so out of the way in the whole that I cannot set him right for he mistakes all and makes no sence of my sayings of this point and corrupts what he cites of other points Therfore I must seek the remedy of desperate evils to cut out all this discourse as incurable until he having read what I have written upon his fifth Number become capable of speaking and hearing fence in this matter THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his Eighteenth Chapter Bellarmin's Errours advantageous to Hereticks The Arguments in the Middle-State from Scripture maintain'd to be solid and the Adversary's mis-interpretations shown weak and inconsistent 1. SO thorough many Brambles we are come to his eighteenth Chapter In the Preface of which he gives me two warnings The first that in reason he should expect some clear demonstration to justify the abandoning the known persuasion of the Church And although I have already justify'd that it is no persuasion of the Church but onely a popular Errour which I forsake yet will I not insist upon that not to make needless repetitions But I must tell him he must not expect to see clear demonstration For that belongs to them that have scientifical eyes and not to them who learn onely to bable of what they understand not A Demonstratour must begin from the first Principles of Philosophy and drive them on to his Conclusion not take up his opinions upon Reasons that fall into his mouth out of the Ayr. What he takes out of Faith he must not be onely able to say the words or cite them out of some good Book but he must be sure to understand them well and see that his Explication contradicts neither Divinity nor any other Science And of these two courses neither he nor his Masters as far as I could see were ever guilty They take Texts and urge the letter without ever penetrating the sense and foregoing all principles they fly at every question with fantastick flashes like Hawks at their prey where ever they spy it 2. His second warning is that my Arguments are the out-casts and refuse of their Authours And I am far from denying it For indiscreet people are as subject to reject the best as the worst and if I be not mistaken in hâ—s Authours they ordinarily chuse the worst Opinions for themselves being men that in Sciences hunt after vanity and the pleasing of the unlearned mustitude and so are fit to make a shew in discourse until the weaker sort be beyond their speculation but never understand things solidly nor are able to give satisfaction to sober Wits who look into the depth of a difficulty He concludes that we never take notice of the Answers so fully made to the Objections we take out of his Authours I will not return this upon him and ask him how many Answers he has read in Religion and Reason and my other Writings which he hath read as appears by the impugning of the Doctrin yet will not cite that he may say he knew not of those Solutions which he impugns not But I will onely say let this encounter betwixt him and me bear testimony how fully and solidly the Answers are made 3. He begins his plea with telling his Reader that I borrowed the first and chiefest Objection from that infamous Heretick Ochinus How does he know this Bellarmin says Ochinus uses this Argument What then therefore I found it either in Bellarmin or Ochinus How proves he that The Spirit with which he writes tells him so And my Spirit tells me that the Spirit which tells him so is the Spirit of Errour and Calumny For when I wrote my Book I had neither Bellarmin nor Ochinus Nor did I ever study Bellarmin so much as to remember such particularities out of him I am not ashamed if I had taken any thing out of Bellarmin to acknowledg it For I acknowledg him to be the best Dictionary of Controversies I have seen but a man must beware how he trusts either his Arguments or Solutions Yet he is very good to suggest to a man occasions and matter that may be well used Neither should I be ashamed to use any Argument I had found in Ochinus or any other Heretick so the Argument be solid to my purpose And it is the prognostick of cosenage in the carriage of the cause to make such exceptions An Argument is good and bad by it self not by his Authour and Aristotle used to find the middle truth by comparing the falsities extreâ—mly opposit and so if I by comparing Ochinus and your Divine should find the truth to ly in the middle I should think my action deserve honour and to be profitable to the Church Let us then look into the Argument it self Ochinus to prove there was no Purgatory argu'd if there be a Purgatory then Souls are delivered before the Day of Judgment by prayers but that is false by the Text alleaged c. Now Bellarmin if he had been a solid answerer would have deny'd his first proposition and told him whether prayers deliver'd them before or not yet Purgatory remain'd safe and Ochinus choak'd that he could not have open'd his mouth and this Answer I have found printed at Rome against the Greek Hereticks 4. This Errour produced a greater to wit that their great Bellarmin was forced to confess that the words of the Scripture as they ly or in the plain sence are false and so he fairly betrayes the Catholick position of Purgatory to set up his own fancy For his solution says that these words If there were no Resurrection signify ' If the soul were not immortal which be so different meanings that by many Philosophers the one was confest and the other deny'd So that the two propositions are neither the same nor such as that their connexion is plainly seen Therfore to make this good he fains a third either falsity or at least not proved nor very probable which is that the writer of the second book of Macchabees wrote after Jonathas his time when by reason of a firm peace the Jews fell to dispute about their Law and so into great divisions and sects Whereas by probability this Book was written in Judas his time For it makes no mention of his death which it had been a fault to leave out if it had passed before the book was written which if it be true these words must not be spoken against any infection of Sadduces but of Greeks who had long domineer'd over Jury specially in Antiochus his time 5. His fourth Errour is that he makes our Saviour also make a false Argument and to conclude the Immortality of the soul in stead of the Resurrection and to make this consequence Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's fouls are alive therefore Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's bodies shall rise again The which would not have silenc'd the Sadduces but rather have made them contemn our Saviour For they better understood Resurrection then the being of an abstracted spirit
The one that he telis the story to have passed in Cyprus whereas St. John lived in Alexandria Secondly that whereas other stories of the same nature in Pope Gregory and Venerable Bede make the Bands remain loose this story makes them to be supernaturally bound again which seems to be against the nature of Gods gifts which are given without repentance but much favours the Doctrin of Relief in Hell Wherefore it is vehemently to be suspected that those words then and when come from his Paraphrase and that the Saint's words reached no farther then what we read in others that this story argued that prayers relieved the dead As truly no more can be gather'd out of such Histories which are Parabolical and it were very absurd to parallel small circumstances betwixt corporeal Allegories spiritual things signify'd by them Howsoever the Authority can be no greater then of Metaphrastes who is held in a Rhetorical way to fain many things and it is to be noted that he lived after Gregory the Third's dâ—ys and peradventure after the time of the Oration De dormientibus was written 13. Being freed from these sleight stories we may see what Testimonies of solid Fathers he brings for his opinion He cites St. Denys but never a word which brings the Testimony home to our Controversy he speaking but in common of the remission of the sin His second Authour is St. Athanasius The words that The souls of sinners feel some benefit when good works and offerings are performed for them This Testimony has three faults First the Authour is not St. Athanasius as is so manifest by the work it self that it is a gross mistake to cite it as his though this Divine be not the first who objected it to me and farther it is clear the Authour wrote since the Turks were Masters of Greece by the phrase of calling the Romans French-men His second fault is that he distinguishes not dead but pronounces of all dead mens souls which argues the opinion of those who hold relief in Hell Thirdly these words When good works c. are equivocal and may be as well interpreted that good works are the causes of relief as they do the time unless other words force them to be taken emphatically which do not appear here St. Ephrem is also cited but not in what work nor of what certainty for his works are very ambiguous Besides that he is cited out of another Authour named Severus Alexandrinus who what he was I know not One I read of but an Arch-heretick The Testimony it self smells of the intervalls which the comforters of Hell invent and the works attributed to St. Ephrem are so uncertain that no guess can be made of what value this Authority is 14. The Testimonies he cites out of St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom are more certain but they favour my opinion not his For to help and not cancel the sin and that some comfort accrues to the dead by the sacrifice of the Mass are the very expressions which we use But the other words to wit that it may happen that a total pardon may be obtained for them by our prayers comes out of a false Translation The true Translation is that it is possible to gather pardon from all sides by prayer that is that abundance of prayers may be gotten either from all sorts of persons or all sorts of actions towards getting of pardon for St. Chrysostom makes mention of both And these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies motion from the circumference to the centre His last place of St. Chrys. out of the 21 Homily upon the Acts I must tell him if he had not another Text then I he hath much abused the good Saint The words as I read them are est enim si voluerimus leve ipsi supplicium facere If we will it is possible to make his punishment light Which he translates lighter to which he adds as his own descant to make out the Testimony then it was at first Much from the Saints mind who though he be earnest to perswade to prayers and good works yet never descends to more particulars then that they will do some good or else that the Living shall get good by them nobis Deus placatior erit which St. Austin also glances at to wit when the soul is damned Now if the torment of the dead be sooner ended your Divine will not doubt but that it is lighter 15. But I must not forget his citation of St. Greg. Nazianzen of which he seems to make great esteem and it is least of all to the purpose For as it is true St. Gregory speaks of a Purging before Resurrection so is it clearly to be understood of that which is made by death as is evident by that expression either purged or lay'd aside For nothing can be understood to be layd aside but the body and what is layd aside with it So that all his expression is of the effect of death and nothing touching what is to be done in the pure spirit And so I am quit of this troublesome Chapter without any mention of delivering souls out of Purgatory in the Greek Fathers 16. As for the Greek Church he brings me a Letter from some Town wherein there lived many Catholick and Learned Grecians from whom his friend received this Character that all the Grecian Catholick Church approves and admits priviledged Altars and Indulgences for the souls in Purgatory the which they believe go streight to Heaven as soon as they have satisfyed And I am so far from discrediting this Letter as that I sincerely believe it and yet think what I sayd to be true For this word Catholick Greek Church is not exempt from the Law of other words to wit that it may be understood in divers senses by divers speakers so that if this City he speaks of signifies either Rome or Venice which are the likeliest Cities of Christendome to have Grecians of that quality living in them and the Greeks in those two Cities communicate with none but such as either live under Latin Governours and so do easily follow their customs or otherwise are instructed by such Missionaries as go from the Greek Colledg in Rome I do not wonder that they should answer that the Catholick Grecians hold Indulgences as they do in Italy Nay peradventure may think the rest no Catholicks even upon this score But when I spake of the Greek Church I spake of the descendents from the Greeks which made the Union in the Council of Florence without receiving any new Doctrin since THIRD DIVISION Containing an Answer to his sixth Chapter Testimonies from Latin Fathers before St. Austin either savouring of Millenarism or opposit to the Alledger or not found but fram'd to his purpose by Additions of his own and lastly his onely express Testimony uncertain 1. IN the sixth Chapter he pretends to shew that the Latin Church before St. Austin held the delivery of
his twelfth Number ne seems something to stumble at his fire because the Grecians explicate it a fire not combustive and the good man does not perceive that that signifies no corporeal fire For as if one should say a knife but not made to cut a beetle but not made to maul an eye but not made to see it were plain he must needs take away the essence of the thing signified by the word and by consequence the property of the speech so he that says a fire but not a burning one clearly speaks of no material fire For Fire is as properly an instrument of Burning as a Beetle of knocking or a Knife of cutting 13. In this thirteenth Number he pretends to reveal a mystery as he calls it of surceasing frâ—m action by pure cessation An high mystery that surceasing is cessation Well But let us seek to understand this mystery if we can reach to it Painfully purging fire says your Divine being elevated as an instrument of God's revenging will to produce in such intensness that afflictive spiritual quality with which the Soul is tortured acteth so long and no longer then his Justice moves his Will to apply it Then that fire that acted onely as obedientially elevated by his Will can now act no farther Behold the mystery c. And I submit for what is sayd passes all understanding Philosophers which use commonsense in their Philosophy tell us that a Knife of it self hath a fitness to cut But when a Carver takes it to make a Statue or other pretty Work Art doth elevate the Knife to an higher work then it hath by the proprieties of its Nature which make it onely able and fit to cut Likewise a Pipe or Recorder of its own qualities is fit by the inspiration of air to make one sound as we see in the drone of a Bag-pipe but when a Musician useth it there comes from it a song which the Art of the Musician makes dependently from the natural sound of the Pipe This now understanding Philosophers call elevating the Knife or Pipe that is to make the natural Action of the Pipe more perfect and excellent then their proper qualities did dispose to But in later ages Mysterious Divinity by the assistance of canting Philosophy is soar'd beyond all wisdom and tells you That all Creatures have in them an Obediential power to do what God will have them As for example If God will have a Knife to create an Angel the Knife will presently do it in vertue of its Obediential power And if you say a Knife signifies an instrument or power to cut and look that it shall make an Angel by cutting as it makes a Statue they take you for a dull fellow and repeat to you that it doth not this by its nature but by its obediential virtue So that if you will stick to the solemn Principle that nothing doth but what it can do and nothing can do but what is virtually in it this Knife must be by Obediential power which nevertheless they say to be the very Entity of the Knife the nature of all things which it may be elevated to make to wit a Man a Horse an Eagle an Angel and all sorts of Angels O height of Learning Is not this a pure MYSTERY Truly it seems to me no less But yet his Mystery is higher for when the time comes that the punishment is enough God and Fire and Soul remaining unchanged the fire leaveth to work by a deep understanding of God's Judgment and without changing becomes changed from an actour to a thing not able to act Is not this pretty stuff to beat poor Pulpits withall Are not the Schollers brought up in such Principles like to be great Lights of the Church and their Masters worthily held for the Masters of the World Who shall tell us that every thing is all things and the same thing without any change now able to work now not against common sense and the first notions common to Mankind SIXTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his twenty first Chapter Our Saviour's sufferings not forc'd More mistakes of our Doctrin The improportion of the pains he puts Places from Scripture answered His success in impugning of our Opinion concorning the indivisible duration of Souls His Ignorance of the Ground of Eviternity 1. HIs 21. Chapter beginneth with that question Whether the pains his way pâ—…ts are to any purpose In which it is explicated already how by the name of Pains are understood the Instruments which are proper to his way For as to the griefs seeing we both put the same no question can be between us Now to shew any utility in their proper explication he never goes about it he penetrates the matter so little Nor is there any fruit imaginable to the Souls there to be reaped out of this that the pains come from an extrinsecal Agent but rather they are more profitable if they come from an intrinsecal source Nor to us can there come any profit seeing they cannot be known but by Revelation of which there is none since it is constantly known that the Latin Church consented to the Greek Church to hold without opposition there was no true fire besides so the torments be the same what matter is it how they are made But he presses that whether the Fire be corporal or no concerns not the main question The which though it be true immediatly because to be corporeal fire may stand without the ending of the torments before the Day of Judgment yet peradventure the ending of Torments before the Day of Judgment is not necessary yet rationally is joyn'd with the succession of the pains and that with the corporiety of the causes 2. My Objection went higher and sayd such kind of pains would prove no pains but pleasures to the Souls of Purgatory being they could not but rejoyce at the means of gaining Beatitude and even in this World great courage takes away the force of the torment which they could not want His Answer is that our Saviour's courage was greater then any man's and the good to be obtained by his Passion motive enough to rejoyce yet hindered not either sorrow in his soul or that his pains were unparallel'd This Objection I answer'd already in Religion and Reason pag. 146. wherefore I may be shorter here onely admonishing him that the divinity which says our Saviour had those griefs by force and that his Soul was not able to have hindered them even by the natural perfection it had is too low for a Champion of his Company Let him look upon the Transfiguration and there see what the power of Christ's Soul was over its Body Let him look how he dy'd cum clamore which moved the Assistants to knock their breasts and say Vere Filius Dei â—rat Which your Divine may do well also to do for divulging this Doctrin so prejudicious to Christ's honour as to put him to have been forced by natural causes to the sorrow