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
be better disposed of then to their companions who in their life time were so charitable to other soules This I take to be a very moving consideration and yet I have just cause to fear all I can say to you will hardly sâ—ffice to mollify that hard heart of yours and therefore my last refuge shall be to set others on though I call them out of the other world And first let a damned soul read you a Lecture and teach you the compassion you ought to bear to your afflicted brethren Remember Luk. 16. how the rich glutton in the Gospell for all he was buried in hell fire took care for his brothers who survived him and besought Abraham to send Lazarus back into the world to preach and convert them least they should be so miserable as to come into that place of torments A strange request for a damned soul and which may shame you that are so little concerned for the souls of your brethren who are in so restless a condition In the next place I will bring in the soul of your dear father or mother to make her own just complaints against you Lend her then a dutifull and attentive ear and let none of her words be lost for she deserves to be heard oâ—â— while she laies forth the state oâ— her most lamentable condition Peace It is a holy soul though cloth'd in flames directs her speech to you after this manner Am not I the most unfortunate The Complaint of Soule in Purgatâ—â—y and wretched parent that ever breath'd I that was so silly as to presume that having ventured my life and my very soul also to leave my children at their ease they would at least have had some pitty on me and endeavoured to procure me some ease and comfort in my torments Alas I burn unsufferably I suffer infinitely and have done so I know not how long and yet this is not the only thing that grieves me alas no it is a greater vexation to see my self so soon forgotten by my own children and so slighted by them for whom I have in vain taken so much care and pains Ay doest thou grudge thy poore Mother a Masse a slight Alms a sigh or a tear thy Mother I say who would most willingly have stoln bread out of her own mouth to make thee swim in an Ocean of delights and to abound with plenty of all worldly goods See how proudly this unnatural Childe struts up and down as fine as hands can make him as glorious as the sun while I his poore Mother have no other robes left me but scortching flames of fire See how he empties my Coffers to cast it upon his Horses and his Dogs or upon men worse then either and cannot finde the heart to lay out a penny in charitable uses for his poore Mother his Gold flyes about the table as nimbly as the Dice he plays with and in meere sport and merriment he throws away that which cost me a world of pains and perhaps was the occasion of my death and my cruell confinement to this place of torments He cannot afford me so much as a Cup of cold water wherewith to quench my flames while he glâ—ts himself with all superfluous and choice dainties Am I not well served for having had so little wit and so little of common sense in me as to trust this wretch who has not a spark of good nature in him to have the least feeling of my deplorable condition Who will not refuse me comfort when my own Children my very bowels do their best to forget me What a vexation is it to me when my companions in misery aske me whether I left no children behind me and why they are so haggard natured as to neglect me what can I say or what answer can I make but this that I thought I had brought forth Children but finde them to be mere Vipers and Tigers When I was upon my death bed strugling for life these hypocritical villans feign'd themselves in despaire their pale looks their counterfeit tearâ— their sighs their sobs their kind expressions delivered in soft and smooth language made me verily believe they loved me and wonne me to play the fool thus to rely upon them when God knows they longed for nothing more then to close up my eyes and were almost ready to burst for mere grief that I died no sooner that they might have sooner enjoy'd the goods I had scraped together with the hazard of my life and poor soul too I was willing to forget my own concernes to be careful of theirs and the ungrateful wretches have now buried me in an eternal oblivion and clear left me to shift for my self in these horred tortures without giving me the least ease or comfort O what a fool was I had I given to the poor but the thousandth part of those goods which I left this unlucky Child I had long before this been joyfully singing the prayses of my creatour in the Quire of Angels whereas now I lye panting and groaning under excessive torments and am likâ— still to lye by it for any relief is to be lookt for from this undutifuâ— and ungracious Child I made my sole heir Go you mortals go hereafter and trust your children your kindred and your heirs that you may be treated by them as I am by my son who was dearer to me then the very apple of my eye O it is the greateâ—â— piece of indiscretion in the whole world to rely upon the discretion of indiscrete and undutiful children who had rather be scuffling and tugging one anoâ—her for a part of our inheritance then striving to help us out of our pains Sure parents are either bewitcht or grown senseless to hazard their souls for such untoward and ill natur'd châ—â—dren who have not a drop of good blood in their hearts nor a grain of true filiall love But am I not all this while strangely transported miserable that I am thus to amuse my self with unprofitable complaints against my son where as indeed I have small reason to blame any but my self since it is I and only I that am the cause of all this mischief For did not I know that in the grand business of saving my soul I was to have trusted none but my self did I not know that with the sight of their friends at their departure men use to loose all the memory and friendship they had for them Did I not know that God himself had foretold us that the only ready way to build our selves eternal tabernacles in the next world is not to give all to our Children but to be liberal to the poor Did I not often hear it preached to me that a cup of cold water sometimes luckily bestowed was sufficient to put out Purgatory fire Did they not as often ring it in my eares that a wise man sends his good workes before him and leaves them not for others to finish as fooles do who by
law but had secretly reserved to themselves a crime for which they all instantly concluded those unfortunate soules had deservedly been cast away and cut off by the hand of God And some there were doubtlesse that fell a cursing this their fordid avarice and high transgression but the good Captain takes this occasion to exhort them to adore the just judgments of heaven and to learn at the others cost to have the fear of God before their eyes and to be more religious in their wayes and yet withall to be more reserved in their censures and rather to have pitty on the soules of their fellow souldiers who probably might not die in so desperate a condition as not to be relieved by their help This done he makes a collection he raises a summe of 12000. drachms he sends it to Hierusalem to procure Sacrifices to be offered for their sins that were slain who for ought he knew might dye in a faire way to a hopefull resurrection Now whether shall we first admire the tender heart of this noble Cavalier or his religious piety or his charitabâ—â— liberality He knew well those miserable wretches had committed a most foul crime and yet he would not despaire of their salvation but was willing to believe they repented themselves of their frailty and that God had sent them their deaths onely as a temporal punishment for the terrour of others Nor had he the least doubt but that our Lord would be well pleased with his charity and accept of the Sacrifices which he thus offered for the repose of their souls And certainly the fact is most highly commended by the sacred Text which concludes the story in these words It is therefore a holy and healthfull cogitation to pray for the Dead that they may be loosed from their sins O that so faire an example would teach all Christians to be good and liberall to the Dead for alas the greatest part of mankinde content themselves with drawing two or three sighs at a funeral or saying aâ—â—â—â—rt prayer or two at most wherâ—â—â— this generous Captain even before the clear light of the Gospel did all this and consirmed it with a noble Gift of 12000. drachms §. 1. Of the natural instinct of all Nations to honour and comfort the dead IT may well put most Catholicks to the blush to consider what an incredible care all nations have ever had of the dead by the meer impulse of nature Cesar takes notice how superstitiously De bello Gall. pious the ancient French were in this kind who together with the dead corps which they burnt upon a great pile of wood were wont to consume all that had been precious and dear to him when he lived as all his rich moveables his Dogs his Horses nay sometimes his very Servants also who took it for a great honour that they might be suffered so to mingle their ashes with those of their dear Lord and Master And does not the Roman Tacit. Hist History tell us that when Otho the Emperous had 〈◊〉 himself with a Dagger many â—â— his Souldiers were seen to do the like to shew the affection they had for their Prince and how-ready they were to sacrifice their lives for his honour and service I know these customes were not only very extravagant but extream rude and barbarous and yet they may serve to shame Christians who are so far from expressing any such love for the souls of their friends though they believe them to lye broyling in Purgatory For what would not these others have done or what would they not have given to redeeme the souls of their friends out of cruel torments had they believed as much since they were so prodigal as to sacrifice their goods and their very lives to their bare memories What shall I say of those other Nations whose natural piety lead them to set burning Lamps at the sepulchers of the dead and strew them over with sweet flowers and Odoriferous perfumes Herod l. 2. do they not mind Christians to remember the dead and to cast after them the sweet incense of their devout sighs and prayers and the perfumes of their almes deeds and other good works It was very usual with the old Romans to shed whole floods of tears to reserve them in viol glasses and to bury them with the â—â—â—nes in which the ashes of their deâ—d friends were carefully laid up and by them to set Lamps so artificially composed as to burn without end By which Symbols they would give us to understand that neither their love nor their grief should ever dye but that they would always be sure to have tears in their eyes love in their hearts and a constant memory in their souls for their deceased friends Good God! shall charity be overcome by vanity shall Religion yeeld to Idolatry and shall â—he Catholick Roman stoop to the Pagan Roman shall a little vain glory or a meâ—â—â—atural affection have the power to draw whole Glasse fuls of tears from the eyes of idolatours and shall not a Religious compassion prevaile so far â—s to draw a single tear or a figh or a good word from the mouth of a Christian shall they take on so bitterly for dead carcasses that are not sensible of the flames that consume them shall not we be more concerned for souls that really feel the smart of a most cruel fire sure they will one day rise up in judgement against us and reproach us for believing as we do and carrying our felves clear contrary to the belief we profess They had another custome not only in Rome but elsewhere to walk about the burning pile where the dead Corps lay and with their mournful lamentations to keep time with the doleful sound of their Trumpets and still every turn to cast into the fire some precious pledg of their friendship The Women themselves would not stick to throw in their Rings Bracelets and other costly attires nay their very hair also the chief ornament of their Sex and they would have been sometimes willing to have thrown in both their eyes and their hearts too Nor were there some wanting that in earnest Suet. in Aug. Dion Alex. threw themselves into the fire to be consumed with their dear spouses so that it was found necessary to make a severe law against it such was the tenderness they had for their deceased friends such was the excess of a mere natural affection Now our love â—â— infused from heaven it is supernatural and consequently ought to be more active and powerful to stir up our compassion for the souls departed and yet we see the coldness of Christians in this kind how few there are that make it their business to help poor souls out of their tormenting flames It is not necessary to make Laws to hinder any excess in this kind it were rather to be wish'd that a Law were provided to punish all such ungrateful persons as forget the duty they owe to their
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
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
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
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
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
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