures cease not to be grievously tormented and consequently have extream need of all your favourable assistance pain and endeavours When Christ Jesus was in his bitter Agony sweating blood and water the superiour part of his soul enjoyed God and his glory and yet his body was so oppressed with sorrow that he was ready to dye and was content to be comforted by an Angel In like manner these holy souls have indeed great joys but feele with all such bitter torments that they stand in great need of our help So that you will much wrong them and me too to stand musing so long upon their joys as not to apply your best endeavours to afford them succour Let us then here break off this discourse and passe on to consider what assistance we owe and they expect of our charity and first let us see what a charity it is to help them The third Survey That there is not in this world a more eminent or Prudent Act of faternal Charity then to help the Soules in Purgatory THe Divine Apostle the Desciple of Paradise and 1 Cor. 13. Doctor of the universe reads us this lesson that the highest point of Christian perfection consists in Charity The abridgment of the Decalogue the epitome of the whole Bible the quintecense of all vertues is finally reduced to this sole point of divine Love Now fraternal charity or the love of our neighbor is cozen German to the love of God and upon these two holy loves as upon the two Poles of the World moves the Heaven of all perfections They are the two Angels that keep sentinell at the Gen. 3. 24. gates of Paradise the two Cherubins that cover the Ark when 3 reg 8. 7. the Manna of the felicity of this life is contained They are the two eyes of the spouse of the soul which wound the heart of God and pierce it so deep with their divine glances that he cryes out in the Canticles that they have Caâ—◠〈…〉 stolne away his heart alas says he my beloved thou hast wounded my heart and hast robbed me of it so powerfull are thy innocent charmes and chast allurements The more power the love of God has in us the greater is the heat of fraternal charity which burnes the very heart of our souls and like the Phenix takes delight to live and dye in so noble a fire and to consume in such harmlesse and yet murthering flames My designe here is not to treat of the love of God but only to suppose that the more one loves God the more he loves and desires to help his neighbour and to believe that a man loves God without doing his uttermost to assist his neighboure in way of charity is to fool him self directly Would you know how much you love God look with what courage you use to serve your neighbour for otherwise your charity is not fire but smoke and your affections are not divine love but winde or a meer natural love or in a word selfe love or rather an empty shadow or Phantastical appearance of divine love He that loves not his neighbour whom he daily sees with both his eyes says
in the case of the rich glutton why may they not be so kind as to pray for one another If the flames of Hell said the Devout Sales that worthy Prelate of Geneva were not sullied with the smoake of sin were they but pure flames of holy love O what a pleasure were it to be swallowed up by such flames or to be thus damned eternally to love God What should hinder then but that the Souls in Purgatory where the fire of love triumphs over their tormenting flames may display their ardent charity and vigorously apply themselves to assist and comfort one another as far as Gods providence will give them leave May we not presume to fancy that out of an excess of charity they are willing to dispoil themselves of all those helps and advantages which they receive of their friends to throw theÌ„ upon others offering themselves freely to suffer for one another Tertul. Apolog. Tertullian admires how prodigal the first Christians were in this kind of charity of suffering and even dying for one another how ready they were to leap into the very flames and expose themselves to the most cruel tortures that could be devised and all to save others for whom they were prepared What shall frail mortals who are made up of flesh and blood thus willingly suffer for one another and shall not the souls who have cast of with their bodies all humane weakness and imperfection have as much charity for other souls especially being certain of their salvation of which men in this life can have no assurance without a particular revelation St. Ambros de Virgin Didymas offered to dye for St. Theodora and in conclusion both died for her and with her Elizeas being dead himself raised another from death to life which was more then he did for himself St. Paul seems to have been content to be damned to save the Jews alwayes reserved that it might be without sin David would willingly have met with death in her uggliest attire so he might have saved his son Absalon and yet he knew him to be but a graceless unnatural parricide Shall not holy souls have as much kindness for other souls whom they see upon the point of being metamorphosed into Seraphins as David had for a meer reprobate and lost creature Many Saints in this world have beg'd it as a favour of Almighty God that they might suffer for the souls in Purgatory and have done it in good earnest freely renouncing their own conveniences for the souls comfort by a most heroical act of supernatural charity Do not you believe that the souls in Purgatory have a more refined love and that they actuate themselves in more heroical transcendent acts of charity since they are not only grown to be inpeccable but have withal a far clearer insight into the nature of this divine vertue I but they can merite nothing True but do you take them to be so selfish as to do nothing purely for Gods sake without seeking their own interest what say you to our Angel Guardians is it for any private lucre or merit or purely to please God and to do us a work of singular charity that they have so sollicitous a care of us And when God himself loves us is it I pray you for any interest of his own or out of an excess of his overflowing bounty and charity which Math. 5. 48. well becomes him â—e perfect saith he as I am perfect now the means to do this is to be well versed in these acts of heroical love as to love God for God because he deserves it as being the only charming object of our love I love said St. Augustine because I love I am resolved to love because I am beloved of him that loves me only because he will needs love me To love for meer love is the quintessence of divine love What shall we be so niggardly so mercinary or so mechanical as not to excercise an act of pure love without hope of reward Is not our love well requited if we please God and those whom God loveth They say Appelles would give away his Pictures for nothing he had so great a valew for them he thought no set price could be equal to their worth and that gold it self was too mean a thing to purchase such precious labours which he therefore chose rather to give away gratis then to expose to an unworthy sale so that the bare pleasure he took in bestowing them upon his friends was all the recompence he lookt for for those incomparable pieces And certainly it is a most noble and truly royal thing to give and to give without hope of requital Seneca spoke a word which shew'd a magnanimous and true Sen. l. de benef generous heart To give and to loose all benefit by his gift is no wonder but to loose all benefit and yet to be still giving is a divine Master-piece and an act worthy of God indeed Now when these charitable soules can gratifie others by giving away the charities which are bestowed on them why should they not do it To do a pleasure for another without incommodating himself is no more then what you may expect of an Arabian or Barbarian but to incommodate himself to lye burning in fire groaning under excessive torments and all this to make others happy is certainly an act worthy of those noble and generous souls who are all inflamed with pure divine love When they had a minde to flatter their Caesars the people would cry out O Jupiter take away some of our years shorten our lives decimate our dayes and give it all to prolong the life of our good Prince let him live at the charge of our lives we are all ready to lay them down at his feet that he alone may live and raign happily in the flourishing greatness of his Empire Shall Infidels have more kindness for a mortal man perhaps a wicked Tyrant or a profane Atheist then holy souls have for those that are about to be Canonized for Saints in the Church Triumphant I have heard of great servants of God who when they saw some famous Preacher or Apostolical Person draw near to his end would expresse themselves to this purpose O that I were permitted to dye in his Roome for I alas am but an unprofitable member of the Church all my services avail but little to advance Gods cause whereas this worthy person may do a world of good and be a comfort to infinite souls What should hinder a soul in Purgatory from having the like feelings may she not and with truth cry out I am well acquainted with my own abilities and can have a nearer guesse what I am able to doe in Paradise where I am like to be one of the meanest servants in the whole house of God and therefore may be well spared but there is such a soul had she but once cleard the petty debts she stands yet engaged for she would instantly
possest and enjoyed Grief What hast thou got but deadly heart-breakings for having preferred sin before his infinite favours Love In lieu of riding upon the wings of a Seraphin and burning with Love as they do in Heaven miserable creature thou art now to be lockt up under ground in a furnace of Hellish Flames Griefe In lieu of calling to minde the benefits of this great God thou art to be knawn to the very heart with the sharpe teeth of an infamous Grief and to pass so many whole dayes in sighs and sobs and unprofitable lamentations Love So many lesser Souls have taken their flight straight up into Heaven and what dost thou stick there below in those loathsome pits of Fire Griefe So many simple Idiots by leading innocent lives are now in Glory whil'st thou idle wretch liest there melting in unquenchable flames Love What a Madness was it for thee to cast away so many precious houres of seeing God when one glimpse of that divine object is worth a million of worlds Griefe Could there be a greater folly then for a slight pastime to offend so loving a Father and put him upon a necessity of punishing thee here like a criminal to weare of thy felonious and rebellious offences Love What is become of so many degrees of Glory so many exstatical acts so many divine Canticles which thou should'st have sung in Heaven since thou art buried under ground in a Sulphureous Laxe Griefe What is become of all thy cursed possessions which now persecute thy Soul with a fresh remembrance of thy sottish disloyalty Love Thou wert created for God canst thou live without him and without glassing thy selfe in that eternal Mirrour and sparkling rayes of his divine Countenance Griefe Thou wert placed in the sublunary world to serve him câ—nst thou without bursting for spight call to minde the life which thou hast lead and is not the remembrance of thy debauches more frightful to thee then the very sight of Hell it self Love Who loves God had rather sinke down into a thousand Hells then loose him for a moment Griefe Who loves God had rather eternally suffer all the torments of Hell then lie one instant in the Hell of Hells that is in the bosome of a mortal sin Thus violently do these two vertues of Love and Griefe make their severall on sets on this poor Soul thus terribly do they bate her one after another thus cruelly do they lay her under the heavy press of unavoidable reproaches This is not all for divines The greater Saints the moâ—e tormented with this worm teach and are very peremptory upon the matter that the more a Soul loves God and the greater Saint she is the more sensible is she of the biting of these un merciful worms And by the way you are to note that these holy Souls do not suffer these afflictions only to purge themselves No though there were no other motive but that of the Love of God and a certain honesty well becoming their noble nature though there were nothing to be got by it yet would they not desist from exercising these generous and heroical acts and from giving God a signal testimony of the dear affection of their Souls In the mean time this their honesty costs them dear and these acts of charity and contrition are extream painful And since the sting of honour wounds deeper pains sorer and goes more to the quick then pain it self hence it follows that these holy Souls whether for Love or for justice sake are upon a most cruel rack and so become an object of great commiseration and it cannot be expressed how beholding they take themselves to those that endeavour to comfort them and are mindful of their calamity Now the reason why divines believe that the most perfect Soules are the most afflicted with these voluntary kind of punishments as I may tearm them is because they all actuate according to the uttermost Sphere and extent of their vertue so that a Soul that has a greater proportion of Love acts with more vigour and plunges her self deeper in the profound abisse of Love and in the Gall and bitterness of contrision and as this proceeds out of meer love notwithstanding their so sensible misfortune they would not loose an ounce of it so tender is their love to God and so great the horrour they have of all that is displeasing in his sight But of this more at large hereaftâ—r Now I must tell you plainly all The greatness of the pain of loss that I have yet said is in a manner nothing to what I am going to say The Saints and Doctors of Gods Church as I have already insinuated unanimously agree that the most grievous pain in Purgatory is to be deprived for a time of the beatifical vision and to be laid aside and banisht as unworthy to contemplate the bright Sun of the divinity This pain of loss as they call it is the pain of pains it is the deepest pit of Purgatory and the very bellows that blowes the coales there This evil of the privation of the sight of God is according to St. Thomas of its own St. Th. in 4. d. 21. a. 1. nature far exceeding all the temporal punishments of this world and thus he proves it Will you know the full latitude of grief and take an exact survey of all its dimensions reflect with your self what the good is it deprives us of what the present evil we endure what powerful instinct we have to repossess that good which we have lost what obligation we have thereunto both by Grace and Nature and lastly what a violent application and vigour of Spirit we feel in our Souls in the pursuite of it Now all this is extream in the evil we now treat of For it is Gods precious sight which is lost who is the consummation of all bliss it is the very dregs of bitterness those poore Souls drink down at large draughts it is the only beautiful object for which they were Created and Redeemed with the most precious blood of Christ for which they breathed out so many sighs in this mortal life and which they do so passionately pursue when once delivered out of their bodies that there is nothing to be compared to that holy ardour No I do not think that an arrow shot from a bow or an Eagle upon the wing or the winde or lightning or the Sun in his ful careere or flight it selfe flies away faster I cannot believe that fire mounts up or a stone sinks down to its center with more vehemency nor that the Heavens can be swifter in their motions then these vigorous Souls are in running flying and precipitating themselves into God when alas they find their wings clipt and their whole flight so unluckily stopt that no tongue is able to express the resentment they feel at it I know St. Bonaventure strives to St. Bonav in 4. d. 20. a. 1. sweeten this Martirdome and will not
soul and therefore St. Paul speaking of our blessed Saviour Ad Hebâ— 12. 2. insists much upon this that he had the courage and the love for us all to overcome the pain of a horrible confusion which doubtlesse is an unsupportable evill to a man of wit and courage Tell me then if you can what a burning shame and what a terrible confusion it must needs be to those noble and generous souls to behold themselves overwhelmed with a confused chaos of fire and such a base fire which affords no other light but a sullen glimmering choakt up with a sulphureous and stinking smoak and in the interim to know that the souls of many country clowns meere idiots poore women and simple religious persons go straight up to Heaven whilst they lye there burning they that were so knowing so rich and so wise they that were Councellors to Kings eminent Preachers of Gods Word and renowned Oracles in the world they that were so great Divines so great Statesmen so capable of high employments This confusion is much heightned by their further knowing how easily they might have avoided all this and would not Somtimes they would have given whole mountains of Gold to be rid of a stone in the Kidnies or a fit of the Gout Collick or burning Feavour And for a handfull of Silver they might have redeemed many years torments in that fiery Furnace and alas they chose rather to give it to their dogs and their horses and sometimes to men more beasts then they and much more unworthy Me thinks this thought should be more vexing then the fire it self though never so grievous And yet there remains one The remembrance of their ungratefull Children thought more which certainly has a great share in compleating their martyrdome and that is the remembrance of their children or heires which they left behinde them who swim in Nectar and live jollily on the goods which they purchased with the sweat of their brows and yet are so ungratefull so brutish and so barbarous that they will scarce vouchsafe to say a Pater noster in a whole month for their soules who brought them into the world and who to place them in a terrestial Paradice of all worldly delights made a hard venture of their souls and had like to have exchanged a temporal punishment for an eternal The remnants and superfluities of their Lacquies a cast at Dice and yet lesse then that might have set them free from these hellish torments and these wicked ungratefull wretches would not so much as think on it § 4. How long the Souls are detained in Purgatory IF all these punishments passed away like a tempest if the time of their continuance were but short their case were not so deplorable But how long think you does a soul dwell in Purgatory First it is most certain that these pains are not eternal otherwise it were not Purgatory but hell it self for in this chiefly lies the difference between hell and Purgatory that the pains of Purgatory lasts but for a time those of hell for an eternity Again it is most certain that they survive not the day of Judgment and St. Augustine proves it evidently because then all souls are to S. Aug. de civit c. 16. receive their last doome and be immoveably fixed in an eternity of good or evil Thirdly it is most certain that all the Souls shall not be there punished equally neither for extent of time nor proportion of torment for as their crimes were not equall so the punishment cannot be equall where Justice bears the sway Fourthly It is also certain sayes the Learned and Judicious Suarez after others Suâ—d 46. Sect. 4. n. 6. that we must not apply the revelations of certain devout persons to all the souls in Purgatory All Visions and Apparitions of Souls not to be credited but rather ought to be very reserved in this kinde and not easily to give credite to all such stories which passe for revelations for though God in his secret judgments may be pleased to punish some disloyal souls after a particular manner yet must we take heed how we draw general conclusions from particular cases For since private revelations are not Articles of Faith we must be very cautious and proceed warily in this matter especially where we see such kind of revelations seemingly to clash one against another We must therefore wave such extraordinary cases and honour them with due respect but not build so much upon them as to draw thence universal maximes Wherefore in this place I mean not to speak but of the common and ordinary stile of Gods providence laying aside all particular visions and personal exemplar punishments which God has reserved to himself Now there have been some so bold as to maintain that all the souls lye in Purgatory but a few hours and are then quit and released of their pains Their The Souls not so soon released as some imagine grounds are first because the pains may be so doubled and scrued up to such a height as to equall any extension of pain what soever Secondly because the souls there do exercise such acts of love and other sublime vertues all which conspire to purify these poore creatures so that the businesse is soon dispatched Were this true it were very good news but the mischief is that most divines censure this assertion as too bold and temerarious and in truth it has very little or no probability and were a way in effect to destroy Purgatory since we may cut off half of those few hours they speak of by redoubleing the pains and another half of these by redoubling them again and so go still halving the time by doubling the paines till we reduce them to a quarter of an houre or half a quarter or possibly to an instant or so little durance as to be scarce begun but ended Which kind of Purgatory though it may have place in those souls which depart immediately before the day of judgment when the intention of the pain must supply for the extent of time which will be then wanting in regard that there is to be no more Purgatory after that general accompting day yet to apply it commonly to other souls where there is no need of such subtilties were to confound all things It is the ordinary strain of Gods Justice to proceed by degrees and therfore there must be a competent time allotted for those punishments And this is the general belief of the Church that the souls are kept there for a time some more some lesse each one according to his desert and though happily some choyce souls do but as it were kisse the gates of Purgatory and rather feel the smoak then the fire yet the greater part of them lye there for some considerable time to satisfy the sweet rigour of divine justice I am not ignorant that some great Divines have believed that if a soul stay there for a year or two it is
you no sooner to relieve me I was here replied Christ beholding thee and preserving thy heart from sin If it be so said the invincible Hermite do but assure me this that I shall not sin and let Lucifer with all his accursed crue and hellish power nay let all the world besides band against me since my God stands by me and will secure me from offending him I make nothing of all the rest Pain is no more pain Hell is no more a hell but a mere Paradise since it helps me to gain Paradise which is worthy to be purchased with a Million of Hells §. 3. More grounds of Comfort arising from their voluntary suffring their disinteressed Love of God and exact conformity with his holy Will IN the next place take this most Voluntary suffering sweet and weighty Consideration An evill that is forced and against ones will is a true evill indeed the constraint and violence it carries along with it imbitters it above measure and renders it insupportable whereas if the evill be voluntary it is a good evill a lovely evil an evill to be purchased at any rate Witnesse the hoâ—y Martyrs of Gods Church who when they voluntarily shed their blood and with a good will poured ouâ— their lives for Gods cause though at the cost of the most inhumane torments imaginable seemed to make but little reckoning of the smart of them as you may observe by their carriage For some of them would throw back the worms that were crept out of their Ulcerous soâ—res others kisse the burning coals and by way of Honour place them on their heads This holy Martyr embraces the Gibbet as if he took it to be an easie ladder whereby to mount up straight into Heaven another provokes Tygers and Lyons to dismember him This tender Virgin leaps into the fire prepared for her without staying for the Executioners help another casts her self into the Sea to preserve her Virginity See the force of Christian Resolution which is steered by divine Maximes They dye and smile at it they seem to court Death it self they chuse rather to be under the hands of a bloody executioner who can at most bereave them of their lives then in the power of the Son of an Emperour who may rob them of the Lillies of their Virginal integrity Nothing can be grievous to him that acts vigorously and suffers voluntarily whatsoever falls in his way This then is one of the Souls chief Comforts in those fiery Dungeons They accept their pains as from the hands of their loving Father who out of his paternal care makes choice of those rough instruments to polish and refine them and so fit them for his presence They look upon them as love tokens sent from their beloved and esteem them rather as precious gifts of their loving lord then as cruell punishments inflicted by a severe enemy They kiss the rod and the Fatherly hand which makes use of it for their Soveraign good When a Chyrurgion makes a deep incifion to let out the water of a dropsie when he strikes his lancet into the arm when he cuts of a Gangreend-member the diseased person kisseâ— the hand that has made the wound embraces the Suregon though sprinckled with his blood opens his mouth to give thanks his purse to reward his eyes to bath in tears and his very heart to love cordially this kinde Murtherer who has so cruelly mishandled him to do him good and to save his life What think you is the language of these holy Soules these children of God in the midst of their severest torments Sweet rigours of heaven amorous cruelties alas why do you vouchsafe so to humble your greatnesse to take the pains to purifie us poore Creatures worthy of a thousand Hells O the profuse goodnesse of the Almighty who is pleased with the tenderness of a loving Father to chastise his wicked Servants and so to adoâ—â— them for his dear children Wâ—â— it necessary that himself should take the trouble upon him to stretch out the hand of his infinite Justice to purifie such disloyall Souls far unworthy of a love so cordial Oh let him burn let him strike let him thunder it is but reason he should do so for since he is our Father our Creatour our redeemer our dear All the sole Object of all our lives howsoever he handles us we shall still take it for a great favour and esteem our selves over happy to be treated though never so rudely by so good a hand Have they not reason Believe it they experience it to be so sweet and so reasonable nay they judge it so necessary for them to suffer in these flames that though they should discover a thousand gates open and a free passage for them to fly out of Purgatory into Paradise nor so much as one soule would stir out before she had fully satisfied the divine Justice Paradise would be to them a Purgatory should they carry thither but the least blemish in the world When Isaack saw the sword in Abrahams hand ready to strike off his head and reflected that he was to receive the deadly wound from the hands of his dear Father that good and virtuous young man could neither find tongue to plead for his life nor feet to run away and decline the stroke nor hands to defend himself nor so much as eyes to deplore his sad misfortune but yet was content to have a heart to love his good Father and a head to loose and a life to sacrifice upon the altar of Obedience and believed the fire which was prepared to destroy him was to be as the odoriferous flaming Pile of the Phoenix wherein she is consumed to rise again to a new and happy life The holy soules that burn in the flames of Purgatory are much better disposed to embrace whatsoever God shall ordain then Isaac was in regard of his Father But there is yet something of a To be where God has placed them higher nature to be said upon this point We have all the reason in the world to believe that God of his infinite Goodnesse inspires these holy soules with a thousand heavenly lights and such ravishing thoughts that they cannot but take themselves to be extream happy so happy that St. Catherine of Genua professed she had learnt of Almighty God that excepting onely the blessed Saints in heaven there were no joys comparable to those of the Souls in Purgatory For said she when they consider that they are in the hands of God in a place deputed for them by his holy Providence and just where God would have them it is not to be expressed what a sweetnesse they finde in so amorous a thought and certainly they had infinitely rather be in Purgatory to comply with his Divine pleasure then be in Paradise with violence to his Justice and a manifest breach of the ordinary laws of the house of God I will say yet more continued she it cannot so much as steale into
their thoughts to desire to be any where else then where they are supposing God has so placed them they are not at all troubled that others get out before them and they are so absorpt in this profound Meditation that they are at Gods disposall in the bosome of his sweet Providence that they cannot so much as dream of being any where else So that me thinks those kind expressions of Almighty God by his Prophets to his chosen people may be fitly applyed to the unhappy and yet happy condition of these holy Soules Rejoyce you my people sayes the living God for I sweare unto you by my self that when you shall passe through flames of Fire they shall not hurt you I shall be there with you I shall take of the Edge and blunt the points of those peircing flames I will raise the bright Aurora in your darkness and the darkness of your nights shall outshine the midday I will power out my peace into the mâ—dst of your hearts and replenish your souls with the bright shining lights of Heaven You shall be as a paradise of delights bedewed with a living fountain of heavenly waters You shall rejoyce in your Creatour and I will raise you above the hiâ—ht of Mountains and noâ—rish you with Manna and the sweet inheritance of Jacob for the mouth of the Lord hath spoke it and it cannot faile but shall be sure to fall out so because he hath spoken it Did we truly know what is the Love without intesest pure love of God a love without interest and a heart that neither has nor will have any other ends feelings or designs but those of Almighty God happily we might be able to conceive a good part of the paradise of the souls in Purgatory Those good souls see so clearly how much it imports them to have no other concern or interest but for Gods cause that without the least regard to their own sufferings they had infinitely rather dwell in Purgatory since God will have it so then be surrounded with the sweets of Paradise without Gods pleasure nay more though they had not the least blemish to wipe out and the only question were to comply with Gods blessed will who for some reason best known to himself were pleased to treate them in this rude fashion This pure love without all self interest is more forcible then any other consideration For if St. Paul could wish himself in hell if Moses could have been content to be blotted out of the book of life if others have offered themselves to remaine in Purgatory til doomesday to have the assurance of their own salvation or to suffer for the good of others and all this either out of a kind of self love or an excesse of fraternall charity and while they were yet intangled with the apprehensions of this wicked world what may not a soul do which is full of divine love without any mixture of self interest so purely refined as not to desire any thing but God and the execution of his inscrutable designes And since all holy souls are of this temper in the other world I am confident there is not any one soul would quit Purgatory where God has placed her nor any that would not most willingly exchange Heaven for purgatory should she discover the least inclination of Gods will that it should be so The Saints are much perfecter then mortal men who notwithstanding all the weakness of fraile nature could have the heart to cast themselves into burning flames when they saw it made for Gods greater glory and could there sing out his praises So happy did they take themselves to have the power of serving God without any other interest then that of his glory nay with the ruine of their very lives and all other worldly concerns And when they had done all this they would break out into tears as the most eloquent though silent expression of a favour they never took themselves to deserve Wherefore since all the souls in Purgatory have not only a perfect but also an experimental knowledge of this pure love and withall see such a world of devout souls who are still pouring themselves out into such heroicall acts of pure love how much think you does this encourage them to do their best in this kind And can you think after all this that God will suffer himself to be overcome in curtesy or charity and not be still furnishing them with a fresh supply of new lights and celestiall comforts And certainly the Heavenly raptures attractions of Almighty God are not to be numbred amongst his least favours they do so transport a soul and so absolutely master her that she neither feeles nor cares for all the torments in the world which the body suffers â—hile she is thus absorpt and even lost in Almighty God They applied causticks to St. Thomas of Aquin while he was rapt in his profound speculations of Divinity and he seemed not to feel the least smart or at least took no notice of it he was so ravished and drowned in Almighty God They tell the same of the seraphical St Francis how when he was once gone out of himself with an ardent affection of the love of Jesus Christ they applied the button cautere and the good Saint felt it no more then if it had been a button of glass or christall Many other servants of God in their extaticall raptures and lofty meditations of the joys of Heaven have been prickt wiâ—h needles wounded with lances and persecuted with rude blows cold water hot irons and the like and yet for all this could not be drawn out of their sweet quiet and repose to give the least attention to these rough entertainments What shall we say now of those faire souls lately flown out of their bodies who are so forcibly carried away with the pure love of God and his eternal glory who see themselves so near it and so certain to enjoy it and to be swallowed up in the immense Ocean of the Divinity So my son may be one day Emperor of Rome said the ambitious Agrippian I shall most readily yeeld to be soon after thrown headlong into the bottomless sea And do you thinke those souls who are most certain to raign for ever in the Empireall heaven can complain of the fire wherewith they are tormented for a few hours or years which are but so many moments compar'd with eternity St. Catherine of Genua assures us that God does so violently and withall so sweetly attract and draw after him these happy souls that it is impossible to find out words to express it or any paralell to this sweet and amorous violence This pure love which the souls Conformity with Gods will have for Almighty God goes not without a perfect conformity to his divine will And this is the thing which of all others metamorphoses Purgatory into Paradise To have the same will with Almighty God saies holy St. Bernard is to
be like God but S. Bern. ep ad fratres de monte die not to have the power to have any other will but Gods is to be what God is that is content and happy in whatsoever condition If God for some special reason would have a soul to be a million of years in Purgatory without fault and without hope of any further merit she would not much concern her self neither for the extremity of the pains nor for the length of the delay but would rest satisfied with a perfect resignation to Gods holy will Can there be any doubt of this when we find souls even in this miserable life so couragious and so conformable to the divine pleasure as to offer themselves to be buried in Hell fire so it might but add one single graine of encrease to Gods glory No this diformity or uniformity to the designes of Gods providence is so excessive great in these devout souls so vigorous and so puissant that it cannot be expressed or conceived in this our gross ignorant world The Ecclesiastical Euseb Niceph. Baron History assures us that many of the holy Martyâ—s whil'st they were in flames of fire melting of their lives by drops as I may so say were heard to profess with a smiling countenance an invincible heart that they took themselves to be at a nuptiall feast and to tread upon Roses So well were they pleased that God was so pleased and that his blessed will was performed in them nay more that nothing griev'd them but the shortness of their torments and the fleeting condition of their petty martyrdoms as they would call them Alas would they say were this to last to the worlds end how happy were we and how welcome were our flames by the light whereof one might clearly read the fidelity of our hearts and their conformity to the heart of the great God of Heaven This excessive conformity and To cooperate with Gods justice sidelity of these holy souls makes them willing to cooperate with the sweet rigours of Gods justice against their crimes Who loves God purely for himself loves all that belongs to make up his glory and since God shews himself as much God in the excercise of his justice as in the sweet influences of his boundles mercy a happy soul cannot chuse but take pleasure to cooperate with Gods justice in procuring his satisfaction even at the charge of her own sufferings and would most readily annihilate her self for the honour of her God If our hour be come said the valourous Judas Machabeas and if God have so disposed of us let us die my brethren and let us die bravely it must be as the Heavens have decreed and I will have it so though at the cost of a hundred thousand lives And holy Job Is it not reason said he that we should as well receive what we call evils at the hand of his justice as favors at the hand of his mercy That noble Roman that buried his Ponyard in his own Sisters breast whom he met foolishly bewailing the good fortune of the City of Rome had nothing to alledg for his justification but this What said he shall not Rome be Rome as well in the excercise of rigourous justice as in the maintenance of her greatness and demonstration of her absolute power Can I offer a more pleasing holocaust unto the Gods then to sacrifice my Sister when Romes justice requires it This Roman severity carries with it I know not what masculine generosity and this cruelty to a foolish Sister argues much piety to his dear Country In effect all the world cried up the fact which at first sight seemed too brutish barbarous and inhumane The holy souls that burne with ardent charity seeing it necessary that the divine justice should receive plenary satisfaction and that Gods interest is extraordinarlly concern'd that his justice should rule by course as well as his mercy goodness and charity these holy souls I say seeing all this have such a pleasure in their torments as cannot be comprehended in this miserable life which is so ful of self-self-love but by some few noble and generous souls that love God only for himself and that so purely as not to make any reckoning of their own concernes or suffrings §. 4. Another comfortable consideration drawn from the desire they have to make themselves worthy of the sight of God TAke another consideration Their desire to remove all obstacles â—f seeing God which wil much illustrate that which has been already said and reinforce the joy of the souls in spight of their tormenting pains You may believe that a soul having once taken leave of the body has such a passionate inclination to enjoy her end that is to see God and be united with God and finally to arrive unto that happiness for which she clearly sees she was created that it can hardly be expressed A bird newly stolen out of the Cage wherein she was detained captive flyes not away swifter the furious Course of a torrent that precipitates it self from the top of a mountaine roules not along with a greater impetuosity the enraged winds broke loose ouâ— of their close cavernes underground blow not with more violence then the desire of seeing God thrusts on a soul once freed from the thraldome of the body Now as they see in Purgatory that there is no other obstacle but the rust and filth of sin and the remainder of their former misdemeanours and that Purgatory fire is deputed by almighty God to purifie and refine them and so to make them worthy of his presence they are so far from grumbling or repining at this sweet rigour of Gods justice that on the contrary they take it for a great favour and an extraordinary piece of mercy of almighty God their most loving Father When they saw'd off the Leg of that great Philosopher he held it out with both his hands he encouraged the operatour and perhaps also took hold of the Saw himself to do the Surgeon that piece of service saying withall let uâ— thrust my friend let us thrust and let us not fear to cut off this rotten and useless bone the pain you give me will procure me a great deal of good and the sooner we have done the better Be not afraid then my dear enemy but strike in thy Saw boldly the crueller thou art for the time the sooner thou wilt put me out of pain And thus the Surgeon cut off his Leg with as little sense or feeling as if it had been the Leg of a statue or of a person that had no relation to him or was his mortal enemy And that Japonian Virgin who was to dye by fire could not hould from kissing the burning coales and crying out joyfully O lovely Hist Japâ—n coales O delicious flames how much am I obliged to your sweet cruelty since you put me in a condition of enjoying within a few moments the only spouse of my Soule Oh
the soules in Purgatory say the same with a far greater ardour of love And I dare say more yet that they have such a longing desire to cooporate with God in their own purification and to render themselves capable of the beatifical vision that if it were in their power to heighten the rigour of their torments it would be the first thing they would do to advance their eternal felicity And with reason for if we were saies St. Austin to take the pains of hell in our way Serm. 2. in festo omnium sanct to see God in his glory we ought to suffer them with a good heart for a good so great that whatsoever it costs it can never be too deare Think well on these words good Reader Let God cost never so much he cannot be too deare St. Catherine of Genua was heard to say she believed that the greatest paine which the souls have in Purgatory is to see they have an obstacle within themselves and some few blemishes which hinder them for the time from enjoying 〈◊〉 â—ight of their creatour in so much that their spight and anger is not so much against the flames though never so biting as against these unlucky blemishes and loathsome remainder of their sins Nay they are in a manner in love with the fire which by little and little helpes to free them from this cruel paine and do like the Patient who kisses the razour that is to cut out whole slices of putrified flesh from a Gangrene or mortal Ulcer which would otherwise insensibly bereave him of his life if that fierce remedy were not applyed §. 5. Their suffering without merit and the free exercise of their vertues without impediment are to them special motives of comfort VVHat a pleasure thinke To exercise vertue without merit and to suffer without recompence you is it to suffer or indeed to exercise any vertuous act meerly for the vertue it self without casting about for any further recompence then barely the doing what is pleasing to him we love and who loves us out of his pure bounty without any desert of ours A Roman Lady understanding that Caesar had condemned her deare Husband Petus to stab himself snatcht up the dagger first her self and struck it deep into her breast and then with a smiling but dying look spoke thus to him My dearest this stab has done me no harme at all upon my honour it has not but alass the stab that you are going to give your self it is that which bereaves me of my life and with that she gave up the ghost Those holy and inamour'd souls calling to mind how Christ died for them to pay the ransome of their sins without looking for any returne by way of recompence out of his pure charity and obedience to his father they would most willingly sacrifice themselves for his glory in satifaction of justice and imitation of his charity and scarce feel their pains when they compare them with those of their dear redeemer And though we can scarse apprehend this joy we that are so selfish as to relish nothing but earthly things whose hearts are so wedded to our own interests and so apprehensive of pain yet have the patience to listen to the patheticall expressions of a man of this world who certainly was not without his havenly gusts but could make a shift to find out a Paradise even in the Purgatory of the sufferings of a miserable life You will soon discover by his golden eloquence who it is that speaks Had I the S. Châ—ys ho. 8. in c. â—â— Ephes choyce to be an Apostle Prophet Doctor nay more an Angel and Potenâ—ate of heaven were it in my power to be metamorphosed into a Cherubin or Seraphim and to be raised above their thrones in a word to be seated at the right hand of God or rather to be thrown down into a dark loathsome and subterraneous gaole there to be manicled fetter'd and greivously tormented for the sole love of my saviour Jesus Christ in company of the glorious Apostle St. Paul with out all hesitation or doubt I should chuse to be there with St. Paul and should prefer it before the joyes of heaven How do you feel your hearts when you heare this kind of language and what think you may not the souls in Purgatory have the like affections and more heroicall if there can be any thing thought of more heroicall then to quit heaven for Purgatory and to leave God for God sacrificing themselves entirely to his glory as a perfect holocaust to please his divine will and appease the sweet rigours of his justice Blessed Father Francis Borgia was wont to say he would willingly go to Purgatory and lie frying there to the end of the world to heap up a new treasure of grace and glory and to become a greater Saint in heaven and a more acceptable servant to his divine Majesty In earnest this was an act of a noble heart and purified soul aspiring to the highest pitch of perfection The holy man took it for a most incomparable satisfaction to see himself every moment to go on encreasing in vertue and heaping up graces upon graces and at the last to purchase so high a place in the Kingdome of heaven as not to have cause to envie the highest Seraphin And yet me thinks if I may have leave to vent my own thoughts there is somthing of a holy kind of self interest in this point of perfection holy I say but withall interest But why may we not believe that those holy captive souls fly higher and offer themselves to God to suffer there for one another out of a divine kind of civility and generous act of fraternal charity For in this world there have been Mothers have chosen rather to die themselves then see their dear children die before them There have been also souls as I have touched elsewhere have wisht to be damned alwaies understanding that it were without sinn to save others and this without hope of grace or glory merely in obedience to perfect Charity And why should we make such a wonder of it since the very Tygress who has no heart but what is made up of cruelty has nevertheless love enough to cast her self into flames if she find no other expedient to save her young ones Can we believe that bruits have more love and mortal men more charity and courage then the holy Souls of Purgatory have for the love of God and of those Souls they passionately love O sweet Purgatory O amourous flames of charity and pure trancendent charity worthy of the souls which are so pure Sure this is that which the holy servant of God meant when she said that the souls there are wholly despoyled of all self-interest and do wholly devote themselves to Gods interest and that of pure charity We should soon see wonders in The power â—â— grace and vertue when they act freely and without impediment our selves would
St. John how can he make us believe 1 Jo. 4. 20. that he loves God whom he never saw That which I am to maintaine is that amongst all the acts of faternal charity or works of mercy the most sublime the most pure and the most advantagious of all others is the service we perform for the souls in Purgatory In the History of the incomparable A remarkable passage order of the great St Dominick it is authentically related that one of the first of those holy religious men was wont to say that he found himself not so much concerned to pray for the Souls in Purgatory because they are certain of their salvation and that upon this account we ought not in his judgement to be very sollicitous for them but ought rather to bend our whole care to help sinners to convert the wicked and to secure such souls as are uncertain of their salvation and probably certain of their damnation as leading very leud lives Here it is said he it is here that I willingly employ my whole endeâ—vours It is upon these that I bâ—stow my Masses and Prayers and all that little that is at my disposal and thus I take it to be well bestowed But upon souls that have an assurance of eternal happiness and can never more loose God or offend him I believe not said he that one ought to be so sollicitous This certainly was but a poor and weak discourse to give it no severer a censure and the consequence of it was this that the good man did not only himself forbear to help these poor souls but which was worse disswaded others from doing it and under colour of a greater charity withdrew that succour which otherwise good people would have liberally afforded them But God took their cause in hand for permitting the souls to appear and shew themselves in frightful shapes and to haunt the good man both by night and by day without respit still filling his fancy with dreadful imaginations and his eyes with terrible spectacles and withall letting him know who they were and why with Gods permission they so importuned him with their troublesome visits you may believe the good Father became so affectionately kind to the souls in Purgatory bestow'd so many Masses and Prayers upon them preached so fervently in their behalf stirr'd up so many to the same devotion that it is a thing incredible to believe and not to be expressed with Eloquence Never did you see so many and so clear and convincing reasons as he alleaged to demonstrate that it is the most eminent piece of fraternal charity in this life to pray for the souls departed Love and fear are the two most excellent Oratours in the world they can teach all Rhetorick in a moment and infuse a most miraculous eloquence This good Father who thought he should have been frighted to death was grown so fearful of a second assault that he bent his whole wit to invent the most pressing and convincing arguments to stir up the world both to pitty and piety and so perswade souls to help souls and it is incredible what good ensued thereupon The History does not set down the motives which he either invented or had by inspiration to evidence this truth and therefore I will borrow them of St. Thomas that angel for divinity of the same order and of other Saints and doctours of the Catholick Church § 1. The greatness of the charity to the Souls in Purgatory is argued from the greatness of their pains and their helpless condition SInce there is no torment under Most charity to help tbc greater sufferers Heaven comparable to the pains of Purgatory as you have already seen those unhappy souls must needs be the most afflicted creatures in the world and consequently there cannot be a greater charity then to relieve them The loving mother runs always to her sickest child not but that she is tender of them all and has her heart divided into as many parcels as she has children and sick children but where there is most need there she makes a greater demonstration of her love thither her heart is carried with a greater violence and tenderness of affection where the greatest evil or danger appears As for the rest their condition is not so pressing she speaks to them at leasure and by giving one of them a few comsits a good word to another a smile to a third they are all well contented but he that burns in the Purgatory of a violent feavour it is he that has most need of his mother and so you see her as it were nail'd to his pillow her heart her eyes her hands her mouth and her very bosome lye open to this child and she can think of nothing but him so that where there is a greater share of misery reason requires there should be more compassion and more charity expressed Cast but a morsel of bread to a needy beggar send a good almes to a poor Hospital visite a prisoner give a word of comfort to a sick person and they are very well satisfied but he that lies burning in unmerciful flames alas it is he that ought to move all the bowels of your compassion When the image of Cleopatra with the stinging Aspes at her breasts was carried in triumph before the Romans though otherwise fierce and cruel enough by nature yet could they not hold from shedding a few tears of compassion and truly such a Queen in so sad a condition was not to be lookt upon with dry eyes the other captives yet living did not move them at all in comparison of that unfortunate Princess for all she was only represented in colours upon a painted cloth You Angel-keepers of Purgatory I conjure you to unlock your gates and lay your prison open that I may discover those Kings and Queens I mean those holy Souls of both sexes who are shortly to have their share in the celestial empire that I may lay before the Eyes of the whole Catholick Church those Asps of grief that lye so close at their hearts those cruel flames I say that incessantly devour them and withall the infinite modesty and patience with which they endure all in so much that not one of them lets fall the least froward or inconsiderate word or makes the least complaint against the sweet rigour of God Is there a heart if it be the heart of a man indeed and has but a drop of true Christian blood in it that does not feel it self to be either broken or mollified at so pitiful and lamentable a spectacle to see I say such noble and generous spirits in so deplorable a condition Is there any thing within the whole circumference of the universe so worthy of compassion and that may so deservedly clayme the great'st share in al your devotions and charities as to see our Fathers our Mothers our nearest and dearest relations to lye broyling in cruel flames and to crye to us for help with
extenâ—s it self only to the living let your motive be never so pure and for the love of God alass you are often deceived and think you do a good turn for an Apostle and he is an Apostate or another Judas you take him for a great servant of God and he often proves to be a most wicked fellow â— râ—venous wolfe in a lambs skin and this is seen daily and every where not but that you ought to do it and shall never want your reward But it falls out clear otherwise when you place your charity upon the souls in Purgatory for they are undoubtedly the disciples of Christ they are Prophets and great Saints and therefore â—hosoever shall do any châ—ritable office for them may well hope to have the reward of Saintâ— For so it is not only those that are thus relieved shall be translated into heaven but those also tâ—â—t relieve them shall be carried â—â—â—â—her in â—ue time to take possession of the glory of the Saints St. Thomas tells us there is an It is the â—â—st ordered â—harity to help the Souls St. Th. 2. 2. â—eâ—ord châ— order to be observed in our works of charity to our neighbour â—hat is we are to see where there is a greater obligation a greater necessity a greater merit and the like circumstances Now where is there more necessity or more obligation then to runne to the â—â—re and to helpe those that lie there and 〈◊〉 not able to get out Where can you have more merit then to have a hand in raising up so great Saints and Servants of God where have you more assurance then where you are sure to loose nothing where can you find an object of more compassion then where there is the greatest misery in the world where is there seen more of Gods glory then to send new Saints into heaven to praise God eternally Lastly where can you shew more charity and more of the love of God then to employ your teaâ—s your sighs your goods your hands your heart your life and all your devotions to procure a good that surpasses all other goods I mean to make soules happy for all eternity by translating them into heavenly joyes out of insupportable torments That glorious Apostle of the Indies St. Francis Xaverius could run from one end of the world to the other to convert a soul and think it no long journey the dangers by Sea and Land seem'd Sweet the Tempests pleasing the Labour easy and his whole time well employed Good God! What an advantage have we that with so little and few prayers may send a thousand beautifull souls into heaven without the least hazard of loosing any thing St. Xaverius could not be certain that the Japonians for example whom he baptized â—â—uld persever in their faith and though they should persever in it he could have as little certainty of their salvation Now it is an Article of our faith that the holy souls in Purgatory are in grace and shall assuredly one day enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But since I am entred upon the Nothing can more advance Gods glory point of seeking Gods greater glory and procuring that his Sacred Majesty be worthily Adored by his creatures where can you finde any thing among all the other works of mercy more eminent in this kinde then to concur towards the peopling of Paradise and encreasing the number of those thrice happy souls Let it be never so little that you advance the tearm appointed for the eternal happinesse of a soul by recovering it out of Purgatory and placing it above the Firmament O into what acts of Love will she break forth what glory will she give to God what excesse of Love what Transports Visions Unions and miracles of heaven will ensue And what a happinesse is it for you to have concurred to make up all these wonders which would have been quite lost all this time and by your occasion are now added as a superabundant encrease of Gods greatnesse St. Ignatius that glorious founder of the society of Jesus stuck not to say he should think his whole life well bestowed should he but hinder an ungracious soul from offending God one onely night Such an esteem he had of encreasing Gods glory and such an apprehension of diminishing the least grain thereof What a mercy is it then that by helping a Soul out of her purging flames you are the cause of a million of most divine acts which would never have been had not the time of her delivery been antidated by your charitable and devout prayers Tell me dear reader what can you doe here below comparable to this How many thousand Beggars Prisoners and sick persons may you relieve without procuring the thousanth part of this â—nspeakable good That which one does by anothers means he is accounted to do himself So that all the new Saints I mean all the souls who have been delivered by your assistance shall be as it were your Lievtenants and your Vicar-generalls or your Embassadors to do incomparable wonders in Heaven whereof you are the cause in whole or in part And what comparison is there now between the good we doe for men upon earth and what we doe to relieve souls in the other world There is but one onely Case One 〈…〉 more to be â—pied then that 〈◊〉 Pur 〈◊〉 can be imagined in which your Charity might seem clear better employed then in comforting the poore languishing souls in Purgatory And it is this Suppose you had but one instant of life at your disposal and could either employ it in the conversion of a desperate sinner who must otherwise be infallibly damned without redemption or in releaving a Soul in Purgatory whether you ought not in this case to preferr the eternal salvation of a sinner before the present ease of a soul in Purgatory To this I answer that in the first place you put a very metaphysicall case farr remote from all common practise for it is not a thing that will probably ever happen but should it really fall out in Gods name do the one or the other as God shall inspire you and God will sooner multiply the bread in your hands then you should want an occasion of relieving the poore whether living or dead But to give you better satisfaction put the case as you please and I will make the Souls in Purgatory themselves judges of the cause that they may have no reason to complain or appeal from my sentence They will certainly tell you that where there is question of a mortal sinne or of the eternal losse of a soul that has been ransomed with the blood of Christ they had rather lye still groaning under their torments then purchase a little ease at so dear a rate No they are not so selfish their love is more pure then so their fidelity to God will never suffer them to seek their own glory with the least diminution or lessening of Gods glory St. Catherine
are requisite on his part shall infallibly relieve them Well but you long now to know what these conditions are with which we may be morally certain that our suffrages are effectual towards the purifying and releasing of the poor souls in Purgatory He that will have his works acceptable We must be in the state of grace to do them any good in the sight of God for the obtaining of any mercy for himself or others must in the first place be sure to be in the state of Grace that is Goâ—â— friend for how can God be pleased at the doings of his mortal enemies how can he relish or approve actions which proceed from a heart envenomed with the deadly poyson of mortal sin Could I work miracles and wanted but a graine of true charity all this sayes St. Paul were but wind it 1 Cor. 13. were all unprofitable Next unto this he must not fail to have an intention of doing such a good work to relieve the soul he either names himself or leaves to Gods determination and choice Besides the work must be good and vertuous of it self that is accompanied with all due circumstances The more love humility contrition and devotion you bring and the more penal your work is the more precious will it be in the sight of God and the greater miracles will it do in Purgatory rejoycing the afflicted souls quenching their flames and converting Purgatory into Paradise But let us now look a little into Whether the Mass of a wicked 〈◊〉 Priest 〈◊〉 availe 〈◊〉 the consequence of this Doctrine Does it not hence follow that all lewd and ungodly Priests are unprofitably employed for the good of the souls for since they are supposed to be in a damnable condition all they do seems to be as good as nothing and then what a world of Masses shall we have quite cast away what a world of foundations utterly lost since they may often fall into such wicked hands Away with these discourses which are not only false but very prejudicial to Purgatory Good divinity teaches that a Mass is alwayes a Mass alwayes Su. d. 48. Sect. 8. good and of an infinite valew that the Priest that sayes it or sings it as a Minister of Gods church let him be never so unworthy is alwayes acceptable for her sake in whose name he acts that if you take him as a private and particular person t is true all his prayers and devotions can availe nothing but as he represents the Church he cannot fail to do the maine deed we pretend and we need not scruple it You would be amazed should I further tell you that it may very well fall out sometimes that you may gain more by hearing the Mass of a loose or deboach'd Priest then of another for that which is common to both is that thâ—y both offer up the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass which is alwayes pleasing in the sight of God they are both Ministers of the Church and under this qualification they are both acceptable persons both have the intention you require of relieving the soul you recommend unto them both performe all the holy rites and ceremonies which the Church prescribes in this case In this they differ that the one adds particular devotions of his own which are grateful to God because he is in the state of grace and one of his adopted children whereas the others personal actions are of no worth because we suppose him to be in an ill state Well but this is the cause why you that know it are fearful to loose by the bargaine bring so many Theological acts of Faith Hope and Charity of your own so many holy affections springing from a zealous devotion all inflamed with the love of God that the loss you were afraid of is abundantly recompenced and with no little advantage to your cause Be not then of the number of those fond persons who profess they are afraid to sound obits for their deceased kindred least the Masses should come to be said by ungodly and irreligious Priests It were meer simplicity to be afraid of clear cristal water because forsooth it issues out of the snoute of a black marble serpent or passes through the Jawes of a Lyon of Brass Would you refuse a million of Gold if it were sent you out of Turkie from some wicked renegado or should the Pope send you a Cardinals Cap would you be so nice as not to accept it because the messenger that brought it were an ill condition'd fellow Elias was not so dainty as to forbear his meat because it was brought by a Raven Do a Gods name what is fitting and leave the rest to God who out of his infinite goodness knows how to supply all these defects especially such as happen against your will and such as you know not how to prevent unless you were a Prophet §. 4. Of the particular wayes we have to help them THe holy Canons and Doctors of the Church comprehend all the means and advantages we have to relieve the dead under these four general heads 1. The Priests oblations sacrifices 2 The Prayers of devout people 3. Almes deeds 4. Fasting unto which you must reduce all kind of austerities all penal works that afflict the body what way soever and in a word all that goes under the common notion of suffrages For the enjoying of all which helps St. Augustin observes how greatly it may import to bury the dead in Churches where the bodies of Saints and holy Martyrs lie enterred not that the bare lying thâ—â—e can so much availe them but for this that devout people resorting more thither then to other places to perform their devotions to God and his Saints and seeing the Tombes of their deceased friends cannot but remember to apply their charitable suffrages for the help of such needy persons I am in love with that Religious Masses practice of Bolognia where upon funeral days they cause hundreds and thousands of Masses to be said for the soul departed in lieu of other superfluous and vain ostentations They stay not for the Anniversary nor for any other set day but instantly do their best to release the poor soul from her torments who must needs think the year long if she must stay for help till her anniversary day appears They do not for all this despise the laudable customes of the Church they bury their friends with honour they cloth great numbers of poor people they give liberall Almes but as there is nothing so certain nothing so efficacious nothing so divine as the holy sacrifie of the Mass they fix their whole affection there and strive all they can to relieve the souls this way and are nothing so lavish as the fashion is in other idle expences in importune Feastings which are often more troublesome to the living then comfortable to the dead But you may not only comfort the All kind of afflictions afflicted souls by procureing
Age where the 15. Age. Conc. Flor. in decreto Fathers of the Council of Florence both Greeks and Latins with one consent declare the same faith and constant practise of the Church thus handed down to them from Age to Age since Christs and his Apostles time as we have seen viz. that the souls in Purgatory are not only relieved but translated into heaven by the Prayers Sacrifices Almes and other charitable workes which are offered up for them according to the custome of the Catholick Church Nor did their posterity degenerate or vary the least from this received doctrine untill Luthers time when the holy 16. Age. Trid. sess 25 Council of Trent thought fit againe to lay down the sound doctrine of the Church in opposition to all our late Sectaries And I wish all Catholicks were but as forward to lend their helping hands to lift souls out of Purgatory as they are to believe they have the power to do it and that we had not oftner more reason then the Roman Emperour to pronounce the day lost since we let so many dayes pass over our heads and so many faire occasions slip out of our hands without easing or releasing any souls out of Purgatory when we might do it with so much ease The Sixth Survey Of twelve excellent means to prevent Purgatory or to provide so for our selves as not to make any long stay there BEhold the most important point of all others the secret of secrets and the true knack of all state affairâ—s in this world They talke of certain waterâ— which have so strange a power to dull the edge of fire that if one wash his hands with them he can receive no prejudice though he should thrust them afterwards into the fire or into boyling lead The preservatives I am here to treate of are of a higher nature they do not curbe the restless activity of this our sublunary fire which is bent only against dull bodies but they arme us against the raging fire of Purgatory which God has prepared to torment our very souls in the other world §. 1. The first perfect contrition ONe of the surest means to avoide Purgatory is to dye with teares in our eyes and St. Th. supp q. 5. a. 3. true contrition in our heâ—rts For Divines teach that our contrition may be so great â—s to wash away all those spots of sin which Purgatory â—â—re was otherwise to have words off And therefore as I take it to be a grâ—â—t piece of folly to defer the exercise of so precâ—ous â—n aâ—â— unto the houre of our death so I esteem it one of the most solid devotions of all others to accustome our selves to it all our life time that by daily frequenting such acts we may at length get such a habite and facility in them as with Gods grace to have them at our call when we come to dye All must not look for the same priviledge which the good thief had at the last gaspe It was but little that he sayd but he spoke it with so cordial an accent that he deserved to heare those comfortable words of our blessed Saviour This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise and soon found them verified by a present fruition of the beatifical vision Almighty God is pleased sometimes to make so forceable an entry into the heart of man and to set it so desperately on fire with his divine love that there is no remedy but to dye between the armes of love and griefe and thrice happy are those souls that loose their lives in this divine encounter and dye in the amourous flames of ardent charity they are sure never to feel the murthering flames of Purgatory Such was the death of our blessed Lady St. John Evangelist and infinite others who have been straight carried into heaven out of this world upon the wings of love or contrition so that a heart that is well seasoned with contrition or steeped in a bath of salt tears is like the heart of Prince Germanicus which Tacit. Ann. being washed over with a certain precious liqour could not be consumed by the fire which turned all the rest of his body to ashes This is that they call a good Peccavi but it must be a good one indeed for it is not every ordinary and triviall kind of sorrow which can work such wonders Those that have been long used to actuate themselves in those generous acts of contrition may be full of confidence that the mercy of God will not faile them at the houre of their death and that their good Angels will be then ready when it most imports to inspire them with all the best motives of true contrition since they have gone all along with them still furnishing them with such good thoughts and with so much good success that their hearts have been a thousand times broken with a lively amorous and cordial contrition and repentance for their sins And certainly they that dye either in the fire of so ardent a love or in the water of so piercing a grief need not feare the fire of Purgatory for that fire says St. Bonaventure was not made for them So that methinks this charity may be fitly compared to the Seraphin at the gates of Paradise brandishing his flaming sword which Tertulian calls the porâ—er Romphaeâ— janitrix Faradisi of Paradise grief is the edge love the fire wherewith it is inflamed and he that has this flaming sword has heaven gates at coâ—mand and goes strait thither when he leaves the world § 2. The Second to dye in Religion ANother safe way to escape Purgatory is to live and die in a good Religious order and at his death to renew and Ad fratres de monte dei à coella in coelum c. ratifie his Religious vowes To prove this I first call St. Bernard to witness who doubts not to assure us that there is a ready if not an uninterrupted passage into Heaven out of a Religious cell Next I appeal to those learned and holy Doctours who give it for a certain sign of Predestination to die in Religion because Christ has in a manner sworn in his holy Gospel to give a hundred fold and life everlasting Plat. de bonâ— stat Relig. to all those that shall leave Father Mother and other worldly concernments for his sake From whence it is that holy Church permits the superiours of divers Religious orders to make this solemne promise at the profession of their novicies for they have no sooner made their Vowes of Poverty c. But the superiour answers And I Child do promise thee Paradise and eternal life 3. Many Popes have granted a Sixt Greg. 13. Greg. 14. Plenary Indulgence in forme of a Jubily to all Religious persons that either by word of mouth or in their hearts call upon the sacred names of Jesus Maria at the hour of their death And what Religious person is there that does it not
tears that are able to move cruelty it self Whence I conclude there is not upon the earth any object deserves more commiseration then this nor where fraternal charity can better employ all her forces Next to the grievousness of their More charity to help those that cannot help thâ—mselves pains there is not any thing can so magnifie your charity to deceased souls as the nature of their condition wherein they can neither help themselves nor one another For there is no more time for merit alas no nor any way left them to solace themselves in the least degree but meerly to suffer patiently the sweet rigours of the divine justice Here upon earth there is not so wretched a creature that cannot both help himself and receive help of others At least he has his comfort that he merits heaven by his sufferings and that his patience will prepare him a crown of glory He may excercise a thousand acts of vertue which are as many dâ—grees of grace and glory if he do them as he ought In fine he makes a vertue of necessity by embracing that voluntarily which he cannot avoid and glories in this that he can imitate his Saviour Jesuâ— Christ whereas the souls can receive no comfort by meriting which is the comfort of comforts in this life whence I conclude that our charity to them cannot be better employed When our blessed Saviour saw that poore creature and heard him say that he had lane there perishing at the Pond side for the space of thirty eight years for want of a man to help him in it went to the very heart of sweet Jesus and presently forsaking all others he cured this poore impotent creature and wrought that famous miracle in favour of this helpless wretch forsaken of the whole world besides and certainly this was a case of great commiseration but nothing comparable to thâ— case we treat of for those that are yet living though never so miserable have a thousand tricks and devices to shift and help themselves in their miseries but the poore souls alas have no way left them to decline or sweeten their martyrdome Pliny reports that an Eagle seeing one day the young maid his dear Mistresse who had cherished him in her bosome to be laid flat on a burning wood pile was so struck at the sight what with love and what with compassion that she immediately took wing and launching into the burning flames to deliver her was there consumed with her Good God! shall Savage beasts and that Tyrant of the Aire have more pity of a dead carcasse that feels nothing then we have of immortal souls who have so great a feeling of insupportable torments Your Indian women use to hold it for a great honour to throw themselves into the flames to their dead husbands so to joyn souls and ashes together and shall it be said that a natural love is more daring then a supernatural and that women have more love for the dead carcasses of their husbands then we for the preciouâ— souls of our Fathers Mothers Brothers Sisters and others who are most worthy of incomparable love §. 2. Our Charity for the souls departed is prefered before all other works of mercy YOu shall be judg your self you that read this If God at the same instant should put you both in Purgatory and in a common Gaole as it is most easy for him to do I conjure you to tell me in which of the two places would you desire to be first relieved and ought you not to do that for others which you would have them to do for you Besides the spiritual works of mercy are of a higher rank then 〈◊〉 Châ—â—â—ty in spirâ—tual then in corporeal works of mercy those that are corporal as St. Thomas proves excellently well Is it not then a more noble piece of Charity to relieve souls then bodies to stretch out your hand I say to help a poore soul out of scorching flames then to comfort a sick person that feels but a little heat of a Feavour and may have a thousand sweets and refreshments Again when you bestow an Almes on a poore body t is true Nothing lost that iâ— given to the Souls you can never do amisse if you look only upon God but you may often fail of your aime and loose both your money and your labor if you consider the men themselves who for the most part are Ungratefull Deceitfull Wicked and so far unsatisfied that you have never done with them Do them a thousand good turnes if you faile but once all is lost they do nothing but grumble and repine they quite forget all the good they have so plentifully received from your accustomed liberality they take notice of nothing but what you have omitted they believe all is no more then their due they are as insolent aâ— if you were alwaies bound to do for them To say nothing thâ—â— they often abuse your charity and serve themselves of your gracious benevolences to offend both God and man as being notorious gluttons Drunkards Blasphemers and abominable villans both for body and soule But the good you do for souls so beâ—utiful so noble so holy besides the rewâ—rd you shall be sure to receive from God it is not to be imagined how well it is bestowed and how grateful they are for it There is nothing lost though you give never so little they take themselves to be infinitely obliged for your charity they never forget it they never complain they never turn ungrateful Certainly it must needs be an unspeakable advantage to you to be assured that the good you do is for a happy soule though unhappy for the time for a Saint that is ready to be canonized in heaven and happily after a few more moments of pain shall be a greater Saint there then many whose feasts wee keep with great solemnity Besides it cannot but be an excessive comfort to oblidge a soul which God loves with all his heart and which will soon lodge in his very heart Lastly what an honour must it be thus to contribute to the glory of so happy a soul who within â—â—hile shall be brighter then the sun and a companion to the Angels and shall exercise a world of most sublime acts of vertue of thanksgiving to God fraternal charity and the like And if you chance to go your self into Purgatory before they are released you will be exceedingly joy'd to see what a gratefull remembrance they have of your charity and would not for all the treasures in the world but have done that little you have done for them and will scarce have a more sensible feeling for any thing then for having lost so many faire occasions of relieving 〈◊〉 many poor souls in their grievous torments Our Blessed Saviour tells us whosoever bestowes a charity on a disciple or on a Prophet shall be sure to have the reward of a disciple or of a Prophet Now as long as your charity