of Pardon ch 28. There is no middle place so that he that dwelleth not with Christ can be any where else than with the Devil The fifth Book of the Hypognosticks speaks thus The Catholick Faith grounded upon Divine Authority is that the first place is the Kingdom of Heaven and the second is Hell We believe no third place and find none in the holy Scriptures In the Book of the Vanity of the World chap. 1. Know ye that when the Soul separates from the Body it is at the same Instant placed in Paradise for its good Works or cast down into the Gulf of Hell for its Sins I could bring Your Grace Passages by hundreds out of the Fathers which express that the Souls of the godly are presently after Death carried into Paradise or into Hell I will content my self with one or two Cyprian in the Book against Demetrian speaks thus This temporal Life being ended we are sequestred either in the Habitation of Death or in that of eternal Life And in the same place When men are gone from hence there is no place left for Penitence no Fruit no effect of Satisfaction and in Death it self they pass to Immortality The Fathers were so far from believing that Souls were burnt in Purgatory that many of them believed not that the Souls could be tormented without the Bodies Thus Tertullian in the 48 Chap. of his Apologetick The Soul saith he cannot suffer without solid Matter that is without Flesh And Gregory in the Oration of the Lords Resurrection The Fire can never work upon the separate Soul and Darkness cannot be grievous to it because it hath no Eyes Ambrose in the first book of Penitence Chap. 17. The Soul without the Body and the Body without the Soul cannot be Partakers of Punishment or Reward Chrysostom in the 39 Homily upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians The Soul without the Flesh shall not receive her hiden Goods as likewise she shall not be punisht without the Flesh The Truth is so strong on our side that many of our Adversaries freely confess that the Fathers speak little or not at all of Purgatory Navarrus the Popes Penitentiary in the beginning of the year of Jubile saith No Orthodox doubteth that there is a Purgatory Yet the Ancients make no mention of it or very seldom and that he saith after Roffensis otherwise the Cardinal of Rochester whom he alledgeth Alphonsus de Castro one of the Doctors of the Councel of Trent in his eight Book against Heresies upon the Word Indulgentia speaks thus In the ancient Writers the mention of the Transubstantiation of the Body of Christ is very rare of the Procession of the Holy Ghost more rare yet of the Purgatory they make almost no mention at all especially the Greek Authors as also to this day the Greeks have not believed Purgatory One may see in the Dialogues of Gregory the First That Satan in his time was brewing that Mystery by Visions and Apparitions of Souls some of which said that they purged themselves at the Smoak of Baths others in the Wind others in Rivers and this was already in the year of our Lord 595. But the Popes that came after found out another kind of Purgatory wonderfully gainful whereby they have heaped up to themselves and their Clergy infinite Riches For the Pope by Bulls and Indulgences fetcheth Souls out of Purgatory at the Suit of those that will come to his Price to buy them and particular Masses whose number is infinite are bought very dear and none of them is sung with particular Application to beggers or those that have given nothing Yet they hold one Age to be exempted from Purgatory for say they when Jesus Christ cometh to judge the World then all that live in the World shall be exempted from that Torment In the mean while one may wonder that whilst Jesus Christ is interceding for the Souls that are burning in that Fire for he intercedeth for all the faithful those Souls come not out by this Intercession but by the Popes Indulgence By all that has been said here Your Grace may perceive how much you are mistaken in the Fathers and indeed by your manner of alledging them it is easie to see that you have not read them but that some ignorant men furnish you with Passages which have quite another Sense than that which they put upon them If forsaking what you know from the holy Scripture which as St. Paul saith is able to make us wise upon Salvation you take those things upon Trust which others tell you out of the Fathers and if you greedily embrace all that shall be presented unto you of this kind you will find enough to help your Resolution not to be separated neither in this World nor in the other from my Lady your Dutchess You say that you would know the Grounds of her Religion whilst her Grace did not trouble her self to know the Grounds of yours My Lord how could that Thought come into your Mind to believe Purgatory upon two or three Passages of Fathers distored from their right Sense and to shut your Eyes against all that the Word of God speaks against it Apoc. 14.13 Out of that good Word you might have learned that Blessed are they that dye in the Lord that they rest from their Labours and that their Works follow them Isa 57.1 2. that when the righteous dyeth he shall enter into Peace that we must make to our selves Friends by Alms Luke 16.9 which when we fail may recieve us into everlasting Habitations That Jesus Christ said to the repenting Thief crucified with him Luke 23.43 This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise And yet by the Doctrine of the Roman Church he had need of great Purgation 1 John 1.7 That the Blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanseth us from all Sin This is our true Purgatory God who is all just and all good would he take two Payments for the same Debt when the first Payment which is the death of Christ is sufficient would he delight to torment his Children for many Ages in an internal fire for Sins which he hath freely pardoned as we learn of St. Paul Eph. 4.32 Col. 2.13 that God for Christs sake hath forgiven us all our Trespasses Every Father that chastiseth his Children unless he be altogether unnatural doth it to make them better but the Roman Church will have God to burn his Children not to make them more righteous for by their Doctrine they are perfectly righteous before they enter into Purgatory but to content himself and satisfie his Justice Let them find if they can one example in Scripture of any Soul that was sent to Purgatory It is very considerable that in the Levitical Law there are Sacrifices prescribed for all sorts of Sin and Pollution even of Leprosie and the touching of a dead body but that law prescribes no Sacrifice for the dead nor any
and Sovereign Judges of the Sense of it Yet the Roman Church never made any Interpretation of Scripture which was generally approved We have onely Comments of Doctors who disagree among themselves Truly the Church of Rome intends not to make Scripture plainly understood since she hides it from the People and will not have it to be read and hath forbidden the Translation of it into the vulgar Tongues What Interpretation can we expect from the Pope who boasteth that he can change the Commandments of God and saith that Scripture is subject unto him Be pleased my Lord especially to consider whether it be just and reasonable that the Pope should be Judge in his own Cause and whether the Roman Church can be the Sovereign Judge of her own Duty and whether in this Question whether the Roman Church be a Sovereign Judge in points of Faith the Roman Church her Self can be the Judge To give you some Instances of this Jesus Christ saith to St. Peter Mat. 16.18.19 and to all his Apostles Whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. Upon which Text the Roman Prelate groundeth his Primacy In Conscience is it just that he should be acknowledged the Sovereign and infallible Judge and Interpreter of those Texts upon which he groundeth his Empire For who can doubt but that he will give Judgment on his own side as indeed by his Interpretations he hath laid up for himself greater Riches than that of the greatest Kings and hath built to himself an earthly Empire See then how he interprets that Text. Because Christ hath said Whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth the Pope pretends he may also loose those under the Earth drawing Souls out of Purgatory And whereas Jesus Christ in that Text speaks only of loosing Sinners that are bound with Ecclesiastical Censures the Pope from that Text assumes unto himself the Power of loosing Subjects from the Obedience sworn unto their Princes of dispensing with Oaths of freeing Children from the Obedience due to their Fathers and of dissolving Marriages lawfully contracted And whereas Christ gave to all his Disciples that loosing Power the Pope hath reserved unto himself many Cases in which none but himself can give Absolution Besides he so interpreteth that Text as if all that is said unto St. Peter was said unto the Pope of which yet the Scripture saith nothing and giveth to St. Peter no Successor in his Primacy or in his Apostleship Your self My Lord may judge whether the Pope who hath forbidden Marriage unto Bishops can be a good Interpreter of the words of the Apostle 1 Tim. 3.2 3. A Bishop must be the Husband of one Wife having his children subject in all gravity Whether the Pope having taken away the Cup of the Lords Supper from the Laity can be a good Interpreter of these words of Christ Drink ye all of it Whether the Pope and the Roman Church which by Canons of Councels command the Adoration of Images can be good Interpreters of the Second Commandement which forbids it Whether the Pope who makes Ordinances for publick Brothel-houses at Rome can be a good Interpreter of Gods Commandement Thou shalt not commit Adultery Whether the Pope who forbids Flesh and other Meats can be a good Interpreter of the Apostles Precept Whatsoever is set before you eat asking no question for Conscience sake Whether the Roman Church which in the Councel of Trent defineth that Coveting is no sin be a good Interpreter of the Commandement Thou shalt not covet Whether the Pope who brings into the publick Service a Language not understood by the People can be a good Interpreter of the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians where it is so many times forbidden to pray and speak in the Church in an unknown Tongue Whether Pope John XXIII who denied the Immortality of the Soul and for that Crime and many more was condemned by the Councel of Constance could have been a good Interpreter of those Texts of Scripture which speak of Eternal Life For your part My Lord you take another course For without speaking of the Authority of the Roman Church which acknowledgeth no Judge but the Pope you say that you have found in the Fathers of the five first Centuries the Religion which you seem resolved to embrace Wherein you resist openly the Roman Church which admitteth not the Fathers for her Judges and condemn them very often of Errour Ignorance and Heresie Then you contradict the very Fathers who in a thousand places refuse to be believed or received for Judges and send the Reader continually to the Holy Scripture Hardly shall you find many Texts of Scripture wherein the Fathers agree about the Interpretation You may be pleased therefore to consider that you undertake a Journey in a way where you see no Light They are Greek and Latin Fathers which you never read and where you can get no Information for your Judgment A man that hath nothing else to do needs to spend ten years in study before he can get some mediocrity of knowledge in them and the words which they use are taken now in a quite different sense How can you know whether the Passages brought to you be faithfully alledged How can you know whether the Books whence they are taken be not supposititious Of which the Multitude is incredible But after all If the Verdict of the Fathers be received the Roman Church must be cast and it will appear that their Religion is but New Since the Roman Church and the Pope boast that they can alter the Commandements of God and make new Articles of Faith even in that they have a new Religion Now you may ask Who then shall be the Interpreter Who can give us the true Sense of Scripture I answer that since the Question here is of an Interpreter that cannot err and who shall always infallibly find out the true Sense there is no such in being God hath not in any place of his Word bestowed that Gift of Infallible Interpretation upon the Roman Church no more than upon the Greek or the Syrian There is no need of such an Interpreter for things necessary to Salvation are so clearly set down in Scripture that they need no Interpretation Must we have an Interpreter to know that God hath created the World that we must love God with all our heart that the Son of God is dead for us Now I say that all the Points necessary to Salvation are to be found in Scripture in terms as clear as these The Interpretations used by the Pastors of our Churches are taken from the Scripture it self so they are not the Interpreters it is God that expounds himself For Example When they expound these words This is my Body they take the Interpretation from Jesus Christ himself who saith that it is a Commemoration of him and from three Evangelists who say with one accord that Jesus Christ hath given Bread to
what Sacraments Many have tryed these ways and are fallen to the Desire of curious Visions and have deserved to be deceived Tertullian in the thirtieth Chapter of his Apologetick speaks thus I cannot ask these things of any but him of whom I know that I shall obtain them For it is he only that grants them and I am he that have a Right to obtain them being his Servant that call upon him alone Likewise Origen against Celsus the eighth Book saith Above all things we must pray to none but God and his only Son Ignatius who lived near the time of the Apostles saith in the Epistle to the Philadelphians You Virgins have none but Jesus Christ and the Father of Jesus Christ in your Prayers Clemens Alexandrinus speaks thus Cl. Alexand l. 11. Strom. There being none but one only that is truly good which is God both we and the Angels pray to him alone And so Athanasius It is manifest saith he that the Patriarch Jacob in his Prayer joyned none with God but him that is his Word Athan. Orat. 4. cont Arian because it is he only that manifesteth the Father unto us By a notorious Falshood among the Works of this Father was foisted a Book of the Mother of God where she is called the Queen of Heaven and Christians are commanded to adore her But Bellarmine in his Book of Ecclesiastical Writers and Banonius in the year 48. § 19 20. acknowledges the Book to be supposititious By the like Forgery in St. Austin's Book of the Spirit and the Soul there is a Prayer to the Saints inserted but in the same Book Boetius is quoted who was not born when Augustine dyed an evident Proof that the book is falsely attributed to him There is a Book of the same Father Of the Care that must be had of the Dead which is truly his but corrupted and falsified in many places For he is made to speak of Prayers to Saints departed as good and laudable yet he saith there that the departed Saints know nothing of all that the Living do and that if it were otherwise his good and holy Mother would not have forsaken him Then he addeth The Spirits of the deceased are in a place where they see nothing of all that is done or that happeneth to men in this Life And a little after It must be acknowledged that the dead know not that which is done here while it is a doing but they know it afterwards by them that dye and come to them Was St. Austin so much overseen as to teach that those must be called upon by us who understand us not nor know what is done here below unless some dye and perhaps afterwards bring them News of it This Advantage we have in this point that our Adversaries acknowledge that there is no Commandment of God for the Invocation of Saints and that the Holy Scripture saith nothing of it And that under the Old Testament that is for the space of four thousand years the Church used no Invocation of them All the Prayers in Scripture are addressed unto God alone and therefore we have no Assurance or Encouragement to call upon the Saints which we can ground upon the Word of God Is it not enough for us to have the Son of God for our Intercessor who tells us None comes to the Father but by me John 14. For how can we pray with Faith and Assurance to those who discern not the Prayers of the Heart For Scripture tells us that God alone knoweth the Hearts of men 2 Chron. 6.30 I might say that in the Roman Church many Saints are prayed to that never were in the World and others whose Holiness is very dubious and whose Lives were very bad Three hundred and seventy years past in the Christian Church without any Invocation of Saints The first that used it was Gregory Nazianzen who yet invocating the Souls of Constantius who was an Arian of Athanasius and of Basil added this Clause If thou understand me and If the Dead have any Sense But the Invocation of Saints was not received till a long time after in the Publick Service All these things considered My Lord I cannot wonder enough that Your Grace chooseth rather to be ruled by one Passage of St. Ambrose which perhaps is forged than by the Word of God and the Church of the first Ages after Christ For would you subscribe to all that St. Ambrose saith In the first book of Virgins he saith that the Angels fell by lying with Women In his Speech upon Gratian and Valentinian and upon the first Psalm he saith that some rise again sooner than others And in his Oration of the Faith of Resurrection he makes three sorts of Resurrection the first of the Patriarchs and Apostles the second of the Gentiles converted to the Faith the third of those that come from the South and the North. In his first Book of Offices chap. 50. he condemneth second Marriages In the first Book of the Holy Ghost he teacheth that the Baptism in the name of the Holy Ghost alone without naming the Father and the Son is valid In the tenth Sermon upon the 118 Psalm he saith that the Damned which are in Hell shall in the end be saved when the time of their Punishment is fulfilled The Roman Church believeth not with Ambrose that all Saints shall be burnt with the material Fire of the day of Judgment as we shall see hereafter Neither doth the Roman Church believe with Ambrose that Melchisedeck was Jesus Christ himself Many Pages might be filled with the like Errours of this Father whose Authority you value more than that of God speaking in the Holy Scriptures Of Prayer for the Dead and of Purgatory Your Grace endeth your Allegations of Fathers with Theodoret and Austin The first of which is alledged to say We believe that there is a Fire of Purgatory in which Souls are purged like Gold in the Furnace The other saith He that will not till his Field shall be chastised in this World and after his Death shall be punisht in the Fire of Hell or in that of Purgatory And addeth that he hath made a whole Book of the Prayers for the Dead and that the whole Antiquity hath so practiced it They that have helped you with these Passages have miserably abused your Grace It is true that all the ancient Church prayed for the Dead but in a manner which the Roman Church condemneth and holds to be ridiculous and erroneous Not one Passage can be found in the genuine Works of any Father by which it can appear that he prayed for the Dead to draw them out of Purgatory Could Your Grace have the Patience to read St. Austins Book of the Care to be taken of the Dead you would find that there is not one Word of Purgatory in the whole Book The Christian Church in the III and IV Ages after Christ prayed for the Saints for the Apostles and Martyrs